by Betty Neels
He had reached them by now, shaking Professor Wyllie by the hand, welcoming him. ‘You are wonderfully recovered,’ he observed, and turned to look at Eliza, ‘due no doubt to our redoubtable Miss Proudfoot.’
She stared at his face; his dark eyes were alight with laughter. And what had he to laugh about? she wondered uneasily. She could feel her heart thumping away under the new tweeds like a demented thing; whether meeting her again amused him or not, she was overjoyed to see him; she knew now that however hard she tried she would never be able to forget him. She said quietly: ‘How do you do, Professor,’ and offered a hand, mindful of the Dutch custom of shaking hands on all and every occasion, and Christian was Dutch as well as being back in his own country.
He took the hand and didn’t let it go. ‘Welcome to my home, Eliza,’ he said, and now she knew why he had looked so amused.
Her eyes rounded with astonishment. She declared: ‘Your home? all this?’ she waved her free hand at the magnificence around them and choked a little. ‘And I gave you a broom to clean out the cottage, and you mopped the floor!’
‘Rather well, I thought.’
She wriggled her hand a little and his grip tightened. ‘And Hub? Does he live here too?’
‘Of course—he orders my house for me; he’s my right-hand man—a paragon amongst men and a lifelong friend as well.’ He laughed a little. ‘I think that in England you would call him the butler, but to us he is much more than that.’
‘Oh, yes, I know.’ Eliza looked at Professor Wyllie, standing beside her, oozing benevolence, his blue eyes missing nothing. ‘You didn’t tell me,’ she accused him gently.
‘No need, girl—why should I? What’s it to you, anyway?’
A forthright statement which left her without words, so that Christian came to her rescue with a suggestion that she might like to go to her room, nodding at Hub as he spoke. ‘We lunch at half past twelve and my mother is most anxious to meet you.’
Hub, who had disappeared, returned, trailing in his wake a tall angular girl who answered to the name of Nel, and led Eliza up the great staircase, to take the left-hand wing which opened on to a wide corridor where she opened a door and waved Eliza smilingly inside. Left alone, Eliza saw that her case was already there, quite dwarfed by its surroundings, for the room reflected the magnificence of the hall. If Christian had hoped to impress her he had succeeded very well. She wandered round, picking up delicate silver, bric-à-brac and china, smelling at the bowl of flowers, fingering the books which someone had thoughtfully placed at the bedside, examining the window hangings and the bedspread on the bed with its important carved head-board. It was all quite beautiful and not quite to be believed. She turned away from its satinwood and pastel brocades and went to the window, which afforded a view of a large formal garden, which even at this dreary time of year looked pleasant, with its sunken pond and statues and straight paths and clipped hedges, but the sight of it did nothing to quieten her thoughts. She went back to the dressing table and tidied herself for lunch, and presently, outwardly serene, but inwardly scared to death, she went downstairs.
Hub was in the hall; she suspected that he had been waiting for her, for he came to her at once. ‘In here, miss,’ he advised her, with a kind of benevolent encouragement, just as though he knew that she was nervous, and threw open a handsome pair of doors.
She had expected another vast room, hung with brocade and family portraits and furnished with chairs, which, while extremely handsome to look at, would be most uncomfortable in which to sit, but it was nothing like that at all—a smallish room, glowing with colour and chintz-covered chairs, with a bright fire in the steel grate and under her feet a rich carpet, inches thick, all combining to give an air of great cosiness. There seemed to be a great many people, but only at first glance, for as Christian came towards her from the group around the fire, she saw that there were only five other people in the room besides the two of them. Professor Wyllie, of course, and not surprisingly, Doctor Berrevoets and Doctor Peters. And an elderly lady, not much taller than herself and still pretty.
The fifth person was a young woman, tall and rather angular, whom Eliza had no difficulty in recognising. Here then was Estelle, exactly like her photograph, excepting that it hadn’t revealed her extreme slimness. No shape at all, Eliza summed up, but good-looking in a mediaeval kind of way, expensively dressed too, though what was the use of gorgeous clothes if there were no curves for them to cling to? Eliza, who had some quite satisfactory curves of her own, felt more cheerful as she murmured at Christian and was introduced to his mother. She liked the little lady immediately; she had her son’s dark eyes, but there the resemblance ended; he must take after his father, she glanced at the portrait hanging above her hostess’s head and knew that she was right; there was the stare, the good looks, the powerful nose with its winged nostrils. She answered Mevrouw van Duyl’s gentle questions, put in excellent English, and at the touch of Christian’s hand went to meet Estelle.
She had been right; now that she was close to her and actually talking, Estelle seemed more mediaeval than at first. She had a long straight nose and pale blue eyes, large and thickly lashed, but they held no expression except well-bred interest—perhaps they would light up when she was alone with Christian. Eliza’s own eyes sparkled at the very idea so that Doctor Peters, standing by Estelle, was constrained to remark upon her evident good health. After that she went to talk to Doctor Berrevoets, and found herself beside him at lunch, taken in a room which could have housed half a dozen tables of the size at which they sat. She ate her way through the delicious meal, answering composedly when spoken to, but not contributing to the conversation, for somehow Estelle, without saying a word, had managed to convey to her the fact that she was the nurse and only there because they were all too well-mannered to dwell on the fact that she was paid wages and was hardly out of the same drawer, socially speaking. So silly, Eliza chided herself silently, to mind what Estelle thought about her. She wished that she was a little nearer Mevrouw van Duyl, who, although she treated her with the utmost kindness, was separated from her by a vast expanse of white table-cloth—and one couldn’t shout.
She got up from the table with relief and overriding her patient’s ill-tempered remarks about being bullied, led him away to his room for a much-needed nap. She didn’t go downstairs again; her room was warm and comfortable and there were books to read. Someone had been in and unpacked while she had been at lunch and after a few minutes’ idle reading she found her writing case and sat down to compose a letter; her parents would be interested to hear about the house and its treasures. She had almost finished it when there was a knock on the door and Estelle came in.
‘Christian thought that you might like to walk in the garden,’ she said in her precise English. ‘If we put on coats and scarves it will be pleasant enough.’
Eliza got her coat and found a scarf; she didn’t want to go walking with Estelle, but on the other hand it might give her the chance to find out more about her—there must be something which attracted Christian, and she had to admit that she had been prejudiced against her, and now would be the time to find out what Estelle was really like.
They went out of the side door which led them straight to the formal garden, and Eliza began to ask, rather feverishly, a great many questions about it; she suspected that she and Estelle would have very little in common and gardens were usually a safe topic.
Estelle talked intelligently but without much interest. They stayed out of doors for half an hour, and at the end of that time Eliza had confirmed her suspicion that the girl was a bore—nice enough, she supposed, friendly even, but she showed no emotion about anything; Eliza had unconsciously put that to the test, for, seeing a mole emerging from his hill, she had squealed with delight and would have stayed motionless for minutes in the hope that he might reappear, only a glance at her companion’s face showed only too plainly that to Estelle, moles were of no interest at all, moreover there was no need to become vul
garly excited about them.
Feeling quite subdued, Eliza followed her back into the house, this time through a conservatory full of spring flowers over which she would have liked to linger. But she was given no opportunity to do this, being taken into a handsome room with a good deal of gilding on its walls and a great many chairs and little tables, where Mevrouw van Duyl was sitting by the fire. She looked up and smiled as they went in and said kindly: ‘There you are, my dears—you are not too cold, I hope? Tomorrow, Eliza—I may call you that?—I will take you round the house if you are interested. It is a great awkward place, but quite beautiful—at least we think so, although it is far too big for the two of us.’
Estelle had seated herself on the other side of the chimneypiece. ‘You forget, Mevrouw van Duyl, that when Christian and I are married, I shall be living here too.’ She spoke gently, but Eliza saw the older lady wince and frown, though the face she turned to her was quite placid. ‘Sit down, Eliza,’ she was bidden, ‘and tell me about yourself, for Christian has hardly mentioned you and I had not the least idea that you were so young and pretty.’
Eliza, aware that Estelle was listening to this challenging remark even though she had picked up a magazine, excused herself. ‘I should like that, Mevrouw van Duyl, but perhaps another time? It’s time I got Professor Wyllie on his feet again; if I let him sleep too long, he gets cross.’
Her hostess smiled. ‘Of course, Eliza. I forget that you are a nurse—you do not look like one, you see, and somehow, from the little Christian said of you, I imagined you to be middle-aged and plain.’
All three of them laughed and Eliza hoped that her merriment sounded real, for it was nothing of the sort. Going upstairs to the Professor’s room presently it struck her that however unsuitable Estelle was, she couldn’t carry out her intention of bringing the match to an end and marrying Christian herself; she hadn’t known then that he was the owner of this vast house and living in the lap of luxury; he might be a hard-working doctor and a successful one too, but he didn’t belong to her world, but Estelle did and that was why he had chosen her to be his wife. She would make him a very good wife, but whether she would make him happy was a moot point. She was very quiet as she got her patient out of bed and tidied up the room. He was still a little irritable and his pulse was too high, but she knew better than to dissuade him from doing what he wished with the rest of the day. A long chat with the other men, he told her with glee; it would be most interesting, and she should hear all about it later. ‘And I’ll have my tea up here,’ he decided. ‘Ring that bell and ask for it, Eliza, and have a cup with me.’
She was only too glad to do so, for she had been dreading going back to the drawing room; a chat with Mevrouw van Duyl would have been nice, but an hour of Estelle’s company, trying to find something to talk about, wasn’t tempting.
They had their tea and presently, when he had gone downstairs, she went back to her room, finished her letter and then, uncertain of the evening ahead, bathed and changed into one of the woollen dresses, dove grey with a high white collar and little cuffs. It was a very plain dress, save for the silk bow under her chin, but it was suitable for after six in a quiet sort of way, and anyway, she wasn’t quite sure of her status; was she a guest, or was she to be considered as Professor Wyllie’s nurse? There was a difference, quite a large one; when she saw him again she would have to ask him.
She spent time on her face and hair because she had nothing else to do—indeed, she took her hair down again and started brushing it out with the idea of trying another style. The knock on the door was unexpected, but Hub’s anxious face and urgent voice brought her to her feet at once.
‘It’s Professor Wyllie, miss—if you would go to the library right away.’
She had taken the precaution of bringing the portable oxygen with her as well as the drugs he might need and syringes and needles; she had laid them out ready on a linenfold dower chest standing at the foot of the bed; now she snatched them up and was flying downstairs almost before Hub had finished speaking.
She knew where the library was; Estelle had pointed it out to her as they had left the house that afternoon. She opened the door and walked in. Professor Wyllie was sitting in a large armchair, having what she could see was a nasty attack. Christian was bending over him, loosening his tie, while the other two doctors stood nearby, looking helpless. She skipped past them, offered her neat little parcel of phials and syringes to Christian, got the oxygen started and applied it to Professor Wyllie’s anxious face. ‘Better in a moment,’ she assured him soothingly. ‘We’re going to get you out of that jacket.’ She turned round to engage help from Doctor Peters and thus missed the look on Christian’s face; when she did have time to look at him, he was gravely checking the injection before plunging it into his colleague’s arm. The result was dramatic; within a few minutes the old man was breathing easily once more and giving testy instructions as to what would be done next, to none of which Christian paid the least attention.
‘Bed for you, sir,’ he ordered in a quiet voice which brooked no refusal. ‘Eliza, go ahead and see that it’s ready, would you?’ He went to the door with her and as he opened it, murmured: ‘You weren’t going to bed, by any chance?’
She had forgotten that her hair was hanging loose and that her feet were still in the pink quilted mules someone or other had given her for Christmas. Under his amused gaze she went a delicate pink. ‘Of course not!’ she snapped, and whisked past him.
She had the bed ready by the time they had borne the protesting Professor upstairs, and with Christian’s help, got him into it. ‘Would you stay five minutes?’ she asked, and flew to her own room to get into the uniform she had brought with her; at least her evening was settled for her now.
And Christian, when he saw her in her cap and apron once more, said nothing—probably he had expected it, or welcomed it as a solution of a delicate problem, for she felt sure that whatever he felt about it, Estelle, in the nicest possible way, would have pointed out to him that she was a nurse, not a guest.
But she had reckoned without her host. The dinner gong had hardly ceased to sound when there was a knock on the door and Hub came in.
‘You are to go down to dinner, miss,’ he told her, looking paternally at her. ‘I will stay with the Professor and let you know if anything should occur.’
She glanced at the sleeping figure on the bed. ‘Oh, Hub, that’s very good of you, but I’d much rather stay up here—if I could have something on a tray?’ She smiled at him. ‘That’s if no one would mind.’
‘But I do mind very much.’ Christian had followed Hub into the room. ‘You will give us the pleasure of your company downstairs, Eliza.’ He came across the room to her and took her arm. ‘You know as well as I do that Professor Wyllie will be perfectly all right again; a day in bed and he will be as he usually is, and Hub knows exactly what he must do in an emergency.’
‘Yes—but I’m the Professor’s nurse, that’s why I came. Besides, I’m in uniform.’
He smiled at her and her heart rocked. ‘And very nice too, though I found your previous outfit most eye-catching.’ He had walked her across the room and out of the door, which Hub closed silently behind them.
‘Oh, please, I really would rather not…’
He took no notice at all, only said strangely: ‘I wish we were back at Inverpolly,’ and bent to kiss her swiftly, then, still holding her arm, went down the stairs beside her, silent now, just as she was, for surprise had taken her tongue.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ELIZA was glad, when she saw Estelle, that she had got back into uniform again, for the little grey wool dress would have been entirely eclipsed by that young lady’s long crêpe gown, an expensive garment, thought Eliza, running an experienced female eye over it, beautifully cut but far too low in the neck for those regrettable salt-cellars. If Estelle didn’t put on a few pounds soon, she would be skinny by the time she was forty. Eliza, in her mind’s eye, knew just how she would look, but per
haps Christian liked thin women. Her thoughts shied away from him; it was no time to reflect upon his kiss. Instead, she made small talk with Doctor Berrevoets and drank her sherry before going to talk to Mevrouw van Duyl, who carried on with the small talk in her kindly way while her dark eyes took stock of Eliza, and presently they held the same amused gleam which showed from time to time in her son’s eyes. Eliza didn’t see that, but presently when they were on the point of going to the dining room, he left Estelle’s side and lingered a moment with his parent.
‘What gives you that delightfully satisfied expression, Mama? You look like the cat who discovered the cream.’
She patted his arm and gave him a wide smile. ‘Dear boy,’ she said, and then: ‘Talking of cats—I’m sure Eliza would love to go and see that quaint little animal you brought back with you. Such a dear girl, and you never told me how very pretty she was. Perhaps you could take her to see the little animals after dinner, and I daresay you would like a little talk, too.’
It was her son’s turn to smile. ‘Dear Mama,’ he spoke very mildly, ‘how you must have delighted Father with your little plots!’
‘Yes, dear—and you are so like him.’ She looked suddenly downcast. ‘It was only one of my silly notions, a—a daydream.’
He looked at her with fondness. ‘Yes, dearest, but do not allow yourself to forget that Estelle and I plan to marry within the next few months.’
‘No, Christian, I never forget that. Such a pleasant girl, and so capable, sometimes it seems to me that she had already taken over the running of this house when she comes to stay—of course she does it beautifully.’
His mouth hardened. ‘Quite so, Mama. Now, since everyone is waiting…’