Victory for Victoria. Betty Neels

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СКАЧАТЬ sent the blood to her cheeks. It would be silly to refuse and anyway she liked his face—his mouth was firm and kind and his eyes steady. She advanced with dignity and turned her back at his bidding while he began to rub her hair with the damp handkerchief.

      ‘Untamed,’ he remarked, ‘your hair, I mean. Don’t you find it a nuisance?’

      Really, thought Victoria, what a man he was! Could he say nothing pleasant? He had done nothing but find fault with her, and now her hair… Her beautiful tawny eyes flashed, she said with deceptive sweetness: ‘No, not in the least—I like it like this,’ and heard him laugh softly.

      ‘Ah,’ he commented in the same mild voice with which he had first spoken, ‘one of those young women who are above fashion and suchlike nonsense. There, that is the best I can do, and the rain has stopped.’ He stuffed the sopping handkerchief into his pocket. ‘Shall we go? You’re on your way back to St Peter Port, I suppose?’

      Victoria gave him a considered glance. She could of course go on to Fermain Bay as she had planned to do, but on the other hand, although he had vexed her quite unnecessarily and frightened her out of her life, she felt a strong urge to find out a little more about her companion. When, after a moment, he said: ‘You’re quite safe, you know,’ any doubts about the advisability of joining him on the return walk were instantly swamped by indignation, and as if that wasn’t enough he added: ‘It’s rather a lonely walk for a girl on her own, isn’t it?’

      Victoria looked down her nicely shaped nose. ‘I’m twenty-three,’ she informed him in a voice which, though controlled, throbbed with anger.

      ‘That isn’t quite what I meant.’ He spoke carelessly as he turned away from her. ‘The path will be abominably muddy. Shall I go first?’

      She walked behind him, answering his occasional remarks with a politeness which admitted of no wish to be friendly on her part. Not that this seemed to worry him; his own friendliness was quite unforced and he made no attempt to find out anything about her, and Victoria, who was used to men looking at her at least twice and certainly wanting to know something about her, felt let down. She wasn’t a conceited girl, but she was a remarkably pretty one and she would have been a fool not to know it. It irked her now that she had made no impression on this man; he had even implied that she had no idea how to dress. She eyed his broad back resentfully; it was a pity that she was unlikely to meet him again when she was dressed with her usual careful eye to fashion.

      ‘Do you live here?’ she asked.

      He didn’t slow his pace but said over one shoulder, ‘No,’ and nothing more. She was right, her chance of seeing him again was negligible. For some reason she felt sorry, then she told herself that it was because she had taken a dislike to him and it would have given her great satisfaction to have met him again, herself becomingly dressed, and put him in his place. She began reviewing her wardrobe, deciding what she would wear for that occasion, and then grinned ruefully to herself because of course they wouldn’t meet again. He was probably an early visitor to the island; there was nothing about his clothes to suggest otherwise—a guernsey, just like her own—but a great many visitors bought them as a matter of course—and bedford cord slacks which had seen better days. She longed to ask where he came from; she had detected a faint accent when he spoke. Before she could stop herself, she asked: ‘You’re not English, are you?’ and exactly as before, got a ‘No’ over one shoulder. After that she didn’t speak again, not until they were past St George’s Fort and the town was in full view, not ten minutes’ walk away. He stopped then and asked, ‘Which way do you go?’

      She answered briefly, ‘Havelet,’ not caring if he knew where that was or not. Apparently he did, for he said: ‘I’m going to the harbour. Would you like me to walk up with you first?’

      She forbore to tell him that, born and bred on the island, she knew every yard of it, and as for St Peter Port, she could walk blindfold through its length and breadth and know exactly where she was. Her reply was a sedate refusal. She thought, she added pleasantly, that she could find her way. His, ‘Oh, good,’ was disconcertingly casual.

      They parted at the end of the cliff path, she to turn up the narrow hill away from the sea, he presumably to walk along the sea front to the harbour. The Jersey boat was in, so possibly he was going to board her—a great many people came over for the day, although he didn’t look like a day tripper, for despite his clothes he had an air of assurance, almost arrogance. Victoria frowned as she wished him a coolly polite goodbye, and was left gaping at his parting words.

      ‘You’d be quite a pretty girl if you smiled more often,’ he pronounced—and he didn’t say goodbye either. She crossed the road and then turned to watch him walk away without a backward glance.

      Her parents lived almost at the top of Havelet, in a pleasant elderly house tucked away from the road. It had a glorious view of the harbour and the sea beyond, and a garden which, although not large, was a riot of colour for most of the year. Victoria climbed the steep, narrow road without effort, went through the gate—just wide enough to take the car—and into the house through its open front door.

      ‘If that’s you, Victoria, shut the door, will you, darling?’ called her mother from somewhere upstairs. ‘Did you have a nice walk?’ her parent continued as she began a descent of the staircase. Victoria shut the door and turned to meet her mother. Mrs Parsons was a large woman, still very handsome and despite her size, surprisingly youthful in appearance. She had a commanding presence and a voice which, while not loud, was so clear that no one ever failed to hear it. She paused on the stairs now and peered down at her daughter.

      ‘Victoria, my dear child, did you really go out looking like that?’

      ‘No,’ said Victoria reasonably, ‘I was dry then, Mother. I got caught in that downpour.’ She advanced to plant an affectionate kiss on her mother’s cheek, reaching up to do so because Mrs Parsons was five feet eleven inches tall and Victoria, the eldest of her four daughters, was only five feet six. Her mother returned the salute with warmth.

      ‘Well, I’m sure you enjoyed yourself, child. I must say you need the fresh air after London—why you have to work there…’ she sighed. ‘Your father could speak to—’

      ‘Yes, Mother dear,’ interposed Victoria hastily, ‘but I do like nursing, you know, and when the Old Crow retires next year, I’m hoping to get the ward.’

      Her mother fingered the sleeve of her guernsey. ‘You’re wet,’ she said rather absently, and then: ‘Don’t you want to marry and settle down, Vicky dear?’

      ‘Only when I meet the right man, Mother.’ She had a peculiarly vivid memory of the man in the powder magazine as she spoke and dismissed it as nonsensical.

      ‘But they fall over each other…’

      Her daughter smiled. ‘I bet they fell over each other for you before you met Father.’

      Mrs Parsons’s composed features broke into a smile. ‘Yes, they did. Your father will be home in a minute, so you’d better go and change, Vicky—your sisters are upstairs already. They take so long to dress, try and hurry them up, dear.’

      Victoria said, ‘Yes, Mother,’ and went up the stairs to a half landing which had a door on either side of it; she passed these, however, and went through the archway at the back of the landing and up half a dozen more stairs leading to a corridor running at right angles to them.

      There was a good deal of noise here; her youngest sister, Stephanie, sixteen years old and already bidding fair to out-shine them all with СКАЧАТЬ