Gracie by Marie Maxwell

understands. We were so young, we had no choice.’
    ‘You were brave enough to make the right choice, Rubes, you didn’t know Johnnie was going to come back into your life, and Babs and George are fantastic parents to her.’
    ‘It still hurts, though’, Ruby said. ‘But enough of that, today is about being happy, it’s about you being happy and having a wonderful wedding day’.
    She walked over to the open French window and looked out.
    ‘Well, Gracie Grace, this is it. It’s just you and me up here now. The guests should all be at the church by now and our cars are already outside, all polished and decked out in ribbons and just waiting for us all. Come and look, and it’s such a sunny day …’
    As she spoke Ruby went out onto the balcony. Gracie joined her and they both looked down at the cars below.
    ‘Looks like it’s time to go to the church then, before I get my dress all mucky – you know what I’m like,’ Gracie laughed. ‘A bit of rust from the railings would show up a treat on this dress …’
    Ruby didn’t laugh and she didn’t look around, but stayed where she was, looking out towards the horizon.
    ‘You know it’s not too late to change your mind, really it’s not …’ she said cautiously, without looking at her friend. Her expression was serious for the first time that day. ‘I know you said you don’t want to talk about it again but I have to say this: please, please, please don’t do the wrong thing, just because it’s suddenly the day. You know what they say: marry in haste, repent at leisure. If Sean’s not the one then you’re making a mistake.’
    ‘Oh of course it’s too bloody late to change my mind, it’s far too late! Can you imagine if I jilted Sean at the altar? I’d have to leave the country straight away! The wedding is planned, and the honeymoon and the flat is ready and waiting, how could I back out of all that?’ Gracie said, shaking her head slowly. ‘And anyway, I don’t want to. This is what I want – a husband, a home, a baby – and I know I’ll get all that with Sean …’
    ‘It doesn’t have to be with him though, does it? I mean, if it’s someone else you want, if someone else is the right one then is that fair on Sean?’ Ruby persisted.
    Gracie shrugged. As far as she was concerned she had made the decision to marry Sean long ago and she was going to stick with it. She had to.
    She may have thought Edward Woodfield was the man of her dreams but she was well aware that she didn’t actually know him, not in the way she knew Sean. And even without knowing him, Gracie could see that they were from such different backgrounds and class that even if anything
were
to happen between them, there was no chance his family would ever agree to them marrying.
    It just couldn’t happen and it wouldn’t work, not the way it did with Sean.
    ‘Oh, Ruby,’ Gracie sighed. ‘I’ve not made the decision in haste, I’ve thought of nothing else. But I’ve known Sean for years, he’s a good man and I’m sure I’m doing the right thing for both of us. We’re the same kind of people: we’re both ordinary and we match. I had a bit of panic the other day, imagining something different but I’m over it now. It was so stupid. I was getting ideas above my station, as my mother would say.’
    The two women smiled and waved down to the group of neighbours who were gathering on the pavement outside the hotel, all there to see the bride off. Lots of people that they knew so well, even the small staff from the hotel were out there, waiting.
    ‘Don’t go putting yourself down, Gracie. No one is better than you and there’s no man too good for you, not even the one whose name you told me not to say!’
    Gracie and Ruby moved back from the railings and faced each other.
    ‘Nice of you to say it, Rubes, but that one was definitely way out of my league. A country house and a London flat and living most of the time in Africa? Can you just imagine me out in Africa?