The Little Dragon

by Betty Neels

  ‘But if you’re not, I repeat that something must be done about it.’

  She wished she had never said a word. ‘I’m quite happy wherever you are.’

  She could have bitten out her tongue for allowing the words to trip over it so easily, but strangely he didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary about her words. ‘Spoken like a true friend and loyal wife,’ he told her placidly. ‘Are we doing anything on Saturday evening?’

  ‘We’re going to Mevrouw van Hoorn’s dinner party.’

  The doctor frowned. ‘I’d forgotten. We can’t escape it, I suppose?’

  ‘I’ll be ill, if you like…’

  He grinned at her over his cup. ‘And meet her in church on Sunday morning. Why did we accept?’

  She reminded him that they had been invited at the same time as his sister and husband. ‘While we were all talking together after dinner, if you remember, and we couldn’t have refused very easily. Don’t you like her?’

  ‘Very few people like her. What shall you wear?’

  ‘Well, I’ve a long evening skirt; I had it for the hospital ball last year, and a crêpe blouse to go with it.’

  He began gathering together his papers. ‘We’ll go shopping this afternoon—I should like my wife to be the best-dressed woman in the room on Saturday. You always look delightful, Constantia, but I haven’t bought you anything for I don’t know how long.’

  ‘But you did—when we were in London—a jersey suit and shoes and…’

  He laughed at her. ‘Even a mere man knows that no woman would be seen dead in a jersey suit at a dinner party. Not one of Mevrouw van Hoorn’s grand affairs.’

  ‘C & A were advertising,’ said Constantia, ‘it was in the paper yesterday…’

  ‘I’ll be home for lunch,’ he told her as he got up to go. ‘I’ll speak to Rietje about the children before we go.’

  Den Haag looked very splendid in the bright, chilly sunshine. Jeroen parked the car, took Constantia’s arm in his and started off through the streets. As they walked through Noordeinde, Constantia observed: ‘Isn’t this where all the expensive shops are? I’m sure C & A and Vroom and Dreesman…’

  ‘Just for once we’re going to be wildly extravagant,’ he retorted. ‘Regina told me of this shop…’ They had turned into the Plaats and he stopped outside a gown shop which she saw at a glance would be very expensive.

  ‘It looks a bit too…’ she began weakly, and was hurried inside before she could protest further.

  She spent a delightful half-hour. The elegant showroom was empty save for themselves, and the saleswoman brought out gown after gown for her to see. They were all lovely and, Constantia dared say, dreadfully expensive, but the surreptitious glances she threw at the doctor revealed no disquiet on his face. Evidently they weren’t as expensive as she had thought. Only when she at last saw just what she wanted did she hesitate. It was a gossamer creation of silk organza, pearly grey and embroidered with little pink flowers and trimmed with narrow edgings of lace. It would cost a bomb, she felt sure, and turned her attention to a less extravagant dress which she felt sure would remain more or less in fashion for the next year or two. But she had reckoned without Jeroen.

  ‘I like that grey thing,’ he observed. ‘Try it on, my dear. A grey dress with pearls,’ he reminded her.

  It was a perfect fit and even Constantia, the least vain of girls, had to admit that it looked quite gorgeous. And Jeroen seemed to think the same, for he took one look when she went into the showroom to let him see it, and said: ‘That’s the one, we’ll have it.’

  They bought shoes too, and fine tights, but when he said, ‘You must have a wrap,’ she protested strongly.

  ‘Jeroen, I don’t know how much you’ve spent, but I can’t let you spend any more on me. The dress is lovely and the sandals, but I could have a shawl—they’re quite fashionable, you know.’

  For answer he took her arm and marched her to the Kneuterdijk where there were more small, expensive shops, and outside a corner shop he paused. ‘This is the one,’ he said, ‘and if it makes you feel happier, I’m only spending some money I had lying idle.’

  They came out into the street presently, Constantia feeling slightly bemused, the proud possessor of a little white mink jacket. They went and had a cup of tea then at the Maison Krul close by and she, almost speechless with happiness, had never felt so happy in her whole life. Just before they got up to go she said shyly: ‘Jeroen, I’ll never be able to thank you. I don’t deserve such lovely presents—it seems such a lot of money to spend just for one evening.’

  He smiled across the little table. ‘Constantia, one of the pleasures of marriage is that one can buy one’s wife a present now and again. You are a very pretty girl, you know, and pretty girls should have pretty things.’

  Her mouth curved in a smile. ‘Thank you, Jeroen. I’m sure Mevrouw van Hoorn’s dinner party is going to be marvellous—something we shall both remember.’

  The evening of the dinner party started splendidly. Constantia had tripped down the great staircase in her silver sandals and Jeroen, waiting in the hall, had looked most satisfyingly impressed. Her heart had raced at the sight of him, hoping that he would look more than that; that he would fall head over heels in love with her. But he stayed just where he was, in the middle of the hall, and after a moment he said mildly: ‘Very nice, my dear.’

  Rage choked her for a few seconds. She wanted to tear off her lovely dress and stamp on it, and then throw it at him. That would have been pointless and unkind, and stupid too; he had spent a great deal of money on her and even though he didn’t love her, he liked her—was fond of her even. She felt ashamed of her ill-temper as she gained the hall, twirled round in front of him and said gaily: ‘Isn’t it pretty? I feel like a princess.’

  ‘A dragon, a small, quite perfect dragon,’ he corrected her. ‘Did the children see you?’

  She danced a few steps towards him. ‘Oh, yes. Elisabeth says I must wear this dress at her wedding, and the boys shouted: Épatant and Magnifique—they’re learning French at school, you know.’

  She spread her silken skirts wide and revolved slowly. ‘Shall I do?’

  Jeroen caught her hand and kissed it. ‘Indeed you will, Constantia—you’re as pretty as a picture,’ and for a few moments she allowed herself to live in a lovely makebelieve world, then he had let go of her hand and crossed the hall to where the mink jacket lay ready.

  There weren’t a great many guests at Mevrouw van Hoorn’s house—sixteen all told, and Constantia had met most of them already. The women eyed her with kindly envy, and one of them remarked: ‘You clever girl, not to wear any jewels with that lovely dress—it’s quite perfect,’ and Constantia thanked her in her pretty voice while the thought that she had no jewels, even if she had wanted to wear them, made its painful way through her head. Jeroen had given her her lovely engagement ring, she reminded herself loyally, and probably Elisabeth had been wrong when she had chattered about the box of family jewellery which belonged to her uncle. She touched the rubies on her finger and took comfort from them before her dinner partner claimed her. The burgermeester, no less; she wondered briefly why she, the youngest and least important of the ladies there, should have been chosen to partner him—it seemed to her that one or other of the other ladies present should have had that honour, although none of them appeared to mind. They smiled and nodded to her, and even her hostess, who didn’t smile easily, was smiling. It looked a painful business, as though she had done her duty at all costs and very much against her own inclinations.

  Mevrouw van Hoorn’s house was a splendid one but with none of the charm of the house in Oude Delft. The dining room was heavily furnished with Second Empire furniture and smelled strongly of wax polish, but Constantia, who had a splendid appetite, didn’t allow this to spoil her dinner. She supped her iced consommé, ate the whitebait which followed it, did justice to the elaborate dish of duck pie with brandy and orange sauce, and rounded off this repast w
ith a lemon cream, all the while conversing pleasantly with the burgermeester on the one hand and a handsome, rather dashing young man on the other. Jeroen was on the other side of the long table; Constantia could just see him over the elaborate floral arrangement in its centre; she looked at him several times, but he didn’t look at her. He seemed fully occupied with his own partner, a handsome woman in her forties, smart and, judging from the smiles on Jeroen’s face, witty with it. Constantia felt a twinge of peevishness and applied herself with enthusiasm to the entertaining of the two gentlemen on either side of her. She succeeded very well; they laughed a good deal and she had the satisfaction of seeing Jeroen look across the table at her. She gave him a bright smile, iced at the edges, and turned back to the young men.

  Mevrouw van Hoorn liked things done properly, so the ladies retired to the drawing room presently, leaving the men at the table, and Constantia found herself with Regina keeping a sisterly eye on her as she sat with her hostess. Mevrouw van Hoorn wasted no time, but embarked at once on a catechism as to the suddenness of Constantia’s marriage, its extreme quietness and the pity it was that she had no family of her own.

  ‘Of course, dear Jeroen has a large family, is that not so?’ She turned to Regina. ‘So scattered too, but of course in your circumstances that is no disadvantage—he has only to get out that Rolls-Royce of his—money does smooth one’s path.’

  Regina looked so uncomfortable that Constantia, only half listening, felt quite sorry for her; she was surprised too when her sister-in-law said: ‘Mevrouw de Holt asked to have a little chat with Constantia. It seems a good idea if they got together now before the men come in.’

  But Mevrouw van Hoorn had made up her mind to hold a conversation with Constantia, and no one was going to stop her. She fixed her with a beady black eye, patted the sofa beside her and when Constantia was seated, asked in ringing tones: ‘Well, my dear, how do you enjoy being married to Jeroen?’

  Constantia reminded herself that she was a married lady now, a doctor’s wife, and had no need to feel shy or nervous of anyone, certainly not her hostess. She replied composedly: ‘Very much, thank you.’ She smiled nicely and twitched her gossamer skirts just so.

  ‘You have done well for yourself.’

  There was no reply to that, whatever she said would be wrong and although most of the other ladies were at the other end of the room, Constantia felt sure that their ears were stretched. She folded her hands on her silken lap and switched on the smile again. It was Regina, hovering close by, who answered for her.

  ‘Jeroen has done well for himself,’ she declared. ‘How is your son, Mevrouw van Hoorn?’

  Her hostess cast a flickering glance at her. ‘He’s well,’ she said shortly, and then turned back to Constantia. ‘Of course you enjoy being the wife of a baron, I daresay,’ she stated, and Constantia heard Regina gasp as she stared blankly at her hostess.

  ‘Me?’ she asked.

  Mevrouw van Hoorn gave a metallic trill of laughter. ‘You wish to have your little joke, do you not? You pretend to be surprised.’

  ‘No,’ said Constantia baldly. She felt peculiar; rather as though she had been knocked on the head and wasn’t quite conscious.

  The older woman eyed her with astonishment, but before she could speak Regina, still hovering, said feverishly: ‘That delicious sweet we had at dinner—you really must let me have the recipe.’

  Mevrouw van Hoorn regarded her with a cold eye. ‘My cook will let you have it. I wish you would not interrupt me, Regina—Constantia and I are having a pleasant little chat.’

  Constantia caught Regina’s eye and smiled a little, although it was difficult to do so; her hostess was overpowering to say the least, and talking a lot of nonsense as well. She wished heartily that the evening were over—no wonder Jeroen hadn’t wanted to come.

  Her hostess was addressing her once more. ‘There aren’t many girls as lucky as you are,’ she said penetratingly, ‘to be married to a m…’

  She never uttered the word; Regina, her coffee cup and saucer in her hand, had made a quick step forward and apparently losing her balance for a moment, had shot its contents down Mevrouw van Hoorn’s back. During the ensuing moment of apology, icy rage and quite unnecessary advice given by all the ladies in the room, Constantia had time to ponder why her sister-in-law should have deliberately poured coffee over their hostess, and when that lady rustled off to repair the damage she got up from her chair and followed Regina to the sofa where she had joined the rest of the party to mull over the little incident.

  Presently, when they were alone, Constantia said low-voiced: ‘Regina, why did you do that? It was something you didn’t want Mevrouw van Hoorn to tell me—and I don’t understand about Jeroen…’

  Regina looked stricken and faintly excited too. ‘Ask him,’ she said, and sighed quite audibly as the door opened and the gentlemen came in. Jeroen was with his host, smilingly listening to some story or other while his eyes searched the room. They narrowed when they lighted on Constantia, and with a brief excuse he wandered through the little groups of chattering guests until he was standing in front of her, shielding her from the rest of the room.

  ‘My dear, you look bewildered—what’s happened?’

  His sister answered. ‘Mevrouw van Hoorn, of course. She talked…I spilt my coffee down her neck, but you’ll have to explain to Constantia now.’

  ‘Explain what?’ Constantia was feeling a little sick and there were several urgent questions she wanted to ask, and she saw no chance of asking them for another hour or so.

  ‘When we get home, my dear,’ said Jeroen, and turned to speak to several people who were converging on them. And after that there was no chance to be alone with him; she laughed and talked and said all the right things to her hostess and the people around her, looking like a fairy creature in her delicate gown—a puzzled fairy, if one looked deep into her eyes.

  It seemed an age before the party broke up and another age while protracted goodbyes were said, invitations given and accepted, final little jokes made. They neither of them spoke as the doctor drove the short distance home, but once they were in the house Constantia turned to look at him. ‘I don’t want to talk now, Jeroen, but please will you answer me if I ask you some questions?’

  He opened the sitting room door and ushered her inside. His, ‘Sit down, my dear,’ was uttered in his usual calm tones, but she shook her head. All the same she held on to the back of a chair because she was shaking with rage and misery and unhappiness.

  ‘Mevrouw van Hoorn,’ she began, ‘she talked to me—she said that…she asked me if I liked being a baron’s wife. I thought she was joking, and then Regina tried to stop her.’ She paused. ‘Coffee down that wildly expensive dress…’ She caught her breath. ‘Jeroen, I thought when we met that you were a GP and then I discovered that you were a professor, and now she says you’re a baron. Are you a baron?’

  ‘Yes, my dear.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ She didn’t give him a chance to answer, but went on a little wildly, ‘She said I was a lucky girl to be married to you, and she was going to say more than that, only Regina poured her coffee over her. I want to know what she was going to say.’

  Her grey eyes searched his face and found it as placid as ever.

  ‘I imagine she was about to say that I’m a millionaire.’

  There was a leaden weight in Constantia’s chest. Surely if he had had any feeling for her at all he would have told her? Instead he had planned an elaborate kind of game in which everyone knew the answers except her.

  ‘Rietje?’ she asked in a rather high voice, ‘and Tarnus? And I suppose there was an army of servants tucked away somewhere so that I could get on with the dusting and washing up and imagine that I was being useful and helping you.’

  Her voice was bitter, and when he took a step towards her she cried suddenly, ‘No, I don’t want you to make excuses—I don’t know why you did it. I—I don’t think I want to know. I suspect it was be
cause you were sorry for me.’ She had meant to say more than that, but her throat closed over with the knot of tears there; she gave a sad little wail and ran past him and upstairs to her room.

  To fling herself on her bed and howl her eyes out was what she wanted to do, but that wouldn’t help. She took off the beautiful dress she had been so excited about wearing and hung it away carefully, then still sobbing as she hadn’t sobbed for years, she undressed, had a bath, put on a dressing gown and went to fetch a suitcase from the closet. She packed carefully, giving exaggerated attention to exactly what she should take—when she had finally finished it was deep in the night then she got into bed and closed her eyes, but not to sleep.

  Small remembered incidents crept into her mind—the first time she had seen Tarnus, the Daimler that had taken them to England, the clothes Jeroen had bought for her, the faint air of excitement when she had been introduced to his family—they had known, of course, probably they had laughed at the idea of the dyed-in-the-wool bachelor of the family marrying so obviously for pity.

  And yet they had all been so kind, and Regina had tried so hard to prevent Mevrouw van Hoorn from letting the cat out of the bag. It was incredible that in the weeks since she had been in Jeroen’s house, she had never suspected. The same thoughts raced round and round inside her poor aching head; she had just decided that she would get up and dress, ready to leave the house before anyone was about, when she fell asleep.

  It was almost half past nine when Constantia woke. Probably Rietje had said that she wasn’t to be disturbed until she rang for her tea. She got up and dressed quickly in the tweed suit she had brought with her when she had gone to nurse Mrs Dowling, did her pale face and combed her hair without much attention to its neatness, and went downstairs. Jeroen would be taking morning surgery still, she would just have time to have a quick cup of coffee before she left.

  At least there would be no need to leave a note, she thought wryly, although perhaps she should. She glanced at her watch. There was still time; surgery always went on until well after ten o’clock. She hurried into the little sitting room at the back of the house and sat down at the rosewood davenport between the windows. She had written two notes, screwed them up, and begun on a third when Jeroen said mildly from somewhere behind her: ‘My dear, since I am already here, would it not be easier to say it rather than write it?’