Читать книгу Across the Mersey - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 11

FIVE

‘Grace, what’s wrong, love?’

Jean lifted her hands from the soapy washing-up water, where she had been washing the cutlery, whilst Grace did the drying. It was a task they always shared, and one Jean looked forward to because it was one of the few occasions during her busy week when she and her elder daughter had time on their own to chat properly.

She’d been looking forward to hearing all about the Tennis Club dance and had expected Grace to be in the happiest of moods now that she knew she could do her nurse’s training but instead her normally sunny-natured daughter was quiet and withdrawn, and had barely said a word.

‘Nothing’s wrong, Mum,’ Grace fibbed uncomfortably. She had hardly slept, and when she had she had ended up dreaming about the silk dress, waking up with a start, her heart pounding. Why had she been so stupid and … and dishonest? As well as her dread about telling the salon manager, she also felt bitterly ashamed of herself.

‘Nothing’s wrong? Then why have you been drying that plate for the last five minutes is what I’d like to know. Come on, love, you can tell me.’ Jean hesitated. It wasn’t in her nature to criticise others, nor to talk about them behind their backs, but when it came to her children her maternal instincts came first, and she wasn’t having her Grace made unhappy by something that her sister or one of her family might have said to her.

‘If summat was said or done last night to upset you …?’

Her mother’s sympathy was too much for Grace to bear. She put down the plate she had been drying, her face crumpling.

‘Oh, Mum, I’ve done the most dreadful thing. I’m that ashamed of meself. I don’t know what came over me. Ruined me whole life, I have. You and me dad will never forgive me.’

Jean’s heart turned over and then lurched painfully into her ribs. Grace was normally a sensible girl who knew what was what and right from wrong. She’d made sure of that. Accidents happened when young people fell in love, but Jean didn’t want any of her children saddled with an unexpected baby on the way before they’d said their vows in church. What she’d never expected, though, was that her Grace would turn out to be the sort that let a lad she wasn’t as good as engaged to, at the least, persuade her into doing what she shouldn’t.

Sam would be heartbroken. He thought the world of his children and was that proud of them, even if he didn’t always let them know that. It would be the drink, of course – that and the excitement of mingling with Bella’s posh friends. Jean’s heart swelled with maternal indignation as she thought of her daughter being plied with drinks and then taken advantage of by some young chap.

Torn between venting her shocked despair and wanting to comfort her daughter, there were a hundred things she wanted to say, but in the end the only thing she could say was, ‘Oh, Grace.’

‘I’m so sorry, Mum.’ Grace was crying in earnest now. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have done it but Susan had gone to so much trouble, even though I’d told her that I couldn’t do it and that it was wrong, even though she said that everyone borrows clothes from the salon on the quiet, even the manageress. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She’s been a good friend to me, but I knew the minute I put it on that I shouldn’t have done.’

Jean listened to Grace’s hiccuped muddled words and felt as though a weight had been rolled off her heart. Her daughter hadn’t gone and done what she shouldn’t with some lad. But then hard on the heels of her initial relief came the shock of realising just what Grace had done.

‘You went to the dance wearing a dress from the salon that you’d no right to be wearing?’

Miserably, Grace nodded her head. She could hear the scandalised disbelief in her mother’s voice.

‘Grace, that’s stealing.’

‘It didn’t seem wrong the way Susan talked about it. She said that everyone did it.’

Jean was angry now, her anger fired as much by relief that she didn’t have to worry about Grace getting herself into the kind of trouble no mother wanted her daughter to be in, as by her dismay at what she had done.

‘Never mind what someone else said. If this Susan told you to lie down in the road in front of a bus would you do it? Me and your dad have brought you up to know what’s right from what’s wrong.’

‘I know that, Mum. But … well, Susan was that determined I was going to wear it. She said that no one would know and that she would put the dress back for me on Monday morning but it got torn when Bella stood on it and now … I’ll have to tell the manageress what’s happened and ask her if I can buy it with me staff discount.’

Jean was horrified at what Grace had done. It ran counter to everything she and Sam had taught their children, and she knew that Sam would be even more disappointed in Grace than she was herself.

‘Well, I can’t help you out paying for it, Grace, and I wouldn’t do neither. What you’ve done is very wrong.’

‘Yes, Mum.’

‘How much will it cost?’

‘Seven guineas,’ Grace told her in a small voice.

‘Seven guineas!’ Jean went over to the table and sat down on one of the chairs.

‘I thought I’d ask if I could have two shillings taken out of me wages every week until I’ve paid for it.’

‘But you won’t be having any wages. Not with you doing your nurse’s training.’

Grace’s eyes welled with fresh tears. ‘I can’t do that now, Mum, not with this frock to be paid for. It serves me right, I know that, and I’ve only myself to blame.’

Jean looked at her daughter’s downbent head. She knew how much doing her nurse’s training meant to her and her heart ached for her. But Grace was quite right, the dress – and her ‘crime’ both had to be paid for. Even so …

‘Oh, love.’

Her mother’s soft words and warm hug brought fresh tears to Grace’s eyes.

‘I wish I could help you but—’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to do that, Mum, even if you had the money.’ Grace stepped back from Jean and lifted her head determinedly. ‘I’ve made me bed and now I’ve got to lie in it. There’s no one to blame for this but meself.’

Jean said nothing. Privately she could think of at least two people who probably shared as much of the blame as Grace although they would get away with it scot-free. One was this Susan she worked with, and the other was her own sister for making Grace feel she wasn’t good enough to meet Bella’s posh friends wearing her own clothes.

‘Even if I could pay for the dress, Mum, I’d probably still not be able to go ahead with me nursing. The hospital will want a reference from Lewis’s. I can keep on with me St John Ambulance work, though. Alan’s cousin was ever such a nice chap. Came with me all the way from Wallasey, even though I’d said there wasn’t any need,’ Grace told her, putting on a deliberately cheerful voice.

Jean frowned. ‘I thought your cousin Charlie was going to bring you home.’

She had been in bed but awake, waiting for the sound of Grace’s key in the lock last night, and it had never occurred to her to ask how her daughter had got home, since she had assumed that Charlie had made sure she was safely delivered.

‘So did I, but I’m glad Charlie didn’t really because he’d had ever such a lot to drink. Auntie Vi and Uncle Edwin came for Bella and Alan.’

She would have something to say about the way she’d treated Grace, the next time she saw her twin, Jean decided. Fancy leaving her to make her own way home. She would never have done anything like that if their positions had been reversed. But that was it, wasn’t it? In Vi’s eyes Jean and her family were second class and unimportant, just as Sam had told her.

‘Give us the dress then, so that I can get it back on the rail before Mrs James gets in.’

Grace shook her head. She had met up with Susan as arranged a couple of streets away from Lewis’s.

‘It got torn at the dance,’ she told Susan. ‘I’ve decided that I’m going to own up to having borrowed it to Mrs James and ask her if I can buy it with me staff discount.’

Susan looked horrified. ‘You can’t do that. She’ll never let you, and we’ll both be out of a job.’

‘I’ve got to do it, Susan, but don’t worry I won’t say anything about you. My getting it torn wasn’t your fault.’

‘Give it here,’ Susan demanded, grabbing the bag from Grace before she could stop her. ‘You’ll be done for if you own up to having borrowed it. I’ll put it back just like I said and—’

‘But it’s torn and—’

‘Well then, we’ll just have to pretend that a customer did it, won’t we? Look, Grace, Mrs James will never believe that you took it into your head to borrow it on your own. She thinks a lot of you, she does. I reckon she’ll be questioning the lot of us before you can say, “Here’s your cards” and there’s not one of the girls working in the salon who’s going to want that. No, the best thing for everyone is if I put the frock back and we say nothing. With a bit of luck it could be weeks, maybe months, before anyone comes in and tries it on, especially if I put it right at the back of the wardrobe.’

Grace shook her head ‘Susan, I can’t do that. It’s dishonest and—’

‘Well, you won’t be doing it, will you? It’s me wot took it and me wot will get into trouble, you know, not just you. Anyway, you won’t be able to say anything to Mrs James today. It’s her day off – remember? Come on, we’d better get on our way otherwise we’ll be late.’

Grace had had the most dreadful morning, jumping with nerves every time anyone came anywhere near the salon and now Rosemary, who was in charge in the manageress’s absence, had sent her to the small back sewing room ‘for a rest’ because she looked so poorly.

Susan had urged her to have a cigarette to calm her nerves, but smoking it had made her feel even sicker, and so she had stubbed it out. She wasn’t a big smoker at the best of times.

The door to the sewing room burst open and Susan came in, her face flushed with excitement and her eyes sparkling.

‘You’ll never guess what’s happened. A chap has just come in and bought that ruddy dress.’

‘Bought it? A man? But how? What about the tear …?’

‘Asked to see Mrs James, he did, at first. Then when I told him that she wasn’t in, he said he’d come about a dress. Described the green silk to a T, he did an’ all. You should have seen his face when I told him that it was hanging up in the closet. “The frock is still available for purchase?” he asked me, ever so posh, like. “Of course it is,” I said back.’

‘Susan …’

‘Offered to go and get it for him to have a look at too, I did. Of course I didn’t show him the bit wot got torn.’

‘Susan …’

‘Told me to wrap it up for him and he paid cash. Ever so good-looking, he was. Pity he’d got his leg in a plaster mind … Here, what are you doing?’ she demanded indignantly when Grace sprang from her chair and ran to the door.

Seb. It just had to be him, Grace felt sure, but where had he gone? Was he still in Lewis’s or had he left? She ran all the way down the dark cold staff stairway, and out into the street. Lewis’s main entrance was on Ranelegh Street so she ran round the corner of the building, heading for those doors to ask the uniformed doorman breathlessly if he had seen a man leaving with his leg in plaster and carrying a Gown Salon box.

‘His leg in plaster, you say?’ The doorman was a veteran from the Great War and a bit hard of hearing. ‘We’ll be seeing plenty of them before too long, and worse an’ all, if you was to ask me.’

Grace tried not to feel impatient. She looked up and down the busy street and then across the road, shading her eyes from the sun, and then felt her heart turn over as she saw Seb walking into a café further down Ranelegh Street.

Thanking the doorman, she ran across the road, dodging the traffic, just managing to catch up with him as he opened the café door.

The moment he heard her calling his name he turned towards her.