by Betty Neels
Upon this far from welcoming note, they entered. He was standing in the centre of the room, his head almost to the ceiling, the dark glasses, turned in their direction, sparking off ill-temper.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said at once, and added nastily, ‘We’ve had tea.’
‘Tea?’ echoed Cassandra. ‘From the sound of you it wasn’t tea, but a nice strong cup of fuming sulphuric acid.’
She watched a reluctant smile tug at the corners of his mouth. ‘You didn’t come this afternoon—Jan’s packing and I’ve been sitting and thinking.’
‘And now your world is darker than ever; the tests have failed, the future is empty, nobody loves you and life is no longer to be borne.’ Her voice was brisk and kind. ‘You shouldn’t allow your imagination to run away with you, Mr van Manfeld.’ And because the smile was turning into a scowl, she went on: ‘Do you suppose the children could go with Jan for a few minutes? I have to talk to you.’
A questioning look supplanted the scowl, but all he said was, ‘Of course’, and shouted through the door to Jan, who came silently, nodded and smiled at her and took Andrew and Penny away.
‘What a marvellous man,’ commented Cassandra, and meant it.
‘My lifeline,’ said Mr van Manfeld shortly. ‘Now, what can I do for you? Sit down, do.’
She sat and waited while he made his way to his own chair and settled into it. ‘Mr Campbell came to see me this afternoon—he’s only just gone. He’s worried about me going to Holland with you. I know it’s none of his business, but he thinks—that is, he’s coming to see you to have a man-to-man talk.’
The dark glasses gave nothing away. ‘Indeed?’ queried her companion silkily. ‘Should I feel flattered?’ He remained silent briefly and then snapped: ‘Why?’
‘Well,’ she began, ‘it’s like this—that is—it’s me going with you—he’s old-fashioned, and when I told him that I should be wearing uniform he seemed to think it would be all right.’ She was stopped by Mr van Manfeld’s shout of laughter, but she ignored it. ‘I told him that you were a well-known surgeon and had your reputation to consider...’ Her voice faltered and died under the glasses’ glare.
‘I’ll wring his neck!’ declared the ogre softly.
‘No, you mustn’t do that, it would cause so many complications.’ She spoke seriously and couldn’t think why he smiled suddenly. ‘You could be in bed with a headache or having a bath, or...’
He said, his voice still very soft, ‘My ingenious, anxious Cassandra, I shall be sitting here waiting for him; he shall have his man-to-man talk and I promise you that he will go away quite satisfied as to my—er—lack of dishonourable intentions.’ He smiled at her and looked just as she had known in her heart he had looked before he had lost his sight: safe and calm and utterly dependable. She sighed without knowing that she did so, and got to her feet.
‘I had to tell you,’ she explained. ‘I feel very mean, it’s like telling tales to get someone into trouble, but I thought you might misunderstand—he meant it kindly.’
He put out a hand and she took it. ‘Of course you had to tell me. I might have killed the man unless I had received your warning, and don’t worry, Cassandra, I shan’t cast you in the role of perfidious Albion. I find Campbell’s action most offensive, but I’ll do nothing, you have my word.’
She collected the children then went back home to tea. Mr van Manfeld might have a shocking bad temper, he might be used to having his own way and having, she suspected, the best of everything, but on one point she was quite certain, he wouldn’t break a promise once he had given it. All the same, she found herself wishing that she could be there when the two men had their little talk.
Rachel and Tom arrived home by lunchtime. They had travelled up by the night train from London and with two excited children, who had been excused school for the day, Cassandra drove down to the ferry to pick them up. The six weeks had gone very quickly, she thought, standing back to allow the children to get at their parents. Rachel looked lovely, brown and almost plump—it suited her, and Tom looked as rested as well as happy.
At home again, Rachel asked about the children, their manners, school, Mr Campbell, his sister and whether Mrs Todd had coped with the housework, and only when they had run through these pressing matters did she inquire casually, ‘And this Dutchman—the one the children call the ogre—how did you come to meet him in the first place?’
Cassandra thought. ‘Well, I went up there—to Ogre’s Relish, the children told me about him and he sounded lonely.’
‘I see. And was he glad to see you?’
‘He can’t see,’ corrected Cassandra. ‘No, he wasn’t at all pleased. He ordered me off, but then he came down here and said he was sorry, and the children like him.’
Mr van Manfeld arrived that evening after dinner and was immediately engulfed in the children’s fervent embraces. He disentangled himself gently, apologized with charm for the delay this caused in greeting his host and hostess and introduced the silent Jan. Cassandra in the kitchen, putting the final touches to the coffee tray, heard the hubbub and came out into the hall, saying in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘Oh, there you are! What a good thing you’ve come, now perhaps the children will go to bed.’
She smiled at everyone, feeling happy, and urged her nephew and niece towards the stairs and skipped up after them. She was down again quite soon to find the company already in the sitting-room.
It was obvious that Mr van Manfeld was making a good impression upon his host and hostess. Later that evening, when the two men had gone, Rachel, over a last cup of coffee, remarked: ‘You were very quiet, darling—I must admit I found your ogre rather a sweetie.’
And Tom, from behind his paper, mumbled, ‘Yes, nice chap. No side. I like the fellow— Cassy will be quite safe with him.’
Cassandra smiled and said nothing at all. Mr van Manfeld was a cunning rascal, pretending to be someone he wasn’t—at least— She was suddenly uncertain; perhaps he really was like that, perhaps once they were in Holland and with the prospect of his career continuing, even if to a lesser degree, he would become remote, engrossed in his work, polite, never call her Cassandra but address her as nurse and not lose his temper once.
They were to leave by the morning ferry and be driven by hired car to Glasgow airport, a journey of somewhat less than ninety miles, and Tom was to drive Cassandra down to the boat, where she would join Mr van Manfeld and Jan. It was a sparkling morning and cold in the lingering darkness trailed by the winter night.
There was barely time to greet her fellow passengers, wish everyone else good-bye and board the ferry. It wasn’t really light yet; she quickly lost sight of the little pier and the group of people standing on it, peering back at the fast receding outline of the island, she reflected that it scarcely seemed like six weeks since she had arrived. She wondered what the next six weeks would hold for her.
Their journey was uneventful and undertaken in extreme comfort. It seemed no time at all before they were leaving Schipol’s Customs hall and walking towards the air terminal’s exit. Just before they reached it, Mijnheer van Manfeld said, ‘We shall wait here while Jan fetches the car,’ and allowed himself to be guided to a seat. She would dearly have liked to know how her patient’s car had got to the airport, but she didn’t like to ask. He had grown a little silent during the last hour; she didn’t think he was tired, just thoughtful. Presumably when he wished to talk, he would do so. She sat quietly beside him and presently he remarked:
‘How serene you are, dear girl—no fidgeting with your hair, no opening and shutting of your handbag, no sighing—above all, no questions.’
A remark which effectively prevented her from asking several which were on the tip of her tongue at that moment.
Jan was only away for a very short time. She saw him coming towards them and touched the man beside her on the arm. ‘Here�
��s Jan. He’s stopped to see about the luggage, but I think he’s ready for us.’
They gained the outside of the building without mishap and found Jan, who had gone ahead of them, stowing the luggage away in the car. Despite the early evening dark she was able to see it in the airport’s lights—an Aston Martin DBS V8, sleek and rakish, not at all the kind of car she imagined the ogre would have driven, and yet, now she thought about it, probably he was a fast driver in normal circumstances. Mr van Manfeld settled back in his corner with the air of a caged lion selecting the best bars to lean against.
‘In answer to your unspoken question,’ he remarked as the car slid forward, ‘we have a journey of roughly forty-five miles, most of it on a motorway, which you will find very dull, I’m afraid, even in the dark. But at Ochten we shall turn off on to a smaller road. I shall take a nap, be good enough to waken me when we reach the bridge over the Rhine.’
She stole a look at him presently. Presumably he had closed his eyes on his dark blue world. It was impossible to tell; the glasses had dark side pieces and they fitted closely in all directions. For all she knew he might even now be peering sideways at her, a dark blob against a darker background, but he made no movement; the straight, disdainful nose contrived to look disdainful even while he slept; his mouth was firmly closed. Either he was asleep already or he was hiding behind his glasses. She made herself look out of the window, which was stupid anyway, for by now it was quite dark even though the sky was clear and there was an icy moon beaming down on to the motorway. And how was she to identify a bridge when they came to it? She tried to see the time by her watch with no success at all—he had said forty-five miles; at the speed they were going and the fact that there seemed to be no hills and no corners, she judged that they would be at their destination within three-quarters of an hour. Suddenly the moon, coming out from behind a cloud, sparkled on water and in the distance ahead of them she saw a line of lights. She said triumphantly:
‘I think we’re at the bridge.’
Her companion stirred. ‘Jan?’
‘Just coming on to it now, mijnheer. Miss Cassandra is observant.’
They were crossing the river now, the twinkling lights quite near, the outline of a great church loomed up suddenly and they were off the bridge, going slowly in the narrow streets leading up past the church to the main street of Rhenen. The shops were still open with decorated windows and bright lights. Cassandra sat forward the better to see.
‘The shops are so gay,’ she told her companion, ‘lighted up and full of people. The street is packed!’
‘Of course, it is Sint Nicolaas the day after tomorrow. It rivals Christmas in Holland.’
‘You’re glad you’re back home for it.’ She stated the fact simply.
‘Yes,’ but he didn’t say any more, not until Jan turned the car down a narrow street leading back towards the river, and stopped almost immediately.
‘Home,’ said Mijnheer van Manfeld briefly, and Jan got out to help Cassandra out of the car. She stood on the pavement in the cold evening, looking around her, while Jan went to help his master. The house before which they had stopped was one of a row, all of them several stories high, all with large windows and massive front doors. As she looked at it, the lights snapped on in the downstairs windows and the door was flung open, to reveal a large woman with a massive bosom and a quantity of white hair. She didn’t wait for Mr van Manfeld to ascend the three steps leading to his door, but came down them to the pavement, where she shook him by the hand at great length, talking animatedly as she did so. Surely not the elderly aunt, thought Cassandra, and heard her patient say: ‘Cassandra, go inside, it’s too cold for you to stand about. Jan?’
Jan touched her arm. ‘This way, Miss Cassandra. Mijnheer is a little hindered. That is Miep, the cook and housekeeper who has been with him for a great deal of his life—she has a fondness for him.’
She had her foot on the top step when Jan disappeared and it was the ogre beside her. ‘Welcome to my home, Cassandra,’ he said quietly. ‘I hope that you will be happy here.’
She stood, half in, half out, looking up at him, perfectly certain that she was going to be happy. For would she not be with him for most of the days ahead, and wasn’t that what she wanted more than anything in the world? She admitted it to herself at last; the ogre wasn’t an ogre at all but the man she had fallen in love with. Even as she admitted it she told herself crossly that she was a fool. She had had no success with the Registrar—she tried to remember his name; what he looked like, and couldn’t; she needn’t expect any success with the man beside her either. Probably he had dozens of girl-friends; he might be engaged; she thought it very likely, and now she came to think about it, he had never said that he wasn’t married. She lifted her firm little chin; she wouldn’t cross her bridges until she came to them, she would be his dragon because that was what he had wanted of her, and in a week or two she would go back to England and start all over again.
‘You’re thinking,’ his voice was close in her ear, ‘I can hear you. What’s the matter?’
She schooled her voice to its usual quiet tones. ‘Nothing—nothing at all. I expect I’m excited.’
‘So am I. I wonder if it’s about the same thing,’ he added to puzzle her.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE FLAT, austere appearance of the house had not prepared her for the beauty within. The hall was long and narrow, widening at its end into two arches, beyond the right-hand one was a crimson-carpeted staircase, the left-hand arch revealed a door beyond it, presumably to the kitchen quarters. On the left of the marble-floored hall was a door, on the right there were double doors, arched and carved with swags of fruit and flowers, and still another door, similarly ornamented. There was little furniture, although it was beautiful enough—a wall table with a mirror above it and a bowl filled with tulips upon it, a chair, carved and straight-backed and cushioned with velvet, and a chandelier which gleamed and twinkled from the centre of the plastered ceiling.
Cassandra sighed with a mixture of happiness and sadness because she was going to love living here and because her stay was to be so short.
‘How happy you must be to come home,’ she said to the man beside her. ‘I imagine that you know it all so well that it doesn’t matter...’
‘That I can’t see? You’re right. Home has a feeling about it, hasn’t it?’ His hand found her shoulder. ‘Now I’ve been cruel, haven’t I? The last thing I would wish to be with you, Cassandra.’
She was very conscious of his hand and her voice sounded rather small.
‘It’s quite all right, you know. I haven’t had a home for quite a number of years now. When I’ve done my midwifery I shall find a small flat and make one...’
‘Wouldn’t you prefer Ogre’s Relish?’
It would be nice to live there, but not very wise; it held too many memories. ‘I should have to be near my work,’ she told him seriously. ‘Where do you wish to go?’
The hand tightened. ‘First, you must meet Miep and then my aunt, and then we will have dinner.’ He turned his head and said something to Miep who was helping Jan with the luggage, and she came over to them to take Cassandra’s hand and welcome her with words which made no sense but which nonetheless held a warm welcome. For her own part she was only able to smile and stammer a little in English, which of course Miep couldn’t understand, but they were friends instantly, and she felt thankful for that.
Jan had opened the pair of doors and Cassandra tucked her hand in Mr van Manfeld’s arm and led him through them. The room they entered was a comfortable size, the walls panelled in white wood with an elaborate carved frame above the chimneypiece surrounding a landscape painting. The fireplace was of white marble with a brightly burning fire in its polished grate and on either side were winged armchairs. In the window was an enormous sofa, covered, as were the chairs, in needlework. Bes
ide these, there were other, smaller chairs, together with a Pembroke table against one wall, holding some fine silver candlesticks and a great china bowl full of narcissi. There were small tables too, to hold the lamps which lighted the room, cream and a deep tawny orange which was the main colour of the tapestry covering the chairs. The carpet was of a dark blue design, as were the curtains. Cassandra, pausing on the threshold, thought it was one of the loveliest rooms she had ever seen, but there was no time to do more than give a quick look round her, for she was being urged forward to one of the wing chairs where sat an elderly lady.
‘My aunt, Mevrouw van Manfeld,’ said the ogre, pausing half-way across the room. ‘She should be sitting on the right of the fire—she prefers that chair. How are you, my dear? And let me introduce Miss Cassandra Darling to you. She will be with us for a short time.’
He was by the chair by now and bent down, his hand outstretched, and the little lady took it and lifted her face to be kissed. ‘Dear boy,’ she said in excellent English, ‘how very nice to see you again, and just in time for Sint Nicolaas too!’ She turned to Cassandra, offered her a hand and said smilingly, ‘It is delightful that Benedict has someone to bear him company through the next few days; he never listens to me, but I daresay he attends to you, my dear.’
Cassandra smiled. ‘No, not really,’ she answered, ‘but Mr—Mijnheer van Manfeld needs someone to be his eyes just until he can leave off his dark glasses. Jan has been doing that until now, and wonderfully well. I can never hope to be so efficient, but I understand he...’ she paused and Mevrouw van Manfeld continued for her, ‘We’ve missed him dreadfully. Such an efficient man, as you say, he runs the place perfectly. We’ve missed you even more, Benedict, the house is dead without you. I’ve done all you asked me to attend to and I’ve told no one of your return as you wished, although Cornelius knows, of course, he’ll be round presently. Now if you will tell me your wishes, Benedict—do you want to rest before dinner, or do you wish for something immediately?’
