by Betty Neels
She went up to bed soon after that, and cried herself to sleep without knowing why. She woke up during the night with the thought very clear in her mind that of course she couldn’t tell Hugo that she no longer loved Steven—it would create an impossible situation: living with a man you loved and who loved another woman, even if that woman was a memory. Only if, by some miracle, he fell out of love with his Janet would she be able to tell him. She sat up in bed, made aware of what she had been thinking—it wasn’t Steven she had loved at all, it was Hugo. It had always been Hugo, and like a stupid blind fool she hadn’t known. And now that she knew, what was she to do about it? Impossible to tell him. She lay down again, telling herself to be thankful that at least he liked her enough to have made her his wife—perhaps in time he might love her. She went to sleep on the thought.
He was in the hall when she went downstairs in the morning. He had his back to her, bent over the morning papers. The sunlight shone on his grizzled head; he looked distinguished and elegant and very large. He turned his head and smiled at her and her heart thumped against her ribs in a way that it had never thumped before. She stopped on the stairs, quelling an urgent desire to fling herself into his arms and forcing himself to move across the hall towards him and wish him a good morning in her usual voice. She had the peculiar sensation that her feet weren’t quite touching the ground, and when they left the house and he took her arm with his usual friendliness, she shook with excitement and happiness so that he asked her in some astonishment if she was cold. It was indeed a cool morning, but not sufficiently so to warrant a shiver.
She said lightly, ‘It must be a goose on my grave,’ which sounded so nonsensical that they both laughed, but she missed the penetrating look he gave her; only when she glanced up, she thought how happy he looked. They had crossed the river and were strolling along the Promenade, the dogs racing up and down, playing their own particular games.
‘I think we might go to Holland in a week or so,’ Hugo remarked. ‘September’s a good month for a holiday, don’t you agree? I think I can manage the last ten days or so—if this weather holds, it will be delightful. We’ll take the car—Holland’s a small country, I can show you quite a lot of it in that time. We can visit my family too, but I think we will stay on our own, don’t you? There’s a good hotel at a small place called Vierhouten, not so very far from my parents, and within easy reach of Hasselt and Wassenaar where my sisters live. Gemma, my youngest sister, lives at Nîmes—we could drive down from Holland, and spend the night somewhere on the way, stay a couple of days at Avignon and visit her from there and return along the west coast to one of the Channel ports.’
Sarah agreed that it sounded delightful. He must have thought about it a good deal; no one could reel off a trip like that without having made a few plans first.
‘What about your aunts in Alkmaar—the three old ladies?’ she asked.
‘Ah, yes. We must try and spend a few hours with them … it won’t be too much of a rush for you?’
They were nearly home. She went through the gate ahead of him, her head full of the delightful prospect of having him all to herself for two weeks. ‘I shall love it, Hugo. How marvellous to have two holidays in one year!’
He laughed, looking surprised. ‘Well, I usually manage to get away several times. It’s difficult to take more than two weeks at a time, otherwise it’s merely a question of fitting appointments … have you enough money to buy any clothes you want?’
They were in the dining room, facing each other across the table. Sarah poured his coffee and as she passed it to him said in a wifely voice, ‘You’ve only got ten minutes. I’ve still got some money left from my allowance.’
‘Then you had better spend it, as your quarterly allowance was paid in at the beginning of the month; we’ve been married three months now, three months and ten days, to be exact.’
She went pink. ‘Oh, do you remember it too?’ The pink deepened, for she hadn’t meant to tell him that she knew, almost to the hour, how long they had been married. He had gone over to the sideboard, and looked at her over his shoulder. ‘I have a businesslike mind,’ he observed. ‘Would you like two eggs or one?’
She had no appetite. ‘I’ll just have toast,’ she said, and saw his brows lift and heard the faint mockery in his voice.
‘Slimming? I can assure you there is no need.’ She shook her head as he came back to the table, to subject her to a bright searching look as he sat down. ‘Feel all right?’
She said a little vaguely, ‘Yes, thank you,’ wishing with all her heart that she could tell him just how she felt. Instead she drank her coffee and broke her toast into small pieces, not eating any of it.
After he had gone, she wandered into the garden and then back into the house again, where she did a little desultory dusting and made out a list of groceries with Alice before getting her shopping basket. She enjoyed her visits to the grocer and the time spent choosing vegetables and fruit, and discussing cuts of meat with the butcher. She enjoyed, too, being addressed as Mrs van Elven. She mooned along the streets, savouring the delightful fact that she bore Hugo’s name. It was strange that until that moment she hadn’t thought very much about it, but now, because she loved him, everything was different.
It wasn’t until after lunch, while she was pottering in the garden, that common sense once more took possession of her mind, reminding her that she had been living in a dream world all the morning, in which Hugo had most conveniently fallen in love with her. She had been aware of the foolishness of her thoughts and brushed the awareness aside because they had been so delightful, but now she sat down on the grass and began to tidy away the bits and pieces of her dreams—it wouldn’t help at all to allow them full rein. She would have to be constantly on her guard with Hugo, so that he would never know. They had been happy so far; she had done her best to be the sort of wife he apparently wanted, she hoped with some success, although she was uneasily aware that she hadn’t penetrated his deep reserve. Perhaps she never would. Janet would have been the only one to do that.
She got to her feet and started to garden with a furious energy which strove to overcome the sudden despair for the future. Her eyes blurred with stupid tears; it was only when she stopped to blow her pretty, reddened nose and wipe her eyes that she became aware that she had uprooted a flourishing colony of carnation cuttings. She planted them carefully once more, sniffing prodigiously as she did so.
She went by bus to Harley Street, and found Hugo waiting for her in the car. At the sight of him, misery and love and delight at seeing him again caused her to look so peculiar that he asked for a second time that day if she was feeling all right. As she got into the car he watched her with an expression she was unable to read, but mindful of her good resolutions, she said cheerfully that yes, she was feeling marvellous, and told him what she had done with her day and then enquired with a somewhat overpowering brightness if he had been busy. He gave her another look before he replied, a thoughtful, frowning one, and began to tell her, rather abruptly, about a chance meeting with an old colleague.
Rose Road looked dingy and forlorn despite the children playing on its pavements, and the dogs running to and fro between the idlers who had stopped for a gossip and the hurrying figures intent on getting home or round to the pub. The waiting room was full too. Sarah said hullo to Dr Bright and went to put on her overall in Sandra’s slip of a room, and then, armed with notebook and pencil, began to sort out the patients. There were more than usual for Hugo that evening, and several new ones as well as the hard core of bronchitics and arthritics and stomach ulcers. Sarah knew the regulars by name as well as by sight now, and exchanged a word with each of them as she made her way round the packed room. They called her ‘missus’ or ‘luv’ and occasionally gave her a peppermint to suck or a banana. She, in her turn, kept the vase on the centre table filled with flowers from the Richmond garden. She was gradually replenishing the vintage magazines too, although no one read very much, preferring to tal
k. The first once or twice she had been there, they had gossiped unhappily in church voices, glancing at her uneasily, but now she was accepted. She moved to and fro, making sure that they had their turns right, unruffled by the cheerful four-letter words which flew around her ears. A few of the words she had never heard before, and since that occasion when she had asked Hugo to explain one of them to her, and he had looked at her with outrage and told her that he would be damned if he would, she had thought it best not to bother about them.
The waiting room emptied slowly; there were still half a dozen people left in it when three youths came in and sat down together. They didn’t speak at all but stared around them at the other patients, who glanced at them quickly and then looked the other way. Sarah, coming in from Dr Bright’s surgery, sensed uneasiness in the air; she also smelled their cigarettes.
‘No smoking here, please. If you want to finish your cigarettes, you can go outside. You won’t be going in to doctor yet—I’ll call you.’ She smiled at them impartially. ‘Names?’
The boy in the middle spoke. ‘We don’t want ter wait—we’ll go in next.’
She looked at him coolly. ‘People take turns here,’ she said reasonably. ‘And put out those cigarettes.’
They laughed and blew smoke in her face, and were disconcerted when she took no notice at all, merely asking, ‘Which of you is the patient? And who is your doctor?’
They didn’t answer. Sarah put her notebook back in her pocket and said, hiding a fast rising irritation, ‘I suggest you go—you’re wasting my time.’ Before she could say anything else, the boy in the middle caught her by the wrist—not painfully, but she would have had to struggle to release herself. She stood still, annoyed but not particularly frightened. The boys were young and silly and inclined to bully. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the patient nearest Hugo’s surgery door get up and go through. He was elderly and slow, but the boys didn’t notice. Seconds later, the same door was flung open, and Hugo, looking very large indeed in the bare room, had reached her in a couple of hurried strides.
He put an arm across her shoulders and the boy dropped her wrist, as though it had burned him. Hugo spoke without raising his voice, but it cracked around the boys’ heads like a whip.
‘You lay one finger on my wife and I’ll thrash the three of you!’ He inspected them deliberately down his patrician nose, while his fingers exerted a reassuring pressure upon her shoulder. The boys had drawn together. They threw their cigarettes on to the floor and ground them out hastily, while the youngest and cleanest made haste to say:
‘Hey, doc, we didn’t know she was yer wife—honest we didn’t.’ His companions joined in, all talking together. ‘It was jist a joke—we ‘adn’t got nothing to do—we didn’t do no ‘arm.’
‘Quite true,’ agreed Sarah, still incensed, but fair by nature. ‘They were only being annoying.’ She took a quick look at Hugo. His face was stern and there was a gleam in his eyes which boded ill for the culprits. She added hastily, ‘I’ll accept their apologies if they’ll offer them.’
She caught an unexpected sparkle of laughter in Hugo’s look—but whatever he intended to say was drowned in a chorus of, ‘Sorry, missus,’ and, ‘No ‘ard feelings, lady.’ The three of them began to edge towards the door, and almost reached it when Hugo said, ‘Wait! Why did you come in here? And don’t put me off with a lot of lies … there’s nothing wrong with you except idleness. Bored stiff, I suppose?’
They shuffled their feet in deplorable shoes, shrugging their shoulders, and looking helplessly at him. Unwillingly they nodded and the boy who had held Sarah’s wrist grinned sheepishly at her.
‘You’re none of you worth a brass button,’ remarked Hugo almost lazily, ‘and I don’t suppose you know what work is. Come along next week. We could use some extra help—and don’t expect to get paid for it!’ They looked surprised, suspicious and eventually, pleased. When he said. ‘Now—out!’ in a manner conducive to obedience, they went.
When they had gone he looked down at Sarah, still held fast against him. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah—did they scare you?’ His tone was so light that she instantly took exception to it. She had secretly been just a little alarmed, but now nothing would induce her to say so. She said crossly, and decidedly loftily, ‘Of course not. I’m not easily scared.’
He might at least have asked her if she felt faint or upset or Something … instead, he said shortly, ‘No, I imagine you aren’t,’ then took his arm away from her shoulders and went back to his surgery without another word, leaving her to smoulder.
Five minutes later she was required to bandage a septic finger he had just incised. She did it with an efficient calmness which covered the riotous tumult going on beneath the starch of her overall, and was on the point of slipping out after the patient when he leaned forward and caught her by the arm and said slowly, ‘I should never have brought you here in the first place.’
The tumult exploded into a spreading wave of happiness. He hadn’t been angry with her at all—only with himself. She gave him a glorious smile, and was shaken when he said silkily, ‘You smile—perhaps you will tell me why?’
She gave him a puzzled look. ‘Well, I thought just now that you were angry with me, and then I thought it was all right because you were angry with yourself—and now you’re angry with me again.’ She paused. ‘And I’m not sure why,’ she finished a little uncertainly.
They stared at each other for a long moment, then he let go of her arm and said in an exasperated voice, ‘Oh, my dear girl …’ and kissed her swiftly and brusquely on the mouth. He drew away from her almost at once. ‘That mustn’t happen again.’ He spoke in his usual voice, calm, almost casual. She thought he was referring to the three boys, and tried not to think about the kiss, for she felt that it had been given by way of an apology.
Ten days later they gave their second dinner party. Sarah, who had enjoyed the first one enormously, wasn’t quite so sure about this one; for one thing she didn’t know the people who were coming very well, and they were all a good deal older than she was. But they were Hugo’s colleagues, if not his chosen friends, and she quite saw that a certain amount of entertaining was obligatory. He had a great many friends, she was beginning to discover—young married couples, and some who had been married for some years and had children at school, and a handful of rather vague professors who, surprisingly, fitted in with everyone else.
She was beginning to realise too that he had been very considerate when they had first married, introducing her into his life gradually, so that she had never, at any one time, felt surprise at the number of people who made up his circle of friends. Now they were beginning to drop in informally from time to time for drinks in the evening, and occasionally an impromptu supper, and she and Hugo returned the visits. His friends had made her very welcome, and life was altogether enjoyable. That it could be a great deal more enjoyable was something which she steadfastly shut her eyes to, although she had the good sense to know that sooner or later she would give herself away, or worse, blurt everything out to Hugo.
She and Alice had spent a long time over the menu—they were to have tournedos with oysters, preceded by flamenco eggs and followed by grilled fresh peaches accompanied by whorls of Chantilly cream. She decorated the table with late pink roses and geraniums and verbena, and wore the pink dress, quite forgetful of her vow never to wear it again. Hugo was late home and she was already downstairs, putting the last-minute touches to the table, when he got in. She went to meet him as he opened the door and was halfway across the hall as he tossed his bag on to one of the wall tables and came to meet her. He stopped an arm’s length away and studied her. ‘I was beginning to think I should never see you in this dress again,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re wearing it tonight—it’s most becoming.’
She smiled with pleasure and thought how tired and strained he looked. They would be going on holiday the following week and he looked as though he needed it. She said now, ‘Shall I get you a drink be
fore you go up? I put everything ready—I thought it might save you a few minutes.’
He said briefly, ‘Good girl. I’ll change first and we’ll have a drink together before they arrive.’
He went upstairs and Sarah went to the kitchen to make sure that Mrs Biggs had arrived to give Alice a hand, and found that she had. Alice as usual was in calm control of the culinary arrangements; there was nothing for Sarah to do but to stroll back into the dining room and then into the drawing room to switch on some of the lamps there. The room looked quite beautiful. She stood in its centre, loving it, and presently, because there was nothing further to do, sat down at the piano.
She was thundering through the noisier passages of a Beethoven sonata when Hugo joined her. She stopped as abruptly as she had begun and he fetched their drinks with the remark, ‘You were playing as though you were running away from something, Sarah.’ He gave her a piercing look. ‘Are you nervous about this evening? You don’t need to be, you know—it’s bound to be a success.’ She didn’t answer, and he went on, ‘I’ve got the tickets for next week—the midday ferry from Dover. I think it will be best if we spend a night in Amsterdam on the way to Vierhouten. I telephoned for rooms this morning.’
She said, ‘That sounds very nice, Hugo. I’m looking forward to it.’ She smiled fleetingly and went over to the window to let in Timmy and the dogs, then stayed there, looking out into the garden. She felt lonely, even though Hugo was standing, tall and handsome and self-assured, on the other side of the room. Only suddenly he wasn’t on the other side of the room at all, but beside her, and before she could draw another breath he was holding her close, smiling down at her with a look which made her heart stop and race on again wildly. He said quietly, ‘Sarah, there is something …’ and was interrupted by the clanging of the front door knocker. He released her at once, said something forceful in his own language, and then, mildly, ‘Our guests, I imagine.’