The Sweeping Saga Collection: Poppy’s Dilemma, The Dressmaker’s Daughter, The Factory Girl. Nancy Carson

      ‘But I want us to be more than just friends, Robert. Oh, I know you’re engaged and that, but … and that’s why we ain’t been more than just friends, I know. Except for the odd times when we’ve kissed and cuddled … But I kept hoping that you’d get weary of her and pick me … Oh, Robert, can’t you see I love you so much? You must know how much I love you.’

      He nodded, thoughtful. ‘Yes, Poppy,’ he breathed. ‘Dearest, dearest Poppy … I’m fully aware of your feelings towards me. I am ever mindful of them—’

      ‘Well, I think you love me as well, Robert. I’m so certain of it, but I think you’re afeared of letting yourself go … of letting yourself come to me properly. You ain’t got no idea how much that upsets me. My poor heart is breaking for you, Robert, yet you keep so … so … You keep your distance … I don’t know how else to say it … I ain’t got the cholera or the plague, you know.’

      He stopped and she turned towards him. He looked into her eyes that were so appealing and held his arms out to her. At once she fell into them and savoured his embrace as he tenderly stroked her hair. Others were walking past them, but Poppy and Robert were so preoccupied with the moment that they were oblivious to anybody and anything else.

      ‘Poppy …’

      She raised her head and looked up at him. His eyes had a troubled look that frightened her.

      ‘What?’ she said anxiously.

      ‘Poppy … dearest little Poppy … You are absolutely right in your estimation of how I feel about you. I do love you. With all my heart and soul I love you—’

      ‘And I’m so glad to hear it, Robert.’ She sighed, smiling, hugging him joyously. ‘Oh, it makes me so happy to hear it. So you are going to make me your girl and shout it to the world?’

      ‘It’s not that simple. As I have told you before … Listen … I have come to a decision that affects you, me, and the girl to whom I’m engaged—’

      ‘A decision?’ Alarm bells were ringing in her head. ‘What decision? You just told me you love me.’

      ‘Allow me to speak and you will hear it.’

      ‘I’m allowing you. Tell me. But don’t tell me anything I don’t want to hear.’

      ‘Well, you may not want to hear it, but I have to tell you anyway … I have decided that the only way that you and my fiancée can emerge from this with any integrity is if I go away for a year or so. Given some time we shall all know how we truly feel. It’s possible we shall look at things from a totally different perspective.’

      ‘You might see things from a different prospective, Robert, but I won’t. I trust my feelings now. I know how I shall feel in a twelvemonth – exactly the same as I do now. Why do you tell me one moment you love me, then the next that you’re going away? It’s all you ever do …’

      ‘Because it’s the only answer.’ He held her tenderly by her arms as she faced him. He loathed himself for having to put her through this agony, but his resolution to be fair would allow him no other way. He could not trifle with her. ‘You are as important to me as anybody else in the whole world. If it were not so, I wouldn’t put myself through this pain. I would trifle with you scandalously, take advantage of you and then let you go. I wouldn’t feel the need to go away to sort myself out. But I have never taken advantage of you. I esteem you too much for that.’

      ‘Then esteem me less, Robert … I want you to. We could have such lovely times together if you stay. If you stay, we shall become lovers …’

      ‘No, Poppy. I will not, I cannot. You mean so much more to me. Don’t you see? It’s because I feel so deeply for you that I have to go away. I’m engaged to be married, as I told you at the outset. Engagement is no trifling thing. I took the decision to marry with a clear mind. At the time, I considered myself in love with my sweetheart and the match was welcomed – even desired – by both our families. I have to be fair to both of you … to our respective families as well.’

      ‘Have you told her about me?’

      ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I have told her that my feelings have been diverted by another—’

      ‘What have you told her about me?’

      ‘Nothing. Except that my feelings for you are of sufficient strength to warrant my taking some time away to sort my life out. I have asked her to release me from my promise to marry, but she has refused. I want you to understand, Poppy, that it’s exactly the same for her as it is for you. She is prepared to wait for me to … to come to my senses, as she puts it.’

      ‘Do you love her, Robert?’

      ‘How can I love two girls at once? It’s you I love, Poppy. But I am responsible. I am engaged to another. It is a question of trying to salvage some honour.’

      ‘Honour?’ she scoffed. ‘Whose honour? But you’ll write to her, won’t you? You’ll keep in touch with her?’

      ‘That is not my intention. I intend making a complete break of it for a year, with no contact whatsoever. Only without her influence or yours can I become rational again.’

      ‘But in a year the encampment will have moved. We might be anywhere in the country, on any railway. I’ll never know if you chose me or not, ’cause you won’t know where the hell I am.’

      ‘It’s a risk I have to take, Poppy. In any case, in a year you might well feel differently.’

      ‘Never! Never in a thousand years.’

      ‘Oh, in just one year you might well have fallen in love with somebody like Jericho and forgotten all about me.’

      She screwed her face up in disgust. ‘The likes of Jericho? Never. I don’t want the likes of Jericho, Robert, I want you.’

      ‘Come on, Poppy. Let’s continue our walk.’ He took her hand again and she allowed it, walking sullenly beside him.

      ‘Where will you go?’ she asked.

      ‘I’m going abroad.’

      ‘Abroad? When?’

      ‘I leave on Saturday.’

      ‘Saturday?’ Her heart sank. ‘So soon?’

      ‘Yes, Poppy, so soon.’

      ‘But that’s the day after tomorrow. I wish you’d told me sooner.’

      ‘I didn’t want to tell you sooner … oh, for purely selfish reasons. I wanted – I needed – to revel in your devotion for as long as I could. I’m going to miss you, Poppy. I know I’m going to miss you terribly. It will be unbearable, but I’m determined to endure it. Only then can I be sure. Only then will I have been truly fair to both of you.’

      ‘I think you are being truly unfair by leaving me. ’Specially just after you told me you love me. It makes no sense, Robert. It don’t make no sense at all.’ Her bottom lip began to quiver and she bit it appealingly.

      He looked at her and saw how emotional she was. ‘You’re not going to cry, are you?’

      ‘What d’you expect me to do? So what if I do?’ She sniffed defiantly and stemmed her tears, wiping her eyes with her long sleeve. ‘But why should I give you the satisfaction?’

      ‘I have cried, Poppy.’

      ‘You? Honest?’

      ‘Why should I not? I feel this just as acutely as you, believe me. I am just as capable of hurting inside as you are. I am just as capable of shedding tears.’

      ‘But you’re a man.’

      He laughed self-mockingly. ‘And men don’t shed tears in your world.’

      ‘I never seen nobody.’

      ‘Well