I’ll Bring You Buttercups. Elizabeth Elgin

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СКАЧАТЬ shall we listen, or shall we walk?’ Gravely he offered his arm. It was the wrong arm, for when she took it, she realized that every time he turned to look at her, her bruised and puffy eye would gaze up at him like a blot on the landscape of her adoration.

      ‘How do you feel today?’ He asked it as if he could read her thoughts. ‘Is your eye less painful?’

      ‘Almost no pain at all.’ She withdrew her hand from the crook of his arm and touched it with anxious fingers. ‘But oh, isn’t it a sight?’

      ‘I’ve seen worse,’ he smiled, taking her hand, tucking it gently back. ‘Much, much worse …’

      ‘Oh, Hawthorn.’ Eyes closed, Julia swayed back and forth in the kitchen rocker. ‘What am I to do? Two days more, then we’ll be on our way home. Two days, that’s all.’

      ‘Did he ask you?’ Carefully Alice wrapped the remainder of the cherry cake in greaseproof paper and returned it to the tin. ‘To meet him again, I mean.’

      ‘Yes. Tomorrow – same place – but after that there’ll only be one day and he hasn’t kissed me yet; hasn’t even called me Julia and I don’t –’

      ‘Hasn’t kissed you? Indeed I should think not! For him to try wouldn’t be right, and for you to let him would be common – first time, that is. Second time, an’ all. My Tom didn’t kiss me for ages.’

      ‘But you and Tom had – have – all the time in the world, and we haven’t. He’ll be in London and I’ll be miles and miles away and not knowing when we’ll meet again; not knowing, even, if we’ll be able to write to each other.’

      ‘You can always have his letters sent to me, though there might be talk about them, so I’d have to tell Tom. But why shouldn’t you write to each other openly?’

      ‘Because we haven’t been properly introduced. What do you think my mother would say? She wouldn’t like it at all. Mind,’ she frowned, ‘when next I go to London I could tell Mama that Aunt Sutton had introduced us and that would make it all right. Aunt Sutton would do it for me, I know she would. But what do I do in the meantime?’

      ‘We’ll think of something, though I still think you should tell her ladyship everything – right from the start.’

      ‘And land you in bad grace, Hawthorn? No, we’ll have to be careful; very careful. And anyway,’ she whispered, her face suddenly sad, ‘who’s to say he’ll want to write to me?’

      ‘He’ll want to. I know he will. But one day at a time, eh? And you haven’t told me where you went nor what you talked about.’

      ‘I know.’ And she did so want to talk about him. She wanted to tell the entire Mews that Julia Sutton was in love; climb to the top of Holdenby Pike and shout it out to the whole of the Riding. ‘But will you come upstairs and untie me? I feel so jumpy, so anxious, and these corsets are getting tighter and tighter. Be a dear, then I’ll put on a wrap and I’ll tell you all.’

      She let go a sigh of relief as Alice untied the knot and eased open the back lacing of the torturous garment. ‘I swear that when we have the vote and can send a lady to Westminster, I shall agitate for an Act to be passed, outlawing corsets. I will!’

      ‘Oh, miss – you and your votes. Now get into your wrap and pop your feet into something more comfortable, then tell me all about it. All. Nothing missed out.’

      And because she was so besotted, so suddenly, shiningly in love, Julia did just that. In truth there was nothing about their meeting which could be deemed shocking – other than meeting a young man unintroduced and unchaperoned, that was. But oh, the delight of it all: the brilliance of the sun, the most beautiful, sweetly scented flowers she had ever seen or smelled; even the London park-sparrows were the cheekiest, the most endearing little birds in the whole world.

      ‘And Andrew – Doctor MacMalcolm – told me about Scotland, where he was born, and how hard he’d had to work to become a doctor because he did it all on scholarships, Hawthorn, and but for the money an aunt left him, he couldn’t even have bought the books he needed, let alone eat.

      ‘His father was a miner, you see; injured at the pit. He suffered a lot before he died. Then his mother took consumption and she died too. There was only his aunt left after that. She wasn’t well off, but she gave him her savings. He’s very sad she died before he qualified. She would have been so proud of him.’

      ‘Proud. Yes.’ And Miss Julia’s doctor had no one, no background, except that of a miner’s son who had risen by his own efforts.

      ‘He can’t afford his own practice, either. Not for years will he be able to – not even buy himself a partnership. But he’s a brilliant physician, Hawthorn.’

      ‘He said so?’

      ‘No, of course he didn’t. But I know he is. Life’s very unfair, isn’t it?’

      ‘It is.’ Alice offered daisy-printed satin-quilted slippers. Unfairer than she knew, because how was the daughter of a baronet ever to be allowed to marry the son of a man who had dug coal? The world she lived in didn’t, wouldn’t, allow it.

      ‘He was determined to be a doctor – after both his parents had suffered so. And, Hawthorn, he believes that women should have the vote – well, responsible women, that is.’

      ‘Then it couldn’t be better, could it?’ Alice poured water into the papier mâché bowl kept especially for the washing-up of the best china, adding cold water and flaked soap, concentrating hard on making it into a sud so she might think, uninterrupted. Because what Miss Julia had just told her was what she wanted least to hear. Not that the young doctor wasn’t the worthiest of gentlemen, but wouldn’t it have been better for all concerned if he’d found himself a nice, genteel nurse to marry? Such a woman would have made a better wife for a young physician on his climb to the top. How could he ever hope to support the daughter of a gentleman? And would he be acceptable, even if he could?

      Mind, Mrs Clementina had come from trade, and she had married into the gentry; Alice supposed trade was all right. Anything was all right if it brought money into the family. But the doctor could barely support himself, it seemed, let alone a wife. Doctor MacMalcolm had nothing to commend him at all but ambition and good looks, she sighed. Yet folk didn’t choose where to love; not penniless young physicians nor young society ladies, it seemed, and oh, deary me, what had Miss Julia gone and done?

      ‘Hawthorn?’ Julia snapped her fingers. ‘You were miles away. Thinking about Dwerryhouse, were you?’

      ‘No, miss. If you want the truth I was thinking that Doctor MacMalcolm having no family, so to speak, and having no means yet of supporting a wife, changes things a lot. Once, I thought it would be best if you told her ladyship all, hoping she would understand. But him having nothing, so to speak, even if there’s all credit due to him for getting to be a doctor, won’t go down well with her ladyship. Now I’m beginning to wish I’d been more firm; hadn’t let you –’

      ‘Hawthorn – nothing you could have said or done would have made a scrap of difference. I told you that one day I would meet the man I wanted to marry, and two days ago I met him. And it’s all right. Whatever happens, I won’t involve you. I’ll just have to find a way out of it – or round it, won’t I? And I will.’

      ‘Then I wish you luck, I really do. СКАЧАТЬ