‘Oh look at Hettie, doesn’t she look beautiful?’ Connie whispered emotionally to Ellie as she reached for her handkerchief.
Thanks to Cecily and her mother-in-law’s intervention, they had all been accommodated at two tables right in front of the piano, and now Connie grasped Ellie’s hand as she saw her sister bite her lip to stop it trembling, her gaze focused on Hettie.
‘My goodness, I hadn’t realised she would be wearing such a very modern frock’, Cecily whispered half disapprovingly to Connie. ‘I would never allow either of my two girls to show so much ankle.’
‘Cecily, you get more like your mother every time I see you,’ Connie told her forthrightly, ignoring the mantle of angry colour that stained her cousin’s pretty face.
Cecily’s mother was Connie’s least favourite aunt and she had, until Ellie had moved into Gideon’s mother’s far grander house in Winckley Square, lorded over the rest of her family with her status as a doctor’s wife, plus the fact that she lived in the most exclusive part of Preston.
The Pride siblings’ mother had been one of Preston’s famously beautiful Barclay sisters, but unfortunately Cecily’s daughters, although good-hearted girls, had not inherited those good looks, Connie decided smugly. Unlike her own daughter, Lyddy, whose resemblance to her mother and her Aunt Ellie was always much commented on by people.
‘I thought you said John was going to be here,’ Cecily whispered to Connie.
‘He should have been and in fact I cannot think why he isn’t,’ Connie replied.
‘Hettie will be disappointed.’
‘Ellie, my dear, what a lovely sprite of a child your step-daughter is,’ Cecily’s mother-in-law commented warmly. ‘I am so sorry that Iris could not be here to see her.’
‘She wrote to me the other week to tell me she is very busy helping her friend, Dr Marie Stopes, with her newly opened clinic,’ Ellie responded.
‘Indeed. Iris has always been vigorous in her support of birth control,’ the older woman agreed without any trace of embarrassment.
Ellie sighed. She herself had always followed the advice Iris had given to her as a new young wife, but obviously she had not been vigilant enough lately which was why she now had this new life growing under her heart. Unlike her other babes this one lay still and quiet, but somehow more heavily, causing her far more discomfort than she had with her others. The disquieting symptoms she had experienced earlier on had thankfully now ceased, although she did not feel quite as well as she tried to pretend.
‘The hotel is very grand, isn’t it?’ she whispered to Gideon without taking her gaze off Hettie, who was standing perfectly still with her face turned towards the pianist.
‘Aye, and very expensive, far too expensive for the ordinary folk of Liverpool.’
‘You are still thinking of this dreadful Depression,’ Ellie guessed. ‘Do you think it will end soon, Gideon, and things will get better?’
‘I wish that they might, Ellie, but I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it yet.’ He patted her hand and told her firmly, ‘But we won’t talk of such things today, eh, my love? Let’s enjoy listening to our Hettie singing her heart out instead. After all, that’s why you’ve forced me into wearing these damnably uncomfortable clothes.’
Ellie laughed softly ‘Uncomfortable, are they? You looked as proud as a turkey cock when you wore them to the Lord Mayor’s dinner,’ she reminded him affectionately.
‘Aye, well. That was in January, when it was cold.’
‘Shush. I think Hettie is about to sing,’ Ellie warned him as the pianist finished his piece and stood up to sweep a bow to the applauding audience.
Oh, but she was so nervous and she felt so sick. Hettie had seen her family and felt a momentary surge of pride in them, especially Ellie who looked so pretty. But then she had noticed that John wasn’t there and immediately she had felt upset. Where was he? He had promised he would come and now he wasn’t here, and she had so much wanted him to see her and hear her sing.
But Mr Buchanan was playing her introductory notes. Hettie turned away from him to face her audience, tentatively took a deep breath, and began.
‘Oh, but when those ladies at the next table said that Hettie had the prettiest voice they had ever heard, I was so proud I wanted to burst,’ Ellie exclaimed, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief.
‘And then to give you an encore, Hettie. The waiter serving us told us he had never ever seen that happen before,’ remarked Connie.
‘Aye, lass, you’ve got a lovely voice,’ Gideon said proudly.
‘Well, Hettie, I must say I was concerned when Ellie first told me what you were to do and certainly I would never allow one of my daughters to sing in public, but having said that the Adelphi is a first class hotel and not some common playhouse,’ even Cecily grudgingly admitted.
Her face flushed with happiness and excitement, Hettie listened to the praise of her family as she stood close to Ellie, her step-mother’s arm around her waist as she held her close.
She had not, of course, been able to go to them afterwards in the Hall, but they had been waiting for her in the hotel lobby and now they were all on their way to Cecily’s mother-in-law’s for a special dinner.
‘Mam, where is John?’ Hettie demanded. ‘He promised he would come to hear me sing.’
The first person she had looked for after Ellie had been John and she had been bitterly disappointed not to see his face amongst the others.
‘Well, Hettie…’ Ellie began gently, unsure of what to say.
‘Hettie, you are too selfish. John is a very busy man,’ Cecily interrupted Ellie. ‘He cannot be expected to leave his business on the whim of a mere girl. Goodness me, imagine the state the country would be in if our men folk all behaved so foolishly.’
Anger flashed in Hettie’s eyes as she listened to Cecily’s disapproving words. ‘It is John who is the selfish one and not me. He promised he would be here.’
Suddenly she was close to tears. Why hadn’t John come as he had promised he would? He may not have approved of her dress, but surely he would have had to add his praise and applause to those of everyone else if he had been here to hear her sing?
‘Hettie, you are becoming overwrought. This is your special day, don’t upset yourself,’ Ellie told her gently, looking anxiously at Gideon as she did so. He gave her a small negative shake of his head that Hettie was too distressed to notice.
‘I wanted John to be here. I shall hate him for ever now that he has not come,’ she announced pettishly, oblivious to Ellie’s sigh and the despairing look she exchanged with Gideon.
Correctly interpreting his wife’s glance, Gideon put his arm around Hettie and turned her to face him. ‘There is obviously a very good reason why John could not be here, Hettie,’ he told her sombrely.
He and Ellie had discussed at some length the shocking telephone call they had received from John telling them of the accident and insisting that they were not to say a word to Hettie about it so as to avoid spoiling her special day. Ellie typically had been torn between her love for Hettie and her anxiety for her young brother, but in the end she had agreed to abide by John’s wishes.
‘Mr Buchanan, may I ask you