Read Online Daughter of Mine by Anne Bennett - Free Book Online Page B

angered Tressa. Who the hell did Betty think she was? She didn’t know how it was between her and Lizzie. Tressa was unable to say this, however, for when she opened her mouth she was assailed by nausea and had to hurry, as much as she was able, to the bathroom.
    She was late reporting in the kitchen and got told off for that and for the state of her hair, which she’d been too clumsy to manage. Her face was pasty white andthere were blue smudges under her eyes. The head waiter knew what was up with Tressa and he had little patience with her. ‘You can’t go into the dining room with hair like that,’ he snapped. ‘And kindly remember lateness and this slapdash manner won’t be tolerated here. Lizzie, can you help your cousin, for her hair looks as if it has been pulled through a hedge backwards.’
    ‘Don’t say I told you so,’ Tressa pleaded when the two girls were in the staff cloakroom.
    ‘I had no intention of it,’ Lizzie said, pulling off Tressa’s cap and attacking the tousled locks with the brush that she kept in her handbag in her locker. ‘I could say you’re a bloody fool, but you probably know that and it would serve no purpose. Just keep your head down and do nothing else to annoy the waiter, because he’ll be watching you like a hawk and he’s the power here. If he complains to the manager, you’ll be out.’
    Tressa knew it, and despite feeling like death she tried, but for all that the head waiter shouted at her and berated her for every little thing and she was glad when her shift was over and she could reach the relative safety of her room. Betty and Pat were out and Tressa was glad of it as she sat on the bed and dissolved into tears. ‘I hate him.’
    ‘Come on, Tressa, he’s not the worst,’ Lizzie said. ‘You annoyed him and he made you pay, that’s all.’
    ‘That’s all! You weren’t on the receiving end of it.’
    ‘Well it’s over now,’ Lizzie said soothingly. ‘He’ll have forgotten by this evening, and if I were you I would get some sleep, you’ll feel heaps better if you do.’
    ‘I don’t know that I could,’ Tressa said. ‘My stomach’s churning like one of those washing machines in the laundry.’
    ‘How much did you drink, for God’s sake?’
    ‘Lots,’ Tressa admitted. ‘We went to a party after we’d been to Mike’s house, some friend of Mike who has rooms off the Belgrave Road. Steve knows him too. We expected the two of you to turn up.’
    Lizzie made a face. ‘Something else turned up for us.’
    ‘Oh, what?’
    ‘Tell you later. Go on.’
    ‘Well, unbeknownst to me, Mike slipped out before closing time and bought this big bottle of champagne and then, as the party was beginning to fold up, Mike took me into the hall of this place and asked me to marry him.
    ‘I was ecstatic and already tipsily drunk, but after I said yes and we kissed and all, he produced the champagne and we drank it between us.’
    ‘Oh Tressa.’
    ‘I know,’ Tressa said. ‘It was bloody stupid, but it seemed like a good idea last night.’
    ‘I bet,’ Lizzie said with a grin. ‘Never mind, you’ve survived the morning—just. Nothing will be as bad as that.’
    ‘No,’ Tressa said with feeling. ‘Now you. What went wrong with you and Steve?’
    And Lizzie told her. ‘I can’t go on with this charade, Tressa, really I can’t. It isn’t fair. It’s nothing to do with Steve’s family, but God knows they’re bad enough; it’s Steve himself, and before you say it there’snothing wrong with him either. He’s a fine man, handsome, generous, good company and he has a good, steady job. He could make some girl a first-rate husband, but that girl is not going to be me. I’m wrong to keep him hanging on, hoping.’
    Tressa knew that this time Lizzie was serious. She’d hoped Lizzie would fall for Steve and she knew Mike did too, but she saw now that what they hoped for wasn’t going to happen. ‘Could you wait until we’re properly engaged?’
    ‘Oh I