A Happy Meeting

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Cressida, a-fire with the prospect of freedom, sat down on the arm of a chair. ‘No, I won’t tell Moggy anything of the sort,’ she said calmly. ‘You’ve never done anything for her and you can get another housekeeper.’

Mrs Preece’s eyes bulged. ‘Cressida, have you taken leave of your senses? How dare you talk to me like that, after all I’ve…?’

She stopped because Cressida was smiling. ‘I’m going too, Stepmother.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. What will you do? And you’ve no money.’

‘I’m very experienced in housework and Mr Tims said that there was a little money.’

‘Rubbish. No one will employ you.’ Mrs Preece changed her tactics. ‘If you will stay, Cressida, I’ll make you an allowance. I’ll get another housekeeper and you can train her. I simply cannot manage without someone to run this house. My nerves…’ She gave Cressida a wan smile. ‘What would your father have said?’

‘He would have told me to pack my bags and go,’ said Cressida promptly.

Cressida lay awake for a long time that night. She intended to leave at the same time as Moggy although just for the moment she had no idea as to what she would do. London, she supposed vaguely; surely there would be work of some sort there. If she had a roof over her head she could save most of her wages and then train for something, she wasn’t sure what. But to be free and live her own life—she uttered a sigh of pure content and fell asleep.

In the light of early morning she lost some of the euphoria. She wasn’t sure if she had enough money to get to London, for a start—she would have to see Mr Tims—and when she got there, then where would she go? This was something which would have to be settled before she left home; she was a practical girl; to arrive in London with no notion of where she was to lay her head that night was bird-witted. Something would have to be done about that.

Something was. Mrs Preece, sitting languidly in her drawing-room, refusing to do anything about rearranging her household, declaring that she felt ill enough to take to her bed, was forced to pull herself together when Miss Mogford came to tell her that she had a caller: Mrs Sefton, who lived some miles from Minton Cracknell but whom she had met on various occasions at other people’s houses. She didn’t like the lady overmuch; overbearing, she considered, with an amused contempt for weak nerves and women who couldn’t do the washing-up for themselves. That she lived in a large house, well-staffed and well-run, had nothing to say to the matter; Mrs Sefton was perfectly capable of running the place single-handed if it were necessary and that without a single grumble.

She breezed into the room now and bade her reluctant hostess good morning. Her voice wasn’t loud but had a penetrating ring to it, so that Mrs Preece closed her eyes for a moment.

‘A lovely morning,’ declared Mrs Sefton. ‘You should be out. There’s the autumn fête at Watly House this afternoon—aren’t you going?’

Mrs Preece said faintly that no, she didn’t think she felt well enough.

‘Well, you look all right,’ said Mrs. Sefton.

‘My nerves, you know.’

Mrs Sefton, who had never quite discovered what nerves, when mentioned by their possessor, meant, ignored this.

‘I’m here to ask a favour. That gel of yours, Cressida, I’ve a job for her…’

‘She doesn’t need a job,’ said Mrs Preece, sitting up smartly.

‘I know someone who needs her—an old friend of mine, Lady Merrill, desperately needs a companion for a few weeks while her permanent companion has a holiday.’ Mrs Sefton, pleased with her fabrication, added in ringing tones, ‘Not much to do you know—just a few chores. She’s just the one for it. I’m sure you can manage without her—I don’t suppose you see much of her anyway, she goes out a good deal I dare say.’

‘Cressida likes to stay at home with me,’ said Mrs. Preece sourly.

‘Does she? In that case she’ll know just what to do for Lady Merrill. She lives north of Sherborne, quite easy to get at—just the other side of Charlton Horethorne.’

Miss Mogford came in with the coffee and Mrs Preece poured it with a shaking hand. ‘I’m quite sure that Cressida won’t wish to leave me,’ she said in a die-away voice.

‘Well, let’s have her in to speak for herself,’ said Mrs Sefton. She stopped Moggy on her way to the door. ‘Ask Miss Preece to come here, will you?’

Mrs Preece opened her mouth to say something tart about guests giving orders in someone else’s house and then thought better of it. Mrs Sefton was well known and liked in the county and she was known to give her unvarnished opinion of anyone or anything she didn’t approve of. Moggy hurried back to the kitchen where Cressida was making the junket Mrs Preece ate each day—it was supposed to keep the skin youthful, she had been told.

‘Drop that, Miss Cressida,’ said Moggy urgently, ‘you’re to go to the drawing-room, there’s a Mrs Sefton there, wants to see you.’

‘Why?’ asked Cressida. ‘The junket will curdle…’

‘Drat the junket. Your stepmother is in a rage so be careful.’

Cressida might be a plain girl but she was graceful and self-possessed. She greeted Mrs Sefton, grudgingly introduced by Mrs Preece, in a quiet voice, and sat down.

‘I’ve a job for you, my dear,’ said Mrs Sefton, not beating about the bush. ‘An old lady—a great friend of mine—is in need of a companion for a few weeks and I thought of you. Would you care to take it on?’

‘You can’t leave me, Cressida,’ said Mrs. Preece in a fading voice, ‘I shall be ill; besides, it is your place to stay here with me.’

Cressida gave her a thoughtful look and turned sparkling blue eyes upon their visitor. ‘I should like to come very much,’ she said composedly. ‘I have been planning to find a job now that our housekeeper is leaving. When would this lady want me to start?’

Mrs Sefton, primed as to when Miss Mogford was leaving, was ready with an answer. ‘Would Thursday be too soon?’

‘That is quite impossible,’ observed Mrs Preece. ‘I have had no replies to my advertisement for a housekeeper and Miss Mogford leaves on the same day. Cressida must stay until I find someone to run the house for me.’

‘Oh, surely you can manage to do that yourself?’ asked Mrs Sefton. ‘I dare say you have outside help from the village?’

Mrs Preece had to admit that she had.

‘Well, then, get them to come more often,’ said Mrs Sefton cheerfully. ‘I dare say you might feel much better if you had something to do.’ She smiled in a condescending manner at her hostess. ‘And do come to the fête; there’s nothing like having an outside interest, you know.’

She got to her feet. ‘So be ready on Thursday, Cressida—you don’t mind if I call you that? Someone will fetch you directly after lunch.’

She looked at Mrs Preece who wished her a feeble goodbye. ‘You must excuse me from getting up,’ she whispered dramatically. ‘The shock, you know…’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Mrs Sefton, ‘for I didn’t realise that you’d had one. I dare say we shall meet. Do you go out at all socially? I have seen you on several occasions at dinner parties and were you not in Bath last week? At the Royal Crescent, dining with the Croftons? Cressida was not with you?’

‘Oh, yes—a long-standing engagement. Cressida hates going out, she is very much a home girl.’

Mrs Sefton raised her eyebrows. ‘Then in that case, this little job will give her a taste of the outside world, will it not?’

With which parting shot Mrs Sefton took herself off.

Mrs Preece wept and cajoled and threatened for the rest of that day but to no good purpose. Moggy was adamant about leaving, she packed her things and then went to help Cressida with hers. ‘I can’t think why you stayed, Miss Cressida, you could have gone months ago…’

‘I wasn’t going to leave you here, Moggy,’ was all Cressida would say.

Miss Mogford stared at her, her arms full of clothes. ‘So that’s why you’ve put up with your stepmother’s tantrums. I’ll not forget that, love. If ever you need help or a home or just someone to talk to, I’ll be there waiting and don’t you forget it.’

Cressida put down the shoes she was polishing and cast her arms around Miss Mogford. ‘Moggy, you are a darling, and I’ll remember that and I promise that I’ll come to you if I need help or advice or a bed. I shall miss you.’

Moggy’s stern countenance softened. ‘I shall miss you too after all this time. It hasn’t been easy, has it? But everything’ll come right now. You really want to go to this old lady?’

‘Yes, oh, yes, I do. It’s a start, I can get a reference from her and I suppose I’ll get paid—I forgot to ask—I’ll save all I can and besides Mr Tims said there was a little money for me. I’d better go and see him tomorrow… No, I’ll phone, he can send the money here.’

She wrapped her shoes carefully and put them into the shabby suitcase. ‘We’d better go and start dinner. Stepmother’s alone this evening.’

‘Well, don’t let her put upon you,’ advised Miss Mogford firmly.

Cressida turned eyes shining like stars upon her companion. ‘I won’t, Moggy, never again.’

CHAPTER THREE

BY LUNCHTIME on Thursday Cressida could feel nothing but relief at leaving her home. Mrs Preece had tried every gambit known to her in her efforts to make Cressida and Miss Mogford change their minds. She had had no success and had resorted to bad temper and reproaches, despite which Cressida had been to the village and arranged for one of the women who came to help in the house to move in temporarily until a new housekeeper could be engaged. She had met the postman on the way and he had given her a letter from Mr Tims—a registered letter containing a hundred pounds and a note—couched in dry-as-dust terms, wishing her well and advising her to use the money prudently until such time as she had a permanent job. Cressida, who hadn’t laid hands on anything like that sum for some time, skipped all the way home—rather clumsily because her ankle still pained her at times.

No sooner had she entered the house than her stepmother called to her from the drawing-room. ‘Since you’re not going until after lunch you might as well get it ready. I’m far too upset to eat much; I’ll have an omelette and some thin toast and my usual junket. You had better open a bottle of white wine too.’ She picked up the novel she was reading. ‘And don’t bother to say goodbye, you ungrateful girl. I’ll have a tray here.’

Cressida went to the kitchen and found Miss Mogford in the process of getting ready to leave. The baker’s van would be calling shortly and the driver was giving her a lift to Templecombe where her sister had a small cottage. Her old-fashioned trunk and cardboard suitcase were already in the hall and as she sat at the kitchen table, wearing her best coat and a rather terrifying hat, she looked as stern as usual but when Cressida joined her her face crumpled.

‘That it should come to this—you being turned out of your own home…’

‘Well, I’ve turned myself out, haven’t I, Moggy? I hate leaving and so do you but we shall both be a lot happier. After all, it hasn’t been much fun since Father died. Has stepmother paid you your wages?’

Miss Mogford nodded. ‘I had to ask her for them. And what about you, Miss Cressy? Will you be all right? Supposing this old lady is too much of a handful?’

‘Old ladies, on the whole, are rather nice, Moggy, and in any case it’s only for a few weeks then I can pick and choose.’ Cressida spoke bracingly because Moggy sounded worried, but she felt uncertain of the future, although she had every intention of making a success of whatever she ended up doing. Leaving her home was a sadness she hadn’t quite realised, but to stay forever, pandering to her stepmother’s whims, was something no longer to be borne. She had been longing for something to happen and now it had and she would make the very best of it.

‘There’s the baker,’ she said, and bustled her old friend out into the hall. ‘Now you’ve got my address and I’ve got yours, we’ll write regularly and as soon as we can we’ll have a few hours together.’ She put her arms round Moggy’s spare frame and hugged her. ‘I’m going to miss you dreadfully but you’re going to be happy and so am I.’ She planted a kiss on the housekeeper’s cheek. ‘Now off you go. I’ll be leaving in an hour or two…’

Miss Mogford spoke gruffly. ‘If your poor pa could see you now, he’d turn in his grave. This isn’t what he intended.’

‘Well, never mind that, Moggy, we’re both getting a chance, aren’t we? It’s rather exciting…’

She walked Miss Mogford out to the van and found that the driver had stowed the luggage in the back, and was waiting to settle his passenger into the front seat. The last Cressida saw of Moggy was her elderly face rigid with suppressed feelings staring out from under that hat.

In the kitchen, warming the milk for the junket, Cressida shed a few tears. She hadn’t meant to, they had oozed out from under her lids and she had wiped them away at once. She was going to miss Moggy, she was going to miss her home too and those of her friends whom she saw from time to time, but, she told herself firmly, this was something she had wished for and now it had happened and she must make the most of it. She made the junket, then beat the eggs for the omelette and cut herself a sandwich, for there wouldn’t be time for anything more.

Her stepmother was making things as difficult as possible—she wanted fruit and more coffee and a novel she had put down somewhere and simply had to have. Cressida attending to these wants, gobbled her sandwich as she tidied the kitchen just in time to get her elderly tweed coat as a car drew up before the house. Her stepmother’s tray hadn’t been cleared and nothing had been done about dinner that evening; Cressida, feeling guilty, didn’t mind. She went quietly from the old house with her two shabby suitcases and was met on the doorstep by an elderly man with a weatherbeaten face who wished her good day in a friendly voice and stowed her luggage in the boot of the elderly Daimler.

She had gone to the drawing-room on her way out, and, despite Mrs Preece’s wish, had been determined to bid her goodbye.