by Betty Neels
‘Did I forget to tell you? You are to stay here until I consider it all right for you to travel, and it has been left to me to decide if you need a week off after that.’
She was unaware of how plainly her thoughts showed on her face. ‘Home for a few days?’ suggested Georgina, reading them correctly. ‘One of the men can take you up to town and drop you off at the station…’ She stopped and smiled, looking so pleased with herself that Letitia was on the point of asking why, but Julius spoke first, to say that he would be back very shortly and carry her down to the garden. ‘Far too nice a day to stay indoors,’ he pointed out kindly, and when she thanked him, adding that she hoped she wasn’t being a nuisance, he went on: ‘Of course not—we’re treating you as one of the family, Tishy, and Georgina’s delighted to have your company while we’re away, and in any case, just to prove how much we take you for granted, I’m driving her to Saffron Walden very shortly. Nanny will be here with the babies, of course, and Stephens will bring you your lunch and see that you’re comfortable. You don’t mind?’
He had struck the right note; she felt at ease now because she wasn’t spoiling their day after all. ‘Of course I don’t mind—it will be super doing nothing. You’re both so kind.’
Julius went away and Georgina smiled and offered to get a rather fetching housecoat of a pleasing shade of pink for her guest to wear. Letitia put it on, admiring the fine lawn and tucks and lace. It had a pie-frill collar and cuffed sleeves, and looking down at her person, she had to admit that lovely clothes did something for one…‘I can leave my hair, can’t I?’ she asked. ‘There’s no one to see.’
Her kind hostess bent down to pick up a hairpin. She said: ‘No one, Tishy,’ hoping that Providence, already so kind, would continue to be so.
The day was glorious. Letitia, lying comfortably on a luxurious day bed, leafed through the pile of glossy magazines she had been provided with, ate a delicious lunch Mrs Stephens had arranged so temptingly on the trays Stephens carried out to her, then closed her eyes. It was warm in the sun; she would have a crop of freckles in no time, but it really didn’t matter. She had spent a lot of money she really couldn’t afford on a jar of something or other to prevent them, because Mike had told her once that he thought they were childish. Thinking about it now, she began to wonder exactly what it was about her that he had liked. Whatever it had been, it hadn’t lasted long. She remembered with faint sickness how he had told her that she wasn’t pretty. ‘Not even pretty,’ he had said, as though there was nothing else about her that was attractive. She frowned at the thought and pondered the interesting question as to what Doctor Mourik van Nie would find attractive in a girl. Whatever it was, she felt very sure that she hadn’t got it. She dozed off, frowning a little.
She woke up half an hour later, much refreshed, and saw him sitting in an outside garden chair, his large hands locked behind his head, his eyes shut. She looked at him for a few seconds, wondering if he were really asleep and why was he there anyway; her watch told her that it was barely half past two; theatre should have gone on until at least four o’clock. Perhaps, she thought childishly, he wasn’t really there; he had been the last person she had thought about before she went to sleep—he could be the tail end of a dream. She shut her eyes and opened them again and found him still there, looking at her now. ‘You’ve got freckles,’ he observed, and unlike Mike, he sounded as though he rather liked them.
‘Yes, I know—I hate them. I bought some frightfully expensive cream to get rid of them, but it didn’t work.’
‘They’re charming, let them be.’ His voice was impersonal and casually friendly and she found herself smiling. ‘I thought theatre was working until four o’clock today.’
‘It was, but at half past twelve precisely some workman outside in the street pickaxed his way through the hospital’s water supply. Luckily we were on the tail end of an op, but we had to pack things up for the day. Do you mind if I go to sleep?’
She felt absurdly offended. ‘Not in the least,’ she told him in an icy little voice, and picked up a magazine. Unfortunately it was Elle and her French not being above average, looking at it was a complete waste of time; even the prices of the various way-out garments displayed in its pages meant nothing to her, because she couldn’t remember how many francs went to a pound.
‘You’re a very touchy girl,’ observed her companion, his eyes shut, and while she was still trying to find a suitable retort to this remark:
‘Am I right in suspecting that this—what’s his name—the Medical Registrar was the first man you ever thought you were in love with?’
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the daybed. ‘I won’t stay here!’ she exploded. ‘You have no right…you don’t even know me…ouch!’
She had put her injured foot to the ground and it had hurt. The doctor got out of his chair in a patient kind of way, lifted the stricken limb back on to the daybed, said: ‘Lie still, do—and don’t be so bird-witted,’ and went back to his chair. His voice was astringent, but his hands had been very gentle. ‘And don’t be so damned sensitive; I’m not a young man on the look out for a girl, you know. I’m thirty-five and very set in my ways—ask Julius.’ He closed his eyes again. ‘I’m ever so safe, like an uncle.’ There was a little pause, then he opened one eye. ‘I like that pink thing and your hair hanging loose.’
Letitia had listened to him in amazement and a kind of relief because now she could think of him as she thought of Julius; kind and friendly and big brotherish. Two short months ago, if Mike had said that, she would have been in a flutter, now it didn’t register at all—at least, she admitted to herself, it was nice that he liked her hair. She took a quick peep and was disappointed to see that his eyes were closed once more.
He wasn’t asleep, though. ‘Where is your home?’ he asked presently.
She cast Elle aside with relief. ‘Devonshire, near Chagford—that’s a small town on Dartmoor. Father’s the rector of a village a few miles on to the moor.’
‘Mother? Brothers and sisters?’ His voice was casually inquiring.
‘Mother and four sisters.’
His eyes flew open. ‘Are they all like you?’
She wasn’t sure how to take that, but she answered soberly: ‘No, they’re all pretty. Hester—she’s the second eldest—is married, so’s Miriam, she comes after me, and Paula’s the last.’
‘And where do you come?’
‘In the middle.’
‘And your eldest sister—Margo, isn’t it? She’s George’s friend?’
‘Yes, they trained together. Margo’s away on holiday. She’s going to get engaged any day now.’
He opened an eye. ‘I always thought,’ he stated seriously, ‘that the young lady about to be proposed to was suitably surprised.’
Letitia giggled, and just for a few moments, in her pink gown and her shining curtain of hair, looked, even with the freckles peppering her nose, quite pretty, so that the doctor opened the other eye as well.
‘She and Jack have known each other ever since she was fifteen, but he went abroad—he’s a bridge engineer, so Margo has gone on working while he got his feet on the ladder, as it were, and now he’s got a marvellous job and they can buy a house and get married.’
‘And you will be a bridesmaid at the wedding, no doubt?’
‘Well, no—you see, we drew lots and Miriam and Paula won. It’s a bit expensive to have four bridesmaids.’
The corners of his firm mouth twitched faintly. ‘I daresay two are more than ample. I have often wondered why girls had them.’
She gazed at him earnestly as she explained: ‘Well, they make everything look pretty—I mean, the bride wants to look nicer than anyone else, but bridesmaids make a background for her.’
‘Ah, yes—stupid of me. Do you set great store on bridesmaids, Letitia?’
She was about to tell him that she hadn’t even thought about it, but that would have been a colossal fib; when she had imagined herself to be in
love with Mike, her head had been full of such things. ‘I used to think it was frightfully important, but now I don’t imagine it matters at all.’
‘You know, I think you may be right.’ He heaved himself out of the chair and stretched enormously. ‘I’m going to get us a long cool drink and ask Stephens if we can have tea in half an hour. Can I do anything for you on my way?’
She shook her head and sat back, feeling the sun tracing more freckles and not caring. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she felt as though Jason Mourik van Nie had opened a door for her and she had escaped. It was a lovely feeling.
The drinks were long and iced and he had added straws to her glass. She supped the coolness with delight and exclaimed: ‘Oh, isn’t this just super?’ then felt awkward because he might not find it super at all.
‘Very.’ He was lying back again, not looking at her. ‘Do you suppose you could remember to call me Jason? I call you Tishy, you know, although on second thoughts I think I’ll call you Letitia, I like it better.’
‘Mother always calls me that, but they call me Tishy at the hospital, and sometimes my sisters do too when they want me to do something for them.’
They had their tea presently in complete harmony and she quite forgot to wonder where Georgina and Julius had got to, and when Nanny came out with Ivo in his pram and Polly got on to the doctor’s knee, she lay back, listening to him entertaining the moppet with a series of rhymes in his own language, apparently quite comprehensible to her small ears. She watched him idly, thinking that it was pleasant doing nothing with someone you liked. She gave herself a mental shake; only a very short time ago she hadn’t liked him, but when she tried to remember the exact moment when she had stopped disliking him and liking him instead, she was unable to do so. Her thoughts became a little tangled and she abandoned them when Jason broke in on her musings with the suggestion that she might like to recite a nursery rhyme or two and give him a rest. She had got through ‘Hickory, Dickory, Dock’ and was singing ‘Three Blind Mice’ in a high sweet, rather breathy voice when Georgina and Julius joined them and the little party became a cheerful gossiping group, with Ivo tucked in his mother’s arms and Polly transferred to her father.
‘Ungrateful brat,’ remarked Jason pleasantly. ‘Letitia and I are hoarse with our efforts to amuse her and now she has no eyes or ears for anyone but her papa.’
‘You got back early?’ Georgina asked, and smiled a little.
Jason repeated the tale of the workman and his pickaxe and everyone laughed, then the men fell to making plans for their trip on the following day until Jason said: ‘I’ll carry Letitia indoors, I think, she doesn’t want to get chilled.’ He got up in leisurely fashion. ‘Where is she to go?’
‘The sitting-room—we’ll have drinks, shall we? No, better still, take her straight up to her room, will you, so she can pretty herself up, then you can bring her down again.’ Georgina looked at Letitia. ‘You’re not tired, Tishy?’
‘Not a bit—how could I be? I’ve been here all day doing absolutely nothing. It’s been heavenly, but I feel an absolute fraud.’
‘Until you try to stand on that foot,’ remarked Jason, and picked her up. ‘Back in ten minutes,’ he told her as he lowered her into the chair before the dressing table in her room and went away at once. She barely had the time to pick up her hairbrush before Georgina came in. ‘Don’t try and dress,’ she advised, ‘or do anything to your hair,’ and when Letitia eyed her doubtfully: ‘You look quite all right as you are.’
She went away too, so Letitia brushed her hair and creamed her freckles and sat quietly, not thinking of anything very much until Jason came to carry her downstairs again.
The evening was one of the best she could remember, for she felt quite at ease with Georgina and Julius, and as for Jason, his easy friendliness made her oblivious of her appearance and she even forgot her freckles. She reminded herself that two months ago, out with Mike, she would have been fussing about her hair and wondering if her nose were shining and whether she had on the right dress. With Jason it didn’t seem to matter; he hardly looked at her, and when he did it was in a detached way which didn’t once remind her that her hair was loose and a little untidy, and her gown, though charming, was hardly suitable for a dinner party. He carried her up to bed presently and before he left her took a good look at her ankle.
‘Quite OK,’ he pronounced, and wished her goodbye, because he and Julius would be leaving very early the next morning.
The house, after they had gone, seemed large and empty, a fact to which Georgina agreed, giving it her opinion that it was because they were two such large men; all the same, the two girls contrived to spend a pleasant day together, with Stephens and the gardener to carry Letitia down to the garden and the two babies to play with. Julius telephoned twice, the first time shortly after they had arrived, and the second time a few hours later, just as the girls were going to bed. Letitia wondered what Jason was doing, but she didn’t like to ask Georgina, who, for some reason, didn’t mention him at all, but when Julius telephoned the next morning, she couldn’t refrain from asking at what time the men might be expected back.
‘Well, there’s no telling,’ explained Georgina. ‘They both drive fast and awfully well and I daresay they’ll take it in turns, which means that they’ll do it in about six hours. They can do seventy on the motorway, you see, and that’s almost all the way. They’ll be here for tea.’
And she was right. Letitia was entertaining Polly with a demonstration of ‘Here’s the church, here’s the steeple’ when she heard men’s voices and looked up to see them strolling towards them. Neither looked in the least tired, although they ate an enormous tea.
‘No lunch?’ asked Georgina.
‘Well, my love, I had promised myself that we would be home for tea,’ Julius smiled at his wife, ‘and Jason liked the idea too.’
Letitia watching them, thought how wonderful it would be to be loved as much as that. She sighed, and Jason asked at once: ‘Are you tired? Do you want to go indoors and rest?’
She shook her head. ‘No, oh, no, thank you.’
His voice was kind. ‘One more day and then I should think you might try some gentle exercise. How does the ankle feel?’
She hardly noticed when the others went indoors and Jason started to tell her about Edinburgh and their meeting. She was surprised when Julius came out to ask them if they wanted to go in for drinks before dinner. The day, though pleasant, had been long, now the evening was going far too quickly.
The next few days went quickly too, each one speedier than its predecessor, or so it seemed because she was enjoying herself so much. It was a week after her accident, when she had been hobbling very creditably for a couple of days, that Julius gave her his verdict that she was to all intents and purposes, cured. Jason wasn’t back from hospital, she was sitting with Georgina and him, lingering over tea, watching Polly tumbling around on her short fat legs, and thinking how content she was. But it couldn’t last, of course; she said at once: ‘Oh, that’s good. Do you think that I should go straight back to St Athel’s?’
‘Lord, no, Tishy. A week’s leave—you can stay here if you care to—we love having you.’
She smiled at them both because they were so kind and they must have wished her out of the way on occasion. ‘You’re awfully kind,’ she told them, ‘but I’d love to go home. If I could have a lift up to town I could catch a train. Would you think me very ungrateful if I went tomorrow?’
‘Yes, very,’ said Julius promptly. ‘Make it the day after.’ He smiled as he spoke. ‘Do you want to collect more clothes before you go?’
‘No, thanks, I’ve some things at home—they’re a bit old, but I shan’t be going anywhere, so it won’t matter.’
So it was settled, and when Jason came home nobody thought of mentioning it to him and she didn’t like to say anything herself, although presumably, as Julius was still on holiday, it would be Jason who would have to give her a lift. It wasn’t
until the next morning, after he had left the house, that Georgina remarked: ‘Oh, by the way, Jason says he’ll take you all the way, Tishy, if you don’t mind leaving quite early in the morning.’
Letitia buttered a piece of toast and sat looking at it. ‘I couldn’t let him do that,’ she said at length. ‘I mean, it’s miles away, even in that car of his.’
It was Julius who answered her. ‘Well, he’ll be home after tea, why don’t you talk to him about it then? And if you’d really rather go by train, he can still give you a lift up to town.’
So she was forced to contain herself until the early evening, for Jason was late home. By the time he strolled in they were all in the drawing room with the children in bed and dinner but half an hour away. Julius got up to get him a drink. ‘A bit of a rush?’ he wanted to know.
‘The Commando went wrong—he picked up eventually, but it lost us a couple of hours, we didn’t finish until six o’clock.’
Georgina glanced at the carriage clock on its bracket. ‘You made good time.’
He had taken a seat at the other end of the sofa where Letitia was sitting. ‘The car went well.’ He looked at Letitia. ‘How far to Chagford, dear girl?’
She jumped because she hadn’t expected his question. ‘Well…yes, the thing is Georgina told me…it’s very kind of you to offer me a lift, but I really can’t…if you wouldn’t mind dropping me off at Paddington…’ She stopped, aware that she wasn’t making much of a success of it.
‘I think you’ve got it wrong,’ explained Jason, at his most placid. ‘I’m going down to Plymouth tomorrow— I have to. I might just as well take you as not—the car’s empty and I’m not going more than a few miles out of my way. It’s no sacrifice on my part, Letitia.’
She told herself that she was relieved to hear that even while a faint prick of annoyance shot through her; would it have been such a sacrifice if he had been asked to drive her down to Chagford? Probably; he had called her touchy, hadn’t he? And damned sensitive, too—and he had wanted to go to sleep instead of talking to her. That still rankled a little. He must find her incredibly dull after the glamorous young ladies he was doubtless in the habit of escorting. She said in a wooden voice: ‘Well, thank you, I’ll be glad of a lift. When do you want to start tomorrow?’