A Brighter Tomorrow by Maggie Ford (read with me .txt) 📕

into the daylight, where the stiff breeze that had seen them go in was now developing into a high wind, so that she needed to hang on to her hat despite the pins holding it to her nicely piled up hair.

‘It was certainly very different,’ she said, aware that during several alarming scenes such as the train one, she had clutched his arm. She tried to feign nonchalance. ‘But I don’t think it’ll ever properly catch on. It’s too harsh on the eyes and it could give people headaches watching it too long. But I’m glad I’ve seen it before it outwears its fascination.’

He laughed. ‘The new century seems to be full of new ideas at the moment, even machines that can fly.’

Ellie looked scornful. ‘People can already fly: balloons take them high up in the air and they go for miles looking down on all of us.’ Looking down on people like her. One day she would be able to afford to go up in a balloon and look down on others.

‘But these will be powered by machines.’ Michael interrupted her thoughts. Then he laughed again. ‘Whether it works or not, remains to be seen, I suppose.’

Dinner brought them back to normality, a nice ordinary little meal of lamb cutlets with fruit pudding and custard to follow, in a small restaurant, one in which she felt comfortable, a far cry from her grand ordeal at the Ritz.

Michael got her home by nine thirty. These days she entered by the front door, opened this evening by Rose. Obliged to stay up to let her in, she was blinking wearily after a long day and looking to her bed.

‘Thank you,’ Ellie said graciously, but received no reply except a brief and, it seemed to her, rather reluctant bob. No doubt Florrie was still intent on keeping the old grudge alive, probably with Cook’s blessing.

Bidding goodnight to her, Michael startled her by dropping a tiny kiss on her cheek, turning immediately and skipping down the front steps and into the waiting cab before the eyes of an open-mouthed Rose. More fuel to fire staff gossip, came the thought, as she made her way up to her room; but on her cheek she could still feel the touch of Michael’s lips. It felt so nice.

Outside her window the wind had whipped itself up, blowing almost a full gale. As she lay awake she thought about him, hoping he’d arrived home safely as she heard a chimney pot dislodged by the wind crash down into the street below. It was enough to have blown his cab over.

She didn’t know until Monday that more than fifty people had been killed in the floods and gales that had lashed the whole country. But with Michael calling on Monday evening as right as rain to resume her lessons, she gave no more thought to it. Her main interest was that he might ask if he could take her out again.

Fifteen

It was Thursday. Ellie had gone off to bed after her hour-and-a-half lesson, but before he left, Michael needed to speak to Doctor Lowe. Told he was on his own in the sitting room, his wife already having retired, Michael made his way there and tapped politely on the door.

Entering to the man’s invitation, he found the doctor taking his ease on the sofa, enjoying a final nightcap. The man beamed up at him and motioned to the armchair opposite him.

‘Ah, Michael. Take a seat.’

As Michael sat, he went on, ‘My dear chap, what brings you here? Whisky?’ He indicated a decanter on the small table beside him.

Michael gave him a smile. ‘Thank you, but I’ll be off home shortly. I need to have a brief word with you about Miss Jay, that’s all.’

‘Yes, she seems to be blossoming very well under your guidance. I am most pleased with the way things are coming along. Tell me how you yourself feel she is progressing. When I ask her how she is doing, she shrugs, says “all right, not bad”, and appears disinterested. So how is she coming along?’

Michael gazed into the fire burning in the grate, its brightness boosted by a frosty January evening. This wasn’t what he had come to talk about. He had to get down to the real subject. He had his excuse all ready, preliminary to a request he wished to make.

‘She’s proving to be a talented artist. I think she could go far.’

Doctor Lowe frowned suddenly. ‘What do you mean – she could go far?’

‘I mean she could become a great artist if she puts her mind to it – that is, if a lady artist can go all that far. But she would need a tutor who can teach her far more than I ever can. To tell the truth, sir, my own effort as an artist is very mediocre. I am nowhere near as gifted as she is.’

Bertram Lowe seemed not to be listening. He was studying his whisky glass. His voice had grown cool. ‘I doubt she will be pursuing her talents to such lengths as could take her away from this house, where she has a comfortable home,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t think she would want that.’

‘Whether that’s true or not, she might one day marry and have a home of her own.’ They were getting further and further from the real subject of his visit. He saw the man frown and purse his chubby lips, still regarding his whisky glass.

‘Marriage. That will not be for a long time yet.’

‘The truth is,’ Michael interrupted with the matter he wanted to speak about, ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she seems to harbour some rather dark thoughts inside her. These pictures she draws—’

‘Yes, I know of them,’ interrupted Bertram. ‘I’ve known of them for quite some time. She is probably frustrated with what she has drawn, no doubt disappointed and annoyed with herself.’

‘But it’s always the same drawing, over and over, and always heavily scored out, almost