by Betty Neels
‘I like it,’ said Loveday as her companion helped her out of the car, and was rewarded by his smile.
‘So do I,’ said the Baron. ‘Come inside.’
She felt instantly at home; not that it was in the least like her own home, nor for that matter did it bear the slightest resemblance to Rimada’s home. Here were no fitted carpets, but a black and white tiled floor, plain white plaster walls with silver sconces set between a variety of paintings, and a high, delicately plastered ceiling, wreathed with fruit and flowers. The staircase was to one side, uncarpeted, with a wrought-iron balustrade and a brass rail, polished to perfection. She looked around her as they walked slowly across this pleasing apartment, and came to a sudden halt when the Baron bellowed ‘Sieska!’ and added something in an outlandish language as a woman came down the stairs to meet them. She was of middle height and stoutly built, with fair hair turning grey and a round, contented face.
‘My housekeeper, Sieska,’ introduced the Baron. ‘She runs the house and me with it, her husband sees to the garden and her daughter comes each day to help her—a family concern, you see.’
Loveday shook hands, and said rather absurdly, ‘How do you do?’ and Sieska smiled widely at her. She smiled at the Baron too and said something which made him laugh softly as he took Loveday’s arm. ‘Over here,’ he advised her, and as they crossed to an arched door: ‘Sieska thinks that you are a beautiful girl.’ He looked down at her, still laughing. ‘Do you want me to say that, too?’
She looked up into his face, trying to read the expression in it, and quite unable to do so. ‘No, I don’t—thank you all the same.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Clever girl,’ he murmured, and before she could query this strange remark, pushed the door open.
The room was the antithesis of his aunt’s. Large and lofty, with french windows opposite a chimneypiece of vast proportions, its walls were white-painted wood, its panels separated by gilded beading. The floor was covered with tawny rugs, thin and silky to her feet, and the furniture was a charming blend of rosewood and satinwood and mahogany, the chairs and sofas covered in browns and oatmeal and amber with here and there a splash of unexpected peacock blue. The curtains were of the same rich blue, fringed and swathed in the style of a bygone period. Loveday’s eyes darted from a table in the Greek style, circa 1830, to a bow-fronted wall cabinet housing treasures of porcelain and silver, and back to a satinwood side table with a marble top; they came to rest finally on a large golden retriever dog, who had got to his feet and was ambling towards them. There was a cat too, an ordinary tabby, curled up before the log fire. She turned a surprised face to her host and he asked instantly, ‘You are surprised, perhaps?’
‘No—no, not the room, it’s exactly…that is, it’s beautiful, just as I imagined…’ She stopped, aware that his eyes were upon her, appreciative of the muddle she was getting into. ‘The animals,’ she explained hastily. ‘I would have expected a Siamese and an Afghan hound at the very least.’
He mocked her gently. ‘Then I have let you down sadly, I’m afraid. Meet Digger, ten years old and my devoted friend, and Moggy, who adopted us several years ago. Digger would have come to meet us, but he’s strained a tendon and has to take things easily for a while.’
She stroked the hard round head and gently pulled a silky ear before Digger, with a polite swish of his tail, went back to his master’s side. The door opened then and Sieska came in with a tray of drinks and the Baron said: ‘If you would like to go with Sieska, she will show you where you can do your face and tidy your hair and so on…come back here when you’re ready, and we’ll have a drink before lunch.’
Loveday followed the housekeeper upstairs, thinking about the Baron; he wasn’t only charming, he was nice too. She damped down a growing interest in him as they went past a succession of closed doors, until finally one was opened and she found herself in a small room, pink and white and dainty, where she looked immediately into the looking glass with some anxiety, for had not her host recommended her to do her face and hair?— Perhaps there was a smudge or a spot, even. Her reflection looked back at her, as fresh as paint and needing nothing done to it at all, although, to be on the safe side, she powdered her small straight nose and made sure her mascara was intact; she did her hair again too, quite unnecessarily because she was suddenly shy of meeting the Baron again, but she couldn’t stay there for ever; presently she went downstairs and into the sitting-room, where she sat down composedly, drank her sherry and made small talk, suddenly and strangely at ease again once she was in his company again.
The small talk lasted throughout lunch, eaten in a large, square room on the other side of the hall. It was furnished with an oval table and delicate Hepplewhite shield-back chairs and a sideboard with painted panels, and like the sitting-room, was full of muted colour. And the meal matched the room, simple, yet quite perfect and as a concession to her presence, she was offered an elaborate trifle which her host waved aside in favour of the cheese. Loveday, who loved trifle, had two helpings.
It was later, after they had had their coffee and she had accepted his offer to take her on a tour of the house that she realized that the conversation had taken a different turn; between his remarks about the various rooms they inspected, there were questions, quietly put, and leading, she had the wit to see, to the intended holiday. She answered noncommittally to begin with, but after a time, when he had given her a more than sketchy history of a particularly interesting pair of cassolettes in one of the bedrooms, she turned to face him.
‘If you want to ask me questions about us going on the cruise, I wish you would do so; I should like to enjoy looking at your house without being cross-examined by every chair and picture.’
He roared with laughter. ‘Oh, clever Miss Pearce,’ he murmured blandly, ‘and what makes you think that I should be interested in your holidays?’
‘Not mine, Rimada’s,’ she corrected him with asperity, and picked up a delicate porcelain figure so that she might admire it more closely.
‘Just so, dear girl. May I have your undivided attention?’ He took the valuable trifle from her and put it down carefully. ‘Certainly I brought you here today so that I might discover what lies behind Rimada’s sudden urge to travel, especially as only a very short time ago she was begging my consent to her marriage with some young man at the Royal City—he is still there, I take it?’ He gave her a sharp look. ‘Has she quarrelled with him?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Loveday, truthfully enough, and was incensed when he replied, ‘No, naturally you wouldn’t, would you?’ He picked up the figurine he had just put down and balanced it on the palm of a large, well-kept hand. ‘You’re not on my side, are you?’ he queried softly. ‘A pity. My fault, I started off on the wrong foot.’
‘Yes, you did.’ The starchiness of her voice concealed the unexpected pleasure she had in remembering the occasion. The starch had no effect upon her companion, however. ‘Presumably,’ he went on in hatefully conversational tones, ‘men do kiss you from time to time?’
‘Naturally.’ She kept her voice cool and wished she had something to do with her hands.
‘I am glad that we agree about something,’ he said, and kissed her with a swift expertise which took her breath. Before she could open her indignant mouth to voice the tumbling thoughts in her head, he went on smoothly: ‘You were asking about these cassolettes; used for perfume, as I’m sure you know. I believe they were by Matthew Boulton, and Craft did the enamel covers. I find them hideous.’
‘I must agree,’ said Loveday, her voice high with her efforts to control it. ‘I must prefer the figurine you are holding.’
His mouth twitched into a smile. ‘And so do I—but then I like girls, and she’s rather lovely, isn’t she?’
She turned her back on him and stared at the wide canopied bed with its brocade hangings and slender posts, then turned round again, because there was really nothing she could think of to say about it—besides, she suspected that if she did
, the Baron would probably take the opportunity of being humorous about it.
He put down the figurine once again and said suavely: ‘Wise girl—you never know what I might say, do you? Such an obvious chance for innuendoes, is it not? Only when you know me better, you will discover that I never do the obvious thing.’ He grinned suddenly.
‘Let us examine these wall sconces—silver, William and Mary, and quite a safe topic, shouldn’t you think?’
Loveday wanted to laugh, quite overcome by the knowledge that if she had been allowed by circumstance to do so, she would have liked her companion very much indeed. The laugh bubbled up and she didn’t attempt to stop it.
‘You know, I was afraid you were never going to do that,’ he observed pleasantly. ‘We may be on opposite sides of the camp, but I can see no reason why we shouldn’t share a sense of humour from time to time. I am not a monster, you know, only Rimada’s guardian, for my sins.’
She just stopped herself in time from feeling sorry for him, instead she said in a more friendly voice: ‘You have a lovely house, Professor de Wolff. Is your practice here too?’
He accepted her lead at once. ‘If you mean, do I look after the village—yes, but I go to Groningen to my consulting rooms and the hospital, and once a week I go to Utrecht, and occasionally to Leiden, and to London from time to time.’
Her eyes widened. ‘So you’re not here a great deal?’
They had strolled out of the room and into a long, narrow corridor.
‘Indeed I am. Unless I’m kept by some emergency case or something similarly urgent, I come home each evening. I am,’ he went on deliberately, ‘a confirmed bachelor—I enjoy peace and quiet.’
‘Oh!’ She was nonplussed; he had painted a monk-like existence which hardly tallied with Rimada’s description of him. She raised her lovely eyes to his and because she suddenly wanted to know all about him, asked: ‘And would you not find peace and quiet with a wife?’
The blue eyes returned her look steadily. ‘Certainly, but until then… You must not imagine that I lead a hermit’s life, Loveday. I have many friends; they visit me here, I go out a good deal.’
She wasn’t sure what he was telling her. ‘Yes, well, I expect you do,’ and then before she could stop herself, ‘But that’s not peace and quiet,’ she pointed out.
‘So I have given you something to think about?’ He sounded satisfied as he opened yet another door. ‘Now this room used to be mine when I was a small boy.’ He ushered her into an austerely furnished apartment and launched into a detailed description of its contents which didn’t allow to her getting in a word edgeways. He was still talking, smoothly and without pause, as they strolled round the garden, suiting their steps to Digger’s stiff, slow gait. It was larger than she had at first thought, and at the back of the house, nicely screened from the house by a box hedge, was a kitchen garden of sizeable proportions. With her father in mind, Loveday asked sensible questions about sprouts, cabbages and potatoes, all of which her companion answered with commendable patience and an expressionless face; he even supplied a wealth of information about the rose beds, of which there were a great number.
‘Father would like to see these,’ declared Loveday.
‘He’s a great gardener, you know; I help him sometimes, but I forget the names of things.’ Her companion murmured encouragingly and almost unknowingly, led on by his casual questions, she told him about her home and her family, quite forgetful of how vexed she had been with Rimada for having done the very same thing.
They went inside presently and had tea while the Baron entertained her with the histories of the various members of his family, long since dead, whose likenesses gazed down at them from the walls, and never once did he mention Rimada, nor, as he drove her back to his aunt’s house, did he have anything further to say about their holiday. Loveday, after a little cautious conversational skirmishing, relaxed and allowed herself to enjoy her companion’s company while at the same time reminding herself, rather halfheartedly, that she still disliked him, but long before they had arrived at their destination she forgot about that; probably he would annoy her with his arrogant ways and stern attitude towards his cousin, but for the time being at least she was enjoying herself more than she had done for some time.
They arrived at the house the best of friends; it was sheer misfortune that Rimada and her mother should be in the sitting-room, surrounded by boxes and tissue paper and with the results of their shopping spread out around them. The Baron took one look as he greeted them and observed nastily:
‘There will be no good in applying to me to foot these bills, because I have no intention of doing so.’ He stared round him. ‘Anyone would think,’ he went on silkily, ‘that my cousin was contemplating a honeymoon rather than a fortnight’s cruise.’
Rimada looked so terrified that Loveday felt impelled to come to her rescue, an impulse heightened by her hostess’s weak-minded burst of tears. ‘How very unreasonable,’ she pointed out. ‘Everyone knows that one needs any amount of clothes on board ship.’
‘Ah—just so. And have you bought your outfit yet, Miss Pearce?’ His voice was very gentle, but it was useless to suppose that he didn’t require an answer. ‘I have plenty of clothes,’ she assured him, and pinkened indignantly under the leisurely study he made of her good but by no means new tweed suit. She remembered uneasily that she had been wearing it when she had arrived, and the jersey dress she had worn for dinner the evening before wasn’t new either.
‘I perceive that you travel light,’ he murmured, ‘something Rimada has never learned to do. She has never learned the art of wearing the right clothes at the right time, thereby saving herself the infinite trouble of packing too many clothes when she goes anywhere.’ He smiled thinly at his cousin. ‘By the time you have paid for these, your allowance for the quarter will be negligible, my dear,’ he informed her, ‘but you have doubtless bought enough to last you for a very long time, and you won’t need much money on board ship—I’m sure that Loveday will keep a careful eye on your purse for you.’ He tossed an armful of dresses on to a table and sat down. ‘For how long is this cruise? I’m so forgetful.’
Loveday frowned; he wasn’t forgetful at all, only suspicious and if Rimada didn’t pull herself together and stop looking so guilty, they might just as well call the whole thing off. ‘Fourteen days,’ she told him, adding snappishly: ‘We go from Southampton to Madeira, then to Tangier, Gibraltar, Cadiz and Lisbon, and then back to Southampton.’
‘Delightful,’ murmured the Baron, quite unmoved by her crossness. ‘Doubtless you will make a number of friends on board, two such young and pretty girls.’ He sounded like a benevolent uncle. ‘You are young, Miss Pearce?’
She choked. Her voice, when she answered him, was a little too loud and held the faintest of wobbles. ‘I am old enough to appreciate good manners, Professor de Wolff.’
He steeled back in his chair, impervious to belligerence, prepared to go on talking for as long as it pleased him. ‘Exactly the sort of answer I might have expected from you, dear girl.’ He put his splendid head on one side and studied her. ‘Twenty-five—six?’ he essayed. ‘A little older than Rimada, I imagine, but only a little.’ He smiled faintly. ‘But perhaps you prefer to keep your age a secret? Some women do, I believe, once they have reached thirty or thereabouts.’
‘I am not thirty,’ said Loveday sharply, ‘I’m twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight, since you’re so curious.’ She bit her lip at his slow smile and gave him a defiant stare. He got to his feet without haste.
‘Not curious, dear Miss Pearce, I like to be sure of my facts. Well, I must be going.’ He crossed the room and kissed his aunt’s still wet cheek. ‘I shall be seeing you again shortly,’ he advised her, and smiled a little at her halfhearted response to this. Rimada replied timidly to his good wishes for a pleasant holiday, it was left to Loveday to look him in the eye and give him a firm handshake while she thanked him for her pleasant day. It was a nice little speech, compl
etely wasted upon him, though, for he grinned down at her, her hand still in his, and remarked: ‘How very polite you sound. I should so much rather hear exactly what you think, you know. Enjoy your holiday.’
No good-bye, no vague wish to see her again, however insincere; Loveday heard his firm footsteps, muffled by carpet, cross the hall. She was unlikely to meet him again—the thought gave her no satisfaction at all.
CHAPTER FOUR
THERE was little opportunity to talk to Rimada that evening. Only as they were on the way down to dinner, could Loveday ask: ‘But why are you afraid of your guardian? You looked as though he was going to gobble you up—even your mother…’ she paused. ‘Is it because he’s got a title?’
Rimada giggled. ‘No, of course not, silly—how absurd that would be! We all have titles, you know— Mother is Freule and so am I.’ She saw Loveday’s puzzled frown. ‘But it is too complicated to explain now.’
‘Then why?’ asked Loveday again with dogged persistence. ‘He’s not unkind—well, not really.’ She looked around her at the luxury of her surroundings. ‘And you seem to have just everything you could want.’
Rimada shrugged. ‘Perhaps; Mama likes to buy things and so do I—we never worry about money—why should we? There is so much. My father left a great deal of it, you know, but Adam is always telling us that we are extravagant and that we waste it on useless things.’ She smiled suddenly and looked like a mischievous child. ‘How angry he would be if he knew how much money Mama has given me for our holiday; much, much more than I need. But half of it is for Terry, although she doesn’t know that, of course.’