by Betty Neels
Her teeth were rattling in her head, but she managed, ‘Beatrix?’ and for a moment Hans’s nice elderly face loomed above her. He said, ‘OK’ and smiled encouragingly. She remembered something else. ‘Cor?’
‘Also OK.’
‘Open your mouth,’ said the Professor in a voice she didn’t care to disregard. She dragged her teeth apart and spluttered and coughed as he poured brandy down her throat. She opened her eyes then, and stared up into his face. It was white and looked somehow bony. His eyes were blazing with rage which he made no attempt to conceal. She closed her eyes again and whispered, ‘I’m sorry…’ and heard him say in a voice as cold as the ice itself, ‘You fool—you little fool! You might have drowned!’
She felt the tears creep into her eyes and thought that probably the brandy was making her maudlin. He was rubbing her arms with steady strength, seemingly unworried by his own soaking clothes. She would have liked to explain how it all happened, but when she opened her eyes again it was to encounter his bleak look, so she said instead:
‘I’m all right now. Shouldn’t you go to Beatrix?’
His eyes darted blue fire so that she shut her own against them.
‘Hold your tongue,’ he said in the same icy voice. ‘Beatrix is in good hands,’ and he picked her up and carried her as though she were a bundle of feathers into the house, and up the stairs and into her room, where someone had spread a blanket on the bed. He dumped her on to it without ceremony and said harshly, ‘Get undressed and have a hot bath. I’ll send Pankie up,’ and went away without so much as a glance.
It was wonderful what a hot bath and a brisk rub-down did. She washed her hair and dressed again, then piled her hair neatly again and did her face, and leaving Pankie to clear up the mess, went in search of Beatrix.
She was sitting up in bed, looking almost normal, but when she saw Georgina she burst into tears, and said, ‘George, dear George! I thought we were going to die, didn’t you? I was so frightened.’ She held out her arms and Georgina said in a soft motherly voice, ‘Oh, darling, I was frightened too, but you see Julius came and rescued us, didn’t he? Only I’m so sorry, poppet—it was all my fault…’
Dimphena, walking in with a tray, heard her. ‘Your fault?’ she cried indignantly. ‘How could it be? Beatrix said that Therese LeFabre told you…’
Georgina’s white cheeks went a little whiter. ‘It was a mistake—I’m sure she made a mistake—Julius isn’t to know. You won’t say anything, will you—promise?’
‘Why?’ asked Dimphena stubbornly. ‘Why should you take the blame?’
‘I’ll explain later, only don’t say anything.’
Two pairs of blue eyes gazed at her. ‘If you say so,’ said Dimphena, ‘we promise.’
Georgina got up. ‘Thank you. I must find Cor—is he downstairs?’
Dimphena nodded. ‘Julius was looking at his legs.’ She saw Georgina’s face. ‘They’re all right,’ she added hastily.
‘He didn’t tell Julius?’
‘I don’t think so, because Julius took him to the kitchen to Hans, because he said he had to telephone somewhere or other and tell Therese to come back here.’
Georgina looked puzzled. ‘But she said she would probably go skating. She must have left the house soon after us…I’ll find Cor.’
He was sitting in one of the Windsor chairs drawn up to the scrubbed table in the middle of the vast kitchen. He was drinking milk, and lifted a milky moustached mouth from his mug as she went in.
He said instantly, ‘Dear George. I was brave, wasn’t I?’
He smiled seraphically. Now that the fright was over, he was enjoying the important part he had played in the adventure.
She went and sat down beside him. ‘Very brave, Cor. I can never thank you enough—you saved our lives because you did as you were told. You’re a knight in shining armour.’
He beamed anew. ‘Yes, I am, aren’t I? I’d do anything for you, George—and Beatrix,’ he added as an afterthought.
It was her chance. ‘Would you really, my dear? Then promise me something. If Julius asks you what happened, don’t tell him about the message Madame LeFabre gave us—to tell you the truth,’ she went on untruthfully, ‘I think there was a muddle and I’d rather explain to him myself.’
He looked doubtful. ‘Is Cousin Julius cross with you?’ He drew miniature brows together. ‘If he is, I don’t think I will promise.’
She said hastily, ‘No, no. Why should he be cross?’
He finished his milk. ‘All right, I won’t say anything.’
‘Dear boy!’ She got up, and he asked, ‘Where are you going?’
‘Well, I’m a bit cold and tired and I don’t want any lunch. I thought I’d go to bed—just for an hour or two, you know. Dimphena said she’d look after you. Do you mind?’
He shook his head. ‘Is Beatrix going to stay in bed too?’
She nodded. ‘She got awfully wet and cold, but if she stays in bed today, she’ll be as right as rain in the morning.’
‘You too?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Me too,’ she said.
It was lonely in her room. Hans came with a tray of coffee and soup, but she had no appetite. She said rather timidly, ‘Do you think I could stay here? Would anyone mind—could you possibly say that I’m asleep if—anyone asks?’
He smiled so kindly at her that she turned her back so that he should not see her trying not to cry, and he said to her from the door:
‘Leave it to me, Miss Rodman. You shall not be worried, I promise.’
The day passed slowly. Pankie came in without speaking and made up the fire, and Hans came about four o’clock with some tea, and presently Dimphena, with the news that the children were fine, and that Therese had come back long after lunch, and was even now in the study with Julius. Georgina shivered, and Dimphena said quickly, ‘George, you’ve caught cold—for heaven’s sake get into bed.’ She got up. ‘I’m going so that you can undress now.’
It seemed a good idea. Georgina trailed around the room, taking down her hair once more, and washing off her carefully applied make-up. When she was finally ready, she decided to go and see Beatrix for just a moment, to make sure that she was quite recovered. She opened her door quietly and started along the corridor. She had taken perhaps ten paces when she heard Julius’s voice from the hall. He spoke clearly and quite slowly to some unseen listener below her, and what he said rooted her slippered feet to the spot.
‘I was mad to invite her here. I do not wish to see her again, though I suppose I am bound to meet her at some time in the future.’
There was a feminine murmur in reply, but she didn’t wait to hear more. She went blindly back to her room, and got into bed, and lay shivering from a coldness that had nothing to do with her tumble into the lake. Somebody came in later—Pankie, to make up the fire, but she pretended sleep, and presently, she actually did sleep. The heavy, deep sleep of exhaustion. She still slept when the Professor came in and stood by the bed, looking down at her. He pulled up a chair and sat patiently for a long time, and when she didn’t stir went away again.
She awoke early, unrefreshed, bathed and then, still in her gown, fetched her case and started to pack. Probably Julius wouldn’t want to see her again, but he would have made arrangements for her to go—she might as well be ready. She was half done when there was a knock on the door. She glanced at the clock on her bedtable; it was still very early; barely seven. Perhaps Pankie had been told to call her. But it was Julius who came in. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it, slowly observing the heap of clothes on the bed beside the open case, and then her tear-stained face. He looked at her for a long time, tender and amused and mocking. Presently he walked over to the bed and tipped everything out of the case and closed it.
‘Pankie will put everything away for you later,’ he said pleasantly.
She was staring at him, the tears still running down her cheeks from eyes round with surprise. She wiped them away impatiently with a
very damp handkerchief, sniffed and said, ‘But I’m going away. I meant to pack yesterday, but I went to sleep… I—heard you in the hall—I don’t eavesdrop,’ she added with dignity, ‘but I couldn’t help it—you were talking so loudly, and I was on the landing.’
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her. ‘What was it I said?’ he asked, still very pleasant.
‘That you had been mad to invite me here and that you didn’t wish to see me again, though you supposed you would be bound to some time in the future. Though I can’t see why, because you never came to Casualty before Cor and Beatrix had their accident.’
She had spoken in a hopeless little voice choked with tears. Now she blew her poor red nose once again and said, ‘Do go away,’ and then, quite crossly, ‘Go away!’
He got up from the bed and walked over to her, took her handkerchief from her and threw it down and gave her his own. His arms felt warm and loving, and quite unnerved, she cried dolefully, ‘You were so angry.’
‘Darling heart, men are always angry when they are frightened—and I have never been so frightened in my life before as I was when I saw you in the lake.’
She said in a whisper, ‘But you don’t want to see me again…’
‘Dearest, if you had come downstairs, you would have seen that I was talking to Phena, and I could have told you that Therese had already gone.’
‘Gone? But how did you find out?’
‘Well, you know, Cor is no fool even though he’s only seven. He promised not to tell me, but he made no promise that he shouldn’t tell Hans. When Therese came back, I—er—asked her what had happened. She had, I believe, intended it as a kind of joke. At least that is what she said.’
He pulled her closer. ‘Dearest Georgina, I love you; from the moment I first saw you in Casualty, I loved you.’
‘Then why did you call me Miss Rodman and Nurse and make me wear a uniform?’ She was a little peevish now, knowing she looked a fright with her hair streaming untidily down her back, and a tear-streaked face. He said, reading her thoughts as he so often did, ‘I couldn’t wait any longer, my darling. I came to see you last evening, but you slept so deeply— I wanted to tell you that it was you I loved, and not Therese; that she didn’t matter and never had mattered. I was going to tell you that I asked her here because I was angry with you for preferring a Sister’s post to marrying me.’
She looked at him with some indignation. ‘But you didn’t ask me…’
He kissed her again in a wholly satisfactory and masterful fashion.
‘I wanted to ask you when we first met, but I had to be fair; I had to give you a chance to see what life with me would be like. You had to decide for yourself if you could be happy, with two homes in two countries and a ready-made family of four children, as well as children of our own. I imagined it might be easier for us both if I treated you as a nurse and not as the girl I wanted to marry. I do not know about you, but for me it made no difference at all.’
Georgina lifted her head from its comfortable position against his shoulder. ‘Are you going to propose to me now?’ she wanted to know. ‘It’s not very glamorous…’
He laughed. ‘Dear darling, do you want soft lights and roses and sweet music? You shall have them all, I promise you, but now I cannot wait any longer. Will you marry me, Georgina?’
She said yes.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4880-9
DAMSEL IN GREEN
Copyright © 1976 by Betty Neels
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