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He was back to being sarcastic again. Gerry thought better than to remind him that she had told him first thing this morning that in future she would be in the office on the stroke of nine, since she wasn’t at all certain she would be able to keep it up if he stayed in Layton for any length of time.

‘I have a lot of typing to get through this afternoon,’ she told him coldly.

'And you have no intention of working after five? He must be one hell of a fellow to have you dashing home every evening to get ready to meet him.'

Gerry looked away from him and concentrated on unfastening the keys she had locked together, wiping her fingers on a tissue afterwards in case any of the typing ink had adhered to them and smudged onto any of the papers.

‘Where do you live, by the way?'

She wished he would go and leave her to get on with her work, but realised he could find out from staff records if he was that interested. ‘Little Layton,’ she told him, adding, though he probably knew anyway, ‘It’s a small village five miles outside of town.’

‘You live with your parents?'

‘My parents are dead.'

‘I’m sorry.’

She had never expected to hear that gentle note in his voice. It surprised her into looking up. ‘Thank you,’ she said on a whisper, then her voice strengthening because something had to be done about this peculiar feeling that was starting up inside her at his unexpected sensitivity.

‘I –' she began, but before she could continue, he was asking:

‘When did they die?'

‘My mother died when ... I was fifteen,’ she nearly slipped up there and said ‘we’. She and Teddy had always been ‘we’, but she didn’t want anyone at Arrowsmiths asking questions about her home life, and certainly not Crawford Arrowsmith. She didn't want him knowing anything of what made her vulnerable. ‘My father died last year.’ She was unable to stop a bleak look from coming over her face as she thought of her father and the way he had died. He had been out with Mark when the car had crashed, killing Mark outright. Her father had lived for a few days—it had been thought he would make it, and Teddy, his favourite and six months pregnant, had gone to see him. Gerry had been there too and had seen Teddy crying to him that her beloved Mark was dead. But their father had relapsed the very next day and it had been Gerry who had been with him when he had died. He had known he was going to die. She had known it too and hadn’t needed to hear the last words he had spoken—she would have done it anyway. ‘Look after Teddy,’ he’d breathed. ‘She shouldn’t be on her own.’

‘It still hurts, doesn’t it?’ Gerry came crashing back to the present, and blinked twice so that Crawford Arrowsmith elucidated, ‘It still hurts being without your father.’

Yes, it did hurt, particularly as there hadn’t been time to mourn the dear man that he had been. All her energies had of necessity been concentrated in helping Teddy over that awful time.

‘These things happen,’ she said, striving to sound hard, but knowing she was making a very bad job of it. She wanted to end this conversation; she didn’t want him digging into her private background—he couldn’t be really interested anyway. Though she had to own he didn’t sound as though he was being inquisitive purely for the sake of it. ‘Have you had lunch?’ she asked, hoping to divert him and at the same time imply that she would rather he went and had it than stand where he was looking down at her.

‘Like you, I had a sandwich,’ he said, which convinced her he must be able to see through wood panelling, because she had been by herself when she had eaten.

Just then the phone on her desk rang, cutting short any answer she would have made. He waited while she answered the phone, and she could have wished him back in his room with the door closed when she heard Teddy’s voice coming across the wires. She felt stilted with him standing there looking ready to take in every word. And she wanted none of this to be in her voice while she spoke with Teddy. Teddy was quick to take offence these days and would be hurt if she thought it wasn’t convenient to talk to her.

‘Hello, love—how’s your day going?’ she asked, putting all the warmth she was able to into her voice under the circumstances. Crawford Arrowsmith would know from her words that it was a personal call, and she felt her anger rise that he made no move to go, but was openly listening to everything she said. Not that she had very much to say apart from making sympathetic noises at Teddy’s tale of woe as she went on at length about Emma and Sarah’s behaviour that morning.

At last Teddy came to the end of her account of her day so far, and wanted reassuring that Gerry wouldn’t be late that night. ‘I’ll go round the bend if you're not here by half past five,’ she wailed.

‘Don’t worry, Ted,’ Gerry said soothingly. ‘I’ll be home by five-fifteen, I promise.’ She felt rather than heard the sudden movement from Crawford Arrowsmith, but ignored him.

‘You promise?’ Teddy repeated.

‘Yes, I promise, and you can put your feet up while I cook you something tasty—there’ll be no need for you to do another thing for the rest of the evening.’

Gerry came off the phone feeling emotionally drained. Teddy didn’t seem to be getting any better—she would have another talk to her tonight about going to see their doctor. Something would have to be done ...

‘How old are you?’

She was jerked back to her surroundings by the coldest tones she had ever heard from a man. Crawford Arrowsmith’s voice, apart from when he’d asked about her parents, had never been far from chilly, but now it was positively icy as he asked his question.

‘Twenty-four,’ she said without hesitation, and wanted to ask why he wanted to know, but was stopped by the contemptuous look he was giving her.

‘Twenty-four,’ he repeated, still in the same icy tones. ‘I would have thought a girl with your years would have had more sense than to make herself a doormat for any man.’

‘What...' she began, wondering if he had suddenly had a brainstorm.

‘This Ted,’ he said the name disparagingly, ‘is obviously a layabout, otherwise he’d be at work—but instead of getting a meal ready for you when you arrive home, you have to get the meal ready, then pamper him by telling him he can put his feet up for the rest of the evening. Do you think your father would have approved?’

Never had she received such a lecture delivered in such icy tones. And even while it was sinking in that he thought she was living with some man called Ted, her anger at him daring to poke his nose into her personal life was rearing up and would not be suppressed.

‘I’m sure my father would have approved wholeheartedly,’ she said heatedly. ‘But whether he would have done or not is no concern of yours. If I want to make a doormat of myself for Teddy I shall, and I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of my affairs!’

His lip curled at her use of the word affair. ‘Just you come in one minute after nine on any morning while I’m here, Miss Barton, and I’ll make it my affair,’ he told her threateningly, and stormed away from her to slam into his own office.

So now she knew—he had a ‘thing' about people who made doormats of themselves—or was he old-fashioned enough not to like the idea of, as he thought in her case, a couple living together as man and wife without the benefit of a church service? She had no intention of putting him right on that score, and really the conclusion he had jumped to was rather amusing—though for the life of her she couldn’t summon up a smile. She knew his anger had nothing to do with her personally—he wouldn’t care a tinker’s cuss whom she lived with. But his outburst had disquieted her all the same.

During the afternoon she was forced to go into his office over a query. She left it as long as she could knowing the less they saw of each other the better. Somehow he managed to get under her skin. Never once in the time she had been at Arrowsmiths had anyone seen beneath the surface of her—and he had only been here two days and twice she had let fly at him.

He was on the phone when she went in. Gerry gathered from what was being said it was a personal call and knowing her manners were better than his, made to go back to her own office until he had finished. But he waved her into the chair she had used earlier to take down his dictation, and went on with his call.

‘I should think I could manage that,' he was saying, then as Gerry watched, his face transformed into humour as whoever was on the other end said something to amuse him. ‘Now that was very naughty,’ he said, and Gerry forgot any idea that there was anything old-fashioned about him at the intimacy of his tone. Not that she’d truly believed it in the first place, she thought, as she waited for him to finish his conversation. He looked too virile—too masculine. Much too much of everything that represented a hard-working, hard-playing, sophisticated man about town. Oh no, she’d like to bet he was far from celibate. ‘In that case,’ he was saying, ‘I’ll come up to town tonight. Wear something—er—casual.’ He laughed again at something that was said in reply at the other end, said, ‘I’ll keep you to that,’ and put down the phone.

His mood changed rapidly after that, as he became cool and overbearing as he dealt with her query. One good thing though, if he was going to London tonight—a two-hour drive by her calculations—he wouldn’t want to hang around after five. Though how he could go on about her father disapproving of the way she was living, she had no idea. It was obvious to her from his telephone conversation that he wasn’t making the two-hour drive in order to play Ludo when he got to whoever was at the other end.

He made short work of her query and handed the sheet of paper back to her. ‘If you have any other queries, leave them until tomorrow—I don’t want to be disturbed for the next hour,’ he told her bluntly, without so much as looking at her. He didn’t wait for her to answer, but reached for the papers in front of him, the gesture dismissal in itself.

Gerry needed all her control to get out of his office without hitting him. She didn’t know why she should feel so violent towards him, but put it down to wounded pride that he could so summarily dismiss her as if she was of no account.

She checked the clock on the wall when she reached her desk. Four-fifteen. He said he didn’t want to be disturbed for the next hour. Well, he wouldn’t be. She had promised Teddy she would be home by five-fifteen and she fully intended to keep her promise.

At five minutes to five she was presented with a problem. The letters she had typed for him were of a very confidential nature. Whatever her personal feelings for him were, she couldn’t possibly leave the letters lying waiting on her desk for him to sign, anybody could come in and see them. Her mind made up, she tidied her desk, then at one minute to five, with her handbag hanging over her arm, she collected the letters she had typed neatly together and without knocking entered his room.

He was deeply immersed in some figures before him and didn’t look up. That suited her very well. Without again looking at him, she saw a cleared patch on his desk and placed the letters there to await his attention. Then as quietly as she had come in, she went out.

She was driving her car away from its parking space before she wondered how long it would be before he lifted his head and saw the correspondence she had left—she had a feeling he had been so deep in his work he didn’t even know she had been in.

Both the babies were crying when she reached home. It was no uncommon happening for one to cry in sympathy with the other and Gerry entered the cottage wondering which one was the wounded soldier. Teddy too didn’t seem very far from tears.

‘Told you I’d make it for five-fifteen, didn’t I?’ Gerry said, forcing a note of calm into the pandemonium that reigned and taking one of the twins from Teddy so they had one each. She knew Teddy was struggling against tears and knew, heartless though it might seem to her, she couldn’t show her the sympathy she was feeling or else there would be the four of them in tears.

‘Another day like today and I'm sure I’ll go bonkers,’ Teddy said woefully. ‘I’m not sure I’m not half way there already.’

‘Now, Theodora,’ Gerry used Teddy’s given name, and tried a scoffing laugh at the same time, ‘you’re no more bonkers than I am,’ she said bracingly while shushing the baby in her arms. 'You’re just a wee bit run down, I expect.’ Now seemed just the right moment to mention a visit to the doctor. ‘We’ve got time—why don’t we nip down and see Dr Bidley? He’ll probably prescribe a tonic and you’ll feel better in no time.’

It gave her some indication of how Teddy was feeling to hear her say, ‘Do you think that’s all I need?’

‘I’m positive.’ Gerry held her breath. Teddy had always shunned having a doctor take a look at her—this was a delicate moment. She couldn't force her sister to see a doctor, but in her view it was important she see Dr Bidley. ‘It wouldn’t take us five minutes in the car and we could ask him to check on Sarah’s teething—I didn’t tell you, but she was quite fretful during the night.’

‘Oh, Gerry, I’m a selfish pig—I never heard a sound, and we share the same room ...’ Teddy looked as though she was going to burst into tears.

‘Shall we go, then?’ Gerry put in quickly—having got Teddy this far towards agreeing to see Dr Bidley, she didn’t want to lose any ground.

‘We’ll go and see him about Sarah, he can have a look at Emma as well,’ was as far as Teddy would compromise.

There were several people in the village surgery and they exchanged good evenings as they went in. The twins had ceased their crying and looked around the cream-emulsioned walls with interest, completely breaking the ice in the waiting room with their charming gurgles, and soon there was a steady hum of chatter as they waited their turn to go in.

When they went in, Gerry carrying Emma and Teddy carrying Sarah, they found it was not Dr Bidley, who had seen Teddy through her difficult confinement, but a much younger man who looked to be not more than thirty. His twinkling blue eyes in no way endeared him to Teddy, though. She told him who they were, then asked sharply :

‘Where’s Dr Bidley?’

Gerry heard the aggressive note in her voice and hoped the new doctor wasn’t easily offended. Teddy wasn’t often aggressive these days, but it looked as though she’d taken an immediate dislike to the new man.