by Betty Neels
They sat in silence for a few minutes, then Maisie asked, ‘Going to tell ‘er awf, are yer?’ She scowled. ‘I could tell a few tales about ‘er if you don’t.’
‘No—please, Maisie, don’t do that. There’s a reason…’
‘Oh, yeah? Well, yer knows best, but if yer want any ‘elp you just ask old Maisie.’
‘I certainly will, and thank you, Maisie. I can’t explain but I have to wait and see…’
‘You’re worth a dozen of ‘er,’ said Maisie, which brought a great knot of tears into Emma’s throat, so that she had to bury her face in the back of Charlie’s small neck until she had swallowed them back where they belonged.
Sir Paul came home late that evening and Emma, beyond asking politely if he had had a busy day, forbore from wanting to know where he had been. Anyway, Maisie, who was at the nursery for most of the day, would tell her soon enough if he had been to see Diana.
They exchanged polite remarks during dinner and then he went to his study, only coming to the drawing-room as she was folding away her tapestry. Sir Paul, a man of moral and physical courage, quailed under her stony glance and frosty goodnight.
Where, he asked himself, was his enchanting little Emma, so anxious to please, always so friendly and so unaware of his love? He had behaved badly towards her, but couldn’t she understand that it was because he had been so appalled at the idea of her going off on her own like that? Perhaps Diana had exaggerated a little; he would go and see her again.
* * *
Emma wasn’t going to the nursery the following morning. She took the dogs for a long walk and spent an agreeable half-hour deciding which dress she would wear to the dinner party. It was to be rather a grand affair, at one of the lovely old manor-houses on the outskirts of the village, and she wanted to make a good impression.
She had decided to wear the silver-grey dress with the long sleeves and modest neckline, deceptively simple but making the most of her charming shape. She would wear the pearls too, and do her hair in the coil the hairdresser had shown her how to manage on her own.
She had changed and was waiting rather anxiously for Paul to come home by the time he opened the door. She bade him good evening, warned him that he had less than half an hour in which to shower and change, and offered him tea.
He had taken off his coat and was standing in the doorway. ‘Emma—I went to the camp this afternoon—’
She cut him short gently. ‘You must tell me about it—but not now, you haven’t time…’
He didn’t move. ‘I went to see Diana too.’
‘Well, yes, I quite understand about that, but I don’t want to talk about it, if you don’t mind.’ She added in a wifely voice, ‘We’re going to be late.’
He turned away and went upstairs and presently came down again, immaculate in his dinner-jacket, his face impassive, and courteously attentive to her needs. They left the cottage, got into the car and drove the few miles to the party.
It was a pleasant evening; Emma knew several of the people there and, seated between two elderly gentlemen bent on flattering her, she began to enjoy herself. Paul, watching her from the other end of the table, thought how pretty she had grown in the last few weeks. When they got home he would ask her about her night in the camp.
The men and women he had talked to there had been loud in her praise.
‘Saved the kids lives,’ one young man had said. ‘Acted prompt, she did—and gave an ‘and with cleaning ’em up too. Didn’t turn a hair—took our little un and ’er mum back with ’er and then came back in that perishing fog—couldn’t see yer ‘and in front of yer face. Proper little lady, she were.’
He bent his handsome head to listen to what his dinner partner was talking about—something to do with her sciatica. He assumed his listening face; being a bone man, his knowledge of that illness was rudimentary, but he nodded and looked sympathetic while he wondered once again if Diana had exaggerated and why Emma hadn’t told him her side of the story.
He glanced down the table once more and squashed a desire to get out of his chair, pick her up out of hers and carry her off home. The trouble was that they didn’t see enough of each other.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘A VERY pleasant evening,’ observed Sir Paul as they drove home.
‘Delightful,’ agreed Emma. It was fortunate that it was a short journey for there didn’t seem to be anything else to say, and once they were at home she bade him a quiet goodnight and took herself off to bed. As she went up the stairs she hoped against hope that he would leap after her, beg her forgiveness…Of course he did no such thing!
In the morning when she went downstairs she found him on the point of leaving. ‘I’ll have to rearrange my day,’ he told her. ‘There’s a patient—an emergency— for Theatre, so the list will run late. I’ll probably be home around six o’clock, perhaps later. Don’t forget that we are going to Mother’s for the weekend.’
‘Shall I take the dogs out?’
He was already through the door. ‘I walked them earlier.’ He nodded a goodbye and drove away as Mrs Parfitt came out of the kitchen.
‘Sir Paul will knock himself out,’ she observed, ‘tearing off without a proper breakfast, up half the night working, and down here this morning before six o’clock, walking his legs off with those dogs.’ She shook her head. ‘I never did.’
Emma said, ‘It’s an emergency…’
‘Maybe it is, but he didn’t ought to go gallivanting around before dawn after being up half the night—he’s only flesh and blood like the rest of us.’ She bent her gaze on Emma. ‘Now you come and have your breakfast, ma’am; you look as though you could do with a bit of feeding up.’
When Emma got to the nursery she found Diana waiting for her.
‘Emma, did Paul remember to tell you that I am giving a little party next week? Tuesday, I thought—it’s one of his less busy days.’
She smiled, and Emma said, ‘No, but we were out to dinner until late and he left early for the hospital.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Diana, who didn’t but somehow she made it sound like the truth. ‘He works too hard; he’ll overdo things if he’s not careful. I’ll try and persuade him to ease off a bit.’
‘I think you can leave that to me, Diana. You know, you’re so—so motherly you should find a husband.’ Emma’s smile was sweet. ‘Well, I’ll get started.’
She wished Maisie good morning and Maisie said, ‘You’re smouldering again. Been ‘aving words?’
‘I’m afraid so. I’m turning into a very unpleasant person, Maisie.’
‘Not you—proper little lady, you are. Don’t meet many of ‘em these days. Now, that young woman downstairs…’ She branched off into an account of the goings-on of the young couple on the landing below her flat and Emma forgot her seething rage and laughed a little.
‘Doing anything nice this weekend?’ asked Maisie as they sat feeding the babies.
‘We’re going to spend it with my husband’s parents.’
‘Like that, will you?’
‘Oh, yes, they’re such dears, and it’s a nice old house with a large garden. What are you going to do, Maisie? It’s your weekend off, isn’t it?’
‘S’right.’ Maisie looked coy. ‘I got a bloke—’e’s the milkman; we get on proper nice. Been courting me for a bit, ‘e ‘as, and we’re thinking of having a go…’ ‘Oh, Maisie, how lovely. You’re going to marry him?’ ‘I ain’t said yes, mind you, but it’ll be nice not ter ‘ave ter come ‘ere day in day out, with Madam looking down her nose at me.’
‘You’ll be able to stay home—oh, Maisie, I am glad; you must say yes. Does he got on well with your family?’
‘They get on a treat. Yer don’t think I’m silly?’ ‘Silly? To marry a man who wants you, who’ll give you a home and learn to be a father to the children. Of course it’s not silly. It’s the nicest thing I’ve heard for days.’
‘Oh, well, p’raps I will. Yer’re ‘appy, ain’t yer?’ Emma was bending
over Charlie’s cot, tucking him in. ‘Yes, Maisie.’
‘Me, I’d be scared to be married to Sir Paul, that I would—never know what ‘e’s thinking. ‘E don’t show ‘is feelings, do ‘e?’
‘Perhaps not, but they are there all the same.’
‘Well, you should know,’ said Maisie, and chuckled.
The weather was still bad later on, so Emma walked the dogs briefly and went home to sit by the fire. She had a lot to think about; Diana seemed very confident that Paul was in love with her and he had said nothing to give the lie to that, and there was that one remark that she would never forget—that she was worth twelve of Emma. ‘Oh, well,’ she told the dogs, ‘we’ll go to this party and see what happens.’
* * *
She was glad that they were going away for the weekend, for two days spent alone with Paul, keeping up a faade of friendliness, was rather more than she felt she could cope with. She packed a pretty dress, got into her skirt and one of her cashmere jumpers, made up her face carefully and declared herself ready to go directly after breakfast on Saturday.
It was easier in the car, for she could admire the scenery and there was no need to talk even though she longed to. She sat watching his hands on the wheel—large, capable hands, well-kept. She loved them; she loved the rest of him too and she wasn’t going to sit back tamely and let Diana dazzle him…
His parents welcomed them warmly, sweeping them indoors while the dogs went racing off into the garden. ‘And where is Queenie?’ asked Mrs Wyatt.
‘She’s happy with Mrs Parfitt and they’re company for each other.’
‘Of course. You’re quite well again after that cold? We missed seeing you while Paul was away. Such a shame. Never mind, we’ll make the most of you while you are here. Let Paul take your coat, my dear, and come and sit down and have some coffee.’
It was Mrs Wyatt who asked her how she had come to catch cold. ‘Paul tells me that you work twice a week in a nursery in Moretonhampstead; I dare say you caught it there.’
Emma didn’t look at Paul. She murmured something and waited to see if he would tell them how she had caught a cold. He remained silent. As well he might, she reflected crossly as he stood there looking faintly amused. Really, he was a most tiresome man; if she hadn’t loved him so much she would have disliked him intensely.
There might have been an awkward pause if he hadn’t, with the ease of good manners, made some trifling remark about the weather. Smooth, thought Emma, and went pink when her mother-in-law said, ‘Well, cold or no cold, I must say that marriage suits you, my dear.’
Emma put her coffee-cup down with care and wished that she didn’t blush so easily. Blushing, she felt sure, had gone out with the coming of women’s lib and feminism, whatever that was exactly. Mrs Wyatt, being of an older generation, wasn’t concerned with either and found the blush entirely suitable.
Paul found it enchanting.
The weekend passed too quickly.
No one would ever replace her mother, but Mrs Wyatt helped to fill the emptiness her mother had left, and if she noticed the careful way Emma and Paul avoided any of the usual ways of the newly wed she said nothing.
Paul had never worn his heart on his sleeve but his feelings ran deep and, unless her maternal instinct was at fault, he was deeply in love with Emma. And Emma with him, she was sure of that. They had probably had one of the many little tiffs they would have before they settled down, she decided.
‘You must come again soon,’ she begged them as they took their leave on Sunday evening.
It was late by the time they reached the cottage, which gave Emma the excuse to go to bed at once. Paul’s ‘Goodnight, my dear,’ was uttered in a placid voice, and he added that there was no need for her to get up for breakfast if she didn’t feel like it. ‘I shall be away all day,’ he said. ‘I’ve several private patients to see after I’ve finished at the hospital.’
In bed, sitting against the pillows with her knees under her chin, Emma told Queenie, ‘This can’t go on, you know; something must be done.’
The Fates had come to the same conclusion, it seemed, for as Paul opened the front door the next evening, Emma, coming down the stairs, tripped and fell. He picked her up within seconds, scooping her into his arms, holding her close.
‘Emma—are you hurt? Stay still a moment while I look.’
She would have stayed still forever with his arms around her, but she managed a rather shaky, ‘I’m fine, really…’
He spoke to the top of her head, which was buried in his waistcoat. ‘Emma—you must tell me—this ridiculous business of spending the night at that camp. Why did you refuse to listen to Diana? She is still upset and I cannot understand…’
Emma wrenched herself free. ‘You listened to her and you believed her without even asking me. Well, go on believing her; you’ve known her for years, haven’t you? And you’ve only known me for months; you don’t know much about me, do you? But I expect you know Diana very well indeed.’
Paul put his hands in his pockets. ‘Yes. Go on, Emma.’
‘Well, if I were you, I’d believe her and not me,’ she added bitterly. ‘After all, she’s worth a dozen of me.’
She flew back upstairs and shut her bedroom door with a snap and when Mrs Parfitt came presently to see if she should serve dinner she found Emma lying on her bed.
‘I have such a shocking headache,’ sighed Emma. ‘Would you give Sir Paul his dinner? I couldn’t eat anything.’
Indeed she did look poorly. Mrs Parfitt tut-tutted and offered one of her herbal teas. ‘You just get into bed, ma’am. I’ll tell Sir Paul and I dare say he’ll be up to see you.’
‘No, no, there’s no need. Let him have his dinner first; he’s had a busy day and he needs a meal and time to rest. I dare say it will get better in an hour or two.’
The headache had been an excuse, but soon it was real. Emma got herself into bed and eventually fell asleep.
That was how Paul found her when he came to see her. She was curled up, her tear-stained face cushioned on a hand, the other arm round Queenie. He stood studying her for some minutes. Her hair was loose, spread over the pillows, and her mouth was slightly open. Her cheeks were rather blotchy because of the tears but the long, curling brown lashes swept them gently. When he had fallen in love with her he hadn’t considered her to be beautiful but now he could see that her ordinary little face held a beauty which had nothing to do with good looks.
He went away presently, reassured Mrs Parfitt and went to his study. There was always work.
Emma went down to breakfast in the morning, exchanged good mornings with Paul, assured him that her headache had quite gone and volunteered the information that she was going to the nursery that morning. ‘And I said I would go tomorrow morning as well—they’re short-handed for a few days. Will you be home late?’
‘No, in time for tea I hope. There’s the parish council meeting at eight o’clock this evening.’
‘Oh, yes. I am helping with the coffee and biscuits.’
He left then, and very soon after she got into the Mini and drove herself to the nursery.
“Ere,’ said Maisie as she sat down and picked up the first baby, ‘wot yer been up ter? ‘Ad a tiff?’
‘No, no, Maisie. I’m fine, really. How’s your intended?’
It was a red herring which took them through most of the morning.
It was just as Emma was leaving and passing the office that Diana called to her. ‘Emma, don’t worry if Paul is late this evening—he’s coming to check one of the babies from the camp—a fractured arm as well as whooping cough.’
Emma asked, ‘Did he say he’d come? He’s got a parish meeting this evening; he won’t want to miss it.’
Diana smiled slowly. ‘Oh, I’m sure it won’t matter if he’s not there.’ She stared at Emma. ‘As a matter of fact, he said he was coming to see me anyway.’
‘That’s all right, then,’ said Emma. She didn’t believe Diana.
S
he had lunch, then took the dogs for a long walk and helped Mrs Parfitt get the tea. Buttered muffins and cucumber sandwiches, she decided, and one of Mrs Parfitt’s rich fruit cakes.
Teatime came and went, and there was no Paul. At last she had a cup of tea anyway, and a slice of cake, helped Mrs Parfitt clear away and went upstairs to get ready. She put on a plain jersey dress suitable for a parish council meeting.
When seven o’clock came and went she told Mrs Parfitt to delay her cooking. ‘Sir Paul won’t have time to eat in comfort before eight o’clock. Perhaps we could have a meal when we get home?’
‘No problem,’ said Mrs Parfitt. ‘The ragout’ll only need warming up and the rest will be ready by the time you’ve had a drink.’
‘You have your supper when you like, Mrs Parfitt.’ Emma glanced at the clock; she would have to go to the meeting and make Paul’s excuses.
The councillors were friendly and very nice about it. Doctors were never free to choose their comings and goings, observed old Major Pike, but he for one was delighted to see his little wife.
Emma smiled shyly at him—he was a dear old man, very knowledgeable about the moor, born and bred in Lustleigh even though he had spent years away from it. He thoroughly approved of her, for she was a local girl and looked sensible.
The meeting was drawing to a close when the door opened and Paul came in. Emma, sitting quietly at the back of the village hall, watched him as he made his excuses, exchanged a few laughing remarks with the rest of the council and sat down at the table. He hadn’t looked at her, but presently he turned his head and gave her a look which shook her.
He was pale and without expression, and she knew that he was very angry. With her? she wondered. Had Diana been making more mischief between them? She hoped he would smile but he turned away and soon it was time for her to go and help the vicar’s wife in the kitchen.
They made the coffee and arranged Petit Beurre biscuits on a plate and carried them through just as the chairman closed the meeting. Eventually goodnights were exchanged and everyone started to go home.