by Betty Neels
‘You’ll like Regina,’ he told her reassuringly, ‘she’s like a grown-up Elisabeth, and Bram is one of those quiet men one feels at home with instantly.’
She watched him leave the house to do his round and hoped most fervently that he hadn’t said that to comfort her.
Down in the kitchen, helping Rietje with the preparations for dinner that evening, she wondered uneasily if the meal wasn’t costing far too much; it was an occasion, certainly, but Rietje seemed to be using a great deal of butter and cream, and there were new potatoes at a fantastic price, as well as asparagus, and surely a couple of chickens would have been cheaper than the great roll of beef which the housekeeper was preparing so carefully? Constantia wished that Jeroen would tell her just how much his income was so that she might economise a little. Not that Rietje was extravagant, but Jeroen kept a good table and seemed unworried at its cost. Possibly his sister had made some arrangement for the children when they had come to live with him, and certainly they ate enough for a small army, just as healthy children should. Her brow wrinkled in thought, Constantia began to make a milk pudding for the children’s dinner.
She had something on a tray herself, before they got back from school, because for the life of her she couldn’t have swallowed the wholesome casserole that had been simmering on the Aga all the morning; in any case there wouldn’t have been much time, for Elisabeth insisted on wearing her best dress and the boys had to be coaxed into brushing their hair and scrubbing their fingernails before they went back to school.
‘Mama and Papa will be here when we get home?’ asked Elisabeth anxiously, and Constantia assured her that they would. And it was to be hoped that Jeroen would be home too; meeting her sister-in-law without his support was a daunting thought.
She need not have worried, for Jeroen arrived home an hour later, greeted her unhurriedly and went equally unhurriedly to his study and then to his room, while she sat in the drawing room, fidgeting and nipping to one or other of the windows to make sure the visitors weren’t arriving.
His appearance, immaculate and calm, did much to soothe her, indeed she was deep in some tale or other about the children when the door bell echoed faintly in the hall. She broke off in the middle of a sentence and said breathlessly: ‘Oh, Jeroen, they’re here…’
He smiled as he got up, pulling her out of her chair and keeping her hand in his. ‘Come and meet them, Constantia, they will…’ he paused, ‘love you.’
She hadn’t been loved for a long time—oh, young men had fallen for her, but that wasn’t quite the same thing. The way Jeroen had said it spelled security and content, and a feeling of being wanted. It spelled excitement too, due, she felt, to the occasion.
Tarnus, who seemed to spend more and more time cleaning the silver these days, was already at the door and judging by the pleased looks on the faces of the visitors he was well known to them, but he melted discreetly into the background as the doctor, with Constantia in tow, strode across the hall. Jeroen let her go for a moment, then, because the girl who ran to meet them was quite obviously going to throw herself into his arms; but only for a moment. Constantia’s hand was grasped once more as Jeroen said: ‘Gina, how nice to see you again. This is Constantia—I telephoned you…’ He gave her a bright glance as he said it and his sister grinned back at him and then turned to Constantia.
‘I’ve heard all about you, and I’ve been longing to meet you,’ she said warmly, and her kiss was warm too. And Bram, a thick-set man of middle height with an open, good-looking face, gave her a hug and a kiss just as warm. Constantia felt all her small, niggling doubts melt away; she was going to like these two members of her new family at any rate, and she hoped that they would like her.
There was tea ready in the drawing room. Constantia, a little shy but composed, poured it from the Georgian teapot into the delicate cups and Tarnus once again appeared to hand them round; he handed the tiny sandwiches and little cakes Rietje had made, too, and then disappeared again rather like a good-natured genie out of a bottle.
They had barely finished when three pairs of urgent feet came racing across the floor and into the drawing room, and with delighted cries of Mama! and Papa! the children flung themselves on their parents.
It was quite some time before the first excitement had died down a little and Constantia offered to take Regina to her room. Elisabeth went too, of course; they mounted the staircase together, all three holding hands, and went along to the big guest room at the side of the house, where Regina set her small daughter to delving into her case for the presents she had brought while she sat herself down on the great canopied bed and invited Constantia to sit beside her.
‘You’re exactly as Jeroen described you,’ she confided, ‘and you have no idea how glad we are that you’ve married him—he’s such a dear, and I was beginning to think that he would never find the girl he wanted.’ She smiled and looked just like her brother. ‘I expect you dreaded meeting us all, didn’t you? Well, now the ice is broken—there are heaps more of us, but I know they’ll all love you. Grandmother is giving a reception for you, I hear—just family, and if you’re wondering, we shall all be wearing short dresses.’
Constantia heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Oh, good—I haven’t got a long one, but Jeroen gave me a lovely work crêpe-de-chine dress when we were in London, I could wear that.’
‘It sounds just right—we shall be in something pretty and silky—Grandmother has never recognised trousers on women, so we never wear them when we go to see her.’ Regina gave Constantia a long, friendly look. ‘You’re very pretty, I’m going to like having you for a sister-in-law.’
They were interrupted then by Elisabeth, who capered up to them with the parcels she had at last found, so they all went downstairs again and sat around for another hour until Constantia suggested that she should run upstairs and make sure that the children’s clothes were more or less packed.
‘I’ve almost finished,’ she explained to Regina. ‘I’ve left out their night clothes, of course, but there are their school things…’
‘I’ll come too,’ declared Regina, ‘the men can have the children until their supper time. I hope they’ve been good?’
‘Quite wonderful—I’m going to miss them terribly.’
The two girls were standing in the nursery and Constantia felt a pang of regret that there would be no more card games in the evenings, but she brightened when Regina said: ‘I expect Jeroen warned you that they’re coming back for a couple of nights in a short time—just while we go to Paris—Bram has some business to see to there, and we always go together when we can.’
And presently they strolled downstairs again and Constantia went off to see how the dinner was coming along. Rietje was to stay and cook it and Bet had stayed too, to help with the washing up afterwards. The children were to have their supper as usual and their mother had promised to take them down to the kitchen for it, and having seen them nicely settled Constantia went back to the dining room.
It looked quite beautiful, she thought, the table gleaming with glass and silver and the flowers she had arranged with such care in its centre. She wanted everything to be perfect; to let Jeroen down would be something she couldn’t bear to think about. Presently, the children in bed, the four of them had their drinks and sat down to dinner. And a gay meal it proved to be with Tarnus serving, something Constantia hadn’t expected, and it must have shown on her face, for Jeroen remarked evenly: ‘A little surprise for you, my dear—Tarnus kindly consented to stay on and help us out. I should have told you, but it quite slipped my mind.’
She smiled at him across the table. ‘It doesn’t matter—it’s a lovely surprise.’
‘You’ll probably get more of those,’ began Bram, and then caught his wife’s eloquent eye. ‘Life’s full of surprises,’ he added lamely.
And in bed later Constantia, thinking over her evening, felt satisfied that it had been a success. They had had coffee in the drawing room round the great hearth and talked, qui
et, impersonal talk which she had enjoyed, although she would have liked it even better if she could have heard something about Jeroen’s family, but nothing much was said about them and when it was, it was vague. Their guests had gone to bed later, but she and Jeroen had stayed by the fire, talking about nothing much until at last, and reluctantly, she had said that she must go to bed too.
Jeroen had gone to the foot of the staircase with her, saying that he would get some work done before he went upstairs, and she had told him that the evening had been lovely and thanked him for getting Tarnus to help. ‘He seems to be here a lot,’ she ventured, ‘but if your—your relation doesn’t mind…’
‘He’s a very obliging man,’ he had assured her blandly. ‘You’re happy, Constantia?’
‘Oh, yes.’ She stared up at his placid face. ‘I really am—I’ve never been so happy.’
‘I’m glad. I really think that we must arrange for you to see the house’s owner quite soon now. Perhaps after Grandmother’s party.’
She remembered his smile as he had spoken. A kind smile, but it had held something else as well, but she wasn’t sure what it had been. It didn’t really matter, she thought sleepily. Jeroen was quite the nicest person she had ever met.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE HOUSE seemed very quiet after the children and their parents had left the next day. Rietje had gone shopping, indicating that she would be leaving early in the afternoon, and of Tarnus there was no sign. Bet had been, done the washing in the big laundry room behind the kitchen, and had gone too. Constantia busied herself with the flowers, the tidying of the nursery cupboard and finally the preparation of her lunch, which she ate in the kitchen with the three dogs for company and Butch on her knee. It was better when Rietje came back, cleaned the vegetables ready for the evening, whipped up some delicious concoction of her own in a casserole, and put it in the Aga, showed Constantia where she had put the caramel custard and then put on her hat and coat once more. ‘Tot morgen,’ she said smilingly, and disappeared down the passage behind the kitchen which led to the back door of the house.
So Constantia found herself alone once more. Jeroen wouldn’t be back until after tea, he had told her at breakfast, and disappeared into the surgery to take the morning’s offering of patients. He hadn’t stayed for coffee, and indeed she hadn’t seen him since.
She went into the little sitting room and curled up by the fire and opened the Dutch lesson books she had bought herself; she was to start lessons next week, but she might as well do an hour or two’s work now. But after the first difficult page or two she put the book down; her heart wasn’t in it. She supposed it was because the children were no longer there that she felt so lonely; they would be coming back in a short time and Regina had said that she must go to den Haag and spend the day with them all, adding laughingly that Constantia would be glad to have some time to herself.
Constantia wandered over to the window and looked out into the street. That was just what she didn’t want—she had loved the house full of children, the bustle of getting them off to school and the getting and clearing away of meals and keeping house for Jeroen. Indeed, on reflection, just keeping house for Jeroen would do very nicely, only he was so seldom home.
She twitched the rich curtains to exact folds and told herself severely that she had known that he was a busy man before she had agreed to marry him, and now was a bit late in the day to start moaning about it. It was a large house and there was plenty to do in it. She took herself upstairs, right to the top of the house where she had never quite had time to go. The children had told her that there was no one there during one of their earlier tours of the house; it was Paul who had said it and he had, she remembered, cast a warning glance at the two other children. She wondered why as she went slowly up first the splendid staircase and then up the smaller but still elegant one to the second floor, and then finally up the narrow spiral leading to the rooms above—there was still another floor above that, they had told her—attics and store rooms.
The spiral staircase opened on to a narrow landing with doors on either side, and when Constantia tried the first one it opened under her hand. To her surprise it disclosed a sitting room, nicely furnished and bearing all the signs of being in use. She backed out again, feeling as though she were trespassing, and tried the next door. A bedroom, equally well furnished, and on the other side of the landing another bedroom, a small bathroom and a well-equipped kitchen. ‘Well!’ exclaimed Constantia out loud, and for lack of knowing what else to do went downstairs again.
She had reached the hall and was standing in its centre puzzling over the discovery she had made, when the house door opened and Jeroen walked in. He wasn’t due home for several hours, but she forgot that as she hurried towards him. Without stopping to say hullo, she cried: ‘Jeroen, does someone live on the floor above the nursery? I’ve just been up there—I was going to see if it needed cleaning—but it’s furnished and I’m sure someone lives there. You can tell…’
He put down his bag and jacket very deliberately before he answered her. ‘Those rooms are sometimes used by Rietje—even Bet occasionally, I believe. There’s a back staircase from the kitchen—it’s sometimes convenient for her to stay the night. She has carte blanche to come and go as she pleases. I’m sorry no one told you—possibly she did, quite forgetting that you might not have understood.’ He smiled kindly. ‘Quite a surprise for you—come and sit in the study while I run through some notes. You’re alone in the house and feeling lonely, I daresay.’
‘Well, yes, I do feel lonely, but not any more. I was going to find some polishing to do, but I’d much rather come and sit with you. Will you be home for tea?’ She didn’t hear the wistful hope in her voice.
‘Yes, my dear, and then evening surgery, and I hope a quiet evening.’
The study was warm and smelled of leather and books. Constantia, quite content now, curled up in a chair with a pile of old Lancets, while Jeroen sat at his desk writing, occasionally answering the telephone and dictating letters into the dictaphone. Getting up quietly to get the tea presently, Constantia wondered how on earth she could have been feeling lonely—the day had never been so pleasant; as far as she was concerned the afternoon could go on for ever.
It didn’t, of course; they had tea, sitting by the sitting room fire, and talked idly until it was time for surgery, when Constantia went down to the kitchen and started on the dinner. There wasn’t much to do, but the kitchen was a delightful place to be in.
She pottered happily between table and stove and presently went to lay the table in the dining room. The evening went too quickly too; she would have cheerfully stayed up much later, but Jeroen had said that he had some reading to do, so she pleaded tiredness and went upstairs soon after ten o’clock, and as she wished him goodnight she added: ‘How nice it is when you’re home, Jeroen. We do get on so well together, don’t we?’
His bland, ‘Indeed we do, my dear,’ was most satisfyingly prompt.
And life remained pleasant, for Jeroen was home each evening as well as coming in for lunch each day; moreover, he invited her to sit with him while he worked in his study, something she did with the stillness of a mouse, although from time to time he would look up, invite her opinion on something or other, listen gravely to her reply and then become absorbed in his work again.
Constantia was dressed and ready long before there was any need on the evening of the reception. She had done her hair twice, taken great care with her pretty face, and now, quite ready in her new strawberry pink crêpe-de-chine, she went downstairs, only to find a note propped on the console table in the hall, written in Jeroen’s scrawl; he had been called out to an urgent case but hoped to be back within the hour. Since she had been at least twice that time in her room, she had no idea at what time he had gone, but there was still a good half-hour before they needed to leave.
She wandered into the sitting room and picked up a book and made herself read it, although she still took a peep at the clock ever
y five minutes or so. At the end of the half-hour she slammed the book shut and began a prowl round the room, across the hall into the dining room and out again, and then into the ballroom. It was here that Jeroen found her, and his calm, unhurried entry vexed her so much that she had to bite back a sharp reminder that they should have left the house ten minutes earlier.
‘Give me ten minutes,’ he begged her, and went to the telephone on his desk. ‘I’ll let Grandmother know.’
He was as good as his word, with seconds to spare he rejoined her, in a beautifully tailored grey suit and a paisley silk tie, as immaculate as though he had had an hour of time instead of ten minutes. He helped her into her coat, picked up his own car jacket in the hall, and opened the house door. The only car within sight was a Silver Shadow Rolls-Royce, and Constantia said at once: ‘Where’s the car?’ still a little edgy because they were going to be late.
He nodded towards the Rolls, ‘Here,’ and before she could say another word, had the door open and her inside.
As Jeroen got in beside her, she said breathlessly: ‘I suppose it’s his? Does he let you use it sometimes?’
‘Whenever I want,’ said the doctor, and gave her a sudden brief smile.
‘How very nice of him—I can’t wait to meet him. I’ve never been in a Rolls before—it’s super, though the Daimler was nice, too.’
They were weaving in and out of the narrow streets towards the motorway to den Haag. ‘And the Fiat?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with the Fiat,’ she declared loyally, ‘though I suppose you prefer to drive a Rolls or a Daimler.’