by Betty Neels
She slowed her walk to an amble presently, not looking at all where she was going and stumbling a good deal, sniffling miserably. She heard the first whistle only vaguely and the second one made no impression either. It was only when Bess and Caesar came bounding up to leap joyfully at her that she came to a halt and because there was no alternative, turned round. Justin was only a few yards away and she turned round again quickly because her face looked so awful, and began to walk on at a great rate, but he caught up with her and turned her round to face him again. His voice was very kind. ‘Emma, dear Emma, crying—why?’
She sniffed and mumbled grumpily without looking at him, and then because she had to make the best of a bad job, ‘I suppose it’s because the holiday’s over.’
‘But yesterday you were all agog to hear all the hospital news. I thought you were so anxious to get back to work.’
She cast him a smouldering look and sniffed. ‘Well, of course I am,’ she declared, and then burst into tears again.
His arms were very comforting. He held her close until her sobs quietened and then he lifted her chin with a gentle compelling hand and kissed her; she kissed him back, powerless it seemed to do otherwise, and then stood silent within the circle of his arms, looking at him. He smiled at her and it seemed strange, because she was filled with such a wild excitement, that his face was so calm, only his eyes gleamed beneath their lids and a small muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. When he spoke his voice was as calm as his face.
‘Emma, I have to go to Utrecht this morning—in a few minutes. I shan’t be back until the day after tomorrow; I don’t know when. Will you wait for me? Never mind your plans, we can alter those quickly enough, only be here, at my home when I get back. I must talk to you.’
Emma smiled soggily. ‘Very well, Justin,’ she said meekly, ‘only won’t Kitty and Will mind?’
His eyebrows arched. ‘Why should they mind? You weren’t going with them—besides, I imagine they have other things to think about.’
He laughed suddenly and released her, catching her by the arm and swinging her along beside him as they walked briskly back along the little lane, the two dogs racing ahead. At the door of the house he paused at the bottom of the double steps and lightly kissed her hair. ‘Till I see you again, Emma,’ he said, and walked away in the direction of the stables, leaving her to drift up the steps and indoors, her head in enchanted clouds.
She was a little late for breakfast because it took her a few minutes to erase the havoc of her tear-stained face. She slipped into her place beside Kitty and wished everyone good morning in a happy voice and got on with her meal, hoping that someone would say something about Justin so that she could tell them that she wouldn’t be going until he returned, but no one did, at least not until the meal was almost over and they were dispersing from the table. It was then that Saskia said:
‘I’ll say goodbye. I’m off to Utrecht in half an hour or so and I shall be there a couple of days, I expect—it depends on…’ she laughed, ‘well, it depends. Have a good journey, won’t you?’ As she left the room Emma heard her voice, very clear in the lofty hall, calling to her mother. ‘Have you any message for Justin?’ she asked.
Emma found the day long; she went to Oudewater because she had told Will she was going, but once there, she merely roamed the streets of the little town, doing nothing, trying to puzzle out why Justin hadn’t told her that he was going to meet Saskia in Utrecht. In the end she forced herself to stop thinking about it, he would be back the following day with some simple explanation she hadn’t thought of. She loved him and trusted him and he had asked her to stay because he wanted to see her, surely that fact alone should be sufficient.
She had lunch after that, in De Witte Engel, and carried on some sort of conversation with the landlord who remembered her very well, and afterwards, because there was still the afternoon to get through, she walked slowly back to Huize den Linden and spent the empty hours sitting in the garden until the others returned. It was easier when they were there and presently she went indoors to pack and change her dress for dinner, cheering herself with the thought that the evening couldn’t last for ever and it would soon be tomorrow and Justin would return.
CHAPTER NINE
WILL and Kitty left quite early the following morning and Emma, coming back into the house after having seen them off, found Mevrouw Teylingen waiting for her in the hall.
‘There you are, Emma,’ she said kindly. ‘Come and keep me company over breakfast, you must feel a little lonely without your sister and Mr Lunn.’ She tucked an arm under Emma’s and led her to the dining-room where the meal was lying ready on the table. Mevrouw Teylingen seated herself and bade Emma do the same.
‘You will be leaving soon, my dear?’ she inquired gently. ‘I rather gathered from what Kitty told me that you will be going some time today.’
Emma accepted a cup of coffee and found herself, to her annoyance, colouring under Mevrouw Teylingen’s bright gaze. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘Justin has asked me to stay until he…I’m not sure when I’m going.’
Her hostess gave a little laugh. ‘How like Justin! He can’t bear to see you go, Emma, and how well I understand him. You see, he has had many girl-friends, but you are different because, forgive me—you are not pretty, my dear, but you are a pleasant companion and charming and above all, you understand his work so that he can talk about it to you. You must have helped him a great deal during these last few months. He has had to wait so long for his dream to come true and he has been so patient; to have had a friend such as you, an older woman who has outgrown a young girl’s silly dreams, must have helped him so much, for it has been hard for him—harder for him than for Saskia.’
‘For Saskia?’ repeated Emma. It was like being toppled into a bad dream. She wondered what she was going to hear next, and she didn’t have long to wait.
‘Did he not tell you? Perhaps he felt it to be unnecessary, for you are such a sensible girl.’
Emma didn’t feel in the least sensible. She asked in a voice which, she was surprised to hear, sounded quite normal, ‘Justin and Saskia? Are they—do they love each other?’
Her hostess smiled at her. She at any rate, thought poor Emma, was enjoying the conversation. ‘Of course, my dear. Isn’t it charming?’
‘But Justin is seventeen years older than Saskia…’
‘What are a few years? He has known and loved her since she was a baby. When she was a child we lived in The Hague, but even then they saw a great deal of each other, and when Justin’s father died ten years ago and his mother two years later and I was myself a widow, we came to make our home with him—someone had to run the house, and I have always loved this place so much. Saskia was fifteen then and in all these years they have remained devoted.’
‘Why haven’t they married?’ asked Emma, the question almost choking her. But she had to wait for her answer, for Mevrouw Teylingen didn’t reply at once but offered her more coffee and Emma was forced to pass her cup. Only when it had been returned to her did her companion answer.
‘This will seem extraordinary to you, perhaps, Emma, but when Saskia’s father was dying he asked her to promise not to marry before she was twenty-four—so odd, don’t you think? but there it is. So she has waited, but now, within a very short time, it will be her birthday.’
Mevrouw Teylingen nodded and beamed at Emma as if to invite her to join in her pleasure at the prospect, but Emma didn’t answer because she couldn’t trust her voice any more and because she was remembering. Hadn’t Justin told her—and how happy he had looked when he had done so—that he was going to take a wife? He had even asked her to guess who it was and she, poor fool, had thought it was herself and would have said so if Saskia hadn’t come in at that moment. She thanked heaven for that now, swallowing humiliation and wretchedness and, keeping her voice calm with a great effort, remarked, ‘Well, I think I might be in the way if I stay on, don’t you, Mevrouw Teylingen? What do you suggest that I do?’
Her hostess answered her without hesitation. ‘Why, my dear, there is no reason for you to go—nothing is altered, is it? Saskia has always understood—unless,’ she paused and went on delicately, ‘am I right in supposing that you have lost your heart a little, after all? If that is so, then surely for your own sake it would be best to go.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I daresay there is a plane…Justin won’t be back until tomorrow, though I don’t know when.’
Emma sat back in her chair. ‘I’m not running away, Mevrouw Teylingen,’ she said steadily. ‘If I leave tomorrow, that will be time enough. I won’t go before I have seen Justin and wished him goodbye—I said that I would wait for him to return, and after all, we are good friends. Besides, that gives me time to cancel my ticket and arrange for a flight.’
She thought that Mevrouw Teylingen looked annoyed, but the expression was so fleeting on her handsome face that Emma told herself that she had been mistaken. ‘Will Saskia be back before I go?’ she asked.
‘No—she isn’t returning until tomorrow evening. What a pity, she will be sorry to have missed you, but I daresay you two girls will write to each other.’
Emma thought it unlikely; Saskia had never shown any preference for her company, although they had got on well enough, and for her part, she could think of no reason for writing to Justin’s future wife. She got to her feet. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk,’ she said quietly, ‘it’s such a lovely day after the rain.’
Mevrouw Teylingen beamed at her. ‘That’s right, Emma, but take care not to tire yourself. Justin invited you here so that you should have a good rest before you started work again. He’s such a good man, you know, always doing a kindness to anyone who needs it.’
Emma thought about that remark too while she strolled along the lanes behind the house. Had Justin just been doing her a kindness? Had she been blinded by her own feelings for him so that she had imagined that he was beginning to love her? She tried to recall any occasion when he and Saskia had behaved like two people in love and could think of none—possibly, she told herself with her usual good sense, because Justin wasn’t the kind of man to show his feelings in public. She wondered about the other girls Mevrouw Teylingen had talked about too. Had they been trivial affairs, to while away the time until he could claim his Saskia, and in any case surely he and Saskia could have become engaged even if Saskia was bound by her promise. Emma frowned and stopped to think with greater ease. Saskia didn’t strike her as the sort of girl who would bother about keeping a promise if it interfered with her own inclinations. She walked on again slowly thinking about herself and Justin; it hadn’t been an affair; it had gone deeper than that, with her at any rate and, she had thought, with him too. But she had so obviously thought wrongly; Mevrouw Teylingen’s words made sense. She came to a crossroads and sat down on the grass verge, staring at the flat country around her and longing suddenly to be away from it all, back in theatre, working so hard that she had no time to think. Tears which she had been holding in check suddenly got the better of her; they trickled slowly down her cheeks and at first she wiped them angrily away, and then didn’t bother any more but let them fall as they pleased.
It was when she got back to the house for lunch, calm but still puffy-eyed, that Mevrouw Teylingen told her that Justin would arrive early the following morning, and added kindly that she had taken it upon herself to book a seat for Emma on a plane leaving about midday. Emma, touched by her hostess’s thoughtfulness, and not caring how she went as long as it was soon, thanked her gratefully.
She was ready to leave when Justin arrived back the next day, although there was still half an hour to wait for the taxi. He came striding through the door and when he saw her standing rather aimlessly in the middle of the hall, came straight towards her, smiling, only to check his stride as his quick glance took in the suitcase beside her. The smile slid from his face, leaving it without expression, and when he spoke his voice was harsh. ‘Emma, what is the matter? Where are you going?’ He stopped before her, staring unsmilingly into her face, his eyebrows raised. ‘Escaping before I could get home?’ His voice was silky.
‘No,’ said Emma quickly, appalled at his perceptiveness, and truthful even while she was brokenhearted. ‘I wouldn’t do that, Justin. I stayed so that I could say good-bye.’
‘Indeed? So you are leaving us—leaving me, Emma, my dear Emma.’
Emma nodded. ‘Yes, and I don’t have to explain, do I? I mean you must know without me having to tell you, and I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.’ She gave him a rather shaky smile, proud of her self-control when what she really longed to do was to scream at him at the top of her voice that she loved him to distraction and had been foolish enough to imagine that he was beginning to love her when all the time he had merely been seeking solace—safe solace with an older woman—against his longing for Saskia. She choked on the thought, seeing herself as a kind of stopgap for him, and because she hadn’t been demanding or asked questions, he had taken it for granted that she looked upon the whole thing as an episode to be forgotten once she was back in hospital. She scowled at him, causing his eyebrows to soar once more.
‘My dear Emma, what have I done?’ He moved a little nearer. ‘I must insist upon being told.’
She moved a little away and then stopped because the stairs were behind her and that way she was cut off from retreat. She sidled sideways instead and he laughed. There was the beginning of anger in his laugh, though, and his snapped ‘Well?’ did nothing to invite her confidence.
She said quietly, ‘Look, I was going back very soon anyway, wasn’t I? It surely doesn’t matter if I go a day or two earlier. I didn’t think you would mind—not now Saskia’s birthday is in less than a week.’
‘What the devil has Saskia’s birthday got to do with it?’ he demanded, and then smiled suddenly at her, a tender, mocking smile which tore her heart in ribbons. She drew breath with difficulty. ‘Please let me go, Justin, without a fuss,’ she said in a cold little voice which quenched the smile and had the instant effect she had wanted.
‘Of course, dear girl—I would be the last person to hold you.’ His voice was light, it was also impersonal; it was as though he had gone a long way away in a matter of seconds. ‘How are you going?’ He spoke pleasantly, the perfect, well-mannered host.
‘By plane—the taxi’s coming…’
He frowned. ‘Taxi? When there’s a car in the garage—you only had to ask Piet.’
‘Mevrouw Teylingen thought that a taxi would be better.’
He said nothing to that, but, ‘I’ll drive you myself,’ he began when there was the sound of someone coming along the upper landing and down the stairs and he turned to see who it was, saying to her over his shoulder in a careless voice, ‘Don’t argue, please. When does your plane leave?’
When she told him he said, ‘Good—I’ve time for some coffee.’ He turned back again to the stairs and observed pleasantly, ‘Good morning, Tante Wilhelmina. I’ve just told Emma that I will take her to Schipol, I’ve nothing to do for a few hours. How is it that you ordered a taxi when Piet could have taken the car?’
Mevrouw Teylingen came down the staircase at her usual stately pace although she was breathing rapidly. ‘Justin dear, you’re a little earlier than I had expected, but how nice. Did I do wrong? It seemed a good idea—I’m sorry. Did I hear you say that you would drive Emma yourself? Then may I come too? I should enjoy the drive and I want to see the dear child safely on to her plane.’ She smiled at Emma as she spoke and Emma returned the smile warmly because she really was a kind and thoughtful hostess and she had tried so hard to help.
Mevrouw Teylingen swept past Justin now and tucked Emma’s hand under her arm. ‘Shall we all have coffee? I’m sure it’s ready and I want to hear about your plans, Justin.’
He nodded carelessly and said with his usual courtesy, ‘Just as you like, Tante Wilhelmina. I’ll cancel that taxi and join you.’
They drank their coffee in the little s
itting-room while they carried on an uneasy conversation, largely sustained by Mevrouw Teylingen, who didn’t appear to notice her nephew’s absentmindedness, or that Emma hardly spoke at all. Presently she got up, saying, ‘If you’d like to go out to the car, Justin, we will join you in a minute or so. There is something I wish to give to Emma before she leaves.’ She bore Emma away upstairs to the big bedroom Emma had never seen, and told her to sit down while her hostess put on her hat and coat. Emma, undecided as to whether she was relieved not to be left alone with Justin or disappointed at not having the chance to talk to him again, did as she was asked and when Mevrouw Teylingen presented her with a little package and a charming little speech in which she stressed how much she would miss Emma, accepted it with gratitude and followed her companion downstairs again with an air of composure which successfully concealed her chaotic thoughts.
Her bags were already in the car and so was Justin, sitting behind the wheel, looking thoughtful. He got out, however, when he saw them at the door and ushered his aunt into the back seat, then opened the door for Emma to sit beside him. As she got in Mevrouw Teylingen said a little plaintively, ‘Oh, dear—I had hoped that Emma would sit with me,’ a remark which fell upon apparently deaf ears, for Justin didn’t answer her but got into his own seat and drove away in silence—a silence, Emma realized, he had no intention of breaking.
‘It’s a pleasant morning,’ she began. Her voice sounded a little high-pitched and wooden to her ears, but on the whole it wasn’t too bad. She tried again. ‘I shall get a splendid view of Holland from the air.’
