Gracie Read online

  ‘Have you told Ruby yet?’ Sean asked suddenly.

  ‘Of course not, I wouldn’t tell anyone before I told you. But if it’s okay with you I’ll tell her tomorrow when I go to work.’

  ‘Then maybe we could all go out together to celebrate. Maybe Ruby and Johnnie will be next to have one. Once they’re wed, of course.’ Sean paused. ‘When’s that going to happen?’

  ‘I think they have to wait a suitable time. Even though Johnnie and Sadie were separated they were still married, and the finger of blame for her doing herself in is still pointing firmly at him and Ruby. And of course he blames himself, which is daft,’ Gracie said.

  ‘Understandable,’ Sean replied. ‘I mean, Johnnie was a married man having an affair; some would say he drove his wife to commit suicide, some would say they are both to blame for the poor woman’s passing …’ Sean shrugged his shoulders expressively, making Gracie feel defensive towards her friends.

  ‘That’s not really fair, Sean. It wasn’t like that at all. They weren’t having an affair – well, not in the way you make it sound. But anyway the outcome was that she never meant to actually kill herself, it was Sadie being dramatic as always. She thought someone would find her in time. She’d done it before, only this time no one did get there in time …’ Gracie said sadly as she thought of the vibrant but damaged young woman Johnnie Riordan had been married to, the mother of his two small children.

  ‘Ah well. They’re both still young, and what with Johnnie already having kids, Ruby’s going to have her hands full when they all have to live together. The kids will resent Ruby, that’s for sure,’ Sean said, decisively.

  ‘They’re too young for that and they’re still living with his sister even though Johnnie spends less time there now he’s living down here half the time. But I suppose it’ll all come out in the wash eventually, those two were made for each other … Like us, eh?’ Gracie smiled affectionately at her husband, trying to change the subject.

  ‘And he’s a lucky man,’ Sean ignored her comment and continued on his thread. ‘I mean, how lucky that his girlfriend could give him a job and somewhere to live. Worth its weight in gold that is. Half the time with his sister looking after them all, and the other in the hotel, carefree and rent-free.’

  She recognised the familiar hint of envy in Sean’s voice as he spoke about Johnnie and as usual, it bothered her. He mentioned it so often that she knew it niggled away at him that Johnnie had now been given a role in the Thamesview Hotel, even if it was as general dogsbody and occasional chauffeur to the guests alongside Henry.

  Because she worked there herself, Gracie knew Johnnie worked really hard whenever he could, for very little pay, just to help Ruby with the running of the hotel. Almost everything he did earn went to his sister for the children. But Sean only saw favouritism and it seemed to rankle with him that Johnnie had sole access to the bedsit in the annexe at the back of the hotel, even though he had declined Ruby’s offer for he and Gracie to live there.

  Sometimes it rankled with her that Sean also had delusions and expectations over his mother’s role in the business. No matter how many times she explained her position, that she was just an employee, they both seemed to be looking for a way to stake a claim on the ownership of Thamesview.

  ‘So it’s okay if I tell Ruby tomorrow?’ said Gracie, hoping to move the conversation on from how lucky Johnnie was, and back to their baby. ‘I’ll only tell her if you don’t mind. Do you want to tell your mother first?’

  ‘Of course it’s okay. We’ll tell your parents and I’ll write to the family in Ireland first thing in the morning. I’m sure me Mam will want to come and visit us just as soon as she can.’

  Gracie forced an enthusiastic smile. ‘I’m sure she will.’

  ‘It’s a good job that we have two bedrooms, eh? And when the baby’s born she can stay as long as she likes to get to know her new grandchild. She helped my sisters out no end when they had theirs. We’re lucky I have such a wonderful family, don’t you think?’ Sean leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms and smiled smugly.

  Feeling mildly irritated, but not wanting to comment on his observations, Gracie stood up and started to clear the table. ‘I’ll just go and get the pudding. I’ve made your favourite apple crumble especially.’

  ‘Is there custard?’ Sean asked with a grin. ‘Made the way my mam makes it?’ Gracie wasn’t quite sure if he was making a joke or not but either way she pretended not to have heard. She silently gathered up the crockery, piled everything onto a tray and took it through to the kitchen. Dumping it all on the draining board she took a deep breath. The last thing she wanted on that important day was to argue with him about either Ruby and the Thamesview or her mother-in-law.

  She had spent so long fantasising about the moment she would be able to give her husband the news they both wanted that she was determined nothing was going to spoil it for her.

  A baby. She was going to have a baby and this time no one was going to take it away from her.

  TEN

  The next day Gracie woke up and felt sick. It was an overwhelming feeling of nausea and she wasn’t sure whether it was because she was pregnant or because she was suddenly feeling negative about the whole thing, but it took all her energy to drag herself out of bed and get dressed. Usually she jumped up and went off to work full of enthusiasm, but that morning she found it a struggle and for the first time she was late for work at the Thamesview.

  It was also compounded because it was more of a journey for her now that she and Sean lived in central Southend. Where previously she had just walked down the stairs to work, now it was either a long walk or a bus ride depending on the weather and the time she had to be there.

  ‘Morning, Rubes … I know I’m late, I missed the bus. I’m really sorry, but if you’ve got five minutes to spare I’d like a chat in private. Can we go into the office?’

  Gracie smiled as Ruby looked sideways at her and smirked. ‘Can I make a guess?’

  ‘A guess about what?’

  ‘Well, I don’t think you’re going to tell me you want to change your day off. That wouldn’t turn your face white as a sheet …’

  The two women walked side by side to the hotel office on the ground floor that looked out over the seafront promenade. It was a small room that had been created originally from a corner of the lobby but the wide sash window made it light and airy despite the fact that it was filled with shelves of folders, files and papers that went back many years.

  It was the only room in the property that hadn’t been decorated or at least changed since Leonora Wheaton had died and bequeathed the well-established but rather faded hotel to Ruby Blakeley, the young woman that she had taken under her wing and nurtured as if she were her own. The room was so much a part of the woman that Ruby had grown to love that she had left it exactly as it was, in Leonora’s memory.

  Gracie moved some papers off the wobbly old dining chairs and they both sat down, Ruby behind the battered old-fashioned desk which took up half of the room, and Gracie on the chair alongside.

  ‘Go on then, tell me …’ Ruby said, smiling.

  ‘I’m expecting! Me and Sean are having a baby. It’s due in about six months, the doctor reckons.’

  ‘I knew it! Oh, that’s such good news. I’m so happy for you, Gracie Grace. I bet Sean’s pleased, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he is and so am I, but …’

  Gracie could barely get the words out before she dissolved into floods of tears.

  ‘Gracie! Whatever’s wrong?’ Ruby jumped up again and put her arms around her friend. ‘I thought this is what you wanted, what you both wanted?’

  ‘It is, it is,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s everything I ever wanted ever since … you know … but somehow it’s not how I expected it to be …’ Gracie paused and looked around, even though the office door was closed. ‘I feel horribly sick and I also feel so horribly guilty, as if I’m betraying the other little one I gave away.’

  ‘Oh, co
me on, Gracie – you don’t really believe that, do you? You’ve always had such a sensible view about what happened. You know you didn’t just give him away, you’ve always known that; you didn’t have any choice, same as I didn’t have any choice. The decisions were made and we just had to get on with it …’

  ‘I know it sounds mad,’ Gracie gulped in a big breath of air, ‘but I had a nightmare last night that I had my baby and they took it away. It was crying and I was running after them but my legs wouldn’t work and then it was gone …’

  ‘Oh, Gracie. You never did anything wrong so there’s nothing to be punished for, even if that was how it worked. Which it isn’t. If you know what I mean.’ Ruby smiled reassuringly. ‘I’m not saying this right, am I? But you know what I mean …’

  Gracie sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘Deep down I know you’re right, but in the middle of the night I can’t stop thinking about him. I keep turning it over in my head and I wonder where he is, what he’s doing. Even if he’s still alive. I mean, I wouldn’t even know that, would I? He could be dead, he could be in Australia. I should never have let them do that, take my baby away …’

  ‘Don’t think like that!’ Ruby interrupted quickly as she went over to her friend and sat beside her. ‘We all make mistakes and that’s all there is to it. And we had no choice really, either of us, that’s how it was. Now, you stay right there and I’ll go and ask Johnnie to make us both a nice strong cup of coffee. If that doesn’t make you feel better nothing will. Coffee and fruit cake are coming up shortly to celebrate your good news. I’m really jealous of you, but in the nicest way!’

  Gracie Donnelly smiled appreciatively at her friend, who always had the knack of making everything seem okay.

  As Ruby pulled the door behind her, her smile faded and she blinked hard as she walked quickly to the kitchen, her head down. She had left the room as quickly as she could because she didn’t want to spoil Gracie’s moment and she certainly didn’t want anyone else to see her looking teary-eyed.

  She was naturally delighted for her friend but the conversation about her lost baby had revived the memories of her own ordeal. Like Gracie, she had tried hard to tuck it all away in a separate compartment of her mind and on the whole she succeeded, but every so often something happened and it popped up unexpectedly to torment her. Gracie’s pregnancy announcement was one of those times.

  It was inevitable and she had been waiting for her friend to announce that she was expecting a baby, but Ruby had still been unprepared to feel as if she’d been punched in the stomach.

  The thought of Gracie having another baby had hurt far more than she could ever have thought, not because she didn’t want her to but because Ruby wished it was she herself. There was nothing that she would love more than to have another baby with Johnnie Riordan, Maggie’s father.

  Ruby had been much luckier than Gracie in that she knew where her daughter was, who she was with and how she was getting on; she was also able to see her and have a relationship with her, even it was always as a big sister rather than a mother.

  George and Babs Wheaton were her parents, and that’s how it was going to have to stay, until the time was right for Maggie to know about her true parentage.

  Ruby was eternally grateful to the Wheatons, the couple who had taken her into their home during her evacuation from Walthamstow. She had been a scared ten-year-old away from her home and family for the first time in her life and they taken her into their home and cared for her then as if she were their own. They had also cared for her when she discovered she was expecting a baby at the tender age of sixteen and had no one else to turn to.

  And it was George Wheaton’s sister Leonora who had given Ruby a safe place to stay during her pregnancy at the Thamesview, away from everyone who knew her.

  ‘Leonora, we’re so grateful to you for helping us and for helping Ruby. She’s got herself into a bit of a fix …’

  ‘I can see that,’ Leonora Wheaton said, her stance straight-backed and her expression severe as she looked Ruby up and down. ‘And I can see from looking that it’s more serious than a “bit of a fix,” George. You always did play things down. Anyway we’d better go through to the lounge, you’ll never get that clunky old chair up the stairs and we certainly can’t carry you.’

  Ruby was shocked at Leonora’s tone and words aimed at her wheelchair-bound brother but when George and Babs both laughed she realised that it was a form of banter between brother and sister. But she couldn’t bring herself to join in because she was mortified to be there. As she followed them into the lounge she felt gauche and stupid and she hated herself for getting in that position, but as everyone was doing their best by her she knew she just had to accept her new situation.

  She couldn’t go back to the family home in Walthamstow in London which was dominated by her overbearing brothers and if she stayed in Melton with the Wheatons then everyone would know; she had no choice but to stay with Leonora Wheaton in Southend.

  Ruby was sixteen and had only met George Wheaton’s sister a couple of times, yet now she was going to live with the woman in her hotel. It wasn’t where she wanted to be but she accepted it was a good option because she would be able to see out her pregnancy in secret; she wouldn’t stand out because she was staying there under the guise of being Leonora’s niece: a young, pregnant war widow. Once the baby was born and adopted, then she could go back to her normal life, as if nothing had happened.

  After the Wheatons left, Leonora showed Ruby up to her room, which was nowhere near as bad as she had been expecting. She had imagined something basic and solitary but it was actually the comfortable second bedroom in Leonora’s private flat on the top floor of the hotel.

  ‘Here you are, Ruby. There are a few rules I expect you to obey while you’re here but most of them are just good manners, which I’ve been told you have. I also expect you to help out in the hotel. It’s a small establishment so we all work really hard and you will be required to do the same and earn your keep.’ Once again Leonora looked at her belly. ‘As long as you’re able, of course. I don’t want to be accused of taking advantage of you.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Wheaton,’ Ruby said quietly.

  ‘It’s not Mrs Wheaton, it’s Miss Wheaton but that aside, you have to call me Aunt Leonora if you’re to be my niece. I hope we can rub along together for the next few months. My brother wants me to take you under my wing, so I shall, but that’s not to say I approve of your condition …’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Wh … sorry, Aunt Leonora. Thank you for having me and I’ll do everything I can to help out. I don’t want to be a burden. Aunty Babs and Uncle George have done so much for me.’

  Ruby had been determined to just do whatever she had to do to get the whole nightmare over with as soon as possible, but her bottom lip wobbled as she realised that she was going to have to stay where she was right up until she gave birth: there was no going back. She looked down at her feet and sniffed.

  ‘Don’t get emotional on me, child. I have enough to deal with already. Can you cook?’ Leonora asked suddenly.

  ‘A bit …’

  ‘In that case, go into the kitchen over there and see what you can find for dinner for both of us. I have to go back down and see to my guests.’

  That moment had been the start of a relationship between them; they got along together to the extent that a genuine affection developed between the unlikely couple. Leonora had asked few questions of her young houseguest but something had made Ruby confide in her.

  Leonora would often sit out on her balcony, watching the liners and fishing boats going back and forth, while Ruby would sit alongside her and talk.

  Ruby told Leonora about her family life, about her time in evacuation and also about Johnnie Riordan, the father of her baby. Naturally, Ruby held some facts back; she didn’t tell Leonora that he was the local wheeler-dealer in Walthamstow who dabbled in the black market and hung around with local criminals. But she did tell h
er that she loved Johnnie and that was why she’d left Walthamstow without telling him she was pregnant.

  When Ruby had her daughter Maggie, it was agreed that rather than have her adopted by strangers, the childless Wheatons would take her back to their home in Cambridgeshire and bring her up as their own. In the beginning it had been hard for Ruby, but her friendship with Gracie McCabe helped her through, and when the time came for her to leave Southend Leonora Wheaton offered her a job and asked her to stay.

  It was the start of Ruby’s new life and she would be forever grateful to the woman who had given her the chance to start anew.

  Gracie was standing looking out of the window when Ruby went back into the office. ‘I’m such a selfish cow, aren’t I?’ she turned and smiled. ‘I’ve got everything I ever wanted and still I grumble. Ignore me …’

  ‘Johnnie’s bringing the drinks through in a minute.’

  ‘Okay. Quick coffee and then I’ll get to work. I’m not ill, I’m expecting a baby so I need to pull myself together and get on with it.’

  Ruby looked at her curiously. ‘Blimey, that’s a quick turnaround …’

  ‘I realised you’re right. We didn’t give up our babies because we were selfish; we did what was for the best. We’re both really lucky with our lives so no more feeling sorry for myself.’

  ‘I know. Despite everything, we’ve done well for ourselves, haven’t we? We’re both okay, aren’t we?’

  ‘We are. Will you and Johnnie come out with us one evening to celebrate? We could go to a dance in town?’

  ‘Of course we will,’ Ruby said with a wide smile, which belied her own inner turmoil.

  ELEVEN

  Gracie sighed out loud when she heard the doorbell. She really wasn’t in the mood to see anyone, least of all someone she wasn’t expecting. After the initial euphoria it had turned out to be a difficult pregnancy, and she was making the most of some time at home on her own to put her feet up and rest. She sometimes smiled at the irony of it all; her first pregnancy when she was single and unmarried had been problem-free and yet this time, when she could have relaxed and enjoyed it, it was turning into a nightmare.