Last April Fair. Бетти Нилс

They spelled home.

      Her mother was at the scrubbed table in the middle of the room, cutting bread. She looked up as Phyllida went in, dropped the knife and came to meet her. ‘Darling—how lovely to see you, and how nice you look in that suit. There’s watercress soup and mushroom omelette and buttered toast and tea, though Father says you’re to have a glass of sherry first. He’ll bring it presently.’ She returned Phyllida’s hug and added: ‘Willy’s here just for a few days—half term, you know.’

      The younger of her two brothers appeared as her mother spoke, a boy of fourteen, absurdly like his father, with tousled hair and an air of never having enough to eat. He bore this out with a brotherly: ‘Hi, Sis, heard you come, guessed there’d be food.’

      She obligingly sat down at the table and shared her supper while their mother cut bread and wondered aloud how many more meals he would want before he settled to sleep.

      ‘I’m growing,’ he pointed out cheerfully, ‘and look at Phylly—she finished growing years ago and she’s stuffing herself.’

      ‘Rude boy,’ observed his sister placidly. ‘How’s school?’

      Her father came in then and they sat around, all talking at once until Willy was sent off to bed and Phyllida and her mother tidied the kitchen, washed up and went to the sitting room with a tray of coffee.

      It was a pleasant room; long and low-ceilinged and furnished with some nice pieces which had been in the family for generations. There was comfort too; easy chairs drawn up to the open fire, a vast sofa with a padded back and plenty of small reading lamps. Phyllida curled up on the sofa, the firelight warm on her face and dutifully answered the questions with which her mother bombarded her. They were mostly about Philip and cunningly put, and she answered them patiently, wishing illogically that her mother didn’t seem so keen on him all of a sudden. She had been vaguely put out after Philip’s first visit to her home by her mother’s reaction to him. ‘Such a nice young man,’ her parent had declared, ‘and so serious. I’m sure if you marry him he’ll make a model husband.’It hadn’t been the words so much as the tone in which they had been uttered, and ever since Phyllida had been worried by a faint niggling doubt at the back of her pretty head; a model husband sounded so dull. But this evening she could detect no doubt in her mother’s voice—indeed, her parent chattered on at some length about Phyllida’s future, talking about the wedding as though it were already a certainty.

      Phyllida finished her coffee, observed rather tartly that no one had asked her to get married yet and when her mother remarked that she had understood that Philip was coming to stay for a couple of days, pointed out very quickly that it was only a friendly visit—it made a nice restful change after his work at the hospital. Mrs Cresswell agreed placidly, her still pretty head bent over some embroidery, and presently Phyllida went to bed.

      Being home was delightful—pottering in the garden, helping her mother round the house, going for long bike rides with Willy, helping in her father’s surgery. Phyllida relaxed, colour came back into her London-pale cheeks, her hair seemed more golden, her eyes bluer. Her mother, looking at her as she made pastry at the kitchen table, felt certain that Philip would ask her to marry him when he came.

      She was right; he did, but not at once. He wasn’t a man to rush his fences, and it wasn’t until the morning of his second day there that he suggested that they might go into Shaftesbury for her mother and do some shopping, and Phyllida, called in from fetching the eggs from the hen-house at the end of the garden, readily agreed. She had been glad to see Philip when he had arrived, but not, she confessed to herself, thrilled, but they had quickly slipped into their pleasant, easygoing camaraderie and he was an undemanding companion. She put a jacket on over her slacks, combed her fringe, added a little more lipstick and pronounced herself ready.

      Shaftesbury was full of people and cars; it always was, probably because it was a small town and built originally on top of a hill and its shops were concentrated in two main streets. They had done their shopping, chosen a variety of cakes from the fragrant bakery hidden away in an alley where the two streets met, and sat themselves down in the buttery of one of the few hotels for a cup of coffee before Philip made any but the most impersonal remarks.

      ‘Wouldn’t you like to leave hospital and have a home of your own?’ he wanted to know.

      Phyllida chose a bun, not paying as much attention as she should have done. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said casually, ‘I’d love it. Have a bun?’

      ‘Then why don’t you?’

      She looked up then, suddenly realizing what he was going to say. ‘Don’t, Philip—please…’

      He took a bun too. ‘Why not? You must know that I want to marry you?’

      ‘Yes—well, yes, I suppose I did, but not—not urgently.’

      He was a very honest young man. ‘If you mean I’m beside myself with impatience to get married, you’re right. But I’ve given the matter a great deal of thought lately and I’m sure you’re the wife for me; we know each other very well by now and I’m more than half in love with you.’ He smiled at her across the table. ‘How about it, Phylly?’

      She knew that she was going to say no. Perhaps, she thought desperately, she had never intended to say anything else, but it was going to be hard to say it. For one thing, she was strongly tempted to accept Philip’s matter-of-fact proposal. They would live together happily enough, she would take an interest in his work and he would be a kind and considerate husband, of that she was sure. She would have a pleasant enough life with enough to live on, a nice home, friends of her own sort and children. She would like several children; only she had the lowering feeling that Philip would want a neat little family of a boy and a girl. He would be a splendid father too and the children would be good, obedient and reasonably clever. In fact, life wouldn’t be what she had dreamed—a vague dream of a man who would sweep her off her feet, treasure her and love her and never on any account allow her to wear the trousers, and more than that, would fill his house with a brood of healthy, naughty children.

      She sighed and said gently: ‘It wouldn’t work, Philip.’

      He showed no rancour. ‘Why not? You must have reasons.’

      She frowned. ‘I like you very, very much—I think for a while I was a little in love with you, but I’m sure that it’s not enough.’ She looked at him with unhappy blue eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Philip—and I don’t think I shall change my mind.’

      He said calmly: ‘You’re in love with someone else?’

      ‘No. Oh, no, no one at all, that’s why it’s difficult…you see, you’re so right for me. I respect you and admire your work and the way you live, and I like being with you, only I don’t want to marry you.’ She added miserably: ‘It would be such a mistake, and the awful thing is I don’t know what I want.’

      Philip finished his coffee with the air of a man who wasn’t in the least defeated. ‘I’m not taking no for an answer,’ he told her quietly. ‘I won’t bother you, but I’ll wait.’

      ‘But it won’t be any good.’ She looked like an unhappy little girl, her short upper lip caught between her teeth, her eyes enormous under the fringe. She felt suddenly peevish. If she could get away, right away, he would forget her because he didn’t love her, not with the sort of love which just didn’t want to go on living without her—he might even fall in love with someone else quite quickly. It struck her then that he was the kind of man who didn’t need to love like that; he was a calm, even-tempered man and too much love would choke him. When he only smiled and offered her more coffee she didn’t say any more, for what was the use?

      Philip didn’t allow her refusal to make any difference between them. He spent the rest of the day with her, treating her with the same good-natured affection that he had always shown her. He went back to London that day after tea, saying all the right things to her mother and father and reminding Phyllida cheerfully that they would be going to the Annual Dance at the hospital together two days after her return: ‘Though I’ll see you before then,’ he