I’ll Bring You Buttercups

She hoped it wouldn’t say that he wasn’t coming. Miss Julia would be disappointed – heartbroken – if she didn’t see him again soon. The letter was from Doctor MacMalcolm, she was sure. What she wasn’t so sure about was how she could quickly – and secretly – get it to the lady for whom it was intended.

She cut a slice of bread then, spearing it with her fork, held it to the hot coals of the kitchen range.

‘Do you think, Mary,’ she murmured, eyes downcast, ‘you could give Miss Julia a message when you take breakfast up? Something I’ve just remembered. Would you tell her that I’ve run out of blue thread, and can she let me know if she’ll be going to York in the near future?’

‘Why York?’ Tilda demanded. ‘You can buy cotton just as easy in Holdenby.’

‘Because it’s special buttonhole thread,’ Alice flung scathingly, dratting the kitchenmaid’s nosiness.

‘Buttonhole thread, I’m to say?’ Mary frowned.

‘That’s right. From York – or Harrogate. She’ll know. And pass the butter please, Tilda, afore my toast gets cold.’

She could have set her clock by Julia Sutton’s breathless arrival. Breakfast at eight-thirty, with twenty minutes – give or take the odd few seconds – before she could decently excuse herself. Then half a minute from the morning-room to the sewing-room; a little before nine, it would be.

‘Hawthorn?’ At eight fifty-two exactly, a pink-cheeked Julia opened the sewing-room door.

‘You understood my message, then?’ Alice held the envelope between her first and second fingers. ‘It came this morning. From him.’

‘Andrew!’ She snatched the envelope, tearing it open with shaking fingers, pulling out the smaller one inside which bore her name – just Julia, written squarely in the very centre in black ink. ‘Oh, Hawthorn – what if …’

‘Read it and see.’ She waited, hardly breathing, as the tiny mantel-clock ticked away a long minute, loud in the silence; then Julia lifted her eyes.

‘He isn’t coming to York mid-June,’ she whispered soberly, then her cheeks dimpled and she laughed out loud. ‘No! It’s to be Harrogate, and he’s coming next week! He says he thinks it had better be Harrogate because he wants to visit the Pump Room and the Baths, and find out all he can about the water cures. Well, I suppose a doctor would be –’

‘Interested?’ Alice nodded. ‘Yes.’ Though not for the life of her could she ever have been persuaded to drink those curative waters. Tasted something awful, Cook said, and a pint of ale would do more good, to her way of thinking. ‘Did he say, miss, why he’s coming earlier?’

‘No, but does it matter? All I know is that he’ll be arriving on Monday, a little before noon, and he wants me to meet him outside the station entrance at two.’

‘And can you?’

‘I’ve got to.’ It was so ridiculous that a grown woman must be escorted everywhere, as if she were incapable even of crossing the road unaided. ‘I’ll have to think up an excuse to get away – alone, if I can.’

‘And will she let you – go by yourself on the train, I mean?,’ Alice frowned.

‘Why shouldn’t I, in a ladies-only compartment? But if she won’t allow it, I shall ask her if you can come with me. You can buy your blue thread, then.’

‘You know I don’t want thread, miss. And if I was you I wouldn’t make too many plans, because next week it’s the dinner party – had you forgotten?’

‘As if I could. Mama’s as jumpy as a kitten about it already. Well, she would be. It’s three years since she last had people here.’

‘Yes. So think, miss. Who’s to be spared to go to Harrogate with you? We’ll be busy all week, and I’ll have to help out in the kitchens, what with all the extra work.’

Silver and table-linen to be brought out and checked after so long out of use; Cook pink-cheeked and indignant and loving every minute of it, from the first menu ideas to the last of the savouries sent up to the servery in the shuddering lift; then she would collapse in the kitchen rocker and fan herself with a tea towel, murmuring, ‘My, oh, my …’

‘Busy? Everyone? Then I’ll just have to get away on my own.’

Perhaps, Julia thought, the dinner party might be a blessing in disguise. Perhaps Mama would be too taken up with it to argue the rights and wrongs of an unchaperoned trip. Or would she say no, in a voice that meant no?

‘I must see her – now!’

She was gone before Alice could offer a word of advice or warning or caution. Blue thread, indeed! It was going to take more than a reel of thread to get them out of this one.

Sighing, she returned to the kitchen, where silver fruit baskets and candlesticks and flower bowls waited to be polished, and knives and forks and spoons and salt cellars and sauce bowls cleaned and rinsed in soapy water, then cleaned again. And Cook fussing over her stockpot, complaining that the fire wasn’t drawing properly; that the flues would have to be brushed clean of soot in the morning and Tilda had better not forget it, either!

She had been so looking forward to the dinner party, Alice fretted; to the fuss and bustle and helping in the kitchen and seeing the table decorations and the lovely dresses and eating leftover goodies. It should have been nice to see Rowangarth come to life again, with her ladyship looking lovely and wearing her orchids, but now the letter had come and there was no knowing what Miss Julia would do. The cat would be out of the bag and London out of bounds for all time, if she didn’t mind what she said.

‘Oh, Lor’,’ Alice whispered. ‘Be careful, miss.’

Julia found her mother in her dressing-room, swishing aside dinner gowns, murmuring, ‘No, no, no! Oh, it’s you, child. There is absolutely nothing to wear and less than a week to go and no time at all to buy new …’

‘Blue,’ Julia pronounced. ‘Something blue, it should be.’

But Pa had always liked her in blue, so blue could not be considered. Nor the apricot silk with the draped neckline, because Mama had worn that to Pa’s last birthday dinner; nor the green satin, either, because she had been wearing it when they came to tell her that Pa wasn’t just late for dinner, but that he wouldn’t be home, ever again.

‘Blue.’ Julia reached for a hanger and removed the cover from the gown. ‘Your orchids will look beautiful with this one. And you should have Miss Clitherow make you a chignon so you can wear orchids in your hair, too.’

‘Hmm. Did you want something?’ Clearly she was in no mood to talk about clothes.

‘N-no. Nothing in particular, except perhaps could Hawthorn be spared to come with me to Harrogate on Monday? I’d thought on the noon train – or it would be better if I were to go alone …’

‘Alone? But you never –’

‘Mama! Girls go everywhere alone, now. In London it’s quite commonplace.’

‘But this is not London, Julia. Nor, I imagine, can Hawthorn be spared on Monday – or any other day next week.’

‘Yes, I know she’s needed to help out downstairs, but I’ve got a good reason for going on my own. It will be Hawthorn’s birthday in two weeks, and she was such a help in London and so kind and thoughtful when I got my bruises, that I’d like to buy some special roses for her hat.

‘The ones she’s got she made herself out of satin scraps, and I want to buy her some silk ones, and maybe a little matching bud for her jacket lapel – to say thank you, I mean. So it’s best she doesn’t come with me and I can manage alone, I really can. If I’m seen on to the train and met off it when I get back, I can’t possibly come to any harm.

‘And I’m nearly twenty-one and it is 1913, Mama, and women travel alone every day in London on the trams and tube trains, really they do,’ she finished breathlessly.

‘London has given you ideas, Julia, and yes, I know you’re not a child and it’s kind of you to think about Hawthorn, but –’

‘But I can’t go alone and no one can be spared next week to go with me!’ Her mouth set stubbornly.

‘Then you are wrong. But just this once, I was going to say, if you promise to get the five o’clock train back, I think you might be allowed –’

‘Mama! Oh, thank you, and I will take care, I will! And Hawthorn wants blue thread and if there’s anything you’d like me to get for you …’

‘There is nothing. But if you find yourself in need of a ladies’ room, then do be careful where you go? The teashop on the corner of James Street is very respectable.’

‘I’ll be careful – I truly will. And when women get the vote there’ll be an end to chaperoning,’ she added, breathlessly triumphant.

‘The vote, Julia?’

‘Sorry, dearest.’ Sorry indeed! Hawthorn had said to be careful and she had forgotten. She’d just blurted it out, and now it was said it couldn’t be taken back. ‘The vote, Mama,’ she said soberly, meeting her mother’s gaze. ‘Women will get it, one day. We will, you know.’

‘One day, perhaps. But not just yet. Not for a long, long time. And you are not to talk about such things on Friday night – please?’

‘I won’t; I promise. I’ll be very ladylike and I’ll watch my tongue and if it gets too bad for you – missing Pa, I mean – look across at me, and I shall understand.’

Helen Sutton closed her eyes tightly, then smiling just a little too brightly, she whispered, ‘The blue it shall be, Julia. I shall wear the blue, on Friday. For your Pa.’

He was waiting outside the station beside the little flower shop, and her feet felt like lead weights, so difficult was it to place one in front of the other. Then the colour Julia had felt drain from her cheeks at the sight of him all at once flooded back, and she began to tremble with relief that he was there.

‘You remembered,’ he smiled, raising his hat. ‘To wear the blue, I mean.’

‘I said I would, next time we met – if it was still summer.’ Love for him washed over her and stuck in her throat in an exquisite ache. ‘And I want so much for you to kiss me.’

‘I want to kiss you, too, but not here.’ She was more beautiful than he remembered, her eyes larger, more luminous, her voice husky with a recognized need. ‘Close to where I am staying, there are gardens. We can walk there …’ He offered his arm and she slipped her hand into it, worried that someone she knew would see them; wishing with all her heart that they would.

‘This seems a prosperous town – what little I have seen of it,’ he murmured. ‘Fine houses, hotels, gardens …’

‘Indeed. A physician could do well here.’ Briefly she teased him with her eyes. ‘Would you ever consider moving north?’

‘Most certainly – given the means to buy myself into a town such as this. But I haven’t enough saved, yet – it’s only right you should know that, darling – so I must stay in London a while longer. By the way, I left my card at your aunt’s house, though I haven’t received hers in return. So until I do, I can’t call on her.’

‘Then I think you should leave another,’ Julia urged. ‘I wrote to her, two days ago, telling her that my bruises were almost gone now, thanks to your skill, so maybe next time you’ll be luckier. I do so want her to receive you.’

‘Receive me? D’you know, lassie, that where I came from there was no card-leaving, no waiting to be asked. In the pit house I grew up in, a neighbour would walk in without fuss and ask was there anything she could do to help – and help we needed, I can tell you that. Or maybe they’d just call for a gossip and a cup of tea – if there was tea to spare, mind, and milk to put in it.

‘But I don’t hold with all these peculiar customs – leaving cards, then waiting to be asked to call. It’s a funny way of going on, to my way of thinking.’

‘I know, Andrew, and I don’t much care for it myself. But it’s the way we do things and – and –’

‘And see where it gets you; snubbed or frustrated, or both. And I haven’t the time to waste leaving cards. I’ve thought a lot about us since you left, Julia; I even tried telling myself you were out of my reach, and to forget you.

‘I’m stubborn, though. When I get to be a fine physician I shall need a fine wife, so you’ll suit me nicely. And there is another thing, far more important. I love you, fine wife or no’, so it’s right I should ask you to marry me and –’

‘Marry you?’ She stood stock still, cheeks blazing. ‘Right out of nowhere, when you haven’t even asked me how my bruises are, you ask me to marry you!’

‘Your bruises are gone, almost, and your eye is fine. I’d be a poor physician if I couldn’t see that with half a glance. No! I have reached the conclusion that time is too short and too precious for the nonsense of card-leaving. I have six days here – few enough, to my way of thinking – so there is no time to waste being socially correct. That is why I’ve decided to speak with your mother or your brother, or both. And I shall declare my intentions and ask that I might be allowed to write to you and meet you here, or at your Aunt Sutton’s house. There now – how does that suit you?’ he smiled.

‘Andrew! You cannot – I cannot –’ He could not, must not, do anything so awful! ‘It isn’t right or proper and you mustn’t call! It isn’t the way we do things. My mother doesn’t even know you exist.’

‘Then you shall tell her, tonight, and ask that when I call tomorrow she’ll be kind enough to invite me inside. I’m not of a mind to shilly-shally, and I don’t approve of hole-in-the-corner affairs between two people who love each other. And do you know, Miss Julia Sutton, how very dear you are, standing there with your mouth wide open?’

‘Andrew, dearest love.’ Tears brightened her eyes and she blinked them away, matching his smile with her own. ‘I don’t think I’ve been so happy in the whole of my life, but it isn’t possible for you to call – it truly isn’t. There’s a way of doing things, and calling uninvited isn’t one of them. I’m sorry. But darling, I’ll soon be twenty-one and can tell them about us. Then, if they forbid it, I shall run away to London to you and –’

‘No, Julia. There’ll be no running anywhere! And do you know a short-cut to those gardens, because I need to kiss some sense into you. And don’t argue, or ask me to change my mind. I intend gettings things straight before I go back to London, so there’s no more to be said! Is that quite, quite clear?’

‘It is – oh, it is! But you don’t know what you are doing. You don’t! Are you willing to risk everything just because of your impatience – and your stubborn Scottish principles?’

‘Aye,’ he said mildly.

‘Then you are a fool, Andrew MacMalcolm, and I love you very much.’

‘Good. And you’ll marry me,’ he whispered, ‘just as soon as I can afford you?’

‘I’ll marry you,’ she choked, sniffing loudly, wondering why it was happening like this and where it would all end. ‘But I can’t think why you should want me. I’m very ordinary and inclined to bossiness and I’ll never be as beautiful as Mama. I really can’t see why –’

‘Can’t you? Then maybe it’s because you aren’t standing where I am. And you might as well know that I’ve loved you right from the start, lying there white-faced and your eyes closed. Even then, I wondered what colour they were …’

‘Then you meant it, Andrew, that day you opened your door to me and said you’d hoped I would come?’

‘I meant it.’ Taking her hand, he lingered a kiss in its upturned palm, just as though they were walking in Hyde Park again, where no one knew them. ‘I meant it, lassie.’

It was seven o’clock before Julia was able to find Alice alone.

‘Hawthorn! At last! Can you come up to the sewing-room? It’s important – and oh, such a mess!’

‘Miss, it’s suppertime and Mrs Shaw’s going to glare if I’m late. Can’t it wait till after?’

‘It can not! And you must tell Cook I waylaid you; say what you want, but I’ve got to talk to you. It can’t wait, because at dinner when Mama and Giles are together, there’s something I’ve got to tell them and you must know about it first because you’re involved – indirectly, that is – and I don’t want to land you in trouble.’

‘What happened in Harrogate?’ Alice sighed. She had known something would go wrong, carrying on like that. ‘Someone saw you, didn’t they?’

‘No. Leastways, I don’t think so – but I don’t care if they did! This is far worse, you see, and far more wonderful. Trouble is, it’s all going to come out.’ She closed the sewing-room door, then leaned against it dramatically. ‘Andrew has asked me to marry him – no, that’s not strictly true. Andrew told me we were to be married just as soon as he can afford me, but –’

‘Miss Julia – that’s lovely!’ Alice closed her eyes rapturously, all at once imagining yards of bridal satin and silk and lace. And creamy-white orchids and a veil so long that –

‘Lovely – yes. But listen! Andrew intends coming to the house tomorrow and telling Mama and Giles that he wants their permission to write to me and visit me here and at Aunt Sutton’s when I’m in London – if ever I’m allowed to go to London again, that is!’

‘Oh, Lordy, miss. You should’ve told him it isn’t done.’ Even a servant knew it wasn’t done. ‘You’ve got to stop him or the cat’ll be out of the bag about London, and I’ll be up to the ears in it, an’ all.’

‘But that’s it, Hawthorn. You won’t be in trouble because I intend telling them what really happened in London. What I won’t tell them is that Andrew and I met alone. I shall say that you were with us at all times and that it was me who insisted on meeting the doctor and that there was nothing you could have done about it, short of locking me in. So you won’t be in any trouble, I promise you. That’s why I had to see you so that when I’ve told Mama you’ll be able to confirm that it was all perfectly correct – if she asks you, that is – and that no blame attaches to you.’

‘I said so, didn’t I, miss; said our sins would find us out. But marry him! You said yes, didn’t you?’ She must have said yes.

‘Of course I did. But you’re the only one who knows, Hawthorn, so you mustn’t breathe a word until I’ve talked to Mama and warned her that a very determined doctor intends presenting himself tomorrow at ten o’clock. And I’ll die of shame if she doesn’t receive him.’

‘She will, Miss Julia. She’s too much of a lady not to. But I hope it turns out all right for you, and that her ladyship doesn’t forbid you ever to go to London again. The doctor’s a lovely gentleman, and if I can I’ll try to get out for just a few minutes – tell it to the rooks, for you, to make it all right. And thanks for not landing me in trouble. I’m ever so grateful, though it’s going to mean we’ll both have to tell a few fibs.’

‘But it’s worth it, Hawthorn. I wish tonight were over and done with, though. I don’t want to set Mama at defiance and tell her that if she won’t see Andrew and says I must never see him again, I shall marry him anyway, as soon as I’m twenty-one.’

‘You wouldn’t do that – her ladyship’s got worries enough being without Sir John, and your brother away in India. You’ll think on, won’t you, miss? Wasn’t she just like you, once, with a young man she was in love with, and didn’t it turn out all right for them? Promise you’ll count to ten?’

Oh, Lordy. What a mess it all was. And where would it end? Because soon it would be out in the open. What would happen then, Alice Hawthorn shuddered to think about!

‘Mama,’ Julia whispered, when dinner was announced. ‘When she has served us, can you ask Mary to leave – please?’

‘Leave us?’ Normally she would have refused such a request, but Helen Sutton heard apprehension in her daughter’s voice and saw it in her eyes. ‘What is so important that it cannot wait until later?’

‘Something that needs to be said to you both, and it can’t wait any longer, though I’ve been wanting to tell you ever since I got back from –’

‘From London?’ On reflection, she thought, her daughter had not been quite her usual impetuous self, though she had supposed it was due to the quietness of Rowangarth after the flurry and whirl of London.

‘No, dearest; from Harrogate. And it isn’t,’ she hastened, ‘anything awful. Just something you and Giles must know. You will, won’t you – ask Mary to leave us alone so I can talk to you?’

‘If I must.’ Helen Sutton slipped her arm through that of her son, frowning as he led her to the dining-room, wondering what had happened between noon and five o’clock to cause such consternation. ‘Did you lose your purse? Your ticket?’

‘No, Mama.’ If only it were that simple. But further talk was impossible, because Giles was drawing out his mother’s chair and Mary stood smiling, soup ladle at the ready, and it seemed an age before the joint was carved and plates passed round and her mother was able to say, ‘Thank you, Mary. We can manage quite nicely now. Coffee in the conservatory tonight, I think it will be. I’ll ring when we are ready for it. And now, if you please, Julia,’ she demanded as the door closed quietly, ‘what is so important that dinner must be disrupted because of it?’

‘Well, it’s – it’s …’ Julia drew in a steadying breath, the carefully rehearsed words forgotten. ‘When I was in London I met a young man – a doctor – and he intends calling on you and Giles tomorrow morning, at about ten.’

There now, she had said it, and in her usual tactless, bull-at-a-gate manner. And oh, please, please, Mama, and you too, Giles, don’t look so stonily at me.

‘I see.’ Helen Sutton laid down her knife and fork.

‘Well, I’m damned.’ Giles’s fork remained suspended between plate and mouth. ‘Calling, is he?’

‘He is. I told – asked – him not to, but he’s set on it, so you will receive him, Mama? And please listen to what he has to say – sympathetically, I mean.’ Her voice trailed into silence and she looked from one to the other, eyes pleading.

‘Do I know this young man?’

‘No. Nor does Giles.’ She refused to tell one more untruth. ‘But if you’ll let me introduce him to you, and if you’ll at least let him stay for coffee, you’ll – you’ll …’

‘Perhaps begin to understand why you appear to be so taken with him?’

‘Yes, Mama. So can I –’

‘Can you get on with it, I hope you mean,’ Giles smiled, ‘and let Mama and I eat our dinner whilst you tell it, for there’s nothing worse than mutton gone cold.’

Then he winked at her and she saw the sympathy she so needed in his eyes, and was grateful that at least her brother was on her side.

‘Well,’ she whispered. ‘I suppose the best place to begin is the beginning and it began when I fell in Hyde Park.’

‘And he was the doctor who helped you. Then he must have called on you again?’

‘No, Giles. I called on him.’ Her eyes were downcast, her fingers plucked nervously at the napkin on her knees. ‘He’d left his card and I wanted to thank him. No. Not to thank him, exactly.’ Her head lifted and she looked directly into her mother’s eyes. ‘I wanted to see him again. And nothing happened. He walked me – us – back to the motor bus, then asked if we would both like to walk in the park the next day. It was all perfectly proper.’

‘It was not proper and you know it, or you’d have told me the truth of it long before this, Julia. I thought you were sensible enough to be trusted alone, but it seems you were not. And Hawthorn encouraging you …’

‘No! It wasn’t like that! Hawthorn spoke most strongly against it, even though she was relieved and grateful he was there to help when I hit my head. But I insisted.’

‘She’s right, Mama. You can’t blame Hawthorn,’ Giles urged. ‘What else was she to do, when Julia had her mind set on it?’

‘Very well – I suppose Hawthorn acted as properly as she was able. And how many times, Julia, did you meet this doctor?’

‘Twice. And correctly chaperoned.’ She closed her eyes for shame at yet another lie, even though it was uttered to protect Hawthorn. ‘Then he said he was coming to Harrogate to study the water cures and asked me to meet him there. And I did and now you know it all,’ she finished breathlessly.

There was a long, apprehensive silence before Helen Sutton demanded, ‘All? Then what foolishness has prompted this man to call on me tomorrow without invitation?’