by Betty Neels
The unconscious wistfulness in her mother’s voice brought home to Eloise how unhappy her companion had been all the while they had lived in the horrid little flat in London, so that she said warmly: ‘Darling, I had a feeling…I’m very happy for you—both of you. He looks a poppet; marry him just as quickly as you can. Where will you live?’
‘Well, there’s a cottage in the village—do you remember old Mrs Shaw’s little house at the other end of Eddlescombe? Well, she’s gone to live with her daughter and Jack’s got first refusal…you could come too, love.’
Eloise was putting on her gloves. ‘What a dear you are, Mother, but I won’t, thank you. I’m almost sure to get a Sister’s post within the next few months. I’ll live in and we can give up the flat and send the furniture down to Eddlescombe. I’d be able to come home for my weekends, though.’ She hugged her mother and added warmly: ‘Mrs Pringle would have loved to know about you and Jack,’ and then: ‘We’d better go down, dear.’
There were a great many people and most of them came back to the house later. They left slowly, leaving the place empty at last save for Mijnheer Pringle, Eloise, her mother, Mr Plunkett and Doctor van Zeilst. Eloise had caught glimpses of him from time to time, although they hadn’t spoken; indeed he had made no effort to seek her out, although, as she pointed out to herself, there was no reason why he should. He was standing now, talking to Mr Plunkett while her mother sat beside Mijnheer Pringle, talking to him in her gentle way.
Eloise wandered off to the kitchen to see if she could give any help there, but the daily girl was there, sitting at the table drinking coffee with Juffrouw Blot, so she wished them goodbye, for she was leaving with her mother within the hour, and then strolled into the garden.
It was late afternoon and the days were drawing in, although the weather was still fine. She stood in its peace and quiet and the thought of London made her feel sick. She supposed that her mother would go back to Eddlescombe with her Jack as soon as they had dropped her off at the flat—she would have to set about the business of giving it up. Her thoughts, not very happy ones, wandered on. She would have to wait for the Sister’s post, of course, but in the meantime she would ask if she could have a room in the Nurses’ Home. The prospect, even with the chance of promotion and a good deal more money, seemed dreary enough. She leaned her elbows on the old stone wall which bordered the lawn and cupped her chin in her hands. She didn’t hear the doctor crossing the grass, coming from the other side of the house, so that she jumped at his: ‘There you are—why did you wander off?’
She glanced at him briefly. ‘Well, Mother and Mijnheer Pringle, and you and Mr Plunkett—besides, I had some thinking to do.’
‘A pity Pieter had to go back to Groningen.’ He frowned a little as he spoke and she thought that if he had been in Pieter’s shoes he wouldn’t have gone, pressing work or not. Come to think of it, what had happened to the doctor’s own work—his afternoon surgery, his patients…?
She observed clearly: ‘I liked Mevrouw Pringle, and I like her husband, but I don’t like Pieter. What did you do with your patients this afternoon?’
He looked faintly surprised. ‘Oh, I have a partner—two in fact, we stand in for each other from time to time. Are all your plans made?’
‘Yes.’
‘You will stay at St Goth’s after your mother and Jack Plunkett marry?’
‘Well, yes.’ She sounded despondent without knowing it, and he said abruptly: ‘But you don’t really want to.’
She answered too quickly: ‘Of course I do,’ and almost choked on the lie, suddenly quite certain that it was the last thing she wanted to do. She wanted to stay in Holland and see Timon van Zeilst every day, preferably all day, for ever and ever. It was astonishing and rather absurd that she should discover, at this late hour and just as they were going to part, that she loved him. It was also quite hopeless, common sense pointed out, for had not the beautiful Liske already captured him? She said in a wooden voice: ‘I should be going, I think—Mr Plunkett wants to leave before it’s really dark.’
‘Ah, yes—I almost forgot to mention it. The plans have been changed; you are all coming back with me for dinner and the night. Cor can’t be left alone. Juffrouw Blot is going to the village with friends, and Mr Plunkett assures me that he can leave just as easily in the morning.’
Eloise said: ‘Oh,’ inadequately and thought how nice it would be to see Timon’s home before she went; besides, she would see him for just a few more hours.
They set off presently, Mijnheer Pringle driving himself, Mrs Bennett with Mr Plunkett and Eloise, neatly plucked from the back seat at the very last moment, sitting beside the doctor in his Rolls.
He made gentle conversation during the drive, not seeming to notice her rather abstracted replies; she had a great deal on her mind, and most of it was him.
They hadn’t gone back to the main road but had continued along the side road which ran past Mijnheer Pringle’s house. It led to a village before long and then wound its way through fields to another, smaller village. The doctor slowed on the cobbles as they passed the first neat cottages, and when he reached the small square turned past the austere red brick church in its centre and drove down a lane on the further side. The lane wandered on into the fields again with nothing much to see save a double row of tall trees some way ahead, at right angles to the road, and when they reached them, the doctor swept the car through the massive gateposts on either side and driving faster now, entered an avenue where the trees were reinforced by shrubs and bushes so that Eloise could see very little of her surroundings. ‘Where are we?’ she wanted to know, peering around her.
‘Home,’ said her companion laconically as he drove round a sharp bend. And there before them was the house—old, magnificently ornate, with wrought iron balconies, shutters at its enormous windows and a steep tiled roof crowned by a circular dome.
‘My goodness me!’ exclaimed Eloise, and felt her heart drop into her shoes. The doctor, already out of reach, seemed even further away now by reason of possessing such a palatial home—although it might not be his. She brightened at the thought as she accompanied him up the shallow steps and in through the vast front door, only half hearing his formal welcome.
The entrance hall was large, square and light because of the glass dome above their heads, several floors away. The staircase, massive oak and intricately carved, ascended from the back of the hall, curving at the top to join the gallery on the floor above. There were black and white tiles under their feet, with a generous scattering of silky rugs upon them and two great wall tables, flanked by two equally massive chairs, cushioned in crimson velvet, faced each other from either wall. And coming to meet them through this magnificence was an elderly man, very spry, his white hair and whiskers framing a solemn face.
The doctor said something to him as he came to a halt before them, and the elderly face broke into a smile. ‘We are delighted to welcome you to Huis Zeilst,’ said the personage with tremendous dignity, addressing himself to Eloise.
‘Bart,’ explained the doctor, ‘knows more about the family than I do myself; he’s been with us man and boy and is our trusted friend as well as the world’s best butler.’
Eloise stopped herself just in time from saying ‘My goodness me!’ again and said sedately: ‘Oh, how nice,’ which upon reflection sounded even sillier. She went a faint pink and stole a look at the doctor, to be instantly reassured by the blandness of his expression.
The whole party crossed the hall, Bart leading the way to throw open double doors and usher them into a vast room, the magnificence of which rather took Eloise’s breath. Its walls were white, picked out in gilt and lighted by crystal wall chandeliers. The ceiling was painted a rich mulberry pink, a colour repeated in the brocade curtains and the covers of the chairs and sofas arranged about the room. The floor was polished wood, covered for the most part by a needlework carpet in muted pinks and faded blues, and the great hooded hearth was flanked by glass-fronted cabine
ts, full, she had no doubt, of any number of treasures. She took in these delights within the first few moments; it was only as she brought her gaze back to the group of chairs arranged at one end of the room that she saw Liske, rising gracefully to her feet and coming forward to meet them with all the welcoming charm of the perfect hostess.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS A PITY that Eloise wasn’t looking at the doctor’s face, for a surprise as great as her own was on his handsome features, to be instantly concealed behind a bland smile. Before he could speak, however, Liske had reached his side and tucked a hand into his arm, and Eloise couldn’t help but see the sidelong glance directed at herself as she did so; as plain to her in its meaning as a neon sign flashing ‘hands off!’
‘I telephoned,’ explained Liske prettily, ‘and I made that silly old Bart of yours tell me what was happening.’ She pouted charmingly. ‘If you had told me, Timon, I would have come over sooner—you never mentioned that you were having guests for the night.’
The doctor gave her a look which could have meant anything at all. ‘I have an excellent housekeeper,’ he pointed out suavely, ‘and Bart, being neither silly nor old, is perfectly capable of carrying out my orders and wishes. You had no need to—er—put yourself out, Liske. You’ll stay to dinner, of course?’ He turned to his guests. ‘What about a drink before dinner? and then perhaps the ladies would like to see their rooms.’ He smiled at Mrs Bennett and ushered her to a comfortable chair, ignoring Eloise completely.
He was a good host; despite the sombre occasion he contrived to keep the talk trivial and interesting enough to keep his guests talking easily among themselves, although Eloise, for her part, had very little to say. She was feeling annoyed that she should feel a little overawed by her surroundings and it annoyed her even more that Liske should be so at ease, almost as though she were already mistress of the lovely impressive house. It was a relief when her host got up to tug a thick silk bell rope by the hooded fireplace, and when Bart came, requested him to fetch someone to take the ladies of the party upstairs.
Elsie mounted the staircase beside her mother, Mevrouw Metz, the housekeeper a few steps ahead of them, and the sight of the wide gallery at its head, with its many corridors and little passages leading from it, caused her mood to become even more despondent. Even while admitting to herself that she loved Timon van Zeilst, she had at the same time almost, but not quite, squashed any romantic notions about her future. She was a very ordinary girl, she considered, and he had money, presumably, and good looks, a combination which allowed him to pick and choose—and he had picked Liske… All the same, until that moment she had cherished a faint hope, rapidly fading at the sight of so much wealth—and that wealth so taken for granted. He was in another world from hers.
She stopped as the housekeeper opened one of the doors in the gallery and smiled an invitation to her mother.
‘Me,’ said Mrs Bennett, happily ungrammatical. ‘I expect you’re next door, darling.’
Eloise smiled absently and allowed herself to be ushered into the neighbouring room, and Mevrouw Metz, her tall, stately figure quite at variance with her nice, placid face, sailed away with more smiles and murmurs.
Her room made Eloise sigh with delight—maple-wood, the inlaid bedhead matching the dressing table with its triple mirror and the tallboy between the long windows, curtained in a flowery chintz. The floor, unlike the rooms downstairs, was close-carpeted in a thick cream-coloured pile which would show every mark—but how lovely it looked. There was an enormous fitted cupboard behind the first door she opened, the second one revealed a bathroom, which in turn opened into her mother’s room.
Their overnight bags had been unpacked, so there was nothing to do but explore their surroundings before tidying themselves and going downstairs again. Eloise, applying lipstick, felt that anything she might do to her face would be of no use in competition with Liske. She screwed up her pretty hair in a severe fashion which called forth her mother’s protests, and arm-in-arm with her parent, went back to the drawing room.
Sitting up in bed some hours later, Eloise mulled over her evening. It had been surprisingly pleasant in a subdued way and the doctor had led the conversation quite deliberately round to Mevrouw Pringle, talking easily and quite naturally about her, so that very soon everyone else was doing the same, remembering earlier days, recalling holidays and meetings and parties, and watching Mijnheer Pringle, she had seen that that had been exactly what he had needed, to talk freely of his wife instead of trying to hide her away in his mind—probably he would sleep soundly for the first time since she had died. And Liske—she had had no chance to centre interest upon herself, although she had tried hard enough; in the end she had become sulky and soon after dinner declared that she would have to go home. The doctor had raised no objection to this, although he had gone out of the room with her and seen her into her car; he had been so long about it that Eloise imagined them quarrelling—or perhaps he was coaxing her back into a good humour. There was nothing in his face to offer her a clue when he returned to the drawing room and he didn’t mention Liske during the whole of the evening.
It was when the party had broken up for the evening that she had come upon Bart coming from the dining room with such a miserable expression on his face that she, alone for the moment, had stopped to speak to him.
‘You speak English, don’t you?’ she had asked, and when he nodded: ‘Then will you tell me what is the matter? You look unhappy—are you ill? Can I do anything to help?’
He had answered her with great dignity. ‘No, miss—you are kind to ask.’
She forgot it was none of her business, anyway. ‘But there’s something wrong. You’re upset—look at your hands shaking. If you could tell me it might help—I won’t tell anyone else.’ She hesitated. ‘Shall I find Doctor van Zeilst for you? Perhaps he…’
He looked shocked. ‘Oh no, miss. He must be the last person to know.’
Eloise sat higher against her pillows and hugged her knees and shivered a little, remembering how the doctor, speaking very softly behind them, had surprised them. ‘And what must I not know?’
She had been clumsy and interfering, she knew that now, for she had said quite sharply: ‘Bart isn’t well—or he’s upset—can’t you do something?’
The doctor had looked down his nose at her and remarked blandly: ‘Certainly—if I may know what has upset him.’
They had both looked at Bart then, and he poor man, had muttered something in Dutch to which the doctor had replied briskly in English: ‘You will tell me, Bart—we have known each other too long to have secrets.’
And Bart had cast her a reproachful and yet thankful look as he replied. ‘It was only something which Juffrouw Haakema said—it is not important.’
‘But it makes you shake like a leaf when you think about it, Bart. Out with it!’
Bart had broken into Dutch then and Eloise hadn’t understood a word, which was perhaps just as well, for the doctor had looked angry, though not, fortunately, with Bart, for he had put a hand on the old man’s shoulder and spoken to him in such a kind voice that Eloise had guessed that it was something for which Bart couldn’t be blamed. She had longed to ask, but neither man seemed to remember that she was still there; after a minute or two she had gone away very quietly, upstairs after the others.
She lay down at last. Probably she wouldn’t see the doctor in the morning; they were to leave immediately after breakfast and surely he would have a surgery to take. Not to see him again was terrible, but certainly the best thing if she thought about it sensibly. Only she didn’t feel sensible; she closed her eyes on threatening tears and after a while fell into a troubled sleep.
But she was to see him again. When she got down in the morning, there he was, sitting at the head of his splendid mahogany table in the dining room with no company at all but for an Old English sheepdog she hadn’t seen before. She had expected everyone else to be there too and after a moment’s hesitation at the half open
door, began a silent retreat. But he must have had eyes at the back of his head, because he said pleasantly: ‘Do come in, Eloise—the others won’t be down just yet.’
He got to his feet as he spoke and turned to look at her, so that she really had no choice but to go to the table. ‘Good morning—I thought you said that breakfast was at eight o’clock. I’m sorry, I couldn’t have been listening…’
‘But I did say that, although I told everyone else half past the hour. I wanted to speak to you alone.’
Eloise went a delicate pink. ‘Oh—about yesterday evening.’ She was talking so fast in order to get it over with quickly that she didn’t pause for breath. ‘I’m frightfully sorry; it was frightfully interfering of me, I had absolutely no right…it wasn’t any of my business. You and Bart must simply hate me for it—I…’
He interrupted her as she took a much needed breath. ‘My dear girl, Bart doesn’t hate you—on the contrary, he considers you to be one of the nicest young ladies he has ever met. You wanted to help him just when he was utterly miserable—he will dote on you for the rest of his life.’
The pink deepened, and Eloise, hating it, stared down at the snowy tablecloth. ‘Oh, well—how kind, though I didn’t do anything.’ She added defiantly: ‘He’s a dear old man.’
The doctor agreed gravely. ‘Indeed he is. I would have given a great deal not have him so upset—as I told you, he is a friend as well as a trusted servant. But I’ve dealt with the matter and he is reassured, but it is you I have to thank—he would never have told me. Indeed, thinking about it, I am beginning to wonder if there have been other occasions…’
Eloise, still engrossed in the tablecloth, fought a strong inclination to ask what occasions and why had Bart been upset, anyway, since it was obvious that she wasn’t to be told.
‘Eloise,’ said the doctor, and she looked up to see him smiling at her. ‘You know, I’m inclined to agree with Bart,’ and he pulled her close and kissed her soundly before she realised what he was going to do and then, while she was still staring up at him, he let her go and asked in a perfectly normal voice: ‘Will you have tea or coffee?’