It was many years ago, and I still recall the way the story of Aunt Margaret unfolded, as if it were a faded tapestry hanging in the back of my mind.
Dont worry, my dear, the doctor had said, her voice gentle. Your little one may have been born early, but shes a sturdy thing. Everything will turn out all rightfor you, for your daughter, and for your grandchild.
May God grant it, Aunt Margaret whispered after the doctor slipped away, her words a soft murmur of dread.
The sorrow had first struck the Whitfield family six months earlier, when a chatty neighbour, Mrs. Potter, drifted into the kitchen for a cup of tea and a spoonful of apple jam. She dropped a careless remark:
So, when are you expecting the next addition? Have you started stocking up on nappies yet?
What addition? Clara Whitfield snapped, bewildered. What are you on about?
Mrs. Potter, with a chuckle, replied, Your girl, the one whos been running about the farm all week, has been seen dashing out of the calf barn with a cloth over her mouth.
Clara tried to keep her composure, muttering, Maybe she ate something odd.
Im no old woman, and I know nothing about such things, Mrs. Potter retorted sharply.
That evening, Aunt Margaret interrogated Clara, then wept for hours, cursing the illfated child who had never seen the light of day, the sunkissed lads who had long since left the fields, and the men who had once stood by her side.
When little Ethel arrived, her highpitched cries did not bring joy, only endless chores, a lingering sense of shame, and a sting of embarrassment. Claras affection for the infant was lukewarm at best; she would hold her when feeding or when the child broke into tears, but nothing more. Aunt Margaret watched the granddaughter with indifference, offering no love of her own. It was already the fourth child in the line, and there was little cause for celebration. Even Claras own daughter, when she finally bore a child, brought few blessings. Thus Ethel entered a world where love was scarce, stumbling on unsteady legs through a life of neglect.
A year later, Clara left for the workers village of Manchester, seeking a modest happiness of her own. Ethel stayed with Aunt Margaret, who, for all her faults, was still a family elder. The girl required no special care; she ate what was set before her, slept at the appointed hour, and never fell ill. The doctors prognosis held trueEthel was sturdy, though still unloved.
Ethel lived in Margarets cottage until she turned seven. In those years, Clara mastered the trade of a housepainter, married a man named Thomas, and bore a son, Tom. When she thought of Ethel again, she imagined the girl grown, perhaps a helper to her own mother. She travelled back to the village to fetch Tom, but Ethel, who saw her mother only twice a year, offered little more than a weary nod. Clara looked at her with reproach:
Ethel, you behave as if you were a stranger. Another child would have welcomed me with open arms, yet you stand there cold and distant.
Seeing the girl off, Aunt Margaret shed a tear, feeling a pang of longing for a few days. Yet the following Saturday, two beloved grandchildrenLucy and Rosiefrom her eldest son arrived, and the household quickly forgot Ethels presence. Aunt Margaret felt little sorrow for the neglected girl, but the parting from the newly hatched, goldenhaired chicks that had just arrived in the garden brought her to tears.
In the workers village, Ethels life was not to her liking, but she had no choice. Over time she made friends, enrolled at the local school, and after lessons ran errands for bread and milk, peeled potatoes for her mothers dinner. As she grew, she escorted Tom to the nursery, and, imitating her mother, scolded a boisterous boy:
Watch your step, youll get a beating from me yet. Im running out of strength, and you give me none!
She never heard words of love from Toms father, nor did she expect them from anyone; she had long accepted that affection was not meant for her. Still, she overheard the nicknames her friends mothers called themsweetheart, darlingand heard Clara call Tom my sunshine or my little cat.
At home, Ethel was never harshly mistreated, nor was she starved. She did not receive fancy treats or a lavish table, but she was not left to starve either. She simply existed, unloved yet unharmed.
When she turned fifteen, Ethel fled the cold cottage that had never been her own for eight years. She entered a technical college in Birmingham, aspiring to become a pastry chef, dreaming of devouring pies and tarts until she could not move. In the dormitory she shared a room with three other girls, becoming the unofficial housekeeper after classes.
Then she met Victor Hart, a young man with a smile that seemed to chase away the dreary November gloom. The girls in the hallway would pause their television for a moment to watch the couples laughter. Victor spoke in soft, lyrical phrases that made Ethels head spin.
You are my beloved, he whispered, and Ethel, accustomed to a lifetime of indifference, felt a rare flicker of happiness.
Soon after, a lingering nausea plagued her each morning. She should have hurried to a doctor, but she missed the appointment. By eighteen, she was forced to obtain medical certificates and, with a suddenly restless Victor, head to the registry office. Their marriage marked the beginning of Ethels family life and, simultaneously, the end of her fleeting romance. They moved into a modest house that Victors parents owned. His mother and grandmother showed no special affection for Ethel, yet they allowed her to stay on their modest plot of land. She was not the first nor the last to settle into such an arrangement, and perhaps it was for the bestVictor would eventually settle down.
A friend from the village, jealous of Ethels city life, taunted her:
Youre lucky, youll live in the town, become a proper lady.
Ethel could not argue; the city was a modest terrace, the comforts were those of a village, water still had to be fetched from a communal pump at the end of the lane. Yet she did not complain; she simply went about her chores, lugging buckets of water, feeling the chill on her feet. In that dampness she also gave birth to her first child, a son whom the mother-inlaw rebuked, though Ethel wondered why she should be blamed.
Victor seemed to care for a while, but soon his attention drifted to his mates, and his mother and grandmother stopped urging Ethel to leave the house. After a short period, Victor introduced another woman, declaring that he never loved Ethel at all.
Ethel, accustomed to being unloved, gathered her few belongings, obeyed the final word of the matriarch, and closed the door behind her. She moved into the factorys dormitory, where a mess hall, a canteen, and a workers club were all within walking distance. Live and be merry, they said, and Ethel found a strange comfort in the routine. She went to work, to the club, to the cinema, and rarely visited her mother, stepfather, or brother, who no longer waited for her.
When Aunt Margaret passed away as Ethel entered her twentyfirst year, she attended the funeral, standing before the modest gravestones that once marked the familys roots. Margarets cottage was willed to her beloved grandchildren, Lily and Rosie, and Ethel felt no bitterness; they were the apple of their grandmothers eye, while she was merely a forgotten branch.
Had Ethel claimed any share of the inheritance, the relatives would have contested it fiercely. The most vocal was Clara, who lamented that the old woman had left no silver spoon for her beloved grandson Tom. Isnt he a grandson too? she wept, forgetting her own elder daughter. Ethel received no silver spoon.
She tried twice to arrange a new life, courting men, but each match fell apartone drank and was abusive, the other drank and beat. She never felt compelled to force her way into the registry office; she had already been there once, and that was enough.
Eventually, a neighbour named Aunt Alice, who washed the factory floors each night, suggested a match with a widower, Matthew Turner, a gentle man who had lost his own wife during childbirth. He is steady, not a drinker, and treats his wife kindly, Alice said. Your little one will have a mother.
Ethel thought it over and moved into Matthews modest flat, brightening it with curtains of green and white, stitching tiny dresses from yellow and blue fabric for his daughter, little Sophie, who soon began to speak and called Ethel Mum.
Matthew was a quiet, dependable husband. He never raised his voice, paid his wages honestly, and, though he never whispered words of love, Ethel had long grown used to their absence. Three years into their marriage, Sophie burst into the kitchen, clutching a bunch of dandelions, pressed her cheek to Ethels, and whispered:
Mum, I love you more than anyonemore than Daddy, more than Aunt Alice, more than my doll.
Ethel embraced her, laughing and crying at once, finally feeling the warmth of being loved.
A year later she gave birth to a son, Harry. Matthew tended to the baby at night, changed his nappies, and helped push the pram up the stairs. The factory soon granted them a spacious, sunfilled council flat, and Ethel finally had a place to call home.
Years passed; their children grew, grandchildren arrived. In the twilight of her life, Ethel stood on the small porch of their garden, making jam while the little ones swirled around her.
Grandma, I love you, shouted Olivia.
And I love you, echoed Daniel.
Grandma, I love you, babbled baby May, her words a soft patter.
Their grandfather, Matthew, chuckled, We all love our grandmother, hiding smiles in our silvered beards.
Ethel brushed away a tear that had slipped down her cheek. She had never imagined that a girl, born unloved, could one day be surrounded by such affection. The memory of those early, cold days seemed a distant echo, softened by the chorus of love that finally filled her world.
