“Where’s the Major, Bates?” Mona asked him.
“He’s in the library, My Lady, at least, he was when I last saw him.”
“I’ll go through,” Mona said. “Don’t bother to announce me, the Major’s expecting me.”
She walked along the wide passages hung with valuable paintings, through the big high-ceilinged sitting room, which had once been the baronial hall but which Michael preferred to use as an ordinary living room of the house, and beyond it to the library – a small book-lined room where he did all his work and which was his own particular sanctum.
Mona opened the door and as she did so heard voices and was surprised to learn that Michael was not alone. He was usually on the doorstep to welcome her if he knew she was coming, but this afternoon he seemed to be engaged with someone else.
Mona had an impression of large, rather lovely eyes turned towards her, of fair, almost flaxen hair, braided round a well-shaped head, and then Michael had risen from his desk and was walking towards her.
“Hello, Mona,” he said. “I’m afraid we’ve been rather busy or I’d have come to meet you. I don’t think you’ve met Stella Fairlace. Miss Fairlace – Lady Carsdale. Stella’s in charge of the home farm since Gallup was called up.”
‘A land girl!’ Mona thought, and recognised the armlet worn against the emerald-green jumper.
“How’d you do?” she said, holding out her hand. “I do hope you aren’t finding Major Merrill too hard a taskmaster.”
“Indeed I’m not,” Stella Fairlace replied.
Mona noticed that her voice was low, rather hesitating and shy.
‘She’s pretty,’ she thought swiftly, ‘very pretty – a Juno in uniform.’
“There’s no question of driving my land girls,” Michael said with a smile. “They’re too efficient to need any interference from me. In fact, I don’t mind telling you that I’m beginning to suspect Gallup and many of my other male employees have been very lazy these past years.”
“There’s certainly a lot to be done and perhaps I’d better be getting back to it,” Stella Fairlace said. “Thank you, Major Merrill.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, Stella,” Michael said and walked with her as far as the door. “Can you find your own way out?”
“I ought to be able to by now,” Stella replied, “even if it is the largest house I’ve ever been in.”
She gave him a small, shy smile, then looked at Mona.
“Goodbye, Lady Carsdale.”
“Goodbye,” Mona replied.
She walked across to the fire, seated herself on the high brass and leather seat which surrounded the hearth. As Michael closed the door she pointed an accusing finger at him.
“Michael,” she said, “you’ve been very secretive. How have you managed to keep anything as pretty as that hidden for so long?”
Michael laughed.
“Is this the first time you’ve seen Stella? She is pretty, isn’t she? She’s living here.”
“My goodness! And do you mean to say there’s no scandal about it?”
“It would be difficult to make one. She’s in the housekeeper’s quarters and you know what Mrs. Meakers is like. I’ve always thought she was one of the original Grundy family.”
“Is the fair Stella your only lodger? Or have you a whole harem of them?”
“There are four others here, and six billeted in the village.”
“Well, I’m most intrigued. Tell me about your lovely Stella. Who is she and where does she come from?”
“I really know very little about her. She’s a very quiet girl and ‘keeps herself to herself’ as the saying is. I gather that her father was a lawyer in Devonshire, so she’s led a very quiet life up till now, but when the war came she volunteered to be a land girl. She had the sense to set about it in the right way, go through an agricultural college and pass the examinations and the result is that she’s really well-qualified and what’s more, intelligent.”
“A paragon, in fact,” Mona said.
She wondered to herself if her voice sounded sour. She half resented the fact that Michael was so enthusiastic about anyone. She herself was used to holding the limelight where he was concerned, at least she thought she had managed to do it very effectively these last weeks. But he was a continual surprise to her.
He had altered, there was no doubt about that, and she found herself watching him for new characteristics, new twists of personality that she would not have thought for one moment that he was likely to possess.
He had a subtlety, too, that she would never have suspected in him. The night she had asked him to give her and the Howletts dinner in Bedford, for instance, he had grasped exactly what was expected of him and without being ostentatious he had managed to enthuse the right atmosphere into the party from the very moment they had all met.
He had ordered a very good dinner and plenty of drink. He said all the right things to Dorothy Howlett, who was feeling a little nervous in her borrowed plumes, a dress of Mona’s and a fur cape, which she swore made her feel too opulent to be comfortable. Nevertheless, she seemed to have lost ten years in the process of dressing up for the evening and going out for a few hours’ enjoyment. The children were forgotten and the cares and troubles of the W.V.S. and the village billeting were left behind.
It was a young, excited Dorothy who sat beside her husband and squeezed his hand tightly, who wept at the sentimental parts of the picture, and who agreed without prevarication to going back to the hotel when the film ended for yet another drink and chat before they all went home to bed.
Mona had been grateful to Michael that evening. She would have hated it if he had devoted himself entirely to her and ignored or behaved with ordinary casual politeness to Dorothy, whom he saw practically every day of his life. But he had understood what was required of him, had played up magnificently, and the result was an evening that exceeded everybody’s anticipations.
Even the doctor, driving his glowing, if sleepy, wife home in his car had been taken out of himself. Halfway to Little Cobble he had stopped the engine and putting his arms round Dorothy had kissed her affectionately.
“I’m not good enough for you, Dot,” he had whispered, “but you know I’m fond of you, don’t you?”
She had looked up at his face in the dim light.
“Need you ask that?” she replied.
