Heaven Is Gentle

by Betty Neels

  ‘On my bed—with the kittens, of course. She took them there just before I saw the water coming in—wasn’t she clever? Is the house flooded too?’

  ‘No. It stands on a rise, you know, and so does the hut, you’re the only one—the entire manpower in the place was poised to come and rescue you. I said I’d take a look and let them know if I needed more help.’

  She was drying her hands on a muddy towel, her face rosy with her efforts, her hair slipping from its pins. ‘How kind of them all, and thank you for coming. I should have been all right, but it’s so much quicker with two. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  She ushered him back into the sitting room and told him to make himself comfortable. ‘Though you might put a log or two on the fire first,’ she suggested. ‘It’s only biscuits, I’m afraid. Hub always has a plate of cakes or scones ready for me in the afternoons—he’s really very kind. Did you know him before you came here?’

  A peculiar expression crossed the Professor’s fine features. He stooped to poke the fire and throw on another log. ‘Yes—he’s a very good chap.’ He strolled back to the kitchen. ‘Do you want Cat brought back?’

  She spooned the tea into a well warmed pot and added the boiling water.

  ‘Well, what do you think? Will she feel safe, do you suppose?’ She turned to look at him enquiringly. ‘It won’t do it again, will it?’

  ‘I doubt it. It was the burn at the top of the ridge which overflowed, I imagine, and most of it will have gone down the other side of the hill—this was only an outlet for the surplus.’

  He carried the tray to the fire and put it on the table by one of the chairs. ‘This is very pleasant,’ he observed, and sounded faintly surprised as he said it. Not quite his way of life, thought Eliza shrewdly, she doubted if he had ever in his life before taken tea in his socks and muddy slacks and sweater, with an equally grubby hostess to pour out for him. She tucked her stockinged feet out of sight and lifted the teapot.

  It seemed strange that they should be sitting together, talking amicably about this and that, just as though they were old friends, when probably the next time they met he would flatten her with some nasty chilling remark. It would have been fun to have asked him about his life in Holland and especially about the girl he was going to marry, even if it would be turning the knife in the wound, but at least she would know something about him, something to remember…now she could only guess. She ventured: ‘Is Nijmegen a big city?’

  His dark eyes flickered over her face and then looked away. ‘Not very. Two hundred thousand people, perhaps. Charlemagne lived there. Once upon a time it was an imperial city of the Hanseatic Empire. The country around is charming and we have a splendid park and an open-air theatre.’ He fell silent; apparently these few sparse facts were deemed sufficient to stay her curiosity. She had her mouth open to ask more questions when he asked abruptly: ‘And you, Eliza, where do you live?’

  He had never called her by name before. She had always disliked it very much, but he had made it sound pretty. She sighed, not knowing it, and said: ‘In a small town called Charnmouth, in Dorset. It’s really only one main street with a handful of turnings off it. It’s close to the sea though, and the coast is very grand, you know, cliffs and a pebbly shore, though there’s some sand too. People come in the summer, but not very many, and in the winter it’s quiet and very peaceful.’ She sighed again, this time with a tinge of homesickness.

  ‘Your parents?’ he prompted.

  ‘The house is in the main street at the top of the town, where the road turns round to go to Lyme Regis. My father’s retired now—he was in the Civil Service—he collects fossils; there are heaps on the beach, but I never know them from stones. My mother’s just as useless at it.’

  He smiled. ‘You go home often? In your little car, perhaps?’

  ‘Yes—once a month for a long weekend and for almost all of my holidays.’ She paused, seeing her home in her mind’s eye. ‘It’s quite different from the country round here.’

  ‘You like it here?’

  ‘Very much, now that the house is cleaned, and once the weather clears a little, I intend to go walking.’

  He put down his cup. ‘If you do, I suggest that you take a companion, at least for the first time. It is easy enough to get lost around here; there are no roads to speak of, and very few lodges like this one—Glencanisp Forest stretches for several miles, and although Canisp and Suilven are several miles away, there is plenty of rough hilly country in which to go astray.’

  ‘You know this part of the Highlands?’

  He stood up. ‘I’ve been here before.’

  Their pleasant little truce was over. He had become all at once distant, even impatient to be gone. She got up too, looking absurdly small without her shoes, and accompanied him to the door. The floor was quite dry again, and a still fast-moving riverlet outside rushed past the board, leaving the cottage dry. He stepped over it and turned to look down on her. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

  Eliza stared back at him, craning her neck. ‘I enjoyed it,’ she told him, and smiled delightfully. She was quite unprepared for his sudden swoop. ‘My God, so did I,’ he said, so softly that she barely heard him, and kissed her hard.

  He strode off without another word, leaving her to shut the door and wash the tea things. ‘Well, he may be a learned professor,’ she told Cat, ‘but he certainly knows how to kiss!’ She stacked the cups and saucers dreamily, trying to reconcile that kiss with the austere calm of the girl in the photograph. Did she come alive under it, Eliza wondered, as she herself had done, or did that chilly calm remain unmoved? She hoped not, for the Professor’s sake. And could that be the reason for his cold ill-humour? she wondered.

  She went back on duty presently, to find that the rain had ceased at last, and although the paths were still awash, the worst of the flooding was over. Doctor Berrevoets came over that evening to take blood samples, so that she was kept moderately busy until supper time, and once in the dining room she was bombarded with enquiries as to how she had fared that afternoon. She gave a lighthearted account of it all, saying almost nothing about Professor van Duyl, who wasn’t there anyway. He came in late, greeted everyone quietly, wished her a pleasant good evening, just as though he hadn’t seen her for a long time and didn’t much mind if he didn’t see her again, and sat down to eat his supper. It was young Grimshaw who walked over to the hut with her after the meal and stayed while she saw to the men for the night. She wished him a friendly goodnight at the cottage door and locked herself in as he squelched away up the path to the house. Even with Cat and the kittens, it seemed lonely in the room. Eliza sat in her chair and closed her eyes and tried to imagine that the Professor was sitting opposite her, but it was of no use. She got up and started to undress, telling herself impatiently that she was being a fool; a bracing opinion which did nothing to prevent her from bursting into tears.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PERHAPS it was because Professor van Duyl persisted in treating her, during the next few days, with a chilling politeness which forbade any but the most necessary conversation being held between them, that she decided to spend her next free afternoon exploring. It was a pity that the very day she had had this idea, she had already committed herself to an afternoon of table tennis with young Grimshaw; a pleasant enough way in which to spend an hour or two, but William seemed very young; she found herself comparing him with Christian van Duyl, an exercise which did nothing to improve her mood. She let William win and went back to a solitary tea with no one for company but Cat and the kittens, for Mrs MacRae had gone home early.

  By the following afternoon, after a morning of snubs from the Professor, she was ripe for rebellion. It was a cold day, the sky grey and strangely quiet—a little frightening, she had to admit to herself as she changed into slacks and a thick sweater and crammed her anorak on top. If it hadn’t been for the wretched man vexing her so much, she would never have dreamed of going. She fed Cat, tied a scarf over her hair, and set off,
waving to Mijnheer Kok, who was looking out of his window as she went past the hut. It was colder than she had thought, and the sky, now that she was in the open and could see it properly, was full of wind clouds and getting darker by the minute. Common sense told her to turn round and go straight back to the warmth of the cottage, but the memory of Christian van Duyl’s face, darkly disapproving, acted as a spur to her ill-judged plan. She reached the stream, still swollen from the rain, crossed it safely and began to climb steadily, up the narrow, ill-marked path which would lead her to the edge of the forest. Looking back, she could still see the Lodge; there were one or two lights burning already and they gave her some degree of comfort as she looked at them before continuing her climb. It really was extraordinarily quiet; the sort of quiet before a storm, she thought uneasily, and once again the Professor’s dark face, imprinted indelibly beneath her eyelids, prevented her from turning back.

  She went on steadily, stopping to look around her from time to time, secretly glad to see that the Lodge was still in sight, but it wouldn’t be for much longer; the pewter-coloured sky was covering itself with racing clouds, so low that already some of the higher ground was out of sight, and there was a sudden roaring in the air which made her stop and look about her once more in bewilderment. Wind—a great gale of it—sprang up at the wink of an eye and filling the world with noise, tearing at the shrubs and trees, whistling in and out of the nooks and crannies.

  Eliza took shelter under an overhanging ledge of rock, waiting for it to pass, only it didn’t—it gathered strength, and the low clouds came even lower so that she was almost immediately enveloped in them. It was like being in a thick fog; she stayed where she was, fighting panic, for suddenly the world was blotted out and she didn’t dare to move. The path she had been climbing had been safe enough if one could see where one was going, but now she could slip so easily, or step over the edge and fall down the rock-strewn slopes; besides, now that she could see nothing at all, she hadn’t the faintest idea where the Lodge lay; downhill, that she knew, but it would be an easy thing to walk past it in this strange blank world and as far as she remembered from the map, there were no villages in that direction, only Inverkirkaig, and that was on the coast, on the road which ran through the valley. She would have to stay where she was and hope for the weather to improve.

  But it didn’t, it became a good deal worse; the wind, which had been bad enough, became a demoniacal monster screaming and wailing round her, so that there was no other sound, and now it brought with it short flurries of soft snow. It settled remorselessly on her so that the faster she brushed it away, the faster it blanketed her. She pressed her small person closer to the rock, for at least the overhanging ledge gave her some protection, telling herself that she was in no danger, just wet and cold and longing for a cup of tea. She was frightened too, although she didn’t choose to admit that even to herself, but half-remembered tales of people getting lost in blizzards kept crowding into her head and it was difficult not to dwell on the vast area of rough, unlived-in country around her. She was, she reminded herself bracingly, only a short distance from the Lodge. The moment the snow stopped she would be able to see its lights. She gave a small scream as a tearing, rending sound close by, louder even than the wind, warned her that a tree had been blown down, but not, thank heaven, below her—the idea of negotiating a fallen tree on the way back held no appeal.

  She had lost all count of time by now; she could think only of the warm little cottage with Cat purring contentedly as they shared their tea. Rather belatedly she wished that she had told someone where she was going. True, Mijnheer Kok had seen her, but he was hardly likely to say anything, and unless someone visited the hut that evening she might quite well not be missed until supper time, for the patients might suppose her to have the rest of the day free. She frowned; probably by now it was long past her usual time to return to duty. There would be no one to check the men’s pulses or take their temperatures—and supposing one of them started to wheeze? The thought was so disquieting that she left the rock face and took a step or two on to the path, only to discover that it would be impossible for her to go anywhere or do anything; the wind would bowl her over for a start. She retreated, pressing herself against the rock once more, stamping her feet to keep the circulation going and almost jumping out of her skin when another tree came crashing down, bringing with it a shower of earth and stones and grass flying through the dark. There was no point in pretending that she wasn’t frightened any more; she was scared stiff, and if she stayed where she was she would be frozen solid, and no one would ever find her.

  She was wrong. ‘Little fool!’ shouted the Professor in such a tremendous voice that he outmatched the wind. He had come upon her with a suddenness to take her breath, which was a good thing, for she had none left to scream with and she would undoubtedly have screamed. All she managed was a thread of a voice: ‘Oh, Christian—I’ve been so frightened!’ Even as she said it she thought what a splendid opportunity it was for him to deliver her a lecture, only he didn’t; he took her in his arms and held her close, huge and warm and safe in his sheepskin jacket. She had never felt so secure. Nor so happy. She shouted into his shoulder: ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I watched you from my window. As soon as you are a little warmer, we will go back.’

  She shivered violently. ‘I can’t…there’s a thick mist…you can’t see.’

  ‘I know the way, it’s perfectly safe.’ His voice, though raised against the wind, sounded completely matter-of-fact, and because of that she made a great effort to pull herself together. ‘I’m quite warm,’ she told him, ‘and I’m ready when you are.’

  He grunted, took her hand in his and started down the path with Eliza a little behind him. It wasn’t quite dark now that they were out from under the ledge, but the mist was just as thick, eddying violently to and fro at the mercy of the wind, but she kept her eyes on his vague dark shape inches away from her nose and stumbled along, slipping and sliding on the loose stones, expecting every moment that she would step into nothingness but knowing in her heart that Christian would never let that happen.

  It was like walking through eternity; she was on the point of screaming to him that she couldn’t bear another moment of it when she felt round smooth stones under her boots and realized that they were crossing the stream. The stepping stones, although large and flat, were awash with water; she could feel its iciness through her thick boots—it would be very cold if she were to slip. She shuddered strongly and felt his hand tighten reassuringly on hers.

  The rough track back to the lodge was gloriously familiar under her feet and Christian had his torch out now, lighting their way, for here, lower down, the mist wasn’t quite so thick. He pulled her close beside him as he stopped outside the cottage and held out his hand for the key. Eliza gave it to him silently and he opened the door, pushed her gently inside and closed it again, leaving her standing there in the cosy little room, wet and shivering and quite bewildered. She shed her clothes, had a hot shower and dressed quickly. She was due, she saw to her amazement, on duty in ten minutes—what had seemed like forever up there on the side of the hills had been only the matter of an hour.

  She fed Cat, made herself some tea and sat down to drink it before the fire. The Professor had been angry, of course, that was why he hadn’t spoken or given her a chance to thank him. It was just as well that she hadn’t been able to see his face—had he not called her a little fool?—and yet he had held her so gently. She would have to find him at supper time and thank him, even if it meant a telling off from him, and it would, and what was more, she was honest enough to admit that she would deserve every word of it. She poured more tea, thinking dolefully that if she had wanted to annoy him deliberately she had certainly succeeded.

  None of the patients knew of her afternoon’s adventure, only Mijnheer Kok remarked that she couldn’t have got very far in such a violent storm. She went about her evening duties outwardly as composed as usual, b
ut inside she was in a tumult; for one thing, she hadn’t quite recovered from her fright, and for another she was trying to compose a suitable speech of thanks to offer Professor van Duyl when she next saw him.

  But there was little opportunity; supper was a haphazard affair, for the gale had blown down the telephone wires connecting the hut to the house, and there was a good deal of coming and going and shouting for tools and torches. Only the two professors and Doctor Berrevoets and Doctor Peters were at the table, and Doctor Peters, who never had much to say for himself anyway, did no more than smile at Eliza and murmur something she didn’t catch, leaving the learned gentlemen at either end of the table to carry on any conversation, and that constantly interrupted. It was Professor Wyllie who did most of the talking, making mild little quips about her disastrous walk, pithy remarks about the abominable weather, and a rather rambling discourse about electronics, which as far as she could make out had nothing to do with anyone present. Professor van Duyl, beyond the briefest of comments when his colleague paused for breath, remained silent, although he paid meticulous attention to her wants. They were having coffee when she plucked up sufficient courage to ask him if he would spare her five minutes of his time.

  His glance was brief and wholly impersonal. ‘Certainly, Sister. In the study, perhaps?’

  But Professor Wyllie had a better idea. ‘No, you two stay here, we have a small problem to solve and we shall need the desk.’

  So they were left to themselves and Eliza, glancing nervously at her companion, thought that he looked bored as well as impatient, a view confirmed the moment the door had been shut.