by Betty Neels
The doctor gave her this information in a businesslike way, told her that he had been out to the farm and that Mrs Duckett and Tom sent their love. ‘Tom’s a nice child…’
‘He’s a darling,’ said Matilda warmly.
‘You like children?’
‘Yes,’ said Matilda. Especially if they were her own and the doctor was their father. Only she didn’t say that.
She was glad when it was Friday and she had some money. Her mother had phoned again; friends of the friends she was staying with intended to drive to their daughter’s home at Wellington and had offered her a lift, on Sunday.
‘It’s not too far out of their way,’ she had explained. ‘I’ve asked them to stay for tea. We should be home about three o’clock, so have tea ready for four o’clock, Matilda. Get scones and make a cake and see that there’s a good fire in the sitting room. Don’t fetch your father to the phone; we’re just going out to dinner and there’s no time. Give him my love.’
So Matilda walked down to Mrs Simpkins’ on Saturday morning and presently emerged with two plastic bags and a lighter purse. The doctor, standing at his window, watched her going off home, frowning. It was no concern of his, of course, but Matilda didn’t appear to have much fun in her life. No sign of a boyfriend, drab clothes except for the new coat and hat. He might suggest that she might like a few days’ holiday before Christmas. Aunt Kate would be delighted to have her again. He might even go over and take her out—dinner perhaps?
He turned away to answer the telephone. It was Lucilla, inviting him in a coaxing voice to take her out to lunch. And since it was his day off he agreed. But later, sitting opposite her at the Castle Hotel in Taunton, he found himself wishing that it were Matilda sitting there and not Lucilla.
Mr Paige, warmly wrapped up, was fetched to church on Sunday morning by Mrs Milton, leaving Matilda free to get lunch and do some baking. While the cake was in the oven she hoovered and dusted, arranged the very last of the chrysanthemums in a vase, and lit the fire in the sitting room. She got out the best china too, and the silver teaspoons, and put everything out ready for tea. Rastus, watching her from his chair in the kitchen, yawned and went to sleep, but, having no one else to talk to, Matilda went on talking to him.
‘It will be nice to see Mother again,’ she told him, ‘and I dare say that now she’s had a holiday she will feel much more settled. And there’s Christmas to look forward to.’
Mrs Milton had mentioned several social events in the village; perhaps they could all go. Her father, once he could be prised from his books and writing, enjoyed meeting people…
Her mother arrived home soon after three o’clock and two people came with her—a large red-faced man, middle-aged and with a loud voice, and a very thin woman of about the same age, most elegantly dressed and with a voice almost as loud as her husband’s. Mrs Paige, wearing a new hat, Matilda saw with a sinking heart, ushered her guests in with little cries of apology.
‘Come in, come in. Our funny little cottage—only temporary of course. And this is our daughter, Matilda.’
She didn’t wait for Matilda to do more than shake hands. ‘Fetch your father, Matilda. Take off your coats and come into the sitting room. At least it will be warm there.’
Matilda fetched her father and they went together to the sitting room where Mrs Paige greeted him effusively and then caught Matilda’s eye.
‘We’ll have tea now. I hope it’s quite ready.’
Their guests made a splendid tea and, taking a second slice of cake, pronounced it delicious.
‘Oh, Matilda cooks quite well. Such a help to me. It seems so strange that someone as delicate as I am should have such a sensible, practical daughter.’
Two pairs of eyes studied Matilda. From their expressions she guessed that they agreed with her mother, dismissing her as plain and uninteresting but handy to have around. Well, thought Matilda, I am, and smiled at them so that for the moment she wasn’t plain at all.
They left presently and her mother embarked on an excited account of the visit. ‘I felt so well while I was there; I feel I can face life here once more, and I found a marvellous book for you, dear.’ She smiled at Mr Paige. ‘I hope it’s what you will enjoy.
‘And I’ve something for you, Matilda: gloves—woolly gloves. To keep your hands warm when you go out in the mornings.’ She added, ‘And I have bought one or two things for myself—the shops were so tempting.’
‘That’s a pretty hat,’ said Matilda.
‘Isn’t it? I felt rather naughty buying it—it was rather more than I usually pay—but I couldn’t resist it. I’ve spent every penny…’
And when Mr Paige looked worried she said, ‘Don’t worry, dear; I know Matilda will help out until your pension is paid into the bank.’
Matilda wondered just what would happen if she said that she wasn’t going to help out. Something she would never do because of her father. A quiet life and no worries, the doctor had said.
She presented her usual quiet face at the surgery on Monday morning, presided over the waiting room with her habitual good nature and, when bidden to drink coffee with the doctor when the surgery was closed, politely refused.
A waste of breath. ‘I have something to say to you,’ said the doctor in a voice which wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
But it wasn’t until she had almost drunk her coffee that he spoke.
‘I think it might be a good idea if you were to have a few days’ holiday.’
‘But I’ve just had one with Miss Lovell. Aren’t I being satisfactory?’
‘You are perfectly satisfactory, Matilda. And that wasn’t a holiday, that was convalescence after flu. You may tell me that it is none of my business if you wish, but it seems to me that you have very little opportunity to enjoy life. Have you no young friends of your own age? Men friends? You should be thinking about marriage, a home of your own. Your mother depends upon you, doesn’t she? But she has no need to do so. She is able to run her home and look after your father without your help. Have you ever considered leaving home? You are perfectly capable of earning your own living.’
‘You think I should go away from here?’ And never see you again? she added silently.
‘See something of the world, meet people, travel, perhaps?’
He found himself disliking that idea even as he uttered it. It was all very well suggesting that she should go and make a life for herself, but only if there was someone with her to look after her. She might be sensible and practical but she knew nothing of the world.
‘Anyway, take a few days off before Christmas. Go shopping and pay Aunt Kate a visit.’
‘I’ll have to talk it over with Mother and Father—they may have planned something.’
‘Just as you wish. I may be a little late this evening. Will you let the patients know?’
He had called her Matilda but now they were back at the beginning again. It was never going to be any different. She went quietly away and he didn’t look up from his desk.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MRS PAIGE welcomed Matilda’s news that she was to take a brief holiday with unexpected enthusiasm.
‘But how fortunate. As you will be home all day for a few days I shall be able to go to Taunton. We must start to think of Christmas; there will be presents to buy and cards—and you will be home to help me write them. Lady Truscott is giving a dinner party; we are sure to be invited. And I really must return the hospitality I have received—a coffee morning, perhaps.’
Matilda didn’t say anything. The doctor had mentioned Aunt Kate but she thought that he had done so in order to persuade her to have some days off. She didn’t want them but she couldn’t tell him that they would be spent at home for the most part.
All that nonsense about men friends… In bed that night she cried about that, making Rastus, curled up beside her, very damp.
On Wednesday morning, when the surgery was over, she asked him when he would like her to have her days off.
&
nbsp; He looked at her, as neat as a new pin, sitting opposite him, drinking the coffee he’d insisted that she should have.
She was pale and there were shadows under her eyes. Lovely eyes, he conceded. There was a good deal he would have liked to say but Matilda could be contrary and tart and withdraw into her shell…
He said pleasantly, ‘Are you going to the annual dance at the village hall on Saturday?’ He didn’t give her time to answer. ‘Because if you haven’t already made arrangements, will you come with me? Everyone goes—and I mean everyone.’
‘Me? Go with you?’ said Matilda. ‘But what about Miss Armstrong?’
‘What about Miss Armstrong?’ asked the doctor silkily. ‘I wasn’t aware we were talking about her.’
‘Well, of course we weren’t,’ said Matilda sharply, ‘but ought you not to invite her?’ She added, ‘She might mind.’
‘Lucilla is in the South of France and I hardly think she would have any objection to our more or less obligatory appearance together at a village function.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Matilda, ‘in that case I’ll come. Thank you for asking me. What should I wear?’
It would be a pleasure, reflected the doctor, to pop Matilda into his car and take her to a boutique and buy her the prettiest dress there. The thought surprised him so that he didn’t answer at once.
‘Not black tie,’ he assured her, and saw her small sigh of relief. ‘The women wear pretty dresses—you know, the kind of thing they wear to weddings and christenings. The dancing is a bit old-fashioned and there’s a local band. This is a friendly village—but you have discovered that, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, it sounds fun.’
‘Oh, it is; the vicar gives prizes and there’s beer and ham sandwiches.’
She smiled then and a little colour came into her cheeks and he went on, ‘I’m having a few days off myself next week. Will that suit you? And Aunt Kate wants you to go and stay, even if it’s only for a day or so. She’s writing to you.’
‘I’d like to see her again but I’m not sure… Mother would like to go to Taunton and if I’m at home she can leave Father all day. And she is going to have a coffee morning.’
‘That still leaves three or four days. Aunt Kate declared that she will drive over and fetch you.’
‘Oh—I should very much like to see her again. I’ll—I’ll talk to Mother.’
‘Good. I’m going to the Ducketts’. Rob is making excellent progress; he should be home for Christmas. Tom wants to see you again.’
‘Does he? I’ll borrow Mrs Simpkins’ bike and go one afternoon. Mrs Duckett wouldn’t mind?’
‘Mrs Duckett happens to think you are a very nice young lady.’ He got up to go. ‘As indeed you are, Matilda.’
Matilda, pink in the face, wished him a muttered good morning and whisked herself back into the waiting room.
The postman drove up just as she reached the cottage. There was a letter for her from Aunt Kate—easily identified by the fine spidery writing and expensive notepaper. Matilda dawdled up the garden path, reading it.
Aunt Kate was inviting her to stay for the last two days of her holiday. She would drive over and fetch her and she would not take no for an answer.
Armed with that, Matilda went indoors to find her mother. Who wasn’t pleased. ‘How tiresome. It won’t do to offend the old lady, I suppose. I shall have to do my shopping at the beginning of the week and have my coffee morning on the Thursday. Really, people are most inconsiderate.’
‘And Dr Lovell has asked me to go to the annual dance at the village hall.’
‘Asked you? Whatever for? He’s more or less engaged to that Armstrong girl.’
‘She’s in France…’
‘Oh, well, I suppose he has to show up at those village functions and take someone with him. Farm labourers, I suppose…’
It was hard to like her mother sometimes. ‘Yes, I expect so,’ said Matilda.
If the doctor was looking forward to their Saturday outing he gave no sign of it. The patients waiting their turn at the surgery were full of it. Everyone was going, it seemed. It was an event not to be missed. Matilda, asked countless times if she was going, said yes, she was, but she didn’t say who with. The doctor might have invited her but anything could happen before Saturday…
It wasn’t until Friday evening, as she was clearing up after the last patient had left, that he opened the waiting-room door to speak to her about it.
‘I’ll call for you about half past seven,’ he told her. ‘It starts at seven o’clock and everyone makes a point of getting there as early as possible.’ He stood looking at her. ‘You’re going to Aunt Kate’s at the end of next week?’
‘Yes, Friday and Saturday. I’m looking forward to that.’
He nodded. ‘Good. I shall be away most of the week myself. Dr Ross will come over each day and bring his nurse with him. He’ll be on call for emergencies. I hope everyone read the notice in the waiting room?’
‘Yes, they did, and I told Mrs Simpkins.’
‘Ah, yes. A wise move. Goodnight, Miss Paige.’
Miss Paige again, thought Matilda. He would be going to the South of France to be with Lucilla, of course. They would go together to the dance and he would dance the first dance with her and then hand her over politely to whoever was nearest.
‘For two pins I won’t go,’ said Matilda, knowing that nothing on earth would stop her.
She was ready long before half past seven on Saturday; she had been afraid that some last-minute thing would hinder her and now she was in the sitting room with her mother and father. She had spent a long time on her hair and face but the result was exactly as usual. Only the new dress was a success. Even her mother had admired it, adding that it was a pity that Matilda couldn’t do anything about her hair. ‘You need to go to a good hairdresser and have a good cut and highlights.’ But she hadn’t said any more in case Matilda took her advice and spent money on the hairdresser Mrs Paige intended to visit if she could wheedle some money out of Matilda’s purse…
Mr Paige said mildly, ‘You look very pretty, my dear. I dare say you will have a delightful evening. I expect you will know many of the people there.’
Mrs Paige said impatiently, ‘It is a village dance, dear; no one I know will be there. I suppose Dr Lovell feels that he must make an appearance.’
Matilda put on her coat; she had heard the squeak of the garden gate and a moment later came a knock on the door. She went to let the doctor in and he spent a moment or so with her father and mother before saying briskly, ‘Shall we go? Have you a key? I don’t suppose we shall be back before midnight.’
‘Oh, I’ll stay up,’ said Mrs Paige. ‘I usually keep early hours but I can always have a doze during the day. I do get so tired…’
‘In that case there is no need for you to stay up, Mrs Paige. I’m sure Matilda is old enough to have a key.’
‘Certainly she is,’ said Mr Paige. ‘Let her have yours, my dear.’
Matilda kissed him goodnight, received the key from her mother, who turned her cheek away, and went out to the car with the doctor. She wished that she could think of something light-hearted to say but her mother had cast a blight over the evening; she hadn’t said much but somehow she had managed to cast a damper…
However, it seemed that the doctor hadn’t noticed; he talked cheerfully about nothing much until they reached the village hall where he parked the car and ushered her inside. It was crowded and so noisy that the band could scarcely be heard. It was quite a large hall and it had been decorated with balloons and old-fashioned paper chains and it was evident that everyone was having a good time.
Matilda took off her coat and added it to the pile inside the door, then the doctor took her arm and swung her onto the dance floor.
‘I like the dress,’ he said to the top of her head. He sounded as though he meant it, too.
He danced well, she discovered, and although she hadn’t had much opportunity to go dancing she was
a good dancer. He would see friends—people she didn’t know—and dance with them presently, she supposed, but just for the moment she was happy.
The crush was terrific and after a minute or two she began to pick out people she knew: Mrs Simpkins in red velvet dancing with a small man, presumably her husband; the pub owner, who shouted greetings to her; several patients, not easily recognised in their best clothes; the Reverend Mr and Mrs Milton; Lady Truscott and several of the ladies her mother had introduced her to from the bridge circle. And they were all enjoying themselves…
Presently the band leader announced an excuse-me dance and she was swept away from the doctor’s arms into the jovial embrace of the milkman and then to a succession of partners—Mr Milton, the postman, the pub owner, and then, thankfully, the doctor once more.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ he wanted to know, and when the band stopped playing he found a quiet corner for her and then fetched ham sandwiches and a fizzy drink for her and beer for himself.
They danced again and Matilda, in his arms, had never been so happy. And the doctor, his arm encircling her small person, knew a deep contentment, as though he had found something he had been looking for and had found unexpectedly.
It was almost midnight when Lady Truscott, standing breathless beside them after a rousing quick-step, suggested that they should go back to her place for hot drinks. ‘I’ll collect the rest of us,’ she told them. She smiled at Matilda. ‘It’s the done thing,’ she confided. ‘We slip away about now, and so do some of the older ones here, so that the younger ones can finish the evening with a disco.’
Before Matilda could say anything the doctor said, ‘We would like that,’ and then, to her, ‘Don’t worry; I’ll take you home whenever you want to go.’
Lady Truscott’s house was ablaze with lights and her housekeeper was waiting with hot coffee, tiny sausage rolls and hot mince pies. Matilda, looking round her, saw that as well as her own friends Lady Truscott had gathered several people from the village—Mrs Simpkins and her husband, several of the farmers and their wives from the local farms, the Reverend Mr and Mrs Milton, the peppery old colonel who lived opposite the church, and the pub owner and milkman. It was going to be difficult to explain to her mother.