The Orphan Sisters_An Utterly Heartbreaking and Gripping World War 2 Historical Novel by Shirley Dickson

Author:Shirley Dickson [Dickson, Shirley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Romance, Historical, General, Sagas
ISBN: 9781786817143
Google: Wel1DwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07JY7ZVBZ
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2019-01-21T13:00:00+00:00

16

Etty stood at the foot of the sloping stairs and rapped on Mrs Milne’s back door, as a gale-force wind howled down the lane.

Hair blowing wildly around her face, she smoothed it back with a hand. Nervous about meeting her future mother-in-law, Etty wanted to make a good first impression and had rehearsed what she was going to say.

As it was such a chilly day, she wore an Aran cardigan that Dorothy had knitted from yarn she’d unpicked from an old sweater of Laurie’s. The board of trade had issued a leaflet telling everyone to ‘make do and mend’, and, ever resourceful, Dorothy had complied with the rules.

Her mouth dry, Etty rattled the latch and, finding the door unlocked, poked her head inside, peering up into the gloomy stairwell.

‘Hello,’ she called, ‘anyone in?’

‘Come up whoever you are… me legs are bad,’ a wheezy voice called down the stairwell.

‘It’s me, Mrs Milne… Etty Makepeace.’

She climbed the creaking stairs towards the chink of light on the top landing. As she reached the top stair, an overpowering stench of fish turned her stomach.

A face peered around the door, a face furrowed with wrinkles.

‘Are you the trollop that’s been pestering my Trevor?’

The door opened wide to reveal Nellie Milne, who stood in a pool of light. An inconceivably small person, whose pigeon-like legs looked too spindly to support her stout body, what the woman lacked in stature, she more than made up for with her air of dominance.

But Etty would not be intimidated. She had faced bigger monsters at Blakely.

She held out her hand. ‘Esther Makepeace… Trevor’s fiancée. Pleased to meet you, Mrs Milne.’

The whites of Nellie’s eyes bulged like ice cream in a cornet. ‘Haddaway with you. Trevor wouldn’t marry the likes of you.’ Her chest heaving, she cackled, ‘It’s wishful thinking, hinny, on your part.’

‘I know the engagement has come as a shock––’

‘My son would’ve told us if he was betrothed. Wait till I tell him about your scheming lies.’

Etty didn’t want to make an enemy of the woman but neither would she be spoken to in this manner.

‘It’s all arranged. Trevor and I can’t wait to marry. It’s arranged for Wednesday next week, at the registry office.’

‘You… conniving hussy.’ Purple in the face, Nellie launched into a paroxysm of coughing. She coughed and coughed, clasping her throat as if she were about to choke to death.

‘See…’ she spluttered, ‘what you’ve brought on… and me with a bad heart. Wait till I tell my Trevor.’

She started coughing again, this time retching. Etty, looking around the makeshift scullery on the landing, noted it housed only a sink and gas cooker, where a fish head was poaching in milk in a pan.

Moving past Nellie, the smell of unwashed flesh making her want to gag, she filled a chipped cup with cold water from the tap. She handed it to her future mother-in-law, who had stopped coughing and wiped her eyes on a pinafore.

‘Away with you,’ she croaked. ‘You’ll marry me son over me dead body.

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