The Magic of Living

by Betty Neels

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ agreed Arabella politely, ‘only being pretty does help a girl to get started!’

  He laughed then, and after a moment she laughed with him, suddenly not minding being plain at all.

  Presently the doctor turned off the road into a country lane running through thick woods, and presently, heathland. ‘Tea?’ he enquired, and without waiting for her to answer: ‘There’s a rather nice place at Leuvenum where you get a pot of tea on a tray and not just a cup without milk, with a biscuit in the saucer.’

  Which remark led to an interesting talk about food and the customs concerning the eating of it in various countries, which lasted until he drew up before a smallish hotel in the little town, where, as he had promised her, they were served a tray of tea and offered a selection of cakes which made Arabella’s eyes shine with healthy greed. The food at the hospital was good but a little stodgy, she had found; the delicious lunch at the doctor’s house had served to emphasise that fact. She chose a luscious chocolate and whipped cream confection and ate it with delicate enjoyment, talking all the time, because here at last was someone who seemed to share her thoughts, laugh when she laughed, and be ready to argue without heat when they disagreed. She accepted another cake when her companion pressed her to do so, poured him more tea, and was about to continue some mild argument when her eye caught sight of the clock.

  She paused, a forkful of cream and almonds and pastry poised before her open mouth. ‘The time,’ she said urgently. ‘It’s almost five o’clock!’

  The doctor looked interested. ‘Are you doing something urgent at that hour?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘No—no, of course not, only it’s so l-late. I’ve taken up the whole of your afternoon as well as the morning. I’m sure you must want to get back.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked, still blandly interested.

  Arabella frowned, because he wasn’t being at all helpful. ‘I d-don’t know why you sh-should want to g-get back,’ she informed him severely. ‘It’s n-none of my business, it’s j-just that I don’t want you t-to waste your t-time.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he told her simply, so that she gave up, laughing.

  ‘Well, it’s been very kind of you to take me round like this, I’ve enjoyed it enormously,’ she assured him, ‘especially in a Bentley.’

  He smiled idly, lolling back in his chair. ‘Do you drive?’ he wanted to know. ‘I imagine so, for you knew what to do when the bus crashed.’

  ‘However did you know…?’ she began, quite mystified.

  ‘I asked some of the children. Were you not frightened?’

  ‘Terrified, especially when I saw you coming straight at us.’ She caught her breath at the memory. ‘All I could think about was those children, strapped in and unable to help themselves.’

  His smile was kind. ‘I believe that you are a brave girl, Arabella.’

  She flushed faintly. ‘No, I’m not. I was scared stiff.’

  ‘Therefore brave. Shall we go? I thought we might take another road home.’

  They were at the doctor’s house by half past six, and when he invited Arabella to get out of the car, she hesitated, uncertain what to say, for if she stated that she wanted to go back to the hospital, it might sound as if she was tired of his company. On the other hand, if she went indoors with him, he might think she was expecting to be asked to dinner. He solved the vexed question for her.

  ‘Just time for a drink before dinner,’ he assured her bracingly. ‘Come along in.’ And he caught her hand and didn’t let it go until they were in the hall once more.

  Hours later, lying in bed in her room at the hospital, Arabella went carefully over her day. It had been wonderful; she hadn’t been so happy for a long time. Dinner had been a delightful, leisurely meal, with the three of them talking like lifelong friends, and she remembered happily, she hadn’t stammered once. She had felt relaxed and at ease, which when she thought about it seemed strange, for she scarcely knew the doctor, and his sister not at all.

  She and the children were to go to the doctor’s house in two days’ time, that he had decided before she had left after dinner. ‘Before sending you all back to England,’ he had declared cheerfully, and Arabella, remembering his words very clearly, was conscious of sadness at the idea of leaving the quiet little town and the hospital where everyone was so friendly. Just before she went to sleep she added another thought to the effect that she felt sad at the idea of leaving the doctor too.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE planned move was made, with the wildly excited children, their wheelchairs and possessions, stowed expertly in the Bentley, with Arabella crushed between them, intent on maintaining their balance.

  It was late afternoon when they finally got away, with a rousing send-off from those in the hospital who had the time to come to the forecourt and wave goodbye, and because the doctor didn’t want the children to feel bewildered as to where they were going, he drove slowly down the main street, while Arabella pointed out the shops she would take them to see if they were good. The worrying thought that she would be unable to push two chairs at once crossed her mind, but as no one else seemed to have noticed this drawback, she forbore from commenting upon it. But she was wrong; someone had noticed. When they arrived at the house and the children were being carried inside, Doctor van der Vorst said carelessly: ‘There will be someone to go with you when you take the children out—naturally they must go together.’ He ushered her after the children, saying: ‘Never mind the luggage, we’ll see to that presently.’

  The children were taken straight to their room and sat in the chairs put ready for them, each with its adjustable table so that they could have their playthings to hand. There were two small hospital beds too, each in a corner, and through the open door Arabella could see the small room which was to be hers. There were flowers everywhere, and a portable TV in another corner, and George waiting to greet everyone.

  It was a tremendous improvement on the hospital, however kind and thoughtful everyone had been there; here they would settle down to a semblance of home life once again, and by the time they got home once more, their memories of the accident would have faded, and their almost wasted legs be nicely on the mend under the plaster. They were already a good deal more co-ordinated, and their speech had improved enormously; in a week or so they would be fit to travel home.

  ‘Come and see your room,’ invited Larissa. ‘Gideon can handle those two for five minutes—they’re used to him, aren’t they? There’s a young girl who comes in to clean each morning, she’s very kind and the eldest of several children, and we thought she might do to relieve you each day—what do you think?’

  ‘It sounds marvellous,’ said Arabella a little shyly. Her own family had always been kind to her, but they had never put themselves out for her comfort; but here were people—almost strangers—thinking about her leisure hours before she had even earned any, and a good deal of time and thought must have been spent in preparing the rooms—her own little room had been stripped of its original furniture and was now a charming bedroom, with a little satin-wood bed, matched by a bow-legged table with a mirror, a scattering of comfortable chairs and a bedside table upon which reposed a bowl of flowers and a small pile of books.

  ‘Good, then that’s settled,’ said Larissa cheerfully. ‘Let’s get Billy and Sally settled in, shall we? I thought supper and then bed, if that suits you. They’ll be all right to leave for a while?’

  Arabella was doubtful. ‘Well, on the ward there was always a nurse—would you mind if I had my supper here?’

  ‘I mind very much.’ Doctor van der Vorst’s hearing must be very sharp, thought Arabella, for he hadn’t been anywhere near them. ‘Hanneke will be glad to come for a couple of hours.’ He looked at his sister. ‘Larissa, get someone to go and fetch her, will you?’

  A little high-handed, Arabella considered. Supposing Hanneke didn’t want to come? And who was this someone who was to drop everything and fetch the poor girl? She said quic
kly: ‘There’s really no need to upset anyone, really there isn’t, I’m p-perfectly able t-to…’

  The doctor was arranging Billy in his chair. ‘Don’t argue, dear girl,’ he advised her equably. ‘If you will get Sally fixed up, the pair of them can have their suppers—Larissa will help you.’ He wandered to the door. ‘I’ve a couple of calls to make.’

  He nodded to her, waved to the children and went away, his place taken almost immediately with Emma and the supper tray. Larissa came back too, and, carefully briefed by Arabella, fed Sally while Arabella guided Billy’s earnest efforts. It was a messy business, but he was beginning to do better; time and patience were paying their dividends. Arabella hugged him for being a good boy and began the slow business of getting him undressed, watching, as she did so, Larissa’s efforts with Sally; she was managing very well, laughing and talking to the child in a manner which quite won Arabella’s heart. She turned on the radio someone had thoughtfully placed on one of the tables, and to the sound of the latest pop music and a good deal of merriment, the two children were got ready for bed. They were tired. Arabella tucked them in, kissed them good night, and warned that dinner would be in half an hour, then parted company with Larissa, to retire to her little room, with the door open so that she could keep a watchful eye on Sally and Billy, and make such repairs to her person as she considered necessary and had time for. She had changed her dress, redone her hair and face, and was experimenting with a new lipstick, when the young girl Hanneke came tiptoeing in. She smiled and shook hands with Arabella and went without a word to sit in one of the comfortable chairs in the children’s room. Obviously someone had primed her as to what was expected of her; after a few minutes, satisfied that Hanneke knew what she was about, Arabella crept from the room, in search of Larissa.

  In the hall, she hesitated. Larissa had said that dinner would be in half an hour; should she have stopped in her room and waited for someone to fetch her? Or in this large and well-run house, would there be a dinner gong? She hung around for a few minutes and had just decided to go back to her room when the front door opened and the doctor came in.

  ‘Held up, as usual,’ he remarked without preamble. ‘Come into the sitting room and I’ll give you a drink; Larissa won’t be long, though she usually takes ages dressing—always has.’

  He had put his bag down on one of the hall tables and thrown an arm across her shoulders as he was speaking, and they went together into the sitting room. Once there, and their drinks poured, he was in no hurry to be gone. She suspected that he was putting her at her ease, for he was talking of nothing in particular, and it wasn’t until Larissa appeared, looking quite beautiful in a simple little dress which wasn’t simple at all when one really looked at it, that he went away to his own room.

  ‘Doctors!’ sighed his sister. ‘If we manage to have a meal at the time I arrange, I am too surprised to eat it. It is always the same,’ she smiled at Arabella. ‘Do not marry a doctor.’ She sipped her drink and added thoughtfully: ‘Or perhaps you should.’

  The doctor returned presently, looking as though he had done no work all day; immaculate in his grey cloth suit, his silk shirt and rather dashing tie. He grinned at them as he came in, asked: ‘Quick, wasn’t I?’ in a pleased voice and added: ‘I’m famished.’

  Dinner was a merry meal. Arabella, who in her own quiet way was a good conversationalist, bloomed under the kindly attentions of her host and his sister; they neither seemed to notice her stammer, and presently she forgot about it too. It was nice to talk freely and to be listened to as though it really mattered what she said. They sat round the dinner table long after they had finished their meal, talking about a great many things, and when finally, after another hour over the coffee cups in the sitting room, she went to bed, Arabella glowed with content and pleasure. She hadn’t expected it to be like this; she curled up in her pretty bed after making sure that the children were asleep, and wished with all her heart that she could stay for ever. She liked Doesburg, she liked the house, and she liked the doctor and his sister—especially did she like the doctor. She warned herself not to like him too much just as she was on the edge of sleep.

  She was up early the next morning, not earlier than Hanneke, who came in quietly with a cup of tea and indicated that she would stay with the children while Arabella went upstairs and had her bath.

  No one, thought Arabella, skipping up the well-polished staircase, had mentioned where the bathroom would be, and surely, in a house of this size, there would be more than one? At the top of the stairs, she stood uncertain. All the doors looked alike; white-painted with swags of fruit and flowers carved above each one. There was a narrow passage at the back of the main corridor. Arabella pattered towards it, for it seemed the most likely place to start looking—besides, presumably the doctor’s room was in the front of the house, as Larissa’s was, so there would be no fear of her disturbing anyone if she opened the wrong door.

  She almost jumped out of her skin when the doctor’s voice boomed from behind her: ‘If it’s a bathroom you’re looking for, there’s one at the end of that passage, or that door over there,’ he nodded to the other end of the main corridor. ‘Use whichever one you wish. We shan’t disturb you, we each have our own.’

  She had spun round in a whirl of pink quilted dressing gown, a curtain of pale brown hair and an armful of towels. ‘Oh, you startled me!’ she accused him in a whisper. ‘I thought everyone was still in bed.’

  She peered at him through her mousy hair; he was dressed in slacks and a sweater and George was panting happily beside him.

  ‘I get up early,’ he told her in an answering whisper, and walked towards her, and Arabella, suddenly uncertain and hopelessly behind the times when it came to the correct behaviour towards handsome men she might encounter in her dressing gown, retreated before him.

  At the end of the passage, when she could go no further, he reached past her and opened a door. ‘The bathroom,’ he pointed out blandly, and stood looking down at her with a kind of surprised amusement. ‘How old are you, Arabella?—I forget.’

  ‘Twenty-two.’ She shivered a little, although she wasn’t cold.

  ‘So old?’ he was gently mocking, ‘but not old in experience, I suspect.’

  ‘Well, I’ve done my t-training as a ch-children’s nurse,’ she assured him earnestly. ‘I know I’ve almost another year to do at W-Wickham’s, but I understand ch-children, really I do, even though I’ve n-not had much experience.’

  She stared up at him, suddenly terrified that he would tell her that she wasn’t quite what he wanted for Billy and Sally; that he knew of someone older, better qualified. He said none of these things, however. His: ‘No, dear girl,’ was so gentle that she hardly heard it, and when he bent and kissed her cheek, that was gentle too.

  She didn’t see him until much later in the day. She had got Sally and Billy up, given them their breakfasts with Hanneke’s help, and then enjoyed a short break for a cup of coffee with Larissa, while the children, safely strapped in their wheelchairs, sat close to them in the garden, and presently they each took a chair and strolled round the pleasantly winding paths, pointing out things of interest, pausing to examine an abandoned bird’s nest, pick an odd flower here and there, and watch a squirrel’s antics. The large swimming pool, almost concealed behind a high hedge, was a complete surprise to Arabella.

  ‘Oh, super!’ she exclaimed. ‘You don’t suppose the children?…no, of course not.’

  ‘But of course,’ said Larissa instantly. ‘But what about their plasters?’

  Arabella frowned in thought, then grinned suddenly. ‘Plastic pillow-cases, tied round the top. Only I haven’t any.’

  ‘I can get those. How about swimsuits?’

  ‘I could buy those.’

  Larissa nodded. ‘Hanneke will be back in half an hour; you could take them down to the town—that’s if you don’t mind the walk? Otherwise I’ll get my car out.’

  Arabella was quite shocked. ‘There’s no
need, thanks all the same, for the walk will be good for the children. Do you suppose we could try out the pool this afternoon while the weather’s so good?’

  Larissa nodded. ‘Of course. I’ll come and help you if you’ll let me. Hanneke will go home after lunch and come back after tea to help with bedtime.’

  ‘It’s all so well planned,’ commented Arabella wonderingly. ‘I quite expected to be on my own.’

  ‘Good lord, you’ve got them from dawn to dusk, more or less, and all night too—I’d want a posse of helpers if I were in your shoes.’ Larissa glanced at her watch. ‘I must go, but Hanneke will be here very shortly. You’re all right alone?’

  Arabella assured her that she was; two children, small and light, even if very nearly helpless, were child’s play compared to duty on a heavy ward with its quota of drips, injections, dressings, treatments and patients going to X-Ray, Physio, the theatre, not to mention the irritable ones, who needed coaxing into a state of calm, and those in pain, or sleepless. They were unending in their demands on her time and patience—but Billy and Sally, bless them, accepted everything with cheerful faces, and if and when they suffered a small rage over something or other, Arabella accepted them in her turn, her kind heart torn with pity for their plight.

  The visit to the shops was a riotous success, with a good deal of giggling on the children’s part because Hanneke talked to them in her own language, not worrying in the least that they couldn’t understand a word of it and laughing with them when they laughed at her. Arabella, praying that someone would understand what she wanted, went into the first likely shop and discovered to her delight that the assistant’s English was more than tolerable. She purchased swimwear for the three of them from the small stock available, and they turned for home.

  The children’s dinner took a long time and because of that, they had it served at noon, so Arabella had time to feed them and settle them down for their nap before her own lunch. They munched their way through their meal, with Arabella sitting between them, helping one and feeding the other. She didn’t mind, she had done it before and would doubtless do it hundreds of times more, and when they had at last finished, she saw to their little wants and tucked them into their beds, leaving Hanneke in charge.