Free Magnolia Square by Margaret Pemberton Page B

familiar
words, her thoughts far away from them. Though she hadn’t admitted it to anyone yet, not even Kate, she knew now that she had made a grave mistake. Danny had been happy in the Army. He had
known respect and responsibility, and was Sergeant Collins,
sir.
In Civvie Street, working at the biscuit factory, he was just another debilitated returnee with no authority whatsoever. And
he wasn’t happy. He wasn’t happy at all.
    With a heavy heart, she wondered just how long it would be before he began laying the blame at her door, and what on earth the two of them would do when he did so.
    ‘Doesn’t Kate look
elegant!’
Harriet Godfrey said to Nellie Miller as, the hymn having come to an end, the bride and groom began to walk back down the aisle to joyful
organ music.
    ‘She looks the bee’s knees,’ Nellie said, hoisting herself to her feet with difficulty. The pew seat was very narrow, and as her posterior was very large, the last twenty
minutes or so had been exceedingly uncomfortable. ‘I wonder who Kate is going to throw ’er bouquet to?’ she said as they filed out of the pew and into the aisle in the wake of
Kate and Leon.
    ‘Prudence Sharkey is young and single,’ Harriet said musingly. ‘Perhaps she’ll throw it to Prudence.’
    Nellie made a disparaging noise that turned several heads. Harriet lifted her eyebrows slightly. Nellie was unrepentant. ‘Don’t go givin’ me none of your ’ead-mistressy
looks, ’Arriet,’ she said, looking across to where Wilfred Sharkey was saying something to his wife, a frown pulling his eyebrows together. ‘With Wilfred for a father, that young
lady stands
no
chance of becoming a bride.’
    It was Harriet’s turn to frown slightly. She prided herself on being an excellent judge of character and had always regarded Wilfred Sharkey as being a pillar of Magnolia Square’s
little community. ‘I don’t quite understand,’ she said as they stepped out of the church into the blazing summer sunshine. ‘Wilfred’s manner can be a little severe,
but—’
    ‘Severe?’ Nellie looked as if she were going to explode. ‘’E’s more than severe, ’Arriet, ’e’s a proper misery, and ’e makes ’is
family’s life a misery too. There’s no popping into The Swan for a drink and a bit of a knees-up for Doris. Oh dear me, no. Wilfred don’t approve of drink and ’e don’t
approve of a good time either. Poor Prudence isn’t allowed any boyfriends. The only thing in pants allowed over Wilfred’s doorstep is the insurance man, and ’e must be eighty if
’e’s a day!’
    ‘Come on, ladies,’ Albert Jennings exhorted, a box of pre-war confetti at the ready. ‘Stop the chatter and pay the bride and groom some attention.’
    Harriet, aware it was a miracle they hadn’t been overheard, was only too happy to do as he suggested. As an ex-headmistress, she felt obliged to set a certain standard of behaviour, and
gossiping at a wedding about a fellow wedding guest and neighbour was not the way to do it.
    ‘I want the bride and groom on their own for the first photograph,’ Daniel was saying authoritatively, a box Brownie camera hung importantly around his neck. ‘In front of the
church porch will be lovely, if the children can be lifted out of the way.’
    Carrie scooped up a bewildered Luke and removed him from the field of Daniel’s vision. Charlie ambled forward and lifted a protesting Matthew high into his arms.
    ‘Only
one
photograph without the children,’ Kate said to her photographer, radiant with happiness and not wanting that happiness to be flawed by her children’s
displeasure at being removed so unceremoniously from her side.
    ‘I must have a little room,’ Daniel protested as he was jostled by the happy couple’s friends and neighbours. ‘Will someone get that dog out of the way,
please?’
    ‘Oh, do get a move on, Daniel!’ Miriam Jennings called out in exasperation. ‘You’re takin’ a wedding photograph, not