A Happy Meeting

by Betty Neels

  He was a little longer this time. Not surprisingly, for Anna was a well-built woman and unconscious now—a dead weight.

  ‘Follow me and don’t lag behind,’ he ordered Cressida, something she had no intention of doing anyway, and she stumbled along as close as she could manage with Lucia hugged close to her, crying now and wanting her mama.

  It seemed a long time before they reached the end of the path and saw the lights of the house shining and then a sudden surge of people coming towards them through the snow. Someone—she thought it was Mijnheer ter Beemstra—took Lucia from her, and she straightened her cramped arms and plodded on. She was very tired now and the doctor was somewhere ahead of her, lost in the whirling snowflakes. The house was quite close now, she heaved a sigh of relief and tripped over her own numb feet and once more fell down.

  It was really too much trouble to get up. She stayed where she was, aware that it was a foolish thing to do, but she couldn’t be bothered to make the effort. She was so cold that it didn’t matter any more. She closed her eyes—a nap would be pleasant.

  In the house there was ordered chaos with the doctor issuing instructions with unhurried calm. Lucia to her mother, to be undressed and put into a warm—not hot—bath and then into bed, given hot milk and not left until he had had time to look at her. Anna was laid on the kitchen table, divested of as much clothing as possible, wrapped in blankets and then examined.

  Her leg was broken, he knew that already—a Pott’s fracture just above the ankle. She was still unconscious and he was able to pull the bones into alignment with the help of Mijnheer ter Beemstra, who had just arrived, apply temporary splints and bandage the limb. He had just finished this when he said, ‘Where is Cressida? I’d better take a look at her—she’ll need bed and warmth...’

  She wasn’t to be found. Leaving a slowly recovering Anna to the care of the cook, Aldrik got into his coat again, his face grim, and, armed with a torch once more, went back out into the night. He found her quite quickly, for she had been within shouting distance when she fell. He dropped on a knee beside her and shone the torch in her face and let out a great gusty sigh. She was already asleep, she was also ice-cold and her pulse was slow and faint. He lifted her carefully and carried her back to the house and into the warm kitchen, where he found Cook and Mijnheer ter Beemstra hovering over Anna.

  ‘Dirk, get on to the hospital in Leeuwarden, will you? As soon as possible Lucia and Anna must get there for a check-up and so must Cressida.’

  He put her down comfortably into Cook’s large chair and took off the wellies and her gloves and then, helped by the housemaid, her coat and sodden headscarf. ‘Fetch some blankets, will you?’ he asked the girl, and went to look at Anna, conscious once more, and then upstairs to see Lucia, who was already, with the resilience of the young, almost her small self again.

  Back in the kitchen he found Cressida rousing.

  ‘However did you get here?’ she wanted to know, and then peevishly, ‘You should know better than to travel in this weather.’

  He was taking her pulse, now satisfactorily normal. ‘I was on my way to Janslum—I called to see how you were getting on.’

  He took the warm milk Cook had fetched and held it for her while she sipped. ‘You will go to Leeuwarden for a check-up,’ he told her with impersonal kindness. ‘I think you are perfectly all right but all the same you must be examined. Lucia and Anna will go too.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, in my car. Anna and Lucia will go with Dirk ter Beemstra, but we shall have to wait until the blizzard has blown out.’

  He made her drink the rest of the milk and spoke to the housemaid.

  ‘You will go upstairs and get into a warm bath and put on dry clothing; Sierou will go with you.’ He nodded to the maid and Cressida got to her feet. She peered out at him from her cocoon of blankets.

  ‘Why did you kiss me like that?’ she wanted to know.

  He showed no surprise at her question. ‘Shall we say that it was a happy meeting?’ He smiled a little. ‘Run along now and do as I say.’

  Half an hour later she was downstairs again wearing one of Mevrouw ter Beemstra’s winter coats. It had a hood and was a great deal too large but it was beautifully warm. That lady had wept over her when she had gone to see how Lucia was. ‘I’ll never be able to thank you enough, Cressida. You have been so brave.’ She shuddered. ‘And if Aldrik hadn’t come along when he did, what would have happened?’

  ‘Well, he did come,’ said Cressida bracingly, ‘and everything is all right. Poor Anna—she was so brave, crouching over Baby although her leg must have hurt dreadfully.’

  They went downstairs together and found Aldrik and Dirk ter Beemstra carrying Anna to Dirk’s car. The children, forbidden to come downstairs from the playroom until everything was normal again, had taken up position on the landing and were watching through the banisters.

  ‘Come back, Cressida,’ Willum called, ‘we shall miss you.’

  Cressida waved to them. ‘Tot ziens,’ she replied, airing her Dutch.

  Leeuwarden wasn’t far away but the journey, even undertaken by the two men who knew the road like the backs of their hands and were skilled drivers, took on the aspect of a nightmare. Cressida, bundled in rugs beside Aldrik with the dogs’ warm breath on her neck, cowered in her seat each time the car skidded. The snow had eased a little and so had the wind but it wasn’t the night for a drive.

  The doctor drove steadily and apparently without any fears for their safety and while he drove he kept up a steady flow of small talk so that she was forced to answer him and take her mind off the possibility of them skidding into a canal or going full tilt into a snowdrift; all the same she couldn’t help asking just once if they were nearly there.

  ‘Yes. Don’t be frightened, Cressy, I won’t let anything harm you.’

  He was reassuringly calm and she felt ashamed of her fears and mumbled, ‘Oh, I know, I know. I’m quite sure-I don’t feel quite me or I wouldn’t be such a coward.’

  ‘Cressy, cowards don’t walk out into a blizzard with only a torch and a guardian angel.’ He actually laughed then, righted the Bentley out of a skid and drove on.

  He got them to the hospital and they kept her in that night. They kept Lucia in too, and Anna was to stay for a day or two while her leg was put in plaster and she learned how to manage the crutches. That she hadn’t got pneumonia was a miracle. Cressida, who had been whisked away to be examined and put to bed, had no chance to do more than bid Aldrik a hasty goodbye; she could only hope that he reached his home fairly safely through the appalling weather.

  Dirk ter Beemstra came the next day and fetched her and Lucia home; the blizzard had blown itself out, the sun shone and the snow ploughs had cleared the main roads. Everything was back to normal in a surprisingly short time—excepting for Cressida’s heart, which she was sure would never be normal again. Beyond Dirk ter Beemstra’s casual remark that Aldrik had got home safely she heard nothing of the doctor and she had been too shy to ask for news of him. Besides, the household was entirely disrupted for several days; she had stepped into Anna’s shoes temporarily and she had more than enough to do to fill her days and thoughts.

  A week went by, Anna came back and spurned the cosseting Mevrouw ter Beemstra would have given her. She stumped around on her crutches, only relinquishing Lucia to Cressida’s care for her daily walk, but she had taken Cressida’s hand one day and made a long speech which Cressida couldn’t understand, and then shaken it vigorously. Friends for life, thought Cressida happily. She did her best not to think about Aldrik and as the days went by she decided sadly that she wouldn’t see him again. He had come into her life and gone again and there was nothing to do about it.

  She went to see Charity on her first free day; the baby was expected any day now and that was all they talked about. There was a nurse already in the house a
nd the children were wildly excited. Tyco came home while she was there and Cressida felt a pang of envy at the tender care he gave his wife. To be loved like that...

  Aldrik hadn’t been mentioned and when she could bear it no longer she asked how he was in what she hoped was a casual manner.

  ‘Aldrik?’ said Charity, ‘Oh, he’s in Brazil—or do I mean Argentina?—on a lecture tour. He won’t be back for a bit. He said he’s going to be back in time for the christening, though.’ Charity sneaked a quick look at Cressida. ‘That was lucky that he went to the ter Beemstras’ and found you. Were you scared?’

  ‘Terrified, but it was Anna who had the worst of it, and Baby...’

  ‘Anna shouldn’t have taken her out,’ said Charity in such a severe and matronly voice that Cressida laughed and Charity laughed with her.

  It was at dinner that evening, sitting between the Beemstras, that Cressida found herself listening to their talk. From time to time they excused themselves and spoke their own language and she hadn’t minded this, but now she understood some of what they were saying.

  ‘She is not good enough for him,’ declared the lady of the house, and, since Dutch, when correctly and not too quickly spoken, was at times understandable, Cressida understood that. ‘But of course he is a rich man and well thought of and she can be charming. They are to marry soon, I hear.’

  She smiled across the table at Cressida. ‘Forgive us, we gossip, Cressida. We talk of Nicola van Germert, who is to marry very soon. I for one am sorry for her husband,’ she added maddeningly, ‘but let us talk of something else—how is Charity? They hope for a boy, I expect?’

  Cressida said that yes, she thought they did, but since Charity had declared her intention of having at least four children it didn’t matter much either way. A remark which was approved by Mevrouw ter Beemstra, being the proud mother of six.

  Cressida lay awake for a good deal of the night. She wished that she understood the Dutch language so that she could find out about Nicola, she wished that she had the courage to ask whom she was to marry and above all she wished very much that Aldrik would come home again. If he was going to marry Nicola then she wanted to see him just once more. She went to sleep eventually and woke with a terrible headache. Love, she reflected, was by no means all it was cracked up to be.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DURING THE NEXT few days Cressida pondered the problem of finding out about Nicola and Aldrik—for of course it would be he—hadn’t Mevrouw ter Beemstra described him even if she hadn’t given him a name? Too good for Nicola, she had said, and rich. She supposed that to live in a house like his at Janslum as well as having another house at Leiden one would need to be rich... To ask outright was impossible, inviting a polite snub or at best arousing curiosity. She decided finally to wait until she saw Charity again.

  On the evening before her day off Tyco phoned; Charity had had a son that morning. She could hear the pride and happiness in his voice as he told her. ‘And I’m coming for you as we arranged in the morning,’ he went on. ‘Charity is splendidly fit and wants to see you. She can’t wait to let you see little Tyco. Stay for lunch and help me keep the girls in order, they are so excited. Now could you get hold of Beatrix? I had better tell her the news.’

  So Cressida spent her day admiring the baby and listening to a blissfully happy Charity, lying back on the day bed in the bedroom, wrapped in the prettiest gown Cressida had ever seen, and then going downstairs to keep the girls entertained while Tyco sat with his wife. The rooms were awash with flowers too and the phone rang all day so that by the evening Cressida was tired but awash too with the contented happiness all around her.

  ‘I don’t know what we should have done without you,’ said Tyco, driving her back after tea. ‘It hasn’t been much of a day off for you.’

  ‘I’ve loved it,’ said Cressida, and she meant it. ‘And Charity looks lovely—it must be so nice to have a baby in your home and not in a hospital ward.’

  Tyco chuckled. ‘Ah, that is one of the advantages of marrying into the medical profession.’

  It was long afterwards as she got ready for bed that she wished that she had been quick enough to ask about Aldrik and Nicola; it would have been easy to say, ‘Oh, by the way, talking about doctors, how is Aldrik?’

  ‘I’ll never know,’ she muttered unhappily, ‘for there is no one to tell me.’

  Someone did tell her, however, the very next day.

  She had come indoors with the three girls after a brisk walk and was on her way upstairs to the playroom where Anna would be waiting in her chair to keep an eye on them for an hour while Cressida had some time to herself, when Mevrouw ter Beemstra came out of the drawing-room.

  ‘Cressida, you have a caller, will you come down as soon as you have seen to the children?’

  She had smiled but she had looked put out too and Cressida wondered why. Who on earth would want to see her? If it had been Tyco she would have been told at once and surely it wasn’t Aldrik? Her heart leapt at the thought. It seemed to her that it took longer than usual to get the children’s outdoor things off and tidied away and to make sure that they had all they needed to amuse them for an hour, and Anna wanted to talk—Cressida was too kind-hearted to cut her short. By the time she had tidied her hair and done something to her face fifteen minutes had gone by. She hoped the caller, whoever he or she was, wasn’t impatient. It was on the way downstairs that she remembered the domine. She was smiling as she opened the drawing-room door.

  Nicola was sitting, very much at her ease, in one of the armchairs by the fire, and Mevrouw ter Beemstra, sitting opposite her, turned round as Cressida paused in the doorway.

  ‘There you are, Cressida. Nicola has been staying up here and thought she would call and see how you are getting on. I’ll leave you to have a talk—you’ll stay for a cup of tea?’ she asked Nicola.

  ‘No, no—I must get back—there is so much to do. I know you will forgive me.’

  Mevrouw ter Beemstra looked relieved as she went away.

  Nicola glanced around the room. ‘How fortunate that you are so well settled here. The children are still young too, so you can depend on staying for a long time yet. It is such a relief to us.’

  ‘Us?’ Cressida asked quietly.

  ‘Well, Aldrik and myself, of course. Who else? We have been concerned about you...’

  ‘How kind. When are you getting married?’

  Nicola looked down at her lap, hiding the gleam of triumph in her eyes; someone must have misled Cressida into thinking that she was marrying Aldrik. Well, she for one wasn’t going to enlighten her; she had come to make mischief but there was no need. Let the silly girl go on believing that Aldrik and she were to marry—serve her right. She didn’t want Aldrik herself now; she had been furious when he had made it plain to her that any idea of marrying her had been something she had thought up for herself without encouragement from him, as indeed it had been. Her pride not her heart had been hurt, for she had every intention of marrying a man she had known for some time, a man with a great deal of money and the lifestyle she enjoyed. It had rankled though that Aldrik had refused to dance to her tune and she at once saw a chance to get even with him and mislead the plain creature sitting opposite to her.

  She said sweetly, ‘Very soon.’ She smiled and twisted the diamond ring on her finger and Cressida said,

  ‘When he comes back from his lecture tour?’

  ‘The very next day,’ agreed Nicola, busy thinking up plausible lies. ‘He asked me to come and see you—he had some silly idea that you had begun to like him a little too much.’

  She watched the colour come into Cressida’s cheeks and hid a smile. ‘Of course I told him that was nonsense, I mean you haven’t anything in common, have you?’

  Cressida didn’t answer that. Instead she said steadily, ‘I hope you will be very happy. J
anslum is such a lovely home...’

  ‘Janslum? I hate the place.’ Nicola saw Cressida’s surprised look and hastily amended that. ‘I love his home in Leiden and after all he works there for most of the time. He travels too from time to time and of course I shall go with him.’

  Cressida asked politely, ‘I expect you know Lady Merrill?’

  Nicola knew her; on the one occasion when Lady Merrill had gone over to Janslum they had met and felt a mutual antipathy for each other. ‘Such a charming old lady, we got on splendidly,’ she said smugly.

  She was clever enough to leave it at that. ‘Well I must be on my way. Aldrik will wonder where I’ve got to—he phones each evening, luckily Janslum isn’t all that distance and the roads are almost clear again.’

  Cressida got up. ‘I’ll fetch Mevrouw ter Beemstra, you will want to say goodbye...’

  ‘No, no, don’t disturb her. She knew that I had come to see you.’

  Cressida accompanied her to the door, her feelings at boiling-point behind the polite emptiness of her unassuming features. She wished Nicola goodbye, waited until she had got into her car and driven away and then relieved her feelings by putting out a tongue in a childish gesture.

  ‘I did not know that you were a friend of Nicola’s,’ observed Mevrouw ter Beemstra later that day.

  ‘I’m not, Mevrouw. She only came to see me because someone had asked her to.’

  ‘I do not care for her. She does not like children,’ said Mevrouw ter Beemstra darkly.

  ‘I don’t like her either,’ agreed Cressida, and went to the playroom to help the boys with their English lesson.

  It wasn’t until she was in her room getting ready for bed that she had the time to think about her own affairs. She went over Nicola’s news, trying to remember every word that she had said. She hadn’t said exactly when Aldrik was returning but she had given the strong impression that it was soon. Her cheeks grew hot, remembering what Nicola had said—that he was afraid that she had grown to like him too much. She couldn’t and she wouldn’t see him again, she had mistaken pity for friendship and liking and that tasted bitter in her mouth. Somehow she would have to go back to England. That was easier said than done; in fact, she couldn’t think how it would be possible. The ter Beemstras had been so kind to her, paid her well and treated her as one of themselves, and she was very grateful. To leave them was unthinkable—more than that, impossible.