by Betty Neels
They went round the place together, and Emma said she would come each Tuesday and Thursday in the mornings. ‘Is nine o’clock too early?’
‘We take over from the night staff at eight o’clock, but that’ll be too early for you.’ Diana stole a look at Paul. ‘Won’t it, Paul?’ She smiled as she spoke, and Emma repressed a desire to slap her. If it hadn’t been for Paul’s obvious wish that she should have something to occupy her days she would have said there and then that she had changed her mind.
On the way back to the cottage Paul said carefully, ‘You’ll like Diana—she is a marvellous organiser. She has no need to work and it surprises me that she hasn’t married—she’s quite lovely, isn’t she?’
‘She’s beautiful,’ said Emma. ‘Have you been friends for a long time?’
‘Two or three years, I suppose. We met at a friend’s house and found that we had a good deal in common.’
Emma kept her voice pleasant. ‘Instant rapport— that’s what it’s called, isn’t it? You meet someone and feel as though you’ve known them all your life…’ She added before he could reply, ‘I’m sure I shall enjoy giving a hand—thank you for thinking of it, Paul.’
‘I wondered if you were becoming bored with life— I’m not at home much, am I?’
She said cheerfully, ‘Well, I didn’t expect you to be— doctors never are, are they?’
That evening he asked her if she would like to spend a weekend with his parents. ‘Next weekend I’m free. We could drive up on Saturday afternoon and come back on the Sunday evening.’
‘I’d like that.’
But first there was the nursery. She drove there in the Mini and within ten minutes, wrapped in a plastic pinny, she was bathing a very small baby in a room where five other babies were awaiting her attention.
Diana Pearson, elegant and beautiful, sitting behind her desk, had greeted her pleasantly but without warmth. ‘Hello, Emma—so you have turned up. So many volunteer ladies change their minds at the last minute. Will
you go to the end nursery and start bathings? Someone will be along to give you a hand presently.’
Emma had waited for more information but Diana had smiled vaguely and bent her head over the papers before her. At least she’d been credited with enough good sense to find her own way around, reflected Emma, and anyway she’d met another girl on the way to the nursery, who’d shown her where to find a pinny before hurrying off in the opposite direction.
Emma, not easily flurried, had found the pinny, assembled all that she needed to deal with the babies and picked up the first one…
She had just picked up the second baby, a small, wizened creature, bawling his head off, tiny fists balled in rage, eyes screwed up tightly, when she was joined by a middle-aged woman with a sour expression.
‘New, are you?’ she wanted to know as she tied her pinny. ‘What’s yer name?’
Not a local woman, thought Emma, and said pleasantly, ‘Emma—Emma Wyatt, and yes, I’m new. I hope you’ll tell me when I do something wrong.’
‘You bet I will. ‘Ere, you that Professor Wyatt’s wife?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Well, don’t expect me ter call yer ‘yer ladyship’, ‘cos I’m not going to.’
‘I’d like it if you’d call me Emma.’
The woman looked surprised. ‘OK, I’m Maisie.’ She picked up the third baby and began to take off its gown with surprisingly gentle hands. ‘He’s the worst of the bunch you’ve got there,’ she observed. ‘Proper little imp, ‘e is—always shouting ‘is ‘ead off.’
Emma looked down at the scrap on her lap; he had stopped crying and was glaring at her from bright blue eyes. ‘He’s rather sweet…’
Maisie gave a cackle of laughter. ‘Your first day, isn’t it? Wait till you’ve been ‘ere a couple of months—that’s if you last as long as that.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘You’ll find out for yerself—Madam there, sitting in her office, doing nothin’—that is, until someone comes along. Pulls the wool nicely over their eyes, that she does. That ‘usband of yours—she’s ‘ad her sights on ‘im this last year or more. ‘Ad her nose put out of joint and no mistake.’ She was pinning a nappy with an expertise Emma envied. ‘Better watch out, you ‘ad.’
The baby, freshly bathed and gowned, looked up at Emma with interest; she picked him up and tucked his small head under her chin and cuddled him. “Ere, there ain’t no time for cuddling—leastways not in the mornings—there’s the feeds to do next.’
So Emma put him back in his cot and set to work on the fourth baby, a placid girl who blew bubbles and waved her small arms at her. Maisie had finished before her; she was already feeding the first baby by the time Emma had tidied everything away and fetched her three bottles from the little pantry.
When the infants had been fed and lay sleeping it off, she and Maisie had to tidy the nursery, put everything ready for the afternoon and then go and have their coffee. They sat together in the small room set aside for them and Emma listened to Maisie’s numerous tips about the work.
‘Have you been here long?’ she asked.
‘Upwards of two years. It’s a job, see. Me old man scarpered off and the kids are at school all day—keeps me mind off things.’
She blew on her coffee and took a gulp. ‘You going ter stick it out? It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.’
‘Well, I like babies,’ said Emma, ‘and my husband’s away almost all day. He told me that Miss Pearson was short-handed and asked if I’d like to help out, so I’ll stay for as long as I’m needed. I only come twice a week.’
Maisie eyed her thoughtfully over her mug. ‘Persuaded ‘im, she did? Men—blind as bats! Never mind the “lady this” and “lady that”—you’re a nice young woman, so keep those eyes of yours peeled.’
‘Thank you for your advice. Shall I see you on Thursday?’
‘Yep. Me, I come every morning—oftener if it gets really busy. Some of the babies will be going back to their mums tomorrow—bin waiting for an ‘ouse or flat or whatever, yer see.’
‘I hope the same babies will be here when I come on Thursday.’
‘Well, Charlie—that’s the little ‘owler—e’ll be with us for a while yet. ‘Is mum’s in prison for a couple of months—won’t ‘ave ‘im near ‘er.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Dunno; bit flighty, I dare say.’ She put down her mug. ‘We gotta bag the wash before we go.’
Diana came out of the office as Emma took off her pinny. ‘Going? See you on Thursday and many thanks. Oh, would you ask Paul to call in some time? I need his advice about one of the toddlers—a congenital dislocation of the hip—I think the splint needs adjusting.’
‘I’ll tell him,’ said Emma. ‘I’m sure he’ll come when he has the time.’
Diana laughed. ‘He usually comes whenever I ask him to, whether he’s busy or not—we’re old friends.’
Emma dredged up a smile. ‘That’s nice—I’ll see you on Thursday.’
She drove back home, ate the lunch Mrs Parfitt had ready for her and then took the dogs for a long walk. She had a great deal to think about.
‘It’s a good thing I’m married to him,’ she told Willy, who was loitering beside her. ‘I mean, it’s an advantage, if you see what I mean—and I love him. The point is, does he love her? That’s something I have to find out. But if he does why did he marry me?’ She stopped and Kate came lumbering back to see why. ‘If it was out of pity…?’ She sounded so fierce that Willy gave a whim■ per.
Paul was home for tea, which surprised her. ‘How nice,’ she said, and beamed at him. ‘Have you had a busy day?’
‘I’ve beds at the children’s hospital and an outpatients clinic at Honiton; I seem to have spent a lot of my time driving from here to there.’ He bit into one of Mrs Parfitt’s scones. ‘Tell me, did you enjoy your morning?’
‘Very much. I bathed three babies and fed them. There was someone else there in the nursery�
�a nice woman who was very friendly and helpful. Oh, and Diana says could you go and see the baby with the dislocated hip? She thinks the splint needs changing.’
‘It’ll have to be tomorrow evening. I’ve a list in the morning and a ward-round in the afternoon and a couple of private patients to see after that.’
‘Where do you see them?’
‘I’ve rooms in Southernhay. I’ll phone Diana presently and tell her when I’ll be free.’
‘I’ll ask Mrs Parfitt to make dinner a bit later, shall I?’
‘Yes, do that if you will. Did you take the dogs out?’
‘Yes, it was lovely on the moor. After all it is summer.’
‘That doesn’t mean to say we shan’t get some shockingly bad weather.’ He got up. ‘I’ve some phoning to do, then I’ll take the dogs for ten minutes.’ He smiled at her. ‘You must tell me more about the nursery when I get back.’
The following evening he phoned at teatime to say that he would be home later than he had expected and that she wasn’t to wait dinner for him. ‘I’ll get something here,’ he told her.
She gave him a cheerful answer and spent the rest of the evening imagining him and Diana dining together at some quiet restaurant. She knew it was silly to do so but she seemed unable to think of anything else.
Perhaps it wasn’t so silly either, she told herself, lying in bed later, waiting for the sound of the car and dropping off to sleep at last without having heard it.
He was already at the table when she went down to breakfast. He wished her good morning. ‘You don’t mind if I get on? I’ve a busy day ahead.’
‘Did you have a busy time last night?’ She kept her voice casually interested.
‘Yes. I trust I didn’t disturb you when I got back?’
‘Will you go and see the baby today? Do you want me to give Diana a message?’
He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘No need. I saw her yesterday.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Emma, bashing her boiled egg, wishing it was Diana.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DIANA’S greeting when Emma reached the nursery was friendly. It was as though she was trying to erase her rather cool manner towards her; she asked if she was quite happy with the babies, if she would like to alter her hours and expressed the hope that she wasn’t too tired at the end of her morning’s work. Emma took all this with a pinch of salt, not convinced by all this charm that Diana was going to like her—and, anyway, she didn’t like Diana.
It was refreshing, after all that sweetness, to listen to Maisie’s down-to-earth talk, which covered everything under the sun—the royal family, the government, the price of fish and chips and the goings-on of the young couple who had rented rooms beneath hers—and all the while she talked she attended to the babies, raising her voice above their small cries.
They had finished the bathing and were feeding them when she said, ‘Your old man was ‘ere yesterday—late too.’
Emma was feeding Charlie, who was content for once, sucking at his bottle as though it would be torn from him at any moment. ‘Yes, I know,’ she said quietly.
Maisie turned her head to look at her. ‘You’re a quiet one, but I bet me last penny you’ll get the better of ‘er.’
‘Yes, I believe I shall,’ said Emma, and smiled down at Charlie’s small face. He wasn’t a pretty baby—he was too pale and thin for that. It was to be hoped that when his mother claimed him once more—if she ever did— he’d look more like a baby and not a cross old man. She kissed the top of his head and gave him a quick cuddle and then put him over her shoulder so that he could bring up his wind.
It was after they had had dinner together that evening that Paul told her that he was going to Boston in two days’ time.
Emma said, ‘Boston? You mean Boston, USA?’
‘Yes, and then on to New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. I shall be away for ten days, perhaps a little longer.’ He said, carefully casual, ‘I expect the trip would be a bit boring for you.’
She was quick to decide that he didn’t want her with him. ‘Yes, I think it might be,’ she said. ‘Will you be lecturing?’
She looked to see if he was disappointed but his face gave nothing away. ‘If you need help of any sort, phone John Taggart, my solicitor; he’ll sort things out for you. I’ve opened an account for you at my bank—I have also arranged for a joint account but I’d like you to have your own money. The house agent phoned to say that he has a possible buyer for your house; send everything to John—he’ll deal with it.’
‘The dogs will miss you,’ said Emma. She would miss him too, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. ‘There’s a card from the Frobishers—they’ve asked us to dinner. I’ll write and explain, shall I?’
‘Yes, do that. Suggest we take up their invitation when I get back.’
It was all very business-like and she did her best to match her manner to his. ‘Shall I write to your mother and tell her that we shan’t be coming for the weekend?’
‘I phoned her last night. They are very sorry not to be seeing us.’
‘I could drive myself…’
‘I’d prefer you not to, Emma.’
The cottage seemed very quiet when he had gone. Emma couldn’t bear to be in it and took the dogs for a long walk on the moor; they walked for miles and the austere vastness of it made his absence bearable. ‘It’s only for just over a week,’ she told the dogs. ‘But how shall I bear to be away from him for so long?’
A problem solved for her by Diana, who, when Emma went on Tuesday as usual, asked her if she could manage to help out for a third morning.
‘We’re so short of staff, I don’t know which way to turn. I’m so glad that Paul didn’t want you to go with him.’ She laughed gently. ‘Wives can be a bit of an encumbrance sometimes. It was so wise of him to marry someone like you, Emma.’
Emma asked why.
‘Well, you’re not demanding, are you? You’re content to sit at home and wait for him to come back—just what he needed…’
Emma said, ‘Yes, I think it is. He leads a busy life.’
Diana laughed again. ‘Yes, but he always has time for his friends. He and I have such a lot in common.’
‘I expect you have,’ said Emma sweetly, ‘but not marriage.’ Her smile was as sweet as her voice. ‘I’ll get started on the babies,’ she said.
Maisie, already at work with her three, looked up as she went into the nursery. “Ello, Emma, what’s riled you? ‘As her ‘igh and mightiness been tearing yer off a strip?’
‘No—just a slight difference of opinion. I’m going to do an extra morning, Maisie; I hope you’ll be here too.’
‘Come every day, don’t I, love? I’ll be here. So’ll Charlie there, from wot I ‘eard. ‘Is mum don’t really want ’im, poor little beggar.’
‘What will happen to him?’ Emma was lifting him from his cot; he was bawling as usual.
‘Foster-mum if they can find one, or an orphanage…’
‘He’s so small…’
‘Plenty more like ‘im,’ said Maisie. ‘Maybe there’ll be someone who don’t mind a bad-tempered kid.’
‘Well, I’d be bad-tempered if I were he,’ said Emma, smiling down at the cross little face on her lap. ‘Who’s a lovely boy, then?’ she said.
She thought of Paul constantly, and when he phoned from Boston that night she went around in a cloud of content which was, however, quickly dispelled when she went into the nursery the next day.
‘Heard from Paul?’ asked Diana, with a friendly concern Emma didn’t trust.
‘Well, yes. He phoned yesterday evening…’
‘He always does.’ Diana smiled at Emma—a small secret smile, suggesting that words weren’t necessary.
She had no right to be jealous, reflected Emma, bathing a belligerent Charlie, for she had no hold on Paul’s feelings, had she? He had wanted a companion and the kind of wife to suit his lifestyle. He had never promised love…
That afternoon when she took the
dogs on to the moor she saw the clouds piling up over the tors and felt the iciness of the wind. Bad weather was on the way, and even though it was summer the moor could be bleak and cold. She turned for home and was thankful for the bright fire in the drawing-room and the delicious tea Mrs Parfitt had ready for her.
Diana came out of her office as she arrived at the nursery on Thursday. ‘Emma, I’m so glad to see you. You know the moor well, don’t you? There’s a party of travellers camping somewhere near Fernworthy Reservoir—one of them phoned me. We’ve one of their toddlers here already and he says there are several children sick—not ill enough for the doctor—colds, he thinks, and perhaps flu. He asked me to send someone with blankets, baby food and cough medicine. I wonder if you would go? It’s not far but a bit out of the way. Perhaps you can get them to come off the moor until the weather gets warmer again.’
‘Yes, of course I’ll go. I’ll phone Mrs Parfitt, though, so that she can take the dogs out if I’m not back.’
Mrs Parfitt didn’t fancy the idea at all. ‘Sir Paul would never allow it,’ she demurred. ‘You going off on your own like that.’
‘I’ll be gone for an hour or two,’ said Emma. ‘It’s not far away, you know…’
Mrs Parfitt snorted. ‘Maybe not, madam, but it’s so isolated it could be the North Pole.’
It wasn’t quite the North Pole but it was certainly isolated. Emma had a job finding the camp, tucked away from the narrow road which led to nowhere but the reservoir. When she found it eventually it took quite a time to unload the blankets and baby food and hand them over.
There were half a dozen broken-down buses and vans drawn up in a semicircle and their owners clamoured for her attention as she was led from one to another ramshackle vehicle. In one of them she found a sick baby— too ill to cry. ‘She’s ill,’ she told the young woman who was with her. ‘She needs medical attention—will you bring her to the nursery? I’ll take you now…’