Читать книгу Ellie Pride - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 9

‘A puppy for John, is it, or more like a sweetener to win the favour of young Ellie?’ William Pride laughed as he watched his young helper button the collie pup he had brought with him from the borders inside his jacket.

‘You’re wasting your time there, my lad,’ William told Gideon, shaking his head. ‘She’s a fine-looking girl, I’ll grant you that. Got her mother’s looks and her fancy airs and graces as well. Lyddy will never allow any daughter of hers to get sweet on a working lad like you. Thinks too much of herself for that, she does.’

‘Mr Pride has always made me very welcome in his home,’ Gideon said stiffly.

‘Oh aye, our Robert – Mr Pride – he will, but we’re talking about Mrs Pride now, lad, ’er as was “a Barclay” before she wed our Robert. I remember how it was when they first met. Let us know that she thought herself well above us, she did, allus talking about her father the solicitor in that posh voice of hers. Of course, our Robert was well fixated on her. Daft as a tuppence-halfpenny wristwatch he was – dafter! I could never see the sense in it m’sel’. Never catch me allowing any woman to rule my life. Good enough in their right place, women is, but only that place!’ He winked meaningfully at Gideon. ‘What tha’ wants, lad, is some willing wench – but make sure she’s clean, mind. I don’t mind telling you I had my problems in that way when I was a young green ’un. Don’t you make the mistake of settling for one before you’ve sampled a few like I did, either. Naught wrong with our Gertie, mind, but a bit of choice isn’t a bad thing, if you know what I mean.’ He grinned, tapping the side of his nose.

Grimly, Gideon forced himself not to object. He knew exactly what his employer meant, and he knew too that once they had parted company William would make his way first to the pub, where he would garner the current gossip, and then to the home of the woman who was his ‘wife’ whenever he was in the town, and by whom he had three tow-headed sons.

Gideon wasn’t finding it as easy to get work as he had hoped – but William Pride paid a fair wage to his men, even though the work itself wasn’t what Gideon really wanted to do.

Every time they visited Preston, as well as calling at Friargate, ostensibly to update John on the progress of his pup, Gideon combed the town’s streets, looking for somewhere to set up his business.

So far his search had been disappointing. Those townspeople rich enough to employ a cabinet-maker, instead of buying ready-manufactured furniture, automatically looked to tradesmen they knew and believed they could trust, many often going as far afield as Gideon’s own ex-master in Lancaster.

He had had one small but potentially lucrative job, which had set his hopes soaring – the restoration of a carved banister in a tumbling-down manor house in Lancashire, which had been bought by a newly rich railway shareholder, but the man had refused to pay Gideon the full amount they had agreed, and he had been lucky to cover his costs for the job, never mind make a profit.

He was not about to give up, though. The struggle he was having now would make his eventual success very sweet, and even sweeter if he were able to have Ellie to share it with him.

Ellie. How she teased and tantalised him, giving him bold, tormenting looks one minute, and the next blushing a softly delicious pink just because he had happened to comment on her mother’s pregnancy.

Gideon frowned as he thought about Lydia Pride. There was a very different atmosphere in the Pride household now, in April, than there had been when he had first been invited there in Guild Week.

Robert Pride himself had changed, Gideon believed. He no longer seemed to laugh as easily or as heartily, and there was a hangdog, sheepish look about him whenever he was around his wife.

Even Ellie seemed to be affected by the change in her parents’ relationship, and Gideon had seen how very protective she had become of her mother.

The pup inside his jacket struggled and yelped, reminding him of its presence and his plans. He had first to take his bag to his lodgings – a small but reasonably clean room tucked away at the back of a small courtyard – and then he would deliver the puppy – and set eyes again on Ellie.

‘Show me again, Gideon,’ John pleaded as the balls he had been trying to juggle refused to move as dextrously in his hands as they did in Gideon’s.

Laughing, Gideon did so. They were standing outside Robert’s shop in the sharp spring sunlight, waiting for the rest of the Pride family. Robert had invited Gideon to join them for the traditional Easter Monday egg rolling in Avenham Park, and Gideon had accepted gratefully, only too pleased to have a legitimate excuse to spend some time with Ellie.

‘If you don’t want to go to the park, Mother, would you like me to stay here with you?’ Ellie offered anxiously.

‘No, you must go, Ellie, if only to keep an eye on John and that wretched dog of his,’ Lydia sighed tiredly.

The combination of a boldly inquisitive and danger-prone ten-year-old and an equally adventurous collie pup was not one that was designed to soothe a mother’s natural fears.

John had become devoted to his pet. They went everywhere together, and virtually every day he insisted that they all watch whilst this wondrous creature performed some new trick he had taught it.

‘And look out for Connie too. You know what she’s like.’

The closer it got to her due date, the more haunted Lydia was becoming by the warnings she had been given. It was all very well for Robert to say that doctors always tended to look on the black side, and to remind her that she had already produced three healthy children with no risk to herself whatsoever. Sometimes in the night she dreamed that she was a girl again, her body slender and empty, and she would wake up full of relief until she realised the truth.

Her sisters, she knew, blamed Robert, and so increasingly did she.

As the youngest child of the family she had perhaps been indulged rather more than the others – she had certainly been far more rebellious. Also her marriage, Lydia knew, was different from those of her sisters, just as her nature was different. If her daughters had inherited that streak of sensuality from her they would need to learn to guard against it, otherwise…

‘Are you sure?’ she heard Ellie asking her.

‘Yes. You go, and, Ellie…’ But as Ellie turned back, Lydia shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

To warn her daughter at this stage against Gideon Walker might do more harm than good. Ellie was a young girl, after all, and Gideon was an extremely handsome young man. Lydia was not so old that she could not remember the way she had felt when Robert had first looked at her with his bold, laughing eyes and his warm smile…

Sunshine danced on the crystal bowl in the middle of the table, and suddenly Ellie was impatient to be outside. Giving her mother a swift kiss, she hurried to the door.

‘John, if you are not careful you will break all your eggs before we even reach the park,’ Ellie scolded, as John, growing bored with his family’s leisurely progression, began to swing his basket of eggs.

The town’s Easter Monday festivities at Avenham Park was a popular and well-attended event, especially the egg-rolling race.

But much as John wanted to hurry them towards what he considered to be the most important and exciting part of the day, his sisters obstinately refused to listen.

‘Oh, Ellie, do look. There is Sukey Jefferies from school. Just look at her dress.’ Connie was tugging on Ellie’s arm.

Judiciously Ellie studied the other girl, who, like them, was accompanied by her family. The Jefferies family were involved in the cotton trade, and considered to be well-to-do, even though they did not actually own any of the town’s mills.

‘The silk is far too rich for a daytime outing,’ she pronounced, ‘and as for all those lace frills and flounces…’

‘It looks very grand,’ Connie breathed enviously. ‘I wish that Mother would allow me to wear a proper grown-up dress, instead of making me wear these stupid pinafores, like a child. After all, Sukey is only a year older than me.’

‘She is two years older,’ Ellie corrected her, ‘and her dress is far too fussy.’

It wasn’t just their beauty that the Barclay sisters were renowned for, it was their taste and stylishness as well, and Ellie knew instinctively just what her mother would have thought of Sukey’s gown, with all its fanciful, overdone trimmings.

Her own dress, for all its simplicity, was, Ellie knew, far more stylish and elegant, but before she could say as much to her sister, John was rudely interrupting their conversation, demanding, ‘Oh, why must we waste time talking about such stuff? If we don’t hurry we won’t get a decent place.’

‘There is plenty of time, and I know the exact spot we need,’ Ellie reassured him, unaware that she was being observed keenly by Gideon, walking slightly behind them with her father, as she gave John an impishly droll look.

‘What, you mean you will show me the spot you’ve won the egg race from three years running?’ John exclaimed in excitement.

This awesome feat by his elder sister had become a part of their family history, and secretly it was John’s goal not just to match it but, with luck, to better it.

‘What’s this? I hadn’t realised that we had a champion egg roller in our midst!’ Gideon exclaimed, joining in the fun.

Flushing a little, Ellie nevertheless held his gaze.

‘I think we shall have to put your skills to the test,’ Gideon announced, ‘since I consider myself to have some sporting skill.’

‘Yes! Yes!’ John encouraged, dancing up and down.

‘What do you say, Miss Pride – will you allow me to challenge you?’ Gideon laughed.

A little uncertainly, Ellie looked at her father, half expecting and even half hoping that he might object and insist, as she suspected her mother would have done, that such behaviour on her part would be unseemly, but to her consternation he just laughed and said, ‘You will have to be very good, Gideon, if you are to best Ellie. Had she been a boy I dare say she would be captaining the Hutton cricket team by now.’

They had nearly reached the end of the elegant colonnaded walk that led into the park. Several family groups had paused to chat, and Ellie recognised her cousin Cecily in one of them, with her fiancé, but she didn’t draw her father’s attention to their presence, sensitively aware that Cecily might not want to acknowledge them if she was with her fiancé’s family.

Cecily’s father-in-law-to-be was, as Aunt Gibson had proudly informed her sister, a very senior Liverpool surgeon, Sir James Charteris, who, through his wife’s family, was connected with the nobility!

A group of girls of around her own age hurried past them, and Ellie guessed from their loud voices that they must work in one of the town’s mills. Everyone knew that the noise inside the weaving sheds turned people deaf and that the millworkers had devised their own sign language for communicating with one another.

One of the girls suddenly stopped. Taller than Ellie, with a wild mane of thick curly red hair and a pale complexion, she gave Ellie an astutely assessing female look before tossing her head dismissively and going boldly up to Gideon, throwing him a look that was openly flirtatious, as she exclaimed in the thickest of the town’s dialect, ‘Well, if it isn’t Mr Gideon Walker…’

‘Good afternoon, Miss Nancy,’ Gideon responded with an easy openness that shocked and dismayed Ellie. Immediately she drew herself up to her own full height and pursed her lips every bit as disapprovingly as her mother would have done.

‘Miss Nancy!’ the redhead emphasised, and laughed.

‘Come on, Nance.’ One of the other girls tugged on her skirt. ‘There’s free refreshments for them as gets there first, and I’m fair clemmed…’

Watching the girls hurry away, Ellie had to admit that the cheap dress worn by ‘Miss Nancy’ had far more style about it than those of her companions. Did Gideon find the redheaded mill girl attractive? Did he think her pretty…prettier than she? Did he want to kiss her? Had he perhaps already kissed her?

Ellie’s mother considered that red was not a suitable hair colour for a young lady, and Ellie had been brought up to be proud of her own soft golden curls, but now suddenly she was sharply aware that a woman did not necessarily have to have blonde curls and ladylike manners to attract a man.

‘Who was that?’ John demanded, too young to feel any need to conceal his curiosity.

‘Miss Nancy and some of her co-workers rent rooms in the house next to where I rent my own,’ Gideon explained easily. ‘She came to me for assistance some time ago, when…when one of the girls had…had fainted. I believe that underneath her brash manner she is a good sort, and –’

‘These mill girls have a very hard life,’ Robert Pride interrupted. ‘Every year so many are killed in accidents with the heavy looms. There is much talk of the need to reform the conditions under which the mills are run.’

‘There is always talk,’ Gideon replied sharply, ‘but very rarely any action, and even when there is, the mill owners seem to find a way to circumvent it. I was called into one of the mills the other day to repair a piece of machinery – I think I would go mad had I to work there permanently. The noise alone, never mind anything else.’

Ellie could feel the heaviness that had enveloped the two men as they talked. The looks on their faces reminded her of the man she had seen in the fish market the previous Friday when she had gone there with her mother.

He had gathered a small crowd around him, and Ellie had been forced to wait until a pathway had been cleared before she could follow her mother past him. Whilst she had done so, she had heard the man declare, ‘These mills are a running sore on the face of our town, and worse, the running sore we can see. But what of those other sores which are hidden shamefully from view, the plight of those who work in such abominations? The plight of our womenfolk, our sisters, our daughters, our mothers…’

Ellie’s mother had dragged her away before Ellie could hear any more.

Now suddenly she felt angry with ‘Miss Nancy’ for intruding on the happiness of her day.

‘Come on,’ John was urging them all. ‘Hurry up…’

‘Are you sure you haven’t changed your mind?’ Gideon demanded teasingly as he and Ellie stood side by side at the top of the hill.

All around them children were rolling their eggs, their cries of disappointment or triumph filling the air.

Since neither she nor Gideon had come equipped with eggs to roll, Gideon and her father had purchased some from one of the booths set up in the park. Surreptitiously Ellie checked them. In her experience the right consistency of hard-boiled egg was essential if they were to roll any distance – and not just the consistency of the inside of the egg. She had always painted hers with a special paint she had mixed herself, which had helped to bond the shell together. But these eggs…

‘Chicken?’ Gideon demanded, laughing.

‘Chicken…eggs,’ John laughed, hugely delighted with his wit.

‘I don’t know why you are laughing, John Pride,’ Connie taunted him. ‘All your eggs are broken – apart from those eaten by your dog!’

With the two of them squabbling amicably as a backdrop, Ellie picked up her first egg.

Childishly she held her breath a little as it rolled down the hill, only letting it out when she saw that the egg had gone a respectable distance and remained unbroken as it lay in the small dip in the group that had trapped it.

‘Ah-ha. That is good, but I believe I can do better,’ Gideon boasted.

He had seen the look of smouldering female resentment that Ellie had given Nancy, and it was that rather than any desire to win the egg-rolling race that was responsible for his high spirits. Ellie had been jealous!

Carefully, Gideon reached for his first egg.

‘No, you can’t do that,’ Ellie reproached him firmly, as he gently threw the egg several yards before it dropped to the ground and rolled with great speed down the hill.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s against the rules.’

‘What rules? I haven’t seen any rules,’ Gideon protested, mock innocently.

He loved the way Ellie’s eyes darkened with emotion, the way she threw herself so wholeheartedly into everything she did. Was she herself aware of the passionate intensity of her own nature or had her mother succeeded in hiding it from her beneath the smothering strait-jacket of ladylike behaviour she imposed on her?

‘Gideon’s egg has gone further than yours, Ellie,’ John sang out.

Ellie reached for her second egg, giving Gideon a challenging look of determination.

This time it was Connie who was dancing up and down in excitement as they watched Ellie’s second egg roll triumphantly past Gideon’s.

‘Right!’ To John’s delight Gideon immediately took up a very determined male stance, rubbing his hands together lightly before picking up his own second egg.

Once again Ellie discovered that she was holding her breath whilst willing Gideon’s egg not to match the distance achieved by her own.

Judiciously, Gideon mentally measured the distance from where he was standing to where Ellie’s egg lay.

‘Come on, Gideon,’ John shouted. ‘You can’t let her beat you. She’s a girl.’

She certainly was, Gideon acknowledged, trying not to let himself think about the way the bodice of Ellie’s dress moulded the soft curves of her breasts.

There was something distractingly enticing about the demure, daintily pleated neckline against her throat. And as for that enchantingly ridiculous nonsense of straw and ribbons she was pleased to call a hat – did she have any idea just what she was doing to him when she looked up at him from beneath its brim, or when he looked at her and could see only the straight sweetness of her nose, and the full promise of her mouth?

If he allowed her to win, John would never let him hear the end of it, but if he beat her…He too was holding his breath as he watched his egg roll down the grassy slope.

Just a few feet short of her own, Gideon’s egg came to a stop. Exhilarated colour warmed Ellie’s face. She started to turn towards Gideon and then stopped as out of the corner of her eye she saw Rex, John’s pup, suddenly rush past her in pursuit of the egg.

‘No…he mustn’t touch it!’ she cried out, but Gideon, guessing what the pup had been instructed to do, was already lunging down the hill. Angrily, Ellie followed him, whilst Robert Pride firmly held John back, demanding that he recall his errant accomplice.

The pup had already reached the egg, which he had picked up, but the moment he saw Nemesis in the shape of both Gideon and Ellie bearing down on him, he dropped it and headed back to his master.

The egg, given fresh impetus, rolled happily forward, quickly overtaking the others, before dropping out of sight into a small hidden grassy dip.

‘Oh no!’ Ellie cried out hotly, and then gasped, as she suddenly lost her footing and pitched forward.

Immediately, Gideon turned to try to help her, his arms wrapping protectively around her, and somehow ended up also slipping on the steep slope. Body to body they followed the path of the egg and, like it, came to rest in the secluded grassy dip.

‘Oh, that John,’ Ellie condemned her young brother, as she lay against the protective warmth of Gideon’s body, trying to get her breath.

‘He is a mischief,’ Gideon agreed in amusement, the expression in his eyes suddenly changing as he looked at Ellie. ‘But right now,’ he murmured, ‘it is his sister I am much more interested in. Has anyone ever told you, Ellie Pride, just how beautiful you are? How adorably sweet your nose is. How irresistibly kissable your lips are…?’

With every word he uttered Gideon’s voice became thicker and softer, and with every word Ellie’s sense of excitement and wonder grew. She could feel her heart beating so fast beneath the bodice of her dress that it was a wonder she could still breathe.

As he looked down at her, into her eyes and then at her mouth, before lifting his gaze to her eyes again, Gideon groaned softly.

‘Ellie,’ he whispered. His fingertips touched the side of her face, and he marvelled at the softness of her skin, its purity and perfection, whilst Ellie shuddered in pleasure that such a little touch should do so much!

She could feel the warmth of Gideon’s breath against her face, her lips. His eyes were no longer a cold silver grey, but a hot liquid gunmetal colour that made her insides feel as though they were melting.

His lips touched hers, brushing them gently. Ellie gave a small gasp and then a soft sigh.

Boldly, Gideon kissed her with more pressure. He could feel his longing for her, his love exploding inside him. Unable to stop himself he ran the tip of his tongue along the soft, closed virginal innocence of her mouth. Her lips felt so soft, so warm, so Ellie…Cupping her face in his hands, Gideon forced himself to remember where they were.

‘I know it may be too soon to say this to you, Ellie Pride, but let me tell you this,’ he began, his voice husky with emotion. ‘I love you and I will always love you. And just as soon as I am able to do so I intend to claim you for my own. For my wife,’ he emphasised, just in case Ellie might mistake the seriousness of his intentions.

Her eyes shining with emotion, Ellie gazed wonderingly back at him. Gideon loved her. And she knew that she loved him. Hadn’t she spent far too many nights lying in the bed she shared with Connie, secretly thinking about him and dreaming of a moment like this, even to think of doubting it?

‘Nothing can stop what’s happening between us,’ Gideon told her fiercely. ‘Nothing…and no one.’

‘If the ladies are ready, I suggest that we start to make our way back to Winckley Square.’

Courteously Stephen Simpson waited for the female members of his party to agree with him. It had been at his suggestion that they had gone to the park to watch the local children rolling their eggs. He had a house party this Easter, and his guests had clamoured to witness such an unusual custom.

As she joined the other ladies of the party, Mary Isherwood smiled at her host. The Simpson family had owned their gold thread works in Avenham Lane for several generations, and were a sociable family, who, Mary knew, had been very fond of her mother. It had been kind of them to invite her to join this party. The ladies of the family had been the first hostesses to leave a calling card on her return to Preston.

‘I understand that you are having a great deal of work done on your late father’s house.’

Mary turned towards the woman speaking to her. They had met for only the first time today, and it was tempting for Mary to reply that she must have come by her information from someone else, since Mary herself had made no mention of Isherwood House.

Almost as though she guessed what Mary was thinking, the other woman explained, ‘I live across the square from you. My husband is Dr Gibson.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Mary acknowledged, fibbing politely. ‘I believe I have seen you in the square with your family.’

‘My daughters,’ Amelia informed her proudly. ‘My eldest, Cecily, has recently become engaged to Mr Paul Charteris. His father is an eminent surgeon and Mr Charteris hopes to follow in his father’s footsteps.’

Mary was able to place the other woman now and to realise who she was. ‘Ah, yes. I see that your daughters have inherited the Barclay family looks. They are both very pretty girls.’

Amelia beamed and preened herself a little. ‘Well, yes, it is true that they have. That is…my sisters and I…and luckily all our daughters have…’ She trailed off as she saw the direction in which Mary was looking.

‘I see that you are admiring Mr William Ainsworth’s villa,’ she smiled.

‘Admiring it!’ Mary’s voice hardened. ‘I could never do that, knowing the nature of the man who built it. My father had the reputation of being a hard employer – he was certainly a very hard father – but his lack of regard for his workers was nothing to that of William Ainsworth. The cruelties and injustices he inflicted on those who worked for him!’ Mary’s mouth compressed. ‘It is an open secret that the fines he imposed upon his wretched workers for his own cleverly thought-up “offences” rendered them unable to live on what was left of their wages, to the extent that the female workers were forced to –’

‘My dear,’ Amelia intervened hastily, her face flushing, ‘I have no wish to offend you, but as an unmarried woman, I do not think –’

‘You do not think what?’ Mary challenged her sharply. ‘That I should have been indelicate enough to discuss the fact that members of our sex have to sell their bodies on the streets of our town simply to feed themselves? No, shameful indeed that I should dare to do so! But how much more shameful is it that such a situation should exist and that we as women should turn our backs on it?’

Without waiting for Amelia to respond, Mary turned away and went to take her leave of her host.

It was perhaps unfair of her to let rip at her neighbour in such a way, but it infuriated her that women of Amelia’s ilk should so easily and so damagingly turn their backs on the misery that lay so close to their homes. But then who could blame her for her attitude when the law of the land itself denied her any say in the way the country was run? It was inequitable that in a country like Great Britain, which considered itself to be the foremost and most advanced, politically democratic nation in the world, that its women should be denied the most basic and most important political right – that of being allowed to vote.

The sooner that situation was changed the better, so far as Mary was concerned, and she knew that she was not alone in her desire.