by Betty Neels
‘Yes, I think I was, but I don’t think I was surprised. You see, she’s the kind of person who needs someone to look after her...’
‘Something which you were doing!’ Her aunt’s voice was tart.
‘Yes, but you see, she was alone all day. I didn’t get home until about six o’clock...’
‘She had all day, then, to look after the house and to shop and cook.’
‘We had a nice maid when Father was alive, and he did a lot...’
‘And you carried on,’ observed Aunt Edith drily. ‘Where did your mother meet this Mr Harding?’
‘In Amsterdam.’ Serena paused and her aunt said,
‘Yes? Hadn’t you better tell me all about it, my dear? There is something making you unhappy, and to talk about it may help. I dare say we shan’t see each other for a while, which makes it even easier.’ Her rather stern face relaxed into a smile. ‘It isn’t just your mother, is it?’
‘No, but it’s all a bit—a bit silly...’
‘Love is never silly,’ said Aunt Edith. ‘Suppose you start at the beginning, dear?’
It was such a relief to talk. Once she had started Serena couldn’t stop, and somehow Marc crept into everything she said. She did her best to keep to her usual matter-of-fact manner, but she got to the bit where her aunt had mistaken him for her young man and she stopped because she wanted to cry, and that wouldn’t do at all.
‘You love him very much, don’t you, dear?’ said her aunt gently.
It was no use. Two tears trickled their slow way down Serena’s cheeks. ‘Oh, yes! What am I going to do?’
She got up and cast herself down beside her aunt’s chair, and that lady put her arms round her. ‘Have a good cry, child,’ she advised. ‘It will clear your head.’
Serena lifted a weeping face. ‘But he’ll be here...’
‘He said eight o’clock, and it’s barely four o’clock. Cry all you want, Serena, and when he comes meet him with a cheerful face.’
She allowed Serena to sob and sniff and presently asked, ‘Does he like you, dear?’
Serena’s voice came muffled from her aunt’s lap. ‘I don’t know. He looks down his nose at me.’
A childish remark which made her aunt smile faintly. ‘I don’t know a great deal about such matters and I hesitate to give advice...’ She broke off as the door opened and her husband, followed by the doctor, came in.
The vicar disappeared at once; he had heard the car and opened the door before the bell could be rung and ushered their visitor into the sitting-room, unaware of anything amiss. The fewer people there the better, he decided. Besides, Edith was so good at dealing with awkward situations.
So was Marc. He took in the situation at a glance, advanced to the room’s occupants and said disarmingly, ‘I must apologise, I’m so much earlier than I intended.’ He didn’t appear to see Serena, although he removed the sopping wisp she was clutching and substituted a large and very white handkerchief from his pocket. ‘The vicar admitted me, but really I should have given you some warning.’
Aunt Edith rose to the occasion. ‘We are delighted to see you, and you have no need to apologise—indeed, I am delighted, because now you can have supper before you leave. Cold turkey hangs heavy on one’s hands after a day or so—you can help us to eat it up.’ She patted Serena’s shoulder. ‘And you run along, my dear, and take a couple of aspirins before that headache gets any worse.’ And as Serena got to her feet, ‘She’s been such a comfort to us, and such splendid company.’
‘Hello,’ said Serena, forced at last to say something. She had mopped her face more or less dry and she knew she looked just about as awful as any girl could look, so she avoided looking at him. She had cried herself to a standstill and she didn’t care what she looked like. She added with a rather watery snap, ‘I didn’t expect you just yet.’
To all of which he said nothing, only opened the door for her and then came to sit down at Aunt Edith’s invitation.
‘Did you have a pleasant time in Bristol?’ asked Aunt Edith.
‘I’ve been in Holland at my home.’ He smiled a little. ‘I wanted to drive Serena here and I had to have an excuse—Bristol seemed a suitable one.’
‘Are you sorry for Serena?’ asked Aunt Edith bluntly.
‘Certainly not, if by that you mean that I pity her. She is a resourceful girl and far too independent. She is, if I might put it rather clumsily, a hard nut to crack.’
Aunt Edith chuckled. ‘But you’ll crack it?’
‘Certainly.’ They smiled at each other in perfect understanding as Serena, nicely made up and neat about the head, her beaky nose still pink, came back into the room.
CHAPTER NINE
THE DOCTOR GOT to his feet with the unselfconscious good manners which Aunt Edith entirely approved of. ‘Your aunt has been telling me that Beauty has behaved beautifully and has everyone in the house a slave.’
A remark which included Serena immediately in the conversation, and since she had to make some sort of a reply it gave her no chance to feel awkward. Presently the vicar joined them and the two ladies went away to get the tea.
‘Sandwiches,’ decided Aunt Edith in the kitchen. ‘Your uncle likes Gentleman’s Relish and I dare say Dr ter Feulen does too. Cut the bread, will you, dear? I’ll warm up some mince pies.’
She swiftly bustled round the kitchen carrying on a monologue about supper. ‘Cold turkey and the ham, and I’ll put some potatoes in the Aga to bake. Perhaps you would make a salad, dear? Do you suppose biscuits and cheese would do, or should I do something with the rest of the pudding?’
‘Cheese and biscuits. Aunt Edith, did he notice? I must have looked a perfect fright!’
‘Men aren’t observant,’ declared Aunt Edith untruthfully, adding silently, ‘Only when they want to be,’ and Serena sighed thankfully.
‘It was kind of you to say I had a headache.’
Her aunt arranged cake on the plate. ‘Your uncle doesn’t condone lies, but I felt justified on this occasion, because a bout of weeping always brings on a severe headache.’
‘Did he say if he’d had a good Christmas?’
‘Yes, he had had a splendid time, he told me, but far too short.’
‘Well, I expect so,’ said Serena sadly, imagining him bidding an unwilling farewell to whoever it was in Bristol. ‘It’s clinic day tomorrow too.’
‘You will be hard at work again, child. But you must promise me that you will come and see us soon. You will be more than ever welcome, you and Beauty.’ She cast an eye over the sandwiches. ‘Do you suppose we should cut the crusts off? I can put them out for the birds. Will you feed Beauty before you go? It will be late for her supper by the time you get back.’
They bore the tea-tray back to the sitting-room and there was a mild shuffling of chairs, handing of plates and teacups before everyone had settled down.
‘Tea around the fire is so pleasant,’ observed the vicar, ‘one of the compensations of winter. You enjoyed your Christmas?’
‘Very much,’ declared the doctor, and avoided Aunt Edith’s eye. ‘Do you take evensong this evening?’
‘Indeed, yes.’ The good man gave the doctor a faintly enquiring look.
‘Then may I come along too?’
‘A pleasure—and it will give the ladies the opportunity to get our supper ready.’
That night, tucked up in her divan bed, back in her flatlet, Serena reviewed the evening. They had had supper, a splendid meal she and her aunt had contrived, and they had sat over it, the conversation lively, amusing and occasionally so well informed that she hadn’t been sure what they were talking about, and when at last they had made their farewells they had driven back to Park Street, and so calm and casual had been Marc’s manner that she had forgotten about her disgraceful bout of weeping and had
enjoyed every minute of the journey. At Primrose Bank he had carried her case and Beauty into her room, switched on all the lights, lighted the gas fire, tested the locks on the doors and windows and wished her a friendly goodnight, adding a reminder that the morning’s clinic would be a heavy one.
It had been midnight by then, and she had made herself a warm drink, fed a sleepy kitten and tumbled into bed. The Christmas she had been dreading had turned out to be one of the nicest she could remember, with the added bonus of Marc’s company. She hugged that thought to her. There was so much about him that she loved even when he was at his most annoying.
She curled up around her hot-water bottle and Beauty curled up with her. ‘All the same,’ said Serena to herself, ‘I shall have to go away, you know; he’s not a fool, and sooner or later he’s going to guess, and I couldn’t bear it if he pitied me. Perhaps we might go nearer to Aunt Edith.’
Beauty stopped purring for a moment to miaow sleepily. ‘You’re not much help,’ said Serena, and went to sleep herself.
* * *
THE DAY BEGAN badly; she overslept, laddered her tights and hadn’t the time to do her face properly, which, coupled with the cold grey morning, did nothing for her looks. The buses were few and far between and full of cross people having to go to work when they wanted to stay at home. When she got to the hospital she had to race up and down forbidden stairs and through corridors sacrosanct to the use of the consultants and their like. There was no one to see her, which was a good thing. She gained the doctor’s clinic with moments to spare, rather out of breath and very conscious of the ladder, but she wished everyone a good morning and tried not to mind when the doctor looked up from his desk and glanced at her as though she wasn’t there.
No one was feeling particularly good-natured. The thought that outside the hospital there would be untold thousands still enjoying a prolonged Christmas break soured those working within it, and the patients weren’t best pleased at having to give up what might have been a nice lie-in to attend the clinic.
The doctor appeared impervious to the peevishness of his patients, and those working with him knew better than to voice their own ill humour. In any case, they liked him as much as they respected the way he worked.
The clinic over, Serena went off to her lunch, long overdue, and began work on the notes, and then without pause started on those she hadn’t typed on Christmas Eve. Underneath those was a folder—another few pages of the book. It would have to wait until the next day; it had gone five o’clock a long time ago, and the quicker she went home and got the rest of the day over the better.
She was left in peace for the next few days. The doctor was catching up on ward rounds, private patients and theatre work, and when the next clinic—an afternoon one—came round everyone was back to normal. Christmas was over for another year and the talk was of New Year.
She was free on New Year’s Day; she got home the evening before, looking forward to a lazy day in Beauty’s company. She had hardly set eyes on Marc, but that didn’t stop her thinking about him all the time. She was more than ever determined to find a job away from London, for she could see no future for herself; she had thought just once or twice that he liked her and, indeed, he had been friendly and always kind, but since Christmas he had retreated behind his bland face and only spoken to her when it was necessary. It was silly to go on like that, she told herself, and she would have to do something...
She fed Beauty, poked her nose into her tiny food cupboard and decided on soup out of a tin and scrambled eggs for supper, and even decided to have a shower before she ate.
Dressing-gowned, her hair loose around her shoulders, she was weighing the merits of cream of tomato against chicken noodle soup when someone knocked on her door. She frowned. It was barely eight o’clock and Mrs Peck had told her that the nurses upstairs were all going to a party and the elderly couple on the top floor had gone to their daughter’s for the New Year. It could, of course, be Mrs Peck wanting a gossip. Serena went to the door as the knock was repeated.
‘Mrs Peck?’
The unmistakable deep voice of the doctor answered her. ‘Certainly not. Be good enough to open the door, Serena.’
‘Well, I don’t think I can—I’m in my dressing-gown, getting my supper.’
‘Much too early for supper—and recollect that I have four sisters, all of whom I have seen in dressing-gowns.’
He sounded like a big brother too. She opened the door.
He looked at the tins of soup and his lip curled. ‘I thought we might celebrate the New Year together. Mrs Bishop has prepared a splendid meal which it would be sinful to eat alone.’
‘I’m just going—’ began Serena.
‘Ah, yes, I can see that. Cream of tomato soup in a tin.’ He appeared not to look at her. ‘I’ll wait outside. Let me have Beauty in her basket and then get some clothes on—ten minutes long enough?’
‘But I don’t...’
He did look at her then. He smiled too, although he said nothing, and she said weakly, ‘All right. Do I have to dress up?’
‘Wear that grey thing, and for heaven’s sake put on a thick coat. It’s freezing outside.’
He had captured Beauty and was urging her gently into her basket.
‘Ten minutes,’ he reminded her as he closed the door gently behind him.
She flew into her clothes, did her face with care, arranged her hair in its usual neat bun and got into her coat. It took only a few moments to turn out the fire, check the windows and door and switch off the lights, then lock the door behind her.
Marc got out of the car as she left the house, bundled her smartly into the car, got in himself, and drove off. Serena, turning her head to make sure that Beauty was safe on the back seat, encountered Harley’s melting gaze. He thumped his tail in greeting and she said, ‘How nice to see you again, Harley.’ It crossed her mind that Marc must surely have friends with whom he might spend his New Year’s Eve, which thought naturally compelled her to ask, ‘You’re not having a party, are you?’
‘No, Serena, just you and I,’ and since there was a lot of traffic she forbore from saying anything else for fear of distracting his attention.
Bishop opened the door as they got out of the car and she was hurried into the warmth of the hall, where Bishop took her coat, undid Beauty’s basket and handed her over very gently before opening the sitting-room door.
The room welcomed her; it was warm and softly lighted and there was a bright fire burning in the hearth. There was music too, something quiet and soothing.
‘Delius?’ asked Serena, taking the easy chair Marc offered her and settling Beauty on her lap.
‘Very restful.’ The doctor sat down in his chair with the faithful Harley at his feet and began a meandering conversation about classical music, and Serena, who had been feeling rather uncertain about everything, relaxed. Presently he got up, gave her a drink and got himself one, and edged the conversation round to her own affairs. He did it very carefully and she wasn’t aware of it at first. But in the middle of explaining exactly why it wasn’t possible for her to go to Ludlow, she realised that he had been egging her on to tell him a deal more than she had ever intended.
She finished what she was saying rather lamely and sat twiddling her thumbs round the glass in her hand. ‘Why do you want to know about me?’ she asked. ‘Anyway, you already know as much as you need.’ She encountered his quizzical gaze and blushed. ‘That was awfully rude; I didn’t mean it quite like that. What I meant was that you must have a great many other things to be interested in...’ She put the glass down on the lamp table by her chair. ‘I don’t think I should have had that sherry—I didn’t have time for any lunch...’
‘Mrs Bishop will be delighted to hear that; you will do full justice to dinner.’
As if he had been waiting for his cue, Bishop came to tell them tha
t they were served. ‘I’ll take the little cat, miss, and Mrs Bishop will give her a meal when she feeds Harley.’
The meal was superb. Mrs Bishop, who on various previous occasions had been forced to produce nouvelle cuisine, only to have half of it uneaten by the sylphlike ladies who had come to dine with the doctor, allowed herself the pleasure of making rich sauces, dishing up lobster thermidor, vegetables in butter and preceding these with a rich artichoke soup laced with cream, and by way of afters a trifle, loaded with calories. ‘Because,’ she explained to Bishop, ‘that nice Miss Proudfoot enjoys good food, and another pound or two won’t spoil that nice figure of hers.’
The doctor must have been of the same opinion, for he pressed Serena to second helpings and passed her a dish of petits fours with the coffee.
Serena, who hadn’t been looking forward to the New Year in the least, found herself enjoying her evening. Dinner had been splendid, but she would have been just as happy without it since she had Marc for company.
They hadn’t hurried over their meal, and it was after ten o’clock when they went back to sit by the fire with Harley and Beauty, nicely full, sitting side by side before it.
The conversation until now had been pleasantly general and they had fallen into a friendly silence, to be broken by the doctor.
‘What do you wish for the New Year, Serena?’ he asked.
She stared at him, collecting wool-gathering thoughts in order to make a sensible reply. ‘Oh, well—I don’t know.’
It was the best she could manage at a moment’s notice. She could, of course, tell him that she wished very much to stay with him for the rest of their lives; she wondered what he would say...
‘You must have some idea,’ he prompted gently. ‘To travel, perhaps, come into a fortune, get married?’ He was smiling at her in a way to make her heart turn over. She looked away and the thought came into her head that this was an opportunity to tell him that she would like to go away—right away from London, for to her that seemed the most sensible thing to do. She couldn’t stay, seeing him continuously and loving him a little more each day and finally dwindling into a lovelorn old maid. He was going to marry. She wondered for the hundredth time who the girl was. Dutch, of course...