When Two Paths Meet

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS a good thing that Katherine felt so euphoric about her future, for the next hour tried her sorely. Henry, having recovered from his first surprise, had marshalled a number of forceful arguments, hampered rather than helped by Joyce’s ill-natured complaints.

Katherine listened patiently and, when he had quite done, said kindly, ‘Well, Henry, I would have thought that you would have been pleased. You don’t need to be responsible for me any more, do you?’

Henry was an alarming puce once more. ‘Your ingratitude cuts me to the quick,’ he told her. ‘After all this time, giving you a home and food and clothes…’

She smiled at him and said sensibly, ‘And look what you got for that—unpaid housework, someone to look after the children and, because I’m your sister, there was no need to give me an allowance.’ She added, ‘It will be nice to have some money.’ Emboldened by the prospect of a glowing future, she walked to the door, just as Henry got his breath for another speech. ‘I’m rather tired,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I think I’ll go to bed. I haven’t finished the washing up, but there are only the saucepans left to do. Goodnight, Joyce—Henry.’

In her room, she sat down on her bed and cried. She had tried hard to please Henry and Joyce, she had accepted the care of the children and she had done her best to love them, but it was a singularly unloving household. She had never been happy in it and she was glad to leave it. All the same, it would have been nice if Henry and Joyce had uttered just one word of encouragement or thanks.

She got up presently, and crossed the landing to the children’s room. They needed tucking up once more, and she did this with her usual care, before going to the boxroom and fetching her two cases. Packing wouldn’t take long: her wardrobe was small, and most of it wasn’t worth packing. She had a tweed suit, elderly but well cut and good material; she would have to wear that until she had enough money to buy some decent clothes. She hoped that Mr and Mrs Grainger weren’t the kind of people to dress for dinner; it seemed unlikely, but she had a plain wool dress, very out-of-date, like the suit, but it had at one time been good, and would pass muster at a pinch.

She felt better now she had started her packing. She got ready for bed, hopped between the chilly sheets, closed her eyes and, very much to her surprise, went to sleep at once.

It was a scramble in the morning. Katherine got up earlier than usual, got into the suit and the sensible, low-heeled shoes which were suitable for everyday wear and country walks with the children. Then she did her face carefully with the sketchy make-up she possessed, tied her hair back with a narrow ribbon and went along to the nursery. For once, good fortune was on her side; the children were quite willing to be washed and dressed and given their breakfast. She took them downstairs and made tea for herself, laid the table for the children and for Henry, who wouldn’t be down for half an hour or so, and gave them their breakfast. She was too excited to eat, and she hadn’t considered what meals they would have later on. She wasn’t even sure when she would be back; what was more, she didn’t much care!

She cleared the table, took the children to the playroom and made more tea for Henry, who, on his way downstairs, put his head round the door to wish the children good morning but ignored her. She heard him leave the house presently and Mrs Todd crashing plates and saucepans in the kitchen. She would have to get Joyce out of bed before she went. Dr Fitzroy had said nine o’clock, and it was ten minutes to the hour.

Joyce didn’t answer as she went into the bedroom. Katherine drew back the curtains. ‘I’m going now,’ she said. ‘The children have had their breakfast and are in the playroom. I don’t know when I’ll be back.’

Joyce lifted her head. ‘I feel ill,’ she said pettishly. ‘You simply can’t go—you’ll have to put this interview off until I’m better.’

Katherine took a look at her sister-in-law. ‘I’ll tell Mrs Todd. I dare say she’ll keep an eye on Sarah and Robin. Henry can always come back here—you could phone him.’

Joyce sat right up. ‘I hope these people hate you on sight and you lose the job. It would serve you right! And don’t expect to come crawling back here. Job or no job, out you go tomorrow.’

Katherine turned to go, and the children, bored with their own company, came hurtling past her and flung themselves onto their mother’s bed.

Katherine closed the door quietly behind her. She didn’t like her sister-in-law, but a pang of sympathy shot through her; the children were small tyrants, and Joyce had little patience with them. She would demand a mother’s help and Henry would have to agree. Whoever it was would want a salary and days off and weekends and holidays… Katherine had another pang of sympathy for Henry, who hated to spend his money.

Dr Fitzroy was waiting for her when she opened the door and looked out, and she hurried to the car.

‘Good morning.’ She was a bit breathless with an upsurge of feeling at the sight of him. ‘I hope you haven’t been waiting.’

‘Just got here. Jump in.’ He held the door for her, and she settled in the seat beside him. ‘Nervous?’ he asked. ‘You needn’t be.’

He gave her a reassuring smile, and thought what a dim little thing she was in her out-of-date suit and sturdy shoes. But sensible and quiet, just what the Graingers needed, and they would hardly notice what she was wearing, only that her voice was pleasant and she was calm in a crisis. He started the car. ‘I’ll tell you something about Mr and Mrs Grainger. In their seventies, almost eighty, in fact. He has a heart condition and is far too active, can be peppery if he can’t have his own way. Mrs Grainger is small and meek and perfectly content to allow him to dictate to her. She has arthritis and suffers a good deal of pain, but never complains. They are devoted to each other. They lost their only son in an accident some years ago, but they have a granddaughter…’

Something in his voice caught Katherine’s attention; this granddaughter was someone special to him. She had known from the moment she knew that she had fallen in love with him that he would never look at her—all the same, it was a blow. So silly, she told herself silently, he could have been married already, with a houseful of children. At the back of her head, a small, defiant voice pointed out that he might have been heart-whole and single and miraculously bowled over by her very ordinary person. She became aware that he had asked her something and she hadn’t been heeding.

‘So sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘You asked me something?’

They were at the roundabout on the outskirts of Wilton, waiting to find a place in the traffic streaming towards Salisbury. He slipped smoothly between two other cars before he answered. ‘You do understand that there will be no regular hours? You will, of course, have time to yourself each day, but that time may vary. It would be difficult to arrange to meet your friends or make dates.’

She said quietly, in a bleak little voice, ‘I haven’t any friends, and no one to make a date with.’ She added quickly, in case he thought she was wallowing in self-pity, ‘I had lots of friends when my mother was alive, but there wasn’t much time to spare at my brother’s house. I—I like to be busy, and I shan’t mind at all if Mr and Mrs Grainger make their own arrangements about my free time.’

‘That’s settled then.’ He sounded kind but faintly uninterested. ‘But I expect you will want to go shopping.’ He was annoyed that he had said that, for she went pink and turned to look out of her window, very conscious of her dull appearance. All the same, she agreed cheerfully; in a week or two she would indeed go shopping. Clothes made the man, it was said—well, they would make her, too!

She liked Salisbury; the cathedral dominated the city, and its close was a delightful oasis in the city centre. When the doctor drove down High Street and through the great gate, circled the small car park and drew up before one of the charming old houses abutting the close, she declared, ‘Oh, is it here? I’ve always wanted…I came here with Mother…’

‘Charming, isn’t it? And yes, this is the house.’ He got out and went round to open her door. They crossed the pavement together, and he rang the bell beside the pedimented doorway. The door was opened almost at once by a middle-aged woman with a stern face, dressed soberly in black. She gave the doctor a wintry smile and stared at Katherine.

‘Ah, Mrs Dowling, I have brought Miss Marsh to meet Mr and Mrs Grainger. They are expecting us.’

She wished him a reluctant good morning and nodded at Katherine, who smiled uncertainly. ‘You’d better come up,’ she observed dourly.

The house, despite its Georgian façade, was considerably older. A number of passages led off the small, square hall, and half a dozen steps at its end ended in a small gallery with two doors. The housekeeper opened one of them and ushered them inside. The room was large and long, at the back of the house, overlooking a surprisingly large garden.

Its two occupants turned to look at the doctor and Katherine as they went in, and the elderly gentleman said at once, ‘Jason, my dear boy—so here you are with the little lady you have found for us.’ He peered over his glasses at Katherine. ‘Good morning, my dear. You don’t find it too irksome to cherish us, I hope?’

‘How do you do, Mr Grainger?’ said Katherine politely. ‘Not in the least, if you would like me to come.’

‘Take a look at her, my dear,’ begged the old gentleman, addressing himself to the equally elderly lady sitting opposite him.

She was small and frail-looking, but her eyes were bright and her voice surprisingly strong. She studied Katherine and nodded. ‘I believe that she will do very nicely, Albert. A little on the small side, perhaps?’

‘I’m very strong,’ declared Katherine on a faintly apprehensive note.

‘And competent,’ put in the doctor in his calm way. ‘Besides not being wishful to dash off to the discos with a different young man each evening.’

He had pulled a chair forward, and nodded to her to sit down, and Mrs Grainger asked, ‘Have you a young man, my dear?’

‘No,’ said Katherine, ‘and I’ve never been inside a disco.’

The old couple nodded to each other. ‘Most suitable. Will you come at once?’

Katherine looked at the doctor, who said placidly, ‘I’ll take her back to her brother’s house now, and she can pack her things. I dare say, if you wish it, she could be ready to come back here this evening.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Katherine, ‘there’s a bus I could catch…’

‘I’ll pick you up at six o’clock.’ He barely glanced at her. ‘Mrs Grainger, you do understand that Miss Marsh has to have an hour or so to herself each day, and at least a half-day off each week? We have already discussed the salary, and she finds it acceptable.’ He got up. ‘I’m going to have a word with Mrs Dowling, if I may, before I take Miss Marsh back.’

He was gone for ten minutes, during which time Katherine was plied with questions. She answered them readily enough, for she liked her employers.

She was sensible enough to realise that sitting here in this pleasant room wasn’t indicative of her day’s work; she would probably be on the run for a good part of each day and probably the night, too, but after the cheerless atmosphere of Henry’s home this delightful house held warmth, something she had missed since her mother had died.

When Dr Fitzroy returned, she rose, shook hands, declared that she would return that evening, and accompanied the doctor out to his car.

He had little to say as they drove back, only expressed himself satisfied with the interview, warned her to be ready that evening and reminded her that he called to see Mr and Mrs Grainger two days a week, usually on Tuesdays and Fridays, at about eleven o’clock. ‘So I should like you to be there when I call.’ He shot her a quick glance. ‘You will be happy there?’

‘Yes, oh, yes!’ she assured him. ‘I can’t believe it! I’m so afraid that I’ll wake up and find that it’s all been a dream.’

He laughed. ‘It’s true enough, and I do warn you that you may find the work irksome and sometimes tiring.’ He stopped the car outside Henry’s gate and got out. ‘I’ll come in with you and speak to your sister-in-law.’

Joyce was waiting for them in the drawing-room, beautifully turned out and, judging from the din the children were making from the nursery, impervious to their demands.

As Katherine went in with the doctor, she said,’ Katherine, do go upstairs and see to the children. I’m exhausted already—I had to sit down quietly…’

She smiled bewitchingly at the doctor, who didn’t smile back. ‘Mrs Marsh, Miss Marsh will be taking up her job this evening. I shall be here for her at six o’clock. I’m sure you’ll make certain that she has the time to collect her things together before then.’ He smiled at Katherine. ‘You can be ready by then? I have an appointment in the evening and must go to the hospital this afternoon, otherwise I would come for you after lunch.’

‘I’ll be ready.’ Katherine gave him a beaming smile. ‘Thank you for taking me this morning.’

‘You’ll stay for coffee?’ asked Joyce persuasively.

‘Thank you, no.’ He shook her hand and Katherine took him to the door.

‘Scared?’ he asked softly. ‘Don’t worry, if you haven’t been given the chance to pack, I’ll do it for you when I come.’ He patted her briskly on the shoulder. ‘I bless the day I knocked on this door; I’ve been searching for weeks for someone like you.’ Her heart leapt at his words, and then plummeted to her toes as he added, ‘You’re exactly what the Graingers need.’

She stood for a moment or two after he had gone, dismissing sentimental nonsense from her head, preparing herself for the unpleasantness to come. And unpleasant it was, too, for Joyce was at her most vindictive.

Katherine allowed the worst of it to flow over her head and, when Joyce paused for breath, said in her calm way, ‘Well, Joyce, Robin and Sarah are your children, after all. If you don’t want to look after them, Henry can quite afford to get someone who will.’

She went up to her room and finished her packing which, since she had very few possessions, took no time at all. She was just finishing when Mrs Todd called up the stairs. ‘Mrs Marsh ‘as gone out, and them dratted kids is all over my kitchen!’

Katherine had changed back into elderly jeans and a sweater. She pulled on her jacket now and went downstairs. The children were running wild, sensing that something was happening and cheerfully adding to the disruption.

‘Mrs Todd, help me cut some sandwiches and prepare a thermos—I’ll take the children out and we can find somewhere to picnic. I know it’s not much of a day, but it’ll get them out of the house. Leave the key under the mat if we’re not back, will you?’

They set out half an hour later, the children unwilling at first but, once away from the house, walking along the bridle paths, they could race about and shout as much as they wanted to. Katherine suspected that Joyce had taken herself off for the day in the hope that, if she didn’t return, Katherine would feel bound to stay, but Henry would be home by five o’clock, and an hour later Dr Fitzroy would come for her.