Presently Mo joined them, looking, Sam told her, prettier than any bridesmaid had a right to look. But Nain tutted disapprovingly as she and Glenys laid the table and got out the food which had been set aside for supper. ‘You’re becoming a conceited little madam,’ she said, making shooing movements with both hands. ‘Go and take that beautiful dress off before you spill something on it, and don’t get too near the fire, because in my opinion that gauzy stuff would go up like a firework if a spark flew up and landed on it.’

Her granddaughter gave a squeak of dismay and fled, lifting up her pink silk skirts and displaying scratched bare legs, down-at-heel ankle socks, and the fact that the pink satin slippers were a trifle too large. ‘I’m going, I’m going,’ she said as she clattered up the stairs. ‘Oh, I can’t wait until tomorrow! I just hope that the guests don’t eat all the grub while I’m changing, which I’ll have to do because we promised Mrs Reynolds that I would only wear the dress for the ceremony itself.’

When her bright head had disappeared and they heard a bedroom door slam shut, Glenys and Nain smiled at one another.

‘She’s a good girl, despite her funny ways,’ Nain said, beginning to slice the loaf. ‘It’s a pity she can’t wear the dress for the wedding breakfast, but she wouldn’t enjoy herself if she was worrying all the time about keeping it clean.’ She glanced across at Glenys. ‘And of course you’re in the same position. I’d heard that Pinewood studios rented out wedding dresses that actresses had worn in the films, but I never thought I’d see one. What a good thing your mate told you how to arrange it! It’s a pity you have to take it off once you leave the church, but I dare say you won’t mind – by then you’ll be a married woman at last!’

‘At last,’ Sam echoed with a quizzical smile. ‘I’m staying at the cottage overnight so I don’t see my wife-to-be until I reach the church. Glory be, I don’t know how I can wait!’

Glenys laughed. ‘Remember that you proposed to me ages ago, when we were both still in uniform,’ she reminded him. ‘It’s a perishing miracle that we’re still both sane and in our right minds. Oh, Sam, now that it’s getting so near I’m downright nervous.’

‘Oh yeah? Well, don’t you go leaving me at the altar,’ he said sardonically, and began to sing:

‘There was I, waitin’ at the church,

Waitin’ at the church, waitin’ at the church,

When I found he’d left me in the lurch,

Lor’, how it did upset me!’

Glenys, laughing, joined in the next verse.

‘All at once he sent me round a note,

Here’s the very note, this is what he wrote,

“Can’t get away to marry you today,

My wife won’t let me!”’

*

The wedding was a great success, and, as Glenys said, Jimmy’s presence set the seal on a wonderful day. He had come home the previous evening and Glenys, Sam and Mo hung on his every word, laughed at all his stories and pressed him to take some pieces of wedding cake and other goodies back to his unit when he left.