An Old-Fashioned Girl

by Betty Neels

  ‘Once she is asleep the Royal Marines Band could play in her room and she wouldn’t stir.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Are you lonely?’

  ‘No, no. How could one be lonely with Rosie? It’s just a bit strange.’

  He hadn’t intended to come home before the evening but he was glad that he had now; she looked forlorn despite her matter-of-fact manner, although why should he concern himself about her…?

  CHAPTER SIX

  MR VAN DER BEEK had no intention of searching his feelings too deeply; he told himself that he was concerned about Patience because he had uprooted her so ruthlessly from her quiet village life and it behoved him to make sure that she had settled down.

  He stood beside her, looking out of the window at his well tended garden. He said casually, ‘I’m free on Saturday; I shall be driving into Berkshire with Marijke and Rinus and Rosie to lunch with friends. We shan’t be back until four o’clock or thereabouts. A good idea if you take the morning off once you’ve fed Rosie and handed her over. I dare say you would like to do some shopping. I’ll tell Dobbs to have lunch ready for you around one o’clock if you would like that?’

  ‘Thank you, yes, I would.’ Her eyes sparkled; at Marks and Spencer and Selfridges and their like, she was bound to find a couple of summer dresses within her budget. Mr van der Beek, watching her face, reminded himself to leave her wages on the breakfast table and suppressed a sudden urge to whisk her away to one or other of the exquisite boutiques in and round Bond Street.

  He moved away. ‘That’s settled, then.’ He sounded remote, ‘Let me know if there is anything which worries you.’

  She didn’t see him for the rest of the week, only at dinner each evening, when he was careful to include her in the conversation with cool good manners. She thought about it in the fastness of her bedroom, getting ready for bed. She supposed that he found it awkward to have to entertain her while his sister and brother-in-law were there, but then, she argued logically, if they weren’t there she wouldn’t be either. Anyway, she had been urged to stand in for Nanny and she was doing her best to be unobtrusive.

  Being unobtrusive wasn’t enough; Mr van der Beek was as aware of her as if he had been sitting in a room knowing that there was a mouse in the corner, not making a sound but all the same leaving him in no doubt as to its presence.

  Patience, with a week’s wages tucked into her pocket, watched them drive off on the Saturday morning. She was enjoying looking after Rosie but she had to admit that almost a whole day to herself would be nice. The only cloud on the horizon was Mr van der Beek’s manner towards her: cool, almost cold, meticulously polite too, so that she became tongue-tied and avoided him as much as possible, and that, she reflected, wasn’t difficult.

  Armed with the numbers of the buses she would need to take, information offered by an attentive Dobbs, she made herself ready and set out for the shops—it was still fairly early. At the top of Oxford Street she got off the bus and made for Marks and Spencer at Marble Arch and, after one careful inspection, decided that she didn’t need to go anywhere else. Very much later she found herself in Oxford Street again, the pleased owner of a cotton jersey dress in a dashing pink, a flowered skirt, and several tops to go with it; there had been enough money to buy undies, too, and a useful little rainproof jacket. Happily laden, she had coffee in a nearby café and caught a bus back to Chiswick.

  Dobbs cast a fatherly eye over her as he admitted her. ‘A successful morning, miss?’ he enquired. ‘You must be ready for your lunch. I’ve everything prepared when you would like to have it. In the sitting-room at the back of the house.’

  He served her a little bowl of piping hot onion soup, a mushroom omelette which melted in her mouth, a salad of chicory and apple and a crème brulée by way of pudding. As he poured her coffee he said, ‘Mr van der Beek asked me to suggest that you might like to telephone your aunts while the house is quiet. There is a telephone in the hall or in the drawing-room, miss.’

  He withdrew silently and presently she went into the drawing-room and dialled the well remembered number. Miss Murch answered her, her normally severe manner positively friendly. She enquired quite kindly about Patience, expressed the hope that she was enjoying herself, and went to fetch the aunts.

  The old ladies had never liked the telephone and their conversation was brief. However, they were happy, she could hear that, and they were being very well looked after. She put down the receiver and wandered out into the hall, uncertain as to whether she should go to her room or sit in the room which was being used as a nursery. Her problem was solved for her by Dobbs, who appeared discreetly beside her and said, ‘I have arranged the newspapers and a few magazines in the drawing-room; I dare say you will be glad of an hour sitting quietly. Mr van der Beek telephoned to say that they would not be back until after five o’clock. I will serve you tea at four o’clock if that suits you?’

  So she spent a blissful afternoon, reading, dozing and presently eating the tiny cucumber sandwiches and little cakes which Dobbs brought. Even the tea tasted better, poured from a small silver teapot.

  She heard the car an hour later and Dobbs went to admit the ter Kattes and Rosie. Mevrouw ter Katte looked tired and pale, and Patience took Rosie from her at once while Mijnheer ter Katte took his wife upstairs.

  Rosie was pleased to see her; she sat on her lap, having her miniature cardigan removed and talking nineteen to the dozen. ‘Now isn’t that lovely?’ declared Patience in answer to all the unintelligible gabble. ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing all day.’

  Not understanding each other made no difference; they held an animated conversation with a good deal of giggling and neither of them heard Mr van der Beek come into the room. He stood by the door, watching them, smiling a little. Patience, in her floral-patterned dress, listening with great attention to her small companion, looked exactly right sitting there in his drawing-room. He thought of the elegant young woman who had been staying with their friends and who had done her best to attract him all day. She had been witty and amusing, very pretty and exquisitely dressed, but then she had taken no trouble with Rosie beyond a first cursory ‘hello’, and here was Patience, her cheap little dress being creased and scuffed by Rosie and paying no heed to it despite the fact that, as far as he could see, she could ill afford to have it spoilt. He frowned; he wasted too much time thinking about the girl.

  His, ‘Good evening, Patience,’ was uttered with the polite coolness she had come to expect from him, but it didn’t dim the pleasure in her face at the sight of him.

  She answered him quietly. ‘I’ll take Rosie upstairs for her bath and give her supper; she must be quite tired.’ She picked up the moppet. ‘Say good night to your uncle, Rosie,’ and, when the child had lifted a cheek for his kiss, whisked her off upstairs. Mr van der Beek, used, without conceit, to the eagerness of the opposite sex to bear him company, felt intrigued. Patience was avoiding him, an altogether different matter from his avoidance of her. He went and sat in his chair with Basil beside him; it would be interesting to see if he could change that…

  Rosie kept her fully occupied until it was time for dinner. She changed into the floral skirt and one of the pretty tops, piled her hair with severity and went downstairs to the drawing-room. Mevrouw ter Katte, fully recovered, was sitting with her husband on one of the sofas and Mr van der Beek was in his chair. He got up as she went in to get her a drink and Mevrouw ter Katte said, ‘Do come and sit here, near me, Patience. Have you had a nice day? And is Rosie quite all right?’

  ‘She’s fine. Asleep already, and she ate up all her supper. Do you feel rested, Mevrouw ter Katte?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. It is such a relief that Rosie is fond of you. She became tired, though; our friends have children also and she became excited. It was nice to see them again, though.’ She looked across at her brother. ‘They do not change, Julius, do they? And such a lovely house. Did
you like Sadie Beauchamp? She is pretty and charming—great that you got on well together.’

  ‘Yes, we did.’ He spoke deliberately, his eyes on Patience, sitting silent, her quiet hands clasped on her flowered lap.

  ‘She is of course too clever for me,’ remarked his sister, ‘I am not clever in that way, but I have been clever enough to have my beautiful Rosie.’ She smiled around her, secure in her husband’s love and her brother’s affection, and everyone laughed. They were halfway through dinner when Mr van der Beek was called away, reappearing briefly to say that he didn’t know when he would be back, and left the house, and shortly after they had had their coffee Patience said goodnight and went to her room. Rosie would be awake early.

  She was awake long before morning, though, sitting up in her little bed in the small hours, bawling her childish fears from some probably frightening dream. Patience, half strangled by Rosie’s small arms, took her from the blankets and walked up and down soothing her, wishing she could understand what the child was saying, talking to her in a soothing voice and begging her to stop crying. Rosie was bent on telling her all about it in a voice sodden with tears, interrupted by the occasional bellow.

  ‘Oh, hush, my love,’ said Patience, ‘you’ll wake everyone up. Mummy and Daddy and Uncle Julius…’

  ‘Uncle Julius hasn’t got to his bed yet,’ he said as he came into the room, took Rosie from her and sat down on the little bed. He was still fully dressed and he was tired and Patience, looking at the weary lines in his face, had the sudden feeling that all that mattered was to erase those same lines, tell him to go to bed while she got him a warm drink and saw that he had a good night’s sleep. If he had a wife, she thought, she would do that for him, and at the same time she was almost swept away with the strong desire to be that wife. She stood looking at him whispering to Rosie, struck dumb by her discovery, her eyes wide and her mouth half open. He said, hardly looking at her, which was just as well, ‘She has had a bad dream; she’ll be all right now that she has told me about it—too much excitement today, I expect. She is already half asleep.’

  He settled Rosie back into her bed and stood a minute, watching Patience tuck her in and then draw up a chair. ‘Sing,’ commanded Rosie in a sleepy voice.

  ‘Yes, sing, Patience. She’ll be asleep in a few minutes. Good night.’ He sounded even more austere than usual.

  Bad dreams or no, Rosie was awake at her usual time. Patience dressed her and then herself and carried her downstairs. It was a lovely morning; they would have a drink in the kitchen and then go into the garden for a little while. She was crossing the hall when Mr van der Beek came out of his study and made for the front door. He looked elegant, but he always did, and wore the face of a man who had had a good night’s sleep. As he went past her he wished her a brisk good morning.

  ‘You’re never going to work!’ exclaimed Patience. ‘You’ve only been in bed for a few hours and you were up half the night; you can’t burn the candle at both ends.’

  The astonished amusement on his face stopped her. She went red, feeling quite sick at what she might have gone on to say. She almost choked at the thought; she had forgotten everything—all that mattered was that she loved him and he needed looking after. Now the horror of what she had said sent the colour from her cheeks. ‘Oh, dear,’ said Patience, with deep feeling.

  Mr van der Beek was eyeing her narrowly, but he said nothing, only came back from the door, kissed Rosie’s cheek and then, very deliberately, kissed Patience on the mouth. He went away without uttering a word.

  Patience spent the rest of the day trying to think of a way to avoid him when he returned home in the evening—a great waste of time, for he didn’t come; instead his sister told Patience at teatime that he had been sent for urgently to go to Northern Ireland to operate on a soldier who had a bullet within a millimetre of his heart. ‘And I only hope that no one shoots him while he’s there,’ observed Marijke gloomily.

  It was two days before she saw him again and by then it was almost the end of her second week, and moreover Nanny would be leaving hospital very shortly. There would be nothing for it but to return to Themelswick, collect the aunts and go back to the little terraced house, for certainly there would be no more work for her. Mr van der Beek would leave the house, so would Miss Murch, and there would be all the miserable business of trying to sell it again. True, she had saved most of her wages and there was enough money to eke out her aunts’ pensions for a few months. She pondered the matter as she attended to Rosie’s small wants and took her for a brisk walk with the pushchair. She had barely glimpsed Mr van der Beek that morning and his sister and her husband had gone to the hospital to see Nanny. They had been gone a long time and she wondered what they were doing.

  They were sitting on either side of Nanny’s easy-chair in her hospital room and Mr van der Beek was lounging on the bed.

  ‘I think the best thing would be for you—’ he nodded at his brother-in-law ‘—to drive Nanny back home, say in a couple of days, see her settled in with her sister for a week or two or until she feels fit enough to take up her duties once more. Marijke can stay here until I’m free—a day or so at the most—and I’ll drive her, Patience and Rosie back to Holland with me. Patience can stay with you until Nanny is quite fit again.’

  ‘Yes, but perhaps Patience won’t want to come…’

  Mr van der Beek looked bland. ‘Oh, I think she will. I’ll take her out, give her a meal somewhere and explain. She knows her aunts are safe at Themelswick and she needs the money. I should think that you, Nanny, will be quite fit a fortnight or three weeks from now.’

  They had been speaking in Dutch; now he got to his feet as a nurse came into the room and said in English, ‘I’d like a word with whoever is on duty, Nurse. Is the registrar available?’

  He wandered off with her and returned presently to say, ‘Well, that’s settled.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I must go back to the hospital, but I’ll be home in a couple of hours. I’ll take Patience out this evening and explain things to her.’

  Patience had handed Rosie over to her mother and was sitting in the room used as the nursery, having tea. She had kicked off her shoes and was devouring the sandwiches and cakes Dobbs had brought while she scanned the day’s news from the newspaper he had thoughtfully brought with him. Mr van der Beek’s voice, coldly disapproving, caused her to choke on a crumb so that he had to thump her on the back until she had quietened down.

  ‘What I said was, why are you having your tea here? Tea is served in the drawing-room. You are not a servant, Patience.’

  She drew a whooping breath. ‘No, I know that. Rosie is with her mother in the drawing-room and she very kindly suggested that I might like an hour to myself before I put Rosie to bed. That’s why I’m here.’ She added kindly, ‘You shouldn’t jump to conclusions so hastily.’

  He was looking at her so strangely that she said quickly, ‘It’s very kind of you to bother, though.’

  ‘When you have put Rosie to bed, I should like to take you out, Patience.’ Her sudden delight at this remark was quenched at once when he went on, ‘There is something I have to discuss with you.’

  Patience might be in love but she had plenty of common sense. ‘If you are going to tell me that you don’t need me any more you can do it now if you like. I’ve been expecting it; Nanny must be almost well again.’

  ‘Kindly do as I ask, Patience. We will leave the house at half-past seven. Do not allow your suppositions to override your good sense.’

  Left to herself once more, Patience poured the last of the tea and drank it thoughtfully. She had seldom been invited out to dine but this wasn’t an invitation, it was a foregone conclusion, at least on his part. For two pins she wouldn’t go, knowing even as she thought it that of course she would go. He wasn’t in the least bit interested in her but at least she would be in his company for an hour or two and
it would be an occasion to treasure later on. She put down her teacup and fell to wondering what she should wear.

  It would have to be the caramel and cream dress, not exactly ‘after six’ wear but it was elegant and well made and quite obviously not from the high street stores. She couldn’t bear the thought of embarrassing him by being dressed all wrong; the flowered dress was pretty, so were the tops and the skirt, but anyone could see where they had come from.

  He took her to a small, well known restaurant in Walton Street—Ma Cuisine—where, despite its high reputation and smart clientele, he guessed that her modest wardrobe would give her no cause to feel awkward. For his part she could have worn a sack, but he was aware that she was sensitive about her appearance and the last thing he wanted to do was make her unhappy, even the least bit uneasy.

  Patience, looking around her as they sat down, sighed with relief; the women around them were smartly dressed but there were no sequinned tops or eye-catching satiny outfits and the men, like Mr van der Beek, wore beautifully tailored suits and the kind of tie which cost as much as her cotton dress, perhaps more. She smiled shyly at Mr van der Beek, who was watching her under drooping lids, and said, ‘This is very nice.’

  He knew exactly what she meant; he hadn’t failed to see the sigh of relief and the swift female appraisal of the women there. He said easily, ‘It is quiet and the food is good. Shall we have a drink while we order?’

  The food was indeed delicious; mousseline of lobster with a champagne sauce, spring lamb with a faintly garlicky sauce and a nougat glacé with raspberries to finish, and all the while Mr van der Beek kept the conversation light and impersonal, smiling faintly at Patience’s attempts to find out why he wanted to talk to her. It was as she poured their coffee and accepted a petit four from the dish he offered her that he said, ‘You have been a great help to Marijke, Patience; she—we are most grateful. You have had almost no time to yourself and we appreciate that, but now there is more… We have been to see Nanny and I’ve talked to her surgeon who has been looking after her. She is well enough to go back to Holland but not fit to return to her duties for another few weeks. Would you consider returning with Marijke and Rosie until she is able to work again? A question of three weeks at the outside. I shall be delighted if your aunts would agree to stay at the house at Themelswick while you are away, Miss Murch will continue to look after them and Marijke will pay you the same salary as you are receiving now.’ He paused, but when she opened her mouth to speak he said, ‘No, don’t say anything for the moment. When we go back think about it and perhaps telephone your aunts in the morning and see if they agree. I have no wish to coerce you.’