which they stopped.
The Professor said over his shoulder, "Welcome to Bergenstijn, Georgina," and
got out. It seemed that he was as well served here as he was in England, for
the door had opened and an elderly man advanced to meet him. He had a
faintly ecclesiastical air, due to a certain portliness and a quantity of
snow-white hair allied to a splendid moustache. He shook the Professor by
the hand and received a rapturous hug from Beatrix, who had climbed out of
the car and was skipping around in wild excitement. He had a warm greeting
from Dimphena too;
Georgina began to wonder who he was and her unspoken thought was answered by
Julius, who had come to fetch Cor.
"This is our house steward, Hans. He has been with the family for more than
forty years and deals with everything. He is devoted to us all and we are
just as devoted to him. Come and meet him."
She met the faithful Hans' searching blue eye with a smile and an
outstretched hand and as he took it, he said formally in slow, difficult
English, "I am happy to know you, miss." It was a relief to her when his
many-wrinkled face broke into a smile, because somehow it mattered that he
should like her.
Inside, the house was as unlike Dalmers Place as it was possible to be. The
rooms were large and square, like the house; with lofty ceilings and
important fireplaces. A large house for a large man, thought Georgina, no
wonder the liked it so much, the house and the man were made for each other.
She was sitting in what the others had called the 'little room', drinking
coffee in their company. It overlooked the gardens, and its windows were
hung with plum-coloured curtains and topped with elaborately draped pelmets
tied with thick silk cords. She had never seen anything like them outside
the glossy magazines or the cinema.
The carpet was plum-coloured too, but the deeply comfortable chairs and sofas
were covered in cream velvet. She frowned a little, thinking of cleaning
problems--probably there were no dogs in the house. There were. They came
in together, a Great Dane and a very small black dog, and made straight for
the Professor, who made much of them before they deserted him for Cor, who
was sitting beside Georgina.
She pulled gently on the big dog's ears.
"What is his name?" she asked.
"And that small creature..."
"Anderson," Cor told her, 'and this one's called Flip. He's a Schippershond.
" She repeated it after him, and he was too polite to laugh at her clumsy
rendering of the word.
"They live on boats," he explained, and she, none the wiser, would have
probed the matter more deeply had it not been for the Professor getting up
and coming over to say, "Lenie will take you to your room, Georgina. She's
our housekeeper. She doesn't speak English, but Dimphena will go with you.
You would like to unpack, I expect, and when you are ready, we will decide
what is best for Cor, shall we? "
She got to her feet at once, and went up the staircase at the back of the
tiled hall with Dimphena chattering beside her, and Lenie, a large, silent
woman, walking ahead. The room she was shown into was large too, although it
appeared smaller by virtue of the heavy mahogany furniture with which it was
furnished. It was of the Empire period, its well-polished gleam offset by
the pale green hangings and bedspread. The carpet was a dull pink, a colour
echoed in the lampshades. There was a small open fire burning in the steel
grate, and a high-backed chair drawn up to it. It looked welcoming--as
welcoming as the bowl of hyacinths on the night table by the bed.
Lenie caught her eye, and smiled her way across the room to a door in the
wall. It led to a bathroom, and thence to the room Cor was to occupy.
Left alone, she unpacked a little, did her hair and her face and went
downstairs again, to find everyone sitting much as she had left them.
But the Professor got up at once and led her across the hall to another,
smaller room with panelled walls and a massive desk set against its window.
There were bookshelves everywhere, and a round closed stove whose warmth lent
its surroundings an air of cosy intimacy. His study, she deduced, taking the
smaller of the two chairs by the stove which she eyed with interest. It was
almost a museum piece, of much decorated iron and capped with a metal cap
that gleamed like silver. Being of a practical turn of mind, she wondered
about its fuel consumption. Probably vast, she thought, and for the
hundredth time wondered about the Professor's life; so very different from
her own, even though he worked just as hard, if not harder, than she did
herself.
Julius had stretched himself out in the leather chair facing her. He looked
relaxed and contented, and when he smiled her heart began its familiar
pounding. For a second she allowed the gossamer illusion that they were
sharing their own hearth-their lives as well--to wreathe its hopeless way
across her mind. Unable to help herself, she smiled back.
He said mildly, "That's better--you looked so forbidding; for one moment I
thought you had taken a dislike to Bergenstijn."
She stirred, her brown eyes wide.
"Dislike it? Here? But how could I, it's beautiful. The house when you
first see it, and my room with those pink hyacinths and this lovely old
stove--and I saw a lake from my window..." She paused.
"It's covered in ice, just like the painting at the top of the staircase--the
very small one next to the old gentleman with the wig." She went on, happily
incoherent, "There's a ginger kitten asleep on the window seat outside my
room." She smiled at the thought of it, and looked beautiful.
"It's home, just as Dalmers Place is home. Some houses are, you know."
He smiled gently and with a triumph she didn't notice.
"You are the most extraordinary girl. You find pleasure in things that a
great many people don't even see."
She said shyly, "I think you do too."
He was serious now.
"Yes, it matters to me, Georgina, that you should like my home."
His eyes were twinkling again; he was charming and kind and he was staring at
her in a way she found disturbing. She forced herself to meet his gaze
coolly and before she could be trapped into saying something impulsive she
might regret later, she observed in a thin voice:
"Well, yes, I suppose so. It's so much easier to work in a place you like."
The small sound which escaped his lips might have been a laugh; she wasn't
sure. He said merely, "So you noticed the painting upstairs--it's a Van
Ruydael, painted before this present house was built, though we still have
the original cellars and an underground kitchen which isn't used any more.
I'm delighted that you like your room, though I can't take any credit for the
kitten asleep on the window seat."
They both laughed, and she felt the dangerous delight she always felt when
she was in his company beginning to steal over her. She remembered her
resolutions made during the night.
"You wanted to give me instructions about Cor, Professor."
She
thought he would never answer. And then, very blandly, "Do you
disapprove of me so very much. Miss Rodman?"
She felt her face grow hot. She stuttered indignantly, "Disapprove of you?
Me? Of course I don't. What a ridiculous notion! And why do you say that?"
she demanded.
He was laughing again.
"You are so very anxious not to waste time with me--a fact I greatly
deprecate."
She looked at him helplessly, for there was nothing to say. To agree with
him would be easy and untrue; to disagree would mean that he would want to
know why. "How unkind of me to tease. I'm sorry." He spoke lightly without
looking at her, and settled himself deeper in his, chair, crossed one long
leg over the other and contemplated his shoes.
"Now, this business of Cor."
Between them, they drew up a simple routine for the little boy. There was
always the danger that he would do too much now that he was on his feet
again. That had to be prevented while at the same time he mustn't feel that
he was being pampered. There would it seemed, be guests coming on
Wednesday--he gave no names--and Karel and Franz would arrive on the
following Sunday and stay for several days. Cor would need a firm hand and
constant supervision. When they had finished, Georgina said jokingly:
"Now I know why you were so anxious for me to come." She got up.
"I'll get the children ready for lunch."
He went to the door with her, saying casually, "You are free to think
whatever you wish of my reasons for wanting you to come, Georgina. At the
moment, I have no intention of telling you."
They all lunched together, and a round-faced dumpling of a girl with flaxen
hair and bright round eyes served them. Dimphena introduced her as Pankie,
which Georgina found rather peculiar until it was explained that it was a
shortened form of Pancratiana, which, upon reflection, she found even more
peculiar. She shook hands and said with great difficulty because she was shy
of speaking any language other than her own, ^Goeden Dag, Pankie," and was
rewarded by a shout of triumph from her youthful teacher and more subdued
applause from the others, who, throughout the meal, egged her on to air what
she had learned, sometimes with the most amusing results.
Afterwards Cor, protesting hotly that he had no desire to rest, was carried
up to his bed, but when he found that Beatrix and Georgina were to accompany
him, he submitted with a good grace to having his calipers taken off and
being tucked up, while Georgina did the same for Beatrix on the day bed under
the window. This done, she poked up the fire, produced a copy of The Tale of
Benjamin Bunny and began to read. The children were asleep within ten
minutes, leaving her free to curl up in her chair and stare at the flames.
Presently she would write a long letter to Aunt Polly and another one to the
girls at St. Athel's;
tomorrow she must buy postcards; perhaps there was a shop in the little
village they had gone through. Her eyes closed.
She awoke on a dream--a delightful one in which she was being kissed by
Julius. The joy of it was still, real in her mind when she opened her eyes
and found him standing beside her chair. Just for a moment dream and reality
were a pleasurable whole, then she discarded the dream, sat up, looked at the
sleeping children and asked:
"Is anything the matter? I must have dropped off."
He had his hands in his pockets, his face very placid. He answered softly,
"Nothing is the matter--it's teatime."
She got up.
"Oh, then I'll wake the children and bring them down. I can't think why I
went to sleep."
"Surely a natural thing to do," he answered smoothly, 'when you have had a
sleepless night. "
"Yes--I was very tired." She stopped, remembering clearly that she had told
him that she had had an excellent night's sleep. She peeped at him through
her lashes to see if he had noticed and saw that he had.
His face wore an "I told you so' expression which was maddening. She
repeated, " I'll wake the children," and did so, leaving him to sit in the
chair while she combed their hair and tidied them and fastened Cor's
calipers. She avoided him for the rest of the day, and went upstairs early
after dinner, pleading letters to write.
She awoke the next morning to a world of cold and ice and blue sky and a
feeling of happiness engendered by the knowledge that she would be seeing
Julius every day for the next two weeks. She drank the tea Pankie brought,
bathed and dressed and then set about getting Cor on to his feet. She was
fastening the last strap of his calipers, with Beatrix in voluble attendance,
when the Professor came in. He wished her a genial good morning, suffered a
strangling embrace from Beatrix, and carried Cor down to breakfast.
Barely an hour later they were all down by the lake, watching while Julius
tested the ice. Satisfied, he put on his skates and skimmed over its entire
surface. He was an excellent skater. Georgina watched him; in a tremendous
sweater, his wool- gloved hands clasped behind him, weaving to and fro until
finally he came back to them and pronounced the ice safe. Presently he set
off again with Beatrix, leaving Dimphena to execute graceful patterns on her
own, and Georgina to walk Cor gently up and down the hard-packed snow at the
lake's edge. They paused frequently to watch the skaters, especially
Dimphena, who floated round with the practised ease of a dancer, her pretty
face framed in a fur bonnet, her scarlet slacks and anorak making a vivid
splash of colour.
They all came to a halt when Hans came down from the house with a great
thermos jug of hot chocolate. He waited while they drank it, and then took
charge of Cor, and Georgina, with a pair of Dutch Runners strapped to her
stout shoes, found herself on the ice, with the Professor beside her. She
hadn't skated for a couple of winters at least,
and she faltered a little as they started off, but he slid a great arm round
her waist and drew her along willy-nilly, so that in a few seconds she was
quite at her ease, and by the time they had circled the lake she was enjoying
herself hugely. The cold air rushed against their faces, the ice beneath
their skates was smooth, her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled. She became
as warm as toast and when they finally stopped and Julius pulled her round to
face him, she said happily, "That was marvelous!"
He glanced at her, and then away.
"You skate well. Do you know that you look pretty too?"
Her pink cheeks became pinker. She said in a little girl's voice, "Oh, do
I?" Her sheepskin jacket and brown knitted bonnet and her last year's tweed
slacks hardly seemed the height of fashion to her, especially when compared
with Dimphena's outfit.
"I'll take Cor indoors, I think. It's time for his exercises." He was still
holding her hand; he didn't let it go, but took her over to the edge of the
ice and took off her skates. As he went he said, "We'll do this again."
He was as good as his word. The following morning. Cor, it seemed, wanted
to spen
d an hour or so with Hans and Dimphena declared that she must go
calling on friends and took Beatrix with her. Georgina found herself free to
accept the Professor's invitation to skate. They circled the lake slowly
while they talked; the easy talk of two people with all the world in common.
She found herself telling him about her childhood with Aunt Polly and of how
much she owed her. She said deliberately:
"That's why I've accepted Casualty Sister's post."
He halted so suddenly that she would have fallen if he hadn't been holding
her firmly.
"You've what?" His voice was silky, there was something in its tones which
made her look up at him. Her brown eyes met his blue ones and held them
squarely.
"You didn't tell me," he said flatly.
"I gave the letter to the stewardess to post in Harwich when she got back."
She kept her voice level.
"It's--it's what I've always wanted."
His eyes weren't blue any more. They had turned to steel and were just as
cold. She wondered what he would say and was totally unprepared for his next
remark.
"Did I tell you that we have guests tomorrow? A pity we shan't be able to
skate again--by the time they leave, I expect a thaw will have set in." His
voice was level, and she hoped that" hers was equally so.
"It was wonderful." She swallowed a misery which was no easier to bear
because she had deliberately brought it upon herself, and went on brightly,
Betty Neels - Damsel In Green.txt Page 20