Polly

‘Hundreds,’ he agreed in a voice which effectively squashed her chatter, and leaned to open her door.

The house door was open and by the time Polly had got out of the car a girl not much older than herself was coming towards them.

Polly hadn’t given much thought to the Professor’s sister. She had supposed her to be his female counterpart—tall, commanding blue eyes which could turn frosty in seconds, and given to looking down a softened version of his highbridged nose. This girl didn’t fit the bill at all. She was no taller than Polly, with curly brown hair and large dark eyes, moreover her nose was short and straight above a smiling mouth. Polly, taken by surprise, had nothing to say other than a polite murmur as they were introduced. ‘Diana,’ said the Professor laconically, ‘this is Polly, who’s doing the typing.’

Polly had her hand taken while Diana said eagerly: ‘I was expecting an elderly terror with false teeth and a flat chest! How super that it’s you. I’ll have someone to talk to.’

‘No, you won’t,’ observed her brother severely. ‘Polly’s here to get that book finished as soon as possible.’

He led the way indoors, but Diana hung back a little. ‘He sounds awful, doesn’t he?’ she wanted to know, ‘but he’s not really. Of course you’ll get time off—you can’t type all day.’

Polly thought that was exactly what she would be doing if the Professor had his way, but she smiled at her companion. ‘At any rate, my teeth are my own,’ she declared cheerfully.

‘And you are by no means flat-chested,’ observed the Professor from the doorway. ‘Come inside, do.’

It was rather dim inside, a good thing since Polly was rather red in the face. She went past the Professor without looking at him and gazed around her. She liked what she saw; a square hall with flagstones underfoot covered with fine rugs, plaster walls above oak panelling, a splendidly carved serpentine table against one wall and facing it a small walnut settee covered with needlework. There were flowers on the table and above it a mirror in a gilded frame with candle branches.

‘Where’s Bessy?’ asked the Professor, leading the way through a solid looking door into a long low-ceilinged room.

‘Bringing tea—we heard you coming. Shall Polly see her room first?’

He shrugged. ‘Just as you like.’ And as a middle-aged woman came into the room with a laden tray: ‘Hullo, Bessy, will you give the keys to Jeff and tell him to take Miss Talbot’s case up to her room?’ He tossed a bunch of keys at her. ‘Thank you.’ And then: ‘Sit down, Polly. This is Bessy, who is our housekeeper and has been for years; I don’t know what we would do without her. Jeff is her husband. Don’t hesitate to ask them for anything you want.’

He sat down in a large winged chair by the log fire and Diana poured their tea. Polly, always ready to think the worst of him, was surprised when he got up and handed the cups round and followed them with the plate of sandwiches. There was nothing, she conceded, wrong with his manners.

The room was lovely. She glanced around her, as casually as she knew how, to admire the comfortable chairs and huge sofas, little piecrust tables and the glass-fronted cabinets against the walls. There were windows at either end; small leaded, and framed by soft velvet curtains, echoing the chair covers in old rose, and a thick white carpet on the floor which would, she considered, be one person’s job to keep clean, especially when there was a scratching at the door and the Professor got up to let in a bull terrier and an Old English Sheepdog, who instantly hurled themselves at him with every sign of delight. He looked at her over their heads.

‘Toby and Mustard,’ he told her. ‘They won’t worry you, and they’re both mild animals.’

Polly gave him an indignant look. ‘I like dogs,’ she told him, ‘and I’m not nervous of them.’

She offered a balled fist for them to inspect and patted them in turn, and Diana said: ‘Oh, good. They roam all over the house, I’m afraid. There are two cats too, do you like them?’

‘Yes. We have three at home, and a dog.’

She might not like the Professor but she had to admit that he was a good host; he kept the conversation going without effort and so kindly that she began to feel quite at home, and presently Diana took her upstairs to her room.

The staircase was at the back of the hall, dividing to either side from a small landing halfway up. Diana took the left-hand wing and went down a narrow passage at its head. ‘You’re here—nice and quiet. There’s a bathroom next door.’ She flung open a white-painted door and stood aside for Polly to go in. The room was of a comfortable size, furnished prettily in mahogany and chintz, its narrow windows with ruffled muslin curtains. The bathroom leading from it was small but perfect. Polly, eyeing its luxurious fittings said carefully: ‘This is charming—I didn’t think…that is, I expected…’

Diana gave her a wide smile. ‘You’ve no idea how glad I am to have you here. Sam’s away all day most days and it’s a bit lonely. But I’ll be getting married soon…I’m only staying here because Bob, my fiancée, doesn’t like me to be living on my own while he’s away.’

‘I do have to work all day,’ said Polly doubtfully. ‘Professor Gervis wants the book finished just as soon as I can get it typed.’

‘You must be awfully clever. I never got further than “Amo, amas, amat” at school. Sam says your knowledge of the dead languages is extraordinary.’ Diana giggled engagingly. ‘He said it was an awful waste!’

Polly smiled back at her companion. So it was a waste, was it? But a waste he was quite prepared to put to his own use. ‘I’ll unpack, shall I? Then perhaps the Professor will show me where I’m to work and I can get everything ready to start in the morning.’

‘OK. You are keen, aren’t you? Have you got a job? I mean, something else to do besides typing this book?’

Polly shook her head. ‘No, but I think I’ll look for something when I go home again.’

She thought about that while she unpacked. There wasn’t much that she could do. She couldn’t bear the thought of teaching, she didn’t know enough about clothes and fashion to work in a shop, her arithmetic was poor, so an office job or something in a bank was out. She decided not to worry about it for the moment, arranged her few possessions around the room, and went downstairs.

The Professor was standing at the open front door, his hands in his pockets. Even from his back he looked very impatient.

‘I’ll show you where you can work,’ he told Polly without preamble. ‘Jeff has taken everything there and you can start when you like. I shall be out this evening, but you’ll dine with Diana at eight o’clock. Perhaps you’ll keep office hours while you’re here. I’m away for most of the day; but if you’ll put whatever work you’ve done each day on the desk in my study I shall be glad.’

They had gone to the back to the end of the hall and through a small door into a rather bare little room, furnished with a desk and a chair, several filing cabinets and a row of shelves filled with books. There was a typewriter on the desk and the manuscript and paper were arranged beside it. Not a moment to be lost, thought Polly.

‘The household accounts and so on are dealt with here,’ he told her briefly, ‘but no one will disturb you while you’re working.’ He nodded briskly. ‘I shall see you tomorrow evening if not before.’

Polly blinked her preposterous eyelashes at him. ‘You’d like me to start now?’ she asked, so meekly that he turned to look at her.

‘Why not? You’re paid for that, aren’t you?’

The answer to that piece of rudeness scorched her tongue, but she managed not to give it, instead she went to the desk and started to arrange it to her liking. He watched her in silence until she had put paper in the typewriter and sat down to cast an eye over the manuscript. She was typing the first line when he went away.

‘Arrogant idler!’ declared Polly loudly to the closed door, and gave a squeak of dismay as it opened and the Professor put his handsome head round it.

‘I shall be driving down to Wells Court at the weekend,’ he told her, poker-faced. ‘If you can bear with my company, I’ll give you a lift.’

He had gone again before she could say a word, and she started to type. He couldn’t have heard her, or he would have had something to say about it.

She worked without pause until Jeff came to tell her that dinner would be in half an hour, and would she join Miss Diana in the drawing room. ‘And I was to tell you, miss, not to mind and change your dress, because there’ll be no one but yourself and Miss Diana.’

So Polly went to her room and tidied herself, then went downstairs where she found Diana curled up on one of the sofas, surrounded by glossy magazines. She looked up as Polly went in and told her to get herself a drink from the side table, then come and help her choose something to wear. ‘A christening,’ she explained, ‘and Sam and I will have to go; we’re vaguely related to the baby, and Sam’s a great one for family ties and all that kind of thing.’ She handed Polly Harpers & Queen. ‘That grey outfit’s rather nice, isn’t it? I’ll have to have a hat, of course…I don’t want to spend too much…’

A remark which struck Polly dumb, since the outfit concerned was priced around five hundred pounds. Presently she managed a polite: ‘It looks charming, and grey’s a useful colour.’

‘Useful?’ queried Diana, looking surprised. ‘Is it? Anyway, I’ll nip up to town and have a look at it, I think. I haven’t any money, so Sam will have to give me some. I haven’t a rag to my back.’

Polly finished her sherry and ventured: ‘I expect you go out quite a lot.’

‘Oh, lord, yes. It gets boring, some of the dinner parties are so stuffy, and Deirdre—that’s Sam’s fianceé—has the most tiresome parents. She’s tiresome too. I can’t think how Sam can put up with her.’

‘He doesn’t have to,’ observed Polly, ‘but I expect if he loves her he doesn’t notice.’

‘Of course he doesn’t love her—they sort of slid into it, if you know what I mean, and I suppose he thinks she’ll change when they are married. She’s very suitable, of course, and they make a handsome pair.’ Diana bounced off the sofa. ‘Let’s have dinner—I’m starving!’

Polly, accustomed to cottage pie and fruit tart eaten in the bosom of her rather noisy family, thought dinner was quite something. The dining room for a start was a dignified apartment, with a large oval table in its centre, straight-backed chairs with tapestry seats, and a vast sideboard. The meal itself, served on white damask with quantities of silver and cut glass, was mouthwatering, far better than the birthday dinners each member of the family enjoyed at one of the hotels in Pulchester. And since Diana had a good appetite, Polly, who was hungry, enjoyed every mouthful of it.

They went back to the drawing-room afterwards to have their coffee, and Diana plunged into the serious matter of clothes once more, until Polly said regretfully: ‘The Professor wants the work I’ve done to be put on his desk each evening; I’d better do that, if you’d tell me which room…?’

‘Just across the hall, the middle door. Do you really have to go? I’ll see you at breakfast, then. Let Bessy know if you want anything.’ Diana beamed at Polly. ‘Goodnight—it is nice having company, you know.’

Polly said goodnight and then remembered to ask at what time she should come down to breakfast. ‘Or do I have it somewhere else?’

‘Whatever for? Oh, I see, you start work early, I suppose. I don’t get down before nine o’clock. Could you start work and have it with me then? What time do you want to get up? I’ll tell someone to call you.’

Polly said half past seven; that would give her time to dress at leisure and perhaps go into the garden for ten minutes before putting in almost an hour’s work. ‘I said that I’d work office hours’, she explained, ‘that’s eight hours a day. Professor Gervis is very anxious for the book to be finished.’

‘Well, don’t let him browbeat you. It sounds like slavery to me.’

A very luxurious slavery, thought Polly, getting ready for bed, turning on the shaded lights, sinking her bare feet in the thick pile of the carpet. There were even books on the bedside table. She inspected them eagerly; a catholic selection to suit all tastes. She pottered happily into the bathroom and lay in a haze of steam, wondering what it would be like to live in such a house and eat a dinner like she had just had every night of the week. Probably very boring. No, not boring, she amended; if the Professor was around life would never be boring. She turned on the hot water tap again and began to think about his fianceé. Diana didn’t like her, but Diana was a good deal younger than the Professor and their tastes might not match. Probably she was exactly right for him and would know just how to run a house such as this one, wear all the right clothes and make intelligent conversation about his work when he got home. As to what he did exactly, Polly was vague and uncaring. Something to do with publishing, she supposed; she pictured him in a plushy office, sitting behind a vast desk, pressing little buttons and summoning people. And that reminded her that she hadn’t taken her work to the study downstairs. In a panic she got out to dry herself on an enormous fluffy towel which she had no time to admire, got into her nightgown and dressing gown and went back downstairs. The drawing room door was shut, and there was no sound anywhere. She crossed the hall to her little workroom, collected up the sheets and went back into the hall. The middle door, Diana had said. Polly opened it carefully and shot inside.

The Professor was sitting at his desk, writing. ‘Oh, lord,’ said Polly, ‘I didn’t know you were here.’

‘So I should imagine.’ He had got to his feet and was looking her up and down, a smile just lifting the corners of his firm mouth. She didn’t much like the smile; she must look a fright, scarlet from too hot a bath, hair hanging around her face in a damp tangle, her dressing gown, a bulky garment of candlewick, flung on anyhow and tied bunchily around her small waist.

‘I forgot,’ said Polly, ‘you said you wanted to see what I’d done each morning, and if I’d waited till then I might have disturbed you.’

‘And what are you doing now?’ he enquired blandly.

‘Ah, but I didn’t know you were here.’ She thumped the neatly typed sheets down on the desk, and quite forgetting to say goodnight, nipped smartly through the door and raced back to her room. Not a very good beginning, she admonished her reflection as she brushed her hair.

She was called by a cheerful maid carrying a tray of tea and a little plate of biscuits, and since she would have to wait for her breakfast, she made no bones about draining the teapot and finishing off the biscuits. She had slept dreamlessly, and since the sun was shining she got out of bed to take a look at the day. It was going to be a lovely May morning; just for a moment she longed to be at home, free to go out into the garden before helping to get breakfast. But there was no reason why she shouldn’t go outside now if she dressed quickly. She was ready in fifteen minutes, very neat in her blouse and skirt, her hair silky smooth, her face made up in a limited fashion. Surely no one would grudge her ten minutes in the garden?

She went softly through the house and found the front door open, although there was no one to see, and after a moment’s hesitation she turned along the path running round the side of the house. It led to a broad expanse of lawn, circumvented by another path and bordered by flower beds. She went all round and then took another path leading invitingly into a shrubbery. She was nicely into it when she heard dogs barking and a moment later the Professor’s voice. She had forgotten Toby and Mustard—having a morning stroll with their master, she supposed. Guiltily she popped back the way she had come and peered round her. The Professor was some way off walking away from her, the dogs bounding ahead of him. It took only a minute to hurry back to the house and in through its door. A moment later she was seated at her desk, putting the first sheet of paper into the typewriter. She had no need to feel guilty, she told herself crossly; she was quite entitled to a breath of air… She was halfway down the page when she heard sounds, muffled by the thickness of the doors, which suggested that both the Professor and his dogs were back indoors, and a few minutes later she heard a car drive up to the house and after the briefest of pauses drive away again. The Professor had gone to wherever he went each day. ‘And good luck to him,’ said Polly loudly, still cross.

She worked steadily until she heard the stable clock strike the hour, and not before time, for she was famished and longing for her breakfast. She found Diana already at the table, reading her letters, but she put them aside as soon as she saw Polly.

‘Good morning, Polly. I suppose you’ve been up for hours—you and Sam should get on well together—early risers and gluttons for work! Come and sit down. There’s porridge, or grapefruit and egg and bacon, or Bessy’ll do you some kippers if you’d rather…’

Polly settled happily for porridge and bacon and egg and listened cheerfully to her companion’s plans for the day. ‘Such a pity you have to work,’ she declared, ‘otherwise you could have come with me to Evesham, but I’ll be back for lunch.’ She pouted prettily. ‘I’ve got to go out this evening, though; Sam says I must. Deirdre’s parents are giving a dinner party.’ She poured herself another cup of coffee. ‘When he marries her I’ve made up my mind I’ll leave here, even if Bob isn’t back.’

‘Will he be away for long?’ asked Polly, which was another way of finding out when the Professor was going to get married.

‘Well, he thought three months, but there’s always the chance that it’ll be sooner than that, and Deirdre’s got some stupid idea about being married on Midsummer’s Day, although nothing is settled yet. I can’t think what Sam sees in her.’

‘Well,’ began Polly, ‘he must see something in her or he wouldn’t want to get married…’

‘Knowing Deirdre, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t settled the whole thing without him realising, although he did say she would be very suitable.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘I’m not at all suitable for Bob, but that really doesn’t make any difference, you know.’

Polly didn’t know, but she nodded in an understanding sort of way and said regretfully that she would have to go back to her desk.

She worked for the rest of the morning, had lunch with Diana and then went back again to her typewriter. If she kept at it for the rest of the day, she decided, she would be able to put the rest of the chapter on the Professor’s desk before she went to bed. She might even get the next one started, since she would have the house to herself that evening.

Diana came looking for her around teatime. ‘You really must stop,’ she declared. ‘You’ve been working all day…come and have tea.’

Polly went willingly enough; she was an active girl and she longed to take a long walk outside while the sun was still shining. ‘Well, that’s why I’m here,’ she explained reasonably. ‘Professor Gervis wants the book done just as quickly as possible.’

She allowed herself half an hour and despite Diana’s grumbles went back once more to the typewriter. There was still a good bit to do and she was having at present to stop and look things up quite frequently; all the same, she had every intention of finishing the chapter before she went to bed. Deep in a learned comparison between Roman and Greek gods and goddesses, she didn’t hear the door open and Diana come in. At the girl’s gentle: ‘Hullo, how do I look?’ she glanced up, and instantly forgot these beings in an admiring contemplation of Diana, dressed for the evening. She really was a very pretty girl, and the softly pleated gauzy skirt and tiny beaded bodice merely served to make her doubly so.

‘Oh, very nice,’ said Polly, and meant it. ‘You look a dream. Do you always dress up when you go out in the evening?’

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