Fate Is Remarkable

by Betty Neels

  She got to Harley Street just about eleven. She had dressed carefully in the new suit, and had complemented it with her Jourdan shoes and a matching calf handbag and gloves, and had crowned her lovely head with a wide-brimmed hat which gave her a decidedly dashing air.

  Hugo’s rooms were on the first floor, according to the neat, impeccably shining plate upon the discreet front door. The door stood open; Sarah went inside and up the stairs and walked in through another door which invited her to enter. The room was discreetly comfortable and very restful, and save for the woman sitting behind a large desk in one corner, was empty. She was a round, cosy person with a sweet face, and, Sarah noted with soaring spirits, unmistakably middle-aged. She went across the room to her, her smile dazzling in its relief.

  ‘Forgive me for just walking in. I’m Mrs van Elven—you must be my husband’s receptionist. I’m so glad to meet you.’ She held out a hand. ‘Miss Trevor—have I got it right?’

  Miss Trevor got up, beaming with pleasure. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I am glad to meet you, Mrs van Elven—I’ll tell the doctor you’re here.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘He’s got one more patient to see—she telephoned to say that she would be a little late …’ She looked at Sarah enquiringly.

  ‘Don’t tell the doctor I’m here—I’ll surprise him.’ Sarah smiled again and put her hand on the door handle, which rattled slightly because her hand was shaking.

  Hugo was at his desk, writing. It was a large desk, and for a doctor, very tidy. He got to his feet when he saw her and said with his usual air of calm, ‘Sarah, this is a surprise.’ He didn’t look in the least surprised, however, but then he was adept at concealing his feelings. It was impossible, looking at him, to have the least idea as to his reaction to her sudden appearance; probably he was annoyed.

  She advanced a few steps into the room. ‘I was early,’ she explained. ‘You don’t mind if I wait for you here? Miss Trevor says you have one more patient—I could sit in the waiting room, if you don’t mind?’

  He was lounging against the desk, his hands in his pockets, staring at her. ‘No, I don’t mind. That’s a fetching hat.’

  She went a little pink and a dimple appeared for a devastating moment.

  ‘Oh—well, yes.’ She sounded guilty and he said gravely, his eyes dancing, ‘I wonder what you have done to make you look so apprehensive. Spent all my money?’

  She gave him a swift look and smiled. ‘No—I’ve not had time to …’she stopped and felt her cheeks getting red. She had been on the point of telling him that there had been no time to even look at shops, otherwise she would never have got to Harley Street in time. She peeped at him between her lashes. He was looking down at his desk and she couldn’t see his face; perhaps he hadn’t noticed. She said chattily:

  ‘What a nice room this is—so restful.’

  ‘Naturally,’ he agreed amicably, ‘I endeavour to exercise a calming influence.’

  He was still standing by the desk, screening something she had seen as soon as she entered the room. Her eyes, unbidden, lighted upon it once more, although there was only very little of it to be seen. A photo frame—a rather old-fashioned one, she thought, probably silver. It was a pity she couldn’t see it—perhaps Hugo didn’t want her to. Her heart plummeted into her fashionable shoes. Perhaps this was why he had never encouraged her to come; perhaps Janet’s photo was on his desk—after all, he couldn’t very well have it at home. Impelled by some strong feeling she didn’t stop to analyse, she whisked past him to have a look. She had been right about the frame, it was silver shell-back, a riot of cherubs’ heads and true lovers’ knots and roses; it housed two photos, and she had been wrong about those—they were of herself. One, a coloured snapshot her brother had taken the previous summer—she was standing in the garden with her hair hanging round her shoulders, laughing; the other was a portrait she had had taken to please her mother, very serious in her sister’s uniform. She stared at them foolishly and then said in a small voice:

  ‘Oh, it’s me!’

  Hugo was no longer lounging by the desk. He asked, at his most urbane:

  ‘Why are you surprised? Whom did you expect to see, Sarah?’

  She was for once, speechless, and even if she could have thought of something to say, she couldn’t have said it, by reason of a lack of breath. Hugo laughed and took a purposeful step towards her, and then stopped as the buzzer on his desk broke the silence. He stopped short and said softly, ‘Damn—my patient!’ and Sarah, who wasn’t at all sure what he had been going to do, added an unspoken swearword of her own and said out loud, ‘Yes, of course, I’ll go,’ and slipped through the door he had gone to open for her. A bony old lady was talking to Miss Trevor. She gave Sarah an appraising stare as she swept past to where Hugo was waiting and broke into immediate speech, cut short, to Sarah’s regret, by the gentle shutting of the door. She would have liked a little time to think, but Miss Trevor evidently thought that it was her duty to engage her employer’s wife in small talk, and Sarah was too kind-hearted to do anything else but carry on her side of the conversation, trivial though it was.

  The old lady reappeared after ten minutes or so to be ushered firmly to the door by Hugo, when he said, ‘Five minutes, Sarah,’ and disappeared into his consulting room again, but it was less than that and she had had no time to sort out her thoughts, and because he seemed disposed to be silent, she felt it incumbent upon her to talk, although she had very little idea of what she was saying. They took a taxi, and because she thought that she had been curious enough for one morning, she forbore from asking where they were bound for. When they alighted halfway down Bond Street and were on the point of entering a famous furriers, she stopped in its entrance. ‘Why are we here?’ she wanted to know.

  Hugo was opening the door, a firm hand urging her gently forward.

  ‘A winter coat …’ was all he said, and then when she stopped again, ‘Don’t worry, Sarah, I know your views about wild animals being slaughtered for furs. You’ll be shown only ranch mink.’

  She tried on several, uncertain which to choose, because Hugo hadn’t mentioned price, and nor, for that matter, had the saleslady. She decided at length looking a little anxiously at Hugo, who smiled blandly back at her. When the saleslady took it from her, remarking, ‘A lovely coat, madam, and an investment, if I might say so—real value for nine hundred guineas.’

  She sailed away and Sarah made a terrible face at Hugo and said in a small voice, ‘Hugo, it’s nine hundred guineas,’ to be stopped by his calm, ‘And very good value for the money, I imagine. I’ll tell them to send it, shall I?’

  She tried to thank him as they walked to Claridges for lunch, but it was difficult in the street, so she made another attempt when they were seated in the Buttery, only to be firmly but kindly discouraged.

  ‘My dear Sarah,’ said Hugo, ‘must I remind you that you are my wife and as such can expect to be the recipient of an occasional gift from me?’ Sarah, spearing hors d’oeuvres, lifted her awed gaze to his as he continued. ‘And if that high-flown speech had no effect upon you, I assure you that I can think up half a dozen more as good or even better.’

  He smiled, his eyes twinkling and she gave a gurgle of laughter.

  ‘Hugo, you sounded like a Church elder—a very nice one, of course! I could wear it to—to Anne’s wedding, couldn’t I? and Kate’s. I shall need a new hat.’ She contemplated an olive, lost in thought, and was taken aback when Hugo laughed.

  ‘Now what have I said?’ she asked. ‘And that reminds me—shall I get Kate’s present today? I could bring it with me and give it to her before I meet you at St Edwin’s.’

  ‘An admirable idea,’ agreed Hugo, ‘provided it’s of a carryable nature. What had you in mind?’

  ‘Well, they won’t have an awful lot of money—I thought table linen or a great many towels.’

  ‘An excellent choice,’ he agreed, ‘though I doubt if young Dean will be very enthusiastic. I think I’ll send him half a dozen bottles of
claret … just for himself, you know.’

  ‘Well, how horrid!’ protested Sarah. ‘He’s going to share the towels and things with Kate, so he’ll have to share the claret with her too.’ She caught his eye across the table; he was laughing at her silently. She said hastily, ‘I shall go to the White House this afternoon.’

  She waited until the waiter had substituted poulet demi-deuil for the remains of the hors d’oeuvres and said with commendable tenacity:

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you properly for my lovely coat.’

  Hugo put down his knife and fork. He said gently, ‘What a persistent woman you are, Sarah! I thought I had made myself clear.’

  He gave her a mocking smile; his voice had an edge to it. ‘My dear girl, you don’t imagine that I’m trying to bribe you?’

  ‘B-bribe me?’ she uttered. Her saucer eyes, despite the smart hat, made her look like a surprised child, an effect considerably heightened by the bright colour which flooded her cheeks. She opened her mouth several times, only to close it again—speech, while her thoughts were so incoherent, would be useless. They clarified all at once into the tiresome fact that now it would be extremely difficult to show her true feelings—for if she did, he might construe them as the acceptance of the bribe he had so hatefully suggested she had suspected. He would never believe her. She choked upon a delicious morsel of truffle and swallowed it with as much pleasure as she would have downed a pill, then said finally, ‘No, Hugo, I don’t imagine any such thing—I tried to express my gratitude.You see, it’s a marvellous present, even the most level-headed woman would be thrilled to have it.’ She paused and went on briskly, ‘Will you be busy in OP this afternoon?’

  Hugo’s mouth twitched a little at its corners, but he said in a perfectly ordinary voice, ‘I expect so—there’s a backlog of patients, naturally, but I’ll do my best to get finished. By the way, I’m told the burns baby is doing well.’

  They were on safe ground again; they talked amicably until he looked at his watch and said, ‘I simply must go.’

  They were on their way back from Rose Road after a busy evening, when Hugo told her that he was going to America. They were going over Putney Bridge and Sarah stared at the lights reflecting in the water below, as though she had never seen them before. She said at last, inanely:

  ‘How nice. North or South?’

  ‘North,’ he answered casually—’Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Washington—not in that order of course, and a number of smaller places.’

  For all the world, she thought, as though he were just going into the next street. ‘Will you be away long?’ she asked. Her voice, she was pleased to hear, sounded politely interested, no more.

  When he said laconically, ‘Three weeks, give or take a day,’ she felt her heart jerk and then resume its beating with a deplorable lack of rhythm. ‘Isn’t it all rather sudden?’ she wanted to know.

  He drew up in front of the house and turned to look at her in the dimness of the car. ‘No,’ he answered coolly, ‘I’ve known about it for some months.’ She waited for him to say something else; apparently he found that that was sufficient. She went ahead of him into the house, and wandered aimlessly in and out of the rooms, fiddling with the flowers until he came in from putting the car away.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked at once. She didn’t look up from the chaos she was making of a vase of chrysanthemums.

  ‘My dear girl, I saw no need; it isn’t as though you are coming with me.’

  She tried again. ‘Why not?’

  ‘What would be the point?’ His voice was silky. ‘We have just been on holiday, have we not? I shall be lecturing, shall I not?’

  ‘You don’t want me …?’

  ‘Shall we not rather say that there would be no purpose in your coming?’ The silky voice had a bitter thread in it.

  She surveyed her wrecked vase. ‘Oh! Is that why you bought me the coat?’

  He bolted the front door with deliberate quiet and said over his shoulder, ‘I shan’t even bother to answer that, Sarah.’

  She drew a breath. ‘When do you go?’

  ‘Tomorrow evening.’ He had crossed the hall and had a hand on the study door. ‘I have to telephone St Edwin’s—shall we say goodnight?’

  He smiled at her quite kindly and in such a manner that Sarah felt she had somehow been at fault.

  In her room, she sat down to think. Something had gone wrong somewhere. This morning at his rooms she had thought for a moment that he was going to tell her something—she wasn’t sure what. Perhaps that he was a little in love with her—and she could have told him, and they could have started afresh. It was as though he wanted to get away from her, but if so, why did he bother to have her photograph on his desk, where he would have to look at it all day—and why did he buy her a valuable fur coat when her allowance was sufficient for her to purchase something quite nice for herself?

  Perhaps it was some sort of fashion which dictated that doctors should have their wives’ photographs on their desks … and as for the mink, could it be that Mrs van Elven, the wife of a highly successful consultant physician, was expected to wear nothing less? The thought was unworthy of Hugo, but she chose to ignore that. She sat on, stony-faced, while the same few ideas whirled through her aching head. At length, because she had grown cold, she went to bed, where she lay shivering with mingled chill and misery and hopeless rage.

  Hugo greeted her the next morning with his usual placid manner. That he gave her a swift penetrating stare while her head was bowed over the coffee cups, she was unaware. She had taken great pains with her pale face, and was under the impression that she looked much as usual. She was surprised when he told her that he intended to go to Harley Street as usual. Somehow, because North America seemed so far away, she had imagined that the preparations would be lengthy, but Hugo was travelling light with one suitcase, which, he blandly informed her, was already packed.

  She asked politely, ‘Would you like us to have dinner early?’

  ‘No, thank you, Sarah. I leave about seven—I’ll take the car and leave it at the airport. I’ll be home just after three, though—we could have tea together.’

  He got up to go soon after, enjoining her to have a pleasant day, and she answered woodenly, ‘Oh, yes. I’ll take the dogs,’ and then remembered to ask, ‘You don’t mind if I go to Rose Road while you’re away?’

  He paused in the door. ‘Why ever not? You’ve got the Rover. I’m not your master, Sarah—you’re free to do as you choose.’

  The day seemed never-ending. At three o’clock she went to the kitchen and fetched the tea-tray, because Alice had the afternoon off. She had made a fruit cake, the kind Hugo liked, and Alice had made some muffins. Sarah arranged these delicacies upon a small table before the sitting room fire, with the muffins ready to toast. It was almost four when she heard his key in the door. She flew to the kitchen, and was putting the kettle on to boil when he strolled in. He said:

  ‘Hullo, Sarah,’ then asked casually, ‘What shall you do with yourself while I’m away?’

  She was prepared, for she had thought that he might ask it. She answered lightly, ‘Tea won’t be a minute. I shall go and see Mother and Father and perhaps stay for a day or two, and Kate wants me to go shopping—a real spree lasting two or three days—and the Coles asked me to go over weeks ago. Mary wanted me to spend a day with them. She’s not very well, but of course you know that, and I want to shop for myself …’

  He said, half laughing, ‘Stop! My dear girl, I’d better extend my tour, so that you’ll have enough time to do all you want.’

  He took the tea-tray from her, and she went ahead of him into the sitting room, delighted that her exaggerated half-truths had sounded so plausible. She knelt in front of the fire, toasting the muffins, while he sat in his great armchair, glancing through his post with the relaxed air of one who has nothing better to do for the rest of the day. It was hard to imagine that in a couple of hours or so he would be starting o
n a three-thousand-mile journey … She became momentarily lost in a reverie in which she, with the ease of all dream happenings, accompanied him at the last minute, to be jerked back to reality by his voice enquiring if she liked her muffins burned to cinders.

  She took the charred ruin off the end of the fork and started again, this time with more success, and presently they had tea. They had almost finished when Hugo said, ‘I’ve arranged for the bank to cash any reasonable amount for you, Sarah—and Simms has everything in hand.’

  She drank the last of her tea. ‘Oh? What does he have to have in hand?’

  ‘My affairs.’ He spoke rather impatiently. ‘This is an excellent cake—Alice has done us proud.’

  Sarah said, her mind on what he had just said. ‘I made it … Will you fly everywhere in America—could you not go by train?’

  ‘Certainly not—I should be there for months if I did. The arrangement with Simms is merely routine. You can contact him if you need to—er—know anything. What did you put in this cake?’

  She told him, her manner abstracted, while her imagination painted vivid little pictures of air disasters with Hugo injured, or worse still, dead—thousands of miles away. She looked unseeingly at him when he said, ‘Don’t Sarah. I’ve always considered you a woman of great good sense.’

  His light derisive tone, more than his words, had the desired effect. She was making a fool of herself. She pulled herself together with an effort, uttering some not very intelligent remark about travel in America, then continued talking rather feverishly and with great brightness upon a variety of paltry subjects until Hugo got to his feet with the laconic remark that he had better change his clothes.

  He came down again presently, just as the bracket clock on the mantelpiece reminded them in its silvery voice that it was seven o’clock, and went straight out to the car with his case. Sarah had gone out into the hall, but he had ignored her. It seemed that he neither wanted nor expected anything more than the most casual of farewells. He came back into the hall and shrugged himself into his car coat, looking huge and prodigiously handsome, and she wondered with a sudden spurt of jealousy how many women would meet him and think the same as she did. She went a little nearer, a smile pinned firmly to her pretty mouth, feeling cold and sick inside. He put a hand lightly, briefly on her shoulder and said, ‘Well, Tot ziens, Sarah. I’ll let you know how I’m getting on.’