Grasp a Nettle

by Betty Neels

  ‘At Solendijk.’ The Professor reached the tiny landing now and it was impossible for Jenny to pretend that he wasn’t there.

  She asked, not allowing her gaze to wander from the baby’s cradle she was studying: ‘Didn’t she want to come?’

  He was right beside her, because there was really nowhere else for him to go. ‘Er—no.’ And when she looked at him at last, he stared down his splendid nose at her and added: ‘I have a patient here—I remembered that I had arranged to see her doctor. Margaret isn’t interested in patients.’ He added blandly: ‘We had a delightful morning in Leiden.’

  ‘And have you seen your patient’s doctor?’ asked Jenny, keeping to the point.

  ‘Oh, yes—I did so before he started his afternoon surgery.’

  ‘What a pity that you had to cut short your outing with Margaret.’

  ‘I must agree, but then I had the happy idea of finding the pair of you so that we might finish our outings in company.’

  ‘What about Margaret?’ persisted Jenny doggedly.

  ‘I think she had had sufficient of Leiden by lunch time—we had a meal in the town.’ He smiled at her, his manner still bland. ‘Such a charming and pretty woman.’

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him why, if he found Margaret so fascinating, he hadn’t rushed back to keep her company, but all she said was: ‘Actually, she’s beautiful.’

  Oliver had been roaming round during their conversation. Now he declared that he had seen everything and was ready to go downstairs again. ‘Perhaps we could have an ice?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘We’ve only just had lunch,’ Jenny said, so crossly that he looked quite startled and the Professor made haste to say: ‘Shall we compromise with coffee and a glass of lemonade? there’s a delightful coffee shop quite close by.’

  Jenny made one more effort. ‘Oughtn’t you to go back?’ she asked. ‘I mean, haven’t you any patients to see?’

  He gave her an austere look. ‘I am enjoying a rare free day—although enjoying isn’t perhaps the right word.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She felt all at once mean and petty. ‘I didn’t mean to be horrid. Look, would you like to take Oliver with you, and I’ll potter off on my own.’

  His sudden smile warmed her to her very heart. ‘Oh, Jenny, what a darling you are—why didn’t we meet years ago?’

  She stood speechless. He liked her after all, perhaps more than that—but he loved Margaret. Margaret had told her so, or at least, she corrected herself, she had said that she was going to marry him. Perhaps they had quarrelled and he had rushed off seeking consolation. She said in a sensible voice: ‘Let’s go and have some coffee and Oliver could choose what he wants to do next.’ She smiled up at the blue eyes staring so hard at her. ‘After all, it’s his day.’

  ‘I think it’s my day too,’ said the Professor thoughtfully.

  They spent a riotous afternoon; there was a small kermis, a fair, tucked away behind the main street and the three of them tried each one of its attractions, and when they were tired of that, wandered round the booths, Jenny and Oliver licking large ice-cream cones while their companion contented himself with his pipe. But he did try his hand at the shooting gallery and won a hideous toy dog, its nylon fur a brilliant blue which Oliver found irresistible, and to equal things up, as he put it, he purchased a bead necklace for Jenny. She hung it round her neck and admired it at length, knowing that she would keep the gaudy thing for the rest of her life.

  They were standing together watching Oliver whirling round on an old-fashioned roundabout, when he said abruptly: ‘You were lying, weren’t you?’ Jenny gave him a wary look, aware that she had lied to him on several occasions. ‘I asked you if you disliked me,’ he went on, ‘and you told me that you did. That wasn’t—isn’t—true, is it?’

  Perhaps it was the carnival atmosphere around them, or just the intoxication of being with him, that made her answer recklessly. ‘No, it wasn’t true. I didn’t—don’t dislike you, though perhaps I did at first. I don’t know any more…you are rather arrogant, you know, only I’ve got used to that now.’

  His eyes were on her face. ‘I’m not a young man—perhaps too old to marry.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense!’ she cried warmly. ‘Of course you’re not too old. Besides, Margaret is thirty—only ten years younger than you.’

  ‘Margaret?’ There was a wry amusement in his voice so that she hurried on:

  ‘She seems much younger than that, but that’s because she’s so pretty, but she’s really quite good at running a big household. Aunt Bess only does it because she prefers to live in Scotland with her parents besides, all her friends live there.’

  ‘Giving me Dutch courage, Jenny?’

  She didn’t look at him because if she did she wasn’t sure what she might say. ‘I don’t think you need it—only you’ve got this silly notion about being too old for a wife and children.’

  ‘You think that I would make a good husband?’ He sounded only a little interested.

  ‘Oh, yes—and think how you could fill that lovely old house of yours with children. And there are the dogs, of course, and the cat—and you could have a donkey for the little ones and a pony for them to ride later…’

  ‘Are we talking in dozens?’ he wanted to know, and this time there was a laugh in his voice.

  Jenny had a sudden vivid picture of Kasteel te Solendijk’s old walls ringing to the shouts of little boys with bright blue eyes and haughty noses. There would be little girls too, of course—perhaps with coppery hair? She said soberly: ‘It’s a house that needs children.’

  ‘Well, there’s Oliver for a start, though I hardly think that Margaret would marry on his account.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that—he needs a father, doesn’t he, or an uncle or something. He’ll inherit Dimworth when he’s eighteen, but that’s a long way to go.’ She moved a little away from him. ‘Here’s Oliver now— I should think he must be tired out.’

  Oliver declared that he wasn’t tired at all, but he agreed willingly enough to the Professor’s proposal that they should return home. ‘But only if I may drive with you,’ he declared.

  The big man smiled down at him, ‘Certainly you may,’ and turned to Jenny. But she firmly refused his offer of a lift in his car and was indignant when he said mildly: ‘Oh, dear—and I have already arranged for a garage to pick up the Mini and bring it down tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, really!’ she burst out. ‘Of all the high-handed…’

  ‘It is my car,’ he reminded her silkily. ‘Besides, I can’t possibly drive and answer Oliver’s inevitable questions at the same time.’

  ‘He could have come with me.’

  ‘He said he wanted to come with me. It is his day—you said so yourself.’

  She choked back temper. ‘Do you think I can’t drive or something?’

  ‘My dear girl, I would never have allowed you to drive the Mini if I had supposed that.’

  She stood, muttering crossly until he said: ‘I’ve enjoyed my afternoon—makebelieve, of course, but shall we not spoil it by quarrelling?’

  She asked in a small voice: ‘What do you mean—makebelieve?’

  ‘Just that—doing something; being someone one wishes to be and cannot.’ He added: ‘At least for the moment.’

  He sounded resigned and a little remote and her temper fled before a wave of love. ‘It wasn’t all makebelieve,’ she assured him. ‘I meant what I said—that I don’t dislike you.’

  She smiled up at him, her lovely eyes warm and soft. She hadn’t meant to say that, but her truant tongue had had the last word. But she was quite unprepared when his arms caught her close, ‘No, it wasn’t makebelieve, Jenny,’ and he didn’t sound remote or resigned, ‘and this isn’t either.’ He kissed her hard and lingeringly and then let her go without a word as Oliver, at last sated with the pleasures of the kermis, came trotting towards them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THERE WAS NOTHING makebelieve about Margar
et’s face when they got back. She had too indolent a nature to be deeply angry about anything, but she had a decidedly pettish expression which quite marred her lovely features. She was sitting on the lawn as they drove up the drive and round the side to the garages with Oliver—for a great treat—sitting on the Professor’s knee, steering the car. Jenny waved and called to her as they passed and received nothing but a cross look in return. In all fairness to Margaret, she had to admit that had she been in her shoes, she would have been more than just cross, although the expedition that afternoon had been innocent enough. She corrected herself—not quite innocent; there had been their conversation and the Professor had kissed her with a good deal of feeling, probably because he had wanted to kiss Margaret, who wasn’t there.

  When they reached the garage she got out with a murmured excuse and hurried into the house. Oliver had refused to go with her and she supposed that if the Professor wanted Margaret to himself, he would think up something to occupy the small boy. She went to her aunt’s room first, but Miss Creed wasn’t here, so she went slowly to her own room and sat down on the bed, wondering how best to keep out of the Professor’s and Margaret’s way until dinner time. A wasted exercise as it turned out, for standing by the window later on, idly looking out, she saw the Panther pass under her window. The Professor was driving and Margaret was beside him; both of them were dressed for the evening.

  Jenny went downstairs to look for Aunt Bess then, and found her in the library, a lofty apartment smelling of leather and books and furnished with a number of deep armchairs, each with its own table and lamp. Aunt Bess was sitting at her ease, browsing through some old bound volumes of Punch, but she glanced up as Jenny went in.

  ‘There you are,’ she observed unnecessarily. ‘Oliver is having his bath before his supper this evening—he’s with Hennie. Eduard has taken Margaret to see some friends of his. Probably they won’t be back until the small hours. That leaves you and me—we can discuss our journey home in peace.’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Bess.’ Jenny strove to make her voice interested and cheerful, with so little success that her companion said: ‘Down in the dumps again! You’ll be glad to get back to Dimworth, I dare say.’

  Jenny said that she would, which was partly true. She wouldn’t have to watch Margaret charming Eduard then; at the same time she wouldn’t see him, full stop. She couldn’t win either way.

  ‘Has he come up to scratch?’ asked Aunt Bess vulgarly.

  ‘Who do you mean? Who with?’

  ‘Margaret, of course.’

  ‘I—I don’t know, perhaps this evening…’ Jenny’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Bah!’ exclaimed Miss Creed in ringing tones. ‘He won’t, you know—not what he wants at all.’ She looked sly and changed the subject abruptly. ‘I’m going to Amsterdam in the morning to have lunch with Eduard’s people, but I’ll be back before tea—the tests will be completed by then. I shall go home anyway.’ She picked up Punch once more. ‘Find a book,’ she commanded.

  So Jenny sat leafing through Country Life and several Dutch magazines which she couldn’t make head or tail of until it was time to change for the evening. There was no sign of the Professor or of Margaret. She went upstairs to say goodnight to Oliver and then, after a fruitless suggestion that there was really no need for them to change their dress, to her room, to put on a rather sober dress which she had never liked. It was a silk flowered print in beige which did nothing for her at all, and she scraped back her hair in a style to match its dull cut before flouncing downstairs to the drawing room to find Aunt Bess, resplendent in purple and gold chains, waiting for her glass of sherry.

  Dinner was delicious, but then all the meals in the Professor’s house were; but she pecked at her food as though it were yesterday’s porridge, saying ‘Yes, Aunt’ and ‘No, Aunt’ with a sad lack of interest in the topic under discussion. She emerged from a gloomy reverie to hear Aunt Bess observe:

  ‘So that is settled—tomorrow evening on the night boat. Eduard must get us cabins. I shall telephone Toby in the morning and tell him to expect us, and you may telephone Florrie after dinner, Janet.’

  Jenny said: ‘Yes, Aunt Bess,’ once again and played with her trifle. It was very short notice, but then Aunt Bess always did what she wanted when she wanted. Somehow or other there would be cabins put at her disposal and however inconvenient her unexpected arrival might be, Dimworth would be ready to receive her.

  She telephoned Dimworth as soon as they had had their coffee, using the telephone in the small sitting room because Aunt Bess didn’t wish to be disturbed in the drawing room, and listened to Florrie worriedly telling her that they would be ready for Miss Creed when she arrived. ‘Though mind you, Miss Jenny,’ said Florrie’s soft Somerset voice, ‘there’s the carpet in Miss Creed’s room being shampooed and if it will be ready in time, I’m sure I don’t know—and us run out of jam for the visitors and a nasty leak in the south wing.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Jenny told her, ‘Aunt Bess is going to be too tired to notice anything. I daresay she’ll go straight to bed.’

  ‘Who is going straight to bed?’ asked the Professor from behind her and she turned round to see him stand aside in the doorway so that Margaret might come into the room too. He looked so pleased with himself that Jenny’s hand shook a little on the receiver—and Margaret looked radiant. There was no other word to describe the look on her face—or perhaps a cat who had licked the cream pot empty…

  She explained woodenly: ‘Aunt Bess thinks she should go back to Dimworth. She’s quite confident that the tests are OK, but even if they’re not, she’s going…she asked me to telephone our housekeeper.’

  Margaret cast herself down on a deep crimson sofa, an excellent foil for her blonde beauty. ‘Well, I shan’t go,’ she declared petulantly, ‘just as everything is marvellous… You can take Oliver with you, Jenny—I’ll come home later.’ She turned to her host, still standing at the door. ‘Eduard, you’ll let me stay?’

  His ready: ‘Of course, my dear,’ cut Jenny like a knife. She said, still very wooden: ‘Yes, of course we’ll take Oliver with us.’ She forced herself to look at the Professor. ‘I hope you don’t think us rude and ungrateful, leaving so unexpectedly…’

  ‘But your aunt had already told me,’ he said cheerfully, ‘provided of course that I get a good report from the hospital tomorrow, and the final decision to leave does rest with me… She is lunching with my parents tomorrow, isn’t she? The Mini will be back in the morning. Would you and Oliver like to have it so that you can have a last fling together?’

  Jenny never wanted to see the Mini again; she thanked him nicely but with some coolness, whereupon he asked her if she would prefer to borrow the Bristol 412 which he occasionally used in place of the Panther. ‘It’s a fast car,’ he pointed out, ‘if you found the Mini too slow, but very safe.’

  She declined that too and was murmuring a few well-chosen words before getting herself out of the room, when he remarked casually: ‘There is a donkey arriving in the morning, by the way—Oliver might like a ride on her. I’m buying a pony too, but he won’t arrive until a week or so. You see I took your advice, Jenny.’

  ‘How nice, I’m sure Oliver will love that.’ She was aware that her voice was too high and turned with relief to the forgotten receiver in her hand; Florrie’s voice was still rambling on, a little doubtfully now because she was getting no reply, so Jenny explained and rang off, anxious to be gone. But she was delayed once more, this time by Margaret.

  ‘What time shall we go tomorrow?’ she asked the Professor, and smiled at Jenny as she spoke. ‘I’m so excited I feel exhausted; I simply must have a good night’s rest.’

  ‘One o’clock?’ he suggested. ‘I’ll come and fetch you. No, that won’t do, because I must see Miss Creed before she leaves. You will have to be fetched, but that will present no difficulties—I’ll telephone presently. Margaret, are you going to tell Jenny?’

  ‘No, certainly not! It’s my lovely secret—
well, it’s your secret too, I suppose, and don’t you dare to say a word.’ She got up and stretched languidly. ‘I’m off to bed—I must pack an overnight bag, I suppose.’ She smiled again at Jenny: ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ she murmured, and leaned up to kiss the Professor’s cheek before sauntering to the door.

  ‘I must go too,’ said Jenny urgently. ‘I promised I’d pack for Aunt Bess.’

  It was a pity that he was standing in the doorway and showed no sign of moving. ‘Not in the least curious, Jenny?’

  ‘Well, of course I am,’ she snapped, ‘but don’t think you can tease me into asking questions, because I’m not going to—besides, I can guess.’

  ‘You might guess wrong.’ He was smiling down at her, looking amused. ‘You’re very ill-tempered this evening. I thought that after this afternoon… That dress doesn’t suit you, either.’

  ‘It’s a perfectly good dress,’ she told him sharply, ‘and this afternoon was makebelieve—you said so yourself.’ She remembered how he had kissed her and went red, feeling the tide of colour wash over her face while he stared.

  ‘Ah, so you remember, too,’ he said softly. ‘There’s great deal I want to say to you, Jenny, but you’re not in a very receptive mood, are you?’ And he stood aside, wishing her goodnight in a voice which held a laugh, so that there was nothing for her to do but go upstairs, to pause outside Aunt Bess’s door to gain composure. And once inside she was for once thankful that her aunt kept her busy helping her to bed and then packing for her under her sharp eyes. But presently Aunt Bess observed: ‘That will do for the present. Go to bed, child, you look like skimmed milk—you need a good night’s rest.’

  Something Jenny didn’t have.

  By the time she and Oliver had breakfasted the donkey had arrived. A kindly Hans offered the information and they went without waste of time to the paddock behind the stables. It was a very small donkey and not in the best condition either, its mild eyes apprehensive as they made much of it, something which worried Jenny until Hans joined them with the carrots he had gone to fetch; to explain to her that the Professor had gone to a great deal of trouble contacting various societies until he had found one which had a donkey in need of a good home and at the same time were willing to transport the little beast without delay.