by Betty Neels
‘Hullo. Yes, I know, thank you. But had you forgotten our date for this evening? Are you off duty now? If so, we could go straight away.’
Arabella had quite forgotten Mrs Burns. Now she said, still determined to be of help at all costs: ‘Oh, dear, I’d forgotten! Anyway, I’m sure you don’t want to waste time on that now. I’ll go—I can get her address, I’ve got it written down somewhere. Then you’ll be free to…’
‘To what?’ His voice was cold.
‘Why, go out,’ she faltered.
He was standing on the step below her, so that she didn’t have so far to look up into his face, and peeped at it now and was taken aback to see how austere it was. Why was he angry? she wondered.
‘What makes you think that I wish to go out?’ he asked silkily.
‘Well, don’t you?’ she countered, aware that it was a weak reply but not knowing what else to say.
‘I was looking forward to an evening out,’ he told her, still silkily. ‘You know, Hilary told me that you regarded me as a middle-aged man, and I didn’t believe her, but I see that I was mistaken. What is more, it seems probable that you don’t like me sufficiently to bear with my company for an hour or so.’ He smiled at her, a coldly remote smile which struck chill into her bones and made her cry out:
‘That’s not true, it’s not—n-not a w-word of it. You m-must believe me. And how c-could I s-suppose you to be a m-middle-aged man when you aren’t? And I do like you. Oh, please don’t be angry, I couldn’t b-bear it…’
She stopped, aware that her tongue, usually so tardy with its speech, had run away with itself. But to good purpose, it seemed; the ice had gone, his blue eyes were warm again. His voice was warm too.
‘I’m sorry I was angry—I’m not any more—only why are you so anxious to pair me off with Hilary?’
She remembered what Hilary had said. ‘Well, she told me…that is, you mustn’t mind her going out with Mr Andrews; she doesn’t like him very much, only she had promised him and she stood him up last week. She didn’t mean you to quarrel about it…perhaps you could take her out tomorrow evening instead.’
He was staring at her with an expressionless face. ‘Tomorrow evening I shall be back in Doesburg.’
Her wide mouth curled into a smile. ‘And George and Crosby and Tatters and the kittens will be there waiting for you, and Emma will have made a fruit cake for your tea.’ She drew a breath which was almost a sigh.
‘Will you think of me there?’
She nodded a rather wispy head. ‘Oh, yes, of course.’
‘Friends again?’ he wanted to know then, and when she said instantly: ‘But we never weren’t,’ he added, ‘Then will you come and see Mrs Burns?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll be about twenty minutes.’
She scrambled out of her uniform, bathed, did her face and hair, decided on the velveteen pinafore dress, covered it with a coat, and raced from her room. In the bottom corridor she met Doreen.
‘Where’s the fire?’ asked her friend. ‘You’re all dressed up. Why?’
Arabella paused long enough to say: ‘I’m going out with Doctor van der Vorst,’ and heartened by her friend’s cry of ‘Attagirl!’ sped to the entrance.
The Bentley was there; as she got in she rushed into conversation, suddenly shy. ‘Do you always bring the car with you?’ she wanted to know, and was told gravely that yes, he did, because it was more convenient than going by plane. ‘I like to go where I want when I want,’ her companion explained, ‘and now—will you guide me? I’m not sure where Waltham Green is.’
‘Well, it’s Fulham,’ she wrinkled her brow in thought. ‘If we get into the Brompton Road and then into the Fulham Road—I believe it’s somewhere near the Broadway.’
‘Good enough,’ declared the doctor unworriedly. ‘We can always ask as we go, just so long as we don’t waste time.’
She had no reply to this damping remark, only sat silent beside him, wishing that she hadn’t been fool enough to dress up in the pinafore outfit. He had no intention of prolonging their evening and he wouldn’t even notice…thank heaven that her coat covered it completely.
‘You’re very quiet,’ observed her companion, turning the Bentley into Long Acre and traversing the brightly lighted streets of theatreland. ‘Have you had a busy day?’
Arabella replied stiffly that yes, she had been busy, and then, because she could think of nothing else to say, became silent again.
‘Now what have I said,’ mused her companion aloud, ‘that could have turned you into a polite block of ice? Do you prefer not to visit Mrs Burns, after all? I took it for granted that you would do so, but perhaps that was over-hasty of me.’
‘I shall be glad to talk to Mrs Burns.’
‘Then it is I… Ah, I have it, you’ve reversed your decision to be friends again.’
‘I haven’t,’ protested Arabella hotly. ‘It’s you, making such a thing about me coming with you and then declaring that we mustn’t waste time.’
She drew a loud breath, aware that she was being extremely childish and not caring in the least. ‘I’m aware that I’m dull company, but it was you who insisted upon me coming with you, and you could at least pretend.’
They were passing Harrod’s. The doctor slowed the car, drew in before its imposing doors and stopped.
‘You can’t park here,’ Arabella pointed out crossly.
‘I know. Arabella, had it crossed your very feminine mind that if I had not wished to bring you with me this evening, I had no need to do so? After all, you ran out on me, didn’t you? Tearing back to Wickham’s on one of the flimsiest excuses I have ever been expected to believe in my life. I could have washed my hands of you and not bothered to keep our date. And the reason I didn’t wish to waste time was a simple one: I thought we might have dinner together after we have seen Mrs Burns.’
It was unfortunate that Arabella saw in this remark nothing more than a polite desire to make amends. She said far too quickly: ‘How kind—but I particularly want to be back at Wickham’s at half past eight.’
‘A previous engagement?’ he prompted gently.
‘Yes.’ The stammer was back with a vengeance. ‘Yes, I’ve p-promised s-somebody.’
As she had—to put up Anne’s hair for the party she was going to when she got off duty; that this was a task which any of her friends might have undertaken was a point she ignored.
‘Ah, well, there’s nothing more to be said, is there?’ The doctor’s voice was so smooth that she gave him a suspicious glance which he met limpidly. ‘How is Bertie?’
He had started the car once more and they were going down the Fulham Road. Arabella turned to look at the doctor, her mouth slightly open, her eyes round. ‘How ever did you know he’d telephoned?’ she wanted to know. It had only been a request for the address of someone Arabella knew who had some setter puppies for sale. ‘He telephoned this afternoon—so awkward, too, because I had no time to talk to him properly—not on operation day, you know…such a waste of time…’
The doctor remained silent, which didn’t surprise her. Bertie was a dull topic of conversation, and she abandoned him cheerfully. ‘It’s here we have to turn off, I believe—I’ll ask that fat man leaning on those railings, shall I?’
The doctor drew up obligingly, while Arabella received directions. She was on the point of relaying these to her companion when he interrupted her gently. ‘Don’t bother, I think I have them well enough,’ he assured her, and turned the car down a side street.
‘You must have a splendid memory and be awfully clever,’ Arabella told him. ‘After all, you’re a foreigner, and he spoke quite shockingly.’
‘I agree that I’m a foreigner, but I begin to think that I’m not clever at all, dear girl. I don’t much care for this neighbourhood—these rows of houses…’
‘Well, people have to live somewhere. I daresay Mr Burns was quite happy here, poor man.’
They stopped before a small red brick house, one of a row, very neat and tidy as to cu
rtains and paint-work, and got out and knocked on its narrow front door. The girl who opened the door was brown-haired, with mild blue eyes and a chubby face. Arabella thought her to be about fifteen years old. She looked at them without much curiosity when the doctor asked if her mother was at home.
The girl nodded and called over her shoulder: ‘Mum, here’s two people ’ere ter see yer.’
Mrs Burns, when she appeared, was an elderly version of her daughter, she too, looked at them without much interest. She said ‘Evening,’ in a friendly enough voice, though.
‘You must be wondering who we are,’ began Doctor van der Vorst, at his most reassuring. ‘This young lady, Miss Birch, was beside your husband in the bus when he died, and I came upon the scene shortly after. I telephoned you at the time, if you remember, and I am sure that you have been told a good deal by letter, but we thought, having been there, you might like to know as much as possible about your husband.’
Mrs Burns opened the door a little wider. ‘Come in,’ she said eagerly. ‘We’ve bin ’oping we’d ’ear more—yer know ’ow it is; nice letter and all that, but it ain’t the same—no one knew nothing about Bill’s last moments.’
Her eyes filled with tears as she led the way to the small front room, stiffly furnished, very clean and almost never used. Arabella perched on an uncomfortable chair and watched the doctor lower himself with caution into a fireside chair which creaked ominously as it took his weight. Mrs Burns settled herself between them, offered tea and sent the girl to get it. ‘’E didn’t suffer none?’ she asked. ‘That’s what I want ter know most of all.’
The doctor glanced at Arabella. ‘He couldn’t have known a thing about it,’ she stated positively. ‘I noticed the bus wasn’t being steered properly, but that was only seconds before Mr Burns died. Only a few minutes before that he had been talking to me about the country we were passing through; he was perfectly all right then, Mrs Burns. He seemed to be enjoying himself, and he was so sweet with the children and the greatest help to us. We all liked him very much.’
Mrs Burns wiped away a few more tears. ‘Now that’s a real comfort ter me, miss. You’re the little nurse ’e wrote about. ’E sent a card from that place where you spent the night. ’E said there was two nurses, an old duck ’oo did nothing, and a little dear wot worked herself ter string—that’s you, miss. And glad I am that ’e ’ad such good company.’
Arabella went pink. ‘Well, th-that’s very n-nice of you t-to say so.’ She turned rather desperately to the doctor. ‘Doctor van der Vorst saw the accident, you know, and went straight to Mr Burns.’
Mrs Burns nodded, her eyes on the doctor, who had sat silent in his flimsy chair. ‘Now yer can tell me, Doctor, did ’e die sudden like—not knowing, I mean?’
The tea had arrived. The girl gave them each a cup and then sat down with hers beside Arabella. The tea was richly brown and liberally laced with condensed milk. Arabella, aware, after living in the doctor’s household, that while not a fussy man he expected and obtained the best of food and drink, correctly prepared, watched him as he swallowed the bitter brew with an inscrutable face, pausing after the first sip to compliment the daughter of the house upon the excellence of her tea-making.
‘Shirley makes a nice cuppa,’ explained her mother with pride, a remark to which he replied with a smile before emptying his cup.
‘Now about your husband,’ he began, ‘it is of course a very painful subject, but I quite understand that you wish to know as much as possible, and I will certainly tell you all I know.’
He did it very nicely, saying nothing of the more harrowing details but painting a picture of the whole unhappy episode which could not but comfort his listeners. Arabella listened to his unhurried voice and thought he was the most wonderful man in the whole world, and if Mrs Burns’ opinion didn’t quite match hers, it was certainly a warm one, for her thanks, when he had finished, were almost embarrassing. It was as they were preparing to leave that the doctor suggested to Arabella that she might help Shirley take the cups and saucers to the kitchen, and interpreting his suggestion as a wish to be left alone with Mrs Burns, she retired to the small kitchen at the back of the house, and dried while Shirley washed, enjoying a little chat at the same time. When they returned to the sitting room it was to find the doctor bidding Mrs Burns goodbye.
‘A brave little woman,’ he remarked as he found his way unerringly back to the Fulham Road. ‘Thank you for coming, Arabella. I hope your evening won’t be spoilt; it’s only just eight o’clock, you should be in plenty of time.’ He gave her a brief glance. ‘What is it to be? Dinner somewhere or a theatre?’
If only he knew! thought Arabella; she had a fleeting vision of herself back-combing Anne’s hair into a state of perfection, then retiring to bed with a book—she would have missed supper. ‘It’s t-to be a s-surprise,’ she told him. ‘I l-like surprises.’ She peered from the window. ‘Oh, here’s Long Acre already.’ She had tried to make her voice sound excited and was rewarded by a grunt from the doctor and silence until he had eased the Bentley through the gates and stopped at the hospital entrance.
‘Thank you for taking me,’ she told him awkwardly, her fanciful account of the evening before her lying heavy on her. ‘I’m sure Mrs Burns was very glad—I know I should have been.’ She remembered something. ‘Why did you want to see her alone?’ She looked at him as she spoke and was surprised to see embarrassment in his face. ‘Whatever was it that I wasn’t supposed to hear?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I could tell you to mind your own business, my girl, but that would be unkind, wouldn’t it? Just take my word for it that it didn’t concern you.’ He gave her a look which bordered upon the haughty, daring her to say more, so that of course she declared: ‘I shall guess—it couldn’t have been anything to do with Shirley, she would have told me—and nothing to do with Mr Burns’ death because I was there, anyway, wasn’t I?’ She frowned, unheeding of his quiet: ‘You’ll be late, Arabella.’
The frown cleared. ‘I know,’ she said suddenly. ‘You gave her some money, didn’t you?’ and when he didn’t answer: ‘Didn’t you?’
‘I am forced, after all, to tell you to mind your own business, Arabella.’
‘Pooh, it is my business. Oh, Gideon, you are a dear—I know one isn’t supposed to think of sordid things like money when someone dies, but it must be far worse when you’re poor…all the worry…’ She sniffed, wishing most earnestly to cry, and was instantly brought to her senses by her companion’s matter-of-fact: ‘For God’s sake, don’t start weeping, and if you ever dare to so much as hint to anyone, I will personally strangle you!’
Arabella blew her nose and said coldly: ‘There’s no need to get violent, Doctor.’
‘You called me Gideon a few moments ago, and I was a dear.’
She had to laugh then. ‘Oh, you are absurd—it was a f-figure of speech.
‘I hope you h-have a n-nice trip back,’ she said when he had helped her out of the car. Her voice was shaking a little at the thought of not seeing him; if he came to visit Hilary, and she was sure that he would, she would take care not to be there.
His reply was cool. ‘Thank you, I see no reason why I shouldn’t.’ He added deliberately: ‘Will you tell Hilary that I shall hope to see her again? No, on second thoughts, I’ll telephone her.’ He smiled suddenly, his voice full of unexpected warmth. ‘Enjoy your evening, little Arabella—you deserve all the happiness in the world.’
She gave him her hand and found her voice. ‘Oh, and so do you,’ she told him earnestly, ‘and I do hope you will find it.’ There was a pause while she struggled with the return of the stammer. ‘G-goodbye,’ she managed at last, and flew through the doors, not looking back.
Anne was waiting, her head held rigid by the complexity of rollers necessary to achieve the elaborate hairstyle she had decided upon for the party. She took one look at Arabella’s face and asked: ‘What’s up, Bella? You look shattered—feeling rotten?’
Arabe
lla shook her head. ‘I’m fine,’ she managed a smile. ‘Let’s get that hair done.’
She had been working on it for several minutes when Anne said:
‘You’ve been out, haven’t you? With that doctor of yours.’
‘He’s n-not m-mine,’ muttered Arabella, fiercely thrusting in pins. ‘He’s gone, back to Holland.’
‘What about Hilary?’
Arabella spoke through a mouthful of grips. ‘I d-don’t know—at least, she t-told me she was holding him off, b-because it w-wouldn’t be g-good for him t-to get his own way.’ She sniffed. ‘He said he was going to telephone her.’
‘Anyone can talk,’ Anne’s voice was comforting. ‘What happened this evening, ducky?’
‘Nothing.’ Arabella gave a brief account of the evening’s activities. ‘I t-told him I had an important engagement, and he d-didn’t seem to mind,’ she added forlornly.
Anne said ‘Um’ thoughtfully, and Arabella, not wishing to talk about herself any more, concentrated frowningly upon her friend’s hair. Neither of them mentioned the doctor again.
Two days later Arabella saw Hilary on her way through the hospital and this time there was time to stop and talk for a few minutes. It was her cousin who mentioned Gideon first.
‘Have you heard from him?’ she demanded pettishly. ‘He’s just gone off without a word. Of course, it was my own silly fault, but I was so sure…’ She broke off, frowning. ‘He’s paying me back in my own coin,’ she decided. ‘He’ll turn up one day, and this time I’ll make sure of him.’ She grinned in anticipation.
‘Do you love him?’ asked Arabella, carefully careless.
Hilary shrugged. ‘Oh, he’s great fun and rich and his manners are super; he’s very good-looking too—it shouldn’t be hard to make him happy.’ She smiled thoughtfully. ‘Just think of all that money, Bella!’
Arabella had clamped her teeth down on her tongue for fear it should say the things she wanted to say, and Hilary should guess. With an effort she spoke of something else. ‘I telephoned home about Nanny—she’s still not very well. I’m going home on my days off. Sister gave me Saturday and Sunday for this week and Monday and Tuesday for next, so that I can stay for a bit.’
