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

obliterated. If she isn’t happy with the attempt, why does she not tear up the drawing? But she keeps it all, piles of it.’

The doctor took another sip of his whisky. ‘I suspect all artistic minds have their odd ways and I expect this is her way of reminding herself to do better.’

‘But always the same drawing?’ Michael queried. The question was met with silence. The silence spinning itself out, he leapt on the opportunity to turn to what he’d originally come to ask.

‘I’ve noticed she spends much of her time cooped up in this house. I do think she needs to be lifted out of herself.’

Doctor Lowe looked up sharply at him, his full lips growing tight. ‘If she wants to go out more often, Mr Deel, she has only to tell me and I will take her anywhere she wishes to go.’

This was Michael’s cue. ‘Sir, I was very happy to oblige when you suggested I take her to watch the Boer War heroes’ victory parade. I’d very much like to ask your permission to take her out again at some time, to a theatre perhaps, or to an art gallery, or wherever she wished to go. I know you’re a very busy man and can’t always find the time—’

He found his outpouring halted abruptly by the doctor suddenly leaning forward to put his whisky glass down with a loud thump on the side table and getting to his feet.

Politely Michael stood up too. ‘I merely suggested, if I could be of help…’

‘If I need anyone to take my dau—’ There was a sharp hesitation; then he went on. ‘If I need anyone to take Miss Jay out, I will ask. Enthusiastic as you are about her artistic talent, your task here, my dear chap, is to help her with her diction and give her tuition in drawing and painting, since that is what she enjoys doing. It is a pastime, a pleasant diversion for her – no more than that. So no more about her progressing to higher levels than she is capable of; and I would ask you as politely as possible, your father and I being close acquaintances, to leave Miss Jay’s well-being and happiness to me, and your good intentions outside. It’s often said the road to hell is paved with good intentions – a road to unhappiness; and my sole concern is to see her not made unhappy. Now, I thank you for your concern, my dear Michael, and though I am happy for you to continue to tutor her, Miss Jay’s private life is better left to me. Now it is getting late. I bid you goodnight.’

With no other option, Michael gave the man a formal nod of the head and left, wondering why the man should feel so touchy about his asking to take Ellie out for a brief evening of freedom. Freedom – that was how it struck him. Something about her intimated that this house constituted a prison to her from which she seemed forever struggling to escape.

What mystified him more was the sudden and abrupt hesitation mid-sentence when he’d refused his help. He’d been about to call her something. ‘My…’ My what? Surely he hadn’t been about to say ‘daughter’, though it had sounded as if that was exactly what he’d been going to say. Did he honestly see in Ellie a replacement for the loss of his daughter and, having lost her, was he terrified of losing the replacement? Was that why he was so reluctant to let her out of his sight?

Michael shrugged. He was probably being fanciful. But he liked Ellie a great deal. He wanted so to get to know her better. She’d told him she’d be seventeen in less than three months. He was twenty-two, a difference of five years: perfect, as far as he could see, for two people to get together.

Of course there were two obstacles: one, his parents, who had higher hopes for a future wife for him than a girl originating from the slums of the East End, though he didn’t see her as such; the other, Doctor Lowe, who seemed to him to be quite obsessed with her.

Give it time, came the thought, as he hailed a cab to take him home. Be patient. Who knows what time can do?

The country was mourning the death of its long-reigning Queen – in deep mourning. With all entertainments closed, people were dressing in deepest black, as when a close relative has passed away.

Having ascended the throne at the age of eighteen, Victoria had reigned for sixty-four years – long enough for many to have known no other monarch but her. Though it was expected of one of her age, her death was still a shock. She’d become an institution.

With her many children having married into other noble families, she was known as the Mother of Europe as well as the Mother of Empire, her empire being so extensive that half the world on every globe in every school was coloured pink. Now, on the twenty-second of January 1901, she had died. Now they would have a king again. It felt very odd. A new king for a new century! Things would never be the same again.

Her funeral took place on the second of February. Ellie did not go to watch it, Doctor Lowe considering it more suitable not to go gawping at the solemn procession of one so dearly loved. To her surprise, however, on the fourteenth Michael said that instead of teaching her that day, they’d be going to see the procession of King Edward and Queen Alexandra on the opening of their first Parliament.

‘Doctor Lowe thinks you’re being stifled by not going out as often as you should. He would take you himself but will be with his wife. Apparently she wishes them both to go there on their own.’

In the midst of her delight at Michael taking her, Ellie mentally shook her head at the woman.