The Edge of Winter

by Betty Neels

  ‘Nothing of importance. If you have your things packed, we’ll go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To my house.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t do that!’ She stood a little way from him, looking out of a window.

  ‘Afraid of your reputation, Araminta?’ She could hear the mockery in his voice.

  ‘Well, no,’ she told him, considering the question carefully. ‘I was really thinking of yours.’

  He chuckled. ‘Good of you, but quite wasted on me, I’m afraid. I have a very old aunt living with me. Her moral standards haven’t altered since the turn of the century and I imagine that she is more than capable of preserving the conventions.’

  ‘But I still can’t—I mean, foist myself upon you like this. If you would be obliging enough to take me to a small hotel, I shall be quite all right.’

  ‘No, you won’t—you will sit and brood all night. Besides, surely you know by now that I only oblige myself, never anyone else? Go and put on your coat.’

  It was a relief to be told what to do, and she certainly didn’t want to stay alone in the flat. How mean Thomas was… She pulled on her coat without much attention to her appearance, tied a scarf over her bright hair, caught up her handbag and gloves and pronounced herself to be ready, so that it only remained for the doctor to pick up her case, turn out the lights, usher her out of the door and shut it behind them.

  They saw no one on the way down and the street outside was deserted. Drawn up to the curb was a silver grey Jensen convertible; the doctor unlocked its door, urged her to get in, cast her case on to the back seat and got in beside her, taking up a good deal more than his fair share of space. Araminta, taken aback at the car’s splendour, and still wondering if she was doing the right thing, had fallen silent, and it was left to her companion to say placidly: ‘You must be hungry—I know I am. I missed my lunch.’

  He turned the car and slid down the street, ready to turn into the main road beyond. ‘Let’s hope there’s something nice for supper.’

  This normal remark, made in a normal voice, restored her considerably. She relaxed against the comfort of the leather seat, too tired to think of anything much, aware at the same time that she no longer felt lost or lonely.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE CAR’S ELEGANT nose was pointed towards the city’s centre, and although the traffic was heavy, Doctor van Sibbelt drove with the apparent nonchalance of a cyclist in a deserted country lane. He made no attempt to talk, so that Araminta occupied herself in looking at the lighted streets, trying to guess where they were. They left the main road presently and he swept the Jensen through a succession of narrow streets lined with old houses and intercepted by small hump-backed bridges with wrought iron railings, which spanned the dark waters of any number of canals. The houses now were rather splendid, with lights shining from their wide windows, so that she could catch a glimpse of the rooms beyond as they went past. For her the drive could have gone on for the rest of the evening, but the doctor wanted his supper and it surely couldn’t be much further.

  It wasn’t. The doctor slowed down to cross yet another bridge where two canals met, and instead of going straight on, slid across the cobbled street and stopped before an imposing corner house.

  Araminta peered out of her window at its handsome façade and asked doubtfully: ‘Do you live here? Are they flats?’

  ‘God forbid! An ancestor of mine built it a long time ago and no one has wanted to change it since—least of all myself.’

  ‘It’s very large.’

  ‘Have you forgotten that I intend to take a wife?’ He turned to look at her, half smiling.

  ‘You’ll still rattle round like two peas in a pod,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Not for long. Just lately I have felt a strong urge to become a family man.’

  She gave him a shocked look. ‘That’s no reason for taking a wife.’ She added with some warmth: ‘Poor thing!’

  He laughed, but there was no mockery in the sound. ‘It won’t be like that—my wife will be the most important thing in my life and I shall never give her the chance to think otherwise.’ He got out of the car and opened the door for her. ‘Welcome to my home, Araminta.’

  The great front door was opened as they reached it—by the elderly man who had been on the yacht—and Araminta exclaimed: ‘Oh, how nice to see you again!’ She smiled widely at him, her own troubles forgotten for the moment, feeling almost carefree. Doctor van Sibbelt had taken charge of her for the moment, and now here was another old friend. She held out a hand and he said gravely ‘It is for me a great pleasure also, miss,’ and then looked questioningly at the doctor.

  ‘A long story, Jos. I’ll tell you later.’

  They had been standing in the vestibule and now Jos threw open the inner door to disclose a long, wide hall with a branched staircase at the far end of it. The doctor threw off his coat and flung it into a great carved chair. ‘My aunt has dined, Jos? Will you ask Frone to find some food for us? we’re both hungry. Miss Shaw will be staying the night, so see that someone gets a room ready for her, would you. Frone can take her up presently.’

  Jos murmured and went away and Araminta said: ‘He’s the butler, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes—he’s also a family friend of long standing. He taught me to swim and sail and skate—we still sail together.’

  ‘He’s nice…’

  The doctor smiled down at her. ‘Indeed he is, and I’d trust him with my life.’

  She smiled back rather shyly. ‘I expect he feels the same about you.’

  ‘I like to think so. Let me have that coat—someone will take you up to your room presently, but come and meet Tante Maybella first.’

  Araminta stared about her unashamedly. The hall was very imposing with its marble floor and silk rugs and lighted by an enormous chandelier and a number of wall sconces, set between a collection of large and somewhat gloomy portraits. She would have liked the opportunity to have examined them at her leisure as she allowed herself to be led across the hall, through a double-arched doorway, into a room not less imposing but having a pleasantly homely air about it, partly due to the cheerful fire burning in the wide hearth and the very ordinary tabby cat spread out before it. There was a dog too, a long-haired Alsatian, who advanced to greet them with welcoming barks and an obvious desire to put his front paws on their shoulders and look into their faces. The doctor fended him off with a cheerful: ‘Manners, Rikki!’ and crossed the room with Araminta held firmly by the arm.

  The old lady sitting in the small upright chair by the fire was very small and frail, and this was emphasized by the black silk gown she wore and the quantity of gold chains which hung round her high frilled collar. She smiled at them as they stopped before her and said something to the doctor in a high, tinkling voice. Araminta could understand none of it, although she was very conscious of a pair of sharp blue eyes studying her as the old lady talked. She had the uneasy feeling that she wasn’t welcome, but it must have been imagination, for when the doctor introduced her—in English, to her relief—his aunt smiled charmingly.

  ‘You must tell me all about yourself,’ she cried in an English as good as her nephew. ‘I’m a lonely old woman, you see—if it weren’t for Crispin’s kindness I should be living quite by myself.’

  The doctor laughed gently. ‘You naughty old thing,’ he chided her, ‘you know as well as I do that you have a perfectly good home of your own—two, in fact, and you won’t live in either of them. Besides, what should I do without you? But you shall have your gossip with Araminta presently, but first she wants to go to her room and tidy herself for supper.’

  ‘You are staying the night?’ The old lady sounded apprehensive.

  Araminta smiled at her. ‘The doctor kindly brought me here, because I had nowhere to go…’ She was interrupted by the entrance of a large, stout woman, very neatly dressed, who spoke to the doctor and then nodded and smiled at her.

  ‘This is Frone, Jos’s wife—she will take you upstair
s. She can’t speak a word of English, but I have no doubt you will be able to understand each other.’

  Araminta, with Frone beside her, wished once more that she could be allowed the leisure to look at everything as they went through the hall and up the stairs to a wide corridor. The room she was shown into was half way down it, a fair-sized, lofty apartment, deliciously warm and furnished with delicate Regency pieces and a great deal of pastel chintz. Her case was already there, unpacked; moreover there was a small bathroom leading from it, with everything in it that a girl could wish for. Araminta inspected it with a delighted eye. It was a charming room; she pictured it occupied by the daughter of the house and sighed without knowing it as she attended to the business of doing her face and hair.

  They had drinks when she went down to the drawing room again, and then left the old lady in her chair while they traversed the hall once more to enter a small, softly lighted room with a round table at its centre, laid with a white cloth, sparkling glass and gleaming silver. Araminta had supposed that supper would be a simple meal of soup and perhaps an omelette, but she couldn’t have been more mistaken. There was soup, certainly—french onion soup, served in brown earthenware pipkins, and lavishly sprinkled with cheese, but that was followed by poached turbot and lobster sauce, accompanied by a salad. There was a Charlotte Russe to follow these dainties, and all of them helped along nicely by the hock which the doctor poured for them both, so that Araminta’s pale face got back some of the healthy pink it had lost.

  All the while they ate, the doctor kept up a smooth flow of talk about nothing in particular, so that presently she began to forget her unhappy day, and by the time they went back to the drawing room for coffee with old Mevrouw van Sibbelt, she was nicely relaxed and had no difficulty in answering that lady’s numerous questions for the next hour or so, and when the old lady went to bed, she got to her feet too, with the intention of doing the same thing. But her host had other ideas. He ushered his aged relative to the door, kissed her cheek, then closed it firmly before Araminta was anywhere near it. ‘A little talk?’ he suggested. ‘I know you’re tired and you’ve had a wretched day, but it’s barely ten o’clock—I think we should make a few arrangements for tomorrow, don’t you? You said you wished to go back to England—would you like me to get you a seat on a morning flight?’

  He sounded a little remote and disinterested, but then, Araminta told herself, why should he be anything else? He had been kind and helpful, but probably he would be glad to see the back of her. He had gone to sit by the fire again, with Rikki beside him, and it struck her with the most unexpected suddenness that it would be nothing short of happiness to sit opposite him for the rest of her life. He would probably be a difficult husband, but she saw no reason why she couldn’t manage him. She remembered with a pang of pure sorrow that he had already told her that he had plans to marry…

  ‘You’re wearing a sad look. Why?’ he asked.

  She had no intention of telling him, instead she said briskly: ‘I don’t think I had better go home—not just yet. I can’t, you know. I can’t stand Thomas—or Bertram—but they’ll need someone for a day or two, just until the funeral is over and he can find a housekeeper. Father and Aunt Martha would expect me to do that.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘I expected you to do that too, Araminta. I’ll take you back in the morning, if you like, I don’t need to be at the hospital until nine o’clock—will that be too early for you? Have you a key?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, but surely Thomas will be there? He said something about someone coming in the morning.’

  ‘We’ll go and see, and if there is no one there, I’ll bring you back here.’

  ‘Thank you, but I shall be quite all right.’

  He didn’t dispute this, only smiled again. ‘Would you like to telephone your father?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, please!’

  ‘And the hospital?’

  Araminta hesitated. St Katherine’s was the last place she wanted to see; once she got back there, the doctor would be someone to forget about as quickly as possible, and she didn’t want to do that, not yet. While she stayed in Amsterdam she had a chance of seeing something of him, and while she knew it was a futile thing to do, she couldn’t bring herself to do anything else. ‘I had three weeks’ unpaid leave,’ she told him a little breathlessly.

  ‘So you did,’ he agreed gravely. ‘Will Thomas be glad to see you?’

  ‘No, but I think he’ll be glad to have someone to cook and look after the flat for a day or two.’

  ‘He might want you to stay indefinitely.’

  She shook her head. ‘Oh, no, he wouldn’t; he’d have to pay me a salary, and that would seem like a waste of money to him—paying a cousin.’

  Her companion stretched his long legs and lounged back in his chair. ‘You’re a very pretty girl,’ he observed matter-of-factly, ‘hasn’t anyone wanted to marry you?’

  She flushed a little but answered with a total lack of conceit: ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘And you’ve always said no?’

  She nodded, looking away from him. How surprised he would be if she told him that if he cared to ask her she would say yes at once. He didn’t, of course, but went on half mockingly: ‘Don’t tell me that you’re a dedicated nurse?’

  ‘Certainly not. I like nursing very much and I have to earn my living.’ She didn’t want to talk about it any more; she cast around for a suitable topic of conversation and came up with: ‘Is there a shortage of nurses in Holland?’

  There was a spark of amusement in his eyes, but he followed her cue and they discussed nursing and hospitals and the newest theatre equipment until Araminta finally said good night and escaped to bed. Any other girl, she thought dispiritedly, would have turned an hour of the doctor’s company to her own advantage. All she had done was to illustrate to him what a dull creature she was, making stilted conversation about her work. He had probably been bored stiff. It only surprised her that he hadn’t said so; he hadn’t struck her as a man to suffer fools gladly.

  Despite her troubled thoughts she fell asleep in her comfortable bed at once and didn’t wake until she was roused by a strapping girl with pink cheeks and blue eyes, bearing her morning tea. As soon as the girl had gone, Araminta got out of bed and padded across the thick carpet to peer out of the window. It was another grey day, with rain dripping from the rooftops and the early morning traffic making its way through wet streets. It matched her mood; Thomas and Bertram loomed large on her horizon, and larger still was the thought that after the doctor had deposited her at her cousin’s flat in an hour or two’s time, she might not see him again.

  But mooning around being sorry for herself would do no good. She bathed and dressed and went downstairs, to find her host in the hall going through his post. The sight of him sent her heart thudding, but despite that she achieved a good morning in an ordinary enough voice as she bent to pat Rikki’s great head.

  The doctor made a cheerful good morning in reply, adding: ‘My name’s Crispin. Tante Maybella doesn’t come down to breakfast, so you must excuse her, and I, I regret to say, have formed the bad habit of reading my letters while I eat—that’s what comes of being a bachelor. You won’t mind?’ He smiled charmingly. ‘I have so little time.’

  ‘I don’t mind at all,’ she declared with earnest mendacity. ‘I have a great deal to think about, anyway.’

  So breakfast was an almost silent meal, relieved only by Jos’s solemn greeting and their own polite exchanges concerning more coffee, more toast and the expression of mutual agreement over the pleasure of hot croissants for breakfast. And the drive to Thomas’s flat was almost as silent. The doctor looked thoughtful, as he drove and Araminta, imagining him to be concentrating upon the day’s work ahead of him, held her tongue. She was a little pale as they went up the stairs together, though, for she had just realised that she had made no plans in the event of no one being home.

  But someone was there. In answer to the doctor’s firm
knock, and for good measure, his finger on the bell, Bertram opened the door.

  He grinned slyly at Araminta, and without bothering to say hullo declared: ‘Father said you’d be back. He told me to wait until you came—he’s gone to work. There’s a list of things he wants you to do on the dining room table.’

  His two listeners observed him with astonishment, Araminta burning with rage at the cool assumption that she would go back and cope. Instructions, indeed! She was about to make herself very plain on that point when Bertram remarked carelessly: ‘I’m going to my friend’s now. I don’t have to go to school—not till the funeral’s over.’ He smirked. ‘Three days’ holiday!’

  Araminta’s hand itched to box his ears. ‘Why, you horrid, unnatural…’ and was drowned in the subdued thunder of the doctor’s voice.

  ‘Get inside, boy! You’ll stay here until you have done everything Araminta wishes you to do and go only when she says so.’ He looked and sounded so fierce that the boy backed away, staring at him. ‘And be sure,’ continued the doctor, ‘that I shall know if you do otherwise. Be good enough to carry your cousin’s bag to her room.’

  It was Bertram’s turn to look amazed. He picked up the case meekly enough, though, and took it along to Araminta’s room. Then Doctor van Sibbelt said: ‘I must go, I’m afraid—you know where I am if you want me.’ He bent and kissed her swiftly and started on his way down the stairs, not looking back once.

  Araminta, once she had stifled the urge to run after the doctor, plunged into the numerous tasks Thomas had seen fit to leave her, but she took care to see that Bertram helped her. He did it ungraciously, but at least he did the small jobs she gave him to do while she started on the pile of washing in the little laundry room off the kitchen. Poor Thelma had obviously got very behind with the laundry. Araminta had done everything she could lay her hands on when she had first arrived, but this lot must have been hidden away somewhere. She got the first batch out on the line on the kitchen balcony and went to look in the fridge. There was food enough. She put the coffee on and went back to her washing. Once that was out of the way she would have time to unpack her things. The flat didn’t look too bad—true, Thomas had left the breakfast things on the table, but she prevailed upon Bertram to clear them away.