Ring in a Teacup
Betty Neels
Mills & Boon presents the complete Betty Neels collection. Timeless tales of heart-warming romance by one of the world’s best-loved romance authors. How could she fall asleep during his lecture? It wasn’t the best way for Nurse Lucy Prendergast to attract the attention of distinguished consultant Fraam der Linssen, especially when the attractive Dutch doctor kept appearing in her life—at the hospital, at her home, and in Holland when she went on holiday.If only he were equally aware of her! But that wasn’t likely, for far prettier girls were obviously his for the asking!
“I hope you have a good journey back,” she observed politely, and then, in a little rush because she had only just remembered, she asked, “How is the cat?”
“In splendid shape—you wouldn’t recognize him, he has become so portly.”
“You were very kind to him.” She tugged at her hand, which he was still absentmindedly holding, but he didn’t let it go.
“Kinder than I have been to you, Lucilla.”
She tugged again and this time he let her hand go. “You’ve been very kind,” she repeated, longing for poise and an ability to turn a clever sentence. “I must go.”
He caught her so close that the squeak of surprise she let out was buried in his waistcoat. “I almost forgot—” his hand came up and lifted her chin gently “—I had to give you this from Mies.”
She had never been kissed like that before.
Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of Betty Neels in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.
Ring in a Teacup
Betty Neels
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER ONE
THE SUN, already warmer than it should have been for nine o’clock on an August morning, poured through the high, uncurtained windows of the lecture hall at St Norbert’s Hospital, highlighting the rows of uniformed figures, sitting according to status, their differently coloured uniform dresses making a cheerful splash of colour against the drab paintwork, their white caps constantly bobbing to and fro as they enjoyed a good gossip before their lecture began—all but the two front rows; the night nurses sat there, silently resentful of having to attend a lecture when they should have been on their way to hot baths, unending cups of tea, yesterday’s paper kindly saved by a patient, and finally, blissful bed.
And in the middle of the front row sat student nurse Lucy Prendergast, a small slip of a girl, with mousy hair, pleasing though not pretty features and enormous green eyes, her one claim to beauty. But as she happened to be fast asleep, their devastating glory wasn’t in evidence, indeed she looked downright plain; a night of non-stop work on Children’s had done nothing to improve her looks.
She would probably have gone on sleeping, sitting bolt upright on her hard chair, if her neighbours hadn’t dug her in the ribs and begged her to stir herself as a small procession of Senior Sister Tutor, her two assistants and a clerk to make notes, trod firmly across the platform and seated themselves and a moment later, nicely timed, the lecturer, whose profound utterances the night nurses had been kept from their beds to hear, came in.
There was an immediate hush and then a gentle sigh from the rows of upturned faces; it had been taken for granted that he would be elderly, pompous, bald, and mumbling, but he was none of these things—he was very tall, extremely broad, and possessed of the kind of good looks so often written about and so seldom seen; moreover he was exquisitely dressed and when he replied to their concerted ‘good morning, sir,’ his voice was deep, slow and made all the more interesting by reason of its slight foreign accent.
His audience, settling in their seats, sat back to drink in every word and take a good look at him at the same time—all except Nurse Prendergast, who hadn’t even bothered to open her eyes properly. True, she had risen to her feet when everyone else did, because her good friends on either side of her had dragged her to them, but seated again she dropped off at once and continued to sleep peacefully throughout the lecture, unheeding of the deep voice just above her head, explaining all the finer points of angiitis obliterans and its treatment, and her friends, sharing the quite erroneous idea that the occupants of the first two rows were quite safe from the eyes of the lecturer on the platform, for they believed that he always looked above their heads into the body of the hall, allowed her to sleep on. Everything would have been just fine if he hadn’t started asking questions, picking members of his audience at random. When he asked: ‘And the result of these tests would be…’ his eyes, roaming along the rows of attentive faces before him, came to rest upon Lucy’s gently nodding head.
A ferocious gleam came into his eyes; she could have been looking down into her lap, but he was willing to bet with himself that she wasn’t.
‘The nurse in the centre of the first row,’ he added softly.
Lucy, dug savagely in the ribs by her nervous friends, opened her eyes wide and looked straight at him. She was bemused by sleep and had no idea what he had said or what she was supposed to say herself. She stared up at the handsome, bland face above her; she had never seen eyes glitter, but the cold blue ones boring into hers were glittering all right. A wash of bright pink crept slowly over her tired face, but it was a flush of temper rather than a blush of shame; she was peevish from lack of sleep and her resentment was stronger than anything else just at that moment. She said in a clear, controlled voice: ‘I didn’t hear what you were saying, sir—I was asleep.’
His expression didn’t alter, although she had the feeling that he was laughing silently. She added politely, ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ and sighed with relief as his gaze swept over her head to be caught and held by the eager efforts of a girl Lucy couldn’t stand at any price—Martha Inskip, the know-all of her set; always ready with the right answers to Sister Tutor’s questions, always the one to get the highest marks in written papers, and yet quite incapable of making a patient comfortable in bed— The lecturer said almost wearily: ‘Yes, Nurse?’ and then listened impassively to her perfect answer to the question Lucy had so regrettably not heard.
He asked more questions after that, but never once did he glance at Lucy, wide awake now and brooding unhappily about Sister Tutor’s reactions. Reactions which reared their ugly heads as the lecture came to a close with the formal leavetaking of the lecturer as he stalked off the platform with Sister Tutor and her attendants trailing him. Her severe back was barely out of sight before the orderly lines of nurses broke up into groups and began to make their way back to their various destinations. Lucy was well down the corridor leading to the maze of passages which would take her to the Nurses’ Home when a breathless nurse caught up with her. ‘Sister Tutor wants you,’ she said urgently, ‘in the ante-room.’
Lucy didn’t say a word; she had been pushing her luck and now there was nothing to do about it; she hadn’t really believed that she would get off scot free. She crossed the lecture hall and went through the door by the platform into the little room used by the lecturers. There were only two people in it, Sister Tutor and the lecturer, and the former said at once in a voice which held disapproval: ‘I will leave you to apologise to Doctor der Linssen, Nurse Prendergast,’ and sailed out of the room.
The doctor stood where he was, looking at her. Presently he asked: ‘Your name is Prendergast?’ and when she nodded: ‘A peculiar name.’ Which so incensed her that she said snappily: ‘I did say I was sorry.’
‘Oh, yes, indeed. Rest assured that it was not I who insisted on you returning.’
He looked irritable and tired. She said kindly: ‘I expect your pride’s hurt, but it doesn’t need to be; everyone thought you were smashing, and I would have gone to sleep even if you’d been Michael Caine or Kojak.’
A kind of spasm shook the doctor’s patrician features, but he said merely: ‘You are on night duty, Miss—er—Prendergast.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Yes. The children’s ward—always so busy and just unspeakable last night, and then I had a huge breakfast and it’s fatal to sit down afterwards,’ and when he made no reply added in a motherly way: ‘I expect you’re quite nice at home with your wife and children.’
‘I have not as yet either wife or children.’ He sounded outraged. ‘You speak as though you were a securely married mother of a large family. Are you married, Miss Prendergast?’
‘Me? no—I’d be Mrs if I were, and who’d want to marry me? But I’ve got brothers and sisters, and we had such fun when we were children.’
His voice was icy. ‘You lack respect, young lady, and you are impertinent. You should not be nursing, you should be one of those interfering females who go around telling other people how to lead their lives and assuring them that happiness is just around the corner.’
She tried not to blush, but she couldn’t stop herself; she was engulfed in a red glow, but she looked him in the eye. ‘I don’t blame you for getting your own back,’ she added a sir this time. ‘Now we’re equal, aren’t we?’
She didn’t wait to be dismissed but flew through the door as though she had the devil at her heels, back the way she had come, almost bursting with rage and dislike of him; it took several cups of tea and half an hour in a very hot bath reading the Daily Mirror before she was sufficiently calmed down to go to bed and sleep at last.
Lucy forgot the whole regrettable business in no time at all; she was rushed off her feet on duty and when she was free she slept soundly like the healthy girl she was, and if, just once or twice, she remembered the good-looking lecturer, she pushed him to the back of her mind; she was no daydreamer—besides, he hadn’t liked her.
She had expected a lecture from Sister Tutor, but no word had been said; probably, thought Lucy, she considered that she had been sufficiently rebuked for her behaviour.
She went home for her nights off at the end of the following week, a quite long journey which she could only afford once a month. The small village outside Beaminster, which wasn’t much more than a village itself, was buried in the Dorset hills; it meant going by train to Crewkerne where she was met by her father, Rector of Dedminster and the hamlets of Lodcombe and Twistover, in the shaky old Ford used by every member of the family if they happened to be at home.
Her father met her at the station, an elderly man with mild blue eyes who had passed on his very ordinary features to her; except for the green eyes, of course, and no one in the family knew where they had come from. He led her out to the car, and after a good deal of poking around coaxed it to start, but once they were bowling sedately towards Beaminster, he embarked on a gentle dissertation about the parish, the delightful weather and the various odds and ends of news about her mother and brothers and sisters.
Lucy listened with pleasure; he was so restful after the rush and hurry of hospital life, and he was so kind. She had a fleeting memory of the lecturer, who hadn’t been kind at all, and then shook her head angrily to get rid of his image, with its handsome features and pale hair.
The Rectory was a large rambling place, very inconvenient; all passages and odd stairs and small rooms leading from the enormous kitchen, which in an earlier time must have housed a horde of servants. Lucy darted through the back door and found her mother at the kitchen table, hulling strawberries—a beautiful woman still, even with five grownup children, four of whom had inherited her striking good looks, leaving Lucy to be the plain one in the family, although as her mother pointed out often enough, no one else had emerald green eyes.
Lucy perched on the table and gobbled up strawberries while she answered her mother’s questions; they were usually the same, only couched in carefully disguised ways: had Lucy met any nice young men? had she been out? and if by some small chance she had, the young man had to be described down to the last coat button, even though Lucy pointed out that in most cases he was already engaged or had merely asked her out in order to pave the way to an introduction to one of her friends. She had little to tell this time; she was going to save the lecturer for later.
‘Lovely to be home,’ she observed contentedly. ‘Who’s here?’
‘Kitty and Jerry and Paul, dear. Emma’s got her hands full with the twins—they’ve got the measles.’
Emma was the eldest and married, and both her brothers were engaged, while Kitty was the very new wife of a BOAC pilot, on a visit while he went on a course.
‘Good,’ said Lucy. ‘What’s for dinner?’
Her parent gave her a loving look; Lucy, so small and slim, had the appetite of a large horse and never put on an ounce.
‘Roast beef, darling, and it’s almost ready.’
It was over Mrs Prendergast’s splendidly cooked meal that Lucy told them all about her unfortunate lapse during the lecture.
‘Was he good-looking?’ Kitty wanted to know.
‘Oh, very, and very large too—not just tall but wide as well; he towered, if you know what I mean, and cold blue eyes that looked through me and the sort of hair that could be either very fair or grey.’ She paused to consider. ‘Oh, and he had one of those deep, rather gritty voices.’
Her mother, portioning out trifle, gave her a quick glance. ‘But you didn’t like him, love?’
Lucy, strictly brought up as behoved a parson’s daughter, answered truthfully and without embarrassment.
‘Well, actually, I did—he was smashing. Now if it had been Kitty or Emma…they’d have known what to do, and anyway, he wouldn’t have minded them; they’re both so pretty.’ She sighed. ‘But he didn’t like me, and why should he, for heaven’s sake? Snoring through his rolling periods!’
‘Looks are not everything, Lucilla,’ observed her father mildly, who hadn’t really been listening and had only caught the bit about being pretty. ‘Perhaps a suitable regret for your rudeness in falling asleep, nicely phrased, would have earned his good opinion.’
Lucy said ‘Yes, Father,’ meekly, privately of the opinion that it wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference if she had gone down on her knees to the wretched man. It was her mother who remarked gently: ‘Yes, dear, but you must remember that Lucy has always been an honest child; she spoke her mind and I can’t blame her. She should never have had to attend his lecture in the first place.’
‘Then she wouldn’t have seen this magnificent specimen of manhood,’ said Jerry, reaching for the cheese.
‘Not sweet on him, are you, Sis?’ asked Paul slyly, and Lucy being Lucy took his question seriously.
‘Oh, no—chalk and cheese, you know. I expect he eats his lunch at Claridges when he’s not giving learned advice to someone or other and making pots of money with private patients.’
‘You’re being flippant, my dear.’ Her father smiled at her.
‘Yes, Father. I’m sure he’s a very clever man and probably quite nice to the people he likes—anyway, I shan’t see him again, shall I?’ She spoke cheerfully, conscious of a vague regret. She had, after all, only seen one facet of the man, all the others might be something quite different.
She spent her nights off doing all the things she liked doing most; gardening, picking fruit and flowers, driving her father round his sprawling parishes and tootling round the lanes on small errands for her mother, and not lonely at all, for although the boys were away all day, working for a local farmer during the long vacation, Kitty was home and in the evenings after tea they all gathered in the garden to play croquet or just sit and talk. The days went too quickly, and although she returned to the hospital cheerfully enough it was a sobering thought that when she next returned in a month’s time, it would be September and autumn.
Once a month wasn’t enough, she decided as she climbed the plain, uncarpeted stairs in the Nurses’ Home, but really she couldn’t afford more and her parents had enough on their plate while the boys were at university. In less than a year she would qualify and get a job nearer home and spend all her days off there. She unpacked her case and went in search of any of her friends who might be around. Angela from Women’s Surgical was in the kitchenette making tea; they shared the pot and gossiped comfortably until it was time to change into uniform and go on duty for the night.
The nights passed rapidly. Children’s was always full, as fast as one cot was emptied and its small occupant sent triumphantly home, another small creature took its place. Broken bones, hernias, intussusceptions, minor burns, she tended them all with unending patience and a gentleness which turned her small plain face to beauty.
It was two weeks later, when she was on nights off again, that Lucy saw Mr der Linssen. This time she was standing at a zebra crossing in Knightsbridge, having spent her morning with her small nose pressed to the fashionable shop windows there, and among the cars which pulled up was a Panther 4.2 convertible with him in the driving seat. There was a girl beside him; exactly right for the car, too, elegant and dark and haughty. Mr der Linssen, waiting for the tiresome pedestrians to cross the street, allowed his gaze to rest on Lucy, but as no muscle of his face altered, she concluded that he hadn’t recognised her. A not unremarkable thing; she was hardly outstanding in the crowd struggling to the opposite pavement—mousy hair and last year’s summer dress hardly added up to the spectacular.
But the next time they met was quite another kettle of fish. Lucy had crossed the busy street outside the hospital to purchase fish and chips for such of the night nurses who had been out that morning and now found themselves too famished to go to their beds without something to eat. True, they hadn’t been far, only to the Royal College of Surgeons to view its somewhat gruesome exhibits, under Sister Tutor’s eagle eye, but they had walked there and back, very neat in their uniforms and caps, and now their appetites had been sharpened, and Lucy, judged to be the most appropriate of them to fetch the food because she was the only one who didn’t put her hair into rollers before she went to bed, had nipped smartly across between the buses and cars and vans, purchased mouthwatering pieces of cod in batter and a large parcel of chips, and was on the point of nipping back again when a small boy darted past her and ran into the street, looking neither left nor right as he went.
There were cars and buses coming both ways and a taxi so close that only a miracle would stop it. Lucy plunged after him with no very clear idea as to what she was going to do. She was aware of the taxi right on top of her, the squealing of brakes as the oncoming cars skidded to a halt, then she had plucked the boy from under the taxi’s wheels, lurched away and with him and the fish and chips clasped to her bosom, tripped over, caught by the taxi’s bumper.
She wasn’t knocked out; she could hear the boy yelling from somewhere underneath her and there was a fishy smell from her parcels as they squashed flat under her weight. The next moment she was being helped to her feet.
‘Well, well,’ observed Mr der Linssen mildly, ‘you again.’ He added quite unnecessarily: ‘You smell of fish.’
She looked at him in a woolly fashion and then at the willing helpers lifting the boy up carefully. He was screaming his head off and Mr der Linssen said: ‘Hang on, I’ll just take a look.’
It gave her a moment to pull herself together, something which she badly needed to do—a nice burst of tears, which would have done her a lot of good, had to be squashed. She stood up straight, a deplorable figure, smeared with pieces of fish and mangled chips, her uniform filthy and torn and her cap crooked. The Panther, she saw at once, was right beside the taxi, and the same girl was sitting in it. Doctor der Linssen, with the boy in his arms, was speaking to her now. The girl hardly glanced at the boy, only nodded in a rather bored way and then looked at Lucy with a mocking little smile, but that didn’t matter, because she was surrounded by people now, patting her on the shoulder, telling her that she was a brave girl and asking if she were hurt; she had no chance to answer any of them because Mr der Linssen, with the boy still bawling in his arms, marched her into Casualty without further ado, said in an authoritative way: ‘I don’t think this boy’s hurt, but he’ll need a good going over,’ laid him on an examination couch and turned his attention to Lucy. ‘You had a nasty thump from that bumper—where was it exactly?’ and when she didn’t answer at once: ‘There’s no need to be mealy-mouthed about it—your behind, I take it—better get undressed and get someone to look at it…’
‘I wasn’t being mealy-mouthed,’ said Lucy pettishly, ‘I was trying to decide exactly which spot hurt most.’
He smiled in what she considered to be an unpleasant manner. ‘Undress anyway, and I’ll get someone along to see to it. It was only a glancing blow, but you’re such a scrap of a thing you’re probably badly bruised.’ To her utter astonishment he added: ‘For whom were the fish and chips? If you’ll let me know I’ll see that they get a fresh supply—you’ve got most of what you bought smeared over you.’
She said quite humbly: ‘Thank you, that would be kind. They were for the night nurses on the surgical wards…eight cod pieces and fifty pence worth of chips. They’re waiting for them before they go to bed—over in the Home.’ She added: ‘I’m sorry I haven’t any more money with me—I’ll leave it in an envelope at the Lodge for you, sir.’
He only smiled, pushed her gently into one of the bays and pulled the curtains and turned to speak to Casualty Sister. Lucy couldn’t hear what he was saying and she didn’t care. The couch looked very inviting and she was suddenly so sleepy that even her aching back didn’t matter. She took off her uniform and her shoes and stretched herself out on its hard leather surface, muffled to the eyes with the cosy red blanket lying at its foot. She was asleep within minutes.
She woke reluctantly to Casualty Sister’s voice, begging her to rouse herself. ‘Bed for you, Nurse Prendergast,’ said that lady cheerfully, ‘and someone will have another look at you tomorrow and decide if you’re fit for duty then. Bad bruising and a few abrasions, but nothing else. Mr der Linssen examined you with Mr Trevett; you couldn’t have had better men.’ She added kindly: ‘There’s a porter waiting with a chair, he’ll take you over to the home—Home Sister’s waiting to help you into a nice hot bath and give you something to eat—after that you can sleep your head off.’
‘Yes, Sister. Why did Mr der Linssen need to examine me?’
Sister was helping her to her reluctant feet. ‘Well, dear, he was here—and since he’d been on the spot, as it were, he felt it his duty…by the way, I was to tell you that the food was delivered, whatever that means, and the police have taken eye-witness accounts and they’ll come and see you later.’ She smiled hugely. ‘Little heroine, aren’t you?’
‘Is the boy all right, Sister?’
‘He’s in Children’s, under observation, but nothing much wrong with him, I gather. And now if you’re ready, Nurse.’
Lucy was off for two days and despite the stiffness and bruising, she hadn’t enjoyed herself so much for some time. The Principal Nursing Officer paid her a stately visit, praised her for her quick action in saving the boy and added that the hospital was proud of her, and Lucy, sitting gingerly on a sore spot, listened meekly; she much preferred Home Sister’s visits, for that lady was a cosy middle-aged woman who had had children of her own and knew about tempting appetites and sending in pots of tea when Lucy’s numerous friends called in to see her. Indeed, her room was the focal point of a good deal of noise and laughter and a good deal of joking, too, about Mr der Linssen’s unexpected appearance.
He had disappeared again, of course. Lucy was visited by Mr Trevett, but there was no sign of his colleague, nor was he mentioned; and a good thing too, she thought. On neither of the occasions upon which they had met had she exactly shone. She dismissed him from her mind because, as she told herself sensibly, there was no point in doing anything else.
She was forcibly reminded of him later that day when Home Sister came in with a great sheaf of summer flowers, beautifully ribboned. She handed it to Lucy with a comfortable: ‘Well, Nurse, whatever you may think about consultants, here’s one who appreciates you.’
She smiled nicely without mockery or envy. It was super, thought Lucy, that the hospital still believed in the old-fashioned Home Sister and hadn’t had her displaced by some official, who, not being a nurse, had no personal interest in her charges.
There was a card with the flowers. The message upon it was austere: ‘To Miss Prendergast with kind regards, Fraam der Linssen.’
Lucy studied it carefully. It was a kind gesture even if rather on the cold side. And what a very peculiar name!
It was decided that instead of going on night duty the next day, Lucy should have her nights off with the addition of two days’ sick leave. She didn’t feel in the least sick, but she was still sore, and parts of her person were all colours of the rainbow and Authority having decreed it, who was she to dispute their ruling?
Her family welcomed her warmly, but beyond commending her for conduct which he, good man that he was, took for granted, her father had little to say about her rescue of the little boy. Her brothers teased her affectionately, but it was her mother who said: ‘Your father is so proud of you, darling, and so are the boys, but you know what boys are.’ They smiled at each other. ‘I’m proud of you too—you’re such a small creature and you could have been mown down.’ Mrs Prendergast smiled again, rather mistily. ‘That nice man who stopped and took you both into the hospital wrote me a letter—I’ve got it here; I thought you might like to see it—a Dutch name, too. I suppose he was just passing…’
‘He’s the lecturer—you remember, Mother? When I fell asleep.’
Her mother giggled. ‘Darling—I didn’t know, do tell me all about it.’
Lucy did, and now that it was all over and done with she laughed just as much as her mother over the fish and chips.
‘But what a nice man to get you another lot—he sounds a poppet.’
Lucy said that probably he was, although she didn’t believe that Mr der Linssen was quite the type one would describe as a poppet. Poppets were plump and cosy and good-natured, and he was none of these. She read his letter, sitting on the kitchen table eating the bits of pastry left over from the pie her mother was making, and had to admit that it was a very nice one, although she didn’t believe the bit where he wrote that he admired her for bravery. He hadn’t admired her in the least, on the contrary he had complained that she smelt of fish…but the flowers had been lovely even if he’d been doing the polite thing; probably his secretary had bought them. She folded the letter up carefully. ‘He sent me some flowers,’ she told her mother, ‘but I expect he only did it because he thought he should.’
Her mother put the pie in the oven. ‘I expect so, too, darling,’ she said carefully casual.
Lucy was still sitting there, swinging her rather nice legs, when her father came in to join them. ‘Never let it be said,’ he observed earnestly, ‘that virtue has no reward. You remember my friend Theodul de Groot? I’ve just received a telephone call from him; he’s in London attending some medical seminar or other, and asks particularly after you, Lucy. Indeed he wished to know if you have any holiday due and if so would you like to pay him a visit. Mies liked you when you met seven—eight? years ago and you’re of a similar age. I daresay she’s lonely now that her mother is dead. Do you have any holiday, my dear?’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy very fast, ‘two weeks due and I’m to take them at the end of next week—that’s when I come off night duty.’
‘Splendid—he’ll be in London for a few days yet, but he’s anxious to come and see us. I’m sure he will be willing to stay until you’re free and take you back with him.’
‘You would like to go, love?’ asked her mother.
‘Oh, rather—it’ll be super! I loved it when I went before, but that’s ages ago—I was at school. Does Doctor de Groot still practise?’
‘Oh, yes. He has a large practice in Amsterdam still, mostly poor patients, I believe, but he has a splendid reputation in the city and numbers a great many prominent men among his friends.’
‘And Mies? I haven’t heard from her for ages.’
‘She helps her father—receptionist and so on, I gather. But I’m sure she’ll have plenty of free time to spend with you.’
‘Wouldn’t it be strange if you met that lecturer while you were there?’ Mrs Prendergast’s tone was artless.
‘Well, I shan’t. I should think he lived in London, wouldn’t you?’ Lucy ran her finger round the remains of custard in a dish and licked it carefully. ‘I wonder what clothes I should take?’
The rest of her nights off were spent in pleasurable planning and she went back happily enough to finish her night duty, her bruises now an unpleasant yellow. The four nights went quickly enough now that she had something to look forward to, even though they were busier than ever, what with a clutch of very ill babies to be dealt with hourly and watched over with care, and two toddlers who kept the night hours as noisy as the day with their cries of rage because they wanted to go home.
Lucy had just finished the ten o’clock feeds on her last night, and was trying to soothe a very small, very angry baby, when Mr Henderson, the Surgical Registrar, came into the ward, and with him Mr der Linssen. At the sight of them the baby yelled even louder, as red in the face and as peppery as an ill-tempered colonel, so that Lucy, holding him with one hand over her shoulder while she straightened the cot with the other, looked round to see what was putting the infant into an even worse rage.
‘Mr der Linssen wants a word with you, Nurse Prendergast,’ said the Registrar importantly, and she frowned at him; he was a short, pompous man who always made the babies cry, not because he was unkind to them but because he disliked having them sick up on his coat and sometimes worse than that, and they must have known it. ‘Put him back in the cot, Nurse.’
She had no intention of doing anything of the sort, but Mr der Linssen stretched out a long arm and took the infant from her, settling him against one great shoulder, where, to her great annoyance, it stopped bawling at once, hiccoughed loudly and went to sleep, its head tucked against the superfine wool of his jacket. Lucy, annoyed that the baby should put her in a bad light, hoped fervently that it would dribble all over him.
‘Babies like me,’ observed Mr der Linssen smugly, and then: ‘I hear from Mr Trevett that you are going to your home tomorrow. I have to drive to Bristol—I’ll give you a lift.’
She eyed him frostily. ‘How kind, but I’m going by train.’ She added: ‘Beaminster’s rather out of your way.’
‘A part of England I have always wished to see,’ he assured her airily. ‘Will ten o’clock suit you?’ He smiled most engagingly. ‘You may sleep the whole way if you wish.’
In other words, she thought ungraciously, he couldn’t care less whether I’m there or not, and then went pink as he went on: ‘I should much prefer you to stay awake, but never let it be said that I’m an unreasonable man.’
He handed the baby back and it instantly started screaming its head off again. ‘Ten o’clock?’ he repeated. It wasn’t a question, just a statement of fact.
Lucy was already tired and to tell the truth the prospect of a long train journey on top of a busy night wasn’t all that enthralling. ‘Oh, very well,’ she said ungraciously, and had a moment’s amusement at the Registrar’s face.
Mr der Linssen’s handsome features didn’t alter. He nodded calmly and went away.
CHAPTER TWO
LUCY SAT stiffly in the comfort of the Panther as Mr der Linssen cut a swathe through the London traffic and drove due west. It seemed that he was as good at driving a car as he was at soothing a baby and just as patient; through the number of hold-ups they were caught up in he sat quietly, neither tapping an impatient tattoo with his long, well manicured fingers, nor muttering under his breath; in fact, beyond wishing her a cheerful good morning when she had presented herself, punctual but inimical, at the hospital entrance, he hadn’t spoken. She was wondering about that when he observed suddenly: ‘Still feeling cross? No need; I am at times ill-tempered, arrogant and inconsiderate, but I do not bear malice and nor—as I suspect you are thinking—am I heaping coals of fire upon your mousy head because you dropped off during one of my lectures…It was a good lecture too.’
And how did she answer that? thought Lucy, and need he have reminded her that her hair was mousy? She almost exploded when he added kindly: ‘Even if it is mousy it is always clean and shining. Don’t ever give it one of those rinses—my young sister did and ended up with bright red streaks in all the wrong places.’
‘Have you got a sister?’ she was surprised into asking.
‘Lord, yes, and years younger than I am. You sound surprised.’
He was working his way towards the M3 and she looked out at the river as they crossed Putney Bridge and swept on towards Richmond. She said slowly, not wishing to offend him even though she didn’t think she liked him at all: ‘Well, I am, a bit… I mean when one gets—gets older one talks about a wife and children…’
‘But I have neither, as I have already told you. You mean perhaps that I am middle-aged. Well, I suppose I am; nudging forty is hardly youth.’
‘The prime of life,’ said Lucy. ‘I’m twenty-three, but women get older much quicker than men do.’
He drove gently through the suburbs. ‘That I cannot believe, what with hairdressers and beauty parlours and an endless succession of new clothes.’
Probably he had girl-friends who enjoyed these aids to youth and beauty, reflected Lucy; it wasn’t much use telling him that student nurses did their own hair, sleeping in rollers which kept them awake half the night in the pursuit of beauty, and as for boutiques and up-to-the-minute clothes, they either made their own or shopped at Marks & Spencer or C.&A.
She said politely: ‘I expect you’re right’ and then made a banal remark about the weather and presently, when they reached the motorway and were doing a steady seventy, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
She woke up just before midday to find that they were already on the outskirts of Sherborne and to her disjointed apologies he rejoined casually: ‘You needed a nap. We’ll have coffee—is there anywhere quiet and easy to park?’
She directed him to an old timbered building opposite the Abbey where they drank coffee and ate old-fashioned currant buns, and nicely refreshed with her sleep and the food, Lucy told him about the little town. ‘We don’t come here often,’ she observed. ‘Crewkerne is nearer, and anyway we can always go into Beaminster.’
‘And that is a country town?’ he asked idly.
‘Well, it’s a large village, I suppose.’
He smiled. ‘Then let us go and inspect this village, shall we? Unless you could eat another bun?’
She assured him that she had had enough and feeling quite friendly towards him, she climbed back into the car and as he turned back into the main street to take the road to Crewkerne she apologised again, only to have the little glow of friendliness doused by his casual: ‘You are making too much of a brief doze, Lucy. I did tell you that you could sleep all the way if you wished to.’ He made it worse by adding: ‘I’m only giving you a lift, you know, you don’t have to feel bound to entertain me.’
A remark which annoyed her so much that she had to bite her tongue to stop it from uttering the pert retort which instantly came to her mind. She wouldn’t speak to him, she decided, and then had to when he asked: ‘Just where do I turn off?’
They arrived at the Rectory shortly before two o’clock and she invited him, rather frostily, to meet her family, not for a moment supposing that he would wish to do so, so she was surprised when he said readily enough that he would be delighted.
She led the way up the short drive and opened the door wider; it was already ajar, for her father believed that he should always be available at any time. There was a delicious smell coming from the kitchen and when Lucy called: ‘Mother?’ her parent called: ‘Home already, darling? Come in here—I’m dishing up.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Lucy to her companion, and left him standing in the hall while she joined her mother. It was astonishing what a lot she could explain in a few seconds; she left Mrs Prendergast in no doubt as to what she was to say to her visitor. ‘And tell Father,’ whispered Lucy urgently, ‘he’s not to know that I’m going to Holland.’ She added in an artificially high voice: ‘Do come and meet Mr der Linssen, Mother, he’s been so kind…’
The subject of their conversation was standing where she had left him, looking amused, but he greeted Mrs Prendergast charmingly and then made small talk with Lucy in the sitting room while her mother went in search of the Rector. That gentleman, duly primed by his wife, kissed his youngest daughter with affection, looking faintly puzzled and then turned his attention to his guest. ‘A drink?’ he suggested hospitably, ‘and of course you will stay to lunch.’
Mr der Linssen shot a sidelong glance at Lucy’s face and his eyes gleamed with amusement at its expression. ‘There is nothing I should have liked better,’ he said pleasantly, ‘but I have an appointment and dare not stay.’ He shot a look under his lids at Lucy as he spoke and saw relief on her face.
Her mother saw it too: ‘Then another time, Mr der Linssen—we should be so glad to give you lunch and the other children would love to meet you.’
‘You have a large family, Mrs Prendergast?’
She beamed at him. ‘Five—Lucy’s the youngest.’
The rector chuckled. ‘And the plainest, poor child—she takes after me.’
Lucy went bright pink. Really, her father was a darling but said all the wrong things sometimes, and it gave Mr der Linssen the chance to look amused again. She gave him a glassy stare while he shook hands with her parents and wished him an austere goodbye and added thanks cold enough to freeze his bones. Not that he appeared to notice; his goodbye to her was casual and friendly, he even wished her a pleasant holiday.
She didn’t go to the door to see him off and when her mother came indoors she tried to look nonchalant under that lady’s searching look. ‘Darling,’ said her mother, ‘did you have to be quite so terse with the poor man? Such a nice smile too. He must have been famished.’
Lucy’s mousy brows drew together in a frown. ‘Oh, lord—I didn’t think—we did stop in Sherborne for coffee and buns, though.’
‘My dear,’ observed her mother gently, ‘he is a very large man, I hardly feel that coffee and buns would fill him up.’ She swept her daughter into the kitchen and began to dish up dinner. ‘And why isn’t he to know that you’re going to Holland?’ she enquired mildly.
Lucy, dishing up roast potatoes, felt herself blushing again and scowled. ‘Well, if I’d told him, he might have thought…that is, it would have looked as though… Oh, dear, that sounds conceited, but I don’t mean it to be, Mother.’
‘You don’t want to be beholden to him, darling,’ suggested her mother helpfully.
Lucy sighed, relieved that her mother understood. ‘Yes, that’s it.’ She took a potato out of the dish and nibbled at it. ‘Is it just the three of us?’
‘Yes, love—the others will come in this evening, I hope—the boys just for the night to see your godfather. Kitty’s visiting Agnes’—Agnes was a bosom friend in Yeovil—‘but she’ll be back for supper and Emma will come over for an hour while Will minds the twins.’
‘Oh, good—then I’ll have time to pack after dinner.’
She hadn’t many clothes and those that she had weren’t very exciting; she went through her wardrobe with a dissatisfied frown, casting aside so much that she was forced to do it all over again otherwise she would have had nothing to take with her. In the end she settled for a jersey dress and jacket, a swimsuit in case it was warm enough to swim, a tweed skirt she really rather hated because she had had it for a couple of years now, slacks and a variety of shirts and sweaters. It was September now and it could turn chilly and she would look a fool in thin clothes. She had two evening dresses, neither of them of the kind to turn a man’s head, even for a moment. It was a pity that both her sisters were tall shapely girls. She rummaged round some more and came upon a cotton skirt, very full and rose-patterned; it might do for an evening, if they were to go out, and there was a silk blouse somewhere—she had almost thrown it away because she was so heartily sick of it, but it would do at a pinch, she supposed. She packed without much pleasure and when her mother put her head round the door to see how she was getting on, assured her that she had plenty of clothes; she was only going for a fortnight, anyway. She added her raincoat and a handful of headscarves and went to look at her shoes. Not much there, she reflected; her good black patent and the matching handbag, some worthy walking shoes which she might need and some rather fetching strapped shoes which would do very well for the evenings. She added a dressing gown, undies and slippers to the pile on the bed and then, because she could hear a car driving up to the Rectory, decided to pack them later with her other things; that would be her father’s friend, Doctor de Groot.
She had forgotten how nice he was; elderly and stooping a little with twinkling blue eyes and a marked accent. Her holiday was going to be fun after all; she sat in the midst of her family and beamed at everyone.
They set off the next morning, and it didn’t take Lucy long to discover that the journey wasn’t going to be a dull one. Doctor de Groot, once in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes, turned from a mild, elderly man with a rather pedantic manner into a speed fiend, who swore—luckily in his own language—at every little hold-up, every traffic light against him and any car which dared to overtake him. By the time they reached Dover, she had reason to be glad that she was by nature a calm girl, otherwise she might have been having hysterics. They had to wait in the queue for the Hovercraft too, a circumstance which caused her companion to drum on the wheel, mutter a good deal and generally fidget around, so that it was a relief when they went on board. Once there and out of his car, he reverted to the mild elderly gentleman again, which was a mercy, for they hadn’t stopped on the journey and his solicitous attention was very welcome. Lucy retired to the ladies’ and did her hair and her face, then returned to her seat to find that he had ordered coffee and sandwiches. It took quite a lot of self-control not to wolf them and then help herself to his as well.
They seemed to be in Calais in no time at all and Lucy, fortified with the sandwiches, strapped herself into her seat and hoped for the best. Not a very good best, actually, for Doctor de Groot was, if anything, slightly more maniacal on his own side of the Channel, and now, of course, they were driving on the other side of the road. They were to go along the coast, he explained, and cross over into Holland at the border town of Sluis, a journey of almost two hundred and thirty miles all told. ‘We shall be home for supper,’ he told her. ‘We don’t need to stop for tea, do we?’
It seemed a long way, but at the speed they were going she reflected that it wouldn’t take all that long. Doctor de Groot blandly ignored the speed signs and tore along the straight roads at a steady eighty miles an hour, only slowing for towns and villages. He had had to go more slowly in France and Belgium, of course, for there weren’t many empty stretches of road, but once in Holland, on the motorway, he put his foot down and kept it there.
It seemed no time at all before they were in the outskirts of Amsterdam, but all the same Lucy was glad to see the staid blocks of flats on either side of them. She was tired and hungry and at the back of her mind was a longing to be at home in her mother’s kitchen, getting the supper. But she forgot that almost as soon as she had thought it; the flats might look rather dull from the outside, but their lighted windows with the curtains undrawn gave glimpses of cosy interiors. She wondered what it would be like to live like that, boxed up in a big city with no fields at the back door, no garden even. Hateful, and yet in the older part of the city there were lovely steepled houses, old and narrow with important front doors which opened on to hidden splendours which the passer-by never saw. To live in one of those, she conceded, would be a delight.
She caught glimpses of them now as they neared the heart of the city and crossed the circular grachten encircling it, each one looking like a Dutch old master. She craned her neck to see them better but remembered to recognise the turning her companion must take to his own home, which delighted him. ‘So you remember a little of our city, Lucy?’ he asked, well pleased. ‘It is beautiful, is it not? You shall explore…’
‘Oh, lovely,’ declared Lucy, and really meant it. The hair-raising trip from Calais, worse if possible than the drive to Dover from her home, was worth every heart-stopping moment. She could forget it, anyway; she would be going back by boat at the end of her visit and probably Doctor de Groot would be too busy to drive her around. Perhaps Mies had a car…
They were nearing the end of their journey now, the Churchilllaan where Doctor de Groot had a flat, and as it came into view she could see that it hadn’t changed at all. It was on the ground floor, surrounded by green lawns and an ornamental canal with ducks on it and flowering shrubs, but no garden of its own. The doctor drew up untidily before the entrance, helped her out and pressed the button which would allow the occupants of the flat to open the front door. ‘I have a key,’ he explained, ‘but Mies likes to know when I am home.’
The entrance was rather impressive, with panelled walls and rather peculiar murals, a staircase wound itself up the side of one wall and there were two lifts facing the door, but the doctor’s front door was one of two leading from the foyer and Mies, warned of their coming, was already there.
Mies, unlike her surroundings, had changed quite a lot. Lucy hadn’t see her for almost eight years and now, a year younger than she, at twenty-two Mies was quite something—ash-blonde hair, cut short and curling, big blue eyes and a stunning figure. Lucy, not an envious girl by nature, flung herself at her friend with a yelp of delight. ‘You’re gorgeous!’ she declared. ‘Who’d have thought it eight years ago—you’re a raving beauty, Mies!’
Mies looked pleased. ‘You think, yes?’ She returned Lucy’s hug and then stood back to study her.
‘No need,’ observed Lucy a little wryly. ‘I’ve not changed, you see.’
Mies made a little face. ‘Perhaps not, but your figure is O.K. and your eyes are extraordinaire.’
‘Green,’ said Lucy flatly as she followed the doctor and Mies into the flat.
‘You have the same room,’ said Mies, ‘so that you feel you are at home.’ She smiled warmly as she led the way across the wide hall and down a short passage. The flat was a large one, its rooms lofty and well furnished. As far as Lucy could remember, it hadn’t changed in the least. She unpacked in her pretty little bedroom and went along to the dining room for supper, a meal they ate without haste, catching up on news and reminding each other of all the things they had done when she had stayed there before.
‘I work,’ explained Mies, ‘for Papa, but now I take a holiday and we go out, Lucy. I have not a car…’ she shot a vexed look at her father as she spoke, ‘but there are bicycles. You can still use a fiets?’
‘Oh, rather, though I daresay I’ll be scared to death in Amsterdam.’
The doctor glanced up. ‘I think that maybe I will take a few hours off and we will take you for a little trip, Lucy. Into the country, perhaps?’
‘Sounds smashing,’ agreed Lucy happily, ‘but just pottering suits me, you know.’
‘We will also potter,’ declared Mies seriously, ‘and you will speak English to me, Lucy, for I am now with rust.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I speak only a very little and I forget.’
‘You’ll remember every word in a couple of days,’ observed Lucy comfortably. ‘I wish I could speak Dutch even half as well.’
Mies poured their after supper coffee. ‘Truly? Then we will also speak Dutch and you will learn quickly.’
They spent the rest of the evening telling each other what they did and whether they liked it or not while the doctor retired to his study to read his post. ‘I shall marry,’ declared Mies, ‘it is nice to work for Papa but not for too long, I think. I have many friends but no one that I wish to marry.’ She paused. ‘At least I think so.’
Lucy thought how nice it must be; so pretty that one could pick and choose instead of just waiting and hoping that one day some man would come along and want to marry one. True, she was only twenty-three, but the years went fast and there were any number of pretty girls growing up all the time. Probably she would have to settle for someone who had been crossed in love and wanted to make a second choice, or a widower with troublesome children, looking for a sensible woman to mind them; probably no one would ask her at all. A sudden and quite surprising memory flashed through her head of Mr der Linssen and with it a kind of nameless wish that he could have fallen for her—even for a day or two, she conceded; it would have done her ego no end of good.
‘You dream?’ enquired Mies.
Lucy shook her head. ‘What sort of a man are you going to marry?’ she asked.
The subject kept them happily talking until bedtime.
Lucy spent the next two days renewing her acquaintance with Amsterdam; the actual city hadn’t changed, she discovered, only the Kalverstraat was full of modern shops now, crowding out the small, expensive ones she remembered, but de Bijenkorf was still there and so was Vroom and Dreesman, and C. & A. The pair of them wandered happily from shop to shop, buying nothing at all and drinking coffee in one of the small coffee bars which were all over the place. They spent a long time in Krause en Vogelzang too, looking at wildly expensive undies and clothes which Mies had made up her mind she would have if she got married. ‘Papa gives me a salary,’ she explained, ‘but it isn’t much,’ she mentioned a sum which was almost twice Lucy’s salary—‘but when I decide to marry then he will give me all the money I want. I shall have beautiful clothes and the finest linen for my house.’ She smiled brilliantly at Lucy. ‘And you, your papa will do that for you also?’
‘Oh, rather,’ agreed Lucy promptly, telling herself that it wasn’t really a fib; he would if he had the money. Mies was an only child and it was a little hard for her to understand that not everyone lived in the comfort she had had all her life.
‘You shall come to the wedding,’ said Mies, tucking an arm into Lucy’s, ‘and there you will meet a very suitable husband.’ She gave the arm a tug. ‘Let us drink more coffee before we return home.’
It was during dinner that Doctor de Groot suggested that Lucy might like to see the clinic he had set up in a street off the Haarlemmerdijk. ‘Not my own, of course,’ he explained, ‘but I have the widest support from the Health Service and work closely with the hospital authorities.’
‘Every day?’ asked Lucy.
‘On four days a week, afternoon and evenings. I have my own surgery each morning—you remember it, close by?’
‘That’s where I work,’ interrupted Mies. ‘Papa doesn’t like me to go to the clinic, only to visit. I shall come with you tomorrow. Shall we go with you, Papa, or take a taxi?’
‘Supposing you come in the afternoon? I shall be home for lunch and I can drive you both there, then you can take a taxi home when you are ready.’
The weather had changed in the morning, the bright autumn sunshine had been nudged away by a nippy little wind and billowing clouds. The two girls spent the morning going through Mies’ wardrobe while the daily maid did the housework and made the beds and presently brought them coffee.
She prepared most of their lunch too; Lucy, used to giving a hand round the house, felt guilty at doing nothing at all, but Mies, when consulted, had looked quite surprised. ‘But of course you do nothing,’ she exclaimed, ‘Anneke is paid for her work and would not like to be helped, but if you wish we will arrange the table.’
The doctor was a little late for lunch so that they had to hurry over it rather. Lucy, getting into her raincoat and changing her light shoes for her sensible ones, paused only long enough to dab powder on her unpretentious nose, snatch up her shoulder bag, and run back into the hall where he was waiting. They had to wait for Mies, who wasn’t the hurrying sort so that he became a little impatient and Lucy hoped that he wouldn’t try and make up time driving through the city, but perhaps he was careful in Amsterdam.
He wasn’t; he drove like a demented Jehu, spilling out Dutch oaths through clenched teeth and taking hair’s-breadth risks between trams and buses, but as Mies sat without turning a hair, Lucy concluded that she must do the same. She had never been so pleased to see anything as their destination when he finally scraped to a halt in a narrow street, lined with grey warehouses and old-fashioned blocks of flats. The clinic was old-fashioned enough too on the outside, but once through its door and down the long narrow passage it was transformed into something very modern indeed; a waiting room on the left; a brightly painted apartment with plenty of chairs, coffee machine, papers and magazines on several well-placed tables and a cheerful elderly woman sitting behind a desk in one corner, introduced by the doctor as Mevrouw Valker. And back in the passage again, the end door revealed another wide passage with several doors leading from it; consulting rooms, treatment rooms, an X-ray department, cloakrooms and a small changing room for the staff.
‘Very nice,’ declared Lucy, poking her inquisitive nose round every door. ‘Do you specialise or is it general?’
‘I suppose one might say general, although we deal largely with Reynaud’s disease and thromboangiitis obliterans—inflammation of the blood vessels—a distressing condition, probably you have never encountered it, Lucy.’
She said, quite truthfully that no, she hadn’t, and forbore to mention that she had slept through a masterly lecture upon it, and because she still found the memory of it disquieting, changed the subject quickly. The first patients began to arrive presently and she and Mies retired to an empty consulting room, so that Mies could explain exactly how the clinic was run. ‘Of course, Papa receives an honorarium, but it is not very much, you understand, and there are many doctors who come here also to give advice and help him too and they receive nothing at all, for they do not wish it—the experience is great.’ She added in a burst of honesty: ‘Papa is very clever, but not as clever as some of the doctors and surgeons who come here to see the patients.’
‘Do they pay?’ Lucy wanted to know.
‘There are those who do; those who cannot are treated free. It—how do you say?—evens up.’
Lucy was peering in the well equipped cupboards. ‘You don’t work here?’
‘No—it is not a very nice part of the city and Papa does not like me to walk here alone. When we wish to go we shall telephone for a taxi.’
Lucy, who had traipsed some pretty grotty streets round St Norbert’s, suggested that as there would be two of them they would be safe enough, but Mies wasn’t going to agree, she could see that, so she contented herself with asking if there was any more to see.
‘I think that you have seen all,’ said Mies, and turned round as her father put his head round the door. ‘Tell Mevrouw Valker to keep the boy van Berends back—she can send the patient after him.’ He spoke in English, for he was far too polite to speak Dutch in front of Lucy, and Mies said at once: ‘Certainly, Papa. I’ll go now.’
The two girls went into the passage together and Mies disappeared into the waiting room, leaving Lucy to dawdle towards the entrance for lack of anything better to do. She was almost at the door when it opened.
‘Well, well, the parson’s daughter!’ exclaimed Mr der Linssen as he shut it behind him.
‘Well, you’ve no reason to make it sound as though I were exhibit A at an old-tyme exhibition,’ snapped Lucy, her temper fired by the faint mockery with which he was regarding her.
He gave a shout of laughter. ‘And you haven’t lost that tongue of yours either,’ he commented. ‘Always ready with an answer, aren’t you?’
He took off his car coat and hung it any old how on a peg on the wall. ‘How did you get here?’
Very much on her dignity she told him. ‘And how did you get here?’ she asked in a chilly little voice.
He frowned her down. ‘I hardly think…’ he began, and then broke off to exclaim: ‘Mies—more beautiful than ever! Why haven’t I seen you lately?’
Mies had come out of the waiting room and now, with every appearance of delight, had skipped down the passage to fling herself at him. ‘Fraam, how nice to see you! You are always so busy…and here is my good friend Lucy Prendergast.’
He bent and kissed her lovely face. ‘Yes, we’ve met in England.’ He turned round and kissed Lucy too in an absent-minded manner. ‘I’ve just one check to make. Wait and I’ll give you a lift back.’
He had gone while Lucy was still getting her breath back.
Mies took her arm and led her back to the room they had been in. ‘Now that is splendid, that you know Fraam. Is he not handsome? And he is also rich and not yet married, even though he has all the girls to choose from.’ She giggled. ‘I think that I shall marry him; I am a little in love with him, you know, although he is old, and he is devoted to me. Would we not make a nice pair?’
Lucy eyed her friend. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, you would, and you’re a doctor’s daughter, too, you know what to expect if you marry him.’
‘That is true, but you must understand that he is not a house doctor, he is consultant surgeon with many hospitals and travels to other countries. He has a practice of course in the best part of Amsterdam, but he works in many of the clinics also. He has a large house, too.’
‘It sounds just right,’ observed Lucy. ‘You wouldn’t want to marry a poor man, would you?’
Mies looked horrified. ‘Oh, no, I could not. And you, Lucy? You would also wish to marry a man with money?’
She was saved from answering by the entrance of a young man. He was tall and thin and studious-looking, with fair hair, steady blue eyes and a ready smile. He spoke to Mies in Dutch and she answered him in what Lucy considered to be a very off-hand way before switching to English.
‘This is Willem de Vries, Lucy—he is a doctor also and works at the Grotehof Ziekenhuis. He comes here to work with Papa.’ She added carelessly: ‘I have known him for ever.’
Willem looked shy and Lucy made haste to say how glad she was to meet him and added a few rather inane remarks because the atmosphere seemed a little strained. ‘Did you go to school together?’ she asked chattily, and just as he was on the point of replying, Mies said quickly: ‘Yes, we did. Willem, should you not be working?’
He nodded and then asked hesitantly: ‘We’ll see each other soon?’ and had to be content with her brief, ‘I expect so. You can take us to a bioscoop one evening if you want to.’
After he had gone there was a short silence while Lucy tried to think of something casual to say, but it was Mies who spoke first. ‘Willem is a dull person. I have known him all my life, and besides, he does not kiss and laugh like Fraam.’
‘I thought he looked rather a dear. How old is he?’
‘Twenty-six. Fraam is going to be forty soon.’
‘Poor old Fraam,’ said Lucy naughtily, and then caught her breath when he said from the door behind her:
‘Your concern for my advanced age does you credit, Miss Prendergast.’
She turned round and looked at him; of course she would be Miss Prendergast from now on because she had had the nerve to call him Fraam, a liberty he would repay four-fold, she had no doubt. She said with an airiness she didn’t quite feel: ‘Hullo. Listeners never hear any good of themselves,’ and added: ‘Mr der Linssen.’
His smile was frosty. ‘But you are quite right, Miss Prendergast. It is a pity that we do not all have the gift of dropping off when we do not wish to listen, though.’
Her green eyes sparked temper. ‘What a very unfair thing to say—you know quite well that I’d been up all night!’
Mies was staring at them both in turn. ‘Don’t you like each other?’ she asked in an interested way.
‘That remains to be seen,’ observed Mr der Linssen, and he smiled in what Lucy considered to be a nasty fashion. ‘Our acquaintance is so far of the very slightest.’
‘Oh, well,’ declared Mies a little pettishly, ‘you will have to become friends, for it is most disagreeable when two people meet and do not speak.’ Her tone changed to charming beguilement. ‘Fraam, do you go to the hospital dance next Saturday? Would you not like to take me?’ She added quickly: ‘Willem can take Lucy.’
Lucy, watching his handsome, bland features, waited for him to say ‘Poor Willem,’ but he didn’t, only laughed and said: ‘Of course I would like to take you, schat, but I have already promised to take Eloise. Besides, surely Willem had already asked you?’
Mies hunched a shoulder. ‘Oh, him. Of course he has asked me, but he cannot always have what he wants. And now I must find someone for Lucy.’
They both looked at her thoughtfully, just as though, she fumed silently, I had a wart on my nose or cross-eyes. Out loud she said in a cool voice: ‘Oh, is there to be a dance? Well, don’t bother about me, Mies, I don’t particularly want to go—I’m not all that keen on dancing.’
And that was a wicked lie, if ever there was one; she loved it, what was more, she was very good at it too; once on the dance floor she became a graceful creature, never putting a foot wrong, her almost plain face pink and animated, her green eyes flashing with pleasure. She need not have spoken. Mies said firmly: ‘But of course you will come, it is the greatest pleasure, and if you cannot dance then there are always people who do not wish to do so. Professors…’
Mr der Linssen allowed a small sound to escape his lips. ‘There are some most interesting professors,’ he agreed gravely, ‘and now if you two are ready, shall I drive you back?’
‘Which car have you?’ demanded Mies.
‘The Panther.’
She nodded in a satisfied manner. ‘Fraam has three cars,’ she explained to Lucy, ‘the Panther, and a Rolls-Royce Camargue, which I prefer, and also a silly little car, a Mini, handy for town but not very comfortable. Oh, and I forget that he has a Range Rover somewhere in England.’
‘I have a bicycle too,’ supplied Mr der Linssen, ‘and I use it sometimes.’ He glanced at Lucy, goggling at such a superfluity of cars. ‘It helps to keep old age at bay,’ he told her as he opened the door.
Lucy sat in the back as he drove them home, listening to Mies chattering away, no longer needing to speak English, and from the amused chuckles uttered by her companion, they were enjoying themselves. Let them, brooded Lucy, and when they reached the flat, she thanked him in a severe voice for the lift and stood silently while Mies giggled and chattered for another five minutes. Presently, though, he said in English: ‘I must go—I have work to do. No, I will not come in for a drink. What would Eloise say if she knew that I was spending so much time with you?’ He kissed her on her cheek and looked across at Lucy who had taken a step backwards. She wished she hadn’t when she saw the mocking amusement on his face. ‘Good night, Miss Prendergast.’
She mumbled in reply and then had to explain to Mies why he kept calling her Miss Prendergast. ‘You see, I’m only a student nurse and he’s a consultant and so it’s not quite the thing to call him Fraam, and now he’s put out because I did and that’s his way of letting me know that I’ve been too—too familiar.’
Mies shrieked with laughter. ‘Lucy, you are so sweet and so oudewetse—old-fashioned, you say?’ She tucked an arm under Lucy’s. ‘Let us have coffee and discuss the dance.’
‘I really meant it—that I’d rather not go. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve anything to wear.’
Mies didn’t believe her and together they inspected the two dresses Lucy had brought with her. ‘They are most deftig,’ said Mies politely. ‘You shall wear this one.’ She spread out the green jersey dress Lucy had held up for her inspection. It was very plain, but the colour went well with her eyes and its cut was so simple that it hardly mattered that it was two years old. ‘And if you do not dance,’ went on Mies, unconsciously cruel, ‘no one will notice what you’re wearing. I will be sure and introduce you to a great many people who will like to talk to you.’
It sounded as though it was going to be an awful evening, but there would be no difficulty in avoiding Mr der Linssen; there would be a great crush of people, and besides, he would be wholly taken up with his Eloise.
Lucy, in bed, allowed her thoughts to dwell on the enchanting prospect of turning beautiful overnight, and clad in something quite stunning in silk chiffon, taking the entire company at the dance by storm. She would take the hateful Fraam by storm too and when he wanted to dance with her she would turn her back, or perhaps an icy stare would be better?
She slid from her ridiculous daydreaming into sleep.
CHAPTER THREE
LUCY DRESSED very carefully for the dance, and the result, she considered, when she surveyed herself in the looking glass, wasn’t too bad. Her mousy hair she had brushed until it shone and then piled in a topknot of sausage curls on the top of her head. It had taken a long time to do, but she was clever at dressing hair although she could seldom be bothered to do it. Her face she had done the best she could with and excitement had given her a pretty colour, so that her eyes seemed more brilliant than ever. And as for the dress, it would do. The colour was pretty and the silk jersey fell in graceful folds, but it was one of thousands like it, and another woman would take it for what it was, something off the peg from a large store; all the same, it would pass in a crowd. She fastened the old-fashioned silver locket on its heavy chain and clasped the thick silver bracelet her father had given her when she was twenty-one, caught up the silver kid purse which matched her sandals and went along to Mies’ room to fetch the cloak she was to borrow.
Mies looked like the front cover of Vogue; her dress, blue and pleated finely, certainly had never seen anything as ordinary as a peg; it swirled around her, its neckline daringly low, its full skirt sweeping the floor. She whirled round for Lucy to see and asked: ‘I look good, yes?’ She was so pleased with her own appearance that she had time only to comment: ‘You look nice, Lucy,’ before plunging into the important matter of deciding which shoes she should wear. Lucy, arranging Mies’ brown velvet cape round her shoulders, fought a rising envy, feeling ashamed of it; if it wasn’t for Mies and her father she wouldn’t be going to a big dance where, she assured herself, she had every intention of enjoying herself.
They were a little late getting there and the entrance hall of the hospital was full of people on their way to leave their wraps, stopping to greet friends as they went. Doctor de Groot took them both by the arm and made his way through the crowd and said with the air of a man determined to do his duty that he would stay just where he was while they got rid of their cloaks and when they rejoined him, he offered them each an arm and told them gallantly, if not truthfully in Lucy’s case, that they were the two prettiest girls there.
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