by Betty Neels
Penny, clinging to Alexandra’s arm, looked around her with interest before saying in a disappointed voice: ‘It’s so quiet—aren’t there any houses close by?’
‘None at all,’ stated her hostess cheerfully, ‘but you’ll find so much to do that I doubt if you will notice that—and you’ve got Alexandra and me for company.’ She glanced at Alexandra. ‘Bed?’ she asked.
‘I think so—if I might take her supper up, she’s very tired.’
They mounted the narrow staircase, a spiral fitted into the tiny hall, and Miss Thrums opened a door on the landing. The room was small but very pretty and Alexandra noticed with approval that it contained all the comforts which a young girl might look for: magazines, a handful of books, a tin of biscuits, a warm dressing gown on the bed and matching slippers. Miss Thrums must have gone to a good deal of trouble and expense.
Because Penny had nothing to say, she said warmly: ‘What a lovely room! Look, Penny, everything you could possibly want,’ and when the girl didn’t respond: ‘You’re tired; I’m going to help you to bed. You’ll feel marvellous in the morning.’
It was an hour later when she went downstairs to join Miss Thrums. Penny had eaten her supper like an obedient child and had been tucked up for the night, and she had unpacked her own things in the room next to Penny’s; a room as pretty as her patient’s. The little house was charming and its sitting-room was surprisingly large, with glass doors taking the place of one wall, so that wherever one sat, there was a view. It was dark now, of course, but the thin, chilly moon made it possible to see beyond a stretch of grass to the trees which hedged it. Alexandra, sipping sherry opposite her hostess, saw something move out there in the dark, and although she said nothing, Miss Thrums, who was watching her, said happily: ‘The deer come each evening—I leave food out for them and sometimes they come right up to the doors. There are badgers too.’ She put down her glass. ‘Come and have supper, my dear, and tell me exactly what is to be done for that poor girl upstairs.’
They settled easily and quickly into a pleasant routine; breakfast in bed for Penny, the preparing of which Alexandra had persuaded Miss Thrums was one of her nursing duties, and when she had been settled comfortably against her pillows, breakfast for the two of them in the cheerful little kitchen. Miss Thrums, in a sensible tweed skirt and a twin set, her nice face free of make-up, her hair scraped back into its firm bun, made the coffee and toast while Alexandra, in slacks and a thick sweater, her hair tied back, laid a table under the window, where they had their simple meal and a pleasant gossip before washing up together.
Alexandra went up to Penny then, making beds and tidying up and keeping an eye on her while she dressed, and after the first few days, she began to discover things about her patient; Penny liked pretty things—and certainly Miss Thrums had provided her with a charming wardrobe even though it was scanty—but only if the pretty things were hers; she thought nothing of the dainty china and small silver ornaments Miss Thrums dusted so lovingly each day, she thought nothing of the polished Regency table and chairs either, nor did she show any interest in the small collection of quite valuable oil paintings in the sitting-room; she didn’t like Jock, the elderly Golden Labrador, who was Miss Thrums’ constant companion, and it wasn’t just dogs; she had flung Sambo the kitten off her lap with a rough pettishness which amounted to dislike. This could very well be the result of her accident, Alexandra conceded, so she did her best to keep the animals away from her patient and struggled to cope with Penny’s increasing peevishness.
It had seemed nothing of a job when she had accepted it, but within the first few days she had discovered that it wasn’t going to be all roses; Penny was irritable if she didn’t get her own way, and was prone to sulk; Alexandra ignored this as far as possible and pegged away at trying to find some clue as to the girl’s past. But in this she was unlucky, for there was no response to her carefully put questions, only blank looks or a total disinterest; it was almost as though Penny didn’t want to remember, she thought uneasily. But slowly she was building up some sort of picture of the girl, although whether it was a true one she was unable to decide. The pretty manners and the charming air of helplessness were there, but she made no secret of the fact that she was bored with country life; she found nothing to do in the dear little house, its treasures held no pleasure for her, the garden she ignored, and although she was happy enough sitting by the fire with a magazine, she made no attempt to start a conversation with her companions, although she answered readily enough when they addressed her.
Was this bored, rather silent girl the real Penny? Alexandra wondered, or the result of the accident—she had certainly been a different girl in the hospital, and could it be that she had been accustomed to a busy town life with plenty of people around her? She took her to Needham Market with the car one morning and tried to find out, and was pleased with the mild success of the outing. Penny had enjoyed the shops and had commented at some length over the clothes, and once or twice Alexandra had been puzzled of the way she spoke, as though she was choosing her words carefully, concealing something. But when she asked: ‘Do you feel you’re almost remembering something, Penny?’ she was met with a blank look and a quick: ‘No, no—oh, if only I could!’
But back at the cottage again, she lapsed once more into boredom and Alexandra consoled herself by remembering that it was early days yet, patience was needed as well as firmness and kindness. Miss Thrums agreed with her, doing her share by cooking nourishing meals of an astonishing variety, giving it her opinion that good food was absolutely essential to any young creature who had been ill.
Alexandra came upon her one morning, counting the money in her old-fashioned purse, and wondered if housing and feeding Penny and herself was proving too great a strain on her resources, but it was impossible to ask; Miss Thrums wasn’t that kind of person.
At least by the end of the week, Penny had improved physically; she had a pretty colour now and she had gained some weight, her charming face when she was pleased about something was full of vivacity and her hair, after a good deal of experimenting, was now arranged to cover the scar of her operation, but there was no denying the fact that for most of the time she was listless. If only, thought Alexandra, vainly trying to interest her in a game of cards, she would show some animation.
She was to have her wish; Doctor van Dresselhuys arrived on Saturday afternoon, walking up to the front door with a rather battered travelling bag swinging from one hand. She saw him first, but before she could say anything, Penny had looked up and seen him too. She was out of her chair and through the front door like a flash, to fling herself into the doctor’s arms, her face alight, her voice so gay and happy that Alexandra could hardly believe that this was the quiet, morose girl she had been struggling to cheer up during the last week. Perhaps, she thought worriedly, this had been the reason for the girl’s changed behaviour; she had been unhappy without the doctor.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE had come, he informed his aunt as he kissed her cheek, for the week-end so that he could check on Penny—he tweaked the golden hair as he spoke and smiled down at her, clinging still to his arm. It was almost as an afterthought that he turned to Alexandra to greet her briskly, uttering a few conventional phrases which required nothing more than a smile and a murmur in reply. It was Penny who took almost all his attention for the rest of the day, and quite rightly so, Alexandra reminded herself, genuinely glad to see the girl so changed; she was the life and soul of the party, laughing delightedly at anything the doctor said, telling him, not always quite truthfully, of the things she had done during the week, touching upon Alexandra’s guardianship in a joking voice which almost but not quite made her out to be a bossy autocrat. Everyone laughed at that, though Alexandra stifled a puzzled disquiet; Penny wasn’t meaning to be unkind, she was thoughtless, that was all.
She ignored the doctor’s thoughtful stare and went, at Miss Thrums’ request, to feed Rover, she took him for a walk too, not bothering to go
back to the little group by the sitting-room fire. Instead, she plodded along the lanes, taking the poor dog for a much longer run than his middle age called for, and feeling unaccountably put out.
They were still sitting where she had left them, talking about Christmas, and from the look on Penny’s face she had no trouble at all in guessing that the doctor was going to spend it with them. ‘I’ll be over on Christmas Eve,’ he promised them, ‘though heaven knows at what time.’
‘But you’ll come again—before then?’ It was Penny who asked, and the adoring expression on her face would have flattered a block of granite.
‘Good lord, Penny—Christmas is only just round the corner and I’m a working man. I’ll just about have enough time to buy the presents. What do you want?’ He smiled at her laughingly and she said at once:
‘A dress—Oh, Taro, a blue dress, I’ll show you…’ She searched the pile of magazines she had been reading when he arrived and handed him a Vogue, still searching for the right page. It was a beautiful dress—pale blue wool with ruffles round its neck and wrists—it was also wildly expensive. He studied it carefully and said at length: ‘Well, we’ll see what we can do,’ then cast the magazine aside and looked at Miss Thrums. ‘And you, Aunty?’
‘Well, dear boy, if it’s not too expensive a present, I do very much want a new wheelbarrow.’
There was a ripple of laughter from them all as he turned to Alexandra. ‘And you, my dear Miss Dobbs?’
He had spoken her name as though it had amused him, and there was no earthly reason why he couldn’t have called her Alexandra like everyone else—it merely served to set her apart. She swallowed a sad resentment and plunged gaily: ‘Oh, I’ll settle for sapphires; necklace, earrings, bracelet, ring—the lot… Oh, and a little gold revolving angel playing Christmas tunes.’
She managed a smile as gay as her voice had been. ‘Isn’t it fun asking for impossible things? And now tell us what you would like, Doctor.’
He became all at once bland. ‘Since you ask—a very small house in the country, just like this one, adequately furnished and suitably occupied, of course.’
His aunt smiled faintly and said nothing. Alexandra longed to put the question Penny instantly asked. ‘Who? Who would be there?’
His face was as bland as his voice had been. ‘Why, a wife, naturally enough, and since it would be Christmas, as many children as could be fitted in comfortably.’
Penny gave a little trill of laughter. ‘Don’t be so stuffy, Taro,’ she begged him. ‘People don’t get married these days—we’re free to do just what we like.’ She pouted prettily at him. ‘Wouldn’t I do instead?’
‘Don’t beg questions,’ he told her, ‘and kindly remember that I’m old enough to be stuffy if I want to be,’ and Alexandra saw his suddenly alert eyes; perhaps he had thought as she had done. Penny had expressed her modern ideas quite spontaneously; perhaps a subconscious memory from the past; a tiny clue, not even that, but worth remembering.
He changed the conversation at once and presently Alexandra went to get the supper, telling Miss Thrums that she had nothing better to do, a rather unfortunate remark which caused the doctor to stare at her as she went out of the room.
Sunday passed without her seeing much of him; he went to church with his aunt in the morning, and after lunch he took Penny for a walk, suggesting that she might like a few hours to herself. She occupied them in sitting at the little walnut writing desk in the sitting-room, composing a falsely bright letter to her mother, and then busied herself getting the tea so that Miss Thrums might have a little time with her nephew. He was to leave early the next morning, he had mentioned casually, and had gone on to ask her one or two routine questions about Penny in much the same manner as he would have done on a hospital ward. She answered him with professional brevity and went up to bed at the end of a totally unsatisfactory evening feeling so low-spirited that she began to wonder if she was sickening for something.
She wakened early, surprised to find that it was already light. The thought that it wasn’t raining got her out of bed, to dress quickly and steal downstairs, take her coat from the old-fashioned hat stand in the tiny hall, and let herself out into the garden.
It was a jewel of a morning—a few hours of autumn allowed to slip between the dark winter days, bringing with it a faded blue sky and the very first rays of the sun, sending the light mist into lacy spirals and giving the dewdrops on the cobwebs a diamond sparkle. She walked across the grass to the further end, where the garden petered out in a charming tangle of small trees and shrubs. There were birds there, twittering softly, and she took the slice of bread she had purloined from the kitchen and began to scatter crumbs.
She didn’t hear the doctor’s silent approach across the short grass. His quiet: ‘Good morning, Alexandra,’ caused her to jump and the little party of blackbirds, thrushes and sparrows which had collected around her took instant shelter in the trees. She wished him good morning with faint reproach and he grinned as he took the last of the bread from her and began to scatter it, whistling a variety of bird calls as he did so.
‘Show-off,’ said Alexandra crossly, and he grinned again, like a schoolboy.
‘One of my very few talents,’ he explained with mock humility. ‘Look, here they all are, back again.’
They stood quietly while the birds finished their crumbs and then flew away. ‘A lovely morning,’ observed the doctor.
‘Heavenly—the mist makes everything look like fairyland…’
‘A cobweb morning—that’s what it’s called in these parts—did you not know that?’
She smiled up at him. ‘No, I didn’t. It’s a beautiful description.’
He said seriously: ‘Yes, and you are a beautiful girl, Alexandra.’ He bent his head to kiss her, taking his time about it, then: ‘I have to go now,’ he told her abruptly, and went.
She heard no sounds of a car; presumably he would walk to the village and pick up the local taxi. Of course he would have a car in Holland; he would need one for his work, though it would be an expensive business to bring it over each time he came. Probably he had spent several years saving to buy a practice and now he would have to live economically until he had got firmly established. She remembered how he had wished for a little house and a wife and children, but unless the girl he married was prepared to live on a budget for several years, he would have to wait for his wish. The idea saddened her; she discovered to her surprise that she didn’t dislike him any more, rather she found herself wishing with all her heart that he might get his own way, but he was kind too—she had seen that with his treatment of Penny—the thought brought her up short; perhaps she was the wife he wanted. Perhaps that was why he had arranged for her to stay with his aunt, knowing that she would be safe until she had recovered sufficiently for her to marry him—and she adored him too. Alexandra had up till now thought of her flagrant worship of him as a child’s gratitude for what he had done for her, now she wasn’t so sure. She was very young, of course, but what had age got to do with loving someone?
She wished suddenly that she knew him better; looking back, he had seemed more approachable at the hospital—that time in her office, for instance…she shivered, the beauty of the morning was fading already. It had been an illusion of autumn, quickly past. She went indoors, feeling sad.
Penny was difficult all the next day; the doctor had gone without wishing her good-bye and she had sulked and grumbled for hours after he had gone; gone to bed early with a headache, and got up the next morning in one of her most difficult moods. In the end Alexandra was forced to take her for a long walk so that Miss Thrums might have some peace. By bedtime she had contrived to get Penny into a more cheerful frame of mind, but it had been exhausting work; she went to bed herself feeling quite worn out.
The preparations for Christmas kept them all occupied. Luckily Miss Thrums, despite her sensible appearance, was strongly addicted to old habits and customs. Holly was searched for and hung, mistletoe was hun
g too. Alexandra made a note of the places so that when the doctor came, she could avoid them, not admitting to herself that she was a little afraid that he might kiss her again and that she would like it too much. She had enjoyed the kiss in the garden, but it mustn’t become a habit… She engaged herself in making paper chains, while Penny sat beside her, enrapt in Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Christmas, despite all their efforts, didn’t seem to mean much to her, nor did the simple service in the village church. She only seemed to be interested in pretty clothes and the doctor, and Alexandra, being a wise young woman, allowed her to have her head; she took her shopping as often as was practical and lent a sympathetic ear to all that Penny had to say about him. He was always Taro, never the doctor; she spoke of him as though she had known him for years and with a possessiveness which set Alexandra’s teeth on edge. But it opened the way for carefully put questions from time to time, in the hope of ringing the bell of Penny’s lost memory.
She had no luck, though, only it seemed to her that the girl’s character was emerging, bit by bit; modern—very modern, with a strange feckless attitude towards life which shocked Alexandra. She cared for nothing which wasn’t connected with her own comfort, and although she disguised her selfishness under a compelling charm, it was selfishness, all the same. Alexandra wondered if her accident could have changed her to that extent—there had been no indication of that, but head injuries were unpredictable at times.
They shopped for Christmas presents, of course, Alexandra found a soft mohair stole for Miss Thrums and a silk scarf for Penny in the soft blue which she liked so much. It would go very well with the grey tweed coat Miss Thrums had given her when she left the hospital. And as for the doctor, she came across a small leather-bound pocketbook which seemed very suitable as a gift. Penny shopped too, and when Alexandra asked where she had got the money from, careful to ask it casually for fear that Penny should feel that she was prying, she was told that Taro had given it to her so that she might buy presents for anyone she wanted to give them to. There was a faint whine in her voice as she said it and a hint of reproach that no one else had thought of doing the same. But on the whole the days were happy ones, and once the little house was decorated to the standard Miss Thrums had set, Alexandra turned her attention to the kitchen. Miss Thrums would see to the turkey and the Christmas pudding and all the other festive food she had been buying, but there was still plenty to be done—potatoes to peel and sprouts to clean and almonds to blanch and raisins to stone; Miss Thrums, being old-fashioned, didn’t believe in the new-fangled plastic packs. Half the fun, she pointed out, was in the preparation, and Alexandra, whose mother shared her hostess’s views, agreed.