Betty Neels: The Hasty Marriage

‘Thank heaven I caught your eye,’ she observed. ‘Heavens, suppose you’d said yes!’ She smiled sunnily. ‘He was only being polite, you know. We’re going out for the day—to Cambridge—he was there, simply ages ago.’ She settled herself on the end of the bed. ‘Laura, isn’t it super—I’m sure he’s going to ask me to marry him.’

Laura was plaiting her hair at the dressing table and didn’t turn round; although she had been expecting Joyce to tell her just that, now that she heard the actual words she didn’t want to believe them. She finished the plait with fingers which trembled and said carefully: ‘Is he? However do you know?’

Joyce laughed, ‘Silly—of course I do,’ and she added with unconscious cruelty: ‘But you wouldn’t know…’

Laura smiled ruefully. ‘No, I wouldn’t. And are you going to say yes?’

‘Of course—lord, Laura, I’d be a fool if I didn’t—he’s very good-looking and he adores me and I’m sure he’s got plenty of money although he hasn’t exactly said so—but he’s got that marvellous car and his clothes are right.’

Laura stared unseeingly at her reflection in the looking-glass. Her face, she was thankful to see, looked just the same, although inside she was shaking with indignation and rage and a hopeless grief. ‘Do you love him?’ she asked.

Joyce got off the bed and strolled to the door. ‘Darling, I’m prepared to love anyone who can give me all the pretty things I want.’ She paused before she closed the door behind her. ‘I suppose he turns me on, if that’ll satisfy you.’

Laura got up early the next morning. She had slept badly and the urge to get out of the house before anyone else got downstairs was strong. She got into slacks and a blouse and went, quiet as a mouse, downstairs. Breakfast was already laid in the dining room, but she went straight to the kitchen, made tea, cut a slice of bread and butter to go with it and fetched a jacket from behind the kitchen door. It was a splendid morning as only an early May morning can be and she went through the village and then turned off down the narrow lane which was the back way to the neighbouring village. It had high banks on either side of it and the birds were already there, singing. There were catkins and lambs-tails too, and the hedges were thick with bread and cheese, green and fresh, and tucked away here and there were clumps of primroses and patches of violets.

The lane wound a good deal, so that it took twice as long as it needed to to reach Masham, but she had time and to spare; Joyce and Reilof van Meerum weren’t likely to leave the house much before ten o’clock, and Laura had just heard the church bells, still quite a way away, ringing for eight o’clock service. She reached the first few cottages as a handful of people came out of the church with the rector on their heels. He saw her at once and greeted her with pleasure, for they had known each other all her life.

‘Laura—you’ve strayed into the wrong parish, but how nice. It’s early, though.’ He gave her a questioning look.

‘I’ve got a weekend,’ she told him, ‘and it’s such a lovely morning, I simply couldn’t waste it in bed. I love the walk through the lane.’

He nodded. ‘Peaceful and quiet, designed for thinking one’s own thoughts.’ He gave her a quick glance, taking in the pallor of a sleepless night and her unhappy eyes. ‘Come and have breakfast with Martha and me,’ he begged her, ‘the house is so quiet now that Guy’s up at Cambridge.’

He led the way down the village street and across to the white house at the end of it. A charming house, built in the days when the village parson had half a dozen children and needed the rooms. Now, as Laura knew, it was almost empty and a well-loved millstone round the rector’s neck. They went in through the kitchen door and found Mrs Lamb frying bacon at the old-fashioned stove, and presently they all sat down to a leisurely meal before Mr Lamb got on to his bicycle and went off to a hamlet nearby to take morning service, leaving Laura to help with the washing up, peel the potatoes for lunch and set the table.

It was almost eleven o’clock by the time she got home, and time to get a meal for her father and godfather. She found them walking in the garden, deep in some conversation or other. They greeted her absentmindedly, asked vaguely if she was going to make them some coffee, and resumed their perambulations, leaving her to go to her room, change into a suit, do her hair and return to the kitchen. She gave them their coffee presently and then set about getting lunch, and it was over this meal that her father mentioned that Joyce and the doctor had left directly after breakfast and didn’t expect to get back until after tea. ‘They seem to be greatly interested in each other,’ he observed, ‘although I think myself that Reilof is too old for my little Joyce—still, if the child wants him, I’ll not say no—he’s obviously greatly taken with her.’ He glanced at Laura across the table. ‘I daresay you’ve noticed, my dear?’

She said yes, she had, her voice placid, and went on to remind him that she would be going back on the three o’clock train, whereupon he offered to drive her to the station. ‘It will be a nice little run for your godfather, too,’ he said with satisfaction, and added a little anxiously: ‘How about our tea, my dear—and supper?’

‘Tea’s all ready on a tray on the kitchen table, Father, you only have to boil a kettle. It’s cold supper, on the top shelf of the fridge, but I should think Joyce would be back by then. I’ll lay up another tray after I’ve washed up, though, just in case she isn’t.’

The matter being settled, she got on with the chores, repacking her bag once more before going in search of her father to remind him that he was taking her into Chelmsford. She sat with her godfather on the back seat because he complained mildly that he had seen almost nothing of her, and presently she wished she had insisted on him sitting with her father, because the questions he put to her were a little disconcerting and far too searching. Was she happy at the hospital? Had she any plans for the future, had she a young man?—an old-fashioned term which hardly fitted the circumstances, she considered, half amused. And what did she think of Reilof van Meerum?

She hedged round the last question. She didn’t know him well—he seemed very nice, but how could she know…?

‘You don’t need to know anything about anybody,’ stated her godfather, ‘either you like them or you don’t.’ He gave her a sidelong glance. ‘You do, Laura?’

‘Well, yes, Uncle Wim.’ She hastened to give the conversation another turn. ‘You’ll be here when I come home again—I’m not sure when…?’

‘I’ll be here—I shall go back with Reilof, but he comes so frequently I have no plans at present but shall fit in with him.’

‘Then I shall see you again.’ She checked, just in time, a sigh of relief as her father came to a halt before the station entrance, then she bent to kiss her companion and bade him stay where he was as she got out. She retrieved her bag, kissed her father too, and hurried away to catch her train. She spent the journey wondering what Joyce and Reilof were doing; Joyce had been very sure of him—any time now, thought Laura unhappily, I shall get a message to say that they’re going to get married. She gazed out of the window, seeing nothing of the rather dreary fringe of London and wishing she could be miles away, so that she couldn’t be telephoned, then she would never know—no, that would be far worse. The sooner she knew the better. Then she could start to forget Reilof as the man she had fallen in love with, and think of him as a future brother-in-law. The idea appalled her.