Chapter Twenty-Eight
CHAPTER
TWENTY - EIGHT
Felicity would never have thought she could possibly look forward to going back to her secretarial course, but the previous week had dragged so, in spite of trying to keep herself busy.
She had been shopping with her mother, to the cinema with Violet, who also seemed edgy, and had taken two walks by the river. Somehow her feet always led her there, although she really didn’t want to stare into the water or, more poignantly, the bit of foreshore between the water and the wall where she and Oliver had gone mudlarking.
But although her course was a distraction, it was also a reminder of how much Felicity disliked shorthand and typing. She was more friendly with the other girls now but hadn’t become close to anyone. And the lessons filled her with a horrible mixture of boredom and anxiety. Their tutor for much of the time had an iron-hard perm and the grim expression of someone who’d done something secret in the war. Felicity had never seen her smile, and to add to the general dreadfulness, this daunting woman felt it was a good idea to start the new term with a shorthand test, followed by a typing test in the afternoon. If she hadn’t spent a lot of long and dreary afternoons at home, Felicity might well have not gone back to college after lunch.
With the days being so short, it was nearly dark by the time she set off for home after the first day back at college. But when she saw a figure sitting by the front door she instantly knew it was Oliver. She recognised his shape, his dark, long hair, the set of his shoulders, even though she saw him from quite a long way off. She was glad she had a few minutes to get her heart in order.
‘Your mother is out,’ he said, without greeting her.
‘Obviously,’ said Felicity. She was pleased to hear herself sound calm.
‘Can I come in? I really want to talk to you.’
She swallowed and nodded. As she unlocked the door and let him through, she wondered who owed whom the greater apology. She decided it was she who had been wronged, so he could go first.
‘I’ll put on some tea,’ she said and went into the little kitchen. ‘Make yourself comfortable in the drawing room.’
She didn’t want a confrontation in a small space. He would be too near her, and however much he had broken her heart, she still wanted to fling herself into his arms.
He was standing by the window and hastened to take the tray from her when she came back. He had put on the table lamps but the room was mostly in shadow. This suited Felicity.
Without asking, he poured the tea. He knew Felicity liked it weak without milk. ‘Thank you,’ she said and put the cup and saucer down.
‘I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said in Scotland,’ said Oliver. ‘How unwelcome you felt. How you felt you were only there because your mother was. It wasn’t true. I wanted you there so badly.’
‘Did you?’ She didn’t comment about his female relations and how they felt about her being there; it would have been childish.
‘You may have been wondering where I’ve been since I left …?’
It was so unusual to see Oliver diffident, Felicity thought. He was always so in control of every situation he found himself in. But not now it seemed.
‘I don’t know when you left,’ said Felicity.
‘I’ve been with an old friend—’
Her cool veneer cracked a little. ‘I know how much you care about your old friends, Oliver.’
‘It was a man!’ he protested. ‘I told you about him. I used to take all my mudlarking finds to him to identify. Now it’s just things I don’t know.’
‘Have you been mudlarking since Christmas, then?’ To think of him being so close to her while she was so miserable and him not even knocking on her door was another twist of the knife in her heart.
‘No! I haven’t. I was with Roderick. He’s not well. He wanted some help with some things. I telephoned him from Scotland, to see how he was, and found he was in a really bad way. I left immediately.’
‘So your departure wasn’t anything to do with mine, then?’
Oliver sighed. ‘I’m doing this so badly. I was distraught when you left, Felicity! I didn’t know what to do with myself. There wasn’t another train until the following day. It was partly why I rang Rod. I wanted to speak to someone who wasn’t ready to tear me limb from limb.’
In spite of everything, this made Felicity laugh just a little. ‘It wasn’t just me, then?’
Oliver shook his head. ‘Nope! There was quite a long queue actually. I’d put up with being torn limb from limb by you. But not the others. I took the first train back to London the next day. But I told people I was going which made everything worse.’
‘It’s why I left a note for my mother,’ said Felicity. ‘I couldn’t face the row.’
‘I wish you’d told me, though,’ said Oliver gently. ‘I could have explained what happened.’
‘I don’t think so, Oliver. I saw you kissing Imogen.’
‘It wasn’t what it looked like.’
‘Really?’ asked Felicity softly. ‘I know I’m half French and only twenty but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.’
‘I am so, so sorry. Please let me make it up to you!’ He put his hand on her wrist and looked stricken. ‘Please!’ He paused. ‘Let me take you mudlarking again.’
Felicity knew she mustn’t rush into forgiving him, however much she wanted to. She had to maintain her dignity, make him realise that she deserved respect.
Eventually she said, ‘OK.’
Oliver exhaled. ‘I can’t give you a date. I have work I need to do first.’
‘OK,’ she said again. But would he really arrange anything? she wondered.
He got up. ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I know when we can do this.’ He took hold of her hands and squeezed them but didn’t attempt to kiss her. Felicity didn’t know if she was relieved or desperately disappointed. She definitely knew she wanted to cry.
Although she didn’t have a date for when she’d see Oliver again, Felicity felt she had to tell her mother that she planned to. There could be an awful row and she wanted to get it over with. She did it the moment her mother returned home after Oliver had left and had a drink in her hand, put there by Felicity.
Lucinda was surprisingly understanding. ‘I don’t blame you, darling. Men have no resistance to temptation and that girl was throwing herself at him. It would be a shame to end a relationship for one little slip.’
‘Oh.’ For a second, Felicity wished she’d talked to her mother more about the scene she had come upon when Oliver had been kissing Imogen. It hadn’t felt like ‘a little slip’ to her.
Completely oblivious to Felicity’s reaction, Lucinda sipped her drink. ‘Delicious! I must say, darling, you mix an extremely good gin and ver.’
Felicity nodded, waiting for her mother to go on.
‘Oliver is a very good-looking young man. He may have no money but he’s extremely attractive. What we used to call “a dish”.’
‘We still call people that now,’ said Felicity.
‘Oh? Well, if you’re going out with a dish you must be prepared for other women to be attracted to him. And at moments of weakness, he will succumb to their charms. It’s like expecting a dog to ignore a plate of meat he knows he shouldn’t eat. It happens, but very rarely.’
‘So that girl was a plate of meat, was she?’
Lucinda shrugged. ‘I admit it’s not a very flattering way to describe her but if she’s willing to …’ She hesitated, ‘… go all the way – which I do trust you are not, Felicity?’
If the fear of pregnancy, lack of opportunity and, frankly, the fact that Oliver hadn’t asked her hadn’t stopped her, Felicity knew she might well have slept with Oliver. She wanted to, very much. But she hadn’t and wasn’t intending to rush into anything. ‘No,’ she said, not entirely sure she was telling the truth.
‘I need to keep you safe, darling. Imagine the fuss your father would make if I sent you home pregnant!’
Because her mother was smiling, Felicity smiled too. Her mother had obviously made a joke. It didn’t happen often.