Page 120 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
Strong Reservations
I spotted the walking party returning from the kitchen window. Bel and Nile were in front, with Robbie and Zelda lagging way behind, their heads together like a pair of conspirators.
They passed out of sight round the side of the house and a few moments later the front door slammed and we heard voices in the hall.
Bel followed Nile into the kitchen and rolled her eyes.
‘Phew! I feel as if I’ve been sucked through a vortex of emotion and spat out on the other side.’
‘It was OK for you –youweren’t directly involved,’ Nile said morosely, sitting down at the kitchen table and stretching out his long, jeans-clad legs. They looked like designer jeans – but then, everything he wore looked expensive, even when I knew it wasn’t.
‘I got to hear every last detail anyway, since we were changing partners more often than during a country dance,’ Bel pointed out. ‘First, Robbiespent agestelling me he felt Alice had got him all the way up to Yorkshire under false pretences, while Zelda was buttonholing Nile—’
‘That was her great renunciation scene,’ he put in.
‘I know: she gave it to me, word for word, right after she’d finished winding Robbie up to the point where he went to have things out with you. I feel quite exhausted!’
‘I’m not surprised,’ I said. ‘It sounds like the walk from hell – but I’m glad no one seems to have actually come to blows!’
Nile glanced up. ‘Robbie accused me of being a quick worker and toying with Alice’s heart when she was at her most vulnerable.’
‘I think some of Zelda’s theatrical flourishes must have rubbed off on him, don’t you?’ Bel said. ‘He doesn’t usually seem to talk like a Victorian papa.’
‘Did hereallysay that?’ I asked Nile. ‘It does sound most unlike him!’
‘Yes, but I managed to persuade him my intentions werestrictlyhonourable,’ he said gravely.
‘Of course they are, darling,’ agreed Sheila, who was starting to prepare lunch.
‘Whichintentions?’ I demanded.
‘All of them,’ he said, and his grey eyes met mine, full of limpid and, I was sure, entirely spurious innocence.
‘Zelda and Robbie got their heads together on the way back and I don’t know what the upshot of that was, except Robbie would like a word with you, Alice: he’s in the library.’
‘Oh God, is he?’ I exclaimed, aghast.
‘I suspect it’s going to behisgreat renunciation scene,’ Nile said drily. ‘You’d better go and get it over with.’
He was quite right, too: it was just unfortunate that I found Robbie in resigned, forgiving and noble mode so funny that I had trouble keeping my face straight. Luckily, he seemed to assume my quivering lip was a different kind of emotion.
‘I wish you’d told me you were involved with someone else before I dashed up here to see you,’ he said reproachfully.
‘Since you didn’t even let me know you were in the country first, that would have been a little difficult,’ I pointed out.
He ignored that. ‘It didn’t cross my mind that you’d have found someone else so soon after Dan was killed. At first I thought Nile must have taken advantage of you when you were at a low ebb, until he explained everything.’
‘Oh?’ I prompted, deeply interested. ‘Like what?’
‘Well … that you were taking your relationship slowly, because he didn’t want to rush you into anything you might regret later.’
‘Oh, right …’ I said. ‘Yes, of course: silly me!’
‘Anyway, now I understand where you’re coming from. But I’ll always be there for you if things go wrong and you need me,’ he assured me nobly.
‘That’s so sweet of you, Robbie,’ I said, though of course his support wouldn’t be a lot of use if he went off back to the Antipodes.
‘I hope you’ll both be very happy.’
