They were sparsely furnished, but what there was was old and graceful and, thanks to Euphemia’s hard work, beautifully polished.
Back on the main landing again, the doctor spoke. ‘Two bathrooms, you said?’
It sounded quite inadequate in a house of that size. ‘There’s a shower in the bathroom at the front of the house,’ offered Euphemia, unaware how anxious her voice sounded.
He agreed smoothly. ‘You have no objection to me having another shower put in—there’s a small dressing room adjoining this room…’ He strode across and opened a door and when she followed meekly: ‘At my expense, of course.’
‘If you want one,’ she conceded. Why a man living alone should need two bathrooms and two showers was beyond her, even if this fiancée of his came visiting, unless she was the kind of girl who brought Mum with her…she very nearly giggled and he threw her an enquiring glance. ‘You are amused?’ he wanted to know.
‘No, no, of course not. Is there anywhere else you would like to go? Then perhaps you would like a cup of tea?’
‘Thank you, that would be welcome. I’ll get in touch with my solicitor tomorrow and you will be hearing from yours shortly. I should like to move in within the next ten days.’
Euphemia’s mind boggled at the amount of packing up to be done in that time. She would have to get Ellen to help her and perhaps Mrs Cross, and as though he had read her thoughts: ‘May I suggest that your—er—personal possessions should be stored in one of the bedrooms—it will give you a great deal less work. I should be obliged if the morning room could be cleared so that my secretary will have a room in which to work.’
‘Yes, of course. Will she live here too?’
His tone withered her. ‘What a singularly stupid question, Miss Blackstock!’
She pinkened. ‘Yes, it was,’ she agreed cheerfully. ‘So sorry, I forgot that you’re engaged.’
‘And that is equally stupid.’
‘Ah, now there you’re wrong,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘If I were going to marry you I’d take grave exception to a secretary living in the house with you.’
‘God forbid!’ He gave her a nasty mocking smile. ‘That you were going to marry me.’
Euphemia’s tawny eyes shone with rage. ‘And I’ll say amen to that,’ she told him sweetly. ‘Shall we go downstairs? If you will go into the drawing-room I’ll bring in the tea.’
She sailed into the kitchen, put the kettle on and warmed the teapot. The tea tray looked very nice—paper-thin china, the silver spoons, silver hot water jug and sugar bowl, the little cakes piled appetisingly on to Sèvres china. Euphemia bounced to the table and took one and bit into it. ‘And I hope they choke him!’ she declared in a loud cross voice.
‘In which case he won’t be able to rent the house, will he?’ enquired the doctor’s gentle voice. He was standing just inside the door, not smiling, although she had the impression that he was deeply amused about something. ‘I came to see if I could carry the tray…’
‘How kind—it’s this one.’ She ladled the tea into he pot without looking at him, and made the tea. When she looked round he had gone again with the tray.
She would have to apologise, she supposed, but in this she was frustrated, for each time she opened her mouth to do so, her companion made some remark which required a proper answer. It wasn’t long before she realised that he was doing it deliberately, keeping the conversation strictly businesslike, asking her about local tradespeople and then getting up to leave once he’d got all the answers. She accompanied him to the door and wished him a polite goodbye.
‘The little cakes were delicious,’ he told her. ‘Far too light to choke upon. Good day to you, Miss Blackstock.’
Euphemia stood in the open doorway, staring after him as he climbed into his Bentley and drove away. Part of her mind registered the fact that he did this with a calm skill and careless ease, just as though he were mounting a bicycle. ‘Oh, blow the man!’ she said under her breath, and went in to clear the tea things.
Later that evening she telephoned Aunt Thea and told her the news, and that lady, a woman of good sense, agreed that it was a splendid solution to rent the house and did Euphemia want Ellen there to help pack up?
‘That’s the doctor who came to see Father,’ said Ellen unnecessarily into the phone presently. ‘Then he must be a nice man.’
‘Why?’ asked Euphemia baldly.
‘Well, to like our house enough to want to live in it.’
A viewpoint Euphemia hadn’t considered. ‘He’s taking it for a year.’ She told her sister, ‘He wants to come in ten days’ time. Aunt Thea suggested that you might come up and help pack up our things, but there’s no need. I’ll get Mrs Cross and we can put everything in one of the bedrooms and lock the door.’
‘Oh, you mustn’t do that!’ Ellen sounded quite horrified. ‘It looks as if you don’t trust him.’
‘Rubbish,’ declared Euphemia, rather struck with the idea all the same. ‘I’m sure it’s the usual thing to do.’
‘Oh, well—’ Ellen sounded uncertain. ‘We wouldn’t want to upset him.’
‘Nothing would upset him,’ said Euphemia snappily, so that Ellen said instantly:
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to help pack up?’
‘No, love—I’ll start tomorrow and finish on my days off next week. Are you happy, Ellen?’
‘Aunt Thea is a dear, it’s funny being here after—after home and Father, but I’m happy, Phemie, really I am. Are you all right?’
‘Yes, love. I’ll telephone in a day or two.’
Euphemia spent the whole of the next day collecting up the small personal possessions of them all and it was only half done by the time she left that evening, even so the house didn’t look the same without the clutter of tennis racquets and cricket bats and Ellen’s collection of paperweights, and the pot plants she had tended so carefully. Euphemia moved them all into the greenhouse because she didn’t think that the doctor would care to have the task of watering them regularly—she must remember to ask Mrs Cross to do something about that.
The ward was busy when she got back to the hospital, too busy for her to indulge in her own private thoughts, and her free time was almost entirely taken up with visits to Mr Fish and the house agents. They were all entirely satisfactory, and she felt almost lighthearted as she drove down to Hampton-cum-Spyway for her days off.
Mrs Cross had been in her absence; the hall was freshly polished and the windows and paintwork gleamed. It was the same in the sitting-room and the drawing-room, and in the kitchen she found a note written in Mrs Cross’s spidery writing to the effect that she had done downstairs and would be back again to give upstairs the same treatment after Miss Phemie had finished packing up, and there was milk in the fridge.
Euphemia made tea, ate the doughnuts she had bought on her way home, and rolled up her sleeves. In five days the doctor would be taking up residence and there must
