Czytaj książkę: «The Right Kind of Girl»

CHAPTER ONE

MRS SMITH-DARCY had woken in a bad temper. She reclined, her abundant proportions supported by a number of pillows, in her bed, not bothering to reply to the quiet ‘good morning’ uttered by the girl who had entered the room; she was not a lady to waste courtesy on those she considered beneath her. Her late husband had left her rich, having made a fortune in pickled onions, and since she had an excellent opinion of herself she found no need to bother with the feelings of anyone whom she considered inferior. And, of course, a paid companion came into that category.

The paid companion crossed the wide expanse of carpet and stood beside the bed, notebook in hand. She looked out of place in the over-furnished, frilly room; a girl of medium height, with pale brown hair smoothed into a French pleat, she had unremarkable features, but her eyes were large, thickly lashed and of a pleasing hazel. She was dressed in a pleated skirt and a white blouse, with a grey cardigan to match the skirt—sober clothes which failed to conceal her pretty figure and elegant legs.

Mrs Smith-Darcy didn’t bother to look at her. ‘You can go to the bank and cash a cheque—the servants want their wages. Do call in at the butcher’s and tell him that I’m not satisfied with the meat he’s sending up to the house. When you get back—and don’t be all day over a couple of errands—you can make an appointment with my hairdresser and get the invitations written for my luncheon party. The list’s on my desk.’

She added pettishly, ‘Well, get on with it, then; there’s plenty of work waiting for you when you get back.’

The girl went out of the room without a word, closed the door quietly behind her and went downstairs to the kitchen where Cook had a cup of coffee waiting for her.

‘Got your orders, Miss Trent? In a mood, is she?’

‘I dare say it’s this weather, Cook. I have to go to the shops. Is there anything I can bring back for you?’

‘Well, now, love, if you could pop into Mr Coffin’s and ask him to send up a couple of pounds of sausages with the meat? They’ll do us a treat for our dinner.’

Emma Trent, battling on her bike against an icy February wind straight from Dartmoor and driving rain, reflected that there could be worse jobs, only just at that moment she couldn’t think of any. It wasn’t just the weather—she had lived in Buckfastleigh all her life and found nothing unusual in that; after all, it was only a mile or so from the heart of the moor with its severe winters.

Bad weather she could dismiss easily enough, but Mrs Smith-Darcy was another matter; a selfish lazy woman, uncaring of anyone’s feelings but her own, she was Emma’s daily trial, but her wages put the butter on the bread of Emma’s mother’s small pension so she had to be borne. Jobs weren’t all that easy to find in a small rural town, and if she went to Plymouth or even Ashburton it would mean living away from home, whereas now they managed very well, although there was never much money over.

Her errands done, and with the sausages crammed into a pocket, since Mr Coffin had said that he wasn’t sure if he could deliver the meat before the afternoon, she cycled back to the large house on the other side of the town where her employer lived, parked her bike by the side-door and went into the kitchen. There she handed over the sausages, hung her sopping raincoat to dry and went along to the little cubby-hole where she spent most of her days—making out cheques for the tradesmen, making appointments, writing notes and keeping the household books. When she wasn’t doing that, she arranged the flowers, and answered the door if Alice, the housemaid, was busy or having her day off.

‘Never a dull moment,’ said Emma to her reflection as she tidied her hair and dried the rain from her face. The buzzer Mrs Smith-Darcy used whenever she demanded Emma’s presence was clamouring to be answered, and she picked up her notebook and pencil and went unhurriedly upstairs.

Mrs Smith-Darcy had heaved herself out of bed and was sitting before the dressingtable mirror, doing her face. She didn’t look up from the task of applying mascara. ‘I have been buzzing you for several minutes,’ she observed crossly. ‘Where have you been? Really, a great, strong girl like you should have done those few errands in twenty minutes…’

Emma said mildly, ‘I’m not a great, strong girl, Mrs Smith-Darcy, and cycling into the wind isn’t the quickest way of travelling. Besides, I got wet—’

‘Don’t make childish excuses. Really, Miss Trent, I sometimes wonder if you are up to this job. Heaven knows, it’s easy enough.’

Emma knew better than to answer that. Instead she asked, ‘You wanted me to do something for you, Mrs Smith-Darcy?’

‘Tell Cook I want my coffee in half an hour. I shall be out to lunch, and while I’m gone you can fetch Frou-Frou from the vet. I shall need Vickery with the car so I suppose you had better get a taxi—it wouldn’t do for Frou-Frou to get wet. You can pay and I’ll settle with you later.’

‘I haven’t brought any money with me.’ Emma crossed her fingers behind her back as she spoke, for it was a fib, but on several occasions she had been told to pay for something and that she would be reimbursed later—something which had never happened.

Mrs Smith-Darcy frowned. ‘Really, what an incompetent girl you are.’ She opened her handbag and found a five-pound note. ‘Take this—and I’ll expect the correct change.’

‘I’ll get the driver to write the fare down and sign it,’ said Emma quietly, and something in her voice made Mrs Smith-Darcy look at her.

‘There’s no need for that.’

‘It will set your mind at rest,’ said Emma sweetly. ‘I’ll get those invitations written; I can post them on my way home.’

Mrs Smith-Darcy, who liked to have the last word, was for once unable to think of anything to say as Emma left the room.

It was well after five o’clock when Emma got on to her bike and took herself off home—a small, neat house near the abbey where she and her mother had lived since her father had died several years earlier.

He had died suddenly and unexpectedly, and it hadn’t been until after his death that Mrs Trent had been told that he had mortgaged the house in order to raise the money to help his younger brother, who had been in financial difficulties, under the impression that he would be repaid within a reasonable time. There hadn’t been enough money to pay off the mortgage, so she had sold the house and bought a small terraced house, and, since her brother-in-law had gone abroad without leaving an address, she and Emma now managed on her small pension and Emma’s salary. That she herself was underpaid Emma was well aware, but on the other hand her job allowed her to keep an eye on her mother’s peptic ulcer…

There was an alley behind the row of houses. She wheeled her bike along its length and into their small back garden, put it in the tumbledown shed outside the kitchen door and went into the house.

The kitchen was small, but its walls were distempered in a cheerful pale yellow and there was room for a small table and two chairs against one wall. She took off her outdoor things, carried them through to the narrow little hall and went into the sitting-room. That was small, too, but it was comfortably furnished, although a bit shabby, and there was a cheerful fire burning in the small grate.

Mrs Trent looked up from her sewing. ‘Hello, love. Have you had a tiring day? And so wet and cold too. Supper is in the oven but you’d like a cup of tea first…’

‘I’ll get it.’ Emma dropped a kiss on her mother’s cheek and went to make the tea and presently carried it back.

‘Something smells heavenly,’ she observed. ‘What have you been cooking?’

‘Casserole and dumplings. Did you get a proper lunch?’

Emma assured her that she had, with fleeting regret for most of the sausages she hadn’t been given time to eat; Mrs Smith-Darcy had the nasty habit of demanding that some task must be done at once, never mind how inconvenient. She reflected with pleasure that her employer was going away for several days, and although she had been given a list of things to do which would take at least twice that period it would be like having a holiday.

She spent the next day packing Mrs Smith-Darcy’s expensive cases with the clothes necessary to make an impression during her stay at Torquay’s finest hotel—a stay which, she pointed out to Emma, was vital to her health. This remark reminded her to order the central heating to be turned down while she was absent. ‘And I expect an accurate statement of the household expenses.’

Life, after Mrs Smith-Darcy had been driven away by Vickery, the chauffeur, was all of a sudden pleasant.

It was delightful to arrive each morning and get on with her work without having to waste half an hour listening to her employer’s querulous voice raised in criticism about something or other, just as it was delightful to go home each evening at five o’clock exactly.

Over and above this, Cook, unhampered by her employer’s strictures, allowed her creative skills to run free so that they ate food which was never normally allowed—rich steak and kidney pudding with a drop of stout in the gravy, roasted potatoes—crisply brown, toad-in-the-hole, braised celery, cauliflower smothered in a creamy sauce and all followed by steamed puddings, sticky with treacle or bathed in custard.

Emma, eating her dinners in the kitchen with Cook and Alice, the housemaid, savoured every morsel, dutifully entered the bills in her household ledger and didn’t query any of them; she would have to listen to a diatribe about the wicked extravagance of her staff from Mrs Smith-Darcy but it would be worth it, and Cook had given her a cake to take home, declaring that she had made two when one would have done.

On the last day of Mrs Smith-Darcy’s absence from home Emma arrived in good time. There were still one or two tasks to do before that lady returned—the flowers to arrange, the last of the post to sort out and have ready for her inspection, a list of the invitations accepted for the luncheon party…

She almost fell off her bike as she shot through the gates into the short drive to the house. The car was before the door and Vickery was taking the cases out of the boot. He cast his eyes up as she jumped off her bike.

‘Took bad,’ he said. ‘During the night. ‘Ad the doctor to see ‘er—gave her an injection and told ‘er it were a bug going round—gastric something or other. Alice is putting ‘er to bed, miss. You’d better go up sharp, like.’

‘Oh, Vickery, you must have had to get up very early—it’s only just nine o’clock.’

‘That I did, miss.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’ll see to yer bike.’

‘Thank you, Vickery. I’m sure Cook will have breakfast for you.’

She took off her outdoor things and went upstairs. Mrs Smith-Darcy’s door was closed but she could hear her voice raised in annoyance. She couldn’t be very ill if she could shout like that, thought Emma, opening the door.

‘There you are—never where you’re wanted, as usual. I’m ill—very ill. That stupid doctor who came to the hotel told me it was some kind of virus. I don’t believe him. I’m obviously suffering from some grave internal disorder. Go and phone Dr Treble and tell him to come at once.’

‘He’ll be taking surgery,’ Emma pointed out reasonably. ‘I’ll ask him to come as soon as he’s finished.’ She studied Mrs Smith-Darcy’s face. ‘Are you in great pain? Did the doctor at Torquay advise you to go to a hospital for emergency treatment?’

‘Of course not. If I need anything done I shall go into a private hospital. I am in great pain—agony…’ She didn’t quite meet Emma’s level gaze. ‘Do as I tell you; I must be attended to at once.’

She was in bed now, having her pillows arranged just so by the timid Alice. Emma didn’t think that she looked in pain; certainly her rather high colour was normal, and if she had been in the agony she described then she wouldn’t have been fussing about her pillows and which bed-jacket she would wear. She went downstairs and dialled the surgery.

The receptionist answered. ‘Emma—how are you? Your mother’s all right? She looked well when I saw her a few days ago.’

‘Mother’s fine, thanks, Mrs Butts. Mrs Smith-Darcy came back this morning from a few days at Torquay. She wasn’t well during the night and the hotel called a doctor who told her it was a bug and that she had better go home—he gave her something—I don’t know what. She says she is in great pain and wants Dr Treble to come and see her immediately.’

‘The surgery isn’t finished—it’ll be another half an hour or so, unless she’d like to be brought here in her car.’ Mrs Butts chuckled. ‘And that’s unlikely, isn’t it?’ She paused. ‘Is she really ill, Emma?’

‘Her colour is normal; she’s very cross…’

‘When isn’t she very cross? I’ll ask Doctor to visit when surgery is over, but, I warn you, if there’s anything really urgent he’ll have to see to it first.’

Emma went back to Mrs Smith-Darcy and found her sitting up in bed renewing her make-up. ‘You’re feeling better? Would you like coffee or tea? Or something to eat?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Miss Trent; can you not see how I’m suffering? Is the doctor on his way?’

‘He’ll come when surgery is finished—about half an hour, Mrs Butts said.’

‘Mrs Butts? Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t speak to Dr Treble?’

‘No, he was busy with a patient.’

‘I am a patient,’ said Mrs Smith-Darcy in a furious voice.

Emma, as mild as milk and unmoved, said, ‘Yes, Mrs Smith-Darcy. I’ll be back in a minute; I’m going to open the post while I’ve the chance.’

There must be easier ways of earning a living, she reflected, going down to the kitchen to ask Cook to make lemonade.

She bore the refreshment upstairs presently, and took it down again as her employer didn’t find it sweet enough. When she went back with it she was kept busy closing curtains because the dim light from the February morning was hurting the invalid’s eyes, then fetching another blanket to put over her feet, and changing the bed-jacket she had on, which wasn’t the right colour…

‘Now go and fetch my letters,’ said Mrs Smith-Darcy.

Perhaps, thought Emma, nipping smartly downstairs once more, Dr Treble would prescribe something which would soothe the lady and cause her to doze off for long periods. Certainly at the moment Mrs Smith-Darcy had no intention of doing any such thing.

Emma, proffering her post, got the full force of her displeasure.

‘Bills,’ said Mrs Smith-Darcy. ‘Nothing but bills!’ And went on that doubtless, while her back was turned, those whom she employed had eaten her out of house and home, and as for an indigent nephew who had had the effrontery to ask her for a small loan…’ ‘Anyone would think that I was made of money,’ she said angrily—which was, in fact, not far wrong.

The richer you are, the meaner you get, reflected Emma, retrieving envelopes and bills scattered over the bed and on the floor.

She was on her knees with her back to the door when it was opened and Alice said, ‘The doctor, ma’am,’ and something in her voice made Emma turn around. It wasn’t Dr Treble but a complete stranger who, from her lowly position, looked enormous.

Indeed, he was a big man; not only very tall but built to match his height, he was also possessed of a handsome face with a high-bridged nose and a firm mouth. Pepper and salt hair, she had time to notice, and on the wrong side of thirty. She was aware of his barely concealed look of amusement as she got to her feet.

‘Get up, girl,’ said Mrs Smith-Darcy and then added, ‘I sent for Dr Treble.’ She took a second look at him and altered her tone. ‘I don’t know you, do I?’

He crossed the room to the bed. ‘Dr Wyatt. I have taken over from Dr Treble for a short period. What can I do for you, Mrs Smith-Darcy? I received a message that it was urgent.’

‘Oh, Doctor, I have had a shocking experience—’ She broke off for a moment. ‘Miss Trent, get the doctor a chair.’

But before Emma could move he had picked up a spindly affair and sat on it, seemingly unaware of the alarming creaks; at the same time he had glanced at her again with the ghost of a smile. Nice, thought Emma, making herself as inconspicuous as possible. I hope that he will see through her. At least she won’t be able to bully him like she does Dr Treble.

Her hopes were justified. Mrs Smith-Darcy, prepared to discuss her symptoms at some length, found herself answering his questions with no chance of embellishment, although she did her best.

‘You dined last evening?’ he wanted to know. ‘What exactly did you eat and drink?’

‘The hotel is noted for its excellent food,’ she gushed. ‘It’s expensive, of course, but one has to pay for the best, does one not?’ She waited for him to make some comment and then, when he didn’t, added pettishly, ‘Well, a drink before I dined, of course, and some of the delightful canapés they serve. I have a small appetite but I managed a little caviare. Then, let me see, a morsel of sole with a mushroom sauce—cooked in cream, of course—and then a simply delicious pheasant with an excellent selection of vegetables.’

‘And?’ asked Dr Wyatt, his voice as bland as his face.

‘Oh, dessert—meringue with a chocolate sauce laced with curaao—a small portion, I might add.’ She laughed. ‘A delicious meal—’

‘And the reason for your gastric upset. There is nothing seriously wrong, Mrs Smith-Darcy, and it can be easily cured by taking some tablets which you can obtain from the chemist and then keeping to a much plainer diet in future. I’m sure that your daughter—’

‘My paid companion,’ snapped Mrs Smith-Darcy. ‘I am a lonely widow, Doctor, and able to get about very little.’

‘I suggest that you take regular exercise each day—a brisk walk, perhaps.’

Mrs Smith-Darcy shuddered. ‘I feel that you don’t understand my delicate constitution, Doctor; I hope that I shan’t need to call you again.’

‘I think it unlikely; I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with you, Mrs Smith-Darcy. You will feel better if you get up and dress.’

He bade her goodbye with cool courtesy. ‘I will give your companion some instructions and write a prescription for some tablets.’

Emma opened the door for him, but he took the handle from her and ushered her through before closing it gently behind him.

‘Is there somewhere we might go?’

‘Yes—yes, of course.’ She led the way downstairs and into her office.

He looked around him. ‘This is where you work at being a companion?’

‘Yes. Well, I do the accounts and bills and write the letters here. Most of the time I’m with Mrs Smith-Darcy.’

‘But you don’t live here?’ He had a pleasant, deep voice, quite quiet and soothing, and she answered his questions readily because he sounded so casual.

‘No, I live in Buckfastleigh with my mother.’

‘A pleasant little town. I prefer the other end, though, nearer the abbey.’

‘Oh, so do I; that’s where we are…’ She stopped there; he wouldn’t want to know anything about her— they were strangers, not likely to see each other again. ‘Is there anything special I should learn about Mrs Smith-Darcy?’

‘No, she is perfectly healthy although very overweight. Next time she overeats try to persuade her to take one of these tablets instead of calling the doctor.’ He was writing out a prescription and paused to look at her. ‘You’re wasted here, you know.’

She blushed. ‘I’ve not had any training—at least, only shorthand and typing and a little bookkeeping—and there aren’t many jobs here.’

‘You don’t wish to leave home?’

‘No. I can’t do that. Is Dr Treble ill?’

‘Yes, he’s in hospital. He has had a heart attack and most likely will retire.’

She gave him a thoughtful look. ‘I’m very sorry. You don’t want me to tell Mrs Smith-Darcy?’

‘No. In a little while the practice will be taken over by another doctor.’

‘You?’

He smiled. ‘No, no. I’m merely filling in until things have been settled.’

He gave her the prescription and closed his bag. The hand he offered was large and very firm and she wanted to keep her hand in his. He was, she reflected, a very nice man—dependable; he would make a splendid friend. It was such an absurd idea that she smiled and he decided that her smile was enchanting.

She went to the door with him and saw the steel-grey Rolls Royce parked in the drive. ‘Is that yours?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ He sounded amused and she begged his pardon and went pink again and stood, rather prim, in the open door until he got in and drove away.

She turned, and went in and up to the bedroom to find Mrs Smith-Darcy decidedly peevish. ‘Really, I don’t know what is coming to the medical profession,’ she began, the moment Emma opened the door. ‘Nothing wrong with me, indeed; I never heard such nonsense.

I’m thoroughly upset. Go down and get my coffee and some of those wine biscuits.’

‘I have a prescription for you, Mrs Smith-Darcy,’ said Emma. ‘I’ll fetch it while you’re getting dressed, shall I?’

‘I have no intention of dressing. You can go to the chemist while I’m having my coffee—and don’t hang around. There’s plenty for you to do here.’

When she got back Mrs Smith-Darcy asked, ‘What has happened to Dr Treble? I hope that that man is replacing him for a very short time; I have no wish to see him again.’

To which remark Emma prudently made no answer. Presently she went off to the kitchen to tell Cook that her mistress fancied asparagus soup made with single cream and a touch of parsley, and two lamb cutlets with creamed potatoes and braised celery in a cheese sauce. So much for the new doctor’s advice, reflected Emma, ordered down to the cellar to fetch a bottle of Bollinger to tempt the invalid’s appetite.

That evening, sitting at supper with her mother, Emma told her of the new doctor. ‘He was nice. I expect if you were really ill he would take the greatest care of you.’

‘Elderly?’ asked Mrs Trent artlessly.

‘Something between thirty and thirty-five, I suppose. Pepper and salt hair…’

A not very satisfactory answer from her mother’s point of view.

February, tired of being winter, became spring for a couple of days, and Emma, speeding to and fro from Mrs Smith-Darcy’s house, had her head full of plans—a day out with her mother on the following Sunday. She could rent a car from Dobbs’s garage and drive her mother to Widecombe in the Moor and then on to Bovey Tracey; they could have lunch there and then go on back home through Ilsington—no main roads, just a quiet jaunt around the country they both loved.

She had been saving for a tweed coat and skirt, but she told herself that since she seldom went anywhere, other than a rare visit to Exeter or Plymouth, they could wait until autumn. She and her mother both needed a day out…

The weather was kind; Sunday was bright and clear, even if cold. Emma got up early, fed Queenie, their elderly cat, took tea to her mother and got the breakfast and, while Mrs Trent cleared it away, went along to the garage and fetched the car.

Mr Dobbs had known her father and was always willing to rent her a car, letting her have it at a reduced price since it was usually the smallest and shabbiest in his garage, though in good order, as he was always prompt to tell her. Today she was to have an elderly Fiat, bright red and with all the basic comforts, but, she was assured, running well. Emma, casting her eye over it, had a momentary vision of a sleek Rolls Royce…

They set off in the still, early morning and, since they had the day before them, Emma drove to Ashburton and presently took the narrow moor road to Widecombe, where they stopped for coffee before driving on to Bovey Tracey. It was too early for lunch, so they drove on then to Lustleigh, an ancient village deep in the moorland, the hills around it dotted with granite boulders. But although the houses and cottages were built of granite there was nothing forbidding about them—they were charming even on a chilly winter’s day, the thatched roofs gleaming with the last of the previous night’s frost, smoke eddying gently from their chimney-pots.

Scattered around the village were several substantial houses, tucked cosily between the hills. They were all old—as old as the village—and several of them were prosperous farms while others stood in sheltered grounds.

‘I wouldn’t mind living here,’ said Emma as they passed one particularly handsome house, standing well back from the narrow road, the hills at its back, sheltered by carefully planted trees. ‘Shall we go as far as Lustleigh Cleave and take a look at the river?’

After that it was time to find somewhere for lunch. Most of the cafés and restaurants in the little town were closed, since the tourist season was still several months away, but they found a pub where they were served roast beef with all the trimmings and home-made mince tarts to follow.

Watching her mother’s pleasure at the simple, wellcooked meal, Emma promised herself that they would do a similar trip before the winter ended, while the villages were quiet and the roads almost empty.

It was still fine weather but the afternoon was already fading, and she had promised to return the car by seven o’clock at the latest. They decided to drive straight home and have tea when they got in, and since it was still a clear afternoon they decided to take a minor road through Ilsington. Emma had turned off the main road on to the small country lane when her mother slumped in her seat without uttering a sound. Emma stopped the car and turned to look at her unconscious parent.

She said, ‘Mother—Mother, whatever is the matter…?’ And then she pulled herself together—bleating her name wasn’t going to help. She undid her safetybelt, took her mother’s pulse and called her name again, but Mrs Trent lolled in her seat, her eyes closed. At least Emma could feel her pulse, and her breathing seemed normal.

Emma looked around her. The lane was narrow; she would never be able to turn the car and there was little point in driving on as Ilsington was a small village—too small for a doctor. She pulled a rug from the back seat and wrapped it round her mother and was full of thankful relief when Mrs Trent opened her eyes, but the relief was short-lived. Mrs Trent gave a groan. ‘Emma, it’s such a pain, I don’t think I can bear it…’

There was only one thing to do—to reverse the car back down the lane, return to the main road and race back to Bovey Tracey.

‘It’s all right, Mother,’ said Emma. ‘It’s not far to Bovey…There’s the cottage hospital there; they’ll help you.’

She began to reverse, going painfully slowly since the lane curved between high hedges, and it was a good thing she did, for the oncoming car behind her braked smoothly inches from her boot. She got out so fast that she almost tumbled over; here was help! She had no eyes for the other car but rushed to poke her worried face through the window that its driver had just opened.

‘It’s you!’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, you can help. Only, please come quickly.’ Dr. Wyatt didn’t utter a word but he was beside her before she could draw another breath. ‘Mother—it’s Mother; she’s collapsed and she’s in terrible pain. I couldn’t turn the car and this lane goes to Ilsington, and it’s on the moor miles from anywhere…’

He put a large, steadying hand on her arm. ‘Shall I take a look?’