Violet by Lily Hammond

Author:Lily Hammond [Hammond, Lily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapphica Books
Published: 2017-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

We almost missed breakfast, by the time we’d bathed and dressed, and made our way downstairs, Violet giggling, wearing her yellow dress again, and me blushing furiously at the thought of facing anyone who might have heard our cries through the thin walls.

‘Are you all right?’ Violet asked, leaning over the dining table to touch my hand, her face creased in concern.

I put down my piece of toast and thought about her question. ‘Well,’ I said at last. ‘It depends entirely on which part of today I think about.’

Her smile was impish and she was glowing. Happiness, and dare I say it – sexual satisfaction – became her enormously.

‘Think about this morning,’ she suggested.

‘Then this is the most wonderful day ever lived,’ I said in all sincerity, looking at her over the breakfast things. Her hair was pinned back to look as though it had been bobbed, an expert thing she’d managed in front of the mirror, without me, this time. Then she’d done mine, tut tutting over the knot I’d been resorting to tie the thick pony tail of my own hair into.

‘Fran?’ Violet’s voice brought me back to the table and her clear eyes laughing at me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘What did you say?’

‘I asked when you wanted to go see your father?’ Her glorious eyes still danced, but the question was serious.

I sighed. ‘I think I ought to get it over and done with, don’t you think?’

She nodded. ‘The sooner we book passage to France, the safer we will be.’ Her hand tightened on her cup. ‘I cannot let my father catch up with us. Regardless of whether yours agrees to help us or not, we are going.’ She sat straighter. ‘Today.’

It was not a question, but I nodded anyway. I hadn’t forgotten the spectre of the sanatorium. It would follow us all the way to France, and probably lodge with us there for a considerable time.

Unless of course, I could convince Fran’s father to help us. It seemed a long shot to me, but Violet thought there was a chance he’d come through for us, so I was willing to try.

We needed money, that was the issue. It was all very well to run away to a new life, but somehow that new life needed to be funded. I wasn’t afraid of work, but I was in a strange place, in a different age. It would take a while for me to get properly oriented. If Fran’s father could even just give us a little money, it would give me the breathing space I needed.

Fran’s father. We left the dining room, my breakfast mostly uneaten, and went straight out into the new day. Violet took my arm and patted it with her other hand and I was glad again of customs which let women walk arm in arm in friendship.

‘I wish he was expecting me,’ I said, as we made our way to Whitehall. ‘I’d feel better if he was expecting me.’

‘There wasn’t time,’ Violet said.

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