Off With The Old Love

by Betty Neels

  It was a small inn in the tiny spa, hidden away in the Black Forest. They ate rolls and sausage and cheese and drank lager, and the landlord came and talked to them once he discovered the Professor spoke fluent German. He was a nice old man who smiled and nodded at her and then asked a question of the Professor.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ she asked.

  ‘He thinks you are a pretty girl,’ said the Professor easily.

  She didn’t see him to speak to for the rest of that day. The visit to the hospital was interesting and there was a discussion afterwards. His own lecture in the evening tied up with what they had seen that afternoon and when he had finished there was another discussion. She went to bed early after another buffet supper.

  There were three lectures the next day and she was a little tired by the evening. All the same it was pleasant to see the Professor waiting for her in the foyer. Sadie had come down in the lift with her and clutched her arm when she saw him. ‘Honey, there’s the boyfriend. Leap to it.’

  ‘He’s not…’ began Rachel, but couldn’t finish in case he heard.

  They went to the same restaurant as before and had the same table and the Professor made no effort to entertain her, only talked gently of this and that and made sure that she ate her dinner. He took her back soon after they had finished and said goodnight at the entrance. ‘Tomorrow evening?’ he suggested. ‘Same place if you like it. You’re going to the children’s hospital tomorrow, aren’t you?’

  ‘Your lecture is first,’ she reminded him. ‘Your last one.’

  The final day was well filled. There were last-minute get togethers, the Professor’s lecture and the visit to the hospital and in the evening over dinner they talked about the week’s events, but not too seriously.

  ‘Everything has been arranged for you?’ he asked as they sat over their coffee.

  ‘Oh, yes. We have to hand in our vouchers and pay any bills tomorrow morning after breakfast and be ready to leave at midday.’ She asked diffidently, ‘You’ll be gone by then?’

  ‘No, my flight is in the afternoon. I had a chat with George this morning; they haven’t been too busy, but he was kind enough to remind me that it’s take-in next week.’

  He said goodnight at the hotel and she said, ‘Thank you for giving me such a nice time, Prof…Radmer. I’ll see you next week, I expect.’

  She was up early in the morning, but so was the Professor, sitting patiently in a corner of the foyer where he had a good view of the reception desk. He had no intention of letting Rachel see him, only a wish to make sure that she was safely on her way home.

  He watched her join the small crowd around the reception desk. There were several of the girls who had attended the conference with her, but the people in front of them had just arrived. The Professor gave them a cursory glance and then stood up and started strolling across the foyer. The man even now stretching out a hand for his room key while his other arm encircled a blonde, very pretty girl was Melville. At any moment he would turn round and Rachel would see him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RACHEL LOOKED UP from checking her modest bills, straight into Melville’s face. For a few seconds her whole face lit up, her softly curving mouth half open, then she saw the consternation on his face; more than that, angry irritation and blue eyes, suddenly hard. He recovered quickly.

  ‘So this is where you’re hiding,’ he observed. ‘Have you been here long? I haven’t had a chance to ring the hospital; I thought you were still there.’

  Rachel hadn’t spoken; her mouth was dry and she couldn’t get the words out. In any case, she wasn’t sure what words to utter. She dragged her eyes away from his face and looked at the girl, the same girl she had seen with him going up the steps of his London flat, ignoring her now, tugging at Melville’s arm.

  ‘Darling, hurry up. I simply must have a shower, and you’ve got the key.’

  He patted her arm. ‘OK, darling, we’re on our way.’ He glanced at Rachel and away again. ‘Well, see you around, Rachel. It was fun while it lasted. No hard feelings, eh?’ He added airily, ‘We’re here on location,’ and winked. ‘With a holiday on the side, of course.’

  The girl gave his arm another tug and he gave her a careless kiss on her cheek. ‘Darling, don’t be in such a hurry. Haven’t you heard of “Off with the old love and on with the new”? I can’t remember who said that but I’m following his advice.’

  They had gone. Rachel stood quite still, her face white, looking at nothing in particular. The queue around her had moved on but she hadn’t noticed. She didn’t notice the Professor either. He said quietly, ‘Give me those,’ and took the bills and voucher from her hand. ‘Go and sit down and don’t move until I come.’

  She did as she had been told; she didn’t take in what had happened and certainly was in no fit state to think for herself. Presently he was back again, sitting beside her, saying nothing, watching the colour creep back into her pale face. He lifted a finger to a page and a tray of coffee was set on a small table before them. There was a glass of brandy there, too; he told her to drink it in a no-nonsense voice, and she did that before drinking the coffee he poured. She hadn’t spoken and neither had he but presently she whispered, ‘I should like to scream.’

  ‘I’ve a better idea. We will go to your room—you don’t have to vacate it until midday—and you will lie down on your bed and take a nap. Then we will talk.’

  ‘What about?’ Her voice was fiercely bitter. ‘Being jilted—how to make a fool of a girl in six easy lessons?’ The brandy was taking effect. ‘I’d like to run for miles and never speak to anyone again. And I’ve got to go back and everyone will ask…’

  For answer he took her arm, whisked her into a lift, took her key from her bag and urged her gently into her room. ‘Lie down,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay for a while.’

  ‘There’s no time,’ she said distractedly, and burst into tears.

  He sat quietly while she cried and after a while, when the sobs had changed to heaving breaths and snuffles, he got up, mopped her face dry with a handkerchief and studied it.

  She looked a fright, her nose was red and her eyes pink and puffy and her hair had come loose from its plait, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter that the Professor should see her like that. She said forlornly, ‘I’d better wash my face. I’m sorry that I’ve made such a fuss.’

  Two tears ran down her cheeks and she brushed them away with the back of her hand. ‘I’ll have to get ready. I have to go back to the hospital.’

  He put his sopping handkerchief back into a pocket. ‘Not necessarily. You’re in no fit state to travel on your own and certainly not to go near an operating theatre. I’m going to ring Miss Marks. Will you leave things to me, Rachel?’

  She nodded. ‘But can I stay on here or could I go straight home—just for a day to—to get used to the idea?’

  ‘I’ll take you back with me.’ He was matter-of-fact. ‘My mother will be delighted to have you and in a couple of days you will be able to face up to things again.’

  ‘But I don’t know your mother. I can’t possibly… Why should you…?’

  He sighed gently. ‘Of course you don’t know my mother, you haven’t met. And you can, you know. And why should I? My dear Rachel, from motives of pure selfishness; I prefer you to scrub for me than anyone else.’

  He got up and picked up the phone. ‘Go and wash your face while I get things sorted out.’

  When she got back from the bathroom he was phoning someone in his own language. He hung up presently and said, ‘I told Miss Marks that you had picked up a mild virus and that I would be taking you to my home to get over it. I suggested two or three days off.’

  Rachel was jolted out of her misery for a moment by the notion of Miss Marks agreeing to anything so unusual. ‘Did she mind?’

  He smiled faintly. ‘I didn’t ask her. She agreed with me that a virus infection in the hospital was to be avoided at all costs.’

  ‘But that’s not true—I haven�
��t got a virus.’

  ‘No. I can lie most convincingly when I need to.’ He smiled again. ‘My mother will be delighted to welcome you.’ He looked her up and down. ‘That’s better. Slap on some make-up and do your hair while I see if I can get a seat on my plane.’

  There seemed nothing unusual in sitting down before the mirror and doing what she could to her face and brushing out her hair while he went on with his phoning, booking her a seat and then ringing the reception desk.

  She was twisting her plait into a tidy knot by the time he had finished.

  ‘Do you feel up to eating some lunch?—not here. If your luggage is ready you can check out and we’ll go to my hotel, collect my case, hand over the car and eat a sandwich.’

  Just for a moment she thought she would cry again. He was being so kind—arranging everything, giving her an impersonal sympathy and blessedly not offering good advice.

  ‘Don’t dare weep,’ he warned her and swept her out of the room and into the lift. In the half-empty foyer he sat her down out of sight behind a mass of greenery, checked out for her and then led her to the car outside. She was trembling when she got in, frightened that she might come face to face with Melville again. The Professor glanced at her shaking mouth and said, ‘Now, now,’ in a fatherly way, and started the car. By the time they had reached his hotel she had pulled herself together again. She drank the orange juice he ordered for her, said that yes, she would like chicken sandwiches, and, when they came, made a brave effort to eat them. They had coffee afterwards while the Professor, never a chatty man, kept up a steady flow of inconsequential talk. Rachel hardly heard a word of what he was saying, only the sound of his voice soothed her and stopped her from thinking.

  Their flight was at five o’clock; they had a cup of tea about half past three, took a taxi to the airport and in due course boarded the plane.

  It was seven o’clock when they emerged from Schiphol and almost at once a short stout man came up to them. The Professor shook his hand and drew Rachel forward to meet him. ‘This is Bratte—he looks after the family.’ He introduced her and added, ‘He’s brought a car to meet us.’

  A Mercedes, drawn up to the kerb close by. Bratte and the porter saw to the luggage while the Professor ushered Rachel into the front seat and got in beside her. He said something to the other man as he climbed into the back of the car and they laughed together before he started the car and drove off.

  Rachel sat silent, and the Professor, after one quick look at her sad profile, made no attempt to talk to her. She stared out at the countryside, not seeing it, but only Melville’s face, hearing his voice: ‘Off with the old love, on with the new.’ What a fool she had been; a silly young woman who should have known better. Well, it had taught her a lesson; she wouldn’t believe any man if ever one said that he loved her. She had a good job and she was expert at it; the Professor had said so. She would be a career girl and end up on the very topmost rung of the ladder. The thought made her shudder inwardly, but it was the answer.

  ‘Close your eyes and go to sleep,’ said the Professor softly without looking at her, and, although she hadn’t intended to do so, she did.

  When she woke up the day was fading. The country on either side of the road stretched away as far as she could see, wide green fields with here and there clumps of trees. Farmhouses, huge barns at their backs, were dotted around at intervals. Here and there were lights twinkling and there was a narrow canal running beside the road.

  ‘We’re north of Leeuwarden—the capital town—going towards the coast. We shall be about another ten minutes. Did you have a good nap?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ She heard the quiet content in his voice and the sudden nervousness she had felt melted away.

  The road curved into a large clump of trees and then, unexpectedly, a village. Small, neat houses bordered the road leading to a cobbled square dominated by a jelly-mould church and surrounded by more houses—some of them quite large and most of them old.

  Rachel, wide awake now, stared around her as the Professor circled the church slowly and took a narrow road on the further side.

  The road was a brick one, tree-lined and with the canal still beside it. Presently there was a bridge with wrought iron gates at its further end opening into a cobbled drive.

  The Professor had perforce to slow down which gave Rachel a chance to look around her. There were thick shrubberies on either side with trees beyond, so that she could see very little to the left or right, but as the drive curved she saw the house ahead of them. The evening was far advanced by now but she could see it clearly enough in the dusk for lights streamed from the windows. It was a square house, like a child’s drawing, its windows set in rows on either side and above its massive front door, its roof set squarely upon it without gables or embellishment of any sort. Yet it had dignity and a kind of agelessness.

  The Professor stopped the car and got out to open her door and as she got out in her turn she saw the symmetrical flowerbeds before the house, outlined with foot-high box hedges. She sniffed appreciatively; the air was fragrant with summer flowers. It was very quiet, although somewhere a dog was barking; for the first time since she had seen Melville that morning, she felt that she could cope.

  The Professor took her arm and urged her up the steps to the door, held wide by Bratte who had gone ahead. ‘Welcome to my home,’ said the Professor. ‘Come and meet my mother and father.’

  They crossed a vast, marble-floored hall and opened double doors into an equally vast room with a lofty ceiling, tall wide windows draped in velvet and a polished wooden floor covered with a silk carpet. The furniture was exactly right: great bow-fronted display cabinets along the walls, a rent table between the windows, a Frisian wall clock above an armoire, its marquetry in the style of Berain, flanked by a pair of eighteenth-century armchairs covered in Beauvais tapestry. Nicely blended with these were comfortable chairs, small lamp tables and two well-upholstered sofas each side of the hooded fireplace. From one of these, two people arose: a tall, rather stout lady of late middle years, dressed with great good taste and her grey hair swept back in a severe bun, and an even taller man, some years older and, from the look of him, unmistakably the Professor’s father. The lady surged forward, embraced her son and turned her attention to Rachel. ‘My dear, welcome. Radmer has told us about you and your splendid work at the hospital and I am so glad to meet you.’

  She had seemed formidable at first sight, but she wasn’t at all; she had a kind face and twinkling eyes and Rachel liked her. She liked the Professor’s father, too, a quiet man of few words who put her at her ease at once.

  No one mentioned the reason for her being there. She was swept upstairs by a small stout woman answering to the name of Mieke, who puffed her way up the handsome staircase at the back of the hall and along a wide gallery to one of the doors lining it. Her case was already there. Mieke opened a door, showing her a bathroom, beamed at her and went away, leaving Rachel to make a lightning tour of her room. It was a splendid apartment with a bed of some dark wood she couldn’t recognise and a matching tallboy and sofa table. The windows were hung with chintz which matched the bedspread and there was a thick cream carpet on the floor. The bathroom was as luxurious as the bedroom and she prowled round, admiring the soaps and bath lotions and pile of pastel-tinted towels before tidying her person. Her face bore signs of the day’s events, for she was pale and her eyelids were still puffy, but she didn’t allow herself to think about that; she owed it to the Professor to behave sensibly. He had been kind; how kind she was only just beginning to realise.

  The Professor was waiting for her when she went downstairs. ‘Hungry?’ he wanted to know. ‘I am. Mother and Father decided not to dine; they will have supper with us. Come and have a drink first.’

  She was grateful to him for being so matter-of-fact; sympathy would undoubtedly have sent her off into floods of tears again. She drank the sherry she was offered and presently sat down in the dining-room, a little overawed by it
s magnificence. It was a large room, its crimson walls hung with numerous paintings. The oval mahogany table could seat sixteen persons in comfort and the chairs were ribbon-back Hepplewhite. Along one wall was a vast serving table laden with silver and presided over by Bratte. It could have been rather overpowering but somehow it wasn’t; Rachel did her best to eat the delicious food set before her and bore her share of the conversation, but it was a relief when they had gone back to the drawing-room and, after a little more desultory talk over the coffee cups, her hostess suggested that she must be tired and longing for her bed. ‘We breakfast early, at eight o’clock, my dear, but if you would prefer to have a tray in bed you have only to say so.’

  Radmer got to his feet. ‘Mother, dear, Rachel speaks no Dutch. She wouldn’t know what to say. I’ll knock on her door at half-past seven on my way down.’

  ‘Oh, but I’ll get up—there’s no need…’

  ‘All the same I shall knock.’ He waited while she bade her host and hostess good night and walked with her to the door and opened it. ‘Sleep well, Rachel,’ he said quietly. His eyes searched her face. ‘Would you like a sleeping pill?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m tired. Beside, I have to think.’

  He nodded. ‘By all means do that, but remember that ideas and plans are always out of all proportion to the original in the early hours.’

  He waited by the open door until she had gone upstairs and, she did her best to walk jauntily up the wide staircase, her back very straight.

  She cried herself to sleep, of course. She had enough good sense to know that in time she would get over the hurt of it all, but Melville’s words were still very clear in her head and she winced each time she remembered them; it wasn’t very much good her telling herself that she would take good care never to fall in love again. The thought that Melville might discover that he had been wrong and loved her after all persisted in the back of her head; it was still there when she finally went to sleep.