Small Slice of Summer

‘Not a bit—how could I be? I’ve been here all day doing absolutely nothing. It’s been heavenly, but I feel an absolute fraud.’

‘Until you try to stand on that foot,’ remarked Jason, and picked her up. ‘Back in ten minutes,’ he told her as he lowered her into the chair before the dressing table in her room and went away at once. She barely had the time to pick up her hairbrush before Georgina came in. ‘Don’t try and dress,’ she advised, ‘or do anything to your hair,’ and when Letitia eyed her doubtfully: ‘You look quite all right as you are.’

She went away too, so Letitia brushed her hair and creamed her freckles and sat quietly, not thinking of anything very much until Jason came to carry her downstairs again.

The evening was one of the best she could remember, for she felt quite at ease with Georgina and Julius, and as for Jason, his easy friendliness made her oblivious of her appearance and she even forgot her freckles. She reminded herself that two months ago, out with Mike, she would have been fussing about her hair and wondering if her nose were shining and whether she had on the right dress. With Jason it didn’t seem to matter; he hardly looked at her, and when he did it was in a detached way which didn’t once remind her that her hair was loose and a little untidy, and her gown, though charming, was hardly suitable for a dinner party. He carried her up to bed presently and before he left her took a good look at her ankle.

‘Quite OK,’ he pronounced, and wished her goodbye, because he and Julius would be leaving very early the next morning.

The house, after they had gone, seemed large and empty, a fact to which Georgina agreed, giving it her opinion that it was because they were two such large men; all the same, the two girls contrived to spend a pleasant day together, with Stephens and the gardener to carry Letitia down to the garden and the two babies to play with. Julius telephoned twice, the first time shortly after they had arrived, and the second time a few hours later, just as the girls were going to bed. Letitia wondered what Jason was doing, but she didn’t like to ask Georgina, who, for some reason, didn’t mention him at all, but when Julius telephoned the next morning, she couldn’t refrain from asking at what time the men might be expected back.

‘Well, there’s no telling,’ explained Georgina. ‘They both drive fast and awfully well and I daresay they’ll take it in turns, which means that they’ll do it in about six hours. They can do seventy on the motorway, you see, and that’s almost all the way. They’ll be here for tea.’

And she was right. Letitia was entertaining Polly with a demonstration of ‘Here’s the church, here’s the steeple’ when she heard men’s voices and looked up to see them strolling towards them. Neither looked in the least tired, although they ate an enormous tea.

‘No lunch?’ asked Georgina.

‘Well, my love, I had promised myself that we would be home for tea,’ Julius smiled at his wife, ‘and Jason liked the idea too.’

Letitia watching them, thought how wonderful it would be to be loved as much as that. She sighed, and Jason asked at once: ‘Are you tired? Do you want to go indoors and rest?’

She shook her head. ‘No, oh, no, thank you.’

His voice was kind. ‘One more day and then I should think you might try some gentle exercise. How does the ankle feel?’

She hardly noticed when the others went indoors and Jason started to tell her about Edinburgh and their meeting. She was surprised when Julius came out to ask them if they wanted to go in for drinks before dinner. The day, though pleasant, had been long, now the evening was going far too quickly.

The next few days went quickly too, each one speedier than its predecessor, or so it seemed because she was enjoying herself so much. It was a week after her accident, when she had been hobbling very creditably for a couple of days, that Julius gave her his verdict that she was to all intents and purposes, cured. Jason wasn’t back from hospital, she was sitting with Georgina and him, lingering over tea, watching Polly tumbling around on her short fat legs, and thinking how content she was. But it couldn’t last, of course; she said at once: ‘Oh, that’s good. Do you think that I should go straight back to St Athel’s?’

‘Lord, no, Tishy. A week’s leave—you can stay here if you care to—we love having you.’

She smiled at them both because they were so kind and they must have wished her out of the way on occasion. ‘You’re awfully kind,’ she told them, ‘but I’d love to go home. If I could have a lift up to town I could catch a train. Would you think me very ungrateful if I went tomorrow?’

‘Yes, very,’ said Julius promptly. ‘Make it the day after.’ He smiled as he spoke. ‘Do you want to collect more clothes before you go?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve some things at home—they’re a bit old, but I shan’t be going anywhere, so it won’t matter.’

So it was settled, and when Jason came home nobody thought of mentioning it to him and she didn’t like to say anything herself, although presumably, as Julius was still on holiday, it would be Jason who would have to give her a lift. It wasn’t until the next morning, after he had left the house, that Georgina remarked: ‘Oh, by the way, Jason says he’ll take you all the way, Tishy, if you don’t mind leaving quite early in the morning.’

Letitia buttered a piece of toast and sat looking at it. ‘I couldn’t let him do that,’ she said at length. ‘I mean, it’s miles away, even in that car of his.’

It was Julius who answered her. ‘Well, he’ll be home after tea, why don’t you talk to him about it then? And if you’d really rather go by train, he can still give you a lift up to town.’

So she was forced to contain herself until the early evening, for Jason was late home. By the time he strolled in they were all in the drawing room with the children in bed and dinner but half an hour away. Julius got up to get him a drink. ‘A bit of a rush?’ he wanted to know.

‘The Commando went wrong—he picked up eventually, but it lost us a couple of hours, we didn’t finish until six o’clock.’

Georgina glanced at the carriage clock on its bracket. ‘You made good time.’

He had taken a seat at the other end of the sofa where Letitia was sitting. ‘The car went well.’ He looked at Letitia. ‘How far to Chagford, dear girl?’

She jumped because she hadn’t expected his question. ‘Well…yes, the thing is Georgina told me…it’s very kind of you to offer me a lift, but I really can’t…if you wouldn’t mind dropping me off at Paddington…’ She stopped, aware that she wasn’t making much of a success of it.

‘I think you’ve got it wrong,’ explained Jason, at his most placid. ‘I’m going down to Plymouth tomorrow— I have to. I might just as well take you as not—the car’s empty and I’m not going more than a few miles out of my way. It’s no sacrifice on my part, Letitia.’

She told herself that she was relieved to hear that even while a faint prick of annoyance shot through her; would it have been such a sacrifice if he had been asked to drive her down to Chagford? Probably; he had called her touchy, hadn’t he? And damned sensitive, too—and he had wanted to go to sleep instead of talking to her. That still rankled a little. He must find her incredibly dull after the glamorous young ladies he was doubtless in the habit of escorting. She said in a wooden voice: ‘Well, thank you, I’ll be glad of a lift. When do you want to start tomorrow?’

‘That brings us back to my question. How far to Chagford?’

‘A hundred and eighty-seven miles from London.’

‘A good road?’

She frowned in thought. ‘Well, I don’t know it very well. It’s the M3 and then the A30 for the rest of the way, more or less.’

‘Good enough. We’ll go round the ring road and pick up the motorway on the other side of London. Leave at nine sharp? You’ll be home for tea.’

‘It’s quite a few miles to Plymouth from my home,’ she reminded him.

‘That’s all right, Letitia,’ he told her pleasantly. ‘I enjoy driving, it makes a nice change from theatre, you know.’

‘That’s settled, then,’ said Georgina comfortably. ‘Let’s have dinner, Mrs Stephens has made a special effort by way of a farewell gesture to you, Tishy, so we mustn’t spoil it.’ She turned to Jason. ‘You’ll be back in a day or two, won’t you? Spend a day or two here on your way home.’

‘Thanks, George, but only an hour or so—I can’t expect Bas to do my work and his for ever.’

‘You do his when he goes on holiday, but I know what you mean. Still, we’ll see you when we come over on holiday.’

‘Of course. Julius and I might even get in some sailing.’ A remark which triggered off a conversation about boats which lasted through dinner, and although the talk became general afterwards, Letitia, on her way up to bed an hour or so later, discovered that beyond casual remarks which she could count on the fingers of one hand, Jason hadn’t talked to her at all. She went to bed a little worried, for it augured ill for their journey the next day. Would they travel in silence, she wondered, or should she attempt to entertain him with lighthearted remarks about this and that? It was a great pity that she knew nothing about sailing and not much about fast cars. And it would bore him to talk about his work. She was still worrying away at her problem like a dog at a bone when she at last fell asleep.

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