Midsummer Star. Бетти Нилс
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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