by Penny Thorpe
It happened on an afternoon when both Mary and Percy found themselves waiting outside the Women’s Employment Offices, listening to the corridor clock tick. Mary was waiting to see Diana and Mrs Wilkes about a short leave of absence while Percy was waiting to collect Dolly to take her out to the Army and Navy Stores to buy some of the things they would need for their new lives in Burma. Percy vaguely knew that Dolly worked in the factory offices, but he hadn’t paid sufficient attention to precisely which office she worked in and so he had not realised that he was meeting her in a department by which she was not employed. If he had asked her directly, he’d have discovered that she was being formally reprimanded for telling some impressionable factory girls ‘not to bother with quarantine’, and that she intended, at that meeting, to tell her superiors in no uncertain terms to stuff their job and then to flounce out to her waiting fiancé who was whisking her off to a new and glamorous life in the Far East.
‘Hullo.’ Percy attempted to mitigate the boredom of waiting for Dolly by making conversation with the only other person present. ‘Do you work with my Dolly?’
Mary was irritated and showed it. ‘I’m Mary Norcliffe. I used to work with Dolly.’
‘Ah, yes, I’ve heard lots about you.’ Percy decided not to say that Dolly had said nothing complimentary. ‘Heard a lot about you from my fiancée, Dolly Dunkley. Don’t s’pose she’s mentioned me. Percy Palgrave, Burmah Oil Company?’ He added those last three words with the quick, clipped delivery of someone who has grown used to the idea that their employer impresses people.
‘I hear you’re to be married in a sweetshop.’ Mary did not try to keep the resentment out of her voice, though she knew she should have done. She was just too unhappy at the injustice of it all, and all her worry about Albert and his family was weighing heavily on her patience with the rest of the world.
‘Well,’ Palgrave coughed an odd sort of faux chuckle, ‘not really a sweetshop. Although, might make a funny story one day, s’pose.’ He was thinking of it already as a tale that he would regale the other First Class passengers with on his voyage back to Burma with his heiress bride. ‘Really a thirteenth century chapel. Frightfully rare finding one still standing. Quite an honour to be first couple to wed in it. Expect the papers will want a snap.’
‘And saves on decorations.’ Mary was blunt by nature, but she was not in a mood to look for opportunities for diplomacy that day. Reenie might still be encouraging her to hope that she and Albert could themselves be married in this little sweetshop everyone was talking about, but Mary couldn’t bring herself to believe it. People like Dolly and Percy got to bend the rules for weddings, but not Mary and Albert. ‘You could get away with one bunch of flowers for the altar and that would pretty much fill the place up.’
‘Doubt we’ll get away with just the one bunch. Think Reverend Dunkley will want a lot more fuss for the big day.’
‘Well, if you’ve got the money you do as you please. I bet the Dunkleys will be glad to have one less mouth to feed, even though they’ll be losing Dolly’s wage, pittance though it probably is.’
Mary’s words gave Percy Palgrave pause; like Dolly he was a greedy young man, but unlike Dolly he had good instincts. Mary was quite clearly truthful (if rather rude), and had some close knowledge of the Dunkley family. He would have been a fool to let the moment pass without asking more questions, and whatever he was, he was no fool.
‘What do you know about the Dunkleys’ situation? I understood the Reverend Dunkley was a Rector not a vicar. He’s quite a wealthy man in his own right, isn’t he?’
Mary’s eyebrows said it all. ‘Have you seen how they live? I heard from Reenie, who heard it from their servant, that when Dolly’s father told her she had to get a job she nearly threw a fit. They’ve got nothing but the shirts on their backs. The servants are only paid for by the parish. They’ll be right glad she’s marrying you. She needs to find someone to keep her before Mackintosh’s sack her.’
There was a silence in which Mary knew she had gone too far, but was too upset by her own circumstances to care, and Percy was concerned that he had also gone too far, but in a different way entirely, and feared he might not be able to get himself out. If he broke off his engagement with Dolly now – without a good enough reason – word would get around his social set that he was ‘the wrong sort’ and it might jeopardise his chances with other girls he met later; and there was not a shadow of a doubt in his mind that he wanted there to be other girls later. All of Dolly’s appeal had vanished. He needed to break off his engagement, and he needed to find an excuse fast. He wondered if this young woman might provide an excuse.
‘I can see you’re a woman who speaks her mind. Good Yorkshire trait. Not how we do things where I’m from, but each to their own and all that. Sounds like you and Dolly haven’t rubbed along quite so well and I understand it; not everyone can.’ He was doing his best to build a bridge which he could cross. ‘But tell me, Mary,’ he groped in his weasel mind for something he could use to postpone this all-too imminent wedding while he came up with an excuse to completely escape it, ‘tell me as a woman: do you think it’s fair of me to expect Dolly to come away with me to Burma so hurriedly? You know her better than I do; you know she has a large wardrobe of clothes and she can’t bring them all. Is it wrong of me to expect her to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice? Should I give her more time to settle her affairs here, to pack up her little life?’
Mary didn’t care a fig, but she was saved the opportunity of telling Dolly’s fiancé this in the most forceful terms because at that moment Dolly herself emerged triumphant and red in the face from Mrs Wilkes’s ornate oak office door.
With quick thinking Percy Palgrave rose to his feet to greet Dolly and take his leave of his surprisingly useful informant. ‘Thank you, Mary. I’ve appreciated our little chat; you keep up that Yorkshire sharpness. Very refreshing. I’ll think on what you’ve said; quite right.’
Dolly scowled at Mary behind Percy’s back as a matter of routine as she followed him away to the factory corridor which would lead them out to the gate and the start of what she thought was to be a glorious new life. ‘What was Mary saying to you?’
‘Well, she was making me think of you, my sweet.’ He reached a quiet stretch of corridor where he thought he might risk speaking of the topic closest to his interests. ‘I’ve been selfish; I see that now. I’ve expected you to come away with me at a moment’s notice, but the life I live out in the colonial office is harsh. We were just talking about your wardrobe and how you need time to decide what you discard before you embark on a new life—’
‘But I thought you were taking me to the Army and Navy to buy me all new things so it didn’t matter what I left behind?’
This one sentence was enough to make Percy realise that Mary had been right. Dolly had been expecting him to buy her a trousseau and he had been expecting her to buy him a new set of luggage; this was not a union which could be profitable. They walked past a noticeboard where a freshly pinned poster warned employees to be vigilant against scarlet fever and reminded them of the symptoms to watch for. Palgrave would not even have noticed its existence if Dolly had not attempted to rattle the frame which protected it to see if she could take it down. His eyes scanned the symptoms listed and he decided there and then that it would be politically expedient for him to develop each and every one of them to the most virulent degree and to do it sharpish.
‘You know, Dolly, I’m not feeling at all well. I’ve come over quite shivery and I have a terrible pain in my throat. No, don’t come any nearer, I would never forgive myself if I passed on something to you that did you harm. I must go home at once and send for the doctor. I’m terribly afraid this will mean quarantine. You’ll be brave for me, won’t you, Dolly, if we can’t see each other for a time? Absence will have made my heart grow fonder.’ Absence, Percy hoped, would also make his mind grow sharper, and he would think of a way to weasel out of the engagement without a dent to his reputati
on. The emotional scene which Dolly was about to cause would only confirm his belief that he had made the correct move.
Chapter Sixty-One
If Mary and Reenie had been worried that they had come to the wrong address, then the Easter decoration hanging over the door-knocker would have told them that they had arrived at the exalted abode of Dolly Dunkley.
Why Dolly’s stepmother had chosen to replace the original garland, Reenie would never know, but the sight of so much good food wasted as decoration offended her even more than it did Mary. The Easter garland was as bright and bold as Dolly had described; twists of young ferns and wisps of white cornflowers had been woven together to hold the apples which set off the contrasting foliage. It was ostentatious and it did not help Mary to feel any less ashamed of her down-at-heel shoes and shabby coat.
A child answered their knock at the door and when Reenie said they were there to see the Rector the anonymous infant bellowed over his shoulder, ‘Pa! There’s people!’ and let them into the rectory hallway to wait on the threadbare rug which gave the lie to the extravagant garland on the door.
The Reverend Dunkley emerged from his study, clutching a newspaper and squinting over reading glasses. ‘What’s this? What’s this? We’re not at home to charity collectors; you need to see the—’
‘I want a marriage licence!’ Mary took Reenie, the Rector, and the anonymous infant by surprise and, what’s more, she caught the ear of Dolly who had been sulking upstairs in her bedroom. Mary collected herself when she realised that she had snapped, and said, ‘I’m sorry, sir. I … it’s just that my fiancé needs us to be married very quickly because he is not English and he needs to settle the matter of our marriage before he applies for his next employment permit. We are applying for a special licence and we need your signature to say that I am of this parish and have lived here all my life.’
Reenie produced the papers she had brought in a factory envelope. ‘She’s got a christening certificate, a letter from the factory to say she’s not been away anywhere, and a reference from the rates collector to say he can vouch for the fact she’s always at home when he calls and has definitely been resident in the parish for the required time.’
The Reverend Dunkley was about to open his mouth when the thud of angry footsteps running down the stairs made him look upward with trepidation; Dolly was coming.
‘What’s going on?’ Dolly yelled from the stairs before she turned the corner at the landing and propelled herself down the final flight, making the bannisters rattle in their fixings. ‘What are they doing here? Who said you could come here? This is my house.’
‘Dolly, dear, these young people have come to see me about a marriage licence.’
‘I don’t believe it! Reenie Calder called off her wedding and Mary can’t get married. Everyone knows that. Whatever they’ve told you, don’t believe them. She’s the one who told Percy he ought to postpone our wedding!’ she shouted, pointing at Mary as she thundered into the hallway. ‘And she’s the one whose horse ate our wreath!’ she finished, glaring at Reenie.
‘Is this true?’ The Reverend Dunkley pulled off his reading glasses to give full scope to his look of astonished disappointment.
‘Well, if you will put food on your door you shouldn’t be surprised if animals have a go at it.’
The Reverend Dunkley waved Reenie’s words away impatiently. ‘Not the wreath, girl; the wedding! Is it true that the young woman who wants a marriage licence cannot be married? I must say that, given recent events,’ and here it wasn’t clear if he was referring to the wedding which Reenie herself had called off, or the suspended nuptials of his daughter, ‘I’m minded to preach a sermon to the young people of the parish on the sanctity of marriage, because it appears to me that it is being taken far too lightly.’
Had the Reverend Dunkley kept his voice down while he was saying all this – and not allowed it to rise to a warble of wounded indignation – he might have avoided the following scene, but his own slightly raised voice – combined with the one-woman stampede which was his daughter – brought another actor to the stage: the young Mrs Dunkley. Mrs Dunkley was not Dolly’s mother; she was the second wife of the rector, and was a relatively new wife at that. Previously, Mrs Dunkley had been a noticeably pretty young widow in the Reverend Dunkley’s congregation with a brood of young children to provide for. The Reverend Dunkley tried to use ‘provision for the children’ as his excuse for their very short engagement but, truth be known, his own haste was a constant source of personal embarrassment to him. Her appearance at the open sitting-room door changed the direction of the conversation entirely.
‘Herbert, my dear, you really must try to keep the noise down, you’re quite disturbing the twins.’ Mrs Dunkley looked round and gave the girls a welcoming smile. ‘Have you come about the Easter egg hunt for the Sunday School?’
‘No, madam.’ Reenie thought it best to keep it formal even though this woman looked barely older than Mary. ‘We’re here for a signature for a marriage licence; a special licence.’
‘Oh, that’s a nice quick job.’ Mrs Dunkley would have done well on a factory line with that sort of attitude, Reenie thought. ‘There’s no need to keep these girls waiting for that, is there, Herbert?’
The Reverend Dunkley didn’t like being told how to conduct his profession and wanted an excuse to refuse them. ‘I don’t think I can, my dear. It’s a very busy time and I don’t have a moment between now and Whit Sunday when I could conduct a wedding. It will have to wait for—’
‘Your curate has already agreed to conduct the service for us.’ Mary had an argument ready for any objection; this was her last chance to marry her Albert and she would fight tooth and nail for it.
‘Has he really?’ This flustered the Reverend Dunkley. ‘Well, I don’t know when he was expecting to find the church free; we have Easter services, and—’
‘He says he’ll marry us in that old sweetshop.’ Mary had no pretentions regarding the place she was to be wed; all she cared about was that it was legal and quick so that it would keep her Albert safe and give his children and his sister the best chance to come to England.
Dolly – who had been glaring daggers at Mary and Reenie since her arrival – was now apoplectic with rage. ‘You want to take my wedding! How dare you! You know that was going to be my wedding! I’m going to be the first bride in the chapel on the bridge and Percy is going to get our photograph in the paper. Is this why you told him he should postpone our wedding? Were you planning to steal my wedding all along?’
‘I didn’t tell him to postpone your wedding! I didn’t tell him to do anything at all. I’m here for a signature on a bit o’ paper and I’m entitled to it by law. You don’t own that damned sweetshop and I’ll get married in it if I want to. God knows I’d rather just get it over with in a register office, but this looks like the only way. This whole thing is absurd – and no matter how angry you are, Dolly Dunkley, you cannot possibly be as angry as me. So if you don’t mind, I want your dad to sign my bit o’ paper, and then I want to get off because you are getting on my wick!’
It was an unwise outburst and Mary thought she had scuppered her chances once and for all because the Reverend Dunkley was giving her an odd look. He held out his hand, took the sheaf of papers from Reenie, and disappeared into his study. His absence was so long that Reenie wondered if they were supposed to leave, but Mary had locked eyes with Dolly whose face was twisted into a nasty, goading expression.
Mrs Dunkley was still waiting at the door of the sitting room, smiling placidly; she reminded Reenie a little bit of Bess in that respect. The difference with this lady, Reenie thought to herself, is that she is only too aware of what’s going on around her and she is keeping her household in check and that was no mean feat. Reenie was glad she’d turned up and wondered how long she could keep her stepdaughter from launching herself into a full fist fight with Mary over her right to be the first bride in the bridge chapel. It was surely only a matter of time.
After what felt like an age, the Reverend Dunkley re-emerged with Mary’s envelope and some papers of his own that he had added to the clutch. He offered them to both Mary and Reenie, uncertain which he was meant to interact with. ‘This is everything you’ll need. You must go to the Archbishop’s office, mind you; this isn’t the licence, this is just the signature you need in order to apply for it.’
‘Daddy!’ Dolly snarled, not taking her eyes off Mary. ‘You can’t do this! You can’t let her take my wedding.’
‘No one is taking your wedding, my dear, it is just being postponed to give us more time to plan. This young lady has just as much right to marry in the meantime as you do. You can’t expect the whole parish to postpone their nuptials until your banns have been read. Come along now, let these young people go home and you come into the sitting room, come on, come along.’ The Reverend Dunkley appeared to be trying to herd his daughter towards his young wife like someone shooing an angry cat.
‘I will be at your wedding, Mary Norcliffe,’ Dolly snarled, ‘and I will object.’
Chapter Sixty-Two
Diana was watching the clock in her office with her jacket in her hand when Reenie burst in. ‘This better be important, Reenie. I’m just about to leave the office to visit my convalescent sister and I’m not in the mood to hear one more person tell me about the mare in foal in the factory stables.’
‘It’s not the mare, it’s Dolly!’ Reenie gasped. ‘Mary and I managed to get a special licence so that she and Mr Baum can be married this Sunday, but Dolly is threatening to show up at the wedding to object.’
Diana raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve managed to get them a marriage licence? A real, legally-binding marriage licence to be married in England?’
‘Yes,’ Reenie insisted. ‘I got Mr Baum to check it all with the solicitor and everything. It’s all above board, really it is. But it will only work if someone stops Dolly from objecting on the day.’