by Maggie Ford
For a while they stood there in silence. Then she said quietly, ‘You know, Ronnie, I’m alone now. Truly alone.’
‘You’ve got Dora,’ he said in a flat tone, dampening her spirits even more.
Silence fell on them again, and then he said quietly, ‘And you’ve got me.’
Ellie looked up at him. ‘Have I?’ she queried, wanting to add, ‘Yes, as a friend,’ but she let only those two words fall.
He was gazing down at her. ‘And I’ve got you – if you want me.’
As she looked at him enquiringly, he went on, ‘I’m… not good at this sort of thing. I’ve been reluctant ter say anything, what with all your troubles and all that money yer’ll be getting from your paintings from now on, and you moving in finer circles than what I’m used to, it didn’t seem right to… well, to tell you…’
Again he hesitated and then too took a deep breath, the words halting and awkward. ‘… to tell you I love you. And to ask you if you would… well, if you’d consent to be my…’
He broke off yet again, swallowing hard. His broad, handsome face twisted with what seemed like fear of the words he wanted to say.
Suddenly they began to pour out in a torrent. ‘Ellie, yer must never be alone. Yer won’t be. What I want ter say is, you don’t ever need to be alone. Ever! I’ll be with you. Ellie, will yer marry me?’
Ellie wanted to laugh, wanted to cry too, wanted to say, ‘Yes, oh yes, my darling, more than anything!’
Instead, she threw herself into his arms and now she was crying tears of happiness. The kisses they shared as they stood locked in each other’s embrace, in the middle of the cemetery, needed no words.
* * *
Hunnard was beside himself. He had worked hard to make a killing from the marvellous, strange paintings by Elizabeth Jay.
They’d now all been sold and he needed her to paint more – not too many at a time, of course. ‘Keep them wanting, so to speak,’ he said, filled with confidence in her compliance. ‘While the craze for your style lasts, we’ll have people clamouring for them and we’ll make a fortune between us.’
How wrong he was. ‘I can’t paint to order,’ she told him heatedly after telling him of her engagement to Ronnie, which he conveniently ignored.
‘It’ll soon come back,’ he said. ‘It’s been a rough time for you, nursing your father, but now you must get back to work. We need to make money.’
He meant he needed to make money.
She faced him defiantly. ‘To do the sort of paintings I did I have to feel the pain inside me. I don’t feel that way any more, so I can’t do them. I’m sorry.’
He argued with her until he was blue in the face but she was adamant.
* * *
It wasn’t long after that she removed herself from the art world. There had been a simple wedding, Elizabeth Jay becoming now Mrs Ronald Sharp.
Hunnard did not come to the wedding and she didn’t care. That part of her life was behind her. She didn’t even inform Doctor Lowe and his wife, though she often wondered about him, feeling a little sad for him.
Living on her husband’s modest income, she had arranged for some of the proceeds from the sale of her works to be put in Dora’s name – she having come to live with them – for when she eventually met a partner and married.
Some she let Charlie and his wife Carrie have in memory of Mum and to buy themselves a house, though she guessed he would help it on its way gambling. That was up to him, and up to Carrie to put a stop to it. What was left she made Ronnie take care of, knowing he’d manage it well.
‘First thing we’ll do,’ he’d said, ‘is find a nice little place somewhere out of London, with plenty of fresh air for the kids when they come.’ He was also anticipating another promotion and rise and Ellie expecting their first baby.
It was as it should be. In time the money from her paintings would dwindle. With no more forthcoming, Elizabeth Jay’s work would probably be forgotten, a flash in the pan, with new movements and interpretations, new artists pouring on to the scene all the time.
‘I don’t think I ever want to pick up another paintbrush,’ Ellie told her husband. ‘The need has gone right out of me,’ she added as she patted her rapidly swelling stomach.
It was true. That strange need that had made her paint the way she had wasn’t there any more, she told herself, and she laughed as she felt the baby kick.
About the Author
Maggie was born in the East End of London but at the age of six she moved to Essex, where she has lived ever since. After the death of her first husband, when she was only twenty-six, she went to work as a legal secretary until she remarried in 1968. She has a son and two daughters, all married; her second husband died in 1984. She has been writing short stories since the early 1970s.
Also by Maggie Ford
A Brighter Tomorrow
A Fall from Grace
A New Dream
First published in Great Britain and the USA in 2007 by Severn House Publishers LTD
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Oxford OX2 0DF
United Kingdom
Copyright © The Estate of Elizabeth Lord, 2007
The moral right of the author to be identified as the creator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781800324374
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Originally published as To Cast a Stone by Elizabeth Lord
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