by Betty Neels
‘I think you’d better go,’ said Emma, ‘before I throw something at you.’ She went ahead of Diana and opened the cottage door. ‘You’re very vulgar, aren’t you?’
She shut the door before Diana could reply.
She went back to the drawing-room and sat down; Queenie got on to her lap while Willy and Kate settled beside her. She didn’t want to believe Diana but she had sounded sincere and she had cried. Moreover, she had told Paul that she would be at home until Friday. Why would she do that unless she expected him to go and see her? There was no way of finding out—at least, until Paul came home again.
He phoned the following evening. ‘You’re all right?’ he wanted to know. ‘Not lonely?’
‘Not in the least,’ said Emma airily. ‘I had tea with the Postle-Hammets. I like Mrs Postle-Hammet and the children are sweet; I enjoyed myself.’
Largely because Mrs Postle-Hammet had been remarkably frank about her opinion of Diana, she thought. ‘Cold as a fish and selfish to the bone and clever enough to hide it,’ she had said—hardly information she could pass on to Paul.
‘I should be home tomorrow evening, but if I should be delayed will you leave the side-door locked but not bolted? You’ll fetch Mrs Parfitt tomorrow?’
‘Yes, after lunch.’
‘Good. I’ll say goodnight, Emma. I’ve several more phone calls to make.’ One of them to Diana? she wondered, and tried not to think about that.
She had an early lunch the next day and drove to Brixham through driving rain to fetch Mrs Parfitt, and then drove home again, listening to that lady’s account of her few days’ holiday. ‘Very nice it was too, ma’am, but my sister isn’t a good cook and I missed my kitchen. Still, the sea air was nice and there are some good shops. You’ve not been too alone, I hope?’
‘No, no, Mrs Parfitt. I’ve been out to tea and Miss Pearson came to see me and Sir Paul has phoned each evening, and of course there were the dogs to take out. I had no time to be lonely—’ Emma turned to smile at her companion ‘—but it’s very nice to have you back, Mrs Parfitt. The cottage doesn’t seem the same without you. Sir Paul is coming back this evening.’
‘He’ll need his dinner if he’s driving all that way. Did you have anything in mind, ma’am?’
They spent the rest of the journey deciding on a menu to tempt him when he got home. ‘Something that won’t spoil,’ cautioned Emma, ‘for I’ve no idea exactly when he’ll be back.’
Mrs Parfitt took off her best hat and her sensible coat and went straight to the kitchen. ‘A nice cup of tea,’ she observed, ‘and while the kettle’s boiling I’ll pop a few scones in the oven.’
Emma went from room to room, making sure that everything was just so, shaking up cushions, rearranging the flowers, laying the pile of letters on the table by Paul’s chair and, since it was going to be a gloomy evening, switching on lamps here and there so that there was a cheerful glow from the windows.
Satisfied that everything was as welcoming as she could make it, she went upstairs and changed into a patterned silk jersey dress, did her face with care and brushed her hair into a knot at the back of her head; it took a long time to get it just so but she was pleased with the result. Then she went downstairs to wait.
At ten o’clock she sent Mrs Parfitt to bed and ate a sketchy meal off a tray in the kitchen. When the long case clock in the hall chimed one o’clock she went to bed herself.
She was still awake when it chimed again, followed by the silvery tinkle of the carriage clock in the drawing-room. She slept after that but woke when it was barely light to creep downstairs to see if Paul was home. If he was, the back door would be bolted. It wasn’t!
Emma stared at it for a long moment and then went to the phone and picked it up. The night porter answered it. Yes, Sir Paul had been in the hospital during the late evening and had left again shortly after—he had seen him leave in his car.
He sounded a little surprised at her query and she hastened to say that it was perfectly all right. ‘Sir Paul said that he might do that. I’ll ring him now. Thank you.’
She went to the kitchen then, and put on the kettle. She spooned tea into the pot, trying not to think about the previous evening, trying not to believe Diana’s remarks but quite unable to forget them.
She was making tea when the kitchen door opened and Paul walked in. Emma caught her breath and choked on a surge of strong feelings.
‘A fine time to come home,’ she snapped, rage for the moment overcoming the delight of seeing him again, and she made unnecessary work of refilling the kettle and putting it back on the Aga.
Sir Paul didn’t speak, but stood in the doorway looking at her indignant back, and since the silence was rather long she asked stiffly, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Er—no, thank you, Emma. I’m sorry if you were worried.’
‘Worried? Why should I be worried?’ said Emma at her haughtiest. ‘I phoned the hospital early this morning and I was told that you had been in and gone again late last night.’ She drew a long breath. ‘So I had no need to worry, had I?’
When he most annoyingly didn’t answer, she said, ‘I knew where you were…’
‘Indeed.’
She had her back to him, busy with mug and sugar and milk and pouring tea. ‘Well, Diana came to see me—I told you that—you spoke to her…’
‘Ah, Diana—of course. Latet anguis in herba!’ murmured Sir Paul.
Emma’s knowledge of Latin was sketchy and, anyway, what had grass got to do with it? For she had recognised the word herba, and if he was trailing a red herring she meant to ignore it. In any case her tongue was running on now, regardless of prudence.
‘So of course I knew you’d go to her when you got back. She was very—very frank.’ She gave an angry snuffle. ‘She was glad I hadn’t altered the pictures or anything.’ She wouldn’t look at him. ‘Would you like breakfast?’
‘No, Emma, I’ll shower and change and go to the hospital.’
‘You’ll be back later? Teatime?’
‘Don’t count on that.’ He spoke quietly, and something in his voice made her turn to look at him. He looked very tired but he gave her a bland stare from cold eyes. She had no doubt that he was angry. She was angry too, and miserable, and she loved him so much that she felt the ache of it. The urge to tell him so was so great that she started to speak, but she had barely uttered his name when he went away.
He had left the house by the time she had dressed and gone back downstairs to find Mrs Parfitt in the kitchen.
‘Gone again,’ cried Mrs Parfitt. ‘I saw him drive off not ten minutes ago. By the time I’d got downstairs he’d gone. He’ll wear himself out, that he will. How about a nice leg of lamb for dinner this evening? He’ll need his strength kept up.’
When Emma said that he had come home very early in the morning Mrs. Parfitt commented, ‘Must have been an accident. Now you go and eat your breakfast, ma’am, for no doubt you’ve been worrying half the night. Who’d be a doctor’s wife, eh?’ She laughed, and Emma echoed it in a hollow way.
She took the dogs for their walk after breakfast while Mrs Parfitt took herself off to the village shop and paid a visit to the butcher. It was while she was drying the dogs in the outhouse by the kitchen that Mrs Parfitt joined her.
‘Postie was in the stores—there’s been a nasty accident on the M5 where it turns into the A38.’ Mrs Parfitt paused for breath, bursting with her news. ‘Nine cars, he said, all squashed together, and Sir Paul right behind them on his way back here. Goes back to the hospital and spends the night in the operating theatre, he does. He’s back there now, no doubt, working himself to death. He didn’t ought to do it. He didn’t say nothing to you, ma’am? No—well, of course, he wouldn’t; he’d have known how upset you’d have been.’
Emma had gone very pale. ‘Not a word. He didn’t want tea or his breakfast but he said he had to go back.’ The full horror of what she had said to him dawned on her—she had accused him of being with Dia
na while all the time he had been saving lives. She hadn’t even given him the chance to tell her anything. She felt sick at the thought, and Mrs Parfitt took her arm and sat her down by the table.
‘There, I shouldn’t have come out with it so quick; you’re that pale—like a little ghost. You stay there while I fetch you a drop of brandy.’
Emma was only too willing to sit. It was chilly in the little room, and the dogs, released from the tiresome business of being cleaned up before going into the house, had slipped away to lie by the Aga.
Mrs Parfitt came back with the brandy. ‘It don’t do to give way, ma’am,’ she urged Emma. ‘He’s safe and sound even if he’s tired to his bones, but you must show a bright face when he gets home, for that’ll be what he needs.’
Emma drank the brandy, although she thought he wouldn’t care if her face was bright or not. He would be polite, because he had beautiful manners and they wouldn’t allow him to be otherwise, but he would have gone behind the barrier she had always sensed was between them—only now that barrier was twice as high and she doubted if she would ever climb it.
She spent a restless day, dreading his return and yet longing for it, going over and over in her aching head the awful things she had said and rehearsing the humble speech she would offer him when he came home. Which he did just as Mrs Parfitt brought in the tea-tray, following her into the drawing-room.
‘There,’ said Mrs Parfitt. ‘Didn’t I bake that fruit cake knowing you’d be here for your tea? I’ll fetch another cup and a sandwich or two.’
She trotted off; she firmly believed that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and his doubtless needed filling.
He thanked her quickly and stooped to fondle the dogs weaving around his feet. ‘Hello, Emma,’ he said quietly.
‘Paul.’ The strength of her feelings was choking her as she got out of her chair, spilling an indignant Queenie on to the carpet. She said stupidly, ‘I didn’t know…’ Her tongue shrivelled under his cold stare; underneath his quietness he was furiously angry, and suddenly she was angry again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
He sat down in his chair and the dogs curled up beside him. ‘I don’t believe that I had the opportunity,’ he observed mildly.
‘You could have—’ Emma burst out, only to be interrupted by Mrs Parfitt with fresh tea, cup and saucer and a plate of sandwiches.
‘Gentleman’s Relish,’ she pointed out in a pleased voice. ‘Just what you fancy, sir, and cucumber and cress. I shall be serving dinner a bit earlier, ma’am? I dare say the master’s peckish.’
Emma glanced at Paul, who said, ‘That would be very nice, Mrs Parfitt.’ He sounded like any man just home and sitting by his own fireside but Emma, unwittingly catching his eye, blinked at its icy hardness.
After Mrs Parfitt had gone Emma poured the tea, offered sandwiches and strove to think of something to say; she would have to apologise, and she wanted to, but for the moment the right words eluded her. All the same she made a halting start, only to have it swept aside as Paul began a conversation which gave her no chance to utter a word.
It was an undemanding and impersonal stream of small talk, quiet and unhurried. He could have been soothing a scared patient before telling her his diagnosis. Well, she wasn’t a patient but she was scared, and the diagnosis, when it came, left her without words.
She was pouring his second cup of tea when he said casually, ‘I’ve been offered a lecture tour in the States…’
He watched her pale face go even paler and saw the shock in it.
‘The States? America? For how long?’
‘Four months.’
She gulped back a protesting scream. ‘That’s a long time.’
‘Yes. Time enough for us to consider our future, don’t you agree?’
If only he wasn’t so pleasant about it, Emma thought unhappily, and if only I could think of the right thing to say. After a minute she said, ‘I expect you’d like to go?’
He didn’t answer that so she tried again, asking a question her tongue uttered before she could stop it. ‘Will you go alone?’
‘Oh, yes.’
He didn’t add to that, and she seized the opportunity and plunged into a muddled apology. None of the things she had meant to say came out properly. ‘I’m sorry, Paul, I’m so very sorry; it was terribly stupid of me and unkind…’
He stopped her quite gently. ‘Don’t say any more, Emma. I thought that when we married…’ He paused. ‘You must see that if you don’t trust me our marriage is going to be unhappy. That is why I shall go on this tour; you will have time to decide what you want to do with your future.’
She gave him a bewildered look. ‘You mean, you don’t want me to be your wife?’
‘I didn’t say that…’
‘Well, no—but I think you meant that, only you are too polite to say so. I expect it’s a good idea.’
At the end of four months, she thought sadly, he would come back, and they would separate without fuss and he would go his way and she would go hers. What about Diana? He hadn’t mentioned her, had he? And she didn’t dare to ask.
‘I’ve made you very angry.’
‘Indeed you have,’ he agreed politely.
‘I think it would have been better if you had shouted at me…’
‘I could never shout at you, Emma.’
He smiled a little, thinking that he wanted to pick her up and shake her and carry her off somewhere and never let her go—his darling Emma.
Perhaps he was too old for her; perhaps she regretted marrying him. Certainly she had been a constantly good companion, and at times he had thought that she might become more than that, but once she had got over the shock she had given no sign that she didn’t want him to go away. Indeed, she had taken it for granted that she would stay here.
He got up. ‘I’ve one or two letters to write,’ he told her. ‘I’ll go and do them before dinner—I can take the dogs out later.’
Emma nodded, and when he had gone carried the tray out to the kitchen. She stayed there for ten minutes, getting in Mrs Parfitt’s way, and presently went back to the drawing-room and got out her embroidery. She wasn’t being very successful with it and spent the next half-hour unpicking the work she had done the previous evening. It left her thoughts free and she allowed them full rein.
Somehow she must find a way to convince Paul that she was truly sorry. If he wanted to be free—perhaps to marry Diana—then the least she could do was to make it easy for him. She owed him so much that she could never repay him. She must find out when this lecture tour was to start; if she were to go away first, then he wouldn’t need to go.
Her head seethed with plans; she could tell everyone that an aunt or uncle needed her urgently. That she had no relations of any kind made no difference—no one was to know that. She would do it in a way that would arouse no suspicions. Diana would guess, of course— she had suggested it in the first place—but she wasn’t likely to tell anyone.
She would write a letter to Paul, saying all the things she wanted to say—that she loved him and wanted him to be happy and thanked him for his kindness and generosity. Her mind made up, she attacked her embroidery with vigour and a complete disregard for accuracy.
Out-patients’ sister watched Sir Paul’s vast back disappear down the corridor. ‘Well, what’s the matter with him?’ she asked her staff nurse. ‘I’ve never known him dash off without his cup of tea, and him so quiet too. Something on his mind, do you suppose? He’s got that nice little wife to go home to and you’re not telling me that they’re not happy together. Mention her and his face lights up—looks ten years younger. Ah, well, he’ll go home and spend a lovely evening with her, I dare say.’
Sir Paul drove himself to the nursery, got out of his car and walked into Diana’s office. She was getting ready to go home but put her jacket down as he went in. ‘Paul, how lovely to see you—it’s ages.’
He closed the door behind him—a disappointment to Maisie, who w
as getting ready to go home too, standing in the cloakroom near enough to the office to hear anything interesting which might be said.
‘Perhaps you will spare me ten minutes, Diana?’
He hadn’t moved from the door and she sat down slowly. ‘All the time in the world for you, Paul.’
‘You went to see Emma—why?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I thought she might be lonely.’
‘The truth, Diana…’
Now Maisie edged nearer the door. She couldn’t hear what was being said but she could hear Diana’s voice getting more and more agitated, and Sir Paul’s voice sounding severe and, presently, angry.
Sir Paul wasn’t mincing his words. ‘I have never at any time given you reason to believe that I was in love with you.’ He added, with brutal frankness, ‘Indeed, you are the last woman I would wish to have for a wife.’
Maisie, her ear pressed to the keyhole, just had time to nip back into the cloakroom as he opened the door.
He saw at once on his return home that this was not the right time to talk to Emma. She was being carefully polite and the expression on her face warned him not to be other than that; so the evening was spent in a guarded manner, neither of them saying any of the things they wanted to say, both waiting for some sign…
Emma went to bed rather early, relieved that she was alone and could grizzle and mope and presently go over her plans to leave. Just for a little while that evening, despite their coolness towards each other, she had wondered if she could stay, if they could patch things up between them. But trying to read Paul’s thoughts was an impossible task; they were far too well hidden behind his bland face. He wasn’t going to reproach her; he wasn’t going to say another word about the whole sorry business. Presumably it was to be forgotten and they would go on as before, just good friends and then, when the right moment came, parting.