CHAPTER THREE
OCTOBER, sliding towards November, had turned wet and chilly and customers were sparse. Mary Jane turned out cupboards, washed and polished and cut down on the baking. There were still customers glad of a cup of tea, home from shopping expeditions—or motorists on their way to Cheltenham or Oxford stopped for coffee. More prosperous tea-rooms closed down during the winter months and their owners went to Barbados or California to spend their summer’s profits, but Mary Jane’s profits weren’t large enough for that. Besides, since she lived over the tea-room she might just as well keep it open and get what custom there was.
On this particular morning, since it was raining hard and moreover was a Monday, she was pleased to hear the doorbell tinkle as she set the percolator on the stove. It wasn’t a customer, though. Oliver stood there, just inside the door.
She wasn’t particularly pleased to see him but she wished him a cheerful good morning.
‘I’m just back from the States,’ declared Oliver pompously. ‘Margaret tells me that you have behaved most unkindly towards her. I should have thought that you could at least have stayed with her and made sure that she was quite comfortable.’
‘But she is not ill—Sir Thomas Latimer said so. He said that she should take more exercise and not lie around.’
Oliver’s eyes bulged with annoyance. ‘I consider you to be a heartless girl, Mary Jane. I shall think twice before asking you to do any small favour...’
‘You’d be wasting time,’ said Mary Jane matter-of-factly, ‘for you’re quite able to find someone else if Margaret insists on feeling poorly all the time. I’ve my living to earn, you know.’
Oliver’s eyes slid away from hers. ‘As a matter of fact, I have to go away again very shortly...’
‘Then you can arrange for someone to be with Margaret; don’t waste your time with me, Oliver.’
‘You ungrateful...’
She came and stood before him. ‘Tell me, what am I ungrateful for?’ she invited.
Oliver still didn’t meet her eyes. ‘Well,’ he began.
‘Just so, go away, Oliver, before I bang you over the head with my rolling pin.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he blustered. All the same he edged towards the door.
Which opened to admit the giant-like person of Sir Thomas, his elegant grey suit spattered with rain. He said nothing, only stood there, his eyebrows slightly raised, smiling a little.
Mary Jane had gone pink at the sight of him; blushing was a silly habit she had never quite conquered. She was pleased to see him. Oliver, after a first startled glance, had ignored him. ‘You’ve not heard the last of this, Mary Jane — your own flesh and blood.’
‘Ah,’ said Sir Thomas, in the gentlest of voices.
‘You are, I believe, Mrs Seymour’s husband?’
Oliver goggled. ‘Yes—yes, I am.’ He puffed out his chest in readiness for a few well-chosen words but he was forestalled.
‘Delighted to meet you,’ said Sir Thomas with suave untruthfulness. ‘It gives me the opportunity to tell you that there is nothing wrong with your wife. A change of lifestyle is all that she needs—rather more activity.’
Oliver looked from him to Mary Jane who in her turn was studying the row of glass jars on the shelf on the further wall. ‘Really, surely this is hardly the place,’ he began.
‘Oh, Miss Seymour was with your wife and of course already knows what I have told Mrs Seymour. I thought it might reassure you to mention it. You will, of course, get a report from your own doctor in due course.’
He opened the door invitingly, letting in a good deal of wind and rain, and Oliver, muttering that he was a busy man, hurried out to his car without a word more than a cursory good morning.
Sir Thomas brushed a few drops of rain off his sleeve and Mary Jane said, ‘You’re wet.’
He glanced at her. ‘I was passing in the car and saw you talking to your—cousin? You looked as though you were going to hit him and it seemed a good idea to—er—join you.’
‘I threatened him with a rolling pin,’ said Mary Jane in a satisfied voice.
‘Admirable. A very handy weapon. Do you often use it?’ He added gravely, ‘As a weapon?’
‘Well, of course not. He was annoying me. Do you want coffee?’
‘I was hoping that you would ask me. And are there any scones?’
She set a plate on the table and a dish of butter and he spread a scone and bit into it.
‘Are you hungry?’ asked Mary Jane pointedly.
‘Famished. I’ve been at the Radcliffe all night...’
She poured coffee for them both and sat down opposite him. ‘But you’re going the wrong way home.’
‘Ah, yes. I thought I’d take a day off. I’ve a clinic at six o’clock this evening. It crossed my mind that it would be pleasant if we were to spend it together. Lunch perhaps? A drive through the countryside?’
‘Oughtn’t you to go to bed?’
‘If you were to offer me a boiled egg or even a rasher or two of bacon I’ll doze for ten minutes or so while you do whatever it is you do before you go out for the day.’
‘The tea-room...’
‘Just for once?’ He contrived to look hungry and lonely, although she suspected that he was neither.
‘Bacon and eggs,’ she told him before she could change her mind. ‘And I’ll need half an hour.’
‘Excellent. I’ll come and watch you cook.’
He sat on the kitchen table, Brimble on his knee, while she got out the frying pan and, while the bacon sizzled, sliced bread and made more coffee.
‘Two eggs?’ She looked up and found him staring at her. It was a thoughtful look and she wondered about it until he spoke.
‘Yes, please. Where is your beautiful sister, Mary Jane?’
She cracked the eggs neatly. For some reason his question had made her unhappy although she had no intention of letting it show. ‘Well, she went to Barbados but she should be back by now—I think it’s the Paris dress shows next week. She lives in London, though. Would you like to have her address?’
‘Yes, please, I feel I owe her a dinner. If you remember?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She wrote on the back of the pad, tore off the page and gave it to him. ‘That’s her phone number, too.’
She didn’t look at him but dished up his breakfast and fetched the coffee-pot.
‘I’ll go and change while you eat,’ she told him. ‘Brimble likes the bacon rinds.’
Upstairs she inspected her wardrobe. It would have to be the jersey dress, kept for unlikely occasions such as this one, and the Marks and Spencer mac. Somewhere or other there was a rainproof hat—if only she had the sort of curly hair which looked enchanting when it got wet...
She went downstairs presently and found Sir Thomas, his chair balanced precariously against the wall, his large feet on the table, asleep. He had tidied his breakfast plate away into the sink and Brimble, licking the last of the bacon rinds from his whiskers, was perched on his knees.
Mary Jane stood irresolute. It would be cruel to wake him up; on the other hand he looked very uncomfortable.
‘A splendid breakfast,’ said Sir Thomas, his eyes still closed. ‘I feel like a new man.’
He opened his eyes then. No one would have known that he had been up all night.
‘Have you really been up all night?’ asked Mary Jane. She blinked at the sudden cold stare.
‘I have many faults, but I don’t lie.’ His voice was as cold as his eyes and she made haste to make amends.
‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t doubting you, only you look so—so tidy!’ she finished lamely.
‘Tidy? I have showered and shaved and put on a dean shirt. Is that being tidy?’ He lifted Brimble gently from his knee and stood up, towering over her. His gaze swept over her person. ‘Most suitably dressed for the weather,’ he observed, and she bore his scrutiny silently, aware that the hat, while practical, did nothing for her at all.
She turned the sign to ‘Closed’, coaxed Brimble into his basket, shut windows and locked doors and pronounced herself ready. The rain was still sheeting down. ‘You’ll get wet,’ she told him. ‘I’ve an umbrella...’
He smiled and took the key from her and locked the tea-room door and went to unlock the car door, bundled her in, gave himself a shake and got in beside her. ‘Oxford?’ he asked and, when she nodded happily, smiled.
Mary Jane, suddenly shy, was relieved when he started an undemanding conversation, and he, versed in the art of putting people at their ease, kept up a flow of small talk until they reached Oxford. The rain had eased a little, and, with the car safely parked, they set out on a walk around the colleges.
‘Did you come here?’ asked Mary Jane, craning her neck to see Tom Tower.
‘I was at Trinity.’
‘Before you trained as a doctor—no, surgeon.’
‘I took my MD, and then went over to surgeryorthopaedics.’
She lowered her gaze from Tom Tower to her companion. ‘I expect you’re very clever.’
‘Everyone is clever at something,’ he told her, and took her arm and walked her to the Radcliffe Camera.
‘May we go inside?’
‘To the reading rooms if you like. It houses the Bodleian Library.’
He took her to the Eastgate Hotel and gave her coffee in the bar, a cheerful place, crowded with students, and then walked her briskly down to the river before popping her back into the car.
‘There’s a rather nice place for lunch,’ he told her casually, ‘a few miles away.’
An understatement, Mary Jane decided when they reached Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons at Great Milton; it was definitely a grand place and the jersey dress was quite inadequate. However, she was given no time to worry about that. She was whisked inside, led away to tidy herself and then settled in the bar with a glass of sherry while Sir Thomas, very much at his ease, sat opposite her studying the menu. He glanced at her presently.
‘Dublin Bay prawns?’ he suggested. ‘And what about poulet Normand?’
Mary Jane agreed, she had never tasted Dublin Bay prawns but she was hungry enough to try anything; as for the chicken, she had read the recipe for that in her cookery book—egg yolks and thick cream and brandy, butter and onions—it sounded delicious.
It was. She washed it down with spa water and, when invited, chose an orange cream soufflé—more cream, and Curaçao this time. Over coffee she said, in her sensible way, ‘This is a delightful place and that was the most gorgeous meal I’ve had for a long time. You’re very kind.’
She caught his eye and went a little pink. ‘Oh, dear, I’ve made it sound like a half-term treat with an...’ She stopped just in time and the pink deepened.
‘Uncle? Godfather?’ he suggested, and she let out a sigh of relief when he laughed. ‘I’ve enjoyed my day too, Mary Jane, you are a very restful companion; you haven’t rearranged your hair once or powdered your nose or put on more lipstick and you really enjoyed Oxford, didn’t you?’
‘Oh, very much. It’s a long time since I was there.’ She fell silent, remembering how her father used to take Felicity and her there, walking the streets, pointing out the lovely old buildings, and Sir Thomas watched her with faint amusement and vague pity. So independent, he reflected, making a life for herself, and so different from her rather beautiful sister. He must remember to mention her funny little tea-room to his family and friends; drum up some customers for her so that she would have some money to spend on herself. A new hat for a start. No rain hat was becoming but at least it need not be quite as awful as the one she had been wearing all day.
Her quiet voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘If you are to be back in London this evening ought we not to be going? I don’t want to go,’ she added childishly and smiled at him, her violet eyes glowing because she was happy.
‘I don’t want to go either, but you are quite right.’ He had uttered the words almost without thinking and realised to his surprise that he had meant them; he had really enjoyed her company, undemanding, ready to be pleased with everything they had seen and done.
He drove her back to the tea-room, talking about nothing much, at ease with each other, but when she offered him tea he refused. ‘I’ve played truant for long enough. It has been a delightful day, Mary Janethank you for your company.’
She offered a small gloved hand. ‘Thank you for asking me. It was a treat and so much nicer because I hadn’t expected one. I hope you’re not too busy this evening so that you can get a good night’s sleep, Sir Thomas.’
He concealed a smile. The evening clinic was always busy and there was a pile of work awaiting him on his desk at home.
‘I have no doubt of it,’ he told her cheerfully, and got into his car and drove away.
She stood at the door until he was out of sight and then took off her outdoor things, fed a peevish Brimble and put the kettle on. It had been a lovely day; she thought about it, minute by minute, while she sipped her tea. She had too much common sense to suppose that Sir Thomas had actually wished for her company—he had needed a companion to share his day and she had been handy and it was obvious that he had called that morning so that he might get Felicity’s address. His invitation had been on the spur of the moment and she was quite sure that she fell far short of his usual companions. And she had seen the look he had cast at the rain hat. She got up and went to examine her face in the small looking glass on the kitchen wall. It was rosy from her day out of doors but she didn’t see how her skin glowed with health and how her eyes shone. All she saw was her hair, damp around the edges where it had escaped from the hat, and the lack of make-up.
‘You’re a plain girl,’ she told her reflection, and Brimble looked up from his grooming to mutter an agreement.
Promptly at six o‘clock, Sir Thomas sat himself down behind his desk in the clinic consultation-room and listened patiently as one patient after the other took the seat opposite to him, to be led away in turn to be carefully examined by him, and then told, in the kindest possible way, what was wrong and what would have to be done. It was almost nine o’clock by the time the last patient had been shown out and he and his registrar and houseman prepared to leave too. Outpatients Sister stifled a yawn as she collected notes—she hated the evening clinic but she had worked with Sir Thomas for several years now and if he had decided to have a clinic at three o’clock in the morning, she would have agreed cheerfully. He was her—and almost all of the nursing staff’s—ideal man, never hurried, always polite, unfailingly patient, apparently unaware of the devotion accorded him. For such a successful man he was singularly unconceited.
He bade everyone goodnight and drove himself to his home; a house in a row of similar elegant houses in Little Venice, facing the Grand Union Canal. It had stopped raining at last and the late evening was quiet. He opened his front door and as he did so an elderly man, rather stout and short, came into the hall.
‘Evening, Tremble,’ said Sir Thomas, and tossed his coat on to an elbow chair beside a Georgian mahogany side-table.
Tremble picked up the coat and folded it carefully over one arm. ‘Good evening, sir. Mrs Tremble has a nice little dinner all ready for you.’
‘Thank you.’ Sir Thomas was looking through his post. ‘Give me ten minutes, will you?’
He took his post and his bag into the study at the back of the hall and sat down to read the letters before going up to his room, to return presently and sit by the fire in the big drawing-room at the front of the house. He was greeted here by a Labrador dog, who got to elderly feet and lumbered happily to meet him.
Sir Thomas sat down, a glass of whisky beside him, the dog’s head on his knee. ‘A pity you weren’t with us, old fellow,’ he said. ‘I rather fancy you would have liked her.’
Tremble’s voice reminded him that dinner was served and he crossed the hall with the dog to the dining-room, a room beautifully furnished with a Regency mahogany twin pedestal table surrounded by Hepplewhite chairs; there was an inlaid mahogany sideboard of the same period against one wall and the lighting was pleasantly subdued from the brass sconces on the walls. There were paintings too—Dutch flower studies and a number of portraits.
Sir Thomas, being a very large man, ate his dinner with good appetite, exchanging a casual conversation with Tremble as he was served and offering his dog the last morsel of his cheese.
‘Watson had his supper an hour ago, sir,’ said Tremble severely.
‘We are told that cheese is good for the digestion, Tremble; I suppose that applies to dogs as well as humans.’
‘I really couldn’t say, sir. Will you have your coffee in the drawing-room?’
‘Please, and do tell Mrs Tremble that everything was delicious.’
He went to his study presently with Watson as company, and worked at his desk. He had quite forgotten Mary Jane.
Even if Mary Jane had wanted to forget him she wasn’t given that chance. Naturally, in a village that size, she had been seen getting into Sir Thomas’s Rolls-Royce, a news item flashed round the village in no time at all, so that when she got out of it again that late afternoon, several ladies living in the cottages on either side of her saw that too.
Trade was brisk the following morning and it was only after she had answered a few oblique questions that she realised why. Since some of the ladies in the tea-room were prone to embroider any titbit of news to make it more exciting, she told them about her day out in a sensible manner which revealed not a whiff of romance.
She was well-liked; disappointed as they were at her prosaic description of her day with Sir Thomas, they were pleased that she had enjoyed herself. She had little enough fun and no opportunity of getting away from the village and meeting young people of her own age. They lingered over their coffee and, when the Misses Potter joined them, the talk turned, naturally enough, to Sir Thomas.
‘Such a nice man,’ declared Miss Mabel. ‘As mild as milk.’
‘Even milk boils over from time to time,’ muttered Mary Jane, offering a plate of digestive biscuits, the scones had all been eaten long-since.
Sir Thomas, arriving at his consulting-rooms in Wigmore Street the following morning, wished Miss Pink, his secretary and receptionist, a cheerful good morning and paused at her desk.
‘What have I got this weekend?’ he wanted to know.
‘You’re making a speech at that dinner on Saturday evening. Miss Thorley phoned and asked would you like to take her to dinner on Sunday evening; she suggested a day out somewhere first.’ Miss Pink’s voice was dry.
For a moment Mary Jane’s happy face, crowned with the deplorable hat, floated before Sir Thomas’s eyes. He said at once, ‘I intend to go down to my mother’s. Would you phone Miss Thorley and tell her I shall be away?’
Miss Pink gave him a thoughtful look and he returned it blandly. ‘I’m far too busy to phone her myself.’
Miss Pink allowed herself a gentle smile as Sir Thomas went into his consulting-room; Miss Thorley, on the rare occasions when she had seen her, had looked at her as though she despised her and Miss Pink, of no discernible age, sharp-nosed and spectacled, objected strongly to that.
There was just time before the first patient was announced for Sir Thomas to phone his mother and invite himself for the weekend.
Her elderly, comfortable voice came clearly over the wires. ‘How nice, dear. Are you bringing anyone with you?’
He said that no, he wasn’t and the fleeting thought that it would be interesting to see his mother and Mary Jane together whisked through his head, to be instantly dismissed as so much nonsense.
Mary Jane’s day out, while not exactly a nine-day wonder, kept the village interested for a few days until the local postman’s daughter’s wedding. An event which caused the village to turn out en masse to crowd into the church and throw confetti afterwards. It brought some welcome custom to Mary Jane, too, for somewhere was needed afterwards where the details of the wedding, the bride’s finery and speculation as to the happy couple’s future happiness could be mulled over. She did a roaring trade in coffee and scones and, for latecomers, sausage rolls.
She went to bed that night confident that, with luck, she would be able to get a new winter coat.
It was almost midnight by the time Sir Thomas, resplendent in white tie and tails, returned from the banquet which he had been invited to attend. He had made his speech, brief and to the point, and it had been well received and now it was just a question of changing into comfortable clothes, collecting a sleepy Watson and getting into his car once more. It would be late by the time he reached his mother’s house, but he had a key. At that time of night, with the roads quiet and a good deal of them motorway, he should be there in little over an hour.
Which he was; he slowed down as he entered the village, its inhabitants long since in bed, and took the car slowly past the church and then, a few hundred yards further, through the open gates of the house beyond.
The night was chilly with a hint of frost and there was bright moonlight. The low, rambling house was in darkness save for a dim light shining through the transom over the door. Sir Thomas got out quietly, opened the door for Watson and stood for a moment while his companion trotted off into the shrubbery at the side of the house, to reappear shortly and, as silent as his master, enter the house.
The hall was square, low-ceilinged and pleasantly warm. There was a note by the lamp on the side-table. Someone had printed ‘Coffee on the Aga’ on a card and propped it against the elegant china base of the lamp. Sir Thomas smiled a little and went soft-footed to the baize door beside the staircase and so through to the kitchen door where he poured his coffee, gave Watson a drink and presently took himself up to his bed, leaving Watson already asleep on the rug before the Aga.
Four hours later he was up and dressed, drinking tea in the kitchen and talking to his mother’s housekeeper, Mrs Beaver.
‘And how’s that nasty old London?’ she wanted to know.
‘Well, I don’t see a great deal of it, I spend most of my days either at the hospital or my rooms. I often wonder why I don’t resign and come and live in peace and quiet here.’
‘Go on with you, Sir Thomas, leaving that clever brain of yours to moulder away doing nothing but walking the dog and shooting pigeons. That’s not you. Now if you was to ask me, I’d say get yourself a wife and a clutch of children—no question of you giving up then with all them mouths to feed.’
He put down his mug and gave her a hug, ‘You old matchmaker,’ he told her, and whistled to Watson. It was a fine, chilly morning; there was time to go for a walk before breakfast.
His mother was at the table when he got back, sitting behind the coffee pot; a small, slim woman with pepper and salt hair done in an old-fashioned bun and wearing a beautifully tailored suit.
‘There you are, Thomas. How nice to see you, dear, I suppose you can’t stay for a few days?’
He bent to kiss her. ‘Afraid not, Mama—I’m rather booked up for the next week or so, I’ll have to go back very early on Monday morning.’
He helped himself to bacon and eggs, added mushrooms and a tomato or two and sat down beside her. ‘The garden looks pretty good...’
‘Old Dodds knows his job, though he’s a bit pernickety when I want to cut some flowers.’ She handed him his coffee, ‘Well, what have you been doing, my dear—other than work?’
‘Nothing much. A banquet I couldn’t miss yesterday evening and one or two dinner parties...’
‘What happened to that gorgeous young woman who had begged a lift from you—oh, some weeks ago now?’
He speared a morsel of bacon and topped it neatly with a mushroom.
‘Ingrid Bennett. I have no idea.’ He smiled suddenly, remembering. ‘She insisted on stopping for tea and we did, at a funny little tea-room in a village near Stow-on-the-Wold, run by a small tartar with a sharp tongue.’
‘Pretty?’
‘No. A great deal of mousy hair and violet eyes.’
His mother buttered toast. ‘How unusual—I mean the eyes. One never knows the hidden delights of remote villages until one has a reason to go to them.’ She peeped at him and found him watching her, smiling.
‘She interested you?’
‘As a person? Perhaps; she was so unlike the elegant young women I usually meet socially. But more than that, I imagine she scratches a bare living from the place and yet she seemed quite content with her lot.’
‘No family?’
‘A sister. A beautiful creature—a top model, flitting about the world and making a great deal of money, I should imagine.’
“Then she might give something to the tea-shop owner.’
Sir Thomas reached for the marmalade. ‘Somehow, I don’t think that has occurred to her. Do we have to go to church?’
‘Of course. We will have a lovely afternoon reading the Sunday papers and having tea round the fire.’
Mary Jane, always hopeful of customers even on a Monday morning, was taking the first batch of teacakes from the oven when the doorbell rang. She glanced at the clock on the wall; half-past eight and she hadn’t even turned the sign round to ‘Open’ yet. Perhaps it was the postman with a parcel...
Sir Thomas was standing with his back to the door, his hands in his pockets, but he turned round as she unlocked the door and opened it.
She would have turned the sign round too but he put a large hand over hers to prevent that. ‘Good morning, Mary Jane. May I beg a cup of coffee from you? I know it’s still early.’ He sounded meek, not at all as he usually spoke and she jumped at once to the wrong conclusion as he had anticipated.
‘You’re on your way back to London? You’ve been up all night?’
Her lovely eyes were soft with sympathy. She didn’t wait for an answer, which saved him from perjury, but went on briskly. ‘Well, come on in. Coffee won’t take more than a few minutes—I could make you some toast...’
‘Something smells very appetising.’ He followed her into the kitchen.
‘Teacakes. I’ve just made some.’ She looked at him over her shoulder. ‘Do you want one?’
‘Indeed I do.’ He wandered back to the door. ‘I have my dog with me. Might he come in? Would Brimble object?’
‘A dog?’ She looked surprised. ‘Of course he can come in. Brimble isn’t up yet, but I’ll shut the stairs door anyway.’
Watson, his nose twitching at the prospect of something to eat, greeted her with gentle dignity. ‘Whenever possible he goes everywhere with me,’ said Sir Thomas.
Mary Jane fetched a bowl and filled it with water and offered a digestive biscuit. ‘The poor lamb, he’ll be glad to get home, I expect.’ She added shyly, ‘You too, Sir Thomas.’
‘I’ll drop him off before I go to my rooms.’
She poured his coffee, offered a plate of buttered tea-cakes and poured coffee for herself. ‘But you’ll have to have some rest—you can’t possibly do a day’s work if you’ve been up all night. You might make a wrong diagnosis.’
Sir Thomas swallowed a laugh. He should, he reflected, be feeling guilty at his deception, actually he was enjoying himself immensely.
Over his second cup of coffee he asked, ‘How’s business? And is that cousin of yours bothering you?’
‘I make a living,’ she told him seriously. ‘Oliver hasn’t been again—I think that was the second time I’ve seen him in years. He isn’t likely to come again.’
‘No other family?’ he asked casually.
‘No—there’s just Felicity and me. He quite likes her though because she’s quite famous.’
‘And you, Mary Jane, have you no wish to be famous?’
‘Me? Famous? What could I be famous for? And I wouldn’t want to be, anyway.’ She added with a touch of defiance, ‘I am very happy here. I’ve got Brimble and I know almost everyone in the village.’
‘You don’t wish to marry?’
She got up to refill his cup. ‘I’ve not met many men—not in a village as small as this one. It would be nice to marry but it would have to be someone I—I loved. Could you eat another teacake?’
‘I could, but I won’t. I must be on my way.’
She watched him drive away, Watson sitting beside him, and went back to make more teacakes and fresh coffee. She didn’t expect to be busy on a Monday morning but it was nice to be prepared.
As it turned out, she had several customers; early though it was and after a brief lull the Misses Potter came—most unusually for them on a Monday, to tell her over coffee that their nephew from Canada would be coming to visit them. They in their turn were followed by Mrs Fellowes, to ask her over still more coffee if she would babysit for them on the following Saturday as Dr Fellowes had got tickets for the theatre in Cheltenham. Mary Jane agreed cheerfully; the doctor’s children were small and cuddly and once they were asleep they needed very little attention. Mrs Fellowes had been gone only a few moments before two cars stopped, disgorging children and parents and what looked like Granny and Grandpa. They ate all the teacakes and most of the scones, drank a gratifying amount of coffee and lemonade and went away again with noisy cheerfulness, leaving her to clear away, close the tea-room for the lunch-hour and, after a quick sandwich, start on another batch of scones.
No one came during the early afternoon and in a way she was glad for it gave her time to return everything to its usual pristine order. It was almost four o’clock and she was wondering if she should close for the day when a car drew up and a lady got out, opened the door and asked if she might have tea.
‘Have a table by the window,’ invited Mary Jane. ‘It’s a nice afternoon and I like this time of day, don’t you? Indian or China, and would you like scones or teacakes?’
‘China and scones, please. What a charming village.’ The lady smiled at her and Mary Jane smiled back; her customer wasn’t young but she was dressed in the kind of tweeds Mary Jane would have liked to be able to afford and her pepper and salt hair was stylishly dressed. She had a very kind face, full of laughter lines.
Mary Jane brought the tea and a plate of scones, butter and a dish of strawberry jam, and Sir Thomas’s mother engaged her in idle talk while she studied her. So this was the girl with the violet eyes; the tartar with a sharp tongue. She approved of what she saw and the eyes were certainly startlingly lovely.
‘I don’t suppose you get many customers at this time of year?’ she asked casually.
‘Well, no, although today I’ve been quite busy...’
‘You don’t open until mid-morning, I suppose,’ asked Mrs Latimer, following a train of thought.
‘About nine o’clock—I opened early today, though—someone who had been up all night and needed a hot drink.’
Mary Jane’s cheeks went nicely pink at the thought of Sir Thomas. To cover her sudden confusion at the thought of him, she went on lightly, ‘He had a dog with him—he was called Watson...’
‘What an unusual name,’ said Mrs Latimer, and silently congratulated herself on her maternal instincts. ‘For a dog, I mean. What delicious scones.’ She smiled at Mary Jane. ‘I am so glad I came here.’