A Happy Meeting Part 15

She turned on the torch, rea.s.sured by its powerful beam, and started with haste down the path which led to the end of the grounds at the back of the house.

The wind was terrific, tearing at her clothes and the scarf she had tied round her head. The rain was ice- cold and the ground beneath her feet treacherous with ice too. She shone the torch before her until she reached the path and then went even more slowly, for she was walking into the teeth of the wind now and could hardly keep on her feet. Every few yards she stopped and shone the torch round her in thehope that she might see Anna and Lucia. It seemed un likely, there wasno shelter and no hedges, only fro zen ca.n.a.ls between the fields,narrow enough to jump over. There was a much wider ca.n.a.l further on,she knew, with a rickety bridge over it. The thought of having tocross it made her feel sick but the cottage was only a few hundredyards from it and there was no other way. Reaching it, she eyed itfearfully and actually had one hand on the flimsy wooden rail when sheheard a sound, and when the wind paused in its bellowing she heard itagain. She turned the torch in all directions, lighting up the fieldsaround her and then shone it on to the ca.n.a.l. Anna was crouched on thebank, s.h.i.+elding Lucia with her body.

Cressida gave a wobbly shout and started towards her at the same time as the rain turned to blinding snow. It blotted out everything, whirling round her, driven by the wind and for a moment she stood still, making quite sure that she hadn't moved since she spotted Anna, then she moved carefully forward, praying that she wasn't going round in a circle, and to her relief saw them only a yard or two away.

Crouched down beside them, she could see that Anna's face was verywhite. Her Dutch deserted her, all she could think of to say was,"OK?" At least it was a start. Anna shook her head and pointed to oneleg.

"Gebroken', she muttered, and then urgently, " Lucia? "

The child was almost asleep with the cold and the pulse in the small wrist was faint, as far as Cressida could tell, though, she wasn't hurt. It was poor Anna who needed urgent help; she must be in pain, thought Cressida and she was lying awkwardly, s.h.i.+elding the little girl's body with her own.

"I'm going to get help," said Cressida, and added, 'hulp' and held up five fingers, hoping that Anna would understand that she would be gone for five minutes. That was nonsense, of course, she would never get back in five minutes, but it helped to look on the bright side.

She got to her feet, numb with the cold, patted Anna on the shoulderand started back the way she had come. Hopefully anyone watching fromthe house would see her torch and come to meet her. She didn't knowhow long Anna and Lucia had been lying there but Lucia had seemed halfasleep despite her whimpers and Anna must surely be half frozen todeath. The thought sent her scurrying along the slippery path and shefell down almost at once. The ground was iron-hard and she had toscramble painfully to her feet as best she could before going on morecautiously.

"More haste, less speed," said Cressida, in a rage with herself, the wind and snow and the terrifying feeling that she was alone in a strange world. She had dropped the torch too, but luckily it was not

broken. She picked it up and shone it ahead of her and was almost blinded by the beam from another torch. It was too much; she screamed and was instantly engulfed in the doctor's great arms.

"Silly girl, it is I!" he bellowed into her ear.

Even in a trying situation such as this, she thought, he gets his grammar right, and she promptly burst into tears.

"Where are they?" he asked her, shouting into the wind.

She waved behind her.

"Anna's hurt her leg I was coming to get help. I think Lucia is all right."

"Stop crying." He spoke close to her ear.

"Just where?"

Unfeeling brute, she reflected and then pulled her self together.

"By the ca.n.a.l on the left..."

"Stay here, on no account move." He kissed her quite roughly and was gone, leaving her almost frozen solid but with a warm glow under her ribs on account of the kiss.

He was a great deal quicker than she had been in no time at all he was back with Lucia in his arms. He dumped the child on to Cressida, stayed only long enough to warn her to stay where she was and disappeared into the snowy darkness once again.

He was a little longer this time. Not surprisingly, for Anna was a well-built woman and unconscious now a dead weight.

"Follow me and don't lag behind," he ordered Cressida, something she had no intention of doing anyway, and she stumbled along as close as she could manage with Lucia hugged close to her, crying now and wanting her mama.

It seemed a long time before they reached the end of the path and saw the lights of the house s.h.i.+ning and then a sudden surge of people coming towards them through the snow. Someone she thought it was Mijnheer ter Beemstra took Lucia from her, and she straightened her cramped arms and plodded on. She was very tired now and the doctor was somewhere ahead of her, lost in the whirling snowflakes. The house was quite close now, she heaved a sigh of relief and tripped over her own numb feet and once more fell down.

It was really too much trouble to get up. She stayed where she was, aware that it was a foolish thing to do, but she couldn't be bothered to make the effort. She was so cold that it didn't matter any more.

She closed her eyes a nap would be pleasant.

In the house there was ordered chaos with the doctor issuing instructions with unhurried calm. Lucia to her mother, to be undressed and put into a warm not hot bath and then into bed, given hot milk and not left until he had had time to look at her. Anna was laid on the kitchen table, divested of as much clothing as possible, wrapped in blankets and then examined.

Her leg was broken, he knew that already a Pott's fracture just above the ankle. She was still unconscious and he was able to pull the bones into alignment with the help of Mijnheer ter Beemstra, who had just arrived, apply temporary splints and bandage the limb. He had just finished this when he said, "Where is Cressida? I'd better take a look at her she'll need bed and warmth..."

She wasn't to be found. Leaving a slowly recovering Anna to the care of the cook, Aldrik got into his coat again, his face grim, and, armed with a torch once more, went back out into the night. He found her quite quickly, for she had been within shouting distance when she fell. He dropped on a knee beside her and shone the torch in her face and let out a great gusty sigh. She was already asleep, she was also ice- cold and her pulse was slow and faint. He lifted her carefully and carried her back to the house and into the warm kitchen, where he found Cook and Mijnheer ter Beemstra hovering over Anna.

"Dirk, get on to the hospital in Leeuwarden, will you? As soon as possible Lucia and Anna must get there for a check-up and so must Cressida."

He put her down comfortably into Cook's large chair and took off the wellies and her gloves and then, helped by the housemaid, her coat and sodden headscarf.

"Fetch some blankets, will you?" he asked the girl, and went to look at Anna, conscious once more, and then upstairs to see Lucia, who was already, with the resilience of the young, almost her small self again.

Back in the kitchen he found Cressida rousing.

"However did you get here?" she wanted to know, and then peevishly, "You should know better than to travel in this weather."

He was taking her pulse, now satisfactorily normal.

"I was on my way to Janslum--I called to see how you were getting on."

He took the warm milk Cook had fetched and held it for her while she sipped.

"You will go to Leeuwarden for a check-up," he told her with impersonal kindness.

"I think you are perfectly all right but all the same you must be examined. Lucia and Anna will go too."

"Now?"

"Yes, in my car. Anna and Lucia will go with Dirk ter Beemstra, but we shall have to wait until the blizzard has blown out."

He made her drink the rest of the milk and spoke to the housemaid.

"You will go upstairs and get into a warm bath and put on dry clothing; Sierou will go with you." He nodded to the maid and Cressida got to her feet. She peered out at him from her coc.o.o.n of blankets.

"Why did you kiss me like that?" she wanted to know.

He showed no surprise at her question.

"Shall we say that it was a happy meeting?" He smiled a little.

"Run along now and do as I say."

Half an hour later she was downstairs again wearing one of Mevrouw ter Beemstra's winter coats. It had a hood and was a great deal too large but it was beautifully warm. That lady had wept over her when she had gone to see how Lucia was.

"I'll never be able to thank you enough, Cressida. You have been so brave." She shuddered.

"And if Aldrik hadn't come along when he did, what would have happened?"

"Well, he did come," said Cressida bracingly, 'and everything is all right. Poor Anna she was so brave, crouching over Baby although her leg must have hurt dreadfully. "

They went downstairs together and found Aldrik and Dirk ter Beemstra carrying Anna to Dirk's car. The children, forbidden to come downstairs from the playroom until everything was normal again, had taken up position on the landing and were watching through the banisters.

"Come back, Cressida," Willum called, 'we shall miss you. "

Cressida waved to them. Tor ziens," she replied, airing her Dutch.

Leeuwarden wasn't far away but the journey, even undertaken by the twomen who knew the road like the backs of their hands and were skilleddrivers, took on the aspect of a nightmare. Cressida, bundled in rugsbeside Aldrik with the dogs' warm breath on her neck, cowered in herseat each time the car skidded. The snow had eased a little and so hadthe wind but it wasn't the night for a drive.

The doctor drove steadily and apparently without any fears for their safety and while he drove he kept up a steady flow of small talk so that she was forced to answer him and take her mind off the possibility of them skidding into a ca.n.a.l or going full tilt into a snowdrift; all the same she couldn't help asking just once if they were nearly there.

"Yes. Don't be frightened, Cressy, I won't let any thing harm you."

He was rea.s.suringly calm and she felt ashamed of her fears and mumbled, "Oh, I know, I know. I'm quite sure I don't feel quite me or I wouldn't be such a coward."

"Cressy, cowards don't walk out into a blizzard with only a torch and a guardian angel." He actually laughed then, righted the Bentley out of a skid and drove on.

He got them to the hospital and they kept her in that night. They keptLucia in too, and Anna was to stay for a day or two while her leg wasput in plaster and she learned how to manage the crutches. That shehadn't got pneumonia was a miracle. Cressida, who had been whiskedaway to be examined and put to bed, had no chance to do more than bidAldrik a hasty goodbye; she could only hope that he reached his homefairly safely through the appalling weather.

Dirk ter Beemstra came the next day and fetched her and Lucia home;

the blizzard had blown itself out, the sun shone and the snow ploughshad cleared the main roads. Everything was back to normal in asurprisingly short time excepting for Cressida's heart, which she wa.s.sure would never be normal again. Beyond Dirk ter Beemstra's casualremark that Aldrik had got home safely she heard nothing of the doctorand she had been too shy to ask for news of him. Besides, thehousehold was entirely disrupted for several days; she had stepped intoAnna's shoes temporarily and she had more than enough to do to fill herdays and thoughts.

A week went by, Anna came back and spurned the cosseting Mevrouw ter Beemstra would have given her. She stumped around on her crutches, only're ling quis.h.i.+ng Lucia to Cressida's care for her daily walk, but she had taken Cressida's hand one day and made a long speech which

Cressida couldn't understand, and then shaken it vigorously. Friends for life, thought Cressida happily. She did her best not to think about Aldrik and as the days went by she decided sadly that she wouldn't see him again. He had come into her life and gone again and there was nothing to do about it.

She went to see Charity on her first free day; the baby was expected any day now and that was all they talked about. There was a nurse already in the house and the children were wildly excited. Tyco came home while she was there and Cressida felt a pang of envy at the tender care he gave his wife. To be loved like that. Aldrik hadn't been mentioned and when she could bear it no longer she asked how he was in what she hoped was a casual manner.

"Aldrik?" said Charity, "Oh, he's in Brazil or do I mean Argentina? on a lecture tour. He won't be back for a bit. He said he's going to be back in time for the christening, though." Charity sneaked a quick look at Cressida.

"That was lucky that he went to the ter Beemstras' and found you. Were you scared?"

"Terrified, but it was Anna who had the worst of it, and Baby..."

"Anna shouldn't have taken her out," said Charity in such a severe and matronly voice that Cressida laughed and Charity laughed with her.

It was at dinner that evening, sitting between the Beemstras, that Cressida found herself listening to their talk. From time to time they excused themselves and spoke their own language and she hadn't minded this, but now she understood some of what they were saying.

"She is not good enough for him," declared the lady of the house, and, since Dutch, when correctly and not too quickly spoken, was at times understandable, Cressida understood that.

"But of course he is a rich man and well thought of and she can be charming. They are to marry soon, I hear."

She smiled across the table at Cressida.

"Forgive us, we gossip, Cressida. We talk of Nicola van Germert, who is to marry very soon. I for one am sorry for her husband," she added maddeningly, 'but let us talk of something else how is Charity? They hope for a boy, I expect? "

Cressida said that yes, she thought they did, but since Charity had declared her intention of having at least four children it didn't matter much either way. A remark which was approved by Mevrouw ter Beemstra, being the proud mother of six.

Cressida lay awake for a good deal of the night. She wished that she understood the Dutch language so that she could find out about Nicola, she wished that she had the courage to ask whom she was to marry and above all she wished very much that Aldrik would come home again. If he was going to marry Nicola then she wanted to see him just once more. She went to sleep eventually and woke with a terrible headache.

Love, she reflected, was by no means all it was cracked up to be.

CHAPTER NINE.

during the next few days Cressida pondered the problem of finding out about Nicola and Aldrik--for of course it would be he--hadn't Mevrouw ter Beemstra described him even if she hadn't given him a name? Too good for Nicola, she had said, and rich. She supposed that to live in a house like his at Janslum as well as having another house at Leiden one would need to be rich. To ask outright was impossible, inviting a polite snub or at best arousing curiosity. She decided finally to wait until she saw Charity again.

On the evening before her day off Tyco phoned; Charity had had a son that morning. She could hear the pride and happiness in his voice as he told her.

"And I'm coming for you as we arranged in the morning," he went on.

"Charity is splendidly fit and wants to see you. She can't wait to let you see little Tyco. Stay for lunch and help me keep the girls in order, they are so excited. Now could you get hold of Beatrix? I had better tell her the news."

So Cressida spent her day admiring the baby and listening to a blissfully happy Charity, lying back on the day bed in the bedroom, wrapped in the prettiest gown Cressida had ever seen, and then going down195 stairs to keep the girls entertained while Tyco sat with his wife. The rooms were awash with flowers too and the phone rang all day so that by the evening Cressida was tired but awash too with the contented happiness all around her.

"I don't know what we should have done without you," said Tyco, driving her back after tea.

"It hasn't been much of a day off for you."