A Happy Meeting. Betty Neels
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to him as two Pekinese dogs hurried to meet him. He bent to pat them before stooping to kiss his grandmother.
‘My apologies for being late, my dear. I was unexpectedly delayed.’
‘Did the lecture not go well?’
‘Oh, very well. I was forced to stop on my way…’
‘Pour yourself a drink and tell me about it.’
Which he did. ‘Was she pretty, this girl?’
‘Pretty? To tell you the truth, I can’t remember how she looked. She had nice eyes and a very pleasant voice.’ He sounded indifferent and presently they talked of other things. He didn’t think of the girl again.
Cressida, with Miss Mogford’s help, had got herself into bed. Her ankle hurt abominably but the paracetamol was beginning to take effect. Moggy had arranged a small footstool in the bed so that her foot was free of the bedclothes and perhaps by the morning it would be better. Staying in bed was a luxury her stepmother disapproved of. Hopefully she wouldn’t come home until late and need know nothing about it until the morning. She drank the tea Miss Mogford brought her and was urged to go to sleep, and she did as she was bid. She was awakened half an hour later by the entrance of Mrs Preece, a woman who in her youth had been enchantingly pretty and now in middle age, by dint of dieting ruthlessly, going to the best hairdressers so that her once golden hair should show no hint of grey, using every aid to beauty which caught her eye in the glossy magazines she favoured and wearing the floating draperies which gave her the look of helpless femininity which hid a nature as cold and hard as steel, preserved the illusion of sweetness of character.
‘What is all this nonsense I hear from Miss Mogford?’ she wanted to know. ‘And why are you in bed? It’s barely nine o’clock? Really, Cressida, I hardly expect a healthy girl of four and twenty to loll around like this.’
Cressida, used to her stepmother’s manner towards her, sat up in bed. ‘I’m in bed because I can’t stand on my foot and it’s very painful. I dare say it will be all right by the morning.’
‘It had better be—I’ve the Worthingtons coming to dinner and I want the flowers done and the silver epergne properly polished.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I’ve a splitting headache; I was forced to come away early from the party. I shall go to bed and can only hope that Miss Mogford will spare the time to bring me a hot drink and run my bath.’
She went away without saying goodnight and Cressida wriggled down into her bed again, wide awake now and aware that her ankle was hurting. It was too soon to take any more paracetamol. She tugged her pillows into comfort and allowed her thoughts to roam.
The man who had brought her home had been nice; not just nice, he had treated her…she sought for words—as though she mattered; and since she knew only too well that her looks were negligible she had appreciated that. He had been surprised when he’d seen her room, she had noticed that at once, but since she wasn’t going to see him again she didn’t think that mattered. She knew that the few friends she had in the village were at a loss to understand why she stayed at home when it was so obvious that she wasn’t welcome there now that her father was dead. She had never told anyone that she stayed there because of Moggy. Moggy had no home of her own; she had worked all her life for Cressida’s parents, never able to save because she had a married sister whose husband had become paralysed soon after they had married and had lived for many years, a helpless wreck, his life made bearable by the extras Moggy’s earnings had helped to buy. Now at fifty-eight years, she had two more years before she could draw her pension and receive the annuity Mr Preece had left her. Until then there was nothing else she could do but stay with Mrs Preece, since that lady had led her to understand that unless she remained in her employ until her sixtieth birthday her annuity would be cancelled. Since Miss Mogford, for all her severe appearance, was afraid that no one else would employ her in any case, and, over and above that, had set her heart on going to live with her now widowed sister where she would enjoy a snug retirement, she stayed on, managing the house with the help of girls from the village and Cressida. It was only because Cressida understood Moggy’s situation that she stayed. Two years, she told herself repeatedly, would soon pass, and once Moggy was safely esconced with her sister she herself would feel free to go away. She had no idea what she would do, she hadn’t been trained for anything but she was handy about the house and even in this day and age there were old ladies who needed companions. A roof over her head and some money to spend was all she expected until she had found her feet.
It was a great pity that her father, that most trusting of men, had left everything to her stepmother, under the impression that she would give Cressida an allowance. Instead of that, Mrs Preece had lost no time in making it quite clear that that was out of the question. Cressida would have to help Miss Mogford and in return she would be clothed and fed and be given pocket money.
Cressida, after a number of indignant protests, had had every intention of leaving, only to be stymied by being told of Moggy’s situation. She had plenty of common sense, added to which she was a girl of spirit, but Moggy had been a faithful and loving employee and a pleasant retirement was almost within her grasp. Cressida stayed and those who knew her thought silently that she should have shown more spirit.
She confided in no one, even her closest friends, and since Mrs Preece was always charmingly maternal towards her when there was anyone around they began to think that Cressida liked the way she lived. She was always cheerful and showed no envy when friends became engaged or got themselves good jobs away from the village, and they weren’t to know of the long hours she spent planning her future. She didn’t brood, for she despised self-pity, but now and then she wished that she had even a modicum of good looks; a pretty face, she was sure, would be a great help in getting a job.
She dozed off, to wake in the night from the throbbing of her ankle.
Moggy came to see how she was in the morning, took one look at her white face and told her to stay where she was.
‘I can’t,’ said Cressida, ‘there are the flowers to arrange and some silver to polish.’ So saying she got out of bed, set her injured foot floor and did something she had never done before in her life. She fainted.
Moggy picked her up and put her on the bed and marched down to Mrs Preece’s bedroom. Regardless of the fact that it was still two hours short of her usual entry with a tray of tea, she roused her mistress briskly.
‘Miss Cressida’s fainted, on account of her trying to get up because you told her to,’ said Miss Mogford with a snap. ‘You’d best get the doctor to her.’
Mrs Preece sat up in bed. ‘For a sprained ankle? Probably she’s only wrenched it badly. Certainly not, but I suppose she’d better stay in bed for the time being. What a nuisance this is and now I shall have a headache being wakened so abruptly. Really, you might consider my nerves.’
She sank back on her pillows. ‘Go away and bring my tea at the usual time.’
Miss Mogford went away, muttering darkly to herself once the door was shut. Things couldn’t go on like this; something would have to be done, although she had no idea what it was. She went to the kitchen and made a pot of tea and bore it upstairs to Cressida’s room and shared it with her. It was hot and strong, and, lulled by the paracetamol, Cressida felt better.
‘I could get up,’ she suggested, ‘if I had a stick…’
‘Nonsense, you’ll do no such thing. That nice doctor who brought you home would be very annoyed if he knew.’
‘He doesn’t know,’ said Cressida, and felt a pang of regret because of that. She was a sensible girl, concealing a romantic nature beneath her ordinary appearance; no good would come of wanting something she couldn’t have. She contrived to wash with Moggy’s aid, brushed her hair, which was long and mousy, and plaited it and set about persuading Moggy to bring the silver epergne upstairs. ‘With an old newspaper,’ she urged, ‘and the polish and cloths. I can do it easily and it will keep me occupied.’
‘All right,’ Moggy was grudging, ‘but only when you’ve had your breakfast.’
‘I’m