Her Hand in Marriage. Jessica Steele

So, as I already knew him, albeit from around forty-four or so years ago, I asked him if he’d like to come round for a cup of tea.’

      Romillie was little short of amazed—yet at the same time delighted. Her mother had not shown an interest in anything remotely social for at least five years! However, since the last thing she wanted was for her to retreat back into her shell, she hid her amazement and asked instead, ‘So, the house isn’t being sold just yet?’

      ‘Sarah has a few very special pieces. Some she wants sold, others she wants shipped out. Lewis has a list, and was here today checking through and sorting out prior to contacting the valuers. Now, how about you? Are you going out with Jeff tonight and do you need an early dinner?’

      It was good to hear her mother think about cooking a meal when for so long she had not been remotely interested in food. ‘We can eat late if you like,’ Romillie answered, pondering whether to say more but, with her mother so ‘up’, risking it. ‘Other than work, I won’t be seeing Jeff again.’

      ‘You’ve split up!’ Eleanor exclaimed, searching her daughter’s face for signs of hurt, her own expression troubled.

      ‘It was a mutual kind of thing,’ Romillie answered lightly. ‘I don’t—um—fancy him any more,’ she added, and knew as she said it that it was true.

      She knew as lay in bed that night that it was probably because of her father chasing anything the slightest feminine that she had grown up being a little cautious where men were concerned. She had certainly been very circumspect with whom she went out with—which made Jeff Davidson so special that she’d gone out with him more than a few times. But, having dated him often enough to believe that they were sole boyfriend and girlfriend to each other, today’s revelations had struck at the heart of her—and had killed stone-dead any feeling she might have thought she had for him.

      Which, from his point of view the next morning, was rather unfortunate. Because no sooner had she arrived at her place of work than he was there, meeting her in the firm’s parking area.

      ‘Romillie.’ He waylaid her. ‘I was a fool. I’m sorry.’

      She stared at him. Then she smiled—her phoney smile. ‘Why, what have you done?’

      ‘You’ve forgiven me?’

      ‘Of course,’ she said, still smiling, and would have walked on. But he caught hold of her arm, halting her.

      ‘Prove it. Come out with me tonight. Let me show…’

      Romillie looked pointedly down at his hand on her arm, and pulled out of his grasp. ‘I think you must be confusing me with someone else,’ she informed him coolly—and left him standing there.

      The trouble was, she discovered over the next few days, that men were all casual and careless of your feelings when they thought you were interested, but once you had shown them that you were not remotely interested they just wouldn’t leave you alone. Tough! She was not there to be picked up and put down again at the whim of Jeff Davidson, or anyone else for that matter.

      He continued to frequently ask her out. She as frequently told him no. Her mind was on very different matters. Her mother was continuing to make progress. Slow progress, it was true, but after so many years in her private dark place, it was a joy to Romillie to see her picking up the threads of living again.

      ‘I was wondering,’ Eleanor mused as they sat drinking coffee after dinner one night, ‘how you’d feel about sitting for me?’

      Romillie could not believe it, but was more than ready to give her every encouragement. ‘No problem,’ she answered cheerfully.

      As soon as his gifted daughter’s artistic talent had shown through, Grandfather Mannion had had a studio made for her. And so it was that after her stint at the dental practice, where it seemed Jeff Davidson still had not taken on board that no thanks meant exactly that, Romillie would spend some part of every evening in her mother’s studio while her mother re-acquainted herself with that which had once been her life.

      It was during these sittings that Romillie learnt that Lewis Selby had been down, and had again been invited in for a cup of tea.

      Indeed, as the weeks went by, it appeared that he came down once or twice every week and, out of courtesy, always knocked on the door to let her mother know that he was about. Out of that same courtesy, her mother would always invite him in for a cup of tea.

      He was divorced, Romillie learned at one of their sittings. ‘A rather acrimonious divorce too, I think,’ her mother revealed. ‘Though, because he’s such a nice person, he never says a word against his ex-wife.’ And, going on to another topic, ‘How do you feel about doing a nude sitting? You needn’t if you don’t want to, but I’d like to try…’

      ‘Happy to oblige,’ Romillie answered. If her mother went on making progress like this she might soon be saying a permanent goodbye to her ‘down’ days.

      At a further sitting Romillie learned that Lewis Selby had paid another visit, and had again been invited in. But when she privately wondered if he was perhaps interested in her mother, she discovered that he was seemingly still too bruised from his divorce to consider leaving himself open to anything like that again.

      ‘It’s nice that he can pop in from time to time,’ Romillie commented lightly. ‘Er—when does he retire?’

      ‘Not yet. Not officially for another three years. He works for the telecommunications company Tritel Incorporated. But with him being chairman of such a vast company, it’s not a job he can leave in an instant.’ Eleanor broke off to concentrate on what she was doing for a while, and then resumed. ‘Though from what Lewis was saying he has a very able deputy in Naylor Cardell, a man who, it seems, while dealing with his own work, is already taking on some of Lewis’s duties. Keep your head still for a moment, there’s a love.’

      Romillie was in the kitchenette of the dental surgery a few days later when Jeff Davidson came in and tried a new tack. ‘If I promise to keep solely to you while we’re going out, would you bend just a little and come out with me again?’ he asked. And as she just stared at him, because he still hadn’t got the message, ‘Did I hurt you so much, Romillie?’ he went on. ‘Did I? That you no longer trust me?’

      Trust, in her book, was one very big word—and he had proved himself undeserving. She looked at him, tall, good-looking and with everything going for him—and yet he suddenly seemed totally without substance.

      But her pride reared up at his question of whether his fickleness had hurt her, and there was no way she was going to let him know that hurt she had been, nor how betrayed she had felt. And she who abhorred lies found in that proud instance that it was no effort to have a lie tripping off her tongue.

      ‘I’ve moved on, Jeff,’ she replied.

      He cocked his head to one side. ‘How?’

      ‘Pastures new,’ she told him without blinking.

      ‘You’re dating someone else?’ he asked, seeming astounded.

      ‘You seem surprised?’

      ‘No, no.’ He back-pedalled. ‘You’re very attractive…You know that you are. It’s—um—just…’

      It annoyed her that he should so conceitedly think she stayed home nights, hurting because of him. ‘You blew it, Jeff,’ she informed him coolly. ‘Get over it.’

      Her pride was fully intact when she drove home that night. But, when she went in it was to discover that her mother, who had recently been so up, looked tense, and had taken a step backwards.

      ‘Had a good day?’ Romillie asked cheerfully, starting to become convinced that her father had called and been up to his old trick of shattering her mother’s confidence.

      But it was not her father who was the culprit this time, but, surprisingly, Lewis Selby. And he was not so much shattering her confidence as wanting her to take a peep outside the safe little