Connie’s Courage Read Online Free Page B

tensely in the elegant drawing room of her Winckley Square house and looked anxiously at her husband, Gideon.
    The trauma she and all the other Pride children had suffered with the death of their mother might have ended for her with her marriage to her childhood sweetheart, but Ellie wanted it ended for all her siblings: Connie, who had so recklessly run away with Kieron Connolly; John, their brother, who had endured so much misery before he had become apprenticed to the Preston photographer for whom he now worked, and young Philip, who was in danger of growing up not knowing that he had a brother and two sisters. Ellie longed to have Philip safely here under Gideon’s roof, and in the nursery with their two young sons, Richard and Joshua. But right now, it was Connie who concerned her the most.
    Ellie knew that Connie had disgraced herself beyond redemption in the eyes of the world by what she had done, but she couldn’t help but love her.
    â€˜Is there any news of Connie yet, Gideon?’ she demanded, clasping her hands together. Gideon Walker frowned as he looked at his distressed wife. ‘Come and sit down,’ he urged her.
    Waiting until she had done as he asked, he began gently, ‘You know that through the agent my late mother used to find me, we’ve discovered that Connie and Kieron Connolly have stayed at a variety of addresses.’ Gideon hesitated, not wanting to distress Ellie further by telling her that these addresses had, more often than not, been in areas no respectable person would ever want to admit living in.
    â€˜But where is she now, Gideon?’ Ellie pressed him worriedly. ‘Have you found her?’
    â€˜In a manner of speaking,’ Gideon responded heavily. The last thing he wanted to do was to upset Ellie, but he knew that she had to be told the truth.
    â€˜Kieron Connolly bought tickets for them to sail on the
Titanic.
According to the passenger manifest he bought one in his own name and one in Connie’s,’ he told her quietly.
    â€˜What?’ Ellie stood up, her hand to her mouth. ‘But that means … You mean she’s left England. She’s going to America? Has he married her, Gideon?’
    â€˜Not as far as we can tell. Her ticket was in her own name, Connie Pride.’ Gideon answered her, adding firmly, ‘Under the circumstances, perhaps it will all be for the best.’
    Gideon knew how much his wife’s tender heart ached for her disgraced sister, but privately he acknowledged that Connie’s departure for America was probably in all their best interests, including Connie’s own.
    Her reputation had been destroyed, and no one on her mother’s side of the family was prepared to so much as speak her name any more, never mind find it in their hearts to forgive her and welcome her back into the fold, as his soft-hearted Ellie wanted to do.
    Tears welled in Ellie’s eyes, as she struggled to accept what Gideon was saying, but she didn’t argue with him.
    It had been nearly a week now since Kieron left, and Connie had done little other than sleep, and stagger weakly downstairs and across the yard to use the privy. She refused to refer to it as the ‘bog’ as her neighbours so cheerfully did.
    It was on one of these occasions that she saw a new family, all wearing mourning, moving in to one of the other houses, and she smiled bitterly to herself to see how the mother, a small, fragile, obviously middle-aged woman, whose facial features were obscured by her heavy widow’s veiling, glanced around herself in numb despair.
    The small group were huddled together, the mother trying to comfort the young girl who clung to her skirts, whilst a tall, too thin, young manhurried to open the door for them. A lock of soft, brown hair flopped over his forehead, and would have fallen into his eyes if it hadn’t been for his spectacles. He looked pale, and moved slowly, as though he had been ill.
    Well, his