Foxden Hotel (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 5) by Madalyn Morgan (ebook reader ink txt) 📕

than the nursing staff came marching through the ward doors. ‘I think it’s time we were going,’ Bess said. ‘Come on sweetheart, visiting time is over.’ Nancy mouthed bye-bye to Natalie and with a puckered brow joined Bess.

‘You’ll see Natalie again,’ Bess said. ‘Won’t she, Margot?’

‘Of course she will.’ Turning to Nancy, Margot said, ‘You’re Natalie’s friend and you can visit her any time you like.’

That night, Bess was woken by a noise coming from the sitting room. She looked at the alarm clock and although it was dark, she could just make out the time. It was midnight. Worried that Nancy had got up and dressed again, to be ready to collect the eggs with Frank, Bess slowly turned back the bed clothes. So she didn’t wake Frank, she slid out of their bed and pushed her feet into her slippers. Grabbing her dressing gown from the stool under the dressing table, Bess threw it around her shoulders and quietly opened the bedroom door.

 By the night light, Bess could see Nancy sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by a pile of her old photographs. ‘What are you doing, darling? It’s ever so late. You’ll be too tired to collect the eggs with Uncle Frank in the morning.’

Nancy gave Bess a photograph of Margot when she first went to London at the beginning of the war. She was dressed in her usherette uniform posing with some of the showgirls from the Prince Albert Theatre. ‘That’s Auntie Margot,’ Nancy said, pointing to Bess’s younger sister, ‘And that’s my mummy.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

‘Bess wake up!’ Bess had put Nancy back to bed and, after thinking about Nancy’s mother, had fallen asleep beside her. She opened her eyes to see Frank was already dressed. ‘If Nancy wants to come with me to collect eggs this morning, you’ll have to get her up, love. We’re running late. The alarm didn’t go off.’

Bess wondered if she had accidentally knocked the tiny hammer that banged on the clock’s brass bell when she looked at the time before going into Nancy in the early hours, but didn’t say anything.

‘Frank?’ Bess pointed to the pile of photographs that Nancy had been looking through. ‘Nancy was looking at those pictures in the night. One is of Margot and the dancers at Anton and Natalie’s theatre--’

‘Tell me later, darling, there’s no time now.’

Bess shrugged, stood up, and still half asleep staggered across the room to the bathroom.

‘Good morning, sleepy-head,’ she heard Frank say. ‘I’m going down to start work. We’ll collect the eggs as soon as you’re dressed,’ he said, as he was leaving.

‘Wait for me Uncle Frank,’ Nancy called.

‘Not without a wash, young lady,’ Bess said, looking round the bathroom door and seeing Nancy pulling on a dress.

When she was washed and dressed, Bess brushed Nancy’s hair and said she could go down to Frank. ‘I should think he’ll still be in the office sorting out the post. Look for him there first.’ Nancy ran out of the room and started along the corridor. ‘If he’s outside already, he’ll be in the yard with the animals.’ Bess was petrified in case she went anywhere near the lake. ‘You know where to go, don’t you?’ Nancy shouted, yes! ‘Don’t go near the lake,’ Bess called. As she disappeared down the stairs Bess heard Nancy shout, no!

Bess returned the photographs to the drawer, putting the one with the dancer that Nancy said was her mother on top of the pile. She then dashed back to the bathroom and washed and dressed.

Bess was desperate to tell Frank what Nancy had told her, but she wasn’t on her own with him at all that day. She had spent the morning on reception, while Frank and Nancy were outside with the animals. After lunch, Nancy had been in the office with her, playing with her dolls, while Frank was fixing the plumbing in one of the first floor bathrooms. Later, when Nancy had had enough of her dolls and had put them to bed, she got out her drawing book. After tea, Bess returned to reception to allow Jack to have a break, and left Nancy drawing pictures of clowns and balls, stars and half-moon shapes that she carefully coloured in, staying within the lines. When Bess returned to the office, she took down the calendar and Nancy filled in another square.

‘How many days has it been since Aunt Maeve went to Ireland?’ Bess asked.

Nancy counted each day by tapping her finger on the coloured squares. ‘Five!’

‘And how many days until she’s back?’

‘Two.’ Nancy sang out, without using her fingers.

Bess put Nancy to bed that evening and read her a story. When she was sure Nancy was asleep, Bess took the pile of photographs from the drawer, laid them on the floor, and looked through them. She then took several programmes from earlier shows that she had seen with her friends Natalie and Anton Goldman at the Prince Albert Theatre and, with the photograph that Nancy had been looking at the night before in one hand, she turned the pages of the programmes with her other until she found the same face. Looking down the cast list she spotted a name that matched both photographs, and Margot’s baby’s name. The pretty girl who Nancy had called her mummy was Goldie Trick.

Bess sat back on her heels hardly able to take in what she was seeing. In the hospital when Margot had told them that she was going to call her baby Natalie Elizabeth Goldie and Nancy had said that’s my mummy’s name, Bess had assumed she meant Natalie or Elizabeth. She hadn’t. She had meant, Goldie. In a daze, Bess turned the next page over and there was a photograph of, Nancy Jewel, the Prince Albert theatre’s lead dancer.

Suddenly it all made sense. Bess looked at the little girl