A Winter Love Story. Бетти Нилс

said smoothly, ‘I am surprised that you are not yet married, Miss Ramsay.’

      ‘Well, I’m not,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve not met anyone I’ve wanted to marry.’ She added pettishly, ‘I have had several proposals.’

      ‘That does not surprise me.’ He smiled down at her, thinking how unusual it was to see grey eyes allied with such very red hair. He sounded suddenly brisk. ‘You will do your best to persuade the Colonel to agree to surgery, will you?’

      When she nodded, he got into his car and drove away. His handshake had been firm and cool and brief.

      Claudia went back to the morning room and found her mother and Dr Willis deep in talk. They smiled at her as she went in, and her mother said, ‘He’s gone? Such a pleasant man, and not a bit stiff or pompous. Dr Willis has been telling me that he’s quite an important surgeon—perhaps I shouldn’t have given him coffee in the kitchen.’ She frowned. ‘Do you suppose Uncle will take his advice?’

      ‘Most unlikely, Mother. I’ll take his lunch up presently, and see if he’ll talk about it.’

      Great-Uncle William had no intention of talking to anyone on the subject. When Claudia made an attempt to broach the matter, she was told to hold her tongue and mind her own business. Advice which she took in good part, for she was used to the old man’s irascible temper and had a strong affection for him.

      He had been very good to her mother and to her when her father died, giving them a home, educating her, while at the same time making no bones about the fact that he would have been happier living in the house by himself, with his housekeeper and Tombs to look after him. All the same, she suspected that he had some affection for them both, and was grateful for that.

      It was a pity that on his death the house would pass to a distant cousin whom she had never met. That Uncle William had made provision for her mother and herself was another reason for gratitude, for Mrs Ramsay had only a small income, and after years of living in comfort it would have been hard for her to move to some small house and count every penny.

      They would miss the old house, with its large rooms and elegant shabbiness, and they would miss Tombs and Mrs Pratt and Jennie too, but Claudia supposed that she would have a job somewhere or other and make a life for herself. Somewhere she could get home easily from time to time. Her mother would miss her friends. Especially she would miss Dr Willis, always there to cope with any small crisis.

      The days went unhurriedly by. Claudia finished turning out the library and turned her attention to the rather battered greenhouse at the bottom of the large garden. The mornings were frosty, and old Stokes, who came up from the village to see to the garden, tidied the beds and dug the ground in the kitchen garden, leaving her free to look after the contents of the glass house.

      It contained a medley of pots and containers, filled with seedlings and cuttings, and she spent happy hours grubbing around, hopefully sowing seed trays and nursing along the hyacinths and tulips she intended for Christmas.

      And every day she spent an hour or so with her great-uncle, reading him dry-as-dust articles from The Times or listening to him reminiscing about his military career. He still refused to speak of his illness. It seemed to her anxious eyes that he was weaker, short of breath, easily tired and with an alarming lack of appetite.

      Dr Willis came to see him frequently, and it was at the end of a week in which he could detect no improvement in his patient that he told Mrs Ramsay that he had asked Mr Tait-Bullen to come again.

      He came on a dreary November morning, misty and damp and cold, and Claudia, busy with her seed lings, an old sack wrapped around her topped by a jacket colourless with age, knew nothing of his arrival. True, she had been told that he was to come again, but no day had been fixed; he was an exceedingly busy man, she’d been told, and his out of town visits had to be fitted in whenever possible.

      He had spent some time with the Colonel, and even longer with Dr Willis, before talking to Mrs Ramsay, and when that lady observed that she would send Tombs to fetch Claudia to join them, volunteered to fetch her himself.

      Studying the sack and the old jacket as he entered the greenhouse, he wondered if he was ever to have the pleasure of seeing Claudia looking like the other young women of his acquaintance—fashionably clad, hair immaculate, expertly made up—and decided that she looked very nice as she was. The thought made him smile.

      She had looked round as he opened the door and her smile was welcoming.

      ‘Hello—does Mother know you’re here?’ And then, ‘Great Uncle isn’t worse?’

      ‘I’ve seen the Colonel and talked to your mother and Dr Willis. I’ve been here for some time. Your mother would like you to join us at the house.’

      She put down the tray of seedlings slowly. ‘Great Uncle William won’t let you operate—I tried to talk him into it but he wouldn’t listen…’

      He said gently, ‘I’m afraid so. And the delay has made an operation questionable.’

      ‘You mean it’s too late? But it’s only a little more than a week since you saw him.’

      ‘If I could have operated immediately he would have had a fair chance of recovering and leading a normal quiet life.’

      ‘And now he has no chance at all?’

      He said gravely, ‘We shall continue to do all that we can.’

      She nodded. ‘Yes, I know that you will. I’ll come. Is Mother upset? Does she know?’

      ‘Yes.’ He watched while she took off the deplorable jacket and untied the sack and went to wash her hands at the stone sink. The water was icy and her hands were grimy. She saw his look. ‘You can’t handle seedlings in gloves,’ she told him. ‘They are too small and delicate.’

      ‘You prefer them to dusting books?’ he asked as they started for the house.

      ‘Yes, though books are something I couldn’t possibly manage without. I’d rather buy a book than a hat.’

      He reflected that it would be a pity to hide that glorious hair under a hat, however becoming, but he didn’t say so.

      Her mother and Dr Willis were in the morning room again, and Mrs Ramsay said in a relieved voice, ‘Oh, there you are, dear. I expect Mr Tait-Bullen has explained…’

      ‘Yes, Mother. Do you want me to go and sit with Great-Uncle?’

      ‘He told us all to go away, so I expect you’d better wait a while. Mr Tait-Bullen is going to see him again presently, but he doesn’t want anyone else there.’ She turned as Tombs came in with the coffee tray. ‘But you’ll have coffee first, won’t you?’

      They drank their coffee while the two men sustained the kind of small talk which needed very little reply, and presently Mr Tait-Bullen went back upstairs.

      He was gone for some time and Claudia, getting impatient, got up and prowled round the room. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll come again,’ she said at length.

      ‘There is no need for him to do so, but the Colonel has taken quite a fancy to him. Mr Tait-Bullen calls a spade a spade when necessary, but in the nicest possible way. What is more, his patients aren’t just patients; they are men and women with feelings and wishes which he respects. Your great-uncle knows that.’

      Mr Tait-Bullen, driving along the narrow roads which would take him from the village of Little Planting to the M3 and thence to London, allowed his thoughts to wander. He and the Colonel had talked about many things, none of which had anything to do with his condition. The Colonel had made it clear that he intended to die in his own bed, and, while conceding that Mr Tait-Bullen was undoubtedly a splendid surgeon and cardiologist, he wished to have no truck with surgery, which he considered, at his time of life, to be quite worthless.

      Mr Tait-Bullen had made no effort to change his mind for him. True, he could have prolonged his patient’s life and allowed him to live for a period at least in moderate