The Fateful Bargain

by Betty Neels

  It was a wrench leaving Pearson’s and her chance to qualify in a year’s time, but she had the good sense not to give way to self-pity. She had got her wish, and sooner than she had hoped. In six months or so she would be able to complete her training. Her friends frankly envied her even while they wished her the best of luck, and even Sister Cook managed a wintry smile. For the last time Emily went along the passages and down the stairs to the cloakroom to get her coat, carrying a plastic bag bulging with an assortment of gifts from both patients and friends.

  She was crossing the entrance hall when the porter called her. There was a note, he told her, delivered half an hour ago.

  She knew the unreadable writing—Mr van Tecqx had remembered her.

  She would be picked up on the following morning at nine o’clock. Would she kindly have her luggage and Podge ready at that time? It was a businesslike note, signed with his initials. And just suppose I’d made my own arrangements, reflected Emily, what would I have done? To whom would I have applied?

  She lost no time in tucking the note tidily away and going back to her room, now looking bare and unlived-in. She fed a peevish Podge, stowed her presents in the trunk and opened a can of beans before taking a bath and going to bed. It would be lovely to be home again, even if only for a few days, and despite Mr van Tecqx’s rather gloomy account of his sister, she was looking forward to her new job. Indeed, she had the good sense to realise that there wasn’t much point in doing otherwise.

  She was up betimes, eating a hasty breakfast, feeding Podge and packing the last of her things and then taking her luggage downstairs to the narrow hall. The trunk took a good deal of manhandling even with Mrs Winter to help, but she was ready and waiting by nine o’clock, when, exactly on time, Mr van Tecqx drew up before the sagging gate. He cast a thoughtful eye over Emily’s bits and pieces and then began to load her cases, plastic bags and Podge into the back of the car; to her offer to help with the trunk he made no answer but heaved it into the boot without any fuss, bade her get into the car, wished Mrs Winter goodbye, got inside beside Emily and drove off.

  ‘I didn’t know it would be you,’ said Emily.

  ‘How should you, since I had not said so,’ observed Mr van Tecqx so austerely that she stayed silent for quite five minutes.

  ‘You’re operating at half past eleven,’ she reminded him. ‘I saw the list last night.’

  ‘Yes, I know—they do let me see the list too.’ The hint of sarcasm blended with the austerity and she winced.

  ‘I have no wish to pry,’ she told him kindly. ‘I just wouldn’t like you to be delayed.’ She glanced at his rather stern profile and was struck by a sudden thought. ‘Have you been up all night?’

  ‘Not all night—since half past three.’

  ‘You should have told me—I could have caught the train…’ She paused, because in view of her pile of possessions it just wouldn’t have been possible. ‘Mrs Winter could have sent my luggage later…’

  ‘If by luggage you mean that deplorable collection of plastic bags and whatever which I have loaded into the car, they wouldn’t have got far.’

  Emily said haughtily, ‘I can’t afford Gucci luggage.’

  He laughed. ‘Don’t be peevish!’

  ‘I am not peevish.’ She did her best to keep her voice well modulated and reasonable. After all, he was quite right about her luggage. And he had been up most of the night too…

  They travelled in silence, although Podge, fed up in his basket, mumbled and grumbled to himself. They were more than half-way there when Mr van Tecqx spoke. ‘I intend to go back to Holland in four days’ time. I hope that you will accompany me. I shall not be free until the afternoon of that day, so it will be necessary to take a night ferry. Kindly be ready to go with me. I will come for you not later than half past six.’

  ‘Father…’ began Emily.

  ‘Will be quite all right. I would not ask you to leave him otherwise.’

  ‘Very well, I shall be ready.’ She drew a breath. ‘Mr van Tecqx, I haven’t thanked you properly for all you’ve done for Father and me. I’m very grateful; life is suddenly quite different…’

  She didn’t see the little smile. ‘There I must agree with you, although for me it is for quite another reason.’

  ‘Oh, well, I expect so—I mean, you’re going back home, aren’t you?’ She paused, getting what she wanted to say exactly right. ‘By the time you’ll want to operate on Father’s other hip I shall have enough money saved to pay your fees…’

  She was brought up short by his curt, ‘That will do, Emily. We made a bargain, you and I, we will keep to our side of it. I wish to hear no more about it.’

  She said reasonably, ‘Well, I dare say you don’t, but you have no need to sound so annoyed, although I expect it’s because you haven’t had enough sleep.’

  He uttered a crack of laughter at that but said nothing—indeed, he had nothing more to say, not even when he drew up before the cottage.

  He got out and opened the door for her. Cross he might be, she reflected, but he hadn’t forgotten his manners. She went up the little path and opened the door, then went back to fetch Podge in his basket and some of the plastic bags. As Mr van Tecqx dumped the trunk in the tiny hall she asked, ‘You’ll have a cup of coffee? I’ll be very quick. Did you have breakfast?’

  What with the trunk and the pair of them there was hardly room to move. Emily looked up into his face and saw the tired lines in it. She answered for him, ‘Scrambled eggs on toast—you can eat that quickly.’

  She didn’t wait for him to answer but went to the kitchen and filled the kettle and got down a saucepan for the eggs. Only when that was done did she stop to let Podge out of his basket and invite Mr van Tecqx to sit down. The little house was cold, but the sun shone, and once she had cut the bread and fetched the milk and butter, she lit the gas fire in the sitting room. ‘I’ll bring the tray in here,’ she told him. ‘About five minutes—I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  ‘Anxious to be rid of me?’ he wanted to know, and took off his coat and pulled his chair nearer the fire. ‘It’s not yet half past ten. May I use your telephone?’

  While she stirred the eggs carefully, she heard him telling someone—his Registrar, she supposed—that he might be half an hour late.

  She carried the tray in presently and found him asleep. She put it down silently and stood looking at him. He appeared a lot younger somehow and quite different from the rather austere consultant who visited the ward; rather as though he had taken off a mask.

  He opened his eyes and the mask slipped back into place.

  Emily poured their coffee and nibbled toast while he ate his eggs. Rather diffidently, she offered him some more toast and he ate that too.

  ‘Is the list very long?’ she asked, absurdly visualising him dropping off to sleep over a fractured leg.

  ‘Not too bad. A laminectomy, a spina bifida, a crushed foot which should have been seen to days ago—the man didn’t get his doctor until he could no longer stand the pain—oh, and a malignant tumour, a child of twelve. I do hope we can do something for him.’

  Emily said worriedly: ‘You really shouldn’t have brought me, you need your rest and you’ll be operating for hours.’

  ‘Ah, but you are restful, Emily—and don’t worry, if I’m tired, I don’t operate.’

  He went soon afterwards, driving away, relaxed and at ease. To look at him, she thought, he gave the impression of a man who had slept all night. She watched the Bentley disappear down the lane and then went indoors; she was conscious of feeling lonely, but there was plenty to do before her father arrived on the following day.

  Mrs Owen had been in each week to keep an eye on things, but Emily went through the cottage like a small whirlwind, Hoovering and polishing, making beds and finally making a cake for the next day before getting her own supper and dealing with Podge. Tomorrow, she decided, she would get up early and clean the vegetables Mrs Owen had left for her, pop down to the village
for a chicken and find some flowers for Mrs Philips’s room. She was in bed before ten o’clock, tired out but happy, with Podge lying heavily on her feet. Just before she dropped off she wondered sleepily if Mr van Tecqx had got through his day in a satisfactory manner. ‘Well, of course he has,’ she muttered to an uncaring Podge. ‘I don’t suppose he’s ever been flummoxed by anything or anyone.’ Naturally enough Podge didn’t reply, and she rolled into a comfortable ball and went to sleep.

  The telephone rang while she was having breakfast to tell her that her father would be leaving the hospital at eleven o’clock. Emily recognised the voice—it belonged to the very pretty Ward Sister who had been in charge of her father, and who, Emily hadn’t failed to notice, was on excellent terms with Mr van Tecqx; always very correct and professional in her manner, of course, but there had been the quick glance and fleeting smile and, although he had made no sign, Emily was very sure that he was pleasurably aware of them. Well, good luck to them, she thought, gobbling the last of her toast, her mind already half full of the morning’s chores. Mr van Tecqx was no longer a young man—not old either, but all the same he might find his life more comfortable with a wife. She paused as she opened a tin of cat food for Podge. Perhaps he already had one, living in Delft, because that was where he had told her his home was.

  It was a joy to see her father walking with a crutch and with Mrs Philips in close attendance, coming slowly up the garden path. She went to meet him and he gave her a warm kiss.

  ‘I never thought I’d do this again,’ he told her. ‘You have no idea, Emily, how marvellous this is.’

  He was managing very well, Mrs Philips told her. ‘Still a good deal of pain from the other hip, but Mr van Tecqx will attend to that in due course.’

  She was a pleasant, rather stout woman, in her late fifties perhaps, but not looking that, and her father liked her, Emily could see that with relief. They had coffee in the sitting-room with the two ambulance men and then she took Mrs Philips to show her her room.

  ‘It’s not very large, I’m afraid, but there’s a lovely view…’

  ‘Bless you, my dear, it’s delightful. Don’t you worry about your father, I’ll take good care of him. He’s doing splendidly—Mr van Tecqx thinks he’ll be able to do the other hip in two months. By the spring your father will be walking with the best of us.’ She glanced at Emily’s happy face. ‘You’ll be going over to Holland, he tells me, to nurse his sister back on to her feet—a bit of a handful, apparently. A real family man, he is. A pity his wife died.’

  ‘Oh, was he married? How sad for him. Hasn’t he any children?’

  ‘No, and him so fond of them, too.’ Mrs Philips sighed. ‘Such a nice man too! A bit reserved, you might say, and fussy about his patients; keeps himself to himself, as it were. I dare say all you young nurses did your best to catch his eye…’

  ‘Well, yes—the pretty ones, you know, but I don’t think he bothered much, not at Pearson’s.’ Emily remembered the pretty Sister who had looked after her father and decided that she didn’t want to talk about him any more. ‘I’ve written down the ordinary things you might want to know without bothering my father—you know, the tradespeople and the milkman and where you can get the eggs. I do so hope you’ll like it here.’

  ‘I’m sure I shall. You’ve no idea how long you’ll be in Holland, have you?’

  ‘None at all. It all depends, doesn’t it? I’d like to be home for Christmas, but I shan’t bank on that. Are you in a hurry to leave, Mrs Philips?’

  ‘No, my dear. I’m a widow, I’ve got a son in Canada; he’ll be coming home some time next year and until then I shall keep on with private nursing.’

  Emily said rather shyly, ‘Did Mr van Tecqx tell you we only have Mrs Owen from the village to clean? She comes twice a week when I’m home, but when I was in hospital she popped in each day just to tidy up.’

  ‘Mr van Tecqx explained about that. I’ll enjoy some housekeeping—looking after your father won’t take all that time.’

  ‘You won’t mind looking after Podge, will you?’

  ‘I love cats. If you’re in Holland for some time, I dare say you’ll be able to come over for a few days to see how we’re all getting on.’

  ‘You’re awfully kind, Mrs Philips. I—I hate leaving Father, but I promised Mr van Tecqx… He’s been very good to me.’

  ‘He’s a good man, Emily. Likes his own way, of course, but what man doesn’t?’

  They smiled at one another with mutual approval and went back to where her father was sitting by the fire, reading his post. He looked up as they went in, smiling. ‘I feel a new man, you can have no idea…I saw Mr van Tecqx this morning before I left the hospital, and he told me that he plans to do the other hip in eight weeks’ time. I can hardly believe my good fortune! And you, Emily, I have to thank you too—you have no objection to going to Holland, have you? It will be an experience.’

  ‘I shall enjoy it very much, Father.’ Emily’s voice was as serene as ever; any doubts she had she intended to keep to herself. A host of them had crept into her head now that she was on the point of going to Holland. Her patient might dislike her on sight, Mr van Tecqx’s family might feel the same, and were they all as coolly bent on having their own way with everything? He hadn’t mentioned her free time. Would she get any, living with the family, and would her clothes be right? She had meant to go to the public library and read up all about Delft, but somehow there had not been the time. She had seen pictures of it, of course, and it looked charming; she would write long letters to her father and her friends at Pearson’s and describe everything. She had no idea exactly where Mr van Tecqx lived in the little city; since he was a surgeon she presumed he would have consulting rooms there, but perhaps he lived in one of its suburbs… Well, she would soon know.

  The intervening days passed too quickly. The last day came and Emily packed, prudently putting in two new blue overalls with neat white collars and cuffs, just in case she was expected to look like a nurse. She and Mrs Philips had had pleasant discussions over innumerable pots of tea concerning her father’s treatment, what he liked to eat, a brief résumé on the village shops and Podge’s diet, and there was, she felt, nothing more to be said or done. She was sitting waiting in her brown winter coat which she had decided would have to do for another winter; it was well cut but out of date and the colour did nothing for her, and Mr van Tecqx’s rather cold eyes slid over her with polite indifference. Not that she minded, she reflected, only very slightly put out; hadn’t she got her wish and wasn’t her father standing there, showing off his new hip joint?

  Mr van Tecqx accepted coffee and a slice of the fruit cake Emily had made that morning, but he wasted no time. He examined her father briefly, had a few words with Mrs Philips and picked up Emily’s case.

  ‘Is this all?’ he wanted to know, and then with the faintest sneer, ‘No plastic bags?’

  She ignored that; he had kept his side of their bargain, now she would keep hers, although she wanted very much to make a pert retort. After all, she knew now that he had lost his wife and probably because of that worked too hard, got too tired and became snappy.

  She made her farewells without fuss, gave Podge a final hug and got into the car. She turned to wave as Mr van Tecqx drove away and then sat, her hands clasped on her lap, waiting for him to say something if he felt like it. For her part, she wished very much to jump out of the car and run back home—a childish impulse she instantly suppressed.

  She was rewarded by his quiet, ‘Your father is a splendid patient. His recovery has surprised me. If he continues to do well, I shall be able to bring forward his second operation by a week at least.’

  ‘At the same hospital? You will have the time? I mean, you live at Delft and I suppose you do most of your work there?’

  ‘I don’t work in Delft; I have beds in the hospitals round and about. Leiden—I have consulting rooms there, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and den Haag, and I visit other countries fairly frequently.’


  The impatience in his voice stopped her asking any more questions. She knew him well enough by now to know that she would be told anything she needed to know. She relapsed into silence and occupied herself in guessing about the future.

  There was a good deal of traffic, especially going through the Dartford Tunnel; it thinned as they drove through Brentwood and on to Harlow and joined the motorway to Bishop’s Stortford, where they took the road to Braintree and there, rather to her surprise, stopped outside the White Hart.

  ‘I thought we might have dinner here. The restaurant on board the ferry is often crowded. You will be glad to go straight to your cabin, we dock soon after six o’clock in the morning.’

  Emily agreed meekly and got out of the car, and was surprised again to find him at her elbow to shut the door and take her arm as they crossed the pavement.

  The meal was well cooked and nicely served, and Emily discovered that she was hungry. They didn’t talk much and then on ordinary topics—the weather, the ferries, the state of the roads. Emily tried once or twice to lead their conversations into more personal channels, but Mr van Tecqx was too good for her, he turned a deaf ear and made bland observations on the wet autumn.

  The ferry, when they got aboard, was also very full, and she was glad to go to her cabin after all, especially as Mr van Tecqx had sent the stewardess to her with a tray of tea and the information that she would be called at six o’clock and if she needed anything she had only to ring.

  There was nothing else to do but to go to bed, and indeed she was tired, although she would have liked to have gone on deck and watched as the ferry left Harwich. She got into her comfortable bunk and, sensible girl that she was, closed her eyes on the doubtful future and slept at once.

  It was raining when she left her cabin, carrying her overnight bag, intent on finding Mr van Tecqx. He was outside her cabin door. He took her bag from her, wished her good morning, hoped that she had slept well and suggested that she might like to go on deck as they were almost at the Hoek of Holland.