for most of the time anyway, but she would miss him. Which made it all the stranger that she hesitated about going downstairs again after she had tucked Mrs Duvant up for her post-prandial nap. But as she left Mrs Duvant’s room she saw Jake disappearing out of the front door. She would be able to go downstairs and read by the fire in the small sitting room; she didn’t want him to think that she was avoiding his company—that was if he thought about it at all, nor did she wish to bore him with her own company if he had a mind to be on his own. She found her book and curled up in one of the deep arm chairs drawn up to the cheerful fire.
She had read two pages when the door opened and Jake came in. ‘Ah,’ he said blandly, ‘I had an idea you might have gone into hiding for the afternoon.’
A remark which instantly set her on edge. ‘And why should you think that?’ she wanted to know tartly. ‘I have no reason to hide.’
‘Oh, good, I can’t help feeling that if we see more of each other we may eventually become friends. How about coming to dinner tomorrow evening? We’ll go to Popjoy’s and then go on somewhere to dance.’
A distressing vision of the blue velvet and the green jersey floated before Annis’s eyes. She’d heard of Popjoy’s, it was smart and expensive, and nothing would induce her to go there in either of these garments. With real regret she knew she would have to refuse, and the awful thing was that she actually had the money in her purse to buy that pretty blue crêpe she’d seen, only there was no time in which to buy it.
‘That’s awfully kind of you,’ she said carefully, ‘but I—I’m afraid I can’t accept.’
‘Why not?’
She sought for a good reason in a frenzy and couldn’t think of one. Being a parson’s daughter and the eldest, with a good example to set the others, she had been taught to speak the truth; only if it was going to hurt the hearer was it permissible to prevaricate. Well, she couldn’t see that Jake was going to be hurt. If anyone was, it would be herself, having to admit that she had nothing to wear. She gave him a very direct look and explained: ‘I haven’t got a dress.’ She had pinkened slightly in anticipation of his amusement, but she didn’t look away.
Jake didn’t smile, he said in a calm voice: ‘That’s a problem, but surely we can get round it? Have you got enough money to buy one?’
Strangely she didn’t feel offended at the question. ‘Well, yes—Mrs Duvant paid me, but you see I wouldn’t have time to get to the shops.’
‘Any particular shop?’
‘Jolly’s in Milsom Street.’
‘I take it that if you did have a dress you’d come to dinner with me?’ He wanted to know.
‘I’d like to, that’s if we could…that is, if we wouldn’t get on each other’s nerves.’
He did smile then, but in such a friendly fashion that she smiled back. ‘You never got on my nerves,’ he assured her. ‘Tell me, are you one of those women who take hours to buy something or could you find what you wanted in half an hour or so? Because if you could, we’ll go now: I’ll run you there in the car.’
Annis was out of her chair and making for the door. ‘Give me five minutes!’
The dress was still there. She left Jake browsing in a book shop and went to try it on. The colour was becoming, a shade darker than her eyes, and the dress, although inexpensive, was quite well cut, made of some thick silky material with a chiffon ruffle outlining the neck and the cuffs. Examining herself in the fitting room, Annis decided that it would do very well; it could take the place of the blue velvet and that garment she could consign to the jumble sale. She didn’t think it was quite the sort of dress Jake’s girl-friends would wear, but since she wasn’t one of them that didn’t matter. She paid for it and on the way out spent most of the change on a pair of bronze sandals going cheap but nonetheless elegant.
Jake was still in the bookshop, but he picked up the armful of books he had bought when he saw her and took the dress box from her. ‘Twenty minutes,’ he remarked. ‘Not bad. Did you find what you wanted?’
‘Yes. I hope it’ll do. We don’t go out much at home and I don’t often buy that kind of dress.’
Jake gave her a quick look. If the deplorable blue velvet had been anything to go by, he could not but agree with her. ‘I’m sure it will be very charming,’ he said comfortably. ‘If you’ve got all you want, we’ll go back. Aunt Dora will be wanting her tea.’
She was waiting for them, sitting in the small straightbacked chair she favoured, leafing through a pile of fashion magazines.
‘Such a pity I’m all the wrong shape,’ she greeted them. Her eyes fell on the dress box. ‘You’ve been shopping—how delightful! Do let me see.’
‘Since you’re playing bridge tomorrow evening, Aunt Dora, I’ve asked Annis out to dinner.’ Jake had strolled over to the fire with his back to Annis, busy undoing her purchase.
‘Now that is a good idea,’ enthused Mrs Duvant. ‘Hold it up, dear.’
Annis did so, suddenly doubtful because in the splendidly furnished room with Mrs Duvant’s wildly expensive outfit it looked what it was; a pretty inexpensive dress off the peg. But she was reassured at once by Mrs Duvant’s warm admiration. ‘Oh, very nice,’ she declared, ‘and such a lovely colour. Shoes?’ She had glanced down at Annis’s sensible low heels.
‘Well, just as I was leaving the shop I saw these.’ Annis produced the sandals and the two ladies examined them. ‘They were going cheap and they’ll be useful, because if I ever buy another dress, they’ll go with almost anything.’
This ingenuous remark brought a smile to Jake’s mouth; it was a very gentle smile and amused too. He had thought, when he first met Annis, that she was a bossy elder sister, prone to good works and with far too good an opinion of herself. That she was quite beautiful too, he had admitted without hesitation, but he hadn’t quite believed her occasional dreaminess and her apparent contentment at the Rectory. Now he admitted that he had been quite wrong; she had made no effort to impress him—indeed, she had avoided him, she dealt with Mrs Duvant’s endless small wants without as much as a frown, and he had been touched by her frank admission that she couldn’t go out with him because she hadn’t got a dress. He reflected ruefully that any of the girls he knew who had said that to him would have expected him to have taken them out and bought them one—and nothing off the peg either. He rather thought that if he had suggested to Annis that he would pay she would have thrown something at him. For all her sensible calmness he fancied that at times that red hair of hers might exert itself.
That evening after dinner they played poker, a game Annis had to be taught and which she picked up with ease, rather to Jake’s surprise, until Mrs Duvant remarked that it was only to be expected from a girl who had five A-levels to her credit, and one of these pure Maths. He just stopped himself asking her why she hadn’t gone on to university, because of course, even with a grant, that would have cost money, and there were Edward and James to educate.
They played for high stakes, using the haricot beans Bates brought from the kitchen, and although Jake made a fortune in no time at all, Annis wasn’t far behind him. Mrs Duvant, her black eyes snapping with pleasure, lost over and over again and when they at last called a halt, thanked heaven that she had been playing with beans and not money. But it had been good fun. Annis carefully gathered up the beans and returned them to Bates before going upstairs to bed with
