I’ll Bring You Buttercups. Elizabeth Elgin

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СКАЧАТЬ Mama. So can I –’

      ‘Can you get on with it, I hope you mean,’ Giles smiled, ‘and let Mama and I eat our dinner whilst you tell it, for there’s nothing worse than mutton gone cold.’

      Then he winked at her and she saw the sympathy she so needed in his eyes, and was grateful that at least her brother was on her side.

      ‘Well,’ she whispered. ‘I suppose the best place to begin is the beginning and it began when I fell in Hyde Park.’

      ‘And he was the doctor who helped you. Then he must have called on you again?’

      ‘No, Giles. I called on him.’ Her eyes were downcast, her fingers plucked nervously at the napkin on her knees. ‘He’d left his card and I wanted to thank him. No. Not to thank him, exactly.’ Her head lifted and she looked directly into her mother’s eyes. ‘I wanted to see him again. And nothing happened. He walked me – us – back to the motor bus, then asked if we would both like to walk in the park the next day. It was all perfectly proper.’

      ‘It was not proper and you know it, or you’d have told me the truth of it long before this, Julia. I thought you were sensible enough to be trusted alone, but it seems you were not. And Hawthorn encouraging you …’

      ‘No! It wasn’t like that! Hawthorn spoke most strongly against it, even though she was relieved and grateful he was there to help when I hit my head. But I insisted.’

      ‘She’s right, Mama. You can’t blame Hawthorn,’ Giles urged. ‘What else was she to do, when Julia had her mind set on it?’

      ‘Very well – I suppose Hawthorn acted as properly as she was able. And how many times, Julia, did you meet this doctor?’

      ‘Twice. And correctly chaperoned.’ She closed her eyes for shame at yet another lie, even though it was uttered to protect Hawthorn. ‘Then he said he was coming to Harrogate to study the water cures and asked me to meet him there. And I did and now you know it all,’ she finished breathlessly.

      There was a long, apprehensive silence before Helen Sutton demanded, ‘All? Then what foolishness has prompted this man to call on me tomorrow without invitation?’

      ‘His name, Mama, is Andrew MacMalcolm, and he is a doctor,’ Julia said quietly, knowing all was lost, yet determined, still, to defend him. ‘And he is coming to see you because he wishes to marry me and I,’ she rushed on as her mother’s eyes opened wide with shock and her brother’s knife and fork clattered on to his plate, ‘wish to marry him!’

      ‘Stop, at once! I have listened to more than enough for one night. You have deceived me, Julia, and I suggest you go to your room. I would like to speak with your brother alone.’

      ‘No. I’m sorry, Mama, but I won’t.’ Her voice was less than a whisper now, and trembled on the edge of tears. ‘I didn’t deceive you today; not wholly. I did buy roses for Hawthorn. But I am almost twenty-one – almost grown up – and will not be sent from the room like a naughty child, nor discussed behind my back.’

      ‘Let her stay, dearest?’ Giles pleaded. ‘Julia has been truthful, and told you all.’

      ‘Yes! But would she have been so forthcoming had this young man not announced his intention of confronting me in my own home?’

      ‘I think,’ said her son levelly, ‘that it is I he must confront if he wishes to marry my sister. In Robert’s absence, I am her legal guardian – for the five remaining months she is a minor, that is.’

      ‘I see. So after November, when she is of age, you will condone such a marriage, simply because you are not prepared to do anything about it, Giles?’

      ‘No, Mother. But at least receive the man. You’ll know at once if he is a fortune hunter.’

      ‘Your sister does not have a fortune!’

      ‘A social climber, then?’

      ‘Stop it! Please stop it!’ They were talking about her as if she were not there, and Julia had reached the limits of her tolerance. ‘And please don’t keep calling Andrew the man, and this man. He is a person, a doctor, and is entitled to your respect. Doctor MacMalcolm. It isn’t so difficult to say. He works at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and he’s saving hard to buy a partnership in general practice.

      ‘And, Mama, before you forbid it out of hand, will you remember that you said I might choose my own husband?’ Her eyes were stark with pleading; tears still trembled on every whispered word. ‘And will you remember that you and Pa were in love?’

      ‘Your father, Julia, had expectations. Doctor MacMalcolm appears to be without the means, even, to buy a practice.’

      ‘So if my father hadn’t been rich, you wouldn’t have fallen in love with him?’

      ‘You are being unfair, Julia, and pert, too.’ Her voice was softer now, for she could not deny a love that went even beyond the grave. ‘I am shocked and at a loss as to what to say. It is unbelievable that you can even consider marriage on so short an acquaintance.’

      ‘Mama, with the greatest respect it is not – and you know it.’

      ‘Julia, Julia – what am I to do with you, say to you?’

      Despairingly she closed her eyes. She was eighteen again, and John, love of her life, was signing her dance card, claiming the supper dance and the last dance, and she was looking into his eyes, knowing even then that if she never saw him again after that last waltz, she would remember him for the rest of her life. She had worn blue that night.

      ‘Do, Mama? You must do what you think right, but don’t say I must never see Andrew again. I wouldn’t want to disobey you or deceive you – but I would, if I had to.’

      ‘Then Doctor MacMalcolm may call,’ Helen said wearily, for in truth sitting opposite was the girl she herself had once been. And equally in love. ‘Might I be told how he will get here?’

      ‘He’ll walk. He’ll take the early train to Holdenby and I shall meet him there. I shall cycle over to the station and –’

      ‘Then you had better use the carriage. Let Miss Clitherow know …’

      ‘Oh, my dear!’ Julia pushed back her chair and was at her mother’s side, lips brushing her cheek. ‘It’s all right? You mean it?’

      ‘I mean that it will attract less attention than if you were to walk through the village with him, pushing your bicycle at his side!’

      ‘That’s settled, then?’ Giles demanded, eyebrows raised. ‘We can finish eating?’

      ‘By all means. And Julia, I am sure, is sorry for the commotion. But it is by no means settled,’ Helen said firmly. ‘It is not settled at all, but for the time being the matter shall be dropped, save to say that I will be receiving at ten in the morning.’

      Julia picked up her knife and fork, regarding her plate with dismay. She hadn’t lost, exactly, but neither had Andrew been received with the enthusiasm she had hoped for. Her mother’s gentleness had proved to be a cover for a sternness seldom seen. In future she would go carefully, think before she spoke, for so very much was at СКАЧАТЬ