by Betty Neels
Mr Ross-Pitt said in a voice which gave nothing away, ‘Splendid. I’m sure you enjoyed her company, Matty. Are you well? Do you need anything?’
He didn’t mention Henrietta again, nor did he make any attempt to see her; she would be showing tourists round until the late afternoon and he had no excuse to call at the lodge; besides, Mrs Pettifer would be there.
He spent the rest of the day working in his study, only coming out in order to take Watson for a walk. He was a man of patience; he wanted Henrietta but he might have to wait a long time for her, perhaps lose her; David was a decent young man and her own age. Mr Ross-Pitt, sitting there behind his handsome desk, felt decidedly middle-aged. Not that he had any intention of giving way to despair, rather would he bide his time.
* * *
HENRIETTA GOT TO the lodge with ten minutes to spare, so that her thanks to David were hurried. It had been a pleasant journey and, since she was a person people confided in without realising it, she had soon been the recipient of David’s plans for the future.
There was a girl, he’d told her; he had met her at a friend’s house. ‘She’s eighteen,’ he had said, ‘but she says she’ll wait—I’ve got another eighteen months before I’m ordained... Do you think she would be too young to marry?’
‘Heavens, no, especially as you love each other; and what a support she will be to you, David. I mean, you’ll grow old together, you’ll have all your lives to look forward to. What do her parents think about it?’
‘They don’t think we should be engaged yet.’
‘Why ever not? If I were you I’d buy a ring and put it on her finger.’
He had laughed then. ‘Do you know, I believe that I will?’ he’d said.
They had parted on excellent terms and she had hurried up to the manor just in time to sit down at the table for the Sunday dinner that Feathers insisted they all attended.
‘Had a nice time?’ asked Cook, dishing out Yorkshire pudding with a lavish hand.
‘Yes, thank you, Cook. Matty is so kind and I went for a long walk.’
Addy gave her a pitying glance. On her own, no doubt. Poor kid—a fat chance she had of getting to know any young men; besides, she didn’t make much of an effort to go and look for one. Addy, who had what she called her ‘steady’, as well as several casual boyfriends, felt sorry for her.
Henrietta, unaware of Addy’s concern, ate her dinner, bore her share of the talk, helped clear away the dishes and went to make sure that everything was in readiness for the tourists.
Sunday afternoons were always busy, and over and above that those who came weren’t really interested in the lovely furniture and china, and they didn’t care a button for the portraits of dead-and-gone Hensens; they came out of curiosity, to stare around the rooms to see how the other half lived and, if possible, peep behind closed doors.
Henrietta, reciting her spiel, pausing hopefully for someone to ask a question—any question to let her know that someone was interested—found it hard to talk to such an unresponsive audience. Now and again there would be someone for whom it was all worthwhile, someone who asked questions about the portraits and knew something about the silver and porcelain, who shared her delight in everything.
Not this afternoon, however. Each group had a number of children, bored with going from room to room, breaking away from restraining hands, crying and shouting. The vicar’s wife, roped in to give a helping hand, raised long-suffering eyebrows as their respective parties met and passed in the ballroom.
The last group left at last; the vicar’s wife said, ‘What a frightful afternoon,’ and left too, leaving Henrietta to go from room to room checking that everything was still there and that nothing had been broken or torn. She didn’t hurry because as usual she was thinking about Adam, unaware of the contretemps on Saturday.
It was Mrs Pettifer who had begged everyone to say nothing of it to Henrietta, and Feathers had backed her up.
‘She owes a great deal to Mr Ross-Pitt and has a real regard for him. She said only a few days ago that she hoped he would be happy with Miss Stone. We don’t want her upset, do we?’ She’d looked around at the faces raised to hers. ‘She’s had a poor deal so far, we all know that, and I think she’s happy now. Let’s keep it that way.’
They had all agreed. It was Lady Hensen who let the cat out of the bag. Passing through the great hall, she stopped to speak to Henrietta, busy arranging the giant epergne just so on the long refectory table.
‘Ah, Henrietta, you’ve had a busy afternoon. You went away for the weekend, Mrs Dale tells me. You had an enjoyable time?’
‘Yes, thank you, Lady Hensen.’
‘You missed such a stupid fuss on Saturday evening. My dinner party was almost ruined. Miss Stone—I believe you have seen her here?—phoned from Adam’s house to say that she was staying there and could I possibly squeeze her in for dinner. Well, I ask you, at a moment’s notice; it meant getting another man at the last minute, but I couldn’t refuse without being rude...
‘And do you know that after I’d spent hours looking for an extra man Adam phoned to say that Deirdre had changed her mind? All that fuss for nothing. He didn’t say a word about it when he came and I haven’t asked him. He looked extremely pleased with himself, though.’
She broke off to eye Henrietta. ‘I should finish here, Henrietta; you’re tired out. You need a cup of tea; you’re quite pale.’
Lady Hensen went on her cheerful way and Henrietta sat down carefully on one of the chairs lining the panelled walls—an armchair of the French Empire style with Chinese motifs, and priceless. She sat quietly for a few moments. It wasn’t any use being silly about it, she told herself; Deirdre Stone was going to marry Adam and that was an end of the matter. It was, after all, what she had expected, wasn’t it? So why did she feel bereft? She was no part of his life, just someone whom he had helped when help had been so badly needed. She must wish him well from the bottom of her heart and stop behaving like an emotional idiot.
She got up then, dusted the chair carefully and went to the kitchen where Cook was waiting with a pot of tea.
‘You’ve ‘ad a busy afternoon, I can see. Sit down, do, Henrietta and drink your tea. There’s a batch of scones straight from the oven. Help yourself.’
Henrietta managed the tea but not the scones, sitting there at the long table, alone, for teatime for the kitchen was long past. She was drinking her second cup of tea because Cook insisted when Mrs Pettifer came in.
‘I know I’m not on duty,’ she said, and bit into a scone, ‘but I had to come back for my library book; I left it here...’ She took a look at Henrietta’s face. ‘You’ve had a bad afternoon by the look of you.’
‘Not bad at all,’ said Henrietta in a bright voice which didn’t sound quite like hers. ‘Lady Hensen came into the great hall while I was tidying up; she told me about Miss Stone.’
‘Ah.’ Mrs Pettifer exchanged a quick glance with Cook. ‘Yes, a bit of a mystery, so it seems. I dare say we’ll hear the right of it one day. Mr Ross-Pitt isn’t a man to tell tales, though, and Mrs Patch is very loyal.’ She added, ‘I’m not going away this evening; I fancy a nice quiet day doing nothing with Dickens and Ollie.’
She was rewarded for her change of plan by Henrietta’s grateful look. The child wears her heart on her sleeve, reflected Mrs Pettifer. She plunged into a cheerful account of her long afternoon with friends in Braintree, which gave Henrietta time to pull herself together, and presently they walked back to the lodge, talking about everything under the sun except Mr Ross-Pitt.
* * *
MR ROSS-PITT, BACK at the hospital on Monday, immersed in his busy daily round, kept his mind firmly on his work, and no one who had reason to be with him would have guessed at his bottled-up frustration and rage.
He operated with his usual calm, thanked the theatre staff when the l
ist was over, drank coffee with his theatre sister and then did a ward round with his registrar and a clutch of medical students, all of whom he treated with a patient courtesy which caused even the dullest of them to give the right answers to his questions.
After that he left the hospital to see his private patients at his rooms. They, he thought privately, were much harder to deal with than his students; the elderly man with Parkinson’s disease was relieved to hear that an operation might give him some respite and left after profuse thanks, but the other two patients, told gently that they would need surgery for tumours of the brain, behaved rather differently.
The elder of them, a woman of more than middle age, took refuge in rage and disbelief, both of which he could understand even if it made life for him trying. It was a normal reaction, which he had seen many times, and he used all his skill and kindness to overcome it—something which took time. As for his last patient, a young woman still, she simply did not believe him, and when he had at last convinced her that he must operate she fainted. It was fortunate that she had someone with her—her mother—but it took him some time to soothe his patient sufficiently to arrange for her to enter the hospital she had chosen. It spoke a great deal for the kind of man he was that by the time she left his rooms she had accepted his diagnosis without further fuss.
He went back to the hospital to finish his day, tired now and wanting to be home. And, more than that, he wanted to be home with Henrietta there with him.
It was well past six o’clock by the time he got into the car and started for home; the worst of the rush hour had passed and he made good time. It was a fine evening, and once he had left the city and its suburbs behind he allowed his thoughts to wander. It would have been good sense to have stayed at his flat for the night, he reflected, for he would have to leave early the next morning since he had to operate at one of the big private hospitals at nine o’clock, but he had the admittedly foolish wish to be near Henrietta, even if only for a few hours of the night and with the length of the village between them.
Later, having eaten Mrs Patch’s delicious supper, he took Watson for his walk as far as the lodge, to stand like a lovesick youth and look up at the lighted window where his Henrietta was getting ready for bed. He checked a desire to bang on the door and demand to see her and continued on his way, tiring himself and Watson out before reaching his home again.
He was barely out of sight of the lodge when Henrietta put out the light and went to the window to draw back the curtains. She stood for a minute or so looking out at the not quite dark night, her head as usual full of thoughts of Adam. Most certainly, had she gone to the window five minutes earlier and had he given way to his impulse and thumped the knocker, she would have rushed down and opened the door...
* * *
HENRIETTA PLANNED HER Saturday very carefully. She had to avoid Mr Ross-Pitt at all costs, so she would spend the day in Saffron Walden and, in order to make sure that she wouldn’t meet him in the village, she had prevailed upon the grocer’s van driver from that town to give her a lift. He came every so often with groceries that Cook had ordered—groceries which the village shop or even Thaxted were unable to supply—and when most providentially he had called during that week she had seized the opportunity to ask him.
He’d agreed readily enough. ‘Though I’m not hanging around if you’re not ready by half past nine,’ he’d told her.
She spent the day looking at the shops, choosing the clothes she would like to buy if she had the money. True, she had the money now, but the future, for all its promise, could be uncertain, and she had promised herself that she would never go back to the life she had led before Mr Ross-Pitt had rescued her. Not only that, she would have to go once she had saved enough money; to stay in the village near him wouldn’t help her to forget him. Her plans for the future were vague but inescapable; she was determined to carry them out.
She had lunch in a small café and took herself off to look at the timber-framed houses and admire the pargeting on the brick and flint houses of a slightly later date. They had worn well during the four hundred years of their existence.
She visited the church of St. Mary the Virgin too, and then, still with time on her hands, explored the keep of the Norman castle. A late tea took her to well after five o’clock and she caught the evening bus back.
Adam, if he was at home, would be indoors now, probably getting ready to go to Deirdre or dining out with some of his friends. She would be safe.
All the same, she got out of the bus cautiously, but there was no one about; the tourists had long since gone and the village had settled down to Saturday high tea and the telly.
She was almost at the lodge when she saw him coming towards her down the drive. If she ran she might get to the lodge first and go in and shut the door, pretending that she hadn’t seen him, but then he might find that a strange thing to do. For all she knew he was out for an evening stroll with Watson. Anyway, it was too late now; he had reached her.
Mr Ross-Pitt, at the sight of her, had found himself positively engulfed by strong feelings. No longer the calm, reserved man, admired for his cool composure in the face of difficulties, he reached her in a few rapid strides, caught her in a fierce embrace and kissed her.
Henrietta, taken aback, allowed herself to enjoy his kiss. Indeed, she had no idea that being kissed was such utter bliss; the world, as far as she was concerned, didn’t exist, nor did the Hensens, or her job or Mrs Pettifer... It was Watson’s gentle bark, reminding them that he was there, which brought her back to her senses.
She gave a not very effective push against Adam’s vast chest. ‘This will not do,’ she declared. ‘Whatever next? Please go away quickly and forget all about this—this regrettable incident.’
Even in her own ears this sounded pompous, which was probably why he laughed. ‘You liked it as much as I did, Henrietta.’
‘Yes, I did.’ She had disentangled herself by now and stood facing him. ‘Indeed I did, but it was quite wrong. I’m sorry it happened and it wasn’t very fair of you. I mean, I did tell you that I would keep out of your way and I meant that. I really would rather not see you, and you must know why. I’ll always be grateful to you, you know that, but we have to think of other people who might not like—’
He interrupted her in a suddenly cold voice. ‘Ah, yes, of course, you have your future to consider, do you not? I don’t imagine David is a jealous man, but it wouldn’t do to risk that, would it?’ He went on pleasantly now, ‘My apologies, Henrietta—I shall do my best to ignore you when we next meet.’
He whistled to Watson, who, bored, had walked away, and left her there.
She made no move to go into the lodge. What had he meant about David? If only he had waited a minute and given her time to gather her wits about her she would have asked him. How could David be jealous when he had a girl of his own? Why had Adam kissed her like that when everyone knew that he and Deirdre were going to marry? It was a foregone conclusion in the kitchen.
She did go in finally, to greet Dickens and Ollie, give them their supper and start getting ready a meal for when Mrs Pettifer came back from the manor. When she had been at the children’s home she had frequently been told sternly to count her blessings. She tried to do that now, but not very successfully. For one thing her heart wasn’t in it. Her heart, if Adam did but know it, had been given to him.
* * *
HENRIETTA WENT TO church in the morning. She didn’t sit in her usual place but chose a pew on the other side of the aisle, prudently sitting between two stout ladies and behind the village policeman, who was over six feet tall and with a massive girth; thus she was sure that Mr Ross-Pitt, even if he bothered to look, would never see her. She was wrong, of course, but he gave no sign that he had, leaving the church in the Hensens’ company, to all intents and purposes a man well-pleased with his world.
Henrietta waited
until they had paused at the end of the churchyard to speak to old Colonel Blake and his wife and then took herself off at a smart walk, intent on being out of sight as quickly as possible. Adam, listening with seemingly deep interest to the colonel’s pithy observations concerning the poor state of the country’s politics, watched her go.
He had no intention of going after her—not at the moment; he had every intention of seeing her again and, provided nothing urgent turned up during the next week, he should get home each evening, and if necessary he would bang on the lodge door until she was forced to see him. After all, it wasn’t she who had mentioned David; perhaps he had jumped to the wrong conclusion.
Mr Ross-Pitt, so sane and assured in his judgements, was discovering that Henrietta had, as it were, thrown a spanner into them. In that case, who were the people who might not like...like what?
He phoned Matty that evening, and after a suitable exchange of news asked, ‘Matty, has David fallen for Henrietta? He brought her back, didn’t he? Came to see her...?’
‘Bless you, Mr Adam, whatever gave you such an idea? Why, David’s got a girl already, but of course they’ll have to wait until he’s ordained. He and Henrietta get on well—like brother and sister, you might say.’
She hesitated. ‘Mrs Patch gave me a ring this morning, told me all about that Miss Stone. There’s a shocking lady for you, and no mistake, setting everyone by the ears. Perhaps I shouldn’t be saying that to you, sir?’ It sounded like a question.
‘Matty, you know very well that you can say what you like to anyone in the family. Miss Stone has lost all interest in me and the family.’
‘Your ma will be pleased!’ said Matty in a contented voice.
Mr Ross-Pitt rang off. So it wasn’t David, which made things easier but not all that much. Perhaps his Henrietta had silly notions in her head about their different ways of life—something he felt sure that he could solve if only he could get her to listen to him.
