by Betty Neels
The weather still held; she drove the Cadillac each day to some local beauty spot, and as well as that, she encouraged Mr Boekerchek to walk and work in the garden, for he was recovering fast now and taking an interest in everything now. They were within two days of their departure for den Haag when he wanted to know if Charity had any plans.
“No,” she told him quietly. “I don’t know when you would like me to leave—I can go home from here…”
He cut her short in horror. “But you’ve had no free days,” he reminded her. “You must come back with us, of course, and have a little holiday before you go back to England.” He thought for a few moments. “If you stay in my employ for—say, four days after we get back home, you can use our apartment as a base and spend your days as you like—on your salary, of course. How’s that for an idea, honey?”
Charity agreed readily; it would be nice to have a day or two to herself, much as she liked the Boekercheks, and when she was offered a small car so that she could get around and explore for herself, she was delighted. There was a lot she wished to see—Utrecht, for example. She reminded herself that she had never explored it properly, ignoring the tiny voice at the back of her head telling her excitedly that here was an unlooked for chance to see the professor just once more.
She was aware that it was a foolish plan, but that didn’t prevent her from carrying it out on the day following their return. A rather elderly Mini had been found for her, she set off directly after breakfast, undeterred by a nasty little wind and the threat of rain from a fast clouding sky. She parked the Mini by the side of one of the canals in Utrecht and made her way to the café where she had had coffee with the Sisters from the hospital, hoping that perhaps one of them might be there, but there was no one whom she knew at the crowded tables. She realised suddenly that she was lonely, that it would have been pleasant to have had a companion. Perhaps after all she wouldn’t stay until the end of her four days; she would think up some reason for going home so that the Boekercheks wouldn’t be offended, and book a flight for the next day. She drank her coffee while she made her plans and went outside again; since she was here she might as well see as much as possible.
She went first to St Catherine’s Convent Museums and then to the Central Museum; by that time it was one o’clock, so she had a Kaas broodje and some more coffee at a small café close by, sitting over it for as long as she could, for the afternoon stretched emptily before her even though she had visited only a fraction of the places in her guide book. She decided all at once to scrap them and go where her feet led her until tea time—not that she obeyed her feet, which showed a tendency to stray in the direction of the quiet street where Everard van Tijlen lived. Instead, she chose the opposite direction, away from the city centre, into a maze of quiet streets and little alleys where there was almost no traffic and few people about.
The buildings she passed were old, and used, as far as she could see, as offices and small workshops. Here and there were shops too, small, and selling only the everyday necessities of daily life, and squeezed in between these, overlooked perhaps by virtue of their very smallness, were a handful of houses, brightening their surroundings with their spotless net curtains and potted plants. It had begun to rain in earnest now and Charity had just decided to return to the heart of the city and find somewhere for an early tea and perhaps visit a few churches afterwards, when her attention was drawn to two people crossing the street ahead of her. A man and a woman, very old and dressed in rusty black, walking arm in arm, their heads bowed against the rain, their feet uncertain on the cobbles, so uncertain that the old woman faltered and fell.
There was no one in sight; Charity sprinted up the street, straightened the old man, who was on the point of toppling over too, and got down on her knees by the old woman. She had knocked herself out and already there was a red patch on one temple which told its own tale. Charity took her pulse, made as certain as possible that there were no obvious broken bones and turned to the old man. She had said she would never speak Dutch, but now seemed an occasion when the handful of words and useful phrases which she had picked up over the last few weeks might be useful. “Huis?” she ventured, and then: “Waar?”
She was understood, for the old man pointed a shaking hand across the street towards a gloomy building of moderate size. It looked dreary and institutional and was probably an old people’s home. Charity picked up the old woman in her strong young arms and with the old man hanging on to her sleeve, crossed the street and mounted the steps, where she had to wait while he fumbled with the old-fashioned doorknob. The hall they at last entered was austere, and as sombre as the outside of the building, and at its far end stood Professor van Tijlen, his handsome head bent as he listened to his companion, a large woman with a massive bosom and dressed severely in grey.
He raised his head as Charity walked in, said something forceful and, from the startled shock on the stout lady’s face, probably very rude, in his own language and started towards her. His companion bustled forward busily too, but he outstripped her easily and stopped in front of Charity, muttered something and took her burden from her.
“You don’t need to mutter like that,” said Charity clearly. “I just happened to be passing. I’m just as surprised to meet you here as you are.” She didn’t wait for his reply but went on calmly: “She fell in the street and knocked herself out—the old gentleman is very shocked.”
The professor’s lip twitched. “One would imagine that he might well be,” he observed mildly, and turned to speak to the stout lady, who as a consequence took the old man gently by the arm and walked him away, talking all the time in a soothing, motherly voice which was in direct variance to her appearance.
“Well, since you’re here,” said the professor, “you might as well lend a hand. That door on the left, if you would be so good as to open it.”
A small apartment, half consulting-room, part first aid. He laid his frail burden gently upon the examination couch, saying: “We had better have some of these things off.”
Charity cast off her raincoat and began the task of getting the old lady’s outer garments off, and then stood aside while the professor examined her with gentle hands. “I believe there are no bones broken,” he said at length, “just a nasty bump on the head—we had better get it X-rayed. If she’s clear she can be brought back here and Juffrouw Blom can look after her.”
“Oh, you can’t do that,” said Charity earnestly, quite forgetting to whom she was speaking. “She can’t come back here, it’s so grey and gloomy, she would be much happier in hospital.”
He took the dressing she was holding out to him. When he answered her his voice was reasonable enough but slightly impatient.
“You don’t understand, how should you? It would break her heart—and her husband’s—if she were moved to the hospital.”
Charity was cleaning the unconscious old face conscious of surprise at the professor’s concern—what did he know about broken hearts? She asked curiously: “Oh, do you know them?”
“Mijnheer and Mevrouw Bregman—they live here.”
She lifted enquiring green eyes to his grey ones. “And you? Are you the consultant here?”
He smiled faintly. “I am.” He went over to the desk and dialled a number, had a brief conversation put back the receiver, and said:
“And now if you will excuse me, Charity, I’ll get my car.” He paused on his way out. “Did you intend visiting my grandmother while you are in Utrecht? I’m sure she would be delighted to see you again.”
“No,” said Charity firmly, “I have to go back to den Haag—I came to—to see some museums.”
“They’re in the centre of the city,” he pointed out blandly.
“I know that,” she said a little crossly, “but I had some time to spare and I went for a walk.”
His eyebrows arched slightly. “Indeed?” He swung the door open. “Goodbye to you, Charity.”
His place was taken almost at once by the stout lady w
ho was towing a thin, nondescript girl behind her. To Charity’s surprise she addressed her in good English. “Bep here will take you to my sitting-room, miss. There is coffee there, you must need refreshment.”
“How kind!” Charity hesitated. “But isn’t there anything I can do to help?”
“No, I think not. Professor van Tijlen will be back in a few moments to carry Mevrouw Bregman to his car and I will help him if necessary.”
She spoke firmly. Charity picked up her raincoat and followed the nonentity out of the room and down a dark passage to a remarkably cosy room, bright with gay curtains and comfortably furnished. However gloomy the place was, the stout lady had a nice little place of her own, decided Charity, and at her companion’s urging, took a seat by the window. There was a garden outside, small but carefully laid out with beds of flowers, very choice flowers, she noted idly, not at all the kind of thing one would expect in an institution garden—perhaps it was a private charity of some sort with a great many wealthy patrons.
She poured herself a cup of coffee from the tray Bep had brought in and sat sipping it and wondering about the professor. It would have been nice to have seen old Mevrouw van Tijlen again, but if she went to his house he might suspect that she was anxious to see him again, too—probably he thought that already; she seemed to have the habit of meeting him unexpectedly and he had never expressed pleasure at seeing her. It was disheartening to reflect that she might just as well have had a cast in one eye or rabbit teeth for all the impression she had made on him.
These depressing reflections were interrupted by the entry of the stout lady, who sat down comfortably beside her and rather belatedly introduced herself as Juffrouw Blom. As they shook hands, she went on: “I am the directrice here, but I daresay you already know that from the professor.” She gave Charity a conspiratorial look. “He keeps his work here a secret, you know. You are honoured that he has told you, for only a few of his closest friends know that he runs this home out of his own pocket. He was a little surprised to see you just now—such language!” Her vast frame shuddered gently. “But that was because of the accident—I am sure that you already know that he is a man of great calm, but just now and again he—how do you say?—he erupts.”
Charity was breathless to hear more; here was a side of the professor she didn’t know existed. “Have you worked for the professor for a long time?” she asked.
Her companion nodded her rigidly coiffured head. “Indeed, yes. Ever since he bought this place and converted it. There are twenty small flats, as you know, and the rents the old people pay—a trifle, no more, to save their pride.” She shrugged massive shoulders. “The professor’s hand is always in his pocket; one knows that he is a very rich man; that he commands large sums for his work, but it is not only money, it is his time and his care of us all—” She broke off. “But of course you will know all about that.”
Charity hid bewilderment and said yes, of course she understood, and how proud Juffrouw Blom must be of being in charge of such an establishment.
“Oh, I am,” she was assured, “for although Professor van Tijlen prefers to remain unknown, this place is highly thought of by many people—we receive many visitors.”
Charity said impulsively: “Oh, could you spare a few minutes to show me a little of it?” and added, “I have heard so much about it.” Which in a way was true, for had not Juffrouw Blom talked of nothing else for the last ten minutes?
The brief glimpse she was allowed of several of the flats filled her with amazement. Gone was the gloom of the rather ugly building; each small home was gaily painted, light and airy, and filled with the occupiers’ own particular treasures. “There is a waiting list,” she was told, “but once they come they do not have to leave again—if one is left, then he or she stays on. They are secure, and security is important to the old.”
Charity left soon afterwards, but not before she had asked where Juffrouw Blom had learned her excellent English, and been told that she had trained as a nurse in England some years after Holland had been liberated. “I am not young any more, nor so handsome, eh?” she chuckled richly, “but I am happy here; I keep the professor’s secret as he would wish and I work for him until I can no longer do so, and then I shall have one of these little flats for my own. I am content, you know.” She chuckled again, wished Charity goodbye and stood on the steps to wave to her when she reached the corner of the street.
Charity was thoughtful as she walked back; she had discovered a great deal about the professor, but she had been mean about it, letting Juffrouw Blom suppose that she and Everard van Tijlen were on such good terms that she was in the secret too. She remembered what the directrice had said about keeping that same secret; perhaps if he discovered that she had told it, however innocently, he might give her the sack. Charity stopped in the middle of a small arched bridge spanning the dark waters of a narrow canal and stared down into it. That would never do; Juffrouw Blom, despite her formidable appearance, was a dear, it would break her loyal heart to be dismissed from a job she undoubtedly loved—besides, there would be no pleasant little flat when she retired—and had she not said herself that the professor could, on occasion, erupt?
Charity walked on, her mind made up, she would have to go and see the professor and explain so that no hint of blame could be attached to the directrice. Not today, though, it was already too late; she would telephone and make an appointment the moment she got back to den Haag; his secretary could book her just like anyone else, he might not even know that she was coming. All the better.
She telephoned the next morning early and was given an appointment for four o’clock at the professor’s consulting-rooms.
“I thought—the hospital—” began Charity, who hadn’t given a thought to consulting-rooms; five minutes squeezed in between two outpatients would have done very nicely.
“The professor works until one o’clock in the hospital,” his secretary told her, “and then he sees his private patients—you will be the last. There is nothing else possible, unless you could wait until next week.”
And write a letter from England? That wouldn’t do at all. Charity settled for four o’clock and asked where she should go.
The address was in a street close to the Dom tower. She parked the Mini, squeezing in between two cars alongside the canal which dissected it and crossed the brick road to the row of sober houses facing it. Number three, the secretary had said, and sure enough, there was the brass plate with the professor’s name with an impressive “ring once” engraved after it in Dutch.
Charity rang once and went inside into a quiet hall and through another door with his name on it and Receptie above it. The waiting room was as quiet as the hall, discreetly furnished in shades of grey with white walls and subtle touches of pale colour. Very soothing, and Charity, who by this time needed soothing, advanced across the thick carpet glad to see that there were no other patients so she wouldn’t have to wait. The nurse at the desk in the corner had looked up as she went in; now she smiled and asked: “Miss Dawson. Professor van Tijlen will be a moment only, if you will sit.”
Charity sat, outwardly composed in her neat cream shirtwaister, but behind her calm front her brain was seething with half-formed sentences, dignified apologies and logical reasons for what she had done. She had them in a fine muddle when the buzzer sounded gently and the nurse ushered her in through the door beyond her desk.
Everard van Tijlen wasn’t sitting at his desk but standing before the window, staring out. He turned round as she went in, wished her good afternoon in the politest of voices and added: “You have parked your car very neatly—you are not afraid of driving into one of our canals?”
“Oh, but I am—only there’s never anywhere else to put the car. I never seem able to find a car park, they’re so…” Charity stopped, aware that the interview had begun quite wrongly; she hadn’t come to talk about parking difficulties. She began again. “I won’t take up more than five minutes of your time, but there is somethin
g I must explain—I think you may be rather angry…”
“Supposing you sit down and tell me about it?”
He sounded just as a good consultant should, kind and impersonal and relaxed, as though nothing in the world could ever make him angry.
“Well,” she started, “yesterday afternoon…” She darted a look at him, but he had turned to face her now and he was in the shadow. She took a deep breath. “I know about the old people’s home, and—and you, I mean that I know that you pay for it and run it and it’s a secret, only I let Juffrouw Blom think that you had told me about it, so she told me a great deal—she wouldn’t have, you know, if she hadn’t supposed… She took me over some of the flats too and told me what a lot of money it cost, and—and I thought that you spent your fees on cars and…”
“Pretty girls, perhaps?” he enquired silkily.
“Yes,” said Charity miserably. There was a horrid little silence and she saw that he wasn’t going to say anything, so she started off once more. “I didn’t think—but then I wondered if you would be very angry if she told you that I knew and give her the sack—she said that sometimes you erupt.” She had her eyes fixed on his shirt front and didn’t see his slow smile; she was almost babbling by now. “She’s so nice, I couldn’t bear it if— I’m sorry I had to come here, for I know you don’t—that is, I didn’t want to come, only to explain.”
He had gone to sit at his desk. When she had finished he said pleasantly: “I imagine my secret is safe with you, Charity. I think that there is no reason to say any more about it. Thank you for coming.”
And that was all he was going to say. She got to her feet and started for the door, wanting to burst into silly tears, but mindful of her pride she swallowed them back to say politely: “Thank you for being so mag—mag…”
“Magnanimous?” he offered. “And now perhaps we might consider the whole tiresome business finished with. My grandmother has charged me to bring you back to my house for tea. We might go now, I think.”