Mersey Girl Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by June Francis

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Happiness always comes at a cost…

  Having grown up in a convent after the death of her mother, Lizzie Knight has never known what it’s like to have a real family. So when a strange woman turns up with promises of a new life in Liverpool, she is thrilled.

  Warm-hearted and kind, Phyl is everything she wants in a stepmother. But then Lizzie falls in love with the one man who should have been out of bounds. Should she follow her heart and risk losing it all?

  About the Author

  June Francis was brought up in the port of Liverpool, UK. Although she started her novel writing career by writing medieval romances, it seemed natural to also write family sagas set in her home city due to its fascinating historical background, especially as she has several mariners in her family tree and her mother was in service. She has written twenty sagas set in Merseyside, as well as in the beautiful city of Chester and Lancashire countryside.

  Visit June Francis’s website at: www.junefrancis.com

  Also by June Francis

  A Daughter’s Choice

  A Mother’s Duty

  Lily’s War

  A Sister’s Duty

  Dedicated to my niece Linda Proud and my agent Judith Murdoch – for making my trips south always a pleasure

  And Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave

  thee, or to return from following after thee;

  for whither thou goest, I will go; and

  where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy

  people shall be my people, and thy God

  my God’ – Holy Bible

  Chapter One

  Elizabeth Knight’s feet made hardly any sound as she crossed the polished wooden parquet floor, past the statue of the Madonna of the Sea, to Mother Clare’s room. Mother Ursula, the head, must be busy elsewhere. Her heart was beating fast. It was very seldom she was summoned into Mother Clare’s presence and she wished Mother Bernard who had come to fetch her, had given her some idea as to why. She hoped her father was not going to stop her riding lessons. Last time she had been summoned had been almost three years ago, early in spring 1944, when her mother had been killed somewhere between their London home and Radio House where she had worked. It had seemed ironic that Elizabeth’s father had been stationed on the Kentish coast at the time, trying to prevent the doodlebugs from getting through. He had been devastated by his wife’s loss, much more so than Elizabeth who had spent most of her childhood and the war years as a boarder here in Essex.

  She knocked and was told to enter. Mother Clare was seated behind a desk, in front of which stood a woman who was a stranger to Elizabeth. She wore a belted russet coat and a headscarf which had slipped back to reveal shoulder-length wavy copper hair. Without any preamble the elderly nun who had come from London’s Forest Gate at the turn of the century to start the school, said, ‘Elizabeth, this woman tells me she is your stepmother.’

  ‘Stepmother?’ Shock waves rippled through her. ‘I don’t understand.’

  The woman’s smile faded. ‘Jimmy did say he would write and tell you.’ The accent was not southern and she sounded both embarrassed and annoyed. ‘I’m sorry I’ve come as a shock, but if it’s any comfort he rather sprang you on me as well.’

  ‘When?’ demanded Elizabeth.

  ‘When what? When were we married or when did he tell me about you?’

  ‘Both, I suppose.’ She could hear the anger in her own voice.

  ‘We were married two weeks ago – and if I’d known about you then you’d have been at the wedding.’

  Visions of a bride in white, of her father in a lounge suit, of bridesmaids, of smiling guests throwing confetti, filled Elizabeth’s mind. ‘I can’t believe Daddy would do this to me,’ she whispered. ‘How could he leave me out?’

  ‘I wish I knew, love.’ There was sympathy in the woman’s tawny eyes. ‘But it was only a small affair. Nothing to get yourself worked up about. As it is when he told me about you, and that you’d a half term holiday due, I thought it only right you should come home despite the awful weather.’

  Elizabeth stared at her, clenching her jaw and trying to assimilate the words. ‘Why isn’t he here? Why has he sent you?’

  The woman didn’t hesitate. ‘He hasn’t been too well the last few days.’

  ‘Not well!’ A sharp laugh escaped her. ‘He was well enough to marry you. He probably couldn’t face me with the news. He was just the same with Mummy if he was in the wrong.’

  ‘Control yourself, Elizabeth,’ said the elderly nun in a quiet voice. ‘I see Mrs Knight’s point in wanting to take you home and get to know you. I think it would be sensible if you packed your suitcase and went with her.’

  ‘But, Mother Clare …’ she turned a pleading face to the nun … ‘I don’t know her. How do we know she’s telling the truth? Daddy worshipped Mummy. He wouldn’t have married this – this woman!’ She grasped at the idea and felt better. ‘Yes, she’s lying. It’s a trick. She’s out to kidnap me!’

  The visitor looked amused as she took a packet of Woodbines from her pocket. ‘Do me a favour, kid. Tell me what I’d get out of kidnapping you? Your dad’s got no money. It’s crippling him to pay the fees and all the extras at this place. It’s very nice but …’ She shrugged.

  Mother Clare tapped a fountain pen on her desk. ‘I think we will terminate this conversation.’ Her tone was cool. ‘Elizabeth, you really must control your imagination. What you said to your stepmother was impolite.’

  ‘Don’t mind me, Sister,’ said the woman laconically. ‘I’ve got five younger brothers and sisters. I know what kids are like.’ She tapped the cigarette packet on the back of her hand.

  ‘Please don’t interrupt,’ said the nun. ‘And do not smoke in here.’

  The woman raised her eyebrows but remained silent. Nor did she light a cigarette.

  The nun gazed levelly at Elizabeth, whose heart sank. ‘I will make a telephone call to your father. In the meantime both of you may go for a walk in the cloisters. I will send for you when I’m ready.’

  Elizabeth noted again that raising of the eyebrows from the woman who called herself her stepmother but she murmured acquiescence and they left the room together.

  ‘I won’t go with you,’ said Elizabeth as soon as the door was closed behind them.

  ‘I think you will,’ said the woman, placing a cigarette between her lips. ‘That old nun’ll make you as soon as she verifies the facts.’ She took a book of matches from her pocket and lit up.

  ‘You’re not supposed to smoke out here either!’ Elizabeth gazed at her with horrified fascination.

  ‘No?’ She exhaled and smiled. ‘I bet there’s lots of things you’re not supposed to do. Are you a good girl, Lizzie? Jimmy said you were but then dads don’t know everything about their daughters, do they? I know my dad thinks the sun shines out of me but I’ve done things he’d have pin k fits over. As it is, he and the whole family were disappointed that I didn’t go up home to marry but Jimmy wanted it quick and quiet. We were married in a register office and there were no guests.’

  ‘You were married in a register office!’ exclaimed Elizabeth. ‘Then you’re not really married.’ And she smiled complacently.

  ‘Oh yes, we are,’ murmured the woman. ‘Neither your dad nor me is Catholic so you can forget that.’ She glanced about her as they left one corridor and walked up another. ‘God, it’s like a maze in here. How do you ever find your way about?’

  ‘Easy.’ Elizabeth’s tone was scornful, although she remembered feeling the same about the school on her arrival a year into the war. Her mother had been an old girl and the Mother Superior had accepted Elizabeth as a boarder when others were being sent home because her mother was doing important war work and her father was in the army. Despite Elizabeth’s tender years she remembered how exciting yet frightening it had been, hurrying through corridors to a basement cloakroom when a raid was on. The town was on a flight path for London and so had not completely escaped the blitz. The townsfolk had also taken shelter in the cellars beneath the convent hall, as had exhausted fire crews who were fighting the fires in East London and needed a rest.

  They came to a long sunlit corridor where canaries trilled in hanging cages and plants in pots bravely put forth a few flowers. Elizabeth stopped. ‘This is the cloisters,’ she muttered.

  ‘Not like I imagined,’ said the woman, looking with interest at the birds. ‘There are nice cloisters in Chester. All old stone and grass.’

  ‘Chester?’

  ‘Up north. I come from Liverpool.’

  ‘Liverpool?’

  The woman’s tawny eyes scrutinised Elizabeth’s smooth rosy-skinned face. ‘You must have heard of it? It was the door to the country’s larder during the war, and in the old days Liverpool merchants grew rich on the slave trade.’ She stubbed out her cigarette in the soil of a potted hyacinth. ‘Funny ol’ mixture some of them were. One made money out of the suffering then used some of it to build the Bluecoat School for poor children.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ said Elizabeth impatiently. ‘I want to know how, if you lived all the way up there, you met Daddy?’

  The woman did not speak for a moment then she said quietly, ‘Even up north people leave home. As it is I met Jimmy for the first time during the war. At a training camp in Pembrokeshire when I was in the ATS.’

  ‘But Mummy was alive then!’

  ‘Yep.’ The woman dug her hands in her pockets and smiled wryly. ‘He was forever talking about her. I’ve never known a man so struck with his wife after so many years of marriage.’

  There was a silence and Elizabeth considered that ‘forever talking’. Her father could not have been in love with this woman then. She thought of her mother, who had been Daddy’s senior by eight years, and looking back remembered how he always deferred to her and how she had always seemed the strong one in the marriage. This woman looked strong too. Was that why …? She took a deep breath, needing an answer to another question. ‘But how did you meet again? It’s years since Daddy was in Pembrokeshire.’

  The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘I came to London. Your dad was different to the other men who were generally only after one – but never mind that – and I never forgot him. He had a bit of culture about him and was interested in the theatre like me. He said that if ever I got to London I was to look him and his wife up.’

  ‘So you did?’

  ‘I was desperate, kid. I was trying to make it on the stage but not having much luck. I had a job of sorts, trying to make ends meet, but life was tough. I was lonely and in need of a friendly face.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Daddy’s very good-looking and nice.’ ‘Too nice’ she’d heard her mother say once, but how could anyone be too nice?

  ‘Yes. He was nice to me and I fell for him heavily this time. No wife on the scene and he seemed really glad to see me.’ There was a silence which stretched.

  Elizabeth felt like saying: ‘But I was on the scene,’ though that hadn’t strictly been true. After her mother’s death, Daddy had wrapped himself up in his grief, excluding his daughter.

  ‘I hope that old nun’s not going to be long,’ murmured the woman.

  Elizabeth glanced at her and the woman smiled but Elizabeth did not return the smile. How could Daddy marry this northerner without telling her! The woman’s smile faded and she turned away to gaze into a bird cage and whistle at its yellow inmate.

  ‘Did you make Daddy marry you?’ challenged Elizabeth, putting her arms behind her back.

  The woman gave her a long cool glance. ‘How would I do that, love?’

  She reddened. ‘Mummy could make Daddy do things.’

  The woman raised her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth lifted but she made no comment.

  Elizabeth was irritated and a teeny bit scared. So might the wolf have smiled when he wanted to gobble up Red Riding Hood. ‘I won’t go with you,’ she repeated.

  The woman sighed. ‘I’m getting fed up of this. I want to get back before dark so don’t give me any arguments. Think of your dad. He hasn’t been well and needs company right now. I was hoping you’d cheer him up but if you’re going to have a face like a wet Whit weekend, I could be wrong.’

  Her words startled Elizabeth. ‘Is Daddy really ill?’

  The woman hesitated. ‘There’s no need for you to start worrying.’

  Elizabeth thought, He can’t be that ill then. ‘Why didn’t he want me at the wedding?’ she said aloud. ‘Does he really want me now? I won’t come if he doesn’t really want me.’

  A puzzled frown drew the woman’s pencilled eyebrows together. ‘Don’t you want to see him?’

  ‘Of course I do. But it won’t be the same, will it, if you’re going to be there!’ In her imagination she conjured up a picture of her father’s eager-to-please features as they had looked before her mother had died. Elizabeth always remembered him like that. She felt a pain round her heart, considering how her mother’s death had changed him. It was as if when she had died part of him had died too and Elizabeth had felt almost doubly bereaved. But before she could say any more to this woman her father had turned to instead of her, Mother Bernard appeared.

  They went with her to be told by Mother Clare that she had been unable to get through to Mr Knight. ‘Perhaps last night’s snow brought the lines down?’

  ‘So what decision have you come to, Sister?’ asked the woman, looking her fully in the face. ‘I do hope it’s still the same as mine. Elizabeth really should see Jimmy.’ There was a touch of steel in her voice.

  The nun continued to gaze at her for several seconds, then she repeated her order to Elizabeth to pack her things. So there was nothing for her but to do as she was told.

  Whilst she was emptying out the wardrobe in her cubicle, several girls entered the dormitory, crowding round her and asking questions which she did not want to answer. She was mortified every time she thought about the wedding she had not known anything about, and her pride was such that instead of telling them the truth she said the marriage was about to take place and she was going home to be bridesmaid. It was an anxious and rebellious Elizabeth who met the woman claiming to be her stepmother in the entrance hall.

  ‘Ready?’ she said, opening the outside door.

  Anger welled up inside Elizabeth as she thought how this woman had caused her to lie to her friends. She brushed past, only to halt on the step. ‘Where’s the taxi?’

  The woman’s eyebrows rose in that disconcerting fashion. ‘I’ve no money for taxis. Get walking, kid.’

  Fury overwhelmed her and she said through her teeth, ‘But I’ve got my suitcase! It’s a long walk and the pavements are icy.’

  ‘You’ll survive,’ said the woman with a cheerfulness Elizabeth thought veered on the masochistic. ‘Console yourself with the thought that it’ll be easie r going down than up, and that if you slip I’ll give you a hand up. Now move or you’ll have it dark.’

  I don’t care, said Elizabeth inwardly. Nevertheless she moved. Strangely there was something in the woman’s voice which reminded her of the mother she had scarcely known, although this woman was much younger. Twenty years younger probably. The thought shocked her and she tried not to question her father’s motive for marrying a woman young enough to be his daughter.

  Her temper was not improved as she slipped and slithered down Queen’s Road, between large houses with gardens which in summer were a treat to the eyes. Even before they reached the railway station, her suitcase felt as if it was dragging her arm out of its socket and by the time she seated herself on the train to Liverpool Street station she was definitely in no mood to respond to any kind of overture from the woman she still considered an interloper.

  It was dusk when they reached Camden Town after travelling across London by tube. Lights were flickering on in windows and curtains were being drawn. Elizabeth was cold as well as weary, apprehensive and irritated. What would Daddy expect from her? That he had not told her about his marriage signalled that he did not expect her to welcome it. And she didn’t! As they splashed through dirty slush she could taste London’s gritty air in her throat and against her teeth, and imagined the sweep of untrodden snow on lawns and fields as viewed that morning from her dormitory window. She could almost smell the clean sweet country air. Why had Daddy had to marry this woman? He could have moved out of London when he’d been demobbed and found a little cottage and then there would have been no need for her to board. Duty was the school motto, and she could have looked after him like a daughter should in such circumstances.

  ‘You’ll be glad to get home,’ said the woman, pausing to take a turn with the suitcase.

  Elizabeth made no reply. The house in London had never felt like home, perhaps because she had left it when she was six years old and never lived there for any long period of time since. With its high ceilings and the gas lamps that had existed then, she had often been frightened of shadows, imagining ghostly presences because the house was so old.