The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [93]
‘Oh, no! You don’t really think that could happen, do you?’ Ruthie protested, white-faced.
Jess shook her head. ‘She’s only winding you up, Ruthie. Mind you, she does have a point, so no anticipating them wedding vows or your wedding night, you think on. Just in case…’
Ruthie immediately went bright red and protested, ‘Glen would never ask me to do anything like that.’
The other girls exchanged looks.
‘Give over,’ Mel objected bluntly. ‘We all saw the way he was looking at you at the Grafton. I reckon he’d have carried you off to bed then if he thought he could have got away with it.’
When Ruthie struggled for the right thing to say, Mel carried on firmly, ‘There’s no call to look like that about it, anyway. There’s nowt wrong wi’ a lass and a lad feeling like that for each other. In fact, it seems to me that there’s more likely summat wrong when they don’t. Even doing it’s OK once you’re engaged, but you’ve got to make sure you don’t get caught out and left up the spout…You mustn’t let him get you pregnant,’ she explained in exasperation when Ruthie looked blankly at her. ‘And if he tells you that you won’t if you do it standing up then tell him to get lost, ’cos that doesn’t work. At least not according to my cousin Alison. A friend of hers got caught that way and left with the kid when her chap did a runner.’
‘What are you going to do about your frock? Only you can’t get them for love nor money unless you know someone who’s got one?’ Jess interrupted, seeing the mortified look on Ruthie’s face.
‘The Red Cross are lending out wedding dresses to girls who are marrying GIs,’ Ruthie told her happily. ‘We’ll have to go and look together, seeing as you’re going to be my bridesmaid.’
Jess gave her a wan smile and tried to appear enthusiastic. She wouldn’t have hurt Ruthie’s feelings for the world, but the truth was that she had felt her heart sink a little when Ruthie had told her that Glen had asked Walter to be his best man. Naturally that meant the two of them would be paired up at the wedding, especially with everyone thinking that she and Walter were a couple, but the truth was…Jess bit down hard into her bottom lip. She wasn’t prepared to admit even to herself exactly what the truth was. She liked Walter – of course she did – but she had been more relieved than disappointed when Walter had told her during their first dance about the girl he was in love with ‘back home’.
Mind, it might be for the best if folk did continue to think that she and Walter were together. She knew one person who wouldn’t hesitate to make fun of her if he thought that Walter had dropped her. Not that she cared what Billy thought, of course. But she wasn’t going to have him thinking that she couldn’t get herself a chap if she wanted to. Not with him always showing off about the number of girls that fell for him. They wouldn’t be falling for him if he went and blew himself up, though, would they?
‘And Glen says that there’s no need for us to worry about the food for the wedding breakfast, because the US Army will provide that,’ Ruthie chattered happily to Maureen without taking her attention off the shells she was filling.
‘Oh, do stop going on about your ruddy wedding, will you? Me ears are aching with hearing about it,’ Maureen told her rudely, before adding, ‘Anyway, it’s that Jess you should be going on about it to, since she’s the one as will be your bridesmaid.’
Concern clouded Ruthie’s gaze. ‘I asked you as well,’ she pointed out quietly. ‘You know I did.’
‘Oh, yes, you asked me all right, but that was only because you felt you had to. Anyone could see that.’
‘That’s not true,’ Ruthie protested, even though a part of her knew that was the truth.
‘Besides, how do you think I’d be feeling, wi’ ’er,’ she jerked her head in Jess’s direction, ‘there wi’ her fancy GI chap, and me there on me own, especially when it comes to the dancing?’
‘It won’t be like that. Glen will be inviting his friends and I’m sure