by Betty Neels
He was tired—there were lines of weariness etched in his handsome face—but presently he went down to breakfast, to all outward appearances a man who had had a good night’s sleep and the leisure to don the superbly cut grey suit and fine silk tie. He looked pleasant and impersonal—a man to be trusted.
He had little time for breakfast, but while he ate it he wondered about Mary. But only briefly—he had a long day ahead of him and there would be no time to indulge in private thoughts. Beyond deciding to find out more about her when he had the time to do so, he dismissed her from his mind.
Tuesday was only slightly better than Monday. True, the children had been given their breakfast in the kitchen with Maggie but she had too much to do to bother with them. Mary took them to the nursery, dealt with their needs, sat them down at the table with picture books and crayons and nipped around tidying the place, making their beds and collecting their clothes for the washing machine. By then Mrs Bennett had come into the nursery.
‘You can take them for a walk now, Mary—while they’re resting after lunch you can do the ironing. I’ve guests for lunch; you’ll see the children are up here, won’t you?’
She kissed the children and went away again, ignoring Grace’s whimper of ‘Mummy’. Ben hadn’t looked up from his crayoning. Mary’s charming bosom heaved with indignation; they were by no means little cherubs, but Mrs Bennett was their mother—surely she loved them.
She had no doubt that they would be quite delightful children if they weren’t so neglected. It wasn’t wilful neglect. They had nice clothes, their food was exactly what it should be, they had more toys than they could play with—but they hadn’t got their mother’s love, not all of it anyway. They needed cuddling, laps to sit on, a mother to romp with sometimes. Ben was five years old, but despite his aggressive ways she guessed that he was a lonely child.
As if to bear out her thoughts he was more aggressive than ever that morning... All the same, she walked them across the road and on to the Heath, this time with a ball in her pocket. They soon tired of tossing it about and suddenly Ben took to his heels and ran towards the thicket some way off. ‘Stay where you are,’ said Mary to Grace, and went after him.
She ran well and he was no match for her long legs. She caught him easily enough and marched him back, not saying anything even when he delivered a few kicks on her shins and tried to bite her hand.
Still without a word she took them home, tidied them up for their dinner and sat them down to eat it.
‘The lady who looked after us before you came smacked us,’ volunteered Grace, shovelling mince into her small mouth.
‘She called Mummy “an old cow”,’ observed Ben, giving Mary a sidelong look, puzzled because she hadn’t seemed to mind his running away.
‘That was rude and I don’t want to hear you say it again, Ben. You’re not a baby; you must behave like a boy—you’ll be going to school soon with other boys.’
‘I don’t care...’
‘Don’t care was made to care, don’t care was hung, don’t care was put in the pot and cooked till he was done,’ said Mary, which sent the children off into peals of delighted laughter.
‘Aren’t you cross?’ asked Ben as she settled them on their beds.
‘Not in the least. Close your eyes and go to sleep, my dear.’ She tucked the quilt round Grace’s small face and left the door open while she did the ironing in the nursery.
Tea was a peaceful meal and she had left soon afterwards, anxious to get to the shops before she went home. She was tired but the day had been no worse than the previous one, and tomorrow was Wednesday, halfway through the week, and on Saturday she would be paid.
The week wound to its close with its few ups and far too many downs, but she forgot that in the satisfaction of paying the butcher’s bill. There was very little money left in the housekeeping purse; she added her wages to it, assured her father that she would manage very well without asking him for her usual allowance—even though she knew that he had no intention of offering it—paid Mrs Blackett, gave Polly her pocket money and sat down to plan the housekeeping for the next week. Provided that no bills came in, she could manage.
Halfway through the next week Mrs Bennett put her head round the nursery door as Mary was clearing up after the children’s breakfast. No one, it seemed, thought it necessary to collect the plates and mugs, wipe the children’s faces and hands and tidy the room. At first she had resented it but, since Maggie had more than enough to do and Mrs Bennett didn’t rise from her bed until ten o’clock, she had accepted it as something that would have to be done whatever she felt about it.
To see Mrs Bennett up and, moreover, dressed in the height of fashion was a surprise; she was quite taken aback when that lady said briskly, ‘Get the children decently dressed, Mary; I’ve an appointment for them with my dentist. You will come with them, of course. You can have twenty minutes while I get the car and see Maggie.’
It needed patience and strength to coax the children into clean clothes. Grace, being small and female, had no objection to wearing one of her prettier frocks and her red sandals, but forcing Ben into a shirt and shorts and his favourite trainers without actually causing him bodily harm was quite another matter.
All the same, by the time Mrs Bennett called sharply for them to go down to the hall Mary had achieved her purpose. There would be a few bruises on her shins and a few nasty scratches on her arms later on, but that was neither here nor there.
Mrs Bennett drove a Mercedes, and, ordered on to the back seat with the children, Mary wondered once again if her employer had a husband. Was she divorced, or did he work away from home? she wondered. It wasn’t her business, of course, but it would be nice to know...
Mrs Bennett drove well and rather too fast, and she didn’t speak at all until, some time later, she stopped outside one of the tall red-brick houses in Harley Street, put money into a parking meter and told Mary to get out and bring the children with her.
Naturally the pair of them hung back—Grace in tears because she didn’t understand why she was there and Ben kicking and screaming since that was his normal behaviour when faced with a situation he didn’t fancy.
Mary had reached the dignified entrance when the door was opened to Mrs Bennett’s ring and she swept inside to the elegant vestibule. There were two men standing to one side of it and Mrs Bennett paused and smiled charmingly at them, secure in the knowledge that she was a handsome woman beautifully dressed—although the effect was rather spoiled by her son bawling his head off.
She said over her shoulder, far too sharply, ‘For heaven’s sake, Mary, control the children. Really, you must manage them better than this.’
She made a pretty little grimace, shrugged and looked at the two men again. The elder of them wasn’t worth more than a glance but his companion ... She tried to catch his eye but he was looking past her, his face without expression.
Mary, wrestling Ben into the vestibule, had been too occupied to look around her. Mrs Bennett’s waspish remark had filled her with rage and. her cheeks were flushed; her wish to turn round and go out into the street and leave her employer and her children to fight it out between them was so overpowering that she had to clench her teeth together and remind herself that at the end of the week there would be another sixty pounds.
She took a firmer grip of Ben’s hand, soothed the weeping Grace, and looked up to encounter Professor van Rakesma’s cool stare.
CHAPTER FOUR
MARY’S instant delight at the sight of Professor van Rakesma gave way to embarrassment; she was already hot-cheeked; now the slowly ebbing colour crept back, giving him the chance to admire it. She blushed charmingly, and that, combined with eyes blazing with her rage, turned her into an arresting beauty.
What good fortune had sent her here for him to meet again so unexpectedly? he wondered, and gave her a smiling nod. It was the smiling nod he gave to his patients, courteous and impersonal, and Mary, recognising it as just that, gave him a stiff
, unsmiling nod in answer as she went past him.
Of course he had gone when, after a trying hour, she got into the car with Ben and Grace, both weeping and scarlet in their faces with childish rage.
Mrs Bennett was disposed to be friendly. ‘That’s over for another year,’ she observed over her shoulder. ‘Why the children have to make such a fuss I don’t know. They’ll be home late for their dinners, but that can’t be helped. They’ve had enough excitement for one day; they can go straight to rest once they’ve eaten. They don’t need to go out again. Give them their tea before you go, Mary.’
It didn’t enter her head to say please or thank you. ‘Did you notice that man in the vestibule as we went in? Not the old one, the other one—I wonder who he is? I might be able to find out; I wouldn’t mind meeting him sometime.’ She added defiantly, ‘One gets lonely when one’s husband is away for weeks at a time.’
It was a remark that Mary decided it was better not to answer.
Thankfully the children were too tired to be naughty; even Ben settled down to take a nap after his dinner, leaving her free to tidy up and finish the ironing, which was an occupation conducive to thought, she had discovered. It had been exciting and delightful to see the professor again, and in such an unlikely place. Perhaps he had been to the dentist too? With a spurt of tenderness she hoped that he hadn’t had the toothache.
Professor van Rakesma had watched Mary disappear into the dentist’s waiting-room, bade his companion a civil goodbye and had taken himself up to the floor above, where he had his consulting-rooms.
It was only when the last of his patients had left that he allowed his thoughts to dwell on her.
It was obvious to him that she must give up her job and find something more congenial. He had no doubt that beneath her patient handling of the little boy she was hiding a desire to smack his bottom. Professor van Rakesma, who liked children, had considered Ben to be a holy terror much in need of parental discipline.
He wondered idly if there was a Mr Bennett and just how long Mary would stay there. There must be a good reason for her having to do so ...
His receptionist put her head round the door to tell him that she was off home. ‘You’re booked solid tomorrow,’ she warned him cheerfully, ‘and the first patient is that nervous Mrs Payne.’
‘Ah, yes...’ He bade her goodnight and began to consider the nervous Mrs Payne, and he thought no more about Mary.
Mary received her sixty pounds at the end of the second week, feeling that she had earned every penny of it and more. She had made progress with little Grace, although she cried a great deal and showed no interest in her toys—expensive dolls with wardrobes, a doll’s house of magnificent proportions, and any number of picture books.
But what use were they, reflected Mary, when there was no mother around to play with her and a bullying brother who took pleasure in breaking her things? But once or twice Grace had smiled, even laughed, and they had had a splendid time spring-cleaning the doll’s house together, despite Ben’s efforts to interfere.
Ben, she considered, needed to go to a strict pre-prep school where there would be other children to cut him down to size. He was a tyrant now; what he would be like as he grew older she shuddered to think. All the same, she had to stay; the sixty pounds was a lifeline until things got better at home.
She said nothing to her mother and father about her job, giving them the impression that it was all rather fun; only Polly guessed that it was far from ideal. Mary, starting her third week, allowed herself the luxury of day-dreaming on the bus. She had done her best to forget Professor van Rakesma but somehow he wouldn’t go away; besides, she found it comforting to think about him.
He hadn’t given her another thought. His days were full and so were his leisure hours; besides, he was starting on a learned book about cardiac arrest—something which was dear to his heart and taxed his very clever brain—so that everything which had nothing to do with that received scant attention.
Meeting Polly on the following Saturday morning on the Heath reminded him of Mary once more.
Polly was with friends, but she spied him at once, striding along with Richard racing ahead, and she ran to meet him.
‘I knew I’d see you again one day,’ she told him happily, ‘and it’s all right about not having come to take me for a drive; Mary said you might not have enough time and I dare say you haven’t.’
He stood looking down at her cheerful young face wreathed in smiles. ‘Mary is quite right; I have been very busy.’ He glanced around him. ‘You’re alone?’
‘No, with friends. I’m not allowed to come here by myself, but they’re over there; I can catch them up easily.’
She threw a twig for Richard. ‘Mary’s got a job, looking after two horrid children on the other side of the Heath. The little boy is simply beastly; he bites her and kicks her and yesterday he cut her with a knife he’d found. Not a bad cut, but it bled on to her only decent skirt. I suppose you couldn’t do anything about it?’
‘I? I’m sorry your sister has such an unpleasant job but I can hardly interfere. Surely she is capable of changing jobs and getting something more to her liking?’
‘Of course she is. But jobs aren’t that easy to get and she has to get some money...’ She paused. ‘I’m not supposed to talk about it,’ she mumbled.
He gave her a kind smile. ‘You know, people tell me all kinds of things when they come to see me; it relieves their minds, you see, and I forget everything they have said. I think if you want to talk to me about it it will be quite in order. I’ll forget it too.’
She stared up at him, nodded and said, ‘I think that, inside you, you are a very nice man. It would be nice to tell you, and Mary won’t know ...
‘You see, Father was cheated of almost all his money; Great Aunt Thirza left him some too, and the man took that as well. It wasn’t really Father’s fault; he’s very clever and writing a book and he forgets about things. Mother’s clever too, but she doesn’t worry about money. So Mary got a job so that we could go on living...’
She added fiercely, ‘But I know she hates it although she never says so.’ She put a hand on his sleeve. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’
He said gently, ‘No, Polly, you have my word. I’m not going to promise that I’ll help her, because I can’t see how I can, but if I should hear of anything more suitable I will let you know.’
‘How?’
‘A letter would be best, but don’t be too hopeful. I haven’t forgotten our drive either; maybe I’ll just turn up and hope that you are at home.’
‘Oh, great! You really are rather nice. I don’t suppose... No, of course not’ She had gone rather red. ‘I’d better go before the others get too far away.’ She put out her hand. ‘Thank you very much.’
They shook hands and she ran off, and he stood and watched her rejoin her friends in the distance before he resumed his own walk. For a little while he thought about Mary, regretful that there was little that he could do.
In that he was mistaken; two days later, browsing in the bookshop he frequented—a dark, low-ceilinged series of rooms housing literary treasures—he came upon its owner, an elderly man, untidy as to dress, wearing old-fashioned spectacles on his long, thin nose and with a wreath of white hair surrounding a bald patch.
They wished each other good day and the old man said, ‘There are some more interesting books I’ve just received—part of a private library. Unfortunately I haven’t had the time to unpack them. My assistant has left suddenly in order to be with his mother, who lives, I believe, somewhere in the south of France. I have advertised in various journals but so far I have had not one applicant. I am not sure how I shall manage.’
Professor van Rakesma said slowly, ‘Indeed, how unfortunate. Must your assistant have qualifications of any kind?’
‘Qualifications? No, no. A willingness to please the customers and learn something of my trade. Well-spoken, of course, and honest.’
Professo
r van Rakesma observed, ‘I believe that I may be able to help you. A young lady, educated—you may know her father by name—Pagett...’
‘Indeed I do; erudite and a great scholar. If she has a fraction of his learning I would be more than pleased to give her employment.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said the professor, and wondered what he was letting himself in for. Ten to one, if Mary discovered that he was instrumental in finding her a job she would refuse, not wishing to be beholden to anyone, certainly not him.
All the same, later that day, sitting in his drawing-room with Richard’s whiskery chin on his shoes, he pondered his chances. It was past midnight when he went to bed, tolerably satisfied with his plans.
Polly, mooning around the garden on the following Saturday afternoon, was enchanted to see Professor van Rakesma making his way up the short drive to the house. She ran to meet him. ‘I knew you’d come.’ She paused. ‘But perhaps you want to see Mary? She’s working this afternoon because Mrs Bennett wanted to go out; she won’t be back until after tea.’
‘I came to see you, Polly. Shall we drive around for a while; there’s something I want to discuss with you:
‘A secret?’
‘Yes, but a nice one, I think. Do you need to tell someone where you will be?’
‘I’ll tell Mother but she’ll forget—shall we be gone long?’
‘No, I want to be gone again before Mary comes home.’
‘Two ticks,’ said Polly, and raced along to the hut to tell her mother.
Only when she was sitting beside him in the car did she ask. ‘Why don’t you want to see Mary, Professor van Rakesma?’
He was driving north towards Mill Hill. ‘I’ll explain...’ Which he did, in a few clear, business-like sentences. ‘And this is what I would like you to do—I have a cutting of old Mr Bell’s advertisement in my pocket. Would you let Mary see it? Say that you saw it and wondered if it would be more fun than the Bennett children. On no account must you mention me...’