Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📕

pulse of the city around her; wheels, horses, trains, machines, humans. The plane trees sough below the sky, white sunshine sparkling from their leaves as if from ruffled water. Someone seizes her shoulders, a face moves in towards hers.

‘You did it, darling! I knew you would. Oh, well done. I’m so pleased.’

Annie, in a halo of jasmine scent and tendrils of hair and unsuitable tulle-trimmed hat. Cool hands take hers, as if inviting her to the dance.

‘Are you happy? You must be happy. All your work, darling, all those years. Such triumph. We must send a telegram to your parents. Lots of telegrams, to everyone! And there is a prize, did you know that? You could take a holiday or—oh, anything you like.’

Ally looks at her. She may be about to cry. Jubilant, yes, she should be jubilant. But is not. She wants to turn and run through the streets to—somewhere, to hide herself. She has indeed done it, but nothing has changed, nothing feels different. And qualifying, even at the top of her class, is only permission to move on to the next thing to do, which is to find a job, to avoid returning to Manchester.

‘Dearest Ally, are you not pleased? How can you not be happy? Come, Papa has champagne on ice in readiness.’

She must speak. ‘Congratulations, Annie. We have all done well.’

Annie shakes her head. ‘Yes, yes, of course. And thank you. I am very happy. But you—’

‘Don’t, please.’

‘You don’t wish to be congratulated?’

She twists away. Annie drops her hands.

‘I’m sorry, Annie. I can’t do this. Celebration. Best leave me. Honestly, go. Drink your champagne and dance and be happy. And I congratulate you.’

She lifts her hands to Annie’s shoulders, not, she knows, as someone accustomed to embracing, to affection, would do, misses Annie’s cheek with her lips, touches her face and turns to go, almost running, her footsteps a panicky staccato across the flagstones.

H

ER

M

OTHER’S

C

HARITIES

My dear Mr. Cavendish,’ Mrs. Dunne had written, ‘it would give Mr. Dunne and me much pleasure if you could spare an evening to celebrate our niece’s success on Friday. As you see, we are so confident of her talent and diligence that we venture to plan a family gathering in advance of the results, and I know I do not need to ask your kindness should it turn out that we have been precipitate in our arrangements! Perhaps you would do me the honour of taking tea with me before Miss Moberley returns from the hospital? I should so like the opportunity to further our acquaintance.’

A command, plainly. He does not have time, Penvenick awaits his return to the office in Falmouth and there are orders to complete, discussions to conduct, before he can leave London. He makes time. He returns to his lodgings early in the afternoon to bathe, to put on the last set of fresh linen his landlady will grant him this week, to try to make his hair lie flat. He reminds himself to walk slowly, to adjust the rhythm of feet and thought, because it is again a hot day and he does not want to offer Mrs. Dunne a damp hand to shake, to arrive once again mopping his brow. The heat, his mother always said, does not suit redheads. We are not born to it.

The housemaid opens the door, the pretty one who looks at him through her eyelashes. ‘Oh, Mr. Cavendish!’ she says, as if he has jumped out at her from behind the coat-stand rather than ringing the doorbell and waiting at the door. ‘Good afternoon,’ he says, knowing that he is probably supposed to call her ‘Fanny’ and unable to do so when she has just used his title. Ally, he reminds himself, is the visiting niece, in fact if not in courtesy the poor relation. She is no more accustomed to housemaids, to coat-stands and Persian carpets, than he is.

Mrs. Dunne is sitting, as always, in her armchair at the fireside, her feet, as always, resting on a footstool covered in her own embroidery. Instead of a fire, gold, orange and crimson dahlias fill the grate and lean over the hearth. The blue walls and leaf-green curtains filter an underwater light and the room feels cool and slow.

‘Mr. Cavendish. It is so kind of you to join me. We expect Ally, you know, in an hour or so, the results go up at four, but I did want a little of your company first. Please, sit down.’ She gestures towards the sofa, upholstered in pale blue silk. He hopes there are no smuts on his trousers. ‘Now, I will be ringing for tea in a moment, but perhaps first I might offer you a glass of lemonade? Or shrub?’

Shrub? Bushes?

‘Please don’t trouble, Mrs. Dunne. I will wait for your delicious tea.’

Not, of course, that the trouble would be hers, not beyond the ringing of the bell.

‘Just as you prefer.’ She picks up the embroidery always at her side and begins to stitch. ‘Has your time in London been a success, Mr. Cavendish? Beyond the lectures, of course, I have heard all about those and offer my congratulations; it is not an easy thing to expound your profession in that way. I gather you are an accomplished speaker.’

He shakes his head. ‘I like to explain what interests me. To an audience already interested. It is not much of an accomplishment.’

‘Still, it requires a certain kind of courage, to stand before a crowd and undertake to speak for an hour.’ Her fingers tug the needle through the canvas taut in its wooden ring. ‘And you have been enjoying Ally’s company. We have been so glad to see her happy. To see her allow herself occasional respite from her work.’

Of course, he is being asked his intentions. Even though Ally is rising thirty, even though she is—or will be in the next hour—a doctor.

He looks steadily at his hostess. ‘It has been a joy to me to spend time with her. I have