The Girl From Seaforth Sands (40 page)

Ella smiled, but had no opportunity to comment one way or the other since the door of the morning room flew open, revealing Philip, who glanced up at her, smiling. ‘Ah, Ella, you’re just in time for coffee and bourbon biscuits,’ he said, crossing the hall to meet her as she descended the last stairs. ‘And Laura will be joining us in a few minutes; she’s run upstairs to change out of her street clothes.’ He held out both hands and took Ella’s in a warm grasp, and immediately the worry, which must have shown on Ella’s face at the thought of meeting his beloved sister, faded from her mind. ‘You’re going to love one another, like two sisters,’ he whispered as they entered the room together.

When Myrtle had helped her to get ready for bed that night and left her, at last, in her brightly lit room, with the fire blazing and a drink of hot milk on her bedside table, Ella was able to reflect on all that had passed. It had been a wonderful day, from the moment that Philip had picked her up in Huskisson Street to the present, sitting warm and comfortable in her beautiful bedroom and anticipating with real excitement the days still to come.

She had, as she had hoped, loved Laura almost as soon as she met her, partly because she was so very like Philip, with the same taffy-brown hair and matching eyes, although in Laura’s case the hair had been elaborately curled and was tied back from her face with ribbon. She was about Ella’s own height and had a good deal of self-confidence, although she
was not at all assertive. What was more, she was clearly determined to like Ella and had speedily dispensed with the title ‘Miss Morton’, and had begged Ella not to keep calling her Miss Grimshaw, either. ‘For we are going to be great friends,’ she had said gaily, slipping her arm round Ella’s waist, as the two of them went to their rooms after luncheon to get ready for a shopping expedition.

After some earlier discussion, Laura had persuaded Ella that their shopping, if it was to be successful, had best be done that day. ‘For tomorrow is Christmas Eve,’ she had said, ‘and the shops will be crowded with people searching for last-minute gifts. If we go immediately after luncheon, we should be home for tea. That will give you plenty of time to prepare for the family party this evening.’ As they continued up the stairs, Laura turned to Ella once more and gave her a teasing glance, from her large, long-lashed eyes. ‘And though I know we shall be friends, from what Philip tells me, I may yet be able to call you sister.’ She smiled at Ella’s astonished expression and gave the other girl a little shake. ‘Silly! You must be as aware as I, that Philip would scarcely bring you home and introduce you to his family unless he was . . . was serious about you. I do hope you are serious about him as well,’ she added naively, ‘because he’s the nicest young man I know, even though I
am
prejudiced, he being my brother.’

‘I like your brother very much,’ Ella said rather stiffly, ‘but this visit is by way of being a . . . a sort of test. I’m working very hard to become an independent woman, someone who can look after herself and earn sufficient money to be comfortable, no matter
what may happen to me. I haven’t seriously considered marriage . . .’ She met Laura’s quizzical eye and felt her cheeks grow hot. ‘Well, I suppose everyone considers marriage but . . . but we aren’t engaged or anything of that nature.’

They had reached Ella’s bedroom door by this time. She opened it and would have gone into the room but Laura detained her, a hand on her arm. ‘Philip told me that this was a sort of test as well,’ she admitted. ‘Oh, but Ella, I do so want it to be a success!’ And with that she flitted down the corridor and disappeared into her own room.

Despite the slight feeling of embarrassment which Laura’s assumption had caused her, Ella had still enjoyed the shopping expedition immensely. She had asked Laura which of her evening dresses she should wear that night and Laura had unhesitatingly picked out Ella’s favourite, a lavender silk gown with a low-cut neck, a dark-purple velvet sash round the high waist and tiny, embroidered, laced sleeves. With this gown, Ella had intended to wear her white lace elbow-length gloves, but Laura had shaken her head.

‘Lavender kid gloves,’ she had said decisively. ‘And I know where just such a pair may be purchased for a reasonable price. Bradshaw and Blackmore’s are having a pre-Christmas sale. We can catch a tram and be there in ten minutes, and while we’re there I’d like to look at some of the oriental trousers that the magazines have been raving about. Not that I would dream of wearing them,’ she added. ‘Particularly not this evening, since Grandma Grimshaw would probably have a heart attack if I wore anything so daring.’

The shopping expedition had gone off well. Ella had purchased not only the gloves, but a pair of elegant high-heeled shoes, decorated with beading and embroidery, in a lovely shade of deep violet, which contrasted beautifully with the lavender gown. Laura, having examined with close interest the outrageous harem trousers and turbans on display, bought a boa made of white swansdown which would, she assured her new friend, go with everything she possessed. The two girls returned home and spent a great deal of time dressing for the evening. Although Mrs Grimshaw had said it was scarcely a party, Ella thought that she had been afraid of frightening her young guest; according to Laura it was to be a dinner party and the cousins would all be dressed in their best.

‘And Emmeline Griffith is bound to come, since her parents live next door and are great friends of papa’s,’ Laura remarked.

She glanced sideways at Ella, clearly wondering whether to continue with what she had been about to say. Ella, who had bound a lavender chiffon scarf around her curls, and was rather doubtfully regarding the effect in her dressing-table mirror, raised her brows. ‘Emmeline Griffith?’

‘She . . . she likes Philip,’ Laura blurted, then looked conscience-stricken. ‘He doesn’t like her,’ she added hastily. ‘Oh, he thinks she’s frightfully smart and terribly amusing, but he doesn’t like her, not one bit.’

Now, taking a sip of her hot milk, Ella reflected that Miss Griffith most certainly
did
like Philip and had spared no pains to show him that she was available. She had also shown that as far as she was concerned Ella was a provincial nobody who had somehow managed to enter the Grimshaws’ charmed circle by a method she herself would never have needed to employ.

The dinner had gone well; Ella had been seated between Philip on her left and a young man called Davidson on her right, and had managed to conduct a reasonable conversation with both of them, despite Miss Griffith’s constant calls on their attention, for she was seated on the opposite side of the table and had made eyes at Philip throughout the meal.

The part of the evening which had filled Ella with lively dismay in advance, however, proved to be far less of an ordeal than she had anticipated. Old Mrs Grimshaw was a tall, straight-backed octogenarian, with white hair piled up on her head in the Queen Alexandra style. She had glittering blue eyes, which Ella found focused upon herself disconcertingly often, and a clear, commanding voice that she used to good effect. After dinner Philip took Ella to the sofa upon which his grandmother was seated and, rather basely Ella felt, sat her down beside the old lady and went off to get them both a cup of coffee.

Mrs Grimshaw promptly began to reminisce about her own girlhood, which had been spent in Southport. ‘For I was a Seymour before I married Mr Grimshaw,’ she explained. ‘We lived in a very fine house on Lord Street and had a great many friends among the neighbouring families and Southport was a whirl of gaiety in Victorian times. Not that we were allowed the licence you young people enjoy today,’ she added, fixing Ella with her glittering eyes. ‘Balls were private affairs, unless one went to a subscription ball, of course – they were a little more informal. Yet though we could not go out without a chaperone, we still managed to enjoy ourselves. And naturally we met the right people, not the wrong ones,’ she finished, which Ella felt to be a remark directed at her.

‘My own grandmother was born and bred in Southport, and married a Southport gentleman,’ Ella said quietly. ‘I imagine she must have had the same restrictions that you speak of, though she died when I was only two, so I never really knew her.’

‘Oh, so you’re a Southport gel,’ Mrs Grimshaw said at once, her interest clearly aroused. ‘What was the name again?’

‘My mother was Henrietta Morton, but . . .’

‘Mortons? Never heard of them,’ the old lady said decisively. ‘Can’t have moved in my circle.’

‘No, that was my mother’s married name,’ Ella said, patiently. ‘She married my father, Oswald Morton, when she was only nineteen. But before her marriage she was a Hillerman.’

The old lady, who had been eyeing the young people talking in a small group by the long dining table, abruptly turned towards Ella, seeming to lose interest in the conversation going on ahead of her. ‘Not Rebecca Hillerman?’ she said incredulously. ‘She was my greatest friend. Why, even after we both married we remained on the very best of terms – I was godmother to her eldest daughter, Matilda.’ She stared hard at Ella, the bright blue eyes unblinking. ‘Now that I look at you closely, I declare I can see a resemblance to your dear grandmother. She had just those big, dark eyes and always with such a quizzical gleam when something amused her. Yes, there is a
marked
resemblance – and your grandmother was a great beauty in her time.’

The incident had set the seal on the evening and not only on the evening, Ella thought now, finishing her hot milk and climbing between the sheets,
but on her whole visit. From the moment that old Mrs Grimshaw had begun to tell people how she and Ella’s grandmother had been great friends, Ella felt herself accepted not only by the Grimshaws themselves, but by their numerous friends and relations. The fact that Ella was now a working girl, sharing a room with three others, no longer mattered; she was a Hillerman, the child of important and wealthy people, and in future would be accepted as such without question.

I’m not a snob, Ella told herself as she settled down to sleep. Everyone wants to be accepted for themselves, but I can’t deny it’s very comfortable to feel that my birth does mean something. Amy says she’s proud of being a fisherman’s daughter and so she should be, which means I can be proud of my connections, too.

There had only been one dissident voice when her connections in Southport had been discussed and unfortunately, perhaps, Ella had overheard it. Indeed, thinking back, she found herself torn between a desire to giggle and another to slap Emmeline Griffith’s face.

Ella had been sitting with a group of Philip’s cousins, half listening to their animated conversation, when her own name caught her ears. Without turning her head she promptly switched her attention to the young woman who had spoken, realising immediately that the soft, affected tones, belonged to Miss Griffith.

‘Ella Morton?’ the voice drawled, with an edge of dislike to it which was unmistakable, ‘and the old lady recognised her you say? I think it likelier that she recognised the dress.’

For a moment Ella’s cheeks had burned with mortification, but then the funny side brought a smile to her lips. It was true that her dress had been remodelled from an old one belonging to her mother, but glancing towards Miss Griffith’s rear view she reflected that anyone with a bottom which could be compared unfavourably with that of a carthorse was bound to make catty remarks about someone as slim as herself. What was more the bottom in question, being upholstered in red velvet, drew attention to its size; black would have been more sensible, Ella found herself thinking. Or even a nice dark green, but not, definitely not, scarlet velvet.

On that thought she fell happily asleep.

Ella spent the following day almost exclusively in Philip’s company, though they returned to the house for tea at four. Laura had suggested accompanying them when Philip had said he meant to show Ella Manchester, but he had vetoed her suggestion on the grounds that she would want to go in and out of the department stores. There were a great many things besides shops that were worth visiting, he told his sister grandly: museums, art galleries and fine architecture for a start.

But in the event, Ella realised later, the day had been spent in getting to know one another and to appreciate each other’s tastes. They visited the museums and found they both enjoyed browsing among the exhibits, and in the art gallery they both admired landscapes rather than portraits. They had lunch at Lyons Café on Victoria Street and then, rather to Ella’s surprise, they did a good deal of window shopping, walking down a narrow little street in which there were a number of jewellery shops. Philip invented a game which consisted of his
trying to guess which of the wonderful sparkling emerald, sapphire and diamond rings she would prefer. What was more, he scored high on her preferences, making her feel they had similar tastes in other matters than museums and galleries. Indeed, when she asked him why he did not consider rubies, he said at once that he thought them too flamboyant for her own particular style of beauty and had guessed that she would prefer sapphires or emeralds.

When they reached home it was to find the whole family, including Grandmama Grimshaw, seated around a roaring log fire in the drawing room, eating muffins and buttered toast, and drinking tea from delicate china cups.

The two of them sat down and enjoyed a hearty meal, for dinner would not be served until eight o’clock and so much walking had made Ella hungry as any hunter. Presently Philip excused himself on the grounds that he had some wrapping of presents to do in his room. Ella accepted this but suggested to Laura that they themselves might follow his example, since she had bought a few small presents that morning, which she had not yet wrapped or labelled. Standing up to leave the room, her eye was caught by a movement on the other side of the window glass and, to her surprise, she saw that it was Philip, coated and hatted, making his way down the steps and along the pavement. He had hunched his shoulders and sunk his head as low into his collar as he could, and Ella thought, with a pang of dismay, that he looked somehow furtive. She was forced to wonder whether he was off to visit an old friend and thought bitterly that if it was the horrible Emmeline Griffith, then he was welcome to her. She
just hoped that Miss Griffith would show her true character by making some catty remark which would send Philip home disgusted with her. She half wished that she had told Philip what the older girl had said about her ball gown, then dismissed the idea. She was being as petty as Emmeline Griffith when she allowed herself to harbour such thoughts and anyway, it was far likelier that Philip had merely run out of paper or string and was going out to renew his supplies.