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

It was only later that hard work, caring for her family, and poverty because of a man seldom in work preferring to gamble, drink and womanize away the money she earned, had aged her and brought her to ill health.

Memories she preferred to forget. But that was then and Michael was with her now. Slowly they sipped the dark, steaming Camp coffee from thick mugs, Michael talking quietly to her about his life.

‘Even if my father had allowed me to study, I’d never have found the talent you have.’

‘You could do, if you study hard enough,’ she told him, jokingly taking a leaf out of his book when telling her always to study hard and dedicate her mind to her work.

He didn’t laugh but looked at her in the fitful light of the coffee stall’s kerosene lamp swinging in a light breeze. ‘One day you’ll be a good artist. You are now, but you need to think of spreading your wings, taking a chance and leaving the place where you are now living. You have all the talent. What you don’t have, Ellie, is the courage and the hard shell required to face the difficult world that’s out there. It’s a difficult world for a woman where artists who earn their living are men.’

‘Women paint,’ she said, a little put out by what he’d said.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘ladies of leisure, I imagine. But it’s as a recreation, much as they would embroider a pretty picture. They’d never dream of trying to sell the pictures. It’s fine for a man but apparently frowned upon, as unsuitable to say the least, for a young lady to lower herself by selling her paintings.’

A sardonic note had crept into his voice and Ellie’s brief moment of offended pride dissipated instantly. He was with her, not against her, had only been trying to point out the pitfalls to her.

‘I can face anything,’ she said defiantly. ‘I wasn’t brought up a lady and I know all about hard times, so I won’t be upset by what others think. In fact, I mean to be the first woman artist to be famous!’

It sounded such a ridiculous statement that she expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. He frowned. ‘Then your work would have to be unique, different from anything else that’s ever been. I often think that to get on in the world a woman has to be twice as clever, twice as talented and twice as astute as a man, who I guess can get away with anything. That takes hard work and courage and, as I say, a strong carapace.’

‘Carapace?’

‘A protective shell,’ he enlightened her, laughing now. He put his empty mug back on the coffee-stall counter and, taking hers from her, put that beside it. He nodded his thanks to the heavily built, bewhiskered man who had served them, and guided her away.

‘Time I was taking you back,’ he said. ‘Mustn’t abuse my position.’

It was lovely walking through the darkened streets, again with her arm through his. It all seemed so natural. ‘Can we do this again?’ she asked, and he smiled.

‘I don’t see why not.’ To her they were the most wonderful words she thought she’d ever heard.

Sixteen

Turmoil raged within Bertram Lowe’s breast as he glared down from his study window. A small path led past the back gate. Beyond were the garden and churchyard of St John’s, dim in the last light of this July evening.

For weeks Ellie and her tutor had been creeping out behind his back for evening strolls. Mrs Jenkins had reported it to him, saying that as head of the household he should be acquainted with the goings-on here. Yet what could he say? Michael Deel and Ellie were free agents. He could hardly forbid it without looking a fool.

Now this latest, innocent enough request from Michael Deel for permission to take her to view an exhibition of paintings by new artists.

‘It will help her in her own work to know what is currently being shown.’ A crafty ploy to be together. ‘I’m sure she’ll benefit from it, sir. You said you can’t always have time from your busy surgery to take her to as many places of interest as you would like.’

There had been three similar requests these last two months, but how could he say no and not look as though he were jealous? For he was being eaten up by jealousy as he turned back to the young man standing there, awaiting his reply.

‘As you say, I do find it rather difficult these days,’ he’d said with an effort. ‘It seems I will again have to leave her in your hands, as her tutor.’

‘I promise to take good care of her,’ were always the parting words.

Yes, he would! The young man could hardly keep the excitement out of his voice, blast him! Bertram found himself toying with the idea of announcing on the next occasion that Michael had nothing more to teach her and that a more skilled tutor needed to be found. But, rather than separate them, it might very well bring them closer. Absence, it was said, makes the heart grow fonder, and they would only start meeting in secret – he was sure of that.

Here he had some control over them, growing less and less he knew; but while this young man was teaching her under his own roof, he could keep an eye on them.

But now that this sneaking out of an evening had come to his ears, he was sick with anger and at the moment fighting to hide it. If he’d only made time to take her out himself, this situation would not have arisen. But he was no longer as free as he had been when his wife was away.

It wasn’t so easy now she was back, ever watching him, just as he watched them. With Mary’s eyes always on him he felt restricted, and there were times when he wished she had stayed where she was,