“I hope you won’t be so prickly when you find yourself a husband, or the poor sap won’t know what to do for the best. I presume you’ll allow him to buy you something now and then?”
“That’s different. And I’m not looking for a husband. I leave that to the likes of Doris and Faye.”
She bit her lip, wondering how they had come to be wrangling like this. She heard the echo of Walter’s hoarse, urgent voice in her head. Frustration is a terrible affliction, Katie. It makes me mad with you when I don’t mean to be, and it’s only because I want you every minute of the day and night.
Oh yes, they could be plausible all right, when it suited them. She didn’t want to think that Luke’s irritation lately might be due to the same kind of frustration.
“Do you want to get started or not?” she said quickly.
“I don’t think I do, after all,” he said to her surprise. “I think we both need to sleep on things, Kate, and I doubt that I’d get the best out of you today in the mood you’re in.”
He had some gall, she thought! It was his mood that was affecting her, not the other way around.
“I’ll run you home and you can tell Mrs Wood I’ll be in this evening for the meal she keeps nagging me to have with you all,” he went on.
It wasn’t Kate’s place to put up any argument about that. Lukey would always be welcome at Jubilee Terrace, with or without an invitation. She knew that. She gritted her teeth.
“I’ll see you later then. But don’t bother to drive me home. I’d rather walk, thanks. I need to think.”
It was a long walk from the showroom, but she didn’t care. Besides, if her feet began to hurt too much, she could always catch a tram. She just couldn’t bear the thought of sitting next to Luke in his motor car and feeling more tongue-tied with him than she had ever been before.
It was late in the afternoon when Kate finally reached Jubilee Terrace. She’d made a detour and sat in the park for a while, even though the air was getting decidedly chilly now that the days were getting shorter. She’d smiled at some small boys with their father throwing bread to the ducks on the pond, and watched some chatty, uniformed nannies taking home their charges in their baby carriages. And she’d felt a sudden pang at seeing how everybody seemed to have someone else to talk to, and she was the only lonely person in the world.
The minute she was enveloped again in Mrs Wood’s warm, noisy household she knew how feeble she was becoming. It wasn’t a family home, but they were all a kind of family. Doris and Faye were upstairs and she could hear the tinny music from their phonograph, and Thomas Lord Tannersley was practising his lines in the parlour for some third-rate show he was going to be in. And she was a silly cow for letting herself get so melancholy and so ratty.
“I’m glad you’re home a bit early today, my duck,” Mrs Wood said cheerfully. “My old bones tell me the weather’s on the change, and once those old pea-soupers start to come down on us, you’ll not want to be out and about.”
At Kate’s blank look, Thomas Lord Tannersley gave his loud chuckle.
“I daresay you’ll not be familiar with the term, my dear young lady, coming from the outer reaches of the country. Pea-soupers are thick, choking fogs that stifle half of London and bring the city to a grinding halt quicker than any of the Kaiser’s shenanigans ever did.”
“Now then, Mr Tannersley, don’t you go patronising Kate. I’m sure she knows what fog looks like.”
“Of course I do! Even in deepest, darkest Somerset it covered the fields and moors in winter mornings, only it wasn’t thick and choking. It was a feathery white mist and it spangled the trees like diamonds.”
She stopped abruptly, struck by the most enormous and unexpected feeling of homesickness; seeing in her mind’s eye the way it could transform the most mundane countryside into a kind of fairyland. And that must surely be the daftest kind of homesickness, she told herself severely, remembering how many times she’d walked to Granby’s sweatshop through the wretched mist-damp fields, her feet soaking wet in her boots.
“It sounds pretty,” Mrs Wood remarked. “Not that I ever had much desire to spend any time in the country myself. I went there once, but I didn’t care for all that open space and farmyard smells.”
Kate sensed that she was gathering up steam to ask more, but she didn’t want to talk about home. She made a mental note that it was time she wrote to her mother again, and promised herself she would do so later that evening.
“By the way, Mrs Wood, Luke told me to say he’ll be coming for supper this evening.”
He didn’t ask, she thought, half-hoping the landlady would object. He just assumed it would be all right … but one look at Mrs Wood’s face and she knew the answer.
“That’s the best news I’ve had all day,” she said, beaming. “I like to have all my young people around me.”
“Does that include me, dear lady?”
“You’ll always be young at heart, Mr Tannersely, so I daresay it does,” she told him with a smile.
Chapter Twelve
The Sullivans weren’t a great letter-writing family. When Donal had been away fighting for King and Country there had been sparse little notes sent home from France, just to let them know that all was well. Unknown to the older Sullivans, the notes had been even sparser than they might have wished, simply because Donal had been careful to conceal the real wartime horrors from those at home.
Brogan Sullivan had never had much time for putting pen to paper, preferring to put his hands to more practical uses. It had been left to Alice to write to Donal, care of some obscure field address which meant nothing to her, and sending him what foodstuffs and knitted comforts they could afford.
But then there was Kate. Kate had always been more inclined towards learning and letter-writing than any of the others, Brogan mused now as his wife came into the parlour waving the large envelope with the London postmark on it. Kate was a good girl, even though he’d been hard pressed to stomach the fact that she’d gone off to London like she had. Following on so soon after what he considered her very ill-advised Bournemouth trip, it had seemed far too much like a flighty bit of panic because of the way that bastard Radcliffe had let her down.
But once he and Donal had stormed the big city, and the boarding-house woman had quelled his fears for his girl, he was reasonably satisfied that the Halliday fellow was a horse of a very different colour. He was a proper gent. He’d see his girl right, if anybody did.
“So what does Kate have to say, Mother?” he said now, as she scanned the two pages of the most recent letter. “And close that perishing door to keep the cold out.” There was a decidedly wintry chill in the air as the year neared its close.
It was a month since Kate had agreed to pose for the postcard pictures. As promised, she had said nothing to anyone of Luke’s new venture. But she knew her parents were always looking for news from her, and she wrote more often now.
At that moment Brogan was thanking the Almighty that his younger sprats had gone off to school, or else he’d never get to hear half of it sensibly for their clamouring. In their star-struck minds, London was the centre of the universe, and Kate had acquired the status of one of them fancy picture-palace queens. He frowned slightly, hoping to God the young ’uns weren’t going to follow suit when they were old enough to leave the roost, but contenting himself with thinking they had a long way to go yet. He saw his wife nod as she read the letter.
“Our Kate’s happy, and that’s the main thing,” she said. “She’s doing a job she likes, and she says Mrs Wood sends her regards to us all, and reminds you to send her some fresh Somerset veggies like you promised.”
Brogan snorted, wishing he’d never said such a rash thing, since any cabbages and carrots from their own garden would be dried up and curling yellow at the edges if they had to take days to go through the post.
“When Kate comes home for Christmas, she can take some back with her,” he said instead.
Alice frowned. “She don’t m
ention nothing about coming home for Christmas, Brogan.”
“Of course she’ll be coming home for Christmas, woman,” he bellowed. “Families are always together for Christmas, so don’t talk so daft.”
Alice kept her mouth shut. It was pointless to rile him over something that was uncertain as yet. Reading between the lines, it wasn’t hard to see that Kate was happier than she had been in a very long time. And with a woman’s intuition, Alice had a shrewd idea that much of that feeling was due to Luke Halliday.
Folk usually wanted to spend the holidays with the ones they loved, and contrary to the old ways, that didn’t always mean families. She sent up a quick prayer that her girl wouldn’t be let down a second time.
“What’s in the other envelope?” Brogan growled, not wanting to dwell on the unpleasant thought that Kate might prefer to stay in London for the holidays rather than coming home – a notion that was unthinkable to him.
There was a second envelope inside the larger one, and when Alice took out the contents, she stared in shocked disbelief at the half-dozen photographs she spread out on the parlour table.
“Well, I don’t know what to say to this, I’m sure,” she said, after a few minutes of complete silence.
“Are you going to keep it all to yourself then, or am I ever going to get a look-see?”
Alice handed over the photos of a Kate she didn’t know. They weren’t her Kate at all. Oh, they all had Kate’s face, and Kate’s mouth, and Kate’s hair … but they still weren’t her Kate. They were photos of a different person, looking out at her through Kate’s eyes.
“Good God Almighty!” Brogan exploded, just as she had known he would. “What does the bugger think he’s playing at?”
As he thumbed through the set of photos, his face grew progressively blacker and Alice tried to calm him down.
“If you mean Mr Halliday, you know very well he’s a professional photographer, Brogan. You said so yourself, and artistic people see things differently from the rest of us—”
“Arty farty, my backside!” he roared. “Whatever he calls himself, he’s got no call to make any girl of mine look like a floosie!”
Alice flinched. “I’ll thank you not to use that language in my house,” she snapped.
“My house, woman! And I’ll say whatever I like in it!”
“Well, it’s too late to stop our Kate being photographed, isn’t it? It’s already done, and whatever you think about it, she does look a real picture,” she said defiantly. “I never saw her look so bonny before.”
Only once, she amended. And that was on the morning of her wedding, when she thought she had all of life before her, before Walter Radcliffe ruined it.
But if this Halliday fellow was the means to bring back the sunshine to it, then it couldn’t be such a bad thing. And being normally a woman without a romantic thought in her head, she blushed to be thinking such poetic nonsense.
“You women are all the same,” Brogan snapped. “Look at you now, going all soft and red in the face over a few pictures. I tell you, if I thought there was any hanky-panky going on there, I’d have the police down on him.”
“You’ll do no such thing. You and Donal have already seen that all’s well, and I won’t have our Kate upset by any more of your suspicions. She’s been brought up in a God-fearing household, and she’ll not forget that. And if she wants to be photographed to make the best of herself, there’s nothing wrong with it, as far as I can see.”
As she asserted herself, Brogan grinned sheepishly. He was twice as big as she was – and twice as ugly, he usually added – and it wasn’t often that Alice took umbrage against him. But when she did, he always backed down.
“You can be a hard woman when you want to be, Alice, me darlin’, but I’ll respect your wishes and trust Kate to know what’s right.”
“So you should,” she retorted, not quite knowing how she came to be defending the photos when they’d shocked her so much in the beginning.
But Kate did look lovely in them, and why shouldn’t she want her folks to see her looking so fine? It would be different if she hadn’t let them see the photos at all. She was going to write straight back and tell her so – and also to get things sorted out about coming home for Christmas, Alice added determinedly to herself.
Kate was thinking the very same thing. Part of her would have loved to invite Luke down to the cottage for the modest Sullivan festivities, but a far bigger part of her rebelled at the very idea of it. She knew she was being a snob of the worst kind, but she couldn’t bear for him to see how poorly they lived. Even if he fitted in so well at Mrs Wood’s boarding house, he was still a gentleman. It was probably because of that very thing that he was able to fit in anywhere. But Kate still couldn’t risk having him look down on her family. He’d had a taste of them already.
She decided that the best thing was to broach it head on. She’d never been one for beating about the bush, anyway, and when they had a breathing space one morning, she spoke casually.
“How much time can you spare for me to visit my folks for Christmas, Luke? We won’t be so busy as we are now, will we, and if you can let me have a few days…”
“Why are you so nervous about asking me for time off?” he said. “Don’t you think I’ll want some time to myself as well? Of course you can visit your family, and I’ll be happy to drive you there.”
“I’m not asking you to do that, Luke.” Kate had anticipated this, and had her answer ready. “The roads are going to be so slippery around Christmas, and it’s much easier for me to catch the train, and Father Mulheeney will always meet me for the last part of the journey. I know he’ll want to be checking up on me, anyway, to see that I’ve not gone to the devil since living in the big city.”
She finished with a laugh, but she knew she was talking too fast and her voice was too high for comfort. It was futile to think Luke wouldn’t notice it. She saw him give a small smile, and knew he could see right through her.
“Have it your way, Katie. But I presume you won’t have any objection to my arranging your ticket for you and driving you to Paddington?”
“Of course not!” Kate said, remembering the last time they had met there, when she had fallen into his arms and thought of him as her salvation.
She still did, she admitted to herself, although she was still keeping him at arms’ length – most of the time.
She avoided his eyes, wishing she could forget all about inverted snobbery and invite him home, the way girls were meant to invite their intendeds home to meet the family. But she couldn’t. In these last months, helped by her own easy adaptation to her new life, he’d built up his own image of her. He’d changed the way she thought about herself too, giving her confidence and a poise she’d never known before. He’d shown her how to hold her head for the photographs, tilting her chin and smiling into the camera, and imagining that she smiled into the eyes of a lover. She had been a little shocked when he’d first said those words to her, but he’d told her coolly that the camera was a perfectly respectable inanimate object, and it wouldn’t be at all offended by whatever she chose to do to it. She had obeyed him, and he had made her beautiful.
“Luke, you must see that I need to do this,” she said hesitantly. “You’re always telling me I should face my enemy, and although I certainly don’t think of my family in those terms, I need to let them see that I’m well and happy. And I have to do it alone.”
He pretended to back off. “Am I arguing?”
“No.” But she felt oddly perverse at that moment. Why wasn’t he arguing? Why didn’t he insist on taking her home, and announcing to them all that he intended to sweep the irritating Kate Sullivan off her feet and marry her?
“Then stop worrying about it,” he said. “And if you’re wondering, I shall do what I always do, and join Mrs Wood and however many of her motley gang stay around for Christmas dinner. I daresay it will only be the old boy, but Mrs W. usually gathers in a few neighbourly folk for her knees-up.”
“It sounds just like home,” Kate said.
“Why shouldn’t it? Christmas is Christmas, no matter where you spend it. And I shall miss you, Kate.”
She looked at him dumbly, knowing she would miss him too. He went on briskly.
“But I shall have plenty to do to keep myself occupied. I intend to get the postcard portfolio ready to show to the printers directly in the new year.”
“You musn’t work over the holiday! You must relax.”
As she heard herself, she knew she had indeed changed. The old Kate Sullivan barely had any time off from Granby’s Garments, and the workers there were begrudged every moment they spent away from their machines. There had been little time for relaxing in her old life, or for strolling in the park, or window-shopping in some of the West End shops where she had finally succumbed to letting Luke purchase some ready-mades for her far more easily than she ever imagined she would. The frocks and accessories were strictly for business purposes, of course, she thought quickly, even though she knew that several of the pretty outfits would be going home with her to wear at Christmas. Not that there would be anywhere special to wear them, except for her family’s benefit.
“What are you smiling at now?” Luke said.
“Nothing. Just wondering how my father would react if I wore the scarlet fringed frock on Christmas Day!”
Luke laughed. They both knew it was her favourite, and it made her look fabulous. She had worn it for one of the best shots he had taken of her, but since the photograph was black and white, it hadn’t mattered that she had sent a copy to her folks. If Brogan had been aware of its rich, hot colour, Kate knew just how her father would have reacted to it. Scarlet frock … scarlet woman!
“I think you’d be wise not to take it home,” Luke agreed. “But promise me you’ll wear it when I take you up West on New Year’s Eve. We’ll go dancing, and you won’t deny me the pleasure of seeing in the New Year together, will you, Katie?”
She drew in her breath.
“It sounds wonderful, and I shall look forward to it,” she said. And once Big Ben had struck the midnight hour and the New Year had begun, she would resolve firmly to put all the various traumas of this last year behind her. From now on, the best way was to forget the past, and to look forward to better times.
A Different Kind of Love Page 18
