Judith
Page 26
“Oh yes, Judith is a good cook, but is she economical?”
In a private house what the wedding cost would not be so apparent. It could be suggested that all the food was made at home, and the champagne was a present from rich Uncle Basil. It could not be held against a wife that she had a rich Uncle, whereas it could that she had an extravagant Father, especially as that Father had a lot to live down already in that he was divorced, and therefore, since he had reclamed, probably a libertine.
Marion’s next move was without Philip’s approval.
“Now, dear,” she had said to Judith, “I want you to sit down and write to each cousin and ask them to be your bridesmaid.”
Judith had turned pink with horror.
“Oh no! I couldn’t. They’d hate it, and anyway Philip wouldn’t want it.”
Marion knew perfectly well that was true. She knew families just like Philip’s, whose eyebrows shot up and down at a hint of what they called “ostentation”.
“Nonsense, dear. All men talk that way. But no bride listens . . . Now, I have a list right here of your cousins, and this is the letter I think you should write . . .”
When Judith’s letters had been received the Winster telephones had buzzed again.
“Extraordinary her wanting Helen, she only met her that once at Charlotte’s wedding, and Helen was only a mite at the time.”
“Extraordinary girl! You would think nothing had ever happened. She wrote to both Catherine and Cynthia in the most high-handed way, taking it for granted they would say yes. Cynthia of course is delighted, she is going through a ridiculous period planning to be a model, so dressing up for a wedding is her idea of heaven.”
In the end Judith, in the big spare room in the Hampstead house, trembling with memories and fright, had been dressed with loving care by Marion and Miss Simpson in an exquisite frock brought by Marion from America. Later she had been followed up the aisle not only by Catherine, Cynthia and Helen, but by three nieces of Philip’s, all looking charming in dresses also brought by Marion from America. Later, almost speechless with fright, Judith had been changed out of her wedding garments into her going-away dress by Marion and Miss Simpson.
“Oh, Mrs. Winster,” Miss Simpson had said as she watched the car with the shoe bumping behind it disappear round a bend, “I hope it will turn out well, but it’s been a very quick engagement, and I had a feeling right up to the last moment that you had only to raise a finger and she would have changed her mind.”
Marion had smiled.
“Not even a finger, a finger nail would have done. But I know I am right, Miss Simpson. That girl is in love and Philip is in love with her, but if I hadn’t given her a push nothing would have happened. You see, she felt kind of safe with me . . .”
“But surely she will feel safe with him?”
Marion shook her head.
“Not if he can help it. He knows what he wants, that young man, and it’s a woman, not a child. I wouldn’t worry, my money is on Philip.”
“And my hope is Saint Jude,” thought Miss Simpson.
* * * * *
The following August Philip and Judith were in Scotland. He had three weeks’ holiday, and Judith, whose baby would be born in October, was looking rather peaky; the air of Scotland after nine months in the black country, where he had a practice, would do her good. On the way north they had called on Philip’s maternal grandparents, whom Judith had never met, and, though he did not say so, he had been proud at how well the meeting had gone. The grandparents, in their tiny cottage, had been their usual fine dignified selves, and that he had expected, what he had not been sure of was their approval of Judith. As well he had not been absolutely sure what Judith would make of the grandparents; she was by inclination a good mixer, but she still was too inclined to shrink behind him, and that the grandparents would not understand. But the meeting had gone off splendidly; Judith had chatted to the old people as if she had known them all her life, and they quietly and fondly had accepted her as Philip’s wife.
“If only,” thought Philip, watching Judith, “she could always be like this.” And while Judith and the grandparents talked, he had thought back over the months since their wedding. They had been wonderfully happy in almost every way. Physically they were ideally suited, Judith was proving a fine housewife even by his family’s standards, but there was a flaw: try as he would he could not make her move; without him. It was all wrong, as a busy doctor he scarcely saw her all day, except at meals, the house could not occupy all her time. There were any amount of ways in which she could have occupied herself, useful ways; other wives were busy and amused from morning to night, but not Judith, no matter when he came in there she was waiting for him, and to all his remonstrances she only replied:
“But I don’t want anything but you and this house. Oh Philip, it’s so gorgeous being just us.”
It was not the way to build a permanently happy marriage, and he knew it. He was pinning his hopes on the baby, perhaps when she had a child of her own Judith would change, or would she? A baby completely dependent on her might be all she demanded from life. Yet there was a Judith underneath whom he had not yet met, he was sure of it. A Judith who was a person in her own right, not a shadow of her husband.
The cottage they had rented was in the Highlands three miles from the nearest village. Philip liked it because he loved Scotland, Judith because she was alone with Philip. The first ten days passed blissfully. Then, on the eleventh night, what Philip afterwards called “The Miracle” happened. After dark a mist came up and blotted out the landscape, visibility was down to a few yards. Philip and Judith were undressing for bed when they were startled by a crash. A car had missed the road and collided with the post which carried their telephone line. A hurried investigation by Philip found two of the occupants of the car badly injured and one dead. He thought things over. He dared not move the patients into his small car, he must get an ambulance, and that meant going themselves since the accident had brought their telephone wires down.
“I can’t do much for them,” he explained to Judith, “they must be got into hospital.”
“In the car?”
“No. Getting them into it might finish them off. We’ll have to drive for help; God knows how far it’ll be before we find a telephone that’s working.”
“You go,” said Judith, “I’ll look after the patients. Just tell me what to do.”
An hour later Philip and Judith watched the ambulance drive away. Judith was holding the blankets from their beds, with which, following Philip’s instructions, she had covered the patients.
“I used my hot-water bottle first on one and then on the other. That woman who came round kept asking for water, I felt awful not giving her any, but you said I mustn’t . . .”
Philip pulled the blankets from her arms, threw them on the ground and dragged her fiercely to him.
“Do you know, my wife, what we are going to do tomorrow?”
“No. What?”
His cheek was against hers. His voice was warm with happiness.
“We are going to buy you a present. I don’t know what, but I know what I’m going to have engraved on it. Do you realise you didn’t say ‘I’m coming too’? You didn’t say ‘Who’s going to look after Judith?’. You didn’t say ‘I’m having a baby in two months, you can’t leave me alone to look after myself.’ So on my present I shall put the date, and these words: ‘This day Judith was born’.”
THE END
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Noel Streafeild
Mary Noel Streatfeild was born in Sussex in 1895. She was one of five children born to the Anglican Bishop of Lewes and found vicarage life very restricting. During World War One, Noel and her siblings volunteered in hospital kitchens and put on plays to support war charities, which is where she discovered her talent on stage. She studied at RADA to pursue a career in the theatre and
after ten years as an actress turned her attention to writing adult and children’s fiction. Her experiences in the arts heavily influenced her writing, most notably her famous children’s story Ballet Shoes which won a Carnegie Medal and was awarded an OBE in 1983. Noel Streatfeild died in 1986.
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Bello
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First published 1956 by Collins
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