‘Will you dine with us on Monday?’ she asked Robert as she leant towards him.
‘Of course,’ he replied, kissing her again on the cheek.
Taking up the bogus letter she let Robert take her place on the sofa. As she left the room she sent another fervent prayer heavenward asking that Robert might take the opportunity given him and do what was expected of him.
As his mother left the room Robert cursed Lord Effingham’s letter.
Beside him Caroline rustled and gave him a shy look. ‘How fortunate that Lord Effingham’s letter needed immediate attention.’
Robert smiled. ‘Just so.’
And it was. There, gazing up at him with breathless admiration, was Edinburgh’s foremost beauty. Her pale lilac ensemble with delicate pearls and bead embroidery scattered over it highlighted her hazel eyes. As she looked at him, her small red mouth was pulled together as if waiting for a kiss. She looked absolutely lovely.
Whatever madness had possessed him to put off making an offer to her? It was his unhealthy obsession with Ellen O’Casey, of course, he knew that. But now he
had
to put that aside.
His mother was right. Caroline was everything a man with a position in life could want in a wife. True, she was, as his mother so quaintly put it, excitable and frivolous, but he was sure that was nothing more than youthful enthusiasm. It was to be expected. She had led a sheltered life, as was proper for a gently born woman.
Robert gave Caroline the warmest smile he could muster. She fidgeted, and the springy brown ringlets at the crown of her head bounced. A vision of Ellen’s dark auburn hair curling around her neck flashed into Robert’s mind. He shoved it aside and concentrated on his prospective fiancée.
‘I was so pleased that you decided to come to London with Mother.’ He half moved to take hold of her hand but stopped.
What would be so terrible, he thought. After all, there was an expectation that they would soon become engaged. It had been the talk of Edinburgh throughout the winter.
Marry Caroline. Robert felt his heart start to thunder in his chest. That was why he’d come here after all. To propose.
With a quick look at the redoubtable Manners at the end of the room he took hold of Caroline’s hand. She smiled up at him, but there was an emptiness in her gaze that quite suddenly irritated him.
‘Caroline.’ She gazed up at him expectantly. He started again. ‘Caroline, I ... I wish you could be a little more interested in my work.’
She looked disgruntled, as well she might. A young woman anticipating a proposal of marriage didn’t expect to be quizzed about her attitude towards her future husband’s career. Her eyebrows pulled together.
‘I don’t think your mother left us alone so you could talk about your work,’ she said, her lower lip jutting out.
‘I just want to know why it is so difficult for you to take an interest in what I do,’ he persisted. A picture of Ellen listening as he explained his experiments sprang into his mind.
‘I am very proud of you and your work but I just don’t find it as enthralling as you do.’ She gave him an apologetic smile. ‘I’m sorry.’
And she was. He could see it in her eyes. Caroline was truly sorry, but there was nothing she could do about it. A chasm opened at Robert’s feet. A pretty chasm, but a chasm nonetheless.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘It’s that widow woman, isn’t it?’
Caroline might not understand logical science but she certainly understood her instincts.
‘I—’
‘What’s her name?’ O’ something?’ she asked through tight lips.
‘Mrs O’Casey,’ he answered and wished he hadn’t. The sound of Ellen’s name fell like a stone between them and was totally out of place in the plush hotel room. Ellen belonged in his other life, his real life. Not in this lavish chamber with Caroline’s Bond Street purchases stacked up in the corner, but in the life of hollow-eyed children with rickets and women, not yet out of their twenties, wasted and old before their time. His eyes fell on the pile of brightly coloured boxes. What she had spent that morning on frippery could keep a street in Wapping for a year and probably longer.
Caroline shuffled away from him and folded her arms. ‘What is Mrs O’Casey to you?’
It was a fair question. What exactly was Ellen O’Casey to him? The answer had to be ‘Nothing.’ What else could it be?
‘I told you she was a widow whose child I tended to.’ He took Caroline’s hand again. ‘That’s all,’ he said, as much to convince himself as her. ‘Now let’s forget about her.’
Caroline regarded him for a long moment and then started to talk about her shopping trip and the most recent assembly ball, and his mind drifted off into a world of its own. Ellen came back to him. Ellen singing, Ellen talking and laughing, Ellen giving him a roasting. Caroline’s voice drew his conscious mind reluctantly back from its pleasant wandering.
‘And I told Ruth Dalrymple that you would be back in Edinburgh before the summer was out.’
She smiled up at him, waiting for him to agree. He tried, but he couldn’t. People, not only in London, but in Edinburgh and other large towns, lived like animals, in filth, starvation and poverty and all she could do was propose a ball to raise charity money. As he had said to Danny Donovan, the poor didn’t need charity, they needed a decent place to live and food to eat. But Caroline would never see that. Trying to open her eyes to the suffering of others was a lost cause. And so was this courtship.
Sitting next to Caroline watching her refined prettiness he realised that he felt absolutely nothing. No expansion in his chest at the sight of her, no stirring in his loins, no quickening of his pulse - nothing beyond an appreciation of her prettiness. Even holding her hand was barely registering with his senses.
Until he spoke Ellen’s name out loud he had been quite willing to marry Caroline because it was the sensible and expected thing to do. But not now.
He eyed the large French clock on the mantelshelf.
‘I fear it is time for me to leave,’ he said, disengaging his hand from hers. She looked extremely vexed. He didn’t blame her. He had given her every indication that he was about to propose and had not done so.
‘But you have only been here half an hour,’ she said, thrusting her clasped hands into her lap.
He managed a regretful smile. ‘I’m sorry.’ He stood up and so did Caroline.
‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’ she asked in a little forlorn voice.
‘No, I’m not,’ he said truthfully. He wasn’t. How could he be? It wasn’t Caroline’s fault that she wasn’t Ellen. He bowed.
‘Miss Sinclair.’
She must have heard the sincerity in his voice because she brightened a little. ‘It’s been a pleasure to see you, Doctor Munroe. I look forward to dinner with you on Monday.’ She sent him a sideways glance that caused a dimple to form at the corner of her mouth. ‘Maybe your mother will have another letter from Lord Effingham that will require her immediate attention.’
Robert didn’t answer, just bowed again, collected his hat from the table and left.
Eleven
Josie jumped up and down as she held Ellen’s arm. They had been up early that morning and packed a small lunch, then walked the best part of three miles until they reached a small field just by Bow church where the annual May fair was in full swing.
Around them flapped the brightly coloured awnings of stalls and booths, all of which had vendors vying for the attention of passers-by. There were wonders abounding to entice the visitors to part with their hard-earned pennies. Ellen and Josie stopped to watch some swarthy-looking men and sloe-eyed women tumble and leap in the air while, high above them on a suspended rope, a diminutive young woman in a scanty costume walked back and forth.
Ellen smiled as her daughter stood in wide-eyed wonder. ‘She’ll need a good bone-setter if she falls,’ observed Josie and set Ellen off on a train of thought that she tried to stay away from as much as she could.
Since the day she had visited Doctor Munroe at the hospital and he had apologised for his behaviour she had tried to avoid him, mainly for her own peace of mind. But as if fate knew her intention, she kept running into him. Thankfully, this was mostly in the street so she could get away with a hurried acknowledgement that only disturbed her for about an hour, but from time to time he came into the Angel for supper. On every occasion she found him looking at her with an intense gaze that seeped into her heart and soul.
He has a fiancée,
she told herself, as Josie sped over to buy an aniseed twist from a candy booth.
What else would this Miss Sinclair be? After all, she had travelled to London with the doctor’s mother.
Josie was on her way back, dodging a clown on stilts who had a small dog in a ruff hopping on its back legs between the long poles.
‘This is such fun. It’s a pity that Gran couldn’t come,’ Josie said, sucking on the twisted cane in her hand.
I think she will be better for a day’s rest,’ Ellen said, careful not to let Josie see her concern. Bridget’s breathlessness was becoming worse and the cough that was never far away had come back with a vengeance after she was caught in the rain.
Josie looked above Ellen’s head and dropped a small curtsy.
‘Doctor Munroe,’ Josie said.
The flesh at the back of Ellen’s neck tingled. She turned slowly round to find herself looking directly into Robert Munroe’s dark eyes.
He took her hand and bowed respectfully. ‘I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to see you, Mrs O’Casey. That cream gown suits your colouring perfectly.’ He turned to Josie. ‘And Miss Josie O’Casey. I see you’re fully recovered from the quinsy. How is Waisey?’
‘I am well, thank you, Doctor, and Waisey, well, she is at home looking after Gran,’ she said. Ellen saw the beginning of a simper as Josie fluttered her eyelashes at him.
‘Are you enjoying the fair?’ he asked, still looking at Josie, but stepping closer to Ellen.
While his attention was on Josie, Ellen let her eyes enjoy the sight of Doctor Munroe’s features. Although his hair was light brown with the occasional blond streak, the bristles of his beard were dark, just visible even though he must have shaved not five hours ago.
‘Isn’t it, Ma?’ Josie’s voice filtered through her thoughts.
‘I’m sorry, Josie, my mind was elsewhere. What did you say?’
‘I said the fair is better than last year,’ Josie replied as Ellen tore her eyes away from the man beside her and back to her daughter.
‘Oh, yes... yes, there are more - er - booths, and the acrobats are certainly finer,’ Ellen said, conscious that Doctor Munroe was staring at her with an unsettling expression in his eyes.
‘May I accompany you in your enjoyment of the fair?’ Robert asked, as he held his arm out for Ellen.
‘Are you alone?’ Ellen asked.
‘I came with Chafford and Maltravers, but they have gone off to see the All-Comers’ fight.’ With a wry smile, he added, ‘You’d think a surgeon would see enough blood and broken teeth in the usual way of things without looking for it on his day off.’
Ellen’s head warned her not to let down her carefully built defences, but her heart didn’t listen. That look and that smile washing over her were too much. She laughed and laid her hand on his arm.
They walked on, stopping at a booth which invited people to throw a wooden ball at a stand full of plates for a prize. Josie had a couple of throws that wobbled a plate or two, but did no real damage. Then Doctor Munroe took three balls and sent the plates crashing to the ground, earning Josie a length of pink ribbon.
‘Did Gran take you to the fair, Ma, when you were a child?’ Josie asked, as they watched a juggler in a garish costume toss clubs in the air.
‘That she did. Every May Day we would be off to Munster town for the largest fair in the county. Me, me Mammy and Pappy, along with Joe and Sean,’ Ellen said aware that Robert was listening as intently as Josie.
‘You were born in Ireland?’ he asked.
‘I was. We all were. Joe was first, then Marie who died when she was four,’ Ellen explained, ‘then Sean, and lastly me. We came to London when I was seven.’
‘Were the fairs like this one, Ma?’ Josie asked, as they stopped in front of a booth selling lace-covered buttons and other lacy trimmings.
Ellen smiled, remembering. ‘In some ways. There were tinkers and peddlers, just like here, but there were more cattle as it was a market too. We would be up before the sun was in the sky to be scrubbed and dressed in our best clothes for the fair. Mammy would comb and braid my hair so tight it would hurt.’ Robert seemed enthralled by her reminiscence, and wondered if he had ever been to a fair when he was a boy in Scotland. ‘Me, Pat and Sean had to squeeze in the back of a dog cart pulled by our old donkey, while Mammy and Pappy rode on the board in front. Pappy would always take his fiddle and join the men in the pub, singing and playing songs that were old when Moses was a boy.’
‘It is from your father that you must get your ear for music, Mrs O’Casey?’ Doctor Munroe asked.
‘I would say so, and some of the old songs I now sing,’ she said, thinking of the man who sat her on his knee and traced the words in their old family Bible with his finger. ‘It’s a pity I don’t have his saintly patience as well.’
‘A grand day, is it not, Mrs O’Casey?’ a youthful voice said from behind them. Ellen turned to find Patrick Nolan twisting his cap in his hand. The brawny young lad was smiling at Josie and she was smiling back. ‘And that Miss Josie looks as sweet as a flower in a Kerry meadow.’
Josie lowered her eyes and stared at her hands.
‘How’s your mother, Pat?’ Ellen asked, noting that Robert was watching the two young people with barely suppressed amusement.
‘She’s grand, so she is, Mrs O,’ Patrick answered, his eyes still glued to Josie. ‘Would you like to see the mermaid, Josie?’