Read Online No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) by Penny Vincenzi - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Penny Vincenzi
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talk of more babies.’
‘Well – all right’ said Celia with a sigh, ‘but I have missed loving you dreadfully. It’s one of the things that’s made me most miserable. I thought you didn’t want me any more, that you were too angry with me.’
‘I want you terribly,’ said Oliver, ‘and if – well, as I said, we must just be very careful. I know you don’t like that, but—’
‘We will be careful,’ said Celia, ‘I promise. If I can have you loving me again, I’ll promise anything.’
Biographica was launched in December 1907 with the first three volumes boxed together, the biographies of Florence Nightingale, Lord Melbourne, and William Morris, each one with a frontispece illustration by a new artist Celia had discovered, with the auspicious name of Thomas Wolsey. The series was sold out in days. An army of collectors – the young men who literally collected volumes from the publishers and delivered them to the booksellers – was kept fully employed right up to Christmas.
Celia was already working on the next set, in between performing (rather perfunctorily) her proper Christmas duties of present-buying and tree-trimming. She was almost, but not quite, too busy to notice how tearful she felt every time she saw a baby in a perambulator, or even the ubiquitous infants lying in straw-filled mangers with their mothers bent tenderly over them, hands clasped in prayer. It was especially bad when she took two-year-old Giles to a crib blessing at Chelsea Old Church, so bad, indeed, that as they walked home together, hand in hand, he looked up at her and asked her why she had cried so much in church. Celia smiled down at him and said she hadn’t really been crying, it was only that she was so happy and so lucky. And when they got home, and Oliver was waiting for them by the huge Christmas tree he had had set up in the hall, with presents for them both, a toy pedal car for Giles and an exquisite three-strand pearl choker for her, she did feel that to a large extent, she had spoken the truth.
Meanwhile, in her bed in Line Street, with the mattress carefully covered with layers and layers of newspapers, her children banished to a neighbour’s house, her husband pacing wretchedly up and down the tiny corridor, trying to ignore the sound of her groans, a great pan of water boiling endlessly on the stove, and attended only by another neighbour who was unofficial midwife to the district, Sylvia Miller gave birth to a rather small but perfectly healthy baby girl. Lying in bed afterwards, pale and exhausted, but very happy, showing the baby to the other children, she told them her name was Barbara.
But little Frank, who had just begun to talk and was very excited by the new arrival, said, ‘Barty, Barty, Barty,’ while stroking her small silky forehead.
And Barty she remained for the rest of her life.
CHAPTER 4
‘Well I’m going to. You have no right to stop me. I am not your – your chattel.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Celia,’ said Oliver wearily, ‘of course you’re not my chattel. I hardly think urging you to take care of yourself, to take things very easily indeed, constitutes laying down some kind of diktat. I’m worried about you. You and the baby. We must not have a repetition of what happened last time.’
Celia met his eyes and flushed.
‘No,’ she said, quietly, ‘no of course not. But I have given up work, Oliver. For the time being. Until the baby is safely born. All I plan to do now is join Mrs Pember Reeves’s group, and observe one of these pathetic families. Once or twice a week. It will probably be marginally less exhausting physically than playing with Giles. It’s important, Oliver. I’m surprised you don’t support me more. Obviously your socialism is hardly even skin deep.’
‘Oh, Celia, really. This has nothing to do with the depth or otherwise of my socialism. Or yours for that matter. It is concern for you and for our baby. You need absolute
‘Well – all right’ said Celia with a sigh, ‘but I have missed loving you dreadfully. It’s one of the things that’s made me most miserable. I thought you didn’t want me any more, that you were too angry with me.’
‘I want you terribly,’ said Oliver, ‘and if – well, as I said, we must just be very careful. I know you don’t like that, but—’
‘We will be careful,’ said Celia, ‘I promise. If I can have you loving me again, I’ll promise anything.’
Biographica was launched in December 1907 with the first three volumes boxed together, the biographies of Florence Nightingale, Lord Melbourne, and William Morris, each one with a frontispece illustration by a new artist Celia had discovered, with the auspicious name of Thomas Wolsey. The series was sold out in days. An army of collectors – the young men who literally collected volumes from the publishers and delivered them to the booksellers – was kept fully employed right up to Christmas.
Celia was already working on the next set, in between performing (rather perfunctorily) her proper Christmas duties of present-buying and tree-trimming. She was almost, but not quite, too busy to notice how tearful she felt every time she saw a baby in a perambulator, or even the ubiquitous infants lying in straw-filled mangers with their mothers bent tenderly over them, hands clasped in prayer. It was especially bad when she took two-year-old Giles to a crib blessing at Chelsea Old Church, so bad, indeed, that as they walked home together, hand in hand, he looked up at her and asked her why she had cried so much in church. Celia smiled down at him and said she hadn’t really been crying, it was only that she was so happy and so lucky. And when they got home, and Oliver was waiting for them by the huge Christmas tree he had had set up in the hall, with presents for them both, a toy pedal car for Giles and an exquisite three-strand pearl choker for her, she did feel that to a large extent, she had spoken the truth.
Meanwhile, in her bed in Line Street, with the mattress carefully covered with layers and layers of newspapers, her children banished to a neighbour’s house, her husband pacing wretchedly up and down the tiny corridor, trying to ignore the sound of her groans, a great pan of water boiling endlessly on the stove, and attended only by another neighbour who was unofficial midwife to the district, Sylvia Miller gave birth to a rather small but perfectly healthy baby girl. Lying in bed afterwards, pale and exhausted, but very happy, showing the baby to the other children, she told them her name was Barbara.
But little Frank, who had just begun to talk and was very excited by the new arrival, said, ‘Barty, Barty, Barty,’ while stroking her small silky forehead.
And Barty she remained for the rest of her life.
CHAPTER 4
‘Well I’m going to. You have no right to stop me. I am not your – your chattel.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Celia,’ said Oliver wearily, ‘of course you’re not my chattel. I hardly think urging you to take care of yourself, to take things very easily indeed, constitutes laying down some kind of diktat. I’m worried about you. You and the baby. We must not have a repetition of what happened last time.’
Celia met his eyes and flushed.
‘No,’ she said, quietly, ‘no of course not. But I have given up work, Oliver. For the time being. Until the baby is safely born. All I plan to do now is join Mrs Pember Reeves’s group, and observe one of these pathetic families. Once or twice a week. It will probably be marginally less exhausting physically than playing with Giles. It’s important, Oliver. I’m surprised you don’t support me more. Obviously your socialism is hardly even skin deep.’
‘Oh, Celia, really. This has nothing to do with the depth or otherwise of my socialism. Or yours for that matter. It is concern for you and for our baby. You need absolute
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