Elizabeth Elgin - I’ll Bring You Buttercups

‘Darling!’ She slipped her hands beneath his coat, hugging him to her, closing her eyes tightly as happy little tears misted her eyes. ‘I do love you. How will I bear it when you leave me?’

‘Me, too – about loving you so, I mean, and dreading Sunday coming. And I know we aren’t engaged and shouldn’t buy presents for each other, but –’ He dipped into his pocket and brought out a small box. ‘It’s only a bauble, sweetheart, and secondhand into the bargain. But when I saw it, it seemed so right that I had to have it for you.’

‘Andrew!’ Her cheeks flushed red. ‘You shouldn’t have, but darling, I’m glad you did.’ She opened it to show a small, heart-shaped box that held a dainty, heart-shaped brooch.

‘It’s gold, Julia, and look.’ His finger outlined the two letters entwined within the heart. ‘J and A. Julia and Andrew, I thought at once, though maybe it was James who bought it for Anne, or Albert for Joan.’

‘Andrew, it’s beautiful. Your initial and mine. I shall wear it tonight – wear it always. Oh, I wish you knew how much I love you. It’s like a great ache inside me.’ She closed her eyes, because she could hardly bear to look at him.

‘I know. I have a pain just like it,’ he said gravely. ‘And I’m glad to say there is no known cure for it. But should you be in a gentleman’s room, Miss Sutton, and you not married to him? What if anyone saw us? Your reputation would be in shreds.’

‘I know,’ she smiled. ‘It’s quite delightful, isn’t it? You’d have to marry me then, wouldn’t you? But I won’t compromise you, doctor dear. I shall go and see to Giles’s tie. I think I shall feel a lot safer in his room than here,’ she said softly, pinning the brooch to her dress.

‘I understand exactly.’ He took her hand in his, lingering his lips in its upturned palm, kissing it sensuously so that exquisite shivers of delight sliced through her; made her wonder how she would endure a year, almost, until they could rightfully close their bedroom door on the world. And she wondered, too, why just to look at the ordinary double bed in which Andrew would sleep tonight, all at once made it loom so large and tantalizing. ‘I’ll see you in the conservatory,’ she murmured. ‘In five minutes …’

Helen Sutton let go a small sigh of contentment, grateful that her very dear friends – those who had comforted her and been close to her during her years of mourning – were with her tonight. Dear and precious friends, and her family too. There was Judge Mounteagle and his formidable wife; though had Helen been fighting, back to the wall for her very life, it would have been Mrs Mounteagle, truth known, she would have wished at her side. There, too, was Doctor James, and Effie, and the Reverend Luke Parkin, and Jessica, to whom she owed so much; and she was guiltily glad that neither Clementina nor Elliot were coming, though she felt sad that Edward would not be able to enjoy his favourite pudding which Cook had so laboriously prepared for him.

She sat unspeaking, wanting John beside her, yet counting the blessings of this night. The sun, losing its brilliance now, lit the glass room softly, showing off the display of vines that climbed to the roof; exotic shrubs that could never have survived outdoors, and pots of flowers, grown specially for such an occasion in heated glasshouses, and carried inside to give pleasure. Orchids of every colour, save creamy-white; brilliant geraniums, sweet-scented jasmine and campanulas, blazing blue as a summer sky, all weeks before their time.

‘I see,’ remarked Mrs Mounteagle tartly, ‘that Pendenys is late, as usual.’

‘Ah – no. My sister-in-law,’ said Helen softly, ‘is a little unwell and cannot be here.’

‘Ha!’ the lady shrugged, the look of satisfaction ill-disguised on her face. ‘It comes to us all, I suppose – that certain age, I mean.’

She slanted her gaze at Mrs James who, caught off balance by such directness, could only glance appealingly at her husband.

‘Mrs Sutton is – er – a little under the weather; a little, that is all. Tomorrow, when I call, I fully expect her to be her old self again …’ the doctor offered reluctantly.

‘I see.’ Mrs Mounteagle was in no way convinced, and made a mental note to discover exactly what ‘a little under the weather’ embraced. ‘I shall leave my card when passing,’ she said without so much as a blush. ‘When will that son of hers be finished with Cambridge? Nathan, isn’t he called?’

‘Soon, now. We hope to have him back in just a few weeks. He’s a fine young man,’ Helen smiled, eager to be rid of the subject of Pendenys’s absence. ‘Giles particularly will be pleased.’

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