A Garland of Marigolds

by Isobel Chace

  A GARLAND OF MARIGOLDS

  Isobel Chace

  Suki suspected that her mild romance with Timothy Black had come to nothing because Timothy was rather weak and indecisive. It was certainly not a complaint she could make about the next man in her life, the overbearingly masterful Gideon Wait!

  CHAPTER ONE

  On the day I received my degree Timothy took me out to dinner. Tonight, I thought, as we strolled along the embankment beside the Thames, he would ask me to marry him, and of course I was going to accept. We had been to a Chinese restaurant and Timothy had plied me with enough wine to sink a ship, which wasn’t very fair because while I now had a happy glow, he was as sober as ever.

  “What you ought to do is go abroad,” he said suddenly.

  I pulled his arm closer around my shoulders.

  “Abroad?” I repeated blithely. “Whatever for?”

  He looked at me sorrowfully. “I should have thought that you would be longing to share your knowledge with the underprivileged,” he explained.

  I reached up a hand and pulled at his ear. “How can you be so earnest on a night like this?” I asked placidly.

  “The world today is a thing to be earnest about!” he retorted.

  “Nonsense!” I wandered toward the stone parapet to watch a string of barges going past, behind a squat busy little tug snorting under the effort it was making. “Why should I want to leave all this?” I demanded. And to tell the truth it was all very beautiful. The Thames looked dark and powerful that night, hazing in the distance in by the evening mist. A few lights had come on and it was already dark enough for them to be repeated in the water. Even the more terrible of the new match-box architecture, present and yet alien to almost every land, was softened in the changing hour to more reasonable proportions.

  At the back of my mind I was trying to decide how I was going to make Timothy kiss me before we arrived home. He was surprisingly shy about showing his affection in public, and was constantly worried about what other people might think of him. It was the one drawback I knew of in our relationship.

  Timothy stared moodily at the Houses of Parliament, allowing his eyes to travel slowly down the river to where we were standing.

  “Suki,” he said at last, “I’ve been trying to tell you all evening. I’m going to the United States.”

  At first I didn’t believe him.

  “I suppose you’re going to be an astronaut!” I teased him. Timothy was a space scientist and madly interested in blasting objects into the sky at vast expense.

  He smiled thinly.

  “It’s to do with rockets, certainly. Part of the brain drain, I suppose,” he added, half laughing.

  I regarded him petulantly.

  “But I don’t want to go to America!” I complained.

  Timothy looked wretchedly embarrassed and coughed to clear his throat.

  “I know. Actually I shall only be gone for two years. It’s a great experience for me, but they do stipulate an unmarried man. I thought we might put off any proper engagement until I come back.”

  It was a bitter blow. Now that I was qualified, I was ready to be married. I had even turned down a couple of jobs for that very reason. Timothy and I belonged together and, besides everything else, he needed looking after.

  “I suppose,” I said, in a voice that trembled despite all my best efforts, “I might be able to get a job near by.”

  Timothy bit his lip.

  “But that’s the whole point! I can’t afford to have any distractions while I’m over there—and you are rather a distraction to me! We’ve been seeing too much of each other lately and we both need time to think. That’s why you should go abroad too.”

  I swallowed dismally.

  “But we are going to be married eventually, aren’t we?”

  He brushed away the question as being of limited importance.

  “I suppose so. But we need these two years to know. Let’s see what happens, shall we?”

  I tossed my head, my pride coming to my rescue.

  “And no strings attached?” I asked him lightly.

  He grinned, patently relieved that I had not burst into tears or done anything else to make him feel uncomfortable.

  “No strings attached,” he agreed.

  And so I did not become Mrs. Timothy Black that summer. I remained Miss Susan King. However, I did pack Timothy’s clothes and possessions and see him off at the airport. When it was all over, I went to the nearest restaurant and ate a horrid mixture of sausages and spaghetti, before going home and crying myself to sleep.

  The following day I decided to go to India.

  The advertisement was not particularly attractive. It had read more like a university joke. From it I gathered that someone wished to employ somebody with my qualifications in an experimental village at somewhere quite unpronounceable in India. There was, the advertisement had gone on to say, an experimental irrigation scheme that watered the main farm. The newcomer would experiment with various new wheat and maize hybrids to find out which ones would do best locally. He, or she, would be paid a pittance for this privilege and would also have to prove that his qualifications were better than an Indian national’s who applied. Perhaps it was because it sounded so hopeless that I applied for the job. At least it was in India, which was where I had decided to go, and as it didn’t sound like a particularly attractive job, there was every chance that nobody else would apply.

  Nobody else did. I received a reply to my letter asking me to ring up a Mr. Gideon Wait at a Putney number, and a sense of excitement gripped me. For the first time, I went to sleep without thinking about Timothy.

  The telephone was answered by the young, fresh voice of a girl.

  “Camilla Wait,” she said softly, breathing the name caressingly into the receiver in a way that must have taken a lot of practice.

  “Is your father there?” I asked her.

  There was a moment’s complete silence, then her voice answered, more wary and not a little curious.

  “No, he isn’t. As a matter of fact he never has lived here.”

  A prickle of exasperation traveled through me.

  “I was told to telephone this number—” I began crisply.

  “Ah yes!” Camilla agreed. “But it’s Gideon you want to speak to. He’s my brother.”

  I made a quick mental revision of her possible age. I had decided before that she was about sixteen, now I began to wonder if she were older.

  “Is he there?” I asked and explained who I was.

  She giggled, quite unabashed.

  “No, he’s not. Look,” she went on gaily, “the best thing is for you to come around for dinner this evening. Gideon is sure to be here part of the time.” She gave me the address and a few rather wild directions, then I put down the receiver and dashed across to the wardrobe to see what I could find to wear. Anyone would have thought that Gideon Wait meant something to me personally and, in a way, he did. He would be the first man to dine with me since Timothy had left for America, and I felt as shy and as involved as if he were my first date. Looking at myself in the mirror, I thought I had allowed myself to get into a fine mess. I wasn’t particularly tall, but I held myself well, giving an impression of more inches than I actually possessed. I had dark, unruly hair, a nose that couldn’t be ignored and a wide, mobile mouth that usually gave expression to my normal cheerfulness. There was no doubt that the new lipstick I had recently brought was a great success, and it exactly matched the wispy scarf I intended to wear around my neck. No, it wasn’t my looks I was worried about. It was this new vulnerability that Timothy had left me heir to. I no longer felt on top of the situation.

  I felt progressively less confident as the bus lurched over Putn
ey Bridge. Suppose I didn’t like India? Suppose I couldn’t manage the job? Or, even more important, suppose I didn’t like Mr. Wait, the man in charge of the experimental farm? I left the bus in a dream, telling myself how foolish it was to worry, and only succeeded in worrying all the more.

  I found the house quite easily. It was one of those comfortable, old-fashioned London houses that are solidly elegant and still have the bars on the nursery windows on the top floor. Mostly they have all been turned into flats in these less spacious days, but every now and again you see one full of children and fun and, more often than not, with peeling painted facades that are being left yet another year before they are finally “done up.” The Wait house was one of these. It was actually Gideon’s house, but his sister and her family lived there as he was abroad so much.

  I walked up the few steps to the front door and rang the bell. It was a long time before anyone came, and I was on the point of ringing again when the door slowly opened and a small voice said, “Will you step in and tell me why you’ve come?”

  I stared down at the small boy who was firmly shutting the door behind me.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “That’s no answer. Whom have you come to see?”

  “Mr. Wait,” I said, feeling rather squashed.

  “Oh,” the child said wisely. “Uncle Gideon. He’s out, but Camilla wants to see you. She wants to make sure you’re the right person before Uncle Gideon sees you. He’ll take anyone who seems keen, you see.”

  He showed me into the sitting room, still smiling in that quiet, superior manner that told me he was quite sure that Camilla was going to take complete control of the interview no matter what I chose to do about it. If he was a typical Wait, I thought darkly, the sooner I left the better. I was too sore from my recent experiences with Timothy to want to indulge in personal relationships with anyone else of any age.

  Camilla took me by surprise. She came into the room hesitantly and paused on the threshold, whispering an apology for her freshly washed hair and the state of her clothes.

  “I was bathing the children,” she explained. “My younger nephews and nieces. Their mother is out.”

  I cleared my throat.

  “Are there ... are there many of them?” I asked.

  Camilla grinned. “Four altogether,” she said cheerfully. “Including one set of twins.” She sat down on the chair opposite mine, her deep blue eyes taking in every detail of my appearance. I returned stare for stare trying to make up my mind if she were as nice and as young as she looked.

  “Will your brother be in soon?” I asked at last.

  Camilla had the grace to look guilty.

  “I hope you planned to stay for supper?” she said.

  “Oh yes!” I agreed warmly. “Does he know I’m coming?” I went on in conversational tones.

  Camilla shook her head.

  “I know it’s awful of me, but Gideon is so stupid about getting people to go to India. If they have an ounce of goodwill he’s convinced they’re the answer to his prayers!”

  I laughed. “And they’re not?”

  “They haven’t been so far. He hasn’t had anyone stay longer than six weeks!”

  My heart sank. Was it such a terribly hard job, with so few rewards?

  “I’m not sure I shall do any better,” I said aloud. “I’ve never been out of England.”

  Camilla looked thoughtful.

  “I think you’ll do very nicely,” she said lightheartedly. “You’re not going to rush off and get married or anything awful, are you?”

  I winced. “No,” I replied sharply. “There’s no danger of that!”

  Camilla’s eyes gleamed with amusement.

  “Congratulations, Miss King,” she teased me. “I shall give you a drink to celebrate!” She went over to a cupboard and produced an array of bottles. “What will you have?”

  I chose a dry sherry and watched her as she carefully poured it out for me.

  “Are you going to have one?” I asked.

  She laughed, glancing at me over her shoulder.

  “Me? Gideon would be horrified! I’m only here at all because I’m in the middle of changing schools.”

  “I see,” I said, not seeing at all. “I thought you were about the age to leave school.”

  “I am,” she retorted. “Only Gideon has this thing about education. I think I would be far more use to him in India.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to go to university?” I asked her, remembering my own struggles to get an education, remembering, too, with gratitude the sacrifices my parents had made to make it possible.

  “I haven’t the brains,” she admitted cheerfully. “Gideon says it’s marriage or stagnation for me.”

  “What nonsense!” I interrupted her brusquely.

  She laughed. “Isn’t it?” A sudden idea struck her, transforming her face into an expression of angelic consideration. “I suppose you wouldn’t like to persuade Gideon that India would be much more broadening to the mind?”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” I answered firmly. “But your parents—?”

  “They’re dead,” she replied simply. “They died when I was quite small. Gideon and Rachel, my sister, have practically brought me up. The last word is always Gideon’s, though, because he pays the bills!”

  I looked down at my glass of sherry, astonished by the sudden soft warmness inside me. Gideon sounded nice, and so perhaps life was not so bad. Perhaps even two years would not be too long to wait for Timothy.

  Camilla and I put the children to bed. The twins were warm and sweet smelling from their bath and were no trouble at all. They were not in the least put out at having a stranger tuck them in and tell them a long and involved story. Camilla had the more difficult task with her niece and the small boy, Jeffrey, who had let me into the house. The sun was setting when we finished and a red glow shone over London in a pink and mysterious twilight. Camilla shut it firmly out by drawing the curtains and lighting the lamps. At night, the drawing room took on an added elegance because one could no longer see the worn materials that covered the chairs nor the frayed edges of the glowing curtains.

  We had just sat down when we heard a key in the lock of the front door.

  “That will be Gideon,” Camilla informed me with satisfaction.

  I barely had time to pull myself together before the door opened and a larger, incredibly masculine edition of Camilla came into the room. He was dark with the same well-shaped bones and jutting firmness around the chin as his sister. He started when he saw me and looked enquiringly at Camilla.

  “This is Susan King,” his young sister said briefly. “She’s going with you to India.”

  Gideon’s face darkened with annoyance.

  “Are the children in bed?” he asked abruptly.

  “Of course,” Camilla answered coolly.

  “Then go and find something to do!” he snapped at her. She rose in one easy movement and went toward the door, winking at me behind his back.

  “Susan is staying for supper,” she said from the doorway.

  “Susan?” he repeated testily.

  “Actually,” I said, feeling rather sorry about Camilla’s curt dismissal, “most people call me Suki. Susan is only for formal occasions.”

  “Miss King,” he said icily, “I hope Camilla has not given you the wrong impression, but I shall need to know a great deal more about you before I decide whether you will be suitable for the job.”

  The feeling of warm security fell away from me.

  “Of course,” I said.

  Gideon frowned over the list of my qualifications and the two letters of reference I had brought him. It was impossible to tell whether he was satisfied or not.

  “What made you think of India?” he asked abruptly.

  I tried desperately to think of my reasons.

  “I have the knowledge,” I stammered. “I thought I could be useful.”

  He looked up at me and his eyes were a dark, dark blue.

 
“You have the knowledge,” he agreed. “But there’s a great deal more to this job than that. Can you teach what you know?”

  “I’ve never tried,” I admitted. I was beginning to see why none of his other assistants had lasted longer than six weeks. He obviously expected them to work miracles on absolutely nothing at all! Even the marked likeness between Gideon and his sister faded into insignificance, as I thought about how much I disliked him.

  Gideon impatiently tossed my papers back on to my knees.

  “And then you’re a woman!” he said crossly.

  I sat up straight, sure now that I was going to lose my temper.

  “Do I have to apologize for that, too?” I asked smoothly.

  He swung around and surveyed my angry face, surprised that I should have declared battle. His eyes were suddenly amused.

  “No,” he said slowly, “I don’t think you have to apologize for that!” His appreciation was even more unwelcome than his criticism as he added, “No, no apologies needed, I think!”

  I was silent. Somehow he still had me at a disadvantage and I was resentful of the fact.

  “You have to admit,” he went on more gently, “that your sex presents certain administrative difficulties. The village is very much on the open-plan scheme of living!”

  I blushed. “I’ll try not to be too obtrusive, Mr. Wait,” I said primly.

  “I shall see that you aren’t!” he retorted. He grinned suddenly and I was aware that I had been accepted. “You’d better ask me what you want to know about the place.”