tell Mama more then. But I’ve got to drop it in bits, sort of. Just a hint here and a word there, so that when it all comes out she’ll look back and realize I hadn’t been deceitful – well, not exactly.’
‘But that isn’t the way it should be.’ Stubbornly, Alice held her ground.
‘I know. After that first time in the park I was so excited that I needed everyone to know. I wanted to climb Holdenby Pike and shout it into the wind. But it’s gone too far between us and I’m afraid to lose him. So you won’t tell? Not even Tom?’
‘No one. Cross my heart.’
‘Well, then,’ Julia drained her glass. ‘We’d better get our things together.’
The train was slowing now, and from the window the towers of the Minster could be distantly seen. Soon they would be at Rowangarth, and telling everyone what a fine time they had had – and watching every word they said.
Alice folded the napkins, carefully wrapping them around the glasses, fastening the hamper, mentally checking the hatbox and travelling bag on the rack, remembering there were four cases in the luggage van and a porter to be found to put them on the Holdenby train that left at three o’clock. And Tom, she thought blissfully, was little more than an hour away.
‘I wasn’t fast, was I, Hawthorn?’ Julia asked anxiously as the little stopping train clanked and shuddered out of York station. ‘I mean, I wasn’t forward or anything? You do think Andrew will get in touch? He won’t think I’ve been a bit – well – unladylike …’
‘No, miss. You weren’t unladylike – not a bit; leastways, not when I was there, so don’t keep on worrying about it.’
‘But I was a little bit – eager. I know I ought to have refused, when first he asked me to walk in the park – a lady always should say no, the first time she’s asked. And I shouldn’t have gone to his lodgings, either. But we didn’t have a lot of time …’
‘Not a lot. Did he kiss you?’ Alice demanded, amazed at her daring. ‘Was it nice?’
‘He did, and it was nicer than nice. He kissed me twice.’ Julia closed her eyes, remembering. ‘A little one, then one that made me – oh –’
‘Feel peculiar all over? I know.’ Alice, too, closed her eyes.
‘And you’re sure he’ll come to York to see me?’
‘Sure as anyone can be,’ Alice comforted. ‘And just to be certain, you’d better watch out for another white horse, and let the rooks know about it, an’ all. Best to make sure.’
‘I will. I will.’
There was a warning hoot from the driver as the train swayed over a level crossing and took them on to Rowangarth land, then the hissing of wheels on steel took on a heavier note as the train met the gradient that wound upward through Brattocks Wood.
‘Hawthorn, look!’
Standing beneath the trees at the edge of the track, a gun dog squatting at his feet, stood the under-keeper. Knowing the time of their train and that it would lose speed at the wood, Tom was waiting to see it pass.
Only a glimpse, but he had been there and Alice knew, in that moment, how much she had missed him; wondered how she could ever have been so foolish as to leave him for a day, let alone two weeks. And then she blushed for shame, because soon she would be with him, and sitting opposite was poor Miss Julia, sad and worried in case she never saw her young man again.
‘Oh, miss – you’ll see him again. You will.’
Giles Sutton looked up, smiling, as Alice peeped round the library door and Morgan, tired of the hearth rug, gave a yelp of delight and skidded across the floor, tail wagging furiously.
‘Hawthorn! You’re back. I’ve missed you; we’ve both missed you!’
‘And I’ve missed you and Morgan and Rowangarth and, oh, everyone, even though London was like a fairy story. And I’m come to say I’m sorry that I can’t take Morgan for his run, ’cos I haven’t finished Miss Julia’s unpacking and it’s almost teatime. But I’ll take him tonight, if that’s all right with you, Mr Giles.’
‘It is, and I’ll be grateful, because I’m dining out tonight. Did you have a good time?’
‘Oh, yes. You wouldn’t believe the half of what I saw. There was –’ She stopped, cheeks pink. ‘But you would believe it. You’ve been before, ever so many times.’
‘Too many times. Rowangarth is where I like to be.’
‘I know, sir.’ She did know. It had tingled through her from head to toes, that feeling of homecoming. ‘But I’ll see that Morgan gets his run tonight, after dinner’s over and done with.’
She bent to stroke the spaniel’s head and he whimpered softly, reaching to lick her cheek.
‘Silly old thing.’ She laughed, bobbing a curtsey to Giles Sutton: not that he would expect it, but because it was right for all that, and because she was grateful, perhaps, that he understood her need to find an excuse to be in Brattocks Wood tonight. ‘Oh, and Cook says I’m to tell you that Mary has just taken tea up to her ladyship.’
Closing the door behind her she hugged herself tightly. Home, to Rowangarth, and servants’ tea at four o’clock and kitchen chatter and plum jam and seed cake. And tonight he would be waiting: Tom, who loved her.
‘How on earth did you get that?’ Laughing, Giles Sutton contemplated his sister’s face.
‘Through not minding my own business, I suppose. Does it look awful?’
‘Absolutely terrible. How could you have –’
‘Your sister could, and did. Apparently, there was a fracas in Hyde Park and Julia joined in.’
‘Mama! I told you! There was a suffragette selling news-sheets and a young woman – she was so pale and thin, Giles, and had a little one in her arms – well, all she did was buy a news-sheet and a policeman told her to move on – the suffragette, I mean – and he started pushing the young woman.’
‘And your sister charged to her aid – and in a hobble skirt, would you believe – and tripped, and hit her head.’
‘Yes, and Hawthorn told the policeman off, then demanded he find a doctor –’
‘And it just so happened that a doctor was taking a stroll in the park,’ Helen Sutton supplied, trying hard not to smile.
‘The luck of the Suttons,’ Giles grinned.
‘He was very kind to me.’ Julia’s cheeks blazed. ‘Told me I wasn’t badly hurt and that if I suddenly felt ill I was to call Aunt Sutton’s doctor and – and Hawthorn looked after me.’ There, now, she hadn’t told any lies – not actual lies … ‘And please don’t tease, because it did hurt, at the time.’
‘Not another word, Sis. And would you mind not eating all the sandwiches …?’
‘Hobble skirts,’ said Alice at servants’ tea. ‘That’s what did it, Bess. Miss Julia goes striding out, all angry with that fat policeman I told you about, and forgets you don’t stride, exactly, in a hobble skirt. Next thing you know there’s the most awful bang –’ She paused to collect her thoughts, painstakingly jamming her bread.
‘Where?’ Bess demanded.
‘On her head, of course.’
‘Where in London, I mean.’
‘Hyde Park, it was. Beautiful, Hyde Park is.’ Change the subject, Alice. They’ve had all they’re going to get about that black eye. ‘Just beautiful. Like a bit of the country, right in the middle of London.’
‘And was there blood?’ Tilda