Small Slice of Summer. Бетти Нилс

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СКАЧАТЬ and dinner but half an hour away. Julius got up to get him a drink. ‘A bit of a rush?’ he wanted to know.

      ‘The Commando went wrong—he picked up eventually, but it lost us a couple of hours, we didn’t finish until six o’clock.’

      Georgina glanced at the carriage clock on its bracket. ‘You made good time.’

      He had taken a seat at the other end of the sofa where Letitia was sitting. ‘The car went well.’ He looked at Letitia. ‘How far to Chagford, dear girl?’

      She jumped because she hadn’t expected his question. ‘Well…yes, the thing is Georgina told me…it’s very kind of you to offer me a lift, but I really can’t…if you wouldn’t mind dropping me off at Paddington…’ She stopped, aware that she wasn’t making much of a success of it.

      ‘I think you’ve got it wrong,’ explained Jason, at his most placid. ‘I’m going down to Plymouth tomorrow— I have to. I might just as well take you as not—the car’s empty and I’m not going more than a few miles out of my way. It’s no sacrifice on my part, Letitia.’

      She told herself that she was relieved to hear that even while a faint prick of annoyance shot through her; would it have been such a sacrifice if he had been asked to drive her down to Chagford? Probably; he had called her touchy, hadn’t he? And damned sensitive, too—and he had wanted to go to sleep instead of talking to her. That still rankled a little. He must find her incredibly dull after the glamorous young ladies he was doubtless in the habit of escorting. She said in a wooden voice: ‘Well, thank you, I’ll be glad of a lift. When do you want to start tomorrow?’

      ‘That brings us back to my question. How far to Chagford?’

      ‘A hundred and eighty-seven miles from London.’

      ‘A good road?’

      She frowned in thought. ‘Well, I don’t know it very well. It’s the M3 and then the A30 for the rest of the way, more or less.’

      ‘Good enough. We’ll go round the ring road and pick up the motorway on the other side of London. Leave at nine sharp? You’ll be home for tea.’

      ‘It’s quite a few miles to Plymouth from my home,’ she reminded him.

      ‘That’s all right, Letitia,’ he told her pleasantly. ‘I enjoy driving, it makes a nice change from theatre, you know.’

      ‘That’s settled, then,’ said Georgina comfortably. ‘Let’s have dinner, Mrs Stephens has made a special effort by way of a farewell gesture to you, Tishy, so we mustn’t spoil it.’ She turned to Jason. ‘You’ll be back in a day or two, won’t you? Spend a day or two here on your way home.’

      ‘Thanks, George, but only an hour or so—I can’t expect Bas to do my work and his for ever.’

      ‘You do his when he goes on holiday, but I know what you mean. Still, we’ll see you when we come over on holiday.’

      ‘Of course. Julius and I might even get in some sailing.’ A remark which triggered off a conversation about boats which lasted through dinner, and although the talk became general afterwards, Letitia, on her way up to bed an hour or so later, discovered that beyond casual remarks which she could count on the fingers of one hand, Jason hadn’t talked to her at all. She went to bed a little worried, for it augured ill for their journey the next day. Would they travel in silence, she wondered, or should she attempt to entertain him with lighthearted remarks about this and that? It was a great pity that she knew nothing about sailing and not much about fast cars. And it would bore him to talk about his work. She was still worrying away at her problem like a dog at a bone when she at last fell asleep.

      CHAPTER THREE

      IT WAS A glorious morning and bade fair to be a hot day; the tan jersey suit was going to be far too warm before very long. Letitia wished she had something thinner to wear, until she saw that Jason intended travelling with the BMW’s hood down. She prudently tied a scarf over her hair, assured him that she liked fresh air, bade her friends good-bye and got into the seat beside him, eyeing the restrained elegance of his cotton sweater and slacks; he was a man who looked elegant in anything he wore, she considered, blissfully unaware of the price he paid for such elegance.

      ‘Warm enough?’ he wanted to know, and when she said yes, nodded carelessly and with a last wave took the car down the drive, past the little lodge and into the lane. ‘Nice day for a run,’ he observed, then lapsed into silence. Now would be the time, thought Letitia, when she should embark on a sparkling conversation which would hold him enthralled, but there wasn’t an idea in her head, and the harder she thought, the emptier it became.

      ‘Ankle all right?’ asked her companion, and she embarked with relief on its recovery, her gratitude to Julius and Georgina and himself, and how much she had enjoyed her stay at Dalmers Place. But even repeating herself once or twice couldn’t spin her colloquy out for ever; she lapsed into silence once more, looking at the scenery with almost feverish interest in case Jason should imagine that he might be forced to entertain her.

      They were slowing down to go through Epping when he said blandly: ‘This erstwhile young man of yours—did he train you to speak only when spoken to?’

      She was instantly affronted. ‘What a perfectly beastly thing to say! Of course not. I—I can’t think of anything to talk about, if you must know.’

      ‘Dear girl, I’m in the mood to be entertained by the lightest of chat, and surely you’re used to me by now— Big Brother Jason, and all that.’

      She laughed then and he said at once: ‘That’s better. I thought we might stop for coffee before we get on to the motorway—Windsor, perhaps, with luck we should be able to lunch in Ilminster, unless there is anywhere else you would prefer?’

      She shook her head. She didn’t know of any restaurants as far-flung as that; when she had gone out with Mike he had taken her to unpretentious places where he always made a point of assuring her that the food was good however humble the establishment appeared to be. She suspected that his ideas of good food weren’t quite in the same category as Jason’s; certainly the hotel where he chose to stop for coffee was a four-star establishment, the kind of place Mike would have considered a great waste of money. She savoured the luxury of their pleasant surroundings and began to enjoy herself. Jason was a charming companion and amusing and not in the least anxious to impress her. They went on their way presently, nicely embarked on the kind of casual talk which demanded very little effort and allowed for the maximum of laughter. Letitia hardly noticed the miles as they slipped by under the BMW’s wheels, and when they stopped in Ilminster, she said regretfully: ‘How quickly the time has gone!’

      The doctor smiled gently, remarking merely that he was hungry and hoped that she was too as he ushered her into the George Hotel. ‘See you in five minutes in the bar,’ he suggested, and left her to tidy her wildly untidy hair and re-do her face. The freckles were worse than ever, she noted with disquiet, and then decided to ignore them; Jason had said he liked them.

      The hotel was a pleasant place. They had their drinks and then ate their lunch with healthy appetites; cold roast beef, cut paper-thin, with a salad so fresh that it looked as though it had just been picked from the garden, and a rhubarb pie which melted in the mouth to follow, accompanied by enough clotted cream to feed a family of six. They washed down this splendid meal with a red Bordeaux and rounded everything off with coffee before taking to the road once more, making short work of the miles to Exeter, and once through that city and СКАЧАТЬ