Last April Fair

Phyllida laughed. ‘You know Mother, she loves a house full—besides, she knows you well enough to hand you a spade and tell you to dig the garden—a nice change from whipping out appendices!’

They spent a pleasant evening together, although thinking about it afterwards, Phyllida had a feeling that they had both been trying too hard; trying in a self-conscious way to turn their rather vague relationship into something more tangible. She couldn’t think why, not for herself at any rate. She was fond of Philip but she was almost sure that she didn’t want to marry him, and yet her sensible brain told her that he was so right for a husband.

She lay awake for a long time thinking about it and then overslept so that her breakfast was a scrappy affair of tea and toast, and for all the good her sleepless night had done her, she might just as well not have given Philip a thought, and indeed she had no time to think about him at all during the morning. She still had no student nurse to replace the one who had gone off sick and one of the three remaining nurses had gone on holiday. She took the report with outward calm, had a few succinct words with Linda Jenkins, her staff nurse, picked up the pile of post for her patients and started off on her morning round, casting a practised eye over the ward as she went. They might be short-staffed, but the girls were managing very nicely; the beds were being made with all speed and those ladies well enough to get up were being settled into the armchairs arranged at intervals down the long ward, a scheme intended to encourage the convalescent ladies to get together and enjoy a nice chat among themselves. Phyllida had discovered long ago that they became so interested in swapping their illnesses that they forgot to grumble at their own aches and pains, the awful food, the tepid tea, the unfeeling nurses… None of which was true, but she quite understood that they had to have something to gossip about. She paused now by a group and listened to Miss Thompson, a pernicious anaemia who ruled the new patients with a rod of iron since she had been in and out of the ward for years now, describing the operation her sister-in-law had just had. Miss Thompson had the bloodcurdling and quite inaccurate details of it so pat that Phyllida’s lovely eyes almost popped out of her head. When Miss Thompson paused for breath she asked drily: ‘Did she recover, Miss Thompson?’

She knew that she shouldn’t have asked the question; now she would have to listen to a long-drawn-out blow-by-blow account of the unfortunate lady’s return to health and strength. She passed around her letters and began a mental assay of the off duty for next week while she stood patiently. When Miss Thompson had at last finished, Phyllida, mindful of hurt feelings, merely remarked that some people had remarkable experiences, admonished the ladies to drink their mid-morning coffee when it arrived and went on her way. She recounted it all to Linda over their own coffee later and chuckled her way into a good humour again, so that when she thought of Philip during a rare few minutes of leisure later that day it was with mild pleasure at the idea of him spending a couple of days at her home.

She only saw him once before she started her leave, and for so short a time that they could only exchange a brief remark as to when he would arrive. She still felt pleased about him coming, but her pleasure was a little dimmed by his matter-of-fact manner, and his ‘See you, then’ was uttered with the briskness of a brother. True, they had encountered one another in the middle of one of the busiest corridors in the hospital, with nurses, porters and housemen milling up and down, but, thought Phyllida, suddenly annoyed, ‘if he loved her as much as he said he did, he could surely have looked at her with rather more feeling?’ She left the hospital the following evening, glad that she hadn’t seen him again.

She drove down to her home in the neat little Vauxhall Astra, a present from her parents on her twenty-first birthday, five years ago, and although she could have afforded to exchange it she had never felt the need; it went well and she understood it as well as she would ever understand any car. She fastened her seat belt, gave a last glance at the rather grim hospital behind her and drove out into the busy street to meet the London traffic.

It took her quite some time to get out of London and on to the M3, but she was a good driver and not impatient. Once on the motorway she sent the small car racing along and at its end, took the A30 to Salisbury. It was almost empty of traffic by now and she made good time to the town, working round it to the north and picking up the A30 again on its further side. She was on home ground now and although it was getting on for ten o’clock, she didn’t feel tired. Just short of Shaftesbury she turned off on to the Tisbury road and then turned again, going through pleasantly wooded country and climbing a little on the winding road. Over the brow of the hill she slowed for a minute. The lights of Gifford Ferris twinkled at her almost at its foot, not many lights, for the village was small and off the main road. But it was by no means isolated; there were other villages within a mile or two on all sides; any number of outlying farms and main roads to the north and south. Phyllida put her foot down and sent the car scuttling down the hill and then more slowly into the village’s main street. It had a small market square with a stone cross in its centre, a handful of shops around it besides a comfortable hotel, and at the top of the hill on the other side one or two old stone houses. She stopped before one of these and jumped out, but before she could reach the door it had been flung open.

‘Your mother’s in the kitchen, getting your supper,’ observed her father placidly. ‘Nice to see you, my dear—did you have a good trip?’

She kissed him soundly. ‘Super—almost no traffic once I’d left London. Something smells good—I’m famished! I’ll get my case…’

‘Run along and find your mother, I’ll bring it in. The car will be all right there until the morning.’

Phyllida walked down the long narrow hall and opened the kitchen door at its end, contentedly sniffing the air; furniture polish, the scent from a bowl of hyacinths on a table, and fragrant cooking. They spelled home.

Her mother was at the scrubbed table in the middle of the room, cutting bread. She looked up as Phyllida went in, dropped the knife and came to meet her. ‘Darling—how lovely to see you, and how nice you look in that suit. There’s watercress soup and mushroom omelette and buttered toast and tea, though Father says you’re to have a glass of sherry first. He’ll bring it presently.’ She returned Phyllida’s hug and added: ‘Willy’s here just for a few days—half term, you know.’

The younger of her two brothers appeared as her mother spoke, a boy of fourteen, absurdly like his father, with tousled hair and an air of never having enough to eat. He bore this out with a brotherly: ‘Hi, Sis, heard you come, guessed there’d be food.’

She obligingly sat down at the table and shared her supper while their mother cut bread and wondered aloud how many more meals he would want before he settled to sleep.

‘I’m growing,’ he pointed out cheerfully, ‘and look at Phylly—she finished growing years ago and she’s stuffing herself.’

‘Rude boy,’ observed his sister placidly. ‘How’s school?’

Her father came in then and they sat around, all talking at once until Willy was sent off to bed and Phyllida and her mother tidied the kitchen, washed up and went to the sitting room with a tray of coffee.

It was a pleasant room; long and low-ceilinged and furnished with some nice pieces which had been in the family for generations. There was comfort too; easy chairs drawn up to the open fire, a vast sofa with a padded back and plenty of small reading lamps. Phyllida curled up on the sofa, the firelight warm on her face and dutifully answered the questions with which her mother bombarded her. They were mostly about Philip and cunningly put, and she answered them patiently, wishing illogically that her mother didn’t seem so keen on him all of a sudden. She had been vaguely put out after Philip’s first visit to her home by her mother’s reaction to him. ‘Such a nice young man,’ her parent had declared, ‘and so serious. I’m sure if you marry him he’ll make a model husband.’It hadn’t been the words so much as the tone in which they had been uttered, and ever since Phyllida had been worried by a faint niggling doubt at the back of her pretty head; a model husband sounded so dull. But this evening she could detect no doubt in her mother’s voice—indeed, her parent chattered on at some length about Phyllida’s future, talking about the wedding as though it were already a certainty.

Phyllida finished her coffee, observed rather tartly that no one had asked her to get married yet and when her mother remarked that she had understood that Philip was coming to stay for a couple of days, pointed out very quickly that it was only a friendly visit—it made a nice restful change after his work at the hospital. Mrs Cresswell agreed placidly, her still pretty head bent over some embroidery, and presently Phyllida went to bed.

Being home was delightful—pottering in the garden, helping her mother round the house, going for long bike rides with Willy, helping in her father’s surgery. Phyllida relaxed, colour came back into her London-pale cheeks, her hair seemed more golden, her eyes bluer. Her mother, looking at her as she made pastry at the kitchen table, felt certain that Philip would ask her to marry him when he came.

She was right; he did, but not at once. He wasn’t a man to rush his fences, and it wasn’t until the morning of his second day there that he suggested that they might go into Shaftesbury for her mother and do some shopping, and Phyllida, called in from fetching the eggs from the hen-house at the end of the garden, readily agreed. She had been glad to see Philip when he had arrived, but not, she confessed to herself, thrilled, but they had quickly slipped into their pleasant, easygoing camaraderie and he was an undemanding companion. She put a jacket on over her slacks, combed her fringe, added a little more lipstick and pronounced herself ready.

Shaftesbury was full of people and cars; it always was, probably because it was a small town and built originally on top of a hill and its shops were concentrated in two main streets. They had done their shopping, chosen a variety of cakes from the fragrant bakery hidden away in an alley where the two streets met, and sat themselves down in the buttery of one of the few hotels for a cup of coffee before Philip made any but the most impersonal remarks.

‘Wouldn’t you like to leave hospital and have a home of your own?’ he wanted to know.

Phyllida chose a bun, not paying as much attention as she should have done. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said casually, ‘I’d love it. Have a bun?’

‘Then why don’t you?’

She looked up then, suddenly realizing what he was going to say. ‘Don’t, Philip—please…’

He took a bun too. ‘Why not? You must know that I want to marry you?’

‘Yes—well, yes, I suppose I did, but not—not urgently.’

He was a very honest young man. ‘If you mean I’m beside myself with impatience to get married, you’re right. But I’ve given the matter a great deal of thought lately and I’m sure you’re the wife for me; we know each other very well by now and I’m more than half in love with you.’ He smiled at her across the table. ‘How about it, Phylly?’

She knew that she was going to say no. Perhaps, she thought desperately, she had never intended to say anything else, but it was going to be hard to say it. For one thing, she was strongly tempted to accept Philip’s matter-of-fact proposal. They would live together happily enough, she would take an interest in his work and he would be a kind and considerate husband, of that she was sure. She would have a pleasant enough life with enough to live on, a nice home, friends of her own sort and children. She would like several children; only she had the lowering feeling that Philip would want a neat little family of a boy and a girl. He would be a splendid father too and the children would be good, obedient and reasonably clever. In fact, life wouldn’t be what she had dreamed—a vague dream of a man who would sweep her off her feet, treasure her and love her and never on any account allow her to wear the trousers, and more than that, would fill his house with a brood of healthy, naughty children.

She sighed and said gently: ‘It wouldn’t work, Philip.’

He showed no rancour. ‘Why not? You must have reasons.’

She frowned. ‘I like you very, very much—I think for a while I was a little in love with you, but I’m sure that it’s not enough.’ She looked at him with unhappy blue eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Philip—and I don’t think I shall change my mind.’

He said calmly: ‘You’re in love with someone else?’

‘No. Oh, no, no one at all, that’s why it’s difficult…you see, you’re so right for me. I respect you and admire your work and the way you live, and I like being with you, only I don’t want to marry you.’ She added miserably: ‘It would be such a mistake, and the awful thing is I don’t know what I want.’

Philip finished his coffee with the air of a man who wasn’t in the least defeated. ‘I’m not taking no for an answer,’ he told her quietly. ‘I won’t bother you, but I’ll wait.’

‘But it won’t be any good.’ She looked like an unhappy little girl, her short upper lip caught between her teeth, her eyes enormous under the fringe. She felt suddenly peevish. If she could get away, right away, he would forget her because he didn’t love her, not with the sort of love which just didn’t want to go on living without her—he might even fall in love with someone else quite quickly. It struck her then that he was the kind of man who didn’t need to love like that; he was a calm, even-tempered man and too much love would choke him. When he only smiled and offered her more coffee she didn’t say any more, for what was the use?

Philip didn’t allow her refusal to make any difference between them. He spent the rest of the day with her, treating her with the same good-natured affection that he had always shown her. He went back to London that day after tea, saying all the right things to her mother and father and reminding Phyllida cheerfully that they would be going to the Annual Dance at the hospital together two days after her return: ‘Though I’ll see you before then,’ he had assured her.

She watched him go with mixed feelings; real regret that she didn’t love him and a faint touch of temper because he seemed so unmoved about her refusal—or was he so sure that she would give in? The thought made her even more peevish.

The moment he was out of sight her mother remarked: ‘Well, dear, are you going to marry him? I’m sure he must have asked you.’

Phyllida hadn’t meant to say anything about it—not just yet anyway, but she perceived now that her mother would go on gently asking questions until she got an answer.

‘Yes, he did, and I said no.’

‘Oh, good.’ Mrs Cresswell took no notice of her daughter’s surprised look. ‘He’s a very nice man, darling, but not your sort.’

‘What is my sort, Mother?’ Phyllida didn’t feel peevish any more.

Her mother washed a tea-cup with care; it was old and treasured like most of the china she insisted on using every day. ‘Well, he doesn’t have to be handsome, but eye-catching, if you know what I mean, the sort of man who would take command in a sticky situation and know just what to do—and not let you have your own way unless he thought it was good for you.’

‘A bigheaded tyrant,’ suggested Phyllida.

‘No, dear, just a man who would never take you for granted; take great care of you without you ever knowing it, and know exactly what he intended doing with his life—and yours, of course.’

‘A paragon. Mother, I never knew you were romantic—does Father know?’

‘He married me,’ observed her parent placidly. ‘What will you do about Philip? I mean, you can’t help but see him often, can you?’

Phyllida had piled the tea things on to a tray, on her way to putting them away in the carved corner cupboard in the sitting room. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said slowly. ‘It would be sense to leave, I suppose.’