Sophy spent some time with Kane at his home, helping Ralph to settle him in and making sure he ate the tasty lunch Ralph had prepared. Then, Kane having reluctantly agreed to an afternoon nap, she flew home to tell Sadie and Harriet she was going out that evening.
‘I knew it.’ Sadie looked in triumph at Harriet. ‘I told you he wouldn’t waste any time, didn’t I? And he’s doing it proper, I like that. You’ll come back with a ring on your finger, ma’am, and no mistake.’
‘He might not ask me to marry him, Sadie.’
Sadie snorted. She had a repertoire of such sounds which were far more effective than words. ‘And pigs might fly, ma’am, but it’s not likely, is it? No, he’ll ask you, and a better man than Mr Gregory doesn’t draw breath, bless him.’
‘What are you going to wear, Sophy?’ Harriet had been busy ironing when Sophy had burst into the kitchen, Josephine fast asleep in her pram outside the back door so she got her quota of fresh air.
Sophy looked at her two friends. ‘I don’t know. Nothing too fancy, although, if we’re going to the Hippodrome . . . But I don’t want him to think I expect him to ask tonight, do I? It wouldn’t be seemly.’
Sadie, forever the one to speak her mind, said, ‘I think you’re past that stage with Mr Gregory, ma’am. Telling him you loved him and whatnot saw to that.’
Sophy giggled. Dear Sadie. Dear Harriet. Dear everybody. This was a wonderful, wonderful day.
For the next hour the three women had a lovely time as Sophy paraded in one outfit after another. Eventually they decided on a pale green evening gown in crushed silk which had a matching coat trimmed with ermine. The shade brought out the burned honey of Sophy’s eyes and her magnificent golden-red hair.
When Josephine woke up, Sophy spent some time playing with the baby who was now crawling and into everything. A happy little girl with a mass of dark brown curls and big brown eyes, Sophy adored her as much as Josephine adored her Aunty Sophy. She hadn’t seen Peter since her visit to Sunderland over eighteen months ago, and although Patience wrote regularly to keep her up to date with all the doings of her godson, it wasn’t the same as being involved in the child’s life on a day-to-day basis. Josephine satisfied a need in her, and she was grateful to Harriet in a way she couldn’t express. Harriet, in her turn, with the memory of the terrifying time she’d spent trying to survive on the streets before Sophy had rescued her burned into her mind, couldn’t do enough for Sophy. In fact, Sophy and Sadie were continually having to persuade her to do less; she would have worked every moment she was awake if they had let her.
At six o’clock Sophy had a long hot bath in soapy bubbles, and once Josephine was tucked up in her cot fast asleep in the room she shared with her mother, Harriet came to help Sophy fix her hair. Sophy normally wore her hair in a simple chignon at the nape of her neck, but tonight Sadie and Harriet had persuaded her to put it up in a mass of curls and waves secured with tiny jewelled pins which twinkled like diamonds when the light caught them. The result was better than they could have imagined.
When Sophy was ready, she stared in amazement at the woman staring back at her from the mirror.
‘Oh, Sophy.’ Harriet was openly emotional. ‘He’ll be bowled over when he sees you.’
‘Not again, I hope,’ said Sadie dryly, who had come up to see the end result.
‘Sadie,’ said Harriet reproachfully, but the black humour broke what had suddenly become a tense moment for Sophy. She wanted Kane to ask her to marry him, she was living for the moment but, at the same time, she was as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof now the possibility was about to become a reality.
The front doorbell rang, causing Sophy to swing round from the mirror. The look on her face brought Sadie stepping forward to take her hands as she said, ‘It’ll be fine, just fine. Harriet, go and let Mr Gregory in and tell him Mrs Shawe will be down directly.’ However informal the three women were together, Sadie and Harriet made it a policy to give Sophy her full title when referring to her in front of visitors, even Kane. ‘Now’ – as Harriet hurried downstairs, Sadie chafed Sophy’s cold hands – ‘this is Mr Gregory, remember? And he worships the ground you walk on, anyone can see it. You’re going to be very happy, ma’am. I feel it in me water.’
‘Oh, Sadie.’ Sadie and her water. The expression was used for everything, from her suspicions that the butcher wasn’t above diddling his customers now and again, to predicting changes in the weather. Smiling, Sophy hugged the older woman, careless of her dress. ‘What would I do without you?’