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

He was covering her face with kisses, talking fast between each kiss. ‘We must go away together, darling. I want to marry you.’

Delight had returned, yet behind it lay horrible practicalities. ‘Where would we go?’ she asked.

‘Far away where no one will find us.’

‘What about money? We’ll need to live.’

For a moment he said nothing, as if this had never occurred to him.

‘Do you have any money?’ she prompted quickly, hating the subject, but it had to be raised. There was also her long-planned promise to herself – what of that? He would have no wish to follow her on that quest with its subsequent conclusion. It had nothing to do with him. And after this long while she couldn’t let it all slip away from her. She wanted revenge. Revenge was all she had ever cared about.

Michael was shaking his head. ‘I’ve hardly any of my own. I’ve never felt the need to save money. I have only to ask and it’s provided.’

Love him though she did, Ellie was not about to tell him that she had saved, and for an entirely different purpose. How could she use the money to keep both her and him after all she’d gone through? What she had wouldn’t last them all that long, and having flouted his father’s wishes, would he ever find work in his field enough to keep them both? He might regret it and so might she.

‘Then what can we do?’ she asked lamely.

Discovery of whether he had an answer or not was prevented by a quiet tap on the door. As they exchanged alarmed glances, Michael’s lips silently formed the words ‘Doctor Lowe’.

In a flurry they sat themselves back on the stools, now well apart, Ellie reaching for a small, half-finished canvas with the pretence of being absorbed in working on it.

‘Yes?’ she queried loudly and watched mesmerized as the door slowly opened. It wasn’t Bertram Lowe’s portly figure framed in the doorway but that of his wife.

‘May I come in?’ she asked.

Before Ellie could reply, Michael spoke for her. ‘Of course, Mrs Lowe, do come in.’

‘I’ve never been up here before,’ she began. ‘This is where you study.’

She was being far too polite, far too nice. Already on her guard, Ellie felt the rancour rise within her. She opened her mouth for a retort but felt Michael’s touch on her arm, cautioning her to silence; but Mrs Lowe had seen the gesture and Ellie caught the brief smile on her face, a strange smile.

‘What can we do for you, Mrs Lowe?’ she asked stiffly, trying to make the woman feel like an intruder; but Mary Lowe’s expression didn’t alter.

She began to move around the tiny room, looking at this, glancing at that, fingering a piece of canvas, a brush, the palette – untouched, a drying skin of paint on each tiny pile of colour bearing witness to that fact.

‘It appears very cosy up here. Even cosier, I dare say, my husband being out tonight. At his club.’ She turned her head towards the pair still sitting where they had been when she’d entered. ‘I take it you are aware that your attachment to each other is common knowledge in this house.’

Ellie shrugged.

Michael’s eyes hadn’t left the woman’s face. They now held a challenge.

‘I imagine it is,’ he said slowly. ‘Is this why you’ve chosen to come up here to see us, Mrs Lowe, now, while Doctor Lowe isn’t here? Do you intend doing something about it in his absence?’

Mary Lowe gave a tinkling, almost girlish laugh, at odds with her ample figure. ‘It isn’t up to me, Mr Deel. I rather think that must be left to my husband. But I feel for you both.’

She glanced at Ellie. ‘That may come as a surprise to you, Miss Jay. I am aware of the dissension that exists between us. Nevertheless, I am not a hard person. I have some sympathy for young lovers and the problems they face and I think the problems in your case are particularly difficult.’ She began to study her hands. ‘And who am I to interfere in what Doctor Lowe thinks? He, on the other hand, does not see the matter in the same light as I.’

Ellie could have told her that, but the woman hadn’t finished. ‘I’m not sure if you know, Mr Deel, but my husband has, in his mind, adopted Miss Jay. He sees her as a substitute for the daughter we lost and has become very much attached to her – against my wishes, as you can imagine – and he fears losing her to anyone. I say anyone, Mr Deel,’ she repeated firmly, looking straight at him. ‘He does not look kindly on what is going on and is seeking to break it up.’

Giving them no chance to ask how, she hurried on. ‘You see, at this very moment he is at his club talking to your father, acquainting him with what has been going on, and I imagine that once your father is made aware, he will put a stop to it.’

‘Why are you telling us all this?’ Ellie cut in at last.

‘I felt it charitable to warn you both. I’ve no wish to see young people torn apart and made unhappy.’

‘I’d have thought you’d be delighted to see me made miserable,’ Ellie flashed at her. ‘You’ve always wanted to get rid of me.’

‘That is true. I’ve never liked you.’

‘Then why are you helping us now?’ asked Michael.

Mary Lowe regarded him directly. ‘If you must know, I find no joy in this girl as the apple of my husband’s eye. She is the bane of mine, and the sooner she goes, the better. You, young man, struck me as the solution, but now I see only that you will be banished and she will continue living here in my home to my continuing resentment, for I cannot see my husband letting her out of his sight ever again.’

The prospect of being a virtual prisoner