I’ll Bring You Buttercups. Elizabeth Elgin
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would go to Leeds. Now. He could be there before dark if he shifted himself. For once, he’d do exactly as he was told.
‘You look lovely, Miss Julia.’ She did. Really, really beautiful. And not just the long dress nor the pink shoes peeping out beneath it, nor the hat. She was beautiful all over; her eyes, her smile – even the way she walked. And all because of Andrew MacMalcolm.
‘You’d better take this.’ Alice offered a parasol.
‘Oh, no. I won’t need a sunshade.’
‘You take it. Never know who you might meet. You can always hide behind it if you have to.’
‘But why should I hide? You’ll be with me, all perfectly correct …’
‘No, miss. I shall come with you as far as the bandstand and wait with you, till he comes. Then I shall have to excuse myself. There’ll be the tea to see to and things to do and I’ll expect you –’
‘Hawthorn! You darling; you absolute love!’ She grasped Alice’s hands and swung her round in a little dance. ‘I promise I’ll be good. I will.’
‘And you’ll be back here at half-past three, prompt, for tea,’ Alice ordered grimly, “cos if you aren’t, I’ll come looking for you, and I mean it!’
‘Then I promise we shall be – word of a Sutton. But what if he doesn’t come? What if something goes wrong and he’s needed at the hospital and we wait and wait …’
‘Then the bandstand is the best place to be, isn’t it, because we can sit there as if we’re waiting for the music to begin and nobody’ll know that – well – he’s –’
‘Left me in the lurch.’
‘Exactly. But he won’t, so take your parasol and let’s be off. Don’t want him waiting there, thinking you’re not coming, now do we?’
He was waiting. He was there, looking handsomer than ever, and his smile as he walked to meet them set Julia’s heart thudding deliciously.
‘Miss Sutton. Miss Hawthorn.’ He raised his hat, giving each a small, polite bow, and Alice could see why Julia Sutton had fallen head over heels, because if it hadn’t been for Tom she could, quite easily, have done the same.
‘Shall we walk, ladies, or shall we listen to the concert? The choice is yours.’
‘I thank you, sir, but I find,’ Alice said primly, trying to say it as Miss Clitherow would, respectful yet genteel, ‘I find I’m not able to accept your kind offer. I – I have things to do, but the kettle will be on,’ she looked directly at her employer, an eye to eye gaze that allowed for no misunderstanding, ‘at three-thirty, if you’re of a mind to take tea.’
‘Then I thank you, ma’am.’ Andrew MacMalcolm tipped a finger to his hat, his face serious, his eyes bright with merriment. ‘And I shall take good care of Miss Sutton and bring her safely home on the dot of half-past three.’
‘Thank you, sir. Bid you good day, then.’ For no reason she was sure of, but maybe because her warning had been a little too blunt, she bobbed a curtsey which put her back in her place again, and made everything all right.
‘Isn’t she a dear?’ Julia smiled as they watched her walk away.
‘You’re fond of her, aren’t you?’
‘Very fond.’
‘And she of you, Miss Sutton. It’s easy to see.’
‘Hawthorn is fond of the whole wide world,’ Julia laughed, ‘She’s in love – walking out seriously.’
‘And you? Are you walking out?’
‘No. I’m a free spirit, doctor.’ But don’t ask me if I’m in love, for I couldn’t look at you and say I wasn’t.
‘Then shall we listen, or shall we walk?’ Gravely he offered his arm. It was the wrong arm, for when she took it, she realized that every time he turned to look at her, her bruised and puffy eye would gaze up at him like a blot on the landscape of her adoration.
‘How do you feel today?’ He asked it as if he could read her thoughts. ‘Is your eye less painful?’
‘Almost no pain at all.’ She withdrew her hand from the crook of his arm and touched it with anxious fingers. ‘But oh, isn’t it a sight?’
‘I’ve seen worse,’ he smiled, taking her hand, tucking it gently back. ‘Much, much worse …’
‘Oh, Hawthorn.’ Eyes closed, Julia swayed back and forth in the kitchen rocker. ‘What am I to do? Two days more, then we’ll be on our way home. Two days, that’s all.’
‘Did he ask you?’ Carefully Alice wrapped the remainder of the cherry cake in greaseproof paper and returned it to the tin. ‘To meet him again, I mean.’
‘Yes. Tomorrow – same place – but after that there’ll only be one day and he hasn’t kissed me yet; hasn’t even called me Julia and I don’t –’
‘Hasn’t kissed you? Indeed I should think not! For him to try wouldn’t be right, and for you to let him would be common – first time, that is. Second time, an’ all. My Tom didn’t kiss me for ages.’
‘But you and Tom had – have – all the time in the world, and we haven’t. He’ll be in London and I’ll be miles and miles away and not knowing when we’ll meet again; not knowing, even, if we’ll be able to write to each other.’
‘You can always have his letters sent to me, though there might be talk about them, so I’d have to tell Tom. But why shouldn’t you write to each other openly?’
‘Because we haven’t been properly introduced. What do you think my mother would say? She wouldn’t like it at all. Mind,’ she frowned, ‘when next I go to London I could tell Mama that Aunt Sutton had introduced us and that would make it all right. Aunt Sutton would do it for me, I know she would. But what do I do in the meantime?’
‘We’ll think of something, though I still think you should tell her ladyship everything – right from the start.’
‘And land you in bad grace, Hawthorn? No, we’ll have to be careful; very careful. And anyway,’ she whispered, her face suddenly sad, ‘who’s to say he’ll want to write to me?’
‘He’ll want to. I know he will. But one day at a time, eh? And you haven’t told me where you went nor what you talked about.’
‘I know.’ And she did so want to talk about him. She wanted to tell the entire Mews that Julia Sutton was in love; climb to the top of Holdenby Pike and shout it out to the whole of the Riding. ‘But will you come upstairs and untie me? I feel so jumpy, so anxious, and these corsets are getting tighter and tighter. Be a dear, then I’ll put on a wrap and I’ll tell you all.’
She let go a sigh of relief as Alice untied the knot and eased open the back lacing of the torturous garment. ‘I swear that when we have the vote and can send a lady to Westminster, I shall agitate for an Act to be passed, outlawing corsets. I will!’
‘Oh, miss – you and your votes. Now get into your wrap and pop your feet into something more comfortable, then tell me all about it. All. Nothing missed out.’
And because she was so besotted, so suddenly, shiningly in love, Julia did just that. In truth there was nothing about their meeting which could be deemed shocking – other than meeting a young man unintroduced and unchaperoned, that was. But oh, the delight of it all: the brilliance of the sun, the most beautiful, sweetly scented flowers she had ever seen or smelled; even the London park-sparrows were the cheekiest, the most endearing little birds in the whole world.
‘And Andrew – Doctor MacMalcolm – told me about Scotland, where he was born, and how hard he’d had to work to become a doctor because he did it all