Ten Way Street by Susan Scarlett

Author:Susan Scarlett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2022-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

Meggie, looking white-faced but herself, came into the children’s sitting-room just before the walkers returned.

“How do you feel?” Beverley asked.

“All right. Sort of wobbly in the knees, and afraid I’ll be cross very easily.”

Beverley laughed.

“How well I know that feeling.”

Meggie wandered round the room in a restless way.

“I wish it wasn’t your half-Sunday. I like Annie, of course, but Mummy’s going to be out all day with Peter, and there’s nobody much to talk to.”

Beverley had a sudden vision of Meggie still feeling nervous and on edge, shut up with Betsy being a panda, and David anything that made a noise. She looked forward to her half-days, but a rush of pity made her forget herself.

“How would you like to come out with me this afternoon?”

She was rewarded by the child’s expression of pleasure, which was out of all proportion to the amusement offered.

“Oh, you wouldn’t take me with you?”

“It won’t be much fun. I meet a friend called Sarah. She’s a governess, too. We have tea together somewhere.”

“I’d love to come. Who’s your friend governess to?”

“Some people called Elton. He’s a parson, and terribly poor; Mrs. Elton’s an invalid. I’ll ring Sarah up and see whether she can bring the eldest girl with her. You and she are about the same age.”

Betsy, enjoying her day as a panda, and David full of a scheme for staging the execution of Mary Queen of Scots with a doll whose head had come loose, saw Beverley and Meggie off with equanimity.

“I’m sorry you’ll miss the execution,” David said to Beverley. “There’s a bit of old sponge soaked in red ink stuck in her neck, and when my axe drops, if I hit hard enough the blood will simply spurt.”

Betsy turned up her nose.

“Thank goodness I’m a panda, and pandas aren’t interested in hist’ry.”

Meggie and Beverley walked across Piccadilly and into the Green Park. Mr. Elton’s parish lay just over Westminster Bridge, so the meeting-place was the bridge over the water in St. James’s Park. It was a lovely afternoon, cold, with a nip of frost in the air; the sun was shining and the sky was blue, and already the parks were glowing with flowers from the early bulbs. Meggie tucked her arm into Beverley’s.

“I do feel better.”

“Good, darling. You’ll feel better still by the time we’ve had a real walk.” She had known that this was her moment to talk to Meggie, but she was uncertain how to begin. “I was pleased you gave me those photographs and that letter.”

Meggie flushed.

“I suppose you think it’s awfully sloppy.” Beverley looked out over a group of small children playing soldiers.

“Not in themselves. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have written to him about the play, or been given a photograph of him. But I think keeping the things under your mattress rather silly. I mean, why not have put the photograph in a frame if you wanted to have it about?”

Meggie scowled at the path.

“I didn’t want Mummy teasing me.”

“I don’t suppose she would.

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