Chapters (64)
- Cover
- Title page
- Dedication page
- A Week’s Work in Birmingham
- I
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- II
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- III
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Acknowledgements
- Further Reading
- About the Author
- By the Same Author
‘But if we are promised . . .’ She began to protest gently. Surely that was enough? She found herself rather afraid of his passion. They could wait two years and then marry – they had their whole lives ahead of them!
They began to make their way back down the grassy hill. Charles had gone quiet.
‘My dear,’ he said, after a while. ‘I am not sure I could bear to wait for you so long, my need of you is so great.’
Margaret was moved by this, but at the same time baffled. In her innocence she could not see what real difference it made whether they were married or not, if they belonged to each other. Even after Charles’s kiss, physical relations between men and women were a vague, distant thing to her. Animals were really the only thing she had to go on and even then, she just did not believe that human beings really did exactly as she sometimes witnessed beasts of the field doing.
‘But I must be restrained,’ he was saying. ‘Perhaps it is best if I do not touch you again. I must keep my distance, Margaret. I am a good deal older than you – I shall speak with your father and see whether he might allow us to marry sooner. I believe he has some faith in me so he might be prepared to bend.’
Within the month, without any consultation with Margaret, William Hanson conceded to Charles Barber that the two of them might marry after her twentieth birthday which would be in February the following year – 1905.
‘Do you really want to get married?’ Annie asked as they went to bed that night.
Margaret sank down on her bed. ‘He is a good man,’ she said. She was hardly acquainted with her own will. It never stood alone. It was entwined with her father’s, with Charles’s, with that of the Lord God Almighty. ‘Together we can do a great deal, I think.’
Annie looked seriously at her. ‘I know you don’t believe me, but I think he’s . . . I’m not sure. There’s something about him I don’t like. He’s too sure of himself. Too . . . I’m not sure what the word is – bossy.’
‘Bossy?’ Margaret laughed. ‘That coming from you!’ She flared up suddenly. ‘How can you say that? You saw what he was like when he came. He was a broken reed . . .’
‘If you say so.’ Annie turned away, reaching for her nightdress.
‘Well, you’d better start liking him a bit more,’ Margaret said frostily. ‘Since he’s going to be my husband and your brother-in-law.’
Even saying this sounded strange and unreal. No doubt in time she would get used to it.