Mill Town Girl by Audrey Reimann

Author:Audrey Reimann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Chapter Fourteen

Carrie woke seconds before the alarm went off. She always did. The alarm spring was permanently wound tight; only the lever that turned it off was ever used. She reached over and turned the lever to ‘off’. It was seven o’clock, Friday, the first of September and a beautiful sunny morning, as warm as June.

There was no need for her to rise early, for the lodgers did not take breakfast, but it was a lifetime’s habit. Only two bedrooms were let and those to two elderly refugee couples – one Czechoslovakian, the other a German Jewish pair. Cecil had recommended them to her.

Cecil had influence. He was on all the committees he could get on to. She wished that she looked forward to marrying Cecil. Why was she unsure? He’d done nothing to make her uneasy. He was in every way most attentive and considerate. And there had to be a future for her. She couldn’t abide becoming an old and unwanted woman.

She’d always had someone to look after. First Jane, then Rose. Never had she been, never had she liked, the kind of clinging, simpering woman who let a man take charge of her life. She made her own decisions. But there were times when even she longed for a strong shoulder to lean upon.

She lay a little while longer, remembering the day he had proposed, after chapel, four months ago. He’d given the sermon; a good one on the sin of David with Bathsheba. At every ‘smote’ or ‘smitten’ Cecil beat his hand on the edge of the pulpit to make his point. And when he said that David ‘lay’ with Bathsheba, he lingered over the words. All the members congratulated him on the sermon so it must only have been she who felt that Cecil overdid it at times.

He’d driven her home and she’d asked him in for a cup of tea. There were no live-in servants at the Temperance Hotel so no one could gossip about it.

He followed her into the kitchen, and this evening he had a high colour from the excitement of his preaching and the members’ congratulations.

There was a little scullery off the kitchen. She used it mainly as a private washroom. It had a sink with a gas water-heater above it. There was no hot water in the big kitchen. She didn’t want him hanging about too long so she filled the kettle with almost boiling water at her geyser. And when she turned round he was behind her.

‘Get out of the way, Cecil,’ she said. ‘I’m making the tea in the kitchen. Sit down at the table.’ He sat, on the edge of his chair, waiting for her to seat herself and begin pouring.

‘You must know by now, Caroline,’ he’d begun.

‘Know what?’

He came right out with it. ‘That I want you to be my wife.’

It was not a surprise. Carrie poured the tea and handed his cup and saucer to him. ‘I’ve never much fancied marriage,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t stand all that .

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