Mothers and Daughters Read Online Free PDF Page B

She tried to ignore it, gear herself up to say what she wanted to say. Julian would have done it perfectly, man to man. She swallowed, took a deep breath. ‘You know why I asked to see you. I’m very unhappy about your relationship with Evie and…’
    ‘Mum,’ Evie whimpered.
    ‘Alice…’ Nick said softly, smiling at her as if she’d somehow missed the joke.
    ‘No, listen.’ Her voice sounded sharper than she intended. ‘You have a wonderful wife and I can’t bear to think how hurt and betrayed she will be over this. If you were my husband I’d have chucked you out long ago.’
    ‘But, Alice, I’m not your husband,’ he said gently. ‘Freya and I go way back and we have an understanding. She knows I’ll never leave her, or stop loving her.’
    ‘You have a very odd way of showing it, seducing other women and worse, having children with them. How do they deal with it? Do they know you are their father and what about your and Freya’s children? It must be dreadfully upsetting for them?’
    He shrugged as if none of this was his fault. ‘But you’ll be a granny, and I know you’ll be a wonderful one.’
    How crass he was, thinking he could flatter her into accepting his selfish behaviour.
    ‘I don’t want to be a grandmother this way,’ she retorted, ignoring Evie’s murderous expression. ‘I’d hoped Evie would be married – but not to you – to a loving, decent man her own age who’d put her first, love and care for her and their children, instead of having a sort of timeshare with a man who can’t keep his trousers on,’ she finished, surprised at her own vehemence.
    ‘I’m sorry you feel like that, Alice,’ Nick said defensively, glancing at Evie who’d grabbed his hand, holding tight to it, tethering him down as if her mother’s outspokenness would scare him away. ‘I won’t let her or our child down. We didn’t plan it this way but…’
    Evie, her expression like a sulky child, snapped, ‘Why are you so mean, Mum?’
    It was so hard and lonely sitting here taking the brunt of their guilt, but this is how it was going to be, Alice alone dealing with the family dramas, and she’d have to toughen up, get on with it.
    ‘I’m just telling the truth, just as your father would have done, Evie,’ she said as Evie flounced indoors saying she was tired of listening to them and had her drawing to do.
    ‘Have you told Freya?’ she challenged Nick when she had gone.
    ‘Not yet, I mean babies don’t always stay put do they? Lots of women miscarry before three months.’
    ‘And lots don’t, and that’s a pretty thoughtless remark to make, Nick, and I hope you haven’t said it in front of Evie,’ Alice retorted. ‘She must be at least three months pregnant now and you must tell Freya straight away. I like her very much and I feel really sorry for her.’ Alice was ashamed that
her
daughter was partly responsible for Freya’s pain.
    She could see it clearly now she was here. Pretty Evie living here alone in their weekend cottage. There were other houses and cottages dotted along the lane, close enough for comfort but not so close as to be spied upon, a perfect place for an illicit love affair. She would have seen Nick about, maybe told him she was here alone while she created her magical illustrations, and he’d come to call and no doubt taken advantage of her grief at losing her father, and worked his considerable charm on her. Alice understood it, might even have fallen for it herself in some lonely moment now Julian had gone.
    Nick said defiantly, ‘I am going to tell her; I know I behave badly, but I don’t desert the women and children I love. Because I do love them,’ he said as if he were confessing to a religious conversion, ‘but I love Freya the most and she and the others,’ he smiled at Evie, who’d come back into the garden and he held out his hand to her, ‘know that.’
    Evie bowed her head, hiding her feelings, but she went to him and stood by his side