Judith. Betty Neels

better days.

      It was a good thing she wasn’t tired now, for what with answering the telephone, laying the table in the rather dark dining room behind the surgery and going to the door a dozen times, she was kept busy until the last patient had gone, but once they had had their meal and she had cleared away and laid the table for breakfast she was more than ready for bed. All the same, she stayed up another half hour talking to her uncle and before long found herself telling him about Nigel. ‘He’s very persistent,’ she finished. ‘I sometimes wonder if I should marry him—I’m twenty-seven, you know, Uncle Tom.’

      ‘God bless my soul, are you really? You wear very well, my dear. You’re a very pretty girl, you know.’

      She went to bed soon afterwards, yawning her head off but looking forward to her visit. Her mother had been right, she had needed a change; her mother had reiterated her opinion when she had telephoned home that evening, sounding triumphant. ‘And perhaps you’ll meet some interesting people,’ she had ended hopefully, meaning of course a young man ready and willing to fall in love with Judith and marry her.

      Breakfast over the next morning and her uncle in his surgery, Judith left the girl who came daily to Hoover and polish and went along to the shops. She crossed Red Lion Square, passed the church and turned into one of the narrow streets, making for the butcher’s. She didn’t hurry, it was a glorious morning and the little cobbled squares glimpsed through low archways looked enchanting; she had forgotten just how lovely they were.

      They all knew about her in the shop, of course. Uncle Tom or his housekeeper would have told them and news spread fast in such a small place. Shopping was a leisurely affair carried out in a friendly atmosphere and a good deal of curiosity. It was, the butcher pointed out, a good many years since Judith had been to visit her uncle, but no doubt she was a busy young lady and very successful by all accounts, although London didn’t seem to be an ideal place in which to live. Several ladies in the shop added their very decided opinions to this, although two of them at least had never been farther from home than Carlisle. Judith went on her way presently, back in time to make coffee for her uncle before he started on his rounds and to help with the rest of the housework before starting on their midday dinner.

      She pottered in the garden during the afternoon and gave a hand with the evening surgery before getting their meal. A busy day, she reflected as she made a salad, but yet there had been time to do everything without hurry, stop and talk, sit in the sun and do nothing…hospital seemed very far away; another world, in fact.

      It was on the third morning that Uncle Tom asked her to take some medicine and pills to one of the houses on the edge of the village. ‘They’re for Mrs Turner,’ he told her. ‘I could drop them off myself, but I’m not going to that end of the village this morning and she really ought to have them.’ And as Judith took off her apron: ‘Don’t hurry back, my dear, it’s a charming walk and such a lovely morning.’

      The house stood well back from the lane, a few minutes’ walk from the village’s heart; grey stone and roomy under a tiled roof covered with moss. Uncle Tom had told her to go in by the back door and she walked round the side of the house, admiring the beautifully kept garden—Mrs Turner must be a splendid gardener—until she came to the kitchen door, a stout one standing a little open. No one answered her knock, so she went in and stood a minute wondering what to do. The kitchen was the best of both worlds: flagstone floor, a beamed ceiling, lattice windows and geraniums on the sills, and cunningly disguised behind solid oak doors and cupboards were all the modern equipages that any woman could want. Judith took an appreciative glance around her. ‘Mrs Turner?’ She called softly, and then a good deal louder: ‘Mrs Turner?’ And when no one answered said louder still: ‘I’ve brought your medicine.’

      The silence was profound, so she tried again. ‘Mrs Turner, are you home?’

      A door at the back of the kitchen was flung open with such violence that she jumped visibly, and a furious face, crowned by iron-grey hair, cropped short, appeared round its edge.

      The voice belonging to the face was just as furious. ‘Young woman, why are you here, disturbing the peace and quiet? Squawking like a hen?’

      Judith gave him an icy stare. ‘I am not squawking,’ she pointed out coldly, ‘and even if I were, it’s entirely your own fault for not answering me when I first called.’

      ‘It’s not my business to answer doors.’

      She studied the face—the rest of him was still behind the door. It had heavy-lidded eyes, an arrogant, high-bridged nose and a mouth set like a rat trap. She said coolly, ‘I don’t know what your business is, Mr Turner, but be good enough to give your wife these medicines when she returns. The instructions are on the labels.’ She walked to the door. ‘You’re a very ill-mannered man, Mr Turner. Good day to you!’

      CHAPTER TWO

      UNCLE TOM was in the surgery, sitting at his desk, searching for some paper or other and making the chaos there even more chaotic. Judith put down her basket and leaned comfortably over the back of a chair.

      ‘I delivered Mrs Turner’s bits and pieces,’ she said. ‘She wasn’t home, so I gave them to her husband.’

      Her uncle glanced up briefly. ‘She’s not married, my dear.’

      ‘Then who’s the ill-mannered monster who roared at me? He needs a lesson in manners!’

      Uncle Tom paused in his quest for whatever it was he wanted. ‘Charles Cresswell—an eminent historian, highly esteemed by his colleagues, with a first-class brain—at present writing a book on twelfth century England with special reference to this area. I daresay you disturbed him…’

      Judith snorted. ‘He was insufferable! He ought to mind his manners!’

      Her uncle peered at her over his spectacles. ‘These scholarly men, my dear, should be allowed a certain amount of licence.’

      ‘Why?’ snapped Judith.

      ‘You may indeed ask,’ observed a voice from the window behind her. ‘Tom, it’s a waste of breath whitewashing my black nature—I see I’m damned for ever in this young lady’s eyes. We haven’t been introduced, by the way.’

      He left the window and came in through the door, a very long lean man with wide shoulders.

      Uncle Tom chuckled. ‘My niece, Judith Golightly—Judith, this is Professor Charles Cresswell, eminent his…’

      ‘You told me,’ said Judith, and said, ‘How do you do?’ in a voice to freeze everything in the room solid.

      Professor Cresswell lounged against the wall, his hands in the pockets of his elderly slacks. ‘I do very well, Miss Golightly. Of course my ego is badly damaged, but only briefly, I believe.’ He spoke with a careless indifference which annoyed her as much as his temper had. ‘Tom, if you’re visiting up at the Manor would you mind making my excuses for tennis this afternoon? The phone’s out of order…better still, I’ll ring from here if I may.’

      He stretched out a hand and lifted the receiver and sat himself down on the edge of the doctor’s desk. He said softly: ‘Miss Golightly, you really shouldn’t slouch over that chair—you have a beautiful head and a splendid figure, and neither of them show to their best advantage if you will droop in that awkward manner.’ He took no notice of her quick breath but dialled a number and started a conversation with somebody at the other end. Judith most regrettably put her tongue out at the back of his head and flounced out of the room. She was seething enough to scorch the floor under her feet.

      The Professor finished his conversation and replaced the receiver.

      ‘Married?’ he asked casually. ‘Engaged? Having a close relationship?—that’s what they say these days, don’t they? I seem to remember my granny calling it living in sin.’

      Uncle Tom chuckled. ‘Times change, Charles, and no, Judith is heartwhole and fancy free at the moment. Which is not to say that she hasn’t been in and out of love, or fancied that