Cruise to a Wedding. Бетти Нилс

to wakefulness.

      ‘Rimmy,’ she uttered urgently, ‘whatever is the matter? You’re in floods!’

      ‘Adam—I hate him! He does not listen when I say that I will marry Terry; he laughs and says that I don’t know my own mind.’ A fresh flow of tears choked her and Loveday, ever helpful, offered a handkerchief.

      ‘He hasn’t cut you off with a shilling, or anything drastic?’ she wanted to know.

      ‘Of course not,’ sobbed Rimada. ‘It is my money, is it not? When I asked him for some of my allowance so that I could buy that hat—you remember?—he gave it to me at once.’

      She gave Loveday a rather hurt look because she giggled. ‘Oh, it is funny to you, I daresay, but he thinks that he can bribe me, and I will not be bribed—I will have my own way.’

      Rimada’s rather weak chin set in stubborn lines. ‘He is unkind, also he called you an interfering busybody and told me that I should run my own life. He said, too, that you are too clever by far and that bossy women are not his cup of tea.’

      Loveday’s bosom heaved with the fury of her feelings. ‘He said that? I can well believe it,’ she said in an icy voice. ‘Anyone disputing his opinions or his plans would naturally prick his abominable ego.’ She drew a trembling breath. ‘You really want to marry Terry? OK, Rimmy, so you shall. I’ll help you all I can. We should be able to think of something between us.’ Her dark eyes glinted, she was now very much awake. ‘I’ll show him what a busybody I am!’ She smiled at the Dutch girl. ‘I’ve got days off at the end of the week—change yours and come home with me, that will give us two days’ peace and quiet in which to cook up something. Go to bed, Rimmy, and stop crying—you shall have your Terry. Good lord,’ she exclaimed, suddenly furious, ‘anyone would think it was the nineteenth century we’re living in; he’s nothing but a tyrant.’ She added softly: ‘It’ll be rather fun.’

      She didn’t see Rimada until they shared a table with half a dozen other Sisters at dinner time the following day, and it was apparent that the Dutch girl had quite recovered her spirits. For a moment Loveday wondered uneasily if Terry Wilde really was the best husband for her friend—a dear girl, but easily swayed and singularly bad at managing her own affairs, monetary or otherwise. But Rimada caught her eye even as she was thinking it, and smiled so happily that Loveday dismissed the idea as nonsense, and plunged into the lively discussion going on around her; Nancy Dawson from the Accident Room was getting married in December; she had just informed the table at large that they would be spending their honeymoon on a cruise. ‘Madeira,’ she breathed ecstatically, ‘Lisbon—can you imagine? I can hardly wait!’

      There was a general murmur of envy and interest and the inevitable topic of the right clothes was broached. It wasn’t until they had left the dining-room and were hurrying back to their various wards that Loveday was struck by an idea so exquisite that she stood still in the middle of the passage to savour it. Supposing she and Rimada should go on a cruise? Quite openly, of course, in fact, they would tell everyone, including the hateful guardian. Even though he considered her to be a bossy busybody, he could hardly object to the pair of them going on holiday; indeed, he should be glad because it would take Rimada away from the Royal City and Terry. She smiled slowly; only he would be with them, of course, and once in Madeira—and Madeira would suit admirably because it was more than two days’ cruising away, which gave them two days’ start…they could marry. There must surely be such things as special licences there; Terry would have to find out. And once they were married, her guardian could do very little to change things; he would have to give in, settle Rimada’s money on her and accept Terry Wilde into the family.

      Loveday got into the lift, quite carried away with the cleverness of her reasoning. What was more, she decided as she pushed open the theatre doors, she would say very little to Rimada until they were on their way home; Rimmy, bless her, was no good at keeping a secret, but she would have her two days off in which to get used to the idea, and during that time she would have to be made to understand that discretion was all important—about Terry—she could tell as many people as she liked about the cruise. Loveday, greeting Staff with an absent-minded nod, made up her mind to go to a travel agency in the morning and collect all the brochures they had.

      They drove down to Tenterden two evenings later, after their day’s work. They went in Loveday’s elderly Morris 1000, a car which, while hardly noted for its breathtaking speed and racy lines, maintained a steady forty miles an hour and seldom gave her any trouble. She would have liked something fast and eye-catching even though she was devoted to the Morris; it got her home with unfailing certainty and was, moreover, the result of two years’ hard saving on her own part. Rimada laughed at it, and Loveday, understanding to someone who had never known any other car but a large Mercedes or a Porsche, the Morris was something of a joke, didn’t mind in the least. Its steady speed gave her ample opportunity to talk, and that was what she wanted to do now.

      Her plan was received rapturously. ‘You are a genius,’ declared her friend. ‘I have thought and thought and I have been in despair.’ And Loveday, used to Rimada’s dramatic turn of speech, said reassuringly:

      ‘Well, now you can cheer up, it’s all quite simple really. I’ve a pile of brochures with me, and there’s a cruise to Madeira and the Med in three weeks’ time—that will be the very end of September. You can book for the whole cruise and leave the ship at Madeira—with Terry, of course—I’ll go on, at least, I haven’t thought about that yet. You and Terry can stay there until you get married and then let your guardian know. It’s the last cruise of the summer for this particular ship and the agency says it won’t be heavily booked, so I daresay we’ll get a cabin easily enough.’

      ‘Clothes?’ asked Rimada urgently.

      ‘Well, I suppose we’ve both got enough to get by—I can’t afford to buy anything much…’

      They were nearly at Tenterden. ‘We’ll talk about that later,’ she advised. ‘We’ll be home in a few minutes.’

      Home was a nice old house on the outskirts of the pleasant little town. They went up the wide main street, lined with its trees and old-fashioned shops and houses, and turned off at the top of the hill into a narrow lane disappearing into the gentle Kentish countryside. The house stood on a curve, all by itself, a nice example of Elizabethan building, the last of the evening sunlight giving its tiled roof a glow and touching the garden around it with a splash of vivid colour. Loveday, who had a deep fondness for the old place, sighed with content as she caught sight of it, and just for a moment wished that she was spending her holiday at home instead of plotting against Rimada’s guardian. She squashed this thought immediately, however. He deserved all he got and a lot more besides, and she would be delighted to prove to him just how right he had been when he had called her a meddlesome busybody; the words still rankled.

      Her parents were waiting for them. Rimada had visited them several times and they considered her almost one of the family and once the first greetings were over, she was whirled away by Loveday’s younger sister, Phyllis, a fourteen-year-old, home for the weekend from her boarding school nearby, and who considered the Dutch girl an authority on clothes, a subject very dear to her heart, leaving Loveday to have a brief chat with her mother before going into the garden with her father. He had retired as senior partner in a firm of solicitors in Maidstone and now he spent his days amongst his flowers, keeping the books of various local organizations in good order, and tinkering with his beloved vintage Humber motor car. They went to the potting shed and settled down for a gentle talk about seed catalogues, bulbs for the following spring and which roses he should order—he was good with roses, and Loveday, studying his thin good looks and a few extra lines which hadn’t been in his face a year ago, entered wholeheartedly into the discussion because she knew how important these things were to him now that he didn’t go to the office every day, and presently, in answer to his query as to when she was coming home for a week or two, she told him the vague plans she and Rimada had made for their cruise.

      He was disappointed, she knew that, and her heart misgave her for a moment. ‘I should have liked to have come home for a week or two,’ she told him with regret, ‘but I’ve another