by Betty Neels
‘Oh, yes, of course, if that’s the thing to do. I thought it was just for children.’
She watched him counting out the notes, loving every dark hair on his head and every line on his good-looking face, and there were lines, she could see that; perhaps he was working too hard, that long journey to Cannes must have tired him out. She cried soundlessly: ‘Oh, Fulk, why did you have to fall in love with the wrong girl?’ and because he was holding the money out to her with thinly veiled impatience, took it from him, thanked him quietly and left him alone.
He had gone in the morning when she got down to breakfast. The nurse, a cheerful young girl, arrived just after ten o’clock, and Henry, happy enough now that he knew the shopping expedition was largely for his benefit, seemed content to stay with her. Eleanor and Margaret had an early lunch and when Fulk got back they were ready and waiting for him.
He had Margaret beside him on their short journey, apparently enjoying her cheerful chatter, but his manner was remote, although kind enough, when he had occasion to address Eleanor. ‘We’ll go to my rooms now and from there you can walk to the shops—they’re close by and you can’t possibly get lost. I shall be ready about four o’clock, so don’t bother with tea, we’ll have it together before we go home.’
They were in the city now, driving along a street with a wide canal running beside it, but presently Fulk turned into a narrow road which led to a square lined with old red brick houses, before one of which he stopped. ‘I’m on the ground floor,’ he explained. ‘Ring and walk in when you come back.’ He got out and opened the doors for them to get out too. ‘Go straight across the square and down that passage you can see in that corner, it will bring you out into one of the shopping streets.’ He nodded briefly. ‘Enjoy yourselves. Forgive me, I’m late,’ he told them, and went up the stone steps and in through the front door. As they walked away, Eleanor wondered if he had had any time for lunch; she thought it unlikely.
They had a lovely afternoon, first window-shopping, to gaze at the tempting displays of jewellery, leather-work, scarves and party clothes suitable for the festive season, but presently, aware that they were quite unable to buy the pink velvet dress Margaret coveted, or the crocodile handbag Eleanor had set her heart upon, they made their modest purchases, handkerchiefs and scarves for the staff at Huys Hensum, a game of Scrabble for Henry as well as a sketchbook and coloured pencils—over Fulk’s present they pondered for some time; everything had cost a good deal more than Eleanor had anticipated and many of the things which they might have chosen were far too expensive, but finally they decided on a book. It was The Ascent of Man which, Margaret pointed out, he would read with pleasure. ‘He’s very clever,’ she urged, ‘and clever people read that kind of book.’
It was while Eleanor was paying for it—and a lot of money it was too—that she noticed her small sister’s downcast face. ‘What is it, love?’ she asked. ‘Have you changed your mind—we can easily find something else…’
Margaret shook her head. ‘No—the book’s fine, it’s just that I wanted some money to buy something, but we haven’t any left, have we?’
Eleanor peered into her purse. She had used up the ten pounds and almost all of the extra money Fulk had advanced her. ‘Well, no,’ she admitted, ‘only a few of those little silver things—dubbeltjes, but I tell you what we’ll do, we’ll go back to Fulk’s rooms—it’s almost time, anyway, and I’ll borrow some more money from him and we can come back quickly and get what you want before we meet him for tea. Will that do?’
They found their way back easily enough to the square, rang the old-fashioned brass bell, and walked in, just as Fulk had told them to do. There was a door on the left of the narrow hall with his name on it and they went in: the waiting room, richly carpeted, nicely furnished, too, with flowers and plenty of magazines—none of your upright chairs and last year’s Woman’s Own laid out like fish on a slab with a gas fire burning economically low. Here the chairs were comfortable, dignified, and upholstered in a pleasing damask in various shades of blue. There were plenty of tables to accommodate handbags, gloves and parcels, too. Eleanor thoroughly approved of it; she approved too of the nice, cosy-looking nurse sitting at her desk; a woman to inspire confidence in the most timid of patients and probably very competent as well. She smiled at them now and spoke in excellent English.
‘Professor van Hensum is occupied with his last patient—if you would seat yourselves?’
But there was no need, for as she spoke the door at the other end of the room opened and a military-looking gentleman marched out with Fulk just behind him. He went across to the nurse and said something to her, exchanged some laughing remark with his departing patient and went to Eleanor and Margaret.
‘Have you had a good shop?’ he wanted to know. ‘I’ll be two minutes.’ He turned away, but Margaret slid a hand into his to stop him. ‘Fulk, please will you lend us some more money? Eleanor hasn’t any left and there’s something I want to buy.’
His hand was already in his pocket. ‘How much do you need? Fifty gulden, a hundred?’
‘For heaven’s sake!’ exclaimed Eleanor. ‘That’s far too much. Margaret, could you manage with ten gulden, or perhaps fifteen?’
‘I tell you what we’ll do,’ said Fulk easily, ‘we’ll go along to the shops now and you can decide how much you want to spend when we get there. Eleanor, do you want to borrow any more for yourself?’
She was grateful to him for being so matter-of-fact about it. There was still some small thing to choose for Margaret. She did some hasty mental arithmetic; she had some more money at Huys Hensum, but not much, and she had no intention of being in his debt. ‘Ten gulden would be nice if you could spare it,’ she told him, and wondered why he smiled.
She was grateful when they reached the shops, too, for he suggested that she might like to go off on her own while he stayed with Margaret. It left her free to buy the headscarf Margaret had admired before rejoining them outside Vroom and Dreesman’s main entrance. Eleanor had to wait a few minutes for them and whiled away the time watching the passers-by thronging the pavements, the women warmly clad with scarves pulled tight against the wind, the children encased in bright woollen outfits, their chubby faces, blue-eyed and pink-cheeked, peering out from under knitted caps, the men, large and solid in thick, short topcoats and a sprinkling of fur caps—and all of them laden with parcels.
Eleanor felt all at once lonely and far from home and her thoughts must have been reflected in her face, for Fulk said at her elbow: ‘You’re sad, and I wonder why?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, however, but took them to a nearby café; a cheerful, colourful place, warm and faintly Edwardian with its dark red carpet and panelled walls and little round tables. They drank their tea and ate rich cream cakes to the accompaniment of Margaret’s happy chatter, lingering over the meal so that it was quite dark when they left the café at length and went back to Fulk’s consulting rooms. During their drive home it was Margaret who did most of the talking, and although Fulk laughed and joked with her readily enough he was absent-minded, and as for Eleanor, she could think of nothing to say at all, for her head was full of Fulk.
At the house she went straight to Henry’s room so that the nurse could be freed to return to Groningen with Fulk. Her brother greeted her happily, thanked the nurse nicely, expressed the opinion that he would like to meet her again, and watched silently while Eleanor added her own thanks to his together with a box of chocolates, gaily wrapped. When the nurse had gone, he asked: ‘Why did you give her a present?’
‘Well, it was kind of her to come at such short notice to keep you company.’
Henry thought this over. ‘Yes. She was nice to Moggy and Flan too. Her name’s Wabke and it’s her day off, she told me, but Fulk asked her to come and sit with me and she did because she likes him very much, and he gave her fifty gulden…’
‘Fifty? Good gracious, I wonder…’ She had no chance to worry about whether she should pay him back fifty gulden or not,
because Henry asked urgently: ‘Did you have tea?’
‘Yes, dear.’ She had tossed off her hat and coat and gone to sit on the side of his bed.
‘So did we. We had a very short walk, just round the house, and then Tekla brought our tea to the sitting room; sandwiches and cake and little biscuits with nuts on them and hot buttered toast. We ate quite a great deal. Wabke says this is a very grand house. Is it, Eleanor?’
‘Well, yes, it is rather.’ She was still doing sums, wondering if she had enough money to pay Fulk the fifty gulden as well as the money she had borrowed. Henry cut into her calculations with: ‘What did you have for tea?’
‘Oh, gorgeous cakes,’ she brought her mind back with difficulty to their conversation, ‘though I think your tea sounded lovely. My cake was chocolate and pineapple and whipped cream arranged on a piece of pastry.’
‘What did Margaret have?’
Eleanor was saved from the details by Fulk’s entrance. His ‘Hullo, old chap, how’s the day been?’ was uttered in his usual kindly tones, but he didn’t look at her at all.
Henry grinned tiredly. ‘Super! I like Wabke. Gosh, it’s smashing to feel like me again. We went for a walk, you know, ever such a short one, and then we played Ludo and cards, only Wabke isn’t very good at games, but she laughs a lot and she liked Moggy and Flan. I hope I shall see her again before I go home.’
‘I’ll make a note of it,’ Fulk assured him gravely, and took his pulse. ‘You’ve done enough for today, though—supper in bed and go to sleep early—remember what I told you? I’ll come and see you before I go in the morning.’ He glanced at last at Eleanor. ‘I shall be out this evening.’
She stopped him at the door. ‘Oh—then could you spare a minute…?’
‘Unless it’s urgent, no. I’m late already.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Good night, Eleanor.’
Which left her feeling snubbed and still fretting about the fifty gulden. And where was he going? It was none of her business, of course, but she did want to know. Being in love, she decided as she got ready for bed some hours later, was no fun at all, and why couldn’t she have fallen for someone like Perry Maddon, who liked her for a start, instead of Fulk, who didn’t like her at all half the time, and he had far too much money too and led the kind of life she wouldn’t enjoy. That wasn’t true; she would enjoy it very much, living in this large, magnificently appointed house, with Juffrouw Witsma and Tekla and Bep to run it. Wearing beautiful clothes too, going out with Fulk to balls and parties, secure in the knowledge that he would come racing home each evening because he couldn’t bear to be parted from her…the sad feeling inside her which she had managed until now to ignore, dissolved into silent tears.
She didn’t go down to breakfast the next morning until she was sure that Fulk had gone, making the excuse to Margaret that Henry had slept late. Her sister gave her a disconcerting stare. ‘You’ve been crying,’ she stated. ‘You never cry—what’s the matter, Eleanor?’
‘Nothing, love—I think I’m just a little tired, and I’ve been so worried about Henry.’ Eleanor managed to smile. ‘I’ll have a cup of coffee and feel fine again. I thought we might write the labels for the presents— Henry could do Fulk’s.’
It was a small task, quickly done. She helped Henry, now becoming very independent and inclined to do more than he ought, and then with Margaret, walked in the gardens. There was a nice little wild corner almost out of sight of the house, where there were squirrels and any number of birds. They stopped to feed them and then went on to the pond to feed the ducks. ‘What a pity,’ Eleanor observed, ‘that Fulk has so little time to enjoy his own garden.’
‘Oh, but he does,’ protested Henry. ‘Before I was ill, we used to come here every day after lunch before Fulk went back to his work. Flan came too; we went around looking at things. He must have a lot more patients now, for he doesn’t come for lunch any more, does he? He’s not often home for tea, either, is he?’
A remark which set Eleanor’s unhappy thoughts on an even more unhappy course. It really seemed as though Fulk didn’t want to see more of her than he absolutely had to. Perhaps, despite what he had said, Imogen’s mother had impressed him with the unwisdom of having her in the house and risking Imogen’s feelings being hurt, but in that case, why didn’t the girl come back and keep an eye on the situation herself? Not that there was a situation. Eleanor frowned, wondering how much longer it would be before Henry would be fit to travel home; Christmas wasn’t far off now and that was a good arguing point. She had already made up her mind to talk to Fulk that evening; she would broach the subject at the same time.
She had no chance until after tea. She had sat on tenterhooks, playing cards with the children while she listened for the car, and when she had at last heard it, she threw in her hand in a manner to bring a flood of remonstrances from her companions, and heedless of their annoyed cries, ran downstairs. She reached the hall as he opened the house door and barely giving him time to get inside, said: ‘Fulk, I’d like to speak to you, could it be now?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘If it’s as urgent as all that, and presumably it is. You look ready to burst with your feelings, Eleanor. Come into the study.’
He shut the door behind her and waved her to a chair. ‘Talk up, dear girl,’ he begged her. ‘I’ll listen, but I’ve things to do at the same time, if you have no objection.’
It was awkward addressing his broad back while he bent over his desk opening and shutting drawers, taking things out and putting other things away. He looked at the clock too, which hardly encouraged her. Eleanor drew a deep breath. ‘It’s three things really,’ she began ungrammatically. ‘I want to know how much money I owe you, and that includes what you paid the nurse who came to look after Henry yesterday, and then I want to know how soon he can go home…’ She saw him stiffen and hurried on: ‘We can never thank you enough for all you’ve done, but we must be a perfect nuisance to you.’ And when he didn’t say anything: ‘And if he isn’t well enough to travel, I’ll go if you want me to. I’ve been thinking, Baroness Oss van Oss was quite right—I mean, about me being here and Imogen not liking it. I wouldn’t have liked it either, I’d have come…’ She paused just in time and changed what she had nearly said to: ‘I wouldn’t want to—that is, I don’t want to upset her even though there’s no reason for it, but if I go home you could let her know and she wouldn’t mind Henry being here, would she?’ She was quite unaware of the pleading in her voice.
She thought she heard Fulk laugh, but of course she must have been mistaken; what was there to laugh about? She sighed a little and waited for him to answer.
He shut a final drawer and leaned against the corner of the desk, jingling his keys gently up and down in one large, well-kept hand.
‘You were a tiresome little girl,’ he remarked in a gentle voice, ‘always wanting to know things, and now that you’re grown up you are still tiresome, though perhaps not quite in the same way. I haven’t the least idea how much you owe me; when I have the time I will see about it and let you know, since you will only nag me until I do. And no, Henry is not well enough to go home, and no, I do not wish you to leave my house, and may I add in passing that Baroness Oss van Oss never has and never will influence me in any way. There is only one person who can do that, but she hasn’t yet realized that. And now you really must excuse me—I’ve a date.’
Eleanor stood up too quickly. ‘Oh, I didn’t know,’ she said blankly, and was rendered speechless by his bland: ‘How should you? I didn’t mention it before.’
She had had no intention of asking, but she heard herself enquiring: ‘Are you going away again?’
‘Yes. I’ll go and see Henry before I leave and if there is anything I think you should know, I’ll leave a note on the mantelpiece.’
She said fiercely: ‘I don’t understand you; you tell me I’m not to go home and yet you make a point of keeping out of my way—I suppose it’s for Henry’s sake.’
His face was in the shadows. ‘Supp
ose what you like, Eleanor,’ he offered calmly, and she turned on her heel and snatched at the door handle.
‘I hope you have a nice weekend,’ she answered, still fierce, ‘although I couldn’t care less!’ She went through the door and shut it rather violently behind her.
She spent a good deal of the evening trying to cheer up a glum Henry and a disappointed Margaret. ‘But he won’t be here for Sint Nikolaas,’ Henry argued for the tenth time, ‘and we’ve got him a present.’
‘He can have it when he gets back,’ Eleanor assured him in a cheerful voice which sounded over-loud in her own ears. ‘We can give the others their presents and watch the TV, there’ll be a special programme and you know you love the colours.’
‘But we can’t understand what they’re saying,’ Margaret pointed out in a discouraged voice. ‘Do you suppose Fulk forgot?’
‘No, of course not, but we have all forgotten that he’s engaged to Imogen, and I expect he wants to be with her so that he can give her a present…’
‘She could have come here,’ grumbled Henry. ‘I wonder what he’ll give her?’
‘Rubies and diamonds and emeralds,’ stated Margaret positively. ‘He’s very rich, Hermina told me so. If I were just a little older and he were just a little younger, I should cut Imogen out and marry him myself.’ She looked at Eleanor. ‘I don’t know why you don’t, darling Eleanor; you’re just a nice age for him and though I’ve never seen a photograph of her, I’m sure you’re a hundred times prettier—besides, wouldn’t it be lovely for all of us? We could come and stay with you, and mind the babies while you and Fulk go away on marvellous holidays together. I…’