‘Oh, lord, Bella, you can change your holidays and go a couple of weeks later—what’s a couple of weeks?’ Hilary waved an airy hand; she had long ago mastered the art of reducing everything which didn’t directly concern herself to an unimportant level which she didn’t need to worry about.
‘Why don’t you want to go?’ asked Arabella. ‘Oh, I know about old Brewster, but what’s the real reason?’
Hilary smiled slowly. ‘It’s a secret, so don’t breathe a word. You know that new honorary? The one with the dark hair and the hornrims?’
‘Mr Thisby-Barnes?’ Arabella’s voice was squeaky with surprise. ‘But he’s married!’
Her cousin gave her a look of contemptuous affection. ‘Bella, you are a simpleton—a nice one, mind you—I do believe you still live in an age of orange blossom and proposals of marriage and falling in love.’
‘Yes,’ said Arabella simply.
‘Well, darling, a lot of girls still do, I suppose, but one can have some fun while waiting for the orange blossom—and I’m not doing any harm. He and his wife don’t get on, and I’m only going out to dinner with him.’
‘But can’t you go out with him before you go with the children?’
Hilary frowned. ‘Look, darling, there’s a dance he’s taking me to—oh, don’t worry, it’s miles away from Wickham’s, no one will ever know, and it comes slap in the middle of this wretched trip.’ She turned her beautiful eyes upon Arabella. ‘Bella, do help me out—I can wangle it so easily, and no one will mind. There are a thousand good reasons why I can’t go at the last minute and they’ll be only too glad if I can find someone to take my place—you.’ Which was true enough.
Arabella frowned, and the stammer which only became noticeable when she was deeply moved, became apparent. ‘You s-see, Hilary, I d-don’t think you sh-should.’
Her cousin smiled beguilingly. ‘Oh, Bella darling, I tell you it’s all right. Anyway, I’ve promised to go and I can’t break a promise.’
‘B-but you m-must have kn-known that you were going with the children before you s-said you would go,’ stated Arabella baldly.
She studied her cousin’s face, reflecting that Hilary had been like a big sister to her ever since she could remember—a rather thoughtless sister sometimes, but never unkind. That she was also completely selfish was a fact which Arabella had grown up with and accepted cheerfully; if she herself had been the pretty, pampered daughter of a well-to-do man she would undoubtedly have been selfish too. She watched a dimple appear in Hilary’s cheek.
‘Yes, I did,’ admitted her cousin, ‘but I knew you’d help me out.’ She added urgently, ‘You will, won’t you, Bella?’
‘All right,’ said Bella, ‘but I won’t do it again, really I won’t.’
Her cousin flung an arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re a darling—tell you what, I’ll see if I can get Watts’ holidays changed, then you can go home with her when you get back—how’s that for a good idea?’
Arabella agreed that it was, provided that Doreen didn’t mind, and suppose it wasn’t convenient for her family? Hilary waved the idea away carelessly; she would arrange everything, she said airily. ‘And what’s more,’ she promised, ‘I’ll come back to Wickham’s tomorrow with you, instead of waiting until the next day, then you can have the Triumph to drive us up and drive yourself back on your next days off.’
A bribe—Arabella recognised it as such; she loved driving. One day, when she was a qualified nurse and earning more money, she intended to save up and buy herself a car, but until then she had to depend upon her uncle’s kindness in lending her the Triumph which shared the garage with his Daimler. She said now: ‘That will be nice, thank you, Hilary,’ but Hilary, having got what she had come for, was already on her way to the door.
It was when the twins had been sent away to wash their hands for tea that Nanny, knitting endlessly, had looked up from her work to say:
‘You always were a bonny child, Miss Arabella, and far too kind-hearted. Miss Hilary always had what she wanted out of you, and still does; no good will come of it.’
Arabella was putting the last few pieces of the puzzle in their places, but she paused to look at the cosy little figure in the old-fashioned basket chair. ‘Nanny dear, I don’t mind a bit—did you hear what we were talking about?’
‘Well enough. And what happens, young lady, if Miss Hilary should set eyes on a young man you fancied for yourself, eh? Do you let her have him?’
‘Well,’ said Arabella matter-of-factly, ‘I can’t imagine that happening, and if it did, what chance would I have, Nanny? No one ever looks at me when Hilary’s there, you know—besides, I don’t care for any of the men who fancy her.’
‘That’s a vulgar expression,’ said Nanny repressively, ‘but one day, mark my words, Mr Right will come along and you won’t want to share him.’
Arabella wasn’t attending very closely; she asked eagerly:
‘Nanny, do you believe in orange blossom and falling in love? You don’t think it’s old-fashioned?’
‘How can anything be old-fashioned when it’s been going on since the world began, Miss Arabella? You keep right on thinking that, and leave those queer young people in their strange clothes and hair that needs a good brush…’ she snorted indignantly. ‘Let them think what they like, they’ll find out what they’re missing, soon enough,’ she added darkly.
Arabella got up off her knees and went to look out of the window.
‘I wonder if I shall like Holland,’ she hazarded. ‘The camp’s somewhere in the middle.’ She sighed to herself; probably she would be alternately run off her feet and bored stiff, for Sister Brewster was twice her age and she had worked on her ward and hated every minute of it. It was a pity that Lady Marchant had ever had the idea of asking Wickham’s Hospital to lend two of its nurses to accompany the children—just because she had been a patient there and had taken a fancy to Hilary—perhaps she thought she was conferring a favour, or more likely, she had had difficulty in recruiting anyone else.
‘I think I’ll go for a walk,’ said Arabella; she didn’t want any tea, she felt all of a sudden out of tune with the world, a good walk would settle everything back into its right place again. After all, what did it matter if she went on holiday a couple of weeks later—and she liked children. Besides, it would be an opportunity to see another country, however limited the sightseeing would be.
She went down the back stairs and out of the kitchen door and through the little wicket gate at the bottom of the vegetable garden and so into the woods beyond. It was quiet there, the house stood equidistant between Great Sampford and Little Sampford, a mile or so away from the country road which connected these two villages, so that there was nothing but the quiet Essex countryside around her. She wandered on, and presently came out on to the crossroads, where four lanes met and parted again to go to Finchingfield, Steeple Bumpstead, Cornish Hall End and, behind her, back to the Sampfords. She chose the way to Cornish Hall End, because it went through the neck of the woods once more and at its end she could take the path back through the trees.
It was September and warm for the time of year. Arabella pulled off the cardigan she had snatched up as she had left the house and walked on, wishing she was wearing something thinner than the cotton shirt and rather shabby tweed skirt she had on. There had seemed no point in wearing anything else when she had got up that morning; she had known in advance that she would be asked to pick fruit some time during the day, and later, when she would have changed, she had had the twins wished on her. Thinking about them reminded her of Hilary’s request, and her pleasant little