Last April Fair. Betty Neels

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СКАЧАТЬ from her parents on her twenty-first birthday, five years ago, and although she could have afforded to exchange it she had never felt the need; it went well and she understood it as well as she would ever understand any car. She fastened her seat belt, gave a last glance at the rather grim hospital behind her and drove out into the busy street to meet the London traffic.

      It took her quite some time to get out of London and on to the M3, but she was a good driver and not impatient. Once on the motorway she sent the small car racing along and at its end, took the A30 to Salisbury. It was almost empty of traffic by now and she made good time to the town, working round it to the north and picking up the A30 again on its further side. She was on home ground now and although it was getting on for ten o’clock, she didn’t feel tired. Just short of Shaftesbury she turned off on to the Tisbury road and then turned again, going through pleasantly wooded country and climbing a little on the winding road. Over the brow of the hill she slowed for a minute. The lights of Gifford Ferris twinkled at her almost at its foot, not many lights, for the village was small and off the main road. But it was by no means isolated; there were other villages within a mile or two on all sides; any number of outlying farms and main roads to the north and south. Phyllida put her foot down and sent the car scuttling down the hill and then more slowly into the village’s main street. It had a small market square with a stone cross in its centre, a handful of shops around it besides a comfortable hotel, and at the top of the hill on the other side one or two old stone houses. She stopped before one of these and jumped out, but before she could reach the door it had been flung open.

      ‘Your mother’s in the kitchen, getting your supper,’ observed her father placidly. ‘Nice to see you, my dear—did you have a good trip?’

      She kissed him soundly. ‘Super—almost no traffic once I’d left London. Something smells good—I’m famished! I’ll get my case…’

      ‘Run along and find your mother, I’ll bring it in. The car will be all right there until the morning.’

      Phyllida walked down the long narrow hall and opened the kitchen door at its end, contentedly sniffing the air; furniture polish, the scent from a bowl of hyacinths on a table, and fragrant cooking. They spelled home.

      Her mother was at the scrubbed table in the middle of the room, cutting bread. She looked up as Phyllida went in, dropped the knife and came to meet her. ‘Darling—how lovely to see you, and how nice you look in that suit. There’s watercress soup and mushroom omelette and buttered toast and tea, though Father says you’re to have a glass of sherry first. He’ll bring it presently.’ She returned Phyllida’s hug and added: ‘Willy’s here just for a few days—half term, you know.’

      The younger of her two brothers appeared as her mother spoke, a boy of fourteen, absurdly like his father, with tousled hair and an air of never having enough to eat. He bore this out with a brotherly: ‘Hi, Sis, heard you come, guessed there’d be food.’

      She obligingly sat down at the table and shared her supper while their mother cut bread and wondered aloud how many more meals he would want before he settled to sleep.

      ‘I’m growing,’ he pointed out cheerfully, ‘and look at Phylly—she finished growing years ago and she’s stuffing herself.’

      ‘Rude boy,’ observed his sister placidly. ‘How’s school?’

      Her father came in then and they sat around, all talking at once until Willy was sent off to bed and Phyllida and her mother tidied the kitchen, washed up and went to the sitting room with a tray of coffee.

      It was a pleasant room; long and low-ceilinged and furnished with some nice pieces which had been in the family for generations. There was comfort too; easy chairs drawn up to the open fire, a vast sofa with a padded back and plenty of small reading lamps. Phyllida curled up on the sofa, the firelight warm on her face and dutifully answered the questions with which her mother bombarded her. They were mostly about Philip and cunningly put, and she answered them patiently, wishing illogically that her mother didn’t seem so keen on him all of a sudden. She had been vaguely put out after Philip’s first visit to her home by her mother’s reaction to him. ‘Such a nice young man,’ her parent had declared, ‘and so serious. I’m sure if you marry him he’ll make a model husband.’It hadn’t been the words so much as the tone in which they had been uttered, and ever since Phyllida had been worried by a faint niggling doubt at the back of her pretty head; a model husband sounded so dull. But this evening she could detect no doubt in her mother’s voice—indeed, her parent chattered on at some length about Phyllida’s future, talking about the wedding as though it were already a certainty.

      Phyllida finished her coffee, observed rather tartly that no one had asked her to get married yet and when her mother remarked that she had understood that Philip was coming to stay for a couple of days, pointed out very quickly that it was only a friendly visit—it made a nice restful change after his work at the hospital. Mrs Cresswell agreed placidly, her still pretty head bent over some embroidery, and presently Phyllida went to bed.

      Being home was delightful—pottering in the garden, helping her mother round the house, going for long bike rides with Willy, helping in her father’s surgery. Phyllida relaxed, colour came back into her London-pale cheeks, her hair seemed more golden, her eyes bluer. Her mother, looking at her as she made pastry at the kitchen table, felt certain that Philip would ask her to marry him when he came.

      She was right; he did, but not at once. He wasn’t a man to rush his fences, and it wasn’t until the morning of his second day there that he suggested that they might go into Shaftesbury for her mother and do some shopping, and Phyllida, called in from fetching the eggs from the hen-house at the end of the garden, readily agreed. She had been glad to see Philip when he had arrived, but not, she confessed to herself, thrilled, but they had quickly slipped into their pleasant, easygoing camaraderie and he was an undemanding companion. She put a jacket on over her slacks, combed her fringe, added a little more lipstick and pronounced herself ready.

      Shaftesbury was full of people and cars; it always was, probably because it was a small town and built originally on top of a hill and its shops were concentrated in two main streets. They had done their shopping, chosen a variety of cakes from the fragrant bakery hidden away in an alley where the two streets met, and sat themselves down in the buttery of one of the few hotels for a cup of coffee before Philip made any but the most impersonal remarks.

      ‘Wouldn’t you like to leave hospital and have a home of your own?’ he wanted to know.

      Phyllida chose a bun, not paying as much attention as she should have done. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said casually, ‘I’d love it. Have a bun?’

      ‘Then why don’t you?’

      She looked up then, suddenly realizing what he was going to say. ‘Don’t, Philip—please…’

      He took a bun too. ‘Why not? You must know that I want to marry you?’

      ‘Yes—well, yes, I suppose I did, but not—not urgently.’

      He was a very honest young man. ‘If you mean I’m beside myself with impatience to get married, you’re right. But I’ve given the matter a great deal of thought lately and I’m sure you’re the wife for me; we know each other very well by now and I’m more than half in love with you.’ He smiled at her across the table. ‘How about it, Phylly?’

      She knew that she was going to say no. Perhaps, she thought desperately, she had never intended to say anything else, but it was going to be hard to say it. For one thing, she was strongly tempted to accept Philip’s matter-of-fact proposal. They would live together happily enough, she would take an interest in his work СКАЧАТЬ