Ada dressed Lucy in her prettiest dress for Mary’s wedding, which would have been a quiet affair except that so many people knew the bride and her groom that there was quite a large crowd of family and friends waiting outside St Mary’s church for her arrival.
Mary had borrowed a blue two-piece costume from her sister, one that Dolly had worn for her own wedding many years before, and she had splashed out and bought a new hat with the money that Mr Thornbury had given her before she left. He had pressed a gold sovereign in her hand and thanked her for taking such care of his niece following the death of his brother and sister-in-law.
She had been quite overcome by his generosity, and although she felt she didn’t want to spend the gleaming coin but keep it as a memento, reasoned that if she bought something as frivolous as a new hat for her wedding then she would always remember his kindness whenever she looked at it, even though she doubted that she would ever wear it again. The hat had cost five shillings so she had change left over, which reduced her feeling of being a spendthrift.
‘Mary looks really pretty,’ Lucy piped up as the bride arrived, escorted on the arm of one of her brothers.
‘She does,’ Ada said. ‘Can you see? Shall I lift you up?’ She scooped Lucy up to let her see above the crowd of onlookers, until they parted and let the little girl come through to the front to get a better view.
Mary’s family then piled into the church, sisters, brothers, nephews, nieces and cousins, closely followed by friends and neighbours. Ada marched down the church holding on to Lucy’s hand and sat next to her mother, who was saving her a seat at the front. Dolly lifted Lucy on to her knee to have a better view.
‘Is this ’first time you’ve been to a wedding?’ she asked in a whisper.
Lucy nodded and then gazed around the church, up at the stained glass windows and then back at the people sitting behind her, who seemed to know her as they nodded and smiled or gave her a little wave. She smiled back at them and felt the stone of sadness inside her dissolving and an uplifting surge of pleasure replacing it.
After the marriage ceremony was over, everyone followed the bride and groom outside to give their good wishes. Then another of Mary’s brothers announced that they had booked a room at the Commercial Hotel in Castle Street. ‘Family have all clubbed together,’ he said. ‘There’s beef and ham and plenty o’ bread and a jug or two of ale, an’ cake of course, and you’re all welcome to come an’ share it and drink ’health of our Mary and Joe.’
‘Are you coming?’ Dolly asked Ada. ‘You can bring ’bairn with you for an hour, can’t you?’
‘Yeh, I’ll risk it,’ Ada said, and turned to Lucy. ‘Would you like to come an’ have a glass o’ lemonade to drink to ’health of ’bride an’ groom, Miss Lucy?’
‘Oh, yes please.’ Lucy beamed. ‘I love lemonade. Cook used to make it when …’ Her words tailed off as she half recalled some forgotten time, and she tapped on her lips. ‘I don’t know – when it was.’
Mary came across to them and took hold of Lucy’s hand. ‘You look very pretty,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you could be here.’
‘I’m coming with you to have some lemonade,’ Lucy piped up, the uneasy memory disappearing. ‘Ada says that I can.’
‘Of course you can, and you’ll meet our Bob and Stanley, our Joshua and Edie an’ all of ’others. There’s loads of us. Our Bob is starting work at your house next week to chop wood for ’fires and fill ’coal hods and do a few other jobs for your uncle.’
‘Oh, goody!’ Lucy breathed. ‘That means I’ll know a lot of people.’
There were far more cousins and relations than she would ever remember, but Ada’s siblings, or bairns as Ada called them, Bob, Stanley, Joshua and Edie, who were all older than Lucy, scooped her up and took charge of her, sitting her at their table and making sure that she had a glass of lemonade, some bread and beef, and a slice of cake. Then there was the toddler Charlie who ran from table to table, was picked up and kissed and cuddled and then put down again. Dolly, who answered to Mam from her children, told Lucy, when she asked what she should call her, ‘You can call me Auntie Dolly, if you want to.’
‘Yes, please,’ Lucy said. ‘I’d like that. I only have one other aunt: Aunt Nora. Uncle William sometimes calls her my dear, but I don’t think that’s her name.’
All the others laughed at that and Lucy happily joined in but wasn’t sure why.
‘Our Bob’s coming to work at your house next week,’ Edie said. ‘Our Ada’s told him he’s not to speak to you if he sees you.’
Lucy gazed at her in dismay. ‘Why not?’
Edie shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Come on,’ she said, getting down from the table. ‘Let’s go an’ talk to ’other bairns.’
She took Lucy from table to table to meet her aunts, uncles and cousins and Lucy couldn’t keep up with who belonged to whom, but it didn’t seem to matter, as all the older people disciplined or praised all of the children regardless of whether or not they belonged to them, and they all called Lucy Miss Lucy, as if they knew her and all about her. All of the uncles took her hand and gently shook it and all the aunts smiled and some of them smoothed her hair or kissed her cheek and said ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Lucy’ as if they really meant it and murmured, ‘What a bonny bairn,’ or else ‘Poor bairn,’ and she didn’t really understand what they meant by that.
In what seemed to be no time at all Ada said, ‘Come on, Miss Lucy, we have to be getting back now or I’ll be in trouble with Mrs Thornbury.’
Lucy was sad to leave such a merry gathering but she didn’t want Ada to get into trouble. ‘I wish I could see Auntie Dolly and all of your bairns again, Ada. I don’t know any other children.’ She paused and then said, ‘I remember a little boy, I think.’ She shook her head. ‘But I don’t know who he was.’
He belonged to someone, she remembered. He’d come to their house with his father; he’d pulled her hair and she’d smacked him for it, and her mama had scolded her, her mama; hot tears flooded her eyes at the memory. She searched her remembrance. The boy’s father had been cross with him and had said, ‘That’s very naughty of you, Henry. She’s only a very little girl and you mustn’t do that ever again.’
‘Miss Lucy!’ Ada was holding out her coat for Lucy to put her arms in the sleeves. ‘You’re miles away. Did you hear what I said?’
Lucy blinked. ‘You said you’d get into trouble with Aunt Nora if we were late.’
Ada fastened up her coat and patted her on the head. ‘Are you tired?’ she asked. ‘You look it. Will I have to give you a piggy-back home?’
Lucy giggled and asked, ‘How do you do that, Ada?’
Before Ada could answer, a young man came up to her and put an arm round her shoulder. ‘I’ll walk you back, Ada,’ he said. ‘I’m going your way, and I’ll give Miss Lucy a piggy-back if she needs one.’
Lucy thought that Ada looked lovely as she blushed and smiled at the young man and accepted his offer of walking back with them, but she refused to let him give Lucy a piggy-back and told him that it wouldn’t be seemly. They talked to each other until they reached the top of Whitefriargate and then he left them to walk down Junction Dock where he said he worked. By then Lucy’s feet were aching and they still had quite a long way to go, but Ada knew a shortcut down Savile Street and Bond Street, where she stood Lucy on a wall and told her to climb on to her back and she’d carry her, and then Lucy knew that they were almost home for the next cut-through brought them into Albion Street and then Baker Street and she was carefully put down on her feet before they reached the house.
‘Hurry upstairs and wash your hands and face, Miss Lucy,’ Ada whispered as they entered the hallway. ‘Then put your indoor slippers on, there’s a good girl, cos Cook’ll have prepared afternoon tea and I’ll have to serve it.’
They must have been late, Lucy thought, as after obeying instructions she came back downstairs again and went into the sitting room to find her aunt and Oswald waiting for their tea.
‘Did you enjoy the wedding?’ her aunt asked. ‘You’ve been a long time.’
‘It was lovely,’ Lucy said enthusiastically. ‘And then I was invited to go for a – celebration and I had lemonade and cake.’ She turned to Oswald. ‘I wish you could have come, Oswald. There were lots of children there and—’
‘I don’t play with children,’ he scoffed. ‘I’m seven!’
‘Oh, but our Stanley is ten and our Joshua’s eight so you could have played with them.’
Oswald curled his lip. ‘I wouldn’t want to play with them. They wouldn’t be my sort.’
Lucy pressed her lips together and frowned. His sort?
‘What Oswald means, Lucy,’ her aunt explained, ‘is that they are different from us. They were Mary’s relatives, weren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ Lucy agreed. ‘And Ada’s as well. All of those bairns are her brothers and sisters and there were lots of others there too. I don’t know who they all were.’
Oswald pulled a face and his mother drew in a breath. ‘So there you are,’ she murmured.
Ada knocked on the door and came in with the tea tray. She had changed into a crisp white apron and a fresh cap. She put the tray down on a table and dipped her knee. ‘I’ll just bring in ’teapot and a jug of hot water, ma’am.’
‘Miss Lucy has been telling us of Mary’s wedding and the celebration afterwards,’ Mrs Thornbury said pointedly. ‘Where was the celebration held?’
‘In a hotel in Castle Street, ma’am. In a private room.’ Ada instantly made it clear that the event wasn’t in a public house, which was obviously what Mrs Thornbury expected. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind, ma’am. Mary specially asked if I’d take Miss Lucy. We didn’t stay long.’
The door opened again and William came in. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘That was excellent timing. Yes please, Ada, I will have a cup. Have you had a nice time, Lucy, my dear? Your first wedding, I should think? Did Mary look nice?’
Ada slipped out again as Lucy got up to stand by his side and tell him. ‘She bought a new hat and I was specially invited to go to the celebration afterwards and all the uncles and aunties were there with all their bairns.’
Her uncle laughed and fingered his moustache. ‘Were they really? Well, how splendid,’ he said.
‘And our Bob who’s coming to work here next week was there, but our Edie told me that Ada said he hasn’t to speak to me when he’s here.’ Her bottom lip trembled. ‘Why can’t he?’
Uncle William shook his head. ‘I can’t imagine why Ada should say such a thing,’ he said solemnly. ‘But I’ll have a word with our Bob when he gets here and tell him that he most certainly can.’
Lucy took a deep breath and smiled, instantly reassured, but wondered why her uncle raised his eyebrows as he looked across at Aunt Nora and then at Oswald.