A Suitable Match

‘It’s lovely,’ she murmured, and peeped into the bathroom, which was as charming in its way as the bedroom with its faintly pink tiles and piles of thick towels. She gave a sigh of pure pleasure and turned to the boys. ‘I’m glad you’re next door. Do you wake early?’

‘Yes,’ said Oliver, ‘and now you’re here, perhaps we can go for a walk before breakfast?’

‘Just listen to the boy,’ said Mrs Samways comfortably, ‘mad to go out so early in the day. Not that I’ve anything against that, but what with getting the breakfast and one thing and another I’ve not had the time to see to them…’

‘I’m sure you haven’t,’ said Eustacia, ‘but if Sir Colin doesn’t mind and we won’t be bothering you, we might go for a quick walk as long as it doesn’t upset the way you like to run the house, Mrs Samways.’

‘My dear life, it’ll be a treat to have someone here to be with the boys. Now I’ll just go and fetch in the tea and you can come down as soon as you’re ready.’ She ushered the boys out ahead of her and left Eustacia, who wasted five minutes going round her room, slowly this time, savouring all its small luxuries: a shelf of books, magazines on the bedside table with a tin of biscuits and a carafe of water, roomy cupboards built into the wall, large enough to take her small wardrobe several times over, a velvet-covered armchair by the window with a bowl of spring flowers on a table by it. She sat down before the triple mirror on the dressing-table and did her face and hair and then, suddenly aware that she might be keeping everyone waiting, hurried down the stairs. The boys’ voices led her to a door to one side of the hall and she pushed it open and went in. They were all in there, sitting round a roaring fire with Moses stretched out with his head on his master’s feet, and a portly ginger cat sitting beside him.

Sir Colin and the boys got to their feet when they saw her, and she was urged to take a chair beside her grandfather.

‘You are comfortable in your room?’ asked Sir Colin.

‘My goodness, yes. It’s one of the loveliest rooms I’ve ever seen.’ She beamed at him. ‘And the view from the window…’

‘Delightful, isn’t it? Will you pour the tea, and may I call you Eustacia? The boys would like to call you that too, if you don’t mind?’

‘Of course I don’t mind.’

She got up and went to the rent table where the tea things had been laid out, and her grandfather said, ‘This is really quite delightful, but I feel that I am imposing; I have no right to be here.’

‘There you are mistaken,’ observed Sir Colin. ‘I have been wondering if you might care to have the boys for an hour each morning. Not lessons, but if you would hear them read and keep them up to date with the world in general, and I am sure that there have been events in your life well worth recounting.’

Mr Crump looked pleased. ‘As a younger man I had an eventful life,’ he admitted. ‘When I was in India—’

‘Elephants—rajas,’ chorused the boys, and Sir Colin said blandly,

‘You see? They are avid for adventure. Will you give it a try?’

‘Oh, with the greatest of pleasure.’ Mr Crump accepted his tea and all at once looked ten years younger. ‘It will be a joy to have an interest…’

Eustacia threw Sir Colin a grateful glance; he had said and done exactly the right thing, and by some good chance he had hit on exactly the right subject. Her grandfather had been in India and Burma during the 1940-45 war, and as a young officer and later as a colonel he had had enough adventures to last him a lifetime. He had stayed on in India for some years after the war had ended, for he had married while he’d been out there, and when he and her grandmother had returned to England her father had been a small schoolboy.

‘I am in your debt—the boys won’t be fit for school for a week or two. I hope they won’t be too much of a handful for you both. It is a great relief to me that they can stay here in the country.’ He looked at Eustacia. ‘You won’t find it too quiet here?’

She shook her head. ‘Oh, no, there’s such a lot to do in the country.’

They finished their tea in an atmosphere of friendly agreement, and when the tea things had been cleared away by Samways they gathered round the table and played Scrabble until Sir Colin blandly suggested that the boys should have their supper and go to bed. A signal for Eustacia to go with them, to a small, cosy room at the back of the rambling house and sit with them while they ate it. It seemed obvious to her that she was expected to take up her duties then and there, and so she accompanied them upstairs to bed after they had wished their uncle and her grandfather goodnight. Getting ready for bed was a long-drawn-out business with a great deal of toing and froing between the bathroom and their bedroom and a good deal of laughing and scampering about. But finally they were in their beds and Eustacia tucked them in, kissed them goodnight and turned off all but a small night-light by the fireplace.

‘We shall like having you here,’ said Oliver as she went to the door. ‘We would like you to stay forever, Eustacia.’

‘I shall like being here with you,’ she assured him. To stay forever would be nice too, she reflected as she went to her room and tidied her hair and powdered her flushed face. She was a little surprised at the thought, a pointless one, she reminded herself, for as soon as the boys’ parents returned she would have to find another job. It would be a mistake to get too attached to the children or the house. Perhaps it would be a good idea if she didn’t look too far ahead but just enjoyed the weeks to come.

She went back to the drawing-room and found Sir Colin alone, and she hesitated at the door. ‘Oh, I’ll go and help my grandfather unpack…’

‘Presently, perhaps? I shall have to leave early tomorrow morning, so we might have a little talk now while we have the opportunity.’

She sat down obediently and he got up and went over to a side-table. ‘Will you have a glass of sherry?’ He didn’t wait for her answer, but poured some and brought it over to her before sitting down again, a glass in his hand.

‘You are, I believe, a sensible young woman—keep your eye on the boys, and if you aren’t happy about them, if their coughs don’t clear up, let me know. Make sure that they sleep and don’t rush around getting too hot. I’m being fussy, but they have had badly infected chests and I feel responsible for them. You will find the Samwayses towers of strength, but they’re elderly and I don’t expect them to be aware of the children’s health. They are relieved that you will be here and you can call upon them for anything you may need. I shall do my best to come down at weekends and you can always phone me.’

He smiled at her, and she had the feeling that she would put up with a good deal just to please him. She squashed it immediately, for she strongly suspected that he was a man who got his own way once he had made up his mind to it.

She said in her forthright way, ‘Yes, Sir Colin, I’ll do my best for the boys too. Is there anything special you would want me to know about them?’

He shook his head. ‘No—they’re normal small boys, full of good spirits, not over-clean, bursting with energy and dreadfully untidy.’

‘I’ve had no experience—’ began Eustacia uncertainly.

‘Then here is your chance. They both think you’re smashing, so they tell me, which I imagine gives you the edge.’

He smiled at her very kindly and she smiled back, hoping secretly that she would live up to his good opinion of her.

Her grandfather came in then and presently they crossed the hall to the dining-room with its mahogany table and chairs and tawny walls hung with gilt-framed paintings. Eustacia sat quietly, listening to the two men talking while she ate the delicious food served to her. Mrs Samways might not be much to look at but she was a super cook.

They went back to the drawing-room for their coffee and presently she wished them goodnight and took herself off to bed, first going in search of her grandfather’s room, a comfortable apartment right by the Samwayses’ own quarters. He hadn’t unpacked so she did that quickly, made sure that he had everything that he might need and went upstairs to her own room.

The boys were asleep; she had a bath and got into bed and went to sleep herself.

She was wakened by a plump, cheerful girl, who put a tray of tea down by the bed, told her that it was going to be a fine day and that her name was Polly, and went away again. Eustacia drank her tea with all the pleasure of someone to whom it was an unexpected luxury, put on her dressing-gown and went off to see if the boys were awake.

They were, sitting on top of their beds, oblivious to the cold, playing some mysterious game with what she took to be plastic creatures from outer space. Invited to join them, she did so and was rewarded by their loud-voiced opinions that for a girl she was quite bright, a compliment she accepted with modesty while at the same time suggesting that it might be an idea if they all had their breakfast.

She made sure that their clothes were to hand and went away to get herself dressed, and presently returned to cast an eye over hands and hair and retie shoelaces without fuss. They looked well enough, she decided, although they were both coughing. ‘I’d quite like to go for a walk after breakfast,’ she observed casually. ‘I mean a proper walk, not on the road.’

Breakfast was a cheerful meal, with Samways hovering with porridge, bacon and scrambled eggs, and her grandfather, after a good night’s sleep, willing to recount some of his youthful adventures. Eustacia left them presently, went upstairs and made their beds and tidied the rooms, did the same for her grandfather and then went to remind the boys that they were going to take her for a walk.

‘There’s a windmill,’ she reminded them. ‘It doesn’t look too far away—I’d love to see it.’

She had hit on something with which to interest them mightily. Had she seen the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? they wanted to know, because that was the very windmill in it. They walked there briskly and returned to the house for hot cocoa and an hour’s reading before lunch. The afternoon was spent with her grandfather and she was able to spend an hour on her own until Mrs Samways suggested that she might like to look round the house. It was quite large and rambled a good deal. ‘Rather a lot to look after,’ observed Eustacia, peering at family portraits in the library.

‘Ah, but there’s two good girls who come up from the village each day, and Sir Colin comes mostly at weekends and then not always… He brings a few guests from time to time and we have Christmas here, of course. He’s not all that keen on London. But there he’s a clever gentleman and that’s where he works. I dare say if he were to marry—and dear knows I hope and pray he does, for a nicer man never stepped—he’d live here most of the time. London isn’t a place for children.’

Eustacia murmured gently; she realised that Mrs Samways was doing her an honour by talking about her employer and she was glad that the housekeeper seemed to like her. It hadn’t entered her head that making the beds and tidying up after the boys had endeared her to Mrs Samways’ heart. ‘That’s a nice young lady,’ she had informed her husband. ‘What’s more she gets on with the boys and they listen to her, more than they ever did with me.’

They had their tea in a pleasant little room at the back of the house and gathered round the table afterwards to play cards until the boys’ supper and bedtime. Eustacia tucked them in finally, listening rather worriedly to their coughs, although neither of them were feverish. They had certainly eaten with youthful gusto and, by the time she had got out their clean clothes for the morning and gone to her own room to tidy herself, they were sound asleep, their nice, naughty-little-boy faces as peaceful as those of small angels.

After dinner she sat with her grandfather in the drawing-room, listening to his contented talk. He hadn’t been so happy for a long time, and it reminded her of his dull existence at their flat in London; this was like a new lease of life to him. Her thoughts flew ahead to the future when the boys’ parents would return and she would know that she was no longer needed. Well, she reflected, she would have to find another job similar somewhere in the country and never go back to London. She had said goodnight to her grandfather and had seen him to his room and was on the point of going upstairs when the phone rang as she was turning out the drawing-room lights.

She picked it up hesitantly, not sure if this was something the Samwayses would consider to be their prerogative, and indeed Mr Samways appeared just as she was lifting the receiver.

‘I’m sorry—I should have left it for you.’

He smiled at her in a fatherly fashion. ‘That’s all right, miss, I dare say it will be Sir Colin.’ He took the receiver from her and said in a different, impersonal voice, ‘Sir Colin Crichton’s residence,’ and then, ‘Good evening, sir. Yes, Miss Crump is here.’

He smiled again as he handed her the phone.

Sir Colin’s voice came very clearly over the line. ‘Eustacia? You don’t mind if I call you that? The day has gone well?’

‘Yes, thank you, sir. They have been very good and they went to bed and to sleep at once.’ She gave him a brief, businesslike resumé of their day. ‘They both cough a great deal…’

‘Don’t worry about that, that should clear up now they’re away from London. I’ll look them over when I come down. You and your grandfather have settled in?’

‘Yes, thank you. Grandfather has just gone to his room. I think that he is a very happy man, sir…’

‘And you, Eustacia?’

‘I’m happy too, thank you, sir.’

‘Good, and be kind enough to stop calling me sir with every breath.’

‘Oh, very well, Sir Colin. I’ll try and remember.’

He sounded as though he was laughing as he wished her goodnight and rang off.

The week went by, delightful days filled with walks, visits to the village shop, an hour or so of what Eustacia hoped was useful study with the boys and afternoons spent helping Mrs Samways with the flowers, the linen and such small tasks that the housekeeper didn’t allow the maids to do, while the boys spent a blissful hour with her grandfather.

It was, thought Eustacia, too good to be true. And she was right.

Sir Colin had phoned on the Saturday morning to say that since he had an evening engagement he wouldn’t be down until Sunday morning.

‘I expect he’s going to take Gloria out to dinner,’ said Oliver. ‘She’s keen on him…’

Eustacia suppressed a wish to know more about Gloria and said quellingly, ‘I don’t think we should discuss your uncle’s friends, my dear. You can stay up an hour later this evening because you always do, don’t you? But no later. I dare say he’ll be here quite soon after breakfast.’

The boys complained, but only mildly; she swept them upstairs to bed with only token arguments against the harshness of her edict and, with the promise that she would call them in good time in the morning just in case their uncle decided to come for breakfast, she left them to go to sleep. Her grandfather went to bed soon after them and, since there was no one to talk to and the Samwayses had gone out for the evening and wouldn’t be back until late, she locked up carefully, mindful of Mr Samways’ instructions about leaving the bolts undone on the garden door so that he could use his key to get in, and took herself off to bed.

She didn’t hurry over her bath, and finally when she was ready for bed she opened one of the books on her bedside table, got into bed, and settled down for an hour of reading. It was an exciting book, and she was still reading it an hour later when she heard the telephone ringing.

It was almost midnight and the Samwayses weren’t back yet; she bundled on her dressing-gown and went silently downstairs to the extension in the hall. She was in two minds as to whether to answer it—it was too late for a social call and it could be one of those heavy-breathing types… She lifted the receiver slowly and said austerely, ‘Yes?’

‘Got you out of bed?’ enquired Sir Colin. ‘Eustacia, I’m now on my way to Turville. I’ll be with you in half an hour. Are the Samwayses back?’

‘No.’ There had been something about his voice. ‘Is there something the matter? Is something wrong?’

‘Very wrong. I’ll tell you when I get home. If you have locked up I’ll come in through the garden door.’

He hung up before she could say anything more.

She left the light on in the hall and went along to the kitchen, where she put the coffee on the Aga and laid up a tray with a cup and saucer, sugar and cream, and while she did that she wondered what could have happened. An accident with his car? A medical report about one or both of the boys?

She shuffled around the kitchen, peering in cupboards looking for biscuits—he would probably be hungry. She had just found them when she heard the car, and a moment later his quiet footfall coming along the passage towards the kitchen.

He was wearing a dinner-jacket and he threw the coat he was carrying on to a chair as he came in. He nodded to her without speaking and went to warm his hands at the Aga, and when she asked, ‘Coffee, Sir Colin?’ he answered harshly,

‘Later,’ and turned to face her.

It was something terrible, she guessed, looking at his face, calm and rigid with held-back feelings. She said quietly, ‘Will you sit down and tell me? You’ll feel better if you can talk about it.’

He smiled a little although he didn’t sit down. ‘I had a telephone call just as I was about to leave my London house this evening. My brother and his wife have been killed in a car accident.’

CHAPTER THREE

EUSTACIA looked at Sir Colin in horror. ‘Oh, how awful—I am sorry!’ Her gentle mouth shook and she bit her lip. ‘The boys…they’re so very small.’ She went up to him and put a hand on his arm. ‘Is there anything that I can do to help?’

She looked quite beautiful with her hair loose around her shoulders, bundled into her dressing-gown—an unglamorous garment bought for its long-lasting capacity—her face pale with shock and distress, longing to comfort him.

He looked down at her and then at her hand on his arm. His eyes were hard and cold, and she snatched her hand away as though she had burnt it and went to the Aga and poured the coffee into a cup. She should have known better, of course; she was someone filling a gap until circumstances suited him to make other arrangements. He wouldn’t want her sympathy, a stranger in his home; he wasn’t a man to show his feelings, especially to someone he hardly knew. She felt the hot blood wash over her face and felt thankful that he wouldn’t notice it.

She asked him in her quiet voice, ‘Would you like your coffee here or in your study, Sir Colin?’

‘Oh, here, thank you. Go to bed, it’s late.’

She gave a quick look at his stony face and went without a word. In her room she sat on the bed, still in her dressing-gown, going over the past half-hour in her mind. She wondered why she had been telephoned by him; there had been no need, it wasn’t as if he had wanted to talk to her—quite the reverse. And to talk helped, she knew that from her own grief and shock when her parents had died. It was a pity that he had no wife in whom he could confide. There was that girl the boys had talked about, but perhaps he had been on his own when he’d had the news.

She sighed and shivered a little, cold and unhappy, and then jumped with fright when there was a tap on the door and, before she could answer it, Sir Colin opened it and came in.

He looked rigidly controlled, but the iciness had gone from his voice. ‘You must forgive me, Eustacia—I behaved badly. I am most grateful for your sympathy, and I hope you will overlook my rudeness—it was unintentional.’

‘Well of course it was, and there’s nothing to forgive. Would you like to sit down and talk about it?’ Her voice was warm and friendly, but carefully unemotional. ‘It’s the suddenness, isn’t it?’

She was surprised when he did sit down. ‘I was just leaving the house—I had a dinner date—we were standing in the hall while Grimstone, my butler, fetched my—my companion’s handbag. When the phone rang I answered it but I wasn’t really listening; we had been laughing about something or other. It was a long-distance call from Brunei. Whoever it was at the other end told me twice before I realised…’ He paused, and when he went on she guessed that he was leaving something out. ‘I had to get away, but I wanted to talk about it too. I got into the car and drove here and I’m not sure why I phoned you on the way.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Eustacia quietly, ‘and then you can decide what has to be done. Once that’s settled you can sleep for a little while.’

‘I shall have to fly there and arrange matters.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It is too late now…’

‘First thing in the morning.’

His smile shook her. ‘What a sensible girl you are. I have to tell the boys before I go.’ He looked at her. ‘You’ll stay?’

‘As long as I’m needed. Tell me about your brother and his wife.’

‘He was younger than I, but he married when he was twenty-three. He was an architect, a good one, with an international reputation. He and Sadie, his wife, travelled a good deal. The boys usually went with them, but this time they weren’t too happy about taking them to the Far East. They were to go for three months and I had the boys—their nanny came with them but her mother was taken ill and she had to leave. Mrs Samways has done her best and so has my cook, Miss Grimstone. It was most fortunate that we made your acquaintance and that the boys took to you at once.’

‘Yes. It helps, I hope. Now, we are going to the kitchen again and I’m going to make a pot of tea and a plate of toast and you will have those and then go to bed. When you’ve slept for a few hours you will be able to talk to the boys and arrange whatever has to be arranged.’

‘You are not only sensible but practical too.’

It was after two o’clock by the time she got to bed, having made sure that Sir Colin had gone to his room. She didn’t sleep for some time, and when she got up just after six o’clock she looked a wreck.

The boys were still sleeping and the house was quiet. She padded down to the kitchen and put the kettle on. A cup of tea would help her to start what was going to be a difficult day. She was warming the teapot when Sir Colin joined her. He was dressed and shaved and immaculately turned out, and he looked to be in complete control of his feelings.

‘Did you sleep?’ asked Eustacia, forgetting to add the ‘Sir Colin’ bit. And when he nodded, ‘Good—will you have a cup of tea? The boys aren’t awake yet. When do you plan to tell them?’

He stood there, drinking his tea, studying her; she was one of the few girls who could look beautiful in an old dressing-gown and with no make-up first thing in the morning, and somehow the sight of her comforted him. ‘Could we manage to get through breakfast? If I tell them before that they won’t want to eat—we must try and keep to the usual day’s routine.’

‘Yes, of course. May I tell Grandfather before breakfast? He is a light sleeper and there’s just the chance he heard the car last night and he might mention it and wonder why you came.’

‘A good point; tell him by all means. Samways will be down in a few minutes, and I’ll tell him. He was fond of my brother…’ He put down his cup. ‘I shall be in the study if I’m wanted.’

She did the best she could to erase the almost sleepless night from her face, thankful that her grandfather had taken her news quietly and with little comment save the one that he had heard the car during the night and had known that someone was up and talking softly. Satisfied that she couldn’t improve her appearance further, she went to wake the boys.

‘Have you got a cold?’ asked Teddy.

‘Me? No. I never get colds. But I didn’t go to sleep very early. I had such an exciting book…’

They discussed the pleasures of reading in bed as they dressed, and presently the three of them went downstairs and into the dining-room.