Gertie Golden Girl Pt. 17

Chapter 17 POST WEDDING

Gertie becomes Dowager Lady Standhope

Relaxing and reflecting on the event in the hours afterwards, Gertie thought the wedding between her grandson Jake and Gill his bride went off perfectly. With very few exceptions, everybody who was expected turned up at what was penned in the society pages of the national broadsheet press as "the Powerhouse Wedding of the Decade", that anybody who was anybody had no wish to miss, and there were no dramas that arose to spoil the day. The weather was cool and cloudy for mid-August, with the range of temperatures between 15 and 18 degrees through the day but at least the rain held off during daylight.

The formal elements of the wedding in the Manor ballroom and the more private blessing held in the local parish church, as well as the breakfast that followed went off without a hitch. Sir Michael's illustrated Best Man's speech was informative, the slideshow images were selected not to shock or embarrass, was entertaining and, while some unavoidable elements were inevitably sad, it was an overall uplifting and funny Best Man speech. Gill's daughter Jenny gave a tongue in cheek speech about her highlights of her mother's parenting and included her brother and her's long and happy relationship with her now step-father, which was both amusing and heartwarming. Gertie spoke on behalf of her departed daughter, the groom's mother, ending with telling family and guests how proud she was of her only grandson and how delighted she was in welcoming her new granddaughter and great-grandchildren. Sid Moorhouse stood up and told the large assembly how proud he and his wife were of his eldest daughter, telling amusing stories how she bossed her younger sisters, keeping them on the straight and narrow and how well she brought up her own children were and, he was sure, even though his new son-in-law was the head of more than one multi-million-pound organisation, that Gill would keep him on his toes, while confident in the young man's undoubted integrity that will continue to make him proud of his family.

After the wedding breakfast was over, Gertie thoroughly enjoyed meeting Jose Perez and his wife Maria, the head of the Perez family, her family's distant cousins. They were both in their early seventies, confident in their position and wealth in their society but seemed unaffected and friendly. Gertie thought they were charming and keen to repair any supposed rift between the two families. After all the formalities were out of the way and while the youngsters occupied themselves enjoying the loud music and dancing, Gertie was able to find a quiet corner with several of the Perez family and start to get to know them on a personal level.

The honeymoon for the happy couple had been itinered several weeks earlier, so that while the newlyweds would honeymoon in the Americas for a whole month as guests of the Perez family, their children would also visit with and be entertained by the Perez family for a three-week period, with Gertie as their guardian and accompanied by servants as necessary.

Mrs O'Reilly insisted that Gertie take an experienced lady's maid with her for her comfort and care, and a 22-year-old Spanish girl, Liliana Garcia, who had worked part-time in Gertie's London home in the kitchen about three years earlier while studying as a student nurse, was given an intense course in how to be a lady's maid in three months and was hired to accompany Gertie to the Americas. Lili was a quick study and, although she was now a Band 6 qualified nurse specialising in child care, working at the Standhope Hospital in the East End of London, she was able to arrange a four-month leave of absence without losing any seniority. No doubt Sir Michael had a hand in smoothing the arrangements. As Gertie was a regular visitor to the hospital, she had often spoken with the young girl who worked for her part-time during her three-year nursing degree course; Gertie liked the girl and was happy to have her accompany her and the children to America.

The happy couple left the wedding celebrations during the early evening, once all the formal dances were completed; they changed into less formal clothing and departed in one of Jake's chauffeur-driven limos to an unstated destination where they would spend a couple of days in splendid isolation before departing from London Heathrow on Saturday for a 15-hour flight including a stop to change flights at New York. In Charleston they were going to stay alone together for a week in a well-appointed holiday home on Kiawah Island, to the south of Charleston.

Gertie, her lady's maid Lili, Jenny and Clay, plus Ben and Charlie, left London on Friday, also via New York. In North Charleston they were collected by a mini-bus and driven to the Perez' estate in the French Quarter to the north-east of Charleston, where they were welcomed by Jose and Maria Perez.

A week later Jake and Gill joined the others in the French Quarter mansion and from there they visited many attractions in the south-east region of the States before flying down to Buenos Aires in the Argentine Republic to stay with Jose and Maria in their home a couple of hours' drive from the capital. Using that as a base, they were able to visit a number of the Perez family hotels and resorts as well as ride horses with Gouchos, as the family still maintained an interest in beef production.

Jenny of course, loved this part of the trip and was surprised that Gertie, Charlie and Ben were keen to ride as it turned out that being around horses was part of the servant training at Standhope Manor. Ben even admitted that in the time he spent as a butler in the Middle East, he had even learned how to race camels. Gertie told Jenny that she had learned to ride for the first time on her very first weekend at the Manor when she was only seventeen and, even though she preferred to walk the estate every day now that she was permanently living in retirement at the Manor, she still got in at least a couple of hours each week on the back of a rather docile mare that still gave Gertie the best work-out she needed to keep her active.

All in all the holiday was a most enjoyable month away from England, which Gertie considered, at the age of 85, her last great adventure. There was still no answer why the two Winter families were so self-determinedly separated for so long, so whatever the reasons they died out gracefully with the older generations and the current crop of Perez and Winters were keen to maintain contacts and provide opportunities for the youngsters of student and post-grad age to find training and career opportunities in each other's hemispheres, to the benefit of both sides of the family who were now keen to work on being one family. Not only was the close association proving to be good for business, being part of high society in two continents was good for personal development too, opening horizons for the "other family" of serving staff on both sides of the Atlantic.

***

As soon as Gill returned to work after her honeymoon, a visit to Sir Michael at the Standhope Hospital confirmed exactly what she expected, that she was pregnant; what surprised and delighted both Jake and Gill was that she was pregnant with twins.

They announced their happy news at the Manor on the next Saturday, with a due date in April 2017. In all the activity and stress of preparing for the wedding, Gill had missed a period without realising. When she missed the second period while relaxing on her honeymoon and began experiencing morning sickness, that she had first attributed to the change of diet or the water, she was certain that she was expecting but waited until she could confirm it officially before making any announcements.

Gertie admitted to the couple on first hearing the news, "Twins do run in my mother's Shearing family and, although it was too distressing to say anything at the autopsy after the accident, Jake's mother Mary was about seven weeks' pregnant with twins. I had kept this from everyone, even Sir Michael didn't know because I had that element of the autopsy suppressed as it wasn't anything to do with the cause of death and as Mary was already dead, her medical records were frozen. The Medical Examiner agreed with me that news of Mary's pregnancy would only have caused even more upset distress to her family and friends than her death had already."

So, on 9 April 2017, Gill gave birth to her twins, The Honourable Oliver Charles Nicholls, immediately entitled Viscount Winter, and The Honourable Emma Gertrude Nicholls joined Gertie's family as her first natural-born great-grandchildren to join her adored adopted ones, Jenny and Clay Jarvis. As part of his re-admission into the Standhope Winter Bank family, Wayne Jarvis was happy to allow his children to be adopted by Jake and consequently they were renamed Jennifer and Clayton Nicholls.

Three years later, at the very start of the Covid-19 lockdown, on 26 March 2020, Gill gave birth to her fifth child when George Noah Nicholls joined the family. Gertie was most frustrated that due to the Covid-19 lockdown, she could only see the newcomer to the family on her iPad screen. It was early May before she was able to hold the new baby in her arms and show the infant around the Manor.

All the family assembled at the Manor on Saturday 5 June 2021 to celebrate Gertie's 90th birthday. She was still quite spritely, still organising her Saturday morning walks around the Manor estate and other nearby gentle walks in the area, although now she always carried a walking stick as more of a reassuring prop than an aid to walking.

A minor stroke in 2024 didn't completely slow Gertie down completely, but her walks were now confined to the estate and, after the winter of 2024/25, her morning constitution was restricted to the Manor Rose Garden before a fall in the garden in April 2025 meant that she had to take to her bed. After that fall, her constitution started to fail her and she was flown by air ambulance to the Standhope Hospital, where Sir Michael informed the family that their beloved Gertie had entered her end-of-life stage, her wishes were that, should she suffer any further emergency she was not to be revived and, although she was currently conscious, she could slip away at any time and that it was time for the rest of her family to quietly visit her in turns to say goodbye.

Jake and Gill stayed with her all that first night as Gertie slept peacefully. The next morning Jenny and her fiancé stayed with her for most of the day. Clay and one of the Manor gardeners volunteered to stay for the next night vigil, before Jake and Gill took over for the weekend. On the Sunday, in the early evening, Gertie finally took her last breath. She was a month shy of her 95th birthday.

The Dowager Lady Gertrude Elizabeth Albury was buried in the Winter family vault in the chapel at Standhope Manor, between her two late husbands, John Jacob Winter Lord Standhope and Jonathan Albury.

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Chapter 18 MEMORIES

Gertie remembers her life

It has been said that your life flashes before you as you near death, although how anyone can say that is what you experience when you're too dead to tell anyone?

But there it is. Laying here in the dark, sensing that my end is near, my life has indeed flashed by me.

It wasn't a perfect rendition of my life, there aren't enough hours in a decade to take in everything I remember, not that my memories are perfect. For instance I have very few memories of my childhood, nor can I say I remember much about the last dozen years or so, except the highlights. I accepted my retirement in my mid-80s and I guess there are few others who can say that. And, once I relaxed all my grip on so many threads and in so much detail of my family's lives, it was more a relief than anything else to let go.

What I can remember of my life has had its high points as well as the lowest of the low. Losing Johnnie so young was a cruel burden for such a young woman to have to carry and was undoubtedly the lowest blow of all, those brief words on the telegram seemed so cruelly casual, delivering the saddest news with stark brevity, recording the ending of the life of the man who was forever the highlight of my existence; losing both my children before they even achieved their prime and seeing my only grandchild orphaned and badly injured, only heaped on more tragedy than any person deserves to endure but on balance, I think I can leave this existence with the legacy entrusted to me intact and in the hands of someone I feel better qualified than I to carry on.

There were events in my long life that did not go so well but I believe I did my best in spite of those setbacks. My second husband Joe Alverthorpe's estate made excellent arrangements for Alverthorpe's two illegitimate boys, for their private schooling through to completion of their further education, and that his common-law wife Shirley Alverthorpe was settled comfortably for the rest of her life. Shirley lives in Spain and the last time I checked she was in her 80s and alive and happy. Although Shirley and I were never close, we kept in touch, And her two boys turned out handsome and successful men. I'm glad Joe never became a Judge, his judgement was clearly skewed.

At least my third marriage to the gentle and loving soul, Jonathan. Albury, restored my faith in the state of matrimony.

I know I am conscious, I seem to be in control of my thoughts, so I am not in a dream state. I feel I should be wake but none of my extended senses seem to be working. I am not hot or cold, I cannot hear anything or feel if I am alone or even if anyone is holding my hand. I sense no presence at all but I cannot move my hands, a finger or a toe to feel anything around me. I do feel a sense of time, of time dragging like in a waiting room; I guess that is somewhat apt. I'm not a religious person, I really don't believe in an afterlife, but this does feel like purgatory, like I am in a vacuum waiting for the alarm that signifies a dungeon of state.

I am no fool. I am perfectly aware that... I'm not sure how long ago that was, though... but I was at home at the Manor and feeling poorly and I took a turn for the worst and remember an air ambulance taking me to a place where I suppose I feel safest if I need medical care at this late stage of my life, The Standhope Hospital in the East End of London; it is close to where I was born and raised and, I suppose, this is where I will die.

I feel the end must be near. I cannot feel any of my senses, only my thoughts seem exactly what they always were. I cannot move my eyelids, my arm, my hand, a single finger, I cannot feel hot or cold or even sense that I'm breathing. Am I alone or are my loved ones present and holding my hand as I pass? I seem to be only hanging on as a weariness appears to descend upon me like a closing curtain on the performance of my life.

I suppose if I'm going to think about whether I believe in an afterlife, now is the time to consider the question. On the negative side I will simply cease to exist, on the other side there may indeed be an "other side" where I can meet my parents, my children and Johnnie again.

I have always had to accept the losses of loved ones and I long ago resigned myself to those losses, so either way, if I disappear into nothingness or not, I cannot do anything about it so I will face whatever is there coming head on as I always have done.

The End