I’ll Bring You Buttercups. Elizabeth Elgin

thread, I’m to say?’ Mary frowned.

      ‘That’s right. From York – or Harrogate. She’ll know. And pass the butter please, Tilda, afore my toast gets cold.’

      She could have set her clock by Julia Sutton’s breathless arrival. Breakfast at eight-thirty, with twenty minutes – give or take the odd few seconds – before she could decently excuse herself. Then half a minute from the morning-room to the sewing-room; a little before nine, it would be.

      ‘Hawthorn?’ At eight fifty-two exactly, a pink-cheeked Julia opened the sewing-room door.

      ‘You understood my message, then?’ Alice held the envelope between her first and second fingers. ‘It came this morning. From him.’

      ‘Andrew!’ She snatched the envelope, tearing it open with shaking fingers, pulling out the smaller one inside which bore her name – just Julia, written squarely in the very centre in black ink. ‘Oh, Hawthorn – what if …’

      ‘Read it and see.’ She waited, hardly breathing, as the tiny mantel-clock ticked away a long minute, loud in the silence; then Julia lifted her eyes.

      ‘He isn’t coming to York mid-June,’ she whispered soberly, then her cheeks dimpled and she laughed out loud. ‘No! It’s to be Harrogate, and he’s coming next week! He says he thinks it had better be Harrogate because he wants to visit the Pump Room and the Baths, and find out all he can about the water cures. Well, I suppose a doctor would be –’

      ‘Interested?’ Alice nodded. ‘Yes.’ Though not for the life of her could she ever have been persuaded to drink those curative waters. Tasted something awful, Cook said, and a pint of ale would do more good, to her way of thinking. ‘Did he say, miss, why he’s coming earlier?’

      ‘No, but does it matter? All I know is that he’ll be arriving on Monday, a little before noon, and he wants me to meet him outside the station entrance at two.’

      ‘And can you?’

      ‘I’ve got to.’ It was so ridiculous that a grown woman must be escorted everywhere, as if she were incapable even of crossing the road unaided. ‘I’ll have to think up an excuse to get away – alone, if I can.’

      ‘And will she let you – go by yourself on the train, I mean?,’ Alice frowned.

      ‘Why shouldn’t I, in a ladies-only compartment? But if she won’t allow it, I shall ask her if you can come with me. You can buy your blue thread, then.’

      ‘You know I don’t want thread, miss. And if I was you I wouldn’t make too many plans, because next week it’s the dinner party – had you forgotten?’

      ‘As if I could. Mama’s as jumpy as a kitten about it already. Well, she would be. It’s three years since she last had people here.’

      ‘Yes. So think, miss. Who’s to be spared to go to Harrogate with you? We’ll be busy all week, and I’ll have to help out in the kitchens, what with all the extra work.’

      Silver and table-linen to be brought out and checked after so long out of use; Cook pink-cheeked and indignant and loving every minute of it, from the first menu ideas to the last of the savouries sent up to the servery in the shuddering lift; then she would collapse in the kitchen rocker and fan herself with a tea towel, murmuring, ‘My, oh, my …’

      ‘Busy? Everyone? Then I’ll just have to get away on my own.’

      Perhaps, Julia thought, the dinner party might be a blessing in disguise. Perhaps Mama would be too taken up with it to argue the rights and wrongs of an unchaperoned trip. Or would she say no, in a voice that meant no?

      ‘I must see her – now!’

      She was gone before Alice could offer a word of advice or warning or caution. Blue thread, indeed! It was going to take more than a reel of thread to get them out of this one.

      Sighing, she returned to the kitchen, where silver fruit baskets and candlesticks and flower bowls waited to be polished, and knives and forks and spoons and salt cellars and sauce bowls cleaned and rinsed in soapy water, then cleaned again. And Cook fussing over her stockpot, complaining that the fire wasn’t drawing properly; that the flues would have to be brushed clean of soot in the morning and Tilda had better not forget it, either!

      She had been so looking forward to the dinner party, Alice fretted; to the fuss and bustle and helping in the kitchen and seeing the table decorations and the lovely dresses and eating leftover goodies. It should have been nice to see Rowangarth come to life again, with her ladyship looking lovely and wearing her orchids, but now the letter had come and there was no knowing what Miss Julia would do. The cat would be out of the bag and London out of bounds for all time, if she didn’t mind what she said.

      ‘Oh, Lor’,’ Alice whispered. ‘Be careful, miss.’

      Julia found her mother in her dressing-room, swishing aside dinner gowns, murmuring, ‘No, no, no! Oh, it’s you, child. There is absolutely nothing to wear and less than a week to go and no time at all to buy new …’

      ‘Blue,’ Julia pronounced. ‘Something blue, it should be.’

      But Pa had always liked her in blue, so blue could not be considered. Nor the apricot silk with the draped neckline, because Mama had worn that to Pa’s last birthday dinner; nor the green satin, either, because she had been wearing it when they came to tell her that Pa wasn’t just late for dinner, but that he wouldn’t be home, ever again.

      ‘Blue.’ Julia reached for a hanger and removed the cover from the gown. ‘Your orchids will look beautiful with this one. And you should have Miss Clitherow make you a chignon so you can wear orchids in your hair, too.’

      ‘Hmm. Did you want something?’ Clearly she was in no mood to talk about clothes.

      ‘N-no. Nothing in particular, except perhaps could Hawthorn be spared to come with me to Harrogate on Monday? I’d thought on the noon train – or it would be better if I were to go alone …’

      ‘Alone? But you never –’

      ‘Mama! Girls go everywhere alone, now. In London it’s quite commonplace.’

      ‘But this is not London, Julia. Nor, I imagine, can Hawthorn be spared on Monday – or any other day next week.’

      ‘Yes, I know she’s needed to help out downstairs, but I’ve got a good reason for going on my own. It will be Hawthorn’s birthday in two weeks, and she was such a help in London and so kind and thoughtful when I got my bruises, that I’d like to buy some special roses for her hat.

      ‘The ones she’s got she made herself out of satin scraps, and I want to buy her some silk ones, and maybe a little matching bud for her jacket lapel – to say thank you, I mean. So it’s best she doesn’t come with me and I can manage alone, I really can. If I’m seen on to the train and met off it when I get back, I can’t possibly come to any harm.

      ‘And I’m nearly twenty-one and it is 1913, Mama, and women travel alone every day in London on the trams and tube trains, really they do,’ she finished breathlessly.

      ‘London has given you ideas, Julia, and yes, I know you’re not a child and it’s kind of you to think about Hawthorn, but –’

      ‘But I can’t go alone and no one can be spared next week to go with me!’ Her mouth set stubbornly.

      ‘Then you are wrong. But just this once, I was going to say, if you promise to get the five o’clock train back, I think you might be allowed –’

      ‘Mama! Oh, thank you, and I will take care, I will! And Hawthorn wants blue thread and if there’s anything you’d like me to get for you …’

      ‘There is nothing. But if you find yourself in need of a ladies’ room, then do be careful where you go? The teashop on the corner of James Street is very respectable.’

      ‘I’ll