The Handkerchief Tree by Anne Douglas

Author:Anne Douglas [Douglas, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Thirty-Six

Outside the night air was cold and reviving, and walking to the car made Shona feel better, except when Fraser put her arm in his and then she was too conscious of him again.

‘How about a quick drink before I take you home?’ he asked as they took their seats in the car. ‘I know a nice quiet hotel just round the corner from here.’

‘I don’t think so, thanks,’ she said quickly. ‘I’d best get back.’

‘Next time, then.’

Next time? He was assuming there would be other times? As he drove her home, her thoughts were spinning, questions tumbling in her brain. What was happening? Where were they going? He was attracted to her, she knew, she could tell, and not just because she resembled his dead sweetheart. But how serious would he be, and did she want him to be serious, anyway? No, the answer was clear enough.

She felt something when she was with him, some great pull, but she knew she wasn’t in love. She wasn’t being carried along, as she would expect to be with someone she liked in that way, though to be honest she hadn’t had much experience. There’d only been that time when she was young, a child, really, and had had thoughts of Mark Lindsay always in her mind. But that was long ago and no longer real, whereas the big man driving her home was all too real. Quite at ease, of course, and talking of the effect sound was going to have on the cinema industry, just as though that was all she might have on her mind.

‘You think it’s going to matter?’ she asked. ‘I mean, folk like the silent pictures well enough.’

‘Come on, you saw the effect that fellow had tonight – imagine how all the film-makers will want to create that sort of excitement! And all the actors will have to be taking voice lessons and maybe lose their jobs if they’re not good enough, just like the pianists. Because there’ll be real sound effects from now on, much better than a poor guy can bring out on the old joanna!’

‘All comes down to change, then?’

‘Sure it does. It’s a changing world, eh? And with this new development, we’re in at the start. You’ll always be able to say you heard the first talkie. Aren’t you excited?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know that I always like change.’

‘Can be good, you know, as well as bad. But which is the house where you’re staying?’

As she pointed out Mrs Gow’s number, he slowed down and stopped the car, giving her only a quick look before getting out to open her door. What now? she wondered. How do we get though the goodnights, then?

But he was looking up at the bridge, so tall, so dominant above them, and whistling.

‘Good God! What’s it like to live in the shadow of that, then?’

‘We like it. We’ve always known it.’ Shona stared up, too. ‘And think what it would have been like before it came. Folk had

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