‘I’ll be down in fifteen minutes to do the post and the papers.’
‘All done. But you’re due to go on reception at ten.’
‘Oh heck! I’d better get up then.’ Swinging her legs out of bed, Bess took a drink of her tea. ‘Thank you,’ she called after Frank. When she’d finished, she went into the bathroom. Cleaning her teeth, Bess shook her head. If Nancy was already dressed and waiting for Frank when he got up, and they went straight downstairs, she wouldn’t have cleaned her teeth or washed her face. She probably hadn’t brushed her hair either and Frank wouldn’t think to do it.
‘Good morning, early birds.’ Bess said, joining her husband and Nancy in the dining room. Frank pulled out a chair and Bess sat down. Nancy gave her an endearing smile. Her hair resembled a bird’s nest, but as there was nothing Bess could do about it at the breakfast table, she thought it best not to say anything.
‘What would you like for breakfast this morning, Mrs Donnelly?’ Sylvie asked, suddenly at Bess’s side.
‘Scrambled egg on toast, please, and a pot of tea.’ Bess glanced at Frank. He raised his cup. Leaning to her left, Bess looked at Nancy’s empty glass. ‘And what about you, darling? Would you like some more milk?’
Nancy shook her head. ‘No thank you.’
‘Just tea for one then, Sylvie.’ When the waitress left, Bess said, ‘I have to work on reception this morning, in place of your aunt Maeve, but this afternoon when Jack has had his lunch, would you like to go and see Auntie Margot and the new baby?’
Nancy’s eyes lit up and she nodded vigorously.
‘And we’ll take--’ Bess hesitated. She felt uncomfortable calling her mother Grandma Dudley, even though that was what her mother had told Nancy to call her.
‘I’ll telephone your mother,’ Frank said. ‘I’ll tell her you’ll pick her up at, what, two?’ Bess looked at her husband and smiled. ‘Ready sweetheart?’ Nancy jumped down from her chair. ‘She promised Donnie she’d draw his portrait.’ Frank was doing his best not to laugh. ‘See you in a while, love,’ he said, following Nancy out of the dining room.
Sylvie brought Bess her breakfast and looked twice at the empty chairs. ‘Surplus to requirements again,’ Bess said, laughing.
When she had finished eating, Bess called into the kitchen to ask Chef if he needed anything. He didn’t, so she went to reception. ‘Everything all right, Jack?’
‘Yes, Mrs Donnelly, all quiet.’
‘I’ll be back in a minute, then,’ she said, and dashed into the office. ‘Nancy, while the guests are having their breakfasts, Jack doesn’t need me, so shall we go upstairs and wash your face and brush your hair?’ Nancy left her drawing of the pit pony and joined Bess at the door.
On the left side of Bess and Frank’s sitting room, Frank had put a single bed. And in the corner a tallboy that had four deep drawers and narrow wardrobe. Nancy took off her outer clothes and without being told scooped up her washbag and towel from the end of her bed and skipped off to the bathroom, a small room off Bess and Frank’s bedroom.
When she returned her face was shiny-clean but her underclothes were wet. ‘Right,’ Bess said, ‘clean undies and a pretty frock.’ Bess took vest, knickers and socks, from the top drawer of the tallboy, and a blue dress and cardigan from the wardrobe.
She helped Nancy to dress. Then sat on the bed with the child sitting on the rug in front of her and brushed out the knots in her tangled curls. Bess had curly hair and as a child was never allowed to let it grow. With a new baby arriving every eighteen months Lily Dudley didn’t have time to brush Bess’s hair for the pleasure of it. She brushed it once a day before school, often so roughly it made Bess cry. It was Ena who, as soon as she was old enough, liked to brush Bess’s hair. She would brush it until it shone. She never tired of putting ribbons in it, plaiting it, turning fine strands around her fingers to make ringlets. Bess smiled at the memory.
‘There, all done.’ Bess put down the brush and lifted Nancy’s golden locks from her shoulders. Her hair was soft and curled easily. ‘We’ll tie it back with a ribbon, shall we, then it won’t get in your eyes when you’re drawing.’ Bess took a length of blue ribbon from a box at the side of the bed, swept Nancy’s hair up and tied a bow around it.
Bess and Nancy arrived downstairs as a group of people dressed in thick jackets and walking shoes were leaving. Bess opened the door to the office. ‘You go and see Uncle Frank and finish your drawing, while I help Jack.’ Closing the door, Bess heard complimentary words about Nancy’s dress. Nancy replied, but Bess didn’t catch what she said.
‘The group that have just left are taking the public footpath down to the River Swift, and then over the bridge to the Rye Hills, and Lowarth,’ Jack said. ‘One of them has a distant relative in Bitteswell, so they’re going to walk a far as the village and have lunch in one of the pubs.
‘And I gave another man, a historian I think he said he was, directions to Market Bosworth. He wanted to see where the Battle of Bosworth took place. He said he wouldn’t be back for lunch, because he’s driving up to Nottingham, to see the castle.’ Jack gave Bess a lopsided smile.
‘I know that look! What have you done?’ Bess teased.
‘Nothing, only the young woman in the room next to the gentleman who asked for directions to Market Bosworth came down a few minutes after him and told me that she wouldn’t be in for lunch either.’ Jack lowered his voice. ‘She followed him out and when she got to the door she turned and winked at me. I think she’s the historian chap’s fancy woman,’ he whispered.
‘If she is, she isn’t very discreet, is she?’
‘No,’ Jack said, ‘but I am.’ Bess smiled and took her position behind the reception desk. ‘Discretion is important in the hotel business. Take these two,’ Jack said.
‘I’d rather not,’ Bess replied, and, smiling politely, asked the middle-aged couple who had aired their dirty linen over dinner twice during the week if they needed any help.
Other guests came and went. Two children asked to see the animals, so Frank and his eight-year old helper led them and their parents outside. ‘Don’t let Nancy get near the pigs in her clean dress, Frank,’ Bess called after them.
‘Did you hear that, Miss?’ Frank turned and saluted Bess, and the little girl giggled.
After lunch, Bess and Nancy set off to see Margot and the baby, collecting Bess’s mother on the way. Lily Dudley chattered all the way to the hospital about when she had her children. ‘We had babies at home in the old days,’ she told Bess. ‘There was no way of getting to a hospital if you lived out in the country. I stayed in bed a day or two when I had our Tom, but when you girls were born your father was out at work all day, so I had no choice but to get up to look after you all.’
‘I remember Granny staying at our house and looking after you when Claire and Ena were born. Surely she came and stayed when Margot and I were born too - and Tom.’
Lily Dudley looked out of the window. ‘Yes, now I think of it, she did, but I still got up after a few days. Your granny was a good help. All the same…’
‘We’re here,’ Bess said, putting an end to the conversation, which Bess had heard so many times and which always ended with “it’s a wife’s job to look after her husband and children.”
The small room that Margot had given birth in was empty. ‘Margot has been moved,’ Bess said, leading the way to the maternity ward. From the corridor, Bess could see Margot, Bill and the baby through the square panes of glass in the ward’s door. A second later Bill came out and welcomed them.
Bess’s mother went in to see Margot first with Bill, and Bess and Nancy waited outside. Half an hour later, Bill came out and beckoned Bess and Nancy. When they entered the ward, Bill and his mother-in-law left.
Bess waved as she and Nancy walked down the ward to Margot’s bed. Bess stopped to greet her sister, but Nancy, letting go of her hand, tiptoed over to the cot and peered in.
‘Hello, darling.’ Bess kissed Margot’s cheek. She crane
d her neck and looked over at the baby. ‘Oh, Margot, she is beautiful.’ And on the balls of her feet, so she didn’t wake her niece, Bess skirted Margot’s bed to join Nancy. ‘Hello baby?’ Bess cooed, when the tiny child opened her eyes and yawned.
‘Hello baby?’ Nancy said, emulating Bess. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Her name is Natalie Elizabeth Goldie,’ Margot said.
Nancy looked from the baby to Margot and back again. ‘That’s my mummy’s name,’ she told the baby, who was looking in her direction through unfocused eyes. Bess’s heart beat heavily. The joy she felt at seeing her new niece was overshadowed by the pain she felt for her small ward. Standing behind Nancy, with her hands on the little girl’s shoulders, Bess watched Margot’s baby daughter’s eyes slowly close.
‘I think she’s asleep,’ Bess whispered. Nancy nodded, but made no attempt to move away from the cot, so Bess left her watching over the sleeping baby and returned to her sister. ‘Did you hear what she just said?’ Bess quietly asked Margot.
‘Yes. I wonder which of the names she meant.’
‘I’ll ask Maeve when she gets back.’
‘How has it been looking after an eight-year-old?’
‘Frank’s done most of the work.’ Bess told Margot how Nancy helped Frank with the hens, how she collects the eggs for breakfast, about her feeding the pigs. At the word pigs, Nancy turned and smiled. ‘And you love Donnie, don’t you?’
‘Donnie is a pit pony,’ Nancy told Margot.
‘I rarely see one of them without the other. Bath and bed are my duties, aren’t they, Nancy?’
Nancy nodded. ‘And reading me stories.’ Then, turning her attention back to the baby, she said, ‘Once upon a time,’ in a hushed voice.
‘So, asking the question again,’ Margot said, pointedly, ‘how has it been?’
‘Wonderful. I love it. I didn’t think I would. I thought I’d be worrying about work when I was with her, and feeling guilty when I was at work because I wasn’t giving her the attention she needed. But everything has worked out really well, so far.’ Bess lifted her hands and crossed her fingers.
She looked back at Nancy. ‘You should see Frank with her; he’s a natural.’ Bess lowered her voice, ‘I’m going speak to him about us adopting. I’ve raised the subject a couple of times already, but something has always stopped us from discussing it properly. I’m not sure Frank saw it as a possibility then, or would have wanted it, but seeing him with Nancy has made me realise what a great father he’d make.’
‘You’d make a great mum, too.’
Bess looked to the heavens. ‘It would be a dream come true.’
No sooner had Bess given Margot the news about Claire going home to sort things out with Mitch than the nursing staff came marching through the ward doors. ‘I think it’s time we were going,’ Bess said. ‘Come on sweetheart, visiting time is over.’ Nancy mouthed bye-bye to Natalie and with a puckered brow joined Bess.
‘You’ll see Natalie again,’ Bess said. ‘Won’t she, Margot?’
‘Of course she will.’ Turning to Nancy, Margot said, ‘You’re Natalie’s friend and you can visit her any time you like.’
That night, Bess was woken by a noise coming from the sitting room. She looked at the alarm clock and although it was dark, she could just make out the time. It was midnight. Worried that Nancy had got up and dressed again, to be ready to collect the eggs with Frank, Bess slowly turned back the bed clothes. So she didn’t wake Frank, she slid out of their bed and pushed her feet into her slippers. Grabbing her dressing gown from the stool under the dressing table, Bess threw it around her shoulders and quietly opened the bedroom door.
By the night light, Bess could see Nancy sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by a pile of her old photographs. ‘What are you doing, darling? It’s ever so late. You’ll be too tired to collect the eggs with Uncle Frank in the morning.’
Nancy gave Bess a photograph of Margot when she first went to London at the beginning of the war. She was dressed in her usherette uniform posing with some of the showgirls from the Prince Albert Theatre. ‘That’s Auntie Margot,’ Nancy said, pointing to Bess’s younger sister, ‘And that’s my mummy.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘Bess wake up!’ Bess had put Nancy back to bed and, after thinking about Nancy’s mother, had fallen asleep beside her. She opened her eyes to see Frank was already dressed. ‘If Nancy wants to come with me to collect eggs this morning, you’ll have to get her up, love. We’re running late. The alarm didn’t go off.’
Bess wondered if she had accidentally knocked the tiny hammer that banged on the clock’s brass bell when she looked at the time before going into Nancy in the early hours, but didn’t say anything.
‘Frank?’ Bess pointed to the pile of photographs that Nancy had been looking through. ‘Nancy was looking at those pictures in the night. One is of Margot and the dancers at Anton and Natalie’s theatre--’
‘Tell me later, darling, there’s no time now.’
Bess shrugged, stood up, and still half asleep staggered across the room to the bathroom.
‘Good morning, sleepy-head,’ she heard Frank say. ‘I’m going down to start work. We’ll collect the eggs as soon as you’re dressed,’ he said, as he was leaving.
‘Wait for me Uncle Frank,’ Nancy called.
‘Not without a wash, young lady,’ Bess said, looking round the bathroom door and seeing Nancy pulling on a dress.
When she was washed and dressed, Bess brushed Nancy’s hair and said she could go down to Frank. ‘I should think he’ll still be in the office sorting out the post. Look for him there first.’ Nancy ran out of the room and started along the corridor. ‘If he’s outside already, he’ll be in the yard with the animals.’ Bess was petrified in case she went anywhere near the lake. ‘You know where to go, don’t you?’ Nancy shouted, yes! ‘Don’t go near the lake,’ Bess called. As she disappeared down the stairs Bess heard Nancy shout, no!
Bess returned the photographs to the drawer, putting the one with the dancer that Nancy said was her mother on top of the pile. She then dashed back to the bathroom and washed and dressed.
Bess was desperate to tell Frank what Nancy had told her, but she wasn’t on her own with him at all that day. She had spent the morning on reception, while Frank and Nancy were outside with the animals. After lunch, Nancy had been in the office with her, playing with her dolls, while Frank was fixing the plumbing in one of the first floor bathrooms. Later, when Nancy had had enough of her dolls and had put them to bed, she got out her drawing book. After tea, Bess returned to reception to allow Jack to have a break, and left Nancy drawing pictures of clowns and balls, stars and half-moon shapes that she carefully coloured in, staying within the lines. When Bess returned to the office, she took down the calendar and Nancy filled in another square.
‘How many days has it been since Aunt Maeve went to Ireland?’ Bess asked.
Nancy counted each day by tapping her finger on the coloured squares. ‘Five!’
‘And how many days until she’s back?’
‘Two.’ Nancy sang out, without using her fingers.
Bess put Nancy to bed that evening and read her a story. When she was sure Nancy was asleep, Bess took the pile of photographs from the drawer, laid them on the floor, and looked through them. She then took several programmes from earlier shows that she had seen with her friends Natalie and Anton Goldman at the Prince Albert Theatre and, with the photograph that Nancy had been looking at the night before in one hand, she turned the pages of the programmes with her other until she found the same face. Looking down the cast list she spotted a name that matched both photographs, and Margot’s baby’s name. The pretty girl who Nancy had called her mummy was Goldie Trick.
Bess sat back on her heels hardly able to take in what she was seeing. In the hospital when Margot had told them that she was going to call her baby Natalie Elizabeth Goldie and Nancy had said that’s my mummy’s name, Bess had assumed she meant Natal
ie or Elizabeth. She hadn’t. She had meant, Goldie. In a daze, Bess turned the next page over and there was a photograph of, Nancy Jewel, the Prince Albert theatre’s lead dancer.
Suddenly it all made sense. Bess looked at the little girl sleeping soundly and wiped the flow of silent tears from her face with the back of her hand. She had been named Nancy Margaret after the two friends who had helped her escape London - and David Sutherland - by her late mother, Goldie Trick.
As she stepped onto the marble floor of the main hall, Bess saw Ena. She waved and her youngest sister retuned the gesture. ‘Have I got some news for you,’ Ena said, her voice high with excitement.
‘And me for you,’ Bess said. Opening the door to the office and standing back to let Ena enter first, she looked over her shoulder. ‘Any messages, Jack?’
‘Mr Donnelly is mending a lamp in the library. Other than that, no, Mrs Donnelly.’
‘Problems?’ The receptionist shook his head. ‘Indiscretions?’ He laughed. ‘Well you know where I am if you need me,’ she said, disappearing into the office before the receptionist had time to reply.
‘Katherine Hawksley’s mother isn’t dead!’ Ena announced, as soon as she and Bess sat down. ‘She is very much alive and running the family’s cotton business in a small town outside Carlisle. It took me a hell of a time to track her down. She changed her name some years ago, so Gerald Hawksley wouldn’t be able to find her. After fifteen years, she is still terrified of him.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘She’s a very nice woman who comes from a well-to-do family in Carlisle. It was Gerald Hawksley who married her for her money, not the other way round, like he would have people believe. And she didn’t abandon her daughter either. Hawksley was a big noise in the BUF and he threatened to have her killed if she didn’t leave.’
‘I still wouldn’t have gone without my child,’ Bess said.
Foxden Hotel (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 5) Page 20