And All That Jazz Episode 17
Two hours later, Dora was in the garden with the others.
She and Vincent were seated at the side table under the laburnum, while Charlie and Lizzy sat on a picnic blanket plucking daisies from the lawn.
“Did you truly say those things?” Lizzy asked.
“I did. Though I felt rather sorry for her,” Dora replied. “She’s been left behind.”
“You’re a better person than I am,” Lizzy said. “I have no sympathy for her at all.”
“She’s still our mother, Lizzy.”
“Well, she needn’t think I’m going to visit her every Sunday,” Lizzy declared.
Dora laughed.
“You didn’t visit anyway,” she pointed out.
Charlie dropped a daisy head down Lizzy’s neck and Lizzy threw some grass at him, and the two vanished into their own world of laughter and squeals.
Mother would never have approved of this behaviour, but all Dora saw was two young people who had lived through the worst of times, taking joy from being alive and in love.
“You mean it when you say you’ll visit your mother each week, don’t you?” Vincent asked, moving a little closer.
“Yes, I do,” Dora answered. “Oh, but I won’t go to all the functions she expected me to attend before.
“I shall still knit socks for ex-servicemen and raise money for the church.
“But now it will be because I want to do it, not because she expects it of me.”
Dora slipped her hand into his, trying to suppress her nerves.
“There was something I said to Mother that I haven’t told you,” Dora admitted. “I’m rather embarrassed to say it in front of Lizzy and Charlie.”
“Go on,” Vincent encouraged her.
“I said that I thought you would ask me . . .”
She closed her eyes.
“Oh, dear, I feel so silly saying it aloud.
“I’m so sorry, Vincent, if I’ve misunderstood your feelings over these last weeks –”
She stopped talking as Vincent’s breath tickled her lips and he kissed her – soft, warm and thrilling.
Dora felt utterly at home.
The End.