Midsummer Star

He looked doubtful and her heart sank. ‘Proper rooms?’ he wanted to know, telling Celine what they had paid at their previous night’s hotel.

‘We aren’t a hotel. But the rooms are—are quite proper and our cook is excellent. Perhaps you would like to see a room before you decide?’

Celine led the way upstairs, past the family bedrooms and those with the fourposters and the lovely views, and showed him three rooms in the east wing, all charming, although she very much doubted if he would appreciate them.

‘Old house, isn’t it, love?’ he enquired. ‘Can’t see any washbasins.’

‘It’s Tudor, and we don’t have washbasins, I’m afraid, but there is a bathroom here.’ She opened a door and let him look in.

‘Looks all right,’ he said. ‘OK, we’ll sleep the night. And have a meal—we’re pretty peckish—How long will we have to wait?’

‘Less than an hour. If you like to settle in and then come downstairs…’

‘No chance of a beer, I suppose?’

‘I’ll ask my Father to fetch some up. Lager or ale?’

‘A pint of mild and bitter’ll suit me, Grandpa the same, I daresay—the ladies will want a drop of port, I daresay.’

They went downstairs again and Celine pulled the embroidered bell rope by the front door for Barney—’Some luggage to take up to the east wing, please, Barney’—and he followed her out to the cars. There were several small cases; she hoped they would tip him, she must remember to ask him.

They were a noisy lot and the children, eight or nine years old, were whining that they wanted ices. Sharp slaps from their mother, a high-complexioned young woman in tight jeans, stopped them whining and started them crying instead. Grandpa and Grandma, bringing up the rear, had little to say, only stared around. Celine left them thankfully and shut the doors on them all while she went to find her mother and father.

‘I’ve put them in those rooms in the east wing,’ she explained. ‘They look—well, I wouldn’t like them to damage anything…’

‘Should we use the silver?’ asked Mrs Baylis.

‘If they’re paying what we ask, they’re entitled to the best treatment,’ pronounced the Colonel sternly.

But it was hard to give the best treatment to people who didn’t really mind if they got it or not. They ate a delicious dinner and pronounced it nice enough, but regretted loudly that there were no chips. They also commented upon the dreary paintings on the walls, and long-dead Baylises stared back at them haughtily. They wanted sauce with almost everything they ate and spilt things on the tablecloths. All the same, Celine rather liked them. They would have been much happier at Mrs Ham’s down the lane, for to them, the house was just a tumbledown place, too dark and furnished with out-of-date stuff they didn’t fancy. She made a point of asking them what they would like for breakfast and got up very early to cycle down to the village to get the cornflakes they fancied and the kipper fillets Grandma hankered after.

They ate a huge breakfast, and now that it was a bright morning and the house was alight with sunshine, they were more at ease. ‘Haunted, are you?’ asked Grandpa.

Celine shook her head. ‘No—everyone who’s lived here has been happy, you see.’

‘Pity for a pretty girl like you to be stuck in the country,’ he observed.

Celine smiled at him. ‘Ah, but I’m a country girl,’ she told him.

It took a little time to get them away. Barney, looking every inch the English butler, carried down the luggage, helped stow it and received a tip with dignity. Celine was tipped too; she detected uncertainty in the man’s manner as he pushed it into her hand, so her smile was charming as she thanked him. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said. ‘I hope you all enjoyed your short stay.’

‘Not ‘arf,’ said Grandpa. ‘It’s a sight better than Butlins.’

The two cars disappeared through the gate, and Celine went to the sitting-room where her mother was counting money.

‘My dear!’ she exclaimed, looking quite excited. ‘All that money—and all for nothing, as it were!’

Celine didn’t correct her. There was the little matter of four beds to strip and make up, three rooms to clean and the dining-room to put in order.

‘It’s a good start, darling. Let’s have coffee. Do go and tell Father and I’ll go to the kitchen.’

Barney met her with a grin. ‘Five pounds, Miss Celine—not bad, eh?’

‘Super, Barney. Angela, they gave me five pounds for the cook.’ She handed over her own tip and made her way upstairs.

It was a lovely day. By lunchtime everything was just as it should be once more, and the three of them had their meal on the covered verandah at the side of the house, and afterwards Celine wandered into the garden and sat down under the mulberry tree. She was half asleep where she sat when she heard a car coming up the lane, she was strolling towards the front door when a Rover turned in at the gate.

There were three people in it, but only the driver got out. Celine stood still, her lovely mouth very slightly open, her breath stilled. Here was the man she had always dreamed about, tall, dark, handsome in the best tradition of romance and smiling at her as though she was the answer to his dreams too.

‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘You look like a fairytale princess. We saw your notice at the gate—any chance of putting the three of us up for a few days?’

A few days! She couldn’t believe it: all these years, waiting for him, and here he was. She smiled and looked so breathtakingly beautiful that he blinked.

‘Yes, of course. How many—how many rooms would you need?’

‘One for my parents, one for me. Come and meet them.’ He put a hand on her arm. ‘The name is Seymour—Nicky. What’s yours?’

‘Celine Baylis.’ She stole a glance at him and found him smiling.

‘What a lovely name—it suits you.’

His parents had got out of the car and were looking round them, the man elderly, upright and grey-haired, his wife almost as tall, very slim and well dressed. The best bedrooms, Celine decided as they shook hands.

They were delighted with their rooms and the tea which Celine served in the garden under the trees. She longed to stay and talk to Nicky Seymour, but her mother had asked her to make a special effort with dinner. ‘They might stay a few days if they like the food,’ she said, ‘and they seem such nice people—your father and Mr Seymour seem to have a lot in common.’ She added: ‘I like his wife too, and their son seems a nice young man.’ She sat quietly for a moment, adding up the charges. ‘That’s quite a lot, and they’ve had tea and I heard him asking about wines with their dinner.’ She beamed at Celine. ‘I put a bowl of anemones in their room.’

Celine bent and kissed her mother’s still pretty cheek. ‘You’re a wizard with flowers,’ she told her, and sped to the kitchen where she and Angela between them conjured up homemade soup, trout with almonds, lamb cutlets with spinach from the garden and a rhubarb crumble with cream. It was after they had eaten these that Mr Seymour declared himself willing to remain for at least three days, especially as the Colonel had offered him a rod on the stretch of river running through his fields.

‘And I shall just sit,’ declared his wife. As for Nicky, he said nothing, but he had smiled at Celine in a way to make her heart beat very fast indeed.

The next two days passed delightfully. Mrs Baylis was happy, doing little sums on the backs of envelopes, the Colonel was happy because he had congenial guests who appreciated the wines he had to offer them, Mr and Mrs Seymour were content to relax and Celine and Nicky spent a good deal of time together; every moment that she could spare, in fact. The mornings were busy enough, what with beds to make and rooms to tidy, but lunch was cold and salads took no time to make, so that after she had served their meal, cleared away and had hers with her mother and father, there was a good deal of the afternoon left. Her one secret dread had been that other people might arrive and want rooms too, but this didn’t happen, so she was free to stroll in the gardens or walk down to the village with Nicky, who proved to be a delightful companion and a very attentive one; the world had suddenly become a splendid place in which to live and the future full of vague but delightful promise.

It was on the third day, as they strolled back from a walk beside the stream, that Nicky caught her by the arm and turned her round to face him.

‘I can’t believe my luck,’ he told her, ‘finding you here. I didn’t know there were girls like you left in the world. We shall be going in a day or two, we’ve a family to visit in Wales, but when we get home, you’re coming to stay with me.’

Celine was too honest to pretend that she wasn’t delighted. ‘Oh, Nicky, that would be super! Don’t you work, though? What do you do?’

He kissed her before he answered. ‘Oh, I’m learning to step into Father’s shoes, I suppose.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Working in London is boring, but of course we spend a good deal of time in Berkshire.’ He smiled at her. ‘London will be fun if you’re there—we’ll dine and dance and go to a few shows…’

She drew a little way away from him. ‘It sounds heavenly, but I couldn’t possibly come until the autumn—we might be very busy until then.’

He said carelessly: ‘Can’t you leave that to someone else? Hire someone from the village?’

‘No. I started it, you see, so I must see it through, but no one comes this way once the summer’s over.’

He shrugged impatiently. ‘Oh, well, we’ll have to see, won’t we?’ He sounded so offhand that she had a mind to say that she would go to London just whenever he wanted her to, indeed her mouth was open to utter the words when she heard her mother calling her, and something urgent in the sound of it sent her flying up to the house.

They were all in the hall; Colonel and Mrs Baylis, Barney, Angela, Mrs Seymour and Mr Seymour, who was lying on the floor unconscious.