Read Chapter 20: Family Ties

The knock came at half past three, and Maggie’s hand trembled on the door latch. Behind her, the narrow hallway of the Hollis house smelled of boiled cabbage and beeswax, her mother’s attempt to make the place respectable for a guest who mattered. Thomas stood on the step, leaning on a borrowed cane, his left leg in its plaster cast propped awkwardly beneath him. His face was still bruised at the temple, a crescent of yellow fading into his skin, but he had shaved for the occasion, and his hair was combed back with water.

“You came,” Maggie said, her voice a little breathless.

“I said I would.” He smiled, and it reached his eyes in a way that made her chest ache. “Your father won’t think much of a man who can’t keep his word.”

She took his arm and helped him over the threshold. The house was small, two-up two-down, and the ceilings pressed low. Thomas had to duck slightly as he stepped into the parlour, where her mother had laid out the good china and a plate of biscuits that were mostly oats and saccharine. Rose Hollis rose from her chair the moment they entered, her hands smoothing her apron, her eyes bright with a nervous warmth.

“Mr. Elliott,” she said, extending a hand. “We’re so pleased to meet you. Please, sit—please, you must be exhausted.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hollis.” Thomas shook her hand with a gentleness Maggie had seen him use on the frightened and the wounded. “Please, call me Thomas.”

Rose’s cheeks coloured. “Thomas, then. Sit down, sit down. Can I get you some tea? Or something stronger? My husband keeps a small bottle of—well, it’s not whisky, but it’s something.”

“Tea would be wonderful. Thank you.”

Thomas lowered himself into the armchair with a wince he tried to hide. Maggie sat on the arm of the sofa closest to him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. The parlour clock ticked. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, heavy and deliberate.

Arthur Hollis filled the doorway. He was a big man, gone soft at the middle from years behind a desk at the gas board, but his jaw was still sharp, his eyes still flinty. He looked at Thomas for a long moment, then at Maggie, then back at Thomas.

“So,” he said. “You’re the bomb man.”

Thomas began to rise, but Arthur waved a hand. “Stay. You’ll do yourself an injury getting up and down for me.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Arthur crossed to the sideboard and poured himself a measure from a plain brown bottle. He didn’t offer anyone else any. He turned, glass in hand, and leaned against the sideboard, studying Thomas with the cold patience of a man who had spent a lifetime reading paperwork and people.

“My daughter tells me you’ve been in the hospital.”

“Yes, sir. A few weeks now.”

“And you came out of it wanting to marry her.”

Thomas met his gaze. “I came out of it knowing I wanted to marry her. I’d known before. The bomb just made it clearer.”

Arthur took a slow sip of his drink. Rose hovered near the doorway, wringing her hands in her apron. Maggie felt the room shrink, the walls pressing closer, the air going thin.

“You’re an engineer,” Arthur said. “That right?”

“Civil engineer. I worked on bridges, before the war. Now I’m with the royal engineers—bomb disposal.”

“Dangerous work.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And when the war ends? What then?”

Thomas didn’t flinch. “Then I go back to building. Bridges, roads, buildings—whatever’s needed. There’ll be plenty of rebuilding to do, in London and beyond. I’d like to be part of that.”

Arthur’s glass paused halfway to his lips. “London.”

“Yes, sir. Maggie and I have talked about it. We want to stay in London, see it through. Help put it back together when all this is over.”

Arthur set the glass down on the sideboard without drinking from it. He crossed his arms. “You understand we’re leaving for Toronto. October. Tickets are booked.”

“I understand that’s the plan, sir.”

“And yet you’re here, asking for my daughter’s hand, knowing she’d have to choose between us and you.”

The room went very quiet. Maggie opened her mouth, but her father held up a hand, silencing her without looking at her. His eyes were fixed on Thomas.

“Sir,” Thomas said, his voice steady, “I’m not asking her to choose. She’s already chosen. She chose London, and she chose me. But I know that means she’s losing you, and I know that costs her more than she’ll ever say. So I’m asking for your blessing, not your permission. I’d rather have both, but I’ll take the blessing if that’s all you can give.”

Arthur stared at him. The clock ticked. Maggie’s mother had stopped wringing her hands; she was watching her husband with an expression Maggie couldn’t read.

“You said you’d take her if I withhold it?” Arthur said.

“I said I’d take the blessing if that’s all you can give. But I’d marry her regardless, sir—not because I don’t respect you, but because I love her. And I believe she loves me.” Thomas’s voice softened slightly. “I can’t promise you I’ll keep her safe. Nobody can promise that in this city, in this war. But I can promise you I’ll spend every day trying to make her happy. And I can promise that when this is over, I’ll build her a house with my own hands if I have to—a home she can be proud of.”

Arthur’s jaw worked. He uncrossed his arms, picked up his glass again, and took a long drink. When he lowered it, his voice was rougher than before.

“You’re a fool,” he said. “Both of you are fools. Staying in this city while the bombs keep coming, while there’s a way out, a way to safety.” He looked at Maggie finally, and she saw something in his eyes she hadn’t seen in months—a crack in the flint. “You’re my daughter. You’re all I have left of your brother, and you’re asking me to leave you behind.”

Maggie rose and crossed to him. She took his free hand, the one not holding the glass, and squeezed it.

“I’m not asking you to leave me, Dad. I’m asking you to let me stay. It’s different.”

He looked down at their hands. For a moment, she thought he might pull away. Then his fingers closed around hers.

“Different,” he repeated. He let out a breath, long and slow, and looked at Thomas. “You’ll take care of her. You’ll give her a home. You’ll make her happy.”

“I will, sir. On my life.”

Arthur nodded once, sharply. Then he released Maggie’s hand, picked up his glass, and raised it in the direction of Thomas and then of his daughter.

“Then you have my blessing,” he said. “God knows you’ll need more than that, but you have it.”

Rose let out a small, strangled sob, and then she was crossing the room, pulling Maggie into a fierce embrace, then releasing her just as quickly and turning to Thomas with her hands outstretched.

“Welcome to the family,” she said, her voice trembling. “Welcome, welcome—oh, you poor thing, look at you, you need feeding up. When did you last eat a proper meal?”

Thomas laughed—a real laugh, surprised out of him. “The hospital food is not what I’d call proper, Mrs. Hollis.”

“Rose. Call me Rose. And I’ll have a stew on by six, wait and see. You’ll stay for supper—you will, won’t you? You can’t turn down a Hollis supper, not after you’ve asked to marry into the family.”

Thomas looked at Maggie, and her eyes were bright with tears she refused to let fall. He smiled.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Rose.”

Maggie stood between her mother and her intended, her father’s hand on her shoulder, and for one strange, fragile moment, the war seemed very far away. Then the air-raid siren began to wail from the post at the end of the street—a long, rising cry that cut through the thin window glass and turned the afternoon to ice.

Arthur’s hand tightened on her shoulder. Rose looked at the window, then at Maggie, her face gone pale.

“They’re early today,” Rose said quietly.

Maggie looked at Thomas. He was already reaching for his cane, trying to stand, his jaw set.

“You’re not going anywhere,” she said firmly, pushing him back down into the chair. “You’re on leave. You’re hurt. You’re staying here with us, in the shelter, and that’s an order.”

Thomas opened his mouth to argue, and she kissed him, quick and fierce, silencing him.

“Stay,” she whispered. “Please. For me.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then nodded slowly. She turned to her father.

“Dad, take Mum to the shelter. I’ll bring Thomas.”

Her father didn’t argue. He took Rose’s arm and steered her toward the back door, and the sound of the raid grew louder overhead, the first distant crump of bombs falling somewhere to the east. Maggie helped Thomas out of the chair and through the kitchen to the cellar door. He leaned on her, heavier than he looked, and she bore the weight.

As they descended into the damp, crowed dark of the shelter, she heard her mother praying in a low murmur and her father’s gruff voice answering in a rumble she couldn’t make out. Maggie settled Thomas onto a bench, sat beside him, and took his hand.

The bombs were coming closer now, ripping the sky apart over the East End. But in the cramped dark, with Thomas’s hand in hers and her family around them, she felt strangely, impossibly safe.