The Fifth Day of Christmas

by Betty Neels

  ‘A starter?’ prompted Ivo. ‘How about Mousse d’Avocat? If you like avocado pears.’ Julia, who had never eaten one, had no intention of telling him so, she nodded and chose soufflé de Turbot Hollandaise, leaving him to decide upon quenelle of pike Nantua before going into conference with the wine waiter, but once the important question of what they were going to eat had been settled, he gave her his undivided attention.

  ‘And what do you think of our shops?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Super,’ said Julia briefly, ‘only expensive.’ She was eating her avocado pear and finding it delicious.

  He agreed. ‘And of course it is Christmas—the shops show all their most tempting wares. Did you look at any jewellery?’

  Julia kept her eyes on her plate and wished that she didn’t flush so easily. ‘Yes—they’re marvellous. The diamonds!’

  ‘You like diamonds?’

  She was surprised into looking at him. ‘Me? Of course—I imagine all women do.’

  ‘A safe choice for a man to make, you think?’ He sounded only casually interested.

  Julia eyed her turbot with a sudden lack of appetite. ‘Very safe,’ she said, but surely he would have asked Marcia…? ‘But women don’t have to have diamonds, you know. I should think most of them are quite happy with—with turquoises or garnets or something similar.’

  ‘Rubies?’ he asked lightly, smiling.

  So it was rubies for Marcia; Julia wondered if he knew that bit about a good woman being above rubies; probably not. She said woodenly,

  ‘Definitely rubies,’ and he went on to talk about something else. It was when they were eating dessert—mangoes in champagne—that he remarked, ‘How delightful the meals were in Drumlochie House—I often think of them.’

  Julia, full of false cheer from the wine and the champagne and Cointreau which had enwrapped the mangoes, smiled at him. ‘Me too. But the meals weren’t all that good, you know. I expect it was because we were all hungry for most of the time and cold as well.’

  ‘Lord, yes. Those bedrooms—mine was like an ice house.’

  She remembered him lying on the great bed, fast asleep, and smiled. ‘You looked like a petrified knight on a tomb,’ she said, and went a little pink when he said on a laugh, ‘Did I? I shan’t tell you what you looked like.’

  She avoided his eye, concentrating on her coffee cup. The conversation was back on their old easy footing, and it wouldn’t do. Marcia’s long face floated in the air before her, looking reproachful, and much as Julia disliked her, she couldn’t take advantage of her behind her back. She asked briskly, ‘Where are we going first? And can you really spare the time?’

  He assured her that he could and suggested the Ridderzaal, followed by a visit to the Mauritshuis museum, and lastly the tower of St Jacobskerk. If there was any time over from these treats he declared that he would see that no second of it was wasted. The afternoon arranged, they set off for the Ridderzaal, where the beamed roofs, stained glass windows and flags which adorned the walls of this thirteenth-century building satisfied even Julia’s lively imagination. There weren’t many visitors on such a cold afternoon, and the guide, about to conduct a handful of people round, asked without much interest if they wished to join his party, but Ivo, after a short parley, walked her off in the opposite direction to the one in which the guide was taking and they ambled around undisturbed and almost alone, while he explained the history of the old place at some length.

  The museum was just behind the Ridderzaal, housed in a beautiful sixteenth-century house. Here they dawdled amongst the Rembrandts, Vermeers, Franz Hals and a number of other equally famous painters, with Julia displaying a knowledge of these treasures which, it amused her to see, rather surprised her escort. He said at length, ‘You know a great deal.’

  ‘Not really,’ she answered honestly, ‘but when I was a student nurse I hadn’t a great deal of money so I spent a lot of time in museums and picture galleries.’ They were standing in front of Rembrandt’s self-portrait and she smiled at him over her shoulder and surprised a look on his face which set her heart beating a great deal faster than it should. She plunged at once into the first topic of conversation which entered her head, which was, not surprisingly, Rembrandt. She kept up quite a dissertation on him, rivalling her patient in both length and dullness, and only stopped when Ivo said gently,

  ‘It’s all right, dear girl—I’m not sure why you took fright, but there is no harm in us recapturing our happy times at Drumlochie House, is there?’

  ‘No,’ said Julia instantly, ‘but it was easy and natural somehow, wasn’t it, to be friends—I suppose it was because we were cut off from everything, in our own world. Now we’re normal again and it seems unreal.’ She gave him a frank look. ‘You’re different, too.’

  They were walking slowly past priceless paintings which neither of them saw. ‘And you are just the same,’ said Ivo slowly. ‘That’s what makes it so hard.’ With which cryptic remark she had to be content.

  They went up the tower of St Jacobskerk after that, climbing the steps slowly and then standing to admire the view while Ivo pointed out the landmarks around them, recounting old tales and snatches of legends as he did so, so that each one came alive as he spoke. He told her about the village of Haghe, where William the Second had had his hunting lodge, which over the years, had become a town and finally the city it was before them, still keeping its name ‘The Hedge’. Only the threatening dusk sent them down at last, to hurry through the streets to Formosa for tea, where they lingered, talking of unimportant things, and Julia, forgetful of everything but the delightful present, was happy.

  Only later as they walked down Noordeinde to where Ivo had left his car did she remember, with sudden and painful vividness, Ivo coming out of the jeweller’s shop that morning, but she dismissed it instantly and gave herself up to the delightful make-believe world of the present. The future, and Marcia, could be faced when she got back; meanwhile she stopped, obedient to Ivo’s hand on her arm, to admire a windowful of toys, and vied with him in picking out which she would have chosen if she had been a child again.

  They had only been in the car a minute or so when Jorina joined them, her arms full of parcels and bubbling over with happiness because she had spent the whole afternoon with Klaas.

  ‘He’s coming to the party, of course,’ she explained to Julia as Ivo threaded his way through the city’s heart and out of it through the suburbs. ‘He’ll stay the night and spend Christmas Day with us—then I shall go back with him to his family in Arnhem.’ She drew a breath and went on, ‘I found some shoes—brown calf with black patent leather trimming—a little expensive, but just what I wanted.’

  She rattled on happily for the rest of the journey home, unnoticing of the other two’s silence, but when they were nearly home she asked,

  ‘And what did you two do?’

  Julia told her, with occasional comments from Ivo as she did so, making it last as long possible because it was easier to talk than to sit and think. They were all very gay by the time Ivo drew up in front of the house; they went inside together, still laughing and talking, to part in the hall, the girls to go upstairs and Ivo, after taking off his coat, to enter the sitting room, the books he had promised Marcia under his arm.

  Julia hardly spoke to him that evening, for after dinner he went to his study and didn’t come out until after she had coaxed Marcia up to bed. She went to her own room herself once she had her patient safely between the sheets, for she was tired after her day’s sightseeing and even more wearied from Marcia’s low-voiced utterances, all of which reiterated her selfless wish to see others enjoying themselves even at the expense of her own comfort and happiness. She had taken care to utter none of these remarks in front of Ivo, though; to him she had been appealingly wistful, interested in their day in the Hague, and while expressing her delight at the success of the outing, managed to convey, without uttering a word to that effect, that both he and Julia had been both selfish and thoughtles
s.

  Julia, brushing her hair with a violence calculated to tear it out by the roots, remembered Ivo’s slight frown as he had listened to Marcia and gave her patient credit for being clever. She got into bed, her mind a prey to a multitude of thoughts, all of them unhappy. She was almost asleep when she remembered that Ivo had kissed her; probably it had meant nothing to him and it had really no right to mean anything to her. All the same, she smiled as she closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE NEXT DAY was Christmas Eve, and after weeks of bad weather the sun shone from a pale blue sky, giving the frost it wasn’t strong enough to disperse an added sprinkle. Julia, going to see how her patient was before breakfast, stopped for a moment to look out of one of the landing windows and admire the wintry scene. It was still not full daylight, although the sun was making a brave blaze of colour on the flat horizon, and somewhere outside she could hear Bep calling to Lien, who came from the village each day to help in the house. Their voices, very clear in the frosty air, sounded cheerful, and that, combined with the sunshine and the aromatic smell of coffee from the kitchen, contrived to put Julia into a cheerful frame of mind; it was, after all, Christmas and a time of good fellowship. She went to Marcia’s room, determined to be kind and considerate and even to try and like her patient a little.

  It was a pity that Marcia wasn’t of the same mind; she greeted Julia with a cross face, a muttered greeting and a rather tart request to hand her a book lying just out of reach. Julia handed it to her, forbearing to mention that she could have quite easily got it for herself, adjusted her patient’s pillows to a nicety and went downstairs to see if the post had arrived. It had; she sorted Marcia’s scanty mail and went along to the kitchen to get her early morning tea tray, delaying for a few minutes in order to practice her scanty Dutch on Bep before going upstairs. She had deposited the tray, handed over the letters and was on her way to the door when she was stopped.

  ‘Nurse Pennyfeather, I must see Ivo at once—ask him to come to me immediately.’ Marcia cast down the letter she had been reading and when Julia didn’t move, repeated, ‘Do go at once!’

  Julia stayed just where she was. She said composedly, ‘Ivo’s having breakfast—he has to go to Eindhoven this morning. Had you forgotten?’

  Miss Jason looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘I don’t care if he has to go to Timbuktu,’ she pronounced with surprising venom. ‘He must come and see me!’ She tapped the discarded letter with a nicely manicured hand. ‘Did you know that Mijnheer de Winter hasn’t received an invitation to the party this evening? After all his kindness to me! I shall refuse to go unless he is invited immediately. Go downstairs and say so, and be quick about it!’

  Julia walked slowly back to the bed and stood looking down at the bad-tempered face staring up at her. A pity Ivo couldn’t see his Marcia now—Julia suspected that this was neither the first nor the last time her patient had allowed her façade of angelic serenity to slip. She said in a reasonable voice, her own temper nicely under control,

  ‘I don’t much care for the way in which you speak to me, Miss Jason. I’m here to look after you, not to be ordered around or expected to run to and fro at your beck and call. You are no longer helpless; you might try to realise that, I think, and behave with more consideration to those around you. If you could remember that we might get on quite well.’

  She smiled kindly at the astonished face turned to hers and went without haste from the room.

  Ivo was in the hall, putting on his overcoat as she descended the staircase. He gave her the briefest of glances, said, ‘Good morning, Julia,’ in an absent-minded fashion and made for the door so that she was forced to put on a turn of speed to reach it when he did. She said without preamble, ‘Marcia wants to see you urgently—she asks that you should go to her now.’

  He paused with his hand on the door. ‘Well, I can’t—didn’t you tell her that I was going to Eindhoven? Come to think of it, I told her myself yesterday evening.’

  ‘You must,’ said Julia firmly, and when he turned a baleful eye upon her: ‘It’s no good looking at me like that—you didn’t invite Mijnheer de Winter, and Miss Jason says that if he doesn’t come, she won’t either. She’s upset.’

  She saw his frown as he pushed his briefcase and gloves into her hands and turned and ran up the stairs, two at a time. She stood at the door, trying not to hear the faint murmur of voices from her patient’s room, and presently he came down again, his face bleak, took his gloves and case without a word, opened the door and went away. She heard the car tearing down the lane and roar down the road, apparently driven by a maniac.

  The morning went badly after that. It seemed that Marcia hadn’t got her way and as a result she sulked, although when Jorina was around she became merely sadly resigned, which was a great deal worse. However, Julia did her best to take no notice of her patient’s ill-humour, but encouraged her to do her exercises in a spirited fashion and when she was asked to turn up the hem of the dress her patient intended wearing to the party, did so, although the time spent on it bit deep into her free afternoon.

  The dress was a drab purple, skinnily cut, with a neckline which exposed far too much of Marcia’s boniness, but when Julia suggested, with all the tact in the world, that the silk jersey hanging in the wardrobe was one of the prettiest dresses she had seen for a long time, she met with no success.

  ‘I daresay you do like it, nurse,’ quoth Miss Jason, ‘but with my slender figure I’m able to wear these clinging styles. You, of course, think otherwise, and naturally so, I expect you feel just a teeny bit envious of us willowy creatures. It must be difficult for you big girls to stay in the fashion.’

  Julia murmured a nothing in reply; she had a nice taste in clothes and had never considered that fashion had passed her by—indeed, from the admiring glances wolf whistles she collected when out walking, she had always felt that she was as least as eye-catching as the next girl. She thought of the pink wool hanging in her cupboard and took comfort from it.

  The party was to be quite a big affair, with a family dinner party at half past seven and the rest of the guests arriving about nine for what Jorina had called a chatty evening with dancing. But Julia, when she peeped into the drawing room, decided that for once Jorina’s English hadn’t been quite accurate, for the room, a large one, had been cleared for dancing, its magnificent old furniture arranged round its white-painted walls, and the silky carpet rolled up and carried off to some cupboard or other by Bep. There were flowers everywhere, and when Julia put her head round the dining room door, there were flowers there too, and the table, already decked with a lace cloth and a great deal of silver and glass, had a magnificent centre-piece of holly and ivy with Father Christmas, complete with sleigh and reindeer, in the middle.

  Jorina came in while Julia was admiring the flowers and said, ‘Nice, eh? You like it, I hope. We have twelve for dinner and there will be about fifty people coming afterwards. A nice large party, but this time, bigger than usual, but there is room enough for everyone.’

  She moved a bowl of hyacinths from one table to another and asked,

  ‘And Marcia, she feels better now? Does she come to the party after all?’ She didn’t wait for Julia to answer but went on, ‘And why are you not off duty, Julia?’

  ‘I’ve been altering a dress for Marcia,’ said Julia, and choked back a laugh as Jorina exclaimed, ‘Not tighter, I hope, or cut lower in the neck—if there are no curves what is the point of letting everyone see?’

  She turned round as Bep came into the room with a tray of coffee.

  ‘Now we will sit down and drink our coffee—how fortunate that Marcia feels that she should rest. Was Ivo very angry this morning?’

  Julia accepted her cup. ‘Very,’ she stated simply, remembering his bleak face. They sipped in a comfortable silence, broken by Jorina.

  ‘I wish to talk,’ she stated flatly. ‘I have wished to talk for many days now. I talk to Vader and he laughs a little and says things h
ave a way of putting themselves right, and I talk to Ivo and that is worse, for although he listens and is polite he is also very angry, so now I talk to you because I think that we are friends.’

  Julia heard her with mixed feelings. Jorina was going to talk about Marcia and Ivo. That she didn’t like Marcia, Julia was pretty sure, probably she disliked the idea of having her for a sister-in-law… She said a little unhappily, ‘Well, I suppose it’s all right and I’m glad you think of me as a friend, I like you too, but would Ivo mind?’

  ‘Of course he would mind, but you will not tell and I certainly shall not.’ She went on as Julia had expected she would, ‘It is about Marcia.’ She took Julia’s cup and refilled it, then refilled her own. ‘You see he doesn’t love her—I don’t suppose he ever did. Only when they first met she was clever…’ Julia gave her a questioning look and she went on quickly, ‘I will explain. A long time ago, when Ivo was twenty—twenty-one, he met a girl—she was pretty and—and frivol—how do you say?’

  ‘Frivolous?’ essayed Julia. ‘Bird-witted?’

  Jorina nodded. ‘Yes—she led Ivo by the nose, she was so very pretty, you see, and gay and amusing and a little naughty, and then after a few months she married someone else with a great deal of money, and although Ivo has plenty of money too, it was not enough, so for years he had not loved any girl.

  ‘And then last year he meets Marcia at some lecture or other and I think that someone has told her about him because she does not try to flirt or attract him, only she lets him see that she has a good brain and that she reads Greek and Latin and is a very serious person, so he thinks, “Here is a girl who is not after my money or out for a good time”, and they become friendly and go to lectures and theatres and concerts—all very dull. Then she is taken ill, and while she is still in hospital Ivo has to go to Edinburgh, and although I am quite sure he has never mentioned marriage to her, she hints and suggests…it is as if she has convinced him that he was responsible for her getting polio—I do not know how.’