by Betty Neels
‘Nick is a very nice person,’ said Celine quite fiercely for her, and got up to change the plates and so missed the warning glance her mother shot across the table at her father. When she sat down again her mother said: ‘Now we’ve got some money I wondered if you’d take the car tomorrow and go down to Dorchester market. I’ll tidy the rooms and make the beds if you could manage to clear the tables after breakfast—you could be back for lunch. If we had something cold—I’ll make a salad…’
It would be nice to have an hour or two away from the house, although she would be away from Nicky too…’Shall we make a list before we go to bed? Dr Seymour seems to think his uncle may be fit to move by ambulance in a week, perhaps less and we want to be ready for the next lot.’
‘Where do they live?’ asked Celine, and tried not to sound eager. It was something Nick hadn’t told her and she hadn’t asked.
‘Oh, Harrow, or is it Highgate? I believe Dr Seymour lives in London too, but I’m not sure where.’
He could live on the top of Mount Everest for all Celine cared. She didn’t like him, she told herself as she helped Angela clear away for the night, and at the same time was aware that this wasn’t quite true. He had done nothing deliberately unkind, he hadn’t been boastful, he had been friendly and polite, and if it hadn’t been for Nicky telling her what a tiresome man he was, she might even have liked him. She finished in the kitchen, said goodnight to Angela and Barney and crossed the hall to the sitting-room to say goodnight to her parents. Nicky came out of the drawing-room at the same time, and they met halfway, and stopped.
He put an arm round her and smiled so that her heart turned over.
‘I was hoping I’d see you. Any chance of coming for a drive tomorrow?’
‘I’m going to Dorchester market directly after breakfast, and I have to be back for lunch.’ Her soft mouth curved into a smile.
‘Heaven sent! I’ll drive you in my car. We can’t make it the whole day, I suppose?’
Celine shook her head. ‘Impossible—it really is. But it would be lovely.’ Her eyes shone and he put the other arm round her.
‘You beautiful girl,’ he said softly, and then stiffened and let his arms drop as someone, not too far away, started whistling. It could only be Oliver. It was, sauntering down the stairs with his hands in his pockets. He nodded casually at them as he crossed the hall and went out into the garden, but the magic moment had passed. Celine said in a brittle voice: ‘I shall be leaving about nine o’clock.’
‘I’ll be waiting.’ Nicky took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, but that was all. Any moment Oliver might appear again—like the genie in a pantomime, she thought peevishly.
She was up very early and had breakfasted long before anyone came into the dining-room. She served the meal, saw to Nurse Stevens’ wants, cleared the table, fetched her shopping list and was on the doorstep by nine o’clock. Nicky was there waiting in the car, and there was, thank heaven, no sign of his cousin. Celine got in beside him with a thrill of excitement, a little dampened by his careless: ‘We don’t need to shop, do we? Can’t you ring up for whatever you need when we get back? It’s such a glorious day, we could go for a run—have a picnic…’
‘Oh, but I can’t, honestly. Angela wants most of the things today—the village shop doesn’t have a great deal, you know. Besides, I must be back before lunch—there’s no one else to serve it.’
‘What about that butler of yours? Or your mother?’ Nicky spoke carelessly.
‘Barney’s got heaps of jobs to do—not just being a butler—he’s the handyman too and he does the vegetables and does quite a lot of housework when no one is about. And mother wouldn’t know where to start.’ She added, suddenly fierce: ‘Why should she? She’s never been used to it, and it was my idea in the first place.’
He patted her knee. ‘OK., don’t get so worked up! It was only a suggestion. But remember, when you do get a few hours to yourself keep them for me.’
He was an amusing companion, and it was impossible to be vexed by him for more than a few moments. The drive to Dorchester was a delight for her, and when they had parked the car, he took her to Napper’s Mite for coffee, and they walked through the crowded market while Celine bought fruit and meat, and, that done, led him into the town to Parson’s grocer’s shop to buy the special tea and coffee that her mother had had for years. It all took rather longer than she had bargained for, and she mentioned this as they got back into the car, to be made sorry for doing so presently, for Nick drove back much too fast, so that by the time they arrived she was on edge with suppressed nerves. All the same, she thanked him with warmth, refused with regret his offer of another drive that afternoon, and went off to the kitchen to give Angela a hand with the lunch.
The doctor had been, Angela told her as they stood side by side at the vast kitchen table, Celine making a salad, Angela putting the finishing touches to the egg and mushroom flan she had taken from the oven. ‘Very pleased he was, too. That nice Dr Seymour was with him. Now there is a man for you, Miss Celine—I wouldn’t mind being ill if I had him to look after me.’
‘Oh, pooh,’ declared Celine, and tossed her lovely head. ‘He’s just the same as any other doctor.’
‘Now there you’re wrong,’ declared Angela. ‘But it’s no good telling you that now, is it?’
Celine muttered under her breath; Angela had known her all her life and sometimes forgot that she wasn’t a little girl any more. ‘I’m going to sound the gong,’ she told her companion, and marched into the hall.
Mrs Seymour and Nicky were halfway through their meal before Dr Seymour joined them. Beyond a brief apology to both them and Celine, he gave no reason for his tardiness. She put a plate of chilled watercress soup before him with exaggerated care and served his companions with early strawberries and cream. In the kitchen she said snappily to Angela: ‘Serve that man right if I dished up his omelette now—it’d be nice and leathery by the time he’s ready for it.’
‘Miss Celine, I’m surprised at you—whatever next! Such a nice man, and so considerate too.’
Celine tossed her head and snorted delicately. ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ she said crossly.
She stayed cross for the rest of the day, for she had no time to herself at all. Several times on her way to the kitchen garden, or racing round the house, she had glimpses of Nicky stretched out on the lawn in front of the house, but there was no chance to talk to him. She served tea on the grass under the trees and took a tray up to Nurse Stevens, then went to join her parents in the sitting-room for half an hour.
Her father glanced up as she went in. ‘Busy?’ he asked without really wanting to know. ‘I hear from Dr Seymour that Mr Seymour may be leaving us in a day or two.’ He smiled at her vaguely, one finger marking the place in the book he was reading. ‘Has any one else arrived?’
‘I hope not,’ said Celine, wolfing bread and butter, ‘I’ve got my hands full.’
Her mother gave her a gently reproachful glance. ‘But, darling, you persuaded us to do this bed and breakfast thing—are you bored with it?’
‘I haven’t had time, Mother dear. I’ll be much easier when we just get people for a night or so…I mean, there’s Mr Seymour and the nurse…it makes it a bit busier.’
‘Yes, darling, I’m sure it does. All those extra rooms I have to put flowers in. But the money is most useful.’
Her father lowered his book. ‘I must say Dr Seymour is a very fair-minded man—insists on paying the full amount for his uncle even though he is only on a fluid diet and costs us almost nothing to feed.’
For some reason Celine felt annoyed. She felt despondent too; if Mr Seymour went, Nicky would go too and she wouldn’t see him again. She finished her tea and took the tray back to the kitchen, and while Angela and Barney had a couple of hours off, got started on the evening’s menu.
It was much later, when she was wearily clearing the last of the dishes away and tidying the kitchen for the night, that Nicky joined her.
‘So t
his is where you hide out,’ he said, and laughed as he tucked an arm in hers. ‘No, put those plates down, I haven’t talked to you for hours.’
‘This morning…’ she laughed up at him from a tired face. ‘And I’m not on holiday!’
He bent and kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘Ah—and that’s what we must put right. I have to go to Bournemouth in a couple of weeks’ time—only for a few days, but we could have a couple of nights out—surely you can take a day or so off when you want to?’
Celine was puzzled. ‘Well, I suppose so, but it would be awkward, Nicky—I mean, there’s no one to take over—I’m not indispensable, but I am a pair of hands. And—and…where would I stay?’
‘Oh, at the hotel, of course,’ he said easily. ‘I always go to the Royal Bath.’ He added softly: ‘We have to get to know each other, my sweet.’
‘Why?’
He raised his brows and smiled slowly. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t feel entirely the same as I do about you. Love at first sight, you know.’
She was breathless. ‘Oh, yes, Nicky—I never thought it was true, but it is, isn’t it? Only I can’t…’ She paused. ‘Would you wait for a while, just while I get this business going, and when it’s running smoothly, I could get someone to take over…’
‘No need for a couple of days, surely?’
Celine felt her cheeks flame. ‘Oh, I thought you meant getting married.’
It sounded so gauche, the kind of remark the heroine might make in a second-rate film, but that was exactly what she had thought.
The arm around her shoulders tightened reassuringly. ‘My sweet, that is what I meant. Of course I’ll wait—but I do think we should see as much as we can of each other until you’re free.’
Celine drew a deep breath, and the small doubt lying somewhere at the bottom of her excitement disappeared. ‘I’ll see what I can do. When are you leaving?’
He shrugged. ‘Lord knows—or at least, my interfering cousin does; when he feels like it, I suppose he’ll tell us.’
‘Has he always been like that?’
‘Always. There’s not much love lost between us, but there’s no need for you to see him once he’s left here. He’s always wrapped up in his precious practice and some clinic or other he runs.’ He threw her a sidelong glance. ‘Dislikes girls, too—had some miserable affair when he was young and has no time for women, or so he says.’
‘Oh—he’s always been very polite…’
‘Well, of course—doctors always are; they cultivate a kind of veneer which doesn’t mean a thing. Don’t let’s waste time talking about him…’
Nicky broke off as the door opened and Nurse Stevens came in. She said without preamble: ‘Dr Seymour asked me to come down and get some fresh lemonade. Will you do it, Miss Baylis?’
Celine had pulled away from Nick, her cheeks pink. There was no reason why she should feel guilty, after all, it was her home and she was doing nothing wrong. Nurse Stevens was tiresome. She said shortly: ‘I’ll make a jug and bring it up, Nurse.’
She noticed that Nurse Stevens looked tired and every day of her age. It was a pity, and Dr Grady couldn’t get a night nurse. She asked: ‘Have you had very disturbed nights?’
‘Yes, they have been rather broken, but there wasn’t a nurse available and Mrs Seymour isn’t strong enough to stay awake at night.’ She cast a look at Nick, lounging in a Windsor chair by the Aga. ‘But Dr Seymour has kindly offered to stay up tonight so that I can have a proper sleep.’ She pulled out one of the chairs at the table. ‘I’ll wait for the lemonade.’
Long before Celine had it ready, Nicky had given up and gone sulkily away, and later, when Nurse Stevens had gone too and Celine had finished tidying up the kitchen, there was no sign of him. She went to say goodnight to her parents and then tiredly to bed.
Two days later, Mr Seymour was judged recovered enough to make the journey home by ambulance, and in those two days Celine had had almost no time alone with Nicky, only on the last evening he came back into the dining-room as she was clearing the table. ‘I’ll have to drive Mother home,’ he told her, ‘but I’ll be down again in a couple of days, and that’s a promise. We can fix up that weekend then,’ and at her questioning look: ‘And make plans for the future. Our future.’
He drew her close and kissed her rather hurriedly. ‘I can’t stay—Oliver’s making all the arrangements, of course, and he’ll be looking for me, damn him. I’ll see you in the morning before we leave. I’m going to miss you, darling.’
He had gone leaving her to finish her clearing up, her sadness at his going lessened by the news that he would be back so soon.
Getting the invalid away took some time, despite the fact that Nurse Stevens had been prevailed upon to accompany him in the ambulance. But finally he was stowed away and she with him, and Mrs Seymour, having delayed their departure for several minutes, searching for things she found that she already had, got in beside Nicky. Only then did he get out of the car and go back into the house, taking Celine, waiting in the porch, with him. ‘I can’t go without saying goodbye, Celine. Yes, I know the ambulance has gone and Mother’s impatient, but no one considers me at all.’ He kissed her lightly. ‘That’ll have to do until I see you again…in a couple of days, and I shall expect to have you all to myself.’
He let her go and went out to the car. He got in with a careless wave of the hand and drove off, down the drive and out of the gates.
It wasn’t until then that Celine realised that the Aston Martin was still parked at the side of the house. She turned round to find Oliver standing beside her. ‘Aren’t you going too?’ she asked.
He smiled a little at the coldness of her voice. ‘Yes—I had some business to attend to with your father. Thank you—all of you, for the trouble and kindness you’ve taken. We must have been a sore trial to you and we’re eternally grateful. You’ll be glad to see the back of us.’
He gave her a level look. ‘Not Nicky, of course. You’ll miss him.’
She lifted her chin, and more to hearten her own low spirits than anything else said: ‘Yes, of course I shall, but he’s coming back in a day or two.’
The blue eyes went dark. ‘Indeed? To stay here?’
‘It’s really none of your business—as a matter of fact, he’s asked me to spend a few days in Bournemouth so that we can go out to dinner and see something of each other.’
His face was expressionless. ‘My dear girl, don’t go.’ His voice was so kind that she looked at him in astonishment.
‘Why ever not? I’ll be staying at a hotel…besides, we’re going to be married.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I shouldn’t have told you—Mother and Father don’t know; it’s all happened so quickly, and I can’t think why I told you, because I’m certain you’ll disapprove.’
He said harshly, ‘Yes, I do disapprove—for the best of reasons. Nicky is already married.’
He stalked past her without another glance, spoke briefly to Mrs Baylis still standing in the porch, then got into his car and drove away.
CHAPTER THREE
CELINE STOOD IN the hall, not moving at all, the doctor’s words ringing in her ears. She didn’t believe him. Nicky had told her that his cousin didn’t like women since he himself had had an unhappy affair. He was jealous, unable to endure anyone else’s happiness. He had sounded so furiously angry too. Presently she walked outside to join her mother, determined not to remember a word of what he had told her. Nicky would be back; she would tell him, and they would laugh about it together and make plans for a delightful future.
‘You’re very pale, darling,’ observed Mrs Baylis. ‘Why not go and rest until lunchtime?’ She took Celine’s arm as they began to walk through the hall. ‘Well, I hope all goes well with them, they were delightful people, weren’t they? And that nice Oliver settled their bill with your father—really, darling, it’s so nice to see money again—I might even have a new dress…And he left something for Bennett and Barney and Angela and thanked them all. I’m s
orry we shan’t see him again.’ She threw a sidelong glance at Celine’s strained face. ‘Will you miss him?’
‘I didn’t know him very well, Mother. Shall we have coffee and then I’ll start on the rooms—you never know, we might get some people later on.’
There was a lot to do and no time to brood, but despite Celine’s resolve to forget every word that Oliver had uttered, she couldn’t—his deep, quiet voice sounded in her ears, just as though he were standing beside her. She made beds with fury, Hoovered and dusted and polished, as though she could polish away all trace of the Seymours—not Nicky, of course: he would come in a day or two and she would tell him all about it and they would laugh together. The thought cheered her, so that her mother remarked over their tea: ‘So you had a nice rest, dear—you look better for it.’
Celine said, ‘Yes, Mother,’ because there was really no point in telling her there was no one but herself to get the rooms ready. Her mother was a darling but very unobservant; things got done around the big house, and she took them for granted and never asked who did them, but that was hardly her fault. For most of her life she had never had to do anything for herself and Celine considered that it would be unkind to expect her to do so now. She drank her tea, crumbled a scone, and said she would lay up the dining-room. ‘I don’t suppose there’ll be anyone this evening,’ she observed, ‘but it’s nice to be prepared; besides, it means we can have a quiet day tomorrow.’
She was folding Angela’s perfectly ironed table napkins into fans when she heard a car. Just for a second her heart leapt; it might be Nicky…common sense told her not to be silly and she went unhurriedly to the door.
There were three women in the porch, middle-aged but fighting against it, with platinum hair, expensively set, carefully made up faces, and expensive clothes, very slightly too youthful for their rigidly controlled figures.
The one in the middle spoke. ‘Bed and breakfast?’ she asked in an ultra-refined voice. ‘We took the wrong road…’ She sounded so accusing that Celine found herself apologising for that. ‘We intended spending the night in Sherborne, but we took the wrong fork,’ went on the complaining voice, ‘and here we are at the back of beyond!’
