Across the Mersey. Annie Groves

old chap, but there’s this girl, you see. I’m sure you understand,’ Charlie told Seb drunkenly as everyone started to file out of the Club at the end of the evening.

      ‘What about your cousin? Surely you don’t expect her to make her own way back to your parents’ house?’ Seb challenged Charlie.

      ‘Oh, Grace ain’t staying with us. No, she’s going home. You’ll be able to catch the last bus down to the ferry if you’re quick, Grace.’

      Seb was astounded and disgusted by Charlie’s lack of concern for Grace’s safety, but at the same time he acknowledged that he hadn’t been looking forward to being driven by Charlie after witnessing just how much he had had to drink.

      Grace was glad that the evening was at an end. She felt so ashamed of herself, and wasn’t surprised that Seb had gone so quiet after the announcement of Bella and Alan’s engagement.

      They were outside now. For some reason Grace didn’t entirely understand, her aunt and uncle had arrived shortly after the announcement of Bella’s engagement and had taken the newly engaged couple off with them whilst she had been changing into her own clothes ready for her journey home.

      Charlie too had now deserted her, and she and Seb were alone. She turned to him.

      ‘Thank you so much for a lovely evening. I’ve really enjoyed it. I do hope that your leg will soon be fully mended … oh.’

      She looked uncertainly at Seb as he tucked her arm through his own and said firmly, ‘Now where do we catch this bus for the ferry?’

      ‘Oh, no. You needn’t come with me. It will be out of your way and it’s late,’ she protested, but Seb wasn’t listening.

      They were just in time for the bus, having run the last few yards to arrive out of breath and laughing.

      ‘You are so kind,’ Bella told Seb as she stepped on to it, her eyes widening as he followed her. Was he going to travel all the way to the ferry with her? The thought gave her a warm glow deep inside.

      A glow that grew even warmer when she discovered that Seb wasn’t just planning to see her safely to the ferry, he was going to escort her all the way home.

      ‘Oh, no, you mustn’t …’ she protested.

      ‘Indeed I must,’ he corrected her. ‘I would never forgive myself if I allowed you to travel home on your own, and somehow I can’t imagine that your parents would be very happy about that either.’

      Grace bit her lip, knowing that he was quite right.

      ‘You’re quite safe with me; I give you my word on that,’ Seb assured her.

      ‘Oh, yes, I know that,’ Grace agreed so innocently and immediately that Seb discovered that quite shockingly he was very tempted to show her that far from being the safe brotherly type she obviously saw him as, he was very much a man. But of course there was no way he was going to risk taking her in his arms, no matter how much he might feel tempted to do so.

      Bella lay in bed, gloating over her triumph. She had no idea just what her father had said to Alan’s father when he had telephone Alan’s parents and asked them to come round. She had not been privy to that discussion, and even though she had tried to listen to the raised voices from her bedroom she had only been able to make out the odd word.

      Not that it mattered what had been said, as her mother had told her when she had come upstairs to her immediately after the door had closed behind Alan and his parents. She was now engaged to Alan, and would very soon be Mrs Alan Parker. The sooner the better, in fact, it had been decided.

      ‘I hope Alan’s father is going to buy us a decent house, Mummy.’

      ‘Of course he will, darling. Especially under the circumstances. Your father was very firm about that.’

      Bella’s smile turned to a scowl. She still hadn’t got her engagement ring, though, and she meant to have one, the biggest one she could get out of Alan and his horrid parents. She had seen the tight-faced look Alan’s mother had given as she looked up towards Bella’s bedroom window as they left. Well, she would soon learn that she, Bella, was going to be the one who said what Alan could and could not do, and who he could and could not see, not her.

       FIVE

      ‘Grace, what’s wrong, love?’

      Jean lifted her hands from the soapy washing-up water, where she had been washing the cutlery, whilst Grace did the drying. It was a task they always shared, and one Jean looked forward to because it was one of the few occasions during her busy week when she and her elder daughter had time on their own to chat properly.

      She’d been looking forward to hearing all about the Tennis Club dance and had expected Grace to be in the happiest of moods now that she knew she could do her nurse’s training but instead her normally sunny-natured daughter was quiet and withdrawn, and had barely said a word.

      ‘Nothing’s wrong, Mum,’ Grace fibbed uncomfortably. She had hardly slept, and when she had she had ended up dreaming about the silk dress, waking up with a start, her heart pounding. Why had she been so stupid and … and dishonest? As well as her dread about telling the salon manager, she also felt bitterly ashamed of herself.

      ‘Nothing’s wrong? Then why have you been drying that plate for the last five minutes is what I’d like to know. Come on, love, you can tell me.’ Jean hesitated. It wasn’t in her nature to criticise others, nor to talk about them behind their backs, but when it came to her children her maternal instincts came first, and she wasn’t having her Grace made unhappy by something that her sister or one of her family might have said to her.

      ‘If summat was said or done last night to upset you …?’

      Her mother’s sympathy was too much for Grace to bear. She put down the plate she had been drying, her face crumpling.

      ‘Oh, Mum, I’ve done the most dreadful thing. I’m that ashamed of meself. I don’t know what came over me. Ruined me whole life, I have. You and me dad will never forgive me.’

      Jean’s heart turned over and then lurched painfully into her ribs. Grace was normally a sensible girl who knew what was what and right from wrong. She’d made sure of that. Accidents happened when young people fell in love, but Jean didn’t want any of her children saddled with an unexpected baby on the way before they’d said their vows in church. What she’d never expected, though, was that her Grace would turn out to be the sort that let a lad she wasn’t as good as engaged to, at the least, persuade her into doing what she shouldn’t.

      Sam would be heartbroken. He thought the world of his children and was that proud of them, even if he didn’t always let them know that. It would be the drink, of course – that and the excitement of mingling with Bella’s posh friends. Jean’s heart swelled with maternal indignation as she thought of her daughter being plied with drinks and then taken advantage of by some young chap.

      Torn between venting her shocked despair and wanting to comfort her daughter, there were a hundred things she wanted to say, but in the end the only thing she could say was, ‘Oh, Grace.’

      ‘I’m so sorry, Mum.’ Grace was crying in earnest now. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have done it but Susan had gone to so much trouble, even though I’d told her that I couldn’t do it and that it was wrong, even though she said that everyone borrows clothes from the salon on the quiet, even the manageress. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She’s been a good friend to me, but I knew the minute I put it on that I shouldn’t have done.’

      Jean listened to Grace’s hiccuped muddled words and felt as though a weight had been rolled off her heart. Her daughter hadn’t gone and done what she shouldn’t with some lad. But then hard on the heels of her initial relief came the shock of realising just what Grace had done.

      ‘You went to the dance wearing a dress from the salon that you’d