by Betty Neels
‘Impertinent girl,’ he said, and wrapped her in a vicelike grip to kiss her. ‘I’m thirty-eight,’ he told her in a perfectly ordinary voice; evidently the kiss had had no effect upon him at all. ‘Do you find that old, Arabella?’
But the kiss had had an effect upon her; she had no breath to speak of, certainly not to waste on speech. She shook her head and hoped that he couldn’t hear her heart thundering under her dressing gown.
He stared down at her for a long moment. ‘Good,’ he said softly, and smiled as he bent to kiss her once more, only this time it was a gentle kiss. His good night was gentle too. She still hadn’t said a word when he went out of the room.
She spent a miserable night, alternating between delightful memories and the bleak knowledge that she would be going away in a few hours and would never see the doctor again. She wondered if, supposing she could have stayed a little longer, he might have fallen in love with her. He was a little interested, but only, common sense told her, a little. She got out of bed and switched on the light over the dressing table to peer at herself in the triple mirror. Her anxious eyes stared back from a tired face; she was forced to admit that, with all the optimism in the world, she had no looks to speak of. Her aunt had been quite right when she had told her with her habitual vague kindliness years ago, that she would never be a pretty girl. ‘Although you have a pleasant manner,’ she had said, ‘and good health.’
Just for a time, thought Arabella rebelliously, examining her unremarkable profile, it would be delightful to exchange both her pleasant manner and her undoubted good health for a unpleasant disposition and shattering good looks. She got back into bed presently, and because she had plenty of good sense and she had a long day before her, she went to sleep.
She was taken aback to discover that Sally and Billy didn’t want to go home after all. They loved George, they told her, agitation making their speech worse than usual, and they loved Crosby and Tatters and the kittens and everyone else in the house—and would they never see the doctor again, or Arabella?
She provided suitable soothing answers to these questions, painted a reassuring picture of home, and packed their things before wheeling them, with Larissa to help, round the rambling old house to say goodbye to everyone. She said her own goodbyes at the same time, although Larissa and Hanneke insisted on helping her with the children’s lunch, a meal they neither wanted nor ate much of. They were swallowing the last reluctant mouthfuls when the doctor joined them, wanting to know cheerfully who was ready to go home. Two glowering small faces stared up at him as Arabella made haste to assure him that once they were on the way, everything would be all right. And presently she left Hanneke in charge and went to have her own lunch in the company of the doctor and his sister. She made as sorry a meal as the children had done, pushing the food round and round her plate and keeping up an overbright conversation about nothing at all. She was eager to be gone now; there was no sense in dragging out a situation which had become as painful as she could bear. When coffee came at last she drank hers quickly.
‘If you will excuse me,’ she spoke to Larissa, ‘I’ll go and put the finishing touches to the children—I daresay the ambulance will be here at any moment.’
‘No, it won’t,’ said the doctor calmly, and passed his cup to have it refilled. ‘You’re coming with me.’
‘With you?’ breathed Arabella, not understanding in the least.
‘That’s right. I told you you would be going home on the same route as you came, only this time I’m taking it.’ He glanced at her briefly. ‘I go to England fairly frequently; it just so happens that I have some business there and it’s convenient for me to go today. Do you suppose you can manage on the journey?’
Arabella remembered managing twenty-two children on the way over, with Sister Brewster sitting at the back, issuing orders and doing nothing to help. ‘Easily,’ she told him, and smiled. The day had suddenly become perfect; it stretched before her, hours and hours of it in the doctor’s company, all the way to Wickham’s.
‘How like Gideon,’ remarked Larissa laughingly, ‘not to tell you. How I shall miss you, Arabella, and how dull it is going to be until I get married. Thank heaven there isn’t much longer to wait for the wedding. You couldn’t come over for it, I suppose?’
‘Well, n-no, I d-don’t think so. You see, my holidays have had t-to be changed because I had to c-come with the children. I expect I’ll have t-to t-take what’s left.’
Arabella didn’t look at the doctor; if he asked her to come to Larissa’s wedding, then she would somehow, even if it meant giving in her notice. But nothing so drastic was demanded of her; he remained silent, and after a few more minutes’ talk on the girls’ part, he suggested that they might make a move.
It took a little time to stow the children, their folding chairs and their odds and ends of luggage in the Bentley. This time they were in the back on their own, propped up with cushions, their wasted little legs planted firmly on some hassocks Larissa had unearthed from the attics. They had cheered up by now, excited at the idea of the long ride in a car, and buoyed up by Larissa’s promise to come and see them one day. Arabella tucked the rugs cosily around them and got in beside the doctor. It was raining and decidedly chilly, but she hadn’t noticed; she had on the new mackintosh and the perky little cap; the cheerful colour washed her pale face with coral and gave her a false gaiety. She felt secure in it, like a knight behind his armour.
They started off, a cheerful little party despite the last-minute tearful goodbyes, the children’s spirits lightened by the bestowing of last-minute gifts by the members of the doctor’s household. Arabella turned for a last look as the car stopped at the gates. They were all there, Larissa and Emma, Hanneke and Juffrouw Blind and the niece who worked in the kitchen, as well as the elderly gardener whom she had never got to know. George was there too, being restrained from following them, and she had no doubt that somewhere behind the sitting room windows, Crosby and Tatters and the kittens were watching too. It was like leaving a loved home; she swallowed back strong feelings and said in a little voice: ‘You must be so glad when you come home again.’
He had understood her. ‘Indeed yes. It holds everything I hold dear—I cannot imagine living anywhere else. I’m glad that you feel like that about it too.’
She stifled regret as they left Doesburg behind and joined the motorway which would carry them on the first stage of their journey to Calais. Regret was a waste of time; she only had a few more hours of the doctor’s company, and she wasn’t going to spoil them.
The journey proved all she could have hoped for; the doctor was at his most amusing, the children were as good as gold, and when they stopped for a picnic tea, they managed very well, draped in plastic bibs and towels, with the doctor attending to Billy’s wants, and Arabella seeing to Sally. The children settled, they had a quick cup of tea themselves before pressing on, although the Bentley was making so light of the journey that they had time to spare at Calais and spent it playing with the children until they could board the Hovercraft.
Arabella had been nervous of seasickness during the journey, but Billy and Sally had gone on playing the childish game with no signs of queasiness. Indeed, they hardly noticed their transition to land again, but once on the road again they dozed off, leaving Arabella free to look around her.
‘Nice to be back in England?’ the doctor wanted to know. ‘I expect you’re glad. Presumably you will have days off before you go back to your duty on the ward.’
‘I hadn’t thought about it. It would be nice, though. I’ve th-three weeks’ holiday d-due too.’
‘Hardly the time of year for holidays, surely?’
‘Well, no, b-but I had to postpone them—I was going to Scotland…’ She had been on the point of telling him how she had come to be on the ill-fated trip, but that would bring Hilary into it. Instead she said:
‘I’ll get my uncle to lend me his car and go down to Cornwall—it’s lovely in the autumn.’
‘On you
r own?’ He was tearing up the road to London, keeping to a steady seventy.
‘Yes. There won’t be anyone else—they will have had their holidays.’
‘When do you finish your training?’ His question started them off on generalities once more.
They reached Wickham’s a few minutes after seven o’clock. It looked grey and lifeless although she was well aware that behind those blank windows the place was teeming with life; it didn’t seem possible that she had had lunch in Holland, sitting in the doctor’s dining room. She closed her eyes in a childish wish to be transported back there once more and opened them to find that the car had drawn up outside the Accident Room entrance and that without any visible effort, the doctor had been surrounded by porters, nurses and the Casualty Officer on duty, who between them unpacked the children and bore them, half asleep, to the children’s ward where bed and supper awaited them. That left Arabella, her arms full of the jetsam of the journey, standing in the wide passage leading to the accident room, wondering what she should do first.
The doctor decided that for her. ‘Matron, I think, don’t you? I’ll come with you, if I may, and hand Billy and Sally over formally—you too.’
‘Me?’
‘Well, yes, you have been in my care while you were in Holland, have you not?’
‘Oh—I hadn’t thought of it like that.’
They were walking slowly in the direction of the main corridor. He stopped. ‘How did you think of it?’
She stared up at him. ‘I—I don’t know. I was happy.’
She began to walk on again, wishing she hadn’t said that. They reached the main corridor and started to cross the back of the vast entrance hall, the main staircase looming beside them. The doctor stopped again. ‘I was happy too, dear girl,’ he said quietly, and smiled slowly. The smile warmed her through and through, just for a moment she glowed with happiness, then there was a faint sound on the staircase and the doctor looked over her shoulder and she saw his eyes widen.
‘And who, I wonder, is the descending angel?’ he wanted to know.
Arabella knew. Even as she turned her head, her foreboding became reality. It was Hilary, looking like every man’s dream of the perfect girl.
CHAPTER SIX
THE doctor was right. Hilary looked, even in her Sister’s uniform and at the end of a day’s work, exactly like a story-book angel, all pink and gold and blue eyes; she looked fragile too, Arabella noted sourly, knowing that under that soft yielding front was a Hilary of steel who always got what she wanted, and did it with such charm that no one realized that they were being ruthlessly conned.
Arabella perceived that she was going to be conned now, she and Doctor van der Vorst. She knew sadly that it would be easy for Hilary to wrap him round her thumb, for she had seen the initial impact of her cousin’s appearance upon him, but there was nothing she could do about it, not at the moment. She went to greet her cousin and was caught in a laughing hug and a joyous, ‘Arabella—how lovely! Miss Trenchard said you would be back today—how lucky that I should come off duty at the very moment…’ Hilary’s eyes were on the doctor as she spoke and she went on gaily: ‘This must be Doctor van der Vorst—now why did I imagine you to be middle-aged and dull? For that’s the impression Arabella gave us in her letters.’
Clever girl, thought Arabella, unwillingly admiring, and watched as Hilary put out a hand before she could get her unwilling tongue to frame an introduction. ‘I’m Hilary, Arabella’s cousin, you know.’ She tilted her golden head. ‘Or perhaps you didn’t know?’
Her hand was gently engulfed. ‘How do you do?’ said the doctor formally. ‘And yes, Arabella has spoken of you. I’m delighted to meet you.’
And to Arabella, listening with the unhappy edginess of those in love, he sounded as delighted as he had said he was. I bet you are, she thought vulgarly, watching his slow smile with a pain which was almost physical.
Hilary was wasting no time; she turned briskly to Arabella. ‘You’d better go straight to Miss Trenchard, ducky,’ she counselled. ‘She’s on duty this evening—we’ll wait here for you, if you like.’ She shot a glance at the doctor who was staring at her rather hard. ‘I want to hear all about your stay in Holland. If I’d known I was going to be rescued by you, Doctor van der Vorst, I would have begged Matron on my knees to let me off that stupid Admin. course that prevented me going at the last minute.’
‘I’m flattered, but it was hardly a social occasion.’ And when she pouted prettily: ‘It would have been a delightful surprise to have found you in the wreckage, though.’
Arabella had heard enough; she had heard it all before—Hilary getting to work on the man she had singled out for attention—only this time it hurt. It was a pity that, having witnessed so many of these charming little scenes, she had never learned a thing from them to help herself. ‘I’ll go and see Miss Trenchard,’ she mumbled, and found the doctor beside her.
‘Yes,’ he agreed placidly, ‘I think we should do that,’ and added apparently for Hilary’s benefit: ‘I feel sure we shall meet again.’
It was only the length of the corridor to Miss Trenchard’s office, so there was no need to talk. They went in together and the doctor kept her firmly beside him while he and the Matron held a brisk conversation about the whole episode of the accident and its aftermath.
‘Nurse Birch was of the greatest possible help,’ he declared. ‘She showed great courage and good sense, and took the greatest possible care of the children. I believe that Sally and Billy have improved enormously, for she has been with them constantly. I am afraid that she has lost a good deal of her off duty and she had virtually no days off. Perhaps something could be arranged?’
He spoke in his usual placid tones, but somehow it was obvious that he expected Miss Trenchard to do something about it at once. And she, poor lady, with Arabella’s name down to go to Male Surgical at half past seven in the morning, found herself suggesting that Arabella might like to have four days off immediately. The doctor agreed immediately to this without giving Arabella a chance to speak for herself; complimented Miss Trenchard upon the high quality of her nursing staff, so that her somewhat austere face became wreathed in smiles, bade her a courteous goodbye and took his leave of her, taking Arabella, still speechless, with him.
In the corridor she said a little helplessly: ‘Look, that was awfully kind of you, getting me days off, but there are all sorts of things—I mean I don’t even know when to come back on duty—I…’
‘Telephone tomorrow. Do you want to pack or anything, or shall we go now?’
‘Go where?’ asked Arabella, regrettably dim.
‘To your home, of course. You didn’t imagine that I would leave you high and dry here?’
‘Well, yes, I did. I mean, you brought me back, which was awfully kind of you, but you don’t need to do any more.’ She smiled at him, delighted with herself because she hadn’t stammered for quite a while. And she had forgotten Hilary.
Which was a mistake; Hilary was waiting for them, just where they had left her. She smiled with charm at both of them, but addressed Arabella, ‘Well—days off?’
‘Yes,’ said Arabella, hating herself for speaking with reluctance. ‘Four.’
Hilary’s blue eyes became intent. ‘Going home this evening, Bella?’
‘Yes,’ said Arabella unwillingly, and because she knew that Hilary was going to ask: ‘Doctor van der Vorst is driving me.’
Hilary turned a smile of pure enchantment on to the doctor. ‘Oh, would I be an awful nuisance if I came too? I’ve a couple of days, but I was going by train in the morning, but it’s such a wretched journey. I can be ready in ten minutes.’ She waited for his reply, contriving to look forlorn.
‘I shall be delighted,’ said the doctor. ‘I was just asking Arabella if she needed to pack anything.’ He glanced at Arabella. ‘Will ten minutes suit you?’
Arabella nodded. She knew exactly what was going to happen; she would sit in the back of the car and Hilary woul
d sit beside him and turn on the full power of her charm. She started along the corridor which led to the Nurses’ Home, not waiting for her cousin.
In her room she pushed a few clothes into a case and went to see if any of her friends were about. Anne Morgan was in her room, doing her laundry and making up a clean cap. This she cast carelessly down when she saw Arabella. ‘We heard that you were coming back, but no one knew when,’ she exclaimed happily. ‘What’s to do?’
‘Days off,’ said Arabella. ‘I’m going now.’
‘How?’
‘Doctor van der Vorst is driving me home—he brought us back.’
Anne made a face. ‘Is he awful?’ she asked, ‘or have you got yourself a boy-friend?’
‘He’s not awful, he’s not my boy-friend either. Hilary’s coming with us—she’s got days off too.’
Anne looked up in astonishment. ‘She has not—whoever told you that? I was behind her in the queue in the canteen, and I heard her telling Sister Fleming that she hadn’t any days off due until next week.’
Arabella considered this statement. ‘I expect she fixed them,’ she gave it her opinion, ‘because I’m back.’
Anne picked up the cap again without looking at her. ‘Probably. Is this doctor nice-looking?’ she asked carelessly.
‘Very.’ Arabella, carried away on a flood of memories, went on: ‘He’s got a gorgeous house, very old and full of lovely things, and he must have a lot of money, because he drives a Bentley. His sister has a car too—there’s a swimming pool…’ She stared at the wall in front of her, her thoughts so deeply in Holland that she had forgotten where she was.
Anne eyed her closely. ‘Just right for Hilary,’ she observed dryly.
Arabella came back to the present with a crash. ‘Y-yes, that’s w-what I th-thought,’ she agreed, her stammer worse than ever.
The doctor was standing exactly where they had left him, only this time he was talking to Sir Justin Gold, one of the senior consultants at Wickham’s. Sir Justin had a big, booming voice and a magnificent bedside manner, but apart from these two things he was a nice man, happily married and a doting father. Arabella liked him, although their acquaintance was of necessity confined to running the great man’s errands when he was on the ward. But he always thanked her politely, and once, when she had fallen down with a loaded instrument tray, right at his very feet, he had picked her up and rearranged the tray for her in a meticulous fashion, which had been a great waste of time, for she had had to go away and re-sterilize the whole lot, but the action had been kindly meant and she hadn’t forgotten it. She hung back now, looking, if she did but know it, rather forlorn in her bright mackintosh. She was making up her mind whether to slip away and return in five minutes or so, looking as though she hadn’t already been there once, or advance upon the two gentlemen, when the doctor looked up and called:
