Lexi’s War: A heart-warming wartime saga to bring hope and happiness in 2018. Rosie James
was late when she left the library and began to make her way home. So, now she knew the facts of life – more or less – and they were almost too much to take in. The act of union between a man and woman, fully explained in a large book, did seem awkward and cumbersome and somewhat impossible, even slightly funny if you thought about it; but it had been a tried and tested method since life began, so who was Anna Hobbs to question the system or the mechanics?
She was relieved that the revelation had not shocked her too much. She’d been surprised, certainly, but no more than that. And as she’d allowed herself to imagine being in bed with Leonard, she was aware of an exciting tingle running right down the back of her legs. The same sensation she’d had when he’d put his arm around her waist for the first time.
Anna’s only ambition had been to work with children, small children, and at twelve years old, she’d been employed at a nursery school in the east end of London, hoping to eventually become a nursery nurse. Deep inside herself, she felt that this was the only way she would ever have the chance to love and take care of little ones, where she might pretend that one or two of them were her own. Not that she’d expected her career to be a long one because, as an only child, her life’s task, inevitably, was to live at home and look after her parents until they died. She’d been resigned to this, and was only mildly ashamed to admit that when both mother and father died within a few months of each other a year ago, all she’d felt was relief at the unexpected freedom this gave her.
Anna did not admire her own appearance and had seldom considered the possibility of ever getting married and having children of her own. Her brownish hair had no wave in it whatsoever, and she was rather plain in the face. How could she deny it every time she looked in the mirror? And she’d never been courted.
Until now. Until Leonard.
Eighteen months ago, when she was just fifteen, the two of them were the only ones waiting at the bus stop on that cold, grey November morning, and he’d looked down at her, making a rueful face.
‘A horrible day,’ he’d said, his voice dark and deep, and interesting. ‘Summer seems a very long time ago, doesn’t it?’
Those few casual words were the start of a friendship which quite quickly became something more. They met regularly each morning on their way to work, and each evening, when he somehow managed to be there as she got off the bus at the end of the day, walking her home to the room she rented in a friend’s house – which was not very far away from where he himself lived.
Leonard was quite tall and not exactly handsome but worth a second glance. He had fair, curly hair, but it was his eyes which entrapped you. They were the colour of polished conkers, which would soften and twinkle as he talked or listened. He had a lovely smile, and he was so easy to talk to, to laugh with. He was exactly a year older than Anna, and in no time at all they’d found out what each other’s likes and dislikes were – often identical. Soon they were spending almost every evening and most weekends together, sometimes going into town to the music hall, or to one of the galleries. But more often just walking and talking. And when they’d had that first tentative kiss goodnight, Anna’s heart had soared. Because it told her something, something special – that she no longer had to be alone again.
Leonard worked in an accountant’s office in the city, and he was always interested in Anna’s daily life.
‘You obviously love children, Anna,’ he’d said once, ‘but it must be tiring and require a lot of patience.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind that,’ Anna had replied. ‘They are all so sweet – especially the little boys. I do love the little boys.’
‘Would you ever want any children of your own?’ he’d said one day, and without hesitation she’d replied –
‘It would be my dream.’
Then, after a moment he’d gone on. ‘It must be lovely to be part of a family, a family of one’s own. I was brought up by an aunt, and had no brothers or sisters, but I could hear the noise and fun going on next door – there were seven kids living there. They could never have been lonely, and always had someone to play with, to share things with.’
‘Well, you may have a big family of your own one day, Leonard,’ Anna had said, without thinking.
And it was then that he had taken both her hands in his and asked her to marry him.
The days that followed had been the happiest in Anna’s life. They had such plans about their future together and how many children they might eventually have.
‘I will be earning enough for us to rent in a nice area,’ Leonard had said, ‘but first we must think about the wedding. Our big day! Perhaps it should be at the bus stop – our bus stop’ He’d gone on teasingly, ‘where I first saw you in your neat little uniform and thought how lovely you looked.’
‘Really?’ she’d replied – Anna had never been told that she looked lovely.
‘I didn’t know you, of course,’ he’d said. ‘But you had a gentle face, with such a kind expression. You looked the sort of person it would be nice to spend time with. And I was right,’ he’d added.
Anna had been left a little money by her parents which would be enough to buy her wedding dress, and even though there was some time to go before the big day, she’d already bought a dainty white creation she’d seen in a local shop window. It fitted her perfectly, and as she’d gazed at herself in the mirror her heart was fairly bursting with happiness – total, uninhibited happiness. She was to marry the only man she’d ever really known, had ever loved – and the only man who’d said he loved her. Her! The future shone with almost painful brightness.
Until it happened.
It had been a rather cold March day, a strong wind whipping across their faces as they’d trudged along Hampstead Heath, when Leonard had started coughing with such violence that Anna was frightened. She’d stopped, pulling him back to her and looking up at him anxiously. Leonard had always had a cough – said he’d had it since childhood – and it had been nothing new for Anna to hear him splutter into his handkerchief now and then. She’d gently scolded him sometimes, saying he was smoking too many cigarettes, but he’d shrugged that off. ‘We smoke in the office all the time, everyone smokes,’ he’d said, and that fact was true enough. Cigarette smoke hung like a curtain in crowded places, wherever you went.
When they’d got back to her room, Anna had put the kettle on to make a pot of tea. And after she’d set out the cups and saucers and cut them a slice of Victoria sponge, she went over to where Leonard had flung himself down in the armchair. His head was back, his eyes closed, and he was breathing with a horrible rasping sound. Then, as she looked down at him, Anna let out a small cry of horror.
‘Leonard!’
From his partly open lips, a small stream of bright red blood was trickling slowly down over his chin and towards the white collar of his shirt.
That had been the beginning of a six month nightmare when it was discovered that unrealized, Leonard was suffering from tuberculosis, that the disease was already advanced. And incurable.
For many weeks, Anna sat by his hospital bed every night, murmuring to him quietly even though he always seemed to be asleep. ‘Please don’t leave me, Leonard,’ she’d whispered, over and over again, and once, through cracked lips, he’d replied –
‘There’ll never be anyone but you, Anna … my Anna … the love of my life.’
Then, finally, in the quietness of that dimly lit ward, with Anna holding him, Leonard had slowly passed away.
Refusing, even in death, to let go of her hand…
30th April 1914
‘No, I won’t stay to supper tonight, thank you, Anna,’ Lexi said. ‘I promised Mama I wouldn’t be long. I’ve only come to see Johnny’s presents.’
Anna smiled as the two went