morning.’ She was a bit breathless with an upsurge of feeling at the sight of him. ‘I hope you haven’t been waiting.’
‘Just got here. Jump in.’ He held the door for her, and she settled in the seat beside him. ‘Nervous?’ he asked. ‘You needn’t be.’
He gave her a reassuring smile, and thought what a dim little thing she was in her out-of-date suit and sturdy shoes. But sensible and quiet, just what the Graingers needed, and they would hardly notice what she was wearing, only that her voice was pleasant and she was calm in a crisis. He started the car. ‘I’ll tell you something about Mr and Mrs Grainger. In their seventies, almost eighty, in fact. He has a heart condition and is far too active, can be peppery if he can’t have his own way. Mrs Grainger is small and meek and perfectly content to allow him to dictate to her. She has arthritis and suffers a good deal of pain, but never complains. They are devoted to each other. They lost their only son in an accident some years ago, but they have a granddaughter…’
Something in his voice caught Katherine’s attention; this granddaughter was someone special to him. She had known from the moment she knew that she had fallen in love with him that he would never look at her—all the same, it was a blow. So silly, she told herself silently, he could have been married already, with a houseful of children. At the back of her head, a small, defiant voice pointed out that he might have been heart-whole and single and miraculously bowled over by her very ordinary person. She became aware that he had asked her something and she hadn’t been heeding.
‘So sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘You asked me something?’
They were at the roundabout on the outskirts of Wilton, waiting to find a place in the traffic streaming towards Salisbury. He slipped smoothly between two other cars before he answered. ‘You do understand that there will be no regular hours? You will, of course, have time to yourself each day, but that time may vary. It would be difficult to arrange to meet your friends or make dates.’
She said quietly, in a bleak little voice, ‘I haven’t any friends, and no one to make a date with.’ She added quickly, in case he thought she was wallowing in self-pity, ‘I had lots of friends when my mother was alive, but there wasn’t much time to spare at my brother’s house. I—I like to be busy, and I shan’t mind at all if Mr and Mrs Grainger make their own arrangements about my free time.’
‘That’s settled then.’ He sounded kind but faintly uninterested. ‘But I expect you will want to go shopping.’ He was annoyed that he had said that, for she went pink and turned to look out of her window, very conscious of her dull appearance. All the same, she agreed cheerfully; in a week or two she would indeed go shopping. Clothes made the man, it was said—well, they would make her, too!
She liked Salisbury; the cathedral dominated the city, and its close was a delightful oasis in the city centre. When the doctor drove down High Street and through the great gate, circled the small car park and drew up before one of the charming old houses abutting the close, she declared, ‘Oh, is it here? I’ve always wanted…I came here with Mother…’
‘Charming, isn’t it? And yes, this is the house.’ He got out and went round to open her door. They crossed the pavement together, and he rang the bell beside the pedimented doorway. The door was opened almost at once by a middle-aged woman with a stern face, dressed soberly in black. She gave the doctor a wintry smile and stared at Katherine.
‘Ah, Mrs Dowling, I have brought Miss Marsh to meet Mr and Mrs Grainger. They are expecting us.’
She wished him a reluctant good morning and nodded at Katherine, who smiled uncertainly. ‘You’d better come up,’ she observed dourly.
The house, despite its Georgian façade, was considerably older. A number of passages led off the small, square hall, and half a dozen steps at its end ended in a small gallery with two doors. The housekeeper opened one of them and ushered them inside. The room was large and long, at the back of the house, overlooking a surprisingly large garden.
Its two occupants turned to look at the doctor and Katherine as they went in, and the elderly gentleman said at once, ‘Jason, my dear boy—so here you are with the little lady you have found for us.’ He peered over his glasses at Katherine. ‘Good morning, my dear. You don’t find it too irksome to cherish us, I hope?’
‘How do you do, Mr Grainger?’ said Katherine politely. ‘Not in the least, if you would like me to come.’
‘Take a look at her, my dear,’ begged the old gentleman, addressing himself to the equally elderly lady sitting opposite him.
She was small and frail-looking, but her eyes were bright and her voice surprisingly strong. She studied Katherine and nodded. ‘I believe that she will do very nicely, Albert. A little on the small side, perhaps?’
‘I’m very strong,’ declared Katherine on a faintly apprehensive note.
‘And competent,’ put in the doctor in his calm way. ‘Besides not being wishful to dash off to the discos with a different young man each evening.’
He had pulled a chair forward, and nodded to her to sit down, and Mrs Grainger asked, ‘Have you a young man, my dear?’
‘No,’ said Katherine, ‘and I’ve never been inside a disco.’
The old couple nodded to each other. ‘Most suitable. Will you come at once?’
Katherine looked at the doctor, who said placidly, ‘I’ll take her back to her brother’s house now, and she can pack her things. I dare say, if you wish it, she could be ready to come back here this evening.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Katherine, ‘there’s a bus I could catch…’
‘I’ll pick you up at six o’clock.’ He barely glanced at her. ‘Mrs Grainger, you do understand that Miss Marsh has to have an hour or so to herself each day, and at least a half-day off each week? We have already discussed the salary, and she finds it acceptable.’ He got up. ‘I’m going to have a word with Mrs Dowling, if I may, before I take Miss Marsh back.’
He was gone for ten minutes, during which time Katherine was plied with questions. She answered them readily enough, for she liked her employers.
She was sensible enough to realise that sitting here in this pleasant room wasn’t indicative of her day’s work; she would probably be on the run for a good part of each day and probably the night, too, but after the cheerless atmosphere of Henry’s home this delightful house held warmth, something she had missed since her mother had died.
When Dr Fitzroy returned, she rose, shook hands, declared that she would return that evening, and accompanied the doctor out to his car.
He had little to say as they drove back, only expressed himself satisfied with the interview, warned her to be ready that evening and reminded her that he called to see Mr and Mrs Grainger two days a week, usually on Tuesdays and Fridays, at about eleven o’clock. ‘So I should like you to be there when I call.’ He shot her a quick glance. ‘You will be happy there?’
‘Yes, oh, yes!’ she assured him. ‘I can’t believe it! I’m so afraid that I’ll wake up and find that it’s all been a dream.’
He laughed. ‘It’s true enough, and I do warn you that you may find the work irksome and sometimes tiring.’ He stopped the car outside Henry’s gate and got out. ‘I’ll come in with you and speak to your sister-in-law.’
Joyce
