A Daughter's Duty (16 page)

There, he couldn’t believe he’d actually said the words. His heart beat faster in trepidation, he was sure he’d spoiled his chances now, she would refuse him, of course she would. The silence was broken by the clink of a glass as the barman put it down and crossed over to the juke box and put in a coin. Brian watched as the steel arm behind the glass moved and took a record and placed it on the turntable. Coloured lights flashed in the console. Frank Sinatra started to sing, albeit a little scratchily, a wailing love song.

‘Engaged?’

Marina withdrew her hand and turned her head away from him, finding something totally absorbing in the juke box.

‘Look, forget I said it. I know you’re not ready. I –’

She turned back to him, her smile brilliant. ‘When? When will we get engaged?’

Brian was nonplussed for a second or two. ‘Tonight. Tomorrow. Oh, anytime you like.’

‘Will I have a ring?’

‘Why not?’ He thought of his savings in the Trustees Savings Bank. Every week since he had been working the bank clerk had come to the pit office on payday. He’d had a pound taken from his wages at source and had never withdrawn a penny. He wondered how much a ring cost. What the heck did it matter? He was just beginning to realise that Marina had actually said yes!

‘You’re too young to get engaged, let alone married,’ said Kate. ‘Isn’t she, Sam? You both are.’

‘I don’t know, you were just eighteen yourself when we were wed,’ said her husband, and Kate turned on him in a fury.

‘Aye, and look how that turned out!’

He looked shocked, turning first pale and then red as fire. ‘It turned out all right, woman! Haven’t we got three fine grown-up bairns? Haven’t I worked for you and them all these years? Why, I bring my pay packet home every week wi’ nowt out of it but me union dues, don’t I?’

Marina blushed and looked sideways at Brian, ashamed he should hear her parents squabbling like this. He appeared to be absorbed in a calendar hanging on the wall.

‘Oh, yes. Until the day you decide to bet all we’ve got on a dog or a horse or the cards. You’re a gambler, Sam Morland …’

‘Stop it, Mam, leave him alone!’ cried Marina and Kate turned on her.

‘Don’t you tell me to stop it, young lady. You’re the first one to moan about him when –’

‘I think we should go for a walk, Marina,’ Brian intervened. He took hold of her elbow and drew her towards the door.

‘But it’s late and we haven’t settled anything yet,’ she protested.

‘Yes, we have, pet. Tomorrow we’re going into Bishop to buy the ring. Now come on, put your coat on, it’s a bit chilly out there. Just a turn around the streets. Goodnight, Mrs Morland, Mr Morland.’ He nodded his head and they went out, Marina with barely time to fasten her coat.

There was a short silence in the kitchen. Sam reached up to the mantelpiece and took down a packet of Woodbines. He tore a strip of paper from the edge of his newspaper and twisted it, using it to light the cigarette. His fingers trembled slightly and as the first smoke entered his lungs he coughed, a harsh, laboured sound. Then he sat back and met his wife’s gaze.

‘You never back me up,’ she remarked with the resigned bitterness she often used with him.

‘Not when you’re wrong I don’t.’

‘Our Marina’s just a bairn. Only today she insisted Brian wasn’t her boyfriend, they were just going out together sometimes.’

‘Well then. She just fancies being engaged, the lad asked her and she thought she would like it. It’ll all fizzle out eventually. Marina’s too sensible a lass to marry someone she doesn’t care for.’

‘But that’s what I’m telling you! Why, do you know, she had a letter from another chap only the day. She doesn’t know what she wants, that’s the trouble.’

‘It’ll sort itself out, I tell you. Likely it’s because her cousin’s getting married, did you think of that?’

Kate sighed. ‘Aye. Likely.’

There was silence in the room, broken only by the small noises of Kate tidying up for the morning and the occasional cough from Sam.

‘Well, remember, she’s not said anything about setting a date to be wed, has she? Getting engaged isn’t final, is it?’ he said at last.

‘No, you’re right,’ she acknowledged.

Sam threw the stub of the cigarette into the fire and it flared up briefly. ‘That’s what you think, is it?’ he asked. ‘I mean, about you and me? You’re sorry we got wed?’

Kate looked down at her hands. What could she say? She didn’t know if she loved him still, didn’t know now if she ever had. At first perhaps, in the good times, when she had believed him when he’d said he would never gamble again. But always the good times had been followed by the nightmares. The mountains of debt which had to be paid somehow, the humiliation of knowing other people knew.

Then she looked up into his face and couldn’t bear to see the hurt there. ‘No, I’m not sorry,’ she said and moved briskly to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Well, I’m going to bed, I’m dog-tired. An’ you’d better come an’ all. Just leave the light on for Marina, she’ll be along in a minute.’ As they were climbing the stairs, she remarked, ‘I tell you what, that lad’s got more to him than you’d think. I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad thing at all if they did marry. But mind, not for a long time. I expect it to be a long engagement.’ As she undressed in the cool of the bedroom she chuckled suddenly. ‘A ring no less! Things have changed since our day, Sam. We were lucky to get a wedding ring, never mind an engagement one.’

The ring was a three-stone row of tiny diamonds, set on the slant in platinum to make them look bigger. The gold was eighteen-carat and the whole thing cost £25. Daft, Kate called it.

‘You could buy a lot for the house with £25,’ she said to Marina. ‘You’ll find out, my girl. A little house has a big mouth, my gran always used to say.’

‘Oh, Mam,’ said Marina. She held up her hand under the overhead electric bulb and the ring sparkled satisfactorily. That would show Charlie Hutchinson next Saturday when they went to the wedding.

Oh, Charlie. Marina felt as though she was weeping inside but smiled brightly. ‘I’m going write to Aunt Hetty and ask if Brian can come with me to the wedding,’ she told her mother.

‘It’s a bit late for her to alter the numbers,’ Kate objected.

‘Well, all right, I’ll phone. I’ll go down to the phonebox now.’

Marina swathed her new dress in tissue paper and hung it carefully in the wardrobe. She gazed critically at her reflection in the mirror on the wardrobe door. Did she need a haircut? She swung her head slowly from side to side and her brown hair, styled in a long bob which turned under on the shoulders, swung too. Pity about the colour but her mam would go mad if she bleached it. Still, she’d be looking her best, done up to the nines and with a handsome lad hanging on to her arm, when she faced Charlie.

‘Marina! It’s time you were going over to the Wearmouths’,’ Kate called up the stairs. ‘Get a move on, girl, you don’t want to be late. I don’t know, you’ll be late for your own funeral.’

Marina pulled a face at her image in the glass and took out her good blue costume and a white blouse. Smoothing the pencil-slim skirt over her hips, she cast one last glance in the mirror and went downstairs. Tonight she was invited to the Wearmouths’ for her tea and to show off her ring.

The wedding reception was held in Fortune Hall, now a hotel, one of a string owned by Aunt Hetty and her second husband, Richard Fortune. At least Marina had always assumed he was her second husband for the other hotels all had Pearson in their names and Penny was called Pearson-Fortune. Or had been before the ceremony. Now she was called Hutchinson.

Marina felt a peculiar stab of pain deep inside her. She took a long drink from the glass of champagne she was holding and smiled brilliantly at Brian.

‘Steady on, love,’ he said. ‘You’ll be tipsy if you drink it too fast.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter. Aunt Hetty has booked us rooms. We don’t have to get home tonight, do we?’ She waved at someone on the other side of the room. Brian glanced over but could see no one he knew except the bridegroom who was talking animatedly to his new father-in-law.

Brian pursed his lips and gazed at Marina thoughtfully. She was on top form, eyes sparkling, had laughed at every joke the best man told. When they had entered the reception room to be greeted by the bride and groom and the bride’s parents, she had kissed Penny effusively and blushed a pretty pink when the bridegroom had bent and kissed her cheek.

Then she had taken Brian’s arm and drawn him forward. ‘We’ll be next!’ she had cried, and flashed her left hand with the ring on the fourth finger, looking sideways at Charlie as she did so.

‘Oh, how lovely!’ Penny had cried. ‘Congratulations to you both. We hope you’ll be as happy as we are, don’t we, Charlie?’ Her white satin wedding gown clung to her figure and fell straight from the hips. Her veil was of beautiful lace with a headdress of seed pearls, its centre in the shape of the rose of York.

‘Yes, indeed.’

But Brian had observed something, some constraint between Marina and Charlie, and even as they moved down the line she had been glancing back at him. Oh, come on, he told himself, you’re imagining things. Marina can barely know him. Wasn’t he a Yorkshire man? Anyway, she loved him, Brian. Wasn’t she wearing his ring?

Marina had cried in church, trying to hide it, pretending she had something in her eye. He had looked but there was nothing and he grinned.

‘Come on, Marina, all women cry at weddings, it’s expected,’ he had said, and she had sniffed and turned away. Looking at her now, as she turned to speak to Hetty Fortune who was going round the room having a word or two with all the guests, he still felt slightly uneasy yet wasn’t sure why.

‘Penny and Charlie are going to Venice for their honeymoon,’ Hetty said.

‘Venice? How gorgeous!’ cried Marina. Suddenly a wave of pure jealousy swept over her, enveloping her in dark misery. She looked about her. The feeling was so strong she was sure other people must notice it, she had given herself away. She looked down at the ground and managed to say, ‘Excuse me a minute. I must go …’ And fled into the hall and looked round desperately for the toilets.

Locating them in one corner, she ran in and hid in a cubicle until the black wave receded and she felt able to come out and splash her face with cold water. She patted it dry with a fleecy towel from the pile by the basins and gazed at herself in the mirror. She was a sight, she decided ruefully. At least she had her pancake stick with her, and her lipstick. Sitting down in a pink upholstered chair, she took out her make-up bag.

Five minutes later, Marina felt ready to face the world again. Of course she hadn’t betrayed herself. Why should anyone suspect anything anyway? Here she was with her own fiancé, and mind, she acknowledged to herself, Brian could hold his own in any company. She had felt quite proud of him as she walked beside him up the path to the church. He was tall and dark and handsome, and yes, sometimes when he held her and kissed her she hadn’t to pretend a response at all, it came naturally.

‘How are you feeling now, pet?’ asked Brian, who was hovering in the hall when she came out. ‘Maybe you’d better not have any more champagne? I told you you were drinking it too fast.’

‘I’m fine. Don’t go on at me, Brian!’ she snapped. ‘You’re not my keeper.’

‘OK.’

To her astonishment he turned on his heel and went out of the front door of the hotel, disappearing in an instant. She looked out of the side window but he had gone. Now what was he playing at? she thought, exasperated.

‘All alone?’

Marina spun on her heel at the unexpected sound of his voice. It was Charlie. She looked around and behind him but Penny wasn’t there. In fact, for the moment there was no one else in the hall but them.

‘I was just going in,’ she said stiffly, and made to pass him.

Charlie took hold of her arm. ‘Oh, come on, wait a minute. I’d like to know how you’ve been getting on,’ he said, smiling down at her. Marina’s heart began to thump.

‘You can see how I’ve been getting on. I’ve got engaged to a lovely lad and we’re going to get married.’

‘Pretty quick, wasn’t it?’ Charlie lifted an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure you want to marry what’s-his-name?’

‘Brian, Brian Wearmouth. And why shouldn’t I want to marry him? You didn’t think I was still pining for you, did you?’

‘Well …’

At that moment Brian was walking past the window, regretting his abrupt departure. He glanced in and there she was, still in the hall, and with her Charlie Hutchinson. He was saying something to her and leaning forward, looking at her in such an impudent way that Brian wanted to punch his nose. And surely Marina was returning the look … Brian turned and strode off again.

‘Charlie? Who are you talking to? Oh, it’s you, Marina. Are you having a good time?’

It was Penny, the train of her wedding dress hooked over her arm. She walked up to Charlie and linked her free arm in his, not waiting for Marina’s reply. ‘I’m going up to change now, Charlie,’ she said. ‘We have to be at York station by four or we’ll miss the train. Are you coming?’

‘Yes, of course, darling.’

Marina watched as they went up the curving staircase; she wondered what Penny would say or do if she called them back and described the mole Charlie had high up on his thigh – no, of course she couldn’t do that. She swallowed hard. The sound of the wedding guests laughing and talking inside the reception room was suddenly very loud. Someone was playing the piano, an old Ivor Novello ballad – she couldn’t remember the name – but whoever it was began to swing the tune, making it ridiculous, robbing it of its beauty.

She couldn’t go back in there and wondered if she would be missed if she went up to her room. But no, she might bump into Penny or Charlie there and she couldn’t bear that.

‘Can I help you, miss?’ A barman paused as he crossed the hall, struck by her lost air and pale face. He wondered if she’d had too much champagne and hoped she wasn’t going to be sick, not on the polished oak floor.

‘No, thanks, I’m just going outside for some fresh air,’ she replied, to his relief, and went out into the garden. She walked rapidly around the old house, to a cobbled yard with outbuildings, garages and stables. There she leaned against the wall and fought for control of herself.