it no marriage at all.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Mike said. ‘Really I do. My parents won’t like it either and that’s why we must keep it secret, but things are up in the air at the moment. I sometimes don’t hear till the last moment that I’ve got leave. We couldn’t do a big church thing. We’ll have to leave that till after the war. This is just to safeguard you.’
‘Mike, it’s all right.’
‘No, Hannah, it’s not all right,’ Mike replied firmly. He took her in his arms and held her tight against him. He wished they could stay like that. That he could marry her that day, that instant. If anything should happen to his beloved Hannah because of that night and he was not there to protect her … It didn’t bear thinking about. No, she would have his ring on her finger at the earliest possible moment.
Hannah saw Mike’s face furrow as the thoughts raced through his mind and she held his face between her hands and kissed his lips. ‘All right, Mike, we’ll get married whenever and wherever you want,’ she said. ‘But please stop worrying about me.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘when I know when my next spot of leave is, I’ll phone the hotel and tell you. You book the registry office for the next day, I’ll bring Luke with me if he can get off too, and you bring a friend along as a witness and with the deed done, we’ll go and see my parents.’
‘They’ll go mad.’
‘If they do, it will be me they blame,’ Mike said. ‘But they’d get over it and they do like you.’
‘I like them,’ Hannah said, and she did like Mike’s parents, Colm and Bridie, who obviously doted on Mike, their only child. ‘When I think of some of the girls Mike could have chosen,’ his mother had confided quite early on in their courtship, ‘I’m glad he’s fallen for someone like you, a nice Catholic girl from a respectable family.’
‘I love Mike,’ Hannah had said simply. ‘And I will spend my life making him happy.’
‘I know you will,’ Bridie had said. ‘And perhaps in time and if God wills it, you’ll have a fine family. We wanted a host of children you know, but we only had Mike. Ah, but then he’s been a son in a million.’
However cross or disappointed they might be over the clandestine marriage, Hannah knew they would not risk alienating their only child. Mike was right, they’d get over it. Not so her sister Frances who would be mortified and would never countenance such a marriage. But then, she was miles away, there was no need at all for her to be told anything. Mike had no need to tell her to keep it a secret, she’d keep it to herself all right.
There was one person she did tell though; her friend, Tilly. She showed her the ring that Mike had bought her, hanging on a silver chain around her neck, and told her what she and Mike intended to do on his next leave.
‘Will you come, Tilly, and be a witness?’
‘Course I will,’ Tilly said. ‘I’d be honoured. When will it be? Has he any idea?’
Hannah shook her head. ‘He’s phoning me here when he knows,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a word with the girls who man the desk and they are quite prepared to take a message.’
Mike’s letters came regularly and as February 1944 drew to a close, Mike mentioned that he might get a longer leave than he thought.
‘Embarkation then,’ Tilly said. ‘They always give them a long leave before shipping them out. People say there’s summat brewing on the south coast.’
Hannah hoped it was just a rumour. In her opinion, Mike had done enough.
One morning in the middle of March, Hannah felt sick as she got out of bed and had to run to the lavatory on the landing that all the indoor female staff shared. ‘What was that all about?’ Tilly asked on her return.
Hannah shrugged. ‘Must have eaten something that disagreed with me. I still don’t feel too hot. I’ll not be wanting breakfast this morning.’
The sickness had passed by lunchtime and Hannah was glad of it. But the next morning it happened again. Tilly was waiting for her when she returned the third morning, wiping her mouth on her handkerchief, her face drawn and pale so that her eyes looked even bigger. ‘Don’t bite me head off, Hannah,’ Tilly said. ‘But you couldn’t be pregnant, could you?’
She saw from Hannah’s face that she could indeed, but also that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind till now. ‘Have you and Mike … you know. Have you done owt?’
Hannah gave a brief reply. ‘Only the once.’
‘Only needs the once though, don’t it?’ Tilly said. ‘When was your monthlies?’
Hannah had never taken much notice, but now forced to remember, she realised with horror, ‘New Year’s Eve. Don’t you remember we were up to our eyes serving that big dinner and I had to go running to my room?’
‘That’s right,’ Tilly said. ‘God, Hannah. Ain’t you seen anything since then?’
‘No,’ Hannah’s voice was a mere whisper.
‘Then I’d say you’re expecting all right, girl. Best write and tell him.’
‘No,’ Hannah said. ‘He’ll be home soon. I don’t want to write that in a letter for the censor to see. He’s due a leave soon.’
‘Someone will notice and they’ll throw you out,’ Tilly warned. ‘It’s happened afore. Oh, you needn’t think I’d ever tell on you, Hannah,’ she said, seeing the aghast look on Hannah’s face. ‘I’ll cover for you, but if they should guess like.’
Hannah pressed her nightie across her stomach. ‘No one will know. I’m not showing yet.’
‘It isn’t that,’ Tilly said. ‘They’ll hear you being sick every morning and put two and two together.’
But she could do nothing about it and each morning would find her galloping for the lavatory and feeling washed out for the rest of the morning.
She noticed the kitchen staff and the cook looking at her askance a few times, so when eventually she got the news that Mike would be home in late April for two days and she could go ahead and book the registry office, she was ecstatic. ‘So he’s coming back, is he?’ the cook remarked on hearing the news. And with a pointed look at Hannah’s stomach, she added, ‘And not afore time, I’d say.’
‘We’re going to be married.’
‘Not afore time there and all.’
‘They knew,’ she said to Tilly.
‘Well, they’re not saying owt,’ she told Hannah. ‘That’s good of them. If you hadn’t been so well liked, you’d have had your cards by now.’
She couldn’t wait to be married, to become Mrs Michael Murphy. She loved the sound of it and hugged herself with excitement as the day drew near.
She’d bought a full dress that would hide her slightly thickening waist. It was a shimmering blue and made of silk that cost her a fortnight’s wages and all her clothing coupons for a month, as well as some of Tilly’s, but she told Tilly she only intended to marry the once. Tilly went with her to choose her hat, shoes and handbag, the excitement mounting with each purchase.
‘Every time I think about it, I feel all jittery,’ she confessed to Tilly.
‘You better calm down,’ Tilly warned. ‘You’ll be a bag of nerves when the day arrives and won’t be able to say “I do”.’
‘Oh yes, I will,’ Hannah said with a laugh. ‘I’m practising already.’
Two days before the wedding, a letter came from Mike. He was distraught, even his writing was scrawling and disjointed, and Hannah’s heart fell as she read it.
Darling Hannah