Terri Nixon - Evie’s Choice

Will staggered to the table to relieve himself of his burden, and as he stood upright again his eyes found mine. It was hard to see what colour they were from this distance, but they crinkled when he smiled, and a dimple deepened in his cheek. I blinked in surprise at the casual nod he gave me, then realised he wouldn’t know I wasn’t just another of the kitchen staff, wearing my plain outdoor coat as I was. It was an interesting notion.

I watched as the apprentice went through the delivery order, enjoying the way he kept stealing glances my way, and that dimple kept reappearing. But before someone could address me by my title, and ruin the fun, I slipped back out into the corridor and up the stairs to the main front door, exploring the unexpected tingle I had felt when our eyes had locked. I’d quite liked it.

A week into the new year I saw the apprentice again, and this time there was no hiding who I was. I was wearing my best coat this time, and getting into the car with Mother and my younger brother Lawrence to go to church, when the butcher’s van rattled up the drive. Will was seated beside Mr Markham, wearing a fixed look of terror at the older man’s driving, and I hid a smile in my glove as I pictured how much paler he’d look if I was behind the wheel; the illicit lessons I begged whenever I went to stay with the London family were going well, but I tended to pay little attention to the words of caution that came with them, and people were starting to find urgent business elsewhere when they saw me approaching them with a hopeful expression.

Will’s eyes widened slightly on seeing me, and I saw realisation slip into place, then he grinned at me and winked. The tingle woke up again, stronger this time, and I was unable to prevent an answering smile from crossing my face. Just before I turned my head away I saw his expression soften, and he settled more happily back into his seat, all sign of nerves gone as the van pulled to a stop by the back gate. I glanced at Mother, but she was accepting the footman’s assistance into the car; neither the butcher nor his apprentice held any interest for her. It already felt like a rather delicious secret.

I found my thoughts straying to him more and more often. I’d look out for the van from my window and suddenly find some reason to be downstairs, or wandering along the drive, and when we glimpsed each other the smiles were quick to come, slow to fade, and warmer every time. Then one bright day in early March, the day before I was due to leave for London for two months, my mother’s maid and I were in Breckenhall, buying last-minute gifts for the London family.

Behind us was the open-air market, full of tantalising smells and sounds, brightly-coloured clothing, and bric-a-brac and old books. I compared it to the imminent wait in the stuffy post office while Alice bought stamps for about a hundred thousand letters, and eyed the busy stalls longingly.

Then I stiffened my backbone. ‘I’m going to just walk around by myself for a little while thank you, Peters.’

Peters was used, by now, to my impatience to be off alone, and it never seemed to ruffle her rather elegant feathers when I suggested it. But she had her orders. ‘Of course we’ll visit the market, but Lady Creswell told me I must stay with you.’

‘I’m sure she doesn’t mean you’re to be glued to my side,’ I protested.

‘No, of course not, but –’

I reminded myself of the difference in our positions, although I felt guilty doing it. ‘Just ten minutes,’ I said firmly. Then my façade slipped, and I reverted to the child I had been and, in her eyes at least, still was. ‘ Please , Alice? After tomorrow I shan’t have a single minute to myself what with all those boring parties and dinners. People fussing over me morning, noon and night, dressmakers measuring –’

‘All right! Ten minutes.’ She looked resigned, but wore a reluctant smile. ‘I’ll be waiting by the cake stall.’ I was already walking away, and she raised her voice to call after me: ‘Just don’t tell your mother you were able to talk me into it!’ As if I would give Mother any reason to stop me coming into town.

After a happy few minutes spent enjoying the freedom, and sampling breads at a particularly delicious-smelling stall, I rounded a corner and saw, just ahead, a small boy standing alone. He looked to be around five years old, and he didn’t appear upset at first, but, as I watched, sudden realisation of his lonely state seemed to hit him and his lip began to tremble. I took a step closer but another figure appeared from behind a stall and crouched down in front of him, and my heart skipped as I recognised Will. He looked calm and competent, and, wrapped up warm against the hours he spent standing around in the early spring chill, he seemed older than I’d first thought.

The little boy was crying in earnest now, but Will paid no attention to the tears and instead kept up a cheerful chatter as he peeled the outer page off his newspaper. Still talking, his fingers worked quickly for a minute or two and then he held something out. The boy stopped snuffling and took the paper boat, and a bright smile spread over his face as he mimed its passage through an imaginary rough sea before showing it to a harried-looking nursery nurse, who seized his hand and pulled him away. She threw a brief ‘thank you’ at Will before vanishing into the crowd, and I went over to him, and found my voice.

‘Hello again.’

Will jumped, but when he turned to look at me there was no nervousness in his expression, just unabashed pleasure. Up this close I could see his eyes were a clear and lovely blue, beneath eyebrows a few shades darker than his hair, and his features were stronger and leaner than I had thought at first. Will Davies was evidently something of a charmer, and I found myself for once unable to think of anything else to say. I could only twist my fingers together and hope he would speak first.

He did, but it didn’t really help. ‘Miss Creswell,’ he said, nodding.

‘Mr Davies. That was…very clever, what you did for that little boy.’ He looked at me for a moment, and his eyes narrowed just a little bit and he took another sheet off his newspaper. He unfolded it, then his nimble fingers went to work again and a moment later he was handing me a rose, barely out of bud, with the petals curling outwards in the first welcoming hint of the full bloom to come.

I took it, and the expression on my face must have been much the same as the little boy’s. The fact that the rose was black and white, with smudgy print and a flimsy stem, meant nothing; it had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, just for me. ‘Thank you,’ I said, and tucked it into the band around my hat. ‘That should annoy Mother quite satisfactorily.’

Will laughed. The sound was lower than I’d expected it might be, and my response to it was a faint but pleasant confusion.

‘Talk in the kitchen says you’re off to London,’ he said.

‘I leave tomorrow. I’m expected to attend an awful lot of very dull parties with an awful lot of very dull people.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll have fun when you get used to it.’ But his expression said, clearer than words, that he hoped I would not. Something clicked into place between us in that moment, but it remained unspoken. It sat, quietly glowing inside me, and in him it manifested itself in a forced lightness of tone.‘What time is your train?’

‘Well, that’s the good part, at least,’ I said, ‘I don’t have to sit on the train and breathe in all that cigar smoke. Uncle Jack is going to be taking me down in his motor car.’

‘The Silver Ghost?’ Will whistled. ‘You are a very lucky girl, Miss Evangeline.’

‘Call me Evie.’ It suddenly seemed important that he not think of me as one of the Creswells, after all he wasn’t one of the servants. If I had expected a modest protest from him I was pleasantly surprised.