Lizzie's Secret Read Online Free Page B

lucky…’
    â€˜You’re a lovely girl, our Beth,’ her mother gave her a fond smile. ‘When I’m baking there’s always a few left over now that Dotty and your brother are married, and you can keep your money, love.’
    â€˜You spoil me, Mum.’
    â€˜Well, once Mary gets married this September I’ll only have you at home to spoil.’
    â€˜All your chicks will have flown except for me – and I’ll get married as soon as Dad lets me.’
    â€˜Your dad is only thinking of your future. I was twenty when I married.’ She smiled at her daughter. ‘My Derek was called up in 1916, nearly two years after the war started. They didn’t take married men with children until they began to get desperate. When he left me, he put his barrow in store, kissed me and told me not to worry. I found out I was having the twins a few weeks later, and I would never have managed if it hadn’t been for my mother’s help. It was two years before your father came back with a wound to his leg that kept him out of the rest of it, and another eighteen months before it healed enough for him to get back to work full time.’
    â€˜Is that why he limps sometimes?’
    â€˜Arthritis set in when his leg healed. He got a small pension for his war work, which he gave to his mother but we lived on what he earned from the barrow, same as now.’
    â€˜I never knew we were hard up,’ Beth said. ‘All I remember is you smiling and cooking, and Dad coming home with fruit from the stall and laughing as we all scrabbled for an orange or a pear.’
    â€˜We managed better than most.’
    â€˜You never let on to us if you were worried.’
    â€˜I wasn’t, because I knew we would get through – and my mother helped us when she could.’
    â€˜Granny Shelly? ‘You worry about her, don’t you?’
    â€˜She doesn’t complain but she finds it difficult to get about – and she’s getting a bit forgetful.’ Beth’s mother sighed. ‘You wouldn’t mind if Granny came here to live, would you?’
    â€˜Why should I mind? I love her; we all do…’
    Beth listened as her mother described how her granny had helped out when she and her brother and sisters were small; teaching her daughter how to manage on the money her husband gave her and sometimes giving her a few shillings extra. Beth loved the feisty old lady and never grew tired of hearing stories about her.
    â€˜You mustn’t ever let her go in one of those awful old people’s homes,’ Beth’s throat was tight with emotion. ‘We need to look after her, love her and cherish her, Mum.’
    â€˜Yes, we’ll make sure she moves in with us.. Where are you going this evening, love?’
    â€˜Tony is taking me to the flicks. It’s Humphrey Bogart and he likes him – I do too, though I wouldn’t mind where we went…’
    Her mother gave her a long, knowing look. ‘I know you don’t like having to wait to get married, but promise me you won’t be silly, Beth.’
    â€˜Tony knows I want to wait, and so does he,’ Beth said, smothering a sigh. ‘Besides, I wouldn’t want to let you and Dad down.’
    â€˜Your dad would stand by you and so would I, Beth – but it’s not a good way to start a marriage.’
    â€˜I’ll go up and change,’ Beth said, wanting to escape before her mother probed too far.
    Mum didn’t mean to lecture and Beth hadn’t lied when she said she wanted to wait until they were married – but it was getting harder. She could only hope that Tony would go on being content to wait for her.
    He’d spoken of what might happen if there was a war before she was twenty. ‘I would be sure to be called up, love,’ he’d told her. ‘I’m just a labourer on the Docks, not highly skilled. I earn a decent wage and one day I want my own