sitting in the dining room with Uncle Tom, drinking beer and smoking a pipe and listening with every sign of pleasure to his host’s opinion of illuminated manuscripts of the twelfth century, that was exactly what she did.
Before he left he poked his head round the kitchen door. ‘Your uncle is quite right, you make an excellent sandwich—you must both come to dinner with me one evening and sample Mrs Turner’s cooking.’
Judith didn’t stop washing up. ‘That’s very kind of you, Professor Cresswell, but I’m here to enjoy peace and quiet.’
‘Oh, we’ll make no noise, I promise you—I don’t run to a Palm Court Orchestra.’ He had gone before she could think up another excuse.
It was the next morning, just as she was back from the butchers with a foot or so of the Cumberland sausage her uncle liked so much, that he wandered into the kitchen when surgery was over for the moment.
‘No cooking for you this evening, my dear— Charles has asked us to dinner.’
A surge of strong feeling swept over Judith—annoyance, peevishness at being taken unawares and perhaps a little excitement as well. She said immediately, ‘Oh, Uncle, you’ll have to go without me—I’ve got a headache.’ She was coiling the sausage into a bowl. ‘I’ll stay at home and go to bed early.’
‘Oh, that won’t do at all.’ Her uncle was overriding her gently. ‘I’ve just the thing to cure that—by the evening you’ll be feeling fine again.’ He bustled away and came back with a pill she didn’t need or want, but since he was there watching her, she swallowed it. ‘It’s a splendid day,’ he went on, ‘so after lunch I suggest that you get into the hammock in the garden and have a nap.’
Which, later in the day, she found herself doing, watched by Uncle Tom, looking complacent. This reluctance to meet Charles he considered a good sign, just as he was hopeful of Charles’ deliberate rudeness to her. In all the years he had known him, he had never seen such an exhibition of ill manners towards a woman on the Professor’s part. He knew all about his unfortunate love affair, but that was years ago now—since then he had treated the women who had crossed his path with a bland politeness and no warmth. But now this looked more promising, Uncle Tom decided; his niece, with her lovely face and strong splendid figure, had got under Charles’ skin. He pottered off to his afternoon patients, very pleased with himself.
Much against her inclination, Judith slept, stretched out in the old fashioned hammock slung between the apple trees behind the house. She slept peacefully until the doctor’s elderly Austin came to its spluttering halt before the house, and she just had time to run to the kitchen and put the kettle on for a cup of tea before he came into the house.
It would be nice, she thought, if they had a frantically busy surgery that evening, even a dire emergency, which would prevent them from going to the Professor’s house, but nothing like that happened. The surgery was shorter than usual; Uncle Tom put the telephone on to the answering service, told the local exchange to put through urgent calls to the Professor’s house and indicated that he would be ready to leave within the next hour.
‘And wear something pretty, my dear,’ he warned her. ‘There’ll probably be one or two other people there— Charles doesn’t entertain much, just once or twice a year—they’re something of an event here.’ He added by way of an explanation: ‘Mrs Turner is an excellent cook.’
She was dressing entirely to please herself, Judith argued, putting on the Laura Ashley blouse, a confection of fine lawn, lace insertions and tiny tucks, and adding a thick silk skirt of swirling colours, her very best silk tights and a pair of wispy sandals which had cost her the earth. For the same reason, presumably, she took great pains with her face and hair, informing Uncle Tom, very tidy for once in a dark blue suit, that she just happened to have the outfit with her. Which was true enough, although she hadn’t expected to wear it.
They travelled in the doctor’s car, driving up to the house to find several other cars already there. The house, Judith saw, now that she was at its front, was a good deal larger than she had supposed. It was typical of the Lake District, whitewashed walls under a slate roof, with a wing at the back and a walled garden, full of roses now, encircling it. She went inside with her uncle into a square hall with four doors, all open. There was a good deal of noise coming through one of them; they paused long enough to greet Mrs Turner and were shown into a room on the left.
It was considerably larger than Judith had imagined, running from the front of the house to the back, where doors were open into the garden; it was furnished with a pleasing mixture of old, well cared for pieces and comfortable chintz-covered chairs. It was also quite full of people; women in pretty dresses, men in conventional dark suits. And the Professor, looking utterly different in a collar and tie and a suit of impeccable cut, advancing to meet them.
He clapped Uncle Tom on the shoulder, bade Judith a brisk good evening and introduced them round the room. Uncle Tom knew almost everyone there, of course, and presently, when the Professor had fetched them their drinks, he excused himself and left the doctor to make the introductions himself. Judith, making small talk with a youngish man who said that he was a cousin of the Professor’s, took the opportunity to look round her. There were a dozen people, she judged, and only a few of them from Hawkshead itself. And all the women were pretty and smart and, for the most part, young. She thanked heaven silently that she had worn the silk outfit; it might not be as smart as some of the dresses there, but it stood up very nicely to competition. The cousin was joined by an elderly man whom she vaguely remembered she had seen in church; the local vet, he reminded her jovially, and pointed out his wife, talking to the Professor at the other end of the room. ‘I’ve just given her a Border terrier and I daresay they’re comparing notes.’
‘Oh, has he got one?’
‘Lord, yes, and a nice old Black labrador as well. They’re in the garden, I expect, but they will roam in presently, I daresay—they have the run of the house.’
‘I should have thought that having dogs would have been too much of a distraction for Professor Cresswell—he spends a great deal of time writing, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes, but he takes them out early in the morning before starting work—I believe they sit with him while he’s actually at his desk, so they can’t bother him much.’ He smiled at her. ‘How do you like this part of the country?’
The Professor’s cousin had turned aside to speak to a young woman and presently joined them again, this time with his arm round the girl’s shoulders. ‘You have met?’ he wanted to know. ‘Eileen Hunt, an old friend of the family.’ He laughed. ‘One might say, almost, very nearly one of the Cresswell family.’
The girl laughed too, and Judith smiled politely and wondered if they were on the point of getting engaged. She glanced down at the girl’s left hand: there was a wedding ring but nothing else. Eileen caught her eye and smiled with a hint of malice. ‘I’m not going to marry this wretch—he’s got one wife already. You’re not married, Judith?’
The malice was still there. ‘No,’ said Judith carefully. ‘There always seems to be so many other things to do—I daresay I’ll get round to it one day.’
It was a relief when Mrs Turner opened the door and, accompanied by the two dogs, marched across the room to where the Professor stood talking to a small group of people. Dinner, it appeared was ready.
The dining room, on the other side of the hall, was every bit as pleasant as the sitting room. Judith, sitting between the vet and a rather prosy elderly man who had little to say for himself, glanced round the big oval table. Eileen was sitting beside her host, leaning towards him with a laughing face and what Judith could only describe as a proprietorial air. Was that what the cousin had meant? Was the Professor going to take a wife? Judith felt the vague dislike she had had for the girl turn to something much stronger, which considering she didn’t like Charles Cresswell one little bit seemed strange.
The prosy man, having delivered himself of a lengthy speech about local weather, applied himself to his soup, and Judith did the same. It was excellent, as was the salmon