Only a Mother Knows (22 page)

‘Who is giving you away?’ Tilly eventually managed to say, her words coming out in a great rush as Dulcie’s father was nowhere to be seen.

‘Rick will do the honours, I’m sure,’ said Archie, conscious it was only right her brother should have the duty now; he smiled and gave Dulcie a proud nod of approval.

‘I’m having nothing to do with that family of mine ever again,’ said Dulcie to her brother, ‘except you of course.’

Tilly looked at her beloved mum without saying a word, knowing that it must have been a last resort for Dulcie to exclude her own mother from her wedding. Then Dulcie turned to Olive, took her hand and held it.

‘You have all been more like a family to me and cared for me more than my own did – they couldn’t wait to get rid of me except Rick, and my sister is the last person I would want at my wedding. No,’ Dulcie continued determinedly, ‘I only want the people around me who …’ She left the rest of the statement hanging in the air as the car horn sounded outside.

‘It looks like it’s time to go,’ Dulcie said in a whisper, smiling up at her brother.

‘Maybe you would like to redo your make-up before you go, Dulcie?’ Olive suggested, handing Dulcie her make-up bag. ‘Right,’ she went on as Archie came forward, resplendent in his number one dress uniform in honour of the day and offered her his arm and to cover her obvious flurry of embarrassment she said quickly, ‘let’s be on our way. Tilly, drop your bag upstairs and off we go.’

‘I won’t be two ticks,’ Tilly said, hurrying up the stairs to put her kit bag away, then, from the top step she called, ‘Shall I put my stuff in my old room or shall I use Dulcie’s room for the weekend?’

‘No!’ cried Agnes with barely disguised alarm. ‘Put it in our room! I want to hear all about the ATS.’ She was very red-faced when everybody laughed.

David, magnificent in air-force blue, his shoes highly polished, his fighter pilot cap on his knee, sat in the wheelchair waiting for Dulcie’s sweeping entrance into the foyer of the register office. When he caught sight of her his face beamed with happiness, especially as she approached him smiling.

‘You look stunning, my darling,’ he whispered, his eyes gleaming with love as she bent to kiss him. ‘Please excuse me for not getting up.’

‘David,’ she said excitedly, ‘this is my brother, Rick, he’s home until his eyes get better.’ It hadn’t occurred to her that Rick’s eyes might never be as good as they once were.

‘We can compare war wounds later,’ David laughed, not taking his eyes from his beautiful bride. He had never felt as proud in all his life as he did now.

Dulcie looked anxious, Olive noted as she watched them both; the girl’s usual brash exterior seemed to have deserted her and in its place the vulnerability she always kept so well hidden had now surfaced as she moved closer to her future husband, gently placing her hand on his good arm secured around her waist. His best man, an RAF pal, was at the back of the wheelchair ready to push David inside the register office when they were summoned.

Smiling up at his bride-to-be, David said, ‘I don’t think I have ever seen a more beautiful woman on her wedding day and I am the happiest, luckiest man alive.’

Once inside, the small gathering settled into their seats, anticipating the lovely ceremony, when the registrar told their guests that David and Dulcie had requested they exchange their own vows and not the traditional ones. There was a gasp of stunned attentiveness when David, with the initial help of his best man and two walking sticks, managed to stand unaided to make his vows. Dulcie’s eyes, shining like diamonds, could not hide her thrill of delight.

David had been practising standing on his new legs for months, and when Dulcie agreed to marry him it spurred him on to surprise her on their wedding day, he told the small gathering, and ensure he stood up to marry the woman he had loved for so long.

‘I had to be able to look into your beautiful eyes when you become my wife,’ he whispered to Dulcie, ‘and I asked the boffins to make them a few inches taller – I quite fancy being a six-footer.’ He gave a gentle laugh, never once taking his eyes from his adored bride.

Olive and the girls sat teary-eyed as Rick gave Dulcie’s hand to her brave young barrister with the big future ahead of him, and the lump in their throats grew ever larger when Dulcie, in an unfamiliar gentle voice that was just above a whisper, made her vows.

‘I, Dulcie, take you, David, to be my lawfully wedded husband, my lifelong friend, my faithful confidant and my love, from this day forward. In the presence of our friends, I offer you my sincere promise to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as sorrow. I promise to love you, support you, to honour and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.’

As their vows were exchanged a single happy teardrop trailed down Dulcie’s face and landed on the gold band David had just slipped onto the third finger of her left hand. And she knew he meant every word when he lifted her hand and kissed it, sealing their love forever.

As David settled once more into his wheelchair, the register office door opened. Everybody, including Dulcie whose eyes were full of starry delight, turned towards the creaking noise of the door hinges, but her new-found happiness was short-lived and the ecstatic smile froze on her face when she saw her sister, Edith, standing in the open doorway, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed. Immediately Dulcie knew there was something very wrong and her guilty thoughts flew to her mother or her father whom she had deliberately ignored on her wedding day.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt the happy occasion.’ Edith looked directly at Dulcie with a glint of something resembling revulsion and, with her ruby lips turned into a sneer, she said, ‘It may not be of any consequence to you now but I felt that you should know. Wilder is dead!’

‘Well, of all the spiteful cats,’ Sally fumed when they got back to Olive’s house, watching the stunned bride and groom make the best of a bad job and cut their single-tiered wedding cake that Olive had managed to find enough fruit for, their hearts no longer in the celebrations. ‘She could have waited until after the ceremony was over before she blurted such news.’

‘Considering it happened a week ago,’ said Tilly. ‘Edith had plenty of time to tell Dulcie before today. But it was a heck of a shock to discover Wilder had flown so many dangerous missions, then to be killed after being run over by a ruddy great bus in the blackout.’

‘Drunk as a lord apparently,’ said Sally, amazed at Tilly’s salty language and how much she had matured since she joined the ATS.

‘Edith came here looking for Dulcie and it was Nancy who told her where she was,’ said Agnes, offering a plate of ham sandwiches to the girls who were huddled in the front room catching up on all the gossip.

‘That was a bit mean of Nancy, considering she knew Dulcie didn’t want her family at the wedding,’ said Sally, ‘especially Edith, after what she did with Wilder.’

‘I know, it seems that malice against Dulcie is irresistible to some people,’ Tilly said as their next-door neighbour brought in a tray of bone china cups and saucers – all matching – which Nancy had lent to Olive for the occasion and watched like a hawk in case anybody was giddy enough to break one.

‘I bet she enjoyed every minute of informing Edith that today was her sister’s wedding day,’ Tilly went on, giving Nancy’s retreating back a withering glance.

‘Let’s try and keep our chins up for Dulcie’s sake, hey, girls?’ Olive suggested, overhearing the girls’ conversation as she passed around a plate of salmon paste sandwiches – her rations, unfortunately, hadn’t run to real salmon but nevertheless Dulcie had told her earlier that she was thrilled with Olive’s efforts.

‘These are scant reward for Olive’s motherly endeavours, I know,’ Dulcie said later, handing her landlady a huge bouquet of flowers, ‘acquired’ from who knew where as they were so scarce. ‘I just want to say that even after my sister’s untimely entrance, Olive has made today one of the best days of my life.’ Olive blushed and gave a little self-deprecating shrug making everybody shout ‘hear, hear’ and give her a colossal round of applause.

‘Get away with you,’ Olive protested, hurrying to collect glasses and interrupt the small gathering of men over by the fireside catching up on Rick and David’s wartime adventures and quaffing fine brandy, which had been generously supplied by the groom from his pre-war stock. Olive offered Archie a sandwich and noticed that, although he was joining in the conversations, he seemed a little distracted.

‘Thank you,’ he said, taking a sandwich and breaking away from the company. His eyes seemed full of neighbourly concern as he said in a low voice, ‘Olive, you should sit for a while, you have been on your feet looking after everybody’s needs since we got back from the register office.’

Olive felt the heat snake up her neck and face at his considerate words and dismissively flapped her hands. ‘I can’t invite people to my home and expect them to look after themselves, now can I?’

‘You enjoy looking after others so much, from what I have seen,’ Archie said, smiling now to alleviate the significance of his observation and after a few moments he relaxed. ‘May I ask you something, Olive?’

‘Of course you can, you can ask me anything, Archie,’ Olive replied. However the question he asked her wasn’t the one she expected.

‘I know you are very busy and I know I’ve just told you to slow down for your own good but, oh, I’m making a right pig’s ear of this, aren’t I?’ Archie seemed to be searching for the right words. ‘It’s Mrs Dawson … even though she’s a lot better since she came home from hospital, she’s still not her old self, if you see what I mean …’

‘You want me to keep my eye on her?’

‘No, not at all,’ Archie said quickly, then his shoulders slumped and he gave a sheepish grin. ‘I feel a right hypocrite now.’

‘It’s no bother, you know,’ Olive assured him. ‘I pass your house every day, so it won’t be any hardship to knock and ask Mrs Dawson if she needs anything, now will it?’

‘Are you sure?’ Archie sighed. ‘It would be a great weight off my mind. You see, I thought having young Barney around would take her mind off the bombings and being on her own when I was out, and it did for a while but it’s coming up to our son’s birthday and she always goes a bit quiet around now …’

‘I’ll certainly see what I can do,’ said Olive, concern showing plainly on her face. Being a mother she could empathise with what Mrs Dawson was going through, knowing she would be devastated if anything should ever happen to Tilly.

‘It’s Barney I’m thinking about the most, she worries the life out of him, poor lad, and he’s taken to roaming the streets again whilst I’m out working or fire-watching, so I have the added worry of …’ Olive put her hand on Archie’s arm in a gesture of reassurance, just as Nancy brought in a fresh plate of sandwiches. Olive removed her hand from Archie’s arm as if it were on fire.

‘I’m sure you worry that he may fall in with the wrong crowd again.’ Olive nodded, knowing it would be so easy for the lad to pick up where he left off with the tearaways he used to hang around with. ‘But don’t give it another thought, I’ll keep my eye on him.’ Olive would do anything for Archie if he asked her – just the same as she would do anything for any of her neighbours if they asked her, she thought briskly.

Looking around the room, she noticed that everybody was deep in conversation and seemed to be relaxed and enjoying themselves, when a thought struck her. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, how could she possibly in full view of a room full of family and friends? So why did she feel the need to bow to Nancy’s disapproval? ‘And whilst we’re on the subject of Barney,’ she said, feeling braver now, ‘if he has nowhere to go he can always come in here. He could watch baby Alice whilst I’m doing my chores and Sally’s at work. That’s only if he wants to,’ she added quickly. ‘It’ll save him walking the streets now the weather is on the turn.’

‘Oh, Olive, you are the best.’ Archie, in a moment of unrestrained happiness, took Olive’s hand and kissed it. Olive was immensely relieved that Nancy had returned to the kitchen and nobody else saw him, but it did give her a feeling of elation for the rest of the day.

‘Come on, you lot,’ called Sally over the low conversational hubbub, ‘let’s have a sing-song. We know Dulcie has had some sad news and we are all sorry for that, but it’s her wedding day and we mustn’t let it overshadow her new status as Mrs James-Thompson – if that’s okay with you, Dulcie?’

Dulcie gave a little shake of her head when, a little later, putting the past to the back of her mind for the sake of her new husband, Sergeant Dawson gave a rousing rendition of a song by Noel Coward entitled, ‘Could You Please Oblige Us With a Bren Gun’, much to general amusement and everybody joined in.

A lot of water had flowed under the bridge since the early days of war, thought Dulcie as she hummed the chorus. Her sister whom they had initially given up for dead had come back only to run off with her man and, Dulcie realised now, she had nothing to reproach herself for. The enthusiastic applause brought her out of her reverie and seeing David’s happy expression she realised that it was his day too, she must make him as happy as possible and, in the sweet voice that hardly anybody had heard before she sang ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’, much to the astonishment of her friends. And as her perfect, soaring notes reached the chorus Dulcie gave David a little wink of her eye knowing they were going to make the best of things.

‘We’ll have the best marriage, Dulcie,’ David said as applause and shouts for more rang in her ears. ‘Just you wait and see, I am going to make you the happiest woman in England, if not the world.’ Dulcie gazed tenderly at her new husband, and, seeing him in a new light as if for the first time, her heart sang with love for him.

By the end of the revelries there were tears and laughter, old memories resurfaced and new ones were made. Tilly, Sally and Agnes hugged Dulcie so much that David had to beg someone to part them so he and his new wife could leave and begin their married life together.