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‘Yes, I know she’s needed to help out downstairs, but I’ve got a good reason for going on my own. It will be Hawthorn’s birthday in two weeks, and she was such a help in London and so kind and thoughtful when I got my bruises, that I’d like to buy some special roses for her hat.
‘The ones she’s got she made herself out of satin scraps, and I want to buy her some silk ones, and maybe a little matching bud for her jacket lapel – to say thank you, I mean. So it’s best she doesn’t come with me and I can manage alone, I really can. If I’m seen on to the train and met off it when I get back, I can’t possibly come to any harm.
‘And I’m nearly twenty-one and it is 1913, Mama, and women travel alone every day in London on the trams and tube trains, really they do,’ she finished breathlessly.
‘London has given you ideas, Julia, and yes, I know you’re not a child and it’s kind of you to think about Hawthorn, but –’
‘But I can’t go alone and no one can be spared next week to go with me!’ Her mouth set stubbornly.
‘Then you are wrong. But just this once, I was going to say, if you promise to get the five o’clock train back, I think you might be allowed –’
‘Mama! Oh, thank you, and I will take care, I will! And Hawthorn wants blue thread and if there’s anything you’d like me to get for you …’
‘There is nothing. But if you find yourself in need of a ladies’ room, then do be careful where you go? The teashop on the corner of James Street is very respectable.’
‘I’ll be careful – I truly will. And when women get the vote there’ll be an end to chaperoning,’ she added, breathlessly triumphant.
‘The vote, Julia?’
‘Sorry, dearest.’ Sorry indeed! Hawthorn had said to be careful and she had forgotten. She’d just blurted it out, and now it was said it couldn’t be taken back. ‘The vote, Mama,’ she said soberly, meeting her mother’s gaze. ‘Women will get it, one day. We will, you know.’
‘One day, perhaps. But not just yet. Not for a long, long time. And you are not to talk about such things on Friday night – please?’
‘I won’t; I promise. I’ll be very ladylike and I’ll watch my tongue and if it gets too bad for you – missing Pa, I mean – look across at me, and I shall understand.’
Helen Sutton closed her eyes tightly, then smiling just a little too brightly, she whispered, ‘The blue it shall be, Julia. I shall wear the blue, on Friday. For your Pa.’
He was waiting outside the station beside the little flower shop, and her feet felt like lead weights, so difficult was it to place one in front of the other. Then the colour Julia had felt drain from her cheeks at the sight of him all at once flooded back, and she began to tremble with relief that he was there.
‘You remembered,’ he smiled, raising his hat. ‘To wear the blue, I mean.’
‘I said I would, next time we met – if it was still summer.’ Love for him washed over her and stuck in her throat in an exquisite ache. ‘And I want so much for you to kiss me.’
‘I want to kiss you, too, but not here.’ She was more beautiful than he remembered, her eyes larger, more luminous, her voice husky with a recognized need. ‘Close to where I am staying, there are gardens. We can walk there …’ He offered his arm and she slipped her hand into it, worried that someone she knew would see them; wishing with all her heart that they would.
‘This seems a prosperous town – what little I have seen of it,’ he murmured. ‘Fine houses, hotels, gardens …’
‘Indeed. A physician could do well here.’ Briefly she teased him with her eyes. ‘Would you ever consider moving north?’
‘Most certainly – given the means to buy myself into a town such as this. But I haven’t enough saved, yet – it’s only right you should know that, darling – so I must stay in London a while longer. By the way, I left my card at your aunt’s house, though I haven’t received hers in return. So until I do, I can’t call on her.’
‘Then I think you should leave another,’ Julia urged. ‘I wrote to her, two days ago, telling her that my bruises were almost gone now, thanks to your skill, so maybe next time you’ll be luckier. I do so want her to receive you.’
‘Receive me? D’you know, lassie, that where I came from there was no card-leaving, no waiting to be asked. In the pit house I grew up in, a neighbour would walk in without fuss and ask was there anything she could do to help – and help we needed, I can tell you that. Or maybe they’d just call for a gossip and a cup of tea – if there was tea to spare, mind, and milk to put in it.
‘But I don’t hold with all these peculiar customs – leaving cards, then waiting to be asked to call. It’s a funny way of going on, to my way of thinking.’
‘I know, Andrew, and I don’t much care for it myself. But it’s the way we do things and – and –’
‘And see where it gets you; snubbed or frustrated, or both. And I haven’t the time to waste leaving cards. I’ve thought a lot about us since you left, Julia; I even tried telling myself you were out of my reach, and to forget you.
‘I’m stubborn, though. When I get to be a fine physician I shall need a fine wife, so you’ll suit me nicely. And there is another thing, far more important. I love you, fine wife or no’, so it’s right I should ask you to marry me and –’
‘Marry you?’ She stood stock still, cheeks blazing. ‘Right out of nowhere, when you haven’t even asked me how my bruises are, you ask me to marry you!’
‘Your bruises are gone, almost, and your eye is fine. I’d be a poor physician if I couldn’t see that with half a glance. No! I have reached the conclusion that time is too short and too precious for the nonsense of card-leaving. I have six days here – few enough, to my way of thinking – so there is no time to waste being socially correct. That is why I’ve decided to speak with your mother or your brother, or both. And I shall declare my intentions and ask that I might be allowed to write to you and meet you here, or at your Aunt Sutton’s house. There now – how does that suit you?’ he smiled.
‘Andrew! You cannot – I cannot –’ He could not, must not, do anything so awful! ‘It isn’t right or proper and you mustn’t call! It isn’t the way we do things. My mother doesn’t even know you exist.’
‘Then you shall tell her, tonight, and ask that when I call tomorrow she’ll be kind enough to invite me inside. I’m not of a mind to shilly-shally, and I don’t approve of hole-in-the-corner affairs between two people who love each other. And do you know, Miss Julia Sutton, how very dear you are, standing there with your mouth wide open?’
‘Andrew, dearest love.’ Tears brightened her eyes and she blinked them away, matching his smile with her own. ‘I don’t think I’ve been so happy in the whole of my life, but it isn’t possible for you to call – it truly isn’t. There’s a way of doing things, and calling uninvited isn’t one of them. I’m sorry. But darling, I’ll soon be twenty-one and can tell them about us. Then, if they forbid it, I shall run away to London to you and –’
‘No, Julia. There’ll be no running anywhere! And do you know a short-cut to those gardens, because I need to kiss some sense into you. And don’t argue, or ask me to change my mind. I intend gettings things straight before I go back to London, so there’s no more to be said! Is that quite, quite clear?’
‘It is – oh, it is! But you don’t know what you are doing. You don’t! Are you willing to risk everything just because of your impatience – and your stubborn Scottish principles?’
‘Aye,’ he said mildly.
‘Then you are a fool, Andrew MacMalcolm, and I love you very much.’
‘Good. And you’ll marry me,’ he whispered, ‘just as soon as I can afford you?’
‘I’ll marry you,’ she choked, sniffing loudly, wondering why it was happening like this and where it would all end. ‘But I can’t think why you should want me. I’m very ordinary and inclined to bossiness and I’ll never be as beautiful as Mama. I really can’t see why –’
‘Can’t you? Then maybe it’s because you aren’t standing where I am. And you might as well know that I’ve loved you right from the start, lying there white-faced and your eyes closed. Even then, I wondered what colour they were …’
‘Then you meant it, Andrew, that day you opened your door to me and said you’d hoped I would come?’
‘I meant it.’ Taking her hand, he lingered a kiss in its upturned palm, just as though they were walking in Hyde Park again, where no one knew them. ‘I meant it, lassie.’
It was seven o’clock before Julia was able to find Alice alone.
‘Hawthorn! At last! Can you come up to the sewing-room? It’s important – and oh, such a mess!’
‘Miss, it’s suppertime and Mrs Shaw’s going to glare if I’m late. Can’t it wait till after?’
‘It can not! And you must tell Cook I waylaid you; say what you want, but I’ve got to talk to you. It can’t wait, because at dinner when Mama and Giles are together, there’s something I’ve got to tell them and you must know about it first because you’re involved – indirectly, that is – and I don’t want to land you in trouble.’
‘What happened in Harrogate?’ Alice sighed. She had known something would go wrong, carrying on like that. ‘Someone saw you, didn’t they?’
‘No. Leastways, I don’t think so – but I don’t care if they did! This is far worse, you see, and far more wonderful. Trouble is, it’s all going to come out.’ She closed the sewing-room door, then leaned against it dramatically. ‘Andrew has asked me to marry him – no, that’s not strictly true. Andrew told me we were to be married just as soon as he can afford me, but –’
‘Miss Julia – that’s lovely!’ Alice closed her eyes rapturously, all at once imagining yards of bridal satin and silk and lace. And creamy-white orchids and a veil so long that –
‘Lovely – yes. But listen! Andrew intends coming to the house tomorrow and telling Mama and Giles that he wants their permission to write to me and visit me here and at Aunt Sutton’s when I’m in London – if ever I’m allowed to go to London again, that is!’
‘Oh, Lordy, miss. You should’ve told him it isn’t done.’ Even a servant knew it wasn’t done. ‘You’ve got to stop him or the cat’ll be out of the bag about London, and I’ll be up to the ears in it, an’ all.’
‘But that’s it, Hawthorn. You won’t be in trouble because I intend telling them what really happened in London. What I won’t tell them is that Andrew and I met alone. I shall say that you were with us at all times and that it was me who insisted on meeting the doctor and that there was nothing you could have done about it, short of locking me in. So you won’t be in any trouble, I promise you. That’s why I had to see you so that when I’ve told Mama you’ll be able to confirm that it was all perfectly correct – if she asks you, that is – and that no blame attaches to you.’
‘I said so, didn’t I, miss; said our sins would find us out. But marry him! You said yes, didn’t you?’ She must have said yes.
‘Of course I did. But you’re the only one who knows, Hawthorn, so you mustn’t breathe a word until I’ve talked to Mama and warned her that a very determined doctor intends presenting himself tomorrow at ten o’clock. And I’ll die of shame if she doesn’t receive him.’
‘She will, Miss Julia. She’s too much of a lady not to. But I hope it turns out all right for you, and that her ladyship doesn’t forbid you ever to go to London again. The doctor’s a lovely gentleman, and if I can I’ll try to get out for just a few minutes – tell it to the rooks, for you, to make it all right. And thanks for not landing me in trouble. I’m ever so grateful, though it’s going to mean we’ll both have to tell a few fibs.’
‘But it’s worth it, Hawthorn. I wish tonight were over and done with, though. I don’t want to set Mama at defiance and tell her that if she won’t see Andrew and says I must never see him again, I shall marry him anyway, as soon as I’m twenty-one.’
‘You wouldn’t do that – her ladyship’s got worries enough being without Sir John, and your brother away in India. You’ll think on, won’t you, miss? Wasn’t she just like you, once, with a young man she was in love with, and didn’t it turn out all right for them? Promise you’ll count to ten?’
Oh, Lordy. What a mess it all was. And where would it end? Because soon it would be out in the open. What would happen then, Alice Hawthorn shuddered to think about!
‘Mama,’ Julia whispered, when dinner was announced. ‘When she has served us, can you ask Mary to leave – please?’
‘Leave us?’ Normally she would have refused such a request, but Helen Sutton heard apprehension in her daughter’s voice and saw it in her eyes. ‘What is so important that it cannot wait until later?’
‘Something that needs to be said to you both, and it can’t wait any longer, though I’ve been wanting to tell you ever since I got back from –’
‘From London?’ On reflection, she thought, her daughter had not been quite her usual impetuous self, though she had supposed it was due to the quietness of Rowangarth after the flurry and whirl of London.
‘No, dearest; from Harrogate. And it isn’t,’ she hastened, ‘anything awful. Just something you and Giles must know. You will, won’t you – ask Mary to leave us alone so I can talk to you?’
‘If I must.’ Helen Sutton slipped her arm through that of her son, frowning as he led her to the dining-room, wondering what had happened between noon and five o’clock to cause such consternation. ‘Did you lose your purse? Your ticket?’
‘No, Mama.’ If only it were that simple. But further talk was impossible, because Giles was drawing out his mother’s chair and Mary stood smiling, soup ladle at the ready, and it seemed an age before the joint was carved and plates passed round and her mother was able to say, ‘Thank you, Mary. We can manage quite nicely now. Coffee in the conservatory tonight, I think it will be. I’ll ring when we are ready for it. And now, if you please, Julia,’ she demanded as the door closed quietly, ‘what is so important that dinner must be disrupted because of it?’
‘Well, it’s – it’s …’ Julia drew in a steadying breath, the carefully rehearsed words forgotten. ‘When I was in London I met a young man – a doctor – and he intends calling on you and Giles tomorrow morning, at about ten.’
There now, she had said it, and in her usual tactless, bull-at-a-gate manner. And oh, please, please, Mama, and you too, Giles, don’t look so stonily at me.
‘I see.’ Helen Sutton laid down her knife and fork.
‘Well, I’m damned.’ Giles’s fork remained suspended between plate and mouth. ‘Calling, is he?’
‘He is. I told – asked – him not to, but he’s set on it, so you will receive him, Mama? And please listen to what he has to say – sympathetically, I mean.’ Her voice trailed into silence and she looked from one to the other, eyes pleading.
‘Do I know this young man?’
‘No. Nor does Giles.’ She refused to tell one more untruth. ‘But if you’ll let me introduce him to you, and if you’ll at least let him stay for coffee, you’ll – you’ll …’
‘Perhaps begin to understand why you appear to be so taken with him?’
‘Yes, 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.’
