by Betty Neels
‘You told no one?’
‘No. You see, Basil said that if I did he’d kill Pooch and Bertie, so then I knew I’d have to get away somehow, so each week I kept a bit from the shopping—I had aimed at fifty pounds, but then yesterday Basil and my stepmother were talking and I was in the garden and heard them. He said he was going to drown them both while I was in the village shopping the next day, so then I knew I’d have to leave sooner. We left about three o’clock this morning…’ She had smiled then. ‘The doctor stopped and gave us a lift, it was kind of him, especially as he was in such a hurry and we were all so wet and he didn’t even know if I was making up the whole thing.’ She had added uncomfortably: ‘I must have bored you; I hate people who are sorry for themselves.’
‘I should hardly say that you were sorry for yourself. A most unpleasant experience, my dear, and one which we must try and erase from your mind. I see no reason why you shouldn’t make a pleasant future for yourself when we get to Holland. Nurses are always needed, and with Tiele’s help you should be able to find something to suit you and somewhere to live.’
Becky had felt happy for the first time in a long while.
Their removal to the ship took place with an effortless ease which Becky attributed to the doctor’s forethought. People materialised to take the luggage, push the wheelchair and get them into a taxi, and at the docks a businesslike man in a bowler hat saw them through Customs and into the hands of a steward on board. Becky, who had visualised a good deal of delay and bother on account of her having no passport, even though the Baroness had assured her that her son had arranged that too, was quite taken aback when the man in the bowler hat handed her a visitor’s passport which he assured her would see her safely on her way. She remembered that the doctor had asked her some swift questions about her age and where she was born, but she hadn’t taken, much notice at the time. It was evident that he was a man who got things done.
The Baroness had a suite on the promenade deck, a large stateroom, a sitting room with a dear little balcony leading from it, overlooking the deck below a splendidly appointed bathroom and a second stateroom which was to be Becky’s. It was only a little smaller than her patient’s and she circled round it, her eyes round with excitement, taking in the fluffy white towels in the bathroom, the telephone, the radio, the basket of fruit on the table. None of it seemed quite real, and she said so to the Baroness while she made her comfortable and started the unpacking; there was a formidable amount of it; the Baroness liked clothes, she told Becky blandly, and she had a great many. Becky, lovingly folding silk undies which must have cost a fortune and hanging dresses with couture labels, hadn’t enjoyed herself so much for years. Perhaps in other circumstances she might have felt envy, but she had a wardrobe of her own to gloat over; Marks & Spencer’s undies in place of pure silk, but they were pretty and new. Even her uniform dresses gave her pleasure, and if Bertie and Pooch had been with her she would have been quite happy. She finished the unpacking and went, at her patient’s request, to find the purser’s office, the shop, the doctor’s surgery and the restaurant. ‘For you may need to visit all of them at some time or other,’ remarked the Baroness, ‘and it’s so much easier if you know your way around.’
It was a beautiful ship and not overcrowded. Becky, while she was at it, explored all its decks, peeped into the vast ballroom and the various bars and lounges, walked briskly round the promenade deck, skipped to the lowest deck of all to discover the swimming pool and hurried back to her patient, her too thin face glowing with excitement. ‘It’s super!’ she told her. ‘You know, I’m sure I could manage the wheelchair if you want to go on deck—I’m very strong.’
The Baroness gave her a faintly smiling look. ‘Yes, Becky, I’m sure you are—but what about your sea legs?’
Becky hadn’t given that a thought. The sea was calm at the moment, but of course they weren’t really at sea yet; they had been passing Tynemouth when she had been on deck, but in another half hour or so they would be really on their way.
‘Now let us have some room service,’ observed the Baroness. ‘Becky, telephone for the stewardess, will you?’
The dark-haired, brown-eyed young creature who presented herself a few minutes later was Norwegian, ready to be helpful and friendly. ‘I shall have my breakfast here,’ decreed the Baroness, ‘and you, Becky, will go to the restaurant for yours.’ She made her arrangements smoothly but with great politeness and then asked for the hotel manager, disregarding the stewardess’s statement that he wouldn’t be available at that time. Becky picked up the telephone once again and passed on the Baroness’s request, and was surprised when he actually presented himself within a few minutes.
‘A table for my nurse, if you please,’ explained the Baroness, and broke off to ask Becky if she wanted to share with other people or sit by herself.
‘Oh, alone, please,’ declared Becky, and listened while that was arranged to her patient’s satisfaction. ‘We’ll lunch here,’ went on Baroness Raukema van den Eck, ‘and dine here too.’ And when the manager had gone, ‘You must have some time to yourself each day—I like a little rest after lunch, so if you settle me down I shall be quite all right until four o’clock or so. I’m sure there’ll be plenty for you to do, and I expect you’ll make friends.’
Becky doubted that; she had got out of the habit of meeting people and she didn’t think anyone would bother much with a rather uninteresting nurse. But she agreed placidly and assured her companion that that would be very nice. ‘I’ve found a library, too,’ she said. ‘Would you like a book?’
‘A good idea—I should. Go and find something for me, my dear, and then we’ll have a glass of sherry before dinner. Don’t hurry,’ she added kindly, ‘have a walk on deck as you go.’
It didn’t seem like a job, thought Becky, nipping happily from one deck to the other, and it was delightful to be able to talk to someone again. She wondered briefly what the Baron was doing at that moment, then turned her attention to the bookcases.
They dined in the greatest possible comfort with a steward to serve them, and Becky, reading the menu with something like ecstasy, could hardly stop her mouth watering. Her stepmother kept to a strict slimming diet and Basil had liked nothing much but steaks and chops and huge shoulders of lamb; too expensive for more than one, her stepmother had decreed, so that Becky, willy-nilly, had lived on a slimming diet as well, with little chance of adding to her meagre meals because she had to account for the contents of the larder and fridge each morning. Now she ate her way through mushrooms in sauce ré-moulade, iced celery soup, cold chicken with tangerines and apple salad, and topped these with peach royale before pouring coffee for them both. She said like a happy little girl: ‘That was the best meal I’ve ever had. I used to think about food a lot, you know, when you’re always a bit hungry, you do, but I never imagined anything as delicious as this.’ She added awkwardly: ‘I don’t think you should pay me as much as you said you would, Baroness, because I’m not earning it and I’m getting all this as well…it doesn’t seem quite honest…’
‘You will be worth every penny to me, Becky,’ her patient assured her, ‘and how you managed to bear with that dreadful life you were forced to lead is more than I can understand. Besides, I am a demanding and spoilt woman, you won’t get a great deal of time to yourself.’
Which was true enough. Becky found her day well filled. True, she breakfasted alone in the restaurant, but only after she had spent half an hour with the Baroness preparing that lady for her own breakfast in bed. And then there was the business of helping her patient to dress, getting her into her wheelchair and taking her to whichever part of the ship she preferred. Here they stayed for an hour or so, taking their coffee, chatting a little and enjoying the sun. Becky read aloud too, because the Baroness said it tried her eyes to read for herself, until half an hour or so before lunch when Becky was sent off to walk round the decks or potter round the shop and buy postcards at the purser’s office for the Baroness. Th
ey were to dock at Tilbury in the morning and as the ship wouldn’t sail for Hamburg until the late afternoon the Baroness had suggested that Becky could go up to London and do some shopping and rejoin the ship after lunch. But this Becky declined to do; so far, she considered, she hadn’t earned half her salary. She had been hired to look after her patient and that she intended to do. Instead, the two of them spent a peaceful day in the Baroness’s stateroom playing bezique, and taking a slow wander round the deck on the quiet ship. But by tea time the passengers were coming aboard and the pair of them retired once more to the little balcony leading from the suite, from where they watched the bustle and to-ing and fro-ing going on below them.
They sailed soon afterwards and Becky, leaving her patient with a considerable pile of mail to read, went on deck to watch the ship leave. She hung over the rails, determined not to miss a thing, and it was half an hour before she tore herself away from watching the busy river scene and returned to the stateroom. The Baroness was telephoning, but she broke off what she was saying to tell Becky: ‘It is Tiele—making sure that we are quite all right.’ And at Becky’s look of surprise: ‘He’s back in Friesland, and I’m to tell you that Pooch and Bertie have settled down very well.’ She nodded dismissal and Becky slipped away to her own cabin.
She had collected all the literature about the voyage that she could lay hands on, and now she sat down and studied it; Hamburg next and then Trondheim. There was a whole day at sea first, though, and more than a day between Hamburg and Trondheim. She began to read the leaflet she had been given and only put it down when her patient called to her through the slightly open door.
At Hamburg the Baroness declared her intention of going ashore. The purser, summoned to the cabin, assured her that a taxi should be arranged without difficulty, that help would be at hand to wheel the chair down the gangway and that the Baroness need have no worry herself further. To Becky, accustomed to doing everything for herself, it seemed the height of comfort. And indeed, when the ship docked there was nothing for her to do beyond readying her patient for the outing and then walking beside the chair while a steward wheeled it carefully on to the quay. There were several busloads of passengers going on shore excursions and they had been advised by the purser to get back before these returned or the new passengers began to embark. ‘Plenty of time,’ said the Baroness easily. ‘We will drive round the city, take a look at the Binnenalster and the Aussenalster and the driver can take us to a confectioner’s so that you can buy me some of the chocolates Tiele always brings me when he comes here.’
She was arranged comfortably in the taxi, accorded a courteous farewell by the officer on duty whom she warned not to allow the ship to leave until her return, and was driven away, with Becky sitting beside her.
It was all very exciting; first the journey through the dock area, which the Baroness didn’t bother to look at, but which Becky found absorbing, and then presently the shopping streets and a brief glimpse of the inner lake. ‘It is much prettier once we have crossed the Kennedybrucke,’ said the Baroness. She said something to the driver in German and he slowed down to take the pleasant road running alongside the lake, its calm water gleaming in the sunshine, the well kept villas in their splendid grounds facing it. Becky’s face lighted up and a little colour came into it. ‘Oh, this is super!’ she declared. ‘I had no idea…’
Her companion cast her a glance full of sympathy, but all she said was: ‘I think you will like Trondheim better, although it is a great deal smaller, of course.’
They circled the lake slowly before going back to the shopping centre where the driver parked outside a confectioner’s whose windows displayed extravagantly boxed sweets of every sort, and Becky, obedient to her patient’s request, went rather hesitantly inside. There were no difficulties, however. She was perfectly understood, her purchases were made and paid for and with several prettily wrapped boxes she got back into the taxi. It surprised her very much when the taxi stopped once more and the driver got out, went into a café and emerged presently with a waiter carrying a tray with coffee and cream cakes. The tray was set carefully upon Becky’s knees and they were left to take their elevenses in peace. ‘I like my little comforts,’ explained the Baroness placidly. And get them too, thought Becky admiringly.
Their return to the ship was as smooth as their departure had been. A steward was by the taxi door almost before it had stopped and the Baroness was bestowed carefully into her wheelchair once more. Only when she was quite comfortable did she open her handbag and pay the driver—generously too, if the smile on his face was anything to go by. Becky, trotting along beside the chair, wondered what it must be like to be rich enough to command all the attention and comfort one required without apparent effort. Probably one got used to it and took it as a matter of course; thinking about it, she remembered that the Baron hadn’t seemed surprised when she had accepted the job he had offered her out of the blue. She was deeply grateful to him, of course, but at the same time she couldn’t help wondering what he would have done if she had refused.
The Baroness was tired after their outing, so she elected to take a light lunch in her stateroom and then rest, sending Becky down to the restaurant for her own lunch while she ate hers. Becky found the place quite full, for a good many more passengers had boarded the ship that morning. She sat at her table, set discreetly in a corner, and ate a rather hurried meal, in case the Baroness should want her the minute she had finished her own lunch, and then slipped away, smiling rather shyly at the waiter as she did so. She hadn’t quite got used to being waited on.
The Baroness was drinking her coffee but professed herself quite ready to rest. Becky made her comfortable on the sofa along one wall, covered her with a rug and sat down nearby because her patient had asked her not to go away for a little while. ‘I’m expecting a call from Tiele,’ explained the Baroness, ‘and if you would stay until it comes through…’ She closed her eyes and dozed while Becky sat, still as a mouse, listening to the exciting noises going on all around them—people talking, music coming from somewhere, but faintly, the winch loading the luggage, an occasional voice raised in command or order. It was all very exciting; she contemplated her new shoes and thought about the Baron, his mother, the journey they were about to make, Norway, about which she knew almost nothing, and then the Baron again. It was a pity he didn’t like her, but very understandable, and it made his kindness in taking care of Bertie and Pooch all the greater; it couldn’t be much fun doing kindnesses to someone you didn’t care a row of pins for. Her thoughts were interrupted by the faint tinkle of the telephone, and she picked it up quickly with a glance at the still sleeping Baroness. Her hullo was quiet and the Baron said at once: ‘Becky? My mother’s asleep?’
‘Yes, but I think she would like me to wake her, if you would wait a moment.’
He didn’t answer her but asked: ‘You’re settling down, I hope? No snags? You won’t give way to seasickness or anything of that sort, I hope?’ She heard him sigh. ‘You didn’t look very strong.’
Becky’s voice stayed quiet but held indignation. ‘I’m very strong,’ she told him quite sharply, ‘and as the sea is as calm as a millpond, I’m not likely to be seasick.’
‘You seem to have a temper too,’ remarked the Baron. ‘As long as you don’t vent it on my mother…’
‘Well,’ breathed Becky, her chest swelling with rage under the neat dress, ‘I never did! As though I would! And I haven’t got a temper…’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Bertie and Pooch are quite nicely settled.’
‘I’m so glad—I’ve been worrying about them just a little; you’re sure…?’
‘Quite. Now if you would wake up my mother, Nurse?’
She was to be nurse, was she? And what was she to call him? Baron or doctor or sir? She crossed the room and roused the Baroness with a gentle touch on her shoulder and that lady opened her eyes at once with a look of such innocence that Becky didn’t even begin to suspect that her patient had been
listening to every word she had uttered.
She went to her cabin while mother and son carried on a quite lengthy conversation and spent ten minutes or so doing things to her face. She had bought make-up, the brand she had always used when she had money of her own to spend, and now she was enjoying the luxury of using it. She applied powder to her small nose, lipstick to her too large mouth, and tidied her hair under her cap and then studied her face. Nothing remarkable; no wonder her employer had dismissed her with the kind of casual kindness he would afford a stray cat. She sighed and then adjusted her expression to a cheerful calm at the sound of her patient’s voice calling her.
The rest of the day passed pleasantly enough with the Baroness remarkably amenable when called upon to do her exercises. The moment they got on shore at Trondheim, Becky had been told to instruct her in the use of crutches, something she wasn’t looking forward to over-much. The Baroness could be a trifle pettish if called upon to do something she didn’t fancy doing, and yet Becky already liked her; she had probably spent a spoilt life with a doting husband and now a doting son, having everything she wanted within reason, but she could be kind too and thoughtful of others, and, Becky reminded herself, she had a wonderful job; well paid, by no means exhausting and offering her the chance of seeing something of the world.
There were almost two days before they would arrive at Trondheim, and Becky found that they went too quickly. A good deal of time was spent on deck, the Baroness in her wheelchair, Becky sitting beside her while they carried on a gentle flow of small talk. There was plenty to talk about; the distant coastline of Sweden and then Norway, their fellow passengers, the day’s events on board; there was so much to do and even though neither of them took part in any of them, it was fun to discuss them. The Captain was giving a cocktail party that evening, but the Baroness had declared that nothing would persuade her to go to it in a wheelchair; they would dine quietly in her stateroom as usual, and Becky didn’t mind; she had nothing to wear and the idea of appearing at such a glittering gathering in a nurse’s uniform didn’t appeal to her in the least. All the same, it would have been fun to have seen some of the dresses…