Ha'Penny Chance (Ivy Rose Series Book 2)

by Gemma Jackson

  “I heard,” Doug said simply.

  “Sir.” Johnjo Smith broke into the siblings’ fascination with each other to pass Doug his hat. The pair couldn’t continue to stand out here attracting attention.

  “Ivy, come back to my hotel with me.” Doug returned the hat to his head with careless elegance. “We have so much to talk about.”

  “Which hotel?” Ivy was impressed by her brother’s casual acceptance of the other man’s help. It looked like her little brother was coming up in the world.

  “I have a suite of rooms at the Shelbourne,” Doug replied in a toffee-nosed voice with a huge grin on his handsome face.

  “Go ’way! You’ve lost the run of yourself completely, Shay Murphy!” Ivy gasped. “The Shelbourne, I ask yer sacred pardon! It’s far from it yeh were raised!”

  “Seriously, Ivy.” Doug grinned to hear Ivy use his old name.

  He felt far removed from the sixteen-year-old Shay Murphy who left Ireland. He’d taken nothing of his old life with him. He had only the money in his pocket that this woman had shoved in there at the last possible moment. He’d hardly noticed as he boarded the boat sitting waiting on Dun Laoghaire dock. The sight of Ivy sobbing as if her heart was breaking, her arms wrapped tightly around his younger brother Petey, almost broke his own heart. That image was etched in his heart forever. It had driven him on to succeed.

  “Come on. We can sit in the lobby and talk in comfort there. I’ll order up all the tea you can drink – promise.” Doug pulled gently on the hands he held tightly in his. He knew his sister’s big heart was fuelled by gallons and gallons of tea. “I’ve had poor Johnjo here,” he indicated the man standing to one side, “chasing around the back streets of Dublin trying to catch up with you.”

  “Were yeh not going somewhere?” Ivy looked around in a daze. She had a hard time remembering what she was doing here.

  Doug grinned. Trust Ivy not to notice his famously handsome mush sitting in the top right-hand corner of the billboard she’d been examining, framed for all the world to see. “I’ll have you know, Miss Murphy, I am the headliner at this august establishment.” He nodded towards the towering edifice of the Gaiety Theatre at their backs.

  “Would yeh go way!” Ivy gasped.

  “Come see.” Doug released one of Ivy’s hands and began to tow her back towards the billboard. He pointed to the eight-by-ten black-and-white glossy photograph at the very top of the tall billboard. “There you are, missus, me in all me glory.” Doug dropped effortlessly back into the language of his youth.

  “The state of you and the price of best butter!” Ivy elbowed her brother in the ribs, her heart swelling with pride in all he’d apparently accomplished. He’d been away from home for four years. Look how well he’d done for himself!

  “Come on, Ivy.” Doug shook the hand he held. “Come on back to the Shelbourne with me. We’ve years of catching up to do.”

  “Ivy!” Ann Marie, her business completed, walked through the door being held open for her by the uniformed doorman. She automatically gave a little head-bow of acknowledgement for the service but all of her attention was fixed on Ivy and the company she was keeping.

  “Ann Marie!” Ivy closed her eyes and shook her head. She didn’t know if she was on her head or her heels. How could she have forgotten all about her friend!

  Ann Marie approached, unsure of her movements under the circumstances.

  Ivy, still holding tightly to her brother’s hand, grinned widely and gestured her friend over to her side with a wave of her free arm. Ann Marie was going to get her own way again. It would appear Ivy was going to step into the Shelbourne Hotel after all. If she didn’t think about the matter she’d be better off. Otherwise she’d be found running screaming through the streets of Dublin.

  “Miss Ann Marie Gannon,” Ivy had a smile so wide on her face she was surprised her face didn’t split in two, “allow me to introduce you to my brother –”

  Shay squeezed the fingers on the hand he still held. “Douglas Joyce at your service, Miss Gannon,” he interjected quickly before Ivy could blow his image completely. He raised his hat from his head before settling it back into place.

  He wanted to know what this obviously upper-class woman was doing with his sister. The woman was wearing a small fortune in furs on her small slim person. Where had she met Ivy? How had his sister earned the money needed to buy the fancy outfit she was wearing? Doug had a lot of questions he wanted answers to from his sister. He graced Ivy’s friend with one of his famous grins, flashing the pearly whites to great effect.

  “Allow me to introduce my companion to you both: Mr Johnjo Smith. I’m afraid in the surprise of bumping into my sister all of my manners appear to have deserted me,” Doug said, very much tongue in cheek. He grinned when Ivy and Johnjo both snorted quietly. Far from it they were raised indeed.

  “Ladies,” Johnjo raised his hat.

  “Mr Smith, Mr Joyce – enchanted,” Ann Marie said faintly. She examined the man standing next to Ivy with great interest. Apart from the difference in hair colour and obvious gender differences, the two could have been twins. This was certainly a turn-up for the books. This man was one of Ivy’s missing brothers?

  “I’ve invited Ivy to join me in taking tea at the Shelbourne, Miss Gannon. Perhaps you would care to join us?” Doug didn’t want anyone listening to what he had to say to his sister but the presence of another woman would add an air of respectability to Ivy spending time in his company. He had no wish to announce their relationship to the world at large.

  “Mr Joyce, you are apparently the ‘wild horses’ needed to drag Ivy through those doors.” Ann Marie had listened for hours to Ivy stating wild horses couldn’t drag her through the doors of the hotel.

  Doug grinned. “Miss Gannon, Miss Murphy, if you would allow my companion and me to escort you to our nearby hotel, I would be delighted.” Doug issued the invitation in a style that would have delighted his snobbish mother if he did but know it.

  “Miss Gannon, if you would allow me?” Johnjo, introductions completed, placed the hat he’d raised in the presence of a lady back on his head and offered his crooked elbow to Ann Marie.

  “Mr Smith.” Ann Marie accepted the offered elbow and as one they turned to walk back down King Street in the direction of Stephen’s Green.

  Johnjo Smith bit back a grin. He’d had some adventures since he’d joined his lot to Doug Joyce but this – walking out with a high class cutie on his arm – this took the biscuit.

  Chapter 33

  Shay/Doug watched his friend walk away with a smirk on his face. He had a fair idea what was going through Johnjo’s head at this moment. He allowed a small space to grow between the two couples.

  “Miss Murphy,” Doug used the hand he still held to bend his sister’s arm and thread her arm through his own, “allow me to escort you.” He grinned and stepped out to follow after the other two.

  “You, Shay Murphy, are shovelling horse shite.” She used her hip to knock him slightly off balance. “You’d think butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.” She looked up into the eyes that so exactly matched her own. “I’m scared spitless, Shay,” she said in a low whisper.

  “Pretend yeh own the feckin’ gaff!” Doug/Shay bent his head to whisper in Ivy’s ear.

  “Why didn’t yeh want me to tell Ann Marie yer real name?”

  “I’m not that person any more, Ivy.” Doug had created an image for himself. One he had worked hard to establish. “I’m Douglas Joyce, man about town, these days. I like who I am now, Ivy.” He knew he didn’t have to explain to Ivy what he meant.

  “I’ll have a hard time remembering to call you ‘Doug’.”

  “Only in public, Ivy – call me Doug in public, please. In private I will always be your brother Shay.” He felt a lump form in his throat. He couldn’t believe Ivy was walking along these posh streets at his side. “Jaysus, Ivy, would yeh look at the state of us!” He grinned hugely.

  “It’s a turn-up for the b
ooks right enough.” Ivy understood completely. “I’ve been having a lot of moments like this since me da died.”

  “Who’s your woman?” Doug asked the question that had been on the tip of his tongue ever since he’d seen the company his big sister was keeping.

  Ivy began to explain and the brother and sister walked slowly along the Dublin streets trying to catch up on years of news. They had a lot of things they wanted to say to each other without other ears hearing.

  Ann Marie wanted desperately to ask the man at her side a million questions about Ivy’s brother but she refrained. Ivy would tell her whatever she wanted her to know. She would not intrude on this private moment for her friend.

  Johnjo Smith wanted to whoop with glee and dance madly in the street. He wanted to shout out to the passing strangers that three of the people they were examining so minutely had run around these streets with bare feet, naked arses, runny noses and hungry bellies. Look at us now, he wanted to shout. Have a good feckin’ look at how we’ve come up in the world. Instead he strolled along, raising his hat to passing ladies and exchanging polite chit-chat with the upper-class woman on his arm.

  The bowing doorman at the Shelbourne Hotel didn’t even blink as he opened the hallowed portals for the two couples climbing the entryway steps.

  Ivy went up on her toes to whisper into Shay’s ear. “Shows what he knows! How many times do you reckon that sour-faced auld besom kicked us away from these doorsteps?”

  “Thoughts like that, Ivy,” Doug/Shay whispered back, “are what make moments like this so enjoyable.” He led the way towards the opulent lounge. “Every time he opens that door for me I think of the times that man sent us kids away from here with a flea in our ear. I almost gave him a heart attack the other day.” He nudged her gently. “I stocked up on thrupenny bits and on Halloween night I threw them to all the hungry kids begging on the steps.” He walked in the direction of a table for four situated in front of a window overlooking Stephen’s Green, his giggling sister on his arm.

  “I believe I’d like a moment to freshen up,” Ann Marie said when all four of them stood by the table in the lounge. She wanted to leave her furs with the cloakroom attendant but she wasn’t willing to leave until she’d forced Ivy to remove her hat.

  “If you would pass me your outer wear, I’ll leave them with the cloakroom attendant,” Johnjo said to Doug. He didn’t call him by the title that amused both of them. If he called Doug ‘sir’ in present company his position amongst them would be changed in a way that could give offence. He didn’t think the woman in furs would be amused by knowing she’d walked the Dublin streets on the arm of a man who might be viewed as a servant.

  “Thanks, Johnjo.” Doug shrugged out of his cashmere coat, revealing a charcoal suit that screamed the skill of the tailor who’d fashioned it to his body. The pristine white shirt and pale grey tie were elegance personified. There were hints of gold revealed at his shirt cuffs. His solid-gold tie-pin twinkled in the light from the crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. “On your way past the reception desk, Johnjo, order up afternoon tea for four, would you please?” He passed his coat, scarf, hat and gloves over to his friend.

  Ivy stood there, wondering what to do with herself. She wasn’t willing to take off her suit jacket. The tweed jacket was tightly fashioned to her waist before swinging out and falling to her knees over the matching long skirt. She hadn’t planned to take the jacket off. She refused to sit in this august hotel in just a skirt, blouse and thin jumper and the thought of removing her hat, revealing her uncovered head in public, horrified her. She looked to Ann Marie for guidance.

  “If you would pass me your hat, scarf and gloves, Ivy, I’ll leave them with the cloakroom attendant.” Ann Marie waited, knowing Ivy still clung to the old-fashioned notion that women simply did not reveal their uncovered heads in public. She couldn’t allow her friend to sit in this lounge in that perfectly dreadful hat sipping tea. It simply wouldn’t do.

  “You’ve cut your hair!” Doug gasped, while Ivy stood sticking the hatpins back into the hat she’d reluctantly removed from her head.

  The ice was broken. Johnjo stepped away to carry out his duties. Ann Marie grabbed Ivy’s items and hurried away in the direction of the cloakroom. Doug pulled the heavy leather chair nearest the window away from the table. He waved away the assistance of a waiter approaching from the direction of the nearby restaurant. Ivy sank into the comfortable chair being held for her by her brother and simply beamed up into his smiling face.

  “Let me tell you about my hair,” Ivy said as soon as he sat in the chair across the table from her. She leaned in his direction and to his complete fascination began to tell him about the day she’d sold her hair. The day of her first real venture into ‘high society’.

  “Jaysus, Ivy,” Doug took her hands in his on the tabletop, “I’d never doubt yeh. You really sold the hair off your head and me da’s body as well!”

  “I had to, Shay.” Ivy stared down at their joined hands on the table. She was afraid to meet his eyes, afraid he’d look at her with disgust. “He’d left me without ‘bit, bite nor sup’ in the place. You know how he was.”

  “I know.”

  “Are yeh ashamed of me?” Ivy had to ask.

  “Ivy, I’m that fecking proud of yeh I’m in danger of bursting the buttons off me vest.” He sensed Ivy needed him to be as he’d been before he left home – for a little while anyway.

  “Shay, will yeh come home?” Ivy couldn’t feel comfortable in these surroundings. She wanted to visit with her brother, catch up on the years of separation, but not here.

  “I don’t want to go back into The Lane, Ivy,” Doug said simply. He refused to walk past the men hanging around the public house. He would not soil his shoes walking down that piss-soaked tunnel. He’d come a long way from that . . . he wasn’t going back.

  “Are you ashamed of where you come from?” Ivy switched into her posh voice when she noticed two waiters approaching their table.

  “No, Ivy, never that.” Doug watched the waiters place the folding legs of an occasional table to one side of their table. He waited until the occasional table was set up, a tablecloth and accessories placed on it, and the two waiters hurried away. “I’m not ashamed of where I come from, Ivy. I’ll never deny what and who I am but such things are private. Doug Joyce is someone I created – he’s me now. Shay Murphy – that lad is part of my past. I won’t lie about him if asked but I won’t exactly shout where I come from to the world either.”

  “Fair enough, but our two friends are standing out in the lobby. I think they want to give us time together. They’ve been standing under one of them pig-ugly black-and-gold statues pretending an interest. They’re beginning to attract attention and look like ornaments themselves. I’m afraid someone will start polishing them soon if they don’t move.”

  Doug laughed, released Ivy’s hands and turned to look into the lobby. He grinned and waved at the two people trying to pretend an interest in the tall black statue holding a gold-painted lamp aloft.

  “We need to talk, Ivy.” Doug hadn’t touched on any of the things he’d needed to discuss with her. He had the chance of a great new life in front of him. He couldn’t move on without apologising to his sister. He needed to make reparation for the way he and his brothers had taken her for granted.

  “I know.” Ivy reached for her handbag, a gift from Ann Marie. “Let me give you a telephone number where I can be reached.” She lowered her eyes, knowing the shock she was giving her brother and delighting in the matter.

  Doug came to his feet politely as Ann Marie approached the table.

  “What did she say? Is she coming with us?” Johnjo asked.

  “Johnjo, you have a bigger mouth than the town crier.” Doug closed his eyes and shook his head. “I haven’t even mentioned the matter yet. Now help Miss Gannon into her chair then sit down.” The ‘shut up’ was silent but Johnjo heard it.

  “Miss Gannon . . .” Johnjo held the
back of the chair closest to Ivy.

  Ann Marie sank into the chair beside Ivy’s and prepared to be fascinated.

  They sat making polite chit-chat while a group of waiters hurried around importantly, preparing and presenting a ‘high tea’ for them.

  “That will be all,” Ann Marie said to the waiters. She wanted to hear what these people had to say. The tables in this lounge were set far enough apart for privacy. But they’d never get anything accomplished if these waiters continued to hover over them. They could return to the glass-walled restaurant or tend to some of the other people in the lounge, all of them staring under their eyelids in Doug’s direction. “We will serve ourselves – thank you.”

  “Well done!” Doug grinned in admiration at the way Ann Marie had dismissed the waiters.

  “It comes from being one of the upper class, don’t you know?” Ivy grinned. “She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. What can you do?”

  “Oh really!” Ann Marie blushed.

  “Seriously, Doug,” Ivy finally began to sip the tea from the dainty cup one of the waiters had placed before her, “you can say anything you like in front of Ann Marie. And I recognise Johnjo.” If the man wasn’t a Johnson she’d eat her hat. Still, if her brother’s friend wanted to remain incognito she’d no problem with that.

  “I have so much I want to discuss with you, Ivy, but I have a show to do this evening. I’m going to be tied up in rehearsals for the bloomin’ pantomime as well.” Doug glanced at the gold wristwatch he wore. “I want to spend time with you. I don’t want our time together to be rushed.” He never ate before going on stage. His stomach would rebel. He’d drink the coffee and watch the others eat. It wouldn’t be the first time. “We have an awful lot of catching-up to do.”