To Light A Candle

by Connie Monk

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

Cynny Barlow is just eighteen when she falls helplessly in love with the dashing Ralph Clinton, an ambitious and talented actor visiting her home town for the summer. However, when Ralph is talent-spotted by a film producer, he puts everything behind him and leaves for the big time, with no idea that Cynny is already pregnant. Whilst her daughter Suzie is a toddler, Cynny can see no way out of her life of drudgery, working at the grocer's during the day, and as a barmaid in the evenings to make ends meet. Her one friend in the village, the vicar's wife Kate Bainbridge, is sympathetic, but has her own problems. Although the face she shows the parishioners is one of contentment, Kate yearns for more passion in her life than her husband Richard seems able to give her. Lately, she has been charmed by Richard's old friend, Perry Sylvester, a famous jazz pianist. But so far, there is nothing in his behaviour to suggest that he feels the same way. But everything is set to change for all concerned, for when Perry makes Cynny's acquaintance, he recognises in her a rare singing talent, one that would perfectly match the jazz he plays in the nightclubs of London.

Release date: January 14, 2016

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 304

Sample

Cynny knew just the tone of voice to use, just the right amount of eagerness to instil into her words.

‘That’s my last customer, Mrs Eldridge,’ she said, as she closed the door behind the departing figure of the Marcel-waved client. ‘Thank goodness. Monday is the only real evening we get.’ Youngest and least experienced on the staff she may have been, but she lacked nothing in confidence. On leaving school she had been taken into Sonia Eldridge’s hairdressing salon as an apprentice, and from the first day her plain and middle-aged employer had been captivated. Not only had Cynny been blessed with a lovely face and near perfect figure, but she used her charm in a way that was an asset to the salon – and a never failing asset to herself. From an apprentice she had become what was known as an ‘improver’ and now, at eighteen, she was a fully trained member of the staff and the favourite of many of the clients who came to Sonia’s Salon on Deremouth’s Waterloo Street.

‘Get yourself pretty, my dear, and off you go. We others can see to putting the place to rights for the morning,’ Sonia answered, just as Cynny had intended she should.

‘Swanning off again,’ Edna Dingle mouthed almost silently to Beth Brimley who was combing out a perm. Cynny may have been a favourite with the clients, but she certainly wasn’t with the two senior and more experienced members of the staff. From the beginning they’d resented her assurance and what they saw as her ‘airs and graces’.

‘Makes you sick!’ came the reply just as Edna’d expected.

Edna and Beth had worked for Sonia Eldridge for more than ten years, they knew they were the mainstay of the business. But recently so many of the regular clients asked for Cynny even though they knew it wasn’t for her hairdressing skills so much as for the way she chattered to them, made them feel attractive and interesting. And so here were the two stalwarts left to give the floor its end-of-day sweep, polish the taps and basins, put out new towels and generally leave the place ready for Tuesday morning’s nine o’clock opening.

In the little room behind the shop Cynny hung up her overall and changed her shoes into the high-heel courts she had bought with her first fully-qualified pay packet. Then, peering close to the mirror she replenished her make-up and brushed her dark, naturally wavy hair that Sonia Eldridge herself had cut and shaped into a new style resembling that of Mary Pickford so beloved by cinema-goers in those years of the 1920s. Then, well pleased with the result, Cynny went back through the salon, impervious to the glares of her two colleagues.

‘Thanks a million, Mrs Eldridge. You really are a lamb.’ She beamed. ‘I love Mondays when the theatre’s closed.’

Sonia smiled indulgently at her protégée. ‘You ought to find yourself a nice young man who works regular hours – someone in insurance or a bank, a young man who won’t be moving off at the end of the season.’

Cynny laughed. ‘No thank you. Ralph couldn’t be content with that sort of a career. And anyway – we have plans—’ She seemed to have forgotten her rush to get away as she stopped by the desk where Sonia was checking the next day’s appointments. ‘You should hear the plans we have. The rep tours all over the country, just imagine how exciting that will be. And he’s really ambitious. One of these days he’ll be top line famous.’

‘Well, my dear, he’s got the looks for it. And the talent. I told you what I thought of his acting when I went along to the Playhouse last week. Oh yes, he has a future, no doubt about that. Off you go and make the most of your evening.’

It had been late April when the Redcliffe Players had come to Deremouth Playhouse for the summer season, putting on a different play each week from Tuesday until Saturday evenings and with an extra matinee performance on Saturday. So shared hours of freedom for Ralph Clinton, their junior lead actor, and the young hairdresser were precious. Already it was August, by the end of September the season would be over. But even that didn’t frighten her, for the two of them had talked so much about his life with the repertory company; and although he had never put it into words that he wanted them to marry, when he had spoken about those members of the players whose wives travelled with them she had known that in his mind as clearly as in hers there were images of a shared future. Hurrying towards Quay Hill where he was in lodgings, Cynny let her thoughts leap to the evening ahead. Perhaps they’d walk up the hill out of town and find somewhere secluded on Picton Heath on the far side of the main Exeter road; or perhaps they’d take the cliff path, although during that first week in August when so many factories closed down there would sure to be holidaymakers to disturb them. She didn’t care where they went, whether they had a meal in a café or lived on love alone, whatever Ralph wanted would be what she wanted. Or, she corrected herself, wasn’t it that Ralph would be wanting just the same thing as she was? She thought of the one or two fine Monday evenings in the early summer, evenings when they’d had the cliff top to themselves. Even though at that time they’d only known each other for a few weeks, she was his, heart and soul, so what was more right than that her body was his too? After that first time she’d been worried, frightened that making love even once might have made her pregnant. She’d wished she knew more, but she trusted Ralph and as the weeks went by so her confidence grew. In her naïve ignorance she’d believed that once was all it took to start a baby, but clearly it wasn’t that easy. Well, of course it wasn’t, she’d told herself, remembering how many married couples wanted children and didn’t have them.

Arriving at the terrace house in Quay Hill the door was opened to her knock by Mrs Hibbard, Ralph’s landlady.

‘I’m glad you’ve come in good time, Miss Barlow. I like to know you’ve gone off somewhere before I lock the place. You understand my meaning. I’m off to pictures, they’ve got Douglas Fairbank’s Thief of Bagdad this week and I’m calling for my friends in time for us to have a cuppa and a chat before we go down to the Rialto. I won’t ask you in because I’m all ready and, like I said, I can’t have the two of you there when I’m out.’ Then, her long and humourless face was taken by surprise as she laughed. ‘Give the neighbours something to chew over, blessed if it wouldn’t.’ Then, shouting back into the house, ‘Come on, Mr Clinton dear, your young lady’s here and it’s time I was on my way.’

‘Right you are, Mrs Hibbard. I expect I’ll be home before you, Cynny’s bus goes back to Chalcombe at five to ten.’

‘Ah, so you will. Now then, I’ll put my door key under the mat here so that you can let yourself in when you’ve put her on the bus. And where are you two young things going this evening?’

‘I thought we’d walk for an hour or so and work up an appetite then probably to the Harbour Lights for something to eat. How’s that, Cynny?’

‘It sounds lovely,’ She knew just the right amount of enthusiasm to put into the words, giving no hint that her mind was racing in a completely different direction.

With the key under the mat the three set out together, separating at the corner of Quay Hill where Mrs Hibbard turned towards Waterloo Street and the centre of the small seaside town and the other two continued up the hill towards where they would cross the main road towards Picton Heath.

‘Now, there’s a gift from the gods,’ Ralph chuckled. ‘Are you famished, or shall we eat later?’

She shook her head. ‘Don’t want food. A whole evening, Ralph …’

Better acquainted with the ways of the world she might have hidden her heart, but such an idea didn’t occur to Cynny. They had the gift of an evening together, no need to keep one ear listening for approaching footsteps, they would be safe in the certainty that their world had room for no one but themselves. As soon as Mrs Hibbard was out of sight they turned back towards Quay Hill and the key that was safely hidden under the doormat.

Propping herself on her elbow she gazed at his sleeping form. Was he really asleep, or was he simply re-living the wonder of it all. Through the summer they’d made love at various times and in various places, none of them private and none of them comfortable, not comfortable as the soft satin of his eiderdown. Until this evening she’d never seen a man naked. She wanted to touch him, to let her hand move down his beautiful body. Instead, still raised on her elbow, she looked beyond him to the long mirror on the wardrobe, she let her left hand rest on her own body, glowing in the memory more wonderful than anything she could have imagined. The sun was sinking, its rays emphasising the grubby windows that hadn’t been cleaned since before last week’s westerly gale. But Cynny saw only the golden beauty of the sunset. Temptation got the better of her as she caressed him, waking him.

‘Don’t waste our lovely evening sleeping,’ she whispered.

‘Not a lot of good for anything else,’ he laughed softly. ‘Give a man time, I’m in what is known as the recovery position. She won’t be home for hours.’

‘I don’t mean that,’ she said, wondering why they were both whispering when they had the house to themselves. ‘I wouldn’t want that again, not this evening. It was too perfect to try and repeat.’

‘Funny girl. So what have you in mind? I’m awake now.’

‘Let’s talk. Let’s lie here and talk about what it’ll be like when you’re famous. And you will be, darling Ralph.’

‘I will be, darling Cynny, that I swear to you. That pootling theatre group, you’ve no idea how sick they make me sometimes. They’ll move on from Deremouth – Deremouth, Bournemouth, Bradford, Reading, one place is the same as another, I’ve seen so much of it in the six years I’ve been with them – no one will remember their names, theirs or mine either as long as I’m trapped with them. You’d think they’d care, you’d think they’d see it for what it is. But do they see it like that? Not a bit. They’re so ridiculously pleased with themselves, full of self-congratulation. Honestly, you’ve no idea. “My dear,”’ he mimicked, ‘“you were wonderful this week” or “Jeremy is such a fine producer”. I cringe with shame. Please God I’ll never get like it. I suppose they must have had ambition at one time – not that they’ve got much talent. but what they lack in that they make up for in – in – oh damn it all, how can I say it? – self esteem. To hear them you’d think they were a bunch of amateurs; they don’t know the meaning of professionalism, ambition as a life force.’

‘Perhaps they know they aren’t that good, perhaps boosting each other up is the only way they can handle it,’ she said. ‘But what do they matter? It’s you we care about. And you are good. You ought to look for something else, something in London. Imagine if we were in London …’

His only answer was to turn towards her, pulling her closer.

When Mrs Hibbard arrived home the key was waiting under the doormat, Ralph was in bed learning his lines for next week’s production and Cynny just about getting off the bus at Chalcombe Junction at the top of Station Hill.

‘Was it a good picture?’ her mother, Jane, greeted her as she let herself into the house in Highmoor Grove.

‘Not bad, Mum. I didn’t wait for the end because of the bus.’ Why was it she couldn’t tell her parents the truth about Ralph? Why couldn’t she say ‘I’m in love with Ralph Clinton, one of the company from the Playhouse,’ or ‘I want to bring Ralph Clinton to meet you, you’ll love him’? Even as the silent question came into her mind, her father gave her the answer.

‘Pictures! That and the beastly row you listen to on that wretched gramophone, and look at you going about with your face plastered with muck. Why I wasted good money on your education I can’t think, for all the use you make of it you might as well have gone to the Board School. Coming home here at this time of night! And just look at those stupid heels, by the time you’re forty you’ll have bunions the size of walnuts.’

Just for a second Cynny’s glance met her mother’s, a look of silent understanding, even a hint of laughter. Yes, if it had been just bringing Ralph to meet Mum, that would have been different. But Dad! If she went out with the Prince of Wales himself, Dad’d find something to complain about.

‘You missed a visitor. The new vicar called on us,’ Jane said.

‘A lot she’d care.’ George Barlow’s words were emphasised with the jaundiced look he threw at the daughter he constantly saw as a disappointment. Perhaps he might have seen her differently if Teddy, their son, a toddler who had given his life its very purpose, hadn’t died of whooping cough just after his third birthday. That was just months before Cynny had been born, so was it fair to feel nothing for her, nothing but disappointment? But then love seldom listens to reason. So his pleasure came from seeing only her faults – of which he found no shortage. Not an ounce of domesticity in the girl. Did she ever consider making her own clothes like plenty of others did at her age? Not her, all she thought about was plastering her face with that rubbish, decking herself up as if she were one of those floozies she set such store on at the pictures or listening to her confounded jazz that she knew he detested. Not that she cared what he thought any more that she would about the pleasure he and Jane had found in a visit from the new vicar.

In truth he was right about her not caring, but his words only made her put more interest than she felt into her reply.

‘He soon came calling. What’s he like?’ To her surprise it was her father who answered.

‘A most personable young man. No use you setting your cap at him, he has a wife and young son. But a good, steady sort of chap, no doubt about that.’

Jane chuckled, enlarging on his view. ‘He must have gone down well with your father, we even welcomed him with a glass of sherry.’

‘You did, Dad?’ Cynny laughed, ‘Crumbs, he must be “personable” as you call it.’

George said no more, but clearly his rare lapse into cordiality had lasted only as long as the vicar’s visit, so Jane took up the story.

‘He’s no stranger to Chalcombe apparently. He tells us that he’s been coming here on and off since he was a boy. It seems he’s a friend of the Sylvesters at Grantley Hall.’

At that Cynny’s interest became genuine.

‘Of old Mrs Sylvester? She was quite a celebrity in her day, wasn’t she? But I thought she didn’t have any family.’

‘He’s been telling us. Her late husband’s younger brother had a son – and that son was very close to Reverend Bainbridge’s (that’s his name, Richard Bainbridge), to his father. With no family of her own, old Clara Sylvester – not so old in those days of course – used to welcome them all to the Hall. That must be your Perry Sylvester’s father.’

‘Huh!’ George threw in. ‘Her Perry Sylvester! She’s never met him and never likely to, he and his cacophony of what they call jazz. I can’t imagine he and the new vicar would have anything in common. As I said, he was a steady, quietly spoken, altogether agreeable young man.’

‘Want a bite of supper, love?’ Jane changed the subject, ‘Or did you eat before the pictures?’

‘Umph,’ not exactly a direct lie, ‘but I wouldn’t mind a drink. Anyone else want cocoa? No? Can I make it with milk?’

‘Yes, there’s more than enough for breakfast. I’ll come out with you and you can tell me about the film while you watch the saucepan.’

‘It wasn’t bad, I’ve seen more exciting.’ But would that be enough to lead the conversation away from the Rialto? It seemed that luck was with her.

‘I’m off to bed.’ George Barlow followed them out of the room and made towards the stairs. ‘I expect he came visiting thinking he’d get us helping to fill his pews – and putting money in his collection bag,’ he grumbled, determined to have the last word as he started up the stairs. At least he’d managed to steer Jane away from more dangerous questions.

‘He’s not likely to have trouble filling the pews, the women will be round him like bees round the honey pot. Anyway,’ Jane said as she lit the gas under the milk saucepan, ‘he wasn’t a bit sanctimonious, he just sat and chatted, it was a lovely evening with even your father making himself agreeable, although you wouldn’t think so to hear him now. Oh dear, he’d be so much happier if he wouldn’t carp so. But this evening he was really good. I told you, it was he who got out the sherry decanter. The Reverend Richard Bainbridge and, let me see, Billy I think he called his wee son and his wife is Kate. Not a bit starchy, even though you feel he holds something back. Shy perhaps. Watch the milk, Cynny, don’t let it boil over, I’ve mixed the cocoa ready. Yes, it was the nicest evening we’ve had for ages.’

The nicest evening for ages, Cynny thought, letting memory fill her mind. Oh, but she’d known nothing like it. Just the two of them, the warmth of the evening sun on the soft smoothness of their bodies, the glory of–

‘Yes,’ Jane chattered on; it took all Cynny’s willpower to make herself appear interested. ‘It’ll be a breath of fresh air to have a young couple like that at the vicarage. And fancy, he’s known the village since he was a boy. He even took part in the fancy dress carnival procession, would you believe. Well, well …’ Her pleasant evening was filling her head with happy thoughts. ‘I’ll go on up, dear. I’ve put the bottles out, just see you put the light off.’

‘Night night, Mum. I won’t be long.’

Sitting alone at the kitchen table she could let her mind ramble where it would. Like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower so her thoughts darted, she seemed to hear his voice, his laugh, the wonder of the moment back in the spring when first his mouth had found hers, the exhilaration of climbing the cliff path at his side hand in hand, the first time they’d made love and the deep thankfulness of knowing that she was his. His now, his always. She could almost hear him recounting episodes from his years in theatrical boarding houses. Then, this evening after all the joy of really being together – as in her mind she emphasised the difference between tonight and those other times in the open air always guarded in case someone came – when they lay close in each other’s arms held by the miracle they’d shared, she recalled his words as clearly as if he were there with her still: ‘Life gets pretty uncomfortable, you know, living like we have to when we’re on tour. Can you see yourself happy having to live like that? Perhaps what I need is someone to take care of me. What do you think? I have a career, I have ambition. But is it fair to expect a woman to live in the shadow of that?’

‘Yes, oh yes,’ she’d breathed, ‘If a woman loves you then that’s all she’d want.’

And sitting lost in dreams at the kitchen table, that’s what eighteen-year-old Cynny truly believed.

‘I wondered what had happened to you,’ Kate Bainbridge greeted Richard when, at after ten o’clock, he arrived home.

‘I had a most successful evening. People are so welcoming, Kate. I was out all the evening, but didn’t see as many people as I’d intended. They were all keen to talk, to make us feel the village was waiting to gather us in. Not just me, Kate, but you too. Here in Chalcombe they are eager to draw you in, there’s so much for you to do.’

‘I’m sure they mean well, but they’ve been without a vicar for almost a year and they’ve thrived so I don’t mean to be organised by the village.’

‘Of course not, dear,’ he answered placidly, ‘but there are things that automatically fall to the vicar’s wife. It was different at Tadhurst, there I was only a curate. Just think, Kate, of all the livings that could have fallen vacant, it’s as if we were sent to Chalcombe by some divine providence. By the way, I called on Clara Sylvester and have said we’ll go there for dinner next Saturday evening. It seems she has Perry coming for the weekend.’

‘On a Saturday? I’m surprised he’s free at the weekend.’

‘It means a lot to her that he makes the effort when he can. I haven’t seen him for ages.’ Closing his eyes he let his mind drift, starting at that summer when they must have been eighteen, both finished at their separate boarding schools and waiting to set out on their chosen roads. Or so they’d thought at the time. Richard had studied the classics – it was only after he’d gained his degree that he knew with such clarity that he wanted a future in the Church; and Perry, before he’d finished his years at the Academy had thrown away the successful career forecast for him as a concert pianist, ignoring his parents’ anger and disappointment, and followed his heart, starting on the road that surely must have made him one of the foremost jazz pianists of the time. Richard’s thoughts took him back to that long summer vacation of 1919; Clara had loved having two eighteen-year-olds at Grantley Hall, and they’d looked no further. Thinking of it now was like seeing two different people – surely they were different. Of course they were, at least he was. He had a wife, he had a son. And Perry, surrounded by the glamour of the life he’d chosen, did he ever look back and remember?

‘Do you want a drink before you go to bed?’ Kate’s voice brought him back from the past.

‘No, I’ve had sherry, tea, coffee plied on me all the evening. Was Billy good?’

‘Umph, I think I’d tired him out playing hide and seek crawling round the garden. Well, he didn’t know it was hide and seek, but he knew it was fun.’

‘I think Mrs Barlow would be glad if you’d call to see her. You know, I’d heard rumours, hints really, that her husband was a disagreeable man. But I found him easy enough. The Mothers’ Union meet on the second Monday of each month – that’ll be next Monday. She said she hopes you’ll be there with them. You’ll find them very friendly Kate.’ Kate didn’t answer. ‘I wish you’d call and see her. She’s in Highmoor Grove. Take Billy, perhaps.’

‘Perhaps.’

Kate told herself she ought to be glad people were ready to welcome her and to help her make a useful place for herself. As Richard said, the wife of a vicar has a different role from that of the wife of a curate, she had a duty not to fail him. But surely she’d known that when she married him. Perhaps one day he’d be dean of a great cathedral, a bishop even. Reason told her either was unlikely, yet the image of what her future might be filled her with horror. He’d always been fair, he’d talked to her about what she might expect when he had a parish of his own. Falling in love; wasn’t it more dangerous than a disease? She’d been so eager to give up art school and marry him. But surely, then, she must have believed that she would come first in his heart. That had been nearly four years ago, she’d been a starry eyed eighteen-year-old believing that she would share his life. Share his life – but that she could never do. Is there any other profession where a man’s first allegiance isn’t to his wife and family? But to Richard, she and Billy – and whatever family they had in the future – would never come before the Church, before his God. Be fair, she silenty fought the rebel in her that was always ready and waiting to trip her, if either of us has changed it’s me, it’s not Richard.

‘I’ve locked the back door, everything’s done,’ she told him holding her hand to take his as he stood up, ‘We’ll peep in on Billy as we go.’

‘You check him, dear. I’ll not be many minutes, I just want to make a few notes about my visits. It’s important I remember the things people have been good enough to tell me. Can you understand, I wonder? For me, Chalcombe is full of memories. I feel that it was preordained that I should serve this parish.’

‘We have memories too, Richard. Don’t you ever consider it might be preordained that you remember you have a family of your own, a life outside your precious flock?’

He drew back as if she’d struck him. ‘I don’t understand. What have I done that’s wrong, what have I said? Of course I care about you and Billy.’ He looked confused, shocked.

‘Yes,’ she answered, her expression giving nothing away, ‘I know you do. I expect I’m just tired and grumpy. This is a huge house … I haven’t got used to that beastly solid fuel oven … I can’t, I won’t let myself be nothing more than a slave to parishioners who all have time for lives of their own.’

He kissed her forehead, the gesture showing no more emotion than if she’d been a naughty child come to him for forgiveness, or an elderly relative. She turned away, filled with desolation.

‘We must wait a while,’ he said as she moved towards the door, ‘just to see how the money pans out. It may be a huge house, Kate, but that’s not reflected in my stipend. If we cut down as much as possible, perhaps we’ll be able to find a young girl to help you. You’ll need someone to take care of Billy sometimes in any case, there will be many times when you can’t possibly have a child in tow.’

‘God help me!’ Half under her breath, it certainly was no prayer.

‘He will, Kate.’

From the way she shut – slammed? – the door, surely he must have realised he’d come nowhere near closing the divide that was growing between them. Just for a moment the thought gave her satisfaction. But it was soon followed by another: in his sublime faith in the rightness of his world he would have thought her anger was aimed at herself, at her temporary selfishness and self pity.

Upstairs in Billy’s room she leaned over his cot, blinded by tears of love, tiredness, desolation. If, knowing all that she knew now, she could live her last four years again, go back to the days when she was a happy, fun-loving art student, would she act differently? Lightly, careful not to wake him, she laid her hand on her little son’s forehead. Desolation vanished, only love filled her heart. No, however impossible it was for her life to be thoroughly knitted into Richard’s life, nothing could take away the true and perfect love she felt for Billy. Anyway, with new resolve she forced the thought into her mind, isn’t it better to have a husband like Richard who is devoted, unemotional, faithful, any passion he feels given to his wretched god, isn’t that better than the kind so many women have to suffer? She’d read about them in women’s magazines, men who were sexually demanding, men who were brutal. Richard was kind, he was good. But surely that wasn’t all that he was? And was the fault with her that she wanted more than he could give? In the beginning, when first she’d fallen in love with him, she’d gloried in arousing passion in him, she’d been certain that that was what he wanted of her. So now, married for only three years, was the fault with her that he was so disinterested? Perhaps he resented her because for those first months she had pushed herself into first place in his life.

Sighing, she went out of the nursery, leaving the door open just far enough for her to be able to hear if Billy called out in the night. From her own bedroom window she could see that the only light came from Richard’s study.

In all the weeks the Redcliffe Players had been in Deremouth, the third week in August was the first when Ralph had had no part in the production. The fine weather held; each evening he and Cynny were together. If she lived to be a hundred, she felt that this must be the golden summer she’d remember. Each evening she went home on the five to ten bus, each evening she was met with the usual criticism that she was wasting her life, hanging around on Deremouth Pier like some street woman, going twice in one week to the cinema (‘A good thing you’ve got money to throw about’ from her father who always watched the clock probably hoping that she’d miss the last bus and give him something extra to grumble about). She’d invented a meeting with a one-time school friend who she said had come to Deremouth on holiday for a week. All that because instinct told her not to let Ralph Clinton meet her parents.

But even a week as wonderful as that had to end and the next one saw Ralph playing the lead and Cynny living on memories as she anticipated the weekend ahead. So the days went by, August gave way to September. Four more weeks and the summer season would be over, the repertory company gone. She was ready for what she knew was coming, she even sorted her clothes so that she could pack the case she’d smuggled into the scarcely used shed ready to take with her when she made her escape. It would have been easy enough to bring paper and envelope up to her bedroom the night before they went, but instead she hid it with her pen in her bedside table. Somehow, being so advanced with her plans added to the excitement. She was sorry she was going to have to walk out on her mother, but there was no other way. Anyway, perhaps I’ll be doing Mum a favour, she consoled herself. Once I’ve gone he might not be so unbearably beastly, it’s me he hates, not her.

It was almost the end of th