“Aha!”
A pair of large black shoes stepped smartly into her field of vision. Trousers. Men’s trousers. Oh, God! A park-keeper! She raised her eyes.
“You didn’t mean me to miss you, did you?”
The man before her was gazing with ironic admiration at the great plant. He had very pale blue eyes and yellowish eyebrows. Big face, very smooth, almost shiny. Unusually long ears. The hand extended towards the polyanthus was white and backed with a lot of fine, gingery hairs. Its thumb was fleshy but effeminately narrow at the end.
Miss Teatime smiled nervously and slipped her fingers under the plant’s roots.
“I suppose you don’t happen to have a paper bag or something?”
He took the plant from her and examined it.
“There’s a bit of root left on,” he announced. “You never know, it might take. I tell you what—let’s plant it to commemorate our first meeting!”
He swung round towards the earth border and in another moment Miss Teatime was heartily relieved to see the thing glimmering anonymously in the long line of its fellows.
He brushed the knees of his trousers and sat back beside her, half turned against the side of the seat. He put out his hand.
“Jack Trelawney. At your service.”
“How do you do, Mr Trelawney.”
She felt her fingers pressed gently into his palm by the big soft thumb. He did not let go of them, but gave her arm a little wag every now and again during the next five minutes as if to emphasize a point in the conversation.
“And now, Miss Three-Four-Seven...” he paused to gild the little joke with a grin. “How am I to call you? Three for short?”
“I’m afraid that introductions have never been the happiest moments of my life,” she said wryly. “You see, my name happens to be Teatime. It really does.”
He looked blank, then hastily summoned an expression of kindly surprise.
“Teatime...well, well. But how refreshingly different. I like it. I really do.” Her arm was wagged twice. “And your first name?”
“Lucy. Lucilla, actually, but I think that’s a bit Gothic.”
“Oh, Lucy will do very nicely indeed. Lucy Teatime. Yes. I’m so pleased to have met you, Lucy.”
He had a way, she noticed, of lowering his head as he spoke and looking up past those biscuit coloured eyebrows of his. It gave him an air of being serious and confiding. Yet always with a certain sparkle. He was probably used to getting his own way.
“Did you have far to come to meet me?” she asked.
“No, not really. I say, I’m glad it’s so fine, though. Perhaps we could have a look at the river later on.”
“That would be lovely.” (Was she ever going to get her hand back?)
“You live in Flaxborough, do you, Lucy?”
“I’m staying here for the time being. It does seem an altogether charming town, from what I have seen of it.”
Her fingers were released.
“Before we go any further, I must make a note of your address.” He was bringing out a folded envelope and a pen with a rolled-gold cap.
Miss Teatime hesitated a second. Oh, well, why not?
“I’ve put up at the Roebuck Hotel.”
He pouted approvingly. “Jolly nice berth.” The cap was off the pen. “What about your own home, though? Your proper home?”
“I suppose I haven’t one, really. The house was so huge that it seemed pointless to hang on to it when father passed away. I mean to say—imagine me trying to keep twenty-seven bedrooms aired!”
“All those warming pans!” riposted a chuckling Mr Trelawney.
“Yes, indeed. Anyway, with the sort of ridiculous prices that people are absolutely fighting to pay for Elizabethan manor houses in Berkshire it seemed foolish not to turn it to good account.”
Trelawney swallowed. “You sold it, then?”
“It’s going through,” said Miss Teatime indifferently. She gave a little laugh. “Who wants nine bathrooms, anyway?”
“I’d rather have nine bean rows and a hive for the honey bee.” A dreamy look had entered Trelawney’s pale blue eyes.
“Yeats!” responded Miss Teatime. She sighed happily. “Do you live in the country, Mr Trelawney?”
“More or less. Actually, I’m rather a bird of passage at the moment. Like you.”
“I see.”
More people had come into the garden. Two of the nearby seats were now occupied. A gangling young clergyman came by, peering at faces. He was wearing bicycle clips and looked, Miss Teatime thought, rather like an ill nourished starling. The boy who had been carted off by his mother appeared to be at liberty once more. Bored, he lounged against the fountain and contrived by putting his thumb over the outlet to send a fine rain over them.
“Belay there, young fellow-me-lad!” cried her companion.
The boy glanced at him contemptuously and sauntered off.
“What they need is a touch of the rope’s end,” opined Trelawney. He thoughtfully tugged the lobe of one of his long ears—an action which had the interesting effect of hoisting the eyebrow on the opposite side.
“Have you...have you any children of your own?” Miss Teatime thought it might be as well to slip in some of the most important questions early. She wished, though, that this one had not sounded like: Do you keep rabbits?
“Not to my knowledge, ma’am, as the Duke of Wellington used to say.”
She laughed politely.
He looked down at his long, plump thigh and flicked away a vestige of soil. “No, I’ve never been spliced. I don’t think it’s fair on a woman, being tied up in port while her husband rolls round the world. Of course, when his sailing days are over...” he raised his eyes “...that’s different, isn’t it?”
“So you want to settle down?”
He shrugged and stared past her into the distance.
“A little bit of terra firma, a cottage, slippers by a real, old fashioned fire...they sound sentimental, I suppose, but you’d be surprised how often they come to mind when you’re rounding the Bight or keeping your eyes skinned for bergs away off Iceland or somewhere.”
“Oh, I’m sure they do,” said Miss Teatime comfortably.
He started. “But you don’t want to listen to my little romantic fancies. Tell me something about yourself.”
He reached again for her hand, missed it, and grasped her knee instead. His calm, earnest regard was like that of a doctor impersonally checking cartilage formation.
“I am not sure what I can tell you, really,” Miss Teatime said. “My life has been quite uneventful—rather too sheltered, if anything. You know this is quite a break away for me. Poor father’s accountant...well, he’s mine now, I suppose...he was most disapproving when I said I was going to leave everything to him for a while and take a little look round. I had to placate him by promising I would only draw on my personal account while I was away.” She gave her melodious little laugh. “And I shan’t get into much trouble on that, believe me!”