by Annie Groves
The library door was open and her aunt stood just within it, flanked by Wrotham and Lizzie.
‘Get out of here,’ Josiah said thickly, slurring his words slightly, ‘otherwise you will get the same.’
‘If you do not let her go this instant, Josiah, I promise you you will regret it,’ her aunt persisted doggedly, though Ellie could see the fear in her eyes.
Perhaps more out of disbelief than anything else, her uncle had relaxed his grip. Seizing her opportunity, Ellie ran for the door and was half pulled through it by Lizzie, whilst Wrotham slammed it firmly and quickly turned the key, leaving Josiah locked inside.
Ellie could hear the sound of her uncle’s fists pounding against it as he demanded to be let out.
‘It is all right, Ellie. You will be safe now,’ her aunt told her. ‘Your uncle will be sober in the morning and then the monster you have seen tonight will be safely leashed.’
Safely leashed…Ellie stared at her, unable to say a word.
‘Come on, miss, let’s get you to your room.’ Staring unseeingly ahead, Ellie allowed Lizzie to guide her across the hallway.
TWENTY-TWO
It was almost lunchtime when Ellie woke, her mouth dry and her head still muzzy from the sleeping draught her aunt and Wrotham had insisted she was to take.
A brief knock on her bedroom door threw her into panic, her heart racing frantically until the door opened and she saw that the person entering her room was not, as she had feared, her uncle, but Lizzie.
‘I’ve been up a few times, miss,’ Lizzie informed her, ‘but you was still asleep and the mistress said I was to let you be.’
‘Oh, Lizzie!’ The intensity of her emotions choked Ellie’s voice, her hand gripping Lizzie’s wrist as she clung to her maid.
‘It’s all right, miss,’ Lizzie tried to reassure her. ‘It seems Mr Parkes was called away on some urgent business this morning.’
The very mention of her uncle’s name was enough to make Ellie tremble violently. ‘Oh, Lizzie,’ Ellie wept. ‘What am I to do? My aunt insists that…that I must not think about last night, that it is to be forgotten, but I am so afraid.’
‘With good reason, miss,’ Lizzie told her fiercely. ‘I blame myself. All us servants know what the master can be like. You bain’t the first, miss, not by a long chalk. Us ’ave all seen the way he’s been eyeing you but none of us thought that he’d actually dare.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, what am I to do?’ Ellie wept. ‘I cannot stay here now, but there is nowhere else I can go!’
‘If you want my advice, miss,’ Lizzie told her firmly, ‘the best thing you can do now is to marry Mr Henry just as quick as it can be arranged.’
Ashen-faced, Ellie listened.
The sleeping draught she had been given was clogging her brain, whilst her fear was driving her heart to beat so fast it was making her feel dizzy. Her skin was bruised and scratched just like her aunt’s. Closing her eyes, Ellie shuddered. For as long as she lived she would remember those fear-filled minutes during which she had had to endure Josiah’s touch.
‘He won’t leave you alone, miss, not now,’ Lizzie was insisting. ‘Doesn’t like not getting what he wants.’
Ellie’s stomach churned nauseously as she recognised the truth of Lizzie’s words.
‘I…I must get up, Lizzie,’ she told her maid.
‘Aye, and we’ll have to find something that will cover those bruises, miss,’ Lizzie advised her as she helped Ellie to get out of bed.
‘Ellie, my dear, you are looking a little pale. Now you must not take Mr Parkes’ crossness of last night too much to heart. You must own that he had every reason to be displeased with you after your behaviour! My sister Gibson was most shocked to find you in Winckley Square, and we must hope that no one outside the family will discover just why you went there. Such unacceptable behaviour, Ellie – I’m sure if your Aunt Gibson had not seen you, you would have been completely disgraced. It is no wonder that your uncle was so annoyed. Your poor dear mother would have been so very upset. However, I am sure you now realise the error of your ways, and we need say no more about the subject. Had you been Mr Parkes’ own daughter he could not be more fond of you, Ellie, and…and that is why –’
‘Why he tried to rape me,’ Ellie supplied quietly for her.
‘Ellie!’
Her aunt had placed her hand to her heart, and Ellie could see how agitated and upset she was, even without Wrotham moving protectively to her mistress’s side, whilst glaring warningly at Ellie.
‘You must never ever say such a thing again, Ellie,’ her aunt told her, white-faced. ‘Never! Mr Parkes is a man of probity and family – a man whom other men respect and trust. And you are a very fortunate woman to have been given a home beneath his roof. There will scarcely be a mother of daughters in this city, Ellie, who will not feel that Mr Parkes had every right to chastise you for your disgraceful behaviour – and for you to make such…such accusations against him…I have to confess I do not understand you, Ellie! I am very disappointed in you. It is to be hoped that what you did does not become public knowledge. If it did, Mr Henry Charnock would have every reason to end his engagement to you.’
Ellie could feel her throat locking with grief and disbelief as she listened to her aunt.
She ached to confront her with the reality of what had happened, but she could see that there was no point; that her aunt had simply closed her mind to that reality, and that nothing and no one, least of all Ellie herself, was going to change that!
TWENTY-THREE
In the crush of the crowd that had gathered to watch the launching of the new liner, Ellie felt herself being pushed closer to Henry’s side. On her left hand, beneath the softness of her fur-trimmed leather gloves, she could feel the diamond engagement ring he had given her.
They were to be married the Saturday before Christmas, and for Ellie that day could not come soon enough.
Several yards away Ellie could see Josiah Parkes standing next to Henry’s father. Immediately, she stiffened. Since his attack on her she had taken great care never to be alone in his company.
A good stout bolt now secured her bedroom door from the inside, and Ellie suspected she owed its welcome appearance to Lizzie, although her maid had never openly said so.
In order to defeat the chill of the damp November day, Ellie was wearing a new winter walking dress, over which she was wearing a matching coat, and over that she was wearing the sable furs her aunt had recently insisted on having remodelled for her. They were beautiful and expensive clothes – the pretty leather boots she was wearing with them handmade, just as her gloves were, cut from the finest leather, but Ellie was chokingly conscious of the fact that every stitch she had on had been paid for with Josiah Parkes’ money, like all her other clothes, and the food she ate, and the roof over her head.
‘Ellie, I do not understand you,’ her aunt had complained when Ellie had insisted that she did not want or need any more new clothes. ‘You cannot shame your uncle by appearing at such an important occasion in last winter’s things.’
A brisk wind was blowing in off the sea, and Ellie burrowed deeper into her furs, unaware of how stunningly pretty she looked with her new hat framing the delicacy of her face, and the wind bringing some much-needed pink to her cheeks.
‘Those are fine furs you are wearing, Miss Pride. Sables, are they not?’
What was it about Elizabeth Fazackerly that jarred against her so, Ellie wondered guiltily as she forced herself to smile and respond as politely as she could, and not to pull away as Elizabeth leaned forward and removed her glove, stroking her fingertips over the soft fur, a look of such open acquisitiveness in her eyes that Ellie felt repelled.
It had been her aunt who had insisted on giving Ellie the furs, even though she had tried to refuse. ‘Look, Ellie,’ Henry was commending her urgently, ‘she is about to be launched.’
Obediently Ellie turned her attention to the huge ship in front of them, a frisson of emotion shiverin
g down her spine at the awesome spectacle.
Henry’s eyes were shining, his whole expression animated.
‘You cannot know how much I long to be back at sea…to return to Japan,’ he breathed as they watched the vessel released from her moorings. ‘Oh, Ellie, I’m sorry,’ he checked himself, his face flushing. ‘I did not mean—’
‘It’s all right, Henry,’ Ellie assured him.
‘You are the best of girls,’ Henry told her simply, ‘and I am the luckiest of fellows to be marrying you, Ellie.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the eminent surgeon Mary had begged to travel from London to Preston to examine Gideon’s injury began, ‘but I’m afraid that whilst the wound has healed well, the tendons are irreparably damaged, and Mr Walker’s hand –’
‘Is useless!’ Gideon supplied bitterly for him, raising himself up on his pillows, whilst Mary looked on in silent helplessness. ‘I am useless! Better that I had died than been left like this!’
‘Gideon, no, you must not say that,’ Mary protested, white-faced. She understood his pain, and the frustration he must be feeling, the apparent destruction of his dreams, but to wish away his life…
‘Must I not? Why, when it is the truth? What is the point in my being alive now?’
Pleadingly, Mary turned to Sir Gregory, the surgeon. ‘Surely it is too soon yet to be so sure. There could be much improvement…and…’ Her voice trailed away as he shook his head.
‘I wish I could be more optimistic, but I would not be doing my duty were I to offer you false hope. The tendons are severed; the damage is total.’
Five minutes later, as Mary escorted Sir Gregory down the stairs, she pressed him again.
‘Surely there is something that could be done.’
‘I’m afraid not. I wish I could tell you differently. I am sorry to be the bearer of such sad news about your…’
As he paused, Mary’s face pinkened slightly. ‘Mr Walker is not actually related to me…as…as such,’ she explained self-consciously.
‘Indeed? Then all the more credit to you for your concern for him. He is a most fortunate young man.’
‘I doubt that he thinks so. He has lost the use of his right hand, after all,’ Mary said sadly.
‘A sad business, I agree, but it does not do to dwell on such things. And Mr Walker has survived a tragedy in which many unfortunate souls lost their lives,’ Sir Gregory returned loftily. ‘As I have already said, Mr Walker will, with perseverance, regain some limited use of his hand and, thanks to your splendid nursing, ma’am, he has recovered marvellously in every other way. There are those who would consider that he has been very fortunate,’ he repeated.
Sensing Sir Gregory’s disapproval of Gideon’s bitterness, Mary explained gently, ‘Mr Walker was hoping to begin his formal training as an architect and he has been working very hard towards that goal. However, now –’
‘An architect!’ The surgeon shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid that is totally out of the question, in view of the injury to his right hand.’
Mary waited until he had stepped into the hansom cab that was to take him to his train, before going back upstairs to Gideon.
It was almost a fortnight now since she had first brought him here unconscious to Winckley Square, and from the moment he had first recovered full consciousness he had demanded to know how badly injured his hand was.
The surgeon from Preston’s infirmary had been blunt and to the point. Gideon’s tendons had been severed by the accident, and he was lucky that, thanks to Mary’s devoted nursing, he did not have to lose the hand itself. As to the fact that it had set stiff like a claw, the surgeon was sorry, but there was nothing that could be done.
In desperation Mary had set about finding out the name of the most experienced and knowledgeable surgeon in the country in the hope of getting a more optimistic opinion, and although he had refused to let her see it, she knew just how much Gideon had been hoping that Sir Gregory would be able to tell him that he could regain the use of his hand.
She could well understand how sharply bitter his disappointment must be. She felt it for him herself.
From the moment he had been well enough to do so, Gideon had railed about being there. Soon he would be insisting that he was going to leave – unless she could find a good reason for making him stay…
Upstairs in the large airy room Mary had brought him to, Gideon lay on his bed, staring with burning eyes up at the ceiling. So now it was final, incontestable. He was to be a cripple. Not an architect. A cripple. Why had he ever been fool enough to listen to Mary, to believe that he might realise his dream?
What future was there for him now? He couldn’t even work as a bloody cabinet-maker any more, never mind anything else. No, he would end up like the poor legless rag-dressed war veteran sitting in the marketplace selling matches!
When he heard Mary coming back upstairs he deliberately turned his head away from the door, feigning sleep, but in the darkness behind his shuttered eyelids all he could see was his clawlike hand and the broken shards of his shattered dreams, and beyond them, in the shadows, the careless, uncaring, taunting face of Ellie Pride.
‘Ah, Mary!’ Edith Rigby smiled at her neighbour as Mary was shown into her drawing room where several women were already gathered. ‘I am so glad you could make it. I was a little concerned when you weren’t able to attend our last meeting, especially since you have always been such a stalwart supporter of our cause. Christabel Pankhurst gave a very lively talk.’
‘Yes, I heard about it,’ Mary agreed. ‘It seems we are becoming increasingly militant.’
‘And you do not approve?’ Edith questioned her.
Mary gave a small sigh. ‘It is not a matter of approving or disapproving, Edith. I am just concerned for the success of our cause.’
‘As indeed are we all,’ Edith agreed firmly.
There was a lot of news to be exchanged and plans to be made, and it was early evening before the meeting finally broke up.
Mary, who was one of the last to leave, was just on the point of doing so, when Edith said quietly to her, ‘Mary, please don’t go yet. There is something I wish to discuss with you. Of…of a private nature.’
Doubtless Edith was going to ask her if she was able to make an increased donation to their cause, Mary reflected as she waited discreetly whilst Edith said farewell to the last of her guests.
‘Mary, come back into the drawing room. I shall ring for fresh tea,’ Edith told her.
Following the other woman back into the room, Mary tried not to look impatient. The meeting had taken longer than she had anticipated and she was anxious to return home to see how Gideon was. He had, understandably, been very low following the surgeon’s visit.
‘No, thank you, do not trouble to order tea for me,’ she told her hostess.
‘Mary, this is not an easy subject for me to raise,’ Edith began, looking acutely uncomfortable as she folded her hands neatly together on her lap. ‘However, I have been asked to raise it by…by your concerned friends. We…we all appreciate that you have an interest in Mr Gideon Walker and his wellbeing, but…well, to be frank, my dear, there is some concern that you should have this young man living beneath your roof with you. I mean, it is not as though he is related to you in any way, and you are a single woman and…’
As Edith’s voice trailed lamely away, Mary could feel her face starting to burn.
‘Gideon is the son of an old…friend of mine,’ she announced firmly. ‘Naturally I feel that I have a duty to her and to him to do whatever I can to help him. His injuries are such that he is no longer able to begin the…the studies he had planned to take up, and –’
‘Mary, my dear, we are simply thinking of your welfare. There is already talk in the town.’
‘Talk? What kind of talk?’ Mary challenged her.
Unable to meet her gaze or answer her, Edith Rigby looked away.
‘If I am not permitted to show Gideon the…the natural affection and concern of…of
a godmother, because –’
‘A godmother? You are his godmother,’ Edith pronounced in relief. ‘Oh, well, in that case…No one realised that that was the relationship between you.’
A little guiltily Mary acknowledged that she ought immediately to have corrected Edith’s misunderstanding, but now unfortunately it was too late! And besides, there was no way she wanted anyone to guess what her real feelings for Gideon were. How shocked they would be. How shamed she would be! Not even Gideon himself could be allowed to know. If he did, she had little doubt that he would reject her, and she didn’t think she could bear that. No, better to have what little she did have of him in her life and her home than to have nothing of him at all, even if their relationship was not and could never be what she really secretly yearned for.
‘So, Gideon, how are you feeling today?’ Mary asked warmly as she walked into his room.
When he got up from the chair where he had been sitting she could see how thin and drawn he looked.
‘How do you think I’m feeling?’ he challenged her acidly. ‘I can’t use my bloody right hand, and no amount of pills or potions will ever change that!’
‘No, I’m afraid it won’t,’ Mary agreed calmly, taking advantage of his momentary silence to continue, ‘I have a proposition I wish to put to you, Gideon. It has long been my desire to visit Florence, but up until now I have been hesitant to go because of the lack of a suitable male travelling companion to accompany me.’ She could see that Gideon had started to frown. ‘Since, as you have said yourself, you are no longer able to pursue your studies or return to your work, it occurs to me that you would be the ideal person to accompany me. I would pay you, of course, and everything would be done in a proper businesslike way. You would be chef d’affaires, so to speak, the comptroller of my travelling household and responsible for the safe conduct not only of myself but also of my luggage.’
