Small Slice of Summer. Betty Neels

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      She shook her head and sat back, feeling the sun tracing more freckles and not caring. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she felt as though Jason Mourik van Nie had opened a door for her and she had escaped. It was a lovely feeling.

      The drinks were long and iced and he had added straws to her glass. She supped the coolness with delight and exclaimed: ‘Oh, isn’t this just super?’ then felt awkward because he might not find it super at all.

      ‘Very.’ He was lying back again, not looking at her. ‘Do you suppose you could remember to call me Jason? I call you Tishy, you know, although on second thoughts I think I’ll call you Letitia, I like it better.’

      ‘Mother always calls me that, but they call me Tishy at the hospital, and sometimes my sisters do too when they want me to do something for them.’

      They had their tea presently in complete harmony and she quite forgot to wonder where Georgina and Julius had got to, and when Nanny came out with Ivo in his pram and Polly got on to the doctor’s knee, she lay back, listening to him entertaining the moppet with a series of rhymes in his own language, apparently quite comprehensible to her small ears. She watched him idly, thinking that it was pleasant doing nothing with someone you liked. She gave herself a mental shake; only a very short time ago she hadn’t liked him, but when she tried to remember the exact moment when she had stopped disliking him and liking him instead, she was unable to do so. Her thoughts became a little tangled and she abandoned them when Jason broke in on her musings with the suggestion that she might like to recite a nursery rhyme or two and give him a rest. She had got through ‘Hickory, Dickory, Dock’ and was singing ‘Three Blind Mice’ in a high sweet, rather breathy voice when Georgina and Julius joined them and the little party became a cheerful gossiping group, with Ivo tucked in his mother’s arms and Polly transferred to her father.

      ‘Ungrateful brat,’ remarked Jason pleasantly. ‘Letitia and I are hoarse with our efforts to amuse her and now she has no eyes or ears for anyone but her papa.’

      ‘You got back early?’ Georgina asked, and smiled a little.

      Jason repeated the tale of the workman and his pickaxe and everyone laughed, then the men fell to making plans for their trip on the following day until Jason said: ‘I’ll carry Letitia indoors, I think, she doesn’t want to get chilled.’ He got up in leisurely fashion. ‘Where is she to go?’

      ‘The sitting-room—we’ll have drinks, shall we? No, better still, take her straight up to her room, will you, so she can pretty herself up, then you can bring her down again.’ Georgina looked at Letitia. ‘You’re not tired, Tishy?’

      ‘Not a bit—how could I be? I’ve been here all day doing absolutely nothing. It’s been heavenly, but I feel an absolute fraud.’

      ‘Until you try to stand on that foot,’ remarked Jason, and picked her up. ‘Back in ten minutes,’ he told her as he lowered her into the chair before the dressing table in her room and went away at once. She barely had the time to pick up her hairbrush before Georgina came in. ‘Don’t try and dress,’ she advised, ‘or do anything to your hair,’ and when Letitia eyed her doubtfully: ‘You look quite all right as you are.’

      She went away too, so Letitia brushed her hair and creamed her freckles and sat quietly, not thinking of anything very much until Jason came to carry her downstairs again.

      The evening was one of the best she could remember, for she felt quite at ease with Georgina and Julius, and as for Jason, his easy friendliness made her oblivious of her appearance and she even forgot her freckles. She reminded herself that two months ago, out with Mike, she would have been fussing about her hair and wondering if her nose were shining and whether she had on the right dress. With Jason it didn’t seem to matter; he hardly looked at her, and when he did it was in a detached way which didn’t once remind her that her hair was loose and a little untidy, and her gown, though charming, was hardly suitable for a dinner party. He carried her up to bed presently and before he left her took a good look at her ankle.

      ‘Quite OK,’ he pronounced, and wished her goodbye, because he and Julius would be leaving very early the next morning.

      The house, after they had gone, seemed large and empty, a fact to which Georgina agreed, giving it her opinion that it was because they were two such large men; all the same, the two girls contrived to spend a pleasant day together, with Stephens and the gardener to carry Letitia down to the garden and the two babies to play with. Julius telephoned twice, the first time shortly after they had arrived, and the second time a few hours later, just as the girls were going to bed. Letitia wondered what Jason was doing, but she didn’t like to ask Georgina, who, for some reason, didn’t mention him at all, but when Julius telephoned the next morning, she couldn’t refrain from asking at what time the men might be expected back.

      ‘Well, there’s no telling,’ explained Georgina. ‘They both drive fast and awfully well and I daresay they’ll take it in turns, which means that they’ll do it in about six hours. They can do seventy on the motorway, you see, and that’s almost all the way. They’ll be here for tea.’

      And she was right. Letitia was entertaining Polly with a demonstration of ‘Here’s the church, here’s the steeple’ when she heard men’s voices and looked up to see them strolling towards them. Neither looked in the least tired, although they ate an enormous tea.

      ‘No lunch?’ asked Georgina.

      ‘Well, my love, I had promised myself that we would be home for tea,’ Julius smiled at his wife, ‘and Jason liked the idea too.’

      Letitia watching them, thought how wonderful it would be to be loved as much as that. She sighed, and Jason asked at once: ‘Are you tired? Do you want to go indoors and rest?’

      She shook her head. ‘No, oh, no, thank you.’

      His voice was kind. ‘One more day and then I should think you might try some gentle exercise. How does the ankle feel?’

      She hardly noticed when the others went indoors and Jason started to tell her about Edinburgh and their meeting. She was surprised when Julius came out to ask them if they wanted to go in for drinks before dinner. The day, though pleasant, had been long, now the evening was going far too quickly.

      The next few days went quickly too, each one speedier than its predecessor, or so it seemed because she was enjoying herself so much. It was a week after her accident, when she had been hobbling very creditably for a couple of days, that Julius gave her his verdict that she was to all intents and purposes, cured. Jason wasn’t back from hospital, she was sitting with Georgina and him, lingering over tea, watching Polly tumbling around on her short fat legs, and thinking how content she was. But it couldn’t last, of course; she said at once: ‘Oh, that’s good. Do you think that I should go straight back to St Athel’s?’

      ‘Lord, no, Tishy. A week’s leave—you can stay here if you care to—we love having you.’

      She smiled at them both because they were so kind and they must have wished her out of the way on occasion. ‘You’re awfully kind,’ she told them, ‘but I’d love to go home. If I could have a lift up to town I could catch a train. Would you think me very ungrateful if I went tomorrow?’

      ‘Yes, very,’ said Julius promptly. ‘Make it the day after.’ He smiled as he spoke. ‘Do you want to collect more clothes before you go?’

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