A Christmas Proposal

by Betty Neels

  'What a heavenly kitchen.' Her lovely eyes were sparkling with pleasure. ‘It's a kind of haven...' She blushed because she had said something silly, but Meg and Dora were smiling.

  'That it is, miss—specially now in the winter of an evening. Many a time Mr Oliver's popped in here to beg a slice of dripping toast.'

  He smiled. 'Meg, you are making my mouth water. We had better go and find my mother. We’ll see you before we go.'

  Clare had stood apart, tapping a foot impatiently, but as they went through the door into the garden beyond she slipped an arm through the doctor's.

  ‘I love your home,' she told him, 'and your lovely old-fashioned servants.'

  'They are our friends as well, Clare. They have been with us for as long as I can remember.'

  The garden behind the house was large and ram­bling, with narrow paths between the flowerbeds and flowering shrubs. Freddie rushed ahead, and they heard his barking echoed by a shrill yapping.

  'My mother will be in the greenhouses.' The doctor had disengaged his arm from Clare's in order to lead the way, and presently they went through a ram­shackle door in a high brick wall and saw the green­houses to one side of the kitchen garden.

  Bertha, lingering here and there to look at neatly tended borders and shrubs, saw that Clare's high heels were making heavy weather of the earth paths. Her clothes were exquisite, but here, in this country gar­den, they didn't look right. Bertha glanced down at her own person and had to admit that her own outfit didn't look right either. She hoped that the doctor's mother wasn't a follower of fashion like her step­mother.

  She had no need to worry; the lady who came to meet them as the doctor opened the greenhouse door was wearing a fine wool skirt stained with earth and with bits of greenery caught up in it, and her blouse, pure silk and beautifully made, was almost covered by a misshapen cardigan of beige cashmere as stained as the skirt. She was wearing wellies and thick gar­dening gloves and looked, thought Bertha, exactly as the doctor's mother should look.

  She wasn't quite sure what she meant by this, it was something that she couldn't put into words, but she knew instinctively that this elderly lady with her plain face and sweet expression was all that she would have wanted if her own mother had lived.

  'My dear.' Mrs Hay-Smythe lifted up her face for her son's kiss. 'How lovely to see you—and these are the girls who had such an unpleasant experience the other day?'

  She held out a hand, the glove pulled off. 'I'm de­lighted to meet you. You must tell me all about it, presently—I live such a quiet life here that I'm all agog to hear the details.'

  'Oh, it was nothing, Mrs Hay-Smythe,' said Clare. 'I'm sure there are many more people braver than I. It is so kind of Oliver to bring us; I had no idea that he had such a beautiful home.'

  Mrs Hay-Smythe looked a little taken aback, but she smiled and said, 'Well, yes, we're very happy to live here.'

  She turned to Bertha. 'And you are Bertha?' Her smile widened and her blue eyes smiled too, never once so much as glancing at the yellow jersey. 'For­give me that I am so untidy, but there is always work to do in the greenhouse. We’ll go indoors and have a drink. Oliver will look after you while I tidy myself.'

  They wandered back to the house—Clare ahead with the doctor, his mother coming slowly with Bertha, stopping to describe the bushes and flowers that would bloom in the spring as they went, Freddie and her small border terrier beside them.

  'You are fond of gardening?' she wanted to know.

  'Well, we live in a townhouse, you know. There's a gardener, and he comes once a week to see to the garden—but he doesn't grow things, just comes and digs up whatever's there and then plants the next lot. That's not really gardening. I'd love to have a packet of seeds and grow flowers, but I—I don't have much time.'

  Mrs Hay-Smythe, who knew all about Bertha, nod­ded sympathetically. ‘I expect one day you'll get the opportunity—when you marry, you know.'

  ‘I don't really expect to marry,' said Bertha matter-of-factly. ‘I don't meet many people and I'm plain.' She sounded quite cheerful and her hostess smiled.

  'Well, as to that, I'm plain, my dear, and I was a middle daughter of six living in a remote vicarage. And that, I may tell you, was quite a handicap.'

  They both laughed and Clare, standing waiting for them with the doctor, frowned. Just like Bertha to worm her way into their hostess's good books, she thought. Well, she would soon see about that.

  As they went into the house she edged her way towards Mrs Hay-Smythe. 'This is such a lovely house. I do hope there will be time for you to take me round before we go back.' She remembered that that would leave Bertha with Oliver, which would never do. 'Bertha too, of course...'

  Mrs Hay-Smythe had manners as beautiful as her son's. ‘I shall be delighted. But now I must go and change. Oliver, give the girls a drink, will you? I'll be ten minutes or so. We mustn't keep Meg waiting.'

  It seemed to Bertha that the doctor was perfectly content to listen to Clare's chatter as she drank her gin and lime, and his well-mannered attempts to draw her into the conversation merely increased her shy­ness. So silly, she reflected, sipping her sherry, be­cause when I'm with him and there's no one else there I'm perfectly normal.

  Mrs Hay-Smythe came back presently, wearing a black and white dress, which, while being elegant, suited her age. A pity, thought Bertha, still wrapped in thought, that her stepmother didn't dress in a sim­ilar manner, instead of forcing herself into clothes more suitable to a woman of half her age. She was getting very mean and unkind, she reflected.

  Lunch eaten in a lovely panelled room with an oval table and a massive sideboard of mahogany, matching shield-back chairs and a number of portraits in heavy gilt frames on its walls, was simple but beautifully cooked: miniature onion tarts decorated with olives and strips of anchovy, grilled trout with a pepper sauce and a green salad, followed by orange cream soufflés.

  Bertha ate with unselfconscious pleasure and a good appetite and listened resignedly to Clare tell her hostess as she picked daintily at her food that she adored French cooking.

  'We have a chef who cooks the most delicious food.' She gave one of her little laughs. 'I'm so fussy, I'm afraid. But I adore lobster, don't you? And those little tartlets with caviare...'

  Mrs Hay-Smythe smiled and offered Bertha a sec­ond helping. Bertha, pink with embarrassment, ac­cepted. So did the doctor and his mother, so that Clare was left to sit and look at her plate while the three of them ate unhurriedly.

  They had coffee in the conservatory and soon the doctor said, 'We have a family pet at the bottom of the garden. Nellie the donkey. She enjoys visitors and Freddie is devoted to her. Shall we stroll down to see her?'

  He smiled at Bertha's eager face and Freddie was already on his feet when Clare said quickly, 'Oh, but we are to see the house. I'm longing to go all over it.'

  'In that case,' said Mrs Hay-Smythe in a decisive voice, 'you go on ahead to Nellie, Oliver, and take Bertha with you, and I'll take Clare to see a little of the house.' When Clare would have protested that per­haps, after all, she would rather see the donkey, Mrs Hay-Smythe said crisply, 'No, no, I mustn't disap­point you. We can join the others very shortly.'

  She whisked Clare indoors and the doctor stood up.

  'Come along, Bertha. We'll go to the kitchen and get a carrot...'

  Meg and Dora were loading the dishwasher, and the gentle clatter of crockery made a pleasant back­ground for the loud tick-tock of the kitchen clock and the faint strains of the radio. There was a tabby cat before the Aga, and the cat with the orange coat was sitting on the window-sill.

  'Carrots?' said Meg. 'For that donkey of yours, Master Oliver? Pampered, that's what she is.' She smiled broadly at Bertha. 'Not but what she's an old pet, when all's said and done.'

  Dora had gone to fetch the carrots and the doctor was sitting on the kitchen table eating a slice of the cake that was presumably for tea.

  ‘I enjoyed my lunch,' said Bertha awkwardly. 'Y
ou must be a marvellous cook, Meg.'

  'Lor' bless you, miss, anyone can cook who puts their mind to it.' But Meg looked pleased all the same.

  The donkey was in a small orchard at the bottom of the large garden. She was an elderly beast who was pleased to see them; she ate the carrots and then trot­ted around a bit in a dignified way with a delighted Freddie.

  The doctor, leaning on the gate to the orchard, looked sideways at Bertha. She was happy, her face full of contentment. She was happily oblivious of her startling outfit too—which was even more startling in the gentle surroundings.

  Conscious that he was looking at her, she turned her head and their eyes met.

  Good gracious, thought Bertha, I feel as if I've known him all my life, that I've been waiting for him...

  Clare's voice broke the fragile thread which had been spun between them. 'There you are. Is this the donkey? Oliver, you do have a lovely house—your really ought to marry and share it with someone.'

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THEY didn't stay long in the orchard—Clare's high-heeled shoes sank into the ground at every step and her complaints weren't easily ignored. They sat in the conservatory again, and Clare told them amusing tales about her friends and detailed the plays she had re­cently seen and the parties she had attended.

  ‘I scarcely have a moment to myself,' she declared on a sigh. 'You can't imagine how delightful a restful day here is.'

  'You would like to live in the country?' asked Mrs Hay-Smythe.

  ‘In a house like this?’ Oh, yes. One could run up to town whenever one felt like it—shopping and the the­atre—and I dare say there are other people living around here...'

  'Oh, yes.' Mrs Hay-Smythe spoke pleasantly. 'Oliver, will you ask Meg to bring tea out here?'

  After tea they took their leave and got into the car, and were waved away by Mrs Hay-Smythe. Bertha waved back, taking a last look at the house she wasn't likely to see again but would never forget.

  As for Mrs Hay-Smythe, she went to the kitchen, where she found Meg and Dora having their own tea.

  She sat down at the table with them and accepted a cup of strong tea with plenty of milk. Not her fa­vourite brand, but she felt that she needed something with a bite to it. ‘Well?' she asked.

  'Since you want to know, ma'am,' said Meg, 'and speaking for the two of us, we just hope that the mas­ter isn't taken with that young lady what didn't eat her lunch. High and mighty, we thought—didn't we, Dora?'

  'Let me put your minds at rest. This visit was made in order to give the other Miss Soames a day out, but to do so it was necessary to invite her stepsister as well.'

  'Well, there,' said Dora. 'Like Cinderella. Such a nice quiet young lady too. Thanked you for her lunch, didn't she, Meg?'

  'That she did, and not smarmy either. Fitted into the house very nicely too.'

  'Yes, she did,' said Mrs Hay-Smythe thoughtfully. Bertha would make a delightful daughter-in-law, but Oliver had given no sign—he had helped her out of kindness but shown no wish to be in her company or even talk to her other than in a casual friendly way. 'A pity,' said Mrs Hay-Smythe, and with Flossie, her little dog, at her heels she went back to the green­house, where she put on a vast apron and her garden­ing gloves and began work again.

  The doctor drove back the way they had come, listening to Clare's voice and hardly hearing what she was saying. Only when she said insistently, 'You will take me out to dinner this evening, won't you, Oliver? Somewhere lively where we can dance afterwards? It's been a lovely day, but after all that rural quiet we could do with some town life...'

  'When we get back,' he said, ‘I am going straight to the hospital where I shall be for several hours, and I have an appointment for eight o'clock tomorrow morning. I am a working man, Clare.'

  She pouted. 'Oh, Oliver, can't you forget the hos­pital just for once? I was so sure you'd take me out.'

  'Quite impossible. Besides, I'm not a party man, Clare.'

  She touched his sleeve. ‘I could change that for you. At least promise you'll come to dinner one eve­ning? I'll tell Mother to give you a ring.'

  He glanced in the side-mirror and saw that Bertha was sitting with her arm round Freddie's neck, look­ing out of the window. Her face was turned away, but the back of her head looked sad.

  He stayed only as long as good manners required when they reached the Soameses' house, and when he had gone Clare threw her handbag down and flung herself into a chair.

  Her mother asked sharply, 'Well, you had Oliver all to yourself—is he interested?'

  'Well, of course he is. If only we hadn't taken Bertha with us...'

  'She didn't interfere, I hope.'

  'She didn't get the chance—she hardly spoke to him. I didn't give her the opportunity. She was with his mother most of the time.'

  'What is Mrs Hay-Smythe like?'

  'Oh, boring—talking about the garden and the Women's Institute and doing the flowers for the church. She was in the greenhouse when we got there. I thought she was one of the servants.'

  'Not a lady?' asked her mother, horrified.

  'Oh, yes, no doubt about that. Plenty of money too, I should imagine. The house is lovely—it would be a splendid country home for weekends if we could have a decent flat here.' She laughed. 'The best of both worlds.'

  Bertha, in her room, changing out of the two-piece and getting into another of Clare's too-elaborate dresses, told the kitchen cat, who was enjoying a sto­len hour or so on her bed, all about her day.

  ‘I don't suppose Oliver will be able to withstand Clare for much longer—only I mustn't call him Oliver, must I? I'm not supposed to have more than a nodding acquaintance with him.' She sat down on the bed, the better to address her companion. ‘I think that is what I must do in the future, just nod. I think about him too much and I miss him...'

  She went to peer at her face in the mirror and nod­ded at its reflection. 'Plain as a pikestaff, my girl.'

  Dinner was rather worse than usual, for there were no guests and that gave her stepmother and Clare the opportunity to criticise her behaviour during the day.

  'Clare tells me that you spent too much time with Mrs Hay-Smythe...'

  Bertha popped a morsel of fish into her mouth and chewed it. 'Well,' she said reasonably, 'what else was I to do? Clare wouldn't have liked it if I'd attached myself to Dr Hay-Smythe, and it would have looked very ill-mannered if I'd just gone off on my own.'

  Mrs Soames glared, seeking for a quelling reply. 'Anyway, you should never have gone off with the doctor while Clare was in the house with his mother.'

  ‘I enjoyed it. We talked about interesting things— the donkey and the orchard and the house.'

  'He must have been bored,' said her stepmother crossly.

  Bertha looked demure. 'Yes, I think that some of the time he was—very bored.'

  Clare tossed her head. 'Not when he was with me,' she said smugly, but her mother shot Bertha a frown­ing look.

  ‘I think you should understand, Bertha, that Dr Hay-Smythe is very likely about to propose marriage to your stepsister...'

  'Has he said so?' asked Bertha composedly. She studied Mrs Soames, whose high colour had turned faintly purple.

  'Certainly not, but one feels these things.' Mrs Soames pushed her plate aside. ‘I am telling you this because I wish you to refuse any further invitations which the doctor may offer you—no doubt out of kindness.'

  'Why?'

  'There is an old saying—two is company, three is a crowd.'

  'Oh, you don't want me to play gooseberry. I looked like one today in that frightful outfit Clare passed on to me.'

  'You ungrateful—' began Clare, but was silenced by a majestic wave of her mother's hand.

  'I cannot think what has come over you, Bertha. Presumably this day's outing has gone to your head. The two-piece Clare so kindly gave you is charming.'

  'Then why doesn't she wear it?' asked Bertha, feel­ing reckless. She wasn't sure what had come over her either, but she was
rather enjoying it. ‘I would like some new clothes of my own.'

  Mrs Soames's bosom swelled alarmingly. 'That is enough, Bertha. I shall buy you something suitable when I have the leisure to arrange it. I think you had better have an early night, for you aren't yourself... The impertinence...'

  'Is that what it is? It feels nice!' said Bertha.

  She excused herself with perfect good manners and went up to her room. She lay in the bath for a long time, having a good cry but not sure why she was crying. At least, she had a vague idea at the back of her head as to why she felt lonely and miserable, but she didn't allow herself to pursue the matter. She got into bed and the cat curled up against her back, purr­ing in a comforting manner, so that she was lulled into a dreamless sleep.

  Her mother and Clare had been invited to lunch with friends who had a house near Henley. Bertha had been invited too, but she didn't know that. Mrs Soames had explained to their hosts that she had a severe cold in the head and would spend the day in bed.

  Bertha was up early, escorting the cat back to her rightful place in the kitchen and making herself tea. She would have almost the whole day to herself; Crook was to have an afternoon off and Cook's sister was coming to spend the day with her.

  Mrs Soames found this quite satisfactory since Bertha could be served a cold lunch and get her own tea if Cook decided to walk down to the nearest bus stop with her sister. The daily maid never came on a Sunday.

  All this suited Bertha; she drank her tea while the cat lapped milk, and decided what she would do with her day. A walk—a long walk. She would go to St James's Park and feed the ducks. She went back up­stairs to dress and had almost finished breakfast when

  Clare joined her. Bertha said good morning and she got a sour look, which she supposed was only to be expected.

  It was after eleven o'clock by the time Mrs Soames and Clare had driven away. Bertha, thankful that it was a dull, cold day, allowing her to wear the lime-green which she felt was slightly less awful than the two-piece, went to tell Crook that she might be late for lunch and ask him to leave it on a tray for her before he left the house and set out.