Cassandra by Chance

by Betty Neels

  ‘Is it important to you?’ He looked interested and still amused.

  ‘That has nothing to do with it. It’s—it’s...’

  He became truly the ogre again. ‘And Miss Busybody has been hard at it again, arranging people’s lives to her own satisfaction—is it to your satisfaction, Cassandra?’ He smiled thinly. ‘Have you married me off to Paula, is that it, on the strength of seeing us together once? I’ve a very good mind to oblige you.’ His voice became a subdued roar. ‘God’s teeth, can you not mind your own business, worming your way into my life with homemade cakes and hoity-toity airs; twiddling Jan round your little finger! Even Miep cries because you have left us.’

  ‘I’ve told you before, you’re not to say that,’ Cassandra reproved him coldly. ‘And why, suddenly, are you in such a nasty temper? You’ve no reason at all—you had some excuse while you were living on Mull, but now everything is fine again.’ Her voice became a little shrill. ‘And I have never wormed my way into your life! I made you a cake because I th-thought you were l-lonely and p-poor. How was I to know that you’re awash with money and fabulous houses and hordes of people to look after you?’

  ‘There you go, exaggerating again! I am well-to-do, but no millionaire, and though I grant you I have a lovely home, I feel that I should point out to you that save for a very small cottage in the south of France, it is the only home I have, and I have yet to see hordes of servants in it.’

  ‘Don’t quibble!’ she urged him snappishly. ‘You know exactly what I mean. You’re being very—very...’

  She was plucked off her feet and engulfed in his arms once more.

  ‘I agree entirely, and I have no right to tease you, my poor girl. You shall eat your lunch and I’ll take you back to get some clothes, then we can go and buy that dress which I feel sure will turn you into a beautiful princess.’

  He kissed her, but this time gently, as he would have kissed a child and she forbore from telling him that there was no dress on earth which could transform her from her ordinary self. Instead, with his arm around her shoulders, she went meekly to her lunch.

  They were met at Mevrouw Schat’s front door by that good lady herself, voluble in her sympathy, clucking like a nice motherly hen. Fifteen minutes later, Cassandra was dressed and following him out to the car. It was snowing again and getting dark, and the brightly lighted shops looked inviting.

  ‘Which one?’ asked Benedict, tooling down the main street, and when she pointed it out to him, slid the car to a careful stop. ‘How long?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘I don’t know, but please don’t wait. You’ve got your visits, I can perfectly well...’

  ‘Don’t twitter. I’ve a visit close by, then I shall come back here. Don’t hurry, I’ll wait.’ He smiled at her and drove away and she went into the shop.

  A quarter of an hour later, she was outside again, light of heart as well as pocket, for the dress was a perfect fit and even in her own hypercritical eyes it did something for her. She stood quite happily waiting for him in the cold, savouring the pleasurable fact that she would wear it that evening, a little excited too. He came a few moments later, slipping out of a side street into the stream of traffic with neat precision. She got in when he opened the door and deposited the box carefully on the back seat.

  ‘Found something you like?’ he asked carelessly, his mind so obviously on something else that she made her answer brief. ‘Yes, thank you,’ was all she said, stifling disappointment, but it was something more than disappointment when he continued. ‘Sorry you had to wait. I didn’t think you would be ready—women never are when they go shopping—but I met Paula.’

  He had taken the car out of the town by now, on to the Wageringen Road and the traffic had thinned. Cassandra managed a pleasant: ‘Oh, yes? I shall see her this evening, I expect,’ and hoped that he would say no.

  ‘She couldn’t manage dinner, and I’m hoping you and Tante Beatrix won’t think me too ill-mannered if I go out about nine o’clock—it may have to be earlier.’ He threw her a quick glance. ‘I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone else, but this is something which matters.’

  She had no idea how she managed to keep her voice so sweetly reasonable. ‘I’m sure neither your aunt nor I will mind in the very least. But why have dinner with us at all if it’s so important?’

  Incredibly he answered, ‘Well, of course that would help enormously; I didn’t dare to suggest it, though—you’re sure you don’t mind? I shall be back all the sooner—in time to walk you back to Mevrouw Schat.’

  ‘Now that would be silly,’ she told him, nothing in her voice betraying the cold rage inside her. ‘It’s barely two minutes’ walk, and if I need an escort surely I can ask Jan.’

  He was silent for so long she thought he might not have heard. When he did speak his voice was pleased. ‘What a nice girl you are, Cassandra! Most women would be quite put out. But perhaps we know each other too well for that?’

  She agreed mildly although it would have been nice to have exploded. This, she told herself, was what came of being plain and sensible; this was what she could expect for climbing on and off heaving decks in a biting wind and when any other girl with a grain of sense would have refused point blank. And she had come running across Europe at his whim, hadn’t she? She was a fool.

  After his visits Benedict drove her straight to Mevrouw Schat’s little house. As he went away, he called, ‘Don’t be late this evening!’

  Against her better judgment Cassandra put on the new dress, although she could see little point in doing so. She ate a delicious dinner in Tante Beatrix’s company and afterwards sat in the sitting-room, playing Scrabble with the old lady, who had a passion for the game. But as soon as she decently could, she made her excuses, pleading a fancied cold.

  ‘And no wonder,’ commented Mevrouw van Manfeld tartly, ‘dragging you off to that terrible accident, just as though you were some boy. Benedict should be ashamed of himself!’

  ‘Oh, no, you mustn’t say that,’ begged Cassandra, quite put out. ‘I’m a nurse, you know, and that’s how he thinks of me. Nurses go wherever they’re wanted.’

  Tante Beatrix uttered a sound which sounded like Bah! and as Cassandra got up to fetch her coat, went on warmly: ‘It’s time he thought of you as a girl.’

  Cassandra thought of the way he had kissed her; had he thought of her as a girl then or had she merely been there, a stand-in for the real thing? She thought she would never know. She went to the kitchen, said good night to Miep and Jan, and refusing Jan’s offer to see her home, wished Tante Beatrix a good night too and started off down the street. She had made up her mind that she would be gone by the time Benedict got home and she had no intention of delaying any longer. She was turning the corner when she heard a car at the far end. It wasn’t easy to run on the icy pavement, but she did. She was indoors, saying a rather breathless good night to Mevrouw Schat and racing up to her room, within minutes.

  She was tearing off her clothes at a fine speed when her landlady called up the stairs. Cassandra ignored her and took the pins out of her hair; she was fairly sure that it was Benedict downstairs, come to apologize again, she muttered angrily. Well, she was almost in bed, wasn’t she? Nothing would get her downstairs again until the morning. She wrapped her dressing-gown around her with a gesture worthy of grand opera and washed her face at the funny little basin in the corner of the room. She was brushing her teeth when there was a thunderous knock on the door. From her sparse knowledge of the Dutch language she dredged up two words which were identical in both languages and summed up the situation to a nicety. ‘In bed!’ she called, and went on with her toothbrushing.

  The door was flung open. ‘I said you were a liar,’ said Benedict blandly from the door, ‘and what are you hiding behind that toothbrush for? Afraid I’m going to snarl at you for not waiting for me? You’re right, I am. What possessed you to co
me back so early? I told you I would return—and what’s all this nonsense about a cold? Great healthy girls like you don’t catch cold.’

  ‘I am not a great healthy girl!’ she said furiously. ‘You make me sound like jolly hockey sticks or something—and get out of my room!’

  Her speech didn’t have the desired effect; he came in and shut the door after him.

  ‘Mevrouw Schat,’ she hissed at him, ‘whatever will she think? She’s old-fashioned—do go away!’

  He raised innocent eyebrows. ‘Go away? When I’ve only just come and Mevrouw Schat has gone to make coffee for us—we’re going to drink it together in her front parlour; it’s all very proper in her old-fashioned eyes too—I’m a doctor, remember? and you had a nasty experience this morning; you’re still suffering from shock. I told her about that nasty cold you’ve invented too, so you can come downstairs in your dressing-gown with the greatest propriety.’

  ‘I don’t wish to come downstairs.’ Cassandra still had the toothbrush in her hand and a faint moustache of toothpaste. She remembered where he had been and said with a kind of sadness, ‘I didn’t know you were like this,’ she began, and then changed it to, ‘There was no need for you to come here. I had a very pleasant evening, we played S-Scrabble.’

  She turned her back on him and swallowed tears and toothpaste together and rinsed her brush elaborately. He was still there when she looked round; she couldn’t make out the expression in his eyes because of the tinted glasses, and he was standing with his back to the light too.

  He spoke impatiently. ‘You are a silly girl. I thought women knew when a man was—er—interested.’

  She shook her head. ‘Here’s one who doesn’t.’ She made her voice quiet and calm while her heart beat fit to crack her ribs.

  He hadn’t moved an inch, but his smile made the distance between them negligible. ‘Well, start learning now, Cassandra—dear Cassandra.’

  It was really too much. She said, near to tears, ‘Oh, how can you talk like that? You were so different at the Relish—now I don’t know what to think. You’ve come straight from Paula...’

  ‘Hot foot,’ he assured her blandly. He was leaning against the door, watching her; waiting for her to say something. She decided that she wouldn’t, but her treacherous tongue disobeyed her. ‘You asked me to go to dinner at your house and then you went out with—with...and you expect me to be glad to see you, and you couldn’t be—be more...’

  ‘Right?’ he suggested helpfully. ‘Now I’m the one who’s glad. But I mustn’t be impatient, must I? I’ll let your temper cool first. Come downstairs and I’ll tell you about Paula.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Afraid?’ his voice was affable.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ She had a stream of hair over one shoulder, twisting and untwisting it at a great rate.

  ‘I’m prepared to carry you down,’ Benedict offered mildly.

  He meant it. She went past him through the door he held open for her and down the stairs into the parlour where Mevrouw Schat was polishing two silver spoons on her apron. She put them with a satisfied air into the saucers as they went in and when Benedict said something to her, looked in a motherly fashion at Cassandra, said ‘Arme kind’, patted her shoulder kindly and went to fetch the coffee.

  ‘What did she say?’ asked Cassandra, momentarily diverted.

  ‘Poor child,’ he translated for her. ‘You’ll find a hot water bottle in your bed, I expect, and two eggs for breakfast.’

  She couldn’t stop the giggle. As she poured the coffee it struck her how strange it was that she and Benedict could quarrel and bicker and, five minutes later, laugh together. She handed him his coffee and sat down to drink her own.

  ‘Now listen,’ said Benedict. ‘I’ve known Paula almost all my life, and I’m fond of her—friends become fond of each other, you know. She is engaged to one of my closest friends who is at present in Canada. When he went there a year ago he asked me to look after her, and I have done just that, in every way I could. So that when she wanted my help urgently concerning a house they are buying in Utrecht, I gave it. That the arrangements could only be made this evening was sheer misfortune for me. She is going to Canada to marry him very shortly, then they will come back here and settle down.’ He paused and sighed and Cassandra asked quickly, ‘Why are you sad about it?’

  ‘Because I’m envious, I suppose.’ He smiled and said quickly, ‘I didn’t get any dinner either.’

  She was on her feet at once, the niggling doubt at the back of her mind she hadn’t had time to examine forgotten. ‘You must be famished. I’m sure Mevrouw Schat has something—soup, or sandwiches.’ But he shook his head. ‘Miep will have got something ready for me and I can’t stay. One of my patients isn’t too good, so I promised her husband I’d look in.’

  He got to his feet. ‘Good night, Cassandra. Wasn’t she the daughter of the King of Troy, and could she not see into the future? Can you do that, I wonder?’

  All at once he sounded tired. Cassandra said, quite gently, that she didn’t think she could, wished him goodnight, and went up to bed. She lay awake a long time wondering why he had told her that he was envious. He had been rather horrid when she had taken it for granted that he was in love with Paula; he probably was, she told herself miserably, but Paula wanted the other man, his friend—and all poor Benedict could do was fulfil the role of a faithful friend to them both and hide his grief under ill-temper and impatience. She thought she understood him now, only it was a pity she didn’t know how to help him. On that thought she finally went to sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MIJNHEER VAN TROMP was very kind the next morning; he asked Cassandra if she felt quite fit to work, commended her upon her courage, and wanted to know, with a look of great innocence, if she had enjoyed her afternoon. She told him that she had, advised him that his first patient was in the waiting room and retired to her own small room. Benedict only put in a brief appearance. The day, in consequence, seemed dull and uninteresting, stretching before her unendingly. But it finished at last. She was tidying up after the early evening surgery when the telephone rang and she went to answer it with some hesitation, for she felt herself quite inadequate for all but the simplest of calls. She lifted the receiver and uttered a cautious ‘Hullo.’

  Benedict’s voice, brisk and friendly, answered her. ‘Cassandra? Are you almost ready to leave? I thought we might have an evening together. Wear the new dress. I’ll be at Mevrouw Schat’s at seven o’clock.’

  He rang off before she could reply; she put down the receiver assuring herself that if she had been given the opportunity to speak she would at least have made a show of refusing; wasn’t he taking her for granted? Upon reflection she had to admit that he wasn’t; her face warmed at the recollection of her warm response to his kisses—he must feel very sure of her. She sighed; at least she could give the new dress a second airing. She whisked around, putting things to rights at top speed, and within minutes was crunching through the snow to Mevrouw Schat’s cheerfully lighted front door.

  She was ready by the time he arrived, the new dress covered with her tweed coat and gloved and booted against the cold. Beyond a friendly ‘Hullo, my girl,’ he had nothing to say. Not until they were in the Aston Martin, driving out of Rhenen and turning off to go up the hill did he remark laconically, ‘Dinner at De Koerheuval unless you’d prefer somewhere else?’ and he didn’t speak again as the car skidded up the narrow lane.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ he told her as he brought the car to a halt, got out and came round the car to open her door. ‘Here, let me take your arm.’ They made their way across the icy expanse towards the hotel entrance, their breath clouding the air around them, sliding and slipping and laughing until all at once Benedict stopped and pulled her close and kissed her with a warmth which set her heart pounding. Cassandra stood within the circle of his
arm, oblivious of the wind and a few reluctant snowflakes, her candid eyes searching his face. ‘In the office this morning,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘you were—I could have been a stranger, someone you were just being polite to. And now...’

  ‘Now I’m kissing you as though I’m enjoying it, which I am. It would hardly do, my dear girl, if I were to kiss you each time we met in the surgery.’

  Cassandra frowned. ‘Oh,’ she said coolly, ‘you’re thinking of what the patients might think.’

  He laughed and tucked her arm more firmly into his. ‘Don’t be an idiot, I’m not thinking anything of the sort, and you know that well enough.’ He kissed her again, quite roughly, and walked her briskly into the hotel.

  They dined without haste in the restaurant, off game soup, roast beef and crêpes Suzette. There weren’t a great many people there and they wouldn’t have noticed anyway. A little light-headed from the wine, Cassandra, glowing with the knowledge that the dress really did do something for her, listened to Benedict’s gentle flow of talk, which, while he never actually put it into words, seemed to include her in a future which was becoming rosier at every minute. It was after eleven when they finally got up to go. They hardly spoke as Benedict gentled the car down the hill. It was a clear night with stars twinkling in the frosty air, a cold moon sailing among them. Cassandra, staring around her, speaking her thoughts aloud, said: ‘I wonder if it’s like this on Mull. Ogre’s Relish would be lovely...’

  ‘You liked it there, didn’t you, Cassandra?’

  ‘Very much.’ She glanced at him. ‘And you—you didn’t, of course...’

  ‘Not at first, it was lonely, and then you came. Do you want to go back one day?’

  ‘But I am going back.’ Surely he must have known that? ‘I must go somewhere while I find a job.’ She made her voice sound reasonable and as casual as possible, hoping that he would contradict her. He didn’t, said merely, ‘Oh, yes, of course—but surely you’ll wait until after Christmas?’