Daughters of Lace

Mary, 1942 - Chapter 2

Photo by Gary Scott on Unsplash

Henry and Mary were married on the 16th of June in the Radford Methodist Church. It was an unspectacular venue, seeming more like an office building than a church, but Mary was not bothered. The fact of the marriage was comfort and luxury enough and war time weddings were practical rather than romantic affairs.

Harriet was the flower girl and she beamed the whole way through the service. Mary told her daughter to smile with her lips and not her mouth so as to hide her ugly buck teeth but the girl forgot and smiled with every tooth she had. Frank clung to his mother’s side, lost in the confusion of what a marriage was and what it meant for him. George and Peter sat in their pews, a mixture of uncertainty and resignation on their faces while Henry’s eyes gleamed at Mary through his big bushy eyebrows. 

Mary stroked the bristly tweed suit she was wearing and moved her hips from one side to the other. The shoes she was wearing were too small for her and pinched her toes but she stopped when the priest came forward and began the ceremony...

The twenty guests, mainly family and Mrs Davey, made their way back to Plumptre Square after the service. Mary had set the table with a tablecloth she’d made from a discarded lace panel. She saved her and Henry’s ration coupons for months to be able to afford some extra biscuits and the ingredients for a wedding cake. She’d made the wedding cake herself the weekend before. It was a fruit cake, the fruit doused in a large dose of brandy and soaked for twenty-four hours before baking. The cake was decorated in streaks of white icing. On top of the cake, George had whittled a groom and bride and painted them so they looked like a miniature version of Henry and Mary. He’d even drawn a thick beard on Henry’s face.

As they mingled with their guests, Mrs Davey drew Mary to one side and whispered in her ear.

‘You know how this looks don’t you?’

‘What?’ said Mary stepping back.

Mrs Davey leaned in again.

‘You and him,’ she wagged her head in the direction of Henry. ‘Together all these years, alone, and now you’re married.’

She nodded as if that explained exactly what she was trying to say. Mary felt her body stiffen. She knew what Mrs Davey meant and she knew the implications of what she was saying, but she wasn’t going to give Mrs Davey the satisfaction of admitting it.

‘Why don’t you enlighten me?’ she said.

Mrs Davey harrumphed. She lifted her chin as she said, ‘You know it wasn’t proper you keeping house for a single man. How do you think it looks now you married him?’

‘I think it looks like I’m married,’ said Mary and before Mrs Davey could say anything else, she spun on her heel and rejoined Henry in the living room where he was showing one of his work friends a picture of Jim.

She hooked her arm under Henry’s as he replaced the photograph on the mantelpiece. Mary glanced over her shoulder to find Mrs Davey’s eyes still following her so she flicked her hair over her shoulder and smiled her widest smile at Henry and his guest. A moment later George appeared.

‘Dad,’ he said. ‘Someone’s here.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Gran and Grandad.’

Henry laughed and then was serious when he saw George’s face.

‘Gran and Grandad?’

He unhooked Mary’s arm and went with George to the front door.

‘Mummy,’ said Harriet as she ran toward Mary, tripped over a corner of the rug, spilt her biscuit on the floor and trampled it into the fibres as she stood up. 

‘Watch what you’re doing girl,’ snapped Mary.

Harriet’s shoulders drooped and, instead of continuing towards Mary, she turned and made her way out of the living room.

Mary sighed. There was no pleasing that girl. She glanced around for Frank who was happily turning his hands inside out as he played the steeple game with Peter and then swung her eyes to the living room door to see if Henry would bring his guests into the house.

Gran and Grandad could only mean one thing: George and Peter’s grandparents, Mr and Mrs Bell — Henry’s first wife’s parents. How and why they decided to turn up to their son-in-law’s wedding was a mystery and Mary hoped it wasn’t going to spoil their celebrations.

After Henry and Mary cut the cake Mr and Mrs Bell, Eliza Bell’s parents, strode towards the couple. Mr Bell held out his hand and the two men clasped their palms together while Mrs Bell stood with her body half facing Mary and half facing away. Mary noted the drawn mouth and creased brow. She kissed Mary on the cheek and stepped back almost at once, saying, ‘Congratulations Mrs Lacey’.

‘Thank you Mrs Bell.’

‘You will look after those boys, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ said Mary and stopped herself from saying that’s what she’d been doing for the past seven years. ‘They’re grand lads.’

‘That they are, they’re good boys.’

‘I know that.’

‘As long as you do,’ said Mrs Bell.

There was an awkward pause and then Henry put his arm around Mary.

‘We’re glad you came,’ he said to Mr and Mrs Bell.

‘Jim will be surprised,’ said Mr Bell.

‘I wrote to him,’ said Henry.

‘I hope he’ll come back to live with us,’ said Mrs Bell.

‘I’d like him to stay with us,’ Henry replied. ‘He’s not lived with me for a long time and I’d like him to get to know Mary better.’

‘I’m not sure he’ll be happy with that,’ said Mr Bell.

‘Why not?’ asked Henry.

In the corner of the room, Harriet screamed. Mary snapped her head around and saw Peter crossing the floor to help the girl climb out from under the table where she’d got stuck between the chair leg and the table leg. She smiled with fondness at the boy. He was a young man now. Seven years. Seven years she’d been working for Henry. She’d watched the boys outgrow their breeches and sewn up the patches in their knees when they fell in the school yard. She’d not ever taken to tucking them in at night; she’d not even done that for her own children, but she’d been there when they came home from school hungry, and she’d fed them what little she could from the rations she saved. When Henry worked late and stopped in the pub on the way home, she was the one who ran a bath for the boys, and Harriet and Frank, to bathe. She wasn’t their mother but she tried to care for them as best she could. Jim was different though; already a young man when she met him and having been on the front line for so long, she wondered how things might change if he came to live with them. She had a feeling it might change things in ways she could not expect.

Mr Bell let out a heavy sigh as Mary brought her attention back to him.

‘He’ll need time to get used to your situation.’

‘Maybe Jim can decide that for himself.’

‘He’s a young man who’s seen the dark side of life. I don’t think he’ll want to cope with more change.’

‘You’re underestimating him,’ said Henry. ‘He’s got more to him than you think.’

‘I think I would know that more than you,’ said Mrs Bell.

Henry’s heavy brows grew closer together. Mary laid a warning hand on his arm.

‘You might not have Eliza anymore,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t mean you can steal my son away from me.’

Mrs Bell stiffened and Mr Bell balled his fists at his side.

‘We know Jim best. We know what he wants.’

Henry shrugged Mary’s hand off his arm and turned to walk away. Then he stopped, turned back and spat, ‘He’s my son,’ he said. ‘When he comes back, we’ll treat him like the young man he is. We’ll ask him what he wants, not what we want. Whatever he decides, we’ll abide by. There’ll be no pressure from us, or from either of you. It’s Jim who’ll decide and he won’t know anything about this conversation. Alright?’

Henry didn’t wait for an answer. He stormed to the back of the hall and disappeared outside. Mary clattered after him, heart pounding. She wasn’t sure what had just happened but she knew when Jim came home, all kinds of things must, and would, change.