Bertram stood quite still. He could hear her calling for Dora in a high, frantic voice and wondered absently what the staff must make of it. Fuel for wagging tongues, no doubt.
His heart felt as though it had been drained of blood; yet now all he could think of, as his wife’s door slammed to, was that Ellie – Elizabeth as he was wont to call her these days – would be near destroyed by the loss of her younger sister, whom she had brought here under her own far-too-young protection, seeking his protection for them both.
Thirteen
September: Dora had been away nearly three months. It felt more like three years, more like a lifetime. Bad enough when the mistress had forbidden Dora to associate with her. At least she had caught a glimpse of her now and again and they’d exchanged hurried smiles. Now there wasn’t even that to console her. For the first time ever she felt… well, orphaned.
She wondered if Dora was pining as much as she was. There’d been no word from her at all since she and Mrs Lowe had left. She had found where Dora was living from an address book in one of the drawers in Doctor Lowe’s desk and written to her several times, no longer labouring over her spelling or her English since Michael Deel had spent time with her over it.
She was a quick learner, he told her. She hadn’t realized it herself. Never going to school as often as she should have, with Mum always needing her help, she had thought herself a bit of a dunce. It had taken Michael Deel to bring out talents she’d thought she never had and, in fact, she had come to enjoy writing letters.
Writing got all the tension out of her and she had written pages and pages to Dora, full of hopes and fears – what she had been up to and how she was looking forward to hearing all Dora had been up to. Though her sister was really bad at writing, her spelling pitiful, written exactly as she spoke, she expected some sort of reply.
At first she wondered if Dora was too ashamed of her efforts to write, but soon came a feeling that her own letters were perhaps being intercepted and not passed on. Likewise she suspected Dora’s letters were also being interfered with. She wouldn’t put it past Mrs Lowe.
Poor Dora. All on her own, with only her mistress for company, at her beck and call and probably hardly let out of her sight. She must be feeling totally isolated, trapped. She could walk out, but Ellie knew she would never have the gumption: she was still only thirteen. But even at thirteen she could have found her way back here. If ever she did turn up, Ellie was prepared to give up all her plans to better herself here and go off with her to do the best she could in the wide world. Dora was worth that sacrifice.
Oddly enough, having got much of what she’d been aiming for, Ellie also felt isolated. Nothing was as she’d imagined it would be. She now ate her meals in Doctor Lowe’s study, Florrie bringing her food there. Ellie could see she was far from being pleased about that, tossing her head when Ellie tried to make conversation or even smile at her; if Ellie addressed her, she was now calling her Miss Jay, as if they’d never ever been friends.
‘You’ll no longer be expected to work around the house,’ Doctor Lowe had told her, which was exactly when Florrie had started showing off. And it was then that she had known things would never be the same again. Though she was on her way to becoming all that she’d planned to be, she didn’t feel at all happy. She wanted Florrie to be her friend again, to have Mrs Jenkins scold her for small errors instead of behaving stiffly and correctly in her presence. But most of all she wanted Dora back here beside her, to confide in, protect, giggle and share thoughts with.
Then, last week, Doctor Lowe had said that he would be moving her out of the bedroom she’d used as a parlourmaid.
‘Chambers and the girl Rose are to sleep there,’ he told her with an almost fatherly smile. ‘You will have my daughter Millicent’s bedroom for your own.’
It was evening. His surgery had finished for the day and they were having a light supper together, seated opposite each other across the small round table in his study.
Ellie wasn’t sure whether she enjoyed eating with him. Try as she might, she could never feel entirely at ease with him. Whether it was because at times he seemed just a little too fatherly, making it hard not to flinch away should he touch her arm, or whether it had something to do with the fact that she still cringed from the memory of the medical help he’d given her, a lingering sense of it being a little too personal, she couldn’t say. But she always managed to disguise her feelings.
While he was working, she could enjoy her meals alone, even though it was becoming boring with little to do all day but draw and paint, read books or go out for a stroll. She could now come and go as she pleased, glad to be free of the place.
Sometimes she’d take an omnibus and wander around the big shops up west, sometimes go to visit Mrs Sharp, her only social contact with the outside world. With Ronnie Sharp at work it wasn’t much of an outing, and she guessed Doctor Lowe wouldn’t like her being out late, even though the early-September evenings were still light.
Mrs Sharp would always stop whatever she was doing to make her a cup of tea and to
