A Mother's Love by Maggie Ford

Author:Maggie Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448176892
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Chapter Seventeen

It was a gloomy time. A black wreath hung on the front door; nearly every front door had one as far as Sara could see. People passing in the street all wore some sort of mourning, everyone looking solemn.

All over the country people were displaying deep sadness. Queen Victoria was dead – had died quietly on Friday, 22 January 1901 – and a whole nation was in mourning, so Ellen told her, and would be so for several weeks to come.

It was Sunday. Sara had been put in a black velvet dress, a black velvet ribbon in her hair, which hardly showed amongst the darkness of her curls. She was to wear black during the week, too, but in cheaper material not half so nice to touch. Even Ellen’s housemaid pinafores had been hastily edged with cheap black crepe, and Cook looked as funereal as anyone could – her hat and coat, as well as her skirt and blouse, probably worn for every funeral she’d ever attended, had a rusty, greasy look. Even Jamie’s petticoats were trimmed with tiny black stitching. As for their parents, already in mourning for their dead baby, they didn’t look much different to usual.

Sara wished it was Monday, wished she was at school, then there would be something to do. She’d been taken to church this morning and it had been a most dreary service, all about the passing of a Great and most Gracious Queen who had Reigned for such a great Length of Time and with such Wisdom that she had become an Incorruptible Institution. Which meant absolutely nothing to Sara, much less the Queen herself.

Mother hadn’t gone. Saying that it brought back too many memories, she had retired instead to her room with Jamie, her lunch being taken up to her. Sara overheard her father muttering to himself as he came to the table that it sometimes made him wonder what was going on inside her that she dared not tell of. It sounded so cryptic, so unusually cynical, that Sara turned in surprise. He smiled hastily at her, the way some people will when caught doing something wrong.

After lunch, when Ellen had stoked the fire in the drawing room until the underside of the high mantelpiece and wood panelling of the fireplace glowed like dark toffee, everything warm and cosy chasing away the grey outside, he took her on his knee. Cuddling her, as her mother was probably cuddling Jamie, they played draughts, which she won so easily – three times to his once – that she suspected he had let her win. They stopped only when Ellen came in again to draw the gold-coloured chenille curtains to make the room even cosier.

With the evening descending, he left her to play by herself while he dressed for dinner. He returned looking splendid as usual, his fair, curling hair shiny and nicely parted on one side, his fair moustache soft as he dropped a kiss on her cheek. She told him she loved him, and he smiled and tweaked her nose.

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