by Betty Neels
Apparently to their niece’s nursery, for there he was, standing in the doorway watching her.
Deborah pricked her finger, muttered under her breath and said with studied coolness: ‘Good evening, Professor Beaufort.’
He leaned against the wall, looking at her. ‘Nanny back in her safe little nest,’ he observed blandly.
‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ she told him sharply.
He came a little further into the room. ‘Anything in view?’ he wanted to know.
‘I hope to have a week or two at home. In peace and quiet,’ she added.
‘If that’s what you think you’ll be old before your time—who wants peace and quiet until they’re knocking eighty?’
She chose to ignore that. ‘How is Eleanor?’
He was all at once serious. ‘Missing you. She’s downstairs now with Mary, handing over the apples we picked for her. Be kind to her, Deborah, she’s not happy.’
Deborah put down her sewing. ‘Why not? Does she miss the twins and the fun we had?’
He shook his head. ‘No, she misses you—she’d rather set her heart on having you for a mother you know. I expect you thought my wish to marry you was for purely selfish reasons, in fact I wanted to make Eleanor happy.’
He shrugged. ‘That’s water under the bridge, isn’t it? But if ever you should change your mind, the offer still stands. In the meanwhile, I hope you’ll spend the day with us tomorrow?’
Deborah was on the point of saying that no, she didn’t think she could, when Eleanor came in, her small serious face at once alight with joy at the sight of Deborah. It would have been cruel to have refused in the face of the child’s pleasure in seeing her again. Deborah returned her hugs and said yes, she’d love to spend the day with them. ‘Only you’ll have to tell me how to get there,’ she pointed out.
‘You will be fetched directly after breakfast,’ said the professor with faint smugness at having got his own way. ‘I’ll leave you two to have a gossip.’ He added belatedly: ‘You ought to be in bed Eleanor.’ His daughter took no notice of him, too busy telling Deborah about the four kittens the family cat had produced only that morning.
Deborah was up betimes finishing the rest of her packing, coaxing the twins from their beds and feeding Dee. She had phoned her mother before she had gone to bed and explained that she wouldn’t be home until later in the day, cleverly skirting round her mother’s searching questions, and now, breakfast over, the twins kissed good-bye and, Dee given a final cuddle, she stood watching the professor’s Bentley coming up the drive. It was a vintage car, beautifully kept and probably worth its weight in gold. Eleanor was beside him on the front seat and after a brief flurry of goodbyes, Deborah was shoved in beside them, clutching a large paper-wrapped box Mrs Burns had pressed upon her. Her cases had been stowed in the back by Mr Burns and the professor had turned the car and sailed back down the drive before she had had time to do more than wave.
‘What’s in that box?’ asked Eleanor, squashed by her closely, her hand tucked into Deborah’s arm.
‘I’ve no idea, we’ll have to open it when we get to your home, won’t we?’
‘Yes, please. You will stay all day won’t you?’
‘I’ll drive you home after Eleanor is in bed.’ He spoke so decisively that Deborah, her mouth open to dispute this, changed her mind and said thank you so meekly that he glanced at her sideways and then, very much to her annoyance, laughed.
It was a short drive through country lanes and then up a steep hair pin bended hill. ‘Quite rightly named Zigzag Hill,’ commented the professor, ‘And the view from the top is magnificent, only we won’t stop now, Mrs Buckle will be brooding over the coffee pot.’
They came down the hill through a leafy lane with here and there glimpses of the country around them, and came upon Tollard Royal with unexpected suddenness. It was a small village but very beautiful, with a nice old pub, a church, several cottages and skirted by the grounds of a big house where horses were bred, Deborah was informed by Eleanor. There was a scattering of larger houses, well spaced out, but they had gone through the village for perhaps a quarter of a mile before the professor turned the car through an open gateway and slowed along a curved drive bordered by shrubs and trees. The house at the end of the curve was old, red bricked and of a respectable size. It was long and low, with gables, tall twisted chimneys and mullioned windows set in stone frames and its solid, wooden front door stood open.
‘Home,’ said the professor and got out and went round to open their door. ‘Eleanor, take Deborah somewhere where she can tidy herself—we’ll have coffee in the sitting room when you’re ready.’
A very large buxom woman with boot button eyes in a round cheerful face met them in the hall. ‘There you are, dearie, and the young lady with you.’ And when Eleanor introduced her to Deborah, with a very correct, ‘Deborah this is Mrs Buckle our housekeeper, Mrs Buckle this is Miss Farley!’ Mrs Buckle beamed at them both. ‘Now isn’t that nice?’ she asked of no one in particular. ‘Just you take Miss Farley up to the Chintz Room, love and I’ll take the coffee in.’
She sailed away through a baize door at the back of the panelled hall and Deborah followed Eleanor up the uncarpeted oak staircase, along a gallery and into a room at the back of the house; a charming room, furnished in mahogany decorated with marquetry and living up to its name by reason of the faded chintz curtains at the latticed windows and the matching bedspread. It was a comfortable, luxurious room with an easy chair or two and the glimpse of a bathroom through a half-open door. There were fresh flowers too. Deborah wondered if all the bedrooms had those as a matter of course or whether the professor had been so sure of her coming that he had ordered them to be put there. She bent to sniff at them and then sat down before the dressing table to comb her hair. Eleanor, perched on the bed, watched her.
‘It’s super having you here—couldn’t you stay for a few days? I thought—I wanted you to marry Daddy—I still do. I suppose you couldn’t change your mind?’
Deborah turned to look at the child. ‘Your father did ask me,’ she said, ‘but I—I couldn’t accept…’
‘Don’t you like him?’
‘Oh, yes. Yes I do, but I’m not clever and he is, and I’m not used to all this.’ She waved a hand at the elegant furniture around them, ‘Besides, I think that people should love each other if they’re going to marry.’ She paused because after all, Eleanor was only a child still; what would she know about love?
She was surprised when Eleanor said at once: ‘Oh, I know about that; Daddy explained, but he said that a lot of people got on very well together without it; he said sensible people like you and him. My mother didn’t love Daddy, you know, at least she thought she did at first but she went away with someone else… Miss Timmis told me because I asked her one day.’ She added matter-of-factly: ‘I couldn’t ask Daddy, could I?’
‘No,’ agreed Deborah. And then to change a conversation which was getting a little out of control: ‘Is Miss Timmis here?’
‘Yes, she’s dying to meet you; she says she’s longing to be just a governess and not a surrogate mother—she didn’t tell me that, I heard her telling Daddy.’
Eleanor slipped off the bed and came to stand by Deborah, ‘But if you marry Daddy you’ll be a real mother won’t you? A nice young one—we could have such fun and I’d help you look after your babies.’ The child sounded so wistful that Deborah felt a lump in her throat. If I go on like this I’ll be in a fine pickle, she told herself and got up briskly. ‘Let’s go down,’ she invited, ‘I’d love to meet Miss Timmis.’
The sitting room was long, low ceilinged and panelled like the hall. There were comfortable chairs and sofas scattered around, several small tables bearing reading lamps and two walls held bow fronted cabinets, but there was still plenty of space. The Professor was standing at the end of the room at an open french window with a black labrador beside him gazing out, and sitting nearby was a small, compact lady, very neat with grey hair in
an old fashioned bun and wearing gold rimmed glasses fastened by a chain to a pin on her dress. She was so exactly what Deborah had imagined a governess to look like that she smiled involuntarily and Miss Timmis smiled back and got up.
The professor turned round. ‘There you are.’ His tone implied that they had been a long time away. ‘Deborah, this is our Miss Timmis, prop and mainstay of both Eleanor and myself.’ He glanced across and smiled at the governess: ‘Miss Timmis, this is Deborah Farley, whom I hope to marry sooner or later—preferably sooner.’
He ignored Deborah’s indrawn breath and Miss Timmis, taking her heightened colour for shyness, said at once: ‘How splendid that will be—such a delightful young wife and mother.’ She added in sentimental tones: ‘How happy we shall all be.’
Deborah was strongly inclined to point out that she wasn’t at all happy and wished for nothing but to be excluded from Miss Timmis’s romantic musings, but she held her tongue, largely because the professor was watching her, waiting with wicked anticipation for her to speak.
She smiled and murmured at Miss Timmis, bent to pat the dog’s head and observed that the garden looked delightful. A mistake because she was barely given time to swallow her coffee before the professor whisked her outside with the bland observation that, since she found the garden delightful, he would give himself the pleasure of showing her the whole of it. ‘While you have your music lesson, Eleanor,’ he added and allowed the lid of one eye to drop as he said it. Deborah was quite taken aback with Eleanor’s instant agreement; she wasn’t looking at Miss Timmis or she might have wondered at that lady’s bewilderment.
Contrary to her forebodings, the professor uttered not one word concerning themselves, instead he dwelt at great length on the various shrubs, trees and flowers which made up the very large garden, explaining their Latin names in a kindly fashion which set her teeth on edge. Then, when she felt that the subject should be exhausted, he began on the weeds.
Deborah stopped on a narrow path between beech hedges, instantly vexed with herself for not waiting for a more roomy spot, for her companion, politely stopping as well, was a great deal too close. ‘Look,’ she said severely, ‘I like gardens very much, but I thought I came to spend the day with Eleanor.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear, I haven’t made much headway, have I? You know—absence makes the heart grow fonder—such a comforting theory. Ah, well. There was no harm in hoping that you’d changed your mind…’
‘I cannot think,’ said Deborah in a carefully matter-of-fact voice, ‘why you wish to marry me?’
‘I didn’t make myself clear? Eleanor needs a mother and you fill the bill, and the only way to bring that about is to marry you, isn’t it? We shall get on very well together—you’re hardly the sentimental type are you? And I’m not in the least in love with you, although I like you well enough to want to marry you. But it will be a marriage without the romance—I hope I make myself clear?’
‘Oh very,’ said Deborah in a smouldering voice. ‘I wonder if there’s a girl in this world who has received a proposal…’
‘A second proposal,’ he reminded her.
‘A proposal,’ she continued taking no notice, ‘so very candid and business-like. I doubt it.’ She started to walk on again, ‘And the answer is no.’
‘I felt that it might be. Nonetheless, if you should change your mind will you come to me and tell me so? And I promise you that I won’t ask your reasons?’ He put a hand on her shoulder so that she had to stand still again and turn to face him. ‘Promise?’ he repeated.
She studied his face; there was no trace of mockery now, like that she could imagine that he would make a good friend. ‘I promise,’ she said.
Eleanor came running to meet them as they turned into the drive. She got between them, taking an arm of each. ‘Miss Timmis likes you,’ she told Deborah and peeped at her father who shook his head slightly. ‘She’s nice, isn’t she?’
‘Very. You are lucky to have someone like that to teach you.’
‘Yes, aren’t I. Will you come and see my room?’ She glanced at her father again. ‘You don’t have to go away Daddy?’
‘No, love, but I’ve got some work to do until lunch time. Shall we meet in the drawing room at half-past twelve? You’ve a lot to show Deborah!’
He made not another attempt to talk to her alone all the rest of the day and during the drive back to Dorchester he kept up a gentle flow of small talk which left her feeling vaguely resentful.
When they arrived at her home she invited him in, in a polite voice which expected a refusal, but he accepted at once. Instantly at ease with her mother and father, sitting there, she thought crossly, like an old family friend, drinking her father’s beer. He was clever at parrying her mother’s questions, not evading them merely turning them aside with polite vagueness. He got up to go at length and since it was expected of her, she saw him to the door.
‘Thank you for a delightful day,’ she told him. ‘It was super seeing Eleanor again.’
He paused in the open doorway, put a finger under her chin and lifted it. He didn’t say anything at all, only bent and kissed her cheek.
She went on standing there for quite some time after the car had slid smoothly into the evening dark.
It surprised her when she got back to the sitting room, that her mother had no questions; instead she suggested that Deborah might like to go to bed after such a long day. ‘And you’ll have a few days at home before you start looking for another job, won’t you, darling? Professor Beaufort said you’d had a busy time of it even though it was in such a lovely place.’
Deborah had been home a week and had made up her mind to ring the agency the following morning when the agency clerk phoned her.
‘I know you were thinking of a permanent post somewhere, sometime after Christmas, but it’s only just November and one of our nannies has just phoned to say that she has to go home for a week—her mother’s died, poor dear, and she wants to know if there is anyone to replace her just for that time. It’s in London—Belgravia—nice house, three children under ten years old and sole charge. To be honest they are a bit of a handful, she says, but it’s only for a week…’
Deborah, feeling unaccountably restless, didn’t give herself time to think about it; she said yes, as long as it was only for a week, and went to tell her Mother. ‘I might as well stay at home until Christmas, Mother, if that’s all right with you? That will give me time to look around for a permanent post, somewhere where I can stay for a really long time…’
‘Yes, dear,’ her mother looked as though she wanted to say a good deal more than that, but she didn’t.
Deborah left for London the next day, she would have liked a few more days at home, even though she had planned to ring the agency; looking out at the city’s suburbs crowding in on either side of the train, she had to admit that she didn’t know what she did want.
The agency had been quite right, the house was indeed nice—a quite inadequate adjective thought Deborah, getting out of the taxi and looking at its imposing front. Georgian London at its best, three storeys of it gleaming with paint and window boxes. She noticed the bars on the top floor windows—the nursery, well out of the way. She hoped it wasn’t the kind of family where the children were kept out of sight all day then allowed downstairs for an hour after tea. She mounted the steps—anyway it was only for a week…
She was admitted by a butler with an expressionless face who answered her civil greeting with a voice chilly enough to make her shudder. He led her upstairs to a vast drawing room where the lady of the house was lying on a sofa reading. A quite beautiful woman, beautifully dressed. She glanced up at Deborah, put down her book and said: ‘Ah, the temporary nanny. I expect you’d like to go upstairs straight away. The children know that you are coming. Bring them down at half-past five will you? They go to bed at seven o’clock and you will be free after that—they usually sleep all night. Bennett will see that you get your meals in the schoolroom.’ She added, not u
nkindly but with a complete lack of interest, ‘I hope you’ll be happy while you are with us.’
Deborah, going up more stairs behind Bennett’s poker like back, doubted that.
Not only had the agency been right about the house, they were right about the children too; they were just about as difficult as she had ever encountered. At the end of the first day, she wondered if she would be able to stick it out for the rest of the week; she was fond of children but it was hard to like these three: spoilt and rude and ill mannered. Through no fault of their own, she guessed, for they saw their mother for barely an hour each day, and for the entire week Deborah never set eyes on their father. He was in the house all right, his voice often to be heard, even from the fastness of the top floor, but he never came to the nursery. No wonder the children were such little toughs; she hoped that the nanny she was replacing was kind to them.
The week dragged along; Deborah, who found London, even in the bright autumn weather, not a patch on the wide horizons of Dorset, walked the children to the park each afternoon, saw them to school in the mornings, and kept them amused indoors. No one had mentioned off duty to her; she supposed that since she was only there for a week, none was considered necessary.
It was the last afternoon, in the morning she would be leaving the moment the other nanny got back, and she had taken the children to Green Park, wheeling the four-year-old in his old fashioned pushchair, although in her opinion he was perfectly capable of using his own legs. They were waiting to cross Piccadilly when a taxi passed them with the professor sitting in the back. It stopped a few yards further on and he got out, paid off the driver and strode back to where Deborah was still standing.
‘The last place I expected to see you,’ he observed. ‘Rather far from home aren’t you?’
He glanced at the children who stared back at him. Deborah was staring at him too. ‘So are you,’ she said. She found her voice with difficulty, and then went pink because she had sounded rude. ‘I mean,’ she explained carefully, ‘I am surprised to see you here.’