by Betty Neels
‘It would, of course, be much nicer to go by car, but that would take time and probably not be worth the journey. Besides, I’m told everyone goes by the funicular.’
Kate held her tongue, afraid that if she ventured an opinion they might not go at all.
It was raining when Kate got up the next morning. It rained a great deal in Bergen, the friendly receptionist told her, but that didn’t deter her from putting on her raincoat and tying a scarf over her head and hurrying out as soon as she had breakfasted. This was their last day in Bergen, and the chances were that Lady Cowder would refuse to go out at all.
The funicular was out of the question, so were the various museums. If she walked very fast she could get a glimpse of the Bryggen, with its medieval workshops and old buildings. She started off down the main street towards Torget and the Bryggen, head down against the rain, only to be brought to a sudden halt against a vast Burberry-covered chest.
‘Good morning, Kate,’ said Mr Tait-Bouverie. ‘Out early, aren’t you?’
She goggled up at him, rain dripping from her sodden scarf.
‘Well, I never…!’ She gulped and added sedately, ‘Good morning, sir.’
Since he made no move to go on his way, she added politely, ‘You don’t mind if I go on? I haven’t much time.’
He gripped her arm gently. ‘To do what, Kate?’
‘Well, Lady Cowder doesn’t like to be disturbed until ten o’clock, so I want to see as much as I can before then.’ She added hopefully, ‘I expect you’re busy.’
‘Not until midday. Where are you going?’
She told him, trying not to sound impatient.
‘In that case—’ he lifted a hand at a passing taxi ‘—allow me to make up for the delay I have caused you.’
He had bundled her neatly into the taxi before she could draw breath.
‘It is a little after half-past eight; you have more than an hour. Tell me, how long have you and my aunt been here?’
‘We’re here for two days; we go to Olden later today—for three weeks.’
‘I shall be surprised if my aunt remains there for so long. It is a delightful little place, but, beyond the hotel, there isn’t much to do. There are ferries, of course, going to various other small villages around the fiords, but I doubt if she would enjoy that.’ The taxi stopped. ‘Here we are, let us not waste time.’
For all the world as though I didn’t want to see the place, thought Kate crossly, getting out of the taxi and ignoring his hand.
She said coldly, ‘Thank you for the taxi, Mr Tait-Bouverie. I’m sure you have other plans…’
He took her arm. ‘None at all, Kate.’ He led her down a wide passage lined with old wooden houses. ‘Let us have a cup of coffee and you can recover your good humour.’
‘I have only just had breakfast,’ said Kate, still coldly polite. A remark which was wasted on him. The wooden houses, so beautifully preserved, housed small offices, workshops and a couple of cafés. She found herself sitting in one of them, meekly drinking the delicious brew set before her.
‘They make very good coffee,’ observed Mr Tait-Bouverie chattily.
‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘It’s very kind of you to bring me here, but really there is no need…’
A waste of breath. ‘Your mother is well?’ he asked.
‘Yes, thank you. The plaster is to come off very shortly.’ Kate finished her coffee and picked up her gloves. ‘I’d better be getting on. Thank you for the coffee, sir.’
Mr Tait-Bouverie said pleasantly, ‘If you call me “sir” just once more, Kate, I shall strangle you!’
She gaped at him. ‘But of course I must call you “sir,” Mr Tait-Bouverie. You forget that I’m in your aunt’s employ—her housekeeper.’
‘There are housekeepers and housekeepers, and well you know it. You may cook divinely, dust and sweep and so on with an expert hand, but you are no more a housekeeper than I am. I am not by nature in the habit of poking my nose into other people’s business—but it is obvious to me, Kate, that you are housekeeping for a reason. Oh, I’m sure you need the money in order to live, but over and above that I confess that I am curious.’
Kate said coolly, ‘I’m sure that my plans are of no interest to you, s—Mr Tait-Bouverie.’
‘Oh, but they are. You see, I can think of no reason why you should work for my aunt. I dare say she underpays you, certainly she works you hard. She may be my aunt, but I should point out that my visits to her are purely in order to reassure my mother, who is her younger sister and feels that she must keep in touch.’
‘Oh, have you a mother?’ Kate went pink; it was a silly question, deserving a snub.
‘Indeed, yes.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Like everyone else.’
He lifted a finger and asked for more coffee and, when it had been brought, settled back in his chair. ‘Are you saving for your bottom drawer?’ he asked.
‘Heavens, no. Girls don’t have bottom drawers nowadays.’
‘Ah—I stand corrected. Then why?’
It was obvious she wasn’t going to escape until she had answered him. ‘I want to start a catering business. Just from home—making simple meals to order, cooking for weddings and parties—that sort of thing.’
‘Of course. You are a splendid cook and manager. Why don’t you get going?’
It was a relief to tell someone about her schemes. For a moment she hesitated at telling this man whom she hardly knew and would probably not meet again on equal terms. But she felt reckless. Perhaps it was being in foreign places, perhaps it was the caffeine in all the coffee she was drinking.
‘I’m saving up,’ she told him. ‘You see, if I can go to the bank and tell the manager that I’ve a hundred pounds he might lend me the money I need.’
Mr Tait-Bouverie looked placid, although he doubted very much if a bank manager would see eye to eye with Kate. A hundred pounds was a very small sum these days: it might buy dinner for two at a fashionable restaurant in London, or two seats for the latest play; it might be enough to pay the electricity bill or for a TV licence, but one could hardly regard it as capital.
He said in a kind voice, ‘Do you have much more to save?’
‘No. That’s why I’ve come with Lady Cowder. She has said she will double my wages if I act as her companion while she is here.’
He nodded. ‘I have often wondered, what do companions do?’
‘Well, they are just there—I mean, ready to find things and mend and iron—and talk, if they’re asked to. And buy tickets and see about luggage and all that kind of thing.’
‘Will you get any time to yourself?’ He put the question gently and she answered readily.
‘I’m not sure—but I don’t think so. I mean, not a day off in the week or anything like that.’
‘In that case, we have just fifteen minutes to take a quick look around while we’re here. There’s a rather nice shop along here that does wood carvings and some charming little figures—trolls. Have you bought a troll to take home?’
She shook her head. ‘Not yet…’
He bought her one, saying lightly, ‘Just to bring you luck.’
They went back to the hotel by taxi presently, and when it stopped, Kate asked, ‘Are you coming in? Shall I tell Lady Cowder you’re here?’
He said unhurriedly, ‘No, I must go to the hospital very shortly and later today I’m going to Oslo. No need to say that we met, since there is no chance of my aunt seeing me.’
Kate offered a hand. ‘Thank you for taking me to the Bryggen and giving me coffee. Please forget everything I told you. I shouldn’t have said anything, but I don’t have much chance to talk to anyone. Any way, it doesn’t matter, does it? We don’t meet—I mean, like this.’
He smiled down at her lovely face, damp from the rain. All he said was, ‘I do hope you enjoy your stay in Norway.’
She didn’t want to go into the hotel; she would have liked to have spent the day with him. The thought astonished her.
CHAPTER FOUR
LADY Cowder was sitting up in bed eating a good breakfast.
‘They tell me it is raining,’ she informed Kate. ‘There seems no point in staying here. Go down to the desk and arrange for a car to take us to Olden. I wish to leave within the next two hours.’
It was a complicated journey—Kate had taken the trouble to read the various leaflets at the reception desk—involving several ferries, and quite a distance to go. But there would be no need to get out of the car, she was assured, unless they wished to stop for refreshment on the way. It would be prudent, decided Kate, to get the clerk to phone the hotel at Olden. She asked for the bill, asked if coffee could be sent up to Lady Cowder’s room in an hour’s time, and went back upstairs. There was all the packing to see to…
The rain stopped after they had been travelling for an hour, and by the time they reached Gudvangen there was blue sky and sunshine.
‘Tell the driver to take us to a hotel for lunch,’ said Lady Cowder.
He took them up a hair-raisingly steep road. ‘Nineteen hairpin bends,’ he told them proudly, ‘and a gradient of one in five. A splendid view is to be had from the top.’
‘But the hotel?’ queried Lady Cowder faintly. She had been sitting with her eyes closed, trying not to see the sheer drop on either side of the road.
‘A splendid hotel,’ promised the driver. As indeed it was. Once inside, with her back to the towering mountains and the fiord far below, Lady Cowder did ample justice to the smoked salmon salad she was offered. The driver had taken it for granted that he would have his lunch with his passengers, so he and Kate carried on an interesting conversation while they ate.
Olden, it seemed, was very small, although the hotel was modern and very comfortable. ‘There are splendid walks,’ said the driver, looking doubtfully at Lady Cower. ‘There are also shops—two or three—selling everything.’
Lady Cowder looked so doubtful in her turn that Kate hastily asked to be told more about the hotel.
Presently they took the ferry, after another hair-raising descent to the village below, and crossed the Sognefjord to Balestrand to rejoin the road to Olden. Quite a long journey—but not nearly long enough for Kate, craning her neck to see as much as possible of the great grey mountains crowding down to the fiord. She was enchanted to see that wherever there was a patch of land, however small, squashed between the towering grey peaks, there were houses—even one house on its own. Charming wooden houses with bright red roofs and painted walls.
‘Isn’t it a bit lonely in the winter?’ she asked.
The driver shrugged. ‘It is their life. The houses are comfortable, there is electricity everywhere, they have their boats.’
Olden, when they reached it, was indeed small—a handful of houses, a small landing stage and, a little way from the village, the hotel. Reassuringly large and modern, its car park was half-full. Lady Cowder, who had had little to say but had somehow conveyed her disapproval of the scenery, brightened at the sight of it.
Certainly their welcome lacked nothing in warmth and courtesy. She was led to her room, overlooking the fiord, and assured that a tray of tea would be sent up immediately, together with the dinner menu.
Kate unpacked, went down to the reception desk to make sure that their driver had been suitably fed and went to find him. He had been paid, of course, but Lady Cowder had added no tip, nor her thanks. Kate handed him what she hoped was sufficient and added her thanks, knowing that Lady Cowder would want an account of everything Kate had spent from the money she had been given for their expenses. She would probably have to repay it from her own wages but she didn’t care—the man had been friendly; besides, he had told her that he had five children.
Her room, she discovered, was two floors above Lady Cowder’s and at the back of the hotel, its windows looking out towards the mountains. It was obviously the kind of room reserved for such as herself: companions, Ladies’ maids, poor relations. It was comfortable enough but it had no shower, and the bathroom was at the end of the passage to be shared with several other residents. She didn’t mind, she told herself—and felt humiliation deep down.
She was to eat her dinner early and then return to Lady Cowder’s room and wait for her there, occupying herself with the odd jobs: buttons to sew on, odds and ends to find, things to be put ready for the night.
She enjoyed dinner; the dining room was elegant and the food good. The brown crêpe hardly did justice to her surroundings, but she forgot that in the satisfaction of discovering that there were several English people staying at the hotel. Moreover, they looked to be the kind of people Lady Cowder might strike up a passing acquaintance with. Kate, straining her ears to catch their conversation, was delighted to hear that they were discussing bridge, a game her employer enjoyed.
She finished her coffee and went back to Lady Cowder’s room, and listened with outward serenity to that lady’s grumbles about a crumpled dress. Alone, she tidied up, fulfilled the odd jobs she had been given to do, arranged for Lady Cowder’s breakfast to be brought to her in her room and then went to look out of the window.
The sky had cleared and the last of the evening sun was lighting the sombre mountains, making the snow caps that most of them wore glisten. But if the mountains were sombre, there was plenty of life going on beneath them. Passengers were going aboard a ferry, and she wished that she was going with them to some other small village, probably isolated except for the ferries which called there. Not that she sensed any loneliness amongst the people she had met so far—indeed, they seemed happy and perfectly content.
Who wouldn’t be, she reflected, living in such glorious surroundings? As far as she could discover, communications were more than adequate; the driver had told her more in a couple of hours than any guide book could have done. She watched the ferry until it was out of sight round a distant bend in the fiord, and then she drew the curtains—Lady Cowder’s orders.
Her employer was in a good temper when she returned. ‘So fortunate,’ she observed. ‘There are several English people staying here, only too glad to make up a table for bridge. They tell me that this hotel is most comfortable; I am glad I decided to come here.’
After the first few days Kate agreed with her. A bridge table was set up each afternoon and she was free for several hours to do as she liked. She spent the first afternoon walking to the village, which was cheerfully full with visitors, its one shop bustling with tourists. It sold everything, she discovered, not only souvenirs but clothes and shoes, household goods and food. She bought cards to send home, walked to the end of the village and then retraced her steps, stopping to admire the smart men’s outfitters displaying the latest male fashions—wondering when they would be worn in such a small community.
A ferry had just come in, and she spent some time watching the cars landing and the passengers coming ashore. There were plenty of people waiting to board, too, and she wanted very much to know where it was going. In a day or two, she promised herself, when she felt more at home in her surroundings, she would find out.
After that afternoon she got bolder. She went a little further each day, stopping to ask the way, discovering that English seemed to come as easily to the Norwegians as their own tongue. Greatly daring, she took the bus to Loen, a pretty village some kilometres away from Olden. She had no time to explore it, for Lady Cowder had told her that she must be in the hotel by five o’clock, ready to carry out her wishes, but at least, she told herself, she had been there.
She had suggested that Lady Cowder might like to hire a car and visit some of the neighbouring villages herself, only to be told that it wasn’t for her to suggest what they should do.
‘I should have thought,’ said Lady Cowder, sounding reproachful, ‘that you were more than grateful for the splendid time that you are having. Heaven knows, there is little enough for you to do.’
It wasn’t a companion that Lady Cowder needed, thought Kate. A lady’s maid would have been nearer the mark. Kate, who had a kind hea
rt, felt sorry for her employer, being so incapable of doing the simplest thing for herself. Perhaps she had had a husband who’d spoilt her and seen to it that she never had to worry about anything.
‘Very nice, too,’ said Kate, addressing a handful of sheep peering at her from their pasture, which was sandwiched between two frowning mountains. ‘But who on earth is likely to wrap me in carefree luxury?’
She walked on past the sheep, and along a narrow road running beside the fiord. She wished her mother could have been with her. Never mind the mundane tasks she was given to do, the indifference of her employer, the small—perhaps unintentional—pin-pricks meant to put her in her place a dozen times a day; she was happy to be in this peaceful land. Just as long as the bridge parties continued each afternoon, life would be more than tolerable.
It was the following morning, when she went as usual to find out what Lady Cowder wanted her to do before she went down to breakfast, that she found that lady in a bad temper. She ignored Kate’s good morning, and told her to pull the curtains and fetch her a glass of water.
‘The Butlers are leaving today.’ She spoke with the air of a martyr. ‘There is no one else in this place who is willing to make up a table for bridge. I shall die of boredom.’ She looked at Kate as though it was her fault.
‘Perhaps there will be some other guests…’
‘I have enquired about that—something you might have done if you had been here. There are no English or Americans expected. I intend to leave here. There is a good hotel at Alesund; the Butlers have stayed there and recommend it. Go downstairs to the reception desk and tell them that we are leaving tomorrow. Then phone the hotel and get rooms.’
She handed Kate a slip of paper with the name of the hotel and the phone number on it. ‘I require a comfortable room; I hardly need remind you of that. Get a room for yourself. Those with a shower are cheaper, and it doesn’t matter if it isn’t on the same floor as mine. Now hurry along and do as I ask instead of standing there, saying nothing.’