The Convenient Wife

by Betty Neels

  ‘I’ll be here waiting for you,’ he told her, and smiled kindly down at her, just as though he knew what she had been thinking. She had answered him briskly—pity was the last thing she wanted from him, and she thought that she had seen that in his smile.

  Spring came reluctantly, but when it did it made up for its tardiness with a succession of sunny days, still cold, but not so cold that daffodils didn’t bloom in their hundreds around the house. The formal beds were filled with early tulips and crocuses, and Wim had a boy to help him, and sometimes when the professor was free he dug and planted and weeded. Venetia didn’t ask if she might help; she got into her Marks and Spencer skirts and sweaters and marched outside to give a hand, and Duert, beyond a look of surprise, said nothing. Indeed, she had the impression that he was pleased to have her there. Anneta stayed indoors. She hated gardening, she explained, and she always had a good excuse—a book to finish, a letter to her aunt in America, her wardrobe to turn out… Venetia, planting out hyacinths under her husband’s critical eye, tried to make up her mind about the girl. She was almost always friendly—affectionate even—willing to join in anything Venetia suggested, and just lately discarding the strange garments she had always worn. And yet there was something not right, and Venetia couldn’t put her finger on it.

  It was on a Sunday afternoon, while gardening happily beside Duert, that she scratched her wrist above the gardening glove with a thorn on a dead twig. Duert pulled off the glove and looked at it. ‘You’d better go in and clean it,’ he suggested. ‘It’s only a scratch, but you can’t be too careful. It’s not painful?’

  ‘My goodness, no—if you hadn’t been here, I’d have sucked it and gone on weeding.’

  He laughed. ‘Well, I am here, so off you go!’

  She had gone into the house, smiling to herself. It seemed to her that just now and again she caught a glimpse of Duert—the real Duert. The house was quiet— Domus and Truus would be in their sitting-room behind the kitchen, and the maids would be at home for the afternoon in Delft. She went through the back door and into the hall, taking off her wellingtons as she went, mindful of the polished floors, and had a foot on the bottom tread of the staircase when she heard Anneta’s voice. She was speaking from the small sitting-room behind the dining-room and her voice sounded clearly. She was telephoning, and Venetia pottered across the hall and pushed open the half-open door.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Is that anyone for Duert?’

  She was quite unprepared for Anneta’s reaction. She whirled round, blazing with rage.

  She raged, ‘How dare you? Sneaking up on me like that—how long have you been there, listening? Did Duert send you in to spy on me?’ She looked at Venetia’s stockinged feet. ‘Creeping round the house…’

  Venetia made her voice matter-of-fact. ‘Well, I can’t tramp around in a pair of muddy wellies. Why are you so cross? I heard your voice as I came in, and came to see if it was a call for Duert.’ She watched Anneta put the receiver back. ‘And don’t let’s have any nonsense about spying. This is your home, and no one has ever questioned your using the phone if you want to.’

  She turned away, but Anneta ran across the room and caught her arm. ‘Darling Venetia, don’t be cross. I’m so sorry I snapped, but you startled me. I was only chatting to Mieke—you know, the girl who was at school with me.’

  ‘I’m not cross.’ Venetia smiled at the pretty face, which was not scowling any more. ‘I’m on my way to clean a scratch. I’d better do that, or Duert will want to know why I haven’t.’

  ‘You won’t tell Duert?’ She could hear the sudden panic in the girl’s voice.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’ She went upstairs to wash her wrist, puzzling about Anneta. She was up to something, some small escapade quite likely, but Venetia wondered why she had been so furiously angry.

  Back in the garden, Duert paused in his digging. ‘Just lately,’ he observed, ‘you have looked worried. There’s something wrong, isn’t there? You’re happy here? Our—er—our arrangement is perhaps not ideal, but I think that we are very much benefiting from it—both of us. You are certainly fulfilling your side of the bargain.’ And when she protested that she was happy and content, ‘Then there is something else, or should I say someone else? Anneta? You have changed her remarkably. If you had known her before…but perhaps you can’t talk about it.’

  He waited, and after a moment she shook her head, not looking at him.

  ‘I thought as much. All right, I won’t ask you, but I think I can help. Leave it to me!’

  He didn’t say any more, only began a discussion as to what would look best in the bed he was digging. They were debating the choice of massed stocks when Anneta, huddled into a coat, came out to join them.

  She stood between them and caught them each by the arm. ‘You know, when I see you two together I could almost believe that being married must be quite fun. Perhaps I’ll decide to settle down, after all.’

  ‘What were you intending to do?’ asked the professor casually.

  ‘Oh, have fun until I’m thirty or so. One is past it at thirty.’

  He agreed gravely. ‘Probably you will meet some young millionaire while you are living with your aunt.’

  ‘Must he be a millionaire?’ asked Venetia.

  Anneta squeezed her arm and giggled. ‘Of course he must. Don’t forget that I’m used to living with one.’

  Venetia just stopped herself in time from looking at Duert. She had known that he was well off, but she had never thought of him as rich. She said lightly, ‘It does make life easier, and there must be dozens of millionaires in the USA.’

  They all went indoors then, and had tea round the log fire, and just for once the professor spent the whole evening in their company. It wasn’t until she was in bed that Venetia, going over their talk, came to the conclusion that he had asked a great many cleverly designed questions of Anneta. He had said that he would help, but she couldn’t think how. Besides, he was so deeply immersed in his work.

  But he hadn’t forgotten; several days later they were at breakfast when he opened a letter, read it and observed carelessly, ‘This seems to be more for you than me, Anneta,’ and passed it across the table to her.

  She read it slowly, and began smiling. ‘I say, Duert—this sounds like fun. I haven’t seen Lucille for ages.’ Her smile faded. ‘But I suppose you won’t let me go.’ She passed the letter to Venetia and turned to her guardian.

  ‘I don’t see why not. You’ve grown up a lot in the last month or so, and it will be a splendid chance to see something of Paris.’ He looked across at Venetia. ‘What do you think, my dear?’

  The letter was from the Netherlands Embassy in Paris, from someone who signed herself Marijke, and it suggested that since her daughter was celebrating her eighteenth birthday in ten days’time they had hit on the idea of inviting her schoolfriends to stay for a week, so that they could all celebrate the event. ‘I shall take good care of her,’ went on the writer, ‘and we shall be delighted to welcome her.’

  ‘What a marvellous idea,’ said Venetia. ‘Was she a friend of yours, Anneta?’

  ‘Lucille? Oh, yes, we were in the same class. Duert, please may I go?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Marijke is an old firm friend of mine, and so is her husband. You must write and accept, and we will arrange the journey.’

  ‘I’ll need heaps of clothes.’

  ‘We’ll arrange those, too, but nothing, I beg of you, too ultra.’

  Anneta danced round the table to hug him. ‘You really are an old dear!’ she cried. ‘We’ll go to den Haag today and start buying.’

  ‘And I’ll go to den Haag and do a day’s work.’ He got up from the table, kissed them both and drove himself away, leaving them to plan a wardrobe.

  He got back late that evening, listened patiently to Anneta’s description of the clothes she had bought, told her that he would see about her flight the next day, and
took himself off to his study after dinner. It was much later, when Anneta had been in her room for an hour or more and Venetia was sitting in the drawing-room with her tapestry, that he joined her, Digby at his heels.

  He sat down opposite her. ‘You are a most pleasant companion,’ he said, to her surprise.

  ‘But I haven’t said a word.’

  ‘That is what I meant. Do you suppose this trip to Paris will solve your problem for you?’

  ‘Oh,’ she lifted her lovely eyes to search his face. ‘I did wonder… Yes, I’m sure it will. You must know a great many people.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Venetia, I’m going to take a week off. I have an aunt living at Salcombe, I think that we might pay her a visit. Would you like that?’

  ‘Salcombe? That’s south Devon, almost Cornwall. Oh, yes, I would.’

  ‘Good. No need to tell Anneta, and you won’t need a vast new wardrobe.’

  Her mind was already on sandy beaches and woods and sea. She turned a beaming face to his. ‘That’s the last thing I’m thinking of!’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ANNETA’S journey was arranged for a week ahead, and the days between were taken up with the shopping she found essential for her trip. Venetia went with her to den Haag almost each day, going patiently from one boutique to the next while Anneta gathered together a wardrobe far in excess of what she would need. And when she remonstrated all Anneta did was to shrug her shoulders and declare, ‘Well, Duert can afford it, and why shouldn’t I have all the nice things I want?’

  ‘But think of the excess baggage on the flight,’ ventured Venetia.

  ‘I always have excess baggage,’ Anneta told her. ‘I shall buy some clothes in Paris, of course.’

  ‘In that case, I see no need for all these outfits you’ve bought!’ said Venetia tartly. ‘You’re just wasting Duert’s money.’

  Anneta tossed her head. ‘Sometimes, Venetia, you are quite miserly. That gold tissue dress we saw today, and which would have suited you very well—you would not buy it…’

  ‘I didn’t want it,’ Venetia pointed out. ‘I’ve all the dresses I could possibly need and, besides, me and gold tissue don’t go together.’

  Anneta considered this. ‘Perhaps you are right. You are what I think is called a jolie laide, and you cannot be ultra smart.’

  Venetia accepted that opinion in good part. ‘Yes, well, never mind about me—what about that corduroy suit we saw today? It would be just right for travelling.’

  They saw little of Duert. He had gone to Brussels for a consultation and stayed away for two days, and it wasn’t until very late at night that Venetia heard the Bentley stop before the door. In the morning, although she had got up early, he had already gone again.

  Not satisfactory, she decided; he was obsessed by his work, as though he were trying to escape from an ordinary life. He had always seemed to be detached at St Jude’s, and if she had thought of him at all it had been with awe, and certainly no curiosity as to his private life. But now she knew more of that, and although she still stood in awe it was more of his work than of him as a person. She began to wonder how they would get on at Salcombe.

  They drove Anneta to Schiphol after lunch at the end of the week, and waited there until they saw the plane airborne.

  ‘We’ll have tea in Amsterdam,’ declared the professor. ‘I’ll have to go to Leiden in the morning, but I thought we might leave directly after lunch tomorrow. We’ll stay the night in Hampstead and drive down to Salcombe the next day. My aunt lives alone with a housekeeper and an assortment of dogs and cats. She is mildly eccentric—my mother’s elder sister, widowed. Her house is on the opposite bank of the estuary, facing Salcombe, and the grounds go down to the beach.’

  He was driving towards Amsterdam, not hurrying.

  ‘We shan’t need to dress up?’

  ‘No. I dare say we’ll dine out, but you’ll not need a long dress.’ He sped past an articulated lorry and then slowed again. ‘How are your driving lessons going?’

  ‘Wim says I’m doing well…’

  ‘You can understand him?’

  She answered him in passable Dutch. ‘Of course, and I speak Dutch to him. We understand each other very well.’

  ‘My dear Venetia, what a delightful surprise, and how hard you must have worked. I had no idea…’

  ‘Well, of course you hadn’t.’ She spoke tartly. ‘You never asked, and why should you? It’s not all that important.’

  ‘There you are mistaken,’ he said blandly. ‘It is most important, and I have been blind not to have seen it.’

  She sat and worried over that remark until they were in the heart of the city. He took her to the Amstel Hotel and gave her tea in a solidly comfortable room overlooking the river, and then drove her back home. She went indoors filled with the pleasure of a delightful afternoon, and the hope that at last he was beginning to regard her as a friend. Her hopes were dashed within minutes, for as he came into the hall behind her he told her casually that he would be at the hospital at Leiden until late that evening. ‘A meeting I must attend,’ he told her, apparently without regret. ‘I’ll see you at breakfast.’

  So she had a solitary dinner and went early to bed, filling in the empty hours with packing a case with sensible clothes suitable for Salcombe. The elegant outfits she had been wearing were pushed to the back of her wardrobe. Instead, she folded the Marks and Spencer skirts and woollies, and added one pretty dress just in case they were to go out one evening, and then, on second thoughts, folded a black satin skirt and a chiffon blouse as well. Stout shoes and a woolly cap completed her rather sketchy wardrobe, as well as her oiled cloth jacket in case the weather turned nasty. She gave a good deal of thought to what she would travel in. They would be staying the night at the Hampstead house, so she packed another small overnight-bag with a taupe jersey dress and an extra blouse, and decided on a tweed suit and a thin cashmere jumper. No hat—she would be in the car for most of the time, and a Gucci scarf Anneta had given her would cover her head if it turned cold or wet.

  More or less content with her choice, she went to bed, to lie awake until she heard Duert come quietly up the staircase and go to his room.

  Beyond reminding her to be ready to leave when he arrived home, Duert had little to say at breakfast.

  ‘You won’t be home to lunch?’

  ‘I’ll get a sandwich before I leave the hospital. Anneta should phone some time during the morning.’

  ‘Shall I tell her we’re going to your aunt’s?’

  He smiled slowly. ‘No—tell her we will ring her, she need not ring us. We will keep our holiday secret, shall we?’

  ‘Very well.’ Venetia buttered toast and took a bite.

  She found that his smile disorganised her common sense. It was still more disorganised when he added, ‘I have thought lately that I should like to get to know you, Venetia.’

  She swallowed the toast, lost her breath and had to be thumped gently on the back. When she had her breath back again she said quite inadequately, ‘Yes, well—if you want to. There’s nothing much to know…’ Her voice trailed away under his amused stare.

  He got to his feet, ready to leave. ‘As to that, you must allow me to be the judge.’ He came round the table and bent and kissed her cheek—not the usual peck for Anneta’s benefit, but leisurely and gently. Left to herself, she poured more coffee, offered Digby a piece of buttered toast, and reflected that she knew even less about Duert than he did of her.

  She was waiting for him when he got back very shortly after lunch, her case in the hall, she herself sitting without fidgeting in the sitting-room in her expensive tweed suit and the cashmere jersey. He paused to look at her as he came in, remembering that months ago he had told himself that she would repay dressing, and she did; she looked very attractive, pretty even, with her hair curling softly round her face. She had nice hands and feet, well gloved and shod, and her handbag was exactly right. He wasn’t a very observant man when it came to women’s clothes,
but he had to admit that she looked good. He said ‘Hello. How nice you look.’ Which surprised her so much that she pinkened and blinked her eyes.

  The pink made her pretty, he came a little closer. ‘Did I ever tell you how restful you are?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Have you had a busy morning?’

  ‘Very, but everything I needed to do is done. Will you mind coming over to Hampstead for a few weeks when Anneta gets back? I’ve several cases at St Jude’s. A change of scene might be good for her.’

  And what about me? thought Venetia silently. Would it be good for me, too, or don’t I come into your plans? ‘That would be nice,’ she said sedately.

  The Bentley took them swiftly south to Boulogne and, once across the channel, up the A20 and the M20 to London. They were in Hampstead in the early evening, with Todd and Mrs Todd waiting to welcome them and offer them congratulations once more.

  Venetia was borne off to a magnificent bedroom at the front of the house, where a beaming Mrs Todd opened cupboards and drawers and showed her the bathroom. ‘And the professor’s room is just through the other door.’ She twinkled. ‘His dressing-room, I should say.’

  Venetia had a shower and got into the jersey dress, which, after all, was a waste of time for Duert, emerging from his study, told her that he would have to drive over to St Jude’s and get his dates fixed. ‘Don’t wait dinner,’ he told her, ‘but I should be back quite early.’

  Rather obstinately, she asked Mrs Todd to hold dinner for an hour, so that when he did get back, some time after eight o’clock, it was there waiting for him.

  ‘You’ve not dined?’