Meg got up and flung an arm round her old friend’s shoulders. ‘I think I’d rather do anything than live in a basement flat in London,’ she declared. ‘Let’s go round the house and choose what I’ll take with me.’
Small pieces for the most part: her mother’s papier mâché work table, encrusted with mother-of-pearl and inlaid with metal foil, a serpentine table in mahogany with a pierced gallery, and a Martha Washington chair reputed to be Chippendale and lastly a little rosewood desk where her mother had been in the habit of writing her letters. She added two standard chairs with sabre legs, very early nineteenth century, and a sofa table on capstan base with splayed feet which went very well with the chairs and wouldn’t take up too much room.
They went back to the kitchen and Meg made a neat list. ‘And now you, Betsy; of course you’ll have the furniture which is already in your room, but you’ll need some bits and pieces.’
So they went round again, adding a rather shabby armchair Betsy had always liked, and the small, stoutly built wooden table in the scullery with its two equally stout chairs. Meg added a bookcase standing neglected in one of the many small rooms at the back of the house, and a standard lamp which had been by the bookcase for as long as she could remember. No one was going to miss it, and it would please Betsy mightily.
She got the butcher’s boy from the village to come up to the house and move the furniture into her and Betsy’s rooms. Doreen would see to her own things once she had chosen them.
This was something which she did at the end of the week, arriving at the house a bare five minutes after Mr Culver’s second totally unexpected visit. Getting no answer from the front doorbell, he had wandered round the house and found Meg in an old sweater and slacks covered by a sacking apron, intent on arranging seed potatoes on the shelves of the potting shed. She turned to see who it was as he trod towards her, and said, rather crossly, ‘Oh, it’s you—you didn’t say you were coming!’
He ignored that. ‘It’s careless of you to leave your front door open when you’re not in the house, Miss Collins. You should be more careful.’
She gave him a long, considered look. He doubtless meant to be helpful, but it seemed that each time they met he said something to annoy her.
‘This isn’t London,’ she said with some asperity, and then added in a kindly tone, ‘though I dare say you mean well.’
He stood looking down his handsome nose at her. ‘Naturally I have an interest in this house…’
‘Premature,’ Meg observed matter-of-factly. ‘I haven’t—that is, we haven’t sold it to your mother yet.’
She wished the words unsaid at once: supposing that he took umbrage and advised his mother to withdraw from the sale? What would her sisters say? And she would have to start all over again, and next time she might not be as lucky as regards her future. She met his eyes and saw that he was smiling nastily.
‘Exactly, Miss Collins, it behoves you to mind your words, does it not?’ He added unwillingly, ‘Your face is like an open book—you must learn to conceal your thoughts before you embark on a career in London!’
He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, in time to see Doreen coming towards them, and Meg, watching him saw that he was impressed. Her sister was looking particularly pretty in a wide tweed coat, draped dramatically over her shoulders, allowing a glimpse of a narrow cashmere dress in a blue to match her eyes. She fetched up beside him, cast him a smiling glance and said, ‘Hello, Meg—darling, must you root around like a farm labourer?’ She peered at the potatoes. ‘Such a dirty job!’
Meg said ‘Hello,’ and waved a grubby hand at Mr Culver. ‘This is Mr Culver, Mrs Culver’s son—my sister, Doreen; she’s come to choose her furniture before the valuers get here.’
Mr Culver, it seemed, could make himself very agreeable if he so wished, and Doreen, of course, had always been considered a charming girl. They fell at once into the kind of light talk which Meg had never learnt to master. She carefully arranged another row of potatoes, listening admiringly to Doreen’s witty chatter, and when there was a pause asked, ‘Why did you come, Mr Culver?’
Not the happiest way of putting it—Doreen’s look told her that—so she added, ‘Is there anything we can do.’
He glanced between the pair of them, and Meg caught the glance. Wondering how on earth we could possibly be sisters, she thought, and suddenly wished that she wasn’t plain and could talk like Doreen.
‘My mother asked me to call in—I’m on my way home and it isn’t out of my way. She wants you to order coal and logs—a ton of each, I would suggest—and also, if you know of a young boy who would do odd jobs, would you hire him?’
‘What to do?’ asked Meg, ever practical. ‘Not full time, I imagine?’
‘I believe she was thinking of someone to carry in coal and so on. Perhaps on his way to school, or in the afternoon…’
‘Well, there’s Willy Wright—he’s fifteen and looking for work. He goes to school still, but I dare say he’d be glad of the money.’
Mr Culver nodded carelessly. ‘I’ll leave it in your capable hands.’
‘Oh, she’s capable all right, our Meg,’ put in Doreen. ‘Always has been. You live near here, Mr Culver?’ She was at her most charming.
He gave the kind of answer Meg would have expected of him. ‘I work in London for most of the time. And you?’
Doreen told him, making the telling amusing and self-effacing at the same time. ‘Come into the house and have a cup of tea—I know Meg is dying for us to go so that she can finish her potatoes.’ She smiled at her sister. ‘Finished in ten minutes or so, Meg? I’ll have the tea made.’
She led the way back to the house, leaving Meg in the potting shed, quite happy to be left on her own once more. Doreen had never made a secret of the fact that she intended to marry and marry well. She thought it very likely that before Mr Culver left Doreen would have found out what he did, whether he was engaged or even married, and where he lived. She chuckled as she started on the last row of potatoes; Mr Culver had met his match.
It was half an hour before she joined them in the sitting-room, wearing a neat shirt blouse and a pleated skirt, her small waist cinched by a wide soft leather belt. Mr Culver was on the point of going, which was what she had been hoping; anyway, she wished him a coolly polite goodbye, leaving Doreen to see him to the door, assuring him that she would do as Mrs Culver asked. The moment they were in the hall, she picked up the tea-tray and whisked herself off to the kitchen to make a fresh pot. Doreen would want another cup before she started on the furniture.
‘What a man!’ observed that young lady as she sank into a chair. ‘Is that fresh tea? I could do with a cup. Believe it or not, Meg, I couldn’t get a thing out of him—he’s a real charmer, no doubt of that, but as close as an oyster. I bet he’s not married.’ She took the cup Meg was offering. ‘I wonder what he does? Perhaps you can find out…?’
‘Why?’ Meg sounded reasonable. ‘He’s nothing to do with us; we’re not likely to see him—he only called with a message.’
Doreen looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, well, we’ll see. That’s a nice car, and unless I’m very mistaken, his shoes are hand-made…’
‘Perhaps he’s got awkward feet,’ suggested Meg, quite seriously.
Doreen looked at her to see if she was joking and saw that she wasn’t, so she didn’t reply. ‘When’s Mrs Culver due to arrive?’ she asked instead. ‘I’d better decide on the things I want and get them away. Have you got yours?’
Meg nodded. ‘Yes, I got Willy to come up and move them. Most of it’s in my room; the rest is in the attic. Betsy’s got some bits and pieces, too—in her room and some in the attic.’
‘Well, I’ll get it over with and have it taken