her head closer to her to hear them.
She saw her mother’s chest expand once as she breathed in – sharply – and then went still, her eyes suddenly opening, focusing not on Ellie but into the distance.
Panic suddenly filled Ellie. Releasing her mother’s hand she ran to the door and opened it, calling frantically for her father, as Lydia’s final breath bubbled in her throat.
Gideon paused as he turned into Friargate. Theoretically he was on his way to see Mary Isherwood, having telephoned to make an appointment, but naturally he wanted to call in at the Prides’ house to see how things were. And, of course, to see Ellie!
For once there was no busyness outside the shop, no carefully protected display of choice hams and salted beefs. The door was firmly closed, and there was no sign of either life or light inside, and then as Gideon glanced along the street he saw the sombre black ribbon attached to the front door knocker – a sign that the family was in mourning.
Had the child not survived? Reluctant to intrude, Gideon started to turn away, but as he did so the door suddenly opened and a buxom woman dressed in black emerged, accompanied by a white-faced Ellie, her hair escaping from its pins to curl softly round a face so riven with grief that Gideon caught his breath in anguish for her. The bleakness of Ellie’s expression didn’t belong to the girl he had held and kissed only the previous day.
‘Thank you, Mrs Jakes,’ Gideon heard her saying. ‘I’m sorry that my father isn’t here, but –’
‘Aye, that’s menfolk for you. First thing they do is turn to drink when they’re in grief. Never met one of them yet who could stomach a laying-out. ‘T’ain’t natural for ’em, you see. Tell your aunt that I’ve done the best I can. Allus close to your mother, she was. She’ll be sadly missed, will your ma, especially with a new baby to be cared for.’
‘My Aunt Jepson is to take care of the baby,’ Ellie said in a low, unsteady voice. ‘My mother left instructions for…for everything. She was afraid that –’
Unable to bear seeing her in so much distress, Gideon stepped forward, causing the departing midwife, who had come to lay out Lydia’s body, to give him a speculative look. Gossip was as much her stock in trade as births and deaths, and it seemed that the Pride household had very generously supplied her with all three. Whoever the young man was in such a rush to get to Ellie Pride, he was certainly a good-looking ‘un, that was for sure.
‘Ellie! What –’
‘Gideon!’ Ellie stepped back from him immediately, holding up her hands in a gesture of denial, but Gideon had already followed her into the hallway and was closing the door behind him.
‘I saw the black ribbon,’ he told her, ‘but I thought it must be the child. I had no idea…My poor little love. Believe me, I do know how you must be feeling. When I lost my own mother…But it will get better, Ellie, I promise you, and you have me and…’
Ellie froze. How could Gideon claim to know what she was feeling? How could he say that he understood? No one understood! No one knew what misery and guilt she felt, what pain!
As he saw the emotions chasing one another across her face, Gideon’s smile changed to a concerned frown. Swiftly he crossed the distance separating them, taking hold gently of her upper arms.
‘Ellie, Ellie, my love, please do not look so,’ he begged her, unable to keep his feelings out of either his voice or his eyes. ‘What is it?’ he demanded when he felt her stiffening against his hold.
‘Let go of me, Gideon,’ Ellie demanded sharply. The icy tone of her voice was her mother’s and as she heard her own words and recognised it, Ellie drew strength from what she felt must be her dead mother’s support and approval. Haughtily she drew herself up tall and looked into Gideon’s eyes.
‘Ellie, sweetheart, don’t look like that,’ he protested. Had she wept he would have known immediately what to do, but this icy stiffness bewildered him. ‘Come here,’ he commanded gently. ‘Let me hold you and –’
‘No!’
The fury in Ellie’s eyes as she pulled away from him shocked Gideon into silence.
‘Don’t touch me!’ Ellie told him. ‘Don’t come anywhere near me! I don’t want to see you ever again, Gideon. Ever!’
White-faced, she looked dispassionately at him. Why was he still standing there? Hadn’t she told him to go? The icy coldness surrounding her had somehow become a form of welcome protection, and she withdrew herself even deeper into its glacial grip. Here, within it, away from anyone else, she could truly make reparation to her mother for her guilt.
‘I promised my mother that I will never see you again, Gideon. And I intend to keep that promise!’ she announced.
Gideon stared at her, unable to take in what she was saying. Disbelief, anger, and then pain – oh, such a pain – held him silent! When at last he was able to speak, his voice was raw with emotion.
‘No! You cannot mean that! What are you saying? I understand how shocked and upset you must be, but your mother had no right –’ he began unwisely, carried away by his feelings of outrage.
Ellie stopped him. ‘I will not stand here and let you abuse my mother. My Aunt Gibson is right! If my mother had not stepped out of her class to marry my father she would still be alive now.’
As he listened to her increasingly hysterical outpouring, Gideon’s compassion and concern started to change to resentment and anger – not against Ellie, but against her mother.
‘You have no way of knowing that,’ he told Ellie brusquely, adding curtly, ‘And as for the rest – I knew that your mother was a snob, Ellie, and that she was encouraged by her sisters to believe she should not have married your father – your Uncle William has told me as much – but I never thought that you would be foolish enough to allow yourself to become tainted by the same brush.’
‘How dare you say that?’ Ellie rounded on him furiously. ‘How dare you even so much as speak of my mother?’
An ugly silence fell between them.
Ellie’s outburst had touched a raw spot on Gideon’s pride. Did she seriously believe that he wasn’t good enough for her? Had she believed that all along?
Gideon couldn’t bring himself to speak. If he did not go soon he would be late for his appointment with Mary Isherwood.
‘Ellie…’ he pleaded eventually, lowering his pride for the sake of their love, but immediately Ellie stepped away from him.
‘I promised my mother,’ she reminded him stiffly.
‘Ellie, Ellie, I understand that right now you are overwrought and upset, but I can’t believe you mean this. A deathbed promise! You can’t mean to destroy our love, our lives, the dreams we have begun to share, because of that. Your mother had no right!’ he exploded again, when he saw the stubborn look on her face.
‘I gave her my word,’ Ellie told him woodenly.
‘Yesterday you gave me your love!’ Gideon reminded her bitterly.
Ellie looked away from him. ‘My promise to my mother comes before anything and everything else, Gideon. I was…unwise…foolish…unknowing. My mother is…was right and –’
‘And I’m not good enough for you? Is that what you’re trying to say?’ Gideon challenged her bitterly.
‘Please leave, Gideon,’ Ellie demanded, her voice thickening in her throat. ‘My aunts will be here soon to…to…see my mother. I should not even be here with you whilst she is alone. You see, even now you are coming between us. Oh! You don’t know how much I wish I had never met you!’
Fighting