by Betty Neels
‘Oh, poor man—does he work very hard and live away from here, then?’
‘He works hard, yes—but he has another house. Probably when he marries he will come out here more often.’
He volunteered no more information but followed the lane away from the meadows back into the trees and surprisingly, on to the dunes with the flat calm sea beyond.
‘Oh, it’s heaven,’ declared Becky. ‘Is this where we’re going to picnic?’
‘I thought it might do. Take Pooch for his walk while I unload the food—the dogs can amuse themselves.’
She wandered off with Pooch ambling along beside her. The air was warm still and smelled of the sea and the trees around her. The sky was a pale, pearly blue and the only sounds were the birds and the happy barking of the dogs. It was perfect, thought Becky, and wondered why she felt vaguely sad. She had no chance to pursue this further though, because the Baron’s voice bade her come and eat her supper. She went at once. He had been kind, wasting his evening on her, but she knew better than to keep him waiting.
Sutske had performed miracles in the time the Baron had allowed her; chicken legs wrapped in foil, tiny pork pies, minute sausages, crisp rolls filled with ham and dishes of salad and icecream in a container. There was coffee too in a thermos jug and the Moselle, packed in its own cooler. Becky sipped it with pleasure and pronounced it delicious, and her companion, swallowing his with no pleasure at all, blandly agreed with her.
Becky sat on the sand, the dogs lolling against her, Pooch on her lap. The sea air had brought colour into her face and the breeze had whipped her hair around her shoulders. The Baron, watching her, was of the opinion that although she hadn’t a great deal to be happy about, she was probably the happiest person he had come across for a long time. She looked up and smiled at him. ‘All this lovely food,’ she said happily, ‘although they feed us awfully well at the hospital.’
He filled her plate and passed it to her. ‘Ah, yes— tell me about it,’ he begged. There was quite a lot to tell, after all, and they had eaten almost everything by the time she had finished answering his questions and, a little hazy with the wine, she leaned back against Bertie’s stout body and sighed with content. ‘This is the nicest picnic I’ve ever had,’ she told him.
‘You make a habit of them?’ enquired her companion lazily.
‘When I was a little girl, yes—my mother and father and I. Not—not since then.’ She kept her voice bright so that he didn’t have to feel sorry for her. ‘But we picnicked at Molde, didn’t we? And that was lovely—I never imagined I’d see Norway; it’s funny how life changes suddenly and everything’s different…’ She glanced up and saw that he was frowning. She was boring him, rambling on about nothing—she had neither good looks nor conversation. She sat up and began to collect the remains of their meal with him watching her in silence until she had everything neatly packed away, and when she gave him an enquiring look he got to his feet, ushered the dogs back into the car and held the door open for her and Pooch. He hardly spoke as he drove back, but at her door he got out too, opened her door and caught Bertie by his collar. Becky paused on the step, feeling shy and awkward because she didn’t know why he had become so silent and withdrawn. All the same she thanked him for her evening, to have her thanks cut short by his brief: ‘I’m coming up.’
The little place was too warm when they reached it and smaller than ever with the Baron taking up so much room. Becky switched on the little reading lamp and said rather defiantly: ‘It’s rather warm, but it’ll be cosy in the winter. Would you like a cup of coffee?’
He was leaning against the door, staring at her. ‘Thank you, no. You’ve filled out very nicely, Becky.’
She was so surprised at this that she stared at him, her mouth open, and then: ‘You don’t mean that I’m getting fat?’
The horror in her voice made him laugh. ‘No— only that you’re no longer a thin mouse.’
She had nothing to say to that. After a moment she said: ‘It was a lovely evening, thank you very much. Bertie and Pooch liked it too.’
‘And I, Becky? Do you think that I liked it?’
His voice was too silky for her liking but she answered him seriously: ‘Yes, you did, to begin with, and then I began to bore you, didn’t I? The wine, you know—I’m not used to it and it made me chatty. I’m sorry it was a wasted evening for you.’
‘You’re wrong.’ His voice was so mild that it didn’t sound like his at all. ‘I enjoyed every single moment of it, Becky.’ He took a step forward and swept her to him with one great arm, kissed her hard and went away, leaving her standing there staring at the closed door. She could hear him running down the stairs, his footsteps getting fainter and fainter. They had died away into silence before she spoke. ‘I’m a fool!’ she cried, and turned to face Bertie and Pooch, watching her from their box. ‘Oh, my dears, do you know what’s happened? I’m in love with him—with Tiele—Baron Raukema van den Eck— and I might just as well have fallen in love with the moon!’ And she burst into tears.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE CRIED FOR quite a time, with the animals crowding up close to her, uneasy at the way she was carrying on, but presently she sniffed, blew her red nose and mopped her face. ‘You see,’ she explained, ‘we can’t go back to England; I haven’t enough money to put you in quarantine and I’d have to get a job, and supposing I met Stepmother or Basil?’ She shivered at the thought. ‘Besides, I’m happy here, and so are you. I’ll just have to keep out of his way, won’t I?’
The very idea sent the tears flowing again, so that Pooch, who had wormed his way on to her knees, had to shake his tatty old head free of them.
But presently Becky pulled herself together; crying never did any good. She washed her puffy face and tidied her hair, made a pot of tea and went to bed. And her companions, aware of her misery, broke her strict rule about not getting on to the bed, and crowded on to it with her, making her hotter than ever but offering a silent sympathy which sent her to sleep.
She need not have worried about keeping out of the Baron’s way. She didn’t see him at all for several days and when she did—on his ward rounds—his austere ‘Good morning, Zuster Saunders’ would have choked off even the most thick-skinned. She saw him one evening too, driving through the city with Nina beside him, looking utterly beautiful, so that any small silly hopes she had been cherishing died a quick death. She had hurried home, with Bertie plodding along beside her, and spent the evening working away at her Dutch lessons.
She had formed some sort of a plan by now; she would give herself six months in which to learn enough Dutch to make her quite confident of getting another job and move to some other part of Holland. As far away from the Baron as possible, and he need never know where she had gone—probably he wouldn’t realise that she had, anyway. In the meantime she made the best of her days. She enjoyed her work now, she had quickly discovered that it was very much the same as it had been in England. Certainly the patients weren’t any different even though they spoke a different language. She had made friends too among the nurses and some of the housemen stopped to pass the time of day with her. And the Hoofd Zuster, apparently carved from the same block of granite as the elderly martinet Becky had worked under at Leeds, actually had a heart of gold despite the fact that her tongue was as sharp as a razor and she had the eye of a hawk; she was kind and patient with Becky, never even smiled at her strange mangling of the Dutch language, and after the first week or so, paid her the compliment of speaking to her in Dutch. Not that Becky always understood her; instructions often had to be repeated in English, but at least she was learning, and learning fast.
She had been to tea with the Baroness too, fearful of meeting the Baron there, but he had been at the hospital and despite her hostess’s entreaties to stay after tea and meet him, Becky had invented an invitation to the cinema that evening, and left in good time. The Baroness had been kind, and interested in her progress, although a good deal of the visit had been taken up with her own de
tailed account of her convalescence. She was walking well with a stick now and enlarged at some length on the shopping expeditions she had been able to make. ‘Such a pity that Tialda has gone back to den Haag,’ she told Becky. ‘Pieter came back earlier than she had expected, so of course she went at once.’ She sighed. ‘So nice to see the child happily married. If only Tiele would marry too—though not,’ she added strongly, ‘Nina van Doorn.’
‘She’s a very lovely girl,’ offered Becky, putting her paper-thin cup and saucer down because her hand was shaking at the mere thought.
‘I know that,’ declared the Baroness impatiently. ‘It is most unfortunate that she knows it too—her good looks are more important to her than anything or anyone else. Do you know, my dear, that she takes two hours or more to dress? And her clothes—she has far too many.’
That from the Baroness, who had several vast wardrobes full herself, struck Becky as amusing, although she took care not to smile. After all, the little lady sitting opposite her might be spoilt and wilful, but she was kindness itself. Becky said placatingly: ‘Well, I don’t suppose that your son will mind—he’ll be so proud of her.’ And then because she couldn’t bear to go on talking about him any more, she made her excuses, hurrying through the streets, anxious not to meet the Baron.
But she had to meet him sooner or later. Only a few days later she was on duty when he came into the ward, and because the other nurses were at their coffee, Becky was told to join the procession behind him to fulfil the humble duty of pulling curtains round the patient to be examined, support her while the examination took place, and arrange the bed-clothes just so afterwards. It was unfortunate that the patients to be seen that day were, for the most part, well built ladies who needed heaving up against their pillows and sustained there while the Baron went carefully over their chests. It was difficult to keep out of his way while he was doing so and even harder to keep her head from bumping his and quite impossible upon occasion to prevent their hands touching. Becky’s small nose twitched at the expensive cologne the Baron favoured and did her best to ignore him, something he had no difficulty in doing. She might not have been there; even when he looked at her, his blue eyes went right through her to some distant point of concentration while he probed and poked gently. And indeed, she had proof of this later that day, when she met him on the stairs. He had stopped to bid her a courteous good day and added: ‘How are you getting on, Becky? I haven’t seen you lately.’
She had steadied her breath and replied that she was getting on very well, thank you, before ducking her head awkwardly at him and galloping past him to lose herself in the blessed hordes of people milling round in Outpatients where she had been sent to help out for the afternoon.
The fine weather broke a few days later, the blue sky shut out by great storm clouds hovering menacingly, occasionally drenching everyone beneath them with warm rain. Becky, plodding home wet and tired, decided that she would rather suffer the heat of her little flat than be cool and have no view from its windows but wet roofs. It was only a little past six o’clock, but it was ominously dark and still. There would be a storm soon, she decided, and hurried even faster. She was standing in the doorway shaking herself like a wet dog, when the basement door opened and Mevrouw Botte joined her. Becky smiled and greeted her and wondered why she looked so very agitated; she was casting about for the right words to ask when her landlady spoke. ‘Bertie—’ she began, and went on slowly so that Becky would understand. ‘He has gone, one hour, two hours ago. It is my fault, Miss Saunders, I went to your flat to close the door because of the rain, you understand, and he ran from the room and before I could get downstairs he had disappeared.’ She added: ‘The cat is safe.’
Becky stood saying nothing, thinking of all the awful things which could have happened to old Bertie, wandering about in a strange town and not even understanding if someone spoke to him. She had taken off her raincoat to shake it, but now she put it back on again. She said in her slow awkward Dutch: ‘I’ll go and look for him, he can’t be very far away—perhaps he’s in the park.’
She went back up the street, looking down the narrow steegs leading from it as she went and crossing to the canal side to peer down its banks. And in the park, she combed every bush and corner, whistling all the time and listening for Bertie’s gruff old voice. But there was no sign of him and she forced herself to stand a minute and consider where he might be. Run over, lying in some gutter; wounded and unable to move, taken by someone and sold to a laboratory…her mind boggled at horrors and returned to normal good sense again. He was a sensible dog, even though old, so possibly he was sheltering from the rain and if she didn’t find him soon she would go to the police station. She went back to the house to find Mevrouw Botte hovering unhappily on her doorstep and shaking her head mournfully, and stopping only to ask her to keep an eye open for him, Becky hurried off again. Bertie liked water, he had once or twice ventured down the canal’s banks to gaze at its murky waters at close quarters. She walked the length of the street, whistling and calling and searching every inch of the canal before running down a side street leading to a much wider thoroughfare bisected by a much wider canal, frequently crossed by bridges. She was running over the first of these when she ran full tilt into the Baron.
‘What the devil are you doing?’ he demanded, ‘tearing along like a street urchin!’
Becky hardly stopped. ‘Bertie’s lost.’ She got another yard or two before he took her by the arm and swung her round.
‘No, don’t pull away like that—when did he go?’
‘About two hours ago—Mevrouw Botte isn’t sure. He ran through the door when she went to close the windows.’ She gulped. ‘I’ve searched the park and the street.’ She tugged at her arm. ‘Let me go, do!’ She ended on a small shriek because the storm broke then with a vivid flash of lightning and a great rumble of thunder which drowned every other sound.
The Baron turned up the collar of his Burberry. ‘You go down that side, I’ll search this—we’ll find him, Becky. You’re not afraid of the storm?’
She was terrified, but her terror was quite wiped out by anxiety for Bertie. She shook her head and started off down the deserted street, peering through the pelting rain, searching the canal as well as every doorway and alley. She could see the Baron on the other side, doing exactly the same thing, and it made her feel a little better. He had disappeared down a steeg when she reached the next bridge, larger than the rest, its supports crowded with a mass of broken wood, old boxes and tangles of wire, caught up in a hopeless mess until someone should come and clear them away. It was so gloomy now that she couldn’t see very clearly right under the bridge, but her heart gave a leap when she heard a faint whine. She clambered down to the canal’s edge and saw Bertie, wedged in with all the rubbish. She whistled encouragingly and called him, but he only whined again, and another flash of lightning which made her cringe with fright showed her that he was unable to get free.
The water looked filthy; she peeled off her soaking raincoat and slid off the bank and began to swim towards the bridge. She was almost there when she remembered that it would have been a good idea to have warned the Baron; he would come out of his steeg and see that she wasn’t on the opposite bank. She could shout, of course, but the chance of getting a mouthful of the vile water she was swimming through was too great. She reached the first of the old spars which comprised the perimeter of the flotsam upon which Bertie was trapped, and trod water.
He was delighted to see her although he didn’t bark. From what she could see of him, he was soaking wet and tired out. She took a deep breath and shouted: ‘I’m here!’ and nearly let go of her spar when the Baron said quietly from behind her, ‘A good thing I saw you sliding into the water. I take it Bertie’s trapped in some way.’
They worked their way closer to Bertie, who showed his teeth for a moment and then kept still while the Baron gently prised him loose from the wire, the wood and a couple of nasty rusty nails embedded in his hind le
g.
‘Right,’ he said at length, ‘it’s impossible to see if he’s injured in any other way. I’ll swim him back—you go and get your raincoat and come over the bridge.’
Becky hadn’t spoken; she had been so happy to have found Bertie again that she hadn’t really noticed the slimy water or the storm raging around her. But now the thought of going even those few yards and then chancing more lightning and thunder appalled her. Her teeth chattered with her fright and the Baron said briskly: ‘Go on, you’ll catch your death of cold if you don’t look sharp.’
So she swam back and crawled up the bank and put on her raincoat which seemed a bit silly since she was wet to the bone, and then ran back over the bridge, gasping and wincing at the storm and almost knocked over by the rain.
The Baron was waiting for her with Bertie over one shoulder. At Becky’s scared look he said hear-teningly: ‘He’s not too bad, but he’s limping and it will be quicker to carry him. Thank God it isn’t far.’
He tucked his free hand under her arm and started off, not speaking at all excepting when they got to Mevrouw Botte’s door when he let her go to push her gently inside before him. ‘Lord, how we smell!’ he exclaimed, and Becky was surprised to see that he was laughing. She burst out laughing too and Mevrouw Botte, waiting for them anxiously in the open doorway, looked at them both with astonishment. She would have asked a lot of questions, but the Baron cut her short with a smile and began mounting the stairs, Becky in front and Bertie, moaning gently, still draped on his shoulders. On the tiny landing he took the key from her hand and opened the door, pushed her before him and then laid the dog carefully on the hearthrug.
‘Warm water and soap,’ he demanded unhurriedly, ‘and I’ll wash some of this stuff off me before I begin on Bertie. While I’m seeing to him supposing you have a shower and get into something dry?’
He took off his jacket and went to the sink and Becky exclaimed: ‘Your raincoat…’