Elizabeth Elgin - I’ll Bring You Buttercups

‘So will you compose yourself? I have made up my mind. Defy me in this and I leave this house. The choice is yours, Clemmy.’ He offered his handkerchief, hand on the bell-pull. ‘Now I shall ring for tea for you and, no! not another word,’ he said softly. ‘There is no more to be said. You will drink your tea, calm yourself, then tell Elliot what has been decided. After which you will write a kindly letter to Kentucky, thanking your son’s wife for her offer and availing yourself of it. You will grit your teeth and do it – do you fully understand? Ah …’ He paused as the door opened to admit a butler who had answered the summons with unusual alacrity. ‘Mrs Sutton would like tea. Serve it in here, if you please, then ask Mr Elliot to join his mother.

‘And now I shall go for a walk; a very long walk,’ he murmured when they were alone again. ‘I shall walk this terrible anger out of me, and when I return I expect Elliot to be in no doubt as to what is expected of him. A very great deal is expected of you, too, Clemmy, but I know you will do as I wish in this respect. And there is no compromise, remember. It is Elliot, or me!’

‘This is very cosy,’ Helen Sutton smiled. ‘Just the three of us. I do so enjoy luncheon in the conservatory.’

‘Where is Giles?’ Julia murmured, forking meat on to plates, handing them round. ‘Don’t tell me he’s left his precious books?’

‘He has been known to. My son,’ she addressed her reply to Andrew, ‘has been out all morning. First he went to Pendenys, and now he’ll have arrived in York, on estate business. There are repairs to be done before winter to two cottages and one of the almshouses. I so hope the agent won’t tell him we can’t afford it. But meantime, doctor, I have a great favour to ask of you.’

‘Is it Hawthorn, ma’am?’

‘No, though I am grateful to you for seeing her and setting my mind at rest. The favour, I’m afraid, is a little embarrassing because it concerns family.’

‘But Andrew is family,’ Julia protested. ‘Well, as good as …’

‘Yes, indeed. And I suppose it is reasonable to expect every family to have a skeleton somewhere about,’ Helen sighed. ‘It’s about Friday night, you see.’

‘The dinner party,’ Julia offered. ‘I think Mama is a little apprehensive, not having entertained for – for –’

‘For some time,’ her mother supplied quickly. ‘But it isn’t that. Pendenys won’t be coming now, I’m afraid, which will leave me with thirteen at table.’

‘And is that serious? Is it really a fact, ma’am, that people never sit thirteen to a meal?’ Andrew demanded, eyebrows raised.

‘Not never , exactly, but not if it can be avoided. And that is why I must ask you – and I’m sorry if you think it an afterthought, but I didn’t even know of your existence when the invitations were sent out.’ She lifted her eyes to his, looking at him, he thought, as Julia did; without flinching, even though her cheeks were pink with embarrassment.

‘Mama! You’re asking Andrew to make up numbers,’ Julia gasped. ‘But how wonderful! You’ll say yes, won’t you, darling?’

‘Accept, even though it would mean staying the night?’ Helen murmured. ‘We have no motor, you see, to return you to Harrogate, and it seems an imposition to ask William to take you to the station so late. And we shall finish very late, I’m afraid …’

‘Lady Sutton – I would have been glad to accept, but sadly I cannot. I have no evening clothes, you see.’

‘Oh, dear. You didn’t pack them?’

‘I have none to bring with me,’ he smiled. ‘Evening dress is on my list of necessities, but quite some way down. There are other things must come first, you see, though I’ll admit I’ve had to miss many medical gatherings with after-dinner speakers I’d have liked fine to have heard, because of it. I wish I could have helped your numbers. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, no. ’ Julia’s face showed disappointment. She would have liked nothing better than to show Andrew off, have him introduced to her mother’s friends. It would have set the seal on her family’s approval; been as good, almost, as an announcement in The Times. ‘Are you sure you –’

‘Very sure, Julia, though I promise you I shall think more urgently, now, about the matter. And I would have been happy to accept – you know that, Lady Sutton?’

‘Then in that case would you – oh, dear, this is going to make things even worse.’ Helen’s cheeks burned bright red. ‘Would you, for my sake and Julia’s, perhaps consider borrowing?’

‘Of course I would – if you can find someone with a suit to spare – and one that fits. I’m not so foolish, ma’am,’ he said softly, ‘that I’d let pride stand in the way of such an invitation.’

‘Then I thank you, and I’m almost certain we can find something. My husband, you see, would never throw anything away, and the smallest – the slimmest,’ she corrected with a smile, ‘of his evening suits is still hanging there. It is the one he wore when first we were married, but it isn’t at all dated. You are his height and build, doctor. Will you – after we have eaten – consider trying that one on? And I’m sure that somewhere there’ll be a shirt to fit, and shirt studs, though shoes I’m not too sure about. But would you …?’

‘I would indeed,’ he replied, gravely.

‘But, Mama,’ Julia gasped. ‘You never – I mean –’ Nothing that was her father’s had been discarded. Nothing that was his had been moved, even, since the day he died. His pipe still lay on the desk in the library; the loose coins from his pocket on the dressing-table where he had placed them; his cape and driving goggles still hung behind the garage door.

‘It’s all right,’ said Helen gently. ‘I have come out of my black and accept that I must face the world again. And I am bound to confess that the doctor is so like your pa once was – even the colour of his eyes – that I shall take no hurt in seeing John’s clothes on him,’ she whispered. ‘Please indulge me, Andrew?’ she asked, using his name for the first time. ‘I think perhaps that on Friday night I might feel a little unsure and need John with me, but if you are there, and Giles …’

‘I understand, ma’am. And far from taking exception to your offer, I take it kindly. We must hope,’ he smiled, ‘that the suit fits me.’

And Julia closed her eyes and fervently hoped so, too, and thought that she had never loved her mother as she loved her now.

‘Vegetables?’ she smiled, offering a dish, her eyes bright with affection, her heart so full of happiness she felt light-headed. ‘And if they don’t quite fit, I’m sure Hawthorn could do a quick alteration on them – I’m sure of it.’

And dear, sweet Lord, thank you for my lovely family and for this great singing happiness inside me.

And please let me keep it?

Alice held Morgan’s lead tightly, reluctant to release him. She wanted with all her heart to see Tom, even if it meant walking alone in Brattocks again, but she had felt relief, almost, when Miss Clitherow had asked her to sponge and press the suit.

‘The doctor’s evening dress. He’ll be coming to the dinner party,’ was all that was offered by way of explanation, but Alice at once suggested it be hung out to air, so strong was the camphory smell of mothballs on it. The suit wasn’t really the doctor’s, Alice knew; rather something long stored away and in need of a good valeting. Yet Doctor Andrew being asked to the Friday night dinner – now that was good news, she had thought, as she pegged the hangers firmly to the drying-green line. And then she had felt so guilty about Tom that she had taken Morgan’s lead and run to the library, where the impatient creature waited, tail wagging.