‘He is indeed,’ whispered Diana, hanging her head.
‘Then why do you hesitate?’
‘Because… because I do not love him. I do not think I could ever love him.’
There was silence in the little sitting room, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the relentless drip, drip of rain outside the window. There. She had admitted it. Andrew was her one and only love and her heart was buried with him. Wherever he might be. Miss Moonshine reached across to take Diana’s hands.
‘If you have doubts, then you should not marry him,’ she said quietly.
In her heart Diana agreed, although the uncertainty about her future was quite terrifying. She sat up a little straighter.
‘Then I must advertise in the newspaper. I thought, with my experience in the Sunday School, I might find employment as a teacher.’
The difficult decision made, they spent a little time discussing where best to place an advertisement and the type of salary she might expect. Diana went off to her room, her heart lighter than it had been for days.
She spent the evening composing the notice she intended to send out and, in the morning, she went in search of Miss Moonshine, to ask her opinion of her efforts.
‘I thought I should send it to Leeds, for the Intelligencer,’ she said. ‘After all, the wider the area the more likely I am to find a suitable post.’
‘You are quite right, my dear,’ murmured Miss Moonshine, scanning her letter. ‘This is very good. But I would not send it off quite yet.’
‘But surely, Michaelmas is the best time to advertise, being a Quarter Day.’
‘That is the point, my dear. We are so close to the end of the month now that this will not reach the newspaper office in time for them to publish it before Michaelmas.’ Miss Moonshine folded the letter and held it close. ‘I will keep it safe for you, my dear. Trust me, you had much better wait a little.’
‘I will, if you think it best,’ said Diana, doubtfully, ‘but how am I going to pay my rent?’
Miss Moonshine regarded her for a long moment, her head tilted on one side, like an inquisitive bird. She said gently, ‘Perhaps it is time we put the silver flask in the window.’
*
The light was fading by the time Diana left the Sunday School, the gloom only adding to her lowering spirits. It was Michaelmas Day. Her work with Mrs Lomax was already finished, and she had endured a painful meeting with the vicar. Not that Mr Booth had been unkind – quite the opposite, which made Diana feel all the more unhappy.
Philip Booth was disappointed, but not, he said, surprised.
‘You would make an admirable vicar’s wife, my dear, but I must respect your decision, if your heart is not in it. As for the poor school, the committee will go back to its original plan. But enough of that. What will you do now? I suppose you will have to find other employment.’
‘Yes.’ Diana tried not to sound despondent. ‘I am going to look for a teaching post of some kind, but I doubt it will be close by.’
‘You will be sorely missed, my dear, and not only by me. However, you may be sure I shall be glad to furnish you with an excellent reference.’
His kindness warmed her, but it humbled her too. Her spirits were further depressed by the fact that after Michaelmas she would no longer be teaching Edwin Lomax and would therefore not be earning any money. If she was not going to marry Philip Booth, she had no option but to leave.
As she turned onto the path leading up to Miss Moonshine’s front door, she glanced at the window with its odd assortment of items for sale. There, pride of place in the centre, was the silver flask she had bought for Andrew. She had reluctantly agreed to sell it, but knowing how few customers passed through the shop she thought it unlikely that it would go soon, and if it did, the money would do little more than pay her rent for a few weeks. She had best ask Miss Moonshine to look out the advertisement, and she would take it to the post office in the morning.
She went in, only to discover that Miss Moonshine was not at home. A note propped against the candlestick on the sideboard informed her that she had gone on an errand of mercy and had taken Napoleon with her. There was nothing unusual in that. Miss Moonshine was often abroad, helping the needy. Diana suspected she had some private income, because she was always ready with a basket of food for the family of a sick millworker, or a parcel of clothes to distribute to the poor. Diana went to her room and after heating a little soup for her supper she retired to bed, exhausted by her anxiety.
The following morning, Diana was getting dressed when Miss Moonshine knocked on her door.
‘My dear, I am obliged to go out again,’ she said, buttoning her pelisse. ‘I wonder if I might ask you to mind the shop for me?’
‘Why yes, of course I will, but – how do I know what price to charge for things?’ Diana thought she should ask the question, but it was unlikely to matter. After all, she had never yet seen a customer in the shop.
‘Things will fetch what people are prepared to pay, my dear.’
‘Oh pray, do not ask me to haggle over prices,’ Diana begged her. ‘I have no idea what anything is worth.’ She followed the landlady down the stairs. ‘Could you not write out a list?’
‘There is no time,’ declared Miss Moonshine, scooping Napoleon up and putting him into a basket. ‘It is only for a few hours, my dear.’
She picked up the basket and was gone, leaving Diana with a head full of questions. What if someone came in to buy the Toby jug? Diana thought it quite grotesque and had no idea of its value. She would not give more than a few pennies for it. Or even worse, what if someone wanted the silver flask? Her throat dried. The flask was engraved with Andrew’s initials, and she was not sure she could bring herself to part with it. Hot tears prickled at the back of her eyes. No, she most definitely would not be able to let it go.
Suddenly it was all too much. The tears welled up and she could not stop them from falling.
‘Oh Andrew, Andrew.’ She sank down onto a chair and covered her face with her hands as a wave of loneliness and desolation swept over her.
She cried for some time, but then she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Andrew would have teased her for being a watering-pot. She could almost hear him, asking her what sort of soldier’s wife she would make, if she fell into hysterics over a trifle. Not that Papa’s death, nor Andrew’s, could be considered trifling, but here she was, almost a year on, and still feeling sorry for herself.
‘It will not do,’ she sniffed, trying to find a dry spot in her handkerchief. ‘I must think of the future. Really, it was very foolish of me to stay here with Miss Moonshine for so long. I should have set about seeking a good position weeks ago.’
Diana looked around the room, wondering where her landlady had put her advertisement but reluctant to pry into the drawers and cupboards. Well, that was easily remedied. She would write another notice and take it to the post office directly. She turned and hurried up the stairs. She had no idea what time the Leeds mail might pass through, but that did not matter as much as the conviction that it was time to act.
Diana had only written a few lines when she heard a noise from the shop below, and a man’s voice calling for service. A customer! Carefully putting down her pen, she went down the stairs.
A gentleman was hovering just inside the shop, his figure a black outline against the light from the open door. He was leaning on a stick and she thought perhaps it pained him to walk so she hurried towards him.
‘How may I help you, sir?’
‘Good day to you, ma’am. I noticed the silver flask in the window. May I look closer? I could not quite make out the initials but I think…’
His voice trailed away, but Diana had not heard one word. She stopped and stared at him, taking in the fair hair and the lean, handsome face that she remembered so well.
‘Diana?’
‘Andrew?’ She put her hand on the table to steady herself. ‘I… I thought you were d– dead.’
He recovered
first from the shock and limped forward, dropping his stick and holding his arms out to her.
‘As you see, I am very much alive.’
*
It was dusk, but with the curtains drawn against the night and a fire burning brightly in the hearth, Miss Moonshine’s little sitting room was very cosy. On her return, when she had found them together, the landlady had insisted Diana and Andrew should make use of it.
‘I need to work up my accounts and can as easily do it down here at the table,’ she had told them, her eyes twinkling.
They had taken Miss Moonshine at her word and were now sitting together on the little sofa. Andrew stared at the silver hip flask, turning it over and over in his hands.
He said, with more than a hint of wonder in his voice, ‘If my leg had not been paining me, if I had not decided that a walk would do me good before continuing my journey, I would never have seen this. I might have gone on my way and never found you.’
Diana leaned against him. ‘I shall always be grateful to Miss Moonshine for putting it in the window.’
‘But one can scarce see it from the road,’ he told her. ‘No, it was the cane that first caught my eye. It is so much finer than the stick I use and I thought it might make me look less like a cripple, so I stepped closer to take a look, and that is when I saw the flask.’ He put his arms around her. ‘I had quite given up hope of finding you, but when I saw the engraving I remembered you telling me you had bought such a thing for me, and I had to come in and find out.’
‘And I am so glad you did,’ she said, smiling up at him mistily. ‘To think you might have passed so close, and I would never have known.’
‘Ah, don’t. I cannot bear the idea of it, my dearest. My fair fugitive.’ He pulled her closer and kissed her. When at last he raised his head, he said, ‘You must believe me, we tried everything to find you.’ He settled her more comfortably against him. ‘We put notices in all the newspapers, asking for news of you.’
‘But you were looking for a Miss Pennystone, not Riston,’ she replied. ‘You were not to know I had taken my mother’s name. Oh Andrew, I am so very sorry that I left no word, but I was so afraid –’
‘Hush, my darling. It does not matter, now that we have found each other again. My mother told me you had gone away to escape old Moulton’s advances, damn him! And she said he had been making himself rather unpleasant, threats and so forth, trying to discover your whereabouts.’
‘Then I was right to tell no one. I would not have anyone lie for me, least of all your parents.’
‘Moulton is nothing but a bully,’ he replied. ‘He would not have dared to harass them if I had been there!’
She put a hand up to his cheek and repeated his words back to him. ‘It does not matter now that we have found one another again.’
He drew her close and captured her mouth for a long, languorous kiss that sent little thrills running through Diana, right down to her toes. She never wanted it to end, but at length he gave a groan and put her away from him.
‘Alas, it will not do, Diana,’ he said wretchedly. ‘I have nothing to offer you. I have little money and no prospects at all. The army doesn’t want me, and there is no work in Shawton, even as a farmhand. The summer has been so bad, even experienced men are being laid off, so who will want to hire a cripple? That is why I am on my way to Halifax. My father knows a fellow there, a millowner, who might set me on, even though I have no skills. He has agreed to see me tomorrow. A clerk’s wage is all I can expect, and that will not be enough to keep a wife. At least, not at first. I might be able to work my way up, but that will take years.’
He dropped his head in his hands. Diana heard the desolation in his voice and laid a hand on his shoulder.
‘Let us not despair, my love. I am sure we will think of something. And if we have to wait a little while before we can be married, then so be it. I thought you were dead, and that was much, much worse.’
‘Yes, yes of course, you are right.’ He turned to her, but in the candlelight she could see his smile was strained. ‘I must go, if I am to catch the last coach to Halifax tonight. I cannot afford to give up even this small chance of work.’
Diana picked up her shawl. ‘I will walk with you to the inn.’
She tried to sound cheerful, to hang on to the thin thread of hope, but in her heart she knew it would not be easy for Andrew to find employment. Thousands of men had returned from the war, and even those without injury found it difficult to support themselves.
Miss Moonshine was sitting at the table, several ledgers open in front of her, and Napoleon was asleep in his basket at her feet. She looked up as they came downstairs.
‘Are you going so soon, Mr Sturton? I hoped you might join us for supper.’
‘Alas, ma’am, I cannot stay. I must catch the night mail to Halifax.’
‘Mr Sturton is going there to look for work,’ added Diana.
‘Ah. What sort of work are you looking for, sir?’
Andrew spread his hands, ‘Whatever I can find, madam. Unfortunately, I am not trained to anything but soldiering.’
‘Ah,’ she said again, regarding him for a moment before turning her bright gaze upon Diana. ‘I met the vicar on my way home this afternoon. He tells me the committee has agreed the purchase of Lees Hall and its land.’ Miss Moonshine looked from Diana to Andrew and back again. ‘He told me all he needs now is a suitable married couple.’
Diana’s head came up and she exclaimed, ‘Of course, it would be perfect!’ Almost immediately her hopes faded. ‘But – but would Mr Booth even entertain the idea, would he consider me, consider us, when I have rejected him?’
Miss Moonshine patted her cheek. ‘Bless you, my dear, there is no need to colour up so, just because you refused the vicar’s offer of marriage. Mr Booth thinks very highly of you. I am sure he would be delighted if you would take on the school. With a husband to help you and to farm the land, of course.’
Andrew was looking from one to the other, a faint look of bemusement in his eyes, but now he said, ‘A school and farmland? That would be an ideal solution. I am not afraid of hard work, and very willing to learn new skills. If Diana is happy to do most of the teaching, that is.’
‘More than happy,’ she said, her eyes shining.
‘Then I think you should go and talk to the vicar.’ Miss Moonshine glanced up at the clock. ‘There is plenty of time for you to catch him before he sits down for his dinner, if you go now.’
Andrew’s brow had cleared, and he looked at Diana with hope shining in his blue eyes.
‘Well, my love, what do you say, shall we go and see this Mr Booth, and put ourselves forward to run his new school?’
‘Yes, indeed, I think we should. After all, the worst that can happen is that he will say no.’
‘Oh, I do not think there is any fear of that,’ murmured Miss Moonshine. She opened the door. ‘Off you go, then, my dears. And while you are there,’ she called after them as they hurried down the path, ‘you should ask him to call the banns. There can be no reason for you to wait any longer. And tell the vicar that I will dance with him at your wedding!’
The End
Author bio Melinda Hammond is a West Country girl by birth but has lived for 30 years in the Yorkshire Pennines, writing her award-winning romantic historical adventures. She also writes as Sarah Mallory for Harlequin Mills & Boon. Find out more about Melinda
Beatrice Marches for Women
by
Helena Fairfax
Chapter One
Beatrice Diamond was sitting beneath the window in Miss Moonshine’s upstairs room. A leather-bound book lay open on her lap, and she was studying it intently. Beatrice’s brother-in-law would have been shocked to the core if he’d known she was studying a medical diagram of the male anatomy. But luckily Captain Charles Osborne was in India with his regiment, and while the captain was away, Beatrice felt free to be as shocking as she wanted.
She began to leaf through the pages, looking
for the chapters on the treatment of infants and children. What a wealth of learning there was in this volume. She sighed. If only she could study properly. But as long as women were excluded from medical college, she would have to make do with teaching herself from books. It was fortunate Miss Moonshine allowed her to borrow as many as she needed.
After a while Beatrice found the diagnosis she was looking for. She shut the book with a snap.
‘Sunshine,’ she cried, leaping to her feet. ‘That's all baby Evie needs.’ She put the medical book back in the cabinet where it had come from, beneath a shelf of smiling porcelain dolls and tin soldiers, and pulled on her gloves. ‘Here's the doctor making Sylvia pay for all sorts of ointments, when all her baby needs is to be taken outdoors.’
She flew down the stairs, her laced boots making a clattering sound on the stone steps. It felt good not to have to tiptoe around a sickroom, for a while at least. In Miss Moonshine’s shop, Beatrice always felt she could be herself. It was wonderfully liberating. She jumped the last few steps, narrowly missing a table piled high with sweetly scented soaps and sachets of lavender. Miss Moonshine’s tiny dog, Napoleon, raised his head from his basket in the corner and gave a little yap, disgruntled at having his sleep disturbed.
Miss Moonshine was wearing the most astonishing felt hat, with such a wide brim Beatrice wondered how on earth she’d managed to lift it onto her head. A bunch of real cherries dangled precariously over its edge. One of the cherries threatened to drop off with every movement of her birdlike frame. Her hazel eyes twinkled as Beatrice approached.
‘Did you find what you were looking for, dear?’
‘I did, thank you so much. And I'll tell you something, Miss Moonshine, I’m never letting Dr Sandbone near my sister and her baby again. He’s made them both much worse. These doctors! They're nothing but quacks, all of them.’
Miss Moonshine darted a glance towards the far end of the shop, where a man in a dark grey suit stood in the window, examining the postcards and bric-a-brac. The man turned over the card in his hand and carried on reading.
Miss Moonshine's Emporium of Happy Endings: A feel-good collection of heartwarming stories Page 3