by Betty Neels
‘Well enough, I should imagine—she and Margo are coming down for the week-end. She’ll be glad to find you’ll be with us as well, I think.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘You’ve been kind to her, and she needed kindness after that young fool cut her up—for a little while she’s been hating all of us; he said some pretty cruel things to her, so Georgina told me. It can’t be much fun to have your dreams torn up so ruthlessly—and it must have been worse for a girl like her.’
‘No looks, you mean?’ It was Jason’s voice, and Letitia closed her eyes. ‘But she’s not as plain as all that, you know, and she’s a nice girl.’
‘That’s just what I mean,’ observed Julius. ‘There aren’t many around like her any more.’ They were strolling to the door now. ‘Where are you dining?’
Letitia didn’t hear Jason’s reply because the door had swung to behind the men, but it would have made no difference. She had become deaf and blind and dumb for a while while her head buzzed with a variety of painful thoughts, which changed, within seconds, to sudden rage; he was as bad as Mike had been—worse, because he hadn’t seemed like that at all. True, he had never been in the least interested in her, but why had he pretended to be friendly when all the while he hadn’t meant it?
She began on the sink’s contents, making such a clatter that the theatre staff nurse came out to see what was the matter, and when she got off duty at last, her cross face kept even the closest of her friends at bay, so she was left to brood over a book and peck silently at her supper, a circumstance so unusual that the young ladies around her looked at her with something like dismay; little Tishy was known for her sunny disposition and no one had ever seen her quite like this not even when Mike had thrown her over.
And the efforts she made to get out of going with Margo were useless; she didn’t choose to tell her sister her real reason for not wishing to go to Dalmers Place, and the excuses she thought of wouldn’t hold water with Margo. She got through Friday somehow, wishing Jason a good morning cold enough to freeze his bones when he arrived for the first case, and carrying out his instructions and giving him her reports of the patients’ conditions in an austere manner which caused the faithful Mrs Mead to look at her as though she were out of her mind. It was at the end of the list, after everyone had gone and Letitia was setting the recovery room to rights in case an emergency should come in during the week-end, that Jason came back again. And this time she was in the middle of the room, rotating slowly, making sure that everything was just so before she left.
‘Ready in half an hour, Letitia?’ he asked her cheerfully. Obviously, she thought pettishly, her coolness of manner had escaped him, and what business was it of his when she left? Margo had told her that they were going down by train and would be met at the station.
‘No. There’s plenty of time before Margo and I leave, doctor.’
He raised faintly amused brows. ‘I’m not sure what I’ve done, but it can’t be so awful that you need to call me doctor. What’s up, dear girl?’
She said levelly, her eyes on his face: ‘Nothing—nothing at all. It was quite a list, wasn’t it?’
Either he had never heard of red herrings or he wasn’t easily led away from the matter in hand. ‘Well, whatever the nothing is, you’d better get over it; it’s George’s birthday tomorrow.’
Letitia went a slow pink, a pale indication of the indignation burning inside her. ‘I hadn’t forgotten.’
‘Good.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘Twenty minutes, then, at the front entrance—Margo already knows we’re going down together.’ He smiled quite kindly and went away, leaving her to rush round to the Home. Margo could have let her know; she would have something to say to her when they met. Letitia changed in an increasingly bad frame of mind and got to the entrance with one minute to spare, to find Jason and Margo, on the best of terms, already there, so that, naturally enough, she was ushered into the back of the car where she sat with her thoughts, answering politely when spoken to and trying not to look at the back of Jason’s head, which, while not as interesting as his handsome face, had its own endearing qualities. The gay talk and laughter of the two in front of her did nothing to make the journey pleasanter, either.
And when they arrived the house seemed full of people. Georgina, of course, looking so glowingly happy that she was beautiful, and Julius, looking as he always did, completely content, and with them his cousins, Cor and Beatrix and Franz with an ecstatic Polly weaving amongst them on her short legs, and there were two people Letitia had never meet before too—Julius’s eldest cousin Karel and a pretty girl of fifteen or sixteen, Katrina, Jason’s youngest sister. They were swept indoors with everyone talking at once, and presently Letitia and Margo were taken up to their rooms, warned that dinner would be in half an hour or so and left to unpack while they talked to each other across the communicating bathroom.
‘Don’t change,’ Georgina had told them, as she went. ‘No one will tonight—we’re going to dress up tomorrow evening, though.’
A remark which filled Letitia with disquiet because she wasn’t sure if the green dress was grand enough after all.
She went downstairs with Margo in a little while and joined everyone in the drawing-room, and because she wanted to avoid Jason, she went to sit by Franz, and presently Karel joined them. He was a dear, she discovered, gay and amusing and with the happy knack of making her feel that she was the prettiest woman in the room, a feeling which she recognized as entirely false though it helped enormously, so that when Jason did come over with his sister she was able to laugh and talk in a perfectly natural manner—so much so, indeed that when they went in to dinner, he bent his head to whisper: ‘So the nothing’s gone, has it?’
Which brought it all back again even though she pushed it to the back of her mind and prepared to enjoy herself. It would have been difficult to have done otherwise; she had Cor, bubbling over with schoolboy high spirits, on one side of her, and on the other Karel; between them they kept her entertained throughout dinner, and afterwards, in the drawing room, she found herself with Katrina, who was so very like Paula in her ways that she felt they had known each other for a long time and readily agreed to go for an early morning walk with her before they parted, on excellent terms, to go to bed.
It was going to be a blazing hot day, Letitia could see that the moment she wakened the next morning, and a good thing too—now she could wear the British Home Stores dress. It really wasn’t bad at all; the good suede belt lent it an air and her sandals, on bare feet, matched quite well. She tied her hair back and without bothering overmuch about her face, went silently through the rambling old house and down the stairs.
Katrina was already there in the hall, they found their way to a side door and let themselves out into the garden, and although it was barely seven o’clock, it was already warm. They wandered along out of the garden presently and into the lane with Katrina, talking all the time, leading the way. They had gone perhaps half a mile when she stopped and exclaimed in a pleased voice: ‘There is Jason!’ and there indeed he was, sitting in the hedge ahead of them, chewing grass and contemplating the view. He threw the grass away and got to his feet and came to meet them. His good morning was bland. ‘Now this is a surprise,’ he assured them, only he didn’t look surprised at all.
CHAPTER FIVE
JASON TOOK IT for granted that they would enjoy his company, and as a matter of fact, it would have been difficult to do otherwise; he could be very amusing when he wished and he and Katrina were on excellent terms with each other despite the difference in their ages. They strolled back to the house across the fields, and when Jason said: ‘Run on ahead and tell Georgina we’re on our way,’ Katrina obeyed at once, flying away from them over the grass, turning to wave as she disappeared through the gates leading to Dalmers Place. Which left Letitia making uneasy conversation with Jason, something she found difficult enough to do, partly because she couldn’t forget his cool voice in the recovery room,
and when he said in his kind way: ‘I like that dress, Letitia,’ she felt sure that he was mocking her; it was a dress, that was all. To her mind it had bargain written all over it, she couldn’t believe that her companion wasn’t able to recognize a cheap garment when he saw one.
‘It’s from British Home Stores,’ she snapped, and realized that he had no idea at all of such a place. Well, she thought fiercely, it was time he learnt. ‘It’s a chain store, like Woolworth’s,’ she informed him crossly, ‘they have rows and rows of dresses, all exactly alike and all very cheap.’
Jason had stopped to look at her and twisted her round to face him. He said in a measured voice. ‘It doesn’t really matter if it’s sack or something dreamed up by Christian Dior—the point is, it’s pretty. In fact it has the edge on some of the ultra-fashionable clothes I’m expected to admire.’
‘Whose?’ she asked before she could stop herself.
He grinned down at her. ‘Well, well—I was beginning to think you had no interest in my—er—leisure hours. I take girls out sometimes, you know—men do.’ He put a finger under her chin so that she couldn’t turn away from his blue gaze. ‘And we aren’t all men like Mike, my dear.’
He bent to kiss her cheek gently, tucked an arm under hers and went on walking towards the house, talking about a variety of small matters, for all the world as though they had never stopped. She mumbled answers and said yes and no and was glad when they went indoors and she could escape to her room and tidy herself for breakfast. She stared at her face in the charming winged mirror; his kindness had hurt. Which was perhaps why she devoted so much of her attention to Karel at breakfast and played tennis with him for the greater part of the morning. And after lunch on the terrace, when Georgina had received her presents, she had spent the afternoon with Katrina and Karel with occasional games of tennis with Beatrix and Cor. It was evening when the celebrations really got under way; Letitia dressed in the green silk, nervous that it wasn’t quite up to the occasion, and though when she got downstairs she saw that it wasn’t, it didn’t matter overmuch, because its very simplicity made it look better than it actually was and she was wearing the gold chain and locket her parents had given her when she was twenty-one—it was a large Victorian oval, heavy and rather ornate, and showed up nicely against the plainness of the dress and gave it an air of distinction.
Georgina, in guipure lace and the emerald earrings Julius had given her, was holding court in the drawing-room, and as she and Margo went in there was a burst of laughter which carried her well through drinks and into dinner. She had Karel next to her again and he stayed with her when they all went back to the drawing-room, introducing her to the guests who were beginning to arrive for the evening, and when someone put on the music, he whisked her on to the floor before she had had a chance to wonder if anyone would dance with her. She didn’t lack for partners after that, for she danced well. Only when she found herself with Jason did her feet become clumsy, but presently, charmed by the music and the pleasure of dancing with him, she forgot her awkwardness and enjoyed herself.
‘That was nice,’ she told him as the music stopped last, and smiled up at him, almost pretty in the dim light of the wall sconces, but before he could answer her she had been danced away by Karel, to circle and sway and twirl in a very modern fashion which seemed a little surprising in the strictly brought up daughter of a country parson. But it didn’t prevent her watching Jason revolving round the room in a rather more civilized way with a pretty girl whose hair was golden and whose dress must have cost the earth. They disappeared into the garden very soon, and Letitia dipped and swayed and smiled her way through the endless dance, longing to run after them and see what they were doing. There was a moon and the evening was warm—the garden was lovely; sweet-smelling and romantic, and the girl was the kind of girl men would kiss in the moonlight. She ground her nice white teeth at the very idea; if he asked her to dance again, she would refuse. Only he didn’t ask her, and when the evening was over and they were all going to bed, his good night was so casual it sounded like an afterthought; rather as though he had forgotten to say good night to the dog, she decided bitterly.
Everyone went to church in the morning; a convoy of cars, headed by Julius’s Rolls, followed by the BMW, the Mini driven by the just seventeen-year-old Franz and last, the rakish Porsche belonging to Karel, in which Letitia had contrived to get herself as passenger. They filled two pews in the little church, and Letitia, squashed between Beatrix and Karel, was very aware that Jason was sitting beside her, so that instead of attending to the service she was worrying about her hair being untidy at the back and whether the collar of her jacket was just so. Being in love, she mused silently while they sang the last hymn, was an uncomfortable business.
They had a noisy lunch and then, because it was such a glorious day, decided on a picnic tea. Letitia, changing into the British Home Stores dress, meditated on the advantages of being rich; no need to worry about cutting sandwiches or hunting for paper bags and rugs; Stephens, summoned by Georgina, had listened attentively and with his usual fatherly air, and had disappeared with his habitual quiet, and when they gathered in the hall later, there, just as she had guessed, were the two picnic baskets and two rugs, folded neatly. The men shared them out amongst themselves and the girls started off ahead of them, Polly between Cor and Beatrix, Georgina and Margo behind them and Letitia and Katrina bringing up the rear. They were making for the meadows, a quarter of a mile away, where they sloped down to a small stream, a copse guarding the hill behind them. It was pleasant there and cool, and the ladies of the party spread the picnic, while the men got the spirit kettle going and the children wandered off to look for fish in the stream. It was all very peaceful and Letitia, arranging slices of cake on a plate, wished it could go on for ever.
The picnic was a tremendous success, largely because it owed nothing to the modern aids of thermos flasks, cellophane-wrapped sandwiches and potato crisps. Georgina made the tea in a large brown teapot and Margo cut bread and butter with a bread knife on a bread board, just as though she was in a kitchen and not kneeling on the grass. And Letitia, having seen to the cake, unwrapped a jam sponge for the children and a pot of Gentlemen’s Relish for the men, then started to dole out the strawberries into little glass dishes. The cloth, spread on the grass, looked very inviting, they clustered round it in great good spirits and ate everything there was before packing up in a leisurely fashion with a great deal of laughing and talking.
‘I shall have a nap,’ declared Julius, and stretched himself out and closed his eyes, while Georgina wandered off with Polly. Letitia, getting to her feet after strapping the picnic baskets, caught Jason’s eye on her and spoke hastily. ‘I thought I’d…’ she began.
‘Go for a walk?’ he interrupted her. ‘I’ll come with you.’ He had her hand in his and was marching her away before she could think of anything to say. She was still cudgelling her brains for a safe topic—something impersonal—the weather, perhaps?—as he led her up the field towards the copse which crowned it. Unlike her, he showed no signs of unease at their lack of conversation; he said nothing at all, only wandered along, with her in tow, whistling under his breath. A rough track led left and right away from them when they gained the copse, circling the field on its outside, and facing them was a gate; still silent, Jason fetched up against it, and Letitia perforce stopped too.
From where they stood the view was charming; all the soft sweep of the country beyond. The gate gave access to a large, irregular field with a hump down its middle, so anyone walking along either of its edges would fail to see anyone or anything on their opposite side until they were almost at the top where the ground levelled out once more. They stood side by side, silently contemplating the scene until presently they saw Georgina and Polly climb the narrow little gate halfway down the field, and start rambling towards them, keeping close to the hedge.
They saw the bull seconds later, his great head raised, standing on the other side of the hump,
sniffing the air. He began to move towards the centre of the field, unhurriedly but with purpose, aware that there were strangers in his field, although he wasn’t able to see them because of the hump. As he began to amble up his side of the hump, Jason said quietly: ‘George won’t hear us if we shout, we’re too far away. Go and fetch Julius, dear girl, tell him to run down the hedge on that side and get George and Polly through the gate. I’ll stroll down the middle and hold the beast’s attention.’ He turned to grin at her. ‘Possibly he’s quite harmless, but we can’t take risks, can we?’
Even at that distance, Letitia considered this description of the noble animal’s disposition to be quite inaccurate; he was plodding slowly up his side of the hump still, looking anything but harmless, but she wasted no time in saying so, only turned and ran as Jason vaulted over the gate.
She ran well, and being country bred, found the stones and tree roots and unexpected bumps in her path no obstacle—besides, it was downhill. All the same, she was breathless when she reached the picnic party, rather scattered by now, but Julius was still there. He looked up in astonishment at her headlong flight and was on his feet before she got to him, tugging his arm with an urgent hand.
‘Jason says come at once,’ she said breathlessly. ‘There’s a bull—George and Polly…’
‘Show the way,’ Julius urged her, not stopping to ask questions, but Letitia, needing no urging, was already starting back the way she had come. At the gate once more she paused. ‘Jason said would you go down on that side—’ she waved an arm, ‘and get them through that little gate half-way down while he heads the bull off.’
Julius nodded, vaulted the gate in his turn and began to run towards his wife and little daughter, still pottering slowly along the hedge. Letitia could hear their laughter now, faint still, mixed in with the birds and the other summer sounds.