Gracie, standing on top of the kitchen table, her legs aching, recited her times tables up to twenty-ones and it didn’t help one bit.
‘Why aren’t you measuring the real dress on me?’
‘Because I want it to be a surprise. The petticoat will tell me how big I need to make the dress.’
Gracie hoped her dress would be white satin with Chantilly lace. She hoped it would have a bow for the waist embroidered with pearls and cream satin rosebuds and that she would have a matching Dolly-Varden bonnet and a new pair of kid leather shoes from Faulls. She’d read in the paper about a flower girl who got to wear all those things.
‘When do I get to see my dress?’
‘It’s a surprise,’ said Beth.
‘Go on, show me, I won’t tell anyone what it’s like, I promise.’ Gracie hadn’t had a new dress in simply ages. Papa said they all had to do without new things and put all their spare money into war bonds for the war effort. Whenever she saw the ad that said, My daddy bought me a war bond, did yours? she would say out loud, ‘Yes he did, thank you very much.’
Papa said he was making a special allowance for Beth’s wedding.
‘I’ll tell you this much,’ said Beth, ‘yours is the same as mine, only smaller. It’s just the right size for a nearly-nine-year-old girl named Gracie. Now I know it’s hard but keep still for goodness sake or your dress will be down at your ankles in one spot and up at your chin in another.’
Gracie beamed. She hadn’t been a flower girl before. This was going to be the most fabulous day of her life. She couldn’t wait and she was sure Beth would make her dress even more beautiful than the one she had read about in The Star.
Twenty-Four
The Disappointment
Saturday, 7 November 1914, when the sun gives way to the rain.
Gracie bit her bottom lip. She bit it hard because if she didn’t, tears were going to spill from her eyes; she could feel them building up, just waiting to burst free and run down her cheeks. She was going to get an almighty ribbing if she went to school on Monday, she knew that much. She might be able to change out of the dress when they got home from church. Perhaps she could wear her Sunday best for the reception at least. She felt like a clown, like the one she saw when Edie took her to Worth’s Circus. He was a kaleidoscope of mismatched colours, like the socks they knitted from any old scrap of wool for the soldiers at the front. The clown was silly and she’d tried not to laugh because she couldn’t see the point of him but then she found herself laughing anyway and Edie said that was the point.
It was hard not to let on to Beth just how disappointed she was.
Beth was standing with her hands on her hips, gazing at her. ‘Perfect, just perfect for a war bride,’ she said.
Gracie looked over at Papa. He was in his best clothes, ready for the wedding, and raised an eyebrow as if to say what could he do to save her, and went back to reading his paper.
Gracie looked at Edie. She looked disappointed too — surely she could help, she would see that Gracie couldn’t possibly go out in public like this. This must be a joke and there was another dress somewhere.
Without any warning Edie pulled a few of her curls from their clip.
‘Owww,’ said Gracie.
‘Just a minute, Beth, I just need to fix Gracie’s hair,’ and Edie pulled her down the hallway to her bedroom and shut the door. Then Edie put her hands on Gracie’s shoulders and manoeuvred her so she was standing plumb in front of the mirror. Edie stood behind Gracie and trapped her curls back inside the pin. ‘Remember, Gracie,’ said Edie into the mirror, and Gracie looked back at the Edie trapped in the mirror, ‘it’s Beth’s special day and it’s the one day in a girl’s life that she gets to have whatever she wants. After that she has to think about her husband and family first. You can do this for Beth.’
Edie was so sincere that Gracie thought she certainly could do it. She turned and smiled at the real Edie, then threw herself into Edie’s arms and breathed in the soft powdery smell of her older sister-mother.
‘Now,’ said Edie, pushing her back to look directly into her eyes, ‘Beth has decided that today, her wedding day, she is finally going to let us see what she has been hiding in the laundry all these years, and isn’t that exciting? Exciting enough to take your mind off the dress?’
Even though Edie didn’t really look like it was exciting, Gracie couldn’t do anything but agree it was thrilling. She had always wondered what was hidden in Beth’s laundry. She imagined there were wicked imps in there that Beth had trapped in the garden that must never escape or they would wreak havoc on the world. Or perhaps it was full of magic spells for love and that was how Beth had won Theo. Or maybe there were flying unicorns in there.
She put her hand in Edie’s and they walked down the hall to the kitchen.
‘Okay,’ said Beth, who was still in her petticoats, ‘do you have your flower basket, Gracie?’
Gracie went and got it from where it was sitting on her dressing table waiting for today and when she came back Beth led them to the laundry. She took a key from where it was hidden on top of the door ledge and opened the door and flicked on the light.
‘Ohhh,’ said Gracie, slapping her head and wishing she’d thought to look for the key up there, then she could have had a peek inside the laundry years ago.
Gracie stood for a while getting accustomed to the dim light, then
