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,
