Romantic Encounter. Betty Neels

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СКАЧАТЬ a kind, good man, ready to give the coat off his back to anyone in need, was nevertheless blind to broken-down washing-machines, worn-out sauce-pans and the fact that his wife hadn’t had a new hat for more than a year.

      ‘I like the idea, Father,’ said Florence robustly, ‘and I can come home at the weekend too. I’ll go and see Miss Payne in the village and arrange for her to come in for an hour or so each day to give Mother a hand. Mrs Buckett can’t do everything. I’ll pay—it is really a very generous salary.’

      ‘Will you be able to keep yourself in comfort, Florence?’

      She assured him that she could perfectly well do that. ‘And the lodgings his present nurse has will be vacant if I’d like to take them.’

      ‘It sounds most suitable,’ said her father, ‘but you must, of course, do what you wish, my dear.’

      She wasn’t at all sure what she did wish but she had plenty of common sense; she needed to get a job and start earning money again, and she had, by some lucky chance, been offered one without any effort on her part.

      When Mr Fitzgibbon telephoned the following day, precisely at three o’clock, and asked her in his cool voice if she had considered his offer, she accepted in a voice as cool as his own.

      He didn’t say that he was pleased. ‘Then perhaps you will come up to town very shortly and talk to Sister Brice. Would next Monday be convenient—in the early afternoon?’

      ‘There is a train from Sherborne just after ten o’clock—I could be at your rooms about one o’clock.’

      ‘That will suit Sister Brice very well. You have the address and the telephone number.’

      ‘Yes, thanks.’

      His, ‘Very well, goodbye, Miss Napier,’ was abrupt, even if uttered politely.

      * * *

      THE REVEREND NAPIER, his sermon written and nothing but choir practice to occupy him, drove Florence into Sherborne to catch the morning train. Gussage Tollard was a mere four miles to that town as the crow flew, but, taking into account the elderly Austin and the winding lanes, turning and twisting every hundred yards or so, the distance by car was considerably more.

      ‘Be sure and have a good lunch,’ advised her father. ‘One can always get a good meal at Lyons.’

      Florence said that she would; her father went to London so rarely that he lived comfortably in the past as regarded cafés, bus queues and the like, and she had no intention of disillusioning him.

      She bade him goodbye at the station, assured him that she would be on the afternoon train from Waterloo, and was borne away to London.

      She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich at Waterloo Station and queued for a bus, got off at Oxford Circus, and, since she had a little time to spare, looked at a few shops along Oxford Street before turning off towards Wimpole Street. The houses were dignified Regency, gleaming with pristine paintwork and shining brass plates. Number eighty-seven would be halfway down, she decided, and wondered where the lodgings were that she might take over. It was comparatively quiet here and the sun was shining; after the bustle and the noise of Oxford Street it was peaceful—as peaceful as one could be in London, she amended, thinking of Gussage Tollard, which hadn’t caught up with the modern world yet, and a good thing too.

      Mr Fitzgibbon, standing at the window of his consulting-room, his hands in his pockets, watched her coming along the pavement below. With a view to the sobriety of the occasion, she had shrouded a good deal of her brilliant hair under a velvet cap which matched the subdued tones of her French navy jacket and skirt. She was wearing her good shoes too; they pinched a little, but that was in a good cause…

      She glanced up as she reached the address she had been given, to see Mr Fitzgibbon staring down at her, unsmiling. He looked out of temper, and she stared back before mounting the few steps to the front door and ringing the bell. The salary he had offered was good, she reflected, but she had a nasty feeling that he would be a hard master.

      The door was opened by an elderly porter, who told her civilly that Mr Fitzgibbon’s consulting-rooms were on the first floor and would she go up? Once on the landing above there was another door with its highly polished bell, this time opened by a cosily plump middle-aged lady who said in a friendly voice, ‘Ah, here you are. I’m Mr Fitzgibbon’s receptionist—Mrs Keane. You’re to go straight in…’

      ‘I was to see Sister Brice,’ began Florence.

      ‘Yes, dear, and so you shall. But Mr Fitzgibbon wants to see you now.’ She added in an almost reverent voice, ‘He should be going to his lunch, but he decided to see you first.’

      Florence thought of several answers to this but uttered none of them; she needed the job too badly.

      Mr Fitzgibbon had left the window and was sitting behind his desk. He got up as Mrs Keane showed her in and wished her a cool, ‘Good afternoon, Miss Napier,’ and begged her to take a seat. Once she was sitting he was in no haste to speak.

      Finally he said, ‘Sister Brice is at lunch; she will show you exactly what your duties will be. I suggest that you come on a month’s trial, and after that period I would ask you to give three months’ notice should you wish to leave. I dislike changing my staff.’

      ‘You may not wish me to stay after a month,’ Florence pointed out in a matter-of-fact voice.

      ‘There is that possibility. That can be discussed at the end of the month. You are agreeable to your working conditions? I must warn you that this is not a nine-to-five job; your personal life is of no interest to me, but on no account must it infringe upon your work here. I depend upon the loyalty of my staff.’

      She was tempted to observe that at the salary she was being offered she was unlikely to be disloyal. She said forthrightly, ‘I’m free to do what I like and work where I wish; I like to go to my home whenever I can, but otherwise I have no other interests.’

      ‘No prospects of marriage?’

      She opened her beautiful eyes wide. ‘Since you ask, no.’

      ‘I’m surprised. I should like you to start—let me see; Sister Brice leaves at the end of next week, a Saturday. Perhaps you will get settled in on the Sunday and start work here on the Monday morning.’

      ‘That will suit me very well.’ She did hide a smile at his surprised look; he was probably used to having things his own way. ‘Will it be possible for me to see the rooms I am to have?’

      He said impatiently, ‘Yes, yes, why not? Sister Brice can take you there. Are you spending the night in town?’

      ‘No, I intend to go back on the five o’clock train from Waterloo.’

      There was a knock on the door and he called ‘come in’, and Sister Brice put her head round the door and said cheerfully, ‘Shall I take over, sir?’ She came into the room and shook Florence’s hand.

      The phone rang and Mr Fitzgibbon lifted the receiver. ‘Yes, please. There’s no one until three o’clock, is there? I shall want you here then.’

      He glanced at Florence. ‘Goodbye, Miss Napier; I expect to see you a week on Monday morning.’

      Sister СКАЧАТЬ