Hunnard had told her she was spending far too much on the funeral, funeral clothes, the new studio, furnishings, leisure. But suddenly money had no value. The thing she really wanted was swiftly becoming out of reach.
Ronnie had been a staunch friend when she most needed him, even taking time off work to be with her; but he was keeping his distance.
This Sunday morning in the chill of autumn he stood with her by her father’s grave.
She’d had a huge headstone erected, a towering thing, of white marble embellished with frowning angels. To the stonemason’s raised eyebrows she had specifically ordered they should frown. There were also a marble plinth and base, cold and impenetrable, as if holding the soul down for ever.
On the base were engraved the words: ‘Albert Charles Jay, born 1860, died 1902’ – nothing more. He deserved nothing more, no sentiments, not even the day and month of his birth or his death. She didn’t want to know, cared even less.
Nearby was her mother’s grave. With her money she’d had her mum’s body exhumed from the poor little graveyard where it had lain all this time and reburied with great ceremony in this lovely cemetery, not beside him but further away.
She, too, had a headstone now, a far humbler one, but more important by its very simplicity, with all Ellie’s love borne out by a kindly stone angel smiling down on the quiet resting place. At her mother’s grave she had wept, letting her love fall with her tears on to the new, clean soil in which she had planted beautiful flowers and would continue to plant them until her own life left her. Her father’s grave, despite the elaborate headstone, would always remain bare.
‘I just want to look at my mum’s grave before we leave,’ she said to Ronnie as they stepped away from the cold headstone and bare, solid base where no flowers would ever grow, not even a blade of grass.
She felt Ronnie’s arm come around her shoulders as they made their way towards the other grave. If only, she thought with a pang, that arm had been about her waist rather than her shoulder.
For a while they stood there in silence. Then she said quietly, ‘You know, Ronnie, I’m alone now. Truly alone.’
‘You’ve got Dora,’ he said in a flat tone, dampening her spirits even more.
Silence fell on them again, and then he said quietly, ‘And you’ve got me.’
Ellie looked up at him. ‘Have I?’ she queried, wanting to add, ‘Yes, as a friend,’ but she let only those two words fall.
He was gazing down at her. ‘And I’ve got you – if you want me.’
As she looked at him enquiringly, he went on, ‘I’m… not good at this sort of thing. I’ve been reluctant ter say anything, what with all your troubles and all that money yer’ll be getting from your paintings from now on, and you moving in finer circles than what I’m used to, it didn’t seem right to… well, to tell you…’
Again he hesitated and then too took a deep breath, the words halting and awkward. ‘… to tell you I love you. And to ask you if you would… well, if you’d consent to be my…’
He broke off yet again, swallowing hard. His broad, handsome face twisted with what seemed like fear of the words he wanted to say.
Suddenly they began to pour out in a torrent. ‘Ellie, yer must never be alone. Yer won’t be. What I want ter say is, you don’t ever need to be alone. Ever! I’ll be with you. Ellie, will yer marry me?’
Ellie wanted to laugh, wanted to cry too, wanted to say, ‘Yes, oh yes, my darling, more than anything!’
Instead, she threw herself into his arms and now she was crying tears of happiness. The kisses they shared as they stood locked in each other’s embrace, in the middle of the cemetery, needed no words.
Hunnard was beside himself. He had worked hard to make a killing from the marvellous, strange paintings by Elizabeth Jay.
They’d now all been sold and he needed her to paint more – not too many at a time, of course. ‘Keep them wanting, so to speak,’ he said, filled with confidence in her compliance. ‘While the craze for your style lasts, we’ll have people clamouring for them and we’ll make a fortune between us.’
How wrong he was. ‘I can’t paint to order,’ she told him heatedly after telling him of her engagement to Ronnie, which he conveniently ignored.
‘It’ll soon come back,’ he said. ‘It’s been a rough time for you, nursing your father, but now you must get back to work. We need to make money.’
He meant he needed to make money.
She faced him defiantly. ‘To do the sort of paintings I did I have to feel the pain inside me. I don’t feel that way any more, so I can’t do them. I’m sorry.’
He argued with her until he was blue in the face but she was adamant.
It wasn’t long after that she removed herself from the art world. There had been a simple wedding, Elizabeth Jay becoming now Mrs Ronald Sharp.
Hunnard did not come to the wedding and she didn’t care. That part of her life was behind her. She didn’t even inform Doctor Lowe and his wife, though she often wondered about him, feeling a little sad for him.
Living on her husband’s modest income, she had arranged for some of the proceeds from the sale of her works to be put in Dora’s name – she having come to live with them – for when she eventually met a partner and married.
Some she let Charlie and his wife Carrie have in memory of Mum and to buy themselves a house, though she guessed he would help it on its way
