A Happy Meeting

Cressida turned eyes shining like stars upon her companion. ‘I won’t, Moggy, never again.’

CHAPTER THREE

BY LUNCHTIME on Thursday Cressida could feel nothing but relief at leaving her home. Mrs Preece had tried every gambit known to her in her efforts to make Cressida and Miss Mogford change their minds. She had had no success and had resorted to bad temper and reproaches, despite which Cressida had been to the village and arranged for one of the women who came to help in the house to move in temporarily until a new housekeeper could be engaged. She had met the postman on the way and he had given her a letter from Mr Tims—a registered letter containing a hundred pounds and a note—couched in dry-as-dust terms, wishing her well and advising her to use the money prudently until such time as she had a permanent job. Cressida, who hadn’t laid hands on anything like that sum for some time, skipped all the way home—rather clumsily because her ankle still pained her at times.

No sooner had she entered the house than her stepmother called to her from the drawing-room. ‘Since you’re not going until after lunch you might as well get it ready. I’m far too upset to eat much; I’ll have an omelette and some thin toast and my usual junket. You had better open a bottle of white wine too.’ She picked up the novel she was reading. ‘And don’t bother to say goodbye, you ungrateful girl. I’ll have a tray here.’

Cressida went to the kitchen and found Miss Mogford in the process of getting ready to leave. The baker’s van would be calling shortly and the driver was giving her a lift to Templecombe where her sister had a small cottage. Her old-fashioned trunk and cardboard suitcase were already in the hall and as she sat at the kitchen table, wearing her best coat and a rather terrifying hat, she looked as stern as usual but when Cressida joined her her face crumpled.

‘That it should come to this—you being turned out of your own home…’

‘Well, I’ve turned myself out, haven’t I, Moggy? I hate leaving and so do you but we shall both be a lot happier. After all, it hasn’t been much fun since Father died. Has stepmother paid you your wages?’

Miss Mogford nodded. ‘I had to ask her for them. And what about you, Miss Cressy? Will you be all right? Supposing this old lady is too much of a handful?’

‘Old ladies, on the whole, are rather nice, Moggy, and in any case it’s only for a few weeks then I can pick and choose.’ Cressida spoke bracingly because Moggy sounded worried, but she felt uncertain of the future, although she had every intention of making a success of whatever she ended up doing. Leaving her home was a sadness she hadn’t quite realised, but to stay forever, pandering to her stepmother’s whims, was something no longer to be borne. She had been longing for something to happen and now it had and she would make the very best of it.

‘There’s the baker,’ she said, and bustled her old friend out into the hall. ‘Now you’ve got my address and I’ve got yours, we’ll write regularly and as soon as we can we’ll have a few hours together.’ She put her arms round Moggy’s spare frame and hugged her. ‘I’m going to miss you dreadfully but you’re going to be happy and so am I.’ She planted a kiss on the housekeeper’s cheek. ‘Now off you go. I’ll be leaving in an hour or two…’

Miss Mogford spoke gruffly. ‘If your poor pa could see you now, he’d turn in his grave. This isn’t what he intended.’

‘Well, never mind that, Moggy, we’re both getting a chance, aren’t we? It’s rather exciting…’

She walked Miss Mogford out to the van and found that the driver had stowed the luggage in the back, and was waiting to settle his passenger into the front seat. The last Cressida saw of Moggy was her elderly face rigid with suppressed feelings staring out from under that hat.

In the kitchen, warming the milk for the junket, Cressida shed a few tears. She hadn’t meant to, they had oozed out from under her lids and she had wiped them away at once. She was going to miss Moggy, she was going to miss her home too and those of her friends whom she saw from time to time, but, she told herself firmly, this was something she had wished for and now it had happened and she must make the most of it. She made the junket, then beat the eggs for the omelette and cut herself a sandwich, for there wouldn’t be time for anything more.

Her stepmother was making things as difficult as possible—she wanted fruit and more coffee and a novel she had put down somewhere and simply had to have. Cressida attending to these wants, gobbled her sandwich as she tidied the kitchen just in time to get her elderly tweed coat as a car drew up before the house. Her stepmother’s tray hadn’t been cleared and nothing had been done about dinner that evening; Cressida, feeling guilty, didn’t mind. She went quietly from the old house with her two shabby suitcases and was met on the doorstep by an elderly man with a weatherbeaten face who wished her good day in a friendly voice and stowed her luggage in the boot of the elderly Daimler.

She had gone to the drawing-room on her way out, and, despite Mrs Preece’s wish, had been determined to bid her goodbye.