by Betty Neels
“I should have thought that Mevrouw van Tijlen would have preferred a member of the family to be with her,” hazarded Charity.
She didn’t notice his pause. “Well, miss, they’re scattered around as you might say, and I think that Mevrouw is afraid that if I get in touch with one of them, they would let the professor know, and that’s something she won’t hear of.”
“Well, I can understand that, Potter. Just so long as she’s not seriously ill—but you say that she isn’t—let’s hope she will be well again by the time Professor van Tijlen gets back. When will that be?”
Potter became vague again. “That’s a thing I can’t say, miss. Mevrouw will know.”
Charity stared out at the quiet countryside. It would be dusk soon; there were already lights in some of the houses. She would have to explain to Mevrouw van Tijlen that she intended to leave before the professor returned—nothing, absolutely nothing, would induce her to see him again. Let bygones be bygones. She elaborated this with: “Least said, soonest mended”, adding for good measure: “Don’t cry over spilt milk”. None of these sensible sayings gave her the least comfort. She wrenched her thoughts back to the present. “You’re a first-rate driver, Potter,” she told her companion.
He glowed gently. “Thank you, miss. I’ve been at it for years, you might say—drove a tank at the end of the last war.”
“Now that is interesting,” observed Charity, and being her father’s daughter, plunged into the subject with intelligent enthusiasm. “Tell me about it.”
They were still deeply engrossed when they reached the professor’s house, where they were admitted by Mrs Potter, breathing a welcome in both Dutch and English. She led the way upstairs without loss of time, while Potter, coming behind them with Charity’s case, explained that Mevrouw van Tijlen had asked if she would go and see her as soon as she had settled in.
But first Charity was to dine, interposed Mrs Potter, in half an hour in the dining room, if that pleased Miss Dawson, and Charity, healthily hungry, agreed that half an hour would suit her very nicely as she followed the housekeeper down an arched passage on the first floor, leading to the back of the house. It surprised her that the house was so large, for they seemed to be passing door after door. It was Potter who saw her glancing around her and who volunteered the information that the house went a long way back from the street. “There’s a nice bit of garden, too, miss,” he volunteered.
Charity inspected the garden presently, after they had left her in a room with two long, wide windows overlooking one of the prettiest bits of garden she had ever set eyes on. True it was small, but planned so delightfully that there was room for several white-painted wrought iron chairs and a small table, a little walnut tree to shade them, and a banked-up flower bed against its end wall. The small slip of lawn was very green and upon it rested a round basket, in which she could see a tabby cat with three kittens. As she looked, straining her eyes a little because dusk was rapidly turning to the evening’s dark, a door opened somewhere below and Mrs Potter appeared, to scoop up the basket and its contents and bear it indoors, a homely gesture which somehow made the day’s happenings seem quite normal.
She turned away from the evening outside and gave her attention to the room. It was large and high-ceilinged and furnished to perfection with a little canopied bed, a Hepplewhite dressing-table and a small davenport against one wall. The furnishings were pale pastels whose delicate tones were echoed in the adjoining bathroom, and if that were not enough, there were several small, extremely comfortable chairs arranged invitingly with reading tables handy, each with its tinted lamp and pile of books and magazines. Very luxurious, thought Charity, exploring, and wondered what Everard would say if he knew that she was here, in his house.
She did her hair and her face and went back along the passage and down the stairs, where she found Potter waiting in the hall, ready to usher her into the dining-room, to sit solitary at a great oval table, with its heavy candlesticks and flower centrepiece. She drank her soup slowly, looking around her as she did so. Here was more evidence of the professor’s wealth; she had never quite believed in it, but now she had proof of it and found it a little daunting—the table silver she was using was old and genuine, as were the delicate porcelain plates from which she ate her delicious dinner. She was glad when the meal was over and she could go to Mevrouw van Tijlen.
The old lady was in bed, perched up against a number of pillows, frilled and embroidered, their square vastness making her look very small, but not, Charity was quick to observe, in the least ill.
“Dear child,” said Mevrouw van Tijlen, “how good of you to come, and how tiresome an old woman can become—but after Everard had gone I felt so peculiar. I know it is only my age and silly nerves, but I made myself quite ill, and when Dr de Wal came to see me and I told him about you, he thought it a splendid idea for you to come and keep me company while I am alone.”
Charity listened quietly to the gruff little voice. Of course the old lady wasn’t alone; the Potters were devoted to her and she had herself seen two maids in the house as well; she would have to make it quite clear about leaving before Everard returned and discovered her.
“I’m glad to see you’re not too poorly,” she said warmly, “and of course I didn’t mind coming—I wasn’t doing anything at home. But there is one thing. I don’t want to be here when the professor returns. I shall want to leave before that. Can that be arranged, do you think?”
Mevrouw van Tijlen’s answer wasn’t very direct. “Well, he’s been gone, let me see, two days—one of those meetings, you know, in Vienna—a lovely city, I went there as a girl. They last a very long time, but whenever he is away, he telephones me the day before he returns, so that will give you plenty of time to pack your things and go, my dear.” She stared at Charity. “You’re quite sure you don’t want to meet him?”
“Yes, quite sure.”
The little figure in the vast bed wriggled and fidgeted and Charity went to rearrange the pillows.
“I was under the impression that you loved Everard.”
There seemed no point in pretending. “I do, you know that.”
Mevrouw van Tijlen’s eyes sparkled. She looked at the little silver clock on the bedside table and said suddenly: “Sit down, child, and tell me about your home—that is if you are not too tired.”
Charity sat, denying tiredness. “But is there nothing I can do for you? I had thought that you were in need of a nurse…”
Her companion waved a bony hand. “Not tonight, Charity, but I would enjoy a chat. I have been worried, but now that you are here, I feel better already.”
So Charity talked; about her home and the country around it and Lucy’s wedding. Mevrouw van Tijlen was deep in a description of her own wedding dress when she interrupted herself somewhat abruptly:
“Dear child, will you go downstairs to Everard’s study and fetch my spectacles? How foolish of me to have forgotten to ask Potter to bring them up—I need them in the night, you know—if I can’t sleep.”
Charity jumped to her feet at once, glad to be of some use, however slight. “Of course, where are they exactly? And won’t the professor mind me going to his study?”
The old lady peeped at her from under her brows. “He won’t mind—look in the second drawer on the left of his desk. The drawers are locked, but the keys are kept in the centre drawer.” She glanced again at the clock. “Will you go now, my dear, before we start talking again and forget?”
Charity went, reflecting that the old were sometimes possessed of a quite irrational impatience. There was no one about downstairs, the hall was softly lighted, the study door, behind the dining-room, was shut. She opened it and went inside.
It was, as were most of the rooms in the house, large and lofty, and in this case, austere. Books lined the walls, the desk in its centre was large and laden with the impedimenta she had come to accept as a necessity for most members of the medical profession; journals, samples, patients’ notes,
memo pads and two telephones, all jostling for a place. There was a big chair behind the desk.
She put her hand lovingly upon it for a moment and then turned to the centre drawer to find the keys. She had just fitted one into the second drawer on the left when the professor came in.
Charity’s surprise was so profound that she was speechless, all she could do was to stare, her pretty mouth open. But surprise had no such effect upon the professor; he spoke with obvious wrath, something explosive in his own tongue before recovering his usual calm manner as he advanced towards her without haste. “My dear girl,” he said blandly, “so this is the urgent matter for which Grandmother demanded my return.”
He put out a hand and took the bunch of keys from her nerveless fingers, laid them on the desk and whisked her into his arms, to kiss her with deep satisfaction and at some length, and Charity, after the faintest of protests, kissed him back.
Presently, though, she found her tongue, although her voice was annoyingly squeaky with the strength of her feelings. “But you aren’t expected back—you went away for some time—you weren’t to be worried…”
He sorted out these fragments of information. “But I am back—who told you I wasn’t expected, my darling girl?—and I do wonder why you are here.”
She thought about being called his darling girl before she replied: “Potter, that is, your grandmother said…”
He smiled suddenly. “Sufficiently good reason for you to rifle my desk?”
She flared up. “I was not rifling your desk! I was fetching your grandmother’s spectacles—they’re in the second drawer on the left—she told me to look there.”
She saw his eyes light up with laughter. “And Grandmother—and Potter—told you that I wouldn’t be back?” He kissed her again with satisfying thoroughness. “Potter would say anything Grandmother told him to—she winds him round her little finger, she winds me round her little finger too, but you, my dearest darling, you wind me round your heart, we fit together, like the gemel ring. Grandmother, being old and impatient, has been anticipating fate, for of course, fate would have brought us together again.”
“You mean that your grandmother isn’t ill at all? She didn’t want a nurse—she arranged it all?”
“Yes, my darling.”
She persisted, following a train of thought. “But supposing I had refused to come, or you hadn’t come back, or…”
“Grandmother, I’m afraid to say, is a bit of a gambler.”
There was a great deal not clear to her. She pulled away from his arms and was at once caught and held more firmly than before. When he spoke his voice was quiet and tender. “Do you know, my darling, that I never realised that I loved you? not until the other day in the Home when you accused me of preventing you from going back to England. And it was true, only all that time I never really knew, despite the fact that I looked for you everywhere I went, and made excuses to visit Mr Boekerchek—and when I found you all on your own during the fire, I wanted to pick you up and rush you to safety, and each time something kept you from returning to England I was happy. I came back here that day and took the gemel ring and put it here, in this drawer, with some half-formed plan in my head that I would bring you here and give it to you—only you were so fierce with me, saying that you wanted to go away. And I let you go, knowing very well that I would follow you because I wouldn’t be able to help myself.”
He loosed her at last and opened the drawer and drew out the little red box and took the gemel ring from it and put it on her finger. “We’ll marry, my dear love? and soon?”
“Yes, Everard.” Her eyes glowed greenly as she smiled up at him with a hint of mischief. “But perhaps I should warn you that I’m not a doormat.”
“And thank God for it, my love, for I suspect that between us we shall produce a bunch of healthy, naughty children—though I think we should content ourselves with rather less than the dozens you wished on me.”
“With no glasses?” asked Charity, and reached up to kiss him.
“No glasses,” promised the professor.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-3978-4
THE GEMEL RING
Copyright © 1974 by Betty Neels
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