At Odds With Love

They released Percy and Simpkin, who began to prowl cautiously while Bruno sat watching them.

‘Has Professor van der Vollenhove gone?’ asked Miss Smithers.

‘He was still in the drawing-room but he said that he had to go almost at once.’

‘I’ll get Bill from the kitchen and we’ll have a quick run in the garden before Lady Grimstone rings. There’s food for the cats already put out. I’ll let you out of the garden door and meet you outside.’

Bill was elderly, good-natured and slow-moving; he stood patiently while Bruno circled him and decided to be friends and then wandered away in a ponderous fashion while Bruno made rings round him, pleased with his new friend.

‘Oh, good, you’ll not have any trouble with them, and I don’t see why the cats shouldn’t settle down too. When she rings I’ll tell Lady Grimstone that you’re unpacking—that will give you time to read through the notes I’ve written for you.’ Miss Smithers smiled kindly. ‘I’m sure you’ll do and bless you for coming—this job suits me—not many people will accept pets—but I really need a break. I’m off to Scotland to my married sister.’

‘I hope you have a lovely holiday—you’ll let me know when you’ll be back? If I get a job I’ll need to give the date when I’ll be free …’

‘I’ll let you know in good time. If everything goes to plan it should be in four weeks’ time.’ She whistled to Bill and went away with him and Jane followed her presently, to sit down on the one easy-chair in the room and study Miss Smithers’s instructions. They were concise and she would have been an idiot not to understand them; life, she could see, was going to be busy for the next four weeks—there was no menial work involved but any number of small chores: letter-writing, reading aloud, making conversation, accompanying Lady Grimstone if and when she chose to go out, walking Bill, making sure that she was settled each night and getting up in the small hours if Lady Grimstone chose to send for her—and at the bottom of the list Miss Smithers had written in her neat hand, ‘Sorting wool, unpicking embroidery, unpicking knitting, finding specs, acting as go-between with various local charities. A half-day a week free but you will need to remind her.’ This last sentence cheered her up; she could find out about buses to Blandford or Salisbury and if the buses didn’t fit with her off-duty the village shop would see to her small wants.

Four weeks wasn’t long, she told herself, making sure that she looked as much like a companion as possible. The bell went then and she went back upstairs and presented herself to Lady Grimstone.

Miss Smithers was there too, sitting quietly saying nothing while her employer reiterated Jane’s duties and then ordered Jane to ring the bell. ‘Since Miss Smithers is going on holiday I think we might drink to that,’ and when a boot-faced elderly man came into the room she said, ‘Blake, fetch the sherry—we wish to toast Miss Smithers, who is in the happy position of going on holiday.’ Lady Grimstone fixed a beady eye on Jane. ‘I only wish that my health allowed me to indulge in such extravagance.’

Miss Smithers said nothing; probably she had heard it all before, reflected Jane. ‘I think that one is entitled to a holiday if one works hard for one’s living.’

Lady Grimstone’s complexion took on a dangerous hue. ‘I’m sure you are entitled to your opinion, Miss Fox; you are, of course, talking of menial workers. Smithers has a pleasant, easy life here, as no doubt you will discover for yourself while she is away.’

They drank their thimblefuls of sherry and went downstairs to the dining-room, which was exactly as Jane had expected it to be—heavy with red chenille curtains and massive furniture, the table set with great elegance. She wondered why someone had gone to all that trouble when they were served a soup so thin that it might have been, and probably was, an Oxo cube dissolved in a pint of water, followed by very small lamb chops, each lost with its sprig of parsley on the splendid porcelain plate and accompanied by a side-plate on which were arranged very prettily one small potato, a sliver of carrot and a morsel of broccoli. Jane, who had a splendid appetite and pleasantly Junoesque proportions to sustain, made hers last as long as possible and hoped for a substantial pudding.

Blancmange—something she hadn’t eaten and had hated since early childhood. She rose from the table still hungry, and resolved to stock up with biscuits as soon as she could get to the village shop.

Lady Grimstone, leading the way majestically from the dining-room, said over her shoulder, ‘Miss Smithers, let us say au revoir now. Miss Fox, you are free until four o’clock after you have settled me for my nap. You will take Bill for a walk and take any telephone calls and open the afternoon post which you will bring with you at precisely the hour.’

She bade Miss Smithers goodbye and ascended the staircase with Jane on her heels. Lady Grimstone took her nap in the drawing-room, lying on a chaise-longue before a splendid fire, but before she could compose herself there was ten minutes’ hard work for Jane. A shawl to be wrapped just so around the lady’s well covered shoulders, a fine rug to be spread over the rest of her person, a small table fetched and a glass of water, smelling salts, a fan and a clean handkerchief with a small bottle of lavender water arranged upon it—and not anyhow; each item had its appointed place. Jane, finished at last to her employer’s satisfaction, thought that she looked like someone in a Regency novel.

‘You may now go and enjoy your afternoon,’ said Lady Grimstone graciously.

It would be a short afternoon, reflected Jane, it was already two o’clock and Bill had to have his walk; and how was she to answer the phone if she was walking him? She didn’t ask; time was too precious.

She found Miss Smithers in her room. ‘I forgot to tell you that Lady Grimstone doesn’t like big meals. There’s a tin of digestive biscuits in the top drawer of the dressing-table, you can stock up on your half-day—you don’t have to be in until ten o’clock and there’s a quiet little pub in the village where you can get a good meal. Just tell them you’re taking over from me for a week or two and they’ll look after you. If you wanted to go to Blandford or Salisbury I’m afraid you can’t—the buses don’t fit and, even if they did, by the time you got there it would be time to come back.’ She smiled. ‘It’s only for a month and the village shop has all the basics, newspapers and magazines and so on. The postman, Ted, will take your letters and bring anything you may want. You’ll be all right?’

A bit late to ask, thought Jane, and said that yes, everything was fine. ‘Then I’m off; the car’s outside for me. I’ve put the cats in.’

They shook hands and Miss Smithers went away and presently Jane heard the car as it was driven away.

It was a clear chilly afternoon and she went along to the kitchen and collected Bill, exchanged the time of day with Mrs Gibb the cook and Petts, the grim-faced woman who had let them in. There was another woman there too, small and round. ‘Sarah,’ said Mrs Gibb, ‘gives a hand round the house—comes each day.’ She smiled at Jane. ‘New to this kind of job, are you? Thought so—well, we’ll all give you a helping hand if you need it.’

Jane thanked her, collected Bill and went back to her room, opened the door and let out Percy and Simpkin, also Bruno, and set off to explore the grounds. The garden around the house gave way presently to a shrubbery and a wide expanse of grass planted with ornamental trees and circled and criss-crossed by narrow paths—ideal for the animals since there was a twelve-foot wall surrounding them. She walked briskly, feeling the first chill of autumn, and as she walked she made plans. She would get the postman to take a note to the post office in the village; once she could get one of the nursing magazines delivered she could start to apply for a job. It might have to be temporary again but she had to have somewhere to go when she left Lady Grimstone, somewhere where the dog and cats would be welcome; she had better order the Lady too; failing a nursing post she could go as a companion at least for the time being while she found exactly what she wanted. She might have to go back to London …

She took her companions indoors, unpacked and then explored her room. It was comfortable enough and had its own small bathroom as well as the conservatory. She had been lucky to get the job, she reflected, a thought which led naturally enough to Professor van der Vollenhove. Did he work in London, she wondered, or did he live in Holland and travel around? Probably the latter, she thought, if he was sufficiently well known. During her years in hospital she had met several medical men who travelled widely, famous not only in their own country but in half the world as well. Her thoughts lingered on him and she wondered if she would see him again. It seemed unlikely. She was puzzling over her feeling of regret at the thought when she glanced at her watch; time to see if there was any post and tidy herself ready for what she hoped would be tea and cake.

Bill had stayed in her room, perfectly happy with his new friends, and, not sure if Lady Grimstone wanted him or not, she left him there and went along to the kitchen. Mrs Gibbs was at the table, cutting wafer-thin bread and butter.

‘The post?’ asked Jane. ‘I was told to collect it—do I come here for it?’

‘The hall, miss, on the table under the tiger head. If you want to see the postman he’s here every morning at half-past seven, having a cuppa with us. He’ll take your letters and bring you anything from the shop. Been doing it for years for Miss Smithers.’

She glanced at the old-fashioned clock on the wall. ‘Tea in ten minutes, miss; time you got that post and had it ready for her ladyship.’

Jane thanked her and fetched the few letters on the tray. She slit the envelopes and carried them upstairs just as the long case clock in the hall chimed the hour.

She went into the drawing-room quietly and paused. Lady Grimstone was snoring with tremendous gusto but Jane supposed that she wouldn’t want the servants to see her like that, lying anyhow, when they brought the tea-tray. She opened the curtains and let in the early dusk and her employer woke with a snort and sat up.

‘I must have dozed off after lunch—it was rather a heavy meal.’ A remark Jane felt unable to answer as she unwound the shawl and rug and helped Lady Grimstone to her feet, eased her into her chair and handed the post. Just in nice time; the tea-tray, borne by Blake, arrived then—Earl Grey tea, milkless of course, bread and butter she could see through and very small fairy cakes. Lady Grimstone ate all but one of the cakes.

In bed at last, Jane reflected on her day. It hadn’t been too bad; although dinner, for which she had been told to dress, had been as meagre as lunch and she had eaten half the biscuits as she got ready for bed and was still hungry; the roast pigeon and straw potatoes followed by semolina shape had done little to fill her. ‘But it’s only for a month,’ she told Percy and Simpkin, curled up at the end of the bed, and Bruno from his basket growled gently. ‘At least we’re all together, thanks to Professor van der Vollenhove.’

She fell asleep thinking about him.

CHAPTER THREE

BY THE end of the third day Jane realised that the professor had been quite right: Lady Grimstone was an extremely difficult woman with whom to live. She was self-centred, selfish and quite uncaring about anything or anyone other than herself, although Jane had to admit that she had a fondness for animals. She suffered from a variety of complaints, all of them imaginary except for mild emphesema as far as Jane could make out, and she was forever trying out new diets, none of them, unfortunately for those who lived with her, of a substantial kind.

Jane ate all the biscuits which Miss Smithers had left for her and longed for her half-day so that she could replenish the tin. No wonder the professor hadn’t stayed for lunch, she thought sourly; his vast frame needed a good deal more nourishment than a single lamb chop. He might have warned her—but there again, why should he, seeing that she had taken the job with her eyes open and she a grown woman, able to look after herself?

If life wasn’t exactly rosy for herself, at least Bruno, Percy and Simpkin were happy and safe and Bill had become their devoted friend.

The postman had brought her a copy of the Nursing Times and last week’s Lady. There hadn’t been anything suitable in the Lady but she had answered two advertisements for ward sister posts, one in London and one in Manchester, and she had written out an advertisement, stressing the need for a living-out post because of the animals, offering to go anywhere in England. The postman had taken it with him and all she had to do was wait in patience.

Lady Grimstone had few visitors and depended upon Jane for company for a good deal of the day, keeping her busy with a dozen small chores, and talking endlessly about her youth. Jane wished that she would talk about the professor and his family but he was never mentioned; Lady Grimstone preferred to give details of the more exalted members of her family and Jane put on a listening face and murmured suitably while she pondered her future.

It was obvious by the end of the week that her employer wasn’t going to do anything about her half-day unless she brought the matter up.

‘Is it already a week since you came, Miss Fox?’ Lady Grimstone sounded disbelieving. ‘Well, I suppose you must have it since you expect it. I should have thought that you would have been quite content here, living as you do in such delightful surroundings.’

‘I am very content,’ Jane pointed out politely, ‘but I do need to buy one or two things—toothpaste and stamps, and Percy and Simpkin do like those little crunchy biscuits …’

‘Well, in that case, you had better have Saturday afternoon after you have settled me for my nap and taken Bill for his walk. I expect you back by ten o’clock at the latest, Miss Fox. Miss Smithers is never late.’

‘I’m sure I shall be back before then,’ said Jane; indeed, what was there to keep her out after she had had a meal at the pub Miss Smithers had recommended?

She bent her lovely head over a tangle of knitting Lady Grimstone had ordered her to put to rights, already planning a busy Saturday afternoon so that not a minute of it should be wasted.

Jane told herself that Lady Grimstone wasn’t being deliberately slow in settling down for her afternoon nap on Saturday; certainly she took twice as long as usual, calling Jane back twice before she could at last escape, to give Bill one of the briskest walks he had ever had, take him back to the kitchen where Blake, who was disposed to be friendly even if very much on his dignity, had promised to keep an eye on him, see to her own three, and then, very neat in the tweed suit, walk to the village.

It was a chilly day but it was wonderful to be free even for such a short time and the village store was better than she had hoped for. She bought stamps and notepaper, the newest Nursing Times and Lady, the local weekly paper and a couple of paperbacks, and then she turned her attention to the biscuits.

The friendly soul behind the counter, with no one else in the shop, was disposed to chat. ‘Miss Smithers she likes digestive, says they fill her up nicely, but rich tea’s tasty. She always took a jar of Bovril too, said the water from the tap was hot enough to make a bedtime drink.’