A Brighter Tomorrow - Maggie Ford (thriller novels to read .txt) 📗

In obedience to her husband’s dictates, Mrs Lowe no longer treated her to the open loathing and disdain she had once shown, but still refused to give any sign of friendliness. Anyway, the feeling was mutual.

It was a sunny morning, but cold. Well wrapped up, Ellie stood beside Michael in the crowd. He’d given her his arm and she clung to it for warmth but derived a good deal more from their closeness than protection from the cold.

Even though she was of average height, it was almost impossible to see anything for the mass of heads in front of her as she heard the cheering coming towards her in waves when the new King and Queen in their state coach approached.

‘I won’t be able to see a thing from here!’ she pleaded.

At her words, Michael chuckled and, easing his arm from her hold, crouched down. ‘Here, climb on my back if you can.’

‘I can’t do that!’

‘Of course you can,’ he answered urgently. ‘Hurry up now. There’s not much more time and I can manage you. You weigh next to nothing, you’re so slight.’

‘What about you?’

‘I can see well enough.’ At five foot ten he would. ‘Now come on, or you’ll miss it all.’

It was quite a feat trying to clamber on his back, her skirt impeding her, her best hat in danger of tilting itself at an alarming angle.

‘Here, love, up yer go!’ She heard a man’s voice behind her as a pair of hands clutching at her slim waist helped to hoist her feet off the ground. ‘Yer young man’s right, yer know: yer as light as a bloomin’ fevver!’

She thought only momentarily of the imposition of a strange man’s hands on her waist before she was hoisted up to a good vantage point. She couldn’t even turn round to see the man’s face, but his voice heartened her – a real, full-blown Cockney voice. The next moment a surging shock went right through her like a stab from a blade of hot iron. It was her dad’s voice – she was sure of it.

She could only half-turn, getting merely a side view of a sea of globe-shaped faces, unrecognizably contorted with excitement as the magnificent gilded state coach came into view drawn by a team of plumed horses.

‘Stop wriggling!’ Michael scolded, laughing. ‘Can you see?’

She turned back, her heart still thumping. ‘Yes I can see!’ she said automatically. She had probably been wrong – it couldn’t have been her dad, the man always on her mind; but it had been a strange feeling. Firmly she concentrated her attention on the spectacle passing before her.

Despite the splash of colour provided by the royal coach, the soldiers’ uniforms and the silver and gold trappings of the household cavalry, black remained the prevailing colour in mourning for the late Queen, a solemn reminder of the country’s recent loss. If anything, the gesture endeared the onlookers all the more to its new sovereign, the air being rent with cheering.

‘That was really wonderful,’ Ellie sighed as, with the departure of the glorious royal procession, the crowd began to thin and disperse.

She had slid down from Michael’s back, with no one now to assist her, being careful not to have her skirt ride up and show the calves of her legs. The moment her feet felt firm pavement she looked around for the owner of the Cockney voice, but he was probably long gone. She’d never know now if it had been her father or just a figment of an oversensitive imagination. But if it had been him, what would she have done?

Better was the memory of her arm in Michael’s, his laughter at her trying to scramble on to his back to see better, the way he now threaded her arm through his again and suggested they have a cup of tea and a bite to eat before returning her home.

‘That’s if we can find anywhere at all to eat,’ he chuckled, patting her gloved hand. ‘I expect everyone has the same idea.’

At that, she laughed lightly, forcing thoughts of her father from her mind for the moment.

That night she lay awake, thinking about the episode. What would she have done had it been her father? She could still feel those hands on her waist and in retrospect they felt horrible, as if pawing at her. Ellie felt herself shudder with loathing and the memory of that old clawing feeling she would get in her stomach as he leered at her. She had it now.

Angrily she turned over, trying to think of nicer things. Finally she fell asleep, but her dreams were of his weight on her, his grunting and sweating, the vile feel of him, while she was rigid, her mind numb, in fear that she might suddenly be sick over him and bring his anger down on her. It was a recurring dream, often waking her in the small hours. Next morning she’d remember and feel that shame, as she always did after such a nightmare, and make a renewed vow to find him, to make him pay as painfully and humiliatingly as possible.

She longed to see Michael, but it was Friday and she wouldn’t see him again until Monday. Her weekend would consist of being nice to Doctor Lowe, whose obsession with her was becoming more irritating than alarming, of feeling the loneliness that weekends often brought, with the staff long ago having stopped speaking to her, and of trying to avoid his wife.

Her only escape was painting – that and hoping she and Dora could steal an hour together to enjoy a bit of a gossip.

It was so much easier these days. Mrs Lowe no longer held sway over Dora, though the girl was still her personal maid and companion. Since she had returned home, Mrs Lowe was less in her room and more with her husband, eating with him again, entertaining and accompanying him when out to dinner with friends and acquaintances. Ellie guessed it was a new