The Most Marvellous Summer

‘He doesn’t talk much, does he?’ Roseanne wanted to know. ‘I think I’m a bit—well—scared of him.’

Matilda looked at her in astonishment. ‘Scared? Of him? Whatever for? I dare say he was wrapped up in some business transaction; of course he didn’t want to talk. Anyway you’ll change your mind next week—he’s coming to your godmother’s dinner party, so we shall see him then.’

She saw him before then.

The days had passed rapidly, too fast for Roseanne, not fast enough for Matilda; she wanted to go home—London, she felt, wasn’t for her. True, while she was there there was always the chance that she would see Mr Scott-Thurlow, but what was the use of that when he was going to marry Rhoda? A girl who was undoubtedly beautiful, clever and wore all the right clothes regardless of expense. She and Roseanne had gone shopping, gone to more exhibitions than she could count, seen the latest films and plays and accompanied Mrs Venables on several occasions when that lady, an enthusiastic member of several committees, introduced them to their various other members, mostly middle-aged and not in the least interested in the two girls. Roseanne found them a waste of time when she might have spent it in the company of her Bernard.

There were only a few days left now and preparations for the dinner party that night were well ahead. They were finishing their breakfast, which they took alone since Mrs Venables had hers in bed, when the dining-room door was thrust open and the kitchen maid—who should have known better, as Roseanne was quick to point out—rushed up to the table.

‘It’s Cook—cut herself something awful and the others down at the market getting the food for tonight. Whatever shall I do?’

‘My dear good girl,’ began Roseanne, looking alarmingly like her mother, but she was not allowed to finish.

‘I’ll come and look, shall I?’ suggested Matilda calmly. ‘If it’s very bad we can get her to the hospital, but perhaps it looks worse than it is.’

Cook was sitting at the table, her hand wrapped in a teatowel. She was a nasty green colour and moaning faintly. Matilda opened the towel gently, making soothing noises the while. There was a lot of blood, but if it was a deep cut she could tie the hand up tightly and get a taxi to the nearest hospital. Since both of her companions were on the edge of hysteria she told them bracingly to close their eyes and turned back the last of the towel. She would have liked to have closed her eyes too; Cook’s first and second fingers had been neatly severed just above the second joints. Matilda gulped and hoped her breakfast would stay down.

‘Milly—it is Milly?—please go and ring for a taxi. Be quick and say that it’s very urgent. Then come back here.’

‘Is it a bad cut?’ asked Roseanne from the door. ‘Should I tell Aunt Maud?’

‘Presently. I’ll go with Cook to the nearest hospital and perhaps you’ll tell her then.’ She glanced at the girl. ‘Would you get a shawl or something to put round Cook?’

‘There’s blood everywhere,’ said Roseanne, and handed over a cape hanging behind the door, carefully looking the other way.

Matilda hung on to her patience. ‘Thanks. Now find a table napkin or a scarf and look sharp about it…’

‘No one speaks to me like that,’ declared Roseanne.

‘Don’t be silly! I dare say you’ll find a cloth of some sort in that cupboard.’

Roseanne opened drawers in an aggrieved manner and came back with a small teacloth. It was fine linen and beautifully embroidered and Matilda fashioned it into some kind of a sling, draped the cloak round Cook’s shaking shoulders and propelled her gently out of the kitchen across the hall and out to the waiting taxi. They left a trail of red spots across the floor and Matilda heard Milly’s gasp of horror.

‘The nearest hospital,’ urged Matilda, supporting a half-fainting and sturdily built Cook, ‘as quick as you can.’

The cabby drove well, taking short cuts, cutting corners, beating the lights by a hair’s breadth. At the Casualty entrance they got out and he got out too and between them they got poor Cook in to Casualty.

There was a young man standing talking to a nurse near the door. Matilda paused by him. ‘Would you please pay the cabby? I’ll let you have the money as soon as I can leave Cook.’

He looked astonished, paid the man while Matilda offered hasty thanks, then took his place on the other side of Cook.

‘She’s cut off her fingers—two of them—they’re there, inside the towel. Could someone get a doctor?’

‘That’s me. Casualty officer on duty. Let’s have her in here.’

The place was half full, patients on chairs waiting to be seen, nurses going to and fro, several people on trolleys and a fierce-looking sister coming towards them.

‘Well, what’s this?’ she wanted to know and with a surprising gentleness turned back the towel. She lifted Cook’s arm and pressed the bell beside the couch and, when a nurse came, gave her quick instructions and then glanced at the young man.

‘Shall I get her ready for Theatre? Nurse is taking a message—the quicker the better.’

Matilda was holding the other hand and Cook was clinging to it as though she would never let it go. Her skirt and blouse were ruined and her hair was coming down but she didn’t give them a thought. She felt sick.

The shock of seeing Mr Scott-Thurlow in a long white coat over an excellently tailored grey suit dispelled the sickness. He was coming towards them with calm speed and fetched up beside the couch. He gave her a cool nod and she said in a wondering voice, ‘Oh, I’ve been wondering just what you did…’ and blushed scarlet as he gave a faint smile as he bent over Cook. The casualty officer was doing things—a tourniquet?—some kind of pressure so that the bleeding wasn’t so bad any more and Sister was handing swabs and instruments to Mr Scott-Thurlow. Matilda, feeling sick again, looked at the curtains around the couch.

She heard him say, ‘Right, we’ll have her up right away, please, before I start my list. Warn Theatre, will you?’ He bent over Cook. ‘Don’t worry too much, my dear, I’m going to stitch your fingers on again and you can stay here for a few days while they heal. Nurse is going to give you a little injection now to help the pain.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘You’re very brave.’

He spoke to Matilda then. ‘What did she have for breakfast?’ he wanted to know.

‘I don’t know, but she would have had it quite early—about seven o’clock. She was slicing bacon with one of those machines…’

Matilda felt cold and looked green; the thought of the bacon had been too much. ‘I’m going to be…’

Mr Scott-Thurlow handed her a bowl with the manner of someone offering her a hanky she might have dropped or a glass of water she had asked for. He was just in time.

There was someone beside her, a young nurse being sympathetic and helpful, and when Matilda lifted a shamed face everyone had gone.

‘Don’t worry,’ said the nurse, ‘there’s somewhere where you can wait and I’ll get someone to bring you a cup of tea. Mr Scott-Thurlow is going to operate at once so you’ll know what’s happening quite soon. Do you want to phone anybody?’

‘Yes, please, only I haven’t any money.’

She was led away to a rather bare room lined with benches with a kind of canteen at one end and two telephones on the wall. The nurse gave her twenty pence, patted her on the shoulder in a motherly fashion and hurried away.

She phoned Mrs Venables. ‘How could she?’ cried that lady in an outraged voice. ‘When we have the dinner party this evening and absolutely no chance of getting a cook at such short notice. What am I to do? She must have been careless—’

‘She’s cut off two fingers,’ said Matilda. ‘I’ll stay here until I know what is happening to her. She’s been very brave.’

She didn’t wait for Mrs Venables’s reply.

She sat for an hour, revived by a cup of hot strong tea, thinking about Cook and Mr Scott-Thurlow. She shouldn’t have blurted out her silly remark in Casualty—she went hot again just thinking about it—and then to have been sick… She wriggled with humiliation. He had been kind to Cook; she hoped that he would be able to sew the fingers back on—surgeons were clever and she supposed that he was very experienced.

The kind little nurse who had lent her the twenty pence came into the waiting-room and she got up to meet her.

‘She’s going to be all right,’ said the nurse. ‘Mr Scott-Thurlow did a good job, and her fingers will be as good as new—well, almost. He’s a wizard with bones. Sister said will you arrange for Mrs Chubb’s clothes—nighties and washing things and so on—to be brought in? She’s to stay a few days.’

Matilda nodded. ‘Yes, of course. Which ward is she in?’

‘Women’s Orthopaedic, second floor. You’ll be able to see her.’

‘I’ll go and get everything now and come back as soon as I can. Thank you, you’ve all been awfully kind.’

She was back within the hour, Cook’s necessities in a case, with a couple of paperbacks she had stopped to buy and a bunch of flowers, Mrs Venables’s unfeeling, complaining voice still ringing in her ears.

‘The woman will be of no use to me,’ she had said impatiently. ‘Now I shall have to get another cook.’

Matilda had turned a thoughtful green gaze on to her hostess. ‘Has she worked for you for long?’ she asked.

‘Oh, years,’ said Mrs Venables. ‘I must say it is most inconvenient—’

‘I dare say Cook finds it inconvenient too, and very painful.’

She had received a very cold look for that; a good thing they were going home in a few more days.

Cook was in a small ward, sitting up in bed, looking pale. Matilda put everything away in her locker, fetched a vase for the flowers and offered the paperbacks—light romantic reading which she hoped would take Cook’s mind off her problems. She parried the awkward questions she was asked, skimming smoothly over the future, and invented one or two suitable messages from Mrs Venables. ‘I’ll pop in some time tomorrow,’ she finished, ‘just to see if there’s anything you would like.’

‘That’s kind of you, miss. We all said in the kitchen what a kind young lady you were, and so very understanding.’

Matilda said goodbye and found her way out of the hospital, trying not to wish that she might meet Mr Scott-Thurlow. But of course she didn’t.

She got back to the house to find Mrs Venables raging up and down the drawing-room floor while Roseanne sat in a corner looking obstinate. She had intended to spend the morning with Bernard and she had had to put him off. Her mouth was set in a thin line and she looked very like her mother.

Mrs Venables, pacing back to the door, saw Matilda. ‘I’ve telephoned every agency I can think of,’ she declared. ‘There is not a decent cook to be had at a moment’s notice. I am distraught.’ She wrung her hands in a dramatic fashion and glared at Matilda.

‘You will be relieved to know that Mrs Chubb’s operation was successful and that she is comfortably in bed.’ Matilda glared back. ‘I can cook—I’ll see to dinner this evening.’

Mrs Venables’s glare turned to a melting sweetness. ‘Matilda! Oh, can you really cook? I mean cordon bleu? My dear girl, however can I thank you—what a relief, you have no idea how worried I’ve been.’ She reeled off the menu: consommé royale, poached salmon, roast duck with orange garnish and brandy, straw potatoes and a selection of vegetables, some sort of a salad—she had left that to Cook—and then peach condé and coffee mousse. ‘Can you manage that?’ She patted Matilda’s arm. ‘So good of you to do this for me.’

‘I’m doing it for Cook,’ said Matilda.

She didn’t wait for Mrs Venables’s outraged gasp but took herself off to the kitchen, where she explained matters to the domestic staff and sat down at the kitchen table to get organised. She had plenty of willing help, and, satisfied with the arrangements, she went away to tidy herself for lunch, an uncomfortable meal with Mrs Venables suppressing her ill temper in case Matilda should back out at the last minute, and Roseanne still sulking.

Matilda spent most of the afternoon preparing for the evening. She enjoyed cooking and she was an instinctive cook, quite ordinary food turning into delectable dishes under her capable hands. She had her tea in the kitchen, which rather upset the butler and the kitchen maid and certainly upset Bertha, who had disapproved of the whole thing to start with. ‘Ladies,’ she had sniffed, ‘don’t belong in the kitchen,’ a remark to which Matilda didn’t bother to reply.

Everything went well; as the first guests arrived and the butler went to admit them, Matilda gave the ducks a satisfied prod, tasted the consommé and began to make a salad. There was half an hour before dinner would be served and she enjoyed making a salad.

The Honourable Mrs Venables greeted her guests with an almost feverish eagerness. She had planned the evening carefully and if anything went wrong she would never recover from it. She cast an anxious eye over the laughing and talking people around her. Bernard had come and she sighed with relief, for Roseanne had stopped sulking at the sight of him and even looked a bit pretty. There were two more to come, Rhoda Symes and Mr Scott-Thurlow, and they entered the room at that moment. A handsome couple, she conceded; Rhoda looked magnificent, but then she always did. Mr Scott-Thurlow looked much as he usually did, rather grave; always courteous and lovely manners, though. She went forward to welcome them.

Mr Scott-Thurlow had seen Roseanne as soon as he entered the room but there was no sign of the bright head of hair he had expected to see. He listened politely to one of the guests trying to prise free advice from him while he glanced round the room. Matilda wasn’t there. He caught Rhoda’s eye and she smiled at him. She was looking particularly beautiful, exquisitely made up, her hair a blonde halo, her cerise dress the very latest fashion. She would make him a very suitable wife; she was a clever woman as well as attractive, completely at ease against a social background, cool and undemonstrative. The uneasy thought that her charming appearance hid a cold nature crossed his mind and he found himself wondering why he had asked her to marry him. He knew the answer to that: she made no demands upon him and appeared quite content with the lack of romance between them. He had been an only child and had lost his parents in a plane crash when he had been a small boy. He had gone to live with his grandparents, who had loved him dearly but had not known what to say to him, so he had learned to hide his loneliness and unhappiness and had grown up into a rather quiet man who seldom allowed his feelings to show, channelling his energy and interest into his work. It was his old nanny, Mrs Twigg, who kept house for him, who had begged him to find himself a wife and he had acknowledged the good sense of that; his friends were all married by now and despite his absorption in his work he was sometimes lonely.

He and the man to whom he was talking were joined by several more people and the conversation became general until they were summoned to dinner, where he sat between two young married women who flirted gently with him.

It was someone at the other end of the table who remarked loudly upon the delicious duck. ‘You must have a splendid cook,’ he remarked, laughing.

‘I’ve had her for years,’ declared Mrs Venables. ‘She’s a treasure,’ and Mr Scott-Thurlow, happening to glance at Roseanne across the table, saw the look of surprised rage on her face and wondered why.

It was some time afterwards when they were all back in the drawing-room that he made his way to her side. ‘Nice to see you, Roseanne, and you look charming. Is Miss ffinch ill?’

Roseanne said softly, ‘No, of course not—she never is. She’s in the kitchen. She cooked the dinner.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘We’ll go and see her if you like.’ Before he could answer she said loudly, ‘It’s rather warm—shall we go on to the balcony for a minute?’

There was a small staircase at one end of the balcony and she led the way down it and round the house and in through a side-door.

The short passage was rather dark and smelled vaguely damp. Roseanne opened the door at its end, revealing the kitchen.

Matilda was standing at the kitchen table, carving slices off a roast duck. She wasn’t doing it very well and there was a large pan of rather mangled bones and bits beside her. She looked up and saw them as they went in. She was flushed and untidy and swathed in one of Mrs Chubb’s aprons, many sizes too large for her, and despite that she still contrived to look beautiful. When she saw them she smiled and said, ‘Oh, hello…’

‘What the devil do you think you’re doing?’ asked Mr Scott-Thurlow with a good deal of force.

She chose to misunderstand him. ‘Well, I never could carve—the bones will make splendid soup and there’s still plenty of meat…’

His tone was measured. ‘That is not what I meant, and you know it. Why are you working in the kitchen when you should be in the drawing-room? That abominable woman…’ He stopped, mindful of good manners. ‘Do you mean to say that she asked you to cook dinner?’

‘No. I said that I would—to help Mrs Chubb; you know she was in such a state. They tell me that you did a splendid job on her fingers. Are you a consultant or something?’

‘Yes. Let us keep to the point, Matilda.’

She looked meek, but her eyes sparkled because he had called her Matilda and not Miss ffinch. A tiny step forwards perhaps?

She picked up the knife again and started on the other side of the duck and he stepped forwards, took the knife from her, carved the rest of the bird with a practised hand and laid the knife down on the table.

‘Is there no one to help you?’

‘They’re having their supper. I’ll stay down here until you’ve all gone home.’ She selected a slice of duck and popped it into her mouth.

It was Roseanne who spoke. ‘Look,’ she sounded worried, ‘we must go back—they’ll wonder where we are.’

‘Very well. Have you had your dinner, Matilda?’

He looked as cross as two sticks, she thought lovingly. ‘I shall take a tray up to my room. Goodnight, Mr Scott-Thurlow, or is it goodbye?’

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