The Vicar's Daughter

‘Me? I’m the vicar’s daughter.’

‘I’ll give you a lift as soon as the ambulance has gone.’

‘No need, thank you all the same,’ she said, and, in case that had sounded rude, added, ‘What I mean is, you’ve been awfully kind and it must have been a great nuisance to you. You’ll be very late home. Besides, my bike’s here.’

‘The boy can load it on the cart and drop it off tomorrow when they get to Thinbottom. Won’t your family be worried about you?’

‘I went over to Frogwell Farm—Granny Coffin. Mother will think that I’ve stayed the night—she’s very old and often ill.’

‘Nevertheless, I must insist on seeing you to your home,’ he said, and, when she would have protested, added, ‘Please, don’t argue—’ He broke off. ‘Ah. here’s the ambulance at last.’

He went out of the tent to meet the paramedies, and when they reached the tent she slipped out and stood on one side while they undid their equipment and saw to his patient. Then, satisfied, he stood up and walked back to the ambulance with them, his patient and the baby and the father. As he passed the girl he said, ‘Stay where you are,’ in a voice that she couldn’t ignore. In any case her bike was already roped onto the top of the hand-cart.

He came back presently. ‘Shall we introduce ourselves?’ he suggested. ‘Gijs van Kessel.’ He held out a large hand.

She shook it, feeling its firm grip. ‘Margo Pearson,’ she said, and then, ‘That’s not an English name—are you Dutch?’

‘Yes. If you will wait a moment while I have a word with this boy...’

Once he had done so, he picked up his bag and, with the boy ahead of them with a torch, went back to the road and handed her into the car. Margo, sinking back against the leather softness, said, ‘I’ve never been in a Rolls-Royce. It’s very comfortable—and large too. But then you’re a very large man, aren’t you?’ She sounded very matter-of-fact

‘Yes, I am. Miss Pearson, forgive me for mentioning it, but was it not rather foolhardy of you to rush into the road and stop a strange car? There are quite a few undesirable people around after dark.’

‘I would have screamed very loudly if you had been one,’ she told him sensibly. ‘And I dare say Bert or Willy would have come.’

He didn’t point out that by the time they could have reached her she might have been whisked away in the car or maltreated in some way.

They soon reached the village and she said, ‘It’s here on the left, by the church.’

He drew up at an open gateway. The house beyond was large and solid, a relic from the days when the parsonage had housed a cleric’s large family, and overshadowed by the church a stone’s throw from it. It, like the rest of the village, was in darkness, but as the doctor drew up a light shone through the transom over the front door.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Margo, and undid her seat belt.

He didn’t reply, but got out of the car, opened her door and walked the few yards to the house with her. By the time they had reached the door it had been opened to reveal the vicar in his dressing gown.

‘Margo—thank heaven. We had just phoned Frogwell Farm and been told that you left hours ago. You’re all right? An accident?’ He opened the door wide. ‘Come in, both of you...’

‘Father, this is Dr van Kessel, who kindly gave me a lift. There’s been no accident but he has been of the greatest possible help.’ She turned to greet her mother, a middle-aged replica of herself, as he and the vicar shook hands.

‘My dear sir, we are in your debt. Come into the sitting room—a cup of coffee? Something to eat?’

‘Thank you—but I’m on my way to Blandford to the hospital. Your daughter will explain. I am glad to have been of some help!’ He smiled at Mrs Pearson. ‘You have a very resourceful daughter, Mrs Pearson. I regret that I cannot stay and tell you of our evening’s adventure, but I’m sure Miss Pearson will do so.’

He shook hands all round again, and Margo, having her hand gently crushed, had time to study him in the dim light of the hall. He had seemed enormous back there in the woods and he didn’t seem any less so now. Not so very young, she decided. Mid-thirties, with fair hair already silvered, a commanding nose above a thin, firm mouth and startlingly blue eyes. She thought she would never forget him.

That he would forget her the moment he had resumed his journey went without saying; she had been a plain child and had grown into a plain young woman, and no one had ever pretended that she wasn’t.

Her father had assured her that one could be beautiful as well as being possessed of mediocre features, and her mother thought of her lovingly as a jolie laide, but even George Merridew, who, in village parlance, was courting her cautiously, had told her with a well-meaning lack of tact that she might not have much in the way of good looks but she had plenty of common sense and was almost as good a cook as his mother.

A remark which Margo had found unsatisfactory. Surely if George was in love with her he should think of her as rather more than a cook and a sensible pair of hands? Or was that what he wanted? He was a good farmer and a prosperous man and she liked him—was even a little fond of him—but such remarks did nothing to endear him to her. And now this man had appeared from nowhere and gone again, and had left her feeling uncertain.

She related the night’s happenings to her parents over a pot of tea and slices of bread and butter with lashings of jam. Caesar, the family cat, had curled up on her lap, and Plato, the elderly black Labrador, had got into his basket and gone back to sleep. She gobbled the last slice and sighed.

‘I’m so sorry you were worried, but I couldn’t leave them there, could I?’

‘No, love, of course not. You did quite the right thing. They will bring your bicycle in the morning?’

‘Oh, yes. I’m going to ask George to lend me the trailer, then they can put their hand-cart on it and go to Blandford.’

‘Will George do that?’ asked her father mildly.

‘Well, he won’t be using it until Wednesday, when he hauls the winter feed.’

Margo got up and tucked Caesar into Plato’s basket. She put the mugs in the sink and said, ‘It’s after two o’clock. Don’t either of you get up in the morning until I bring your tea. It’s your morning off, isn’t it, Father? I’ll get the breakfast before I go to see George.’

It was still early when she drove over to George’s farm in the worn out old Ford her father owned. His laconic, ‘Hello, old girl,’ was friendly enough, but hardly lover-like. He listened to her request without comment, only saying when she had finished, ‘I don’t see why not. I’m not needing it for a couple of days. But mind and drive carefully. Will you be at the whist drive this evening? Mother’s going.’

Margo, who didn’t like George’s mother all that much, said that she’d see, and waited while he and one of his farmhands attached the trailer. She drove it carefully back and then parked outside the vicarage in the main street, where the boy and the two young women would see it. She had just finished her breakfast when they came, pushing the hand-cart with her bike on top. They sat, the three of them, in the kitchen, drinking the tea her mother offered and eating bacon sandwiches, saying little.

The road was almost empty as she drove to Blandford Hospital, taking the by-roads she knew so well and getting there without mishap. She hadn’t had any idea what was to happen next, but it seemed that the doctor had smoothed their path for them. There was an empty house near the hospital, they were told, and the travellers were to be allowed to stay in it until the mother and baby were fit to travel again.

The man who had come to speak to Margo at the hospital looked at her curiously. He counted himself lucky to have been the casualty officer on duty when Professor van Kessel had arrived and sought his help last night. He was internationally well-known in his profession, and it had been a privilege to meet him. His fame as a paediatrician was widespread, and to have had the honour of meeting him... And he had been very accurate in his description of this Miss Pearson.

He said now, ‘Mother and baby are doing well, but they’ll have to stay for a couple of days. The professor found the empty house for her family. Don’t ask me how at that time of night—the police, I suppose. I’ll let you have the address. Oh, and he left some money for them. May I give it to you?’

‘Professor?’ asked Margo. ‘Isn’t he a doctor?’

The young doctor smiled down at her. She was rather sweet, even if plain, he thought.

‘He’s a famous man in the medical world. Specialises in children’s illnesses.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know. I’ll take the boy and the women to this house, shall I? They’ll be all right there? I ought to get back in case the trailer is needed.’

‘That’s fine. The social services will have been told, and don’t forget it’s temporary—they can move on once the mother and baby are fit.’

It was a miserable little cottage, but it was empty and weatherproof. The boy unloaded the cart from the trailer, thanked her in a rather surly voice and, helped by the two young women, took their possessions indoors. Margo gave the money to one of the women. ‘It’s not from me. The doctor who looked after the baby left it for all of you,’ she explained.

The woman gave her a sour look. ‘We won’t be staying here longer than we must.’

It was the other woman who called across, ‘Well, thanks anyway.’

Margo drove back to George’s farm and waited while the trailer was unhitched.

‘Everything OK?’ George wanted to know. ‘Not done any damage?’

‘No,’ said Margo, and thought how delightful it would be if he would ask her—just once would do—if she was OK as well as the trailer. George, she felt sure, was a sound young man, steady and hardworking, but he hadn’t much time for what he called all that nonsense. In due time he would marry, since a farmer needed a wife and sons to carry on his work, and she suspected that he had decided that she would do very nicely—little chance of her looks tempting any other suitors, a splendid cook, and capable of turning her hand to anything.

Margo drove the short distance back to the vicarage, childishly wishing for a miracle—glossy fair curls, blue eyes and a face to make men turn to look at her twice and then fall in love with her. ‘And not just George,’ she said aloud. ‘Someone like Dr van Kessel—no, Professor van Kessel. Someone handsome, rich and important. He won’t even remember what I look like.’