I’ll Bring You Buttercups. Elizabeth Elgin

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      ‘What I am prepared to agree to is that you may write as often as you please and meet each other here, or at Aunt Sutton’s. Then, in a year from now, if you are both of the same mind, we can all discuss the matter further. There, miss – will that suit you, for the time being?’

      ‘Ma’am, it will suit me very well indeed,’ Andrew replied warmly, ‘and I – we – thank you most gratefully. You will not regret the decision you have come to today, I promise you.’

      ‘Dearest Mother.’ Julia’s voice was low with emotion, and tears, the sweetest, happiest of tears, shone in her eyes. ‘Thank you …’

      It was, as Mrs Shaw said when Mary had carried up the coffee tray and reported in detail on the atmosphere in the small sitting-room, only to be expected. Miss Julia had come back from London an altogether different young woman, and beautiful for all to see.

      ‘London,’ said Cook, looking across the table at Alice, silently daring her to deny it. ‘London was where it all started, or I’m a Dutchman. Am I right, Alice Hawthorn?’

      But Alice merely smiled and went on with her polishing and said never a word, whilst upstairs, as his sister crossed the lawn outside, fingers entwined in Andrew’s, Giles Sutton demanded of his mother why she had capitulated so suddenly and completely.

      ‘You surprised me. You almost said yes to their marriage, Mama. Oh, he’s likeable enough and makes no bones about his upbringing, which is to his credit,’ he shrugged. ‘Indeed, I can see why Julia is so besotted. But you, dearest Mother, fell completely under his spell, too. Why, will you tell me?’

      ‘Spell? Tut! Not at all! But yes, I liked him, and his complete honesty won me over. That, and the dedication with which he follows his profession, is to be commended. But, Giles – how am I to explain?’

      How could she, even to herself? How, when she had been prepared to stand fast and completely forbid the affair, had she surrendered without protest? How could her son, who had yet to love, understand that even the height of the doctor, the way he held his head, the way he smiled even, had so reminded her of John that it had almost taken her breath away. And how, when he looked at her with eyes neither green nor grey – looked at her with her husband’s eyes – she had known, as surely as if John had whispered it in her ear, that this man was right for her daughter.

      ‘I think,’ she murmured, ‘that his eyes won me over. Didn’t you notice them, Giles?’

      ‘No, dearest, I did not,’ he offered, mystified.

      ‘There you are, then. You are a man and you’ll never understand.’

      So he had kissed his mother’s cheek and begged she excuse him until lunchtime, and closed the library door behind him still wondering about it.

      But Helen Sutton, when she was alone, closed her eyes blissfully and whispered, ‘John, my dear, thank you for being with me when I needed you. Thank you, my love.’

      ‘I cannot believe it!’ Julia laughed. ‘I don’t believe that you are here and we are walking in the garden for all to see.’

      ‘Then you’d better, darling girl, for I’m to stay to luncheon, remember – and hoping to be asked again.’

      ‘You will be. Mama liked you; I knew she would – Giles, too …’

      ‘Aye. Your brother tried fine to be the stern guardian, and all the time trying to work out what the upset was all about, I shouldn’t wonder.’

      ‘Mm. And wanting to get on with his work. He’s seeing to the library. Pa neglected it dreadfully, so Giles is trying to get it into some kind of order. Some of the older books need attention, and he’s packing them up, ready to send to London for repair. And oh, darling, isn’t it a beautiful morning?’

      ‘Aye. And will you smell that air?’ He breathed in deeply. ‘And look at that view. Do you ever look at it, Julia, or have you seen it so often that you take it for granted?’

      ‘Perhaps I do, darling,’ she smiled, looking at it with his eyes; at the last of the sweet-scented narcissi and the first of the summer’s roses, climbing the pergola, tangling with honeysuckle and laburnum. And at the delicate spring green of beech leaves and linden leaves, newly uncurled; and a sky, high and wide and blue, with the sun topping Brattocks Wood. ‘But I shall look at it differently now, and how I wish you could be here when evening comes. That’s when the honeysuckle smells so sweetly. The scent of it is unbelievable. I’ll ask that you be invited to dinner before you return, and we’ll walk here at dusk and you shall take the smell of it back with you to London, to remind you of me.’

      ‘Silly child.’ He gentled her face with his fingertips because he wanted so much to hold her and kiss her. ‘Can we walk in the woods, do you think?’

      ‘I think we’d better.’ She lifted her eyes to his, loving him, wanting him. ‘Because I need to kiss you, too. And don’t say you don’t want to, because I know you do. Your voice changes when you want me – did you know it? You speak to me with a – a lover’s voice and it makes me – oh, I don’t know …’

      ‘You do know, Julia, and one day we will – only don’t make me wait too long?’

      ‘I won’t. I promise I won’t. And can we please find a place where no one can see us?’

      ‘See us!’ he exulted. ‘But we are walking out, you and I, and in a year we shall announce our engagement. So let’s tell the world about it –’ he tilted her chin with his forefinger and laid his lips gently on hers – ‘with a kiss.’

      It was, said Bess, who had been carrying coal to the library and was passing the window in the front hall when she saw it, so romantic you wouldn’t believe it. The way he’d kissed her, chin tilted, and she with her eyes closed, just like in a love book.

      ‘And then she picked a rosebud, and put it in his buttonhole,’ she sighed, misty-eyed. ‘I stood there and saw her do it and if you don’t believe me, then Mary’ll tell you when she serves luncheon. You’ll see that rosebud, Mary, then you’ll know I’m not making it up.’

      ‘Hm,’ grunted Tilda, annoyed that kitchenmaids saw nothing, stuck downstairs, whilst Bess and Mary had a better time of it altogether. ‘I never said I didn’t believe you.’ Tilda, who knew everything there was to know about falling in love from books in the penny library, had suspected all along that something was going on, and that Alice knew more about it than she was letting on. ‘And what’s more, I’ll bet you anything you like that Hawthorn knows more’n she’ll admit to.’

      ‘Alice?’ Cook demanded in a voice that commanded obedience.

      ‘I know no more than any of you,’ she offered reluctantly, ‘and that’s –’ That’s the truth, she’d been going to say, but when she thought about it, when there was one extra for luncheon and Miss Julia getting herself kissed in full view of the entire household … ‘that’s all I can say, except maybe that his name is Andrew MacMalcolm, and he’s a doctor, in London. And when Miss Julia fell and hurt herself –’

      ‘It was him!’ Tilda supplied triumphantly. ‘Him that brought her round and tended her, and saved her life!’

      ‘Him,’ Alice confirmed, pink-cheeked. ‘And if any СКАЧАТЬ