Small Slice of Summer

She woke up half an hour later, much refreshed, and saw him sitting in an outside garden chair, his large hands locked behind his head, his eyes shut. She looked at him for a few seconds, wondering if he were really asleep and why was he there anyway; her watch told her that it was barely half past two; theatre should have gone on until at least four o’clock. Perhaps, she thought childishly, he wasn’t really there; he had been the last person she had thought about before she went to sleep—he could be the tail end of a dream. She shut her eyes and opened them again and found him still there, looking at her now. ‘You’ve got freckles,’ he observed, and unlike Mike, he sounded as though he rather liked them.

‘Yes, I know—I hate them. I bought some frightfully expensive cream to get rid of them, but it didn’t work.’

‘They’re charming, let them be.’ His voice was impersonal and casually friendly and she found herself smiling. ‘I thought theatre was working until four o’clock today.’

‘It was, but at half past twelve precisely some workman outside in the street pickaxed his way through the hospital’s water supply. Luckily we were on the tail end of an op, but we had to pack things up for the day. Do you mind if I go to sleep?’

She felt absurdly offended. ‘Not in the least,’ she told him in an icy little voice, and picked up a magazine. Unfortunately it was Elle and her French not being above average, looking at it was a complete waste of time; even the prices of the various way-out garments displayed in its pages meant nothing to her, because she couldn’t remember how many francs went to a pound.

‘You’re a very touchy girl,’ observed her companion, his eyes shut, and while she was still trying to find a suitable retort to this remark:

‘Am I right in suspecting that this—what’s his name—the Medical Registrar was the first man you ever thought you were in love with?’

She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the daybed. ‘I won’t stay here!’ she exploded. ‘You have no right…you don’t even know me…ouch!’

She had put her injured foot to the ground and it had hurt. The doctor got out of his chair in a patient kind of way, lifted the stricken limb back on to the daybed, said: ‘Lie still, do—and don’t be so bird-witted,’ and went back to his chair. His voice was astringent, but his hands had been very gentle. ‘And don’t be so damned sensitive; I’m not a young man on the look out for a girl, you know. I’m thirty-five and very set in my ways—ask Julius.’ He closed his eyes again. ‘I’m ever so safe, like an uncle.’ There was a little pause, then he opened one eye. ‘I like that pink thing and your hair hanging loose.’

Letitia had listened to him in amazement and a kind of relief because now she could think of him as she thought of Julius; kind and friendly and big brotherish. Two short months ago, if Mike had said that, she would have been in a flutter, now it didn’t register at all—at least, she admitted to herself, it was nice that he liked her hair. She took a quick peep and was disappointed to see that his eyes were closed once more.

He wasn’t asleep, though. ‘Where is your home?’ he asked presently.

She cast Elle aside with relief. ‘Devonshire, near Chagford—that’s a small town on Dartmoor. Father’s the rector of a village a few miles on to the moor.’

‘Mother? Brothers and sisters?’ His voice was casually inquiring.

‘Mother and four sisters.’

His eyes flew open. ‘Are they all like you?’

She wasn’t sure how to take that, but she answered soberly: ‘No, they’re all pretty. Hester—she’s the second eldest—is married, so’s Miriam, she comes after me, and Paula’s the last.’

‘And where do you come?’

‘In the middle.’

‘And your eldest sister—Margo, isn’t it? She’s George’s friend?’

‘Yes, they trained together. Margo’s away on holiday. She’s going to get engaged any day now.’

He opened an eye. ‘I always thought,’ he stated seriously, ‘that the young lady about to be proposed to was suitably surprised.’

Letitia giggled, and just for a few moments, in her pink gown and her shining curtain of hair, looked, even with the freckles peppering her nose, quite pretty, so that the doctor opened the other eye as well.

‘She and Jack have known each other ever since she was fifteen, but he went abroad—he’s a bridge engineer, so Margo has gone on working while he got his feet on the ladder, as it were, and now he’s got a marvellous job and they can buy a house and get married.’

‘And you will be a bridesmaid at the wedding, no doubt?’

‘Well, no—you see, we drew lots and Miriam and Paula won. It’s a bit expensive to have four bridesmaids.’

The corners of his firm mouth twitched faintly. ‘I daresay two are more than ample. I have often wondered why girls had them.’

She gazed at him earnestly as she explained: ‘Well, they make everything look pretty—I mean, the bride wants to look nicer than anyone else, but bridesmaids make a background for her.’

‘Ah, yes—stupid of me. Do you set great store on bridesmaids, Letitia?’

She was about to tell him that she hadn’t even thought about it, but that would have been a colossal fib; when she had imagined herself to be in love with Mike, her head had been full of such things. ‘I used to think it was frightfully important, but now I don’t imagine it matters at all.’

‘You know, I think you may be right.’ He heaved himself out of the chair and stretched enormously. ‘I’m going to get us a long cool drink and ask Stephens if we can have tea in half an hour. Can I do anything for you on my way?’

She shook her head and sat back, feeling the sun tracing more freckles and not caring. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she felt as though Jason Mourik van Nie had opened a door for her and she had escaped. It was a lovely feeling.

The drinks were long and iced and he had added straws to her glass. She supped the coolness with delight and exclaimed: ‘Oh, isn’t this just super?’ then felt awkward because he might not find it super at all.

‘Very.’ He was lying back again, not looking at her. ‘Do you suppose you could remember to call me Jason? I call you Tishy, you know, although on second thoughts I think I’ll call you Letitia, I like it better.’

‘Mother always calls me that, but they call me Tishy at the hospital, and sometimes my sisters do too when they want me to do something for them.’

They had their tea presently in complete harmony and she quite forgot to wonder where Georgina and Julius had got to, and when Nanny came out with Ivo in his pram and Polly got on to the doctor’s knee, she lay back, listening to him entertaining the moppet with a series of rhymes in his own language, apparently quite comprehensible to her small ears. She watched him idly, thinking that it was pleasant doing nothing with someone you liked. She gave herself a mental shake; only a very short time ago she hadn’t liked him, but when she tried to remember the exact moment when she had stopped disliking him and liking him instead, she was unable to do so. Her thoughts became a little tangled and she abandoned them when Jason broke in on her musings with the suggestion that she might like to recite a nursery rhyme or two and give him a rest. She had got through ‘Hickory, Dickory, Dock’ and was singing ‘Three Blind Mice’ in a high sweet, rather breathy voice when Georgina and Julius joined them and the little party became a cheerful gossiping group, with Ivo tucked in his mother’s arms and Polly transferred to her father.

‘Ungrateful brat,’ remarked Jason pleasantly. ‘Letitia and I are hoarse with our efforts to amuse her and now she has no eyes or ears for anyone but her papa.’

‘You got back early?’ Georgina asked, and smiled a little.

Jason repeated the tale of the workman and his pickaxe and everyone laughed, then the men fell to making plans for their trip on the following day until Jason said: ‘I’ll carry Letitia indoors, I think, she doesn’t want to get chilled.’ He got up in leisurely fashion. ‘Where is she to go?’

‘The sitting-room—we’ll have drinks, shall we? No, better still, take her straight up to her room, will you, so she can pretty herself up, then you can bring her down again.’ Georgina looked at Letitia. ‘You’re not tired, Tishy?’

‘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?’