by Betty Neels
He hadn’t, of course; she was ready, dressed in the grey-patterned crêpe, when he got back, to knock on her door and ask her if she had enjoyed her day.
She told him yes, very, and how had his gone?
‘Very satisfactory.’ He strolled across to the bed and sat down on it. ‘Everything just as it should be, provided there are no complications. I hope it will be a hundred per cent success.’
‘And the foot?’
‘Now that was tricky…’ He went into some detail as to the operation and she listened with her usual careful attention. When he had finished, she said: ‘You must be tired—do you want a drink before you change?’
‘Thoughtful girl. Yes—ask them to send up a whisky, will you? What about you?’ He got to his feet and stretched hugely. ‘What a heavenly evening. Shall we dine later and go for a stroll first?’
She hadn’t had any tea and she was starving, but that didn’t matter. ‘I’ll wait on the balcony,’ she told him, ‘I’m not a bit hungry.’
There were plenty of people about, strolling along the paths beside the lake, exercising the dog, playing ball with their children, or just walking and talking as they were. Sarre tucked her hand into his arm and explained the difficulties he had had, getting the shattered shoulder into alignment, and she listened happily. The conversation wasn’t romantic, but at least they were together and he was talking to her as though he were enjoying it. It more than made up for her lonely day.
The next day followed more or less the same pattern and the one after it, and she did a little more shopping and a good deal of exploring, the highlight of each day being their evening walk together. And on the last day Sarre went with her in the morning, declaring that he need not go to the hospital until lunch time and then only briefly, and he could make a final call on their way home. And since he obviously expected her to go shopping, she hastily invented a list of presents to buy and as the morning was as beautiful as its predecessors, they walked to the Monckeberg Strasse, stopping on the way to drink their coffee in the pavilion by the Binnenalster and then strolling along by the enticing shop windows. It was in a small, expensive shop that Alethea saw a musical box, a dainty little dancing lady, exquisitely dressed in eighteenth-century costume, and when she remarked on its charm, Sarre took her inside, where they listened to its silvery, tinkling tune before he bought it for her. It was wildly expensive, even for a rich man, and she protested faintly as they left the shop, only to hear his placid: ‘But I haven’t bought you a present since we married, my dear.’
She thanked him again and then said, because there was a look on his face she didn’t quite understand: ‘I bought chocolates for the children, but I saw a game of Monopoly, do you suppose they’d like that?’
They bought that too, and more sweets for Mrs McCrea, who had a sweet tooth, and cigars for Al, who rather fancied the best brands. ‘I’ll collect the children’s present as we go,’ Sarre told her, and would say no more than that.
Alethea ate her lunch alone, for Sarre was due at the hospital at one o’clock and intended to eat there, but he was back after an hour or two and they were ready to leave by mid-afternoon. She got into the Jaguar after a last look at the quiet water; it had been a lovely few days. True, she hadn’t seen very much of Sarre, but when they had been together, she had loved every second of it. They didn’t speak much as he drove through the city, but as he stopped before the hospital he leaned over to open her door. ‘I should like you to come in with me,’ he told her.
The hospital was impressive inside as well as out. They crossed the crowded entrance hall, making their way through the visitors waiting for admission to the wards, and took a lift to the third floor. It was quiet here, a quietness explained by Sarre. ‘The administrative block,’ he told her. ‘The various meeting rooms are here as well as the offices.’ He opened a door and ushered her in to a large apartment, furnished with a long table and chairs, and half filled with people. ‘Some of my colleagues wished to meet you,’ said Sarre, and she began a round of hand-shaking and trivial conversation, interrupted at last by Sarre declaring that if they were to reach home that evening, they would have to leave, so Alethea went round shaking hands once more and only as they reached the door saw that he had a basket with a lid in one hand. Sarre saw her looking at it. ‘The children’s present,’ he told her blandly as they got into the lift.
It wasn’t until they were in the car that he opened the lid and lifted out a very small Siamese kitten. It curled up at once on Alethea’s lap and she stroked it gently with a finger tip. ‘It’s adorable. Will Nero mind?’
‘I don’t imagine so, he’ll have something to play with. They’ve been asking for a kitten, it’s about the only animal they haven’t got.’
The journey back was far too quick for Alethea. In no time at all they were on the outskirts of Groningen and she began to worry about the children and Nanny. Supposing they didn’t like the presents she had brought them? Supposing Nanny refused the big box of sweets she had brought back for her?
‘Why are you so nervous?’ Sarre’s voice sounded searching.
‘Me? Nervous? I expect I’m excited,’ she answered brightly. ‘It was a lovely few days, Sarre, thank you for taking me.’
They had stopped before the house and he turned to her, about to speak, but the door opened and the children spilled out on to the pavement, laughing and calling to them. Alethea wondered what he had been going to say while she waited quietly until their first raptures over the kitten had died away. In the hall they stood for a few minutes while Mrs McCrea bustled up to greet them and Al went to fetch the luggage.
‘What shall we call him?’ the children wanted to know.
It was Sarel who shouted: ‘Neptune, of course,’ and when Alethea asked him why, gave her an impatient look. ‘We’re reading “The Little Mermaid”,’ he explained, as though that made everything clear.
The children were to stay up for dinner; Alethea, in her room with Nel unpacking her case, wandered round looking for the exact spot upon which to put the musical box. The little drum table near the window, she decided; it would be safe there because it was out of the way. She would let the children see it presently. She had already told them about it and they had listened politely and she had been encouraged by Sarel’s: ‘Did Papa buy it for you?’
‘Well, yes,’ she had told him carefully, ‘we saw it in a shop window and I found it enchanting, so he got it for me. I shall take care of it always; it’s so beautiful.’
Dinner was almost a celebration, with ice cream for the children and a good deal of talk about Neptune, now cosily asleep upstairs in the playroom with Nero, a little suspicious, but friendly enough, beside him. They went quite eagerly to bed as a consequence, thanking Alethea for her presents in polite voices, reminding her that Nanny was having her day off, so she would have to give her the sweets in the morning. Alethea watched them go upstairs and then turned away with a little sigh of relief. Everything was going to be all right; she had worked herself up for no reason at all. Even Nanny might be goodnatured in the morning. She went back to the drawing room to find Sarre on the point of leaving it. He said a little absentmindedly: ‘You’ll forgive me, my dear, I have quite a lot of post to read and I want to catch up on some reading.’ He paused to drop a kiss on her cheek. ‘A very pleasant little break,’ he added, ‘we must do it again some time.’
He went into his study, leaving the door open, and she heard him lift the receiver and dial a number, and seconds later: ‘Anna…’ She couldn’t understand any more of what he was saying. She turned out the lights and went up to bed. During the last few days she had quite forgotten Anna. Half way up the staircase she paused to encourage herself with the reflection that at least the children seemed more friendly.
The bedside lamps were on when she got to her room, her nightgown was lying on the bed and her gown and slippers had been put ready. How different it was from her little room at her grandmother’s house! She kicked off her shoes and
wriggled her toes into the thick pile of the carpet; she would telephone in the morning and tell her grandmother about her stay in Hamburg. Sarre had suggested that later on she might like to have her stay…her thoughts were cheerful as she wandered round the room. She was brought to a sudden halt by the little drum table. The musical box wasn’t on it; it was on the floor, broken and twisted as though someone had stamped on it.
Alethea picked it up slowly and saw that it was a hopeless wreck, and putting it on the table went to the window. It was open at the top but there was no breath of wind. She was closing the curtains again when Nel came in to see if she had everything she wanted and Alethea turned a distressed face to her, and in her fragmental Dutch asked her if she had found the musical box on the floor. But Nel knew nothing about it; Alethea had known that before she asked. She wished the girl goodnight and undressed slowly. It was too late to go and ask the children and possibly a waste of time, and she couldn’t tell Sarre because he would get to the bottom of the matter and that would do no one any good, least of all herself.
She got into bed and sat up against her pillows. For the first time in a long while she allowed herself to cry; first Anna, waiting at the other end of the telephone for Sarre to come home, and now the only present he had bought her broken in pieces. What was the use of a lovely home and luxury and money in her purse, although she certainly hadn’t married for those? She hadn’t married because she loved Sarre either, but here she was, head over heels in love with him, and what, she asked herself fiercely, was the use of that with the wretched Anna so firmly entrenched? She sobbed herself to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALETHEA WISHED the children good morning when they got down to breakfast with her usual serenity and tried not to see the apprehension in their blue eyes, and when their father wasn’t looking she had more than her fair share of glowering looks too. She wondered exactly what they would be up to next if she were mean enough to voice her suspicions as to how the musical box had got broken. She ate her breakfast with a calm she didn’t feel, answering Sarre’s casual remarks with a brightness which sat ill upon her pretty face, pale from her weeping, the nose still just a trifle pink despite her careful make-up, and then read her letters while he read his. They had almost finished when Sarre asked carelessly: ‘And how is our little dancing lady? Did the children like her? Perhaps we should have bought one for them instead of Neptune.’
There was a chorus of dissent and Alethea was glad of it because it saved her having to answer him, but her relief was shortlived; Sarre laughed and then suggested that the musical box should be fetched there and then and the children be allowed to see it. ‘Al can go up and get it,’ he said easily.
Alethea’s voice came out too loudly. She said baldly: ‘It’s broken.’ She didn’t look at the children, although she was aware that their eyes were fixed on her. ‘I—I was going to tell you…I dropped it yesterday evening.’ She added rather wildly: ‘I was silly enough to put it on the little drum table by the window, I expect the wind caught it…’
Sarre was sitting back in his chair, watching her, his eyebrows raised just a little. He didn’t comment upon her contradiction but said in a placid voice: ‘Well, shall we have a look at it? Probably I can find someone to mend it.’ He turned to Al before Alethea could think of anything to say. ‘On the drum table in Mevrouw’s bedroom—would you fetch it, please?’
Al, who had been hovering by the sideboard with his ears stretched, was gone with a brief: ‘Will do, Guv,’ and was back again while Alethea was still trying to decide what to say next; too late she had realised that she had told two lies when one would have done, and the blandness of Sarre’s expression gave her the uneasy feeling that he might have come to the same conclusion. But his expression didn’t change when Al put the poor crushed thing on the table beside him. He picked it up, examined it carefully and then set it down again. ‘I should hardly describe it as broken,’ he observed in a thoughtful voice. ‘Pure guesswork, of course, but I should imagine that it has been stepped on—several times.’
He looked at the children, who sat without a word, staring back at him. Alethea could see that they had no intention of saying anything. What was more, she suspected that Sarre wasn’t going to ask them if they knew anything about it, because that wouldn’t be his way; he would wait with monumental patience until they told him what they knew of their own accord. Well, three can play at that game, she told herself bracingly, and when he asked: ‘What do you think, Alethea?’ she said at once:
‘I have no idea.’ She looked at him defiantly as she spoke and he smiled a little so that she added: ‘I’m very sorry…I was careless, and it was kind of you to give it to me.’
He said still thoughtfully: ‘You cried about it, Alethea, didn’t you?’
She had forgotten the children for the moment. She said unhappily: ‘Yes, I did. You see, I…it meant something to me.’
He stared at her hard. ‘Yes?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I must go.’ He picked up the little ruin and got up. ‘I’ll be home this evening, perhaps for tea, my dear.’ He touched the children lightly as he left the room, but he hadn’t given her the usual swift kiss she had come to expect.
When the front door had closed behind him Alethea got up too. ‘Are you both ready?’ she asked the children. ‘It’s almost time for you to go to school. Do you want me to do anything for Neptune while you’re away?’
They had got up too and stood looking at her. Sarel shook his head. ‘Nanny said she’d feed him.’
Alethea smiled. ‘Oh, good. I’ll just take Nero as usual, then. See you both after school.’
They slid from the room, looking so guilty that if she hadn’t been sad about it she would have laughed, and surely Sarre, who was their father, would have seen their guilt too? She wondered what he was going to do about it and then dismissed it from her mind; she had Mrs McCrea to see, and the flowers to arrange and the dogs to take for a walk. And over and above all that she had Sarre to think about; she would have to be careful never to let him find out that she loved him, and that would mean not minding about Anna because of course if she hadn’t been in love with him, Anna wouldn’t have mattered at all. It was going to be horribly difficult. And what about the children? They knew that she knew that they had something to do with the destruction of the musical box. They must hate her. Her mind boggled at the future before her common sense took over; let the future take care of itself for the moment, was she not married to Sarre and wasn’t he the only man in the world as far as she was concerned? She made her way to the kitchen and listened carefully to Mrs McCrea weighing the advantages of an apple torte against a dish of apple and honey moscovite. In the end they decided to have them both, with one of her renowned liver pâtés for starters, followed by Canard Sauce Bigarade, which when she described it in her soft Scots voice sounded mouthwatering as well as presenting an elegant appearance. Alethea nodded her approval and Mrs McCrea went on: ‘It’ll be an engagement dinner party, no doubt, ma’am, with Mr Wienand and Miss Irene coming.’
‘Well, I’m not quite sure about that, Mrs McCrea, but we rather hope it will be, but nothing’s been said, you understand.’
‘Not a word shall be said, ma’am, though I’m sure we’ll all be glad. The girls he’s had, young Master Wienand, and such strange lassies. Now this one’s a good girl. The master’ll be glad, him being such a good man himself.’ She gave Alethea a lightning glance. ‘It’ll be good to have a few bairns in the family again.’
Alethea went bright pink. She couldn’t agree more; little brothers and sisters for Sarel and Jacomina. Heaven knew there was room enough for them in the old house and money enough to give them all they wanted. She sighed. What a frightful waste, and she would have to watch Irene and Wienand producing a family…she would have to learn to be a simply splendid aunt. She frowned so fiercely at the idea that Mrs McCrea asked anxiously: ‘You approve of the duck, ma’am?’
Alethea brought her mind back to the dinner
party. ‘Oh, rather,’ she agreed, ‘and I was just wondering if we could have some bits and pieces with the sherry—those lovely nutty things you make, Mrs McCrea.’
The nutty things were a great success. The whole dinner party was a success, with Wienand at the top of his form because, sure enough, Irene had said she would marry him. She would be a darling sister-in-law, Alethea decided, watching her wrinkling her ordinary little nose over the champagne Sarre had produced, and tonight, because she was so happy, she looked pretty with colour in her cheeks and wearing a blue dress which matched her eyes. Alethea, in the grey-patterned crêpe, beamed at her with genuine delight. It was after dinner, while they were all sitting around discussing the wedding over coffee and Sarre’s best brandy, that Irene said in her clear voice: ‘I think that it is because of you, Alethea, that I wish to marry Wienand.’ She flushed brightly. ‘Oh, I would have married him, I think, but seeing you and Sarre so happy together when we were here, I thought that if you can be so content, then so can I.’ She added, ‘They are not alike, but they are brothers, if you see what I mean?’
Alethea thought that she saw very well and said so, which emboldened Irene to go on: ‘You are not jealous?’
Neither of them had noticed that the men were listening. ‘Why should I be jealous?’ asked Alethea serenely.
‘Well, it is perhaps…but we are going to be sisters, are we not? Wienand has taken out very many girls, but I think that he will not do so now that he has me. And Sarre, of course, he has had friends too; they did not matter, there is only Anna.’ She looked apprehensively at Alethea. ‘You are not angry that I speak like this?’