‘Let me carry it. We’ll drop it off on our way. I think it’s going to snow so we must make the most of the day before it does.’
Having left her valise in the lodging house hall, at Giles’ suggestion they continued through Market Place, where there were fewer stalls than usual and not many customers buying, and on towards the pier, glad to be outside after being cooped up over the holiday. The sky was blue and almost cloudless but it was bitterly cold.
‘This has been the coldest year for years,’ he remarked. ‘They’re saying it could be the coldest winter ever.’
‘I’m sure that it is.’ Delia huddled further into her collar and shawl. ‘Perhaps the pier wasn’t such a good idea.’
‘A quick turn only,’ he said, ‘and then we’ll find a cosy tea house or coffee shop.’
‘This is our life, isn’t it?’ she murmured. ‘Or mine at least. Borrowing warmth from every possible source.’ She looked up at him. ‘Or perhaps it isn’t for you, Giles? It occurs to me that you might have known something better?’
He paused, and then, taking her arm, he said, ‘And you would be correct. I have known something else, though not necessarily better. Certainly the company I have today far excels any other I have known in recent years, and I must add,’ he said hastily, for perhaps he felt her flinch, ‘I am no flatterer.’
They turned away from the pounding waves on the estuary, which were plunging into the horse wash and dashing a surging swell of high water against the pier walls, and he steered her towards a small coffee shop in Queen Street. The window was steamed up so that they couldn’t see inside, but the warmth hit them as he opened the door and they claimed a table tucked into a corner where it would be free of draughts.
‘You might be full of good food from the Maritime, but I’m sure you can manage a pot of coffee or tea?’ he asked.
‘I can,’ she said, ‘and although I had a hearty breakfast, I could probably manage a slice of cake as well!’
‘I know most of the coffee shops in the town by now, and this one I might tell you produces delicious cakes.’
She glanced at him surreptitiously as he ordered and wondered if he would expand on the statement he had made earlier. He didn’t seem aimless, as she thought she must appear, but rather he had an air of determination and confidence that appeared to tell the world that the way he lived was his choice and not a necessity. But she wouldn’t press him; she had always avoided any cosy unburdening of personal matters. He poured the coffee and cleared his throat.
‘I, erm, I thought that as you have given me the honour of your confidence over your personal troubles, it is only right that I should reciprocate with my own.’
‘Oh, but you need not,’ she broke in quickly. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’
‘I’d rather like to,’ he said calmly, ‘because at some time in the future you might find I have gone off on business of my own somewhere, and you might perhaps wonder where.’ He put down his cup and turned to her, speaking softly. ‘We have known each other for only a short time, Delia, but I have come to value our friendship, for such a thing is rare between a man and a woman unless there is the prospect of something more.’
Delia nodded. He was quite right, and she had had a similar relationship with Arthur Crawshaw, except that he often disappeared from view without feeling the need to explain, nor she to ask why or where he had gone.
‘I’m comfortable with our friendship,’ she said. ‘I make no demands on you.’
He took a sip of coffee. ‘I know. But I would like to tell you that I hired a cab yesterday morning and was driven to York.’
She raised her eyebrows in astonishment and he gave a wry smile. ‘It cost me a lot of money during the Christmas festivities, but it was necessary. I went to visit my wife.’
Delia drew in a breath and covered her mouth with her hand. Her first response was to flee, but he lifted appeasing hands and said, ‘If I might explain?’
She took up her cup and found her hands were trembling. She had no romantic aspirations towards him, but this might alter their friendship.
‘My wife and I were married when we were very young, at the expectations of both our families,’ he began. ‘Neither of us wanted it, but we had such pressure from them that unwisely we gave in. She was in love with someone entirely unsuitable in the eyes of her family, whereas I wanted to continue with my musical education, which was only possible if my father supported me, which he agreed to do if I married Marion, the daughter of his best friend.’
He lowered his voice. ‘Our marriage was and is in name only and a source of unhappiness to us both. She continues to see her lover and I … well, I completed my music studies and after a few years decided that the best thing for me to do was join an orchestra and travel, which gave us both a chance to live our own lives, unhindered by each other.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Delia breathed. ‘And she lives in York?’
‘She does, in our family home, except that we have no family. I don’t usually see her over Christmas, but in the New Year we visit both sets of parents together, to give our marriage a veil of respectability. However,’ he went on, ‘I received a message asking me to call as she was unwell and needed to discuss certain issues, which is why I visited her.’
‘Is she very unwell?’ Delia asked.
‘I’m not sure. She has unexplained illnesses from time to time. She
