‘No. Though I’m sure he is very handy with a needle.’
Her sisters exchanged glances. ‘Why did you dance half a dance?’ asked Ruth.
Julia said through a mouthful of toast, ‘Oscar was annoyed because I hadn’t stayed on my chair to wait for him, so I asked him if he wanted to marry me.’
‘Julia, how could you…?’
‘He told me to go to the ladies’ room and compose myself, so I found my shawl and left, and the Professor was at the entrance. He said he was hungry and asked me if I was, and when I said yes, he took me to Wilton’s.’
‘Wilton’s?’ chorused her sisters, and then added, ‘The dress…?’
‘It was all right. We sat in a booth. It was a nice dinner. And then, when I asked him to bring me home, he did.’
Two pairs of astonished blue eyes stared at her. ‘What about Oscar?’
‘He was shocked.’
‘And the Professor? Whatever did he say?’
‘He said he wasn’t surprised that Oscar wasn’t mine.
You will both be late for work…’
‘But why should the Professor take you out to dinner?’ asked Ruth.
‘He said he was hungry.’
‘You can be very tiresome sometimes, Julia,’ said Monica severely.
When they had gone Julia set about the household chores and then, those done, she made coffee and a cheese sandwich and sat down to write verses. Perhaps Oscar would be able to get her the sack, but on the other hand her verses sold well. The senior partners might not agree. For it wasn’t the kind of work many people would want to do and it was badly paid. She polished off a dozen verses, fed Muffin, the family cat, and peeled the potatoes for supper. Oscar, she reflected, wouldn’t bother her again.
CHAPTER TWO
OSCAR came four days later. Julia was making pastry for a steak pie and she went impatiently to the front door when its knocker was thumped. Oscar was on the doorstep. ‘I wish to talk to you, Julia.’
‘Come in, then,’ said Julia briskly. ‘I’m making pastry and don’t want it to spoil.’
She ushered him into the house, told him to leave his coat in the hall, and then went back into the kitchen and plunged her hands into the bowl.
‘Do sit down,’ she invited him, and, when he looked askance at Muffin the household cat, sitting in the old Windsor chair by the stove, added, ‘Take a chair at the table. It’s warm here. Anyway, I haven’t lighted the fire in the sitting room yet.’
She bent over her pastry, and presently he said stuffily, ‘You can at least leave that and listen to what I have to say, Julia.’
She put the dough on the floured board and held a rolling pin.
‘I’m so sorry, Oscar, but I really can’t leave it. I am listening, though.’
He settled himself into his chair. ‘I have given a good deal of thought to your regrettable behaviour at the dance, Julia. I can but suppose that the excitement of the occasion and the opulence of your surroundings had caused you to become so—so unlike yourself. After due consideration I have decided that I shall overlook that…’
Julia laid her pastry neatly over the meat and tidied the edges with a knife. ‘Don’t do that,’ she begged him. ‘I wasn’t in the least excited, only annoyed to be stuck on a chair in a corner—and left to find my own way in, too.’
‘I have a position to uphold in the firm,’said Oscar. And when she didn’t answer he asked, ‘Who was that man you were talking to? Really, Julia, it is most unsuitable. I trust you found your way home? There is a good bus service?’
Julia was cutting pastry leaves to decorate her pie. She said, ‘I had dinner at Wilton’s and was driven home afterwards.’
Oscar sought for words and, finding none, got to his feet. ‘There is nothing more to be said, Julia. I came here prepared to forgive you, but I see now that I have allowed my tolerance to be swept aside by your frivolity.’
Julia dusted her floury hands over the bowl and began to clear up the table. Listening to Oscar was like reading a book written a hundred years ago. He didn’t belong in this century and, being a kind-hearted girl, she felt sorry for him.
‘I’m not at all suitable for you, Oscar,’ she told him gently.
He said nastily, ‘Indeed you are not, Julia. You have misled me…’
She was cross again. ‘I didn’t know we had got to that stage. Anyway, what you need isn’t a wife, it’s a doormat. And do go, Oscar, before I hit you with this rolling pin.’
He got to his feet. ‘I must remind you that your future with the firm is in jeopardy, Julia. I have some influence…’
Which was just what she could have expected from him, she supposed. They went into the hall and he got into his coat. She opened the door and ushered him out, wished him goodbye, and closed the door before he had a chance to say more.
She told her sisters when they came home, and Monica said. ‘He might have made a good steady husband, but he sounds a bit out of date.’
‘I don’t think I want a steady husband,’ said Julia, and for a moment she thought about the Professor. She had no idea why she should have done that; she didn’t even like him…
So, during the next few days she waited expectantly for a letter from the greetings card firm, but when one did come it contained a cheque for her last batch of verses and a request for her to concentrate on wedding cards—June was the bridal month and they needed to get the cards to the printers in good time…
‘Reprieved,’said Julia, before she cashed the cheque and paid the gas bill.
It was difficult to write about June roses and wedded bliss in blustery March. But she wrote her little verses and thought how nice it would be to marry on a bright summer’s morning, wearing all the right clothes and with the right bridegroom.
A week later Thomas came one evening. He had got the job as senior registrar and, what was more, had now been offered one of the small houses the hospital rented out to their staff. There was no reason why he and Ruth shouldn’t marry as soon as possible. The place was furnished, and it was a bit poky, but once he had some money saved they could find something better.
‘And the best of it is I’m working for Professor van der Maes.’ His nice face was alight with the prospect. ‘You won’t mind a quiet wedding?’ he asked Ruth anxiously.
Ruth would have married him in a cellar wearing a sack. ‘We’ll get George to arrange everything. And it will be quiet anyway; there’s only us. Your mother and father will come?’
Julia went to the kitchen to make coffee and sandwiches and took Monica with her. ‘We’ll give them half an hour. Monica, have you any money? Ruth must have some clothes…’
They sat together at the table, doing sums. ‘There aren’t any big bills due,’said Julia. ‘If we’re very careful and we use the emergency money we could just manage.’
Thomas was to take up his new job in three weeks’ time: the best of reasons why he and Ruth should marry, move into their new home and have a few days together first. Which meant a special licence and no time at all to buy clothes and make preparations for a quiet wedding. Julia and Monica gave Ruth all the money they could lay hands on and then set about planning the wedding day. There would be only a handful of guests: Dr Goodman and his wife, George, and the vicar who would take the service, Thomas’s parents and the best man.
They got out the best