by Betty Neels
She wondered how long he had been waiting there and why the professor hadn’t told her. Probably he hadn’t given it a thought after he had given Jan the order. She got in and immediately embarked on a conversation with Jan in her laborious Dutch, without mentioning his master; she knew without being told that Jan would hear no word of criticism against him.
She was out shopping when the professor called the next day. Mrs Macklin told her in a satisfied voice when she returned that he was sufficiently pleased with her progress to allow her to do a little cooking. ‘So I shall cook supper, my dear, though I doubt if I shall feel much like washing up the dishes afterwards. And tomorrow if it is fine, I should like to come with you, just to the grocers in the Begijnsteeg. Dear me, how pleasant it is to get back to normal life, and with you here, not nearly as frightening as I had imagined.’ She added hastily as if to explain her change of attitude, ‘One gets lazy in hospital and too secure.’ She smiled at Abigail. ‘How pretty you look in that woolly thing, dear, and such pink cheeks. Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you, Dominic has got someone to do the housework, a Mevrouw Rots, she’ll be coming in a week’s time. What happens to you then, Abigail?’
‘I go back to England, Mrs Macklin.’
‘You have a home to go to—relatives?’
‘No—cousins in Canada and an uncle and aunt who don’t want to know about me. But don’t worry, all I have to do is to go to the agency and they’ll find me another job—at once, the same day, perhaps.’
‘How appallingly efficient,’ said Mrs Macklin dryly, ‘and how very dull for you. All work and no play …’
‘Oh, I daresay I’ll take a day off.’
‘Big deal,’ commented her patient unexpectedly, and Abigail laughed with real amusement. ‘That’s better. You should laugh more often, Abigail.’
Abigail had nothing to say to this and her companion went on in the most casual manner, ‘Dominic doesn’t laugh enough either. Did you get all the shopping?’
The day passed at a gentle pace, for although Abigail found enough to do in the little house there was no hurry over the doing of it; during the morning Mrs Macklin told her its history and added, ‘I was lucky to get it, because they’re really almshouses, I suppose. It’s so central and the rent is low—besides, it’s close to my friends. Are you going to see Bollinger today?’
‘I thought I might go and see how Professor de Wit is—he was my last patient, you know.’
‘Yes, Abigail, a good idea. He’s an old acquaintance of mine too. Dominic has promised to take me to visit him one day soon—he has been very ill, I understand, but you know more about that than I do. Dear me, how dull life would be for us el-derlies if we were without Dominic to keep a watchful eye upon us. He has never allowed me to be lonely—he was fond of my husband.’
Abigail made some reply; Mrs Macklin must know the professor very well; perhaps during this week she might tell her a little of his life. It would be nice to know; she mused over the interesting fact that he appeared to be Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, for according to her patient there never was a better man. Undoubtedly there was a great deal more than met the eye. She said now: ‘Bollinger thinks the world of him and I can quite understand why, for he made it possible for him to leave the most dreary room imaginable—he was so lonely, too, and here in Amsterdam he’s happy.’
‘Yes?’ Mrs Macklin sounded interested. ‘Dominic mentioned in the vaguest way that he had been lucky enough to find someone to take Jaap’s place until he got back to work, but he didn’t tell any of the circumstances.’ She gave Abigail a shrewd glance. ‘Sit down, dear, and tell me about yourself and Bollinger, and your parents too, that is if you can bear with an old woman’s curiosity.’
It was a delight and a relief to be able to talk to someone about Bolly and her mother and their life in London and how she missed the hospital; she told about the agency too and made Mrs Macklin laugh with her description of the stern woman in charge of it. At length when she had finished, Mrs Macklin leaned back in her chair and sighed. ‘You poor child, life hasn’t been very kind to you in these last few years.’ She studied Abigail’s face. ‘But you’re not sorry for yourself, are you?’
‘No—well, almost never. Sometimes when I see a lovely dress or some fab jewellery, or a girl with everything, you know—lovely face and hair and up-to-the-minute clothes and the men looking at her—then I wallow in self-pity.’ She laughed as she said it and her companion laughed with her.
‘Bunkum,’ said Mrs Macklin firmly. ‘Go and put on your hat and coat and visit Professor de Wit and give him my best wishes.’
Abigail spent a pleasant hour with the old man; he was as thin as ever and still pale, but he had lost none of his zest for life; he wanted to know exactly what she was doing and if she was happy, and listened to what she had to say about Mrs Macklin. ‘She’s a dear,’ said Abigail. ‘You know with some people you can be friends at once, just as with others it’s quite impossible.’ Of course she was thinking of the professor and her elderly companion gave her such a penetrating look that she went a guilty red, although he had said nothing, and changed the conversation. ‘I’m going back to England next week,’ she volunteered.
He looked surprised. ‘You’ll like that?’
‘I—I suppose so. I like Amsterdam, though at first I thought it would be a bit difficult and lonely, but it’s not—there are Bolly and Annie and you and Mrs Macklin, as well as the nurses in the hospital.’
She omitted the professor and her listener appeared not to notice, for he said jokingly, ‘Quite an impressive list! We shall all miss you. And now, my dear, run along to the kitchen and see if our good friend Mevrouw Valk has made that abominable weak tea I am forced to drink.’
Abigail, who liked her tea strong, sipped the tasteless beverage with him and listened intelligently to his theories on cell life, while at the very back of her mind she wondered what the professor was doing. He was, in fact, in the act of pulling the door bell and appeared a moment later before them, dwarfing everything in the room behind him. He greeted his old friend warmly and Abigail with the cold courtesy she had come to expect. She offered him tea and took care not to catch his eye because she happened to know that he detested weak tea, and this was pale and insipid and, what was more, tepid. She sat for another ten minutes for the sake of good manners, then rose to go with the excuse that she should return to Mrs Macklin before that lady, refreshed from her afternoon nap, decided to do something beyond her strength.
The professor got up too, observing that he would show her out, and when she assured him that she was very well able to see herself to the door, he remarked, ‘Don’t be bird-witted, I have something to say to you.’
She bade Professor de Wit goodbye with the hope that she would see him again before she left Amsterdam, and went out of the room closely followed by the professor. In the dark, panelled hall which was barely big enough for the two of them, he said to surprise her into speechlessness:
‘It is the hospital dance in five days’ time. I should like you to come—it is to commemorate its foundation.’
Abigail’s heart tripped, steadied and turned right over. She spoke quickly before that treacherous organ should make her change her mind.
‘Thank you, Professor, but I don’t think I’ll accept your kind …’
‘Why not?’
She stared up at him, looming over her in the dimness and much too near for her peace of mind, trying to think of a really good excuse. ‘Well …’ she began, not having the least idea what she would say.
‘Don’t tell me that you have nothing to wear,’ he remarked with faint amusement, and she, who had been on the point of saying just that, exclaimed roundly, ‘Certainly not, I have several …’ She paused, unwilling to utter such a trivial lie to him. ‘I don’t know anyone,’ she offered with sudden inspiration.
‘Me?’ he queried.
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous!’ Abigail’s voice was a little gruff and she had the uneasy feeling th
at she was being rude; all the same she went on: ‘You’re hardly likely to spend the entire evening …’ She broke off.
‘No, probably not,’ he agreed with infuriating readiness, ‘but my junior registrar professes a desire to get to know you, and Professor de Wit will be there …’
‘You’re never allowing him to dance?’ Her voice squeaked in protest.
‘I should have thought a woman of your good sense would have known better than to have asked such a silly question.’
It was annoying to be addressed as a woman of good sense; if that was how he thought of her then she would go to this dance and she would find a dress to fit his detestable opinion. Something grey or mousey with a high neck and one of those awful shapeless draped fronts.
He asked sharply, so that she jumped guiltily, ‘What are you plotting? You will buy a dress—pink, I think, deep pink and of a style to suit you. I believe that I shall come with you to buy it.’
‘Indeed you will not,’ declared Abigail, her fevered imagination picturing him selecting delectable gowns without once looking at their price tickets.
‘And who will carry all the parcels?’ he enquired silkily. ‘There will be shoes as well.’
‘No, thank you, Professor, I would far rather go alone—it would be distracting.’
‘Do I distract you, Miss Trent?’
She fumed silently at his awkward questions. ‘No—yes, I don’t know—you see, I shall want to have a good look round first.’
‘Yes? I should have thought that you could have found what you wanted within minutes at Dick Holthaus or Max Heymans.’ Two dress shops which she, after only a short stay in Amsterdam, had discovered matched high prices with high fashions—they were the sort of shops she would have loved to have gone to. She frowned, wondering how it was that the professor knew about them, and then remembered to look casual as she said carelessly:
‘Oh, I daresay they have, but I still want to look everywhere first.’
He opened the door for her. ‘As you wish, but pink, remember, and pretty.’
She walked back to the Begijnhof with a head full of ideas pushing each other round and round; she would never be able to buy a dress with the money she had. True, she had been paid the day before, but the professor had obviously forgotten about Jude’s fees and she wasn’t going to ask him for them. And she, like a fool, had given Bolly half straight away. She could borrow on her fare, for she would be due another week’s salary when she left Mrs Macklin and there was still the money from Mrs Morgan, surely waiting for her at the agency. She did some rapid sums in her head, and when she got back to Mrs Macklin, asked that lady if she knew of a dressmaker.
‘Of course, my dear,’ said that lady without hesitation. ‘There’s Juffrouw Blik, three doors down—a domineers daughter and crippled in one foot, poor woman, but charming. Don’t be put off at the sight of her, Abigail, she’s not a very fashionable sort of woman, but she’s very good with clothes, especially with something pretty.’
She gave Abigail a questioning look and was instantly told all about the invitation. ‘I’d rather like to have the dress made,’ said Abigail, ‘then I can get exactly the material and shade I want.’ Quite unconsciously she spoilt this by adding, ‘Is she expensive?’
Mrs Macklin bent her head over her knitting. ‘No, dear, about twenty-five gulden, I should think, and for these days it’s ridiculously cheap. Why not go to the Bijenkorf tomorrow and see if you find what you want? I know they have a silk sale on, but there’ll be other materials, not in the sale.’
They spent the evening discussing the sale, the dance, the dress, the most suitable shoes to go with it and Abigail’s hair.
‘Leave it as it is,’ urged Mrs Macklin. ‘It suits you, it’s pretty.’
‘Pretty? It’s mousy and straight.’
‘Mice are pretty little creatures,’ her patient pointed out, ‘and they have straight hair.’ She began to talk about the numerous dances she had been to in her youth and not once during the evening did they mention the professor, although Abigail thought about him a great deal.
She found just the material she wanted in the Bijenkorf—rose pink chiffon and a matching silk to line it, both at sale price too, although even then their purchase made a great hole in her purse. But she was feeling reckless by now; drunk with the prospect of spending an evening in the same company as the professor, she purchased some silver slippers and a handbag and walked back happily clutching her purchases, and after getting the lunch for her patient and herself and settling her for a nap, went to see Juffrouw Blik.
Juffrouw Blik’s house was really a flat, for she lived on the ground floor; the floor above was rented to a retired schoolteacher. Her sitting room was the same size as Mrs Macklin’s but seemed even smaller, if that were possible, because of the number of half-finished garments hanging around its walls and over the chairs, and the old-fashioned treadle sewing machine taking up all the space under the window.
Abigail, eyeing Juffrouw Blik’s dumpy, unfashionable person, felt a little dubious about handing over her precious material to the dowdy little woman, then took heart when she remembered that Mrs Macklin had recommended her very highly. In her difficult, halting Dutch she explained what she wanted, showed the pattern she had bought, made a date for a fitting and, with an eye to the urgency of the matter, allowed herself to be measured.
The dress was a success. Abigail, trying it on the day before the dance, had to admit that the professor’s demand for rose pink had been completely justified, for the soft colour of the gossamer fine material gave her face a glow and Juffrouw Blik had cut it with panache so that it fitted where it should and the wide, wide skirt swirled around her as she turned and twisted before the mirror. And to complete the outfit, her patient had produced a Russian sable coat, its Edwardian cut exactly right for the dress, and when Abigail protested that she couldn’t possibly borrow so valuable a fur she had declared, ‘Nonsense, child—I wear it once, perhaps twice a year—it needs an airing. You will be the belle of the ball.’
At which remark Abigail had looked very doubtful, but since she had been invited to go, the least she could do was to look her best. She had seen very little of him during the past few days—true, he had spoken to her during his visits to his patient, but only upon matters which concerned that lady’s welfare. Not once had he mentioned the dance, nor for that matter had he given her any sign that he had invited her to attend, which had such a damping effect on her spirits that by the day of the dance she felt no excitement at all, only a secret fear that he had forgotten all about it, and she would dress and then sit and wait in Mrs Macklin’s little sitting room, watching the clock ticking through the hours, and he would never come.
It was the morning of the dance, after he had paid his visit to Mrs Macklin, professed himself pleased with her condition, reiterated that the daily help would come in three days’ time and reminding her that she was no longer a young woman, that he turned to Abigail, standing like a silent, well-trained shadow beside him.
‘You will be called for at nine o’clock,’ his voice was pleasant and completely disinterested. ‘The dance will not end until the small hours; if you become tired or wish to return here you have only to say so.’
As though she were an old lady or a cripple like poor Juffrouw Blik! thought Abigail, bursting with indignation. Perhaps he was hoping that once having done his duty in inviting her, she would choose to leave early, leaving him unencumbered to dance with the countless lovelies who would most certainly be there. She said coolly, ‘I shall be ready, Professor,’ and went with him to the door and showed him out with a convincing and utterly false calm.
She was ready by a quarter to nine that evening; she had cleared away the supper, made everything ready for her patient’s night and then gone upstairs to the little room of which she had become so fond, to dress. The result was gratifying; she was no beauty, nor would she ever be, but there was no doubt at all that pretty clothes did a lot for a girl. She
had taken Mrs Macklin’s advice too, and put her hair up in its usual simple style and used the very last of the Blue Grass perfume she had been hoarding for just such an occasion as this one. Wrapped in her borrowed sables, she stood in front of the mirror and promised her reflection that she would enjoy herself and what was more, stay until the very last dance, despite the professor’s offer to send her home early. Anyone would think that I was ninety! she told her face in the mirror. You go and enjoy yourself, my girl.
When the doorbell rang at exactly nine o’clock she flounced downstairs rather defiantly. That would be Jan, she supposed, or a taxi. She flung open the sitting room door, exclaiming: ‘Will I do?’ and stopped short at the sight of the professor, very grand in his white tie and tails, warming himself before the stove. He inclined his head by way of greeting and said nothing at all, which she found so disconcerting that her defiant mood ebbed away and she looked appealingly at Mrs Macklin, who said satisfyingly:
‘Abigail, you’ll have a lovely evening, no doubt of it. You look delightful.’
A sentiment hardly echoed by the professor, judging by the expression of his face, for he was glaring down his long nose at her and just for a moment she was tempted to turn round and go upstairs again and tear off her finery and not go at all, but common sense prevailed—there was no reason why she shouldn’t have a good time once she got there. She glared at him, disappointment raging under the pink chiffon, to lose all other feelings but one of delight as he told her:
‘You take my breath away.’ He sounded his usual austere self, but at least he was paying her a compliment. ‘I hardly recognised you,’ which rather spoilt the compliment, but he actually smiled and she smiled warmly back, her eyes shining. ‘Abigail pink and pretty,’ he murmured surprisingly, and spoilt that too by adding, ‘My registrar will be in the seventh heaven!’
The dance had already started, by the time they had arrived the dance floor was crowded and everyone, in Abigail’s feverish imagination, knew everyone else, except her. The professor waited for her while she disposed of the sables and then danced with her. He danced very well, but with a remoteness which was decidedly chilling, so that after one or two attempts at conversation, successfully squashed by his gravely polite replies, she took refuge in silence and was relieved when the dance finished and she was introduced to the junior registrar—a young man of a most friendly disposition even if he was a little on the short side and inclined to be fat. He in his turn introduced her to friends of his own so that presently she began to enjoy herself despite the lack of interest shown by the professor. It was all the more surprising, therefore, when he sought her out and asked her to go in to supper with him. She had already been asked by Henk, the registrar, and was on the point of saying so, for the professor didn’t look over-enthusiastic at the prospect of partnering her anyway, when Henk said, ‘That’s OK by me, Abigail—Professor van Wijkelen has first pick, since he brought you. We’ll dance again after supper.’