by Betty Neels
It was obvious that he hadn’t given the matter a thought. He said stiffly: ‘I’m sorry, I should have thought of it and made some arrangements. By all means have your day, and perhaps you’ll be good enough to let me know at the beginning of each week which one you want. How long do you wish to be away? Perhaps I should warn the district nurse…’
‘No need. I’ll go after breakfast and be back by tea time.’
‘You will be going with someone?’ He spoke carelessly.
Judith thought of the butcher’s son. George was a nice young man and there was no need to tell the Professor that she was going with him in the butcher’s van. She told him yes, still very pleasant.
He nodded, glanced at his watch and said: ‘If there’s nothing further, Judith, I’ll say goodnight,’ and went.
She drank her excellent soup gloomily. It seemed very likely that he was rushing off to a date—that awful Eileen Hunt. There had been no sign of her yet, but Judith had been sent to the study by Lady Cresswell that morning when her son hadn’t been there, to retrieve a letter she wanted to answer, and on the large cluttered desk there had been a large photograph of the girl with ‘Always Yours’ scrawled across one corner. Judith wondered if Lady Cresswell knew about her and if she liked the idea of having her for a daughter-in-law. It had seemed to Judith, studying the pretty, hard little face, that Eileen was the kind of girl who would arrange to have her mother-in-law admitted to a nursing home; it would be done very nicely and so swiftly that no one would notice or quite realise what was happening.
She ate the rest of her dinner with small appetite so that Mrs Turner wanted to know in some alarm if she was sickening for something.
After the first few days it was apparent that Lady Cresswell hadn’t taken any harm from her journey, so Judith suggested that the pair of them might take a short drive each day, after tea when Lady Cresswell was rested. There was another car in the garage beside the Ferrari Dino and the Range Rover, a Mini, not often used from the look of her. Judith cast an eye over the little car and went straight to the study, where, undeterred by Charles Cresswell’s cold voice bidding her enter, she asked for the use of it. He hadn’t answered her for a minute or two, eyeing her thoughtfully, then: ‘Quite a good idea, Judith. I’ve wondered if I should have kept William here so that my mother could be driven round. By all means borrow the Mini—you will, of course, be careful…’
Judith drew a breath. ‘You can always send for William,’ she suggested sweetly.
‘And if I think it advisable, I shall do so.’ His voice was silky. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I’m working.’
It was a pity, she thought as she shut the door with exaggerated quietness, that they couldn’t speak to each other without being thoroughly unpleasant.
She took Lady Cresswell for a short drive that very evening. Someone had cleaned and polished the Mini and the tank was full; she really had to give the Professor full marks for getting things organised, but of course he was a good son, anxious to do everything possible to keep his mother happy.
They drove to Clappersgate, Skelworth Bridge and Coniston and then took the cross-country road back to Hawkshead, a successful little outing which she hoped would be the first of several.
Two days later she went to Kendal with George, sitting beside him in the butcher’s van. They parted company in the car park with a mutual promise to meet at half past three and Judith wandered off to look at the shops, buy the odds and ends she needed, and give herself lunch.
George was already there when she got back, and she squeezed in beside him, rubbing shoulders with the Canterbury lamb and half pigs loaded into the back. She was busy removing a muslin-wrapped pig’s trotter from the back of her neck when she glanced up and saw Charles Cresswell and Eileen Hunt watching her from the pavement. Eileen was frankly laughing; the Professor was inscrutable.
That evening at dinner, without referring to the butcher’s van, he told her that in future she was to have the use of the Mini on her day off. He didn’t wait for her thanks but made some remark to his mother, and as soon as the meal was finished he excused himself and shut himself in his study. He came out again as Judith was going to bed some hours later and very much to her surprise expressed the hope that she had enjoyed her free day. Moreover, his voice was kind and he smiled warmly at her.
She got up very early the next morning, prompted by the clear sky and the sunshine. The house was very quiet; she wrapped her dressing gown around her and crept downstairs. Mrs Turner wasn’t down yet, and wouldn’t be for another hour. Judith put on the kettle, opened the kitchen door and wandered out into the garden, sniffing at the cool breeze and the scent of the roses before going back indoors to make the tea. Too early to take Mrs Turner a cup and far too early to rouse Lady Cresswell. She took a mug from the dresser and carried the steaming brew on to the doorstep. Life was really rather splendid, she thought; Lady Cresswell was looking decidedly better—probably she had entered a period of recession which might last for weeks, if not months—the country around her was heavenly and it was going to be a lovely day, and over and above that, Charles had actually smiled at her! Quite carried away by her feelings, she began to hum softly and presently to sing, not very loudly at first, imagining herself to be Julie Andrews skipping over the mountains. She was a sentimental girl and the music seemed to suit her mood; for some reason she felt happy, although she really didn’t know why. She sang a little louder; the bedrooms were on the other side of the house and no one would hear her. ‘The hills are alive…’ she was carolling happily.
‘And if you don’t stop that infernal racket this instant you’ll be dead!’
Charles Cresswell stood in the kitchen doorway, looking murderous. He was still wearing the suit he had worn the evening before and it looked crumpled. He needed a shave too and his hair was standing up in spikes.
‘Your room,’ said Judith coldly, ‘is on the other side of the house—you can’t possibly have heard me.’ She studied him for a moment. ‘But of course, you’ve been up all night, living in the twelfth century.’
‘The thirteenth,’ he snapped, ‘and how the hell am I to work? There’s no peace in this house with you in it!’
She got to her feet, her splendid bosom heaving with indignation and, although she didn’t recognise it as such, unhappiness. ‘In that case—’ she began haughtily.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ he begged her. ‘Wallowing in hurt pride just because I uttered a mild reproof—and God knows I have good reason—all that sentimental nonsense about the hills being alive!’
She interrupted him fiercely. ‘But they are, they are—when you’re happy and content and the sun is shining. But how would you know about that? You’re not alive, you’re buried in the twelfth century,’ she corrected herself—’ well, the thirteenth, surrounded by dusty old books and papers shouting at people when they disturb your train of thought.’ She slammed down her mug. ‘Bah!’ she said grandly, and swept past him into the hall and up the stairs.
Mrs Turner was coming down the stairs. ‘Do I hear you having words with the Professor?’ she asked in a soothing, motherly voice as she came abreast of Judith. ‘A nasty temper when he’s roused, has our Mr Charles. Don’t you take any notice, dearie, he’ll be sweeter when he’s had his breakfast.’
Judith muttered and ran on up to her room. Nothing would sweeten Charles Cresswell, he was sour, rude and quite impossible. Let him eat his breakfast alone, she’d choke if she had to share it with him!
She heard him come upstairs presently and go along to his room. She dressed quickly and crept down to lay a tray for herself under Mrs Turner’s sympathetic eye. ‘A nice pot of tea, Miss Judith,’ coaxed that lady, ‘and there’s a lovely brown egg just waiting to be boiled, you’ve plenty of time to eat it before you see to Lady Cresswell. Why not take the tray up the garden? There’s that nice quiet corner behind the summerhouse…’
Judith gave her a quick hug, agreed that it was a splendid idea and bore her break
fast along the brick path between the roses, to perch on the small stone seat snugly built into the corner hedge and demolish the brown egg, a large amount of bread and butter and several cups of tea. She was almost finished when the Professor stuck his head round the corner of the summer house. ‘Hiding?’ he wanted to know, nastily.
‘Certainly not. I like to eat breakfast out of doors.’
‘And not share it with an ill-tempered historian who’s never civil?’
‘You said that,’ she pointed out sweetly, ‘not I,’ and glanced at him, to see an expression on his face which puzzled her. Regret? Disappointment? Sad resignation? It might be any of those on anyone else, but certainly not on his handsome features.
He said evenly, ‘It will suit me better if I breakfast in my study—it will be less of an interruption to my work.’
He had gone before Judith could reply, and presently she went back to the house to take up Lady Cresswell’s breakfast tray and start off on the leisurely business of getting her patient ready to face another day. It was after she had done this and gone off to the village on an errand and to have ten minutes’ chat with Uncle Tom that Charles joined his mother under the beech tree in the garden.
‘I’ve been on the phone to Dr Thorpe,’ he told her. ‘He’s very pleased with the latest tests and thinks that this is a period of recession—possibly a lengthy one. That’s splendid news, my dear, and I’m wondering if it gives you the confidence to enjoy a change of scene? I don’t have to tell you that I enjoy having you here, but a few weeks’ warm sunshine before the colder weather might do you good…’
‘I’m preventing you from working, Charles?’
He smiled at her. ‘No, Mother.’
‘But Judith is?’
She asked the question quietly and he didn’t answer her, staring away over her head. ‘Shall I get another nurse?’
He said instantly: ‘No. She’s a splendid nurse and companion for you and I trust her.’ He smiled again, rather bitterly. ‘I find her—er—disturbing—larger than life…’
His mother nodded, taking care not to smile. ‘A big girl,’ she offered, ‘what your father would have called a fine figure of a woman.’ There was a pause until she went on easily: ‘I know where I should like to go. Do you remember our holidays in the Algarve? Before you were born we used to go there too, at the foot of those mountains—the Monchiques. I’d like to go there again, Charles. Could you find us a villa somewhere between Silves and Monchique village? For three weeks or a month?’
‘It will still be very warm…’
‘You forget we shall be near the mountains and much cooler. We shall want a swimming pool, of course, and a housekeeper and a gardener who can drive.’
‘You would really like that?’
‘Yes, dear. Will you see to everything? I’d like to go as soon as possible, while I’m feeling so well—shall we say a month? That should give you time.’
‘Time for what, Mother?’ He was looking very intently at her.
‘Oh, to get your research done, Charles.’ Lady Cresswell raised innocent blue eyes to his, and he smiled faintly, this time with amusement.
‘I’ll see about it right away. Will you tell Judith?’
And when Judith got back she was told—in a vague roundabout fashion and given no chance to say much, because Lady Cresswell launched into a rambling discussion as to ways and means; clothes, passports and whether Judith would like to go home for a day or two before they went? She had no clear answers to any of the questions Judith put to her, it was Charles Cresswell, coming in during a more than long-winded reminiscence of his mother’s, who settled everything with a few words. He would be going to London on the following day, he would collect his mother’s passport and anything else she might need if she would make out a list. ‘And you?’ he asked Judith, who was still getting used to the idea. ‘Do you need anything?’
‘My passport, my clothes—they’re at home.’ She didn’t add any more—let him worry about how she was to get them, since he was the one responsible for the sudden upheaval.
‘Give me a letter for your mother and I’ll bring what you need back with me. You may like to telephone her.’
She thanked him calmly; there was no point in arguing. It would get her nowhere, nor had she any reason to be grateful for his offer. She had been bustled into the whole thing with no vestige of consideration just because it suited him. When she had a chance she would tell him so.
She had no chance; he left early the next morning, telephoned his mother the following day to say that he had rented a villa just outside Silves for three weeks, and told her that he would return late on the following day.
Judith, informed of this by Lady Cresswell, marvelled at the speed with which everything was being arranged. She supposed that knowing the right people and having the money to get what one wanted must help, plus his desire to get rid of her as soon as possible, because in the light of their unfriendly encounters, that must be the strong reason spurring him on. Indeed, she was so sure of this that she had suggested to Lady Cresswell that she might like to engage another nurse, only to be met with a tearful demand as to whether she wasn’t happy, or being paid enough or was bored to death, mewed up all day with an old woman. She had hastily rescinded her suggestion and had spent the rest of the evening coaxing her patient into a happy frame of mind again.
She lay thinking about it after she had gone to bed; away from the Professor probably she would be much happier; somehow he cast such a gloom over everything—she supposed that was why she felt vaguely unhappy. Before she fell asleep she heard the car and presently his quiet tread in the house. He didn’t come upstairs immediately, and she was asleep long before he did.
They set out a few days later. Judith had been a little surprised at her parents’ pleasure at her going; it was obvious to her that Charles Cresswell had presented them with the charming side of his character when he had gone to her home to fetch her things and they were wholehearted in their approbation of him. Her mother’s letter had been full of enthusiasm about the whole thing and had taken it for granted that Judith was just as enthusiastic. And so had Uncle Tom.
She had spent a busy day or two packing for both of them, and when the Professor, after half an hour’s talk with his mother, had got into his car and driven away on the evening previous to their departure, she hadn’t been surprised. He had given her a list of things to do and remember: the local doctor, the local hospital, the bank she should go to when they needed money, the names of the housekeeper and her husband, the gardener/chauffeur, telephone numbers where he himself could be reached if necessary—even the current rate of exchange—there was even a substantial sum of money to cover expenses. But he hadn’t wished her goodbye.
William had arrived the night before to drive them to Manchester Airport so that their journey there was effortless. Lady Cresswell was excited and talked incessantly, and once or twice Judith caught a smug expression on her face and wondered why.
She found out soon enough. Charles was waiting for them at the airport and she realised with a mixture of pleasure and annoyance that he was travelling with them; indeed, her tongue betrayed her into asking: ‘You’re coming too, Professor?’ In a voice which sounded far from pleased.
His smile was thin. ‘Don’t worry, Judith, I shall see you safely into the villa and then return home—a matter of a day or two.’
She went pink under his amused eyes.
They travelled in comfort, first class, of course, and by the time she had settled Lady Cresswell, found the book she wanted to read, provided her with her handbag and the barely sugar she was sure would overcome any tendency to sickness, they were airborne. Judith, sitting on the opposite side to mother and son, peered out of the window, watching houses and fields and villages getting smaller and smaller until the air hostess came with their lunch. When she looked again they were over water and presently crossing northern France. There was cloud after that as they crossed the Bay of Biscay,
so she sat back quietly, reviewing the next few weeks, making sure that she understood her instructions. She had brought a phrase book with her; she opened it now and struggled with a few everyday words. Lady Cresswell spoke a little Portuguese, but she wouldn’t always be there. It looked to be a difficult language, perhaps she would pick it up more quickly once they were there. She closed her eyes and dozed until a voice advised her to fasten her seat belt.
They were out of the cloud now and the sea and coastline lay below. It looked very different from England, even the earth was a bright terra cotta and there were a great many trees. They would be passing over the mountains which separated Algarve from the neighbouring province, and Lady Cresswell leaned across to say: ‘That’s where we’re going, Judith—it’s beautiful, and did you ever see such a lovely blue sky? I can’t wait!’
The Professor had his handsome nose buried in a book, but he lowered it now with an air of resignation as the plane slid smoothly over the coast, circling over the golden sand below to make it’s final run in. The airport at Faro was a small one and the formalities brief. He ushered them both towards the entrance where a man met them with wide smiles. Judith wondered idly how Charles had contrived to have everything so smoothly arranged in so short a time. Probably he was an old hand at the game; he didn’t appear to be the kind of man to travel in even the smallest discomfort, and to give him his due, he would take care that his mother had no delays or discomfort either. Judith smiled at the driver as he ushered them to the car and he smiled even more broadly. She hoped she would be able to sit in front with him; he looked friendly and the Professor looked even more unfriendly than usual.
She was doomed to disappointment. The two men held a brief conversation, then Charles helped his mother into the back seat, invited Judith to join her and got behind the wheel himself.
‘I shall have a nap,’ declared Lady Cresswell, ‘but I want you to wake me when we get to the hill above Silves, dear.’