by Betty Neels
He glanced at Ethel. ‘Ethel fixed things up at the hotel there. It’s in the country, the Luneburg Heath—and it’s old and quiet. A nice change for us all. I thought we might leave soon after breakfast in the morning and get there for a late lunch.’
‘I’ve got the notes for Copenhagen,’ Ethel reminded him. ‘Would you like them now?’
‘Why not, if you are not too tired.’
It seemed the right moment for Beatrice to declare herself tired and ready for bed. She got up when Ethel did, and the doctor got up too, strolling with her across the foyer, with Ethel hurrying ahead to get the papers he wanted. At the staircase he came to a halt.
‘You stole quite a few hearts today,’ he told her, smiling. He touched her cheek gently with one finger. ‘You’re a little pale; a few hours in the country will do you good. You’re not unhappy?’
‘No—no, I’m not. How could I be? I’m having such a lovely time. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.’
He only smiled again. ‘Goodnight, Beatrice.’ He took her hand and held it for a few moments. ‘Sleep well.’
He really was a nice person, she thought sleepily as she jumped into bed. Although she was never quite sure what he was really thinking.
It was raining as they left Cologne, but by the time they reached Hanover the sun was shining again and they stopped at a wayside café for coffee. They didn’t linger over it, and by one o’clock they were crossing the heath to stop before the hotel. It was of red brick and thatched, and once inside they were transported into the sixteenth century. Not that it lacked a single modern luxury, skilfully tucked away behind the old and beautiful furniture and the ancient walls. Beatrice rotated slowly round the room she was to have; she was enthralled. This, she decided, was the real Germany, away from the bright lights and the chandeliers. They went presently for lunch: local fish, a splendid salad and a rich tart for afters, helped along by the wine the doctor chose. They had coffee in the lounge, and since Ethel declared that she wanted to work on her notes Oliver and Beatrice took themselves off for a walk.
It was a quiet countryside, and unspoilt. They walked for hours, talking when they felt like it, at ease with each other, and they went back for coffee and cakes and a leisurely hour sitting outside in the evening light.
It was nice to give the blouse and skirt and the printed dress a rest. Beatrice got into one of her pretty summer dresses, wound her hair into a chignon and wandered downstairs, where she found Oliver waiting for her.
‘Ethel isn’t quite ready,’ she told him. ‘She said ten minutes, if you don’t mind.’
‘We’ll have a drink while we are waiting and have a look at the menu.’
Beatrice worried her way through the German. ‘Why is this a Romantik hotel?’ she asked.
‘A chain of hotels throughout Europe, all living up to a certain standard. Candles on the tables, good food, comfortable rooms and so on, so that those with romantic intentions can indulge them.’
‘Oh, but other people stay at them? I mean, people who aren’t being romantic?’
‘Naturally. You need only consider the three of us to prove it.’ A remark uttered in such bland tones that she could think of nothing in reply.
The food was excellent. They dined at leisure, and Beatrice and Ethel went to their beds soon after. Tomorrow would be another long day.
They left after an excellent breakfast, circumventing Hamburg and crossing into Denmark, driving up the road to Kolding and then on to the island of Funen, crossing on the ferry to Korsor, across the island of Zeeland and finally reaching Copenhagen. They hadn’t hurried, and it was late afternoon by the time the doctor stopped at a hotel overlooking the harbour. ‘Myhavn 71,’ he told her, ‘another Romantik hotel, and a good deal quieter than the Royal or the D’Angleterre.’
It was charming none the less, and had a quiet air of luxury borne out by the rooms into which they were shown. Beatrice unpacked, showered and changed into another summer dress and went down to the foyer. Ethel and Oliver were already there, sitting at a table, and Ethel’s notebook was open. She closed it now and the three of them talked in the pleasant, lazy way people do when they have been travelling all day, and presently they went in to dinner.
The menu was French, but by way of a speciality there was a vast centre table laid out with smorgasbord, and with their appetites nicely whetted they went on to lobster and then strawberries and finally coffee, strong and dark and unlimited.
Beatrice, watching the harbour beyond her bedroom window before she got into bed, felt contentment flooding her. Tomorrow she would be on her own until the early afternoon, but she had a map the ever-thoughtful doctor had got for her, and he had promised that he would take her to see the Little Mermaid before they both went to the evening reception at the University. ‘Only an hour or so; we shall be back at the hotel by seven o’clock. We’ll have dinner and we’ll all go to the Tivoli Gardens,’ he had told her. ‘The dinner will be on the second day, but I shan’t need Ethel in the morning, so the pair of you can go shopping or sightseeing.’
The next two days were every bit as delightful as she had known they would be. The shops were splendid and everyone spoke English. She had spent her first morning prowling around the department stores, and in the afternoon she had driven with Oliver along the road by the water to see the Little Mermaid—a wistful little figure, but disappointingly smaller than she had imagined she would be.
The reception had been a good deal livelier than the one at Cologne, and there hadn’t been the language difficulty; she had loved every minute of it. And on the second day she and Ethel had poked around the shops, buying trinkets and small figurines of porcelain before going back to the hotel and having lunch, while they discussed their visit to the Tivoli Gardens the previous evening. It had been marvellous, they agreed, and the doctor had been more than generous, paying for them to take part in its attractions and waiting patiently while they tried their luck in the shooting galleries and gazed open-mouthed at the firework display.
The dinner had been rather solemn to begin with, but soon livened up. Beatrice, in the blouse and skirt once more, had been glad to find Oliver sitting beside her, while on her other side was a young Danish doctor who knew England well and moreover admired her quite openly.
She had been annoyed when the doctor had remarked upon that as they drove back to the hotel. ‘Turn all heads, don’t you?’ he’d remarked cheerfully. ‘I wonder who it will be in Brussels.’ She had told him tartly that she neither knew nor cared, and he had chuckled to himself which had annoyed her still more. But on the whole they had got on very well indeed; she had come to miss him when he wasn’t there.
The Rolls made light of the long drive to Brussels and they stopped on the German-Belgian border and had a leisurely lunch at a country restaurant, then took a stroll for half an hour before getting back into the car. Their hotel was in the centre of the city, an elegant building with the best shops close by, but, as the doctor pointed out, there were only two lectures to give in Brussels and both on the same day. ‘So make the most of it,’ he told Beatrice. ‘There will be a luncheon at the hospital tomorrow and I would like you to come to that with me. I have another lecture in the afternoon, but we could go out in the evening if you would like that, while Ethel gets the last of the typing done.’
So she had spent the morning looking at the shops but buying very little; some chocolates for her sisters, a tie for her father and a pretty brooch for her mother, as well as biscuits for Mrs Perry and the Sharpe family. And by then it was time to pretty herself for the luncheon and go down to wait for Oliver.
She enjoyed herself, although she had felt a little doubtful of it. But it gave her an opportunity to air her French, which was really rather good, and the food was delicious. She spent the afternoon packing her things and went down to the foyer, refreshed by a tray of tea in her room and a leisurely bath. Ethel was already there with the doctor, and after dinner the three of them went out. Oliver seeme
d to know just where to go, but then she would have been surprised if he didn’t; they had drinks at a fashionable café, walked a little, had coffee at another hotel and then strolled back.
‘Well, there goes our last evening,’ observed Oliver placidly. ‘Back to the grindstone tomorrow. We shall leave soon after breakfast—we’ll go over from Ostend.’
He bade them goodnight in the foyer, not giving Beatrice a chance to tell him how much she had enjoyed herself. Indeed, his manner was so remotely kind that she hesitated to do more than wish him goodnight. She went to bed feeling dissatisfied and vaguely unhappy. Somehow or other she would contrive to thank him properly before she reached home. She had much to thank him for, she reflected; she had only been away for two weeks, but already Colin seemed like a character in a book she had forgotten she had read.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS raining when they left Brussels, and it was still raining when they reached England and drove westwards. They stopped in Ightham at the Town House, a restaurant with a high reputation and an imaginative menu, and had lunch before Oliver joined the motorway and presently the A303, explaining that it would be easier and quicker if he were to take Beatrice home first and then drive back to London, first to Ethel’s flat and then to his home.
‘Will you stay in London?’ Beatrice made her voice casual.
‘For a week at least. There will be a backlog of patients, as well as urgent new cases. Ethel is to have a well-earned holiday—I only hope the temp they send will work half as hard. I’m lost without her.’
Ethel had heard him from the back seat. ‘Well, if it’s that Miss Duffield who came last year, she was most efficient…’
‘She terrified me.’ He glanced at Beatrice. ‘Do you suppose your mother would give us tea? Then we shan’t need to stop on our way home.’
‘Of course she will. I sent her a card days ago, and told her to expect us any time after four o’clock.’
‘Splendid.’ After that, they didn’t talk much, and Ethel dozed off. The doctor glanced in his mirror and said quietly, ‘She must be worn out; she never misses a trick. She certainly deserves a week off.’ He gave Beatrice a sideways glance. ‘And you, Beatrice? What will you do now you’re home again?’
‘Help Father, and there’s always heaps to do in the village—coffee mornings and the church bazaar and the children’s summer outing, and if anyone’s away or ill I help out with meals on wheels.’
‘The mind boggles.’
Come to think of it, thought Beatrice, my mind boggles too. It never used to, I’m getting discontented… She said defiantly, ‘Oh, I like doing those things.’
He murmured politely, ‘Of course, you will get married. Is Kathy back from her honeymoon?’
And after that they talked about Kathy and Ella and Carol in general, and although Beatrice tried to lead the talk back to his own plans he gave nothing away, so that she was forced to fall back on dull topics like the weather and the likelihood of there being a good harvest.
He stopped before her home door soon after five o’clock, and it was flung open instantly to allow Mrs Browning, Ella and Carol with Knotty to surge out to greet them.
‘Come in,’ cried Mrs Browning, embracing Beatrice, shaking hands with Oliver and Ethel, and urging them indoors. ‘Isn’t this delightful? And I’m longing to hear all about the trip, but I suppose you won’t have time to tell me. Tea’s ready. Ethel—you don’t mind if I call you Ethel?— Beatrice will take you upstairs. Oliver, go straight into the sitting-room. I’ll fetch the tea-tray.’
He went with her to the kitchen and took the tray from her. ‘Young Wood has gone?’ he asked.
‘Yes, a week ago. But there are several letters…’ Mrs Browning looked at him with troubled eyes.
‘Don’t worry too much. I am almost sure that Beatrice has got over him—he hadn’t gone very deep, you know. Let her have the letters.’
‘If you say so, Oliver.’ Mrs Browning picked up a plate of scones and started back to the sitting-room.
‘You don’t mind if Ethel and I leave within the hour? She is tired and I am faced with an out-patients at nine o’clock in the morning.’ He put the tray on a table. ‘I’d like to take a quick look at Mr Browning before I go. He’s well?’
‘Yes. Mr Sharpe is just right as a partner, and they get on famously. He’ll be glad to have Beatrice back, though Ella’s been very good.’
‘If Beatrice should marry, someone will have to take her place.’
‘Yes, but there isn’t anyone at the moment.’
Mrs Browning was arranging plates, and didn’t see Oliver’s face, only heard his quiet, ‘Not at the moment, no.’
Ethel and Beatrice came in, and a minute later Ella and Mr Browning, and they sat round the open windows talking about their journey and eating Mrs Browning’s scones and cakes. ‘What a lovely tea,’ said Ethel, and passed her cup for the third time.
The men went away presently, and Beatrice took Ethel for a quick look at the clinic. When they got back to the house, Oliver was waiting for them and goodbyes were said without delay.
‘I still haven’t had the chance…’ began Beatrice, her well-rehearsed speech of thanks ready on her tongue, but never to be uttered, it seemed, for Oliver shook hands briefly, wished her a brisk goodbye and ushered Ethel into the front seat of the car. She watched him drive away. Now she would have to write a thank-you letter, for she had no idea when she would see him again. She stopped suddenly as they turned to go back indoors. She would have to see him again, she couldn’t bear the thought of not doing so—just once more and then never again. He was going to be married to a nice girl who trusted him, and it was just a hideous quirk of fate that she had fallen in love with him.
Her mother, waiting for her to go indoors, said briskly, ‘Are you coming in, darling?’
Beatrice found a nice normal voice to say, ‘It’s such a lovely evening now, I’m going to walk round the garden with Knotty.’
She walked aimlessly for some time, thinking about Oliver and trying to decide when she had fallen in love. She had always liked him from the moment they had met, and she had never thought of him as a stranger, but to pinpoint the moment when she knew that she loved him was impossible. It was because he had gone away so quickly and casually that the fact had been brought home to her now.
‘And there is absolutely nothing to be done about it,’ she added unhappily to Knotty. ‘What a mess I have made of things, haven’t I?’
She went back indoors presently and spent the rest of the evening giving her mother and father and Ella a detailed report on her travels.
‘How very exciting,’ remarked Mrs Browning, ‘and to think that Oliver goes on these trips at least once a year. I’m not surprised he hasn’t married; he can’t have had much time to do so.’
‘Well, he’s going to soon.’
‘Is he, dear? That will be nice.’
Her mother, thought Beatrice peevishly, could at times be quite infuriating.
It wasn’t difficult to slip back into her usual working days again, and she welcomed the fact that they were busier than usual. It was only at the end of the day, in her own room, that she allowed herself to think about Oliver, wondering what he was doing and where he was. Somehow nothing else mattered; she had torn up Colin’s letters without opening them, to her mother’s secret satisfaction, and there was certainly no room in her mind for any thoughts of him. The week went past, and very nearly a second one, before something happened to disrupt her busy, unexciting days.
A letter came from Great-Aunt Sybil. Miss Moore was taking a week’s holiday—for urgent family reasons—and, since Aunt Sybil could on no account be expected to manage without a companion, Beatrice was invited to spend a week in her place. ‘Invited’ wasn’t perhaps the right word, the invitation was worded more in the form of a command but, as Mrs Browning said, the poor old thing was to be pitied.
‘Why?’ asked Beatrice, not best pleased at the summons.
�
�Well, dear, no one loves her, do they? We do our duty by her; your father manages her shares and things for her, and I go and see her once a month and you fill in gaps, but none of us likes doing it.’
‘How right, Mother. But I’ll go, if only to keep the peace. Nothing much can happen in a week.’
She went away to pack her bag, happily unaware that she was quite mistaken.
Great-Aunt Sybil gave her a grudging welcome. Miss Moore had already gone, leaving a neat list of things which had to be done for Beatrice. They were innumerable, and Beatrice, reading it, saw that the week ahead would be a difficult one, given that she wasn’t Miss Moore in the first place, and furthermore would have to contend with her great-aunt’s ill humour because Miss Moore wasn’t there.
The first day went well enough; Beatrice, anxious to please, wound wool, fetched spectacles, read aloud and listened with an intelligent face and half an ear to Miss Browning’s forceful opinions of the government. She had heard most of them before, and beyond a suitable, ‘oh’, or ‘I see’, she was free to think her own thoughts of Oliver.
But on the second day she blotted her copy-book badly by forgetting the pills that her great-aunt took for her indigestion; worse, forgetting where they were. ‘Miss Moore,’ pronounced Miss Browning in disagreeably loud tones, ‘forgets nothing. If it were not for her, I should very likely be lying in my grave.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Beatrice cheerfully, ‘it’s only for a week, Aunt Sybil, and think how much you’ll enjoy seeing her again.’
‘You are still an impertinent young woman,’ said Great-Aunt Sybil.
It was difficult not to be bored; the weather had changed as it so often did in an English summer, to drizzling rain and brief snatches of sun which lasted long enough for one to go out of doors and get caught in the next shower. Beatrice played card games with her aunt, read the papers from cover to cover, and thought about Oliver.
There was a thunderstorm on the fourth day of her visit; it rumbled all day and then, as night fell, reached a crescendo of noise, interlarded by flashes of blue lightning which Beatrice didn’t like at all. None the less, Miss Browning elected to go to her bed at the usual hour, and Beatrice, left on her own since Mrs Shadwell had retired to her room too, decided that bed might be the best place. She pulled the curtains close, turned on all the lights and presently got into bed, where she dozed off over a book. When she woke an hour later the storm had died away; indeed, it was too quiet, with not a breath of wind and no sound of traffic.
