A Girl Can Dream

A Girl Can Dream
Anne Bennett

A dramatic and emotional story of one woman’s story to keep her family together. For fans of Dilly Court and Kitty Neale.When Meg’s mother dies in childbirth, she is determined to keep the promise made on her mother’s deathbed – keep the family together. But her father has descended into drink and resents the baby, Ruth, who he believes cost him his wife.Though struggling financially, Meg resists the offer of help from their unscrupulous and sinister landlord, Richard Flatterly. Things get worse when her father returns home one night with a woman called Doris and announces he intends to marry her. When war breaks out three of the children are evacuated to the country while little Ruth must stay with Meg’s father and his new wife as she is too young.Meg and her friend Joy sign up for the Land Army and go to work on the farm where she meets Stephen, home on leave after fighting the Nazi’s – the attraction is instant and she and Stephen fall in love. But when she returns to the family home for a visit, she is horrified to discover the house in squalor and that worst of all, Little Ruth has been sent to an orphanage. With no options, Meg must turn to the only man who can help her, Richard Flatterly, but in return for his help, she must pay a very high price…

Copyright (#ub82fe912-7441-5b58-9895-cb557561cea0)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Copyright © Anne Bennett 2014

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014 Cover photograph © Gordon Crabb/Alison Eldred (girl); Hulton Archive/Getty Images (children); Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com) (aircraft)

Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007359257

Ebook Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 9780007383313

Version: 2017-09-08

Dedication (#ub82fe912-7441-5b58-9895-cb557561cea0)

I am dedicating this book to all the “Novelistas” for the help, support and encouragement they are always ready to give. I appreciate it all a great deal …

Table of Contents

Title Page (#u87247628-c6a1-54dd-90a6-cb9b95b06717)Copyright (#u72fc6873-5af1-54a9-a209-900e96dc67c3)Dedication (#u01ac704b-a794-5b69-ad1e-44dc62d264e5)Part One (#u96589a59-df54-58ae-bb55-32d8555efe6e)

Chapter One (#ubf5b0a70-d583-5d05-8309-a69e6442c8c5)Chapter Two (#u8bf28708-a342-57d7-b2c9-880cdbb1bd22)Chapter Three (#u4f583c0f-dee6-5256-bd7f-89ae77dd3cda)Chapter Four (#u883d3b23-ffbd-5c53-a6cc-17f637ddd292)Chapter Five (#ue56deacd-ec1c-563f-ae9b-1930f8f1e1c5)Chapter Six (#u89e0297a-1ebc-51e9-95e7-f4544f5ff204)Chapter Seven (#u7dc95caa-3ad1-57fe-ae46-d372fdb314b6)Chapter Eight (#u2047681e-fa81-5226-9a74-72e4fc799fa0)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

PART ONE (#ub82fe912-7441-5b58-9895-cb557561cea0)

ONE (#ub82fe912-7441-5b58-9895-cb557561cea0)

1937

Meg Hallett would never forget that terrible day. Her mother, Maeve, had been having labour pains since the early hours of the morning. The other children had gone to Mass with their father but, with the new baby obviously on its way, Meg had stayed behind to tend to her mother. The baby was trying to push its way into the world far too soon and Meg wondered if this was due to the fall her mother had had in the yard the day before.

Suddenly Maeve turned anxiously to her fourteen-year-old daughter. ‘Meggie, you will see to the others, won’t you?’ she begged. ‘I know it will be really hard for you … I know I’m asking you to give up all the dreams you have of a future for yourself, the job you had lined up at Lewis’s and everything but you must promise me to keep them together. I’d not rest easy if I thought the family were torn apart.’

‘Mom, please don’t talk this way,’ Meg cried. Beads of sweat were standing out on Maeve’s brow and Meg wiped them away gently with the damp cloth she had ready, noting that her face was as pale as lint and so thin her high cheekbones stood out.

Maeve had always admired those cheekbones. People always said she was a carbon copy of her mother, but though she had inherited her fine bones, luxurious dark hair with a coppery tinge, and deep brown eyes, she doubted her skin was as flawless, or her cheekbones so high. Now, though, her mother’s rosebud mouth looked bruised from where she had chewed it when the pain was bad, her face had lost all vestige of colour, and her hair was lank around her face.

‘Why don’t you lie down, Mom, and try to sleep?’ Meg suggested gently.

Maeve, however, was too perturbed to sleep and she continued as if Meg hadn’t spoken. ‘And you must help your father. Charlie’s a good man and he will be lost. You will manage between the two of you – you would have been leaving school in a fortnight anyway – and Billy will be starting at the school himself in six months. May will be on hand if you need her.’

Meg nodded. Their neighbour had always been very helpful. ‘I know, Mom.’

‘You will do this for me then, sure you will?’ Maeve said, clutching at her eldest daughter’s hand.

‘Mom, you know I would surely take care of the children and the house – and Daddy too – as well as I am able to,’ Meg said in as firm a voice as she could muster. ‘But I hate to hear you talking this way. You’re going to be fine.’

‘No, my dear girl,’ Maeve said. ‘I haven’t much time. My family in Ireland might say you are too young to deal with all the children and they’ll offer to take one or two off your hands but, I beg you, don’t let them go. My father will have them working their fingers to the bone, as he did me and my siblings.’ She stared intently at Meg, reliving her sad memories of home. ‘If he didn’t feel we’d worked hard enough, then we didn’t eat. We were beaten with his belt for the slightest thing. I escaped my life of abuse, thank God, and now I would hate my parents to get their hands on my children.’

Meg’s mouth opened in surprise. Her mother had never spoken about her growing up in Ireland before. She remembered her father warning her not to plague Maeve with questions about her homeland; she hadn’t had a good time of it there. Meg doubted he knew much more than that. He himself had never raised a hand to any of his children – not even Terry – and there was always food on their table. To her knowledge her mother’s family had never written her one line since she left home, and she had never written to them so, Heaven forbid, should anything happen to her mother she doubted they would be involved in any way. So she said confidently, ‘They will never take any of the children, never fear, Mom.’

Maeve sank back on the pillow with a sigh and said, ‘Or the authorities might say they’d be better off in a home.’

‘How could they be?’ Meg asked in genuine puzzlement. ‘Daddy’s in work and a good provider, and I’ve virtually left school and am able and willing to see to them. Terry and Jenny will help, so you needn’t worry about that either. But you are fretting for nothing. You’ll be as right as rain when the baby is born and you have recovered from the birth and all.’

But her mother went steadily downhill after that. When, in trying to make her more comfortable, Meg discovered the blood pumping from her, she stopped only long enough to pack her with a towel before setting off for the doctor, leaving their neighbour May Sanders sitting with her mother.

The doctor ordered Maeve straight to hospital. Charlie’s brother, Uncle Robert, had been alerted to what was happening, and he and his wife, Rosie, took the younger children home to care for them. Meanwhile Meg would go with her father to the General Hospital.

‘Someone’s got to go with the poor sod,’ Robert said to Rosie. ‘I’ve never seen our Charlie in such a state,’ ‘The others seem totally traumatised by it all, too,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s the suddenness of it, I suppose.’

‘That’s why I thought the nippers would be better with us,’ Uncle Robert said. ‘I mean, neighbours are all well and good, and I know May Sanders to be one of the best, but families should step in at times like these.’

Meg was glad that Uncle Robert and Aunt Rosie had the care of children. It was one less thing for her to worry about. She felt the burden of her father’s distress lodge on her shoulders and was glad that he hadn’t seen just how sick her mother looked. By the time the ambulance came she’d been semi-delirious, her face contorted from the agonising contractions. All he knew was that Maeve had started in labour and had been taken to the General Hospital.

They sat alone on hard chairs in a dismal corridor, white paint flaking off the walls, for what seemed like hours. Eventually Charlie’s head sank into his hands.

‘If she dies it will be my fault,’ he wept. ‘I should never have allowed her to get pregnant again. The doctor warned us both it would be dangerous.’

‘Oh, Dad, stop this,’ Meg said, ‘Whoever’s fault it is, I’d say Mom’s in the best place.’

Charlie got to his feet. ‘Well, I’m away to find out how she is,’ he said. ‘I can’t sit here any longer and know nothing.’

Just at that moment, a harassed-looking young doctor in his white coat, a stethoscope hanging around his neck, came through the double doors at the end of the corridor. As he approached, the look on his face turned the blood in Meg’s veins to ice.

‘Mr Hallett?’ the doctor asked Charlie.