Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [60]
‘Aye, I can see him now sitting there, watching for me coming in. It’s a strange thing, you know, Jean, holding a little ’un and knowing that you’ve helped make it, knowing that you’ve helped give it life. It makes you feel that you can never stop worrying, never stop looking out for it, and at the same time it fills your heart with so much happiness that it could almost burst.’ Sam shook his head.
Jean said nothing. As a mother she knew all too well the feelings Sam was struggling to explain.
EIGHT
She wasn’t one little bit disappointed because Seb wasn’t here at the wedding – of course she wasn’t, Grace reassured herself. It was just that she would have liked to introduce him to her mother, in view of what that happened. But then again her mother had been preoccupied and on edge, looking worriedly at Luke, who had only arrived home this morning, after they had thought he wasn’t going to get leave, and with barely enough time to change into the morning suit Bella had insisted the groomsmen were to wear.
Of course her mother was disappointed that she hadn’t had time to talk to Luke properly; she was disappointed herself, Grace admitted. She had been looking forward to exchanging stories of what it felt like to live away from home for the first time with her brother.
She was finding her new life as a probationary nurse both exciting and nerve-racking and would have welcomed the opportunity to discuss with her family her apprehension about whether or not she was going to be good enough, but there just hadn’t been time.
‘That frock really doesn’t suit you at all, Grace,’ Lou told her as the twins came to sit down beside her.
It was true that the virulently bright pink sateen dresses with their puffed sleeves and gathered skirts were not at all flattering. Even the sweetheart necklines seem to have been cut in such a way that they gaped awkwardly.
‘At least Grace looks better in it than the other bridesmaid,’ Sasha defended their elder sister.
Poor Trixie, Grace thought sympathetically, their dresses might have been designed specifically to make the other girl look plain and gawky, and to make her hair look more gingery, in contrast with Bella’s wedding dress, which was so stunningly beautiful that it was no wonder that the whole church had seemed to be filled with a sigh of appreciation when Bella had walked down the aisle on her father’s arm.
Now the formalities of the marriage service were over, along with the wedding breakfast, and the guests were relaxing in the comfort of the Hotel Splendide’s banqueting suite, which was on the first floor of the building and reached via an ornate sweeping staircase.
The hotel had originally been the home of a wealthy ship owner, and was very grand, with portraits of ‘the family’ still adorning the hallway and the stairs. The ‘banqueting suite’ had originally been the ballroom, along with the withdrawing room beyond it, according to the hotel’s brochure.
It had been the withdrawing room in which the wedding guests had sat down at long trestle tables to a formal wedding breakfast of roast chicken with all the trimmings, followed by trifle and then cheese and biscuits, after which the guests had moved into the ballroom to dance to the music provided by the hotel’s resident pianist. The collection of tables and chairs, which were set out around the edge of the floor, the tables covered in pale pink damask tableclothes, were dwarfed by the room’s high ceiling and the gilded mirrors hanging on the walls.
‘Look out, here comes Bella,’ Lou warned her twin, the pair of them getting up as one to disappear, leaving Grace on her own with their cousin.
‘There you are,’ said Bella crossly. ‘You are supposed to be here to be my bridesmaid, Grace. And where’s Trixie? You’d think she’d be far more grateful that she’s been included. All she’s done is hide herself away in a corner. And as for Trixie’s parents; all they’ve done is sit with Alan’s parents. None of them has made any attempt to mingle. Daddy invited everyone from the council as well.