The Most Marvelous Summer

by Betty Neels

  He stopped the car and turned to look at her. `Do you know, Miss ffinch, I cannot remember when I was cross-examined so thoroughly?'

  She stared at him, stricken. `I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry-I just wanted-I was interested...'

  He smiled then and her heart turned over. `I rather enjoyed it. Is that your sister waving to us from the other side of the road?'

  A snub, a gentle one, but still a snub. Matilda went a delightful pink and frowned ferociously, remembering the string of questions she had flung at him; he probably thought her a dull country woman with nothing better to do than poke her nose into other people's affairs. Her daydream had been shattered by a few wellchosen words on his part and life would never be the same again. The quicker he went away and she never set eyes on him again the better. She said in a sober voice, `Yes, that's Esme.'

  It was a good thing that Esme elected to sit beside him and chatter non-stop so that Matilda had no need to say much; she thanked him rather primly as he stopped at the rectory gates but it was Esme who urged him to go in with them. An invitation he declined pleasantly enough.

  He had gone the next day, or so it seemed from a remark her father made the following evening, and it was then that she realised that she had no idea what he did or who he really was. He had the calm self-assured manner of a

  solicitor and she had heard him discussing a point of law with the rector during his brief visit. Solicitors, she had always supposed, earned themselves a good living, good enough to run a Rolls-she allowed her thoughts to wander-he might have to get a cheaper car when he married though; his wife would want clothes and the children would need to be educated. She made a resolution then and there not to think about him any more. That she had fallen in love with a man who was on the point of getting married to some other girl was a trick of unkind fate, and there was nothing to do about it.

  A week went by, the boys went back to school and so did Esme, and Hilary was home again. Matilda's days were full: Lady Fox each day, choir practice on Thursday evening, Sunday school, driving her father to one or two of the more distant farms; the pattern of her future, reflected Matilda, indulging in a rare attack of self-pity, and then forgetting to be sorry for herself when she went for a Sunday afternoon stroll through the woods above the village. It really was a delightful day; the sky was blue, the trees were turning green even as she looked at them and there were lambs racing around the fields, and when she sat on a tree stump to get her breath a squirrel came and sat within a yard or two of her. There were compensations, she told herself stoutly.

  She was surprised to find Lady Fox waiting for her in the hall when she went there on the Monday morning. She wondered uneasily if she had done something really dire, like sending a letter in the wrong envelope, but from the smile on Lady Fox's face she thought that unlikely.

  `There you are, Matilda,' said Lady Fox unnecessarily. `Come into the sitting-room, will you? I should like a word with you.'

  She nodded to a chair and Matilda sat down, wondering what to expect.

  'Roseanne,' began Lady Fox, `has consented to pay a visit to London-her godmother, you know, the Honourable Mrs Venables. I am delighted; she is bound to meet people.' Lady Fox really meant young men free to marry. `There is simply no one of her age and class here.'

  Matilda said nothing, although that was difficult; the ffinches had been in and around Dorset For centuries and were as good, if not better than the Foxes, and what was more her mother was distantly related to a peer of the realm-so distant, it must be said, that her family name was a mere dot on the outskirts of the lordly Family tree-all the same, it was there.

  `Such a pity,' went on Lady Fox in what she considered to be a confidential voice, `that Mr Scott-Thurlow is engaged to be married, although of course he would have been rather old for Roseanne-a pity that I wasn't told.'

  `You were telling me about Roseanne's visit,' prompted Matilda while she thought about Mr Scott-Thurlow.

  `I am coming to that. She will go only on the condition that you go with her. The visit is for a month and you would go as her companion. Her godmother has no objection, and I shall of course pay you your usual salary. In a week's time.'

  'I'll talk it over with my mother and father,' said Matilda in a quiet voice which her nearest and dearest would have recognised as the first sign of rage coming to the boil. `I shall want to consider it myself.'

  Lady Fox looked astounded. `But my dear girl, it is such a splendid opportunity for you to see something of the sophisticated world-you might even meet some suitable young man. If you are worried about clothes I'm sure-'

  `No, I'm not worried about clothes, Lady Fox. I'm not sure that I want to go to London. I really must have a day or two to think about it.'

  Lady Fox's formidable frontage swelled alarmingly. `Well, really, I don't know what to say. It is most important that Roseanne should go-she is so-so countrified and gauche. Vera and Mary are so much younger and already quite self-possessed.'

  Matilda, who disliked the two teenagers, agreed politely; Roseanne was dull and had no backbone worth mentioning, but at least she wasn't rude.

  Lady Fox rose. `Well, since you seem to want time to think over this splendid offer, perhaps you will let me know as soon as you have decided? Now, will you see to the post and wash the Sevres? I have to go in to Sherborne. I shall be back for lunch-Sir Benjamin is out so there will be just myself, Roseanne and yourself. Tell Cook, will you?'

  She hurried away, looking cross, and Matilda wandered off to the kitchen where she discussed lunch with Cookk and had a cup of tea before going through the post.

  She was in the china pantry washing the precious Sevres china when Roseanne wandered in.

  'Matilda, you will come with me, won't you? I won't go unless you do. Mother keeps on and on, if I don't go I won't stay here either, I'll run away.'

  Matilda eyed her carefully. Roseanne meant it. The worm had turned, and, let loose on an uncaring world, Roseanne wouldn't stand a chance...

  `I'll have to discuss it with Mother and Father but I don't think they would mind, just for a few weeks.'

  `You'll come? Oh, Matilda, I'll never be able to thank you enough I'll do anything...'

  `No need,' said Matilda prosaically, `I dare say it will be quite fun.'

  Her parents raised no objection; she told Lady Fox the next day that she was willing to go with Roseanne and listened to that lady's monologue about the benefits of London to a girl like Roseanne. `Of course you may not get invited to the dinner parties and dances her godmother will arrange, but I dare say you will be glad of that.'

  `Why?' asked Matilda with interest.

  Lady Fox went an unbecoming red. `Oh, I have no intention of being rude, Matilda-what I mean is that you will need time to yourself occasionally and there will be no need to attend all the parties Roseanne is bound to go to. I rely upon you to see that she buys only suitable clothes, and please discourage any friendships she may strike up if the-er-young man isn't suitable. She is very young...'

  Twenty-two wasn't all that young, thought Matilda, and it was high time Roseanne found her own feet and stood on them.

  At home, she inspected her wardrobe and decided that there was no need to buy anything new. She had two evening dresses, both off the peg and by no means new, but nevertheless pretty. She had a good suit, blouses and sweaters enough, a skirt or two and a rather nice jersey dress bought in the January sales. She climbed the narrow stairs to the attic, found a rather battered case, hauled it downstairs and packed it without enthusiasm. London in the spring would come a poor second to Abner Magna.

  Each day she was taken aside and lectured by Lady Fox about the London visit; she must do this and not that, young men were to be scrutinised and Roseanne wasn't to go gallivanting off...

  Matilda forbore from pointing out that the girl was the last person on earth to gallivant, and anyway with those spots and that unfortunate nose she wasn't likely to get the chance. Let the poor girl have her fling! However ti
mid, she was a nice girl and perhaps with her mother out of the way she might even improve enormously.

  She made suitable replies to Lady Fox's remarks and that lady, looking at her, wished for the hundredth time that it could have been someone else but Matilda ffinch who was going with Roseanne; the girl was too pretty-more than that, that hair and those wide eyes weren't to be ignored. She would have to drop a word in Roseanne's godmother's ear to make sure that Matilda attended as few dances and parties as possible; no one-no man-would look at the dear girl while Matilda was there, although give the girl her due she wasn't a young woman to push herself forward; she knew her place, Lady Fox reflected, happily unaware of the superiority of the ffinches over the Foxes.

  They were to travel up to London in the Foxes' Daimler driven by Gregg the chauffeur and gardener. Matilda got up early, made a tour of the rather untidy garden, ate a good breakfast and presented herself at the manor at nine o' clock sharp.

  Roseanne, wearing expensive mud-brown tweeds, quite unsuitable for the time of year, looked as though she would change her mind about going at any moment; Matilda bustled her briskly into the car with the promise that they would telephone as soon as they arrived and they drove away.

  It was a pleasant morning, chilly still but the sun shone and Matilda, chatting bracingly about the pleasures in store, wanted very much to get out of the car and walk or get on to her old bike and potter off for the day. She listened sympathetically to Roseanne's uncertain hopes for the next few weeks, bolstered her up with the delights of London in store for her and whenever she had a moment thought about Mr Scott-Thurlow.

  The Honourable Mrs Venables lived in Kensington, in a massive red brick flat, furnished with splendour and a regrettable tendency to overdo crimson velvet, gilding wherever possible and dark, heavy furniture. She received them graciously and somewhat absent-mindedly, since she was holding a lengthy telephone conversation when they arrived. They sat while she concluded this and were then handed over to a dour-looking woman who led them down a long corridor to two rooms at its end, overlooking a narrow garden and more red brick walls.

  `There's the bathroom,' they were told. `You share it. My name's Bertha.'

  `I'm not going to like it,' declared Roseanne when they were alone in her room. Her lip quivered. `I want to go home.'

  `We've only just got here,' Matilda pointed out. `At least let's give it a try. It's all a bit strange-you'll feel better after lunch.'

  She was right; Mrs Venables had a great deal to say over the meal, laying out for Roseanne's approbations the various entertainments she had arranged for her. `We shall have a quiet evening here today,' she said, `but tomorrow we might go shopping and there's an excellent film we might see in the evening. I shall leave you two girls to amuse yourselves during the day-there is plenty to see and do. I have arranged a dinner party or two and there are several invitations for you.' It all sounded rather fun so that when Roseanne telephoned her mother after lunch she said nothing about wanting to return home.

  They spent the next day or two finding their feet. The mornings were taken up with shopping; Roseanne had plenty of money and urged by Matilda bought the clothes she had always wanted and never had the smallest chance to since her mother had always accompanied her. It was a surprise what a difference they made to her appearance, especially when Matilda, given carte blanche at the cosmetic counters, found a cream to disguise the spots and chose lipstick, blusher and eye-shadow and applied them to her companion's face. `Don't you want to buy anything?' asked Roseanne. `Clothes?'

  Matilda assured her, quite untruthfully, that she didn't.

  It was their third day there and they had been shopping again. It was Matilda who stopped outside an art gallery with a discreet notice, `Exhibition Within', and suggested that they might take a look.

  The gallery was a series of rooms, very elegant and half filled with viewers, and the first person Matilda saw there was Mr Scott-Thurlow.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MR SCOTT-THURLOW wasn't alone: there was a tall, willowy girl beside him, a fashion-plate, so slim that she might have been cut out of cardboard. She was exquisitely made up and her hair was a teased-out halo, lacquered into immobility. She was beautiful but there was no animation in her face; indeed, she looked bored, far more interested in arranging the pleats of her long skirt than viewing the large painting before which they stood.

  Matilda, after the first shock of delight, wanted perversely nothing so much as to get as far away from Mr Scott-Thurlow as possible, but Roseanne had seen him too. She darted up to him and caught his sleeve.

  `Fancy seeing you here, Mr Scott-Thurlow-' for once she had forgotten her shyness `-and Matilda's with me...'

  He took her hand and shook it gently and his voice was kind. `How delightful to see you again, Roseanne. Are you staying in town?' He turned to his companion. 'Rhoda, this is Roseanne Fox; we met in Dorset a few weeks ago.' He smiled at Roseanne. `My fiancee, Rhoda Symes.'

  He looked past her to where Matilda was waiting and his smile faded, indeed he looked angry but so fleetingly that watching him she decided that she had imagined it. There was nothing else to do but to join Roseanne, greet him politely and be introduced in her turn to the girl with him.

  Rhoda Symes was everything that she wasn't, reflected Matilda sadly, thinking of her own pleasant plumpness and kind of knowing that in the eyes of this girl she was .just plain fat, size fourteen, wearing all the wrong make-up and with the wrong-coloured hair... All the same she gave the girl a friendly smile-if she was going to make Mr Scott-Thurlow a happy man, then she, Matilda, would make the best of it; she loved him too much to think otherwise.

  The girl was lovely. Matilda supposed that in all fairness if she were a man she would undoubtedly fall for all that elegant beauty.

  They stood and talked for a few minutes until Matilda observed that they still had almost the whole of the exhibition to see and since Roseanne was interested hadn't they better get started?

  She bade Mr Scott-Thurlow a colourless goodbye and smiled without guile at Rhoda Symes, trying not to see the very large diamond on her left hand-a hand which that lady flourished rather too prominently.

  `I say,' said Roseanne excitedly, `isn't she absolutely lovely? I wonder if we'll get asked to the wedding?' She added, not meaning to be rude, `Not you, of course.'

  Matilda, contemplating a large oil-painting which she thought privately looked as though the artist had upset his paint pots over the canvas, agreed cheerfully to this remark; wild horses wouldn't drag her to Mr Scott-Thurlow's wedding-he was, as far as she was concerned, a closed book. Or so she told herself.

  Roseanne's godmother gave a dinner party on the following evening; just a few friends, the Honourable Mrs Venables had said, most of them unattached men of suitable age with a complement of safely married ladies; Roseanne must have her chance and a dinner party was a very good way of getting to know people. Matilda was to attend too although her hostess would have been happier not to have had the competition; she consoled herself with the thought that men didn't care for such bright red hair.

  Matilda did her best to look inconspicuous; she did her hair in a severe french pleat, wore an unassuming gown-grey crepe and several years out of date-and stayed in the background as much as possible. Nevertheless she attracted the attention of the company, and since she was a nice, unassuming girl the ladies of the party liked her as well as the men. She did her best to see that Roseanne was a success and her godmother had to admit that Matilda hadn't made any attempt to draw attention to herself. All the same, an excuse would have to be found for Roseanne to go without her to the dinner dance later that week, and Matilda, being told on the morning of that day that she looked poorly and perhaps it would be wise if she didn't go out that evening, agreed for Roseanne's sake that she had a very bad headache and an early night would do her the world of good.

  Of course, during the days she was expected to accompany Roseanne wherever she had a fancy to go, leaving her
godmother to pursue her own busy social life, and it was a day or so after the dinner dance that they found themselves in the National Gallery. It was while they were admiring some splendid examples of the Netherlandish school that the young man standing close by spoke to them, or rather to Roseanne.

  `Forgive me,' he began, `I overheard you discussing this picture-you know something about it, do you not? Are you interested in oil paintings of that period?'

  When Roseanne nodded, her beaky nose quivering with the unexpectedness of it all, he asked, `You paint yourself?' Then when she nodded again, `Then let me explain...'

  Which he did at some length, taking her from one painting to the next with Matilda, intrigued, keeping discreetly in the background. He seemed all right; he had a nice open face, not good-looking, but his gaze was direct, and he had introduced himself and shaken hands. `Bernard Stevens,' he told them, working as a picture restorer for a famous art gallery and painting when he had the time. Roseanne had to be prised away from him after half an hour or so but only after she had promised to meet him there on the following morning, ostensibly to discuss more paintings but Matilda, studying her face, thought that was only partly the reason.