Rosemary Aitken (29 page)

She gave herself a shake. She ought to be grateful. Things were so different from the way they used to be. Mrs Thatchell, who had packed up and gone with as much speed and as little fuss as possible, had written just one letter to the shop (using one of those browning envelopes) to say that she had safely settled in, and that was the last that Effie heard of her. It was as if that whole portion of her life had simply never been.

‘What you doing, Effie? Going to let me buy you a piece of gingerbread?’ That was Pa, as agile as a monkey walking with his stick, coming up behind her unexpectedly. ‘Or would you sooner have a bag of toasted nuts from that standing over there?’ He gestured to the stall. ‘You still got time to get down the other end and watch the children race. Your cousin Sammy is in the egg and spoon.’

Effie nodded. ‘Gingerbread, I think.’ And he went off to get it while she watched the parade. She was just applauding a woman with a bicycle, who had woven coloured ribbon around every spoke and turned the handlebars into a bank of flowers, when she was interrupted by an unexpected hand upon her arm.

She glanced across her shoulder, naturally imagining that it would be her Pa. ‘That didn’t take you long!’ But there was her father, still over at the stall, deep in conversation with Mrs Richards and her boy! She whirled around. ‘Alex! What are you doing here? And it isn’t even Thursday!’

That sounded ridiculous, even to herself, and Alex was grinning as widely as could be. ‘Brought you some flowers, Miss Pengelly!’ He handed her a posy – a bunch of wild roses mixed with Queen Anne’s lace – one that he’d obviously caught when the girls were tossing them from the decorated carts. ‘Anyway, it’s a public procession, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘If I am likely to be posted close nearby, I thought I better come and see what sort of place it is.’

She gazed at him. ‘You got the St Just position then?’ He had mentioned in passing that he might be in line.

‘’Tisn’t certain, but the results of the examination came out yesterday. I topped the list, and there is a message on the board saying that Broughton wants to see me first thing Monday, so it is looking promising.’

His fingers were still resting on her arm, and she squeezed them to her, close against her side. ‘I’m delighted for you, Alex. Did you come to tell me that?’

‘To tell you the truth, Effie, I felt I ought to come. I’ve thought of coming out here with you several times before. I’ve never met your family, and it’s time I did. The longer that we leave it, the harder it will be. I thought the feast day was an opportunity.’

She shook her head at him. ‘I’m not so sure. Pa will be all right, but Uncle Joe is funny where strangers are concerned.’ Alex did seem a stranger suddenly, not a part of this whole world at all. It disconcerted her.

But he was saying firmly, ‘Shan’t be a stranger if I come to work out here. And your Uncle Joe can say anything he likes, I’m not going to marry him.’

The band was still playing and the children sang and screamed and there was laughter and gossip everywhere around, but to Effie it seemed that a sudden silence fell. ‘Meaning that you’re going to marry someone else?’ she said, in a voice that she could hardly hear herself.

‘You, if you will have me, Effie,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t mean to blurt it out like this, but you must have known that it was coming. You know how I feel – and I believe you feel the same way about me. I know you have misgivings but—’

‘Your ginger fairing, Effie!’ That was father’s voice. He was standing close beside them with the sweetmeat in his hand, looking at Alex with a strange expression on his face. ‘I think I recognize your face. And you clearly know my daughter. Should I know you from somewhere?’ His voice was rather clipped.

‘This is Alex, Pa,’ she told him. ‘The boy I told you of. And you have met before.’

Pa bit off a large piece of gingerbread, without seeming to notice what he did. ‘Of course,’ he murmured, through the crumbs, ‘that young constable that came out to the mine. I didn’t recognize you out of uniform.’ He stuffed the fairings in his pocket and held out his one free hand. ‘I am glad to meet you, after all this time,’ he said warmly. ‘Effie has mentioned you to me, but I’d had the impression that you two had agreed to part. If that’s not so, I’m glad to know it – for her sake, at least. I know she thinks an awful lot of you.’

Alex said the best thing he could possibly have said. ‘Sir, I am delighted to meet you properly. Effie holds you in such deep respect that I regret that we have not really met before. We did feel that our backgrounds were rather different, but we have decided – at least, I have decided . . .’ He trailed off. ‘I have just been presumptuous enough to ask your daughter if she would marry me. I should of course have asked for your permission first. May I request it now?’

Pa shook his head, but he was grinning ear to ear. ‘Far too soon to ask me what I think. Got to see you in action a bit first. Now, I’ve seen you as a policeman, and you do all right at that. How do you get on with eating gingerbread? Test of a proper suitor, that is. Can I get you one?’

Effie let out a happy inward sigh. Alex was laughing. It was going to be much easier than she thought. She said, ‘Pa, Alex walked out here to tell me that he’s passed his last exam. Top of the whole course he came, now what do you think of that? And he’s going to have a posting to a station out this way, and in a year or two he’ll run it on his own – and there is a police house goes with it – just a little one, and . . .’

‘Dear life, Effie! How you do run on. Let me get the man some gingerbread and you can tell me slowly, so I can take it in.’

Alex intervened with, ‘Let me get my own, sir.’

Pa waved a hand at him. ‘No need for that. I’m feeling flush today. And while I’m on the subject, I’ve got some news myself. Spoke to Cap’n Maddern a little while ago, while we were waiting for the band to start. Seems there’s a job on the settling-tables coming up – one of the men is going to Canada to join his sons – and it’s mine if I want it. So I said I would. ’Tisn’t what I choose, and of course it doesn’t pay like tributing, but it’s money all the same, and it’s something I could manage even with this leg. It’s only standing, there’s not much carrying or climbing round involved. So I can afford to splash out on some bits of gingerbread.’

It had cost him an effort to bring himself to this, and Effie knew it. But the prospect of being back at work again had given him more pleasure than she’d seen in him for months – and today, of all days, she was glad of it. However, she knew better than to make a song and dance. ‘Well, in that case, buy some for Jill Richards and her son, while you’re about it,’ she said. ‘She’s been looking at it woeful, but she hasn’t bought a crumb, so I suspect that she can’t run to it.’

Her father looked thoughtful. ‘Some nice woman she is, Effie, and I still feel responsible for what happened to the boy. Don’t know whatever will become of him. I have been wondering . . . should I go and lodge with her? Give Madge back her bedroom and give that poor widow a hand to pay the rent? She has suggested it – but you know how people talk.’

‘How don’t you marry her, in that case?’ Effie said. ‘That would stop the talk. Give you a bit of company and all. Besides, it seems marrying is getting fashionable round here.’

‘You wouldn’t mind?’ her father said. ‘Madge thought perhaps you would. Your mother . . . you know . . . perhaps you might object if another woman seemed to take her place.’

Effie looked at him. ‘Well of course I wouldn’t mind! Better for everybody all round, I’d say, and save you feeling guilty all the time as well.’ She laughed. ‘Here, this is a turn-up, isn’t it? You are asking my permission and we’re asking yours. Tell you what – you give me yours and I will give you mine.’

Alex, who had been listening to all this, turned to her and broke in suddenly. ‘You mean that you will have me, Effie? You haven’t actually said so, in so many words.’

She grinned up happily at him. ‘Well, I’ll do it now. Since Pa has given his permission, I will marry you.’ She wanted to catch the words and put them in a frame so that she could look at them for ever, like embroidery.

Pa looked at Alex sideways. ‘No, I meant what I said. I want to see you eat that gingerbread before I agree to any marriages. After that, just you be sure that you look after her. Though you might find her Uncle Joe is harder to convince. But you had better go and tell him – he’s down the Worker’s Educational, helping to put out the chairs and tables for the tea.’ He turned to Effie and gave a wicked wink. ‘Tell you what, young lady, if your uncle gives you any trouble over this, you send him to me. Either that, or call a policeman.’

Effie laughed out loud.