No More Meadows by Monica Dickens

Author:Monica Dickens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1953-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

The ordeal of getting to town and back in the streetcar determined Christine to learn to drive Vinson’s car and get her permit as soon as possible.

He was loath to teach her. ‘It’s dangerous,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing like your London traffic. I’m so afraid you’ll get into trouble and get yourself hurt, darling.’

Christine liked him to be concerned about her, but it did not deflect her. ‘I drove all right in England. You let me drive the Buick, and you said I was the only woman you’d ever not been scared to drive with. But of course that was when you were courting me.’

‘Could be,’ he said, ‘though you didn’t drive so badly, for a woman. But you’ll find it so hard to learn to drive on the right.’

‘You learned to drive on the left in England pretty quick. I can do it if you can. Take me out tonight and let me try and I’ll bet you I could go and take my test tomorrow.’

‘Oh no, honey!’ He did not want to think she was too efficient. ‘Besides, .there are all sorts of highway regulations you’ll have to learn. You can’t treat the Washington cops like you treated your London bobbies.’

‘I’ll learn. I will be careful. Oh, please do take me out tonight. We could find a side-road, if there are such things in this part of the world.’

He said that she should have a learner’s permit. He said that there was hardly any petrol in the car. He said that he had meant to work. Finally, when he saw how much she wanted it, he agreed to take her. Although he was selfish, his honest desire was to make her happy, although his ideas of what should make her happy were not always the same as hers. When he bought her presents, for instance, he consulted his own taste rather than hers. He bought her great purple orchids, and she did not tell him that she liked the little butterfly ones better. He thought she ought to like heavy and ornate jewellery, and he never discovered that she preferred small and delicate things.

Christine got on quite well with the car among the intricacies of boulevarding, and three-way traffic lights and one-way streets, although Vinson made her nervous by being nervous himself and shouting: ‘For God’s sake, watch it!’ when she was doing no wrong. She was not sure whether he was afraid for her or the car.

Resigned to the fact that she was bent on driving and not being for ever the helpless little wife in the passenger seat, he got her a book which told her all the traffic rules. When she had driven with him a few more times she prevailed on him to take her up to get her permit, although he did not think she would pass the test. His possessive love for her did not embrace too great a faith in her capabilities. The estimable Miss Cope was a ghost of the past.

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