by Betty Neels
‘That is a singularly foolish remark, Caroline. Of course you won’t get anything of the sort.’
But just for once he, who was so often right, was wrong. Caro woke up in the morning feeling faintly peculiar. She hadn’t got a headache, but her head felt heavy, and moreover, when she got out of bed her feet didn’t seem to touch the ground. She had no appetite for her breakfast either, but as Radinck was reading his letters and scanning the morning’s papers, she didn’t think that mattered. He was never chatty over the meal; she took some toast and crumbled it at intervals just in case he should look up, and drank several cups of coffee which revived her sufficiently to bid him goodbye in a perfectly normal way. They weren’t going anywhere that evening and she would be able to go to bed early, as he so often went straight to his study after dinner. She went through her morning routine, visited Queenie and Prince, took Waterloo for a brief walk in the gardens and retired to the library to struggle with her Dutch. But she didn’t seem able to concentrate, not even with the help of several more cups of coffee. She toyed with her lunch, which upset Noakes very much, and then went back to the sitting-room, got out her knitting and curled up in Radinck’s chair with Waterloo on her lap. He was warm and comforting and after a very short time she gave up trying to knit and closed her eyes and dozed off into a troubled sleep, to be wakened by a worried Noakes with the tea tray.
‘Yer not yerself, ma’am,’ he declared. ‘Yer ought to go ter bed.’
She eyed him hazily. ‘Yes, I think I will when I’ve had tea, Noakes. It’s just a cold.’
She drank the teapot dry and went off to sleep again, her cheeks flushed and her head heavy. She didn’t wake when Radinck, met at the door by an anxious Noakes, came into the room.
Caro looked small and lonely and lost in his great chair and he muttered something as he bent over her, a cool hand on her hot forehead. She woke up then, staring into the blue eyes so close to hers. ‘I feel very grotty,’ she mumbled. ‘I meant to go to bed… I’ll go now.’
She began to scramble out of the chair and he picked her up with Waterloo still in her arms. ‘You should have gone hours ago,’ he said almost angrily. ‘You weren’t well at breakfast—why didn’t you say so then?’
He was mounting the staircase and she muttered: ‘I can walk,’ and then: ‘I thought I’d feel better. Besides, I didn’t think you noticed.’
Noakes had gone ahead to open the door and Radinck laid her on the bed, asked Noakes to fetch Juffrouw Kropp and then pulled the coverlet over Caro, who was beginning to shiver. ‘So sorry,’ she told him, ‘such a nuisance for you. I’ll be quite all right now.’
He didn’t answer but waited until Juffrouw Kropp came into the room, spoke to her quietly and went away, while that lady undressed Caro as though she had been a baby, tucked her up in her bed and went to fetch Radinck, walking up and down the gallery outside. Caro, feeling so wretched by now that she didn’t care about anything at all, put out her tongue, muttered and mumbled ninety-nine and then swallowed the pills she was given. She was asleep in five minutes.
She woke a couple of hours later, feeling very peculiar in the head, and found Radinck bending over her again. He looked large and solid and very dependable, and she sighed with relief because he was there.
‘Now you won’t have to go to the party tomorrow,’ she told him, still half asleep, ‘and there’s a dinner party…when? Quite soon; we needn’t go to that either.’ She closed her eyes and then opened them wide again. ‘I’m so glad, you can have peace and quiet again.’
She dropped off again, so that she didn’t hear the words wrung so reluctantly from Radinck’s lips. Which was a pity.
She felt a little better in the morning, but her recollection of the night was hazy; she had wakened several times and there had been a lamp by the bed, but the rest of the room had been in shadow. And once or twice someone had given her a drink, but she had been too tired to open her eyes and see who it was. Radinck came to see her at breakfast time, pronounced himself satisfied as to her progress and went away again, leaving her with Waterloo for company. Presently Juffrouw Kropp came and washed her face and hands, brushed her hair and then brought her a tray of tea—nice strong tea with a lot of milk, and paper-thin bread and butter.
Caro dozed through the day. Lovingly tended by Juffrouw Kropp, Marta and the maids, it seemed to her that each time she opened her eyes there was someone in the room looking anxiously at her. Towards teatime Noakes came in with a vase of autumn flowers and a message from Becky and Tiele, and that was followed by a succession of notes and several more flower arrangements.
‘But I’ve only got ’flu,’ said Caro. ‘I mean, there’s really no need…’
‘Very well liked, yer are, ma’am,’ said Noakes with deep satisfaction. ‘The phone’s bin going on and off all afternoon with messages.’
‘But how did they all know?’
‘The Professor will ’ave cancelled your engagements, ma’am.’
Caro nodded. She wasn’t enjoying having ‘flu, but at least it was making Radinck happy. She drank her tea and after a struggle to keep awake, slept again.
She woke to find Radinck at the foot of the bed, looking at her, and she assured him before he could ask her that she was feeling a great deal better. She sat up against the pillows, happily unaware of her wan face and tousled hair. ‘And look at all these flowers,’ she begged him, ‘and I’m not even ill. I feel a fraud!’
He said seriously: ‘You have no need to—you have a quite violent virus infection of the respiratory system.’
It was silly to get upset, but somehow he had made her feel like a patient in a hospital bed; someone to be cured of an ailment with a completely impersonal care. Her eyes filled with tears until they dripped down her cheeks and although she put up an impatient hand to rub them away, there seemed no end to them. Radinck bent over her, a handkerchief in his hand, but she pushed it away. ‘I’m perfectly all right,’ she told him crossly. ‘It’s just that I don’t feel quite the thing.’ She added peevishly: ‘I think I’d like to go to sleep.’
She closed her eyes so that he would see that she really meant that, and although the tears were still pouring from under her lids, she kept them shut. And after a minute or so she really did feel sleepy in a dreamy kind of way, so that the kiss on her cheek seemed part of the dream too. She woke much later and remembered it—it had been very pleasant; dreams could be delightful. She dismissed the idea that Radinck had kissed her as ridiculous and wept a little before she slept again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TWO DAYS LATER Caro was on her feet again. She had been coddled and mothered by Juffrouw and Marta, ably backed by the maids and old Jan who sent in flowers each day from his cherished hothouses, the whole team masterminded by Noakes. No one could have been kinder. Even Radinck, visiting her twice a day, had been meticulous in his attentions. Although that hadn’t stopped him telling her that he would be going to Vienna that evening. ‘You wouldn’t wish to go to the hospital ball,’ he pointed out with unescapable logic, ‘and much though I regret having to leave you while you are feeling under the weather, my presence is hardly necessary to your recovery. My entire—I beg your pardon—our entire staff are falling over themselves to lavish attention upon you.’ He gave her a mocking little smile. ‘I leave you in the best of hands.’
Caro had agreed with him in a quiet little voice. Normally she wouldn’t have allowed herself to feel crushed by his high-handedness, but she wasn’t quite herself. Her chances of making him fall in love with her seemed so low they hardly bore contemplation. She wished him goodbye and hoped he would have a good trip and that the seminar would be interesting, and then, unable to think of anything else to say, sat up in bed just looking at him.
‘Goodbye, Caroline,’ said Radinck in a quite different voice, and bent and kissed her cheek. She didn’t move for quite a while after he had gone, but presently when Waterloo jumped on to the bed and gave her an enquiring butt with his head, she scratche
d the top of it in an absent manner. ‘I didn’t dream it, then,’ she told him. ‘He kissed me then as well. Now, I wonder…’
It was probably a false hope, but at least she could work on it. She got bathed and dressed and went downstairs, to be fussed over by everyone in the house, and all of them remarked how much better she looked.
She felt better. Somewhere or other there was a chink in her husband’s armour of cool aloofness; she would have to work on it. Much cheered by the thought, she spent her day catching up on her Dutch, knitting like a fury and entertaining Rex, who with his master gone, was feeling miserable.
‘Well, I feel the same,’ Caro told him, ‘and at least he’s glad to see you when he comes home.’ She insisted on going to the servants’ sitting-room to rehearse the carols after dinner too, although Noakes shook his head and said she ought to be in bed.
‘Well, yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ Caro agreed, ‘but Christmas is getting close and we do want to put on a perfect performance. I think that tomorrow evening we’d better get together in the drawing-room so that you’ll all know where to stand and so on. The moment the Professor comes home on Christmas Eve, you can all file in and take up your places and the minute he comes into the room you can start. It should be a lovely surprise.’
She went to bed quite happy presently with Waterloo to keep her company and Juffrouw Kropp coming in with hot milk to sip so that she would sleep and strict instructions to ring if she wanted anything during the night.
They were all such dears, thought Caro, curled up cosily in the centre of the vast bed. Life could have been wonderful if only Radinck had loved her even a little. But that was no way to think, she scolded herself. ‘Faint heart never won Radinck,’ she told Waterloo, on the edge of sleep.
The weather was becoming very wintry. She woke in the morning to grey, woolly clouds, heavy with snow and the sound of the wind racing through the bare trees near the house. But the great house was warm and very comfortable and she spent her morning doing the flowers once again, with Jan bringing her armsful of them from his hothouses. There was Marta to talk to about the meals too; something special for dinner on the following day when Radinck would return. The day passed quickly. Caroline ate her dinner with appetite with Noakes brooding over her in a fatherly way, then repaired to the drawingroom.
They were all a little shy at first. The room was grand and they felt stiff and awkward and out of place until Caro said in her sparse, excruciating Dutch: ‘Sing as though you were in your own sitting-room—remember it’s to give the Professor pleasure and it’s only because this is the best place for him to hear you.’
They loosened up after that. They were well embarked on Silent Night with all the harmonies just right, when the Professor unlocked his own front door. No one heard him. Even Rex, dozing by the fire, was deafened by the choir. He stood for a moment in the centre of the hall and then walked very quietly to the drawing-room door, not quite closed. The room was in shadow with only a lamp by the piano and the sconces on either side of the fireplace alight. He pushed the door cautiously a few inches so that he could look in and no one saw him. They were grouped round Caro at the piano, her mousy head lighted by the lamp beside her, one hand beating time while the other thumped out the tune. Radinck closed the door gently again and retreated to where he had cast down his coat and bag and let himself out of the house again. The car’s engine made no noise above the sighing and whistling of the wind. He drove back the way he had come, all the way to the airport on the outskirts of Leeuwarden where he parked the car, telephoned his home that he had returned earlier than he had expected, then got back into the car and, for the second time, drove himself home.
Caro had received the news of Radinck’s unexpected return with outward calm. ‘We’ll find time to rehearse again tomorrow,’ she told them all. ‘Now I think if Marta would warm up some of that delicious soup just in case the Professor’s cold and hungry…’
She closed the piano and went to sit in the sitting-room by the fire, her tapestry in her hands. She even had time to do a row or two before she heard Radinck open the door, speak to Noakes, on the watch for him, and cross the hall to open the sitting-room door.
‘What a nice surprise!’ she smiled as he came into the room. ‘Would you like dinner or just soup and sandwiches?’
‘Coffee will do, thank you, Caroline.’ He sat down opposite her. ‘You are feeling better, I can see that, and being sensible, sitting quietly here.’
‘Oh, I’ve been very sensible,’ she assured him. ‘Would you like coffee in your study?’
He looked annoyed. ‘My dear girl, I have just this minute returned home and here you are, banishing me to my study!’
Caro went red. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, only you so often do go there—I thought you might rather be alone.’
‘Very considerate of you; I prefer to remain here. What have you been doing with yourself?’
‘Oh, almost nothing—the flowers and catching up with my Dutch, and showing Marta how to make mince pies…’
‘I surprised you playing the piano before we married,’ he said. ‘Do you remember? Don’t you play any more?’
Caro’s red face went pale. ‘Yes—well, sometimes I do.’
He sat back in his chair, relaxed and at ease, and watched while Noakes placed the coffee tray at Caro’s elbow. ‘Have you any plans for Christmas?’ he asked idly.
She stammered a little. ‘I understand from Noakes that you don’t—that is, you prefer a quiet time.’
‘I am afraid that over the years I have got into the habit of doing very little about entertaining—I did mention the party which I give, did I not? Is there anything special you would enjoy? A little music perhaps?’
‘Music?’ Caro’s needle was working overtime, regardless of wrong stitches. She took a deep breath. ‘Oh, you mean going to concerts and that sort of thing; Becky was telling me…but you really don’t have to bother. We did agree when we married that your life wasn’t to be changed at all, but you’ve already had to go to these parties with me and you must have disliked them very much. I’m very happy, you know, I don’t mind if I don’t go out socially.’
‘I thought girls liked dressing up and going out to parties.’
‘Well, yes, of course, but you see I don’t enjoy them if you don’t.’ She hadn’t meant to say that. She stitched a whole row, her head bowed over her work, and wished fruitlessly that the floor would open and swallow her up.
‘And what precisely do you mean by that?’ asked Radinck blandly.
‘Nothing, nothing at all.’ And then, knowing that she wouldn’t get away with that, she added: ‘What I meant was that I feel guilty because you have to give up your evenings doing something you don’t enjoy when you might be in your study reading…and writing.’
‘Put like that I seem to be a very selfish man. I must endeavour to make amends.’
Caro gave him a surprised glance. He wasn’t being sarcastic and his voice held a warm note she hadn’t heard before.
‘You’re not selfish,’ she told him in a motherly voice. ‘No one would expect you to change your whole way of life, certainly I wouldn’t. You’ve devoted yourself to your work and the staff adore you—so do the animals.’
‘And what about you, Caroline?’
She took her time answering. ‘You must know that I have a great regard for you, Radinck.’ She looked across at him, her loving heart in her eyes and unaware of it. ‘You have no need to reproach yourself; you made it very clear before we married that you didn’t want to change your life, and I agreed to that. I’m very content.’
His eyes were searching. ‘Are you? Perhaps I have done wrong in marrying you, Caroline—you might have found some younger man…’
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep harping on your great age!’ declared Caro hotly. Suddenly she could stand no more of it. She threw down her embroidery carelessly, so that the wools flew in all directions, and hurried out of the room and up t
o her bedroom, where she burst into tears, making Waterloo’s fur very damp while she hugged him. ‘What am I going to do?’ she asked him. ‘One minute I think he likes me a little and then he says he regrets marrying me…’ Which wasn’t quite true, although that was how it seemed to her.
She went to bed because there was nothing else to do, but she didn’t go to sleep; she lay listening to the now familiar sounds in the old house—the very faint clatter from the kitchens, Rex’s occasional bark, the tread of Noakes’ rather heavy feet crossing the hall, the subdued clang as he closed the gate leading to the garden from the side door, even faint horsey noises from the stables. It was a clear, cold night, and sounds carried. Presently she heard Noakes and Marta and the rest of them going up the back stairs at the end of the gallery on their way to bed, and after that the house was quiet save for the various clocks striking the hour, each in its own good time.
It was almost one o’clock and she was still awake when she heard cars travelling fast along the road at the end of the drive, and the next moment there was a kind of slow-motion crashing and banging and the sound of glass splintering and then distant faint cries. She was out of bed and pulling back the curtains within seconds and saw lights shine out as the front door was opened and Radinck went running down the drive, his bag in his hand. Caroline didn’t stop to take off her nightie but pulled on a pair of slacks, bundled a sweater on top of them, and rushed downstairs in her bare feet. Her wellingtons were in one of the hall cupboards; she got into them just as Noakes came down the stairs with a dressing gown over his pyjamas.
‘You’ll need a coat, Noakes,’ said Caro, ‘and thick shoes, it’s cold outside, then will you come to the gate and see if the Professor wants you to telephone.’ She didn’t wait for him to reply but opened the door and started down the drive. Something was on fire now, she could smell it and see the flickering of flames somewhere on the road to the left of the gates. But there were no cries any more, although she thought she could hear voices.