by Betty Neels
‘Oh, God!’ said Caro despairingly, and meant it.
‘Perhaps I will do?’ The Professor had come softly into the room, taking great strides to reach her.
‘I’m going to be sick,’ moaned Caro, and was, making a mess of his beautifully polished shoes. If she hadn’t felt so ill she would have died of shame, as it was she burst into tears, sobbing and sniffing and gulping.
The Professor said nothing at all but picked her up and laid her back in bed again, pulling the covers over her and arranging the cradle just so over her injured leg before getting a sponge and towel from the adjoining bathroom and wiping her face for her. She looked at him round the sponge and mumbled: ‘Your shoes—your lovely shoes, I’m so s-sorry.’ She gave a great gulp. ‘I should have gone with the others.’
‘Why were you getting out of bed?’ He didn’t sound angry, only interested.
‘Well, I thought I could manage to dress and I’ve enough money, I think—I was going back to England.’
He went to the fireplace opposite the bed and pressed the brass wall bell beside it. When Noakes answered it he requested a clean pair of shoes and a tray of tea for two and waited patiently until these had been brought and Noakes, accompanied by a maid, had swiftly cleared up the mess. Only then did he say: ‘And now suppose we have a little talk over our tea?’
He pulled a chair nearer the bed, handed her a cup of tea and poured one for himself. ‘Let us understand each other, young lady.’
Caroline studied him over the rim of her cup. He talked like a professor, but he didn’t look like one; he was enormous and she had always thought of professors as small bent gentlemen with bald heads and untidy moustaches, but Professor Thoe van Erckelens had plenty of hair, light brown, going grey, and cut short, and he had no need to hide his good looks behind a moustache. Caro thought wistfully that he was exactly the kind of man every girl hoped to meet one day and marry; which was a pity, because he obviously wasn’t the marrying kind…
‘If I might have your full attention?’ enquired the Professor. ‘You are sufficiently recovered to listen to me?’
Her head and her leg ached, but they were bearable. She nodded.
‘If you could reconcile yourself to remaining here for another ten days, perhaps a fortnight, Miss Tripp? I can assure you that you are in no fit condition to do much at the moment. I shall remove the stitches from your leg in another four days and you may then walk a little with a stick, as from tomorrow, and provided your headache is lessening, you may sit up for a period of time. Feel free to ask for anything you want, my home is at your disposal. There is a library from which Noakes will fetch a selection of books, although I advise you not to read for a few days yet, and there is no reason why you should not sit in the garden, well wrapped up. You will drink no alcohol, nor will you smoke, and kindly refrain from watching television for a further day or so; it will merely aggravate your headache. I must ask you to excuse me from keeping you company at any time—I am a busy man and I have my work and my own interests. I shall of course treat you as I would any other patient of mine and when I consider you fit to travel, I will see that you get back safely to your home.’
Caro had listened to this precise speech with astonishment; she hadn’t met anyone who talked like that before—it was like reading the instructions on the front of a medicine bottle. She loved the bit about no drinking or smoking; she did neither, but she wondered if she looked the kind of girl who did. But one thing was very clear. The Professor was offering her hospitality but she was to keep out of his way; he didn’t want his ordered life disrupted—which was amusing really; now if it had been Clare or Stacey or Miriam, all pretty girls who had never lacked for men friends, that would have been a different matter, but Caroline’s own appearance was hardly likely to cause even the smallest ripple on the calm surface of his life.
‘I’ll do exactly as you say,’ she told him, ‘and I’ll keep out of your way—you won’t know I’m here. And thank you for being so kind.’ She added: ‘I’m truly sorry about me being sick and your shoes…’
He stood up. ‘Sickness is to be expected in cases of concussion,’ he told her. ‘I am surprised that you, a nurse, should not have thought of that. We must make allowances for your cerebral condition.’
She looked at him helplessly. Underneath all that pedantic talk there was a quite ordinary man; for some reason, the professor was concealing him. After he had gone she lay back on her pillows, suddenly sleepy, but before she closed her eyes she decided that she would discover what had happened to make him like that. She must make friends with Noakes…
She made splendid progress. The Professor dressed her leg the next morning and when Marta had draped her in a dressing gown several sizes too large for her, he returned to lift her into a chair by the open window, for the weather was glorious and the view from it delightful. The gardens and the house were large and full of autumn colours, and just to lie back with Marta tucking a rug over her and settling her elevenses beside her was bliss. She had been careful to say very little to the Professor while he attended to her leg; he had made one or two routine remarks about the weather and how she felt and she had answered him with polite brevity, but now he had gone and despite his silence, she felt lonely. She sipped the warm milk Marta had left for her and looked at the view. The road was just visible beyond the grounds and part of the drive which led to it from the house; presently she heard a car leaving the house and caught a glimpse of it as it flashed down the drive: an Aston Martin—a Lagonda. The Professor must have a friend who liked fast driving. Caro thought that it might be rather fun to know someone who drove an Aston Martin, and even more fun to actually ride in one.
She was to achieve both of these ambitions. The Professor came as usual the following morning after breakfast to dress her leg, but instead of going away immediately as he usually did he spoke to Juffrouw Kropp who had accompanied him and then addressed himself to Caro.
‘I am taking you to the hospital in Leeuwarden this morning. You are to have your head X-rayed. I am certain that no harm has come from your concussion, but I wish my opinion to be confirmed.’
Caro eyed him from the vast folds of her dressing gown. ‘Like this?’ she asked.
He raised thick arched brows. ‘Why not? Juffrouw Kropp will assist you.’ He had gone before she could answer him.
Juffrouw Kropp’s severe face broke into a smile as the door closed. She fetched brush and comb and make-up and produced a length of ribbon from a pocket. She brushed Caro’s hair despite her protests, plaited it carefully and fastened it with the ribbon, fetched a hand mirror and held it while Caro did things to her face, then fastened the dressing gown and tied it securely round Caro’s small waist. Like a well-schooled actor, the Professor knocked on the door, just as though he had been given his cue, plucked Caro from the bed and carried her downstairs where Noakes stood, holding the front door wide. The Professor marched through with a muttered word and Noakes slid round him to open the door of the Aston Martin, and with no discomfort at all Caro found herself reclining on the back seat with Noakes covering her with a light rug and the Professor, to her astonishment, getting behind the wheel.
‘This is never your car?’ she asked, too surprised to be polite.
He turned his head and gave her an unfriendly look. ‘Is there any reason why it shouldn’t be?’ he wanted to know, coldly.
She said kindly: ‘You don’t need to get annoyed. It’s only that you don’t look the kind of man to drive a fast car.’ She added vaguely: ‘A professor…’
‘And no longer young,’ he snapped. ‘I have no interest in your opinions, Miss Tripp. May I suggest that you close your eyes and compose yourself—the journey will take fifteen minutes.’
Caroline did as she was bid, reflecting that until that very moment she hadn’t realised what compelling eyes he had; slate blue and very bright. When she judged it safe, she opened her eyes again; she wasn’t going to miss a second of the ride; it would be something t
o tell her friends when she got back. She couldn’t see much of the road because the Professor took up so much of the front seat, but the telegraph poles were going past at a terrific rate; he drove fast all right and very well, and he didn’t slow at all until she saw buildings on either side of them and presently he was turning off the road and stopping smoothly.
He got out without speaking and a moment later the door was opened and she was lifted out and set in a wheelchair while the Professor spoke to a youngish man in a white coat. He turned on his heel without even glancing at her and walked away, into the hospital, leaving her with the man in the white coat and a porter.
How rude he is, thought Caro, and then: poor man, he must be very unhappy.
She was wheeled briskly down a number of corridors to the X-ray department. It was a modern hospital and she admired it as they went, and after a minute or so, when the white-coated man spoke rather diffidently to her in English, showered him with a host of questions. He hadn’t answered half of them by the time they reached their destination and she interrupted him to ask: ‘Who are you?’
He apologised. ‘I’m sorry, I have not introduced myself. Jan van Spaark—I am attached to Professor Thoe van Erckelens’ team. I am to look after you while you are here.’
‘A doctor?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I think you would call me a medical registrar in your country.’
The X-ray only took a short while, and in no time at all she was being wheeled back to the entrance hall, but here, to her surprise, her new friend wished her goodbye and handed her over to a nurse, who offered a hand, saying: ‘Mies Hoeversma—that is my name.’
Caro shook it. ‘Caroline Tripp. What happens next?’
‘You are to have coffee because Professor Thoe van Erckelens is not quite ready to leave.’
She was wheeled to a small room, rather gloomy and austerely furnished used, Mies told her, as a meeting place for visiting doctors, but the coffee was hot and delicious and Mies, although her English was sketchy, was a nice girl. Caro, who had been lonely even though she hadn’t admitted it to herself, enjoyed herself. She could have spent the morning there, listening to Mies describing life in a Dutch hospital and giving her a lighthearted account of her own life in London, but the door opened, just as they had gone off into whoops of mirth over something or other, and the porter reappeared, spoke to Mies and wheeled Caro rapidly away, giving her barely a moment in which to say goodbye.
‘Why the hurry?’ asked Caro, hurriedly shaking hands again.
‘The Professor—he must not be kept waiting.’ Mies was quite serious; evidently he had the same effect on the hospital staff as he had on his staff at home. Instant, quiet obedience—and yet they liked him…
Caroline puzzled over that as she was whisked carefully to the car, to be lifted in by the Professor before he got behind the wheel and drove away. Jan van Spaark had been there, with two other younger men and a Sister, the Professor had lifted his hand in grave salute as he drove away.
He seemed intent on getting home as quickly as possible, driving very fast again, and it was a few minutes before Caroline ventured in a small polite voice: ‘Was it all right—my head?’
‘There is no injury to the skull,’ she was assured with detached politeness. ‘Tomorrow I shall remove the stitches from your leg and you may walk for brief periods—with a stick, of course. You will rest each afternoon and read for no more than an hour each day.’
‘Very well, Professor, I’ll do as you say.’ She sounded so meek that he glanced at her through his driving mirror. When she smiled at him he looked away at once.
He carried her back to her room when they reached the house and set her down in the chair made ready for her by the window. ‘After lunch I will carry you downstairs to one of the sitting rooms. Are you lonely?’
His question took her by surprise. She had her mouth open to say yes and remembered just in time that he wanted none of her company.
‘Not in the least, thank you,’ she told him. ‘I live alone in London, you know—I have a flat, close to Oliver’s.’
He nodded, wished her goodbye and went away—she heard the car roar away minutes later. Not a very successful morning, she considered, although he had wanted to know if she were lonely. And she had told a fib—not only was she lonely, but the flat she had mentioned so casually was in reality a bedsitter, a poky first floor room in a dingy street… She was reminded forcibly of it now and of dear old Waterloo, stoically waiting for her to come back. She longed for the sight of his round whiskered face and the comfort of his plump furry body curled on her knee. ‘I’m a real old maid,’ she said out loud, and then called, ‘Come in,’ in a bright, cheerful voice because there was someone at the door.
It was Noakes with more coffee. ‘And the Professor says if yer’ve got an ’eadache, miss, yer ter take one of them pills in the red box.’
‘I haven’t got a headache, thank you, Noakes, not so’s you’d notice. Has the Professor gone again?’
‘Yes, miss—Groningen this time. In great demand, ’e is.’
‘Yes. It’s quiet here, isn’t it? Doesn’t he ever have guests or family?’ Noakes hesitated and she said at once: ‘I’m sorry, I had no right to ask you questions about the Professor. I wasn’t being nosey, though.’
‘I know that, miss, and I ain’t one ter gossip, specially about the Professor—’e’s a good man, make no mistake, but ’e ain’t a ’appy one, neither.’ Caro poured a cup of coffee and waited. ‘It used ter be an ’ouse full when I first come ’ere. Eighteen years ago, it were—come over on ‘oliday, I did, and took a fancy ter living ’ere after I met Marta. She was already working ’ere, kitchenmaid then, that was when the Professor’s ma and pa were alive. Died in a car accident, they did, and he ups and marries a couple of years after that. Gay times they were, when the young Baroness was ’ere…’
‘Baroness?’
Noakes scratched his head. ‘Well, miss, the Professor’s a baron as well as a professor, if yer take my meaning.’
‘How long ago did he marry, Noakes?’ Caroline was so afraid that he would stop telling her the rest, and she did want to know.
‘It was in 1966, miss, two years after his folk died. Pretty lady she was, too, very gay, ’ated ’im being a doctor, always working, she used ter say, and when ’e was ’ome, looking after the estate. She liked a gay life, I can tell you! She left ’im, miss, two years after they were married—ran away with some man or other and they both got killed in a plane crash a few months later.’
Caro had let her coffee get cold. So that was why the Professor shunned her company—he must have loved his wife very dearly. She said quietly: ‘Thank you for telling me, Noakes. I’m glad he’s got you and Mrs Noakes and Juffrouw Kropp to look after him.’
‘That we do, miss. Shall I warm up that coffee? It must be cold.’
‘It’s lovely, thank you. I think I’ll have a nap before lunch.’
But she didn’t go to sleep, she didn’t even doze. She sat thinking of the Professor; he had asked her if she were lonely, but it was he who was the truly lonely one.
CHAPTER TWO
THE PROFESSOR TOOK the stitches out of Caro’s leg the next morning and his manner towards her was such as to discourage her from showing any of the sympathy she felt for him. He had wished her a chilly good morning, assured her that she would feel no pain, and proceeded about his business without more ado. Then he had stood back and surveyed the limb, pronounced it healing nicely, applied a pad and bandage and suggested that she might like to go downstairs.
‘Well, yes, I should, very much,’ said Caro, and smiled at him, to receive an icy stare in return which sent the colour to her cheeks. But she wasn’t easily put off. ‘May I wear my clothes?’ she asked him. ‘This dressing gown’s borrowed from someone and I expect they’d like it back. Besides, I’m sick of it.’
His eyebrows rose. ‘It was lent in kindness,’ he pointed out.
She stammered a little. ‘I didn
’t mean that—you must think I’m ungrateful, but I’m not—what I meant was it’s a bit big for me and I’d like…’
He had turned away. ‘You have no need to explain yourself, Miss Tripp. I advise you not to do too much today. The wound on your leg was deep and is not yet soundly healed.’ He had left her, feeling that she had made a mess of things again. And she had no sympathy for him at all, she assured herself; let him moulder into middle age with his books and his papers and his lectures!
With Marta’s help she dressed in a sweater and pleated skirt and was just wondering if she was to walk downstairs on her own when Noakes arrived. He held a stout stick in one hand and offered her his arm.
‘The Professor says you’re to go very slowly and lean on me,’ he advised her, ‘and take the stairs one at a time.’ He smiled at her. ‘Like an old lady,’ he added.
It took quite a time, but she didn’t mind because it gave her time to look around her as they passed from one stair to the next. The hall was even bigger than she had remembered and the room into which she was led quite took her breath away. It was lofty and square and furnished with large comfortable chairs and sofas, its walls lined with cabinets displaying silver and china and in between these, portraits in heavy frames. There was a fire in the enormous hearth and a chair drawn up to it with a small table beside it upon which was a pile of magazines and newspapers.
‘The Professor told me ter get something for yer to read, miss,’ said Noakes, ‘and I done me best. After lunch, if yer feels like it, I’ll show yer the library.’
‘Oh, Noakes, you’re all so kind, and I’ve given you all such a lot of extra work.’