by Betty Neels
‘Hullo,’ said Alethea, and then searched around for something else to say. To plunge into an apology for the previous evening seemed a little premature, besides, she had no idea what she would say. ‘Have you forgotten something?’ she asked brightly.
‘No, I find myself with a couple of hours to spare. Shall we have coffee in the garden?’
She had the absurd notion that he was laughing at her. ‘Yes, why not? It’s a lovely day. I’ve just taken the dogs…’ What a silly remark, she thought vexedly, and turned with relief as the front door opened and Al stood back to admit someone.
‘Granny!’ screamed Alethea, and hurled herself at her elderly relative.
‘Yes, dear,’ said Mrs Thomas, straightening her hat. ‘It is I. Sarre sent Al to fetch me—just for a couple of days, you know.’
‘Sarre,’ Alethea had turned to look at him, ‘how kind of you! I can’t begin to thank you… Mrs McCrea said Al had a day off…’
‘Well, so it were, as one might say,’ said Al cheerfully. ‘Keep it dark, says the guv; so off I creeps at first daylight an’ ’ere we are, all safe and sound.’
‘Oh, Al!’ Alethea smiled at him because she was too excited to say more. ‘Sarre, you never said a word…’
He only smiled and spoke to Mrs Thomas. ‘Shall we have coffee in the garden first, then Alethea can take you to your room.’
Sarre went back to his rooms shortly afterwards. He had patients to see, he told them, and a hospital round in the afternoon, so he wouldn’t be home until the evening. ‘You can have a good gossip,’ he told them, looking hard at Alethea.
But when later her grandmother asked her if she were happy, she found she couldn’t talk about it very easily. She described her life, dwelling on the luxury in which she lived, she skimmed over the children, who had appeared at lunch and behaved like angels, but she had a little more to say about Nanny but nothing about Sarre. When she had finished her grandmother sat back in her chair.
‘Yes, dear, and now supposing you tell me all about it.’
Alethea dissolved into tears, something she hadn’t meant to do. ‘Oh, Granny, I’m so hopelessly in love with him and there’s this awful Anna…’
She talked about Anna at some length and her grandmother listened carefully, tutt-tutted at the end and remarked dryly: ‘You’re his wife, my dear.’
Alethea agreed unhappily. ‘Yes, I know, but there are the children…’ She explained about them too. ‘They hate me,’ she declared, ‘and I’ve tried so hard, Granny; they’re darlings and they’re Sarre’s, so I love them…’
‘Love is a great deal stronger than anything else,’ pronounced Mrs Thomas. ‘Just bear that in mind, child.’
The visit lasted two days, no longer because Mrs Thomas said that she couldn’t leave Mrs Bustle for longer than that, but Alethea crammed a good deal into it. She took Mrs Thomas on a sightseeing tour in her Colt, conducted her round the house, accompanied her shopping, and made sure that she saw as much of Sarre and the children as possible. The children liked the old lady and she liked them, and when Mrs Thomas suggested that they might like to spend a few weeks with her later on, they were wildly enthusiastic. Just as enthusiastic as Sarre was about having both his grandmother-in-law and Mrs Bustle over for Christmas. And on the last evening of Mrs Thomas’s visit, they had guests for dinner, Wienand and Irene and Anna. Sarre had suggested her casually, with his eyes on Alethea, who instantly said: ‘Oh, yes, of course we must have Anna,’ and volunteered a good deal of information about her, just as though she hadn’t already done so. Sarre had smiled a little and contributed nothing to Alethea’s eulogy. He had treated her with unfailing courtesy since their unhappy conversation about Anna and even if Alethea had wanted to bring the matter up it would have been difficult.
Arrogant man, thought Alethea crossly. Just like him to decide that no more would be said on either side, without giving her a chance to utter a word.
She wore a new dress that evening; the colour of honey, quite beautiful and wildly expensive. But at the end of the evening, when the house was quiet and she had time to think, she came to the conclusion that she might just as well have worn an old sack and she was still seething inwardly from Anna’s playful: ‘Why, Alethea, you’re getting plump.’
She had replied suitably and, she hoped, with suitable lightness, furious to see Sarre’s lips twitch. It had helped a little when her grandmother remarked that it was a good thing, because she had always been too thin. ‘Such a big girl,’ she told the assembled company. ‘I don’t hold with beanpoles.’
Sarre had agreed with her and everyone had laughed, and Alethea had felt like the fat woman at a fair. She had, she considered, behaved beautifully, even when Anna had kissed Sarre in greeting and again when she left; better than little Irene who had looked worried and embarrassed.
Alethea got up from the window seat where she had been sitting and kicked a fallen cushion quite viciously round the room; it relieved her feelings enormously. And she wasn’t getting fat; she took a good look at herself in the bathroom looking-glass to make sure.
She felt lost and lonely after her grandmother went home, especially as Sarre went to Amsterdam on the same day. Probably, he told her, he would have to spend the night. She had looked at him blankly and asked stupidly: ‘Must you—stay away?’ and when he had said quietly that he thought it might be better to drive back to Groningen in the very early morning, she had cried much too loudly: ‘Of course you’ll have Anna with you.’
His face, usually so placid, had shown anger, but all he said suavely was: ‘No, but when you make remarks like that, Alethea, I’m tempted to do so.’
He had left the house then and she had mooned around until Mrs McCrea had asked her if she would mind going to the grocers’ for her. There was still an hour left till lunch and the children’s return from school; she gathered together her smattering of Dutch and went upstairs to talk to Nanny. It was high time she asserted herself over various matters. Her Dutch might not have been very grammatical, but she certainly got the gist of her wishes over to Nanny; in future she would take the children shopping for their clothes and when they were naughty they were to be punished—not severely, but enough to make them realise that they had done something wrong. And Nanny wasn’t to shield them from punishment, either.
‘You don’t love them,’ declared Nanny.
‘Oh, yes, I do—I want them to grow up like their father, Nanny. You love them, but you spoil them.’ She hoped she had the right words; she had looked them up earlier. ‘You haven’t helped me, have you? I should like to be friends…’
‘You wish to take my place,’ Nanny snorted. ‘Never, mevrouw!’
‘Of course I don’t want to take your place, why should I and how could I? The children love you, you fill a gap.’ She said hole because she didn’t know the Dutch for gap and anyway her Dutch was beginning to peter out. But Nanny seemed to understand. She looked surprised and then pleased before her face resumed its usual disapproving look.
The children were unusually talkative at lunch, telling a rather involved story about a cottage, uninhabited now, which had at one time belonged to Nanny. ‘It’s not far from here,’ said Sarel, ‘in the Langestraat, there’s a steeg on the left. We’ve always wanted to go there, but Papa won’t let us because he says it’s dangerous.’ He eyed Alethea thoughtfully. ‘Why is it dangerous?’
‘I don’t know,’ observed Alethea, only half listening, ‘but if your papa says it is and you mustn’t go there, then you must obey him.’
‘We could go and look at it from the outside.’ Sarel gave her a quick look.
‘Well, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea, I’d much rather you didn’t.’
‘We obey Papa, but we don’t have to obey you,’ muttered Sarel.
Alethea paled a little. ‘No,’ she said steadily, ‘I don’t suppose you do unless you want to. All the same, please wait until your papa gets home—he’ll be here tomorrow.’
She man
aged to smile at them both; Sarel looked defiant, but Jacomina looked scared and shamefaced.
She saw them off to school presently, reflecting ruefully that she hadn’t done much good, either with them or with Nanny.
She took the delighted dogs for a long walk that afternoon, getting back much later than usual. The children would have had their tea, which was perhaps just as well. She had hers in the little sitting room, planning something to do that evening. The children missed their father when he was away, she knew that; perhaps if they were quick with their homework, they could all go to the cinema, there was a Disneytime film on… She went upstairs and found Nanny alone and when she asked where the children were, she got a blank stare and a spate of Dutch she couldn’t follow. She gave up presently and went down to find Mrs McCrea who would probably know, but she didn’t know either.
‘Their pa’s away,’ she commented severely. ‘That Nanny’s a dear good woman and dotes on them, but they twist her round their thumbs.’
Alethea went uneasily to her room. It was almost seven o’clock and they never stayed out as late as that unless they were with friends and someone knew where they were. She went to the window and looked out and then glanced round the room. There was an envelope propped up against the musical box and she was across the room like a flash to open it and read.
Sarel’s written English was peculiar but understandable. They had gone, he and Jacomina, to explore Nanny’s cottage. That was all. Alethea was out of the room and shutting the front door behind her within seconds—she hadn’t been listening very well to what Sarel had told her about the little house, but she could remember the name of the street and he had said that it was close by. She didn’t know why she was so scared. True, the children had been gone for two hours and that was a long time, but it wasn’t only that. Sarre had forbidden them to go there, so probably it wasn’t safe.
She had to stop and ask several people how to get to Langestraat and when she did reach it she wasn’t very impressed. It was narrow and old and most of the cottages in it were condemned, and in the steeg they were even worse; some of them already tumbled to the ground. Sarel had said something about it being on a corner and sure enough there it was, its windows boarded up although most of the boards had been carried off long since. Alethea tried the door and found the key in the lock as she pushed it slowly open.
The little place was a ruin indeed, with plaster all over the floor from the walls and ceiling, broken floorboards and a gaping hole where once the stove had stood. It was filthy dirty too and smelled dreadful. She picked her way from the tiny hall and down a few broken stairs to the kitchen at the back where it was almost dark because the only little window was completely covered over. She held the door open behind her and called in what she hoped was a normal voice, then jumped out of her skin when she heard Sarel answer.
His voice quavered a good deal and sounded hollow, quickly explained when he told her that they had both fallen into the cellar below the kitchen. ‘I dropped the matches and we couldn’t see, and there isn’t a stairs any more, so we fell…’
Alethea stood just where she was. ‘Are you hurt, my dears?’
Their shouts were reassuring. ‘Then hang on, I’ll pull you up.’
She had moved cautiously as she spoke and saw in the furthest corner the dark hole which should have been the cellar stairs. She got down on her knees and peered over the edge and caught a glimpse of the two faces below. Rather a long way down, but if she could find a chair and pass it down to them and they stood on it… The door behind her banged shut and left her in almost complete darkness. It just needs a rat or two, she thought wildly, and asked with all the calm she could muster if Sarel knew where the matches had been dropped. Somewhere in the middle, he told her vaguely, so she crawled around on her hands and knees on the filthy floor until she found them. The box wasn’t full, she had used almost all of them before she found a broken old chair in a corner. She picked it up with a triumphant cry and it fell to pieces in her hands. She had to tell Sarel, of course, who suggested that she should go for help. ‘We’ll be all right,’ he assured her in a voice that sounded as though he needed reassuring rather badly, and certainly she could think of nothing else to do; it would be a waste of time to wring her hands and moan if only they had a light…
The door had jammed, but after a good deal of furious kicking on her part it gave way and she ran up the rickety little stairs to the hall. The door was shut, locked, and she had left the key on the outside. And this time it didn’t yield to her blows and thumps. It took a little while for her to admit that it was useless and when she tried the only window she couldn’t make any impression on the boards. She went back slowly to the children and explained. ‘I’m a fool to leave the key outside,’ she told them, ‘but at least when someone comes they’ll be able to get in.’
‘Who’ll come?’ asked Jacomina tearfully.
Alethea remembered that she had put the note they had written in her pocket and she hadn’t seen anyone before she left the house; probably no one would come. ‘Your papa,’ she said with loud conviction.
‘But he’s in Amsterdam.’
‘I know, but he might come back this evening.’ It was a forlorn hope; he was much more likely to stay away after what she had said to him.
‘I’m coming down,’ she called cheerfully. ‘We might as well be together.’
There were no matches left. Alethea crept cautiously towards the top of the non-existent stairs and lowered herself very slowly, terrified out of her wits. She dangled for a few seconds, feeling nothing below her. ‘Sarel,’ she called in a carefully calm voice, ‘can you stretch out a hand and touch me? Come carefully, and then both of you get as far away as you can while I jump.’
She felt his fingers brush her shoe a moment later and heard the children creeping away. ‘I’m coming now,’ she called, and jumped. She landed on a pile of rubbish which slipped and slithered away from her feet as she scrambled upright. ‘Can you come over here?’ She was ashamed of her shaky voice. ‘I think it would be better if we kept together, but first I’m going to explore a bit.’
The children reached her and she touched them reassuringly before making her way inch by inch away from them. Once or twice she tripped over piles of stone and bricks and twice she found herself up to her ankles in water. She remembered that a great many houses were built on piles driven into the water; perhaps the piles were giving way…as though to answer her thought the ground shifted under her feet and there was a wet, sucking sound and the rattle of stones falling into water. She tried not to hurry back to where the children were, panic catching at her throat that even in that small space she might put a foot wrong and go the way of the stones.
The children’s hands were cold but somehow welcoming. Alethea put an arm round each of their shoulders and said cheerfully: ‘Well, here we are, I don’t think we had better move, it’s a bit wet here and there. What shall we talk about while we’re waiting?’
‘Will Papa be long?’ asked Jacomina, and gave a great sob.
‘I don’t know, my dear, but he’ll come—I’m sure of that.’ And she was.
Sarel’s voice had changed; it was friendly. ‘I think he’ll come too. It’s our fault, Alethea—we came here on purpose, we wanted you to come and we were going to lock you in just for a little while. I—I’m sorry, and so’s Jacomina, you mustn’t be angry with her. She’s always liked you and I think I did too, only I didn’t want to, so we pretended we hated you…’
Alethea squeezed his shoulders. ‘I’m not angry with either of you,’ she assured him warmly. ‘I used to play pranks when I was a little girl, and this is only a prank.’
‘No, not really, but it’s nice of you to say so.’ His voice was very earnest and put her in mind of Sarre. ‘You’re sure Papa will come?’
‘Positive.’ She had read somewhere that if one thought hard enough about someone they would think about you. Well, she was thinking very hard about Sarre and miracles happened.
Jacomina began to cry and Alethea bent down and kissed her. ‘Let’s talk,’ she said hearteningly. ‘Let’s talk about Christmas and what we’ll do then and the presents we’ll buy, and I’ll tell you about the hospital…’ She had a momentary picture of Nick; what would he have done in such a situation? she wondered, and found that she didn’t care in the very least. She took a deep steadying breath. It was beastly down there in the dark, but at least the children were safe and she was absolutely certain that Sarre would come. She began to tell the children just how an English Christmas pudding was made.
CHAPTER NINE
SHE HAD LOST all count of time when Sarre’s voice, calm, almost placid, said from somewhere above them: ‘I’ll have Jacomina first—lift her up as high as you can, Alethea, and you, liefje, put your arms above your head so that I can catch your hands.’
He waited while Alethea, dumb with relief and happiness at the sound of his voice, got cautiously to her feet and lifted the little girl. It was difficult for the rubble underfoot shifted to and fro with every movement and Jacomina was quite heavy, but she managed it at last and felt her weight lifted from her aching arms as Sarre lifted his daughter to safety.
‘And now Sarel…’
A cold hand came out of the dark and clutched at Alethea’s. ‘Papa, I will go last—it is not kind to leave Alethea here alone in the dark; she’s a girl.’
Alethea gave the hand a squeeze. The conditions were hardly ideal in which to make friends, but they seemed to have managed it. Sarre’s voice was unhurried. ‘Spoken like a man, Sarel, but I need you up here to look after Jacomina—she’s scared.’
Alethea spoke carefully from a mouth dry with fear. ‘Yes, your papa’s right, Sarel, and Jacomina always does as you say.’