Gracie

by Marie Maxwell

  In its day the house had been an expansive family home but when the owner’s husband and two sons had all been killed in the First World War she had never recovered and had gradually closed up all the rooms as they were, spending her final years living in just one room at the back of the house. It had taken a long time to settle her affairs but finally the house had been put up for sale and, as Ruby and the Wheatons had already done their sums, they were ready to jump right in and buy it at a bargain price.

  It had been a challenge to clear it out and do the very essential repairs but now it was starting to look like a home again. The body of the well-built house was still firmly standing so Johnnie had happily taken it on as his project, which was to convert it into an annexe to the main hotel.

  Times had moved on and although there was still a market for a ladies-only establishment, there was a bigger market for family holidays in Southend, so the idea was for the annexe to become a basic bed and breakfast establishment for families, with a self-contained flat in the basement.

  It was an ambitious project and it was taking up all of Ruby and the Wheatons’ inheritance from Leonora Wheaton, but it was a good investment. They were making progress and Ruby and Johnnie had welcomed the challenge.

  ‘Here you are …’ Ruby said as she arrived back from next door with a tray in her hands. ‘Not quite Leonora style, but the best you’re going to get, Master.’

  Johnnie took it from her and they both perched on the newly sanded window seat that looked out over the shambles of a garden that was being used as a dumping ground for all the débris from the house.

  ‘Thank God the labourers are back tomorrow,’ Ruby sighed heavily. ‘I have to get back to the hotel. Gracie’s doing her best but it’s hard with Fay. We may have to take on someone else soon.’

  ‘She does well, considering. It’s hard enough for me with two boys living with Sis in Walthamstow – I can’t imagine working with a young baby in tow. I feel sorry for her, but you have to think about the hotel …’

  ‘How are the boys doing?’ Ruby asked. ‘It seems forever since we’ve been able to sit down and talk properly. We’re either flogging ourselves working or falling into bed dead beat.’

  ‘I know, but there’s an end in sight. Hopefully once this place is finished and the furore over poor Sadie has died down then we should be able to settle down, all of us. We can get married and have another child …’

  Ruby laughed. ‘That’s a bit of a leap, Johnnie. But one day, maybe one day.’

  ‘Definitely one day soon.’ Johnnie leaned forward and kissed her. ‘I love you, Ruby Blakeley. Always have, always will …’

  ‘Me too!’ she smiled.

  Ruby was happy with her life. She loved Johnnie, she loved the Thamesview and she wanted to have the opportunity to love Johnnie’s two young sons as if they were her own; the only sadness was their own daughter Maggie, who had no idea of her true parentage. Maggie Wheaton looked on Ruby as her older sister and Johnnie as a sort of uncle.

  In the beginning it had been hard for Ruby to even see Maggie as part of another family but gradually she had adjusted and she really did sometimes forget that she had given birth to her, that she was her natural mother.

  Ruby and Johnnie had both had a hard time of it but they were starting to come out the other side of the trauma that had surrounded Johnnie’s ill-fated marriage to Sadie, his volatile and unpredictable young wife. No one knew for certain but it seemed that in a fit of pique, she had made a dramatic suicide bid that had succeeded because the person she was expecting to arrive and save her, her errant boyfriend of the moment, had stood her up.

  Sadie was found the following day in her best dress and high heels, wearing full make-up, lying on the floor with her head inside the gas oven. It had been traumatic for everyone but especially for Johnnie, who had two sons with her, two very young boys who had lost their mother because of a moment of madness.

  Ruby Blakeley and Johnnie Riordan had a long history together going back to when she first returned to her family after her wartime evacuation to Cambridgeshire in 1945. It had been a brief relationship but it culminated in Ruby becoming pregnant on the one occasion they had got carried away. In fear of her older brothers’ reaction she had run away back to Cambridgeshire and the Wheatons before being taken to Southend, where no one knew her to have the baby. Maggie. The newborn had been adopted by Babs and George but it had been five years before Johnnie and Ruby met up again and he discovered they had had a child together. In the intervening years he’d married Sadie and had two children with her.

  ‘Will Betty let the boys come and live with us now, do you think?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘They’re my sons, he can’t stop them but I’d like it to be with her blessing. Betty, Tony and their kids are the only family the boys and I have got now Mum has passed on… . Apart from you and Maggie but they don’t … can’t know that’. Johnnie paused and smiled at Ruby. ‘It’s a bloody shame that she disapproves of you and me being together, especially as it’s because of Sadie. You and I did nothing wrong, it was Sadie who was unfaithful but she became a saint when she died and we can’t change that,’ he said sadly.

  Ruby took his hand and smiled sympathetically. ‘She’ll come round soon enough. She loves you and time heals, I know that more than anyone! Meanwhile we’d better get this up and running as quick as we can then!’

  Ruby jumped up, touched her toes a couple of times then flexed her arm muscles, exaggerating the movement. ‘Let’s get building!’

  Johnnie grabbed her with both arms and hugged her tight.

  ‘Okay. Back to work here for me and back to the kitchen next door for you. You’re right and one day …’

  ‘One day …’ Ruby smiled and then she hesitated.

  ‘Before I go, though, there’s something I want to ask you about, but to do it I have to break a confidence …’

  ‘This is to do with Gracie and Sean, isn’t it?’ Johnnie guessed.

  ‘Sort of, but more Gracie. Promise me you won’t say anything? I shouldn’t be saying this but I don’t know what to do …’

  ‘Try me,’ he said reassuringly.

  For the first time, Ruby told Johnnie about the day she and Gracie had met Edward, Harry and Louisa at the beach, and about Gracie’s reaction to Edward.

  ‘The day she married Sean she gave me the ring and card he had given her and told me to send it back. But I didn’t …’

  ‘Uh-oh.’ Johnnie pulled a face.

  ‘I just didn’t know how to do it, what to say. Oh, I don’t know, but I just didn’t.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘And then after the wedding a letter came in the post. It was addressed to me and there was a short note and a sealed envelope for Gracie.’ Ruby pulled a guilty face.

  ‘And I bet you didn’t tell her about that either? Oh, Ruby, I can see where this is going …’

  ‘You’re right, I didn’t tell her, and now I’m wondering if I should have.’ Ruby looked at Johnnie. ‘I don’t know what the hell to do. She deserves something nice to happen but would bringing up the name of the one she called “the right one” be the right thing?’

  ‘But if this was all that time ago then he might be married. At the very least he’ll be back in Africa, like you said.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘I’m asking your advice here, Mr Riordan. Help me! Should I tell her about it? Should I give her the letter after all this time?’

  ‘I suppose it depends on why.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Why do you think you should give it to her now when you didn’t back then?’

  ‘I don’t know …’ Ruby said thoughtfully. ‘I just thought he might make her happy?’

  ‘And if it all goes pear-shaped then she’ll be taking another kicking.’

  ‘Oh bugger it, Johnnie, you’re too logical for me! I’ll have to think a bit more …’

  ‘Sorry, love. Just think about what you’d wa
nt if it was you.’

  Ruby smiled and said a silent thank you for having him.

  ‘I’ll think about it, but now I really do have to get back.’

  Johnnie Riordan kissed her on the cheek and watched her leave, but instead of getting on with the renovation he sat down again and thought about Sadie and his two sons.

  When he married the unstable and volatile Sadie he knew he wasn’t in love with her, but Ruby had disappeared from his life and he was persuaded into it by Sadie’s surrogate father Bill Morgan, a local villain with a fearsome reputation who was also Johnnie’s employer and landlord.

  Despite knowing that Johnnie had caught Sadie in bed with someone else, she had told a good tale to her father who had taken her side. Johnnie had lost everything in one fell swoop. He had taken his two young sons, Martin and Paul, and moved back in with his sister.

  Her suicide was a low point in his life and he knew he would always feel guilty about it because of his sons. Just the thought of them growing up without their mother made him feel sad for them but he also felt angry with himself for not anticipating that Sadie would self-destruct so dramatically.

  He stood up and went back into the hotel.

  Suddenly he had the urge to go and see his sons.

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Gracie, once I’ve washed my hair and changed, can we talk? There’s something that’s been bothering me for a while …’

  Gracie was busy with the Brasso, polishing the handles and finger plates on the doors that led off the lobby but she stopped in her tracks.

  ‘That sounds a bit frightening. You’re not going to sack me, are you? I know it’s hard with Fay and everything but I don’t how I’d manage without this job, especially as I live here as well. Oh God, you want the flat for you and Johnnie, don’t you?’

  Gracie stared at Ruby, her eyes wide, her expression fearful.

  ‘Oh stop it,’ Ruby said fiercely. ‘As if I would. I couldn’t manage without you – or Fay! No, there’s something I have to tell you that might make you a bit peed off with me … but I want you to remember that if I did the wrong thing, then I did it with the best of intentions, I promise.’

  ‘Now you’re really scaring me,’ Gracie exclaimed. ‘You have to tell me right now, even if you do look like a walking bag of flour!’

  The hotel was quiet at that time of day so the lobby was empty, apart from Henry who was sitting behind the desk reading his newspaper, being a presence just in case anyone needed anything.

  Henry was a tiny, wiry man with a handlebar moustache and a thatch of pure white hair, which he kept under control with vast quantities of Brylcreem. A widower and a pensioner who was well into his seventies, he loved his job and spent far more time at Thamesview than he was paid for. Although he was slowing down with age he was reliable and popular and could still turn his hand to most things. But most of all he was quietly spoken and his manners were impeccable, so he went down well with the lady guests.

  ‘Are you alright for a bit longer, Henry?’ Ruby asked him.

  He looked over the top of his glasses. ‘Aye.’

  ‘Can you tell us if Fay wakes? She’s in her carrycot in the office, she’s only just gone off …’ Gracie said.

  ‘Aye,’ he said as he looked down again.

  Ruby and Gracie exchanged glances and smiles. It was a standing joke that Henry never wasted a word.

  ‘Shall we go into the garden? I shouldn’t be around people, I look such a mess …’ Ruby said.

  They took the shortcut through the kitchen and, as there were no guests out there, went over and sat on the wooden garden bench. Gracie could feel the now-familiar anxiety building in her chest as she waited for Ruby to say what she had to say.

  ‘Okay … Can I start by mentioning the name Edward Woodfield?’ Ruby said cautiously, watching for a reaction from Gracie. ‘I know you said don’t mention his name again and I haven’t up to now, but I’ve been thinking about this …’

  ‘You don’t think he’s anything to do with this mess, do you? I didn’t do anything with him. I left him that day and never saw or heard from him again. It was a bit of stupidity but it wasn’t the same as what Sean did to me …’ Gracie said defensively.

  ‘No, no, I never thought that at all, but look, Gracie, there’s something I didn’t tell you. A few weeks after you’d got married a letter arrived here; I think it must have got lost in the post because of how it was worded. But anyway, it was addressed to me but there was another one for you. It was from Edward. I didn’t give it to you because you’d already asked me to send his ring back so I knew you wouldn’t want it. But now …’

  ‘Now what? Why are you telling me? Have you still got it?’ Gracie fired the questions, not really knowing why she wanted to know.

  ‘I’ve got the letters and the address card and the ring. Everything is together in an envelope in the back of the safe. I didn’t know what to do with it and I didn’t want anyone else finding it, but now I think I should give it to you to decide what you want to do.’

  Gracie looked at her friend but didn’t say anything. Her emotions were in turmoil as she thought about the man she had met so fleetingly, but who had made such a big impression on her. She leaned back and closed her eyes to the sun.

  Although she had occasionally thought about him, Gracie had tried her best to put Edward Woodfield away in her memory and she had mostly succeeded. It had been a harmless interlude with a handsome stranger who had momentarily turned her head. It was simply a swansong before she married Sean and there was nothing more to it.

  Gracie had known then that Sean wasn’t the right one, that their relationship wasn’t like the crazy love affairs of the cinema screens, but she had loved him and she had genuinely thought they would be right together in a comfortable married way. But it hadn’t been enough, she realised with hindsight, because she wasn’t in love with him and, as it turned out, Sean was never in love with her either. They had both settled for the ease of second best.

  The moment Ruby mentioned Edward’s name Gracie was back on the beach that sunny summer’s day, and as his name returned to her consciousness she realised she could see him as clearly as if he was standing right in front of her. It was as if she had been given permission to think about him again.

  Gracie Donnelly had blocked Edward Woodfield from her mind for so long but suddenly, she was back there with him.

  ‘You know, maybe Sean was right about me, even if he didn’t really know it,’ she said, shaking herself back to the present. ‘Maybe I was the one at fault; I did do him wrong, didn’t I? I should never have married him – not when I could feel like that about someone else?’

  ‘It could have worked without your sister …’

  ‘I think if it hadn’t been her it would have been someone else. I suppose I might have done what so many women do and turned a blind eye to it but the rot set in when I didn’t tell him the truth in the first place. You told me that, didn’t you?’

  ‘Now you make me sound like a know-it-all,’ Ruby smiled.

  Gracie sat forward again. ‘You all told me I should have told him about my first baby and I ignored you. I thought I knew best and I never thought anything like this could happen. It must have been hell for him to find out that way …’

  ‘Sorry, Gracie Grace, but he was already at it with your sister by then, that’s how he found out! He’s put the blame on you to protect himself.’ Ruby paused. ‘But back to Edward …’

  Gracie stood up. ‘I’ll be back in a minute, I must check on Fay.’

  ‘Henry would have called you,’ Ruby called after her, but Gracie didn’t answer, just turned away and walked quickly to the office. She put her head round the door to check on Fay, who was sleeping in her carrycot. Again she gazed in wonder at her tiny daughter, the baby she had dreamt about having for so long. Gracie loved her with an intensity that she could never have imagined before she was born but her love for Fay was tinged with sadness at the loss of her baby son.

>   Ruby walked up behind and looked over her shoulder at Fay as well.

  ‘You did what you thought was the right thing for both of you, and it would have stayed right if your sister hadn’t decided to screw up everyone’s life.’

  ‘But it all comes back to me really, doesn’t it? If I’d told Sean right in the very beginning I wouldn’t be in this mess. If he hadn’t married me it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. I was just so bloody determined not to be the old maid …’

  ‘Well, it’s done now and as Leonora used to say, You have to work with what you have, not what you want. You might not have everything else at the moment, but you do have Fay.’

  Ruby enunciated the words carefully, using the clipped tone that Leonora Wheaton had used when she was passing on her tips for life. ‘But back to what I was saying. I still have the letters, if you want to have a look. I put them away at the time because I knew you wouldn’t want them, but now …’

  ‘But now what? Now I’m on my own with a baby? Can you imagine Mr Country Estate, works in Africa, Woodfield being interested now?’ Gracie laughed. ‘I feel like Leonora must have done as she watched her ships sail out of sight; I think that ship has long sailed. And anyway, I didn’t even know him. He could be a mass murderer for all we know!’

  ‘Give me a minute …’ Ruby said.

  Gracie watched as Ruby went over to the far wall, moved a rather dull painting of an Edwardian lady and opened the safe where she kept all her personal papers. She pulled out an envelope. ‘Here, take it and do what you want with it, but I knew I had to tell you.’

  Gracie picked it up and stuffed it in her pocket. ‘You do know I’m not angry with you, don’t you?’ she said, turning to Ruby. ‘I’m angry with myself. I’ve got it all wrong once again but as you said, at least this time I’ve got my baby and for that I wouldn’t change a thing.’