Annie Groves - Ellie Pride

‘You said that you wanted to be left alone to sleep,’ Ellie reminded her mother, aching with impatience to be gone. ‘And besides, I have already promised John that we are to go on the river. Father said it would do us all good to get out in the fresh air,’ she could not restrain herself from adding.

‘Ellie, I do not want you to go. I want you to stay here with me,’ Lydia stopped her angrily as she turned to the door.

Ellie stared at her mother. ‘But…but why?’ she demanded. She could feel the whole of her stomach cramping in anger and disbelief. Hadn’t she done everything she could to make her mother comfortable, and to do as she was bidden these last difficult weeks? ‘You are just being mean because you are cross, and –’

‘Ellie, how dare you speak to me like that?’ Lydia demanded angrily. ‘And as for you going anywhere with Gideon Walker, I absolutely forbid you do so!’

Ellie could not believe that this was her gentle, loving mother speaking to her so.

‘No,’ she denied fiercely, ‘no, I won’t stay. I won’t!’ Tears of confusion filled her eyes as she heard the rebellion in her own voice, and her legs trembled a little at her defiance, but that didn’t stop her from hurrying towards the door and wrenching it open.

Lydia watched Ellie leave in shocked disbelief. Had she behaved in such a way as a girl her mother would have had her whipped! Of course, Lydia knew exactly who to blame for her daughter’s behaviour. Gideon Walker!

What had happened to the mother she loved, Ellie wondered angrily, distressed flags of red flying in her cheeks as she hurried downstairs. For weeks now Ellie had dutifully acted as a go-between for her mother, conveying her increasingly demanding instructions to Annie and Jenny, and doing all she could to appease both of them as well as her mother. If anyone should have a headache, she decided rebelliously, it should be her.

Not that she was the only one to suffer from her mother’s suddenly sharp tongue. Only the previous day, Lydia had shocked them all when, at supper time, she had been discussing Cecily’s wedding.

‘It will be a very grand affair,’ she had announced. ‘My sister says that Cecily’s fiancé’s family are very well connected, and can trace their ancestors back to the reign of our late queen’s grandfather!’

‘Well, that is nothing,’ John had boasted immediately. ‘There were Prides keeping a butcher’s shop in the Shambles for hundreds and hundreds of years, weren’t there, Dad, before they were knocked down to make way for the new Harris Museum?’

‘John, I wish you would not mention such a place as the Shambles!’ Lydia had complained sharply. ‘And as for boasting about your father’s family’s connection with it, I would have thought I had taught you better.’

There had been a small uncomfortable silence whilst the siblings had looked at one another, and then their father had said quietly, ‘I seem to remember, Lydia, that when we first met you liked to hear stories about the origins of my family and the business.’

When Ellie had glanced across the table at her father she had seen a look in his eyes, a sadness that had made her heart ache.

And then he had got up and had left the table without finishing his supper, and her mother had sent John to bed.

But now, as she hurried downstairs, Ellie could hear John calling out excitedly, ‘Gideon’s here!’

Her heart was beating so fast she felt giddy. And even in the darkness of the narrow passageway Ellie felt as though she could feel the warmth and brilliance of the sun.

‘What on earth is happening?’

Ellie felt her whole body quiver at the sound of Gideon’s voice from across the small room at the back of the shop, where he was standing, with John and Connie both trying to out-do one another to engage his attention. At the same time, the dog, Rex, was barking his head off, as eager for Gideon’s acknowledgement of his presence as the others.

Ellie’s shy gaze met Gideon’s much bolder one. For a few seconds her feelings were so intense that it was impossible for her to answer his question, and even more impossible for her to tear her gaze from his.

‘The noise?’ Gideon prompted her, and Ellie shook her head, laughing, as Gideon waved in the direction of the workmen.

‘They are installing one of the new telephones,’ she informed Gideon.

Immediately, John chimed in, ‘Yes, and we went to the telephone company’s offices and saw how they worked, and they told Ellie that she could have a job working in the telephone exchange any time she wished.’

‘Did they indeed!’ Gideon marvelled, but it was the look in his eyes as his gaze met Ellie’s over the head of her younger brother that made her colour up so prettily, her argument with her mother already almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite.

‘Gideon, if you don’t mind I should like to call at Miller’s Arcade on our way back later. I want to buy some sweets for my mother. And there is a shop there that sells her favourite ginger pieces dipped in chocolate.’

As Gideon inclined his head, Robert Pride gave his elder daughter a pleased look. He was aware of just how much responsibility had been placed on Ellie’s shoulders recently, and just how much more there would be if things went wrong with the coming child’s birth, as had been so gravely forecast.

Sombrely he waited until the chattering quartet had moved out into the street, before giving his assistant instructions to mind the shop and hurrying up into the house.

Lydia looked up expectantly as the bedroom door opened. Ellie had obviously realised how badly she had behaved and had come back to beg her forgiveness. Mentally Lydia rehearsed what she intended to say to her erring daughter, but to her irritation it was her husband who was coming into the room.

‘Where is Ellie?’ she demanded peremptorily as Robert closed the door behind him.

‘She has gone off to the river with Gideon and the children.’

‘And you permitted her to go?’ Lydia’s mouth thinned. ‘I wish you would not encourage that young man to believe himself welcome here, Robert.’

‘But he is welcome,’ Robert told her easily. ‘He is a hard-working lad, and –’

‘He has no prospects! No family! Can you imagine what my sisters will think if Ellie should be foolish enough to walk out publicly with him?’

‘Your sisters?’ Robert’s genial expression gave way to one of anger.

‘Robert, listen to me,’ Lydia stopped him. ‘If anything should…should happen to me, I want your promise that Ellie will not throw herself away over someone like Gideon Walker. She is worthy of so much better. Surely you can see that?’

‘Lyddy, nothing is going to happen to you,’ Robert tried to reassure her, going over to stand behind the chair on which she was seated, placing his hands tenderly on her tense shoulders. ‘Even that old woman your brother-in-law has admitted that he does not know…’

‘That he does not know what?’ Lydia demanded tearfully. ‘That I shall die in childbed? Why didn’t I listen to my own mother? Why didn’t I realise how much wiser she was than I, and that she was only speaking in my own best interests when she tried to dissuade me from marrying you? It is easy enough for you to speak, Robert! You should have taken more care,’ she told him bitterly.

Behind her Robert’s face went white. He already knew that Lydia blamed him totally for her pregnancy and he had been too concerned for her to want to remind her that she had been the one to urge him on.

He ached to hold her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her, how afraid he was for her, and for himself, but he knew already that she would reject him and pull away from him. From the moment she had known she was pregnant she had erected a barrier between them, turning for consolation and comfort more and more to her sisters, especially her eldest sister in Winckley Square, and increasingly excluding him from her life.