Chapter 21
Bobby was careful to set her clock before bed, now Marmaduke had blotted his copybook as an alarm.
Tomorrow was the wedding of Gil Capstick and Mabs Jessop, and she would feel dreadful if anything happened to make them late.
However, the baby had returned to form now his dad was home, waking her as ever at half past six.
The first thing Bobby did on waking was disable the alarm so Charlie could sleep on, then she went to get ready for the wedding.
The hectic nature of yesterday had left no time to prepare.
There was Charlie’s shirt and suit to iron, and she hadn’t had time to adjust her best pale green twinset.
After today, when she had come clean to her family, she could stop going to such lengths to hide her blossoming figure, but for the next few hours she needed to keep up the pretence.
Bobby glanced at the letter Charlie had received from the bank as she ironed his suit.
It ought to be a relief to know her husband had a weekly wage packet beckoning.
Despite Charlie’s hurt pride, it wasn’t such a terrible salary.
It was more than a private in the army received, at least, and the family allowance was a generous addition.
Yet Charlie had sounded so unhappy that it worried Bobby how he would settle to the work.
In the early days of their acquaintance, Bobby had felt she and Charlie were too different to ever be more than friends.
As she had come to know him better, she had begun to feel it was in their very differences that they suited.
She was too fond of work, he of play, and they exercised a healthy moderating influence on one another.
That was before the war had taken them, and made them the people they were now – more solemn and thoughtful, but closer than they had ever been as sweethearts.
But there was one respect in which Bobby and her husband had always been alike, and that was in their craving for stimulating work.
This had always been more of a problem for Bobby than Charlie.
As a man he’d had a world of employment open to him, whether it was healing animals or flying bombers.
No one expected him to give it up to boil napkins and scrub linen.
No one pushed him into passive roles that didn’t interest him, like typing or filing.
Whereas Bobby had had to fight all her life to do more than the world deemed appropriate to her sex.
She well remembered how dull she had found her typing role on the Courier, longing to do what the male reporters were doing.
She remembered, too, how she had defied her commanding officer when the WAAF had tried to condemn her to shorthand typing for the duration, fighting instead to be trained as a plotter.
And now it was Charlie who was compelled to take a job typing while his eager, active brain went to waste.
Bobby supposed it was worse for him in some ways.
She was a girl from a working-class family, long taught that she ought to consider herself privileged to be doing clerical work rather than earning her crust in the mills.
Charlie, as a boy with a private education, had never been set such limits.
It was this, she imagined, that humiliated him as much as the low wage or the fact he was doing a woman’s job.
That notion his brain was no longer enough, now the body that went with it was broken.
He’d been taught to expect the world, and had seen the opportunities it offered as his by right.
Whereas no little girl was taught to see a future beyond her own hearth.
But there wasn’t much Bobby could do about that. All she could hope was that the work wouldn’t push Charlie into a funk he would find it hard to get out of.
She thought of the medal Charlie had finally, reluctantly, decided to accept.
He might write to say he’d changed his mind now, since his ultimate aim had been to secure a job.
Still, Bobby harboured a hope that Charlie would make his peace with the DFC somehow.
It would be such a proud thing for his family.
But it was in Charlie’s hands now. Let him write a refusal if he must. She was done trying to change his mind.
Bobby just had time to adjust her best skirt before the ceremony. She felt like she owed it to her good friend Andy Jessop, the bride’s late grandfather, to show herself up well.
It wouldn’t be long, she supposed, before she would have to abandon her current clothes for maternity items. Bobby had never been a worshipper of fashion the way her twin was, but the idea of those shapeless, sack-like dresses still made her grimace.
Inside the chapel, Charlie joined Gil by the altar to perform his duties as best man. Meanwhile, Bobby slipped into a pew next to her sister.
‘Are you all right?’ Lilian whispered. ‘Tony said you weren’t well at work yesterday. Annie and I called on you but there was no answer.’
Bobby shook her head. ‘I told Tony not to worry you with it.’
‘Well, where were you?’
‘At the doctor’s,’ Bobby said, as quietly as possible. ‘But everything’s fine. It was a storm in a teacup in the end. Just my silly brain getting worked up over nothing.’ Bobby pressed her sister’s hand. ‘Charlie and I are going to have something to announce at dinner though. Be ready, all right?’
‘You’re announcing it today?’
‘Yes. It’s time.’
A hush fell on the congregation as the organ began to play.
Bobby glanced around the Wesleyan chapel.
It was significantly smaller than St Peter’s, the Anglican church, but quite a crowd had been packed in.
The Jessops were a large clan and half the pews were taken up with Andy’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
His second wife Ginny was there as well, of course, damp-eyed as she waited for her step-granddaughter to appear.
Topsy had naturally been invited – she always did receive an invitation to village weddings, as lady of the manor. She was sitting with Jolka and Mrs Hobbes. Teddy, whose wheelchair would struggle to fit into the small space, was at home enjoying a visit from Piotr and young Tommy.
The chapel quickly became so crowded that it was standing room only. Gil was well-liked in Silverdale, his job as postman bringing him a wide circle of friends. The groom was grinning in a dazed manner by the altar, as if he still couldn’t believe his luck.
Ernie and Sandy, both fleeting objects of Mabs Jessop’s affection, had been invited too.
Bobby caught Ernie’s eye and smiled. She hoped he would understand what this meant – that all was OK with the baby after all.
He smiled back. Bobby vowed to seek him out during the reception, and speak to him about what she and Charlie had discussed.
It was a simple wedding, but emotional. The recent death of Andy seemed to hover over the event.
Mabs sounded choked as she said her vows. It was clear she had developed a real love for the man she was marrying. Gil beamed like a man whose horse had come in at a hundred to one, leaving no one in doubt that this was the happiest day of his life.
After the service, everyone proceeded to the church hall by St Peter’s for a lunch of ham sandwiches and lemonade. The hall belonged to the Anglicans, but they didn’t begrudge a loan to any local Methodists with a wedding, christening or funeral to observe.
‘We’d better not stay long,’ Mary whispered to Bobby after they’d congratulated the new Mr and Mrs Capstick.
‘I’ve the roast to get on. I did suggest to the childer we might have a light supper, since they’d be filling their tummies with jelly and blancmange this afternoon, but they wouldn’t hear of missing Sunday dinner.
Honestly, you’d have thought I was suggesting starving them to death. ’
‘I’m on their side. Best meal of the week,’ Bobby said. ‘Besides, it’s nice to have the family together on Sundays.’
‘Aye, there is that.’ Mary smiled. ‘I remember when family meant only me, Reg and young Charlie, when he deigned to give us his company. Now the kitchen barely holds us all. Everything seemed to change when I talked my Reg into taking on some city lass who turned up sobbing and covered in coal dust one afternoon.’
Bobby smiled too. ‘I imagine you’re sorry you ever persuaded him.’
‘I’d love to tease you, Bobby, but that’s a fib too big,’ Mary said, giving her a squeeze.
Bobby flinched at the arm around her well-rounded abdomen, but Mary didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. Her gaze had drifted to Jess and Florrie, who had skipped the sandwiches and were queuing with hungry expressions for the sweet things.
While Gil and Mabs’s wedding feast couldn’t compare with the spread when Topsy had married Teddy the year before, they had still done themselves proud. Silverdale folk were always generous when a couple were to be wed. There was even a cake: small but rich-looking, with real sugar icing.
‘Where on earth did they get that?’ Bobby asked Mary.
‘I think it was Topsy’s present. As for the sweet things, they’ll have come from the two Canadians, I expect.
Their rations seem a mite more generous than we civilians get.
’ Mary shook her head at Jess trying to fit a whole jam tart into her mouth.
‘All this and she still wants a dinner. I’d better make sure they don’t wolf down their food.
Their father’s obviously too busy with his lady friend to keep an eye on them. ’ She bustled off.
There was still that note of disapproval when Mary regarded the captain and Miss Simpson, who was his guest for the reception. Bobby had wondered if her friend might warm to the woman now she had shown herself to be a steady sort, but apparently not.