A Happy Meeting Part 6

He let himself in thankfully and went straight to his study, telling his housekeeper to go to bed as he was greeted boisterously by Caesar and a St. Bernard dog of immense size. They followed him into the study and settled down by his desk as he picked up his pen. He hadn't written half a dozen words when he put it down again and looked at his watch. It was almost eleven o'clock; his grandmother seldom slept before midnight and there was a telephone by her bed. He dialled her number.

Her voice with its elderly quaver came strongly over the wires.

"Aldrick I expected you to tele phone; you want to know about Cressida?"

"Merely to ask if she has arrived and is settled safely. You don't find her too much of a burden, my dear?"

"On the contrary, she is a charming girl and so anxious to please. She has volunteered no information as to her departure from her home and I think it is unlikely that she will do so I imagine she has remained silent for so long about her home life that she is unlikely to speak of it to anyone."

"I shall be going to Friesland in a couple of days, I'll call in on Charity and Tyco and see if they can suggest something. I am most grateful for your help, Grandmother, but the sooner she is settled in a job the better."

"You think that she will be happy out of England?" Lady Merrill sounded doubtful.

"She seems rather a shy girl."

"I believe that she will feel safe, at least until she has found her feet. Once she realises that she is free of her stepmother she will probably train for some specific skill, and make a life for herself in England if she wishes."

"Yes, dear. I'm sure you're right. You've done a good deal for the girl and she is sensible enough to make her own way in the world. She hasn't a boy friend? Marriage would solve all her problems for her, wouldn't it?"

The doctor frowned.

"I hope that she doesn't meet some unsuitable fellow and imagine herself in love..."

His grandmother, sitting up in bed, turned a chuckle into a cough.

"She is hardly attractive enough for that, Aldrik, though I dare say a visit to the hair dresser and some new clothes will help to improve her appearance."

"My dear of course she must be paid. Will you decide on a suitable wage and let me know?"

"Yes, of course. Weekly, I think. I suspect that she has very little money."

"Yes, well, I'll leave that to you."

"Yes, dear." She bade him goodnight and he put the receiver down.

"That's settled," he told the dogs.

"Now I can forget about her."

Chanty was bound to know of someone who would employ the girl. He had a teaching round in the morning, private patients to see in the early afternoon and an outpatients clinic afterwards. He was pleasantly tired when he got home again; an hour at his desk and then he would drive himself and the dogs out of Leiden and walk for an hour. He opened his front door, called to his housekeeper that he was home and waited while she came to meet him. Mies was elderly, rather bony, and despite this she contrived to look cosy. She said now, "You've had a long day you'll be tired. There's Juffrouw van Germert waiting for you in the drawing-room I'll bring a pot of coffee."

He gave her a smiling reply, fending off the two dogs. He had been looking forward to a quiet evening but good manners forbade him from saying so. He went into his drawing-room with the dogs and Nicola called across the room from the chair where she was sitting.

"I thought you might like company after your busy day. All those people and so uninteresting and dull I dare say."

She didn't get up but held up a hand.

"How about taking me to the Hague for a meal? I've had such a boring day..."

He sat down in his winged chair opposite to her.

"Tell me about it," he invited.

"Well, that's just it, there's nothing to tell I did some shopping and had coffee with friends and this afternoon I went to the hairdressers."

"Perhaps if you had some kind of a job you would find the days pa.s.s more quickly?"

She opened her eyes wide.

"Work? Aldrik, I couldn't possibly. To sit in an office all day would be so boring and I'm far too sensitive to be any good at social work of any kind. Besides I don't need She was interrupted by the telephone ringing, and the doctor picked up the receiver.

It was Lady Merrill, telling him that she had had a splendid day, that Cressida had been a delightful companion and that they were making plans to drive around the countryside each day while the weather was fine.

"Such an industrious girl, too," said his grandmother.

"Baxter is enchanted by her and Elsie is so relieved to have someone young to run up and downstairs when I forget something..."

The doctor laughed.

"She sounds a treasure. You think I've done the right thing! I'll see Charity and Tyco very shortly and you can sound her out about coming over here?" He put the phone down presently and turned to find Nicola looking at him intently. She smiled at once, though, and said at her most charming "Who is this mysterious girl and why must you talk to the van der Bronses? They live near your place in Friesland, don't they? Is she an au pair?"

Dr. van der Linus sat down in his chair again. Nicola looked interested and for some reason he wanted to talk about Cressida. He told her how he had met her and the chain of events which had led him to engineer her escape from what had become an untenable life.

"She is a charming girl, no looks to speak of but beautiful eyes and a gentle voice. My grandmother is delighted with her but of course she can't stay there for long; she supposes that she is filling a gap while my grandmother's companion is on holiday. My idea was to find her a job away from that stepmother of hers where she can feel safe, save some money and decide what she wants to do. The van der Bronses know any number of people; I'm sure they could help."

Nicola had listened without interrupting at all, her face half turned away so that he didn't see the thoughtful suspicion on it. She had been sure of him and a delightful carefree future; it only needed a small push on her part at the right moment but now there was a tiny cloud on her horizon: this girl, this plain girl with the eyes was obviously taking more than a fair share of his thoughts and if she went to Friesland he would probably see her frequently. She thought fast.

"Aldrik," she turned an eager sympathetic face to him, 'never mind the van der Bronses, I know the very thing for this nice girl. Tante Clotilde, remember her? Jonkvrouw van Germert she lives in Noordwijk-aan-Zee. Near enough for you to keep on eye on her; besides there are any number of English living there and she'll quickly make friends. Tante Clotilde was only saying last week that she wanted a companion, and having an English girl would make it so much more interesting for her. "

She saw the doubt on his face.

"Can you spare the time to go with me and see her soon? There's no need to say anything about this girl until you're satisfied that she might like the job. What is her name?"

"Cressida, Cressida Preece."

"A pretty name Shakespeare, isn't it? I wonder why?"

"I've no idea. It might be a good idea. I'm going up to Friesland in a day or two but when I come back in a week's time we might visit your aunt. I should feel happier if I knew Cressida was settled somewhere where I can see her from time to time. I feel responsible for her although I am not sure why."

Nicola allowed herself a sweet smile as she began making plans. She was a clever young woman; she didn't see Aldrik again before he went to his home, but once he had gone she got into her sports car and roared the short distance to Noordwijk-aan-Zee and spent an hour with her aunt. The doctor drove himself and the dogs north. It was a cold evening and already getting dark and there was little to see of the country through which he travelled, only the dim outline of farms with their great barns attached to them and the gleam of the water from time to time. He had gone over the Afsluitdijk and taken the road towards Leeuwarden, turned north again be fore he reached the town and joined the road to Dokk.u.m, to turn off again, this time on to a narrow brick road which led him at length to a small village, seven or eight miles from the Waddenzee: a cl.u.s.ter of small houses, a large, austere church and a small school building, all shrouded in darkness, and half a mile beyond the wrought-iron gates which were the entrance to his home.

Wester was waiting for him, a stoutly built, very tall man with a rugged face and blond hair with a heavy sprinkling of grey. He had the door of the house open before the doctor reached it and the two men shook hands. Wester was the best part of ten years older than the doctor and they had known each other since boyhood; Wester's father had been house steward to the doctor's father and when his own father had died he had stepped into his shoes, and since he had married the doctor's cook some five years previously and had two sons it stood to reason that when their time came one or other of them would take over from his father, an arrangement which was satisfactory to everyone concerned.

They stood in the open doorway for a few minutes while the dogs roamed free and the doctor slipped naturally into the language of his youth and spoke Fries, looking around him at the large hall beyond the vestibule where the portraits of his ancestors hung on its white walls, and the wide staircase swept up to the gallery above his head.

It was good to be home, he reflected, and the unbidden thought that Cressida would like it crossed his mind. She would like the house in Leiden too, he conceded, small compared with this but charming and old and splendidly furnished. He frowned, whistled to the dogs and went inside while Wester fetched his case from the car and then drove it round to the garage at the back of the house.

He was halfway across the hall when Tyske, Wester's wife, came through the door at the back of the hall to meet him. She was a tall strongly built woman with mild blue eyes and a wide smile, and she broke into speech when she saw him; it was a delight to have him home again and there was a splendid supper waiting for him, he had only to say. He flung a great arm round her shoulders and lapsed into Fries once more, asking her about the children and whether the cat and the pet rabbits were well, and presently he crossed the hall to his drawing room a vast room with a lofty ceiling and tall wide windows draped in russet velvet. There was a stone fireplace, hooded, at one end of the room and some magnificent bow-fronted display cabinets filled with pretty porcelain and silver.

The chairs and sofas were large and comfortable, there were lamp tables and a vast rent table between the windows and amber shaded lamps. A log fire burned brightly and the lamp-light cast shadows on the silk-panelled walls hung with more portraits and landscapes. The doctor stood a moment, enjoying the room, and then went to sit by the fire; this was his home, he had been born there and lived in it as a boy and although he traveled a good deal nowadays he came back to it with content.

It was a large house and very old, with its steepled roof and odd little towers, rows of small windows under the tiles and chimneys, too large for a man to live in alone, but his father had died within the last few years and his mother was on a long visit to one of his sisters in France, and when she returned, she had told him, if he were to marry, she would prefer to live in the house at Dokk.u.m which she had inherited from her father.

"I hope you will marry soon, my dear," she had told him. He had smiled and said that at the moment he had no wish to marry; his work took him to major hospitals in his own country as well as in Europe and beyond, true, he was a lecturer at Leiden Medical School and had a number of beds at the hospital, he lectured in Groningen too and he had beds at Leeuwarden, but he went frequently to England for consultations, and, indeed, had travelled on various occasions to America, the Far East and Russia; none the less most of his work was in Holland, a small enough country for him to live, if he wished, here, in his house, and travel with ease to Leiden, Amsterdam and den Haag.

He was summoned presently by Wester and crossed the hall to have his supper in the small room he used as a dining-room unless he had guests. It was cosy, with an old-fas.h.i.+oned stove, a round table and a small sideboard, lighted by wall sconces. He ate an excellent meal, a dog on either side of him, and then went to his study, a room at the back of the house overlooking the gardens, bare now at the approach of winter, merging into the polder land beyond. Here he settled down to work, preparing for a series of lectures that he was to give in Groningen and checking his appointments in Leeuwarden. It was late when he went upstairs to bed and the house was very quiet, the dogs, coming in from a last run in the grounds, settled down in their baskets in the warm kitchen. Wester and Tyske had long since gone to bed and the wind sighed in the trees and when he opened his window the air was crisp and very cold. Winter could be hard in Friesland but the doctor liked it that way. He slept the sleep of a tired man without thinking once of Nicola. He did, however, dream of Cressida.

Cressida didn't dream of him, but she did think of him quite a lot.

She had settled down very nicely to her duties, none of them heavy--most of them weren't duties, anyway; she didn't consider that taking the dogs for a walk was a duty, and since she shared Lady Memll's taste in literature reading out loud was a pleasure. Here were all the books she had never had the time to read during the last two years and in variety. Lady Memll's taste was catholic; Cressida read Trollope, P.

D.

James, Alastair Maclean and then large chunks of John Donne, Herrick and Keats and then back to romance Mary Stewart, and odd chapters of Jane Eyre interlarded with books on antiques, about which Lady Merrill knew a great deal, and when these palled Cressida was bidden to fetch the heavy leather-covered alb.u.ms filled with photos of Lady Merrill's youth.

They talked too, long conversations about clothes, the theatre and how to put the world to rights, but none of their talks revealed anything of Lady Merrill's own family and Cressida was too polite to ask.

She hadn't been so happy for a long time; her days were nicely filled, she was being useful but she wasn't being browbeaten, meals were delicious and Baxter and the rest of the staff were kind. She lost her thinness after the first week and her cheeks were delicately pink.

In her purse she had a week's wages as well as the hundred pounds and in response to Lady Merrill's delicate hints she took herself off to Yeovil and bought a tweed skirt, a couple of blouses and a pretty woollen jumper and, since she had become sensitive about the only decent dress she owned and which she donned each evening to compliment Lady Merrill's dark silks and velvets, she went to Laura Ashley and bought a dark red velvet dress, long- sleeved and simple but suitable for the dinner table. She spent rather more than she had meant to but she consoled herself with the thought that when she left Lady Merrill's she would have the nucleus of a suit able wardrobe for the kind of job she could do. She suspected that not all companion's jobs would be as pleasant as this one, but she would have a roof over her head and money in her pocket.

Studying her much improved reflection in her bed room looking-gla.s.s, Cressida allowed herself to think about Dr. van der Linus. It was a pity that he couldn't see her now in the red dress. The suspicion that he had pitied her rankled rather; she would have liked to show him that she wasn't normally a wispy creature with a sprained ankle. Which wasn't how Lady Merrill described her a few nights later, sitting up in bed, chatting with the doctor on the phone.

"Of course I'm not asleep, dear," she protested, 'you know that I never sleep so early in the night. You want to know about Cressida? " She rearranged her bed jacket and smiled to herself.

"Yes, I quite understand that you still feel responsible for her. She is well and, I believe, happy. She is a delightful companion and such a help to us all. She seemed to me to be a plain girl but she has improved in looks during these last few days. A good thing; she has a far better chance of finding employment now that she has a little colour in her cheeks and is putting on weight.

It is surprising what good food does for one. "

"I'm grateful to you. Grandmother, and I hope you will shortly be able to go back to your usual way of life. I mentioned her to Nicola and she tells me that she knows just the person to employ Cressida. An aunt of hers, lives at Noordwijk-aan-Zee and needs a companion. She sounds just what is needed and so much more satisfactory if she is someone who is known to Nicola. You don't think that I am interfering with Cressida's future? I should like to think that she had a good job..."

"Well, Aldrik, the alternative is to cast the girl loose into the world to find her own way. She might be lucky; on the other hand she might not. At least we shall know where she is." Lady Merrill frowned thoughtfully.

"This aunt, have you met her?"

"Not yet, but I shall go and see her with Nicola when I get back to Leiden. I've a clinic there next week."

"You will write and let her know?"

"No. I fancy that if she knew what we have contrived she might well refuse. How about getting hold of Mrs. Sefton again?"

"A good idea mutual friends in Holland and so on. That should do very well. Let me know your plans in good time. You're happy at Janslum?"

"Yes, Grandmother. I've been at Groningen all day; tomorrow I shall be in Leeuwarden and plan to go back to Leiden at the end of the week. "

"When will you be over here again?"

"There's a seminar in a month's time I shall see you then."

She said goodnight and lay back on her pillows, her elderly mind busy.

Somehow she didn't like the sound of Nicola's aunt, but there was nothing much she could do about that; perhaps she was misjudging Nicola, a young woman she didn't like and who, as far as she knew, had never put herself out to do any one a kindness unless it was of benefit to herself.

Lady Men-ill lay and thought about that until at last she went to sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR.

october had slipped into November, bringing colder weather and dark evenings. Lady Merrill was content to sit indoors or walk, well wrapped up, in the grounds of the house. It was Cressida who took the dogs for their walk each morning and evening, bundled in her old mac and wearing a scarf over her mousy locks. She enjoyed these walks, her head full of plans, mostly about clothes and, rather worriedly, about her future. Lady Merrill hadn't told her how long she was to stay and when she mentioned the companion to anyone they were vague as to when she would return. Surely she would be given a week's notice at least?

she thought. All the same, given the day off, she took herself to Yeovil, purchased a copy of the Lady magazine and studied the adverts.

There was no lack of urgent requests for mother's helps and nannies and a fair sprinkling of appeals for kind persons to cope with old ladies, old gentlemen or the housework. It shouldn't be too difficult to find another job. She marked the most promising of these over a cup of coffee and a bun and took herself off to the shops. She had another week's wages in her purse, to be laid out with care; shoes--she couldn't afford boots--and undies. She still had the hundred pounds intact so that next week's wages could be spent on another sweater, gloves and a handbag. Thus equipped, she felt, she would pa.s.s muster for a start, gradually gathering together a suitable wardrobe. When her father had been alive, she had bought nice clothes, for he had been generous to her, but now they had seen their best days although her coat was well cut and of good quality and was good for another winter or so.

She went back to Lady Men-ill, well pleased with her modest prudent purchases, ate dinner in the old lady's company and spent an hour allowing her to win a game of cribbage before Elsie came to help her to bed.

"I shall miss you," declared the old lady as Cressida wished her goodnight.

"I shall miss you too. Lady Merrill, but you'll have your companion back again and I'm sure you will be glad to see her once more."

Lady Merrill looked vague.

"Yes, yes, I suppose I shall." She trotted off on the faithful Elsie's arm and Cressida, with nothing better to do, went to her room and tried on the new shoes.

Once in her bed, nicely propped up with pillows and the necessities for the night on the bedside table, Lady Merrill picked up the telephone.

It was barely ten o'clock and high time that she had a chat with AudreySefton. A night-bird herself, the old lady had no compunction aboutrousing such of her friends with whom she wished to gossip; fortunatelyMrs. Sefton hadn't gone to bed and listened with growing interest towhat Lady Merrill had to say.

"But my dear, I don't know this woman..."

"Well, of course you don't," said Lady Merrill testily, "But if Aldriksays she's all right then that's all that matters. The thing is to letCressida think that it is a job that someone you know, however vaguely,happened to have heard about--mutual friends and so on. Go on, Audrey,Aldrik is anxious to get the girl settled."

"Yes, but why in Holland?"

"He won't lose touch..." Lady Merrill chuckled and heard her friend draw a breath.

"You don't mean...?"