To Live and To Breathe (Could Be #2)

Chapter 7

She thought she'd given up missing him a long time ago. Mary braced herself with her back to the seat of the carriage as it shuddered over a bump, thankful that her employers were wealthy enough that they could spare one for the servants. She'd need the entirety of the ride to settle her thoughts and still her heart. Even now it hammered inside her chest.

When she'd lifted her gaze and found that familiar face looking back at her—oh! She felt as if the domesticated lightning powering the Lancasters' newfangled electric lamps had rocked her from her head to her toes. He'd been real, and solid, and not the whispery filament of a memory she kept tucked away just to pull out whenever a bookseller's stall or cheery blossom brought him to mind.

Somehow that thin, unremarkable face had grown thinner, and the curly brown hair above it had run positively wild. And yet it was those strange brown-green eyes of his that arrested her. They'd been hungry—hungry even before he recognized her. Then it had been terror, uncertainty, confusion, and misery.

But what bewildered her more than the hunger in his eyes or the fact that he had at first seemed too fearful to meet her gaze was her own reaction. Why should she be frightened? Timothy had never given her cause to be truly afraid.

And yet, deep down, she knew what had changed. He'd grown into a man, and she into a woman. They weren't the children they had been, searching for the could be in the dirt of an untended garden. Their paths had grown apart as suddenly as they'd grown together, and Mary had discovered that the could be wasn't for people like her.

The prospect of seeing him again on the morrow hung heavy on her consciousness. She'd told him the truth—she would like it very much—but now that she was on her way back to her sensible job as cook's assistant she was anxious of what it would look like. She knew it was foolish, but if word ever got back to the Lancasters that she was seeing what appeared to be a gentleman caller, she might lose her position. Married women couldn't work outside the home.

When the carriage stopped outside the kitchen at the back of the house, Mary climbed out in thoughtful silence and entered the little door without paying heed to the heavy stone lintel or the ivy that grew upon it. Inside, she was confronted by a dim, cavernous kind of room lit by the unnatural glow of three electric lamps installed in the opposite wall. The light reflected orange from the copper pots and pans hanging above the counters, lending an atmosphere of warmth to the already hot room, heated by a pot-bellied stove in the corner.

Mary began unfastening her bonnet as quickly as she could, apologizing to the plump cook chopping dried fruit at a counter across the room. "I'm sorry Mrs. Galloway, I'll be there to help you in two ticks!"

She reached for an apron hanging on a peg, but before she could tie it on a second figure flew across the room and wrapped her in a floury hug. "Don't apologize, Mary!" she chided, then stood back and wrinkled her nose playfully. "All the same, what took you so long?"

"Edith!" Mary exclaimed, dusting herself off distractedly. "I'm wearing brown! How will I ever clean this off?"

"Evasion." Edith nodded, loosely-tied golden curls bouncing. "What was it then, eh?"

Mary felt her face turning crimson even as she continued to hunt for flour. "I met an old friend."

"Aye?" Edith grinned devilishly. "And was this old friend a gentleman or a lady?"

Mary thrust the apron into Edith's hands and spun around. "Would you be so kind as to tie this on, please?"

"Oh my, it's a strong case indeed for the gentleman," Edith tsked, and Mary lifted a beseeching gaze to the ceiling.

"You are awful," she said as soon as she was free, and marched across the room. "How anything is ever done in this place is beyond my understanding, I must say."

"It's because of me anything is done," Edith laughed, wiping her hands off on a cloth. Mary smiled despite herself. It was impossible to be angry at Edith Gladstone. Light, airy, impulsive, and sometimes a little harebrained, the maid migrated between the top of the house and the bottom, doing whatever chore came to hand, not just those impressed upon her by her position. She had been the first person to welcome Mary into the house two weeks earlier, and the closest friend she'd had there since.

***

Timothy had never been so uncomfortable in his life. After Mary left he purchased the baking powder and found a bench, where he sat with crossed arms and regretted everything that had come out of his mouth that day. He attempted to watch the passersby because they usually amused him, but he couldn't force his thoughts onto them for more than half a minute before they sprung back like an anxiety-ridden cuckoo clock and started him worrying all over again.

After close to an hour of fruitless effort to stop blaming himself so harshly, he got up and limped his way to a bookshop down a nearby street. He visited there about once a week, and sometimes the proprietor let him read for hours on end in an uninterrupted little corner if he first performed the formality of sweeping out the shop. Timothy couldn't describe how grateful he was that Mr. Cohen had broadened his reading horizons so much. The little crate of books he'd been able to take from their old house had been read and reread so many times that some of them were beginning to crack along the binding.

A bell over the door jingled as Timothy ducked into the musty little shop, and a small man somewhere over fifty with sparse white hair and beard stood up behind the counter. He put down a book he'd been reading and smiled. "Well if it isn't my favorite bookworm," he said. "What can I do for you?"

Timothy shifted the weight off of his right leg absently. It was beginning to hurt just standing on it. "Let me sweep your shop," he said. He had to bury himself in a book or else he might go mad. Eat a meal at Thebault's! It was almost indecent. Why had Mary said yes? Why had he asked it?

Mr. Cohen nodded and disappeared in a room in the back before reappearing with a broom. He handed it over the counter and then leaned against it, hands clasped. "You needn't bother with the whole shop," he said, gesturing at the floor in front of the door. "Most people stop here to ask whether I have what they want, and don't have a chance to track their muck into the aisles."

Timothy looked down and gripped the broom a little tighter. He didn't want to be patronized, but he couldn't argue the fact when he was in pain, even if the bookseller didn't know why it was that he limped. The wisest thing to do was to rest so that he could begin again tomorrow, and Mr. Cohen was giving him the chance to do that, as well as read a book without paying for it.

Timothy swallowed his pride and swept the floor in front of the counter.

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The first electric lights began to installed in Britain during the late 1870s, but it wasn't until after the First World War that they became common in most homes. In this book I enjoyed playing with different modes of household lighting depending on how wealthy (or otherwise) my characters are.