“Marry
Algernon!”
Catherine kept saying the same thing. Repeating it made the
proposal even more ridiculous.
Her father and
mother sat opposite, stern and resolute. The conversation
had lasted for over an hour. She was still in shock.
“That
is an end to the matter,”
her father said and walked solemnly from the room. Her
mother lingered for a moment, smiled gently at Catherine,
then hurried to catch up her husband.
Catherine went to
the window and looked out into the street. It was late
morning and the early vendors of milk, fruit and vegetables
had finished their business. They arrived every morning and
hawked their good. Now she could see Jimmy Goram, the window
cleaner, with agile grace swinging, leaning out from his
ladder. She’d
spoken to him once. He was a cheeky young man and even
though their stations in life were very different, he’d
flirted and told her about his life down in the sprawling
district south of the Thames, where terraced houses were now
being rapidly built on the land which only twenty years ago
was small farms.
She envied his
freedom, but not the poverty. Catherine could have refused
her father. Then what would she do? He wouldn’t throw her
out, but the easy, comfortable life would come to an end and
she would be consigned to some boring aunt as a companion.
What sort of life was that? But then, what sort of life
would it be with that unctuous Algernon? Mrs. Coniston?
Never! She hated him. What influence did he have over her
parents?
