by Betty Neels
‘Coffee in the kitchen?’ inquired Gemma. She spoke in a whisper, because the dim quiet of the hall made it impossible to do otherwise.
The professor nodded, his arm round Bart, who, half awake, was complaining about his head. ‘Oh, do hush him,’ she said urgently, and led the way across the hall.
There was coffee on the Aga; it took only a moment to find three mugs and the sugar, sit Bart down in a chair and urge him to drink up. He did it reluctantly at first, but by the time he had downed the second cup he was feeling decidedly better. ‘So sorry,’ he said apologetically, ‘made an ass of myself.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ said Gemma in a comforting voice. ‘You weren’t to know about the rest of that vodka—it was a rotten trick to play on you. Do you begin to feel better?’
She filled his cup for the third time and offered the silent professor another mugful. ‘Yes, thanks, Gemma—you’re a good sort not to mind.’
He sounded like one of her twin brothers and she gave him a motherly smile and got to her feet. ‘I’ll get these out of the way and go to bed.’
She tidied away neatly, thanked Bart for her lovely evening with a sincerity which allowed of no sarcasm and started for the door, to find the professor beside her long before she reached it. She said goodnight as he opened it, but he followed her into the hall and she asked: ‘Is something the matter? Did you want to say something about Bart?’
‘Not about Bart—about you, Gemma. You have had your happy evening spoilt and you’ve been a darling about it. You’re a gem of a girl, do you know that? I hope all your dreams come true, for you deserve them.’
Before she could reply he bent to kiss her—not at all the same kind of kiss which Leo had given her, for it was gentle and brief. She knew that long after the heady excitement of Leo’s kiss had faded, she would remember this moment. She said ‘Oh,’ rather blankly and ran up the staircase without looking back.
CHAPTER SIX
TO HER surprise, Gemma slept at once and dreamlessly, to wake at her usual time feeling quite refreshed. Rienieta was already awake when she went along to see how she was, and they whiled away half an hour talking about the ball, Gemma doing her best to answer her companion’s eager questions. Fortunately she had a good memory; she was able to give detailed descriptions of a number of the dresses there, the food she had eaten and the people she had met, and even a few of their names.
‘And Bart?’ asked Rienieta. ‘Was he waiting for you? Papa said you looked so pretty that he would have liked to stay and dance with you—he joked, of course,’ she added seriously. ‘He would never go anywhere without Mama.’
‘No, of course he wouldn’t,’ Gemma agreed, ‘but how nice of him to say that.’ She launched into an account of Bart’s prowess as a dancer, and mentioned casually that Leo had been there too.
Her patient was examining her tongue in a hand mirror. She put it back in to say: ‘I—We are not surprised. Mama said yesterday that she was afraid 125 that he would be there too—he and his friends. Were they there, Gemma?’
Gemma charted her patient’s temperature with a steady hand. ‘Oh, yes—rather silly I thought, not quite my cup of tea. The girls wore those lovely impossible dresses you see in Vogue.’ She smiled at Rienieta as she shook down the thermometer. ‘Your mother doesn’t like Leo?’
‘She understands that he is great fun…’
‘But she would prefer me not to go out with him. Well, I can understand that—we haven’t the same background. I’m middle class, you know, and neither clever nor smart.’ She hesitated. ‘I hadn’t thought of it before, but I can see now that if I had someone like me working for me, I wouldn’t want me to go tearing off with the upper crust.’
Rienieta’s blue eyes grew round, but it was the professor’s voice that answered her. He was standing in the doorway watching her and smiling a little. ‘What a very muddled way of putting it, Gemma, but you don’t do yourself justice; such an idea would never enter Mama’s head and certainly not my father’s—nor anyone else in the family, for that matter. It’s no use telling you that you are far too good for de Vos, but if he has been lucky enough to win your regard then none of us, I can promise you, will lift a finger to prevent you seeing him as often as it can be arranged.’
Gemma’s eyes were as round as her patient’s, her face remarkably flushed. She tried to think of something to say and found that her usually sensible head was quite empty, but as it turned out there was no need to say anything at all, for he came wandering into the room, saying easily: ‘I thought you might like to know that Bart is more or less himself—he looks washed out, but that can be put down to too much dancing. Are you coming down to breakfast?’
‘No—yes,’ said Gemma wildly. ‘I hadn’t thought about it—I must see to Rienieta…’
‘I see no reason why she shouldn’t, just this once, come down too. It will—er—distract attention…’
‘Why?’ asked his sister. ‘What’s Bart been doing? Tell, or I won’t help.’
‘He’s done nothing, brat; he was a bit under the weather last night, so I brought him back with Gemma and stayed the night.’
‘Drunk?’ inquired Rienieta wisely.
‘A nasty word,’ reproved her brother. ‘Bart doesn’t get drunk—he drank something by mistake, though, and it made him feel wretched. Mama is not to know.’
‘OK. Though I don’t mind betting you that she’ll find out. She always does, you know—you always find things out, too, don’t you, Ross? Only you never tell anyone…’
‘A gift.’ His voice was amiable. ‘Don’t you wish you had it? Now, how about breakfast?’
The meal was noisy and talkative because so many members of the family were there and Rienieta, undoubtedly the family darling, was in tearing spirits. Probably we shall have tears by tea-time, thought Gemma gloomily, watching her. All the same, she was almost recovered from her illness and she had had no fever for several days. Soon she would be pronounced well and she herself would go back to England. She didn’t want to go, and not only because of Leo; she liked Holland and she liked the people with whom she was sharing her breakfast; she would miss them dreadfully. She looked round the table and caught the professor’s eye, and when he smiled her vague worries about leaving disappeared.
He and Bart went shortly afterwards, and Gemma, busy with her patient, had no chance to say goodbye, although she heard the car leave. The house seemed very quiet for the rest of the day and it wasn’t until the end of the day, while she was helping Rienieta to bed, that Leo telephoned. His voice sounded gay in her ear as well as tender, and to begin with, apologetic.
‘About last night,’ he began, ‘sorry about the mix-up; there wasn’t much I could do, though, and I knew you’d get home safely enough with Ross.’ He laughed softly as though he found that funny. ‘But, lord, I was disappointed, I can tell you. You’re not in disgrace or anything like that, sweetheart?’
‘Disgrace? Why ever should I be?’ asked Gemma, savouring the sweetheart part.
‘Oh, nothing. Have you used up all your free time, or could we have a quick run this evening?’
‘Not this evening.’ She hoped her voice sounded firm; she would have loved to have said yes, but she had come as Rienieta’s nurse and even though there wasn’t much for her to do, she was still employed as such.
‘Tomorrow, then?’
‘Well, that would be nice, but I must ask first, and then only for an hour or so after Rienieta is in bed.’
‘Splendid. I’ll be outside about half past eight. They dine at seven, don’t they?’
‘Yes. Goodbye, Leo.’
She wore a jersey dress this time and took a cardigan and scarf with her because Rienieta had warned her that Leo drove an open sports car as well as the BMW he had taken her out in before. She was glad of the advice when she saw that the car was a Porsche—a 911S Targa. Leo didn’t get out when he saw her, but leaned across to open the door, said briefly: ‘Hop in, darling,’ and sped out into the road alm
ost before Gemma had settled herself.
‘How about den Haag?’ he inquired.
She knotted the scarf firmly under her chin before replying. ‘That’s too far, Leo—I said an hour.’
He looked annoyed. ‘Good lord, I didn’t think you meant that—why, an hour is just a waste of an evening.’
‘In that case, stop, turn round and take me back again,’ she said crisply.
Her words had the effect of making him laugh. ‘I’ve never met anyone quite like you,’ he told her, ‘but all right, little darling, an hour it shall be.’
He was driving fast and rather recklessly. ‘We’ll go to my place and have a drink and I promise you I’ll take you back in an hour’s time.’
‘Where is your place?’
‘Just off the motorway, going towards Breda—quite close by. I’ve a few friends staying with me—I think you met some of them Saturday night…and what a dreary affair that was!’
‘I enjoyed it very much.’ Gemma frowned a little, for they seemed at outs with one another. ‘But then I don’t go out a great deal; there’s nothing much in the village where I live; a few dinner parties and tennis in the summer—anyway, I haven’t much time…’
‘My poor darling, it must be utterly ghastly looking after the sick—and you don’t have to pretend that you like it to me.’
‘But I do like it. Leo, what happened to Bart Saturday evening?’
He had turned into a narrow country road and was hooting impatiently because there was a cattle lorry ahead of him. ‘Bart? Oh, the young idiot drank some vodka and passed out—I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you.’ He smiled at her and she glowed under it.
‘You look lovely,’ he uttered the trite words with practised charm and then turned away to curse the lorry driver in Dutch as he skidded past him. ‘Shouldn’t allow the fellows on the roads,’ he grumbled, and then: ‘Here we are.’
The house stood back from the road, smaller than Huis Berhuys and built of brick in a rather pretentious style. Gemma didn’t like it much, although she was prepared to try because it was Leo’s home. The evening was warm, the windows were open, showing a brightly lighted interior and allowing a good deal of noise to escape; his few friends must be enjoying themselves, Gemma decided as she got out of the car and, obedient to his nod, walked into the hall, a dark apartment with a good deal of carved furniture in it and painted leather walls. The sitting room, in contrast, was brilliantly lighted and full of people, she saw that at once as Leo drew her into it with a hand on her arm, and she had met several of them, just as he had said. She realized a little late in the day that she was too tired to join in the bright froth of chatter going on around her and which seemed to be their sole conversation, but she smiled and nodded and said hullo and accepted the glass Leo gave her—champagne. She took a sip and wrinkled her nose at its dryness, and Leo, a careless arm flung around her shoulders, asked laughingly: ‘Never had it before, Gemma?’
Everyone laughed when she said seriously: ‘Not often, birthday parties and things like that,’ and the harmless remark sparked up a great many witty remarks about nothing much so that she allowed her gaze to wander round the room. It was furnished in a heavy style she didn’t much care for, although there were some pictures on its walls she would have liked to have examined, but her eye lighted on the gilt clock above the marble chimneypiece and she said at once: ‘Leo, I should like to go back, please—we’ve been gone an hour already.’
‘Of course, darling. Just one more glass of champagne first—Cor, go out and turn the car for me, will you?’ He turned back to Gemma. ‘Darling, we’ve hardly spoken to each other, we’ll have to do better than this.’
She wished silently that he wouldn’t call her darling so often, it made the word meaningless. ‘I’m going back to England soon,’ she told him.
‘Then we must arrange something…’ His smile came and went. ‘England’s not so far away, you know.’ He went on in a concerned way: ‘You’re getting worried about getting back, aren’t you? We’ll go this very moment.’
She smiled her gratitude. ‘I’m sorry, it was hardly worth you coming to take me out, was it?’
He said in her ear: ‘Even five minutes of your company would be worth a whole evening’s travel.’ She didn’t quite believe that, but it was a nice thing to have said of one. They left the house on a noisy wave of goodbyes and laughter. Leo’s friends laughed a good deal about nothing much.
Leo drove straight back to Huis Berhuys; he drove fast but much more carefully this time, and when they got there he got out and opened the car door for Gemma and walked with her to where Ignaas was waiting at the house door. He waited until the door had been closed behind her after wishing her a restrained goodbye under the old man’s eye—a goodbye hinting at hidden devotion and suppressed eagerness—and then got back into his car and drove away, very well pleased with himself. It had taken him a little while to discover that Gemma was distinctly old-fashioned; he was going to get nowhere with her with champagne and parties. She might be unsophisticated, but she wasn’t a fool either. He grinned to himself; his technique with girls had never failed, and it wasn’t going to now, only he would have to work fast if she was going back to England so soon. He began planning the next outing—lunch at a rather staid restaurant perhaps, it might be a bit boring. He would have to tell Cor and the others… He drove on, his mind nicely occupied.
Gemma, happily unaware of Leo’s plans, thanked Ignaas for opening the door, remarked, in the handful of Dutch words she had acquired, that it was a nice evening and went upstairs to find Rienieta sitting up in bed with the telephone clamped to her ear.
She waved as Gemma went in, said something into the receiver and then: ‘It’s Ross, he wants to speak to you.’
Gemma came down from the romantic cloud she had been floating upon and took the receiver, sat down on the side of the bed and said briskly: ‘Hullo, Professor.’
‘Gemma? I want you to bring Rienieta to Utrecht tomorrow—she’s to have a complete checkup, it’s something we feel should be done; she seems cured and probably is, but as you know it’s an illness which is sometimes more serious in an adult. She can stay overnight in the hospital and you will stay with her, if you will, although you won’t be needed a great deal.’ His voice, impersonal until now, became warm and friendly. ‘It will give you a chance to see something of Utrecht.’
Gemma, her feet firmly on the ground again, said yes, how nice and at what time were they to be ready?
‘I’m coming down in the morning—if I can manage to get away I shall come this evening, but I don’t know yet, and I’ll take you both back with me after breakfast. Father has to come up to Utrecht and he will drive you both home again.’ There was a little silence. ‘You haven’t made any arrangements for yourself?’
‘None.’ Gemma was still brisk, nudging aside the thought that probably Leo would have telephoned later and made another date. Oh, well, absence made the heart grow fonder, didn’t it? And what was two days? Anyway, they might be back in time for her to spend an evening with him. She said good-bye and handed the receiver back to Rienieta, who embarked on a long conversation in her own language. When she finally put the telephone down she said at once: ‘I say, won’t it be super? I hate hospitals, but if Ross is there and you are too—you don’t mind coming? I don’t suppose there’ll be anything to do but just to have you with me…you’re so reassuring, Gemma.’
The big blue eyes filled with tears and Gemma hurried over to the bed and put her arms round her patient’s shoulders. ‘Now, now, love, there’s nothing to be scared about—it’s just a routine checkup. I don’t suppose it will take more than an hour or two and I won’t be far away, I promise you.’
‘You really promise?’
‘Promise—cross my heart and hope to die.’ She produced a clean handkerchief and handed it to the still sniffing Rienieta. ‘Now, what will you wear?’
Her patient brightened. ‘I’ve a new dress…’
>
‘Splendid, just as long as it’s easy to get out of and into. Remember you will be tired after the journey and for certain they’ll want you to go to bed at once so that you’re nicely rested ready for the tests and so on.’
‘It’s a denim pinafore with a white blouse—it has a drawstring neck and long sleeves with lots of buttons at the wrist, only there is no need to undo them.’
‘Sounds ideal, but supposing we ask your mother what she thinks?’ Gemma went to the door. ‘Will she be in the drawing room?’
‘Yes, it isn’t eleven o’clock yet and she never goes to bed until then.’
‘Then I’ll ask her to come up again even though she’s been up to say goodnight to you, but if I fetch her will you promise to go straight to sleep afterwards?’
‘Cross my heart,’ said Rienieta seriously.
Her mother was sitting in the small armchair she always used, knitting. She was wearing glasses a little crooked on her nose so that her round face looked endearingly youthful. She put the knitting down as Gemma went in and glanced across at her husband. ‘We rather expected you, Gemma. Ignaas told us that Ross had telephoned Rienieta and wanted to speak to you—he wants her to go to Utrecht, I expect. He was talking of it…’
Gemma explained and added that Ross had said that he might arrive later in the evening, and his father put down his book to say: ‘Much better if he comes tonight, then you can make an early start in the morning. I said that I would bring you back, he’ll be far too busy—some lecture or teaching round, I forget which. Did he say if he’s spoken to Doctor Kasten?’
‘I think he must have done, because he said Doctor Kasten had telephoned him.’
The old doctor nodded. ‘Good. I’ll wait up; Ross is almost certain to come tonight and we shan’t have time to talk in the morning.’