Marrying Mary

‘That will do, thank you,’ said Great Aunt Thirza. ‘My niece will help me into the sitting-room.’ She turned to look at her. ‘Well, Mary, here I am.’

Mary kissed the offered cheek. ‘We are delighted to have you to stay, Aunt.’ She stopped as the men turned away. ‘If you’d like to go to the kitchen—the door over there—there’s tea and sandwiches. Thank you both so much.’

She had a lovely smile and they beamed back at her. ‘If that’s not troubling you, miss, we could do with a cuppa.’

‘Would you like tea, Aunt Thirza? It’s all ready in the sitting-room.’ She gave the old lady an arm and settled her in an armchair by the small tea-table. ‘Father’s at the British Museum; he’ll be back at any moment. Mother’s very busy; she’s just had an order for Christmas cards.’

‘Ridiculous,’ said Mrs Winton. ‘Christmas cards, indeed—child’s play.’

‘Actually they need a great deal of skill, and Mother’s very good at them.’

Her aunt sipped her tea. ‘Why aren’t you married, Mary?’

‘Well, I don’t think I’ve met anyone I want to marry yet. There’s Arthur, of course...’

‘A girl should marry.’ She pronounced it ‘gel’. ‘I don’t hold with this independence. My generation had more sense; we married and settled down to be good wives and mothers.’

Aunt Thirza was in her eighties. Mary wondered what it had been like to be young then—corsets and hats and gloves, not just on Sundays and occasions but even to go shopping, and not to be able to drive a car or wear trousers...

On the other hand there had been no television and there had been dances—not the leaping around that was the fashion now, but foxtrotting and waltzing. Waltzing with a man you loved or even liked must have been delightful. The clothes had been pretty awful, but they were pretty awful nowadays among the young. Mary, who sometimes felt older than her years, sighed.

Great Aunt Thirza was quite a handful. She had brought a good deal of luggage with her which had to be unpacked and disposed around the house according to her fancy. She poked her nose into the kitchen and made scathing remarks about Mrs Blackett’s terrible old slippers with the nicks cut out for the comfort of her bunions; she inspected the fridge, lectured Polly on her untidiness, interrupted her nephew in his study and swept down to the hut to see her niece-in-law, where she passed so many critical remarks that that lady was unable to pick up her brush for the rest of the day.

It didn’t matter how ingenious Mary was with the lentils, dried peas and beans, her elderly relation always found something wrong with them.

At the end of a week, having escorted her to her room, shut the windows, refreshed the water jug, gone downstairs again for warm milk, found another blanket, run a bath and listened to her aunt giving her opinion of the drawbacks of the house, Mary went downstairs to where her mother and father were sitting in the drawing-room—a room seldom used since it was large, draughty and, despite Mary’s polishing, shabby.

‘When is Great Aunt Thirza going home?’ she asked her father, sounding cross.

He looked up from the book he was reading, peered over his glasses at her and said mildly, ‘I really don’t know, my dear. She’s no trouble, is she?’

Mary sat down. ‘Yes, Father, she is. She has made Mrs Blackett even more bad-tempered than usual—she’s threatened to leave—and Polly is rebellious and I can’t blame her. I haven’t cooked a square meal for more than a week; I don’t expect that you’ve noticed but there’s not been an ounce of meat in the house for days and I, for one, am sick of spinach and lettuce leaves.’

Her mother looked up from the sketches she was making. ‘A nice steak with mushrooms, and those French fries you do so well, darling.’ She added hopefully, ‘Could we go out for a meal?’

‘It would cost too much,’ said Mary, who knew more about the housekeeping money than her mother. ‘We need a miracle...’

It came with the postman in the morning. Great Aunt Thirza was bidden to attend at St Justin’s in Central London where she had been treated for a heart condition—nine o’clock on the following morning. Should her examination prove satisfactory she could make arrangements to return to her home and resume a normal life.

‘I shall, of course, abide by the specialist’s advice,’ said Great Aunt Thirza. ‘He may consider it more beneficial to my health for me to return here for a further few weeks.’ She poured herself another cup of tea—the special herbal one that she preferred. ‘You can drive me there, Mary. It will save the expense of a taxi.’

Mary didn’t answer. Mrs Winton was comfortably off, well able to afford as many taxis as she could want; she could afford to pay for the peas and beans too, thought Mary peevishly.

To waste most of a day, certainly a whole morning, taking her aunt to the hospital was tiresome when there was a stack of ironing waiting to be done, besides which she needed to thumb through the cookery book she had borrowed from the library and find another way to cook kidney beans...

Polly, back from school at teatime, gobbling bread spread with an imitation butter, heavily covered with peanut butter, voiced the opinion that Great Aunt Thirza was quite well enough to go home. ‘Let her housekeeper cook that rabbit food.’ She rolled her large blue eyes dramatically. ‘Mary, I’ll die if I don’t have some chips soon.’

‘Perhaps I could have a word with the specialist,’ mused Mary.

‘Yes, do. Wear something pretty and flutter your eyelashes at him. You’re quite pretty, you know.’

‘I don’t expect that kind of man—you know, wildly clever and always reading books like Father, only younger—notices if one is pretty or not. If I had a heart attack or fainted all over him he might, I suppose.’

She spent a moment imagining herself falling gracefully into the arms of some doddering old professor. It wouldn’t do; she wasn’t the right shape. Fainting was for small, ethereal girls with tiny waists and slender enough to be picked up easily. Whoever it was who caught her would need to be a giant with muscles to match. ‘But I will wear that green dress and those sandals I bought in the sales.’

St Justin’s Hospital wasn’t far as the crow flew, but driving there during the rush hour was a different matter. Great Aunt Thirza, roused from her bed at an early hour, was in a bad temper. She sat beside Mary, her lips firmly closed, wearing the air of someone who was being shabbily treated but refused to complain, which left Mary free to concentrate on getting to the hospital by nine o’clock.

The outpatients department was already full. They were told where to sit and warned that Mr van Rakesma had not yet arrived but was expected at any moment. ‘I am probably the first to be seen,’ said Great Aunt Thirza. She edged away from an elderly man beside her who was asleep and snoring gently. ‘Really, the people one meets; I find it distasteful.’

‘You could always be a private patient,’ suggested Mary.

‘My dear Mary, you talk as though I had a fortune. Besides, why should I pay for something I can obtain for nothing?’

Mary wondered if having money made one mean. She wasn’t interested in her aunt’s finances. She changed places with the old lady and found that the snoring man was watching her. ‘Morning, love,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Don’t tell me someone as pretty as you needs to come to this halfway house.’

‘Halfway house?’

He winked. ‘Take a look, love. We’re all getting a bit long in the tooth and needing a bit of make do and mend to help us on our way!’ He winked again and added, ‘Who’s the old biddy with you? Not your ma, that’s for sure.’

‘An aunt—a great aunt actually. Shall we have to wait for a long time?’

He waved a vague arm. ‘Starts at eight o’clock, does his nibs, but, seeing that he’s not here yet and it’s gone nine o‘clock, I’d say we’ll still be here for our dinner.’

‘You mean the first appointment is for eight o’clock?’ When he nodded she said, ’My aunt thought she would be the first patient.’

His loud laugh caused Great Aunt Thirza to bend forward and look around Mary so that she could give him an icy stare.

‘I cannot imagine why this man hasn’t come, Mary. Possibly he is still in his bed...’

He wasn’t, though. There was a wave of interest in the closely packed benches as he walked past them—a very tall, heavily built man, his gingery hair tinged with grey, his handsome face without expression, looking ahead of him just as though there was no one else there but himself and his registrar beside him. Mary had ample opportunity to study him. He was, she realised, the man she had been waiting for, and she fell instantly in love with him.

After that she didn’t mind the long wait, and sat between the now sleeping man and an irate great aunt. She had plenty to think about, and most of her thoughts were of a highly impractical nature, but just for the moment she allowed day-dreaming to override common sense. He would look at her and fall in love, just as she had done...

‘At last,’ hissed Great Aunt Thirza. ‘Come with me, Mary.’

The consulting-room was quite small and Mr van Rakesma seemed to take up most of it. He glanced up briefly as they went in, asked them to sit down in a pleasant, impersonal voice and finished his writing.

‘Mrs Winton? You have been referred to me by Dr Cymes and I am glad to see you looking so well.’ He glanced at the notes before him. ‘You wish to return home, I understand, and if I find you quite recovered I see no reason why you shouldn’t do so.’

‘Young man,’ said Great Aunt Thirza sternly, ‘I had an appointment for nine o’clock this morning. It is now ten minutes past twelve. I consider this a disgraceful state of affairs.’

Mary went pink and stared at her feet. Mr van Rakesma smiled; Sister, standing beside his desk, gave an indignant snort.

‘Circumstances occasionally arise which prevent our keeping to our original plans,’ he said mildly. ‘Would you be good enough to go with Sister to the examination-room so that I can take a look?’

‘You will stay here,’ she told Mary as she went. Mary didn’t look up, which was a pity for she would have found his eyes on her. He couldn’t see her face, but her glorious hair was enough to attract any man’s eye...

‘Is there something wrong with your shoe?’ he asked gently.