‘Grandfather fell ill yesterday… Nothing serious, I can assure you.’
‘The heat, I suppose?’ suggested Francis, stirring his tea.
‘No, it was when he went into his old workshop.’
Francis stopped stirring and Paula looked in the direction of the small building whose roof was visible through the trees.
‘As you know, nobody’s been in there since father died… least of all grandfather, who’s never been able to forget the accident.’ Bessie sighed. ‘Nevertheless, he went up there yesterday afternoon, to look for a tool to replace his broken spade… I can still see him making the announcement over lunch in a casual manner which fooled nobody: mother and I knew how much it cost him to go there, and he could have easily repaired his spade using his other tools. It was obviously a pretext for trying to get rid of his guilty conscience once and for all. We watched him set out briskly, whistling so as to appear confident.’
‘Francis, you can put your spoon down now,’ said Paula with amusement. ‘You’ve been holding it up in the air for thirty seconds.’
‘My spoon?’ said Francis in embarrassment. ‘Ah, yes,’ he muttered, shrugging his shoulders.
Bessie watched him with a faint smile on her lips:
‘You make me think of Mike. His mind went blank like that from time to time. Where was I?’
‘Your grandfather was going to his workshop,’ prompted Paula.
‘Right. Well, he returned ten minutes later with a heavy step and looking quite haggard. He said he’d been taken ill when he was inside and had had to lie down on the grass to recover.’
‘I imagine he’d relived the moment of tragedy,’ declared Paula dramatically.
‘Quite so, but he didn’t want to admit it. Anyway, he won’t be going back there again in a hurry.’
‘So nothing serious,’ said Francis, making a vague gesture.
Bessie shook her head, still smiling faintly.
Paula decided it was the moment to grasp the nettle.
‘My dear Bessie, I’m so glad to see your habitual good humour hasn’t been affected by… recent events.’
Her friend couldn’t help chuckling.
‘Are you talking about Mike? And his engagement to Sarah?’
‘Believe me,’ replied Francis, looking down, ‘it gave us no pleasure to hear it. I’m not passing judgment about Mike, but I can’t say I’m thrilled by my sister’s behaviour, not just towards you, but also—.’
‘My Goodness, Francis, how old-fashioned you can be!’ exclaimed Bessie. ‘Harris has been dead for over a year, don’t you think that’s long enough to respect conventions?’ She looked at their solemn faces. ‘I think you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Mike and I stopped seeing each other — at least in the sense you mean — at the beginning of the year. After the first break-up, we tried again with the same result. Quite simply, our hearts weren’t in it. We decided to remain good friends and to put up appearances for a while. It was Mike’s idea to let people gradually get used to the idea, rather than make a sudden announcement, which would inevitably have caused gossip and would have been bad for his medical practice.’
“Marrying Sarah will certainly put an end to that worry,” said Francis to himself.
‘I understand,’ he said out loud, being careful to avoid any trace of irony.
Paula pulled a face to show she didn’t agree with her husband.
‘I understand,’ she repeated, ‘in one sense. But on the other hand it doesn’t strike me as a very honest way to act. What I mean is that kind of situation leads to complications. But why….’
Paula bit her tongue as she realised the indiscretion of her question.
‘Why did we separate in the first place?’
‘Well, yes,’ stammered Paula, as Francis gave her a furious glare.
Bessie took a deep breath. There was an intense gleam in her blue eyes which neither Paula nor Francis could interpret.
‘Mike,’ she murmured with a bitter smile. ‘We got on pretty well together at the start. And then things began to change little by little… insignificant details. It’s hard to explain. There comes a day when you sense things are going in the wrong direction. You dismiss the thought from your mind and then it comes back even stronger. Finally you’re sure you made a mistake. The day I expressed my feelings to Mike, he didn’t want to accept what I was saying, blaming it on the grim dark days of winter, notoriously bad for lovers. Then he claimed that without ups and downs life would be boring… and a host of other excuses.’
‘So it was you,’ exclaimed Paula, while Francis made a show of clearing his throat noisily. ‘It was you who….’
‘Yes,’ replied Bessie, smiling at her friend’s ingenuousness. ‘Yes, I was the one who broke it up. That’s why I’m in no position to reproach Mike about anything. And besides….’
‘Yes?’ asked Paula, leaning eagerly forward.
Bessie sat back in her deckchair, let out a hearty laugh, and said:
‘I think I’ve said enough for today. Would you like some more tea?’
Once everyone was served, Paula returned to the attack.
‘I get the impression you’re hiding something….’
‘Darling, please!’ protested Francis, spilling some of his tea.
‘I get the impression,’ insisted Paula, ‘that there’s a new Prince Charming in the picture.’
Francis was about to protest some more, but stopped when he saw Bessie wink.
‘Another fiancé?’ he murmured.
‘Bessie, you must tell us everything!’ insisted Paula. ‘What does he do? Where’s he from? How did you meet him?’
Bessie blushed, confused yet at the same time flattered by her friends’ interest. She looked briefly up at the sky with a beatific smile on her lips.
‘I met him in London, several months ago. You’ll never guess how… No, I really mustn’t say.’
‘Ah, no!’ cried Paula excitedly. ‘You’ve gone too far to stop now.’
‘Well, if you insist. We met in a rather unusual way… in fact he stopped me quite unexpectedly in the street.’
Francis suppressed an indignant “what!” telling himself that provincial girls made easy prey.
‘In the street?’ repeated Paula with a shocked expression.
‘Yes,’ confirmed Bessie, ‘but in a rather extraordinary manner. I was strolling along Oxford Street when I saw a young man whom I didn’t know from Adam coming towards me, brandishing a sumptuous bouquet of roses. He stopped in front of me and announced they were for me, that he didn’t know why, that he was very embarrassed by what he was doing, that he regretted it, but that he also didn’t regret it.’
While Paula was uttering the obligatory “how romantic,” Francis suppressed a shrug of the shoulders. The naiveté of some women flabbergasted him.
‘I was so taken aback,’ continued Bessie, pressing her hands to her chest, ‘that I accepted his invitation to have a cup of tea. And there you are. Since then, we’ve been seeing each other almost every week.’
‘Here?’ asked Paula in surprise.
‘No, in London. But now Mike and Sarah….’
‘So, will we soon get to meet him?’ asked Paula, with an enthusiasm which elicited a disapproving frown from her husband.
‘Not right away. He’s actually quite swamped with work at the moment. But he’s promised to spend a few days here before the end of the year.’
Paula tried to find out more, but in the end she and her husband went back to Hatton Manor none the wiser.
12