Betty Neels - Dearest Mary Jane

By the time she came back with the teapot he had finished the scones and she fetched another plate, of fering them wordlessly.

‘You wanted to tell me something?’ she prompted.

He sat back in the little cane chair so that it creaked alarmingly, his teacup in his hand. ‘Yes...’

The thump on the door stopped him and when it was repeated he got up and unlocked it. The girl who came in flashed him a dazzling smile.

‘Hello, Mary Jane. I’m on my way to Cheltenham and it seemed a good idea to look you up.’ She pecked Mary Jane’s cheek and looked across at Sir Thomas. ‘Am I interrupting something?’

‘No,’ said Mary Jane rather more loudly than necessary. ‘This is Sir Thomas Latimer, an orthopaedic surgeon, he—that is, Margaret went to see him about her back and he has a patient in the village.’ She glanced at him, still standing by the door. ‘This is my sister, Felicity.’

Felicity was looking quite beautiful, of course; she dressed in the height of fashion and somehow the clothes always looked right on her. She had tinted her hair, too, and her make-up was exquisite, making the most of her dark eyes and the perfect oval of her face. She smiled at Sir Thomas now as he came to shake her hand, smiling down at her, holding her hand just a little longer than he need, making some easy light-hearted remark which made Felicity laugh.

Of course, he’s fallen for her, reflected Mary Jane; since Felicity had left home to join the glamorous world of fashion she had had a continuous flow of men at her beck and call and she couldn’t blame Sir Thomas; her sister was quite lovely. She said, ‘Felicity is a well-known model...’

‘I can’t imagine her being anything else,’ observed Sir Thomas gravely. ‘Are you staying here with Mary Jane?’

‘Lord, no. There’s only one bedroom and I’d be terribly in the way—she gets up at the crack of dawn to cook, don’t you, darling?’ She glanced around her. ‘Still making a living? Good. No, I’m booked in at the Queens at Cheltenham, I’m doing a dress show there tomorrow.’ She smiled at Sir Thomas. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t like to come? We could have dinner...?’

‘How delightful that would have been, although the dress show hardly appeals, but dinner with you would be another matter.’

The fool, thought Mary Jane fiercely. She had seen Felicity capture a man’s attention a dozen times and not really minded but now she did. Sir Thomas was like the rest of them but for some reason she had thought that he was different.

Felicity gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Surely you could manage dinner? I don’t know anyone in Cheltenham.’

‘I’m on my way back to London,’ he told her. ‘Then I’m off to a seminar in Holland.’

Felicity said with a hint of sharpness, ‘A busy man—are you a very successful specialist or something, making your millions?’

‘I am a busy man, yes.’ He smiled charmingly and she turned away to say goodbye to Mary Jane.

‘Perhaps I’ll drop in as I go back,’ she suggested.

He opened the door for her and then walked with her to her car. Mary Jane could hear her sister’s laughter before she drove away. She began to clear away the tea tray, she still had to do some baking ready for the next day and Brimble was prowling round, grumbling for his supper.

‘We didn’t finish our tea,’ observed Sir Thomas mildly. He looked at her with questioning eyebrows.

Well, he is not getting another pot, reflected Mary Jane, and told him so, only politely. ‘I’ve a lot of baking to do and I expect you want to get back to London.’

Sir Thomas’s eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘Then I won’t keep you.’ He picked up the coat he had tossed over a chair. ‘You have a very beautiful sister, Mary Jane.’

‘Yes, we’re not a bit alike, are we?’

‘No, not in the least.’ A remark which did nothing to improve her temper. ‘And I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to you...’

‘I don’t suppose it was of the least importance.’ She spoke tartly. ‘You can tell me if we meet again, which isn’t very likely.’

He opened the door. ‘You are mistaken about a great many things, Mary Jane,’ he told her gravely. ‘Goodnight.’

She closed the door and bolted it and went back to the kitchen, not wishing to see him go.

She washed the cups and saucers with a good deal of noise, fed Brimble and got out the pastry board, the rolling pin and the ingredients for the scones. Her mind not being wholly on her work, her dough suffered a good deal of rough treatment; notwithstanding, the scones came from the oven nicely risen and golden brown. She cleared away and went upstairs, having lost all appetite for her supper.

Felicity hadn’t said when she would come again but she seldom did, dropping in from time to time when it suited her. When they had been younger she had always treated Mary Jane with a kind of tolerant affection, at the same time making no effort to take much interest in her. It had been inevitable that Mary Jane should stay at home with her aunt and uncle and, even when they had died and she had inherited the cottage, Felicity had made no effort to help in any way. She was earning big money by then but neither she nor, for that matter, Mary Jane had expected her to do anything to make life easier for her young sister. Mary Jane had accepted the fact that Felicity was a success in life, leading a glamorous existence, travelling, picking and choosing for whom she would work and, while she was glad that she had made such a success of her life, she had no wish to be a part of it and certainly she felt no envy. Common sense told her that a plain face and a tendency to stay in the background would never earn her a place in the world of fashion.

Not that she would have liked that, she was content with her tea-room and Brimble and her friends in the village, although it would have been nice to have had a little more money.

The Misses Potter came in for their usual tea on the following day.

Miss Mabel was walking with a stick now and was a changed woman. They had been to Cheltenham on the previous day, they told Mary Jane, and that nice Sir Thomas had said that she need not go to see him anymore, just go for a check-up to Dr Fellowes every few months.

‘He’s going away,’ she explained to Mary Jane, ‘to some conference or other, but we heard that he will be going to the Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford when he gets back. Much sought-after,’ said Miss Mabel with satisfaction.

Of course, the village knew all about him calling at the tea-room and, Mary Jane being Mary Jane, her explanation that he had merely called for a cup of tea on his way back to London was accepted without comment. Felicity’s visit had also been noticed with rather more interest. Very few people took Vogue or Harpers and Queen but those who visited their dentist or doctor and read the magazines in the waiting-room were well aware of her fame.

She came a few days later during the morning, walking into the tea-room and giving the customers there a pleasant surprise. She was wearing a suede outfit in red with boots in black leather and a good deal of gold jewellery. Not at all the kind of clothes the village was used to; even the doctor’s wife and Margaret, not to mention the lady of the manor, wouldn’t have risked wearing such an outfit. She smiled around her, confident that she was creating an impression.

‘Hello, Mary Jane,’ she said smilingly, pleased with the mild sensation she had caused. ‘Can you spare me a cup of coffee? I’m on my way back to town.’

She sat down at one of the tables and Mary Jane, busy with serving, said, ‘Hello, Felicity. Yes, of course, but will you help yourself? I’m quite busy.’

The customers went presently, leaving the two sisters alone. Mary Jane collected up cups and saucers and tidied the tables and Felicity said rather impatiently, ‘Oh, do sit down for a minute, you can wash up after I’ve gone.’