‘Your sister!’ Mary said, laughing.
Carrie knew she would never be able to stop Vivienne from doing what she wanted to do. ‘I’m going upstairs,’ she said, ‘To have a wash and get ready.’
She went to her bedroom and saw again the dress, hanging there. The dressmaker had made it from the cream silk Rose had given to her for Christmas. Her hands were shaking again. So much so that she nearly knocked the dress off its hanger. Why, oh why, was she feeling so jittery? There, she was even thinking in the girls’ slang.
The dress, with its draped and looped skirt had asymmetrical yokes, embroidered in the same cream, at the bodice and the hips. The waistline flattered her. It was fastened up the side seam with tiny, looped buttons. It had long sleeves with the same embroidery at the wrists. It had a deep vee neckline that was much lower than anything she had worn before. She had bought a hat – Vivienne had found it in Manchester – that resembled nothing so much as a curl – an apostrophe of cream stiff velour that was attached to a skull-cap. A long sweep of cream sloped forwards over one eye. It was trimmed with three strips of deeper cream velvet that ended, at the sweeping creation’s narrowest point, in an elaborate tassel that settled along the length of her neck. She would have to pin her hair high.
The butterflies started again. She hoped to goodness that she would not look like mutton dressed as lamb. She was forty-six after all and most women of her age wore black or navy.
She filled her bowl with water, hot and cold, and dropped an oatmeal bag into it, to soften it. Whilst it was soaking, she looked into the mirror to see if there were dark rings under her eyes from nerves and lack of sleep. No. They were fine. She had never seen them look so big and clear. But then she saw everything better now.
As she soaped herself, the night’s thoughts and fears came back to her. She had lain there for hours, heart beating like crazy, wondering what was going to become of her.
The darkness of the room had only made worse the feeling of something about to happen. Over and over the questions had gone in her head. What have I got left? I have lost everything. But then I always have. Everything that meant anything to me has gone from my life. My mother, my father, my sister and my daughter.
And now, she believed, even her faith. For she had not been back to chapel since Cecil Ratcliffe had gone away. It had come to her afterwards that the gossips might imagine that she’d done what she did because Cecil Ratcliffe had raped Rose. She couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear to talk about it, wouldn’t explain, wanted to forget it all.
Everything that had happened since had made her nervousness increase, made her sure that something was going to happen. The baby. Surviving the bombings. Alan coming back. She should be grateful. She should go down on her knees and thank God for her blessings yet here she was, trembling, her hands hardly able to hold the soap when she sponged herself and dried her body on the soft, white towels. She reached for her scented lotions.
When she was dressed she went into the dining room to check that all was ready. Maggie Bettley and the bedroom girl were busy putting out all her best china. It was going to be a proper wedding breakfast. Chickens and ham, a present from Martha and Nat, had been cooked overnight. These were going to be served after the tomato soup. There would be roast potatoes, apple sauce and three vegetables to go with the meat.
There were four crystal dishes on the sideboard; trifles and bottled plums with Carnation Milk. Cheeses – another present from Martha – stood alongside with water biscuits and petits fours.
The wedding cake looked splendid. Douglas McGregor had been round, bringing a case of champagne and three bottles of raisin cordial. Everything was well under way. So why was her heart banging so? She brought her mind back to the arrangements. After the meal and the speeches she and Douglas were going to sing. Mr Tereschenko was going to play the piano. It was all ready. Nothing to get worked up about. So why was she in such a state?
‘Thank you,’ she said to Maggie and the bedroom girl. ‘Everything looks grand. Will you manage all right? The serving out?’
‘Yes. Stop frettin’,’ Maggie Bettley said. ‘Get yerself down them stairs. They’ll be here in a few minutes.’
She went downstairs, carrying her coat – dark green with a deep collar of fox fur.
‘Ooh, Viv! Look at Aunt Carrie,’ Mary cried as she reached the hall.
‘Whe-woo!’ Vivienne whistled. She stood stock still. ‘You look like –’
‘Myrna Loy,’ Mary suggested.
‘Greer Garson!’ Vivienne declared. ‘I’ve never seen you so beautiful.’
‘Now then!’ Carrie chided. ‘None of that talk. I’m plain. Always have been. Are you two ready?’
‘Don’t we look as if we are?’
‘Of course. You look a picture. Both of you.’
There was the sound of a car drawing up outside. Mary ran to the front door and opened it. ‘They’re here,’ she shouted. ‘Ooh, look at Rose.’ Then they were all ‘milling about’ as Carrie called it, in the hall and the kitchen, Rose, wearing her best coat, a hat box in one hand, a bag in the other.
Behind her came Martha carrying the baby who wore a lace cap and looked like something out of an old-fashioned picture book. He was wrapped in a long lace shawl that was draped over Martha’s arm and reached to the floor.
Nat came last, carrying the cradle. He was dark suited, with a boiled white shirt and stiff collar shining under his cheeks that were as red as rosy apples. ‘It’s goin’ ter snow tonight,’ he said, smiling happily at everyone as he shook their hands. ‘I reckon we’ll be lucky to get back afore it comes.’
Martha placed the baby into Mrs Tereschenko’s outstretched hands.
Carrie felt her heart going like billy-o. Then, before she could take it all in, it was time to get into the waiting taxi, with Nat and Martha behind, chatting breezily about anything and everything.
They had tied white ribbons to the bonnet of the car and people were standing at the pavement’s edge here and there as they progressed slowly so as not to skid on the snowy road. Along Sunderland Street they went, up Mill Street – people were waving and Carrie couldn’t make out their faces so she waved back, discreetly – through the market square and down Chestergate.
There were more people here, waving. Up Chester Road they went, drawing up outside St Alban’s. There was a big crowd outside the church. The priest was waiting at the door to shake her hand. He looked magnificent in his robes. Then one of the ushers; a relative of Douglas McGregor’s no doubt, uniformed in navy, escorted her through the packed church.
There were so many people. She didn’t know so many would turn up. Fur coats, morning suits, air force uniforms as well as naval ones. The church was warm and incense was heavy in the air. She went, nodding and smiling blindly – there were tears shimmering in her eyes she was so touched by it all. The organist was playing Bach.
They took her to the front pew at the left of the aisle and asked her to leave a space on her right. Perhaps Douglas McGregor was going to stand beside her when he’d brought Rose down the aisle. She kept blinking, to focus properly.
She looked across the aisle. There was Alan, in uniform. He looked very smart and handsome. His best man, uniformed too, was beside him. He gave her a brave little smile. She looked back a little. Who was that on the row behind Alan? She blinked again. It was Douglas McGregor. Surely he shouldn’t be here.
Her heart was going twenty to the dozen now. Perhaps Douglas would go to the back of the church when Rose and the girls arrived.
Oh, God, she prayed. What is going on? Why is my heart hammering in my chest like this? She heard the door opening wider. She didn’t dare to look. She might cry.
The organist was looking beyond her, now he was starting to play ‘Here Comes the Bride’. And here they were, alongside her, whilst her heart was leaping and banging louder than the music. It was Rose and . . . She’d sensed his presence before they passed her. Rose was on her father’s arm. It was Patrick
.
The organ music ended. The priest came forward.
‘Dearly beloved,’ he intoned. ‘We are gathered here . . .’
Carrie had a great knot in her throat, her eyes were misty, her hands shook, she could feel herself trembling as she pressed her hands tightly over the missal.
Alan was standing at Rose’s side now.
‘Who giveth this woman?’
The rich, warm voice. ‘I do.’ Patrick Kennedy placed Rose’s hand into the priest’s then stepped back as the bride and groom went forward to the altar rail.
He came to stand in the place beside her. She glanced at him. He was just the same; tall, broad, greying now. More of an air of maturity about him. A man of the world now, she supposed. And as she glanced, he looked into her eyes and held them. Then, it was like a miracle, in the instant that their eyes met, nervousness left her and a great feeling of calm came over her.
‘Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder,’ the priest was saying.
Tears came again to Carrie as she watched her daughter, radiant, beside her husband as the mass was said.
Then it was over. The doors were thrown back and the new man and wife, hand in hand, came towards her. Carrie fell into place behind them and he was at her side. Patrick – holding her hand in a warm, firm grip.
A great feeling of well-being went through her as they arranged themselves into groups for the photographers and were driven back to the Temperance Hotel. He sat behind her in the car with Martha Cooper and Nat. And every nerve in her body was jumping at his closeness. She was drowning in the warm voice that was just as she had remembered it, melodic and Irish-lilting.
He made a speech at the table; clever and amusing it was. Referring to Rose as his niece – Alan as his godson – his many years of absence – his intention not to let them out of his sight again; a lovely young couple with their lives ahead of them. Raise your glasses.
Oh, it was wonderful. It was like a dream.
Maggie Bettley and the girl came in then, cleared the tables and brought in the big wedding cake. The photographer who had been there throughout the meal set up his camera again and posed Alan and Rose in front of the cake, as if they were about to cut it whilst he took another picture. When he had done and put away the camera they, Alan and Rose, amid much jollity and teasing, cut up the cake and served it to the guests with coffee and tea and, for the men, brandy.
‘And now,’ Douglas announced, ‘it is time for the singing.’
The tables were cleared, the piano was brought into the middle of the room and she and Douglas McGregor had never sounded so good before. They sang to requests, accompanied by Mr Tereschenko. They sang sacred songs as duets and parlour tunes with everyone joining in and, at last, when they imagined they had run out of songs, Patrick got to his feet.
‘Do you know “Morning has Broken”?’ he asked.
It was a strange request, but a lovely song and Rose and Alan seemed eager to hear them sing it, clapping and. applauding like mad as she and Douglas stood again.
‘Morning has broken, like the first morning . . .’
Why did he ask for this one?
‘Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird . . .’
There had been birdsong the last time . . .
‘Praise for the singing . . .’
Had somebody put champagne in her glass with the lemonade and raisin cordial? She felt dizzy.
‘Praise for the morning . . .’ That was it! He wanted to remind her of the things he used to talk about – her being unable to open the gates of morning.
‘Praise for them springing fresh from the word.’ He was smiling at her, the same devil-may-care smile of his youth. What an extraordinary man he was.
Caroline Aurora Shrigley rose from the bed of her husband and went to stand at a window of the Temperance Hotel in Macclesfield’s Waters Green. High above, the heavens were a pale turquoise, suffused with rose towards the east where the sun was breaking in a crescent of burning gold under mauve streaks of the morning sky.
Her bag was packed. In an hour’s time they would leave; she and her husband – in-the-eyes-of-God. She smiled to herself to think that she cared not a jot for the scandal that would spread at her going. She turned and looked with tenderness and desire towards the man who lay, naked and careless in sleep, upon her soft, scented bed.
Before she shook him awake she would sit for a moment and dwell on all that had happened yesterday; the wedding and Patrick’s giving his daughter away, the reception with the speeches and the singing, the gathering of all the guests in the hall to see Alan and Rose off, departing in Douglas McGregor’s red Lanchester. They were only going to Rainow but they didn’t mind postponing a honeymoon until later, when they would travel to Scotland.
It had been five o’clock before her final guest left. Douglas McGregor was going to catch his train to Scotland. Vivienne and Mary had gone an hour ago, to get Vivienne ready for her concert. Martha, Nat and the baby had been taken back by taxi ten minutes before and in a moment, when she closed the door, Carrie knew, it would all be over.
She stood, waving goodbye to Douglas before she went back inside. She had seen everyone off. Everyone except Patrick. Where was he? Had he gone before the others? It didn’t matter. It had been a lovely day. She would never forget it.
The house seemed very quiet, though she could hear the sounds of dishes clattering and the murmur of voices coming from the kitchen where Maggie Bettley and the bedroom girl were clearing up.
She went up the stairs and into her bedroom to take off her beautiful clothes. She pushed the door to and walked towards the dressing table. In the mirror she saw that she still had the hat on.
It fastened at the back with two crossed hatpins. She raised her arms to unpin them but as she did so she was aware, all at once, that everything – all her senses were sharper. She could smell the lilac-scented soap on her washstand. It was all mixed up with the almond oil hand lotion and, growing stronger, the clean coal-tar and leather scent of the man whose face now appeared in the mirror behind her own.
She felt his strong arms slip around her waist, felt his hands sliding upwards towards her breast. His body was pressed close to hers, his face burying itself into the bare nape of her neck and now he turned her around to face him and she was hard up against him. And, as if the intervening years had never been, she was responding to his kisses, to his mouth on hers, her pulses racing. She felt the familiar feeling that everything in her was straining towards him, the deep, sweet madness of desire drawing him into her embrace.
He held her by the shoulders, when she was shaking with need of him; the male smell of him, the taste of his mouth in her own. He looked into her face, laughing, questioning, brown eyes holding hers as he said in the musical Irish voice, ‘You still love me, don’t you, Caroline Aurora?’
‘In a way,’ she whispered.
‘In the only way that matters, my darling? Do you love me?’
‘Kiss me,’ she answered, pulling him in towards herself.
‘Not until you tell me.’ He held her back.
‘Tell you what?’ she asked. But she knew.
‘That when morning comes, you will not leave me.’ His eyes were not laughing as he demanded that she said the words he wanted to hear.
‘I give you my word,’ she said. ‘I will never let you go again.’
Now, the sun was up over the horizon. She would wake him and tell him that she was ready to go through the Gates of Morning.
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Epub ISBN: 9781473550537
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Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
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London SW1V 2SA
Ebury Press is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © Audrey Reimann, 1991
Cover photographs: figures by Head Design; background © Mary Evans Picture Library
Cover: www.headdesign.co.uk
Audrey Reimann has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published as Praise for the Morning by Piatkus Books in 1991
This edition published by Ebury Press in 2018
www.penguin.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781785034909 (hardback)
Mill Town Girl Page 41