by Betty Neels
He nodded in a casual manner as he got into the Bentley. His goodbye was equally casual.
Meg eyed the almost untouched sandwiches which Tabitha took into the kitchen.
‘You’ve hardly eaten a thing, Miss Tabby. What a nice gentleman that was. I felt sure you would want him to stay until you got back from the hospital.’ She gave Tabitha an innocent look and Tabitha cried:
‘Meg, you didn’t say that! You didn’t persuade him to stay?’
Meg was indignant. ‘Of course not, love—he just said did I mind if he waited for you, and he looked so pleasant and friendly, I just couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to talk to him. I didn’t do wrong, did I, love? Don’t you like him?’
Tabitha was at the sink and she didn’t turn round. ‘Yes, I like him very much, Meg,’ she said, and changed the subject quickly before Meg could ask any more questions.
It was later, as she got ready for bed, that she allowed herself to think about Mr van Beek’s visit and its reason. There was only one good answer—he wanted to get on good terms with her, so that he would have an ally to plead his cause if Lilith should prove capricious. Probably he didn’t realize that she and Lilith avoided each other as much as possible, and what reason had he for thinking so when Lilith asked him to deliver chocolates to her stepsister? She could hardly tell him that Lilith had sent them as a token of a triumph which she didn’t want Tabitha to miss. It was the kind of gibe in which she excelled, although he would have seen it as a thoughtful gesture from the girl he was attracted to, to a possible sister-in-law. She frowned at the thought; she didn’t want to be Mr van Beek’s sister-in-law, she wanted to be his wife: The knowledge of this exploded inside her head like a bomb and left her trembling. She said out loud with only Podger to hear: ‘I must be mad! Whatever induced me to…oh, Podger, what shall I do?’
Podger was asleep; as though she might get an answer from the mirror she went to it and stared at her reflection, which stared back at her, solemn-faced and sad. He had called her Cinderella; she hadn’t much liked it at the time, now it vexed her. She began to hunt through the dressing table drawers until she found what she sought—a beauty case the nurses had given her last Christmas and which her stepmother had advised her, quite kindly, not to make use of—as she had pointed out in her light, cold voice, Tabitha’s face was better without anything other than a little powder and lipstick, by which Tabitha understood her to mean that it was best not to draw too much attention to a plain face. So she had buried it away beneath a pile of undies and almost forgotten it, but now she opened it, poking among its contents and selecting them with experimental fingers. When she was satisfied with her choice, she fetched the current copy of Vogue, opened it at its beauty page, and started doing things to her face.
She was up half an hour earlier the next morning and spent the whole of that time before her mirror, where she repeated last night’s efforts to such good effect that when she went down to breakfast Meg gave her a long loving look and said at once: ‘That’s nice, Miss Tabitha. I like that bit of colour on your eyelids and that pretty lipstick. And your hair—that’ll look fine with your cap.’
Tabitha, gobbling toast, said uncertainly: ‘Really, Meg? It doesn’t look silly?’
‘My dear soul, you couldn’t look silly if you tried. You just go like that, all prettied up. It suits you.’
Thus encouraged, Tabitha swallowed her tea, hugged Meg with the enthusiasm of a small girl and departed for St Martin’s, to enter her ward shortly afterwards, feeling self-conscious until she encountered Nurse Betts’ surprised and admiring stare. All the same, she felt a little shy as she started her morning round, but she held her head high on her slender neck and although the patients stared, none of them voiced their surprise at her changed appearance; only the incorrigible Mr Prosser spoke up, and that in a voice loud enough for the entire ward to hear.
‘Well, ducks,’ he cried cheerfully, ‘I always said ’as ’ow you was a nice enough bird if yer let yourself go.’ To which remark Tabitha found no answer, so she asked him rather more severely than usual how he did, to which he replied that he did all the better for seeing her all perked up. It seemed prudent to nod her well-arranged top-knot and pass on to Mr Bow.
That old gentleman, beyond giving her a searching look, made no remark about her appearance; he was far too anxious to have a report on Podger, and she obliged him with this while she examined his plastered leg, peering at its little window to make sure all was well beneath it before feeling his toes. It was only as, satisfied as to his condition, she was moving away from the bed that he said:
‘They say that beauty is but skin deep; but there are other kinds of beauty than the obvious one, and they are vastly more important.’
Tabitha, who wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or thinking out loud—a habit of the elderly, she had long ago discovered—said gently: ‘Yes, I daresay you’re right, Mr Bow,’ and went to say good morning to Mr Raynard who, as usual at that early hour, was feeling bad-tempered. He grumbled ‘morning’ at her without bothering to look up, but when she bent over his leg and said in her composed voice: ‘I should think you might be allowed to do more weight-bearing exercises soon’, he glanced at her and then, after a first long stare, remarked: ‘Well, well, Tabby, you’ve been at the paint-pot.’
‘If you mean,’ said Tabitha with dignity, ‘that I’ve used rather more make-up than usual, I have.’ She gave him an anxious glance. ‘Does it look awful?’ she wanted to know.
He studied her carefully. ‘No—you look different, but it suits you.’
‘What suits who?’ asked Mr van Beek from the doorway. Tabitha hadn’t expected him, at least, not until after the list that morning. There were several patients—two of them the laminectomies admitted the day before, now lying very quiet and clean in their theatre gowns, awaiting the telephone call which would send them on their way, each in his turn, to the operating table. But before this could happen, Mr van Beek needed to be there, scrubbed and waiting for them. As it was, he was leaning against the end of Mr Raynard’s bed, looking so idle and elegant that it was hard to imagine that in half an hour he would be stooping over a supine body, working with meticulous care on that same body’s spinal column. Tabitha peeped at him from under her eyelashes; she thought he looked as though he intended doing nothing more strenuous than taking a stroll round the nearest park. He looked up quickly and caught her peeping and held her glance with a bright one of his own which was so searching that she reddened painfully under it, wondering what he was going to say, but when he did speak it was about something quite different.
‘I’ve arranged for Mr Bow’s things to be collected this evening— I suppose you wouldn’t be so kind as to come with me and see them off the premises?’ he added vaguely. ‘If anything were to get broken or lost,’ and then still more vaguely, ‘witnesses, you know.’
It sounded reasonable enough, and even if it hadn’t been she was well aware that she would have jumped at the chance to be with him on even such a prosaic errand as this one. She said pleasantly:
‘Yes, all right. I’m off at six, if that’s OK.’
He nodded and turned away, lifting a vague hand in greeting and farewell to Mr Raynard. At the door he said in a businesslike way: ‘I had a look at those two laminectomies last night, the first one— Butt, isn’t it? seems straightforward; I’m not sure about Mr Dennis, though, I fancy he’ll prove to be difficult. I thought you might like to know so that you can deploy your staff accordingly.’ He gave her a brisk nod as he went out of the door.
He was right, the second case held everything else up, so that the list dragged to a close at tea time; by then Tabitha was wishing her day at an end, what with Matron’s round, the physiotherapists and visitors and Mrs Jeffs not coming because the children had measles, she was beginning to wish that she hadn’t promised to accompany Mr van Beek that evening. She spent her tea break re-doing her face and hair at the cost of a second cup, so that by the time she had give
n Rogers the report and was ready to leave, she was both hungry and thirsty, and in consequence, a little peevish as well.
She hadn’t seen Mr van Beek all day; she didn’t count his hasty visit to the ward to see his first two cases after dinner, before theatre started its afternoon session, for the only conversation they had had concerned the patients. She went along to the car park, convinced that he wouldn’t be there, and found that he was. He settled her beside him and as if he sensed her mood, talked with sympathy about their busy day until he drew up outside Mr Bow’s lodgings.
No one came when he knocked on the door; he knocked again and stood back to look at the curtained windows. ‘There should be someone at home,’ he observed, and in the small silence which followed Tabitha exclaimed: ‘There is—at least, there’s a funny noise.’
They listened. The noise was faint and irregular, and it was Mr van Beek who said: ‘I believe it is someone calling for help, do you?’
Tabitha didn’t answer; her nose twitched, she said urgently: ‘I can smell something burning.’
She looked at the calm face of the man standing beside her, waiting for him to do something. When he said: ‘Give me a hairpin, Tabitha,’ she did so without question and watched silently while he picked the lock of the front door, opened it, handed her back her pin, and went inside with her closely at his heels. There was no one in the first room they entered—a sitting room, rather cold and stiff, with unused furniture and a great many artificial flowers in monstrous glass vases; nor was there anyone in the poky little room behind it, which unlike its neighbour was very much lived in, with a large bed against one wall, the remains of a meal on the table, an oppressively large television dominating the room from one corner, and a highly decorative wallpaper which was in direct variance with the carpet. They closed the door with relief and went to the kitchen, where they found the landlady lying on the floor. She appeared to be semi-conscious, but opened her eyes and said ‘Help’ before closing them again. She looked pale and her hair was sticky with blood.
Mr van Beek got down on one knee beside her and gently tried out her arms and legs before picking her up and carrying her into the little back room and laying her on the bed. He said matter-of-factly, ‘My bag’s in the car, I’ll fetch it—see if you can find out where the fire is.’
Tabitha went back into the kitchen where the smell was stronger. It was a small room with so many built-in cupboards that there was barely room to turn round to get anything out of them. One of the cupboard doors stood open though, and inside, down among the sugar and tea and flour, was a smouldering cigarette. The fire was still in its embryo stage, but the sugar had caught, which was why the smell was so pungent. Tabitha hauled out the groceries, put the cigarette and the smouldering sugar in the sink and went to join Mr van Beek. He was examining the woman’s head and said without looking up: ‘There’s a torch in my bag—shine it here, there’s a good girl.’
There were two cuts, not very deep, but like all scalp wounds, bleeding freely. ‘A couple of stitches,’ murmured Mr van Beek. ‘You’ll find some scissors in my case. Cut away the hair, will you— I’ll give her a local.’
Tabitha did as she was bid and then went into the kitchen to see what he was doing. ‘A saucepan,’ he murmured, ‘to boil up the needleholder and so forth—I can’t see one.’
Tabitha started on the cupboards; at the third she produced one and put it on to boil, took the instruments from him, popped them in, put the lid on with a satisfied little clash and said: ‘I wonder if there’s a bathroom where you can wash your hands?’
He was prowling round, looking for a clean towel. ‘I’ll manage at the sink—how hard it is to find even the most commonplace things in other people’s houses.’
‘Yes,’ Tabitha agreed, ‘and do take off that jacket, you may get blood on it.’
She went back to have a look at their patient and found her with her eyes open. ‘Oh, lor’,’ said the landlady in a puzzled voice, ‘whatever’s ’appened?’
‘You must have fallen down,’ said Tabitha, ‘and bumped your head. It’s cut a little, the doctor will see to it for you.’
‘I didn’t send for no doctor.’
‘No,’ explained Tabitha, ‘we came to see about Mr Bow’s things, and Mr van Beek heard you calling and we came in.’ She thought it best not to mention the picked lock at that moment. ‘He’s in the kitchen, boiling some things.’
‘My ’ead! What things?’
Tabitha was saved from explanation by Mr van Beek’s entry, carrying the saucepan and a small pudding basin, and she made haste to clear a small table of its potted plant and carry it to the bedside, where she spread it with the day’s newspaper. Mr van Beek arranged his saucepan to his satisfaction, requested that the bowl should be filled with Savlon solution and swabs, and departed again, presumably to scrub his hands in the sugar-filled sink.
The landlady didn’t care about having her head stitched; she said so with a good deal of vehemence, jerking her head about in such a fashion that Tabitha was hard put to it to keep it steady while Mr van Beek inserted first the local anaesthetic and then the stitches. When he had finished, he warned her that her headache would trouble her for several days, produced some tablets for her relief, and set about clearing up while Tabitha arranged a bandage around the sufferer’s head.
‘Is there anyone coming home?’ she enquired. ‘It might be a good idea if you went to bed.’ She looked doubtfully at the television and wondered if going to bed in that room would make an atom of difference. ‘Somewhere quiet?’ she ventured.
‘There’s a put-u-up in the front room. My old man’ll be ’ome in a minute, ’e’ll see to it.’ She was interrupted by the thunderous knock on the door. ‘That’ll be the moving men.’
Mr van Beek came soft-footed into the room and Tabitha got to her feet.
‘Let them in, there’s a good girl,’ he begged. ‘Take them up to Knotty’s room, will you, while I find out how this good soul cut her head and who her doctor is—I think she’ll be all right now. Whoever he is, I’ll warn him and he can visit tomorrow.’
There wasn’t much to do in Mr Bow’s room. The men appeared to know exactly what was required of them; she signed some papers, went through the cupboards and drawers once more, and returned downstairs where Mr van Beek was waiting.
In the car he asked. ‘Home?’ and when she said, ‘Yes, please,’ went on, ‘I’m sorry about that, but I was glad to have you with me; if I’d been on my own I daresay I should have still been looking for a saucepan. The odds and ends were safely collected?’
Tabitha said yes, they were and sat silent until he stopped outside the flat, to stay sitting quietly beside her, making no attempt to open the door. She was searching for something to say and had her hand on the door when he said, his voice plaintive: ‘I’ve had no tea.’
Tabitha, who had been sitting in a dim world of her own dreaming, became at once practical. He might not care a row of beans for her, but that was no reason for refusing him a meal. She said, her pretty voice motherly, as though he were one of her patients: ‘Come in and have some now, and I’m sure Meg will have a cake or some sandwiches.’
He agreed with an alacrity which she hadn’t quite expected and they were in the flat’s tiny hall before she had had time to decide if she had been foolish to ask him or not. But Meg had no qualms at all, for when she heard that their visitor had gone tea-less, she bustled them both into the sitting room with the promise of a suitable meal within a brace of shakes, which promise she carried out very rapidly with Tabitha’s help. Presently the two of them sat down to boiled eggs, bread, jam and thick, rich cream and a very large seedcake, with Meg pouring the tea and listening to their reason for being late and making her wise, rather dry comments as they told her, and finally wanting to know if the nice old gentleman’s things had been safely disposed of.
Mr van Beek removed the top of his third egg with surgical expertise.
‘Oh yes, Meg, they’re safe and so
und until such time as he should need them again, which won’t, I hope, be long. I shall take him back home with me until I start my lecture tour and after that we must see.’
The conversation became general after that, and when Meg went back into the kitchen to wash up he showed no sign of getting up to go, but asked instead if he might smoke and then sat back in the only chair large enough to accommodate him in comfort, and talked at some length about a new type of artificial hip joint he was interested in. And Tabitha, listening intelligently and making the right comments at the right times, wondered what it was about her that encouraged him to continue upon such a dull topic—her ability to listen, perhaps, which was something she had noticed that pretty girls didn’t need to do, and her dislike of hurting people’s feelings by not being interested. She should, she supposed, be grateful to be given the chance to hold even such a dry conversation as this one with him. She tried to imagine Lilith in her place and wondered what she would have done to divert him to some lighter topic, but of course he would never have started on it in the first place if it had been Lilith. Mr van Beek said suddenly, making her jump guiltily:
‘Why do I bore you with all this? But I told you did I not, that you are a very restful woman, and what is more, you look interested.’
‘Oh, I am,’ said Tabitha mendaciously, and jumped again when he went on.
‘I’m glad to see that you’ve stopped playing the Cinderella, and very nice you look too. Does it take very long?’
She gave him a suspicious look to make sure he wasn’t mocking her, but his face was grave and enquiring; he really wanted to know.
‘Well, I get up half an hour earlier than usual, but I expect I shall get quicker.’ She drew a breath, then: ‘Have you—have you seen Lilith?’
He looked surprised. ‘No—was I supposed to? I’ve not had time, for one thing, have I? I daresay I shall run into her at the weekend, for I shall be with the Johnsons at Lyme. Do you want me to give her a message?’
