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ANNE BENNETT
Daughter of Mine
I would like to dedicate this book to my second
daughter, Bethany Bennett, with all my love
Table of Contents
Lizzie Clooney and her cousin, Tressa, almost danced along Colmore Row to the Grand Hotel where both girls worked. ‘Imagine, a Christmas social,’ Lizzie said, her eyes shining at the thought.
‘Aye,’ Tressa replied, almost hugging herself with delight. ‘And to be held on the nineteenth of December before the hotel gets really busy. I mean, we have to grab this opportunity while we can. It isn’t as if we are meeting Catholic men on every street corner.’
Lizzie knew her cousin had a valid point, for although they enjoyed all the delights of Birmingham, the city they’d now lived in for nearly two years, they’d never encouraged any of the boys who’d pressed them for dates, certain they’d be Protestants. Never could Lizzie or Tressa contemplate marrying someone of another faith, for they both knew such a person would never be accepted into their families, who lived in Donegal in the north of Ireland.
Small wonder really, when you looked at the history of the place. Hadn’t there been enough trouble between the Orangemen and Catholics there to last anyone a lifetime, without them adding to it? ‘Everyone had better watch out,’ Tressa said warningly, but with a bright smile plastered to her face, ‘for I’m after catching a rich and handsome man at this social.’
‘Tressa!’
‘Well, I am. Are you not?’
‘No,’ Lizzie said, and then added more honestly, ‘well, not really.’
‘Are you mad?’ Tressa demanded. ‘This is our chance. D’you want to be an old maid all your life?’
‘No, of course not,’ Lizzie said with a laugh, ‘but I don’t want to get married yet a while.’
‘Well I do,’ Tressa declared. ‘If one takes my fancy, that is.’
‘You be careful,’ Lizzie cautioned. ‘You’ll get talked about.’
‘Och, will you listen to yourself?’ Tressa said contemptuously. ‘We’re not in a little village in Donegal now, Lizzie, where everyone knows everyone else’s business and would condemn you without judge and jury if the notion took them. I think if you ran naked down the city streets here, there would only be the mildest curiosity.’
‘Tressa!’
‘Oh don’t worry,’ Tressa said. ‘I’m not intending doing that.’ There was a slight pause and then with a twinkle in her eye, Tressa added, ‘Not straight away at least,’ and the two girls laughed together.
‘Think of it,’ Tressa said later. ‘Our futures might be decided by that night.’
‘Heaven forbid!’
‘What’s up with you?’
‘What d’you mean?’ Lizzie said. ‘Why do you want to tie yourself down so soon? For the first time in my life, I have freedom to do as I please,