Molly blushed at the compliment. She’d thought she would be irritated by this woman’s weakness, but she wasn’t anything like the drippy, mad person she’d expected.
‘Okay, so where do I start? Cassie did rather take the village by storm. She not only wore tight sweaters and skirts and made no apologies for being a lone mother, but she had a “Don’t get on my wrong side” attitude. Yet she got round a local farmer who no one else has ever managed to charm, and he let her rent Stone Cottage.’
‘Were people nasty because Petal was mixed race?’
‘I can’t lie to you: they said horrid things behind Cassie’s back. My father, who is the village grocer, was just about the nastiest. But most people were nice to Petal. Of course, she is a little charmer, so bright and sunny natured. And she was a novelty, remember! Some of the villagers had never seen a black person before, and those who did only had memories of GI’s stationed in Somerset for the last couple of years of the war and, as you’ll remember, they didn’t get very good press. But, as I said, Petal’s a little charmer, so you can rest assured she didn’t suffer any real prejudice. Her teacher liked her and the other children played with her. I don’t think they even noticed her skin was a different colour to theirs.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Christabel sighed. ‘Benjamin – that was her father – used to tell me hurtful things that had been said to him, and of course, back in America where he came from, white people’s attitudes to Negros were appalling.’
‘Cassie put her head up and sailed through everything, and if she’d lived she would’ve made Petal do the same. I really admired her for that, and for her intelligence. I loved being with her, she knew so much. She was living in the East End of London before I met her; after her death, I stayed with a lovely old lady who had befriended her while she was there, and everyone who knew her only had good things to say about her.’
Christabel smiled to hear that. ‘How did she live, though? I mean, where did she get money? Did she have a job?’
‘Where she got her money was a bit of a mystery to me,’ Molly admitted. ‘She was very frugal. In Somerset she grew vegetables, made new clothes out of old ones, and she used to go into Bristol once a week on the bus, so she may have had a cleaning job there, or a man friend. But she never said.’
‘Did she talk about men friends?’
‘Yes, but I never met any of them. She liked men; she preferred their company to women’s, in general. She was very ahead of her time in that way.’
‘You mean she slept with them?’
Molly blushed.
‘You can say it. I was a fallen woman myself,’ Christabel said with a light laugh. ‘I worshipped Reg, and we were “carrying on”, as my mother used to call it, well before we got married. I was pregnant on our wedding day, and barely eighteen. I took it very hard when Reg went off to war. We’d been everything to each other – best friends and lovers – and I missed that.’ She paused, as if remembering.
‘We never intended to spend our entire married life in Mulberry House with my parents,’ she went on after a moment or two. ‘But Sylvia came, then the bad times in the thirties. Reg was a carpenter, and we couldn’t have survived on our own.’
‘Your father was a doctor?’
‘Yes, he was, and my grandfather before that. The practice had always been at Mulberry House. Back when I was a little girl, father went out on his rounds in a pony and trap. They had me quite late in life and, being the only child, I sort of felt obliged to stay with them. And, of course, they loved Sylvia. Then they died, a year apart, in 1935 and ’36, and the house became mine. It was our intention to fill it with children and live happily ever after.’
‘But you had Miss Gribble, the Wicked Witch, in the house with you …’
Christabel held her head in her hands as if the thought of everything that woman had done was too much to bear.
‘Reg was always saying I should make her go,’ she said after a few moments. ‘He said she gave him the creeps because she watched every move we made. He was right, of course, but she’d been there my whole life, and even before that with my parents. Where would she go? At her age, she wouldn’t find another job.
‘Then war broke out and Reg joined up and went off to France, so I was glad of her being there. It was a big house to be alone in with a child. But I’m wandering off a bit. You want to know about Sylvia.’
‘It’s all interesting,’ Molly said. ‘Some other time I’d love to hear how it was for you during the war but, for now, tell me about how Sylvia reacted when you got pregnant.’
‘I told her before I told Gribby and swore her to secrecy. Sylvia was always very mature for her age, and I didn’t have to point things out, she just got it. She was excited about having a baby brother or sister, but scared, too.’
‘What of?’
Christabel shrugged. ‘Mostly of what people would say. And of Gribby too – we both knew she wasn’t going to be a bit pleased I’d been with a man. Since Reg had gone missing, she’d become more and more forceful, taking over everything, as if it was her house. I should have put a stop to it, but I was grieving for Reg and it was easier than confrontation. Then, one day, when I was at least six months gone, she noticed.’
Molly observed that Christabel had leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes and had begun speaking as if she were reliving that day.
‘We were doing the washing. Gribby was hooking the clothes out of the boiler with the boiler stick into the sink, and I was rinsing them. Sylvia was standing by at the mangle, ready to turn the handle when I fed the rinsed clothes into it.
‘It was early January and a wild, windy day, and when I accidentally sloshed water on to my clothes, I yelled because it was icy cold. Gribby turned to me and, where my wet overall had stuck to me, she saw my tummy sticking out.
‘“You little whore!” she said and leapt forward and slapped my face really hard.
‘“Do that again and I’ll hit you!” Sylvia screamed out. When I glanced at my daughter, she had the copper stick in her hands and was holding it, ready to strike Gribby. I remember, she was wearing a flowery red crossover overall over a dark-green jumper, her face was flushed from the steam in the kitchen and her hair had gone into tight curls.
‘“You’ll never lay a hand on my mother again or you’ll be out on your ear so fast you won’t know what’s hit you,” she snarled.
‘My face was stinging. I was icy cold from my wet clothes, but I was so proud of my daughter being so bold and brave in standing up for me.
‘“Yes, she’s having a baby,” Sylvia carried on, jabbing the copper stick at Gribby. “And we’re going to look after him or her between us. If you don’t like the idea of that, there’s the door,” and she pointed the stick at the back door. “Go and get yourself another job and another home, but just remember no other family will tolerate your interference or your bullying.”
‘“How can you speak to me like that when I’ve given my whole life to you and your family?” Gribby whined. “I’m only worried that everyone in the village will be talking about your mother. She won’t be able to bear that. And I don’t interfere or bully either of you. I don’t know how you can say that.”
‘“You don’t know any other way!” Sylvia shouted. “You bullied Granny and Grandpa, then Mum. But you won’t do it to me. I won’t stand for it.”
‘She didn’t stand for it either.’ Christabel opened her eyes again, seemingly unaware she’d been going back in time and reliving the scene. ‘When my baby was born and Gribby saw how dark-skinned she was, she looked at me with utter disgust. But I’d confided in Sylvia some time before, and she picked the baby up to cuddle her and gave Gribby a look that would turn anyone else to stone.