Betty Neels - Judith

She had intended to go to Sawry and take the ferry to Bowness on the other side of Lake Windermere and then drive the eight or nine miles to Kendal. There would probably be delays on the ferry, although the season was only just beginning, but the alternative was a much longer drive round the head of the lake; besides, she particularly wanted to go that way and she saw no need to tell her unwanted passenger.

They drove in silence until they reached Sawry, and Judith instinctively slowed down, because it was here that Beatrix Potter had lived and she had promised herself a visit to Hill Top Farm before she went back home; if it had been anyone else with her, she would have had something to say about it, but the Professor hadn’t uttered a word, which, she told herself was exactly as she wanted it. They drove on to Far Sawry and joined the short queue for the ferry and he still had said nothing at all, and the eight miles on the other side were just as silent. They were actually in Kendal before he spoke.

‘Go through Highgate,’ he told her. ‘Into Stricklandgate—you can park the car there.’

And when she did, pulling up neatly in a half full car park, he opened his door and got out. ‘I’ll be here at twelve,’ he told her, and stalked off, leaving her speechless with rage. ‘Just as though I were the hired chauffeur!’ she muttered. ‘And why hasn’t he got a car of his own, for heaven’s sake?’

And he could have offered her a cup of coffee at the very least, not that she would have accepted it, but it would have given her pleasure to refuse him…

The town had changed since she had been there last, many years ago. The M6 had taken all the traffic nowadays, leaving the old town to its past glory. Judith pottered round the shops, carefully ticking off her list as she went, and when she came across a pleasant little café, went in and had coffee, and because she was feeling irritable, a squashy cream cake. She felt better after that and went in search of the books her uncle had ordered, did a little shopping for herself and made her way, deliberately late, to the car.

The Professor was leaning against the car, reading a book, outwardly at least in a good frame of mind. Judith said flippantly: ‘Finished your shopping?’ and opened the door and threw her parcels on to the back seat.

‘I never shop,’ he assured her blandly. ‘I wanted to visit Holy Trinity Church, there are some Megalithic stones in the vault I wanted to examine.’

Judith had no idea what Megalithic meant. ‘Oh, really?’ she said in a vague way, and got into the car.

‘You have no idea what I’m talking about,’ he sighed, ‘Not my period, of course, but I felt the need of a little light relief.’

Judith turned a splutter of laughter into a cough. ‘What from?’ she asked.

‘My studies.’

She gave him a sideways look. ‘Surely, Professor, you stopped studying some years ago?’

‘I’m a scholar, Miss Golightly, not a schoolboy. What an extraordinary name you have.’ He added gently: ‘And so unsuitable too.’

Judith clashed the gears. ‘Don’t ever ask me for a lift again!’ she told him through clenched teeth.

They had to wait quite some time for the ferry, and Judith, determined not to let the wretched man annoy her, made polite conversation as they sat there until she was brought to an indignant stop by his impatient: ‘Oh, Miss Golightly, do hold your tongue, I have a great deal to think about.’

So they didn’t speak again, and when they arrived at her uncle’s house she got out of the car and went indoors, leaving him to follow if he pleased.

And if he does, she thought, I’ll eat my lunch in the kitchen, and since she found him sitting in the dining room with Uncle Tom, drinking beer and smoking a pipe and listening with every sign of pleasure to his host’s opinion of illuminated manuscripts of the twelfth century, that was exactly what she did.

Before he left he poked his head round the kitchen door. ‘Your uncle is quite right, you make an excellent sandwich—you must both come to dinner with me one evening and sample Mrs Turner’s cooking.’

Judith didn’t stop washing up. ‘That’s very kind of you, Professor Cresswell, but I’m here to enjoy peace and quiet.’

‘Oh, we’ll make no noise, I promise you—I don’t run to a Palm Court Orchestra.’ He had gone before she could think up another excuse.

It was the next morning, just as she was back from the butchers with a foot or so of the Cumberland sausage her uncle liked so much, that he wandered into the kitchen when surgery was over for the moment.

‘No cooking for you this evening, my dear— Charles has asked us to dinner.’

A surge of strong feeling swept over Judith—annoyance, peevishness at being taken unawares and perhaps a little excitement as well. She said immediately, ‘Oh, Uncle, you’ll have to go without me—I’ve got a headache.’ She was coiling the sausage into a bowl. ‘I’ll stay at home and go to bed early.’

‘Oh, that won’t do at all.’ Her uncle was overriding her gently. ‘I’ve just the thing to cure that—by the evening you’ll be feeling fine again.’ He bustled away and came back with a pill she didn’t need or want, but since he was there watching her, she swallowed it. ‘It’s a splendid day,’ he went on, ‘so after lunch I suggest that you get into the hammock in the garden and have a nap.’

Which, later in the day, she found herself doing, watched by Uncle Tom, looking complacent. This reluctance to meet Charles he considered a good sign, just as he was hopeful of Charles’ deliberate rudeness to her. In all the years he had known him, he had never seen such an exhibition of ill manners towards a woman on the Professor’s part. He knew all about his unfortunate love affair, but that was years ago now—since then he had treated the women who had crossed his path with a bland politeness and no warmth. But now this looked more promising, Uncle Tom decided; his niece, with her lovely face and strong splendid figure, had got under Charles’ skin. He pottered off to his afternoon patients, very pleased with himself.

Much against her inclination, Judith slept, stretched out in the old fashioned hammock slung between the apple trees behind the house. She slept peacefully until the doctor’s elderly Austin came to its spluttering halt before the house, and she just had time to run to the kitchen and put the kettle on for a cup of tea before he came into the house.

It would be nice, she thought, if they had a frantically busy surgery that evening, even a dire emergency, which would prevent them from going to the Professor’s house, but nothing like that happened. The surgery was shorter than usual; Uncle Tom put the telephone on to the answering service, told the local exchange to put through urgent calls to the Professor’s house and indicated that he would be ready to leave within the next hour.

‘And wear something pretty, my dear,’ he warned her. ‘There’ll probably be one or two other people there— Charles doesn’t entertain much, just once or twice a year—they’re something of an event here.’ He added by way of an explanation: ‘Mrs Turner is an excellent cook.’

She was dressing entirely to please herself, Judith argued, putting on the Laura Ashley blouse, a confection of fine lawn, lace insertions and tiny tucks, and adding a thick silk skirt of swirling colours, her very best silk tights and a pair of wispy sandals which had cost her the earth. For the same reason, presumably, she took great pains with her face and hair, informing Uncle Tom, very tidy for once in a dark blue suit, that she just happened to have the outfit with her. Which was true enough, although she hadn’t expected to wear it.

They travelled in the doctor’s car, driving up to the house to find several other cars already there. The house, Judith saw, now that she was at its front, was a good deal larger than she had supposed. It was typical of the Lake District, whitewashed walls under a slate roof, with a wing at the back and a walled garden, full of roses now, encircling it. She went inside with her uncle into a square hall with four doors, all open. There was a good deal of noise coming through one of them; they paused long enough to greet Mrs Turner and were shown into a room on the left.