He stared at her, then very gently pushed her damp hair away from her tear-stained face. ‘Right now I feel as if the last ten years never happened.’ He stared deep into her eyes. ‘You’re still the same Allegra to me,’ he murmured. ‘Beautiful and wilful, and a courageous fighter.’
‘I’m none of those things. Maybe I was once, but not now. I’m beaten. Truly I am. I’m so tired. Tired of life maybe. Some days I think it would be better if I were dead.’
He took her hands in his. ‘Don’t say that. Not ever. What does the father of the baby have to say about it?’
‘He doesn’t know. And he never will. He’s out of my life now. He’s taken all the money I earned and every last scrap of my reputation and dignity. I’m a pathetic laughing stock,’ she said miserably.
‘Not true. You’re Allegra Salvato, the girl I adored on sight.’ He bent his head and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
She shivered.
‘You’re cold,’ he said with concern. ‘Come with me.’
He took her home to Clover End Cottage, a thatched dwelling on the edge of Clover Woods where he’d lived with his grandfather. It seemed even smaller than Allegra remembered as she warmed herself by the range and looked around while he lit the oil lamps.
‘It’s not what you’re used to up at Island House, I know,’ he said, observing her, ‘but it’s home for me. One day I might even have electricity,’ he added with a smile, ‘and an indoor lavatory.’
‘It feels comfortable,’ she said, taking in the range with a battered armchair either side, where she remembered Elijah’s grandfather sitting while reading his bible and smoking his pipe. Above the range was a shelf with a row of pots and pans and an iron, which made Allegra picture Elijah carefully ironing the white shirt he’d worn for the dance this evening. Over by the window was a table and three chairs; to one side was a sink with a wooden draining board and a cupboard, and to the other a tall bookcase crammed full with books. It was, she thought, the one new thing in the room; otherwise everything was as she remembered it.
Elijah saw her looking at the bookcase. ‘I have you to thank for my love of reading,’ he said. ‘Remember that book you gave me for my tenth birthday? I still have it.’ He went to the shelves and pulled out the book of maps she had stolen from her uncle. ‘You wrote in it for me,’ he said, opening it. ‘“Happy Birthday, Elijah, with love from Allegra.”’
‘You kept it,’ she said softly. ‘All these years and you kept it.’
‘Of course I did,’ he said. ‘I must confess, I always felt I ought to return it to its rightful owner. But I never did.’
‘You knew it wasn’t mine to give you, then?’
He nodded and put the book back. ‘I used to look at the map of Italy, the page you’d marked, and imagine you there. Would you like something to drink? I can’t run to anything fancy, I’m afraid.’
‘Do you know what I’d like?’
‘Go on.’
‘Some hot chocolate. I remember your grandfather making it for us.’
Elijah smiled. ‘I should be able to manage that all right.’
‘Do you like living alone?’ she asked, as he uncovered a jug of milk on the draining board.
‘I’m used to it,’ he said, pouring the milk into a pan and setting it on the range. He opened one of the doors beneath and from a metal bucket shovelled in more coke to the glowing embers.
‘What about girlfriends?’
He put the bucket and shovel down and wiped his hands on the back of his trousers. ‘There’ve been a few, I can’t deny it. I’m not cut out to live as a monk. No man is.’
‘Nobody serious then?’
He spooned cocoa powder from a canister into the milk. ‘Not on my part. Too choosy by half, my old grandad used to say. And let’s face it, I’m not that good a catch.’
She smiled. ‘A man who has his own cottage and can iron his shirts; I’d say that makes you a fine catch.’
He smiled too and set two mugs on the table. ‘Sugar?’
‘If you have it.’
When the cocoa was made, they sat in the two armchairs either side of the range, Elijah’s long legs stretched out towards hers. For a while, neither of them spoke, the faint hiss of the oil lamps the only sound to be heard.
‘What are you going to do about the baby?’ Elijah asked at length. ‘Will you keep it after it’s born?’
