The Hasty Marriage. Betty Neels

led the way down the village street and across to the white house at the end of it. A charming house, built in the days when the village parson had half a dozen children and needed the rooms. Now, as Laura knew, it was almost empty and a well-loved millstone round the rector’s neck. They went in through the kitchen door and found Mrs Lamb frying bacon at the old-fashioned stove, and presently they all sat down to a leisurely meal before Mr Lamb got on to his bicycle and went off to a hamlet nearby to take morning service, leaving Laura to help with the washing up, peel the potatoes for lunch and set the table.

      It was almost eleven o’clock by the time she got home, and time to get a meal for her father and godfather. She found them walking in the garden, deep in some conversation or other. They greeted her absentmindedly, asked vaguely if she was going to make them some coffee, and resumed their perambulations, leaving her to go to her room, change into a suit, do her hair and return to the kitchen. She gave them their coffee presently and then set about getting lunch, and it was over this meal that her father mentioned that Joyce and the doctor had left directly after breakfast and didn’t expect to get back until after tea. ‘They seem to be greatly interested in each other,’ he observed, ‘although I think myself that Reilof is too old for my little Joyce—still, if the child wants him, I’ll not say no—he’s obviously greatly taken with her.’ He glanced at Laura across the table. ‘I daresay you’ve noticed, my dear?’

      She said yes, she had, her voice placid, and went on to remind him that she would be going back on the three o’clock train, whereupon he offered to drive her to the station. ‘It will be a nice little run for your godfather, too,’ he said with satisfaction, and added a little anxiously: ‘How about our tea, my dear—and supper?’

      ‘Tea’s all ready on a tray on the kitchen table, Father, you only have to boil a kettle. It’s cold supper, on the top shelf of the fridge, but I should think Joyce would be back by then. I’ll lay up another tray after I’ve washed up, though, just in case she isn’t.’

      The matter being settled, she got on with the chores, repacking her bag once more before going in search of her father to remind him that he was taking her into Chelmsford. She sat with her godfather on the back seat because he complained mildly that he had seen almost nothing of her, and presently she wished she had insisted on him sitting with her father, because the questions he put to her were a little disconcerting and far too searching. Was she happy at the hospital? Had she any plans for the future, had she a young man?—an old-fashioned term which hardly fitted the circumstances, she considered, half amused. And what did she think of Reilof van Meerum?

      She hedged round the last question. She didn’t know him well—he seemed very nice, but how could she know…?

      ‘You don’t need to know anything about anybody,’ stated her godfather, ‘either you like them or you don’t.’ He gave her a sidelong glance. ‘You do, Laura?’

      ‘Well, yes, Uncle Wim.’ She hastened to give the conversation another turn. ‘You’ll be here when I come home again—I’m not sure when…?’

      ‘I’ll be here—I shall go back with Reilof, but he comes so frequently I have no plans at present but shall fit in with him.’

      ‘Then I shall see you again.’ She checked, just in time, a sigh of relief as her father came to a halt before the station entrance, then she bent to kiss her companion and bade him stay where he was as she got out. She retrieved her bag, kissed her father too, and hurried away to catch her train. She spent the journey wondering what Joyce and Reilof were doing; Joyce had been very sure of him—any time now, thought Laura unhappily, I shall get a message to say that they’re going to get married. She gazed out of the window, seeing nothing of the rather dreary fringe of London and wishing she could be miles away, so that she couldn’t be telephoned, then she would never know—no, that would be far worse. The sooner she knew the better. Then she could start to forget Reilof as the man she had fallen in love with, and think of him as a future brother-in-law. The idea appalled her.