She had had great reservations that he would be able to persuade his family to accept her but it appeared that he had done so, even if they had agreed only reluctantly. His mother was so sweet-natured, so protected from life’s calamities she believed nothing but good could come of the love her son had found, despite the small irregularity of his bride-to-be’s past. His father, surprisingly, seemed to have seen something to admire in a woman who had achieved what Nancy had achieved, recognising, perhaps, a likeness to his own family’s beginnings decades ago. Josh had told her that his grandfather had been a simple handloom weaver who had had the vision and intelligence to know what the new power looms would mean and his foresight was to start the upward spiral of the Hayes family fortune.
Nancy was only too well aware that Millicent Hayes would not be so accommodating! She had made it plain right from the start that she was not ready to make Nancy’s life as wife to her brother an easy one. If she could cause trouble, she would, Nancy knew and though in those few weeks before the wedding she did nothing, as far as Nancy knew, to put a spoke in the wheel, which was running smoothly, she did not fool herself that this would continue.
In the weeks before the wedding Mrs Hayes, having taken to her son’s future bride, wished to introduce her and her family to her own dear friends who she was certain would feel the same way about her, but Nancy, being far too busy, she told Josh privately, with her new business, persuaded him to convince his mother to wait until they were married. She and Josh’s father, accompanied by an enthusiastic Millicent who could not wait to see her brother’s intended wife snubbed by all and sundry, had come home from Lytham and settled back at Riverside House. Mrs Hayes had wanted to send out invitations to those of her friends she wished to meet Nancy, those who were already bewildered by Josh’s wedding invitation, for who was this “Miss Nancy Brody” he was to marry? Like Mrs Hayes before them they had enquired of one another the history of a family called Brody, which sounded Irish to them, so was she some heiress from across the Irish Sea and, if so, where had Josh Hayes met her? It was a mystery, an exciting enigma and one which none of them would dream of missing and not one had refused his invitation to the wedding. Ever since Josh Hayes had adopted his own illegitimate son, and not only that but appeared to be exceedingly fond of him, they had wondered what kind of young lady would accept not only the boy, but a father with such strange ideas!
Dinner parties were therefore to be arranged to take place after they were married and for the first time since they had met four and half years ago Jennet and Nancy quarrelled.
“Well, I suppose we’d best get down to the dressmaker and order our dinner gowns,” she told Mary and Jennet. “Though I don’t suppose I shall need more than one in Lytham” – where she and Josh were to spend a few days after their wedding – “I shall, from all that Josh tells me, have to have several for later and so will you and Mary.”
This was the most wonderful opportunity for her sister and one she had always hoped for, not visualising anything quite so grand, perhaps, but where Mary might meet a man, a gentleman, who would measure up to the sweet-natured and well-educated young woman Nancy had made of her. She deserved a chance and though Mary was terrified of it she was also excited at the idea of moving in the society from which Josh came.
But if his family was as kind to her as he was then she knew she had nothing to fear. She was shy, but then Nancy had told her that shyness was considered to be a charming attribute among young ladies and she would do very well. Mary was seventeen or thereabouts, as far as Nancy could remember, and ready for marriage by the standards of those with whom she would mix. It was very unlikely that she would talk about their past and by the time the wedding was over everyone would know anyway, for Nancy had no intention of hiding where her roots were, nor how she had torn them up and transplanted them in sweeter soil. When she moved to Riverside House she would do all in her power to find a suitable husband for her sister, someone who would look after her, protect her, care for her as, she sadly admitted, had not been the case with Rosie.
She often thought of Rosie in those days before her wedding, brooding on where she could have got to. It was over two years since that appalling day when she had found her sister in the arms of the man who had brought Nancy down and by now, she was certain, Rosie would have a couple of children at her skirts, perhaps another growing in her body, for women like her had no choice in the matter. Was she still with Mick O’Rourke or, as seemed more likely, had he deserted her, for a man on his own can go much further than one with a woman and children at his back? Though she had told no one except Annie, who had found a woman who was willing to help her, a woman who would cause no curiosity in Angel Meadow, she had had enquiries made of the folk in Church Court on the whereabouts of Mick O’Rourke’s “woman”. Annie’s friend had met with blank stares, shrugs of the shoulders and a shaking of the head, even a mouthful of abuse from Eileen O’Rourke, who missed her son and blamed the bloody Brody girls, she hissed venomously, for his disappearance. Nancy had no idea what she would have done if she had found Rosie, for her sister had made it plain she wanted nothing to do with her, but surely she could have made Rosie’s life a bit easier, for there was no doubt in Nancy’s mind that it would be very, very hard indeed with no one but Mick O’Rourke to support her.
The quarrel with Jennet began, as quarrels do, over a chance remark of Nancy’s.
“Now, Jennet, my love, there is one of us who will have no need to feel out of place in the charmed circle of the Hayes acquaintances, for you are as well bred as any of them.” She put her arms about Jennet’s shoulders and gave her an affectionate hug.
“There will be no need of anything, Nancy, not even a new gown, for I’m not to come.”
Jennet was seated before the parlour fire sewing a little dress for Kitty, a pretty thing of fine muslin, tucked and ruched and embroidered, white on white with a pale pink satin sash, which she was to wear on Sunday when she was to be taken to Riverside House for afternoon tea in the nursery with Freddy. Nancy was to inspect the rooms she and Josh were to occupy, which Josh had told her consisted of a large bedroom with adjoining bathroom, a sitting room that she could, if she wished, decorate to her own taste, and a small room that was to be turned into a dining-room where they might, as a newly married couple, dine
à
deux
when they wished. All the rooms were on the first floor overlooking the gardens at the back of the house, the water meadows and the river, and where they might be completely private.
Now, as Jennet spoke, Nancy, who had been just about to leave the room, whirled round in astonishment.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m not to come to Mrs Hayes’s dinner parties, darling. You might as well know now, I suppose, but if you had any intention of introducing me to Josh’s family and friends then I must ask you to forget it. I would be out of place in such a society and—”
“You? Out of place! What bloody nonsense! I never heard anything so daft in all my life. Why, you
come
from their class. You, of all people, should feel at home in it. And besides, I need you.”
“Why?”
“To guide me through it. To show me the way.”
“Fiddlesticks! When did Nancy Brody ever need anyone to show her the way? You’ll sail through it. Even if they turn their noses up at you, which they might at first, you will only stick yours higher and tell them to go to the devil. You love a challenge, Nancy. A fight! But I don’t. I am content in this little house and with the work we do. I shall be only too happy to help you with the shop when it opens, but the rest of your life, with Josh, is . . . should not include me. I know you are hoping to further Mary’s chances, find her a good husband and that is as it should be. She is your sister, but I’m not and I don’t want a husband. I find the life I have here suits me admirably.”
“Well, Jennet Williams, I never thought to see you so ungrateful. After all we have done together as well.”
“What has that to do with anything? We shall continue to be together in our professional life. I shall come and take tea with the new Mrs Josh Hayes at Riverside and hope she will visit me in Grove Place but, as for the rest, I’m sorry, Nancy, I can’t.”
“You have disappointed me, Jennet. I imagined us sharing . . . well, not my married life, obviously, but the social side of it. I would have been glad of your support.”
“You will have your husband’s support and I shall always be here, with Annie and . . . and Mary, I suppose. When you are married you do not intend taking her to Riverside House, I presume.”
“No, of course not, but I intend including her in . . . in whatever they do there. I want her to mix with young people: Josh’s brother and his friends.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“I am not a girl, Nancy. I shall be twenty-four next birthday and have long since given up any idea of a husband and children, that’s if I ever had any, which I don’t believe I did. I am a spinster, one of life’s natural spinsters. I do not care for . . . for parties and such and though I shall be quite happy remaining your friend, indeed it would break my heart if . . . if we lost one another, I shall stay here.”
They had argued for an hour, silencing Annie and Mary in the kitchen to an appalled stillness, and even Kitty, sensing trouble, crept fearfully on to Annie’s comfortable lap, her refuge when she was upset.
But nothing Nancy could say to her would change Jennet’s mind and she had to be satisfied with it. This had taken place on the day Josh had informed her that his mother was eager to introduce her to her dear friends, adding that she was not to be nervous, for his mother had quite taken to her and his father approved of her, not, she suspected, as a wife for his son but because she had refused to let life grind her down.
“I am not nervous, Josh,” she had interrupted him quietly, “and though I don’t wish to upset you or your family I’ll tell you why.”
“Yes?”
“Though I’m sure your mother and I, and your father, I think, will get on, I don’t really care about anyone else. Your mother’s friends will not be a part of my life,
our
life, d’you see, and so whether they approve or not means nothing to me.”
The expression of tender concern on Josh’s face turned to one of frowning disapproval and she knew she had offended him. It meant more than she knew to Josh Hayes that the woman he loved should be accepted, that she should become a part of his world, his mother’s world and though he had assured her, and believed he meant it, that she should continue with her career, in his male mind and heart and perception of what a woman of his mother’s, and therefore his wife’s life should be, he fondly visualised afternoon calls, carriage drives, functions at which Nancy would shine as brilliantly as the moon on a cloudless navy blue sky, and lastly, children, which would lead her irrevocably to a life in her own home, his home. Jennet and Mary would be there to run her business, or
businesses
, as she insisted it would be in a few years’ time. He still hoped for this but if she was not to do her best to please his mother’s friends then the changeover would be that much more difficult.
He was wise enough not to pursue the conversation, believing, as men do, that when they were man and wife she would change her mind.
They were married on a cool, clear day in September. Nancy felt an almost enchanted need to start this day with as little haste as possible, to gaze about her, to take in deep breaths of the sweet, scented air that drifted from the nursery gardens at the back of Grove Place. She watched with delight as long-tailed swallows moved in sweeping flight across the pale sky and listened almost painfully as a blackbird sang its heart out from the cover of Mrs Denby’s sweet chestnut tree. She smiled serenely, knowing a great tranquillity of heart as Jennet helped her into the Hayes’ carriage.
Mrs Denby next door and her John had been invited, as good friends and neighbours of Annie’s, not only to the wedding but to the reception at Riverside House, much to Mrs Denby’s gratification and had already departed, but the rest of Grove Place was out in force to wave her off, their wide-smiling faces avid with curiosity. The eyes of the women drank in every detail of her gown which, she was well aware, they would be whispering to one another had cost a fortune, but then, they would tell one another, she was marrying a wealthy man to whom a few guineas meant nothing. They didn’t begrudge her, not a bit of it, they would say, but when you remembered where she had come from, since they all knew by now, it was like a miracle, wasn’t it?
Jennet, neatly and faultlessly dressed in her new gown, which she had reluctantly allowed Nancy’s husband-to-be to give her as a gift, sat beside her in the carriage. It was as though this special day had given Nancy a clear-sighted vision, not just of the specialness of the day but of everything on which her gaze fell. She was acutely aware of the hedges lining Bury New Road which were full of berries, hips and haws, elderberries and blackberries, all scattered among the bright crimson of bittersweet. Of the horse chestnut trees and the mighty oaks under which the carriage passed and which bore a plentiful crop of chestnuts and acorns. The neatly enclosed fields beyond the hedges dazzled her eye, still carpeted with the brilliant yellow of corn marigolds mixed with the deep scarlet of poppy. It was as though some benign being had laid a hand on this, her wedding day, making it almost unbearably beautiful, a setting in which her love for Josh Hayes, to be consecrated and consummated this day, was in its proper place at last.
St John the Evangelist Church stood at the rear of a row of houses on Bury New Road, reached by a narrow lane beside the parsonage. The lane was lined with sightseers, those who can’t resist a wedding, come to get a glimpse of the bride-to-be, standing shoulder to shoulder in the shade of the very old yew trees which are commonplace in country churchyards, no doubt due to their handiness when the yew foliage was cut as “palm” for Palm Sunday.