He was a total stranger (she assumed, at least; she wasn’t sure she knew anyone with a camera) and she probably ought not to humiliate him by making a fuss, but - the way Fred told it, Sarah supposed she made a fuss about everything.
“Sarah,” she offered lightly, because miss had not applied to her in years, and - well, in the dark - it might be useful to have some other method of differentiating between crowds on the High Street, and names would do as well as any. “I’m sure I do,” she added, feeling for a square of cotton in her skirt pockets. Finding one, she drew it out - if she’d had to guess, she would suspect it had been the one edged with yellow flowers, not that it mattered for a bandage - and edging her hand through the air until she had found his again, cupped the back of his in hers. Carefully folding the handkerchief into a strip, she laid the thickest stretch of it across his palm where the cut was (she wished she could be sure it was clean, but in this instance, that seemed impossible) and began tying up the corners underneath. Men tended to be rather hopeless at things like this, in her experience.
“There, that might do for a moment,” she said, a little shyly. Blasé as he had sounded about the cut, Sarah hoped he didn’t mind her presumptiveness at making sure it was no worse than he said. Nothing to worry about, he had said - but she would have worried about it all day, all the same. “I hope you live nearby? You really ought to look at it under a lamplight.”
“Sarah,” she offered lightly, because miss had not applied to her in years, and - well, in the dark - it might be useful to have some other method of differentiating between crowds on the High Street, and names would do as well as any. “I’m sure I do,” she added, feeling for a square of cotton in her skirt pockets. Finding one, she drew it out - if she’d had to guess, she would suspect it had been the one edged with yellow flowers, not that it mattered for a bandage - and edging her hand through the air until she had found his again, cupped the back of his in hers. Carefully folding the handkerchief into a strip, she laid the thickest stretch of it across his palm where the cut was (she wished she could be sure it was clean, but in this instance, that seemed impossible) and began tying up the corners underneath. Men tended to be rather hopeless at things like this, in her experience.
“There, that might do for a moment,” she said, a little shyly. Blasé as he had sounded about the cut, Sarah hoped he didn’t mind her presumptiveness at making sure it was no worse than he said. Nothing to worry about, he had said - but she would have worried about it all day, all the same. “I hope you live nearby? You really ought to look at it under a lamplight.”
