Hope - Lesley Pearse [142]
If Betsy had been alive she would have been able to ask her if this feeling she had for the doctor was something more than mere admiration. Back in her village, people always used the expression that he or she was ‘sweet on’ someone. Was that what this was?
It felt sweet. A glimpse of Bennett was like the sun coming through clouds, or the perfume of a rose as you passed through a garden. Was that what Matt felt for Amy? Was it love?
‘I hope you like roast beef, Hope?’
At Alice’s question Hope was startled out of her reverie. ‘I love it,’ she said hurriedly, wondering if she’d missed something important by drifting away in her own thoughts. ‘But I haven’t had it for a very long time.’
‘I don’t think you’ve had anything much to eat for a very long time,’ Alice retorted. ‘It’s a wonder you look so well.’
‘That was just the best dinner ever,’ Hope sighed as she scraped up the last morsel of roast beef and vegetables from her plate. She beamed happily at Alice. ‘But it’s going to put me off the food at St Peter’s.’
‘I hope you’ve still got room for pudding,’ Alice smiled. ‘I’ve made a syllabub.’
‘I’ll make room,’ Hope said.
‘It’s good to see you eating so heartily,’ Bennett said.
He didn’t have to add that it proved she was still healthy, Hope had noticed him studying her when he got back from visiting his patients.
‘It looks as if it’s going to rain at last,’ Hope remarked, for the patch of sky she could see through the kitchen window was darkening. ‘Will the cholera disappear when it turns colder?’
‘That has been the usual pattern,’ Bennett replied. ‘I certainly hope so. None of us can cope with much more of it.’
‘What will I do when it does stop?’ Hope asked. ‘Will I be put on another ward?’
‘You certainly will,’ he grinned impishly. ‘In fact, I think you might almost be able to choose which one yourself because Sister Martha is full of praise for you. Though I would suggest you had a couple of days’ rest before that.’
‘Perhaps you could go and see your family?’ Alice suggested.
Hope blushed. ‘I can’t do that,’ she said in a small voice.
‘Albert ordered you to stay away?’ Bennett asked gently.
Hope nodded glumly.
Alice began to ask what right he had to stop her coming home, but Bennett interrupted, asking about the pudding.
When the meal was over, Alice wouldn’t hear of Hope helping with the washing up and suggested she went into the garden with Bennett. ‘It might be the last chance you have in a while for sitting out in the fresh air,’ she said, looking up at the dark sky.
The garden was quite small, but walled and very pretty with many Michaelmas daisies coming into flower. Bennett led her down to a bench seat at the bottom, and for a little while made idle chit-chat about the flowers, the dinner and the possibility of rain.
‘Come on now, tell me what really happened with Albert,’ he said suddenly. ‘Until you air it, it’s always going to hurt.’
‘I told you, I fell out with him, he was a bully, that’s all.’
Bennett shook his head. ‘I thought we were friends, Hope. So why can’t you trust me with this?’
Hope kept her eyes on her hands clasped in her lap. ‘I suppose it’s because I’m afraid of how you will react,’ she said.
‘Do you mean I might think less of you?’
‘No.’ Her head jerked up. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘But Albert did?’
She nodded.
‘To you?’
Hope sighed, guessing that Bennett suspected Albert had raped her, for Betsy had thought that too. ‘No, not to me, but I caught him doing something bad and he hit me and said I was to leave his house and never return. I daren’t return, Bennett, Nell will suffer and other people I care about.’
‘A mere gardener couldn’t be powerful enough for that. Surely if he was the one who had done something wrong, then no one could suffer but him?’
‘He found a letter,’ she said reluctantly. ‘He knows something which he will tell.’
‘So he’s a blackmailer?’
Betsy and Gussie had quizzed her endlessly about Albert when she first met them,