The Vicar's Daughter. Бетти Нилс

breakfast before I go to see George.’

      It was still early when she drove over to George’s farm in the worn out old Ford her father owned. His laconic, ‘Hello, old girl,’ was friendly enough, but hardly lover-like. He listened to her request without comment, only saying when she had finished, ‘I don’t see why not. I’m not needing it for a couple of days. But mind and drive carefully. Will you be at the whist drive this evening? Mother’s going.’

      Margo, who didn’t like George’s mother all that much, said that she’d see, and waited while he and one of his farmhands attached the trailer. She drove it carefully back and then parked outside the vicarage in the main street, where the boy and the two young women would see it. She had just finished her breakfast when they came, pushing the hand-cart with her bike on top. They sat, the three of them, in the kitchen, drinking the tea her mother offered and eating bacon sandwiches, saying little.

      The road was almost empty as she drove to Blandford Hospital, taking the by-roads she knew so well and getting there without mishap. She hadn’t had any idea what was to happen next, but it seemed that the doctor had smoothed their path for them. There was an empty house near the hospital, they were told, and the travellers were to be allowed to stay in it until the mother and baby were fit to travel again.

      The man who had come to speak to Margo at the hospital looked at her curiously. He counted himself lucky to have been the casualty officer on duty when Professor van Kessel had arrived and sought his help last night. He was internationally well-known in his profession, and it had been a privilege to meet him. His fame as a paediatrician was widespread, and to have had the honour of meeting him... And he had been very accurate in his description of this Miss Pearson.

      He said now, ‘Mother and baby are doing well, but they’ll have to stay for a couple of days. The professor found the empty house for her family. Don’t ask me how at that time of night—the police, I suppose. I’ll let you have the address. Oh, and he left some money for them. May I give it to you?’

      ‘Professor?’ asked Margo. ‘Isn’t he a doctor?’

      The young doctor smiled down at her. She was rather sweet, even if plain, he thought.

      ‘He’s a famous man in the medical world. Specialises in children’s illnesses.’

      ‘Oh, I didn’t know. I’ll take the boy and the women to this house, shall I? They’ll be all right there? I ought to get back in case the trailer is needed.’

      ‘That’s fine. The social services will have been told, and don’t forget it’s temporary—they can move on once the mother and baby are fit.’

      It was a miserable little cottage, but it was empty and weatherproof. The boy unloaded the cart from the trailer, thanked her in a rather surly voice and, helped by the two young women, took their possessions indoors. Margo gave the money to one of the women. ‘It’s not from me. The doctor who looked after the baby left it for all of you,’ she explained.

      The woman gave her a sour look. ‘We won’t be staying here longer than we must.’

      It was the other woman who called across, ‘Well, thanks anyway.’

      Margo drove back to George’s farm and waited while the trailer was unhitched.

      ‘Everything OK?’ George wanted to know. ‘Not done any damage?’

      ‘No,’ said Margo, and thought how delightful it would be if he would ask her—just once would do—if she was OK as well as the trailer. George, she felt sure, was a sound young man, steady and hardworking, but he hadn’t much time for what he called all that nonsense. In due time he would marry, since a farmer needed a wife and sons to carry on his work, and she suspected that he had decided that she would do very nicely—little chance of her looks tempting any other suitors, a splendid cook, and capable of turning her hand to anything.

      Margo drove the short distance back to the vicarage, childishly wishing for a miracle—glossy fair curls, blue eyes and a face to make men turn to look at her twice and then fall in love with her. ‘And not just George,’ she said aloud. ‘Someone like Dr van Kessel—no, Professor van Kessel. Someone handsome, rich and important. He won’t even remember what I look like.’

      He remembered—though perhaps not quite as she would have wished. His patient comfortably settled and the help of the police sought, after a friendly chat with the young doctor on call in Casualty he had been free to drive himself back to London.

      He’d taken the Salisbury road, and then the rather lonely road through Stockridge until he’d reached the M3. There had been little traffic—even the city streets, when he’d reached them, had been tolerably quiet.

      When he was in England he stayed with an old friend and colleague, and since his work took him to various big teaching hospitals he came and went freely, using his borrowed key. He’d stopped silently in a mews behind a terrace of townhouses, garaged his car and walked round to the street, let himself in and had gone silently to his room for the few hours of sleep left to him.

      He hadn’t been tired; lack of sleep didn’t bother him unduly; it was a hazard of his profession. He had lain for a while, remembering with amusement the girl who had brought him to such a sudden halt. A small girl, totally without fear and sensible. Bossy too! He had no doubt at all that she would see her protégés safely housed. He wondered idly how she would get them to Blandford. He had no doubt that she would...

      The professor had a busy week. Outpatients’ clinics where he had to deal with anxious mothers as well as sick children, small patients for whom his specialised surgery had been required to be visited in the wards and a theatre list which, however hard he worked, never seemed to grow smaller.

      An urgent call came from Birmingham during the week, asking him to operate on a child with one leg inches shorter than its fellow. It was something in which he specialised, the straightening and correction of malformed bones in children and babies, and he was much in demand. Totally absorbed, he forgot Margo.

      Margo was busy too, although her tasks were of a more mundane nature—lowers for the church, the last of the apples and pears to pick from the old trees behind the vicarage, getting the church hall ready for the monthly whist drive, cutting sandwiches for the Mothers’ Union annual party, driving her mother into Sturminster Newton for the weekly shopping... Unlike Professor van Kessel, however, she hadn’t forgotten.

      Waiting patiently in the village shop while Mrs Drew, the village gossip, chose the cheese she liked and at the same time passed on an embroidered version of the rumpus at Downend Farm when the bull had broken loose, Margo allowed her thoughts to dwell on the man who had come into her life so abruptly and gone again without trace. She was still thinking about him as she left the shop, clutching the breakfast bacon, when she was hailed from a passing motor car.

      It stopped within a few feet of her and the elderly driver called her over.

      ‘Margo—the very person I am on my way to see. Get in. We will go back to the house, where we can talk.’ He noticed her shopping basket. ‘Want to go home first?’

      ‘Well, yes, please, Sir William. Mother expects me back. Can’t we talk at home?’

      ‘Yes, yes, of course...’

      ‘I’ll not get in, then. You can park in the drive; the gate’s open.’

      She crossed the narrow street and was waiting for him as he stopped by the door. Sir William Frost greeted Mrs Pearson with pleasant friendliness, accepted the offer of coffee and followed Margo into the sitting room.

      ‘Want to ask a favour of you, Margo. You saw Imogen in church, didn’t you?’ he asked, referring to his granddaughter. ‘Been staying with us fnr a few days. Intended to take her up to town myself, but got this directors’ meeting in Exeter. Can’t spare Tomkins; want him to stay at the house with Lady Frost. Wondered if you’d drive her up to her aunt’s place in town. Don’t care to send her by train.’

      Mrs Pearson came in with the coffee and Sir William