don’t mind I should like to call at Miller’s Arcade on our way back later. I want to buy some sweets for my mother. And there is a shop there that sells her favourite ginger pieces dipped in chocolate.’
As Gideon inclined his head, Robert Pride gave his elder daughter a pleased look. He was aware of just how much responsibility had been placed on Ellie’s shoulders recently, and just how much more there would be if things went wrong with the coming child’s birth, as had been so gravely forecast.
Sombrely he waited until the chattering quartet had moved out into the street, before giving his assistant instructions to mind the shop and hurrying up into the house.
Lydia looked up expectantly as the bedroom door opened. Ellie had obviously realised how badly she had behaved and had come back to beg her forgiveness. Mentally Lydia rehearsed what she intended to say to her erring daughter, but to her irritation it was her husband who was coming into the room.
‘Where is Ellie?’ she demanded peremptorily as Robert closed the door behind him.
‘She has gone off to the river with Gideon and the children.’
‘And you permitted her to go?’ Lydia’s mouth thinned. ‘I wish you would not encourage that young man to believe himself welcome here, Robert.’
‘But he is welcome,’ Robert told her easily. ‘He is a hard-working lad, and –’
‘He has no prospects! No family! Can you imagine what my sisters will think if Ellie should be foolish enough to walk out publicly with him?’
‘Your sisters?’ Robert’s genial expression gave way to one of anger.
‘Robert, listen to me,’ Lydia stopped him. ‘If anything should…should happen to me, I want your promise that Ellie will not throw herself away over someone like Gideon Walker. She is worthy of so much better. Surely you can see that?’
‘Lyddy, nothing is going to happen to you,’ Robert tried to reassure her, going over to stand behind the chair on which she was seated, placing his hands tenderly on her tense shoulders. ‘Even that old woman your brother-in-law has admitted that he does not know…’
‘That he does not know what?’ Lydia demanded tearfully. ‘That I shall die in childbed? Why didn’t I listen to my own mother? Why didn’t I realise how much wiser she was than I, and that she was only speaking in my own best interests when she tried to dissuade me from marrying you? It is easy enough for you to speak, Robert! You should have taken more care,’ she told him bitterly.
Behind her Robert’s face went white. He already knew that Lydia blamed him totally for her pregnancy and he had been too concerned for her to want to remind her that she had been the one to urge him on.
He ached to hold her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her, how afraid he was for her, and for himself, but he knew already that she would reject him and pull away from him. From the moment she had known she was pregnant she had erected a barrier between them, turning for consolation and comfort more and more to her sisters, especially her eldest sister in Winckley Square, and increasingly excluding him from her life.
It hurt him unbearably to know not only that she blamed him for her plight but also that she felt so contemptuous towards him, so angrily resentful, that she now allowed the love she had originally felt for him to be deemed secondary to her mother’s wishes.
‘I cannot bear to think that Ellie might make the same mistake that I did, Robert. You must promise me that you will not allow her to do so! Promise me!’ Lydia insisted, her voice rising with emotion. ‘You owe it to me and to Ellie to do so!’
Robert hesitated. ‘Lydia,’ he began gently, ‘you are overwrought and upset –’
‘Why won’t you listen to me? I intend to forbid Ellie to ever see Gideon Walker again, and you must do the same, Robert. Promise me!’
‘Lyddy…’ Robert tried to soothe her.
‘Promise me!’
Shaking his head, unable either to calm her or accede to what she was demanding, Robert stepped back from the chair.
Immediately Lydia got up and turned to confront him. ‘I want your promise, Robert,’ she began, and then stopped, giving a sharp gasp and clutching her body.
‘Lydia, what is it?’ Robert demanded.
Lydia shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she denied stubbornly, but the sickly pallor of her face betrayed her.
The truth was that she had been having slow labour pains for several hours, but she had stubbornly refused to acknowledge them, suffering in an increasingly terrified silence as she fought against them and against what lay ahead.
‘The baby?’ Robert guessed immediately. ‘Lydia, come and lie down. Shall I send for the midwife?’
‘No, not yet,’ she gasped, as a fierce pang of pain gripped her. ‘Send to Winckley Square, though, Robert, for my sister…’
As the pains rose and fell, searing her, savaging her, she was dimly aware of Robert opening the door and calling for Jenny.
‘Sit here with your mistress, and don’t leave her,’ she heard him telling the maid tersely. ‘I am gone to Winckley Square for her sister.’
‘I don’t want today to ever end,’ Connie declared passionately, pouting as Gideon began to steer their hired boat back to Mr John Crook’s premises on Ribbleside.
‘Neither do I,’ Gideon murmured to Ellie, the soft warmth of his breath tickling her ear and sending a rush of sweet pleasure through her.
Whether by accident or design, Gideon had managed things so that both John and Connie were seated facing away from them in the boat, leaving Gideon free to indulge in all manner of lover’s secret looks and whispered words to Ellie without her younger siblings knowing.
Only Rex the dog had threatened to spoil things, by suddenly jumping into the river to swim after a duck, and then having to be hauled back in to the boat again, whereupon he had shaken himself, covering them all in Ribble water. But even that incident Gideon had managed to turn to his own advantage, solicitously offering Ellie his brand-new handkerchief to dry off her dampened gown and arms.
‘I shall keep this for ever,’ he had whispered passionately to her when she had handed it back to him, causing her eyes to sparkle with the feelings she couldn’t manage to hide.
‘We must not forget to call at Miller’s Arcade for Mother’s sweets,’ she reminded Gideon now as they reached the shore.
‘No indeed, and I must not forget that I have some special news to share with you,’ Gideon responded.
‘You have found a shop?’ Ellie demanded excitedly. ‘Oh, Gideon…’
‘No, not that, I’m afraid, although I hope that I soon shall do so, especially now that I may be about to receive a new commission.’
‘A commission?’
‘Yes. There was a note waiting for me at my lodgings from a Miss Isherwood of Winckley Square. She has requested me to call on her so that she may discuss her requirements regarding some work.’
‘Miss Isherwood?’ Ellie frowned. ‘Oh, but she –’
‘You know her?’ Gideon was frowning himself now as he saw the discomfort on Ellie’s face.
‘Well, I do not exactly know her, no, but I know of her. My mother and my aunt were talking about her some weeks ago. She has recently returned to the town to take up her inheritance.’
‘And that causes you to frown?’ Gideon teased her.
‘No, of course not! It is just that my aunt said that…that Miss Isherwood – well, it seems that she quarrelled with her late father and then left home to go and live in London. Very little is known about what she did when she lived there.’