by Maggie Ford
Ellie could have told her that, but the woman hadn’t finished. ‘I’m not sure if you know, Mr Deel, but my husband has, in his mind, adopted Miss Jay. He sees her as a substitute for the daughter we lost and has become very much attached to her – against my wishes, as you can imagine – and he fears losing her to anyone. I say anyone, Mr Deel,’ she repeated firmly, looking straight at him. ‘He does not look kindly on what is going on and is seeking to break it up.’
Giving them no chance to ask how, she hurried on. ‘You see, at this very moment he is at his club talking to your father, acquainting him with what has been going on, and I imagine that once your father is made aware, he will put a stop to it.’
‘Why are you telling us all this?’ Ellie cut in at last.
‘I felt it charitable to warn you both. I’ve no wish to see young people torn apart and made unhappy.’
‘I’d have thought you’d be delighted to see me made miserable,’ Ellie flashed at her. ‘You’ve always wanted to get rid of me.’
‘That is true. I’ve never liked you.’
‘Then why are you helping us now?’ asked Michael.
Mary Lowe regarded him directly. ‘If you must know, I find no joy in this girl as the apple of my husband’s eye. She is the bane of mine, and the sooner she goes, the better. You, young man, struck me as the solution, but now I see only that you will be banished and she will continue living here in my home to my continuing resentment, for I cannot see my husband letting her out of his sight ever again.’
The prospect of being a virtual prisoner in this house could have been terrifying if Ellie had still had it in mind to go her own way before long, with or without Michael. But it was the possibility of losing him that terrified her.
She turned to him in that terror. ‘What are we to do then?’
Mary Lowe spoke for him. ‘I will help you. I think the two of you should pack your bags immediately and go now, as far away from this place as you possibly can, before my husband returns.’
Michael’s eyes lit up at the idea, but though the woman looked to be putting herself out to help the two young people, Ellie saw no point in gushing thanks, for she knew Mary Lowe was doing this for her own ends, nothing more. Still, it was the only course now, and by the start of next year she’d planned to go anyhow. This way she’d have Michael with her to look after her. Once away from this place they’d take up their lives together. Yes.
The moment of excitement faded as she realized what a foolhardy idea it was. Michael had no belongings with him and not all that much money about him. It was all too sudden, neither of them being prepared. She could only stare as Mary Lowe went on with a note of triumph in her tone.
‘You must begin packing a few things immediately. Don’t delay.’ Never had Ellie seen her in such a hurry to get anything done. ‘I shall leave you now to make your arrangements,’ she continued, ‘but do be quick.’
Throwing the two of them a bright smile of encouragement, she swept from the room, no doubt to a pleasant life, with no Ellie Jay to disrupt it.
Ellie gazed at the now closed door. ‘Where do we go?’ she asked.
When Michael didn’t respond, seemingly stunned by the swiftness of events, she gave an impatient little click of her tongue and moved past him, following in Mrs Lowe’s tracks, but to her own room.
Michael had trailed silently after her and now stood watching her gather up a few clothes, together with her bank account book. But she felt she could detect a change in his attitude. She turned to him.
‘Is something wrong, darling?’
‘I’ve nothing with me but what I’m wearing,’ he said. ‘I’ve hardly any money on me and we don’t even know where we’re going.’
‘I’ve some,’ she said cautiously, ‘in my bank book. I’ve saved up quite a decent bit and we can use some of it to find a place for tonight. Tomorrow we can take our time deciding what to do and where to go.’
‘We’ll have to pay for lodgings,’ he reminded her absently as if still in some sort of daze. ‘No banks will be open this time of the evening and a lodging house will want down payment before we are allowed in. And we can’t sleep rough, even for one night. I wouldn’t let you do that.’
‘Well, we can’t stay here,’ she said sharply, pausing in gathering her clothes together. They lay in a heap over her bed. He was gazing at them.
‘What are you going to put all this in?’ he queried. ‘You’ve no bag or case of any sort.’
Fraught with sudden mistrust, she turned on him. ‘Why are you putting obstacles in the way, Michael? What is it? Have you changed your mind? Isn’t it such a good idea now you’ve had time between that woman leaving us and you thinking about it?’
‘No, I haven’t changed my mind!’ he shot back at her in a way she had never heard him speak before. ‘I’m thinking about it – the logic. I think we should stop to consider what we’re doing before rushing off willy-nilly.’
‘But if Doctor Lowe gets back before we’re gone, we’re lost!’
For a moment she stared at him, trying to delve into his mind. What she thought she saw there sent a stab of panic through her veins.
‘You don’t want to do this!’ she burst out. In a sudden fit of temper she grabbed up an armful of clothing and threw it to the floor. ‘Oh, I know what’s the matter orright. You’ve ’ad your bit of fun at my expense and now you don’t ’ave the courage to take things any further.’
She saw him wince. Whether it was what she had said or the way she had pronounced the words, falling back on old verbal habits, she didn’t care. She could clearly see the doubt in his eyes. What she’d said was true: he was backing out. It was too much for him, the product of a comfortable, wealthy existence, now asked to rough it on the street, for that’s what he probably guessed it amounted to. Men were all the same. Fine when they had it their way – Michael, Doctor Lowe, her brother Charlie, her father – but as soon as it came to the crunch, it was back out quick!
‘Then bugger off!’ she said crudely without waiting for him to reply. ‘I don’t want you. Never mind, I was going to leave sooner or later and so it’s turned out sooner. And anyway I’ll be better on my own.’
‘Ellie—’
‘No, I don’t need someone dragging after me, complaining about how they’re missing their comfortable life. Where I’m off to it ain’t going to be a bed of roses – not for a long while. But I’ve got plans that don’t include you.’
Beside herself with anger she hardly knew what she was saying. She only knew that she was deeply, bitterly disappointed, as disillusioned as she had always been in her sort of life.
Seconds later she found herself pulled into his arms. ‘Darling, please calm down! You must. You don’t know what you’re saying.’
Out of breath from her outburst, she stood in his arms, silent now, but his assurances didn’t soothe her. She merely stood limp and sullen as his voice murmured against her ear.
‘We have to be sensible about this. I’ve got only a few pounds in my wallet. That will take us nowhere. I don’t intend you to use your savings for us. I’ll get money somehow, but I have to go home if only to face my father. I can’t walk away from my family without so much as a goodbye. We’re a close, loving family.’
‘Close, loving,’ she mumbled. ‘That’s because you’ve never ever done anything to upset them.’
‘I will do all I can to make them understand. My father has always had my happiness at heart. He wouldn’t wish to see me unhappy.’
‘When you tell them about us, you’ll see how just close and loving they are,’ she said with bitter sarcasm.
‘I’ll make them see how much I love you. I’ll make them realize that I could never live without you,’ he returned, none of his enthusiasm dimmed by her words. ‘When they come round to my way of thinking, we might not need to run away from anything.’
And I’ll be rich beyond my wildest dreams, came the thought, but it was an empty one. His father, shocked at his son co
nsorting with a girl from her sort of background, would talk him round to the wisdom of continuing the life he’d always been used to, perhaps even resorting to all sorts of emotional blackmail that would make Michael look about him and think twice about leaving it all behind.
‘I shall be back before you know it,’ she heard him say. She said nothing and, after a moment’s faintly puzzled hesitation, he continued, ‘I’ll be back here tomorrow evening without fail after I’ve had a chance to talk to my parents. Doctor Lowe never need know about this evening, and of course Mrs Lowe will say nothing. I’ll make sure we have enough money. I wouldn’t dream of you financing us. And there’ll be no need for you to pack everything – just a few items, as I can buy whatever you need. If you come as you are, no one will suspect anything out of the ordinary. I will be waiting for you at the end of the road, nine o’clock tomorrow evening.’
‘What if you’re not there?’ she couldn’t resist asking.
He seemed a little taken aback. ‘Of course I will be there. Everything is going to be all right. I love you, Ellie. We’ll go far away from here, and we’ll be married and be together for the rest of our lives. Nine o’clock, darling, I shall be there, don’t worry.’
But she was worried – by an insidious thought that wouldn’t go away. He’d be reminded of his folly, persuaded to come to his senses. She’d be left standing at the end of the road for someone who would never come. And would he come here next Monday as usual, apologize for not having turned up, make excuses, new promises; would he say he needed just a little more time to persuade his parents? She didn’t think so. His father would never allow him to enter this house again.
Bertram Lowe would say nothing. If she asked, he would tell her that circumstances had changed and he had decided she needed a better tutor. She would be expected to continue her life here as if nothing had happened, he no doubt assuming she had no knowledge of his meeting with Michael’s father. Mrs Lowe’s plan to be rid of her once and for all hadn’t worked. She could very well be in danger of continuing to be saddled with her enemy’s presence in the house. That, if anything, was the only consolation Ellie felt, though it was hardly one to make her smile.
No, she would not go and stand at the end of the road tomorrow evening to wait in vain as the hours ticked on. But she would leave. She would pack all she could carry into two large canvas bags she’d seen lying in the corner of the kitchen downstairs. She would wait until nine before creeping out of the house. She might hover for a short while at the appointed place. If no one came, she would walk off, find somewhere to sleep for the night, even if only some dark niche. Life had taught her that the body could accommodate itself to any situation if required to. At this moment it seemed that sleeping away a few hours on a darkened street held no terror for her.
Or perhaps she could go to her old neighbour, Mrs Sharp. She would not see her left out on the street and there’d be a warm place to sleep if only on an old mattress on the floor. Maybe Ronnie Sharp would be there. It had been a long time since she’d seen him or even thought about him.
Ellie chased him firmly from her mind, needing to think clearly. As soon as it was daylight she’d say her farewells and be off – go first to the bank and draw out all her savings: Bertram Lowe mustn’t be able to trace her through her drawing it out little by little; then find a room somewhere.
After that the future was hazy, but one thing was certain: she’d have to make her own way in the world, buy a few painting materials. Her room would be her studio; what she painted she would sell to keep herself going. Meanwhile she would search for her father. He still had to be somewhere in London. She couldn’t imagine him ever wanting to go elsewhere. London was his home. His haunts had always been here, his women local; who else would have him? There still lingered that moment when she had been sure he was there right behind her at the opening-of-Parliament procession.
It might take years – her whole life even – to trace him, but she would eventually. That she promised herself.
As Michael took her in his arms to enforce his promises, she realized that all these thoughts had taken only seconds. Swept back into the present she found herself wanting with all her heart to have him waiting there for her tomorrow evening, that single thought brushing away all others.
‘Don’t worry, my sweet,’ he was saying. ‘Everything will be all right.’
He said it with such conviction that she believed him implicitly as he kissed her with such passion that it made her head spin.
It was only in bed that night that darker visions came to plague her, playing tug-of-war with the fervent wish to see him waiting there tomorrow evening, ready to whisk her away to a new life.
Nineteen
This morning Bertram was being exceptionally nice to her, even more doting than usual. Ellie wasn’t fooled. The pricking of bad conscience – that’s what it was. His chat to Michael’s father as to what was going on having apparently ruined their chances of finding love, maybe he now felt sorry for her.
Ellie smiled grimly. He didn’t know that he’d be the one destroyed when he found her gone a few hours from now. She just prayed it would be with Michael. But her harder self knew it was wishful thinking, and it took all her reserves to hide the deep ache in her heart and pretend to be beguiled by Bertram’s fatherly tones as she prayed Michael would be waiting for her.
He thought he was fooling her, but it was he who was being led on as she let him put an affectionate arm about her shoulders, his words probing. ‘You are comfortable here with us, aren’t you, my dear?’
Such a question! Ellie gave him a beaming smile. ‘Of course.’
‘I have done everything in my power to make you happy. If you are not, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?’
‘Of course,’ she repeated. Fat fool, came an inner voice. Doting idiot, thinking he could replace his lost daughter with her. She felt no sorrow or regret for the further loss he would very soon suffer.
‘Having a tutor as well,’ she pandered. ‘I really do enjoy those three days each week.’ She couldn’t resist dropping that in, but he evaded that.
‘My wife and I will be entertaining this evening,’ he said, gazing about her little studio, as he liked to call it, taking in the several finished studies. ‘Saturday, you’ll be alone, I’m afraid.’ He breathed in the smell of linseed oil and varnish. ‘But you are at home up here with your paints, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she obliged yet again, eager to be rid of him now.
‘Maybe a little lonely for you, but we’ll see if we can remedy that. Well, perhaps tomorrow, if the weather proves clement enough, you and I can take a little jaunt somewhere interesting, perhaps after church?’
Was this supposed to be a consolation? And where would they go on a Sunday with most places of interest closed? Surely not a country trip in the chill of November! But she obliged him with a nod, only too glad to see the back of him, and in return received a tender, fatherly kiss on her brow.
After his morning surgery he would return, play the kind guardian again, call her ‘my dear’, praise her for her artistic talent, put an arm about her shoulder. Would he then carefully work around to how much more she could learn with a better tutor than Michael Deel? He’d no doubt enlarge on it, explain that Mr Deel’s circumstances at home were beginning to make it awkward for him to come again but that it wouldn’t take long to find another teacher, a far better one. She would be expected to smile and agree with him. She wasn’t looking forward to the pretence at all.
The day spun itself out in a prolonged procession of endless hours. As she’d anticipated, Bertram came later on in the afternoon to act out his lies, she in turn lying, first with a show of surprise, then with questions to which his replies were no doubt well rehearsed, finally accepted by her with feigned resignation. It went just as she’d anticipated and he left reasonably comforted to prepare for his dinner guests.
* * *
About six, while Mrs Lowe was downstairs talki
ng to Cook concerning the dinner arrangements, Ellie went to find Dora.
‘I mustn’t be long,’ she said urgently. ‘I’ve something to tell you.’
Standing in the little ante-room where Dora slept, she hurriedly told her what she was about to do. ‘Whether Michael is there waiting for me or not, I’m off. I want to know: will you come with me?’
There was an astonished look on Dora’s young face. The girl was now fifteen and a half – old enough to know her own mind; but that mind could be seen in her expression as she shook her head. She was scared.
‘I don’t know, Ellie. I’ve come to like it here. It’s nice and comfortable and I don’t have to worry about where I’ll be tomorrow. I’ve learned how to speak nicely and be a lady. Mrs Lowe is kind to me. We’re friends. I mean it, Ellie: we are friends. She looks on me as a friend.’
‘Companion,’ Ellie corrected her sharply, irked by her sister’s stupidity. Any moment Mrs Lowe might come back before she could persuade her sister to run off with her.
‘You’re a paid companion. You can’t call that being friends. And with a woman nearly three times older than you? You should have friends your own age. And there’s me, saddled with a fat old man who wants to look on me as his child. Come with me. We’ll go together, get out of this unnatural relationship that’s going on here and find plenty of friends our own age.’
Still Dora shook her head. The delay was mounting. ‘I can’t just go without you, Dora. And I can’t leave you here.’
She knew that this was just an excuse, hiding a sudden fear of the unknown that was assailing her. She needed company. Without it she’d be cast adrift on a sea she had become unused to by soft living.