by Betty Neels
She assented quietly; there was, after all, no need for him to ask how the week had gone; he had phoned each evening and she had given him a faithful account of the day. She made the tea and carried the tray out on to the patio while he went upstairs with Pauline. When they came down again she had shut the kitchen door, put a small tray beside Nanny’s chair and gone back to her cooking, a mug of tea on the table beside her. She heard them on the patio presently and went to set the table in the dining-room. The cheerful meals in the kitchen had been all very well, but the circumstances had been unusual. She arranged the glass and silver just so on the starched linen cloth, set a bowl of roses in its centre and stood back to admire the effect.
‘Very nice,’ said Sir William from the door, ‘very elegant. You have a talent for home-making, Florina—your husband will be a lucky man.’
He came into the room and sat on the edge of the table. ‘I’m taking Pauline back with me on Sunday—she’s going to spend a week with my sister’s children at Eastdean, near Brighton. I’ll drop her off on my way back to town. Nanny will stay here, but she is well enough to leave alone if you would like to take time off to shop or to go home. You don’t mind being on your own with Nanny and Pauline? I’ve never asked you and I should have done.’
‘I know everyone in the village,’ she told him, ‘and I’m not nervous. Will you be bringing Pauline back next weekend?’ She added quickly, in case he thought it was none of her business, ‘Just so that I can help her pack enough clothes…’
‘We’ll be back on Saturday morning; I won’t be able to get away from hospital until Friday evening. I’ll drive down to my sister’s and spend the night. Oh, and I dare say Miss Fortesque will be joining us. She’ll drive herself down some time on Saturday, but have lunch ready, will you?’
He wandered over to the door. ‘You’ve had more than your share of hard work since you came here—and no free time, let alone days off. If and when you want a week’s holiday, don’t hesitate to ask, Florina.’ He gave her a kind smile as he went.
In her room that night, getting ready for bed, she pondered a holiday. She couldn’t remember when she had last had one—when her mother had been alive and the pair of them had gone to Holland once a year to see her mother’s family, and she remembered that with wistful pleasure. After her mother’s death, her father had said that there was no point in wasting money on visiting uncles and aunts and cousins whom he hardly knew. She wrote to them regularly in her perfect Dutch, for her mother had been firm about her speaking, writing and reading that language. ‘For you are half-Dutch,’ she had reminded Florina, ‘and I don’t want you to forget that.’ It was so long now since she had visited her mother’s family, but she had liked them and had felt at home in the old-fashioned house just outside Zierikzee. She would like to see them again, but it didn’t seem very likely.
Sir William took Pauline for a short drive in the morning, and in the afternoon they sat on the patio, watching the swans below them. Florina, making a batch of congress tarts for tea, could hear them laughing and talking. After tea, before she needed to start cooking for the evening meal, she changed into one of her sensible cotton dresses and went home. Her father greeted her sourly and went back to reading his paper, but her aunt was glad to sit down and have half an hour’s gossip. She had settled down nicely, she told Florina, and her father seemed happy enough. ‘You’ve got yourself a nice job, love. That Sir William is spoken of very highly in the village. Had a busy time with the measles, though, didn’t you?’
Her father didn’t miss her, thought Florina regretfully, as she returned to the Wheel House, but at least she thought he seemed content, and Aunt Meg was happy. She went to the kitchen and started on dinner—avocado pears with a hot cheese sauce, trout caught locally, cooked with almonds, and a summer pudding.
After dinner, Sir William came into the kitchen and told her how much he had enjoyed his meal. He was kind but casual; there was none of the friendliness of the previous week.
He went after lunch the next day, taking Pauline with him; a Pauline who was flatteringly loath to leave Florina behind. The warmth of her goodbyes made up for the casual wave of the hand from her father as they drove off.
It was pleasant to have some leisure. Half-way through the week, Florina left Mrs Datchett to keep Nanny company, and took herself off to Salisbury. She had her wages in her pocket and the summer sales were on. The shops were full of pretty summer dresses, but she went straight to Country Casuals where she found a jacket and skirt in a pleasing shade of peach pink and a matching blouse. She added low-heeled court shoes and a small handbag and left the shop, very well satisfied, even if a good deal lighter in her pocket. There was enough money left over to buy a cotton jersey dress, canvas sandals and some undies, even a new lipstick and a face cream guaranteed to erase wrinkles and bring a bloom to the cheeks of the users. Florina, who hadn’t a wrinkle anyway, and owned a skin as clear as a child’s, could have saved her money, but it smelled delicious and fulfilled her wish to improve her looks. She wasn’t sure why.
She showed everything to Mrs Frobisher when she got back, and then hung her finery in the cupboard in her room, got into one of her sensible, unflattering cotton dresses and went to pick the raspberries. On Friday she would cycle into Wilton and get some melons; halved and filled with the raspberries and heaped with whipped cream and a dash of brandy, they would make a good desert for Sir William and whoever came with him. He hadn’t said that he was bringing guests but she must be prepared…
He arrived on Saturday morning, with Wanda beside him and a sulky Pauline on the back seat. Mrs Frobisher, on her feet once more, but not doing much as yet, opened the door to them, and Florina heard them talking and laughing in the hall; at least Wanda was laughing. A moment later, the kitchen door was flung open and Pauline danced in.
‘Oh, Florina, I have missed you, it’s lovely to be here again! Can I make cakes for tea? My aunt has a cook too, but she wouldn’t let me go into the kitchen. My cousins are scared of her. I’m not scared of you.’
Florina was piping potato purée into elegant swirls. ‘Oh, good! Of course you can make cakes. Any idea what you want to make?’
‘Scones—like yours. Daddy says they melt in his mouth…’
‘OK. Come back about three o’clock, Pauline. I’m going to pick the last of the raspberries after lunch; you can make the scones when I’ve done that.’
Pauline danced away, and she got on with her cooking, trying not to hear Wanda’s voice on the patio, or her trilling laugh. With luck, she wouldn’t have to see anything of her over the weekend; Mrs Deakin or Mrs Datchett would be early enough to take her breakfast tray up each morning.
Florina chopped parsley so viciously that Sir William, coming into the kitchen, said in mock alarm, ‘Oh, dear, shall I come back later?’
Could she knock up some savoury bits and pieces? he wanted to know. He had asked a few local people in for drinks that evening, and could dinner be put back for half an hour?
On his way out of the kitchen he turned to look at her. ‘Quite happy?’ he wanted to know.
Her ‘Yes, thank you, sir,’ was offered without expression. There was no reason for her to be anything else. She had a good job, money in her pocket and a kind, considerate employer. Of course she was happy.
A dozen or so people came for drinks. She knew them by sight; people from the bigger country houses in the vicinity. Doctor Stone and his wife were there too, and the Rector, and the dear old lady from Crow Cottage at the other end of the village whose husband had been the local vet. She lived alone now with several cats and an elderly dog. Florina had made cheese straws, petits fours and tiny cheese puffs, while Pauline made the scones. The first batch were a failure; Florina put them into a bowl, observing that the swans would soon dispose of them, and advised Pauline to try again. ‘And this time they will be perfect,’ she encouraged.
Edible, at any rate! Her father assured her that they were delicious and ate four, and Pau
line swelled with pride, although the sight of Wanda taking a bite and then refusing to finish hers took the edge off her pleasure. ‘I expect I’m fussy,’ said Wanda, laughing gently. Then she shot a look of dislike at Pauline, who wanted to know if she knew how to make scones.
‘I have never needed to cook,’ she said loftily. ‘I have other things with which to occupy my time.’
‘It’s a good thing that I have the means to employ someone who can, my dear,’ observed Sir William, and cut himself a slice of Florina’s apple cake. It was as light as a feather and he felt that he deserved it after his small daughter’s offering. ‘But it is reassuring to know that, should I ever be without a cook, Pauline will at least know an egg from a potato.’
He drove Wanda back to London on Sunday evening, for she refused to get up early on Monday morning so that he might be in the hospital in time for his mid-morning clinic. She was, she declared, quite unable to get up before nine o’clock each morning. Florina heard her saying it and heartily despised her for it. Anyone with any sense knew that one of the best parts of the day was the hour just as the sun was rising. Besides, Sir William was no lie-abed; hospitals, unless she was very much mistaken, started their day early, and that would apply to most of the staff, including the most senior of the consultants.
Pauline came in from the front porch where she had been waving goodbye.
‘It’s super to be here again just with you and Nanny, only I wish Daddy were here, too.’
‘Don’t you like your home in London?’ asked Florina. She was getting their supper and had made Nanny comfortable in a chair by the Aga.
‘Oh, yes, that’s super too, only Wanda is always there. She walks in and out as though it were her home, and it isn’t, it’s Daddy’s and mine, and Jolly and Mrs Jolly’s of course.’ She added, ‘Oh, and Shirley, she lives there too. Mrs Peek comes in each day to help, but she goes home after her dinner.’
‘It sounds very pleasant,’ said Florina a bit absent-mindedly: she was remembering that Wanda hadn’t spoken to her at all during the weekend. Sir William hadn’t said much, either, but he had thanked her for the bits and pieces she had made for the drinks party, and praised the roast beef she had served up for dinner on Saturday evening. He had also wished her goodbye until the following weekend.
‘I’ll be alone,’ he had told her, ‘perhaps we might have a picnic…Pauline has rather set her heart on one. You and Nanny, Pauline and I.’
The fine weather held; the three of them picked beans and peas and courgettes and tomatoes, and stocked up the freezer. And, with Pauline on a borrowed bike, Florina cycled with her to Wilton, and they shopped for the weekend and had ices at the little tea room in the High Street.
It was on the Thursday that she had a letter from her Tante Minna in Holland. Florina’s cousin Marijke was going to be married, and would she go to the wedding and, if possible, stay for a week or so? It was a long time, wrote Tante Minna in her beautiful copperplate Dutch, since Florina had been to see them, and, while they were aware that her father had no wish to visit them, her family in Holland felt that they should keep in touch. The wedding was to be in a week and a half’s time and she hoped to hear…
A wedding, reflected Florina—a chance to wear her new outfit and, since she could afford the fare, there was no reason why she shouldn’t accept. Sir William had told her that if she wanted a holiday she had only to ask. He would be back at home on the next day. She spent the rest of the day and a good deal of the night deciding exactly what she would say to him.
He looked tired when he came, but he still remembered to see her in the kitchen and to ask if everything was all right. ‘I see Nanny has quite recovered—I hope Pauline hasn’t been too much trouble?’
Florina gave a brief résumé of their week, and took in the tea tray.
‘Worn to the bone,’ commented Nanny as they drank their own tea in the kitchen. ‘What he needs is peace and quiet when he gets home of an evening, but that Miss Fortesque is always on at him to go dining and dancing.’
It wasn’t the time to ask about holidays, and Florina went to bed feeling frustrated. Perhaps she wouldn’t have the chance to ask him, and if she didn’t this weekend it would be too late to make arrangements to go to the wedding. She spent a poor night worrying about it, which proved a waste of time for, as she was boiling the kettle for early morning tea, he wandered into the kitchen in trousers and an open-necked shirt.
‘Oh, you’re up,’ she said stupidly, and then, ‘Good morning, Sir William.’
‘Morning, Florina—too nice to stay in bed—I’ve been for a walk. Is that tea? Good.’ He sat down on the side of the table and watched her, clean and starched and neat, getting mugs and sugar and milk. ‘Have a cup with me, I want to talk.’
Her hand shook a little as she poured the milk. The sack? Wanda and he getting married? Something awful she had done?
‘I’m wondering if you would like that week’s holiday? In a week’s time I have to go to Leiden to give a series of lectures, and I thought I would take Pauline with me. Nanny can stay here, and the Jollys can come down and keep her company. Our Shirley is quite happy to look after the house in town, and Mrs Peek will move in while we are away and keep her company…’
He broke off to look at her. Florina was gazing at him, her gentle mouth slightly open, wearing the bemused look of someone who had just received a smart tap on the head. ‘In a week’s time,’ she repeated, a bit breathless. ‘Oh, I’ll be able to go to the wedding!’
‘Yours?’ asked Sir William.
She shook her head. ‘No—my cousin—they live close to Zierikzee, and she’s getting married, and I’ve been asked to go and it’s just perfect! While you are in Leiden, I’ll be able to stay with my aunt.’
She beamed at him and then asked soberly, ‘That is, if you don’t mind?’
He leaned over and poured the tea into two mugs. ‘My dear girl, why should I mind? It’s the hand of fate, of course you must go. How?’
‘Oh, I’ll fly, I did it with Mother several times, when she was alive we went each year, Basingstoke, you know, and then a bus to Gatwick…’
Sir William cut himself a slice of bread from the loaf she had put ready for toast. ‘I know a better way. When is this wedding?’ When she had told him, he said, ‘It couldn’t be better. We’ll give you a lift in the car and drop you off…’
‘It’s out of your way,’ she pointed out.
‘A mile or so, besides I’ve always wanted to take a look at Zierikzee. Can you stay with your aunt until we pick you up on the way home?’
‘Yes—oh, yes!’ Her face glowed with delight and Sir William took a second look at her. Quite pretty in a quiet, unassuming way, and she had lovely eyes. He got off the table. ‘That’s settled, then. We’ll work out the details later. Can you really be ready for this picnic by eleven o’clock? The New Forest, so Pauline tells me. She has it all planned.’
Florina nodded happily, in a delightful daze, quite unable to stop smiling. Sir William, on the way upstairs to his room, reflected that she was a funny little thing as well as being a marvellous cook. She didn’t seem to have much fun, either, and this cousin’s wedding would be a treat for her.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE Bentley slid with deceptive speed around the southern outskirts of Salisbury, took the Ringwood road and at Downton turned off to Cadnam. Florina and Nanny, sitting in the back of the car, admired the scenery and listened to Pauline’s happy chatter to her father. In Lyndhurst, a few miles further on from Cadnam, they stopped for coffee at an olde-worlde tea-shop, all dark oak and haughty waitresses dressed to match. The coffee was dreadful and Sir William muttered darkly over his, only cheered by Florina’s recital of what she and Nanny had packed in the picnic basket.
Just outside the little town they entered the Forest, and presently turned off into a narrow lane which opened out into a rough circle of green grass surrounded by trees. It was pleasantly warm and Pauline pranced off, intent on explori
ng, taking her father with her. He had hesitated before they went, looking at Florina, but she had no intention of leaving Nanny alone.
‘We’ll get the lunch ready,’ she said firmly, wishing with all her heart that she could go with them.
They were back after half an hour or so, and in the meantime she had spread their picnic on the ground near the car. They had brought a folding chair for Nanny, and she was sitting in it, telling Florina what to do, watching as she set out the little containers with sausage rolls, sandwiches, meat pies and cheese puffs. There was lemonade, too, and beer for Sir William as well as a thermos of hot coffee, and apples and pears. Sir William heaved a sigh of contentment as he made himself comfortable against a tree stump.
‘The temptation to retire is very strong,’ he observed and, at Florina’s surprised look, ‘No, I’m not sixty, Florina, although I feel all of that, sometimes.’ He bit into a pie. ‘This seems as good a time as any to plan out our week in Holland.’ He glanced at Mrs Frobisher. ‘Nanny, I’m taking Pauline over to Holland with me when I go in a week’s time—we’ll be gone for a week. The Jollys are coming down to keep you company. You’ll like that, won’t you? Florina is going to Holland too, to a cousin’s wedding, and we’ll bring her back with us. Now, how shall we go?’ He looked at Florina who, having no idea at all, said nothing. ‘Hovercraft, I think, and drive up from Calais.’ He finished the pie and started on a sausage roll. ‘Have you a passport, Florina? No—well go to the post office in Wilton and get a passport from there. There isn’t time for you to get a new one through the normal channels; you’ll need the old one for details, though. Pauline’s on my passport. Let me see, if we leave Dover about ten o’clock, we should be in Zierikzee during the afternoon, and Amsterdam a couple of hours later. I start lectures on the Monday, so that will fit in very well.’
‘Will Pauline be alone?’ asked Florina.
‘We’re staying with friends. She’ll have a marvellous time, they have four children.’