Mrs Sharp’s most interesting topic was what her Ronnie was up to. Ellie had taken to writing to him, telling him about herself, and he’d write telling her about himself. That was as far as it had ever got.
She’d have liked to contact Dora, though it would only mean trouble for them both; but there were times when she thought she had never felt so lonely. Trying to become a lady wasn’t as enjoyable as she had imagined.
At Doctor Lowe’s revelation Ellie stopped eating and looked up at him in surprise. It was the first time he’d ever spoken his daughter’s name without prefixing the word dearest or of having grief twist his podgy features. With his wife’s departure he had begun to change.
‘It’s foolish to let the room lie empty,’ he continued as Ellie went on staring. ‘It should be brought to life again.’
‘Didn’t your wife want it to stay as it was?’ she asked. ‘After…’ She let the words die away, fearing to upset him. Instead he gave a wry grin.
‘Yes, and so did I. But time passes and the emptiness fills. I have you to thank for that. Yes, you, my dear,’ he stressed as she tried to wave away his gratitude.
‘It can in some ways be a comfort to keep alive a cherished memory, but there is a tendency to let oneself be dragged down by it with no wish or will to face the world again. I was in danger of that happening and until you came I was content to let it continue.’
He sighed and pushed his plate from him. ‘I finally feel ready to come to terms with our loss and it is all due to you, my dear. I wish her mother could feel the same way, but there is little I can do about that.’
He seemed resigned to his wife having gone. It was almost as if a weight had been lifted from him. It struck Ellie that he was, in fact, glad of the freedom to spend more time with her without recrimination from his wife. Ellie had long guessed that they’d probably not enjoyed a close companionship for years.
She often wondered whether their marriage had been a love match or a contract between two families such as the better off were often said to indulge in. She imagined it to have been the latter, for she’d not seen the slightest glance of affection pass between them for as long as she had been here. It had seemed to her, as time went on, that his only show of such feelings had been towards herself, while his wife had bestowed hers on Dora. Almost like a contest between the pair.
She couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. It couldn’t have been much of a life, and to lose his only daughter too. Now, without his wife here, he was beginning to smother her a little too much, making her feel uncomfortable.
It was starting to feel wrong, playing on his good nature as a means to an end. She’d begun to hate herself, knowing she was treading on everyone for her own purposes. But what important purposes they were. It took all her efforts not to be reminded that he was a kind man, too kind to be taken advantage of like this. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she couldn’t abandon her scheme to find her father. This man was her only chance of attaining that goal; one day she would leave and it would break the man’s heart.
His daughter’s old room was lovely: spacious and bright – the bed covers, the matching drapes, the wallpaper apparently still as they’d been left. How doted on she must have been to have such a room. Ellie gazed about and thought of the tiny box she and Dora had shared in the two-up, two-down terraced dwelling in Gales Gardens. How lucky this girl had been. Ellie smiled. No, not lucky. She was dead. Ellie Jay was alive: she was the lucky one.
Yesterday, boxes of clothes and other things belonging to the girl had been put into storage in the attic room Chambers and Rose shared.
It all struck Ellie as something like sacrilege, as if Doctor Lowe was in a way trying to put away his daughter’s memory. Of course he wasn’t. It must have affected him, for he’d made himself scarce during the short procedure, down in his surgery, while two hired men shifted the lot in accordance with a list he’d previously written up.
Nor did he appear that evening, informing Mrs Jenkins that he’d be at his club and wouldn’t be eating at home. Ellie felt disappointed as she ate alone in his study, but she understood. Of course it would have touched him very much. It must have felt to him as if he were sweeping away the past. Ellie found herself feeling quite emotional on his behalf.
But her transfer into Doctor Lowe’s own household, as it were, had its price. Chambers had shown no gratitude in having her old room back, and now, coming into the study with Ellie’s dinner on a tray – Ellie had yet to use the dining room downstairs – she didn’t even glance at her as Ellie opened the door for her to come in. Stomping past her, she plonked the tray down on the small round table and busied herself setting out cutlery, condiments, napkin, water jug and glass, all without a word.
‘That tray looked heavy, Florrie,’ Ellie offered sociably, trying to break the ice; but an
