Bewildered for a moment, Ruby Blakeley opened her eyes and looked at the alarm clock, before blinking hard and trying to focus on her friend.
‘Oh that’s lovely, Gracie, I’m pleased for you …’ she groaned, her voice thick with sleep.
‘Pleased for me? Come on Ruby Rubes, you can come up with something better than that! I’m getting married, I’m going to be Mrs Donnelly …’ Gracie sat on the edge of the bed and bounced up and down like a child on Christmas day.
‘I will, I promise, but do you mind if I run round the room with you in the morning? I’ve got to be up and working downstairs in a couple of hours and it’s just me, myself and I because you have the morning off, and there are guests who want breakfast really early.’
‘Oh sod the guests! Just take one little peek at the ring and then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.’ She shook Ruby’s shoulder and laughed.
Bleary-eyed, Ruby peered at the hand in front of her face. ‘That’s very pretty and well chosen, lovely …’
She smiled again at her friend and blew a kiss before tugging the eiderdown right up over her head.
‘Okay, I’ll leave you to your beauty sleep, you miserable cow, but in the morning we’ll dance round the room and celebrate – whether you like it or not!’ Gracie laughed as she switched the light off again and skipped out of the room.
Still smiling, she went through into the living room, kicked her high heels off and curled up on the sofa. She stared down at the small but perfect twinkling diamond ring on her finger and sighed. Gracie had often imagined the moment she would be proposed to, but she hadn’t expected that Sean Donnelly, the young man she’d known for so long, would go down on one knee in the middle of the ballroom at midnight on New Year’s Eve. She had thought they were just out together to celebrate the New Year.
She thought about that moment again, the special moment when she had realised that Sean was asking her to be his wife and smiled to herself. The proposal had certainly been romantic and he had timed it to perfection. How could she possibly not want to marry a man like that? Gracie reached a hand out, pulled a cushion over from the chair opposite, put it under her head and started mentally planning her new life. By the time she dozed off she had already chosen her wedding dress, picked a honeymoon destination, fantasised about her first proper home and named her first baby, boy or girl. Her life was finally going in the direction she had always wanted it to and she was more than content with it. She was content with the thought of being married to Sean Donnelly and happy at the thought of having his children. He had said he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and that was all she had ever wanted from a man.
Several hours later she awoke to find Ruby standing at the end of the sofa, holding a tray that was formally laid out for morning tea with a lace tray cloth, the best china and a selection of fancy biscuits.
‘Just look at you,’ Ruby laughed, ‘sleeping on the sofa, with your new dress screwed up like a dishrag. Good job Aunt Leonora can’t see you looking like that; she’d have a pink fit.’
She put the tray down on the table in front of the sofa and sat down alongside her friend. ‘And this, Miss McCabe, is to celebrate your engagement in the way of Leonora Blakeley; it’s in her honour. This morning we’re going to be ladylike and take formal morning tea.’
Gracie looked at the tray and laughed. ‘Oh that is so nice of you! Leonora would be so proud of you. I think she might even have overlooked my dishrag dress because she’d be so pleased I’m going to be respectable at last; mind you, she mightn’t have been impressed with lipstick on the cushions. Sorry, Rubes! I was just so excited I couldn’t sleep properly. I kept dozing off then waking up and wondering if I’d dreamt it.’
‘You are overexcited! Why don’t you go to bed now?’ Ruby smiled. ‘It’s only nine o’clock; I’ve just come up for a quick break to see how you are, and to look at your ring in daylight. There’s not so much to do now with only two guests left. The others have checked out, Henry’s just driven them to the station.’
‘I feel guilty leaving you down there on your own …’
‘Well don’t, it was your morning off anyway. I can manage perfectly well for today. I’ve got Henry to help, bless his little cotton socks. He may be getting on a bit but he mucks in. But now, the ring, please!’
‘Okay, here it is …’ Gracie held her hand up and waved it around. ‘Isn’t it lovely? And it fits perfectly.’
‘It is lovely, Gracie, it must have taken him ages to save up for it. Did you know he was planning the grand proposal?’
‘God no, it was such a shock! I mean I knew he liked going out with me but a marriage proposal and a ring? I’m still stunned, especially as he must have been planning it to have the ring ready.’
Ruby looked at Gracie thoughtfully as she chose her words. ‘I don’t want to be like Aunt Leonora, really I don’t, but are you sure this is what you really want, to spend the rest of your life with Sean Donnelly? I know you like him – but marriage? That’s forever, missy.’
‘Oh look, I know now that Prince Charming isn’t going to appear on the doorstep and carry me off to his castle; there just isn’t one of them out there for me. Sean loves me, he’s good to me. I know you think he’s a bit boring but he’s no wide boy either, is he?’ Gracie shrugged her shoulders and smiled. ‘We both know he’s not exactly the life and soul of the party and he’s definitely no screen idol but he works hard and he’ll look after me, I’m sure.’
‘Are you sure you’re not getting carried away on the proposal? Is he the right one?’ Ruby asked with an edge to her tone. ‘The right one you’ve been dreaming about?’
‘Well, he’s the nearest to the right one that I’m going to get!’ Gracie laughed. ‘Anyway, I like him a lot – and look where that stupid hearts and flowers fantasy got me last time. Look where it got me
and
you … I know you’ve sort of worked your life out and you and Johnnie are going to be together forever. You’ve got
your
right one, but me?’ Gracie shook her head. ‘No, Sean is my chance. I’m nearly twenty-eight and I don’t want to end up like Leonora, forever looking out to sea and wishing for something that just ain’t ever going to happen. Life isn’t like it is in the cinema, is it?’
Gracie smiled to take the edge off her words; she understood exactly what Ruby was trying to say. Over the years she’d known and been going out with Sean, Gracie had always joked that she was waiting for the right one to come along and whisk her off on a white charger. It had become a standing joke when they watched the people walking along the promenade.
‘Is he the right one?’ Ruby would ask. ‘Nope, not the right one …’ Gracie would smile. ‘But I’ll know him when I see him!’
Ruby reached out and touched her hand. ‘I’m sorry – you’re old enough to know what you’re doing. So if you’re sure then we have to arrange an engagement party … and then the wedding! Oh, this is going to be such fun! What sort of wedding do you want?’
‘Can’t afford an engagement party and a small and cheap wedding with none of my bleedin’ family there to wreck it would be just about right for me!’ Gracie said, only half-joking.
‘You can have the wedding reception here. And an engagement party as well. If you want to, that is, and if Sean wants to, of course,’ Ruby said warmly.
‘Oh, a wedding reception at Thamesview would be fantastic, Rubes. I’d love to have it here, my favourite place in the world!’
The two young women blinked back tears as they hugged each other tight, aware that a big change was ahead for both of them.
Ruby stood up. ‘Right, tea break over … Back to work I go; any plans for later?’
‘Sean’s coming round after his shift finishes at tea time, if that’s okay with you. We’ve got a lot to talk about. I only need an hour or so while he’s here.’
‘Of course it’s okay; this is your home as much as mine, silly. I’ll stay out of the way and give you some time together. Oh, and I hereby give you the whole day off in honour of your new status of engaged woman. Can’t have you slaving over a hot desk this afternoon, can we?’
As Ruby turned to leave the room Gracie called her back. ‘Rubes? I nearly forgot, will you be my number one bridesmaid?’
‘Cheeky moo, I thought you’d never ask!’
‘You fibber, you knew I’d ask you! I wouldn’t want anyone else. Apart from Maggie, of course. I have to have Maggie.’
‘She’ll love that.’
As Ruby closed the door, Gracie grinned again and swung her legs back onto the sofa. She leaned back, closed her eyes and thought back over her enduring friendship with Ruby.
When Gracie McCabe and Ruby Blakeley had first met on the maternity ward in Rochford Hospital in 1946, they were just two teenage girls who had naively got themselves into trouble and then had to give up their illegitimate babies. The two distressed girls had quickly bonded on the ward but had then gone their separate ways to restart their lives; they’d promised to keep in touch, but at the same time they had both really wanted to pretend the previous few months of their lives had never happened. Although Gracie at nineteen was three years older than Ruby, she hadn’t known that at the time because as far as everyone in the hospital knew, Ruby was a young war widow having a legitimate baby.
In their separate miseries, neither of them could have foreseen that their chance meeting was actually going to be the start of a close and enduring friendship; one in which their lives would be so entwined they would become closer than sisters.
It had been a few weeks after leaving the hospital when Gracie had, on the spur of the moment gone to see Ruby and, away from the constraints of the maternity ward they had quickly developed their friendship; from then on, despite the circumstances of their initial meeting, they had both constantly thought themselves lucky to have met each other.
Ruby had been fortunate in that her baby girl Maggie was adopted by George and Babs Wheaton, the couple with whom she had been billeted when she was evacuated from London during the war, and she saw her often. Gracie had not been so lucky. She’d been sent to a mother and baby home, where she was constantly reminded of her sins and from where her baby, an unnamed little boy, was adopted by total strangers and lost to her forever. She had put on a brave face after the event; the wound was hidden from sight but the pain was still there. It was a constant ache in her heart that never really went away.
‘Happy?’ Sean asked that afternoon when they were both sitting on the sofa in front of the gas fire, arms entwined, unable to stop smiling. Gracie had spent the morning catching up on her sleep and getting ready for her new fiancé to arrive after his shift at work was over.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘And you? Mind, you’d better be. You can’t change your mind now! I’ve got the ring on my finger and I’ve said YES. You’re committed now, no jilting allowed …’ Gracie jabbed her elbow in his side and laughed.
‘Of course I’m happy and you’re right, we can’t be changing our minds now. Neither of us. It’s official – you’re going to be Mrs Sean Donnelly, you’re going to be my wife! But we need to let our families know, to make it truly official. Will your parents mind that I didn’t ask your father first? I should have done that, shouldn’t I?’
‘No, I’ve told you before; they really don’t give a monkeys what I do. It’s been a long time since I was part of the family. Anyway, I’m a grown woman. I don’t need to tell them what I’m doing.’
Gracie’s tone was casual as she tried to shut the conversation down but she was suddenly on edge. She didn’t want to think about her family at that moment and she certainly didn’t give any thought to their potential role in the engagement yet she sensed that now they were going to be married, Sean would want to know more about the rift between them than she was comfortable with.
‘But getting wed’s something special, so maybe now’s the time to be putting all that right. We’ll go and visit together so I can meet your parents and your sisters. All this time us knowing each other and then going out and I’ve not met any of them, not a single one …’ he paused and looked straight into her eyes. ‘I’m just wondering, you’re not ashamed of me, are you?’
Gracie smiled quizzically, unsure if he was joking or serious. ‘Why would I be ashamed of you? It’s more likely to be the other way round, you being a good God-fearing Irishman and me a lazy old lapsed who only goes to church for weddings and funerals. I bet your family will hate you marrying an English girl …’
‘Oh Gracie, my lovely girl, they’re going to welcome you with open arms. I’m the golden boy of the family, don’t you know, the only boy with four big sisters who all adore their baby brother. I can get away with anything – even marrying a naughty English girl who doesn’t go to mass anymore. Or confession. I’m betting you don’t go to confession either …’
He laughed and pulled her into him. ‘We’re going to have to change that, you have to confess all your wrong-doings.’
‘I don’t need to go to confession, I never do anything wrong. You know, we should tell your family about the engagement right now. Let’s write to them …’
Gracie jumped up and crossed the room to the small bureau, hoping she’d distracted him away from asking any more about her family.
‘Okay now, here’s what I think,’ Sean said. ‘We’ll write to my parents in Ireland as you say and tell them the news, and then on my day off next week we’ll go and visit with your family and break it to them together. They live out by the airport now, don’t they? Right on the bus route.’
Gracie could feel the guilty panic rising as memories of the past came to the forefront of her mind.
She knew her easy-going father would be no problem, but her mother was a different kettle of fish. Gracie wasn’t sure she could trust her not to sabotage the engagement by either deliberately or accidentally revealing her secret to Sean.
All Gracie had wanted from her parents was for the past to be buried and forgotten but her mother had never been able to forgive her for the shame she had visited on the family.
On the few occasions when they saw each other the woman couldn’t resist sniping away over her daughter’s illegitimate pregnancy. She simply couldn’t forgive her, regardless of the passage of time, and it was the reason Gracie had had so little to do with her parents. It was easier to forget about her long-lost baby when she wasn’t constantly confronted by her mother bringing it up.