She said in a rigid voice,
“Thank you for my day out,”
and then, the manners forgotten, hurled herself at him and buried her head against his shoulder.

He caught her deftly and held her close. Presently she pulled away and raised her eyes to his.

“I must be mad,” she told him, “after what you did this evening.” She drew a deep breath and then rushed on in a rather loud voice, “I said I didn’t want to see you ever again, and I meant it!”

“That’s a perfectly natural reaction.” Oliver opened the door for her.

She brushed past him with a muttered good-night and once in her room tore off her clothes and jumped into bed. She wouldn’t sleep, of that she was certain. Her head was seething with odds and ends of thoughts which needed sorting out before morning. “Nicky, oh, Nicky!” she said to the dark room, but it was Oliver’s calm face which her mind’s eye saw before she fell into exhausted, dreamless sleep.

Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of Betty Neels in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.

Midsummer Star
Betty Neels

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

THE MAY SUN, bright but still tepid so early in the morning, shone down on the old house, so that the rose brickwork and the tilted gables glowed; it shone on the Albertine roses, already in bud, climbing its walls, and on the large neglected garden around it. And it shone too on the girl, idling to and fro on the swing under the great mulberry tree on the edge of the lawn at one side of the house.

She was a big girl, splendidly built, with a lovely face framed by dark curling hair, her creamy skin already faintly tanned by the spring sunshine. She was wearing beautifully cut slacks which had seen better days and a silk shirt with its sleeves rolled up above her elbows. That was well worn too but of excellent cut. She swung slowly to and fro, her dark brows drawn together in a frown, for once unaware of her beautiful surroundings. She said softly: ‘Something will have to be done.’ And the elderly labrador lying beside the swing cocked an ear and turned mild brown eyes to look at her.

The girl put up a shapely hand to push the hair away from her face. She looked around her, at the herbaceous border on the far side of a lawn which badly needed mowing, the hedge of lavender, the paved path leading to a half hidden pond, and beyond to the tumbledown fence and the fields. She sighed and allowed her gaze to dwell on the house, quite enchanting in the sunshine; a small Elizabethan manor house, a jewel of a place to the casual eye, but to those who lived in it a constant source of anxiety, with its leaky roof, woodworm in the beams, damp seeping up into the passages and old-fashioned kitchen. Nothing, she reflected bitterly, that couldn’t be put right with money. Only there wasn’t any of that; her father, absentminded scholar that he was, had drawn steadily on his capital for years now, and her mother, her dear, charming mother, hadn’t economised; she had tried, with the best will in the world, but she had no idea how to set about it, and if Celine suggested that they should have a casserole instead of roast pheasant or salmon trout, her parent always had a ready answer, even if an illogical one.

Celine got off the swing and strolled back to the house and opened the door in the kitchen garden wall and went through to see how things were growing. Thomas, the very old gardener, did very little now, but he was still paid his full wages, it would never have entered anyone’s head to have done otherwise, but they badly needed help. Celine did her best, but she was still the veriest amateur. The expensive boarding school she had been to and the finishing school in Switzerland hadn’t taught gardening, and when she came home, it was taken for granted that she would stay there, doing the flowers, playing tennis with numerous friends in the neighbourhood, helping with the annual Garden Party and the Church whist drives, and going occasionally to London with her mother to buy clothes. Expensive clothes too, Jaeger and the better class boutiques, and Raynes or Gucci for shoes. And she hadn’t given it a thought; her father had lived all his life in the old house, and his father and grandfather before him, and heaven knows how many forebears, she had rather taken it for granted that there was money enough, and when occasionally she had mentioned the leaky roof and the peeling paint, her father had looked vaguely surprised for a moment and had remarked that he really must do something about them. But he never had; she realised with a shock of surprise that she had been home for three years; it was only during the last few months that she had begun to notice things. Old Barney was still with them, but then he had been her father’s batman during the war, and Angela, their cook, who had always been there too, but when Joan the maid had left to get married, she had been replaced by Mrs Stokes from the village who obliged twice a week, and several bedrooms had been shut up.

She bent and pulled a couple of radishes, rubbed the earth off them, and crunched into them. She should have done something about it, of course, and she felt bitterly ashamed. Here she was, twenty-two years old, nicely up in the social graces but a complete stranger to shorthand and typing, nursing, teaching the young, or even serving in a shop, and without any of these skills how was she to get money, because money was what was needed; her home had to be kept from falling to the ground. It was a pity that she had refused the wholesale manufacturer of cotton goods who had wanted to marry her; he was a rich man. Indeed, now she came to think about it, she had refused several comfortably off young men, under the impression—mistaken, she now saw—that one should marry for love.

She whistled to Dusty, stretched out on the grass path, and turned back to the house. Mr Timms, the family solicitor, was coming to see her father that morning; her mother had mentioned it and looked worried, but when Celine had asked what was the matter, she wasn’t told anything. That was the trouble, she thought unhappily; she had been born unexpectedly when her parents were verging on middle age, and they still thought of her as a child to be shielded from anything unpleasant. Not that they had spoiled her, but she had been brought up in a kind of effortless comfort; money was never mentioned and she hadn’t bothered over-much about it. She loved her home dearly. If she hadn’t perhaps she would have trained for something and got a job by now…

She went in through the kitchen door, stopped to talk to Angela whose elderly feet were hurting her, then went through the stone-flagged passage to the hall; there were flagstones here, too, and panelled walls and oak rafters and narrow latticed windows. She stopped to smell the lilac standing in a great vase in one corner and went into the dining-room.

Her mother and father were already there, her mother, a small, pretty woman with bright blue eyes, busy with her post, her father, tall and thin and scholarly, behind his newspaper. Celine kissed them in turn and took her seat at the table.

‘What time is Mr Timms coming?’ she asked. Her father didn’t answer; she turned her lovely grey eyes on her mother, who looked up briefly.

‘About ten o’clock, dear. We’d better have him to lunch.’

Celine poured herself some coffee and began on a boiled egg. ‘Father, why is he coming?’ And when her parent grunted: ‘Is it about money? I’ve never bothered about it, I’m afraid, but now I think I ought to be told.’

He lowered the paper and looked at her over the top. ‘There’s no need…’ he began.

She interrupted him gently. ‘There is, you know. Father, are we broke?’

He looked uneasy. ‘The truth is, my dear, I’m not quite sure. It is true there isn’t a great deal of money left, and unfortunately I made one or two investments a couple of months ago and they haven’t turned out quite as I had hoped.’

She buttered some toast. Her insides were cold, she could hardly get the next question out for very fright. ‘We shan’t have to leave here…?’

‘Unthinkable,’ declared her father. ‘In any case, who would buy the place? It’s falling down.’

‘But Father, isn’t there anything to be done? I mean, couldn’t we patch it up a bit where it needs it most?’

Colonel Baylis was on the whole a mild, rather dreamy man, but he could, on occasion, return to the parade-ground manner. ‘There’s no need for you to concern yourself about such things,’ he told her severely. ‘We shall come about; Mr Timms will advise me…’ He retired behind his newspaper once more and Celine turned to her mother.

‘Mother—’ she began.

‘Your father is always right, darling,’ said Mrs Baylis, and Celine sighed and went on eating her egg. Her mother was a darling, but she was impractical, she had no idea how to be economical, and it was a little too late in life to begin now. She wondered what Mr Timms would have to say.

Whatever Mr Timms had to say was for her father’s ears alone, it seemed. The two gentlemen retired to the Colonel’s study as soon as he had arrived and didn’t emerge until it was almost time to have lunch, when they joined Mrs Baylis and Celine in the drawing-room; low-ceilinged, panelled walls, and shabby but still grand furniture. They drank their sherry and made polite conversation, then they crossed the hall to the dining-room, equally low-ceilinged but a good deal smaller, its chintz curtains faded to the pale pastel colours of the Savonnerie carpet, its dark oak furniture adequately dusted but unpolished.

The lunch was excellent; Angela was a good cook, and Celine, who had learned to cook to Cordon Bleu standard at the finishing school, had whipped up a delicate soufflé to follow the pâté and toast, with a fruit tart to follow. But however excellent the fare, it did nothing to dispel Mr Timms’ severe gloom; even the Chablis the Colonel had fetched from the cellar hadn’t helped. Celine, taking her part in the talk, bided her time.

She had her opportunity presently, when after a decent interval drinking coffee, Mr Timms prepared to leave. He had taken the village taxi from the station, but now Celine said quickly: ‘I’ll run you down in the car, Mr Timms,’ and was on her way to the garage before anyone could object.

There were two cars—a far from new but beautifully kept Jaguar and a Mini. The Jag soaked up petrol, but somehow she couldn’t see Mr Timms squashed into the Mini. She drove the big car round to the front of the house where she found him waiting outside the open door with her parents.

As she turned out of the gates at the bottom of the short drive she asked: ‘Will you tell me what it’s all about, Mr Timms? And I’m not just being curious; Father has hinted…it’s so hard on them both. They can’t change their ways now, you know, but perhaps there’s something to be done.’

‘I don’t know…’ began Mr Timms primly, then looked astonished as Celine stopped the car on the side of the lane. ‘If you tell me quickly,’ she said sweetly, ‘you’ll be in nice time for your train.’

‘This is quite improper—’ he began testily as she turned to look at him. She was a lovely girl, her enormous eyes beseeched him. For once he stifled his professional feelings. ‘The truth of the matter is,’ he began, ‘your father has almost no capital left—and barely enough from the rents of his property in the village and the farms to cover his rates and taxes. He invested against my advice, a good deal of money over the last few years, with disastrous results.’ He paused and asked anxiously: ‘Should we not be driving to the station?’

Celine started the car and went slowly ahead. ‘Go on, Mr Timms,’ she begged.

‘The house is in a woeful state of repair—even if your father were to put it on the market I doubt if anyone would buy it, and then at a sum far below its value…’

‘We can’t leave,’ declared Celine, and despite all her efforts her voice shook a little. ‘It’s been home for generations. Has Father any income at all?’

‘Over and above the rents—they will take care of taxes and so forth—he has a small income of—’ and the sum he named made Celine gulp.

Her father had given her mother a mink coat at Christmas; it had cost a little more than that. ‘If I could think of a way to earn some money, how much do I need to get by? I don’t think we can count on Father’s income…’

The station was in sight and she heard Mr Timm’s sigh of relief. ‘Just to live,’ he stated, ‘food and fuel and Angela’s and Barney’s wages and the very minimum of upkeep would take a certain amount each week, and that would be cheeseparing indeed. You do of course grow your own vegetables and fruit, do you not, and you have hens?…’

‘And plenty of wood for fires, only they make a lot of work. But work is what I’ll have to do, isn’t it, Mr Timms?’ Celine smiled at him and he found himself smiling back at her, wondering why such a lovely girl hadn’t found herself a rich husband. Rich or not, he’d be a lucky man.

‘Thanks for telling me,’ said Celine, and bent forward and kissed his cheek.

‘There’s really nothing you can do,’ he assured her.

She looked at him with bright eyes. ‘I’ve been doing nothing for a long time,’ she told him gently. ‘I think I’ll try something else for a change.’

She didn’t hurry back but dawdled along the lanes pursuing impossible schemes for making money in a hurry and abandoning them in turn. It was as she passed the last cottage on the very edge of the village that her eye caught the Bed and Breakfast sign Mrs Ham was hanging in her front window. It was like watching sudden fireworks or opening a door on to something breathtaking as the thought struck her. She accelerated and swept through the open sagging gate. ‘If Mrs Ham can, so can I,’ said Celine loudly.

She put the car away and went in search of her parents, whom she found sitting in the drawing-room, her mother bent over her tapestry, her father standing with his back to the french window with Dusty beside him.

They both looked at her as she went in, but before either of them had a chance to speak she began cheerfully: ‘It’s all right, I prised it all out of Mr Timms—and don’t be angry, Father, I have every right to know. Most girls like me are pinning down good jobs and paying their own way, but I’ve just been living here and costing you money—now it’s my turn. I think I know a way in which we can go on living here, even if we do have to cut down a bit.’ She studied their upraised faces and thought how elderly and tired they looked and how much she loved them. ‘Bed and breakfast,’ she announced, ‘and evening meal if anyone wants it. No taxes to pay, cash coming in to keep us ticking over. Mr Timms says the rents will cover taxes and rates and so on; we can cut out the electric fires and we don’t need the central heating until the autumn, and there’s plenty of hot water from the Aga. We could at least give it a try, and I’m just spoiling for something to do.’

She waited for them to reply, and it was her mother who spoke first. ‘Darling, it’s a lovely idea, but it’s impossible—there are ten bedrooms and it’s a big house and so difficult to run—there’s only Angela…’

‘And me, Mother, and you.’ And at Mrs Baylis’s startled look, ‘Oh, not housework, darling, but if you did the flowers and laid the tables and ordered the food—’

‘And what should I do?’ enquired her father.

‘Well, Father darling, you could see to the wine—there’s plenty of that in the cellar, isn’t there? You can sell it…and stroll around making sure everyone’s happy and write out the bills.’ Celine smiled at him. ‘Do let’s give it a try. It needn’t cost much to get started; we’ll need a week to get the house ready and open up the rooms and get out the linen and silver. Please, Father, we’ve nothing to lose.’

‘We’ll need help…’

‘Not at first. We’ve got Mrs Stokes and Barney and we might only get a handful of people and we could cope with them; the moment we’ve a little money to spare we can get a girl from the village.’

‘We might get no one at all,’ said her mother.

‘Well, we aren’t losing anything, are we? I mean, we live here anyway, don’t we, and so do Angela and Barney, and we already have to pay them.’

Her father left the window and sat down at the sofa table, where he took out his pen and an old envelope from his pocket. ‘I wonder how much cash we should need to get started?’ he mused out loud.

There was a great deal to do. Half way through the week Celine found herself wondering if she would ever have suggested it if she had had even an inkling of what was involved. It wasn’t just opening up the rooms, airing them, polishing the furniture and making up the beds. There were bedside lamps to find and bulbs to fit into them, soap and towels, the casement windows to oil because most of them squeaked abominably, the three bathrooms, all old-fashioned, to pretty up. And then downstairs—she had never realised what an awkward house it was to keep clean. She had dusted and Hoovered from time to time and done the flowers and polished the silver, but these tasks had never been allowed to interfere with visits to friends and trips to town. Now Celine found herself caught up in a routine of hard work, so that she fell into her bed at night quite worn out. But she discovered that she was enjoying it. The old furniture gleamed with polish, the silver, brought out of its felt bags, was made to shine, glasses which hadn’t been used since the last dinner party at Christmas were brought from the butler’s pantry. And in between all this, Celine found time to draw up lists of groceries with her mother, make up a few hopeful menus, and retire to the big shed at the bottom of the kitchen garden and paint a large sign. This she nailed to a tree by the gate, aided by old Bennett, who strongly approved of the whole idea. ‘All them broad beans and the rhubarb and I don’t know ’ow many raspberries coming along a treat, there’ll be more than enough for ’em.’

Colonel Baylis ignored the sign and went back into his study with the new batch of books from Hatchett’s, but his wife wandered down to the gate and admired it in her gentle way. ‘Very nice, dear,’ had been her comment. ‘I hope someone comes today.’

But no one did. The next day passed, and the next. The Colonel said nothing, he ate his meals almost in silence and then went back to his books, and Mrs Baylis said hopefully: ‘Well, it was a splendid idea, darling, I’m sure someone will come soon.’

‘They’d better,’ observed Celine darkly, and went outside, where she relieved her feelings by painting a gutter she had managed to heave back into its rightful place. She was perched half way up the ladder when the car came up the drive, and when it stopped and two elderly ladies got out she came down pretty smartly and went towards them.

Retired schoolteachers, she thought, taking in the sensible skirts and blouses and cardigans, and said good afternoon politely.

The older and taller of the ladies addressed her with faint hesitation. ‘You do bed and breakfast?’ she asked. ‘We’re looking for somewhere quiet and not expensive.’

‘It’s very quiet,’ said Celine, trying not to sound eager. She told them the charge for bed and breakfast, adding the cost of dinner, should they like an evening meal.

The ladies exchanged a glance. ‘If we might see the rooms? We should require two rooms, of course.’

‘Do come in,’ invited Celine, and just stopped herself from dancing through the hall and up the stairs.

She showed them the two nicest single rooms there were, at the back of the house, and as luck would have it, one of the bathrooms was just across the passage.

‘No washbasins,’ commented the younger of the two ladies.

‘It’s a very old house,’ said Celine. ‘Tudor, you know, and modernising it has been very difficult. But this bathroom will be for your sole use.’

‘We’ll take the rooms, and we should like dinner. Do you have a varied menu?’

‘Hors d’oeuvres, local trout, vegetables from the garden, egg custards and cream or rhubarb tart and cream. Chicken supreme if you would like that, but it would take a little longer. We have a good cellar too.’

She smiled at them both. ‘I’ll fetch your bags,’ she told them. ‘Would you like tea? Just tea and sandwiches and cakes,’ she added, giving them the price.

‘That would be nice.’ The older of the pair joined her. ‘I’ll get our cases from the boot and perhaps you’ll tell me where to put the car.’

Barney was crossing the hall as they went downstairs, and Celine gave a silent chuckle; he gave just the right touch to the house and she knew that her companion was impressed. She called softly: ‘Barney, would you be good enough to take these ladies’ cases to the back wing? And then go and ask Angela to make tea for two?’

She showed the lady where to put the car in the vast covered barn beside the garage and ran back to the house. Her mother was in her own small sitting-room, writing letters.

‘Mother, we’ve two guests—tea and dinner as well. Shall I put them in the small drawing-room?’

‘Darling, how marvellous! Yes. Shall I go along presently? Does your father know?’

‘Not yet. Will you tell him? I’m going to the kitchen to help Angela.’

It was really rather fun, Celine decided as she got ready for bed that night. The ladies had eaten their tea, served on a silver tray and with paper-thin china, in the smaller drawing-room, not much used because it was so damp in winter, but very impressive with its painted panelled walls and Regency furniture. And they had dined equally splendidly in the dining-room at the back of the house which Celine had set out with several small tables, nicely laid with linen damask which had been stored away for years. She had waited at table herself and had enjoyed it all, although now she was in bed, she felt tired. But who cared about being tired, she told herself, when there would be money in the household purse in the morning.

The Misses Phipps left soon after breakfast, making for Wales. ‘If we’d known that this part of Dorset was so charming we might have stayed,’ they explained. ‘We’ve always driven straight through before, along the main roads, but pure chance brought us here.’

‘And let’s hope that pure chance brings a few more this way,’ said Celine, standing beside her mother outside the door. ‘I’ll just get the beds made up and then get the washing machine on the go. Do you think Barney could get the fire laid in the sitting-room? Just in case…’

She smiled at her mother, dropped a kiss on her cheek, and ran indoors.

It was after tea when two cars turned into the drive. They stopped untidily and the man behind the wheel of the first car got out. Celine had seen them from her bedroom window and reached the open door just as he came in.

He was a large, cheerful type and his, ‘Hullo, love,’ was hearty. ‘Can you do bed and breakfast for six? And what’s the damage if we stay? Two kids, mind. We’ll want three rooms.’ He eyed Celine, very pretty in a deceptively simple jersey dress which had cost far too much the previous summer. ‘You the lady of the house?’

‘No, the daughter. Yes, we have rooms for you,’ and Celine recited the charges.

He looked doubtful and her heart sank. ‘Proper rooms?’ he wanted to know, telling Celine what they had paid at their previous night’s hotel.

‘We aren’t a hotel. But the rooms are—are quite proper and our cook is excellent. Perhaps you would like to see a room before you decide?’

Celine led the way upstairs, past the family bedrooms and those with the fourposters and the lovely views, and showed him three rooms in the east wing, all charming, although she very much doubted if he would appreciate them.

‘Old house, isn’t it, love?’ he enquired. ‘Can’t see any washbasins.’

‘It’s Tudor, and we don’t have washbasins, I’m afraid, but there is a bathroom here.’ She opened a door and let him look in.

‘Looks all right,’ he said. ‘OK, we’ll sleep the night. And have a meal—we’re pretty peckish—How long will we have to wait?’

‘Less than an hour. If you like to settle in and then come downstairs…’

‘No chance of a beer, I suppose?’

‘I’ll ask my Father to fetch some up. Lager or ale?’

‘A pint of mild and bitter’ll suit me, Grandpa the same, I daresay—the ladies will want a drop of port, I daresay.’

They went downstairs again and Celine pulled the embroidered bell rope by the front door for Barney—’Some luggage to take up to the east wing, please, Barney’—and he followed her out to the cars. There were several small cases; she hoped they would tip him, she must remember to ask him.

They were a noisy lot and the children, eight or nine years old, were whining that they wanted ices. Sharp slaps from their mother, a high-complexioned young woman in tight jeans, stopped them whining and started them crying instead. Grandpa and Grandma, bringing up the rear, had little to say, only stared around. Celine left them thankfully and shut the doors on them all while she went to find her mother and father.

‘I’ve put them in those rooms in the east wing,’ she explained. ‘They look—well, I wouldn’t like them to damage anything…’

‘Should we use the silver?’ asked Mrs Baylis.

‘If they’re paying what we ask, they’re entitled to the best treatment,’ pronounced the Colonel sternly.

But it was hard to give the best treatment to people who didn’t really mind if they got it or not. They ate a delicious dinner and pronounced it nice enough, but regretted loudly that there were no chips. They also commented upon the dreary paintings on the walls, and long-dead Baylises stared back at them haughtily. They wanted sauce with almost everything they ate and spilt things on the tablecloths. All the same, Celine rather liked them. They would have been much happier at Mrs Ham’s down the lane, for to them, the house was just a tumbledown place, too dark and furnished with out-of-date stuff they didn’t fancy. She made a point of asking them what they would like for breakfast and got up very early to cycle down to the village to get the cornflakes they fancied and the kipper fillets Grandma hankered after.

They ate a huge breakfast, and now that it was a bright morning and the house was alight with sunshine, they were more at ease. ‘Haunted, are you?’ asked Grandpa.

Celine shook her head. ‘No—everyone who’s lived here has been happy, you see.’

‘Pity for a pretty girl like you to be stuck in the country,’ he observed.

Celine smiled at him. ‘Ah, but I’m a country girl,’ she told him.

It took a little time to get them away. Barney, looking every inch the English butler, carried down the luggage, helped stow it and received a tip with dignity. Celine was tipped too; she detected uncertainty in the man’s manner as he pushed it into her hand, so her smile was charming as she thanked him. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said. ‘I hope you all enjoyed your short stay.’

‘Not ‘arf,’ said Grandpa. ‘It’s a sight better than Butlins.’

The two cars disappeared through the gate, and Celine went to the sitting-room where her mother was counting money.

‘My dear!’ she exclaimed, looking quite excited. ‘All that money—and all for nothing, as it were!’

Celine didn’t correct her. There was the little matter of four beds to strip and make up, three rooms to clean and the dining-room to put in order.

‘It’s a good start, darling. Let’s have coffee. Do go and tell Father and I’ll go to the kitchen.’

Barney met her with a grin. ‘Five pounds, Miss Celine—not bad, eh?’

‘Super, Barney. Angela, they gave me five pounds for the cook.’ She handed over her own tip and made her way upstairs.

It was a lovely day. By lunchtime everything was just as it should be once more, and the three of them had their meal on the covered verandah at the side of the house, and afterwards Celine wandered into the garden and sat down under the mulberry tree. She was half asleep where she sat when she heard a car coming up the lane, she was strolling towards the front door when a Rover turned in at the gate.

There were three people in it, but only the driver got out. Celine stood still, her lovely mouth very slightly open, her breath stilled. Here was the man she had always dreamed about, tall, dark, handsome in the best tradition of romance and smiling at her as though she was the answer to his dreams too.

‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘You look like a fairytale princess. We saw your notice at the gate—any chance of putting the three of us up for a few days?’

A few days! She couldn’t believe it: all these years, waiting for him, and here he was. She smiled and looked so breathtakingly beautiful that he blinked.

‘Yes, of course. How many—how many rooms would you need?’

‘One for my parents, one for me. Come and meet them.’ He put a hand on her arm. ‘The name is Seymour—Nicky. What’s yours?’

‘Celine Baylis.’ She stole a glance at him and found him smiling.

‘What a lovely name—it suits you.’

His parents had got out of the car and were looking round them, the man elderly, upright and grey-haired, his wife almost as tall, very slim and well dressed. The best bedrooms, Celine decided as they shook hands.

They were delighted with their rooms and the tea which Celine served in the garden under the trees. She longed to stay and talk to Nicky Seymour, but her mother had asked her to make a special effort with dinner. ‘They might stay a few days if they like the food,’ she said, ‘and they seem such nice people—your father and Mr Seymour seem to have a lot in common.’ She added: ‘I like his wife too, and their son seems a nice young man.’ She sat quietly for a moment, adding up the charges. ‘That’s quite a lot, and they’ve had tea and I heard him asking about wines with their dinner.’ She beamed at Celine. ‘I put a bowl of anemones in their room.’

Celine bent and kissed her mother’s still pretty cheek. ‘You’re a wizard with flowers,’ she told her, and sped to the kitchen where she and Angela between them conjured up homemade soup, trout with almonds, lamb cutlets with spinach from the garden and a rhubarb crumble with cream. It was after they had eaten these that Mr Seymour declared himself willing to remain for at least three days, especially as the Colonel had offered him a rod on the stretch of river running through his fields.

‘And I shall just sit,’ declared his wife. As for Nicky, he said nothing, but he had smiled at Celine in a way to make her heart beat very fast indeed.

The next two days passed delightfully. Mrs Baylis was happy, doing little sums on the backs of envelopes, the Colonel was happy because he had congenial guests who appreciated the wines he had to offer them, Mr and Mrs Seymour were content to relax and Celine and Nicky spent a good deal of time together; every moment that she could spare, in fact. The mornings were busy enough, what with beds to make and rooms to tidy, but lunch was cold and salads took no time to make, so that after she had served their meal, cleared away and had hers with her mother and father, there was a good deal of the afternoon left. Her one secret dread had been that other people might arrive and want rooms too, but this didn’t happen, so she was free to stroll in the gardens or walk down to the village with Nicky, who proved to be a delightful companion and a very attentive one; the world had suddenly become a splendid place in which to live and the future full of vague but delightful promise.

It was on the third day, as they strolled back from a walk beside the stream, that Nicky caught her by the arm and turned her round to face him.

‘I can’t believe my luck,’ he told her, ‘finding you here. I didn’t know there were girls like you left in the world. We shall be going in a day or two, we’ve a family to visit in Wales, but when we get home, you’re coming to stay with me.’

Celine was too honest to pretend that she wasn’t delighted. ‘Oh, Nicky, that would be super! Don’t you work, though? What do you do?’

He kissed her before he answered. ‘Oh, I’m learning to step into Father’s shoes, I suppose.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Working in London is boring, but of course we spend a good deal of time in Berkshire.’ He smiled at her. ‘London will be fun if you’re there—we’ll dine and dance and go to a few shows…’

She drew a little way away from him. ‘It sounds heavenly, but I couldn’t possibly come until the autumn—we might be very busy until then.’

He said carelessly: ‘Can’t you leave that to someone else? Hire someone from the village?’

‘No. I started it, you see, so I must see it through, but no one comes this way once the summer’s over.’

He shrugged impatiently. ‘Oh, well, we’ll have to see, won’t we?’ He sounded so offhand that she had a mind to say that she would go to London just whenever he wanted her to, indeed her mouth was open to utter the words when she heard her mother calling her, and something urgent in the sound of it sent her flying up to the house.

They were all in the hall; Colonel and Mrs Baylis, Barney, Angela, Mrs Seymour and Mr Seymour, who was lying on the floor unconscious.

‘Celine…’ begged her mother in a wispy voice. Celine knelt down beside the elderly man and took a good look. He was breathing, but in a heavy stertorous way and he made no response to her urgent voice.

‘Barney, telephone Dr Grady—ask him to come at once. Mother, turn back the bed in the dressing room by Mrs Seymour’s room. We’ve got to get him upstairs.’

She looked around her and her father nodded. ‘Right—but we’ll need more help…’

Nicky had been standing well back, but now he came forward and said reluctantly: ‘You’ll need a hand. What’s the matter with him?’

Celine was too anxious to do more than feel momentary surprise at his words, but perhaps he was so shocked… They picked Mr Seymour up carefully, the three of them, and got him upstairs and on to the bed. Celine took off his shoes and covered him with a blanket and undid his tie. ‘We’d better not do anything else until Dr Grady comes. I’ll stay here with him, if you like, Mother, I’m sure Mrs Seymour would like a cup of tea…’

She had expected Nicky to stay too, but he didn’t, she found herself alone with the quiet figure on the bed, trying to think sensibly. Would Mr Seymour go to hospital—and the nearest one was at Dorchester, quite a way away—or would he have to stay where he was, in which case it wouldn’t be practical to have any one else in the house. She went to the bed and stood looking down at the nice elderly face, flushed now and somehow one-sided. As she looked, the lids lifted and the faded blue eyes stared back at her. She bent down and caught one of his hands in hers. ‘Mr Seymour, it’s all right. You’re in bed, the doctor is coming…’

He tried to speak and she bent lower to hear him. After several attempts he whispered thickly: ‘Oliver—send for Oliver.’

She murmured soothingly. Who in the world was Oliver?

The hand in hers stirred urgently. ‘Oliver…’ He was lapsing into unconsciousness again and remained so until Dr Grady came into the room.

‘Good girl,’ he said softly. ‘Stay here, will you? In case—In case I need anything—his wife is too upset. Has he roused?’

‘Yes, he managed to say something. Send for Oliver—I expect Mrs Seymour will know who that is.’

‘We can ask presently.’ He began his examination and presently straightened. ‘A stroke, but not too severe. A week’s rest—he’ll have to stay here. I’ll get hold of a nurse, then as soon as he’s fit enough he can go home by ambulance.’ He grinned at her. ‘I’m being hopeful, mind you.’

‘Yes, well, that’s all right, we’ll manage. I suppose we’d better not have any other people while he’s here? I mean, bed and breakfast people.’

‘I heard about that in the village. Well, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Heaven knows the place is large enough to swallow a dozen just as long as they’re not too noisy. Extra work for you, though.’

There was a movement at the door and Nicky came in. He said shortly: ‘Well, what’s the damage?’

Dr Grady glanced at him with shrewd eyes. ‘A slight stroke; nothing too worrying, I hope, a week’s rest should make it possible for your father to return home. He’ll need a nurse, I’ll see about that. Celine tells me he was asking for someone…’

‘He wants me to send for Oliver.’

Nicky frowned. ‘Oh, good old Oliver, everyone’s mainstay and prop,’ and at her enquiring look: ‘My cousin—he’s a doctor, worthy and dull. I suppose if Father wants him he’ll have to be sent for.’

‘I’ll stay here while you telephone,’ said Celine, ‘and would you ask Barney to come up and we’ll get your father into bed.’

‘OK, I suppose we’d better send for him. Let’s hope he can tear himself away from his precious patients.’

He went out of the room, leaving Celine vaguely unhappy.

‘Not much love lost there, presumably,’ said Dr Grady, and watched the ready colour creep into her cheeks.

‘He’s upset,’ she said softly, she didn’t meet his eyes. ‘Perhaps this cousin’s what he says—he sounds tiresome.’

CHAPTER TWO

DR GRADY came back that evening, bringing Nurse Stevens with him—a severe, stout lady, bordering on middle age, but reluctantly, if tinted hair and elaborate make-up were anything to go by. Celine relinquished her patient thankfully, showed Nurse Stevens to her room and offered a meal. ‘If you’ll just say when you would like your meals, I’ll come and sit with Mr Seymour,’ she offered. ‘Did you have to come far?’

‘Yeovil. I’ve told Dr Grady that he must find a nurse to do night duty; I’m prepared to sit with the patient tonight, but I can’t work all day and all night too.’

‘No, of course not. I’m sure he’ll get someone to share your duties. Until then, I’ll help all I can, and I’m sure Mrs Seymour will sit with him to give you a break.’

Nurse Stevens spoke bitingly. ‘I’ll decide for myself, thank you, Miss Baylis. In the meanwhile, perhaps I could have something on a tray later on—about nine o’clock will do. And something left out for the night, of course.’ She cast a disapproving eye on the faded wallpaper. ‘You have servants, I suppose?’

‘Two. But this is a difficult house to run; I’ll look after you, Nurse Stevens.’

Celine made her escape and met Dr Grady coming out of the drawing-room, where he had been talking to Mrs Seymour. ‘What in heaven’s name have you brought us?’ she demanded in a fierce soft voice. ‘She wants trays of food and wanted to know if we had servants. I didn’t know there were people like her left!’

He grinned at her. ‘All I could get at short notice. But if it makes you feel better, Mrs Seymour is quite prepared to sit with him for as long as needed, and Oliver is on his way.’

‘And if he’s anything like Nurse Stevens I shall crown him,’ said Celine crossly.

She was perched on the kitchen steps, slapping paint on to a worn out drainpipe when she heard the car coming. ‘If that’s Oliver,’ she muttered, ‘let him ring the bell—Barney can let him in.’ She had had a rotten morning after a short night, what with carrying up trays and answering frequent bells from the sickroom—besides, she had seen almost nothing of Nicky. It had been a relief when Mrs Seymour pronounced herself quite capable of sitting with her still unconscious husband while Nurse Stevens took some exercise, which left Celine free for an hour before seeing to the tea. She hadn’t bothered to pretty herself up, indeed, she had got on an old pair of jeans, paint-stained and none too clean, and a cotton sweater which had once been expensive, but now was a much washed pale blue. All the same, she looked quite beautiful on her stepladder, and the man who got out of the Aston Martin paused to look at her before strolling across the gravel towards her.

‘If you ring the bell, Barney will let you in,’ said Celine tartly, and added: ‘Good afternoon.’ She glanced down at him and saw that he was a large man, with wide shoulders and rugged good looks. His hair was fair going grey at the temples, and his eyes were very bright blue.

He looked up at her and smiled slowly. ‘Miss Celine Baylis, the daughter of the house,’ he observed placidly. ‘How do you do? I’m Oliver Seymour.’

Celine dipped her brush in the paint. It was a pity that she couldn’t quite reach the end of the drainpipe, but she went busily over a bit she’d already done till he reached up and took the brush from her. ‘If you’ll come down, I’ll just do that end bit for you.’

And she found herself doing just that, standing ungraciously while he finished her work, put the brush tidily in the jamjar on top of the steps and the lid on the paint. ‘Could we go into the house?’ he suggested gently, just as though she should have suggested that minutes earlier.

Worse than Nurse Stevens! she decided silently, marching him briskly towards the front door; he was going to be one of those infuriating people who took charge the moment they poked their noses into anything.

She flung the door wide. ‘Do come in,’ she said haughtily. ‘Mrs Seymour’s sitting with Mr Seymour—the nurse is taking some exercise, but I’ll find Nicky.’

His eyes searched her face. ‘Ah, yes, Nicky—of course.’

He had a pleasant voice, deep and rather slow, but something in its tone made her glance at him. He returned the look with a gentle smile.

Lazy, she thought, and a bit dim—knows everything better than anyone else but can’t be bothered. Why on earth is he here?

She left him in the sitting-room and went in search of Nicky, whom she found asleep in the drawing-room. The look of irritability on his face when she wakened him rather took her aback, but it was replaced so quickly by a charming smile that she imagined that she had fancied it.

‘Your cousin has just arrived,’ she told him, and was disconcerted to hear the deep voice just behind her.

‘Ah, Nick—a pity to have disturbed you. I’ll go straight up to Uncle James, if I may, and see the nurse later. Is Aunt Mary there too?’

Nicky had sat up, but not got off the sofa. He stared up at the big man, leaning against a chair with his hands in his pockets. ‘As far as I know,’ he said ungraciously. ‘It’s all such a nuisance…’ He caught Celine’s surprised look and went on smoothly: ‘It’s been a terrible shock.’

‘I can see that,’ said his cousin, his voice very even. He turned on his heel and Celine perforce followed him out of the room; she would rather have stayed with Nick, but someone had to show this tiresome man where his uncle was.

Half way up the stairs he asked: ‘I see you do bed and breakfast. Have you a bed for me?’

She said stiffly: ‘There is a room, yes. Have you come far?’

‘Edinburgh.’

Celine opened the bedroom door and went quietly into the room and Mrs Seymour looked up from where she was sitting by the bed. The delight and relief on her face as her nephew crossed the room towards her was obvious.

‘Oliver—oh, now everything will be all right! He’s been asking for you. Dr Grady is coming later this afternoon, you will be able to talk to him.’ She smiled at Celine, standing quietly by the door. ‘I don’t know what we would have done if it hadn’t been for this dear child.’

‘There’s a nurse?’

‘Yes, she’s out walking.’ Mrs Seymour pulled a face. ‘Very serious and severe and rather a trial to the household, I should imagine.’ She smiled from a pale face. ‘Perhaps you could use some of your charm?’

‘It doesn’t always work,’ he observed, and glanced at Celine as he spoke.

She ignored the look. ‘I’ll bring you a tray of tea up here,’ she offered, and whisked away, down the stairs, for some reason feeling peevish.

She later took tea, tiny sandwiches and the fruit cake Angela had just baked, upstairs and arranged the tray on a table near the window before going to find her mother and father in the study. They looked up as she went in and her mother said: ‘I heard a car, darling—but we can’t take anyone, I suppose?’

‘It’s the nephew, Oliver Seymour. He wants to spend the night, I’ll get the small room across the landing ready for him. I’d better go to the kitchen and tell Angela there’ll be one more for dinner this evening.’

Mrs Baylis’s eyes brightened. ‘Really, darling, one wouldn’t want to be unkind, but we’re making money, aren’t we?’

‘On paper, yes. I don’t suppose Mrs Seymour will think of the bill at the moment.’

‘No, of course not, but Nicky might. Are we getting low in ready cash?’

‘We’re OK for a bit, darling. Would you make one of your salads for dinner this evening? I’ll get a couple of lettuces and some radishes, and there’ll be a few spring onions…I’ll get some apples from the loft, too.’

The Colonel looked up from his book. ‘What are we eating tonight?’

‘Lamb chops, and I’ll make a syllabub.’

‘You look very untidy,’ observed her father, but she didn’t have to answer him, for he was once more deep in his book.

Her mother cast an eye over her. ‘Yes, love, you do. I’ll see about tea and you go and change.’ She added: ‘Is he nice?’

‘OK, but I’ll get the radishes first. I’ve no idea, I hardly spoke to him.’

Celine went out of the side door into the kitchen garden, her trug on her arm, and filled it with things for the salad; she was grubbing up the last of the radishes when slow firm feet trod the path behind her.

‘Very soothing,’ declared the deep lazy voice, ‘gently pottering in the garden—good for the nerves too. Why isn’t Nick helping you?’

Celine straightened her back. ‘I didn’t ask him to,’ she said politely.

‘Did he need, to be asked?’ His voice held a friendly mockery that annoyed here.

‘He is on holiday,’ she pointed out sharply.

He didn’t answer that but went on placidly: ‘You must have been put to a great deal of trouble with my uncle ill in the house, as well as losing—er—custom. I’m sure my aunt hasn’t remembered to pay the bill—will you let me have it and we’ll settle up?’

Celine arranged the radishes in a neat row, not looking at him. ‘You’re leaving—all of you? I didn’t think Mr Seymour…’

‘Don’t be silly,’ he sounded avuncular, ‘of course we aren’t leaving, but we’re preventing you from having a house full, and the least we can do is pay our way.’ He took a radish from the trug and ate it. ‘Do you do the accounts as well?’

‘No, my father sees to that.’ She started back towards the house. ‘I’ve one or two jobs to do…’

He let her go without protest. ‘Of course. Do you mind if I look round the garden until Dr Grady gets here?’

‘Of course not.’

Celine had to admit, as she helped Angela in the kitchen and then went to lay the table, that he was considerate and kind. But Nick didn’t like him; she wondered why. And where was Nicky anyway? They had hardly seen each other all day. As if in answer to her thought he came into the dining-room and threw an arm round her shoulders. ‘Beautiful girl, isn’t it about time you spared a thought for me? I might have known that once Oliver got here he’d spoil everything.’

She set the knives and forks just so, very conscious of his arm. ‘I’ve been around,’ she said, a shade breathless, ‘and your cousin hasn’t spoilt anything. Why should he? Your mother was very glad to see him—because he’s a doctor, I expect.’

She didn’t see Nick’s quick frown. ‘Oh, I daresay. Hey, drop that lot of plates and come into the garden for a few minutes.’

She laughed, feeling suddenly happy. ‘I can’t—look, dinner’s in an hour, and I’ve heaps to do and I’ll have to go and change.’

‘Never mind that.’ Nicky took the plates from her, then tucked an arm through hers and walked her through the French window out into the garden.

‘It’s heavenly now.’ He smiled down at her, holding her close. ‘I had no idea when I came on holiday that I was going to meet the only girl in the world.’

Celine didn’t answer him, and he didn’t seem to expect it, but strolled round the side of the house towards the high wall of the kitchen garden, still warm from the afternoon’s sun. They were well away from the house when he stopped and put his arms round her. ‘You’re everything a man wants,’ he told her. ‘You and I are going to be very happy.’

Celine stirred in his arms. She felt shy and excited, but over and above these she felt as though she were being rushed along too fast. Nicky was going to kiss her and she wasn’t quite sure that she wanted him to, not just yet. All the same, she felt a keen exasperation when the old wooden door into the kitchen garden creaked open and Oliver strolled through, not twenty yards away.

He closed the door carefully behind him and beamed at them. ‘Hullo there, enjoying a little peace and quiet together?’ and instead of going off to the house, he strolled towards them. Without quite knowing how it had happened, Celine found his vast person between them, a hand on their shoulders, propelling them gently forward while he carried on a gentle conversation. She answered mechanically, but Nicky didn’t say a word—not then, at any rate, but when she left them in the hall, she heard him break into furious speech before she had closed the kitchen door.

Nurse Stevens came back presently, was served her dinner and went away to the sickroom, and Celine cleared away, put the finishing touches to the tables and went back to the kitchen. It wasn’t quite time for dinner and everything was ready. She slid upstairs, showered, changed into a little Italian dress she had bought the previous summer, did her hair and face with the speed of light and was downstairs again with five minutes to spare. She could hear Mrs Seymour, Nick and his cousin in the smaller sitting-room; her mother and father were there too and there was no reason why she shouldn’t join them. Instead she went to the kitchen again, picked up the tray with the avocado pears with shrimp sauce and took them along to the dining-room, where she met Barney, dealing with the wine. In the twilight, just with candles glowing, the shabby room looked rather lovely, and Barney, very neat in his black alpaca jacket, certainly added tone to the place. Celine wondered if they were charging enough for dinner as she crossed the hall and banged the gong.

There was no getting away from the fact that Oliver was now very much in charge of the party. Nick hadn’t bothered over-much about his mother’s lack of appetite, but his cousin, with a placid firmness which would have been hard to resist, made sure that she ate at least something of the meal. And he saw that her glass was kept filled too. Mrs Seymour had brightened visibly by the end of the meal, although it was only too apparent that Nick was sulking.

The poor boy, thought Celine, handing the salad from the garden to go with the lamb chops, the wretched man has taken over completely. Pompous ass, she added to herself for good measure.

She carried the coffee into the drawing-room when they had finished their meal and Mrs Seymour patted the sofa beside her and said: ‘Do sit down, my dear—you lead such a busy life, surely you can rest for a few minutes.’

‘I’m not tired,’ declared Celine, and meant it. She sat down, with a quick look at the clock; five minutes, ten at the most. She caught Oliver’s eye and coloured faintly; he saw so obviously exactly what she had been thinking. Indeed, she waited for him to make some remark, but he didn’t, just sat there, listening to Mrs Seymour talking about her husband’s illness. ‘Of course, everything is all right now Oliver’s here,’ she said quite happily. ‘He’s such a splendid doctor, and he and Dr Grady quite agree as to the treatment. And they say he’s responding to—to…’ She looked at her nephew, who said calmly, ‘Stimuli—pins and lights and so forth.’

Mrs Seymour nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, that’s it. I was telling your mother, Celine, that just as soon as it’s safe to move my husband, we’ll do so. I feel very badly about you turning away other guests.’

Celine said cheerfully: ‘Oh, it’s not quite the tourist season yet, you know, we didn’t expect to be full for another few weeks.’ She paused in thought. ‘And now Oliver’s here too, we might be able to have one or two drives round the country.’

‘Now he’s here,’ said Nick suddenly, ‘I’m going to take some time off myself—it’s not been much of a holiday so far.’

His mother looked at him doubtfully. She doted on him, but even she must have realised that he had contributed very little to ease a difficult situation, but his cousin answered readily enough. ‘Why not? I’m at everyone’s service.’

‘Well, I hope this lovely weather holds for you,’ said Celine, and got up. Oliver got up too and went to open the door for her. She thanked him coolly, not looking at him. He hadn’t said anything at all, but somehow he had made poor Nick look—well, uncaring. And he wasn’t that, after all, he had come on this holiday with his parents when he might have gone off somewhere exciting on his own. She was so very glad that he hadn’t.

She ate her own dinner in a rosy haze of vague dreams, so that her mother had to tell her twice that Dr Seymour had paid the bill and had had a chat with her father too. ‘Such a nice man,’ said Mrs Baylis with the faintest of question marks in her voice, ‘don’t you think so, dear?’

Celine muttered something, and her father, who hadn’t been listening said: ‘He’s an Oxford man, I thought he might be. Took his degrees at Edinburgh, been to Vienna too—quite a good man, I should suppose. A different kettle of fish from that cousin of his.’

‘Nick is a very nice person,’ said Celine quite fiercely for her, and got up to change the plates and so missed the warning glance her mother shot across the table at her father. When she sat down again her mother said: ‘Now we’ve got some money I wondered if you’d take the car tomorrow and go down to Dorchester market. I’ll tidy the rooms and make the beds if you could manage to clear the tables after breakfast—you could be back for lunch. If we had something cold—I’ll make a salad…’

It would be nice to have an hour or two away from the house, although she would be away from Nicky too…’Shall we make a list before we go to bed? Dr Seymour seems to think his uncle may be fit to move by ambulance in a week, perhaps less and we want to be ready for the next lot.’

‘Where do they live?’ asked Celine, and tried not to sound eager. It was something Nick hadn’t told her and she hadn’t asked.

‘Oh, Harrow, or is it Highgate? I believe Dr Seymour lives in London too, but I’m not sure where.’

He could live on the top of Mount Everest for all Celine cared. She didn’t like him, she told herself as she helped Angela clear away for the night, and at the same time was aware that this wasn’t quite true. He had done nothing deliberately unkind, he hadn’t been boastful, he had been friendly and polite, and if it hadn’t been for Nicky telling her what a tiresome man he was, she might even have liked him. She finished in the kitchen, said goodnight to Angela and Barney and crossed the hall to the sitting-room to say goodnight to her parents. Nicky came out of the drawing-room at the same time, and they met halfway, and stopped.

He put an arm round her and smiled so that her heart turned over.

‘I was hoping I’d see you. Any chance of coming for a drive tomorrow?’

‘I’m going to Dorchester market directly after breakfast, and I have to be back for lunch.’ Her soft mouth curved into a smile.

‘Heaven sent! I’ll drive you in my car. We can’t make it the whole day, I suppose?’

Celine shook her head. ‘Impossible—it really is. But it would be lovely.’ Her eyes shone and he put the other arm round her.

‘You beautiful girl,’ he said softly, and then stiffened and let his arms drop as someone, not too far away, started whistling. It could only be Oliver. It was, sauntering down the stairs with his hands in his pockets. He nodded casually at them as he crossed the hall and went out into the garden, but the magic moment had passed. Celine said in a brittle voice: ‘I shall be leaving about nine o’clock.’

‘I’ll be waiting.’ Nicky took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, but that was all. Any moment Oliver might appear again—like the genie in a pantomime, she thought peevishly.

She was up very early and had breakfasted long before anyone came into the dining-room. She served the meal, saw to Nurse Stevens’ wants, cleared the table, fetched her shopping list and was on the doorstep by nine o’clock. Nicky was there waiting in the car, and there was, thank heaven, no sign of his cousin. Celine got in beside him with a thrill of excitement, a little dampened by his careless: ‘We don’t need to shop, do we? Can’t you ring up for whatever you need when we get back? It’s such a glorious day, we could go for a run—have a picnic…’

‘Oh, but I can’t, honestly. Angela wants most of the things today—the village shop doesn’t have a great deal, you know. Besides, I must be back before lunch—there’s no one else to serve it.’

‘What about that butler of yours? Or your mother?’ Nicky spoke carelessly.

‘Barney’s got heaps of jobs to do—not just being a butler—he’s the handyman too and he does the vegetables and does quite a lot of housework when no one is about. And mother wouldn’t know where to start.’ She added, suddenly fierce: ‘Why should she? She’s never been used to it, and it was my idea in the first place.’

He patted her knee. ‘OK., don’t get so worked up! It was only a suggestion. But remember, when you do get a few hours to yourself keep them for me.’

He was an amusing companion, and it was impossible to be vexed by him for more than a few moments. The drive to Dorchester was a delight for her, and when they had parked the car, he took her to Napper’s Mite for coffee, and they walked through the crowded market while Celine bought fruit and meat, and, that done, led him into the town to Parson’s grocer’s shop to buy the special tea and coffee that her mother had had for years. It all took rather longer than she had bargained for, and she mentioned this as they got back into the car, to be made sorry for doing so presently, for Nick drove back much too fast, so that by the time they arrived she was on edge with suppressed nerves. All the same, she thanked him with warmth, refused with regret his offer of another drive that afternoon, and went off to the kitchen to give Angela a hand with the lunch.

The doctor had been, Angela told her as they stood side by side at the vast kitchen table, Celine making a salad, Angela putting the finishing touches to the egg and mushroom flan she had taken from the oven. ‘Very pleased he was, too. That nice Dr Seymour was with him. Now there is a man for you, Miss Celine—I wouldn’t mind being ill if I had him to look after me.’

‘Oh, pooh,’ declared Celine, and tossed her lovely head. ‘He’s just the same as any other doctor.’

‘Now there you’re wrong,’ declared Angela. ‘But it’s no good telling you that now, is it?’

Celine muttered under her breath; Angela had known her all her life and sometimes forgot that she wasn’t a little girl any more. ‘I’m going to sound the gong,’ she told her companion, and marched into the hall.

Mrs Seymour and Nicky were halfway through their meal before Dr Seymour joined them. Beyond a brief apology to both them and Celine, he gave no reason for his tardiness. She put a plate of chilled watercress soup before him with exaggerated care and served his companions with early strawberries and cream. In the kitchen she said snappily to Angela: ‘Serve that man right if I dished up his omelette now—it’d be nice and leathery by the time he’s ready for it.’

‘Miss Celine, I’m surprised at you—whatever next! Such a nice man, and so considerate too.’

Celine tossed her head and snorted delicately. ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ she said crossly.

She stayed cross for the rest of the day, for she had no time to herself at all. Several times on her way to the kitchen garden, or racing round the house, she had glimpses of Nicky stretched out on the lawn in front of the house, but there was no chance to talk to him. She served tea on the grass under the trees and took a tray up to Nurse Stevens, then went to join her parents in the sitting-room for half an hour.

Her father glanced up as she went in. ‘Busy?’ he asked without really wanting to know. ‘I hear from Dr Seymour that Mr Seymour may be leaving us in a day or two.’ He smiled at her vaguely, one finger marking the place in the book he was reading. ‘Has any one else arrived?’

‘I hope not,’ said Celine, wolfing bread and butter, ‘I’ve got my hands full.’

Her mother gave her a gently reproachful glance. ‘But, darling, you persuaded us to do this bed and breakfast thing—are you bored with it?’

‘I haven’t had time, Mother dear. I’ll be much easier when we just get people for a night or so…I mean, there’s Mr Seymour and the nurse…it makes it a bit busier.’

‘Yes, darling, I’m sure it does. All those extra rooms I have to put flowers in. But the money is most useful.’

Her father lowered his book. ‘I must say Dr Seymour is a very fair-minded man—insists on paying the full amount for his uncle even though he is only on a fluid diet and costs us almost nothing to feed.’

For some reason Celine felt annoyed. She felt despondent too; if Mr Seymour went, Nicky would go too and she wouldn’t see him again. She finished her tea and took the tray back to the kitchen, and while Angela and Barney had a couple of hours off, got started on the evening’s menu.

It was much later, when she was wearily clearing the last of the dishes away and tidying the kitchen for the night, that Nicky joined her.

‘So this is where you hide out,’ he said, and laughed as he tucked an arm in hers. ‘No, put those plates down, I haven’t talked to you for hours.’

‘This morning…’ she laughed up at him from a tired face. ‘And I’m not on holiday!’

He bent and kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘Ah—and that’s what we must put right. I have to go to Bournemouth in a couple of weeks’ time—only for a few days, but we could have a couple of nights out—surely you can take a day or so off when you want to?’

Celine was puzzled. ‘Well, I suppose so, but it would be awkward, Nicky—I mean, there’s no one to take over—I’m not indispensable, but I am a pair of hands. And—and…where would I stay?’

‘Oh, at the hotel, of course,’ he said easily. ‘I always go to the Royal Bath.’ He added softly: ‘We have to get to know each other, my sweet.’

‘Why?’

He raised his brows and smiled slowly. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t feel entirely the same as I do about you. Love at first sight, you know.’

She was breathless. ‘Oh, yes, Nicky—I never thought it was true, but it is, isn’t it? Only I can’t…’ She paused. ‘Would you wait for a while, just while I get this business going, and when it’s running smoothly, I could get someone to take over…’

‘No need for a couple of days, surely?’

Celine felt her cheeks flame. ‘Oh, I thought you meant getting married.’

It sounded so gauche, the kind of remark the heroine might make in a second-rate film, but that was exactly what she had thought.

The arm around her shoulders tightened reassuringly. ‘My sweet, that is what I meant. Of course I’ll wait—but I do think we should see as much as we can of each other until you’re free.’

Celine drew a deep breath, and the small doubt lying somewhere at the bottom of her excitement disappeared. ‘I’ll see what I can do. When are you leaving?’

He shrugged. ‘Lord knows—or at least, my interfering cousin does; when he feels like it, I suppose he’ll tell us.’

‘Has he always been like that?’

‘Always. There’s not much love lost between us, but there’s no need for you to see him once he’s left here. He’s always wrapped up in his precious practice and some clinic or other he runs.’ He threw her a sidelong glance. ‘Dislikes girls, too—had some miserable affair when he was young and has no time for women, or so he says.’

‘Oh—he’s always been very polite…’

‘Well, of course—doctors always are; they cultivate a kind of veneer which doesn’t mean a thing. Don’t let’s waste time talking about him…’

Nicky broke off as the door opened and Nurse Stevens came in. She said without preamble: ‘Dr Seymour asked me to come down and get some fresh lemonade. Will you do it, Miss Baylis?’

Celine had pulled away from Nick, her cheeks pink. There was no reason why she should feel guilty, after all, it was her home and she was doing nothing wrong. Nurse Stevens was tiresome. She said shortly: ‘I’ll make a jug and bring it up, Nurse.’

She noticed that Nurse Stevens looked tired and every day of her age. It was a pity, and Dr Grady couldn’t get a night nurse. She asked: ‘Have you had very disturbed nights?’

‘Yes, they have been rather broken, but there wasn’t a nurse available and Mrs Seymour isn’t strong enough to stay awake at night.’ She cast a look at Nick, lounging in a Windsor chair by the Aga. ‘But Dr Seymour has kindly offered to stay up tonight so that I can have a proper sleep.’ She pulled out one of the chairs at the table. ‘I’ll wait for the lemonade.’

Long before Celine had it ready, Nicky had given up and gone sulkily away, and later, when Nurse Stevens had gone too and Celine had finished tidying up the kitchen, there was no sign of him. She went to say goodnight to her parents and then tiredly to bed.

Two days later, Mr Seymour was judged recovered enough to make the journey home by ambulance, and in those two days Celine had had almost no time alone with Nicky, only on the last evening he came back into the dining-room as she was clearing the table. ‘I’ll have to drive Mother home,’ he told her, ‘but I’ll be down again in a couple of days, and that’s a promise. We can fix up that weekend then,’ and at her questioning look: ‘And make plans for the future. Our future.’

He drew her close and kissed her rather hurriedly. ‘I can’t stay—Oliver’s making all the arrangements, of course, and he’ll be looking for me, damn him. I’ll see you in the morning before we leave. I’m going to miss you, darling.’

He had gone leaving her to finish her clearing up, her sadness at his going lessened by the news that he would be back so soon.

Getting the invalid away took some time, despite the fact that Nurse Stevens had been prevailed upon to accompany him in the ambulance. But finally he was stowed away and she with him, and Mrs Seymour, having delayed their departure for several minutes, searching for things she found that she already had, got in beside Nicky. Only then did he get out of the car and go back into the house, taking Celine, waiting in the porch, with him. ‘I can’t go without saying goodbye, Celine. Yes, I know the ambulance has gone and Mother’s impatient, but no one considers me at all.’ He kissed her lightly. ‘That’ll have to do until I see you again…in a couple of days, and I shall expect to have you all to myself.’

He let her go and went out to the car. He got in with a careless wave of the hand and drove off, down the drive and out of the gates.

It wasn’t until then that Celine realised that the Aston Martin was still parked at the side of the house. She turned round to find Oliver standing beside her. ‘Aren’t you going too?’ she asked.

He smiled a little at the coldness of her voice. ‘Yes—I had some business to attend to with your father. Thank you—all of you, for the trouble and kindness you’ve taken. We must have been a sore trial to you and we’re eternally grateful. You’ll be glad to see the back of us.’

He gave her a level look. ‘Not Nicky, of course. You’ll miss him.’

She lifted her chin, and more to hearten her own low spirits than anything else said: ‘Yes, of course I shall, but he’s coming back in a day or two.’

The blue eyes went dark. ‘Indeed? To stay here?’

‘It’s really none of your business—as a matter of fact, he’s asked me to spend a few days in Bournemouth so that we can go out to dinner and see something of each other.’

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