by Betty Neels
‘But Sarre, I can’t go—I simply can’t—you must see that. The children you, know. They—want me.’ She smiled suddenly at the mere thought. Somehow it made her relationship with him much closer now that his children had accepted her.
‘But I want you to go, Alethea.’ He smiled at her, but she could see the arrogance in his face, she saw the tiredness there too. He looked much older, she discovered with a shock; it must have scared him badly when the children had disappeared, although he hadn’t shown it.
‘Why?’ she asked him baldly.
‘Need we go into that? I think we both know the reason. I know that the children are important, but this is even more so—how could you ever be completely happy?’ He stared at her. ‘I’m right, am I not? You aren’t happy, even though the children have admitted at last that they’re fond of you.’
She had put the toast down and was staring at her plate. ‘No, I’m not,’ she mumbled, ‘but I don’t want to go. And even if I went…’ she drew a deep breath. ‘You do want me back, Sarre?’
His smooth: ‘That’s entirely up to you, Alethea,’ didn’t reassure her in the least. All the fight went out of her in the face of his bland impassiveness. ‘I’ll telephone Granny,’ she said.
He glanced at her. ‘Yes, do, my dear. I got tickets for the day after tomorrow, but if that doesn’t suit you, I’ll get them changed.’
What did it matter when she went? He didn’t want her in his home; she had thought just lately that he liked her a little, not just as the other half of a friendly arrangement between them, but as a girl. She must have been wrong. Perhaps it was Anna after all; if it was she wouldn’t be able to bear it.
They finished their lunch, talking about nothing that mattered, and she saw him out of the house as she always did when she was home and went back to the sitting room to think. She would have to discover some way of staying; she had no idea what, but she had two days in which to do it.
The two days came and went. Alethea had tried several times to talk to Sarre, but somehow he had no time; the telephone rang or he was on the point of going out or he had urgent work to do. She saw him off to the hospital on the day of her departure, still without having a chance to talk. But he would be home for lunch; she knew that, it wasn’t operating day and he had an outpatients clinic in the afternoon. She would see him at lunch. She had planned it carefully; the children were going to a friend’s at midday, so she would have him to herself. She answered their anxious questions as to just when she would be coming back with a cheerfulness which wholly deceived them, begged them to be good children and do as Nanny told them and not to annoy their papa, and kissed them with a secret sorrow that it might be a long time, perhaps never, before she saw them again.
She stood on the steps waving them goodbye on their way to school. Perhaps she was being gloomy. Sarre might let her talk; if it was Anna, then she could tell him that she wouldn’t interfere. She rehearsed what she was going to say as she did her last-minute packing, had a talk with Mrs McCrea and Nanny and then went into the garden.
She was arranging the flowers she had picked when Al came to her with a message from Sarre to say that he wouldn’t be able to get home to lunch after all, that Al would take her to the station in his stead, and that he hoped she would have a good holiday. Alethea stood with the scissors in her hand, staring at him. ‘But he can’t!’ she cried. ‘Al, are you sure that’s what he said?’
Al nodded. ‘Ho, yus, ma’am.’ He eyed her knowingly. ‘It ain’t ter yer liking, neither, eh?’
She put the scissors down carefully, rammed the flowers in an untidy bunch into a priceless Sèvres vase and took off her gardening gloves.
‘No, Al, it isn’t quite…I’m a bit disappointed.’ She turned her back to pick up a dropped flower and when he asked if she would have her lunch on a tray in the sitting room she said yes, that would do, thank you, and waited until he had gone before she turned round.
She was so unhappy that she was past tears. Sarre could have telephoned, not sent that cold, polite message. He hadn’t wanted the embarrassment of saying goodbye, she supposed, or to give her the chance of talking to him. She looked at her bruised arms and wondered how he could have been so gentle with her when he treated them, if he was so utterly indifferent to her. He was a kind man; perhaps he thought it kinder to let her go without seeing her again.
She wandered out into the garden again. What had she said or done in the last few days to make him so determined to send her away? She had thought he would have been pleased to see how happy the children were with her; she had never said a word to him about them, or about Nanny, but he must have noticed how the children had changed towards her…
She wasn’t going to be able to bear it any longer. Half way up the staircase she stopped to look up at one of Sarre’s ancestors, a handsome man who must have had the girls eating out of his hand. ‘I shan’t come back,’ she told him. And she meant it.
She made a pretence of eating the lunch Al served so carefully and then because it was time to go, she went upstairs to put on the jacket of her new outfit, a charming skirt and blouse in honey-coloured crêpe-de-chine not in the least suitable for travelling. She had changed it at the last moment, because she had made up her mind to see Sarre before she caught the train and she wanted to look her best. She went to the dining room next and poured herself a glass of brandy; she loathed the stuff, but she needed something to make her brave enough to tell him that she wasn’t coming back, and more than that, that she loved him and that was why.
She felt a little peculiar as she got into the car. Everyone had crowded into the hall to say goodbye and hope that she would be back soon, and she had time to beg Nanny to look after the children and to tell Mrs McCrea to make an extra large cake for the weekend. And once in the car, beside Al, she told him to go to the clinic first. ‘I’ll be very quick, only a few minutes,’ she explained. ‘There’s something I want to tell…that is…’
‘Cor, lummy, ma’am, yer don’t ’ave to explain, I ain’t that feeble in the ’ead. The guv ain’t ’alf lucky, ’aving yer ter love ’im.’ Which left her speechless.
The forecourt of the clinic was crowded. Alethea asked Al to let her out at the entrance before finding a parking space and hurried in through the swing doors. The outpatients’ department was full but not as full as all that. Surely Sarre would be able to spare her a few minutes; besides, Doctor Jaldert was there too. She crossed the tiled floor to the desk. The nurse on duty there was a stranger to her and when she asked to see Sarre she was told politely that no, that wasn’t possible, not for at least an hour or more.
‘But I’m his wife,’ explained Alethea. ‘I know he’ll see me—besides, there aren’t very many patients.’
‘I’m sorry, Mevrouw van Diederijk, it isn’t possible—it has nothing to do with the patients.’
Surely Sarre hadn’t given instructions that he didn’t want to see her? But he didn’t know that she would be coming… Alethea fought an urge to burst into tears. ‘Would you let him know I’m here?’ And if she had to go on much longer, she thought wearily, she would run out of her meagre, quite dreadful Dutch.
The nurse answered her with stony politeness. ‘That is also not possible, mevrouw.’
Something went pop inside Alethea’s unhappy head. She got up from the seat the nurse had begged her to take and before that astonished young woman could do anything about it, had marched to the nearest door and opened it. What was more, she told herself as she did so, she would open every door in the place until she found him. That her recklessness was due to the brandy she had drunk before she left the house to give her courage she chose to ignore.
She had the first door open before the nurse reached her. She was aware of her urgent voice in her ear but she didn’t listen. The room was a large one with a long table down its centre; round it sat a number of soberly clad gentlemen, and at its head was Sarre.
Alethea shook off the nurse’s restraining hand and began a m
arch up the room, to be met almost at once by Sarre, who had leapt from his chair to meet her. She said in a rather loud voice because of the brandy: ‘Sarre, I have to speak to you—now.’ She smiled at the gentlemen because she was feeling better now that she had found him. ‘I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something. The nurse tried to stop me…’
Sarre’s hand was on her arm. He looked as though he wanted to laugh, although not a muscle of his face moved. ‘Supposing we go to my office, my dear?’ He spoke quietly and then raised his voice a little in order to address their audience, who murmured in answer as he swept her out of the room.
It was very quiet in his office. He offered her a chair and went to lean against the back of his great desk, his hands in his pockets. ‘And what do you wish to tell me, Alethea?’ he asked her very gently. ‘Something which necessitated you having a go at the brandy bottle…’
She said defiantly: ‘I’m not very brave, but it’s all right now I’m here. Sarre, I thought I could go without telling you, but I can’t, so Al said he’d bring me here so I could see you on the way to the station.’
‘So Al knows?’
She got out of her chair; she felt better standing. ‘Well, he guessed.’
Sarre took a hand out of a pocket and inspected his nails. ‘And I’m to be told too, or must I guess as well?’
‘You wouldn’t guess in a thousand years,’ declared Alethea in a voice squeaky with emotion. ‘I’m not coming back, Sarre.’
He put his hand back into his pocket and looked at her. ‘I wondered if you had intended that. It hasn’t been all roses for you, has it? The children—oh, don’t look so surprised, I have eyes in my head and my hearing is excellent—besides, they came and told me all about it. But it’s too late, perhaps—they’ve discovered that they’re very fond of you, they wanted to go to England with you, did you know that? just so that they could be sure that you would come back here. And Anna—I have been at fault there. I wanted to tease you a little to arouse your interest, make you jealous, but now I don’t suppose you will ever believe me if I tell you that we’re friends and nothing more and that she plans to get married to a childhood sweet-heart.’ He sighed. ‘And Nanny—oh, she’s your slave now, like every other member of the household, but at the beginning she was eaten up with jealousy; and there is Penrose. You have every right to leave me—us, Alethea.’
‘None of those things matter,’ said Alethea, hurrying a little so that she could say what she had to say and go. ‘I’d never have left you for any one of them; they’d have all come right in the end…’
‘But this—whatever it is—won’t?’
She had taken her gloves off and was twisting them ruthlessly into a shapeless suede ruin. ‘No.’ It was astonishing how difficult it was to get the words out. They came in a rush finally. ‘It’s so silly of me; I’ve fallen in love with you, Sarre. You’ll find that hard to believe after Nick…but of course I’ve never been in love before, only thought I had—it’s quite different.’
Sarre spoke very quietly. ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? I have thought myself in love a dozen times, and that includes my first wife, but when I fell in love with you, I knew that none of them counted—only you, my darling.’
Alethea dropped her gloves and stared at him with her mouth open.
‘You’re in love with me? You never said so.’
‘I was afraid to. You see, I wasn’t sure about young Penrose. Once or twice I very nearly told you that I loved you and each time something prevented me. I knew I’d have no peace until you had been back and seen him…’
He left the desk and caught her close so that her very ribs ached. ‘Do you remember when I hauled you out of that cellar? There was a candle…’
She interrupted him in a little rush of words. ‘You said “by sun and candlelight”, but I didn’t understand…it’s Elizabeth Barrett Browning, isn’t it? “I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need, by sun and candlelight…” Do you really, Sarre?’
He bent his head and kissed her without answering and it really was far more satisfactory than words. Presently she lifted her head. ‘All those men…’
‘A meeting—a medical committee meeting, my dearest, not in the least important. What have you done with Al?’
‘He’s outside, waiting. Sarre, do the children really want me for their mama?’
‘Oh, yes, indeed they do. What is more important, I want you for my wife.’
She leaned up to kiss him. ‘What about Granny?’
‘There’s the telephone, my love; we’ll let her know as soon as we get home.’ He kissed her again. ‘We’ll go now.’
Al was waiting, sitting patiently reading the Daily Mirror behind the wheel. He got out of the car as soon as he saw them, gave them a quick look and said in a tone of deep satisfaction: ‘Goin’ ’ome, are we? Now that’s what I calls a ’appy ending. It’ll be the champagne tonight, eh, Guv?’
Sarre had his arm around Alethea’s shoulders. ‘Right as usual, Al, champagne for everyone.’ He smiled at his faithful old servant. ‘I’ll take Mevrouw van Diederijk home with me. Bring yourself home, will you? And take the luggage indoors and see that someone unpacks it. Thanks.’
It was a beautiful late afternoon. He tucked an arm under Alethea’s and crossed the forecourt to where the Jaguar was parked. Halfway across he stopped and looked her over. ‘That’s new,’ he declared, ‘and I like it, my darling. Were you dressed to kill?’
She looked up into his quiet, loving face. ‘No—I felt like someone going to the guillotine and making the best of themselves…’
He smiled slowly. ‘You’re very beautiful.’ He had his hands on her shoulders and she said hurriedly:
‘Oh, darling Sarre, you can’t—not here.’
‘Can’t I?’ he asked her, and did.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-3943-2
SUN AND CANDLELIGHT
Copyright © 1979 by Betty Neels.
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