balefully with his one beady eye. She had picked it up to take with her, but then George, helping her carry everything down to his van, had seen it and laughed. ‘You’re never bringing that old thing with you, are you?’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s a child’s toy and you’re not a child. Leave it. We’re looking to the future, not dwelling on the past.’
She walked over and stroked its nose, then turned her back on it and hurried from the room and went downstairs to join her father before her overflowing emotions got the better of her.
He looked distinguished in his tail suit. His face had very few lines and the little grey in his hair served to make him look distinguished. Just lately he seemed a lot younger, though she would not admit it might have anything to do with Virginia. He had done his best to persuade her to finish her studies. ‘Why the rush?’ he’d wanted to know the morning after the new year ball, when she told him she wanted to marry George straight away. ‘I’ve nothing against George Kennett, he’s a likeable enough young man, but he is only just starting in business, it’s not going to be easy and you are so young. Why not wait a year or two?’
‘I don’t want to. Please, Dad, give us your blessing, it’s important to me.’
He loved her and had always spoilt her a little, more than her mother had. He had sighed and reached out to take her hand. ‘If you’re sure…’
Now she smiled at him, eyes sparkling with unshed tears. Everyone said getting married was an emotional experience and she was certainly finding it so. He offered her his arm. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind, you know.’ He wished he had tried harder to dissuade her but, to his eternal shame, had realised that this marriage would be a way to avoid conflict between his daughter and Virginia. If they were not living under the same roof, sharing their lives, then he would not be torn apart by their antipathy towards each other. But was he being fair to Barbara, catapulting her into something she might regret?
‘I’m not going to change my mind. Are you?’
He looked startled, as if she were confirming his fears. ‘No, but I sincerely hope that’s not the reason for this…’
‘Of course it isn’t,’ she said quickly, picking up her posy of lily of the valley from the table. ‘I only meant that if you can fall in love and want to get married, so can I.’ She meant it, she really did.
Dora Symonds, who had never been married, loved weddings, and she could never pass a church if she saw white-ribboned carriages at the gate. Brides were lovely and grooms were handsome and, like the chimney sweep with his brushes, she liked to wish them well.
‘Blimey!’ she said, as Barbara emerged from the large hired car and took her father’s arm to be escorted into the church. ‘If it i’n’t John Bosgrove and his daughter, old enough to be married. Don’t time fly?’
‘Who’s John Bosgrove, when ’e’s at ’ome?’ Rita demanded. In her late twenties, she was a younger version of her mother, though her hair was a natural carrot colour and her mother’s owed more to a bottle. Both were plump and freckle-faced. Dora had a black shawl pulled tightly over her deep-puce dress and a battered straw hat with red ribbons. Rita wore a three-quarter coat but no hat. Between them was a young girl in a faded blue coat several sizes too small for her. She was bored and looking mulish. The women ignored her.
‘He owns Beechcroft Farm, that big house on the Lynn road. The family’s been there for donkey’s years.’
‘How d’you come to know him?’
‘There i’n’t many people I can’t name in this town, me girl, you ought to know that.’
‘True,’ her daughter said and laughed.
‘It weren’t like that,’ Dora said, huffily. ‘Not with ’im it weren’t. I knew his wife more’n him. She was always good to me, never judged me. I met her at the church…’
‘Church? You?’ Rita laughed again. ‘I don’t believe it!’
‘They were giving away second-hand clothes. Mrs Bosgrove arranged it for the poor and needy and I was needy all right, leastways you were growin’ that fast I couldn’t keep you in clothes. She helped me choose dresses and shoes for you. Give me a guinea too to keep us outa the workhouse. She died a few years back.