‘You’re a very touchy girl,’ observed her companion, his eyes shut, and while she was still trying to find a suitable retort to this remark:
‘Am I right in suspecting that this—what’s his name—the Medical Registrar was the first man you ever thought you were in love with?’
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the daybed. ‘I won’t stay here!’ she exploded. ‘You have no right…you don’t even know me…ouch!’
She had put her injured foot to the ground and it had hurt. The doctor got out of his chair in a patient kind of way, lifted the stricken limb back on to the daybed, said: ‘Lie still, do—and don’t be so bird-witted,’ and went back to his chair. His voice was astringent, but his hands had been very gentle. ‘And don’t be so damned sensitive; I’m not a young man on the look out for a girl, you know. I’m thirty-five and very set in my ways—ask Julius.’ He closed his eyes again. ‘I’m ever so safe, like an uncle.’ There was a little pause, then he opened one eye. ‘I like that pink thing and your hair hanging loose.’
Letitia had listened to him in amazement and a kind of relief because now she could think of him as she thought of Julius; kind and friendly and big brotherish. Two short months ago, if Mike had said that, she would have been in a flutter, now it didn’t register at all—at least, she admitted to herself, it was nice that he liked her hair. She took a quick peep and was disappointed to see that his eyes were closed once more.
He wasn’t asleep, though. ‘Where is your home?’ he asked presently.
She cast Elle aside with relief. ‘Devonshire, near Chagford—that’s a small town on Dartmoor. Father’s the rector of a village a few miles on to the moor.’
‘Mother? Brothers and sisters?’ His voice was casually inquiring.
‘Mother and four sisters.’
His eyes flew open. ‘Are they all like you?’
She wasn’t sure how to take that, but she answered soberly: ‘No, they’re all pretty. Hester—she’s the second eldest—is married, so’s Miriam, she comes after me, and Paula’s the last.’
‘And where do you come?’
‘In the middle.’
‘And your eldest sister—Margo, isn’t it? She’s George’s friend?’
‘Yes, they trained together. Margo’s away on holiday. She’s going to get engaged any day now.’
He opened an eye. ‘I always thought,’ he stated seriously, ‘that the young lady about to be proposed to was suitably surprised.’
Letitia giggled, and just for a few moments, in her pink gown and her shining curtain of hair, looked, even with the freckles peppering her nose, quite pretty, so that the doctor opened the other eye as well.
‘She and Jack have known each other ever since she was fifteen, but he went abroad—he’s a bridge engineer, so Margo has gone on working while he got his feet on the ladder, as it were, and now he’s got a marvellous job and they can buy a house and get married.’
‘And you will be a bridesmaid at the wedding, no doubt?’
‘Well, no—you see, we drew lots and Miriam and Paula won. It’s a bit expensive to have four bridesmaids.’
The corners of his firm mouth twitched faintly. ‘I daresay two are more than ample. I have often wondered why girls had them.’
She gazed at him earnestly as she explained: ‘Well, they make everything look pretty—I mean, the bride wants to look nicer than anyone else, but bridesmaids make a background for her.’
‘Ah, yes—stupid of me. Do you set great store on bridesmaids, Letitia?’
She was about to tell him that she hadn’t even thought about it, but that would have been a colossal fib; when she had imagined herself to be in love with Mike, her head had been full of such things. ‘I used to think it was frightfully important, but now I don’t imagine it matters at all.’
‘You know, I think you may be right.’ He heaved himself out of the chair and stretched enormously. ‘I’m going to get us a long cool drink and ask Stephens if we can have tea in half an hour. Can I do anything for you on my way?’
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