“You’re having injections?”
“At the moment, yes. So tiresome, as I have to arrange for someone to come and give them to me—the district nurse here has been most kind…” She gave Prudence a quick look. “That was why I’d suggested that you might like to accompany me to Holland, but of course, you young people must lead your own lives…”
Prudence shifted uneasily in her chair. She was being got at, and since she was a kind-hearted girl she could see nothing for it but to accept her godmother’s invitation; the idea of Aunt Beatrix wandering around suffering from a condition she didn’t fully understand, even in her own native country, wasn’t to be entertained for one moment. She mentally tore up the letter she had just written to the hospital in Scotland, reflecting ruefully that here was one young person who was being thwarted from doing as she wished…
“When do you go?” she asked, and saw the pleased smiles on her companions’ faces. “I had intended to apply for a job in Edinburgh, but I’ll see if they might have a vacancy at a later date.”
“Dear child!” Aunt Maud addressed her magnificently proportioned niece with no awareness of inappropriateness. “Your dear godmother will be safe with you, and I dare say this hospital will be only too glad to offer you a job later on.”
Prudence smiled at her kindly; Aunt Maud, having lived her life in sheltered security, had no idea of the harsh world outside it and there was no point in disillusioning her. No hospital was going to wait while an applicant for a job waltzed off to Europe before taking up her job.
“How long do you intend to stay in Holland?” she asked.
“Oh, well—a month, no longer, by that time my sister should be well again, should she not?” Mrs Wesley added, “She’s in hospital, but if all is well she should be going home very shortly. I thought I might go next week.”
Prudence remembered without much regret that Walter had invited her to an exhibition of paintings on either Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week. He had told her rather importantly that it depended on whether he could get away from his desk; he was a junior executive in a firm of stockbrokers and took his work seriously; he also fancied himself as something of an expert on modern art. Prudence, who liked paintings to look like something she could recognise, had done her best to go along with his views, without much success.
“We shall fly,” observed her godmother, “and naturally we shall be met at Schiphol and driven to Dornwier. Whether we shall remain there or accompany my sister on a holiday in order that she may recuperate from her illness, I don’t as yet know.”
“You’re sure your own doctor has no objections to you travelling, Aunt Beatrix?”
“Oh, yes, he quite saw my point of view.” Which was Aunt Beatrix’s way of saying she had browbeaten the poor man into agreeing with her.
“Do you want me to meet you in London,” asked Prudence, “or at the airport?”
“Perhaps you would come to my flat the day before we leave? Then we can travel to Heathrow together. Shall we say Tuesday of next week—provided I can get a flight then. I dare say you may have one or two things to see to before you leave.”
Clothes, thought Prudence and then, as a guilty afterthought, Walter. He would be annoyed: he didn’t believe in young women being too independent. A woman’s place, he had told Prudence on many occasions, was in the home.
Which was all very well, she had pointed out, but whereabouts in the home? Lying at ease on a chaise longue in the drawing-room, covered in jewels and pure silk, would be nice… Walter had no sense of humour; he had told her, in his measured tones, not to be foolish. It struck her suddenly that she didn’t love him, never had, and that this invitation from her godmother presented her with an opportunity to make Walter understand that once and for all she really did not want to marry him. They had known each other for years now, and she wasn’t sure when they had drifted into the idea of marriage. Certainly he had shown no overwhelming desire to make her his wife; on the other hand, she had been expected to tag along with him whenever she was at home, and in the village at least they were considered to be engaged.
She said now, “If you’ll let me know when you want me to come, Aunt Beatrix, I’ll be there. There’s nothing of importance to keep me here.”
She thought guiltily that Walter would be very annoyed to be designated as nothing of importance.
Ellen came in with coffee and the next half-hour was pleasantly taken up by Aunt Beatrix’s plans; she had obviously got everything organised to suit herself, and Prudence wondered just how she would have reacted if she hadn’t got her way. Aunt Maud was looking pleased with herself, too; Prudence looked at her two elderly companions with real affection, and when her godmother got up to go, bade her a warm goodbye.
“Tot ziens,” said Aunt Beatrix, who occasionally broke into her native tongue.
Prudence replied cheerfully, “And tot ziens to you, Aunt Beatrix, though I’m not quite sure what that means! I must try and learn some Dutch while I’m staying with you.”
Walter called in that evening on his way home from his office in Taunton. His greeting of, “Hello, old girl,” did nothing to make her change her mind about going away.
He sat down in the chair he always used and began at once to go into details about an argument he had had with one of the partners that day. Prudence sat opposite him, listening with half an ear while she took the chance to study him carefully. He was an inch or two shorter than she was and already showing a tendency to put on weight, but he was good-looking and, when he chose, could be an entertaining companion with charming manners. Only, over the years, the charm and the manners weren’t much in evidence—not with her at any rate. She said suddenly, cutting through his monologue, “Walter, when did you last look at me—I mean, really look?”
He gave her stare of astonishment. “Look at you? Well, I see you several times a week when you’re here, don’t I? Why should I look at you? Have you changed your hair-style or lost weight or something?”
“I don’t need to lose weight,” she said coldly. “I sometimes feel, Walter, like your daily newspaper or the old coat you keep behind the back door in case it rains…”
He gave an uneasy laugh. “My dear girl, what’s got into you? You’re talking nonsense. It’s a good thing you’re going to this new job, you’ve been too long at that hospital of yours in London.”
“You’ve asked me to marry you several times.”
“Yes, well—there’s time enough for you to make up your mind about that, in the meantime you need to be occupied.”
“You don’t want to sweep me off my feet? Rush off with me and get married?”
She felt sorry for him, because he was quite out of his depth; stockbrokers didn’t like to be rushed.
“Certainly not; marriage is a serious undertaking.”
Prudence nodded. “Yes, it is. Walter, I don’t want to marry you. I’m sorry if it puts you out—I mean, you expected me to marry you when it was convenient, didn’t you?”
“I say, old girl, that’s a funny way of putting it!”
“But it’s true.” She got up and wandered over to the window. “I’m going to Holland for some weeks to stay with an aunt who’s ill.”
“You haven’t any aunts in Holland.” She heard the tolerant amusement in his voice.
“Courtesy aunts, one of them is my godmother and I’m fond of her. I think it would be a good idea if we parted, Walter—we can stay good friends if you want that, but don’t expect me