by Betty Neels
‘Hullo, Arabella—I was just telling Sir Justin about your good work in Doesburg.’
She went towards them then, a little reluctantly, and Doctor van der Vorst put out a long arm and caught her gently by the sleeve, pulling her close to him.
‘Well, well,’ observed Sir Justin, ‘I’m delighted to hear such good things of you, Nurse. A very sensible girl I have always thought you—I’m sure you acquitted yourself with flying colours.’ He shook his head. ‘A very unfortunate business; I was sorry to hear about the coach driver—poor fellow.’ He smiled at Arabella. ‘I hear that you are to have a few days’ well-earned holiday before returning to the wards. I’m sure you deserve them, my dear.’
He patted her arm, shook hands with the doctor and made his measured way towards the Surgical side.
‘He’s nice,’ observed Arabella without much originality.
‘Very—he was one of my examiners.’
She twisted round to see his face. ‘No? Did you know he was here?’
The doctor smiled slowly. ‘Lord, yes. I pop in and out quite often—medicine’s a very international job these days, you know. I’ve been to see Billy and Sally, by the way.’
‘So have I. They’re happy now they’re back.’ She was about to embark on the plans she had made to see them from time to time when they came to Wickham’s for treatment, but she was cut ruthlessly short by her companion’s: ‘Where’s Hilary?’
Hilary already, and so eager. She scotched the telling of the plans. ‘She’s coming—I can hear her on the stairs.’
They both turned round to look as Hilary tripped towards them. She had a new coat; it was the first thing Arabella noticed, bordered with fur and with a fur-lined hood. It was perhaps a little early in the year for a winter coat, but this one was so eye-catching any girl would be forgiven for wearing it at the first opportunity. She gave the doctor her case to carry and tucked a confiding hand under his arm. ‘You are a dear,’ she said with just the right amount of gratitude in her voice. ‘Poor old Bella must be worn out.’
‘N-no, I’m n-not,’ said Arabella sharply, ‘it w-was a v-very c-comfortable trip.’ She would have liked to have said a great deal more, but the wretched stammer was back again and she had seen Hilary’s tolerant, faintly pitying glance. The three of them went out to the car, and Hilary, just as Arabella had foreseen, urged her to take the back seat so that she could have a nice snooze on the way home. ‘Don’t worry about Doctor van der Vorst,’ she begged her nettled cousin. ‘I’ll direct him—besides, there’s such a lot I want to hear about the accident. You just have forty winks, darling.’
Arabella had no wish to take forty winks. She sat in the leather luxury of the Bentley, with her eyes wide open, listening to Hilary’s voice, unable to hear what she was saying, but able to hear her light laugh—and the doctor’s; he sounded as though he was enjoying himself. She answered politely when one or other of them spoke to her, and tried desperately to think of a way in which she could captivate the doctor’s attention. She could think of nothing short of plastic surgery and a wig; she was in quite a nasty temper by the time they reached Braintree, and when the doctor drew up outside the White Hart with the obvious intention of stopping for dinner, and since she had no intention of playing gooseberry, she closed her eyes with commendable speed and when Hilary turned round to speak to her, gave no answer.
‘She’s asleep,’ said Hilary, and Arabella could have sworn that she heard satisfaction in her cousin’s voice. ‘Don’t let’s disturb her, she’s tired out. Mother will give her supper in bed when we get home.’
She heard the doctor’s seat creak as he turned to look at her. ‘She may be hungry as well as tired,’ he offered placidly.
‘Oh, Gideon—’ Gideon already!—‘you know how awful it feels to be wakened and made to eat. Leave her.’
‘She may wake up—I’ll leave a note so that she will know where to find us.’
Arabella heard the seat creak again and peeped cautiously. The doctor’s magnificent head was bent over a pocket book and he was writing; Hilary was watching him, looking faintly put out. They got out of the car then and the doctor opened the back door and laid the note on Arabella’s knee. He was so close that his coat sleeve brushed her cheek.
She gave them a minute in which to enter the hotel and then put on the car light and read his note. It said astonishingly: ‘You look very sweet when you’re asleep, even when you’re only pretending. Please join us for dinner.’ It was signed Gideon.
She read it several times. How could he have guessed that she wasn’t really asleep? She thought she had been doing it rather well—Hilary had been taken in—or had she? Arabella said pettishly and out loud:
‘Well, I won’t! I don’t want any dinner.’
They were away a long time, and long before then she was famished. She sat and stared at the hotel’s cheerful lights and thought of all the lovely food beyond its walls. She was still staring when the doctor came out with a tray in his hand, opened the door and arranged it on her knee. ‘You’re an obstinate girl,’ he greeted her with brisk cheerfulness. ‘Here’s some food, and drink this first.’
Sandwiches, she saw with satisfaction, an appetizing pile, and they all looked different. She obediently drank from the glass the doctor was holding out to her and after the first swallow, exclaimed: ‘Why, it’s champagne!’
‘Naturally—one should always drink it when one has something to celebrate.’
He meant meeting Hilary, of course. She took another sip, bit into a sandwich and said with her mouth full: ‘Thank you very much, it was kind of you to remember me…’
‘I don’t need to remember,’ he observed quietly. ‘Move over, I’m coming in.’
She did as she was told, her precious glass held carefully in one hand. ‘Where’s Hilary?’ she asked then.
‘Putting on a new face, I imagine. There’s something I want you to do for me, Arabella.’
She took another sip to give her spirits the boost they would most surely need. ‘Yes?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Mr Burns,’ he began, to surprise her. ‘I thought I would go and see his wife while I am over here, she might like to know…’ He hesitated. ‘It is sometimes easier to accept something when one is told it rather than be forced to read it or have it telephoned. I imagine Mrs Burns might find it easier to accept if someone talked to her about her husband’s death. I wondered if you would come with me. You were there—you saw it all happen, perhaps you could remember something he said or did—something pleasant. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Yes, I do. Of course I’ll come. When do you intend going to see her?’
He produced a bottle from somewhere or other and refilled her glass.
‘You have four days’ holiday, have you not? What about the day after those—in the evening? You come off duty at eight o’clock, I expect. I’ll come for you at half past, if you won’t be too tired.’
‘I’ll be there,’ Arabella told him.
He patted her shoulder. ‘Good girl! Now eat up those sandwiches.’ He eased himself back on the seat beside her. ‘Why did you pretend to be asleep, Arabella?’
She choked on her sandwich. ‘Well, I—I w-was tired.’
‘As good an excuse as any, I suppose.’
‘How did you know?’
He smiled at her. ‘You forget that during the past weeks I have had plenty of opportunities of studying your face.’
She had no answer to that, but asked instead: ‘Did you have a good dinner?’
‘Excellent, and very entertaining.’
Arabella put the picture of Hilary out of her mind and went on doggedly: ‘Are you going back to London this evening?’
He turned his head and looked at her. His face was serious, yet she could have sworn that he was laughing behind it. His voice was bland.
‘Hilary has kindly invited me to stay the night at your aunt’s house.’
The delicious smoked salmon sandwich she was eating ta
sted of dust and ashes. She had to say something, and why hadn’t she thought of it? Hilary had. ‘Oh, yes, of course, there’s heaps of r-room. You’ve been s-so kind, you must be t-tired—my aunt…’
‘Don’t babble, Arabella,’ he begged her gently. ‘Here is Hilary at last. I shall expect something really ravishing after all this while.’
He got out to join her cousin and presently helped her into the car, got in beside her and drove on, leaving Arabella to answer her cousin’s concerned enquiries as to her tiredness, brush the last of the crumbs carefully away, and ruminate on the strange fact that when she was with the doctor she almost never stammered.
It was a short journey from Braintree. They were welcomed by a surprised and pleased Aunt Maud, and even her uncle welcomed Arabella with unusual warmth. Arabella basked for a few happy moments in their affection before being brought down to earth again.
‘Dear child, where did you buy that mackintosh? The colour is far too conspicuous for you—it makes your face quite colourless.’ Her aunt sounded put out.
‘She’s tired,’ said Hilary instantly. ‘Mother, she must go straight to bed, she’s had a long journey—she can tell us her adventures in the morning.’ She turned to the doctor. ‘Come into the sitting room, Gideon, and Father will give you a drink.’ Over her shoulder she flung: ‘Good night, Bella, sleep well.’
Doctor van der Vorst paused. ‘Good night, Arabella,’ he spoke quietly. ‘I shall see you in the morning.’
Arabella wanted to stay very badly, but she had been dismissed—quite kindly, but dismissed all the same. Her aunt was already fussing round her with offers of a hot bath and warm milk; she couldn’t remember her ever having done that before. Perhaps, she thought shrewdly, it was to impress the doctor. She gave him a cold look. ‘Oh, I expect so,’ her good night was cold too.
She trailed upstairs after her aunt, who only stayed for two minutes after all, excusing herself on the plea that she had to make sure a guest room was ready for the doctor and telling Arabella, quite nicely, that she could fetch her milk from the kitchen.
So Arabella, by now in a towering rage, had her bath and then crept down the back stairs to the kitchen, where she ate several slices of bread and butter, drank two glasses of cooking sherry she found in one of the cupboards, and then sat on the table eating a couple of bananas and a wedge of the Stilton cheese specially kept for her uncle’s consumption. She felt better after that, although the sherry had tasted rather awful. She went back to her room and then out of its door again to hang over the banisters and listen to the murmur of voices coming from the drawing room. A good cry would have helped, but she was past crying by now. She trailed back to her room and got into bed, where she stayed awake until she heard everyone come up to bed. The last thing she heard was Hilary’s tinkle of laughter.
She was down early for breakfast after a quick visit to Nanny, who was sitting up in bed, drinking her morning tea. She nodded in answer to Arabella’s bald statement that she had come back, and said, mumbling a little because she hadn’t got her teeth in: ‘I can see you need someone to talk to, child. Come and have tea with me this afternoon, all cosy in the nursery. You won’t be missed.’ Her voice was dry.
The twins followed Arabella downstairs and then her aunt, who greeted her kindly, hoped that she had slept well, expressed an insincere wish to hear all about Arabella’s adventures as soon as she had an hour to spare, and begged her to go with the twins to the Rectory where the Rector’s wife had promised to leave a quantity of apples ready to be collected. ‘Too many for the twins,’ said their mother positively, ‘so I thought you might like to go along with them—the walk, you know, and all that lovely fresh air.’
Arabella bit back several arguments in favour of not going. There was no sign of the doctor, indeed, it was still not yet eight o’clock; there would be plenty of time to see him before he went, and it really didn’t matter any more. He had gone, so to speak, already, from the moment he had cast his eyes upon Hilary. She finished her breakfast, pulled on an old coat which had served her for errands for countless years, and set off with the twins.
The Rectory wasn’t far—ten minutes’ walk; but the twins didn’t like walking straight to somewhere and back again, so there was a good deal of deviation from the road so that they might examine the mole-hills in one of the fields, watch a water rat or two, and stand patiently under a tree in the hope of seeing a squirrel. Arabella goodnaturedly went with them; it was quite half an hour later by the time they reached the Rectory.
There were several baskets of apples, and Arabella wondered why her aunt hadn’t suggested that she should have taken the car in order to fetch them. The three of them set off for home, laden with baskets, the twins munching and quarrelling mildly while Arabella thought about Bertie Palmer, the Rector’s son, home on holiday. She disliked him—he was a weedy young man with a great sense of importance, and what was worse, he always knew better than anyone else, which made conversation difficult and sometimes wellnigh impossible. She dismissed him from her thoughts and concentrated upon the doctor, which wasn’t in the least difficult, and she was still thinking about him when they reached Little Dean House.
Hilary was on the lawn at the side of the house and Doctor van der Vorst was with her. Even from that distance Arabella could see that Hilary had a hand tucked under his arm and he was laughing down at her as though there were no one else in the world. Arabella, feeling sick, said: ‘Leave the apples there, I’ll take mine round to the kitchen and get someone to fetch them presently. You’d better go and say good morning to Doctor van der Vorst.’
They went off obediently and she rounded the corner of the house, opened the kitchen door, dumped the apples on the table, poured herself some coffee from the pot on the stove and sat down in the old rocking chair by the Aga. She didn’t bother to look up when the door opened; for she supposed it to be Mary the cook, but she paused in her sipping to say: ‘There are the apples on the table, there are heaps more outside—someone can bring them in presently.’
‘Good morning, Arabella,’ said the doctor, and set the rest of the fruit down on the table. ‘You were out early. You had friends—a friend perhaps, to visit? Hilary tells me that you and the Rector’s son were practically brought up together.’
She stared at him. ‘B-Bertie?’ she asked, her eyes round. ‘Well, we had lessons together—why on earth…’ She remembered very vividly how, as a five-year-old and a not very happy one at that, she had detested Bertie.
The doctor went on blandly: ‘You saw him this morning?’
‘Well, of course—he’s on holiday, you know.’ She got up and went over to the table and took an apple and bit into it, then remembering her manners, offered one to her companion, who followed suit.
‘He’s—he’s…’ she began, longing to tell the doctor in a few crisp sentences just how awful Bertie was, but was interrupted by Hilary’s entrance.
‘Darling,’ began her cousin, ‘there you are—what a chore for you going over to the Rectory with the twins, but I suppose it was as good an excuse as any…did you see Bertie?’
‘Of course I saw him,’ said Arabella, nettled at all the questions. All this fuss about a young man she heartily detested! ‘Why?’
Hilary threw her a laughing glance. ‘Never mind, love. Mother wants you to find that knitting pattern she says she lent you, you know the one, that Vogue waistcoat with the pattern that took you a week to work out.’
‘Now?’ Arabella looked at the doctor, who wasn’t looking at her, but at Hilary. There was no point in her staying, so she walked to the door, pausing only to ask: ‘When are you going, Doctor? Shall I see you before you leave?’
‘Your aunt has kindly asked me to stay another night—I’ll take Hilary back tomorrow evening. Too soon for you, I suppose?’ He gave her an intent look which she found disconcerting. ‘You will want to stay until the last minute.’
‘Yes, thank you all the same.’
It took Arabella half an
hour to find the pattern and long before then she had seen the Bentley going down the drive with Hilary beside the doctor. They weren’t back for lunch, and Arabella, for once ignoring her aunt’s request to escort the twins to neighbouring friends for an afternoon’s games and tea, dragged on her old coat and went for a walk through the woods and along the lane to Cornish Hall. Last time she had gone that way, she reminded herself sadly, she hadn’t yet met the doctor; now she couldn’t imagine what life was going to be like without him. Very dull, she concluded and sad and purposeless as well, but it would be better when he had gone away and she had no chance of seeing him any more, and probably once he had returned to his own country Hilary would forget him. The thought that her cousin might be serious this time struck her with the suddenness of lightning and rooted her to the spot. It needed very little imagination to visualise a future in which her cousin triumphed as a lovely bride with herself trailing down the aisle behind her, no doubt in a gorgeous hat like Anne’s, and in the course of time being given frequent invitations to Doesburg so that she could mind the children while Hilary and a doting husband explored the world together. It didn’t bear thinking of; she almost ran back to the comfort of Nanny and the nursery and tea.
