by Betty Neels
‘How very domestic,’ was his comment as he joined them, and when Becky got up to leave them together: ‘No, stay for a while, please—this concerns you, Becky.’ He eased himself into a great armchair and stretched out his legs before him. ‘Mama, I have arranged for you to be seen tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock. At the hospital—it will be easier there, as they will need the plaster shears to take that off your leg. You’ll be seen in the orthopaedic consulting room and de Vries will make quite sure that everything is exactly as it should be. You will have to be X-rayed, of course, but there will be no waiting around. I shall be there for part of the time, but I have to be in Groningen in the morning, so don’t expect me too early, will you.’ He turned to look at Becky. ‘You heard all that, Becky, is there anything else you want to know?’
‘No, thank you, Baron.’
‘I shall be obliged if you refrain from calling me Baron at the hospital—I prefer to be called Doctor.’
‘Just as you wish, Doctor.’ She sounded very meek.
‘I sometimes suspect that you are laughing at me,’ he observed blandly. And when she didn’t answer: ‘I should like to talk to my mother alone, if you wouldn’t mind…’
Becky skipped off to the kitchen where Pooch and Bertie had taken up residence as though they had lived there all their lives, and carried them off for a run in the narrow garden. It was a pleasant place, shaded by trees and bright with flowers and with a swing, long since forgotten, in one corner behind a hornbeam hedge. Becky sat herself on it with Pooch held firmly on her lap and idled to and fro in the sun. The swing squeaked each time she sent it back and forth; a pleasant sound, mingling with the birds around her and the chiming clocks in the city. She closed her eyes and allowed her thoughts to wander. She had some money saved now; once she had somewhere to live and a job she would buy some clothes. She began to reckon how long it would take her to save enough to buy a real silk shirt just like the one Nina van Doorn had been wearing…
‘Good lord,’ said the Baron behind her, ‘that swing hasn’t been used since Tialda was a little girl and screamed her head off if I wouldn’t push her. Do you want to be pushed?’
‘No, thank you—Pooch is on my lap, I don’t think he would like it.’ She got out of the swing. ‘I’ll go back to the Baroness.’
‘Do you get your free time, Becky?’
‘Oh, rather,’ she lied briskly without looking at him. ‘Leeuwarden is just the kind of place I would choose to live in…’
‘That is fortunate,’ his voice was bland, ‘since it is to be your home. Jikke has a sister living on the other side of the city; she has an old house, converted into flats—I’m told that the top one is empty and she would be prepared to let you have it. She has no objections to animals provided they behave themselves. I will take you to see it tomorrow evening. This evening is impossible, I’m afraid, as I have an engagement.’
Nina, said Becky soundlessly to herself, and aloud: ‘That’s very kind of you, Doctor, but if you give me the address I’m sure I can find it on my own.’
‘I have no doubt of that, but Mevrouw Botte speaks no English and you, I imagine, speak very little Dutch.’
‘I have a dictionary,’ said Becky with dignity, ‘and I’m learning as fast as I can.’
‘Yes, well—I doubt if you can learn sufficient to bargain with Mevrouw Botte by tomorrow evening. I’ll call for you at half past six—I have already spoken to my mother.’
There was precious little time to think about it. By tea time the next day Becky was tired and irritable, although she hid that successfully from the Baroness. That little lady had been at her most trying; because she had been unable to decide what she should wear, they had very nearly been late for the appointment at the hospital and there had been a further delay when they reached it because she recalled suddenly that Willem’s sister was in one of the wards, and she desired to see that lady first. It took tact and patience on Becky’s part to explain to her that time to a consultant was precious, especially when he had made a special journey to see her—not to mention the houseman in attendance and a nurse or two.
In the end the plaster had been successfully removed, Becky had escorted her patient to X-Ray and then delivered her into the hands of Professor de Vries again. The examination had taken a long time, for he and the Baroness were very old friends and spent a good deal of time reminiscing about their youth. It wasn’t until the Baron joined them that they got down to business, and Becky, asked to relieve the hospital nurse while she went to her tea and quite worn out with holding up X-rays, taking scribbled notes from the professor to various people whose whereabouts she had the greatest difficulty in finding in the vast and splendid new building, and supporting her patient when she was required to take a few steps, as well as fetching glasses of water, a fan because it was too hot, retrieving a mislaid handbag and encouraging her patient each time she declared that she was tired to death and couldn’t they continue on the following day, could have fallen on his neck with relief. Not that she would have dared do any such thing. Somehow on his home ground, as it were, he looked unapproachable; older and remote, very much the consultant. He didn’t notice her anyway; she doubted if he knew that she was there; she did as she was told and when they had finally finished, put the Baroness to rights once more, got her stick and waited patiently to see what would happen next.
The Baron had escorted them out to the car, a firm arm under his mother’s, with Becky trotting behind, making sure that the Baroness used her stick and didn’t just wave it about as she was prone to do. They had a small posse of people hovering behind them; Out-Patients Sister, the Orthopaedic Registrar and houseman, a couple of nurses and a porter in case he was needed. The Baroness thanked them all graciously, was settled in her car by the Baron and with a thankful Becky beside her, had been borne home once more.
And now Becky was free to get ready for her evening. The Baroness had a friend to see her and was quite content to let her go directly after they had had tea. Becky went up to her room after she had taken Bertie and Pooch for a quick walk, and surveyed her scant wardrobe. It would have to be the green jersey. It had been a warm day, but the evening was over-cast and cooler. She got ready slowly and then had to hurry over her face and hair because it was almost half past six and she fancied that the Baron didn’t like being kept waiting. Probably he waited hours for Nina, she thought as she sped downstairs and into the hall.
He came out of the drawing room as she reached it, wished her good evening and with a sidelong glance at the green dress, suggested that they should waste no time, but he stopped as they reached the door where Ulco was hovering. ‘I feel that Bertie and Pooch should be with us. Wait here.’
He was back very quickly, with Pooch’s battered head sticking out from under an arm, and Bertie walking sedately beside him. ‘Lola’s already in the car,’ he told her.
Mevrouw Botte’s house was ten minutes’ drive away, in the centre of a narrow street of similar houses, all of them facing a canal with a line of trees and a wall beyond. It was quiet and had the advantage of being within fifteen minutes’ walk from the hospital, and as Becky got out of the car she knew at once that she could be happy living in it. It remained to see if she felt the same way about Mevrouw Botte.
She did. That lady was at the door waiting for them, a small, bustling woman dressed in sober black, her hair strained back into a tidy knob from a round face whose most striking feature was a pair of boot-button eyes.
The Baron ushered his party into the narrow hall, introduced everyone, exchanged a few remarks with Mevrouw Botte and then stood aside to allow Becky to follow her up the steep narrow staircase.
There was a small landing on the first floor, with two doors, and on the second floor the landing was still smaller, so that the two doors were very close together, but the third landing was so minute it afforded nothing more than a foothold in front of its one door which Mevrouw now opened with a flourish.
The room within was s
urprisingly large, for it ran from the back to the front of the house, with a window at one end, and a door at the other. It was simply furnished with a disguised bed along one wall, a small round table with two chairs, a rather shabby easy chair, a little desk and a mirror over it. There were two doors side by side along the inner wall. One opened on to a cupboard of a kitchen, very neat and spotlessly clean, the other revealed a minute shower room. Becky beamed round her with delight; here was home at last.
‘How much?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘Shall I be able to afford it?’
‘Er—I’ll ask Mevrouw Botte.’ He said something to her which caused her black eyes to snap with amusement as she answered him, and then turned to Becky. The sum he mentioned seemed a great deal to her, but he added: ‘You will earn three times as much as that each week. Would you be able to manage, do you think?’
‘Oh, yes, I know I can. Does she really not mind Bertie and Pooch?’
The Baron smiled. ‘Not in the least—you will see that there is a very small balcony outside the door and she will provide a large box in which they can sleep.’ He glanced around him. ‘It will be rather warm here, I fancy, and in the winter you will have to have some kind of heating. You wish to take it?’
‘Yes, please. Would she like a week’s rent in advance?’
‘I imagine so—I believe that is the usual custom. You will be coming—let me see—a week today. Do you want her to do anything for you? Milk isn’t delivered and nor is bread, but there are one or two shops close by.’
‘Washing,’ said Becky suddenly, and went to look at the balcony; very small with a high wall and a clothes line already stretched across it. There was room for the animals to sit there too—she would be able to go to work and leave the door open. The wall was too high for them to climb over; besides, they were both too elderly to entertain any such idea.
She went back to where the Baron and Mevrouw Botte were talking quietly together and got out her purse. ‘And she will call each week for the rent,’ explained the Baron. ‘You feel you can cope with the language?’
Becky nodded. ‘Oh, yes. I’ll learn—I have to, you see.’
They bade Mervouw Botte goodbye and trailed down the stairs again and out to the car. On the way back the Baron told her that he had made an appointment to see the Directrice of the hospital on the following afternoon. ‘A medical ward,’ he explained. ‘Women’s, day duty, although you will have to do your share of night duty later on. You will be given Dutch lessons, although you will find that most of the staff speak English more or less.’ He told her her salary too; it sounded a lot of guldens; probably she would be able to save quite a lot and buy some clothes. She became lost in a daydream for which she was roused by the Baron’s impatient voice begging her to pay attention. ‘For I am a busy man,’ he reminded her, ‘with no time to tell you everything twice.’
Becky said she was sorry in a meek voice and concentrated on all the do’s and don’ts he was detailing for her benefit, and when they drew up before the Baroness’s house once more she started to thank him. But she was barely halfway through her little speech when he cut her short quite curtly.
‘My dear girl, don’t make such a thing about it.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m already late for an appointment…’
Becky had whipped out of the car, opened the door for Bertie and with Pooch over her arm poked her head back through the window.
‘With Juffrouw van Doorn? If I’d known, Baron—Doctor—and what does it matter anyway?—I wouldn’t have wasted your time. Still, I daresay you’ll enjoy the rest of the evening all the more,’ she added obscurely.
Her eyes were huge in her small face and dark with sudden temper. She withdrew her head before he could say anything and crossed the pavement and rang the door bell, wishing very much to have a good cry although she wasn’t exactly sure why. Ulco’s solemn kindly presence prevented her, though.
CHAPTER SIX
THE WEEK flew by. The Baroness, while delighted that Becky had a job and somewhere to live, was a little peevish at the idea of her leaving. True, she had an abundant staff only too happy to fulfil her every whim, as Becky pointed out to her, but that proved to be no argument with her patient. ‘I liked you the moment I set eyes on you, my dear,’ declared the Baroness, ‘and I am going to miss you. You will, of course, visit me whenever possible.’
And Becky, used by now to the little lady’s imperious ways, said that yes, of course she would. ‘I’m only a short walk away,’ she pointed out, ‘and I shall get off duty like everyone else.’
She had gone for an interview at the hospital, feeling scared, not because she wasn’t sure if she could manage the job—she was sure of that, but worried that her tiny smattering of Dutch might decide the authorities against her. It was a tremendous relief to find that everyone, from the Directrice to the Home Warden who showed her over the Nurses’ Home and where she could change each day, spoke English. She would have lessons in Dutch starting on the very first day and she would be expected to work hard at them and speak Dutch whenever possible. To start with, the Directrice explained, she would do routine work on the ward with another nurse until she felt that she was able to deal with patients on her own. ‘And that shouldn’t be long,’ declared the Directrice cheerfully. ‘It is amazing how quickly one learns if one applies one’s mind to it.’
Becky had gone back to the Baroness’s house with a dictionary and a book of Dutch medical terms, which she was delighted to find weren’t so very different from the English ones—indeed, several of them were English. She had seen the Baron on the way, driving along the narrow street in his beautiful car. If he had seen her he gave no sign and she really hadn’t expected her to; she had been rude and he must think her wretchedly ungrateful. Although she had tried to thank him…
She had met the beautiful Nina too. She had gone into the city to do a small errand for the Baroness and coming out of the shop she had come face to face with Nina. She had smiled and said Hullo and been cut dead for her pains. But Nina had recognised her; her blue eyes had slid from Becky’s tidy, mousey hair, down her cheap cotton dress, and come to rest on the sandals she had bought at Bata’s.
And when, on her last day as the Baroness’s nurse, she was about to leave for her new home, Nina and the Baron arrived together as she was waiting in the hall for the taxi, she remembered that look and her small determined chin went up. Nina nodded casually as she passed her, but the Baron stopped.
‘Ah, yes, of course you start your new job tomorrow,’ he remarked. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Becky gave him the briefest of glances and bent to adjust Bertie’s collar.
‘You’re waiting for the car?’
Ulco answered for her, speaking in Dutch, and the Baron’s reply sounded vexed. ‘There is no need for you to have a taxi. I’ll drive you over to Mevrouw Botte’s house now.’ He frowned down at Becky. ‘There has been some misunderstanding.’
‘No, there hasn’t,’ Becky told him, aware that Nina had paused on her way to the drawing room and was listening. She came back to them now and put a lovely useless hand on the Baron’s arm. ‘Tiele, don’t hinder Nurse—you heard her say that she was waiting for a taxi. Your mother is expecting us…’
The Baron’s mouth could look exactly like a steel trap. He said quietly: ‘Will you tell Mother, Nina? I shan’t be more than ten minutes or so.’ And then to Becky: ‘I must apologise, Becky, it was not intended that you should leave like this.’ He picked up her bag and nodded to Ulco, an interested spectator, to carry her case outside, and when she would have protested, took her arm, pausing only long enough at the door for Ulco to wish her goodbye.
‘My mother has said goodbye to you?’ he wanted to know as he opened the car door and ushered Bertie in.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Becky remembered that lady’s tearful farewell and smiled faintly. The Baroness had been in no state to order the car or ask Becky how she was going to get to her new home; she had pressed a
small flat parcel into Becky’s hands and kissed her and then burst into tears. If it hadn’t been for the faithful Jikke, Becky wouldn’t have got away.
The short journey was accomplished in silence, with Becky sitting very upright with Pooch tucked firmly under her arm. At Mevrouw Botte’s front door the Baron got out, fished out Bertie and went to hammer on the knocker before he went to help Becky, hampered by a rather restless Pooch, out. ‘Upstairs with you,’ he commanded, ‘leave your bags, I’ll bring them up.’
So Becky, with Bertie trailing behind her and Pooch craning his neck to see his new surroundings, went up the stairs behind Mevrouw Botte and on the top landing, received her key and was ushered into her very own flat.
It was, if anything, cleaner and neater than on her previous visit and on the table was a vase of summer flowers with a card tied to it. It read simply: ‘Welcome to your home, Becky,’ and she was bending to admire the bouquet when the Baron walked in with her things.
‘Aren’t they lovely?’ She turned an excited face to him, quite forgetting that they had had little to say to each other. ‘Whoever could have put them there? Would it be Mevrouw Botte?’ She frowned. ‘But she doesn’t know that my name’s Becky, and I’m sure it’s not the Baroness…’
‘Why are you sure?’
She went pink. ‘Well—she has no reason to do so.’ She went on, making it brief: ‘Thank you for bringing me, although it was quite unnecessary.’
He smiled faintly. ‘Have you enough money, Becky? My mother remembered to pay you before you left?’
The pink deepened. ‘I’ve quite enough money, thank you.’
‘But you haven’t been paid.’ He smiled again. ‘My mother never remembers anything.’ He took a note case from his pocket and counted out notes and laid them on the table. ‘If ever you need help or money, I hope you will ask me, Becky.’