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to pack a bag…’ Her mother still looked thoughtful. ‘They’d better have coffee, hadn’t they? Be a darling and put the cups on a tray, will you?’
Polly carried the coffee in presently, to be met by her father’s cheerful: ‘We’re just talking about you, Polly. Professor Gervis is kind enough to say that he won’t leave until tomorrow afternoon; that should give you all the time in the world to pack a few clothes and so on.’
She put the tray down on the table beside her father and didn’t look at the Professor. ‘And what about collecting the manuscript, sorting it out and so on?’
Her father beamed at her. ‘Professor Gervis will fetch you tomorrow morning and you can go through the papers together.’ He took a sip of the coffee she had handed him. ‘So you see, everything is very nicely arranged.’
Polly let her mouth open to protest and caught the Professor’s chilly eye. ‘The sooner the manuscript is typed the sooner you will be home again,’ he pointed out with the unnecessary forbearance of a grown-up cajoling a small child.
She asked woodenly: ‘What time will you be here in the morning, Professor?’
‘Ten o’clock. I imagine we can do all that’s necessary in an hour. I’ll bring you back, and perhaps we might leave at three o’clock?’
‘Very well.’ She gave her puzzled father a smile and went back to the kitchen.
Presently, his visitor gone, her father joined her. ‘A very good man, Professor Gervis. How very fortunate that he’s so enthusiastic about getting Sir Ronald’s book published. He seems to think you may be finished in a month—perhaps a little sooner. He suggests that you might like to come home for your weekends; I thought it very civil of him.’
‘Yes, Father,’ said Polly, and went away to look through her clothes, leaving him to enquire of his wife if there was anything the matter. Mrs Talbot returned his questioning look with a limpid one of her own.
‘Why do you ask, dear?’ She wanted to know. ‘It seems to me to be an ideal arrangement.’ She added: ‘Polly’s talents mustn’t be wasted.’
Polly in her bedroom was packing a suitcase with a regrettable lack of care. She was thoroughly put out; she had been got at and in a most unfair way. She promised herself that she would work all hours and get the manuscript finished just as soon as she possibly could; she would take care to see as little as possible of the Professor, and once her work was finished she would never set eyes on him again. She was dwelling on this prospect at some length when her two sisters, all agog, came tearing into the room, firing questions at her, making plans to come and visit her so that they might see more of Professor Gervis and finally unpacking her case and repacking it carefully with everything properly folded, several of her older dresses flung out, and the addition of her one and only evening dress; a rather plain pleated affair, it’s cream background patterned with bronze leaves.
And when she had protested: ‘You never know,’ declared Cora cryptically. They had wrenched her blouse and skirt from her too, declaring they weren’t fit to be seen and guaranteeing that she should have them both back looking like new by the afternoon, so that she had to wear a rather elderly jersey dress in the morning which the Professor studied with obvious dislike. Polly wished him good morning, with her normal calm, got into a Range Rover beside him and was whisked up to Wells Court, with barely a word passing between them, only, once there, she was surprised to find how helpful he was. He had already looked out all the reference books she was likely to need, all that she was left to do was check the manuscript itself and make sure that there was none of it missing. She tied it neatly into its folder, collected the paper and carbon and eraser and would have taken the typewriter too if he hadn’t told her to leave it where it was. ‘There’s the same model at my house,’ he told her. ‘We’ve enough clutter as it is. If you’ve finished Briggs shall bring coffee; I must go and say goodbye to Sir Ronald’s son and daughter.’ He paused at the door. ‘Do you know them? Would you like to meet them?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you. There’s really no need, is there?’ And when he had gone and Briggs had brought the coffee she sat down and drank it. Sir Ronald had been a well liked figure in the village; his children, when they were home, had never bothered to get to know any of its inhabitants. Polly hardly thought they would be interested in meeting a mere schoolmaster’s daughter.
The Professor returned much more quickly than she had expected. He swept her out to the Range Rover with a breezy: ‘Good, that’s done,’ and greatly to her surprise, accepted her mother’s offer of a cup of coffee without hesitation, despite her discouraging: ‘Thanks, I’ll see you at three o’clock,’ as he had stopped outside her home. She excused herself at once, saying that she had to wash her hair, an operation she dawdled over until she heard the Range Rover being driven away.
Her sisters had been as good as their word; the blue pleated skirt looked as good as new, her cardigan had been washed and pressed to perfection and there was a small pile of blouses with a little note begging her to borrow what she wanted, ending with the hope that she would find time to buy some new clothes. She smiled as she packed them; Cora and Marian, both so fashion-conscious, had never understood why she hadn’t bothered much with clothes. She supposed it was because she had felt she would be quite unable to compete. To please them she would take them both shopping and allow them to advise her as to a completely new wardrobe. Rather a waste, for no one would notice her, but at least they wouldn’t look at her like the Professor had done that morning…
After lunch she changed into a jersey two-piece, a little old for her but suitable for a typist, she considered. And she combed her mousy hair smooth so that it fell on either side of her face almost to her shoulders. This done, she studied her reflection in the pier-glass in her room; it gave her no satisfaction at all, nor did her father’s remark that she looked very neat do anything to improve her ego, although her mother bolstered it up again by declaring that her make-up was just right and hadn’t she lost weight in the last week or so?
As for the Professor when he arrived to pick her up, his cool eyes travelled over her person without interest.
She got into the Bentley, wondering what he’d done with the Range Rover, and turned to wave at her mother and father and Shylock. She’d be back for a weekend in no time at all; just the same, she felt forlorn at leaving them and to hide it enquired which way they would be going.
‘Cross-country to Cirencester and then up the A435 to Cheltenham, then turn off at Eckington. It’s not far. Do you know the road?’
‘As far as Cheltenham.’
‘We could take the Evesham road, but the other way is prettier.’
And after that they lapsed into silence. Polly, feverishly trying to think of something to talk about, was profoundly thankful that their journey was a fairly short one and in the Bentley no more than a forty-minute drive.
The village of Elmley Castle was a delightful surprise; there was no castle standing, of course, but the village, with its wide main street bordered by a brook along its length, had a wealth of black and white cottages and old-fashioned walled gardens. The Professor went slowly across the square, past the Tudor inn and turned into a narrow walled lane, and then turned again between high brick pillars into the grounds of a fair-sized house—black and white, like its smaller village neighbours, with a tiled roof and small windows, and surrounded by a mass of flower beds, packed with spring flowers.
‘Oh, how very nice,’ exclaimed Polly. ‘Is this your house?’ And when he nodded: ‘And such a delightful garden—there must be hundreds of bulbs…’
‘Hundreds,’ he agreed in a voice which effectively squashed her chatter, and leaned to open her door.
The house door was open and by the time Polly had got out of the car a girl not much older than herself was coming towards them.
Polly hadn’t given much thought to the Professor’s sister. She had supposed her to be his female counterpart—tall, commanding blue eyes which could turn frosty in seconds, and given to looking down