Chapter Twenty-Four
Watching shoppers hurry past in the bright spring sunshine, Selina finished her toasted scone and pushed aside her now empty cup of tea.
Her glance flicked back to the large wall clock.
There was a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she couldn’t delay things any longer.
‘We’d better pay the bill and leave,’ she told William, who was sitting opposite, regarding her with an indulgent smile.
‘And you can stop looking like that. I’m not being silly.
It’s perfectly possible that I’ll fail my driving test, and where shall I be then? ’
‘Grounded,’ William said bluntly, but shook his head.
‘It’s not going to happen. You’ve had plenty of practice and you’re a wonderfully confident driver.
All you need do is answer the questions put to you, and show the examiner what you can do on the road.
In fact, the only way you could possibly fail your test would be through nerves.
’ He touched her hand. ‘So don’t be nervous. ’
‘Easy for you to say,’ she retorted. ‘You don’t even need to take a test.’
‘Have to undergo the rigour of a proper examination. Yes, I know how unlucky I am, trust me.’ Selina opened her purse, but he shook his head, taking out his wallet and summoning the waitress. ‘You’re not paying again, are you, William? It’s really too bad.’
‘Estate business,’ he insisted.
She laughed. ‘How can having tea and cake with me before my driving test be considered estate business?’
‘You need a full driving licence,’ he said carefully, as though making an argument in court, ‘in order to take proper care of your nieces and nephew, and I am here solely to support you in that worthy endeavour. Thus far, we are speaking of estate business, and no fair-minded person could suggest otherwise.’
‘Oh, very well. When you put it like that …’ Pulling on her driving gloves, Selina realised that her hands were trembling, and caught his ironic look.
‘Honestly, I’ll be fine once I’m behind the wheel,’ she snapped.
‘It’s the questions on the Highway Code that worry me.
I read that damn booklet from cover to cover last night, and yet this morning I swear I could barely remember a thing. ’
‘Pure nerves.’ Steering her out of the tea rooms on Fore Street, William walked up the hill with her towards the test station. ‘The information will come back to you when you need it,’ he said reassuringly.
She hoped he was right. But the sunshine was lifting her spirits, at least. It was a gorgeous spring day, the sort of bright dancing weather that made Selina doubt whether it had ever snowed at all.
Yet it was only a fortnight since the last grey vestiges of winter had finally melted away, leaving a fresh spring landscape bathed in sunshine, spring flowers everywhere and lambs in the field.
She was grimly thankful she had not been required to take her driving test during the snow.
Even on a sunny day like this, though, she would need to focus hard on not making foolish mistakes during the examination.
She had been known, after all, to take the odd corner rather too fast, and once had nearly struck an oncoming vehicle in her attempt to avoid a wavering old lady on a bicycle.
Thankfully, she’d been alone in the car that day, so nobody had seen the incident, except the other driver, who had shaken his fist furiously.
She had told William about it, who had laughed, shrugging it off as unimportant.
But she knew the examiner would not be so relaxed.
The examiner, a wiry gentleman in a grey suit and trilby hat, was waiting at the top of the hill where she’d left her car parked, ready for her test.
‘There he is,’ she muttered, blenching.
‘Selina, I want you to listen to me.’ When she turned, William gave her a mock-stern look.
‘You’re going to pass your test with flying colours, I promise.
So chin up and keep smiling, yes? Just don’t knock any more old ladies on bicycles into the gutter,’ he added with a wink.
‘Examiners tend to draw the line at attempted murder, I believe.’
She laughed reluctantly and left him.
The examiner shook hands with her, looking her up and down from under the brim of his hat.
He walked around her car, checked the L plate was in the correct position, and then demanded to see her provisional licence and insurance certificate.
Once she had produced these and they had been checked, he asked whether she could read a sign on the wall opposite, which she did without hesitation.
‘Well, Miss Tiptree,’ the examiner said in a kindly manner, opening the driver’s side door for her, ‘your papers are in order and your eyesight is excellent, so let’s get on with the test. You said you’ve been driving without supervision for about six months now, so this should be a formality. But let’s see, shall we?’
The next hour passed in a terrifying blur.
First, the examiner asked a series of taxing questions on the Highway Code, and also asked her to demonstrate various hand signals out of the window for him, including the correct procedure for indicating a right-hand turn.
She was relieved when the examination on theory came to an end and he finally asked her to start the engine.
There were a few hairy moments driving about Bodmin’s busy town centre, with pedestrians seeming to leap into the road at every turn, but she felt that she acquitted herself adequately.
When he asked her to drive out into the surrounding countryside, she stopped in good time to avoid a stray dog, and remembered not to drive at her usual breakneck pace.
To her secret pleasure, there was no backsliding or slipping of the clutch on the dreaded hill start, and her reversing proved acceptable too, despite her taking two tries to get the angle right.
The emergency stop had been a little shaky, she had to admit.
But after giving her a dreary lecture on not hogging the middle of the road and making sure she took blind corners more cautiously, the examiner at last filled out a Certificate of Competence to Drive with her name and address on it, and handed it over with a smile. She had passed her test!
‘Drive safely now, Miss,’ he told her in an avuncular fashion, and touched the brim of his hat as he got out of the car. ‘It was nice meeting you. Good luck.’
She left the car where it was and hurried down to tell William, who was waiting for her outside the butcher’s shop, reading a newspaper. As she came skipping towards him, he looked up with a smile. ‘There, I told you, didn’t I? There was nothing to be worried about.’
Selina stared at him in wonder. She had not even shown him the certificate yet. ‘But … how did you know I’d passed?’
‘My dear, nobody who’d just failed their driving test would be smiling like that.
’ He bent his head to kiss her on the lips.
It was the merest peck, as they were in public and not even courting, but it was enough to make Selina catch her breath.
He hesitated, frowning as he straightened.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. It was damned impertinent of me and I apologise.
But I couldn’t help it … You just looked so adorable. ’
Laughter bubbled out of her throat at this admission, causing several sombre-faced passers-by to turn and stare at her. ‘Oh, William!’ she choked, a hand to her mouth.
His brows rose. ‘What on earth have I done to amuse you now?’
But Selina couldn’t find the right words, so only shook her head, smiling at him shyly.
‘Let me go and park the car somewhere less awkward, then we’ll meet for lunch, shall we?
Nancy should be fine looking after the children a little while longer and I feel like celebrating.
’ She halted, biting her lip. ‘Unless you need to get back to work, that is.’ William was always so ready to spend time with her, often at a moment’s notice, that she sometimes struggled to remember that he was a busy and important man, with better things to do than go gallivanting about the town with a young woman like her all day.
‘I do need to work, but I shall stay late instead.’ William tucked the newspaper under his arm. ‘I’ll call into the office briefly, and meet you in half an hour at our usual nosebag. How’s that?’
‘Perfect.’
Having parked the car in a quiet side street, Selina bought some pretty spring flowers from a street seller and hurried to the church on the corner, wandering through the graveyard until she came to Helen Bourne’s final resting place, adorned now with a handsome marble headstone.
She lay the flowers on Helen’s grave and stood back, not sure what impulse had driven her to visit the graveyard today, and lost for words now she was there.
The headstone had not been ready in time for her funeral.
Selina studied it now, remembering that dismal day, the mourners standing in thick snow, everyone shivering in the chill air, snowflakes whirling about.
Helen had been her nearest neighbour, and she had felt it important to pay her last respects but had left the children at home, not wanting to upset them with another funeral so soon after their own dear mother’s.
To her surprise, only a handful of townsfolk had shown up, mostly close acquaintances of the Bournes, but she had put that down to the bad weather.
William had been there too, of course, along with Cameron and his new bride.
After her name and dates came the carved inscription, Missed by her loving brother, Cameron Bourne.