The Engagement Effect: An Ordinary GirlA Perfect Proposal Read online

  Sybil said angrily, ‘That’s the second time this week…’

  Philly edged away. The woman who had been with Sybil had already turned her back to talk to someone else, but the Professor’s hand was suddenly on her arm.

  ‘You’re not on your own?’

  ‘No. With a friend.’

  ‘You’re staying in London?’

  ‘Yes.’ Philly was very conscious of the hand, so she smiled at Sybil. ‘It was nice meeting you again. I must find my friend. Goodbye.’

  She looked at the Professor and then wished him goodbye, too, in a stiff little voice, and met his eyes for a brief moment. He dropped his hand from her arm and she slipped away to lose herself in the crowd.

  When she found Susan she was forced to explain who the tall good-looking man was. ‘I saw him talking to you, but I didn’t dare interrupt. Who is he? Someone important? And there was a girl with you, too. She looked cross.’

  So Philly explained sufficiently to satisfy Susan’s curiosity.

  ‘A pity—I thought just for a moment that he was keen on you, Philly.’

  She laughed, and Philly laughed with her, and wished that she was back home where she would be able to forget Professor Forsyth and the way he had looked at her.

  Wishful thinking, reflected Philly, never did anyone any good.

  When they left the museum a few minutes later the Professor was at the door, talking to the porter, and what was more natural than that he should speak to Philly?

  ‘Are you staying long in London?’ he asked her and looked at Susan.

  ‘Just for a week or two, to keep Susan company. Susan, this is Professor Forsyth. Susan Lovell—Professor Forsyth.’

  They shook hands and Susan, as she would tell her mother later, had the instant and urgent feeling that Philly and this professor wanted to be alone. A girl of impulses, she didn’t hesitate.

  ‘Philly, I’ve just remembered. I promised Granny that if I saw Lady Savill here I would ask her about the bridge party. And she is here. I must go back and talk to her, and she’ll be so long-winded she might even invite me to lunch. You go on back and tell Granny, will you? Get a ninety-three bus.’

  She had gone before Philly could speak.

  ‘I’m going the same way as the ninety-three bus,’ said the Professor, deceptively casual. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’

  ‘Really? You wouldn’t mind? I’m not quite sure about the buses. Susan lives in Fulham—if you’re going that way?’

  He assured her that he was and led the way to the car. Fulham wasn’t all that distance, but the lunch hour traffic was building up and he had no intention of taking the quickest route. Philly was constantly in his thoughts and now she was here with him, sitting beside him, answering his carefully casual questions with all the openness of a child.

  London, she told him, was very interesting, and parts of it were really very pleasant. ‘But some of the side streets look very depressing. Rows and rows of little brick houses with no gardens. I do hope that the people who live in them go for holidays to the sea or to the country…’

  ‘I think a good many of them do.’ The Professor turned down a side street which would lengthen their drive considerably. ‘But you would be surprised to know how many of them dislike the country, even for a holiday—country such as Nether Ditchling, with no shops or cinemas or amusement arcades. You see, they don’t need to walk for miles to get eggs; everything is on the doorstep or at the supermarket.’ He glanced at her. ‘Mrs Salter’s shop is hardly a fair exchange to them.’

  ‘Well, yes, I dare say Nether Ditchling is a bit dull…’

  ‘But you wouldn’t wish to leave it?’

  ‘I’m very happy there.’ She didn’t say more, thinking wistfully that she would leave the village and go to the ends of the earth if he asked her to.

  They were nearing their journey’s end.

  ‘Do you know where we are?’

  ‘Yes. It’s the second road on the left and then the first road on the right,’ said Philly. She added, ‘It was lovely to see you again. I didn’t think we would—I mean, you living here and being important and me living at home.’

  As he drew up before the house which she had pointed out she asked, ‘When are you getting married?’ She had her hand on the door and he got out to open it for her. On the pavement she added, looking up at his calm face, ‘You mustn’t marry her; she’ll make you very unhappy.’

  The street door had been opened by the severe maid and Philly skipped up the steps and into the house, so appalled at what she had said that she forgot to say goodbye or thank you.

  She avoided the maid’s astonished stare and ran upstairs to her room. Her tongue had run away with her with a vengeance, and the faint hope that the Professor might not have heard her wasn’t worth a second thought. Would it be best to write and apologise? Or ignore the whole regrettable happening? She stared at her face in the mirror and wished that she was at home; that today was still yesterday, that she had never gone to the museum…

  She went downstairs to join Susan’s granny in the sitting room and give an account of her morning. She explained why Susan had gone back to talk to Lady Savill, and then listened politely to the old lady’s long-winded account of her friendship with her.

  Philly, listening with half an ear, was startled when she was suddenly asked sharply why she wasn’t married or at least engaged.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘No one has ever asked me…’

  ‘You have never met a man whom you wish to marry?’

  Philly went a bright pink. Incurably honest, she said, ‘Oh, yes, but he doesn’t know.’

  ‘There are ways of letting a man know,’ said Granny Lovell, ‘and you’re no fool.’

  ‘That isn’t possible. There are circumstances…’

  ‘In that case you must hope that fate will intervene, as she so often does.’ Granny Lovell heaved herself up against her cushions. ‘Pour me another glass of sherry, child.’

  Philly, reflecting that elderly grannies should never be written off as dim old ladies, filled her glass obediently.

  Susan came back then, with messages from Lady Savill.

  ‘Did you get a bus? You knew where to get off?’

  ‘Well, Professor Forsyth said he was coming this way so he gave me a lift.’

  ‘I thought perhaps he would. He looked nice. Known him long, Philly?’

  ‘And who is this professor?’ asked Granny, and fixed Philly with a beady eye not to be ignored.

  ‘Well,’ began Philly, ‘he’s not really a friend, only someone I met by accident, and then again when we had that snow.’ She added soberly, ‘He’s engaged to a very beautiful girl. Susan, you saw her at the museum. You said she looked cross.’

  ‘And so she did! Do you know her, Philly?’

  ‘We’ve met several times, but only because we were both in the same place at the same time, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t look your sort,’ said Susan. ‘Granny, if you’ve finished your sherry may we have lunch? I’m simply starving.’

  Going to bed that night, Philly wondered if the Professor would come to the house now that he knew where she was staying. There was no reason why he should—indeed, he had probably forgotten where she was staying by now, and he had evinced no wish to see her again. Remembering the way they had parted, she conceded that it was highly unlikely that the idea would even cross his mind.

  I am behaving like an idiot, Philly told herself, and anyway I don’t want to see him ever again after what I said. Half-asleep, she muttered, ‘I’m bewitched. The sooner I go home the better.’

  The Professor was still smiling as he let himself into his flat, and Jolly, coming to meet him in the hall, said, ‘Come up on the pools, have you? Haven’t seen you look so pleased with yourself for a month of Sundays, sir.’

  The Professor tossed his bag on a chair and picked up his post from the console table. ‘The pools, Jolly? No, no—I have discovered nirvana, g
limpsed a future.’

  He went to his study and shut the door and Jolly went back to his kitchen.

  ‘And what’s got into him?’ he asked Tabby, his cat. ‘It certainly isn’t that Miss West. He’s never smiled like that for her…’

  The following week the Lovells came back and Philly was driven home, clasping a tee shirt emblazoned with American slogans which she didn’t think would go down well in Nether Ditchling, her ears ringing with the Lovells’ thanks. Granny had bidden her goodbye in her tart manner, with the hope that she had taken advantage of her visit, which had made her feel that she was the one who should be thanking them. London had been interesting, she admitted, but the only reason she would wish to return there was because Professor Forsyth lived and worked there. But that was a thought she kept to herself.

  It was lovely to be home again. She gave the tee shirt to Lucy, who had been looking after the hens for her, and then handed round the small presents she had bought and gave a detailed account of the pleasures she had had, the places she had been to and the shops she had visited.

  ‘But everyone’s in a hurry,’ she explained. ‘Going somewhere or coming back from somewhere…’

  ‘So you wouldn’t want to live there?’ observed her father.

  ‘Only if I had a very good reason, Father. I am very happy to be home again.’

  Something in her voice made her mother look at her sharply. Perhaps she had met someone—a man—while she was in London. But Philly was a grown woman, not a young daughter to be questioned…

  The Professor, meanwhile, was in his study working. But after half an hour or so of writing, he sat back in his chair and allowed his thoughts free rein. He allowed his thoughts to dwell pleasurably on Philly until they were interrupted by the phone. It was Sybil…

  A friend of hers had told her with concealed spite that James had been seen talking alone with that funny little creature who had been at the museum. What was more, the friend had added, he had put her in his car and driven off—‘They seemed to know each other very well…’

  ‘Someone we both know,’ Sybil had said sweetly. ‘A girl we met earlier this year. We’re both rather sorry for her. She lives in the country—a very dull life…’

  ‘When you spoke to her in the museum you didn’t sound sorry for her,’ the friend had pointed out. She’d laughed. ‘You’d better watch your back, darling.’

  Sybil had laughed too, then, but when she had gone home she’d sat down to think.

  Perhaps she was a bit too sure of James. Perhaps she had been away too much, not wanting to spend her time with him at that boring cottage. This girl might be a real danger. Sybil was shrewd enough to know that James might want something more than a glamorous companion on an evening out, and the girl was bright enough to see that. ‘The stupid creature,’ Sybil had hissed aloud.

  But Sybil had a good deal of charm when she wished to use it, and said now, ‘Darling, am I interrupting you at work? Only I wanted to tell you how glad I was that you gave Philly that lift last week. It was such a surprise to see her at the exhibition, and she wasn’t a bit happy about being there. I quite forgot to ask her where she was staying—I thought I might take her out to lunch, somewhere rather chic. I don’t suppose she gets out much when she’s home. Have you her address?’

  ‘Somewhere in Fulham. I didn’t notice the street or the house. But she will be back home by now.’

  Sybil was too clever to press the point. James sounded as calm and composed as he always did, but that wasn’t to say that he wasn’t intending to see Philly. She said sweetly, ‘What a pity. I hope she had a good time; her friend looked rather nice. I won’t keep you, darling, but I hope I’ll see you at the Mastertons’ dinner party. Don’t work too hard!’

  Sybil put down the phone and sat down to think once more. She had every intention of marrying James, but in her own good time. In the meantime, though, she must make sure that his eye didn’t wander.

  She had a great belief in her ability to charm him; she was lovely to look at, dressed beautifully, and hid a keen intelligence beneath effortless conversation and the ability to be amusing. She was also greedy and selfish, quick-tempered, and quite uncaring about anyone or anything which didn’t concern her personally, and, knowing this, she was careful to conceal the true side of her nature. Just once or twice she had allowed it to show and she knew that James had seen it.

  Philly must be made to be out of reach, but how? It seemed that she had no boyfriends, no prospect of marrying anyone at Nether Ditchling. A boyfriend must be found—better still a man who professed himself to be serious about her. She knew James well enough to know that he would accept that, whatever his own feelings were.

  There must be someone who would play the part of devoted admirer. Someone who enjoyed a joke at someone else’s expense and wasn’t too scrupulous about hurting feelings…

  And there was. Her cousin, a young tearaway with too much money and too much time on his hands. She had had a phone call from him recently, deploring his dull life while he recovered from a skiing accident. He was, she judged, ripe for some amusement…

  Wasting no time, she drove herself down to the country house in Norfolk where he was staying with his parents until he was fit enough to return to his London flat.

  Her aunt and uncle, who didn’t like her particularly, nevertheless welcomed her as someone who would relieve Gregory’s boredom, and she had ample opportunity to spend hours with him as he limped around the gardens, grumbling, ripe for any mischief offered to him.

  It would be a joke, she told him. No one would get hurt—not that either of them cared about that.

  ‘James is getting impatient to marry,’ she told him, ‘and I don’t want to tie myself down yet. James has everything, you know that, but we don’t see eye to eye about some things. I’m still working on him, and while I’m doing that I can’t have him being distracted by another woman. This girl’s a walk-over, a real country miss—keeps hens and teaches Sunday School, full of good deeds. One look at you limping into the village and she’s yours.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Philomena, believe it or not! Everyone calls her Philly. She’s quite plain and wears the most awful clothes.’

  ‘You don’t suppose James has fallen for her?’

  ‘Not for one moment. She just happened to turn up at the right moment, though. Do say that you’ll help me out, Gregory. Besides, it will keep you amused while you get fit again.’

  ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘A bit of fun to keep you amused, as I said, and I’ll wangle an invitation to the Strangeways’, on their yacht. Everyone would give their eye teeth to get asked…’

  She looked sideways at him; he was a good-looking young man, and could be charming when he had his own way. And he was quite as heartless and as selfish as she was. Absolutely ideal for her plan.

  ‘It’s on,’ said Gregory. ‘When do I start?’

  ‘You know the people at Netherby, don’t you? You couldn’t go to the wedding because of your accident, but you’re well enough acquainted with them for me to drive you down there. There should be a chance of getting a weekend invitation. Nether Ditchling is only a few miles away. You could run out of petrol, or some such thing, and contrive to get yourself into the Vicarage.’

  The Professor was going to Birmingham, to the children’s hospital there, in a week’s time. There was ample time before that to drive to Netherby with Gregory.

  It all went splendidly. The newly-weds weren’t back from honeymoon and everyone was feeling a bit flat; new faces were welcome and Gregory could be charming and amusing. They were glad of a diversion, and he was invited to stay for a week or so.

  Sybil drove him back to London, delighted with the success of her plan.

  ‘I can’t stay for more than a week or ten days,’ observed Gregory. ‘I mean, I know the family slightly, but not enough to outstay my welcome.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to put up at a pub somewhere
close.’

  When he demurred, she said slyly, ‘I met Joyce Strangeway a day or two ago—you’ll get your invitation…’ She went on, ignoring his pleased grin, ‘There’s a good pub at Wisbury; that’s only about three miles from Nether Ditchling. It’s only for a few weeks,’ she added coaxingly, ‘Just long enough for James to be told about it. I’ll do that, and get him to drive me down to Nether Ditchling. You can be there, being very possessive about Philly.’

  ‘Supposing she doesn’t like me?’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Gregory. You can make anyone like you if you choose.’

  The Professor, dining with Sybil on the evening before he went to Birmingham, found her in a charming mood, ready to amuse him, prepared to listen to his infrequent references to his work, talking with smiling vagueness about their future.

  In this compliant mood, he reflected, perhaps they could talk seriously, discover if their feelings for each other were deep enough, and perhaps agree mutually to free each other from an engagement which had gone on too long and become meaningless.

  But Sybil, wary of such talk, gave him no chance to start a serious conversation. When at length he said, ‘Sybil, I think we should have a talk,’ she pretended not to hear, but waved to friends at a nearby table and suggested that they should join them for coffee.

  The Professor, whose good manners prevented him from not welcoming her friends, resolved to go and see Sybil when he got back from Birmingham.

  The following day Sybil drove Gregory down to Netherby House, spent a few hours there, and then drove back to town. There was nothing more she could do until James came back; her plan depended on Gregory now.

  Gregory was the perfect guest when he exerted himself. On the third day of his visit he proposed talking himself off for the day—‘So that you won’t get too tired of me around the house,’ he told his hostess.

  When she protested about his lame leg he told her that he could drive quite easily in his small sports car, and besides, there was almost no traffic.