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

taken to the water like that, she was too young to be there, it was too much, it was obvious to anyone with any sense—’

She stops. Her shoulders rise in a deep shuddering sigh. ‘Anyway, Mr. Cavendish, that, I am sorry to say, is May’s story. And since then, my sister has apparently cared less for Ally than she did before, which is probably a blessing to the dear child. You must excuse my frankness, but there are things you should know.’

The boat. He should not have taken her rowing. Would not have done, had he known, had she trusted him with her sister’s story.

‘I thank you,’ he says. ‘I thank you for your candour. It is what few people would offer me.’

She nods again. ‘I overstep, I know. Perhaps I meddle. But—well, if you and my niece are to develop your acquaintance, I should be sorry to feel that you might later discover complications that could lead to difficulties. I hope we have been able to make Ally comfortable here, Mr. Cavendish, but however our establishment may appear to you, she has not had an easy life. I should very much like to see her happy.’ She picks up her sewing again. ‘I should like her to be cherished.’

I will cherish her, he wants to say, I will make her happy, I will take her far away from her mother to Cornwall where I will love her for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sickness and health. But it is more complicated than that, where there are two professional lives at stake. Where there are two vocations, and two adults carrying two stories.

H

ER

N

EW

N

AME

She finds herself in the Park, her hair sticking to her damp face and itchy under her hat. There are children paddling barefoot, little girls with their skirts tucked high into their knickers. She could unfasten the boots that press her stocking seams into her toes and leave the imprints of their bindings on her hot feet, lift her skirts to unbutton her suspenders and roll down her black wool stockings. She remembers May in the river with Aubrey, and Papa balanced before his easel under the willow, a painting bought by a railway magnate and now somewhere in the warren of Bowden Park Hall. Does the magnate know what happened to the girl in his picture? There are no girls in pictures, of course, only arrangements of light and line, colour and shape. If she sits on this bench, she will be taken for a prostitute. She walks on, slow as a lady. Her feet ache. She is thirsty. She leans on the parapet, the stone flesh-warm in the sun and abrasive on her forearms. Doctor Moberley. Dr. Alethea Moberley. She has done it. And she is not going to telegraph anyone, nor take someone else’s champagne, but stand here by the water in the sun, hot and thirsty, and call herself by her new name.

T

HE

S

ILVER

I

CE-

B

UCKET

Darling! We were worried about you.’ Aunt Mary, in a swirl of kingfisher silk. ‘And congratulations, my dear girl. Such a triumph. James says it will be in the newspapers! Such a splendid return for all your work. We are all so proud and pleased for you.’

She accepts Aunt Mary’s kiss. ‘Thank you. And thank you for all your help, Aunt Mary. It would have been a very different thing if I had had to live in lodgings and pay my board.’

‘Nonsense, darling, you would prevail over any adversity. And we love having you here. Come, we have made a little party for you. It is not every day someone makes history in the house!’

We are all making history, Ally thinks, future becoming present becoming past moment by moment as the planet spins.

Tom is there, holding a sandwich on a plate and standing in the bay with George, and Uncle James poised like a bird beside the silver ice-bucket usually saved for dinner parties but now beaded with condensation at five in the afternoon, and the boys washed and brushed since school.

‘Hurray!’ shouts Freddie. ‘Three cheers for Aunt Al. Hip hip!’

The men cheer foolishly, self-conscious as someone singing to a child before other adults, and Aunt Mary, a tear sliding down her cheek, holds Ally’s gaze, beaming. Uncle James passes the champagne to Tom and comes to kiss Ally.

‘Congratulations, my dear. We are all very proud of you.’

Ally swallows, fights down the urge to run again.

‘Thank you, Uncle James. It would have been so much harder without your patronage.’

Tom, who has been struggling, vanquishes the champagne. It runs over his fingers, across the coppery hairs on the backs of his hands.

He hands her a glass. ‘Champagne, Dr. Moberley?’

V

ACANT

S

ITUATIONS

I will see you to the door,’ she says. It feels as if the champagne’s bubbles are drifting and bursting in her head, and she doesn’t care that the others exchange glances.

The hall is dark and she almost stumbles over the umbrella-stand as she reaches for his coat. He steadies her, a hand on her arm.

‘Careful, Miss Moberley.’

‘Dr. Moberley,’ she says. ‘Ally. Call me Ally.’

He is still touching her. He reaches up the other hand and strokes her cheek. ‘Ally. Listen, Ally, I need to speak to you before I leave for Cornwall.’

She looks up. Really? Will he really, now?

He shakes his head. ‘Not now. You are—this conversation requires the cold light of day. Things are complicated.’

She clings to his arm. ‘I have taken champagne. I am unaccustomed.’

‘I know. So we will say good night now, and if I may, I will call in the morning?’

She rubs her cheek on his shoulder. ‘Of course you may, Mr. Cavendish. Tom. Whenever you choose.’

‘Look for me at ten.’

She leans on him. She could go to sleep here and now, his jacket smooth under her cheek in the darkened hall. Except that she has to keep standing up.

‘Ally? I need to go now. And you should perhaps go to bed.’

‘I like it here.’

‘Good.’ He takes her hands from his arm, guides her head back to