of Bella’s loyal team of nursery nurses. After their marriage Bella had offered her own house to Lena and Gavin and had moved back to live with her mother. She’d been delighted when Lena and Gavin had married and Bella felt that the last thing they needed now was for Charlie to reappear on the scene to start making trouble in that way that he had.
On the other hand, Bella also knew how much it would mean to her mother to see Charlie, especially when Charlie himself had hinted to Bella during his telephone call that he expected to be sent into action soon.
She would have to tell Lena about his proposed visit, of course.
She found Lena in the day room of the nursery, soothing one of their new intake of little ones, who had woken up from her afternoon nap confused by her surroundings. Small and curvaceous, with olive-toned skin and thick dark hair, Lena was strikingly attractive, her looks and colouring a perfect foil for Bella’s peaches-and-cream beauty.
The nursery was a light airy place, with two large main rooms, a day room, and a sleeping room where the children could have their afternoon naps. The walls of the day room were painted bright yellow and decorated with the children’s drawings. High chairs for the babies were pushed back against one of the walls, ready to be pulled up to the scrubbed wooden table where the children ate their meals, whilst there were proper chairs for the older children, and four deep comfy armchairs for the staff to sit in when they settled down to read the children their afternoon story, or give some upset child a special reassuring cuddle.
Lena, who was sitting in one of these, had settled the toddler on her lap to dry her tears. She looked up at Bella with a warm smile.
‘You aren’t going to be able to do that for much longer,’ Bella warned her. ‘You won’t have enough room.’
Lena laughed and looked down at the swelling beneath her navy-blue cotton maternity smock, with its white Peter Pan collar and pretty bow.
‘He doesn’t like it at all when I put one of the babies on my knee. He kicks away at them like billy-o.’
‘He?’ Bella teased her, her own pre-war floral cotton dress slightly loose on her slender frame, thanks to the rigours of rationing. Bending down to lift the now smiling toddler from Lena’s lap and watching her whilst she toddled off happily to join a group of children who were playing with some wooden building blocks, she reminded Lena, ‘You were sure that Janette was going to be a boy but you were wrong.’
‘Yes, I know, but I’m really sure this time that it’s going to be a boy.’
It would certainly probably be a good thing if Lena and Gavin’s baby were a boy, Bella reflected. Gavin was a wonderful father to Lena’s little girl and adored her, but Bella felt privately that there would be less chance of comparisons being made between the child that Charlie had fathered, and the one that was Gavin’s own, if this next baby was a boy.
Thinking of Charlie reminded her of why she had come to find Lena.
‘I’ll go and make us both a cup of tea, shall I?’ Lena suggested, starting to get to her feet, but Bella stopped her, shaking her head.
‘There’s something I want to tell you.’
Immediately Lena’s face lit up. ‘You’ve started a baby,’ she challenged Bella excitedly. ‘You and Jan. Oh, Bella, I’m so pleased.’
‘No, it isn’t that. It’s Charlie. He’s coming home this weekend. He told me that he’s expecting to be sent into action soon and that he wanted to come up and see Mummy.’
They exchanged understanding looks.
‘You’ll want to tell Gavin, of course,’ Bella went on, ‘although I don’t think you’re likely to run into Charlie. He’s bound to want to give you a wide berth after the way he’s behaved.’
‘It wasn’t his fault that I was daft enough to think he wanted to marry me when all he wanted was a good time.’
‘It was his fault that he didn’t tell you that he was already engaged to be married, Lena.’
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Lena assured her. ‘In many ways I reckon he did me a favour.’
‘A favour? When he left you carrying his child?’ Bella protested.
‘Well, if it hadn’t been for me being pregnant I’d never have got to meet you, and look at all the things you’ve done for me, Bella – giving me a home and a job, and being such a good friend to me. If it wasn’t for you I’d never have met Gavin, and I’d probably have come to a bad end instead of being married to the best husband a girl could have, and having the best friend in the world. Don’t you worry about me accidentally bumping into your Charlie. If I did, I’d tell him how lucky I reckon I am.’
‘Oh, Lena, you’re a real tonic and no mistake,’ Bella laughed.
‘Hug, Auntie Bella, hug.’
The sound of her niece’s voice had Bella going immediately towards the little girl to pick her up and cuddle her close. She smelled of that lovely vanilla and baby powder scent, and Bella’s hold on her tightened as she breathed it in.
Lena’s innocent comment about Bella being pregnant herself had caused a little ache deep inside her body. Once she had been going to have a child, but because of her first husband’s physical assault on her she had lost that baby. Jan had been there then to help her, although then she had believed she hated him.
They had talked during the brief time they had shared together before Jan had had to rejoin his Polish RAF Squadron down on the South Coast, and Bella had told Jan then that she didn’t want to have a baby until the war was over, and until he could be with her.
‘I’m so afraid, Jan,’ she had confessed to him. ‘After what happened before. I couldn’t bear that to happen again.’
‘It won’t. It was Alan who caused your miscarriage,’ he had tried to reassure her.
‘I know that, but I’m still afraid. I need you to be there with me – I need your strength. Somehow I feel that if you are there then everything will be all right…our baby will be all right,’ Bella had told him.
Jan had kissed her then and she had kissed him back, and he had told her that everything would be as she wished. She knew she had made the right decision, but that couldn’t stop her aching with longing to feel Jan’s child growing inside her. It wouldn’t be long now until the war ended. Everyone said so. All she had to do was wait.
Wait and pray that Jan would come safely through it. Bella hugged her niece even more tightly. The Polish Squadron within the RAF had a reputation for bravery and daring. Jan had already been shot down once whilst in action. If she should lose him…but she mustn’t think of that. She must think instead of doing her own bit for the war effort, of playing her part and, of course, of dealing with the fuss her mother would make once she learned that Charlie was going to pay them a visit but that Daphne would not be with them.
So Charlie was coming home. Lena put a calming hand on her stomach as the baby within it kicked hard as though in protest against the intrusion into her thoughts of someone else. Lena looked down at her daughter. She was a beautiful little girl with the same dark curls that Lena herself had inherited from her Italian father, but where Lena’s skin had a faintly
