Victory for Victoria. Betty Neels
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flowers whatever the weather.
She entered by the visitors’ gateway and waved to the woman sitting idly in the little booth where summer visitors paid their fees, and walked on to the Outer Bailey and so eventually to the ramparts, where sure enough, Uncle Gardener was working. He was at the far end and Victoria made her way unhurriedly towards him, pausing to look down to the rocks below and then out to sea. There was a wind, but it was surprisingly light for the time of year and the sea had been beaten flat by the rain. All the same, it was hardly the weather to take a boat out, she thought, watching a yacht, its white-painted hull and brown sails showing up vividly against the greyness of the sea and sky, coming out of the harbour, running fast before the wind, going south towards Jerbourg Point. She could see the orange-coloured lifejackets of the two people aboard—two men, one at the tiller, the other…there was no reason to be so sure that it was the man she had met on the way to Fermain Bay, only—even at that distance—his size.
Victoria began to run along the path beside the battlements until she reached Uncle Gardener, who looked up and smiled. ‘Uncle,’ she wasted no time in greeting him, ‘have you got your binoculars with you?’ and when he handed them to her without speaking, turned and raced back along the ramparts. It was the same man, and his companion was the man she had seen him with that morning. There was no sign of anyone else on board, but they could be in the cabin, for it was a fair-sized boat—a Sea King—built for a family, although surely he wouldn’t take his family out on a day such as this one was? She watched it pass the castle and alter course out to sea—Jersey, perhaps? She walked slowly back to where the man she had come to visit waited. ‘And what’s all that about?’ he wanted to know.
He was elderly and short and rather stout and her father’s closest friend, and like him, was one of the Jurats of the island, perhaps the highest honour a citizen of Guernsey could aspire to. Victoria had known him all her life; when she had been a small girl and his wife had been alive, they had come frequently to her home, but now he was alone and although they saw him often, he seldom came to see them any more. Nevertheless, she knew that he was always delighted to see them. She looked at him with deep affection and said: ‘Oh, nothing. Just that yacht, it seems such a daft sort of day to sail.’
‘Well, as to that, it’s a matter of who’s sailing it, isn’t it? It seemed to me that the boat was being handled by someone who knew what he was about. Do you know him?’
Victoria perched herself on the end of the wheelbarrow. ‘No—yes, well, we met—just for a little while when I was out walking. I’ve no idea who he is.’ She shrugged her shoulders and added falsely, ‘And I don’t really care.’
Mr Givaude, alias Uncle Gardener, lifted a face which bore strong traces of his Norman ancestors and stared at her rain-wet face. He didn’t answer, only made a grunting sound and said: ‘How about tea? It’s early, but I’ve finished here. Come on up to the house.’
His home was tucked away to one side of the Prisoners’ Walk, and although it was still early, as Mr Givaude had observed, his housekeeper was waiting for them, ready to take Victoria’s wet anorak and then to bring in the tea-tray with the old silver teapot and the cherry cake she made so well. Victoria ate two generous slices while she told Uncle Gardener about hospital and how she hoped to get the ward within a year, and how beastly London was except when she went to the theatre or out to dinner, when it was the greatest possible fun.
‘Want to live there for ever?’ her companion asked.
‘No,’ she sounded positive about it.
‘Then you’d better hurry up and find yourself a husband. After all, you’re the eldest, you should have first pick.’
She grinned at him. ‘And what chance do I have when the others are around?’ she demanded. ‘They’re quite spectacular, you know. I only get noticed when I’m on my own.’
Her companion took a lump of sugar from the pot and scrunched it up.
‘Bah,’ he said roundly, ‘fiddlesticks, I’ll tell you something—I was out with your mother and father a little while ago and do you know what I heard someone say? They were talking about your sisters, and this person said: “Maybe they do make the rest of the girls here look pretty dim, but wait until you’ve seen the eldest of ’em—and the best, a real smasher.” What do you think of that?’
‘Codswallop,’ stated Victoria succinctly. ‘It must have been someone who had never seen me—and anyway, Uncle Gardener, I don’t care overmuch about being pretty.’ She looked at him earnestly. ‘I want to be liked—loved because I’m me, not just because I’m pretty.’
Mr Givaude nodded in agreement. ‘Don’t worry, Vicky,’ he said, ‘you will be.’
She went soon afterwards, mindful that she had to be home in good time, and with the promise that she would return to say goodbye before she went back to London. The rain had stopped and the clouds were parting reluctantly to allow a watery sunshine to filter through, probably it would be a fine day tomorrow. She walked quickly home, wondering what she should do with it—they could take the Mini if their mother didn’t want it and go across the island to Rocquaine Bay; it was still early in the year, but on the western shores of the island it would be warm in the sheltered coves. She turned towards the town when she reached the end of the pier and instead of going along the Esplanade and up Havelet, turned off at the Town Church. At the corner, before she reached the shelter of the little town’s main street she took a backward look at the sea. It was empty; her half-formed idea that the yacht with the brown sails might have turned and sailed back into harbour died almost before she became aware of it. All the same, that evening, sitting in the theatre waiting for the curtain to go up, she looked around her, just in case the stranger might be there too.
They went to Rocquaine Bay the next morning with Victoria driving. She wasn’t a good driver, but she knew the island well, and most of the people on it; it wasn’t like driving on the mainland where there was no one to give her a hand if she reversed down the wrong street or met a bus head-on. It was a grand morning with a wind which was going to strengthen later in the day and a pale sky from which a surprisingly warm sun shone. Victoria stopped the car when they reached Pleinmont Point and they all piled out and walked along the cliff path, past the radio station to the edge of the cliffs to get a view of the lighthouse. The keen air made them hungry and they were glad enough to stop at Portelet and have coffee and buns, arguing briskly among themselves as to whether it was worth leaving the car and walking back along the cliff path for a mile or so. They decided against it at last, although Victoria promised herself that when next she came on holiday she would walk from her home and swim in Venus’s Pool and explore the Creux Mahie—a cave she hadn’t visited for several years. Louise teased her gently about it.
‘Honestly, Vicky,’ she declared, ‘there’s heaps of other things to do. Who wants to poke round an old cave, and the water in the pool is cold until summer. When will you be home again?’
Victoria thought. ‘Well, this is the last week of my holidays for this year—I start again in April. I think I’ll try and get a week in May.’
‘Don’t forget we’re all going to Scotland in September,’ Amabel reminded her. ‘That’ll be two weeks. You’re awfully lucky getting six weeks. Doctors aren’t so lucky.’
There was a sympathetic murmur from her sisters; Amabel and a newly qualified, overworked young doctor at the hospital had taken a fancy to each other. The affair was in its very early stages and the entire family were careful not to mention it unless Amabel brought the subject up.
‘They do better as they get more senior,’ said Victoria soothingly. ‘And once they’ve got a practice…’
Amabel brightened and her sisters smiled at each other; they quarreled fiercely among themselves on occasion, but their affection for each other was just as fierce, and Amabel had the sweetest nature of them all.
‘We’d better go,’ suggested Victoria, and the other three rose at once because she was the eldest and although she couldn’t match them in size she had always led them. It was when they were almost