by Betty Neels
‘Well, of course I am. Actually I was on my way to bed when you telephoned.’ Her voice, she was pleased to hear, sounded calm and casual.
‘Then I won’t keep you. We’ll meet again, shall we? And you shall tell me…no, never mind. Sleep well.’
‘And that’s a silly thing to say,’ said Victoria to herself, packing her case with a fine disregard for her clothes. She would have to leave her second case where it was; she really didn’t care anyway. She shut the lid on to the hopeless jumble within, flung on her coat, rammed a hat on to her fiery head and went, quietly so as not to disturb Jaap, downstairs. In the little sitting room once more, thanking heaven that Alexander had taught her one or two useful phrases in his own language, she dialled the number of the taxi firm so fortuitously written in the telephone book. It was easier than she had thought it would be, for a cheerful voice at the other end answered her peculiar Dutch with a brisk, ‘At once, madam’ in tolerable English. All she had to do was to wait for the taxi to arrive, which it did in a very few minutes. She let herself out of the house, feeling as though she were going to her own execution. She had written a short note to Mevrouw van Schuylen, not attempting to explain why she was leaving but begging for her forgiveness, and beside it she had left an envelope for Alexander. It contained her ring and nothing else because she hadn’t been able to make up her mind what to write to him. She got into the taxi and asked:
‘Could you take me to the Hague station, please—I want to catch the boat train to the Hook.’
The driver looked surprised. ‘It will cost many gulden, miss.’ He named a sum and she nodded her head. She had plenty of money with her.
‘That’s all right. There’s time, isn’t there?’
He nodded. ‘Sure, sure. I get you there.’
He was as good as his word. She was in plenty of time, the train didn’t leave until almost half past ten. Victoria bought her ticket without difficulty and when the train arrived, got in.
At the Hook she had to get a ticket for the boat—something, she was told politely, she should have done earlier. Luckily, said the friendly clerk, there happened to be a cancellation if she didn’t mind going second class.
It wasn’t a very comfortable journey, for there was no berth for her, only a reclining chair in which she lay uneasily, surrounded by family parties on their way home from holiday or service in Germany. Despite their cheerful chatter she dozed, and presently, when they had settled too, she slept, to wake cramped and chilly in the early morning. She got up then, made shift to wash and do her hair and make up her face and when the ship docked, made her way through the Customs and on to the London train. Here she was lucky, for a friendly steward asked her if she wanted breakfast and found her a seat.
She hadn’t thought that she was hungry, but when the food came she ate with some sort of appetite, so that by the time the train got in to Liverpool Street Station, she felt almost herself, which was a good thing, for if she had been feeling anything less she would have found it difficult to take a taxi straight to St Judd’s, beg an interview with the Matron and ask to be taken back as a part-time staff nurse. Matron had been kind and most forbearing when it came to asking questions, and when Victoria asked if she might be engaged on a weekly basis, had replied that yes, she couldn’t see why not, ‘For I daresay,’ she remarked calmly and with no signs of curiosity, ‘you may wish to change your plans when you have had the time to decide what you wish to do.’
But her interview with Matron was easy compared with her meeting with her friends. They had appeared at first unbelieving, then curious, and then, finally, avid for information. She had stalled them off, that first day, with vague remarks about changing her mind, and they had seen her pale face and refrained from asking any more questions, trying to cheer her up by saying how glad they were to see her back again. As a special favour, she was to be allowed to sleep in the Home, even though she was only part-time, on the strict understanding that she should find somewhere of her own outside the hospital by the end of a month—an arrangement which suited her very well, for she would by that time have found another, permanent job, as far away from Holland as possible, she promised herself.
It was almost frightening how quickly she adjusted again to hospital life. The patients, those who remembered her, including the Major, accepted her return as nothing out of the way, merely remarking that she was back again, was she, to plague them with her pills and medicines. There was a new staff nurse who had taken her place, a girl she had known for some time and of the Old Crow’s choosing; a rather serious girl, who didn’t joke with the patients, and who, although kind, held a little aloof from their small griefs and joys. But she ran the ward well under Sister Crow’s eye; Victoria had no doubt that she would make a fitting successor when the time came. That she resented Victoria’s return was natural enough and a sufficient reason for Victoria to look for another job, but somehow in the first days of being back on the ward she was quite unable to put her mind to this. She had written to her mother, a bald letter stating that she had decided that she and Alexander didn’t suit and that she had returned to St Judd’s for the time being; further than that she had done nothing, only lie awake at night weaving impossible fairy stories in which Alexander appeared suddenly to whisk her away to live with him happily ever after—fantasies which in the cool light of early morning she knew to be absurd.
She had forgotten, of course, that she would have to meet Sir Keith again. He had looked mightily taken aback, although he had mercifully remained silent, which was more than she could say for Jeremy Blake, who had come upon her in the office on her first day back and asked so many questions that she turned upon him finally and told him to mind his own business and he had gone away, a mean little smile playing around his mouth.
It was halfway through the second week of her return when Nina made a surprising appearance at the Nurses’ Home. Victoria had just come off duty and was sitting, in company with some of the other staff nurses, in the sitting room of the Home, rather listlessly drinking her tea while those of her friends who were free debated as to what to do with their evening. She was on the point of agreeing to go to the cinema with them when one of the maids put her head round the door with a declaration that there was a visitor for Staff Nurse Parsons. Victoria put her cup down very carefully because the wild surge of excitement which had torn through her like a great gust of wind threatened to make her hands unsteady. She got up slowly, remarking in a matter-of-fact voice, for the benefit of the curious faces around her, that it was probably Mrs Johnson, and walked out of the room.
Nina was standing in the hall. She had her back to Victoria, which was just as well because it gave Victoria time to wipe the disappointment from her face and substitute one of mild welcome—indeed, she had her features so well under control that she was able to produce a perfectly natural smile. ‘Nina—what a surprise! This is the last place where I expected to see you. Are you in a hurry? Would you like some tea, or are you just passing through?’
Nina eyed her uncertainly. ‘I’m here to see you. I’m going on to Brighton tomorrow. I’ve a friend there…’
Victoria dismissed the friend. ‘Me?’ she asked. ‘What about?’ She managed to smile again and this time it was a little easier. Provided she didn’t allow herself to think and Nina didn’t stay too long…
‘Could we go somewhere? Your room, perhaps?’ Nina looked around the hall, which at the best of times was hardly private.
‘Yes, of course.’ Victoria led the way upstairs and into her little room, rather bare because she hadn’t bothered to unpack her small possessions. She offered Nina the chair and perched herself on the side of the bed.
‘It’s difficult,’ began Nina in her prettily accented English, ‘to know how to begin.’ She cast an apologetic look at Victoria, who, not knowing how to help, said ‘Oh?’ in what she hoped was an encouraging voice while at the same time nerving herself for bad news. Probably Nina was going to tell her that she and Alexander w
ere married. No, it couldn’t be that, for she remembered how he had explained to her on one of their lighthearted expeditions together—how many lifetimes ago?—that no one could marry in Holland in less than two weeks. Perhaps he was here, in London with Nina. Victoria wet dry lips and forced them into a smile.
‘That tale I told you, remember? That Alexander and I were to have been married. It wasn’t true. We were good friends—oh, we liked each other all right, you know how it is, but it didn’t last. He never once suggested…I’ve never even been to his house.’
Victoria found her voice, a little high and wobbly. ‘But I don’t understand—you said you had quarrelled with him in the sitting room…’
‘I knew what it looked like—he’d talked about it.’
‘But,’ said Victoria, feeling her way and anxious to get away from a lot of unnecessary talk about the sitting room, ‘you told me that he said that he would marry any pretty girl…’
‘I know,’ Nina sounded impatient. ‘He did too, but not quite in the way I said. He was in a frightful temper and he only said it to let me see that I didn’t matter at all, do you see?’
‘No,’ said Victoria, ‘not really, but go on.’
Nina shrugged. ‘But there is no more. I did it to spite him, I suppose—the way one does—I thought it would be fun to see him squirm. You see, I counted on you losing your temper about it—and you did, didn’t you? You wouldn’t wait to hear what he had to say. There was never anything, but he would be too proud and too angry to say so.’
‘But he told me—I asked him if he’d said that…about marrying the first girl, and he said yes.’
‘Of course—it was the truth, although perhaps a little twisted by me. If you had waited until the next day you would have discovered that.’
Victoria said stubbornly: ‘You said that—when you telephoned, you remember—he was going to the Hague to see you.’
Nina gave a little laugh. ‘I said you were naïve, didn’t I? I didn’t, not in actual words. I’d telephoned the people whose party you were supposed to be going to, I thought we could meet and I would explain that I had played the joke on you, and they told me to ring the van Schuylens’ house. You jumped to the conclusion that Alexander had left you to visit me, didn’t you—and I simply could not resist another little tease, so I let you believe it. He went to the hospital, he really did.’
She took a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag and offered Victoria one and when it was refused, lighted one for herself. ‘I suppose I should be sorry,’ she reflected.
Victoria couldn’t reply, she was far too busy holding down the magnificent rage that boiled within her, for once she started to say all that she longed to say, there would be no holding her. After a long silence she managed: ‘I suppose I have to thank you for coming. Does Alexander know that you’re here?’
Nina eyed her with amusement. ‘Good lord, no. I don’t want my neck wrung. You can do what you like about it, but leave me out, thank you. I’ve other prospects—I’m going to be married myself, to a nice, cosy rich man who thinks I’m marvellous. Isn’t that nice?’
‘Very.’ Victoria had her teeth firmly clenched on the words her tongue longed to utter. ‘What about us—Alexander and me?’
Nina got up, threw her cigarette into the waste-paper basket and strolled to the door. ‘That’s up to you, isn’t it? After all, if you’re so keen on each other it won’t make any difference in the long run, will it? Only take my advice and make the first move. Alexander can be pigheaded when he has a mind to—you know that, surely? I’ll see you around some time.’
She opened the door, went through it without a backward glance and closed it gently after her, leaving Victoria sitting on the bed, speechless.
Her speech returned after a few moments, however. She held a long and loud conversation with herself which relieved her feelings considerably, as did a short and violent fit of weeping, so that presently, composed but red-eyed, she was able to write a letter to Alexander. The spelling of it was erratic and the punctuation not all it should have been, but nonetheless it expressed in no uncertain manner the fact that she loved him very much. This sentiment took up most of the long letter, but there was enough about Nina to make it plain to him that it had all been a dreadful mistake and would he please write to her at once and say so too. She sealed it without reading it through and went downstairs with it. She would have to go to the post office down the street in order to catch the post that evening. She was crossing the front hall when she met Jeremy Blake, coming from the doctors’ mess, on his way out. He held the door open for her and asked:
‘Where are you off to in such a hurry, Staff?’ and she, dimly aware that he sounded quite pleasant for once, said hastily: ‘The post—I mustn’t miss it.’
He held out a hand. ‘I’m going there myself, I’ll post it for you.’
‘That’s kind of you, thanks. You won’t forget?’
‘Hardly, since I’ve letters of my own and it’s only a couple of minutes’ walk.’
She watched him go briskly down the street in the direction of the post office. Alexander would get the letter in a day—two days at least. Perhaps he would telephone her. She wandered back to her room, deep in vague, hopeful dreams.
At the post office Jeremy Blake paused to read the address on Victoria’s envelope. He posted his own letters and then deliberately put hers into his pocket.
Victoria almost counted the hours during the next few days, but when the fourth day came and went, and no letter from Alexander, she began to wilt a little. She had been buoyed up by the thought that even if he was still a little angry with her for not giving him a fair hearing, he would at least write and tell her so. She began to jump each time the telephone rang on the ward and invented any number of excuses which would take her past the pigeonholes where the staff letters were sorted. On the fifth day she wrote again, and unlucky chance so arranged it that Doctor Blake should come into the office just as she was stamping the envelope. She had picked it up immediately, but not before, without appearing to do so, he had seen the address. He gave no sign, however, merely saying: ‘I thought Sister was on duty; I wanted to see her about transferring Mr Bates, but tomorrow will do as well.’ He turned to go and at the door said carelessly: ‘Do you want that letter to go? It’ll just catch the post at the porter’s lodge if I take it with me. I’ve got to go that way.’
She would have preferred to have taken it herself, but she couldn’t very well leave the ward, and if he took it, Alexander would get it that much sooner. She gave it to him.
The following morning, Doctor Blake, using the porter’s lodge telephone, watched the head porter sort the ward post. He was close to the pigeonholes, so it wasn’t in the least difficult for him to see the letters in the staff section and the letter with the Dutch stamp was within inches of his hand. The porter’s back was turned and there was no one else there; it only needed a few seconds to transfer the letter to his own pocket before finishing his call and strolling away down the corridor. Presently, in the seclusion of his own room, he burnt the letter, just as he had burned the two letters Victoria had given him.
Very slowly indeed the days dragged by and Victoria, a little paler and a little more silent each day, found them endless. It was exactly two weeks after writing her first letter that she made up her mind what to do and by the afternoon she had done it—given an understanding Matron her notice for the second time in as many months, broken the news to Sister Crow, booked a berth on the Harwich boat for that night, packed an overnight bag and gone on duty for the last time. It had been a little difficult, leaving at a moment’s notice, as Matron had pointed out to her, but as it was quite obvious to that astute woman that Victoria intended to leave anyway, notice or no notice, she had stretched a point.
Victoria, looking like a ravishing beauty despite her white face, put on her new summer outfit, lime green and cream, her hair crowned by an eye-catching little hat to match, and marched through the front door
of the hospital. She handed the case to the taxi driver and got in herself and a passing workman gave an appreciative whistle at the sight of her. She hoped with all her heart that Alexander, when he saw her in a few hours’ time, would feel the same way.
CHAPTER NINE
VICTORIA got to the Hague well before ten o’clock. She had had an uneventful journey, lying sleepless in her cabin while she went over and over in her mind what she was going to say to Alexander. She had dressed early and had a cup of tea, and gone, like a nicely behaved automaton, off the ship, through Customs and into the train waiting at the station alongside the quay. The boat had been crowded with tourists and reunited families and when she got off the train at the Hague it was to find the station there crowded too. She had had to wait some time for a taxi, and when at last she got one, she climbed in thankfully, gave the address of Alexander’s consulting rooms to the driver and sat back with a mixture of relief and fright reminiscent of a visit to the dentist.
In less than an hour—half an hour, she would be talking to him. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like, but in this delectable pastime she was frustrated by the driver who said over his shoulder: ‘You are English? I show you everything as we go.’ Which he proceeded to do, shouting instructions as to where she should look next as he sped down Spui, crawled through the complicated traffic of the Hofweg and finally turned into Lange Vijverburg. Halfway down it he was forced to stop for the traffic lights—a chance, he called to her, to get a glimpse of the water to her right and would she kindly look out of her window? Victoria looked, but the view was blocked by the car beside them. The Mercedes—with Alexander at the wheel!
He was staring ahead, apparently in deep thought and at the sight of him, so unexpected and so close, her heart did a somersault and then raced on as though by doing so, it might help her to get to him quickly. Her voice, when she found it, came out as a small squeak but loud enough. At the sound of his name, he looked round, straight at her, and her shaking mouth, on the verge of a smile, froze, for he looked at her, after a split second of surprise, with no interest at all. Beyond the faint arch of his brows and the hardening of his already grim mouth she might just as well have not been there. She met his eyes, blue and hard, across the small space between them and swallowed panic from a very dry throat. Even as she whispered ‘Alexander,’ the lights had changed and the Mercedes shot ahead.