by Betty Neels
It seemed a very long time until Sunday evening. Emma took her mother out to tea in Yeovil, went over to the vicarage for supper, and in between these two social events pottered in the garden, saw to the chickens and took Flossie for a walk. On Sunday she accompanied her mother to church, cooked the lunch and gardened again in a desultory fashion while Mrs Hastings, from her garden chair, gossiped happily. Emma, rooting up weeds with awful ferocity, thought that she had far too much to say about Justin while at the same time listening with avid curiosity for any information about him, however small; afraid to say too much, though, in case her interest in him might show. Apparently it didn’t, for her mother discussed his looks, his voice, his manners and the interesting fact that a man of his kind, obviously well blessed with this world’s goods, should still be unmarried.
‘Probably,’ she hinted darkly, ‘he’s divorced or a widower.’
Emma said, ‘No, he’s not,’ without thinking.
‘How do you know, dear?’
‘He told me.’
‘And not engaged either?’
‘He said that he was—was waiting for a girl. I’m not sure exactly what he meant.’
‘That pretty girl we met in Holland, do you suppose?’ asked Mrs Hastings far too shrewdly, and Emma was thankfully saved from having to answer her by the appearance of Mrs Marshall, whose husband had bought their old home in the village. She was a pleasant enough lady, a little given to gossip but kind and easy-going. She came down the side path from the gate exclaiming:
‘Hullo, you don’t mind if I come in for a moment? It’s about the coffee morning next week, Mrs Hastings. We wondered if you could manage a little before ten o’clock and help to arrange the produce stall—you know how everything comes at the last minute.’ She smiled at Emma. ‘No good asking you, my dear, is it? I suppose you’ll be hard at work at that hospital of yours. Didn’t I see you with that good-looking man again yesterday morning? He was here last—or was it the weekend before, wasn’t he?’ She wagged a finger in Emma’s direction. ‘Do I hear wedding bells?’ she demanded coyly.
Emma said in a choking voice, ‘No, Mrs Marshall, you don’t. He’s one of the surgeons and happened to be coming this way and gave me a lift.’
‘But the other weekend?’
‘He was Mother’s guest,’ stated Emma woodenly.
‘Well, I do call that a shame—when I saw him I said to James: “There’s Emma with a boy-friend!’” Her tone suggested that she had only just stopped herself in time from saying ‘At last’. ‘Still, I expect you find your work absorbing. I daresay he’s very busy too?’
‘Oh, very, Mrs Marshall,’ said Emma politely, and turned thankfully at the sound of footsteps. Footsteps she belatedly recognized as Justin’s as he came round the corner of the cottage. She rose to meet him with a fine colour in her cheeks which she knew, vexedly, Mrs Marshall was busy filing away for future reference.
He stopped before Mrs Hastings and said with charm, ‘I’m hours early, I’m afraid. Do you mind?’ He took her hand and then advanced to be introduced to Mrs Marshall, who smiled at him archly.
‘Well, I am glad to meet you, Professor—I was just asking Emma about you and I must say I’m delighted to have the chance to talk to you. I thought from what Emma said that that would be extremely unlikely.’ She looked archly at them both in turn. ‘But although I’m a very old friend, I dare say she doesn’t wish to discuss it with me—not just yet.’
Emma stood silent, trying to think of something to say and not succeeding; hoping that Justin wouldn’t put two and two together and make five of Mrs Marshall’s hints. It was a relief when he made some noncommittal answer which Mrs Marshall was unable to construe into anything in the least enlightening; a short-lived relief when she glanced at Justin and saw the laughter gleaming in his eyes.
Mrs Marshall stayed another ten minutes and then departed, disappointed at the lack of response to her veiled inquiries. She shook the professor’s hand, wished Emma a rather fulsome good-bye and disappeared down the little path to the lane with Mrs Hastings acting as escort, leaving Emma and Justin together on the lawn.
‘I am all agog,’ he said as Mrs Marshall’s voice died away in the distance, ‘to know exactly what it was you didn’t want to discuss about me with Mrs—er—Marshall.’
‘Well, I shan’t tell you,’ said Emma forthrightly. ‘It’s of no consequence—you know what people are in villages.’ She gave him a dark look.
‘No, I don’t,’ his voice was smooth. ‘Do tell.’
She heard the smoothness; it would be best not to answer. She said instead and severely, ‘You’re early.’
A remark echoed by her mother but in kindlier accents as she rejoined them, saying, ‘How nice, Justin, and don’t tell me you have to tear off again in ten minutes. What a tiresome woman Mrs Marshall can be—all those questions! What about tea?’
The professor answered this muddled speech without confusion.
‘No, I don’t have to tear myself away, Mrs Hastings. I had arranged to go over to Portsmouth this evening—there was a case they had asked me to operate upon, but as it turned out, I went early this afternoon so I’m free.’ He smiled and went on easily, ‘I daresay in a village this size any stranger causes comment—and yes, I should like tea if you haven’t already had it.’
‘Just going to,’ said Mrs Hastings in a satisfied voice, and waved Emma back when she would have gone to the kitchen. ‘Stay here, darling, it’s all ready. We’ll have it here, shall we? You can come and carry the tray when I call.’
So Emma was left alone with Justin once more. ‘Do sit down,’ she invited him stiffly. ‘I’ll go and get the tray.’
He took no notice at all. He had come to stand beside her and she took care not to look at him.
‘I thought—I hoped that you would be pleased to see me,’ he spoke so gently that she forgot about not looking at him and encountered a smile as gentle as his voice so that her heart doubled its beat.
‘I am. Why didn’t you tell me you had a case? I thought…’ She went bright pink because of what she had thought and his green eyes twinkled.
‘That I was going to spend the day with some gorgeous dolly bird?’ he finished for her. ‘That’s it, isn’t it, Emma?’
And when the pink turned scarlet under his amused gaze, he added, still in that same gentle voice, ‘I don’t mean to tease. Do you suppose your mother will invite me to supper too?’
‘Yes, of course. Was the case successful?’
‘Yes—a crushed chest. They had hoped to get him a little more fit for operation, but he started to deteriorate and something had to be done at once, so I went over this morning. With any luck he’ll be out of the wood.’
Emma gave him a straight look. ‘I feel ashamed and mean,’ she pronounced. ‘All the while you were working and I thought…’
Justin said quietly, ‘What a child you are, Emma,’ and smiled again and patted her arm in a sympathetic fashion, then went into the cottage as Mrs Hastings’ voice could be heard begging someone to carry the tray.
Tea was a merry meal, for the professor could be amusing company and an interesting talker when he had the mind to be so; he was making them laugh now and Emma, who sometimes thought that her mother didn’t have much fun any more, was grateful to him for making her look young and carefree again; just as she had looked when Emma’s father had been alive. After tea, while they were washing up, Justin wanted to know how Mrs Coffin was and Mrs Hastings gave him the latest, satisfactory reports of her progress and added, ‘There—I knew there was something I’d forgotten. She asked me to go up to the cottage and see if the currants were ready for picking. I said I’d make jam for her, otherwise it’s such a dreadful waste.’
The professor hung the dishcloth tidily on its hook. ‘Supposing Emma and I go up and have a look now?’ he suggested. ‘It will save you a journey, for if they aren’t ready, you can wait a few days.’
‘Splendid!’ Mrs Hastings glanced at E
mma as she spoke. ‘Do go now, both of you.’ And when Emma was about to speak her mother cut her short with, ‘No, dear, I can manage the supper very well on my own—it’s all cold and only needs to be eaten.’
The evening was tolerably fine; they walked briskly down to the centre of the village and past the church and began to climb Badger’s Cross. Here by common consent, they slowed their pace, strolling along as though they had the rest of time before them, and when presently Justin caught Emma’s hand and kept it in his, she made no effort to remove it. They talked of nothing much; of what was going on around them mostly, and once they stopped and waited, motionless, while a stoat flashed across the lane and then came back to have another look at them.
‘Are there any badgers?’ asked the professor.
Emma, supremely content in an endless present, said comfortably, ‘Oh, yes—but you have to come up here late at night to see them and even then you might not be lucky. They’re difficult to discover, you know, but sometimes they cross the road if there’s no one in sight.’
There was no one in sight now and it was quiet, with only the silky tremble of the leaves on the trees bordering the lane to make a constant accompaniment to the other country sounds; birds, the distant calves on the hills beyond, and below and behind them, the bells ringing the village to church. Mrs Coffin’s cottage, when they reached it, looked lonely and unlived-in. Emma took the unwieldy key from its hiding place under the eaves, saying, ‘While we’re here, we’d better make sure everything’s all right, hadn’t we?’ and led the way indoors, where she left Justin to tour the small place while she collected the geraniums which filled its windows and placed them in the kitchen sink. ‘Otherwise they’ll die,’ she explained, turning on the tap, ‘and Mrs Coffin’s rather proud of them.’
The professor sat on the kitchen table, smoking his pipe and watching her in a silence which made her feel unaccountably shy, so that she made short work of the geraniums and said with unnecessary briskness.
‘There, they’ll do—we’d better go and look at the currants, hadn’t we?’ and he followed her outside, still without speaking, down the garden path to the little field where she had found Mrs Coffin.
The well had been covered in with stout new planks and fenced in besides. They stopped to look at it as they passed and Justin flung an arm round her shoulders and pulled her close as though he was afraid she might fall in. ‘You looked very small,’ he said. ‘Your eyes were like saucers.’
Emma, conscious of his arm, moved on towards the currant bushes; she kept her voice deliberately light when she spoke.
‘I daresay. I was dead scared, though I’m sure poor Mrs Coffin was feeling even worse.’
They had reached the little patch of fruit bushes and she left his side to poke among them. ‘They’re ready,’ she pronounced. ‘Mother can come up tomorrow and pick the lot—I expect she’ll bring someone with her—it’s a bit much for one.’
Justin was eating redcurrants with a reflective air. ‘A pity we can’t pick them for your mother.’
Emma sent him a withering look. ‘Have you forgotten the list for tomorrow? It goes on for ever—and Staff’s got a half day.’
‘Bad management?’ he teased, and held out a handful of currants. Emma took them before she answered. ‘Of course not. The poor girl has to have her off duty like anyone else. She’s been on this weekend with only one nurse.’
‘And what about your days off next week?’
Emma ate the currants and held out her hand like a child, for more. ‘Well, I have to help at the hospital fête on Wednesday and the only way to do that is to have a day off—a half day if I’m lucky—in uniform, too.’
‘You look charming in uniform, Emma.’
Emma experienced a delightful sensation somewhere deep inside her chest, all the same she looked at him uncertainly and contented herself by saying, ‘Oh, do I? Ought we to be going back? Mother will have supper ready. I—I don’t know what time you want to leave.’
‘Since we are to have no leisure tomorrow,’ he said gravely, ‘as late as possible.’ He caught her arm and strolled back towards the cottage, saying as they went, ‘You know, dear girl, I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about coming to Southampton, but you have provided me with just the distraction I need. You really are a most agreeable companion.’
They went back through the garden and out of the gate into the lane once more and Emma watched him fasten the gate, choking back temper. He really was the most exasperating man and he had the power to send her spirits soaring and drooping like a yo-yo. Probably he had disliked the idea of coming to Southampton because it meant leaving Saskia behind and had found in her a kind of temporary stopgap to stave off the boredom of his loneliness. And she disliked being called an agreeable companion—a term which covered either sex and any age group; it was in fact no compliment at all. She started down the hill, not waiting for him so that he had to lengthen his stride to catch her up. He took her hand again, ignoring her surreptitious tug to get it free and with uncanny insight, said:
‘I do believe you dislike being called an agreeable companion. Why?’ He stopped, halting her too, and turned her round to face him. ‘No, don’t try and explain.’ He smiled and bent and kissed her, gently, on the mouth, which action, although thoroughly enjoyable from Emma’s point of view, did nothing to dispel her doubts.
They ate their supper in the cottage’s tiny dining-room and Justin did full justice to it so that Mrs Hastings declared:
‘You poor man, I do believe you missed your lunch,’ to which he replied that yes, he had, staring at Emma as he said it, making her feel remarkably guilty. For no reason at all, she told herself silently. He had said eight o’clock—if he chose to come earlier than that it was his own business, and then she denied the thought by pressing him to take another helping of custard tart.
It was after nine o’clock when they left, for Justin had insisted on washing up first, but the evening had cleared and the sky was deepening to a darker blue. The roads were almost free of traffic and even Dorchester seemed deserted. They slid through its main street, down the hill and on to the main road beyond and the professor sent the car surging effortlessly ahead, keeping up a steady flow of small talk as they went.
It was as they approached Southampton that Emma said diffidently,
‘It was kind of you to fetch me back, especially as you had such a busy day,’ and then a little crossly, ‘If you hadn’t insisted on taking me home in the first place you need not have come.’
His voice was bland. ‘I sometimes wonder, my dear Emma, if you enjoy my society as much as I should like you to.’ He slowed the car a little and sat back, very relaxed, smiling a little. He didn’t look at her at all, for which Emma was thankful because she had flushed up finely at his words. Presently she found her voice, and it was a shade too matter-of-fact. ‘Well, I do like it,’ and she stopped. She had intended to say more, but she could think of nothing sufficiently nonchalant.
Hours later, when she was in bed and on the verge of sleep, a number of suitable answers popped into her head, far too late and therefore useless. She closed her eyes on the resolution not to get caught like that again.
CHAPTER SIX
THERE was a list on Wednesday morning and Staff had a sudden and violent toothache which necessitated an urgent visit to the dentist, so that, at the last minute, Emma changed her whole day to half a day, which meant that by the time she had had dinner there was precious little time to do more than put on some fresh lipstick and push her hair back under her cap before going out into the hospital courtyard to join the other Sisters who had offered to run the bottle stall. The list had been an easy one and the professor had wasted no time on it, although he had been pleasant enough, but he had made no mention of the fête, and had made no mention of attending it, either, and it was only now, as she tore across towards the stall, that Emma admitted to herself that she had expected him to turn up. Most of the consultants did, even if only for a minute or
two, although in all fairness there was really no reason why he should.
The stall was barely started for some obscure reason which everyone was far too busy to explain to her. In company with the others, she began feverishly fastening labels on the vast assortment of bottles which had been dumped in and around the stall. Presently, when the fête had been opened, they would be besieged by would-be winners of a bottle of whisky or sherry which the price of a ticket might entitle them to, although as there were only a few of these and a multitude of bottles of vinegar, lemonade, tomato sauce, bath essence, cooking oil and Pepsi-Cola, their chances of getting the whisky, let alone the sherry, were slight.
The fête was to be opened by a film star, reputedly even more beautiful in the flesh than on the screen, and she would presumably go from stall to stall, as time-honoured custom predicted, buying this and that and encouraging everyone else to do the same. Emma, arranging bottles in tidy rows at her end of the stall, wondered what it would be like to be famous and beautiful and have a great deal of money besides. It would certainly have its advantages, not the least being a much better chance of attracting—and keeping—the attention of equally famous, good-looking and wealthy men—such as the professor, for instance. She arranged some bottles of ink, which she considered a dull prize, even if free, at the back where they couldn’t be seen very easily, and set an enticing row of eau-de-cologne, hair shampoo, lime juice cordial in the front with a half bottle of sherry in their exact middle.
The film star was beautiful all right, after a glossy magazine fashion. She opened the afternoon’s proceedings with a speech in what Emma privately considered to be too girlish a manner and then proceeded to tour the stalls. A close-up of her as she bought a fistful of tickets from Emma revealed a make-up which must have taken hours to perfect and what was undoubtedly a really super wig, but Emma had to admit that even without these aids, she was a very lovely girl, and she sighed as she offered this mirror of beauty and fashion the bottle of Dad’s Sauce she had won. With a face like that, one could attract anyone—anyone in the world.