The Promise of Happiness

by Betty Neels

  That the Baron would find her a job she never doubted, but working in hospital might not be as pleasant as living in the lap of luxury with the Baroness. She consoled herself with the thought that she would have Bertie and Pooch again and it would be fun making a home for the three of them. She had no reason to complain, she told herself firmly, and concentrated upon seeing as much of Denmark as possible as they drove down from the ferry. It was entirely different from Norway and as on parts of the road at least there was no speed limit, she managed to get only brief glimpses of the country, but in the towns and villages where the Baron had to slow down, she had ample chance to look around her. Everything was very neat and clean and she admired the rolling farmland with beech woods and pine plantations dotted here and there, and she was charmed with Vejle although she saw very little of it. The Baroness was tired and cross and it took Becky a long time and a good deal of her patience to settle the little lady for the night. But she was her charming self in the morning, eager to start, for as she pointed out to Becky: ‘We shall be home this evening, my dear. I know it’s quite a journey, but Tiele has promised that I shall eat dinner under his roof tonight.’

  ‘Isn’t it your roof too?’ asked Becky.

  ‘No—I lived there while my husband was alive, but now I live in our town house in Leeuwarden— quite close, you know. But Tiele wishes me to spend the night at Huis Raukema.’

  So they set off once more on the last lap of the journey; another three hundred and sixty miles, six hours’ travelling, the Baron assured them, and frequent stops. ‘For we have all day to kill,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s not yet eleven o’clock and I told Willem to expect us in time for dinner.’ He looked at Becky. ‘Someone should have warned you that I enjoy driving. On my own I should have travelled much faster…’

  ‘I am enjoying the journey very much,’ Becky told him sedately.

  It was exciting to cross into Germany and then later, into Holland at last. The country looked rather like Denmark although the farms were larger with enormous barns at their backs and great herds of cows grazing in the flat water meadows. They bypassed Groningen and once clear of the city took a country road running north, side by side with a wide canal, but after a while the Baron turned off to the west, cutting across the flat countryside until they reached another canal bordered by trees. It was a peaceful landscape with small villages, each with its church dominating it and dykes encircling the lowlying land. Leeuwarden lay somewhere ahead, Becky supposed, but there was no sign of it at present. Perhaps this was a short cut…

  The Baron, who had been travelling fast along a familiar road, slowed the car presently and Becky, watching the canal slip past them, exclaimed with delight when she saw the narrow arm of water leading from it. It was lined with trees too and as well as that there were cottages along the water’s edge, half hidden from the road and in the distance a church. ‘Oh, that’s really very pretty,’ declared Becky to no one in particular.

  ‘You like it? That’s where we’re going,’ said the Baron. He kept on driving though and it was a minute or two before he turned into a narrow lane which led off the road towards the canal and the village on the other side of the water. They had to cross a bridge to reach it, a quaint affair which opened for boats and barges to pass; Becky was still looking back at it as they reached the first few cottages.

  The village was small, peaceful and pretty, its church large enough to accommodate ten times the number of its inhabitants. The road wound past it and into a small wood fenced in, and after a minute or two the Baron turned the car for the last time into a sanded drive between thick shrubs and trees. ‘Home,’ said the Baroness softly.

  Home, decided Becky, peering in front of her, was a place of splendour, standing proudly at the end of the drive; a large square house backed by a semi-circle of trees—one of every species, she thought flippantly, gazing at their variety and lowering her gaze to take in the velvet lawns and the flower beds blazing with colour. The drive ended in a sweep and the Baron brought the Rolls to a gentle stop before the shallow steps leading to a massive porch and double doors, already opening. Becky got out, bent on making herself useful, and while Tialda ran excitedly up the steps she gathered the Baroness’s bits and pieces and followed the Baron at a more sober pace. There was an elderly man at the door, but beyond a brief reply to his greeting, the Baron with his mother in his arms didn’t pause on his way. He crossed the lofty wide hall, with Willem ahead of him to open one of the many doors leading from it, and strode through it with Becky on his heels, very wishful to stop and look around her but not daring to. Just inside the door he paused for a second, which did give her a chance to see that the room was large, beautifully furnished and despite that contrived to look cosy, but when she heard him speak she brought her gaze back to the broad shoulders in front of her.

  ‘Nina!’ said the Baron in a voice she hadn’t heard before. ‘I didn’t expect you to be here.’

  Becky heard a trill of laughter and skipped a couple of steps to one side so that she could see round the massive back before her. In the centre of the room stood a girl—a beautiful creature with golden hair brushed into the fashionable untidy mop, and exquisite features. She was wearing a dress of some soft material in palest blue with a full skirt and a tiny bodice which showed off her slenderness to perfection and she was smiling confidently across the room at the Baron.

  ‘Is it a lovely surprise?’ she wanted to know, quite sure that it was, and waited while he made his mother comfortable in one of the straight-backed armchairs by the open french window before crossing the room and lifting her face to his. Becky looked away as he bent his head to kiss her and wished that she wasn’t there. This couldn’t be his wife; he had never mentioned one—his fiancée, then…

  ‘Nina,’ said the Baron formally, ‘this is Miss Rebecca Saunders who is looking after Mama. Becky, Juffrouw Nina van Doorn.’

  The girl murmured something in her own language and Becky’s face went wooden because she guessed it was something about her, but then Juffrouw van Doorn smiled and said How do you do so pleasantly that she decided that she had been mistaken, but she had no opportunity to think about this as the Baron went on smoothly: ‘Becky, will you go upstairs and make sure that my mother’s room is quite ready for her? You’ll find someone in the hall to take you up—I’ll bring the Baroness up in ten minutes. She should have supper in bed, I think.’

  Becky was only too glad to escape. Somehow it wasn’t quite what she had expected, but of course after the carefree weeks with the Baroness, she had rather forgotten her position in the household. And she had wanted to go at once to see Bertie and Pooch. She swallowed disappointment and went out of the room to where a nice-faced middle-aged woman was waiting.

  ‘Sutske,’ she said, and smiled, and Becky put out a hand.

  ‘I’m the nurse,’ she said, hopeful that she would be understood.

  ‘Zuster Saunders,’ nodded the housekeeper cheerfully, and beckoned her to follow.

  The staircase was at the back of the hall, its graceful wings branching left and right to the gallery above. Sutske didn’t hurry and Becky had time to look about her as they went, her head over one shoulder as they climbed. The hall was square, its crimson wall hangings divided by white-painted wall pillars picked out with gold, a circular window in the roof high above her head lighted it and the polished wood floor was spread with thin silk rugs. It looked very grand, and the gallery when they reached it was just as grand; the walls were all white here and in place of rugs there was a thick crimson carpet. Becky paused a second to look down into the hall before following the housekeeper to one end of the gallery where that lady opened a door and ushered her inside. This was to be the Baroness’s room, then, a vast apartment with windows on two walls, a canopied bed, a number of very comfortable chairs, a marquetry tallboy and a graceful sofa table under one of the windows with a triple mirror upon it.

  Left alone, Becky, in a panic that the Baroness would arrive before she
was ready for her, turned back the bed, plumped up the pillows and went to see what was behind the three doors in the room. A bathroom, splendidly appointed in the same soft pinks and blues as the curtains and coverlet, an enormous clothes closet, in which she saw that the Baroness’s things for the night were already disposed, and the last door, leading into a small lobby with another open door at its end. Another bedroom which would be hers, she surmised, much smaller but every bit as charming. She didn’t waste time exploring further, but went to put out soap and sponge, her patient’s night things, and lay her brushes and combs on the dressing table. And just in time, for the door was thrust open and the Baron walked in, carrying his mother.

  He didn’t speak to Becky, only nodded vaguely before he went again, and his mother said dryly: ‘Now he can go back to Nina…’ She stopped and went on in quite a different voice: ‘Dear Becky, you have everything ready—I’m a little tired. Tiele says something on a tray—he told Sutske to send it up in about an hour.’

  Perhaps Becky was more tired than she knew, but the hour seemed very long, and indeed by the time the Baroness was sitting up in bed with a dainty supper on the bed table before her, she was as worn out as her patient and a good deal more hungry, and over and above that was the urge to go in search of Bertie and Pooch. No one had mentioned them yet, and with the beautiful Nina downstairs it was hardly likely that the Baron would remember them. After what seemed an age the Baroness was settled for the night and Becky, leaving one small lamp alight, went softly from the room with the tray.

  It was very late, possibly everyone had gone to bed and although Tialda had been in to say goodnight some time ago, declaring that she was going to bed too and reminding Becky that there would be some supper for her downstairs, Becky had not the least idea where to go for it. If she found the kitchen there might be coffee, though, and at the same time she would have a quick look for Bertie and Pooch…perhaps it wasn’t quite the thing to prowl around the house in that fashion, but she felt that she had excuse enough; besides, she wasn’t likely to meet anyone.

  She met the Baron; he was coming in through the front door as she gained the last stair and since she could hear the whine of a receding car, she concluded that his visitor had just left. He frowned when he saw her and said: ‘Good lord, are you still up?’

  It would hardly be her ghost and she was tempted to say so. ‘Yes,’ she told him briefly, and made for the back of the hall where she had noticed a baize door.

  ‘You don’t have to carry trays in this house.’ The Baron’s voice had an edge to it.

  ‘There’s no one about,’ she pointed out matter-offactly.

  ‘Then I’ll ring for someone…’

  Becky quite forgot who he was. ‘Indeed you won’t,’ she told him roundly. ‘Getting people out of their beds at this hour—do you know how late it is?’

  He didn’t need to answer, for the great Friesian wall clock creaked into life and chimed midnight in a mellow old voice. ‘You’ve had supper?’ he asked carelessly as he turned away. ‘No.’

  He was beside her then, taking the tray from her. ‘My dear girl, what a thoughtless man I am!’ ‘No, not really—Tialda came and told me that there would be supper downstairs for me; your mother was very tired—too tired to settle easily. She’s asleep now.’

  He stood looking down at her, the tray balanced on one hand. ‘I’m afraid I have neglected you all. We will go to the kitchens now and see what we can find.’

  Becky was suddenly cross as well as tired, nothing had been quite what she expected; the grandeur of the house and she had thought that at least someone would have mentioned Bertie and Pooch. ‘Thank you,’ she said snappily, ‘I shall do very well—I’m not in the least hungry,’ which was a lie, ‘but I should like to know if Bertie and Pooch are all right, Baron.’

  ‘Oh, God—that too! Forgive me, Becky. Of course they’re all right—I’ll take you to them now.’

  He put a hand on her back and swept her along and through the baize door, down some steps and into a large kitchen, equipped to the last skewer and still somehow looking delightfully old-fashioned. There was an Aga stove along one wall and on the rug before it were Bertie, Pooch and a Great Dane. All three animals turned round, half asleep, and then bounded to their feet and rushed across the kitchen, the Great Dane to hurl herself at the Baron, Bertie and Pooch to cover Becky with joyful licks, pushing and shoving her in their efforts to greet her properly after such a long time. She sank on to the floor and let them have their way while the tears ran down her cheeks. They hadn’t forgotten her, and very soon they could set up house somewhere and she wouldn’t have to leave them again. She forgot her companion completely, but presently he bent down, plucked her to her feet, ignoring the tears and remarked cheerfully: ‘There’s coffee—it’s always on the stove in case I have to go out at night—and I’ve found some rolls and butter and cheese and there’s a salad in the fridge.’

  He sat her down at the scrubbed wooden table in the middle of the kitchen and poured coffee for them both while the Great Dane trod quietly at his heels.

  Becky drank some of the coffee, wiped her eyes and found her voice. ‘Thank you very much, Baron, for taking such good care of them.’ And at his noncommittal grunt: ‘What do you call your dog?’

  ‘Lola.’

  ‘Why do you call her that?’

  ‘What Lola wants, Lola gets,’ quoted the Baron. ‘She rules this place with a rod of iron, although she’s as gentle as a lamb. Your two get on very well with her.’ He buttered a roll and put some salad on a plate. ‘And now eat your supper—such as it is.’

  Becky ate, with Pooch on her lap and Bertie sitting as close to her as he could get, the Baron plying her with food and coffee while he carried on a conversation which really needed no reply from her, which gave her time to resume her usual composed manner. But presently she had had enough and began to pile the supper things tidily.

  ‘Oh, leave that,’ he spoke impatiently, ‘someone will see to it in the morning.’

  Becky went on collecting plates and cups and saucers. ‘My stepmother and Basil did that—left things for the morning. You have no idea how beastly it is to come downstairs and find a lot of dirty crockery to wash up.’

  ‘No, I haven’t, and I can assure you that there are sufficient staff in my household to find the task bearable—and may I remind you, Becky, that this is my house and I do exactly what I wish in it, and I expect its other occupants to do as I ask.’

  His self-assurance was a little daunting. She said uncertainly: ‘Oh, you do?’ and beyond gently laying the china in her hands on the tray, she stopped what she was doing. There was no point in annoying him; she seemed to do that easily enough anyway. She got up, wished Bertie and Pooch goodnight and directed them back to their rug, and went to the door where she turned to say: ‘Goodnight, Baron.’

  ‘Why do you persist in calling me Baron?’ he asked testily.

  ‘Well, you are,’ she said reasonably. ‘Thank you for my supper and for taking such good care of Bertie and Pooch.’

  He had been sitting at the table but he reached the door at the same time as she did. ‘Tiele, perhaps?’ he asked persuasively.

  ‘Certainly not—you’re my employer, and it wouldn’t be right.’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Please yourself.’

  He bent his head suddenly and kissed her as she passed him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE BARONESS WAS tired the next morning. Becky, leaving her propped up against the pillows, having her breakfast, went to find the Baron and tell him so. She had seen him earlier from the window, astride a great horse, returning from an early morning ride—he looked rather splendid on horseback, she conceded, wondering at the same time whether he worked the normal long hours of a doctor or held a part time post at some hospital. In any case, since he was a doctor, he could decide if his mother was fit to get up. Personally, Becky considered that the little lady had exhausted herself on their long journey and need
ed at least a day in bed, if not two. She found him in the small breakfast room, a small, panelled apartment at the side of the house, having been shown there by Willem, and as she went in, just for a moment she felt shy, remembering the previous evening, but only for a moment. His kiss hadn’t meant a thing and it certainly couldn’t have been because she had looked attractive, more the sort of comforting kiss one would give an old lady who had lost her purse… She gave him a polite good morning and asked him, still very politely, if he could spare the time to see his mother. ‘Before you go to work,’ she explained, just to make it quite clear.

  ‘Ah—bent on getting my nose to the grindstone again, are you? Well, I have two more days of my holiday, and when my mother is staying with me,’ he added blandly, ‘I visit her every morning after breakfast.’

  Becky took no notice of the way he was looking down his high-bridged nose at her—very intimidating, but she wasn’t going to be intimidated.

  ‘I supposed that you would be going to work, Baron.’

  ‘Then I suggest that you give up supposing and wait until you are told.’

  She gritted her little white teeth and without answering him, walked out of the room. Two could be rude!