“What a mix-up.” Andrew went forward with an amused smile to greet his sister’s friend, and in that moment Catherine realized to her dismay that the newcomer was the very girl who had provoked that wretched little scene on the train. She felt certain that Beryl Osworth recognized her, though she gave no sign beyond a momentary widening of her dark eyes, and most sharply did she regret having related to Andrew Playdle her experience on the journey. How much better to have remained tongue-tied, in her usual fashion.
“Won’t you stay to tea, Miss Emberley?” Cecily asked pleasantly. “Or will your friends be anxiously awaiting you?”
“The point is, with whom are you staying?” Andrew put in. “As you will gather, being lost in Little Garsford is not like being astray in the great city; we shan’t have to take you to the police station. In fact your hosts are probably among our closest acquaintance.”
“I want to go to Garsford House, where the Children’s Home is,” Catherine explained, her” embarrassment increasing. “I’m taking up a post there.”
“The Children’s Home!” The exclamation broke simultaneously from Andrew and Cecily; and there was not only astonishment in their tone, but another emotion, which Catherine could not immediately analyze. She only knew that the temperature seemed suddenly to have fallen several degrees.
“I’ll drop Miss Emberley.” It was the dark, rather faun-like young man who had been introduced to her as Roland Alldyke who spoke. “I was on the point of leaving, anyway, and Garsford House is on my way to Brexham.”
“Are you sure?” Andrew Playdle sounded unflatteringly pleased to be relieved of her company, Catherine thought, queerly hurt and puzzled by his altered manner. Why had he changed after seeming so friendly, she wondered. Oh, well, she supposed, regret struggling with resentment, he and his sister were the selfish sort, who thought of children in terms of tiresome brats—especially children who, through no fault of their own, were being brought up partly, if not wholly, at the ratepayers’ expense. They were too smug and comfortable, no doubt, to have any real sympathy with the unfortunate.
“It’s very good of you.” In her gratitude to Roland Alldyke for saving the situation, Catherine forgot her shyness and gave him a singularly sweet smile. Then turning to the others, she observed again, a little stiffly: “I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have made such a nuisance of myself.”
“You’ve done nothing of the kind, I assure you.” Cecily had almost—though not quite—recovered herself, and Andrew added with an effort at lightness: “It’s been quite an adventurous journey for you, one way and another—what with the fracas on the train with the young woman who was trying to get by without paying her proper fare—”
Absolutely overcome with confusion now, Catherine, sedulously avoiding Beryl Osworth’s eyes, looked again at Roland.
“Would it be hurrying you, if we went right away?” she asked nervously. “I am afraid Matron will be wondering what has happened to me—that is, if the man who ought to have met me at the station turns up there, and finds me gone.”
“We’ll go right away. I promised my aunt and uncle to be back in time to help dispense sherry to some neighbors of theirs, and as Brexham is half-way to Byttleton, I haven’t too much time.”
“Listen to him!” Beryl Osworth’s tone of amusement had a slight edge to it. “Time, indeed! He didn’t have much difficulty in racing the train from the Junction to Great Garsford, that’s all I can say.”
“I could do that on a push-bike, darling,” Roland retorted. “But come along, Miss Emberley. Let’s make our goodbyes and hop it. My car’s round at the side, but it won’t take a minute to bring it to the front.”
A few moments later Catherine was sitting beside Roland in the low racing car and, with Andrew standing at the door to see them off, they started back down the bumpy drive.
“What a frightful joke all this is.” Roland seemed in the best possible humor—not in the least upset at having to break off his tea-party, and escort her to the Home. “Whatever made you mistake Andrew for the porter belonging to the orphanage— as I imagine you must have done?”
“I didn’t mistake him for a porter,” Catherine explained awkwardly. “I was told to look out for a market gardener, who was going to pick me up and bring me out if he possibly could. What with seeing a truck hitched on to Mr. Playdle’s car, and his apparently expecting me—”
“Market gardener! That’s really funny.” Roland was grinning broadly. “Andrew Playdle is a farmer— but in a very, very big way. He does it because he is keen on it, and because he thinks that to work the land his forebears possessed is his only justification for continuing to own it, and live in the house they built. He does work, too. You can tell that by the state of those frightful clothes he nearly always wears.”
She nodded, digesting this piece of information, and he went on suddenly. “What’s all this about your taking a job as foster-mother? Couldn’t you find some less dreary occupation?”
“It won’t be dreary, it will be fun,” she countered, possessed already by a sense of loyalty to the Home she had not yet seen. “I love being with children.”
“Personally I find them appalling.” He gave a realistic shudder. “All boys are dreadful; and the only girls I can do with—and I can do with them very well, I may tell you—are those between sixteen and forty.”
“I’m afraid the Home wouldn’t suit you, then,” she returned dryly. “Sixteen is the leaving age.”
“It wouldn’t suit me at all. I may be a lot of things before I die—change, after all, is the spice of life—but not, I somehow think, a foster-father in a home for indigent infants.”
“I certainly can’t imagine you in that role,” she observed with a twinkle. And then, fearing that she was being too personal, she continued staidly: “It was really awfully good of you to cut your tea short and bring me away. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
“If you want the truth, my promptness was partly due to my desire to annoy Beryl!” The little car rocketed out of the drive into the main road. “I took the trouble to meet her at Byttleton Junction and bring her out to Little Garsford, instead of letting her finish the journey by train, on the strength of her promising to go out for a run with me the day after tomorrow. She’s an old school friend of Cecily’s, but she’s been in Bermuda with her people for some years, so had never met Andrew. However, when she saw that big photograph of him in the drawing room, she decided that he might be a more attractive proposition than my good self. At least, that’s how I read her sudden discovery that it wouldn’t be polite to leave her host and hostess for an afternoon so soon after her arrival.”
“But it wouldn’t have been, surely!” Little as she wished to defend Beryl—in whom she took less than no interest—Catherine could not keep back the retort.
Roland Alldyke burst out laughing. “You don’t know Beryl as well as I do. She comes from the same part of the country—the Thames Valley district. In fact we went to the same little prep, school. If she wants to do something, she simply does it—to the accompaniment of a stream of honeyed excuses, if she thinks the person to be apologized to is worth them.” And then he added, confidentially, but with deepening amusement: “Do tell me one thing. Was it Beryl who was caught out trying to travel first on a second-class ticket—or something of that sort? I happened to notice her expression when Andrew came out with that remark of his—and then observed your confusion. Putting two and two together—and happening, as I have already said, to know Beryl very well—I couldn’t help wondering—”
To Catherine’s relief, all necessity for answering that question—whether by way of hedging or by silence—was removed. They turned sharply that moment into a short drive, just as another car, a big, battered-looking object—emerged, and the difficulty of avoiding a collision took Roland’s thoughts off everything else. Skilful manoeuvring by both drivers saved the situation, and a moment later the little racing car was pulling up outside a solid-looking square house
, in the porch of which a solid-looking woman was standing, very neat in her dark blue overall, and with a surprised and by no means pleased expression on her ruddy, weather-beaten features.
CHAPTER TWO
Luckily Roland had the tact not to hang about for an introduction. He swung Catherine’s suitcase over the side of the car without stopping the engine, and with a crisp “Good evening” to both women drove off again.
“You are Miss Emberley, I take it. I am Mrs. Hosbank.” Matron’s voice was cool. “Did you never get my letter, explaining the arrangements we were making to have you met at Great Garsford? Mr. Barbin arrived at the station barely two minutes after the train came in, and finding you were not there, telephoned to say so. He has just been up to ask if we would like him to meet the next train. I said I should be most grateful, but I shall have to get hold of him now, somehow or other, and tell him not to bother.”
“I’m extremely sorry to have caused all this trouble.” There was no mistaking the sincerity of Catherine’s expression, as she looked at Matron with those frank grey eyes of hers. “There has been a real muddle. I left the station with the wrong man.”
“There! I thought afterwards that I ought to have given you Mr. Barbin’s name.” Matron sounded slightly mollified. “Still I can’t understand how you could have mistaken that sleek young man for a market-gardener, or that smart little racing car as a receptacle for vegetables—nor, indeed, why you have been so long on the road.”
“It’s much more complicated than that,” Catherine began, in a worried sort of way; but her explanations were cut short by Matron who said suddenly, with a smile which lit up her plain face: “We’ll hear all that later, when you are less tired. Unless I’m very much at fault, you’re just longing for a cup of tea.”
Relieved at this kindliness, Catherine smiled back at the older woman. “I certainly am. But it’s too much to expect, after all the commotion I’ve caused.”
“Nonsense. The tray’s waiting for you in my little office.” And she led Catherine into the house. It had the same air of plain comfort within as without, and there were many sighs that it was occupied by children. On the chest inside the hall, a skipping-rope and a battered doll had been flung down by some small, impatient person, while near by a wooden horse waited for its owner. Farther on, round a corner, were a number of, pegs of various heights on which raincoats hung, and beneath them, in neat rows, stood Wellingtons of every size. But not a sound was to be heard save, in the distance, the labored strains of The Merry Peasant on a slightly out-of-tune piano, and farther away still, the faint clatter of pots and pans.
Where were the children, she wondered. And, as if in answer to that question, Matron brought her to the end of a passage, and opened a door which led on to a large garden.
No silence now, but children’s cries and laughter. About a dozen of them were playing out here, the bigger ones chasing each other over the lawn, dodging behind the fine old trees, the babies playing happily in a sand pit.
“They’re not all here. Some of the middle-sized ones have gone to their Brownies’ meeting, in the village,” Matron told her. Then, opening a door at right angles to the other, she took her into a small, homely room, with windows overlooking the garden, where a dainty tea-tray was set out, and switching on an electric kettle brewed a pot of tea.
“I’m glad the children join in outside things like Guides and Brownies,” Catherine said impulsively, as she watched her hostess move deftly about the tiny room. “I—I knew they weren’t put into uniform these days, or dragooned and disciplined the way they used to be; but I didn’t realize they would mix up freely with the other village children.”
“It would be most unfair if they didn’t,” Matron returned stoutly. “They go to the village school, like all the others; dress, as you can see from here, just in the same way. They accept invitations to go out to tea, and ask their friends back, exactly as other children do. And why shouldn’t they?” She paused. “The only difference between them and the children outside is that each one has come here with a burden of sorrow—a burden which, little by little, we try to shift from their shoulders.” Then, filling the teapot and putting it in front of Catherine, she asked abruptly: “What made you think of taking up this work?”
“A friend of a friend of mine was doing it, and it struck me as splendidly worth while—mothering children who need love and affection so badly.” Catherine’s pale cheeks flushed as she spoke, and her grey eyes were eager. “I realize that lots of girls can’t expect to marry, and that I’m not likely to do so myself. And it seems so much more sensible to give one’s affection where it’s urgently needed, than to let oneself shrivel into a dried-up spinster.”
“I don’t know why you, imagine you’ll never marry,” Matron was eyeing her, not with sympathy, but with slight incredulity.
Catherine shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve never been much of a success with men,” she said shortly. “I get on far better with children.”
“M’m.” Matron’s expression bordered now on the skeptical. “My own comment on that is that our embryo foster-mothers don’t usually make such a dramatic arrival—in such dashing company. Nor should we like it very much if they did.”
“I assure you that was purely accidental.” Catherine was a trifle flustered by Matron’s irony.
“Well, never mind.” Matron’s smile was kindly again. “We’ll hear about all that later on, when there’s more time. Finish your tea, and then, if you’re not too weary, find your way to the bathroom. It will be time by then to get the tinies to bed.”
Catherine finished her tea with mixed feelings. She had been accused of many failings in her twenty-seven years, but of flightiness, never. She ought, she supposed, to be up in arms at the faint hint of censure in Matron’s tone. So she was, in a way. Yet there was something queerly reassuring in this older woman’s attitude. Here was someone, at least, who did not regard her as a “born spinster,” completely deficient in ordinary feminine attraction, but as a perfectly ordinary girl, who might occasionally need a slight reminder as to the necessity of the strictest discretion in the work she was undertaking. Her implied rebuke was far more bearable than the half-contemptuous pity which she had invariably received at Marion’s hands.
Nothing, of course, could be more fantastic than the supposition that she had the faintest interest in Roland Alldyke. He had been a raft to cling to, in an awkward situation, but she had not the least desire ever to set eyes on him again, Nor, indeed, she told herself firmly, did she wish to have anything more to do with Andrew Playdle. She had thought him attractive at first, certainly, in spite of his slightly sardonic manner; but his sudden expression of distaste when he learned of her connection with the Children’s Home—that was something she would never be able to forget. People who had no room in their hearts for children, especially children whose lives had been darkened by sorrow and suffering, were not worth bothering about. No other quality could make up for that fundamental lack of sympathy, that cold selfishness.
Try as she might she could not conquer completely the sense of resentment and hurt, which came to her as she recalled that sharp drop in the atmosphere as she made clear her true destination. It had not only aroused her keen indignation, but had wounded her to the quick. However, a few minutes later when, dressed in a workmanlike overall, she made her way to the bathroom she forgot all about Andrew Playdle and his sudden unfriendliness.
It was a big room, with two large baths in it, and amid squeals of joy and excitement half a dozen toddlers were being well and truly tubbed. Matron was presiding at one bath, and a big, high-complexioned girl with light, gingery hair at the other, and as soon as Catherine entered Matron got up from her low stool and performed the necessary introductions.
“Miss Emberley, this is Miss Dewney, whom you will be helping. Those shrimps over there are Jackie, Georgie and Bob, and my three are Jennifer, Rose and Susan. If you’ll take over this lot, I’ll collect some of the others.”
/> Feeling very much at home, for bathing Pat and Pamela had been her daily task for many years, Catherine took Matron’s place on the low stool. And as she set to work with sponge and face flannel—making a game of it, as she had always done with her small niece and nephew—she knew that she had been right to take up work which brought her in contact with children.
She had hated leaving Pam and Pat, when it came to the point; she had grown so fond of them, and they of her. Had she taken on a job where there were no children, she would have missed them intolerably. They had been so sweet and affectionate, so full of fun and high spirits, that life at the Vicarage, which might have been so dull, had been rendered singularly pleasant by their presence. It had been impossible, in their company, to feel discontented with her lot, or aggrieved at Marion’s utter lack of appreciation of all she was doing for her offspring.
“You’d better hurry those children up a bit, or you’ll never get through.” Miss Dewney’s somewhat peremptory voice broke into her thoughts.
“They’re all three clean now. Who’s coming out first? Susan, is it?” With deft hands Catherine swung the nearest child on to her lap and began to towel her expertly. In a few moments the little one was dry and in her sleeping-suit, and five minutes later the other two were also ready for bed—somewhat in advance, it turned out, of Miss Dewney’s trio who, over-hustled by that lady’s constant adjurations to hurry had, after the way of small children, become slower and slower in their movements.
“I hope you’ve got them properly dry.” Miss Dewney sounded faintly suspicious.
“They’re grand,” Catherine assured her. “I suppose I’d better pop them into bed now. Where do they sleep?”
“First door on the right down the corridor.” It was Matron, entering with another batch of slightly larger children, who spoke. “When you’ve tucked them up and settled them off, you might like to go out into the garden and call the bigger children in. The eldest have an hour yet before bedtime, but it’s getting chilly out there. They’re better in the playroom, and they’ll love showing you their various treasures.”
I'll Never Marry! Page 2