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.’