The Trouble With Secrets: The Kilteegan Bridge Story by Jean Grainger

Author:Jean Grainger [Grainger, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gold Harp Media
Published: 2022-05-07T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Lena’s days from then on transformed into a pleasant routine. Once she was past the first twelve weeks of her pregnancy, she began to feel better, and working in the shop every day was great fun. Sarah was amazed how many more women started coming in now that Lena was there to advise them on fashion and what might suit them best. The shop also sold patterns and fabric, so she was called on regularly for advice on how to do dressmaking. Instead of this side of the business negatively impacting the boutique side, it actually helped it. Women would always buy ready-made things for themselves, but they would often pick up a pattern and some material at the same time to run up something for their children. This was the generation that grew up in wartime, so making do and mending were built into them. It didn’t always go according to plan of course, and Lena was even willing to dig customers out of a hole when they came in with a dress gone wrong; she would fix the worst of it and cover up any lesser mistakes with lace and buttons.

The shop didn’t even feel like work, just fun. Lena loved fashion, so it was bliss to spend ages trawling through wholesale catalogues looking for the next big trend. Sarah said she had a knack for it, and Lena thought maybe she was right. Lena had a good eye for what worked on people maybe. Sarah said she should consider it as a career once this was all over. It was surprising to Lena how impressed everyone was with her small bit of knowledge; her mother had been doing far more complicated stuff for as long as she could remember.

She wrote to Maria, saying how she was working in a dress shop at weekends to pay her bed and board and asking her for any advice. She also enthused about her ‘nursing course’, and it wasn’t such a terrible lie because Eli was lending her lots of medical books and she really was studying for her pre-nursing exams in the evening, after everyone else had gone to bed. By the time she was six months gone, she had fierce indigestion and the baby was kicking a lot; it kept her awake, so she made the best of it by reading the books.

She also wrote to Emily and Jack, and enjoyed getting their letters in the post. Jack was devouring the farming journals that Maria had ordered for him from Nettie Collins in the library, and he was full of information about the ranch in Montana. And Emily was deep in wedding preparations. Luckily the happy couple had set a date for early March – Blackie not one to rush into anything still, it would seem – so Lena wouldn’t miss the big day. She promised Em she would be there and be her bridesmaid. Emily wrote back suggesting a shopping trip in Cardiff, but Lena said how

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