The Magic of Living

by Betty Neels

  ‘A few days only, then I fly to Lisbon to meet Dirk. Gideon will go home very shortly, I believe. Those were nice girls in your room—it is pleasant to have friends.’ She turned to smile at Arabella. ‘But have you not one particular friend?’

  ‘Well, I suppose Anne is,’ replied Arabella promptly. ‘She’s my closest friend—she has the room next to mine. She was the one with the dark hair sitting on my bed. We share things, you know, and help each other out and lend each other things.’

  Larissa laughed. ‘So she is as familiar with your possessions as you are.’

  ‘Oh, yes—she knows more or less where I keep everything, just as I know where all her things are. It’s handy, you know.’

  There was no need for Larissa to answer this, for the taxi had drawn up in front of the hotel and they got out and went inside. It was as nice as Arabella had imagined it would be; they went up to Larissa’s room and tidied themselves without haste, then went in to dinner, during which meal Larissa showed herself to be an excellent conversationalist, touching on every topic under the sun, but never one word about her brother. They sat a long time over their meal until Arabella declared that she must return to the hospital. ‘Though it’s lucky I’m not on duty until ten o’clock tomorrow,’ she explained.

  ‘Until when will you work?’ asked Larissa.

  ‘Eight in the evening.’

  Larissa looked horrified. ‘But that is a very long day—you will be exhausted!’

  ‘Perhaps. I don’t do anything when I come off, only have supper and go to bed.’

  ‘Do you not find the days dull?’

  ‘No, not really, not each day as it comes. Only sometimes when I think of year after year.’ She looked away, staring blindly at the opposite wall, seeing year after year slide by without seeing Gideon again.

  ‘You are sad?’ asked Larissa.

  Arabella pinned a smile on her face. ‘Me? I’m thinking about tomorrow; theatre day and so busy. It’s been lovely seeing you again. Will you write and tell me about your wedding?’

  ‘Of course.’

  As she was getting into the taxi Arabella paused, fought the returning stammer and said: ‘When you s-see D-Doctor van der Vorst, p-please give him my r-regards.’

  She was borne away and Larissa stood watching until the taxi was out of sight and then went upstairs, only this time she went to the room next to her own, where Gideon was waiting.

  It was almost eight o’clock in the evening of the following day. Arabella had coaxed, badgered and urged the last of the up patients back into their beds, set the junior nurses to a final tidying up, supplied Sister, still writing in her office, with the last odds and ends of information needed for the report, and gone back to old Mr Reeves’ bed to check the ordered clutter of apparatus around him. Everything was just as it should be. She stood looking at him tiredly, listening to the soft swish of the night nurses’ uniforms as they came down the corridor. She might as well go. She heard the junior nurses wish Sister good night, exchange greetings with the night nurses, and go on their way—she might as well do the same. She turned round, straight into Gideon, standing so close that she bumped into his waistcoat, and shocked into immobility, stood staring at it. But she raised her eyes to his face when he said: ‘Hello, dear girl, how fortunate that I should find you here.’ He beamed down at her, very much at ease.

  ‘Why?’ she managed.

  ‘I thought you might like a lift to see Nanny Bliss this evening.’

  Her eyes went back to the waistcoat. Hilary hadn’t been in the canteen; she hadn’t seen her all day—she was home on days off and Gideon had come to see her and finding her gone, was going after her. He was, thought Arabella, a persistent man.

  ‘Thank you, but I can’t—I haven’t a day off tomorrow.’

  ‘I have to be back myself this evening,’ he told her easily. ‘If we leave within half an hour that should give us ample time.’ He added with a calm placidity which she found very soothing after the hurry and bustle of the day, ‘Nanny will enjoy the surprise.’

  She was a fool to be persuaded, Arabella told herself; she had meant never to see him again, and here she was contemplating spending the evening with him—well, not quite that; he was offering her a lift to see Nanny because he was going to Little Dean House anyway to see Hilary—probably he would want to talk about her all the way there and all the way back.

  ‘Thank you, I’ll come,’ she said, her eyes on his tie so that she failed to see the gleam in his eyes. ‘Where do you want me to meet you?’

  ‘At the entrance—don’t worry about supper, we’ll get something quick on the way.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Can you get away now?’

  ‘Yes, I’m off duty.’ She clapped a hand over her mouth like a little girl. ‘My goodness, does Sister know you’re here?’

  ‘Indeed she does. I’ve been here all the afternoon; I made a point of asking her if I might see you in the ward.’

  ‘All the afternoon?’ Why hadn’t he driven hotfoot after Hilary?

  As though he had read her thoughts, he said blandly: ‘I had a meeting to attend.’

  She nodded. ‘Well then—I’m ready.’

  ‘Bring a warm coat with you, it’s cold outside.’

  It didn’t take her half an hour to change into a sweater and skirt, the tweed coat again and her boots. She did her hair and face and then surveyed herself in the mirror; very neat but so deadly dull—not that it would matter in the least. She smiled a little though as she ran downstairs. It had mattered once; it seemed a long time ago now.

  The Bentley stood, sleek and powerful, outside the hospital entrance, and inside it was deliciously warm and comfortable. She settled back against its soft leather with a little sigh as Gideon switched on the engine. ‘Why not close your eyes?’ he suggested as they slipped into the stream of traffic. ‘And go to sleep properly this time,’ he added on a laugh.

  ‘I’m not in the least sleepy.’ Arabella’s voice was sharp because he had reminded her about an evening she wanted to forget—the evening when he had met Hilary. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her; he began to talk, embarking on a gentle monologue about nothing which mattered. His deep, quiet voice lulled her over-active brain; she was asleep within five minutes.

  She wakened as the doctor was driving the Bentley aboard the Harwich car ferry, and was, as might be expected, thunderstruck. But she was a sensible girl, and wasted no time in asking: ‘Where am I?’ because she recognised her surroundings quite easily, nor did she say: ‘Why are we here?’ because obviously Gideon knew what he was about; the most raw of motorists wouldn’t have got lost to that extent, and he was no fool in a car. So she said with calm deliberation: ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but I have no intention of going an inch further.’

  Which she realized at once was a silly remark, for the car was already nosing its elegant way forward into the queue of cars on the ferry car deck.

  ‘I have no passport,’ she pointed out in the loud, clear voice one might use when addressing someone who had taken leave of his senses.

  ‘It’s in my pocket,’ said Gideon blandly, preparing to leave the car.

  Arabella put out an urgent hand in its slightly shabby glove and caught at his coat sleeve. ‘But how… Who gave it to you?’

  ‘A friend of yours—Anne someone or other. I was to tell you that she will be able to wear the hat again, after all—whatever that means.’

  The stammer took over. ‘The t-traitor!’ said Arabella fiercely. ‘T-take me b-back at once!’

  For answer he opened the car door and got out, then walked round to help her out too. They were surrounded by cars now; he glanced around and shrugged enormous shoulders. ‘My dear little love,’ he said to take her breath, ‘how can I? Besides, I don’t wish to do that. You see, I’m abducting you.’

  Arabella stared at him, bereft for the moment of speech, but he said nothing more, only took her arm and drew her towards the stairs leading to the deck above.

  ‘
W-what did you s-say?’ Arabella managed at last.

  ‘That I was abducting you, my little love.’ He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, oblivious of the people squeezing past them. ‘And now you are going to your cabin, where you will sleep until you are called in the morning.’

  She just managed not to wring her hands. ‘Gideon, oh, Gideon, you can’t know what you’re doing! What about Hilary—and poor Nanny? I can’t go to sleep without knowing…’

  He caught her hands in his. ‘My dearest little darling, Hilary means nothing, she never has done, you know. If you had used your dear ears and eyes you would have known that, but you were so determined that I should fall in love with her, were you not, darling Arabella? And as for Nanny, she is waiting for us at Doesburg.’

  Arabella repeated his words soundlessly. At last she managed: ‘Gideon, why did you do it?’

  He smiled with great tenderness. ‘Later, my darling. Do you know your Browning? You do? Then recollect the bit which goes “Escape me? Never, Beloved, while I am I and you are you”…’

  “‘So long as the world contains us both”,’ whispered Arabella. ‘Oh, Gideon!’

  ‘Oh, Arabella!’ He tucked her hand under an arm and walked her to the deck above where he handed her over to a fatherly steward who led her to a cabin and told her that he would be bringing her a little something on a tray as the gentleman had ordered, before she went to bed.

  She ate her supper when it came because she was famished by now, while her thoughts chased themselves round and round inside her head, and she too tired to sort them out. She was in her bunk with her eyes resolutely closed when there was a tap on the door and Gideon came in.

  ‘You’ve eaten your supper?’ he enquired in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘Now, no more thinking, but go to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.’ He bent his head and kissed her very gently. ‘I’m next door if you want anything—just knock on the wall. Now close your eyes, my darling, and sleep. I fancy from the look of you that you haven’t been sleeping very well lately.’

  Arabella had closed her eyes obediently. Without opening them now she said crossly: ‘Well, of course I haven’t.’ Two tears oozed their way from under her lids and trickled down her cheeks and became, in no time at all, a flood. Gideon sat down on the bunk and gathered her close, saying nothing at all while she sobbed and sniffed in a tired way. Presently she grew calmer, and because she was so worn out with her feelings, she fell asleep, not stirring when he kissed her gently, laid her back on her pillow, and went quietly away.

  They met for breakfast in the morning, and Gideon was still so matter-of-fact that she began to wonder if she had dreamed it all, but when the ship had docked and they were on their way down to the car deck, he said: ‘My darling, this is no place to talk. Will you wait a little longer, until we are home?’

  She looked at him with puffy eyes; she was pale although she had slept. She felt very plain and slightly lightheaded. They were beside the Bentley now. As he opened the door for her he smiled down at her.

  ‘You are the most beautiful girl in the world,’ he told her. ‘Get in, dear girl.’

  Arabella got in, aglow with the certainty that for him at least she was indeed beautiful. She sat beside him, content to let him talk trivialities while her thoughts wandered; quiet thoughts now, and happy ones. Even the quiet countryside looked beautiful as Gideon drove rapidly towards Doesburg.

  The house was all that she had remembered; it was like coming home, and when Gideon opened the door and she went inside with his arm around her and she saw Emma standing there with Nanny beside her, Arabella almost choked with the strength of her feelings.

  ‘Nanny!’ she cried breathlessly. ‘Oh, Nanny, why are you here? I don’t understand anything at all—I thought you were at Little Dean House—and are you well again?’

  ‘Never better,’ declared Nanny, ‘and happy to be here. Me and Emma and that niece of hers, we get on very well, and when the babies come along, the doctor says I can have a good, hardworking girl to give me a hand.’

  ‘The babies?’ uttered Arabella, completely bewildered.

  Gideon’s arm tightened around her. He said on a laugh: ‘Nanny Bliss has promised to come and live here with us, my darling, and of course it is unthinkable that she should have nothing to do; I thought that perhaps later—a handful of little Arabellas…?’

  ‘But you haven’t even asked me…you can’t say things like that.’ The look on his face stopped her; love, tenderness, gentle amusement—they were all there. She found herself saying: ‘And one or two handsome little Gideons…’

  He walked her to the sitting room, saying something to Emma as he went. He shut the door behind him, undid her coat and cast it from her and swept her close. ‘You will wish me to begin at the beginning,’ he said, ‘but I can’t remember where the beginning was—not any more. I think I loved you when I looked into that bus and saw you standing there, grubby and frightened, but I didn’t know it then. I knew it when I took you back to England and Hilary told me that you were going to marry Bertie—your girlhood sweetheart, she called him—and for quite a while I believed her. But that didn’t mean that I was going to let you go.’ He paused to tighten his hold and kiss her thoroughly. ‘And you, my dear darling, matchmaking with all the fervour of a Victorian mama, under the mistaken impression that because ninety-nine men had fallen under Hilary’s spell, the hundredth would too. So I played your game, my darling. That way I could see you, though I must say you led me a tiresome dance!’

  Arabella lifted her head from the comfort of his shoulder. ‘You were b-beastly,’ she reminded him with slight pettishness. ‘You thought I wouldn’t go and see Nanny…’ She was unable to say any more because the doctor was kissing her again.

  ‘My love,’ he said humbly, ‘you must forgive me for that; I lost my temper and my patience, and deep inside me I knew it wasn’t true, and there you were, sitting up in bed looking so sweet.’

  Arabella smiled, finding the explanation most satisfactory. ‘Now tell me why you abducted me.’ She remembered something: ‘Larissa?’

  ‘Such a help,’ murmured the doctor blandly. ‘So was your friend Anne—Sir Justin too.’

  ‘Sir Justin? But why? What did he do?’

  ‘Made it easy for you to resign, my love, as from yesterday.’ He smiled a little. ‘You see, abducting you has saved such a lot of explanation.’

  Arabella stretched up to kiss him. ‘You don’t mind that I stammer?’ she asked a trifle anxiously.

  ‘No, dear love—besides, you seldom do when you’re with me. I find it one of your many charms—you are a girl of many charms.’

  ‘Am I really?’ She was entranced at the very idea, and then struck by a sudden thought: ‘Gideon, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Get married, my darling, as soon as I can arrange it. You will marry me, Arabella?’

  It was surprising what love could do to a quite ordinary face. ‘Yes, dear Gideon—oh, I will, I will! It’s like magic, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, my darling, it is magic.’ He kissed her once more very gently. ‘The magic of living.’

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-3939-5

  THE MAGIC OF LIVING

  Copyright © 1974 by Betty Neels.

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