Primrose Square Read Online Free PDF

Miss Ainslie. Slowly, Elinor rose to her feet.
    â€˜That’s it,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want to hear any more, Dad. I’ve put up with you and your tempers long enough. Now, if you want me to go, because I won’t leave the Primrose and Miss Ainslie who’s been so good to all us girls and is truly against violence, so be it. I’ll go.’
    As her father sat very still, seemingly so stunned by her daring to answer him back he could think of nothing to say, Hessie began wailing.
    â€˜Oh, Elinor, lassie, think what you’re saying! You canna give up your home. Your dad would never want you to do that, he never meant that, did you, Walt? Now you just sit down and we’ll all be calm—’
    â€˜Be calm?’ he cried. ‘Who’s going to be calm? And who the hell are you, Hessie, to say what I want, or what I mean? I’ve told Elinor what she can do, and if she doesn’t want to do it, she can go.’
    His voice was shaking, his face scarlet as he leapt to his feet, his cigarette hanging from his lip, and pointed at the door.
    â€˜There you are, Elinor, there’s the door. You want to be mixed up with suffragettes, you can go out of that and no’ come back. And that’s my last word.’
    â€˜Dad, stop it!’ Corrie shouted, jumping to his feet. ‘Elinor hasn’t even said she wants to be a suffragette. She just wants to keep her job at the Primrose.’
    â€˜And I’ve told her, if she does, she doesn’t come back here. I’ll no’ have my own daughter defying me and don’t tell me I don’t mean that, Hessie, because I do.’
    â€˜And I believe you,’ Elinor told him, her voice thickening with emotion. Her gaze went to her mother, who was quietly crying.
    â€˜Ma, don’t worry, I’ll be sure to still see you. I’ve a few things in your wardrobe, I’ll collect them some time. Corrie, keep in touch, eh?’
    She turned to her father, who had stubbed out his cigarette and was watching her, breathing fast.
    â€˜Goodbye, Dad. Just remember, you made me do this.’
    â€˜The key’s in the shop door, you can let yourself out,’ was all he said, but she could see that his passion was subsiding. Quite likely, in spite of all his roaring, he would be changing his mind soon, but if he did, it would be too late. This time, he’d gone too far.
    Going down the stairs, her legs trembling, she could not really believe she was actually leaving home. This was something different from going into service, where you lived away but home was still a part of you, and though she’d always had to worry about how things would be, Elinor knew that she was going to feel like a lost child, not seeing home again.
    The key was in the shop door, though, as her dad had said, and all she had to do was open it and step out into the Wynd, where the summer evening was still as light as day and where the air was just as warm as ever. Children were playing, and neighbours standing around, or leaning out of the tenement windows, gossiping. Everything was just the same. Yet changed for ever.
    â€˜Ellie!’ she heard her mother’s voice, calling her by the old pet name she no longer used. ‘Ellie, come back, come back!’
    â€˜Aye, come back!’ echoed Corrie, who was with Hessie, holding her arm. ‘You mustn’t leave us like this.’
    â€˜Oh, Ma – Corrie  . . .’
    Elinor ran back to hug them both, tears mixing with her mother’s, and feeling Corrie’s thin shoulders shaking as he held her.
    â€˜I don’t want to go, but what can I do? Dad’s got no right to stop me working at the Primrose; he’s got no right to stop me going to meetings, but if I do, he’ll no’ let me come home.’
    â€˜He doesn’t mean it,’ Hessie sobbed. ‘You know what he’s like. All blow and thunder, and then it’s gone and