Judith

Judith glanced at the clock. ‘Surgery in ten minutes. Have another cup of tea while I change—the same room, is it? Then I’ll give you a hand if you need one.’

She went upstairs to the room over the surgery, low-ceilinged and very clean with its old-fashioned brass bedstead, solid chest of drawers and dressing table. She opened the window wide and breathed the cool air with delight before opening her case and getting out a denim skirt and a cotton tee-shirt. She had travelled up in a linen suit and silk blouse, both of them quite unsuitable for the life she would be leading for the next week or two, and tied back her long hair with the first bit of ribbon which came to hand. She discarded her expensive high-heeled sandals too and scampered downstairs in a sensible flat-heeled pair which had seen better days.

It was a good thing she wasn’t tired now, for what with answering the telephone, laying the table in the rather dark dining room behind the surgery and going to the door a dozen times, she was kept busy until the last patient had gone, but once they had had their meal and she had cleared away and laid the table for breakfast she was more than ready for bed. All the same, she stayed up another half hour talking to her uncle and before long found herself telling him about Nigel. ‘He’s very persistent,’ she finished. ‘I sometimes wonder if I should marry him—I’m twenty-seven, you know, Uncle Tom.’

‘God bless my soul, are you really? You wear very well, my dear. You’re a very pretty girl, you know.’

She went to bed soon afterwards, yawning her head off but looking forward to her visit. Her mother had been right, she had needed a change; her mother had reiterated her opinion when she had telephoned home that evening, sounding triumphant. ‘And perhaps you’ll meet some interesting people,’ she had ended hopefully, meaning of course a young man ready and willing to fall in love with Judith and marry her.

Breakfast over the next morning and her uncle in his surgery, Judith left the girl who came daily to Hoover and polish and went along to the shops. She crossed Red Lion Square, passed the church and turned into one of the narrow streets, making for the butcher’s. She didn’t hurry, it was a glorious morning and the little cobbled squares glimpsed through low archways looked enchanting; she had forgotten just how lovely they were.

They all knew about her in the shop, of course. Uncle Tom or his housekeeper would have told them and news spread fast in such a small place. Shopping was a leisurely affair carried out in a friendly atmosphere and a good deal of curiosity. It was, the butcher pointed out, a good many years since Judith had been to visit her uncle, but no doubt she was a busy young lady and very successful by all accounts, although London didn’t seem to be an ideal place in which to live. Several ladies in the shop added their very decided opinions to this, although two of them at least had never been farther from home than Carlisle. Judith went on her way presently, back in time to make coffee for her uncle before he started on his rounds and to help with the rest of the housework before starting on their midday dinner.

She pottered in the garden during the afternoon and gave a hand with the evening surgery before getting their meal. A busy day, she reflected as she made a salad, but yet there had been time to do everything without hurry, stop and talk, sit in the sun and do nothing…hospital seemed very far away; another world, in fact.

It was on the third morning that Uncle Tom asked her to take some medicine and pills to one of the houses on the edge of the village. ‘They’re for Mrs Turner,’ he told her. ‘I could drop them off myself, but I’m not going to that end of the village this morning and she really ought to have them.’ And as Judith took off her apron: ‘Don’t hurry back, my dear, it’s a charming walk and such a lovely morning.’

The house stood well back from the lane, a few minutes’ walk from the village’s heart; grey stone and roomy under a tiled roof covered with moss. Uncle Tom had told her to go in by the back door and she walked round the side of the house, admiring the beautifully kept garden—Mrs Turner must be a splendid gardener—until she came to the kitchen door, a stout one standing a little open. No one answered her knock, so she went in and stood a minute wondering what to do. The kitchen was the best of both worlds: flagstone floor, a beamed ceiling, lattice windows and geraniums on the sills, and cunningly disguised behind solid oak doors and cupboards were all the modern equipages that any woman could want. Judith took an appreciative glance around her. ‘Mrs Turner?’ She called softly, and then a good deal louder: ‘Mrs Turner?’ And when no one answered said louder still: ‘I’ve brought your medicine.’

The silence was profound, so she tried again. ‘Mrs Turner, are you home?’

A door at the back of the kitchen was flung open with such violence that she jumped visibly, and a furious face, crowned by iron-grey hair, cropped short, appeared round its edge.

The voice belonging to the face was just as furious. ‘Young woman, why are you here, disturbing the peace and quiet? Squawking like a hen?’

Judith gave him an icy stare. ‘I am not squawking,’ she pointed out coldly, ‘and even if I were, it’s entirely your own fault for not answering me when I first called.’

‘It’s not my business to answer doors.’

She studied the face—the rest of him was still behind the door. It had heavy-lidded eyes, an arrogant, high-bridged nose and a mouth set like a rat trap. She said coolly, ‘I don’t know what your business is, Mr Turner, but be good enough to give your wife these medicines when she returns. The instructions are on the labels.’ She walked to the door. ‘You’re a very ill-mannered man, Mr Turner. Good day to you!’

CHAPTER TWO

UNCLE TOM was in the surgery, sitting at his desk, searching for some paper or other and making the chaos there even more chaotic. Judith put down her basket and leaned comfortably over the back of a chair.

‘I delivered Mrs Turner’s bits and pieces,’ she said. ‘She wasn’t home, so I gave them to her husband.’

Her uncle glanced up briefly. ‘She’s not married, my dear.’

‘Then who’s the ill-mannered monster who roared at me? He needs a lesson in manners!’

Uncle Tom paused in his quest for whatever it was he wanted. ‘Charles Cresswell—an eminent historian, highly esteemed by his colleagues, with a first-class brain—at present writing a book on twelfth century England with special reference to this area. I daresay you disturbed him…’

Judith snorted. ‘He was insufferable! He ought to mind his manners!’

Her uncle peered at her over his spectacles. ‘These scholarly men, my dear, should be allowed a certain amount of licence.’

‘Why?’ snapped Judith.

‘You may indeed ask,’ observed a voice from the window behind her. ‘Tom, it’s a waste of breath whitewashing my black nature—I see I’m damned for ever in this young lady’s eyes. We haven’t been introduced, by the way.’

He left the window and came in through the door, a very long lean man with wide shoulders.

Uncle Tom chuckled. ‘My niece, Judith Golightly—Judith, this is Professor Charles Cresswell, eminent his…’

‘You told me,’ said Judith, and said, ‘How do you do?’ in a voice to freeze everything in the room solid.

Professor Cresswell lounged against the wall, his hands in the pockets of his elderly slacks. ‘I do very well, Miss Golightly. Of course my ego is badly damaged, but only briefly, I believe.’ He spoke with a careless indifference which annoyed her as much as his temper had. ‘Tom, if you’re visiting up at the Manor would you mind making my excuses for tennis this afternoon? The phone’s out of order…better still, I’ll ring from here if I may.’

He stretched out a hand and lifted the receiver and sat himself down on the edge of the doctor’s desk. He said softly: ‘Miss Golightly, you really shouldn’t slouch over that chair—you have a beautiful head and a splendid figure, and neither of them show to their best advantage if you will droop in that awkward manner.’ He took no notice of her quick breath but dialled a number and started a conversation with somebody at the other end. Judith most regrettably put her tongue out at the back of his head and flounced out of the room. She was seething enough to scorch the floor under her feet.

The Professor finished his conversation and replaced the receiver.

‘Married?’ he asked casually. ‘Engaged? Having a close relationship?—that’s what they say these days, don’t they? I seem to remember my granny calling it living in sin.’

Uncle Tom chuckled. ‘Times change, Charles, and no, Judith is heartwhole and fancy free at the moment. Which is not to say that she hasn’t been in and out of love, or fancied that she was, a great many times. She’s a handsome girl and she meets young men enough at that hospital of hers.’

‘And they fancy her, no doubt—let’s hope that some day soon, she’ll make one of them happy.’ He wandered to the door, then said with some concern:

‘She’s not here permanently, is she?’

‘No, no, two weeks only while Mrs Lockyer’s away. And since she’s not exactly taken to you, Charles, you needn’t worry about meeting her.’ The doctor’s tone was dry, but his eyes twinkled.

‘Thank God for that,’ declared the Professor in a relieved voice.

At lunchtime Judith made no mention of the Professor, indeed, she talked animatedly about everyone and everything else, and when her uncle assured her that he had no calls to make that afternoon, and would be home to answer the telephone, she told him that she would take the Fiat and drive over to Coniston and look round the village and visit Ruskin’s house there. “‘Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery,’” she quoted rather vaguely. ‘I expect he was inspired by the view from his house.’

‘And what about Wordsworth—only a step across the street to the school he attended, my dear, as well you know, not to mention the cottage where he lodged.’

‘Oh, I haven’t forgotten him, Uncle—only I thought a little drive round might be nice.’

‘Of course, my dear. Why not go on to Rydal and take a look at Wordsworth’s house? Although perhaps you might save that for another day.’

‘Yes, I think I will.’ For some reason she wanted to be out of the village away from the chance of meeting Professor Cresswell. She hoped most devoutly that he wasn’t going to spoil her stay at Hawkshead, but if he really was writing a book perhaps he would stay in his house all day…

She set off after their lunch, going slowly, for it was but two miles to Coniston. Once there, she parked the car and set off for the John Ruskin Museum, then wandered off to inspect his grave in a corner of the churchyard, and then on to Brantwood to make a leisurely inspection of Ruskin’s house. And after that she had to decide whether to have a cup of tea or drive on to Tarn Hows. She decided on the later, and was rewarded by the magnificent views of the mountains when she got there. She stopped the car for ten minutes and sat back, enjoying it all, and then drove on again, past white Cragge Gardens and through Clappergate and so back to Hawkshead, just in nice time to get her uncle his tea.

Next week, she reflected as she boiled the kettle, she would go to Ferry Nab and across Lake Windermere to Bowness, and there was Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s home and Kendal…all easy runs in the Fiat, and if she had the chance, she could go walking—there were paths to the top of the Old Man, towering over Coniston, as well as less strenuous walks through the Grizedale Forest. It was a wonderful place for a holiday; it was a pity that Professor Cresswell’s face, so heartily disliked, should interfere with her musings.

Not that she had much time to muse—Uncle Tom, called away to an emergency, left her to keep his evening patients happy until he returned, and by that time, there was little of the evening left.

The gentle routine of her days suited her very well; she was busy enough, but there was always time to stop and chat in the village shops, or spend half an hour with her uncle while he drank his coffee and checked his list of visits. It was several days later when he suggested that Judith might like to go to Kendal directly after breakfast. Mrs Lockyer went once a month, he explained, sometimes more often, and there were several things he wanted—books, a particular tobacco which the village didn’t stock, and his whisky was getting low. Nothing loath, Judith agreed happily, made sure that things would go smoothly while she was away, made a neat list of things to be bought, and went to her room to put on something other than the denim skirt and blouse she had been wearing. She hadn’t brought many clothes with her; she chose a silk shirtwaister in a pleasing shade of blue, brushed her hair smooth, found her handbag and went round the back to get the Fiat. She was in front of the house, with the engine running, waiting for Uncle Tom to give her some last-minute instructions about the books she was to fetch, when Professor Cresswell put his head through the window beside her.

Judith frowned. She hadn’t met him since their first encounter—well, church, of course, but one couldn’t count that. He had been in a pew on the other side of the aisle from Uncle Tom and her and she had been careful not to look at him, but all the same she had been very aware of him, for he sang all the hymns in a loud, unselfconscious baritone voice. And after church, by dint of engaging old Mr Osborne the chemist in a long-winded conversation she had been able to avoid him.

‘Going into Kendal?’ he wanted to know, without a good morning, and at her frosty nod. ‘Splendid, you can give me a lift.’

‘I’m going shopping—I’m not sure how long I shall be there.’

It was a pity that Uncle Tom should choose that moment to come out of the house, exclaiming cheerfully: ‘You’ll be back for lunch, won’t you, Judith? I want to go out to Lindsays’ farm early this afternoon.’ He glanced across at the Professor. ‘Giving Charles a lift? In that case bring him back for a sandwich.’ He beamed across the little car. ‘Judith makes a splendid beef sandwich.’

‘Thanks, Tom, but Mrs Turner’s doing something she calls giving the house a good do and I can’t possibly work until she subsides again.’ He opened the Fiat’s door and inserted himself into the seat beside Judith; the result was overcrowding but there was nothing to be done about that. She waved her uncle goodbye and drove off.

She had intended to go to Sawry and take the ferry to Bowness on the other side of Lake Windermere and then drive the eight or nine miles to Kendal. There would probably be delays on the ferry, although the season was only just beginning, but the alternative was a much longer drive round the head of the lake; besides, she particularly wanted to go that way and she saw no need to tell her unwanted passenger.

They drove in silence until they reached Sawry, and Judith instinctively slowed down, because it was here that Beatrix Potter had lived and she had promised herself a visit to Hill Top Farm before she went back home; if it had been anyone else with her, she would have had something to say about it, but the Professor hadn’t uttered a word, which, she told herself was exactly as she wanted it. They drove on to Far Sawry and joined the short queue for the ferry and he still had said nothing at all, and the eight miles on the other side were just as silent. They were actually in Kendal before he spoke.

‘Go through Highgate,’ he told her. ‘Into Stricklandgate—you can park the car there.’

And when she did, pulling up neatly in a half full car park, he opened his door and got out. ‘I’ll be here at twelve,’ he told her, and stalked off, leaving her speechless with rage. ‘Just as though I were the hired chauffeur!’ she muttered. ‘And why hasn’t he got a car of his own, for heaven’s sake?’

And he could have offered her a cup of coffee at the very least, not that she would have accepted it, but it would have given her pleasure to refuse him…

The town had changed since she had been there last, many years ago. The M6 had taken all the traffic nowadays, leaving the old town to its past glory. Judith pottered round the shops, carefully ticking off her list as she went, and when she came across a pleasant little café, went in and had coffee, and because she was feeling irritable, a squashy cream cake. She felt better after that and went in search of the books her uncle had ordered, did a little shopping for herself and made her way, deliberately late, to the car.

The Professor was leaning against the car, reading a book, outwardly at least in a good frame of mind. Judith said flippantly: ‘Finished your shopping?’ and opened the door and threw her parcels on to the back seat.

‘I never shop,’ he assured her blandly. ‘I wanted to visit Holy Trinity Church, there are some Megalithic stones in the vault I wanted to examine.’

Judith had no idea what Megalithic meant. ‘Oh, really?’ she said in a vague way, and got into the car.

‘You have no idea what I’m talking about,’ he sighed, ‘Not my period, of course, but I felt the need of a little light relief.’

Judith turned a splutter of laughter into a cough. ‘What from?’ she asked.

‘My studies.’

She gave him a sideways look. ‘Surely, Professor, you stopped studying some years ago?’

‘I’m a scholar, Miss Golightly, not a schoolboy. What an extraordinary name you have.’ He added gently: ‘And so unsuitable too.’

Judith clashed the gears. ‘Don’t ever ask me for a lift again!’ she told him through clenched teeth.

They had to wait quite some time for the ferry, and Judith, determined not to let the wretched man annoy her, made polite conversation as they sat there until she was brought to an indignant stop by his impatient: ‘Oh, Miss Golightly, do hold your tongue, I have a great deal to think about.’

So they didn’t speak again, and when they arrived at her uncle’s house she got out of the car and went indoors, leaving him to follow if he pleased.

And if he does, she thought, I’ll eat my lunch in the kitchen, and since she found him 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.’