Marriage and Mayhem for the Tobacco Girls

Lizzie Lane

Description

Catch-up with Lizzie Lane's bestselling Tobacco Girls series!

War is fleeting, but true love last forever...

May 1944
Hope and excitement is in the air when news breaks of the allied forces landing in Normandy. D Day has arrived. However, the day-to-day struggles for the Tobacco Girls continue.
Carole Thomas wants her old life back. She is burdened with the guilt of being a young single mother and considers having baby Paula adopted, but Maisie Miles will do anything to stop her.
Phyllis Mason having found the love of her life is getting married in Malta to Mick Fairbrother, but will the dangerous legacies of war plague her happy day?
Bridget O’Neill finds herself posted to one of the hospitals receiving the injured from the D-Day landing beaches. Her most fervent hope is that her husband, Lyndon, does not become one of them.
Peace is on the horizon, but will their wishes and dreams win through and bring them a happy ever after?

Praise for Lizzie Lane:

'A gripping saga and a storyline that will keep you hooked' Rosie Goodwin

'The Tobacco Girls is another heartwarming tale of love and friendship and a must-read for all saga fans.' Jean Fullerton

'Lizzie Lane opens the door to a past of factory girls, redolent with life-affirming friendship, drama, and choices that are as relevant today as they were then.' Catrin Collier

'If you want an exciting, authentic historical saga then look no further than Lizzie Lane.' Fenella J Miller

Sujets

• Mashups
• Weddings
• Feminist
• 20th Century
• Siblings
• Medical
• Bereavement
• Historical
• HISTORY
• Women
• Motherhood
• Segunda Guerra Mundial
• Friendship
• Historical romance
• Dating
• Sibling
• General officer
• Military intelligence
• Military
• Parenting
• Historical fiction
• Woman
• World War II
• Medicine
• Feminism
• The Women
• General
• Grief
• Sagas
• Family Life
• War
• Romance
• Death
• Fiction
• Seconde Guerre mondiale

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 03 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800485280
• Langue: English

Extrait

MARRIAGE AND MAYHEM FOR THE TOBACCO GIRLS
TOBACCO GIRLS BOOK FIVE


LIZZIE LANE
CONTENTS



Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30


More from Lizzie Lane

About the Author

Sixpence Stories

About Boldwood Books
1
MAISIE – MAY 1944

‘Rain, rain, rain,’ Maisie Miles muttered as she tied the ends of her headscarf beneath her chin. ‘Where’s my umbrella?’
‘Here.’
It wasn’t usual for Carole Thomas, Maisie’s lodger, and mother of a three-month-old baby to follow her out into the hallway. She’d been a bit quiet over breakfast, which Maisie had put down to her baby daughter, Paula, having disturbed during the night.
Looking pensive, Carole swung the umbrella on one finger.
Sensing something was wrong, Maisie frowned. ‘Is everythin’ all right? You’re looking a bit peaky.’
‘I’ve been thinking…’
‘About what?’
In that moment, it seemed to Maisie that Carole held her breath before dropping the bombshell.
‘I’ve decided to have Paula adopted.’
Maisie had been about to open the front door. Suddenly it seemed too far away to reach. Yet she had to. It was Friday, the last full day of the working week at the W. D. & H. O. Wills tobacco factory, in East Street, Bedminster, Bristol. She had no wish to be late. She was never late. But Carole’s words stopped her in her tracks. Her jaw dropped, seeming only to be held in place by her headscarf tied beneath her chin.
She took a deep breath before finding her voice.
‘Carole, I think you need to think carefully before making such an important decision.’
The slender young woman, only four or five years younger than her, pushed a tress of blonde hair behind one ear. ‘I have said it before.’
‘Yes, but only in passing.’
‘That’s not true.’ Carole’s blue eyes blazed. ‘I meant what I said.’
‘You need to give yourself time.’
‘She’s three months old and it’s best she’s placed sooner rather than later.’
Maisie bit her lip. It was true this wasn’t the first time Carole had mentioned having Paula adopted. But Maisie had always talked her out of it, or thought she had.
And I’ll do it again , she assured herself. She plastered a smile onto her face and said glibly, ‘Let’s talk about it tonight, shall we? You might feel different then.’
By tonight, she might have forgotten about it. That’s what Maisie hoped.
Carole folded her arms and said nothing. Nothing signified agreement to Maisie. She fussed with her hair, dark and curly as opposed to Carole’s light blonde, pushing as much as possible beneath her headscarf. Her eyes too were dark, her figure slight and she was shorter than Carole.
‘Good. Good,’ said Maisie, hoping her dismissive attitude would wash the problem away. ‘I’ll see you later then.’
After pulling the door shut behind her, she paused for a moment on the doorstep. The weather was foul, and she should really go back inside to fetch her umbrella which she had forgotten to take from Carole. But if she went back in, Carole might yet again mention having Paula adopted. This time she might try a more determined stance. Best to leave things as they are, Maisie thought. Leave it until this evening.



Carole was left staring at the closed door. She turned disconsolately away and went upstairs. Alone in the house, she looked down at Paula. She’d just been fed and was sound asleep in her cot, her downy head all that showed above the bedclothes. Having no one else to talk to, Carole addressed the baby.
‘She doesn’t understand. I hope you do. I hope you’ll thank me in years to come.’
It wasn’t Carole’s habit to read newspapers, but on one Sunday shortly after Paula had been born and feeling low, she’d picked one up. After reading the front-page news concerning the war, she had flicked through advertisements for corsets and Bovril, until she’d come to the classified ads.

Kindly aunt in need of baby niece. Good permanent home assured. Write P8345 Sunday Dispatch.
She’d written as instructed. A meeting had been arranged, but she was not yet ready to tell Maisie. Maisie would talk her out of it and she was prepared to lie, to say she was going out with a friend and to pretend that she was happier than she felt. Anyway, it wasn’t her fault she’d got pregnant, but it was for her to do something about it. After all, Paula was her baby and the decision was also hers.
2

It was tipping down with rain, foul weather for the time of year. As far as Maisie Miles was concerned, the bus couldn’t get to the bus stop in East Street quick enough. Every seat was taken by wet and miserable-looking people and the smell of damp clothing was accompanied by coughs and clearing of throats.
The woman sitting next to her took up more than half the seat – not quite two thirds, but certainly more than she was entitled to.
Bite your tongue , Maisie told herself. It wasn’t often she got into such a foul mood, but what with the weather and Carole yet again mentioning having Paula adopted, her mood sat heavy on her shoulders. Think of something pleasant, anything but the smell and sound of a journey to work on an unseasonably wet day in dear old Bristol.
Through the misted windows, she could see umbrellas bobbing along and those people without them bending against the slanting rain, coat collars turned up, hat brims shielding faces against the deluge.
She drew the outline of an umbrella on the steamed-up window and glanced at the woman sitting next to her. Droplets of water were falling from the woman’s hat. A sodden feather drooped over her face. No matter how many times the woman’s yellow-ended fingers pushed it back, down it fell again. Normally Maisie might smile or make comment. Today, all traces of humour had been wiped out that morning.
Surely Carole couldn’t really mean what she’d said this morning. Her stomach churned at the thought of it. The house would seem so empty without Carole and her baby, though she understood her reasoning. An unmarried mother had a tough time in the world. She understood that. All the same she couldn’t bear the thought of Paula being brought up by strangers. Her heart would be broken. So too might Carole’s.
There were the usual grumbles about the weather exchanged between passengers, who on other days wouldn’t bother to make comment.
‘Ruddy weather! It’s that Adolf Hitler’s to blame.’
Hitler , Maisie mused, got the blame for everything, perhaps rightly so.
First her feet were soaked, then her legs as she stepped down from the bus. Water from overflowing drainpipes and the unrelenting downpour lay an inch deep over the pavements.
Never had she felt so relieved to see the red-brick tobacco factory rising like a Gothic castle along one side of the road. On the opposite side were ordinary shops, selling everything from sweeping brushes to crockery, tripe to turnips.
Even this early in awful weather, queues had formed outside the butchers, grocers, and greengrocers. Food was still rationed, and queues formed at the slightest rumour of something scarce suddenly being available.
The rain seeped into Maisie’s headscarf, and she dreaded taking it off. She knew how her hair would look underneath its feeble protection. Her dark waves would have turned into a mass of unmanageable frizz.
No umbrella of course. That’s what came of lingering over a baby. Not her baby of course, but Carole’s baby, Carole Thomas who had moved in with her some time ago. Her pregnancy was a result of rape. She’d had nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to.
Maisie had considered herself lucky that she owned her own house, left to her by her grandmother. In the absence of Phyllis and Bridget, her very good friends, both serving their country, she had felt a little lonely. It took her no time at all to offer Carole a stable home.
‘Lousy, rotten weather,’ she said to no one in particular.
‘More like November,’ grumbled a fellow workmate as they bustled their way to the ladies’ cloakroom. Beyond that, the clocking-in machine awaited the insertion of their individual cards.
In the crowded cloakroom, coats steamed, umbrellas were shaken out and tousled hair was combed or patted into some kind of order.
Maisie shook out her headscarf, then took off her coat and hung it up. Her big toe felt uncomfortable, and she guessed what the problem was. Prepared for it, she eased off a shoe and emptied out the water that had found its way in. The soles were of cork – fine in sunny weather but not so good in wet. Roll on the day when shoes were once again properly made with soles of leather.
Just as she was about to slide her foot back into her shoe, Maisie pulled her stocking a little tighter around her toes and…
‘Blast.’
A ladder shot up from the hole her big toe had made and ran all the way up the front of her leg.
She grimaced. It wasn’t exactly the end of the world, but stockings were precious. If you laddered one, all you could do was keep the other. When another pair laddered, the good one was kept for pairing to the one already languishing in the bedroom drawer back at the house in Totterdown.
‘When’s this blessed rain gonna stop,’ said Ida Baker, who now sat where Maisie’s dear old friend Phyllis used to sit before she’d joined up and found herself serving on the island of Malta, one of the most bombed places on earth.
‘June perhaps,’ muttered Maisie. ‘That’s when summer’s supposed to start.’
Ida gave a brief nod before carrying on. ‘Luckily I don’t ’ave far to come. And I’ve got a brolly. Ain’t you got one? You look soaked.’
‘I’m soaked through, and I’ve got a ladder,’ grumbled Maisie.
‘At least you got ’ere. I ’eard tell there’s some roads blocked off arou