Yes, Mama
From the author of four bestselling autobiographies and a number of equally successful novels, comes another moving tale.A triumph of innocence over hypocrisy…Alicia Woodman was born into a home that should have been filled with comfort and joy. Her mother Elizabeth was bright and vivacious, Humphrey Woodman was a prosperous businessman. But Alicia was not Humphrey’s child and he would have nothing to do with her, and before long Elizabeth, too, turned her back on her daughter.It was left to Polly Ford, widow of a dock labourer, to bring Alicia up, to teach her to say ‘Yes, Mama’ and to give the child the love she so desperately needed. In a hypocritical society full of thin-lipped disapproval, Alicia would learn that the human spirit can soar over adversity and that, though blood may be thicker than water, love is the most powerful relationship of all…
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HELEN FORRESTER
Yes, Mama
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd 1988
First published in Fontana Paperbacks 1988
Copyright © Helen Forrester 1988
Helen Forrester asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006174707
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007508235 Version 2016-12-30
ToNora Walton (Sylvia Poole)who was my friend when I mostneeded one.
‘The prejudices remain within society,within families and, above all, within the law.’
Virginia Ironside and Jane Horwood,
How can I explain to my daughter that
she isn’t a little bastard?
WOMAN magazine, November, 1986.
Contents
Title Page
Much to her mother’s annoyance, Alicia Beatrix Mary decided to be born on May 12th, 1886, during a visit to Liverpool of the dear Queen to open the International Exhibition of Navigation, Travelling, Commerce and Manufactures. On the day of Alicia’s slightly premature birth, the Queen was to drive down the Boulevard from Princes Park, on her way to St George’s Hall. As a result of Alicia’s arrival, her mother, Elizabeth Woodman, missed the chance of seeing her Sovereign.
Mrs Dorothea Evans, the wife of a Liverpool shipping magnate, had graciously invited Elizabeth to view the procession from her bedroom window, which faced the Boulevard. ‘If you wore a veil and a large shawl and came in a carriage, no one would realize your – er – condition. You could watch in absolute privacy from behind the lace curtains.’
Elizabeth had been thrilled by an invitation from such an eminent lady, who was herself to be presented to the Queen. She had looked forward to extending her acquaintance with Mrs Evans. She guessed that it would please Humphrey exceedingly if she were to make a friend of the wife of such an influential man – and Elizabeth knew that in the months to come, she would have to do a lot to mollify an outraged Humphrey Woodman, her husband of twenty-two years.
Between the painful contractions, as her forty-year-old body strove to deliver the child, she was consumed by anxiety, an anxiety which had commenced when first she knew she was pregnant.
Had Humphrey realized that the child was not his?
It was always so difficult to be sure of anything with her husband, she worried fretfully. He was so wrapped up in his multifarious business activities and the woman in the town whom he kept, that he rarely talked to his wife, never mind slept with her. But, of late, his usual bouts of temper had been so violent that she felt he must suspect her. And yet he had never commented on her condition.
Could it be, she wondered, that her huge skirts and swathing shawls had been a sufficient disguise, and that he had never realized her condition? She had found it difficult to believe, but she had still clung to the idea, hoping that she might miscarry. Now she prayed that, faced with a living child, he might use his common sense and accept it.
Peevishly, between gasps of pain, she commanded that the heavy, green velvet curtains be drawn over the ones of Nottingham lace. ‘The sunlight’s hurting my eyes,’ she complained to the midwife. Mrs Macdonald, a stout, middle-aged woman in an impeccably white apron and long, black skirt, sighed at her difficult patient and hauled the heavy draperies over the offending light. The huge, brass curtain rings rattled in protest.
‘I’ll need some more candles, Ma’am.’
‘Well, ring for them,’ panted Elizabeth.
‘Yes, Ma’am.’ Mrs Macdonald went to the side of the fireplace and tugged at the green velvet bell-rope.
