‘Yes, yes, but I thought— You seemed so dour, uninterested.’
‘Sophy, this is business. I have to negotiate the best price I can, so the last thing I want to do is enthuse, but I think this could work very well. It’s your money as well as mine going into this though, and you do understand the cost of refurbishment? In blood, sweat and tears too, I might add. This kind of project always throws up hidden problems and gets worse before it gets better in my experience.’
Sophy nodded. ‘Nevertheless, I think it’s the one.’
‘Then, my love, I think we’ve found your women’s theatre.’
‘Oh, Kane.’ She looked at him with shining eyes. ‘I love you.’
Sophy and Kane stayed with Patience and William a further ten days. By the time they returned to London, the purchase of both the farmhouse and the theatre was settled, and Kane had arranged for local builders to begin work on the cottages immediately with the permission of the doctor and his wife. Sophy wanted the two-up, two-down dwellings to be refurbished throughout, and the addition of an extension at the back of each providing another bedroom upstairs and a bathroom downstairs with an indoor privy. Sadie was getting older all the time, and already arthritis was taking its toll; if, in the future, she found the narrow steep stairs of the cottage too much, then a bed could be moved down to the sitting room and her old friend would still have relative independence in her own home.
They arrived back to the news that Ralph had proposed to Harriet and she had accepted. As Sophy had half-expected, the couple wanted to be married before they left London. And so it was, at the end of March – a month which had seen the first woman Member of Parliament in Norway take her seat in government amid great celebrations, and which gave hope to Sophy and other women in England that their government would have to listen to their voice before too long – the move to Sunderland took place, with Harriet and Ralph moving straight into their new home.
The first night in the farmhouse, when the others had retired to their cottages for the night and Sophy and Kane sat before the fire in the sitting room, Kane took his wife into his arms. They were surrounded by boxes and crates which still had to be unpacked, and everything was topsy-turvy – unlike the cottages which Patience had seen were furnished beautifully from top to bottom. However, this didn’t matter.
Kane echoed what Sophy was thinking when he murmured, ‘Our first home we’ve bought together and it’s going to be a happy one, my love. I promise you that.’
Sophy snuggled into him. ‘I know.’
Above her head he sighed before he said, ‘I’ll support you in everything you want to do with your theatre. I just wish I could be more involved physically.’
Sophy moved to look up at him. Kane had finally accepted that he would never be able to do what he did before the accident. Thanks to Edgar Grant he had the use of his legs, but he would always walk with a stick and his mobility was restricted. She knew he found this frustrating but he rarely complained, even on the bad days – which were becoming fewer – when his joints were so stiff every movement was painful. But he was getting better. Albeit slowly, but he was improving. She said this now, finishing by kissing him hard.
‘You’re right.’ His brief moment of despondency was gone. ‘I’m a fortunate man. Every morning when I wake up beside you I know that.’ He kissed her back in the way which always made her wonder how she had survived for most of her life without him, and when they slid down on to the big thick rug in front of the fire and made love in the flickering glow of the flames, it seemed a fitting end to the first day of the rest of their life in their new home.