‘I love you, Sophy. I think I have loved you from the first moment you put Horace in his place, to the delight of everyone in the café. I knew then my life would never be the same because, until then, I had never fallen in love. I am a man, I have needs and they have been met on occasion, but love is a thing apart. I will devote the rest of my life to making you happy, I can promise you that, and I will never do anything to hurt you. Forgive me for not kneeling but I fear I may not be able to rise again,’ he added with a fleeting smile as he brought a small box out of his jacket pocket. ‘Sophy, will you do me the great honour of becoming my wife?’
‘Yes, oh yes.’ She didn’t have to think about it, neither did she care that throwing her arms round his neck and pressing her lips against his wasn’t the done thing in public. And apparently neither did he, for his arms came round her like a vice and he kissed her until the breath seemed to leave her body.
‘Oh my love, my love.’ The formality with which he had previously spoken had fallen away and he suddenly looked ten years younger as they eventually parted. ‘Here.’ He slipped the engagement ring on to the third finger of her left hand. She looked down at the sparkling stones. It was a gold band with five large diamonds set into it, and it felt heavy on her finger. She had stopped wearing her other rings the day after Kane’s accident, handing them to Sadie and telling her to sell them and give the proceeds to the men and women who ran the soup kitchens down on the Embankment.
‘It’s beautiful, Kane.’ She raised shining eyes to his.
‘You’re beautiful.’ He touched her slightly parted lips with the tip of his finger and then straightened as the waiter appeared at their side.
Sophy never could remember what she ate that night but as Kane put it, they feasted on love. They sat close together in the cab which took them back to Berkeley Square where Sadie and Harriet were waiting. Without a word, Sophy held out her left hand, secretly hoping Sadie wouldn’t say, ‘I told you so.’
She didn’t, of course. There were oohs and ahhs from both women, and then Sadie made a quaint little speech which she and Harriet had obviously rehearsed, wishing them both happiness and long life.
Kane had kept the cab waiting so he only stayed for a few minutes, but after Sadie and Harriet had discreetly disappeared into the kitchen his kiss goodbye was everything Sophy could have wished for. She stood on the doorstep and watched the cab until it disappeared, then glanced down at the ring on her finger. He had called her a woman of substance and she supposed she was, in a way. Certainly that would be how the rest of the world saw her, even Kane. But she didn’t feel like that in her heart.
She closed the door slowly and then leaned against it. Give me a child until it is seven and I have it for life. That was what the Jesuits had said. And until she was seven, and beyond, she had lived knowing she was of no account and barely tolerated within her family home. Would she ever rid herself of the feeling, deep, deep inside, that she didn’t know where she fitted in the world? She had thought her career, then her marriage, even her involvement in the League and women’s rights would settle the issue, but somehow it hadn’t.
But she was going to be Kane’s wife. As the door at the end of the passageway opened and Sadie and Harriet appeared, beaming all over their faces, she straightened and went to meet them, smiling. This, on top of all her other blessings, was enough. She would make it enough.
They were married nine weeks later on the last day of the year. The wedding was a quiet affair, they’d both wanted it that way, but as Sophy glanced about her at the reception held in the same restaurant where Kane had proposed, she knew that everyone she cared about was there.
Patience, John and Matthew and their respective families – Matthew and his wife now had a baby daughter – had made the journey from Sunderland, along with Tilly, of course, whom Sophy wouldn’t have seen forgotten. Sadie, Harriet and Ralph – who was Kane’s best man – and Dolly and Jim, along with a few personal friends, made up the party, and it was a merry one. David, still in Egypt, had sent a telegram expressing his good wishes and congratulations, and there had been others from work colleagues too.
Sophy looked quietly radiant in a pale peach dress and jacket with matching hat, and Kane – as Sadie eloquently put it – was most definitely the cat that got the cream, unable to wipe the smile off his face the whole day.
They were honeymooning in Brighton for two weeks and when, mid-afternoon, everyone accompanied them to the station to wave them off, they left amid hugs and kisses and a shower of confetti. Sophy’s last sight was of Ralph holding little Josephine high above his head as the child waved with all her might, although she probably wasn’t sure what the day was all about. She settled back in her seat and snuggled close to Kane, who put his arm about her. She was Mrs Gregory. And what more could she wish for in this life?
Chapter 26