This was contemporary to the Womans Magazine stories  - Two and One Make Three, and Cats are Useful Things, and I sometimes wonder if they were informed by her experience volunteering at the local Mothercraft and Infant Welfare Centre or perhaps from an individual she knew?

THERE IS A TIDE

A Complete Story by Doris M Holden

When the childless Firths relieved the impecunious Robinsons: of their latest baby, the arrangement was satisfactory to both parties. True, Mrs. Robinson shed a tear or two at parting, but she was a philosopher and consoled herself by the thought that it was  better to lose one than all. Unless she got back to work at the earliest moment, the chances were that they all would starve. She had long ceased. hoping that Robinson would find work, and there were seven small Robinsons clamouring to be fed. So she shrugged her shoulders and wiped away her tears, taking up the burden of filling those seven mouths. 

As for Mrs Firth, she held the baby tight, and dropped surreptitious — kisses on its downy head.

 “It’s really ours isn't it?” she asked her husband, as she placed the little thing in its new cot and looked round the bright nursery that had been made ready for it. “She need never know that she isn’t ours”.

Mr. Firth looked doubtful.

I think we ought to tell her, dear," ho said, “the truth might come out later and it would be much of a shock to the child.”

 "But why should it come out, if we have properly adopted her?" 

“These things do come. out, dear, in all sorts of ways.” 

“But I want her to be ours, Robert. I want her to think of me as mother, not as a horrid adopted parent.” 

She dropped on her knees by the cot and touched the soft check of the baby. Robert was moved. It was rough luck on Brenda, who loved children so, that there was no chance of her having any; it would be cruel to spoil her happiness now that she had taken such a fancy to this baby. Manlike, he temperised. 

“We needn’t worry about it yet. Wait till she can talk, and we will decide what to do when she is big enough to understand.” 

So Eileen Robinson became Eileen Firth and, with the cheerful unconcern of babyhood, accepted her now mother without question, while Brenda found such joy in her that she ceased to remember that she was not hor own.

"She’ll, have to be told now,” said Robert, when Eileen was nearing five and the question of school arose, but Brenda was quick to oppose it. 

"Not now, Robert,” she said, “It is such a big experience for a child to be going off to school for the first time. Think what she has to face now scenes, new people, the beginning of a grown-up Iife. It would be cruel to upset her home background just now, poor mite. Watt a bit till she has settled down," 

So they waited, and as so often happens when one puts off, the right moment never came. Certainly neither Robert nor Brenda made any effort to find it. As Eileen grew to Little girlhood, Robert found her a real comrade and cheerfully passed to his wife the responsibility for  finding a desirable moment to break the news, a responsibility which Brenda, so cheerfully, put on one side. For to her the baby had meant everything. She lived in and for Eileen, watching with pride her progress from kindergarten to “real. school", entering with delight into all her doings, listening to stories of feud and quarrel, of adoration and despair, sharing the thrill of success, and sympathising lavishly in disaster. The great moment of the day for her was half-past four, when Eileen came in for tea. Luncheon was a hasty meal, with Eileen flying in late, or hurrying back early, desperately anxious about clean frocks for tennis, or lost shoes for dancings but tea was another matter. That should be taken at leisure and Brenda loved to prepare the little cakes that Eileen loved, working long over the decorations in anticipation of that cry: 

“Mum, you do make the most marvellous cakes. I’m going to ask Phyllis end Tubby to tea they'll be thrilled.!”

Brenda's cook tried at first to take the matter into her own hands but without success. 

"I love doing it, Bridget,” she protested, “It isn't that I doubt your ability - you've been with us too long for that -- but I do so love to surprise her when she Comes in.”

Eileen's birthday party was the talk of the class, for. Brenda spared no pains to ensure its success, and girl after girl wheedled an invitation to tea. Brenda, rejoicing in the girl's popularity, made them all welcome. She had feared that Eileen would miss the companionship of brothers and sisters, and so opened her house to any school friend. Not only was Eileen popular, but as she grew taller, she developed an attractive dignity and a quick brain which was the delight of her adopted father. Altogether the experiment had Justified itself over and over again, for Eileen was as much to the Firths as if she had been their own. And then without warning, the past rushed up to confront them. 

It was a cold and cheerless afternoon and Brenda, shivering a little, drew the tea-table nearer to the fire, and piled on more oak logs. Eileen would be cold coming in, she thought, the room must look bright and welcoming. So she passed to and fro, pulling tho curtains to shut out the grey sky, arranging the shaded lamp to light the table, and as she moved she sang softly to herself, a little crooning song of content.

“Hull, mum," said a cheerful voice at the door, causing her to look up suddenly, "Doesn't it all look lovely and cosy? I’m frozen stiff.”

Swinging her books on to a chair the girl moved to the fire, and dropped on the hearthrug, pulling off gloves and hat. The light flickered on her dark smooth head and gave a colour to her pale, sensitive face. 

 "There's nothing like a log fire is there?” she sighed, "It's so Comforting on a day like this,” She shivered a bit. “This sort of weather makes me think of toast and crumpets. Her eye fell. on the covered dish in the hearth and she stretched out a hand to lift the lid.

“Mum, you angel, it is crumpets.” She sprang to her feet, and cast herself impetuously upon Brenda. "If you only knew it, I’ve been thinking crumpets all the way home, to keep me warm. I believe you're a witch, Mum, and can read my thoughts." 

 ‘She kissed her quickly, and as quickly let her go, a little ashamed of her outburst, for Eileon’s kisses were rare. ‘Brenda, flushed and pleased, turned her attention to the teapot and there was silence awhile. Then casually, between mouthfuls, Eileen remarked:

“Miss Williams wants to send in the metric entries next wack... There's a form to fill up and we've to bring our birth certificates”. 

Brenda put her cup down so hastily that it rattled and nearly spilt.

 "Is 'that necessary, Eileen?” she asked, trying to make her voice unconcerned.

Eileen looked up a little surprised at the tone. 

“Of course it is, They have to be sure you are turned sixteen. It isn't any trouble is it?" she went on; catching the look on Brenda's face,” they say there's a place called Somerset House where they keep them all.”

“I believe there there is, '' replied Brenda, forcing a smile, while her world smashed down before her eyes. “Dad shall get it for you.” 

That night, when Eileen was in bed Brenda and Robert confronted each other, pale and harassed. 

“Why didn't I think of her birth certificate?” asked Brenda, over and over again, “I thought as we legally adopted her, she had our name? “

“So she has for all ordinary purposes,” said Robert, talking to gain time more than for anything else. "but she would be registered be as Robinson. It is different now, I believe since one of these new Acts was passed. You can re-register the child you adopt, but, of course, there  was none of that when we took Eileen. Still it might have been done afterwards. If I had only made enquiries, it might have been possible. I blame myself Brenda, I should have seen to it.” 

“Ah don"t,” cried Brenda,” it was all my fault. You told me long ago that she might find out, and I would not tell her. But now, oh Robert –" 

Long they talked, over and over and round and round the subject, but the fact remained that they dare not let that ‘birth certificate go to the school without telling Eileen what it revealed. One of them must do it and Brenda, knowing the fault her own, undertook the task. No longer must they walt for the right moment -- right or wrong, the moment must be found. 

“Perhaps she will take it well”, said Robert, reassuringly, “After all, we’ve done the best we could for her. Don’t worry, dear. Brenda managed a smile, and went u[stairs, to lie awake till morning preparing her words and predicting Eileen's answer, unaware that the interview would at once strike into channels of which she had not thought, bring questions for which she had not prepared.

It was perhaps part of her self-inflicted punishment that she broached the subject over the tea-table, even as she p[assed a dish of petite fours, made with infinite care and love.

“About that birth certificate, Eileen - father is getting it from Somerset House, but he ants to tell you something before you have it.

Eileen looked up, only slightly interested, and Brenda went on, with difficulty,

“When your - when Robert and I were married, we both wanted a child more than anything, and when I knew that one was coming, I felt that the most wonderful thing in the world had happened to me. But something happened , something went wrong - I cant  explain it all, it meant doctors and an operation. My baby was born dead and, when I was well again, they told me I could never have another. I went through a bad time , Eilenn, I was still not strong, and I did not want to get well. I made your - - er, Roberts life a misery, for nothing seemed worthwhile. I don't remember who first gave us the idea, but we decided to adopt a baby. We heard of someone who wanted a home for her baby as soon as it was born, and we took her. I wanted her to be all our own, so we never told her, and we loved her, Robert and I, as if she were our own.”her voice was very low and her eyes were fixed on her plate “Perhaps more,” she added, after a pause, because she was all we had.”

Eileen sat rigid, her hands gripped tight, and the silence lengthened between them. At last came her voice, queer and strained.

“So my  real mother was - was - I mean, she was not married?”

Brenda looked up quickly.

“Why, no , no,” she cried, a world of relief in her tone. Thank God, there was no stain of illegitimacy to explain away. “Your mother was married and had a family.”

To her horror she saw that she had lifted no burden, but rather added on. Very slowly, like a small child trying to puzzle things out, Eilen repeated her words.

“She was married… and had a family. Then, was my father dead?”

“Oh no, but he was out of work. He had been out a long time, they were very poor, your mother was doing daily work to keep the home going. She had so many to feed.” Brenda felt herself babbling on, trying, trying to find the word that would remove that look, but trying in vain. The horror deepened with each explanation.

“How many were there of them?”

“Six or seven, I think. It was almost more than she could do to feed and clothe them, she was glad to thinkthat the new baby would go to a good home and be loved.”

Again she had said the wrong thing, for almost mechanically Eileen repeated her last words.

“..And be loved.” Her head went up and she confronted Brenda.

“So she didnt love me herself? She didnt want me?”

“Oh, my dear, my dear,” grieved Brenda. “Of course she wanted you. She was trying to do the best for all of you.”

“But she kept the others? She didn't give them away,” retorted Eileen, a world of bitterness in her tone.

“It was almost more than she could do,” said Brenda, quietly, “she has to get back to work, to feed the others. If she had stayed at home to mind a baby, you would all have starved. It was because she loved you, that she wanted you to have the best.”

“You don't do your best for your baby by giving it away. You wouldn't have given your baby away, if it had lived, would you? I know you wouldn't however poor you were.”

Brenda found it hard to answer, and hesitated.

“She didn't care for me. She didn't want me.” Eileen’s face was hard. Brenda moved in silence to the hearth and sat on the rug, her face turned to the flames. It was kinder not to look at the girl while she wrestled with her insoluble problem. Minutes passed, and still Brenda sat there, conscious of the tense finger at the table and between them the silence grew into a tangible wall. At last, strangely dead and distant, came Eileens voice.

“If she wanted all the others , and kept them, although they were poor…” The voice quivered and died away, and then made a fresh effort.

“What was it about me that was different from the others? Was I wrong somewhere? Was there something the matter with me so  that she didn't like me?”

Brenda turned, and her face in the firelight showed drawn and aged. Carefully she schooled her voice.

“Darling, you mustn't think things like that. It is a terrible shock for you, I know, but try to understand that she only let her baby go because she thought it best for her. There was nothing wrong with you, you know it, really, for I've shown you the old photos - you were a beautiful baby.”

Desperately she tried to find the word that would comfort, but over teh tea-table the girl stared at her,  her white face blank and hard, her eyes like those of a hunted animal. Brenda’s voice trailed into silence as Eileen came to her feet, gher cahir grating harshly over the floor.

“I think I will go upstairs now. I would like to have a talk with – with”

“With Robert?” Put in Brend, hastily, Would the child not call them Father and Mother now?

“Yes, when he comes in. Perhaps he will tell me the truth about myself.”

Steadily she left the room, and her footsteps mounted the stairs. As the sound of a key turning in the lock came down to her, Brenda crumpled up on the on the hearth rug, her hands over her eyes.

Dinner was a silent meal, with Brenda and Robert making desultry conversation and Eileen sitting between them, very stiff and straight, her face like a mask. As they rose at the end, she drew herself up as if bracing herself for some ordeal and looking straight at Robert asked:

“Can I speak with you - alone?”

With a pitiful pretence that all was normal, Robert put his arm round the stiff figure.

“Of course, kid,” he smiled. “Come and tell me all your troubles. Mother will excuse us a little while.”

But no answering smile met his. It was clear that this was to be a business interview and Robert, realising it, can quickly to the point.

“Sit down,” he said, as he closed the door behind them and tool the seat at his desk. “Mother has told you that you are our adopted child. It is pretty bad, coming all of a sudden like this, and I blame myself that you did not know. You should have been told years ago, but we put it off. Mother so wanted to feel that you were really hers. She told you of the child that died?”

Brenda nodded, sitting straight in her chair, hands clenched in her lap. Robert leaned forward to put a hand over these tightly clenched ones, but drew back as he saw her shrink away and resumed his business attitude.

“There is something more that you want to know that she has not told you?” he asked, controlling his voice to an impersonal note.

Eileen nodded again.

“I am trying to understand,” she said slowly, her eyes fixed on her clenched hands, “exactly why my mother was willing to give me away, and I cant. I've seen the photos of me as a baby, and there does not seem to be anything wrong, but there must have been, If she kept the others, one more would not have made all that difference. I want to know…” her face came up and two dark eyes fixed on his with desperate entreaty – “I want to know the truth. Am I – not quite normal?”

It shook Robert out of his pose. In a moment his arms were round her.

“Eileen - Kid, you mustn't- I never dreamed you would think like that. I have always told you the truth, haven't I, Kid? Well, I assure  you that there was nothing wrong with you, there never has been. It was simply poverty, desperate poverty, nothing else.”

The rigid form relaxed not an inch and her face avoided his caress.

“Couldn't you have helped her then?” asked the cold voice. “She would not have needed what you have spent on me. It couldn't have been necessary for her to give away her baby.” A degree of emotion crept into her voice “Its like these Chinese stories you read to me, about the peasants who had to sell their girl children in famine time. It was horrible - - I could not forget it. – but I did not think it could happen, here in England; that it had happened to me.”

She rose as if to go then stopped.

“Mother did not tell me,” she said quietly, “who I am. Will you , please?”

Avoiding her eyes, Robert sketched a picture of th home they had visited, the lazy, shiftless father, the strenuous hard working mother, the brood of hungry youngsters, trying to make her ess the probl;ems Mrs Robinson had faced, trying to win sympathy for her. Through it all Eileen stood silent.As he finished, she nodded with a quiet “Thank you. “

There was a pause and then she asked:

“Is my mother still alive?”

Robert ran a hand over his head.

“Honestly, Kid, I don't know. It is seventeen years since we took you and I have not heard a word of them since. The others will all be grown up and scattered by now, and in any case they may have moved long ago.”

In hi h eart he hoped it was so, the farther off the shiftless Robinsons were, the better he would be pleased/ He dreaded the thought that some coarse lout, some shifty-eyed cockney might come and claim Eileen as sister. But this was not the time to mention such thoughts. They had shelved their problem twelve years ago, when it could all have been so easily explained, it was their punishment that it should challenge then now, at the worst possible time.

“Fools we were,” groaned Robert to himself, “ not to have told her at five. It would have meant nothing to her then.”

But Eileen was still waiting, one hand on the door as if ready for flight, and she had not finished with him.

“I want,” she said, with an obvious effort, “to see- my people.”

Robert bit back a protest. Confounded the child, after all they had done for her, not a spark of gratitude, but only a wish to see these Robinsons - so his thoughts ran, but as he watched her from the corner of his eye he saw her braced to meet opposition, and knew that one thoughtless word of his would send het out in search of her family. With a praiseworthy assumption of his business manner, he reached for pad and pencil.

“I ‘ll make enquiries,” he said, “and let you know. You can rely on me to tell you anything I discover.”

The tense form relaxed and an involuntary sigh of relief came from the girl. Robert, by the merest chance, had taken the right line. He kept his eyes on the paper, but he also gave an inward sigh of relief. It had been touch and go, he felt, he must warn Brenda to encourage , not oppose this desire to find the Robinsons: the matter of fact, calm acceptance of her wishes would help to rob the past of its glamour, to modify its tragedy.

With a scarcely breathed “Thank you” Eileen was gone and Robert, dropping his pencil, went in search of Brenda. He found her once more curled on the hearth rug and the lack of appeal she gave him made him drop at her side with comforting words.

During the days that followed, Brenda paid in full measure for the cowardice that had shirked the truth. Gone was their pleasant companionship, smashed at a word. Between her and her daughter was a barrier past which she could not get. Eileen treated her with the cool courtesy of a stranger, but behind it Brenda saw clearly the hurt bewilderment so skillfully concealed. Sensitive , keen, strung up by a term of hard work in preparation for her examination, Eileen had received the shock at the worst possible moment. That first strange doubt of her normality still lingered, it could not be killed by reassurances. Watching the girls face, set and pale, Brenda’s heart was torn for the misery she had inflicted.

As for Robert he grimly set out to fulfil his promise, but although it was easy to assure Eileen that her family should be found, it was not so easy to carry into operation.

His visit to their old home proved fruitless: they had left years before , and no near neighbour even remembered the name. He tried the school which the children might have attended, and at last traced the address to which they had moved. Here again he drew a blank, for they had left some ten tears before. A neighbour, however, could remember the family and filled a few of the gaps.

“Robinson, ‘e’s dead == got run over one night, the fool, comin’ ‘ome tight. Good riddance. I says. It made it ‘ard for ‘er, but then ‘e werenit much use when ’e was there. Kathie was at work, and Maud, they ‘elped to keep things going. The boys? I dunno. ‘Eard as one joined the Army.”

From one to another went Robert, following up stary scraps of information, till at last, in a neat house in Balham, he ran to earth Katherine Frost (Nee Robinson), wife of a baker’s roundman and mother of a small daughter.

It took some time for Robert to identify himself. To Kathie, at ten, the coming and going of a baby had seemed of no importance, and she could scarcely remember the episode. At last a stray memory awoke and she smiled:

“Come in,” she said, leading him into the little parlour. 

“It seems funny, dont it, to find you’ve got a sister you cant remember. What is it she wants of us?”

Sudden alarm came to her face.

“You don't want us to have her back, do you?” she asked. “Bill’s had his wages cut, and there’s the baby and all.”

Robert smiled reassuringly .

“We can't spare her,” he said, and went on to tell of the shock that Eileen had received when she found that her mother had given her up.

Kathie nodded wisely, holding her little daughter closer and Robert, surprising the secret caress, bent forward and talked long and earnestly, Kathie listening with close attention. When he rose to go, he shook her hand with real feeling, and she smiled as she saw him to the door.

“It will be all right,” she promised him, “you can trust me to help you through. Iguess I know what your wifes feeling now.”

That night, as they sat at dinner, Robert said in a casual tone:

“I met your eldest sister today, Eileen,” she was asking about you. Would you care to go over and have tea with her on Saturday? She could answer all your questions.”

Eileen gasped, but no words came. Brenda, carefully primed beforehand, was the one to question.

“Would that be Katherine?” she asked. “She must be quite a woman now. Is she married?”

“Yes, and very happy. She has one small daughter, a dear little thing, and would like Eileen to see her niece.”

“My niece?” breathed Eileen, and looked enquiringly at Brenda.

“I should like you to go,” she answered smiling, “It’s quite an experience to be an aunt.”

Eileen tried to reply, gulped , and hastily left the table.

The little house at Balham, always as neat as a new pin, took on an added shine for Saturday afternoon. The best china was laid out, home made cakes crowded the table and the baby, in spotless frills and pink ribbons, cooed a welcome. Tio Eileen, standing on the doorstep in an agony of shyness after a journey during which she had visualised everything from a cellar to an attic, the little house presented a picture of a real home. Kathie, with a motherly manner, welcomed her in, and the baby provided the link that banished shyness.

“Bill won’t be in till late,” said Kathie, “they are are always late of a SAturday, worse luck. Not that we could get out much now, unless we took her along, and I don;t hold with taking baies to the pictures and such, do you?”

Eileen gravely agreed, wondering that the ten years between them should seem so much - she still at school and Kathie a worker since fourteen and a married woman of five years’ standing. Over the tea table the sisters talked with greater ease. Then suddenly, Eileen put the question which had been throbbing in her head for days.

“Will you tell me about my - about our mother?”

“Mother?” said Kathie, she paused a moment and then said slowly: “She is dead you know.”

“I didn’t know,” replied Eileen. “Will you tell me about her?”

“She was great, Mother was. Dad, he never was up to much, drank, you know, and never kept his jobs. I always remember him when I was a kid, sitting about the place and smoking. Ma it was who kept things going. Whenever he got out of work, she’d go out cleaning - give us all our breakfast first, and fix our dinner for when we go it, then she’d go off all day sometimes - - evenings too. There were seven of us, took some feeding. I got a job soon’s I was fourteen and brought in a bit, and then our Maud started, but Ma had to keep going all the time. She used to say sometimes  she’d got a bit of a pain, like, but she never complained, Ma didn’t. When I got a bit older I used to notice sometimes how she’d sit down all of a sudden with her hand to her side, beautiful ever I spoke she’d be up again. Kept the place beautiful she did – it’s she taught me how to make a place look homelike.”

Kathie looked proudly round her neat, cheerful room,

“Was she really ill?”

“Terribly. She fell down in the kitchen one day, and when they got her to Hospital the doctors said it was a miracle that she’d kept going so long. “That mother of yours is a heroine’ the doctor he said to me.”

“And what did you say?”

“Say? ‘You don’t have to tell me that’? Sys I, ‘I could have told you that myself.’ He let me see her, all white and pale. Didn’t last long, she didn’t. I was there at the end. It’s queer – I hadn’t thought of it till this very minute – but she said something about you, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”

“About me?” Eileen leaned forward, tense and eager.

“Let me think.. I want to get it right. Something she siad, sort of thinking of us all in turn. I’ve done my best for you all?” she says, “There's you and Maud, you are all right, and Jim, he’s got a job… you and Bert, and sort of stopped to think as if she was counting them up. “There’s Phil,” she said (He’s the one that died) she’ll be waitin’ for me, and my little baby” (that’d be youMay be I’ll see her too, She looks at me kind of bothered: I done my best for her too, didn’t I, Kathie?” she says. Me, I didn’t know quite what she meant, I’d forgot about you, but I pats her hand and says: “Yes , Ma, you done your best for us all.”

Katie’s voice shook and she rose abruptly to her feet. AS she did so, the horror of darkness which had surrounded Eileen rolled away, and her head went down on her arms among the tea things. With quick understanding, Kathie seized the baby and thrust it into her lap.

“Here,” she said, “hold her a bit for me, while I clear the things.” and taking the tray, she vanished into the scullery, where she rattled china at the sink in tasteful oblivion.

Brenda and Robert, waiting in silent fear, heard the front door open and braced themselves for what was to come. As the footsteps advanced Brenda gripped her husband’s arm, and her face quivered.

“I can’t bear it if she still feels bitter,” she faltered, and lifted her eyes to the door.

RAdietn faced, with a softness born of experience, Eileen faced her, and their eyes met. There was much to be told, but not now: it was too deep, too near, too intimate. Tossing her hat on a chair, the girl dropped on the rug and held out her hands to the blaze.

“Nothing like a log fire, is there?” she smiled, and with gentle hands pushed away Roberts swinging foot.

“Must your big feet take up all the fire, Dad?” she asked.

Robert rumpled her hair while he gave the time honoured response,

“Mayn’t the man what pays for the fire warm his own toes?” but over her head he exchanged with Brenda a look which gave heartfelt thanks to the powers above, and their eathly agent Kathie, for great mercies vouchsafed.

Doris' Correspondence with Weldons Bazaar for this story

The final published magazine story (My photographs of the original magazine publication):