Tabitha in Moonlight. Бетти Нилс

I mean, it just isn’t you, is it? Were you persuaded by some super sales-woman into buying it? There’s that pretty grey and white striped dress you had last year—so suitable. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to spoil Lilith’s birthday party—it is her party; you know—besides, there’s someone she met at the Johnsons’ the other evening and she wants to look her best for him, and there’s no one you particularly want to impress, is there?’

      Tabitha had gone a little white, for she had a fine temper, but she had learned to control it during the last few difficult years. She said now very evenly: ‘No, no one. It makes no difference at all what I wear.’ And then because she was so angry, she added: ‘Would you rather I didn’t come?’

      Her stepmother looked genuinely shocked. ‘Not come? Of course you must come—what would everyone say?’

      Tabitha smiled; her stepmother saw it and frowned angrily as she turned to leave. ‘Dinner’s at eight,’ she said shortly. ‘You know everyone who’s coming. We’ll give Lilith her presents while we’re having drinks. Everyone else will come about nine or thereabouts.’

      After she had gone Tabitha sat down on the bed and cried. She cried for her new dress and for the birthday parties she hadn’t had for the last five years, and for the bedroom which had always been hers and wasn’t any longer, and because she was lonely. And underneath all these, only half realizing it, she cried for Mr van Beek.

      Presently she blew her nose, wiped her eyes and set about repairing the damage—something that she did so well that by half past seven she was dressed in the grey and white stripes, her face nicely made up and her hair piled in intricate little puffs on top of her head, showing off a surprisingly pretty neck. She had pinned a pink velvet bow in front of her coiffure, and after a final appraising look in her mirror she went downstairs, her head held defiantly high, to meet her stepmother and Lilith once more before greeting their dinner guests. Half of their number were friends of Lilith’s own age, but the remainder were older people, who had known her parents and herself from a baby, and as she was seated between the vicar, who had christened her, and the doctor who had attended her birth, she enjoyed her dinner. The doctor was long past retiring age, although he still worked on with a young assistant to do the more arduous work. Neither of them had seen her for some time and had a great many questions to ask her which she answered as lightheartedly as possible. Nevertheless, towards the end of the meal the doctor leaned a little nearer and said quietly:

      ‘Tabby, we’ve worried about you a little. When your father died did he leave provision for you? This may seem like an impertinence, but we have your well-being at heart, my dear.’

      Tabitha gave him a warm smile. ‘Yes, I know, and thank you. Father didn’t leave me anything; you see, he hadn’t made a will since Mother died. He kept meaning to…I had some trinkets of Mother’s and some of the silver. There was an understanding that…’ She paused, not liking to say what was in her mind. ‘I believe my stepmother misunderstood,’ she finished lamely.

      ‘Quite so,’ said her companion, ‘but I suppose the house will revert to you eventually?’

      Tabitha shook her head. ‘No—I’ve been told that it’s to be Lilith’s.’

      The vicar, listening from the other side, looked astounded. ‘But she has no connection—Chidlake has been in your family for years—your father must have meant you to have it so that it would pass to your children.’

      ‘Well, I don’t see much chance of marrying,’ said Tabitha prosaically, ‘but I think that’s what he intended, because he used to say so when I was a little girl. Still, I have a good job, you know,’ she smiled reassuringly at their worried old faces. ‘Next time you’re out our way, you must come and see the ward.’

      The dinner party broke up shortly afterwards and everyone went to the drawing room to await the arrival of the other guests, who presently came in a never-ending stream, laughing and talking and handing a radiant Lilith her presents, and when the small band struck up, taking to the floor in the pleasantly full room. Tabitha danced in turn with the doctor, the vicar and several friends of her parents and once or twice with young men who were Lilith’s friends and strangers to the village. Their conversation was limited to asking her who she was and then expressing surprise at her answer. They danced badly, something which she did very well, so that when she saw a young man in a plum-coloured velvet suit and a pink frilled shirt making his way towards her she slipped away using the bulky frames of the doctor and his wife as a shield, and went outside on the balcony. It was a glorious night, with the last brightness of the sun still lingering over the distant headlands of Torbay. She wandered away from the drawing room, so that the music and noise was dimmed a little and leaned over the balustrade to sniff at the roses below. It was then that she became aware of Lilith’s voice, very gay and excited. She must have left the drawing room too, although she would of course have a partner. Tabitha straightened up; if she walked on quickly, Lilith wouldn’t see her. But it was too late, for several paces away, Lilith cried:

      ‘Tabitha? All alone? Have you run out of partners already?’ She gave a tinkle of laughter. ‘We should have got some older men for you.’

      Tabitha turned round. She began quietly: ‘That would have been a good…’ Her voice faltered into silence, for the man with Lilith was Mr van Beek.

      Her first reaction was one of deep regret that she wasn’t wearing the new dress, the second that his elegance, in contrast to his appearance when they had first met, was striking. She thanked heaven silently for the kindly moonlight and said in a voice from which she had carefully sponged all surprise: ‘Good evening, Mr van Beek.’

      Lilith looked surprised, frowned and then said incredulously: ‘You know each other?’

      Mr van Beek smiled charmingly at her. ‘Indeed we do.’ He turned the same smile on Tabitha, who didn’t smile back.

      ‘How very delightful to meet you here, Miss Crawley, and how providential, for one or two matters of importance have cropped up—perhaps if Lilith would forgive me, we might settle them now.’

      ‘Settle what?’ Lilith wanted to know.

      ‘Oh, some very dull matters concerning patients,’ he answered easily. ‘Nothing you would want to bother your pretty head about. Go back and dance with as many of your young men as you can in ten minutes, then you will have all the more time for me.’

      Lilith smiled, looking up at him through her long curling lashes.

      ‘All right, Marius, you shall have your ten minutes, though it all sounds very dull.’ She didn’t bother to look at Tabitha but danced off, the picture of prettiness, to disappear into the drawing room.

      Tabitha had stood quietly while they had been talking, and now that Lilith had gone she still made no move. It was Mr van Beek who spoke first. He said, to astonish her: ‘Tabitha in moonlight—how charming you look.’

      ‘There’s no need,’ began Tabitha firmly, ‘to flatter me just because you’ve discovered that I’m Lilith’s stepsister.’

      His brows lifted. ‘That seems a most peculiar reason for flattery, which, by the way, isn’t flattery. I did know that you were stepsisters. You do look charming—you’ve done your hair differently too.’

      He smiled at her so kindly that she burst out: ‘Moonlight’s kind. Wait until you see me indoors, I’m as plain as ever I was.’

      He came and leant on the balustrade beside her. ‘I’m sure your mother and father never told you that you were plain.’

      ‘Of course they didn’t.’

      ‘Then why do you think you are?’

      She looked at him in astonishment. ‘I grew up knowing it,’ she frowned. ‘At least, I guessed I would be.’ She fumbled for words. ‘I—I knew, that is, before I was told.’

      ‘And who told you?’

      Tabitha had a sudden vivid memory of standing before the mirror in the hall, doing something