Книга - The End of the Rainbow

The End of the Rainbow
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. Olympia’s life changed overnight! Olympia's overbearing aunt used her as her personal servant, until attractive Dutchman Waldo van der Graaf quite literally rescued her. He suggested that she exchange her life of drudgery for the role of his wife.Waldo needed someone to look after his small daughter and run his home – a marriage of convenience. Olympia was thankful and accepted his proposal, but soon realised she had only exchanged one set of problems for another when she found herself falling in love with her own husband!









“There was a telephone call for you, from England,” Olympia began; shattered to feel how she trembled inwardly.


The trembling turned to stillness as she saw Waldo halt and turn to look at her with suddenly alert eyes.

“England?” he questioned, and when Olympia realized that he was not going to say any more than that, she went on, “It was a woman, a girl I imagine, by her voice—it was pretty…” Olympia swallowed the anger she had been nursing all day and went on steadily. “The girl was anxious to speak to you, she didn’t know who I was, but she told me not to tell your wife.”

He regarded her gravely, his face impassive. “I take it she didn’t give her name?”

“No. The girl said you knew her number,” she replied, and in the small silence that fell between them, she asked, “Waldo, who is she?”




About the Author


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.




The End of the Rainbow

Betty Neels









www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE




CHAPTER ONE


A SNEERING MARCH WIND WAS blowing down Primrose Hill Road, driving everyone and everything before it, but there was one battling figure struggling into its teeth—a young woman, hurrying along at a great rate, her head bent, her hair, whipped out of her head-scarf, blowing around her face. Presently she turned down a side road and pausing only to tuck her hair away out of her eyes, hurried on, faster now in its comparative shelter. It was a pleasant enough street, lined with tall, late-Victorian houses, nicely maintained still, each with its narrow railed-off area steps leading to a basement, and each, too, with its heavy front door, bearing an impressive brass knocker. Halfway along these superior dwellings the girl stopped, darted up the steps, put down the basket which she was carrying, opened the door with some difficulty, whisked up the basket and went inside.

The hall she entered was chilly and rather dim, with a polished linoleum floor and a table, flanked by two chairs, against one wall. There was a handsome vase on the table, empty, and a scrupulously clean ashtray. The stairs were covered with lino too, and although everything was spotlessly clean and free from dust, it held neither warmth nor welcome. The girl paused only long enough to close the door behind her before crossing the hall and making her way down the stairs beyond a small archway at the back. She had reached the bottom and had her hand on a door in the narrow dark passage beyond when she was halted by a voice. It called sharply from the floor above: ‘Olympia, come here at once!’

The girl put her basket down and went upstairs again, opened one of the massive mahogany doors in the hall, shut it quietly behind her, and waited near it, looking across the carpeted floor to where her aunt sat at her desk. Miss Maria Randle was a large woman, approaching middle-age but still handsome despite her severe expression. She looked up briefly now. ‘You have been gone a long time,’ she observed coldly.

‘There was a good deal of shopping…’

‘Nonsense—when I was a girl of your age, I thought nothing of twice the amount I ask you to do.’ She sighed, ‘But there, you are hardly capable of a normal girl’s work; if I had known when I adopted you, gave you a good home and educated you at such expense, that you would repay me in such an ungrateful fashion, I would have thought twice about it.’

Olympia had heard it all before; she sighed soundlessly, and her face took on the wooden expression which concealed her hurt feelings and which her aunt referred to as mulish. It was a pleasant face, although it had no startling good looks; grey eyes, nicely fringed, a short straight nose, a wide, softly curved mouth and a determined chin didn’t quite add up to prettiness. Her hair was a warm brown, hanging round her shoulders rather untidily; it caught Miss Randle’s annoyed eye and enabled her to voice another grievance. ‘And your hair!’ she declared severely. ‘Surely you can do something about it? You’re a disgrace—if any of the doctors were to see you like this I’m sure I don’t know what they would think.’

Olympia said nothing at all; she was perfectly well aware that her aunt knew as well as she did that the doctors only saw her when she was in uniform, her hair smoothed back into a neat bun under a plain cap. Maybe her aunt remembered this too, for she didn’t pursue the matter further, but: ‘You are on duty in ten minutes—leave the shopping in the kitchen, and see that you’re not late. You must try and remember that my staff are expected to be punctual, and that includes you, Olympia.’ She frowned heavily. ‘Such a ridiculous name,’ she added crossly.

Again Olympia said nothing; she rather liked her name, although she was aware that her appearance hardly justified it. She should, she had always felt, have been a voluptuous blonde, and strikingly beautiful, instead of which she was a little on the short side and thin with it, her features were pleasantly ordinary and her hair, soft and long though it was, and tending to curl nicely at the ends when it was given the chance, was usually too severely dressed. But her parents were not to have known that when she was born—probably she had been a very pretty baby, and since they had both died in a motor accident before she could toddle, they had never known how wrong they were.

She went quietly from the room, took the shopping to the kitchen where she handed it over to Mrs Blair, the hard-worked daily cook, and returned to her room to change into uniform.

The room was like the hall, bare and clean and chilly. She shivered a little as she took off her things, donned the blue dress and white apron, fastened the blue petersham belt round her little waist, and finally smoothed her hair into its demure bun under her cap. She had a couple of minutes to spare still before she needed to go on duty, and the thought crossed her mind that a cup of coffee would be nice; but Mrs Blair was already cross; by the time she could coax her into giving her a cup it would be too late. She tied the laces of the sensible black shoes her aunt insisted upon and went back upstairs.

The nursing home catered for twenty patients, and it was always full; a number of the rooms held three beds, in some cases two, and on the first floor there were three single-bedded rooms, commanding high fees for that very reason, and usually inhabited by wealthy patients who demanded a great deal of attention, and because they could pay, usually got it, however trivial.

Olympia passed these three doors now and entered a small cupboard of a room where a middle-aged woman in nurse’s uniform was sitting. She looked up as Olympia went in and smiled. ‘I’ve just made a pot of tea,’ she greeted her. ‘I bet you had to spend your off duty shopping,’ and at Olympia’s nod: ‘I thought as much—and now you’re on duty until eight o’clock this evening.’ She produced two mugs. ‘It’s really too bad; if I didn’t need the money so badly and live almost on the doorstep, I’d be tempted to try my luck somewhere else in protest, but much good that would do; you’d get all my work to do as well as your own.’

She spooned sugar into their teas and they sat down side by side at the desk.

‘How’s Harold?’ asked Olympia. Harold was Mrs Cooper’s teenage son, suffering from muscular dystrophy, and the reason why she went out to work—he was the reason why she stayed at the nursing home too, for it was only a few yards from her flat, and because nurses were hard to get, Miss Randle had reluctantly allowed her to work during the hours which suited her.

‘He had a bad night,’ said his mother, getting to her feet. ‘There’s nothing to report; they’re all much as usual. Doctor Craddock came and changed Mrs Bright’s medicine… I’ll be in at two tomorrow.’ She went to the door. ‘Mrs Drew’s making beds upstairs, and Miss Snow is getting Mr Kemp up. So long, dear.’

Left to herself, Olympia read the report, tidied away the tea things and started on her visits to the patients. They were all elderly geriatric cases; her aunt would take nothing else, since more acute nursing would mean more staff and trained nurses at that. As it was, she got by very well with Olympia and Mrs Cooper, and Mrs Drew and Miss Snow, who had had no training at all but looked like nurses in their uniforms. During the night she managed with two more nursing aides, good and competent and hard-working, and if anything needed the skill of a trained nurse, why, there was always Olympia to get up and see to things.

The three patients with rooms to themselves were nicely settled for the time being; she climbed the stairs to the floor above, where she gave out the medicines, did a bed bath, made a couple of beds, and then considerably later, climbed the last narrow flight. Here the rooms contained more beds; one held four old ladies, the other three elderly men, and although they were adequately lighted and warm enough, they were entirely bare of pictures or ornaments. The patients here had little money; just enough, with the help of relations who were horrified at the idea of sending their old folk into hospital, for the fees to be paid, leaving little over for spending. Olympia longed to tell them how much better off they would be in a geriatric unit in any of the big hospitals in London; they would have company there, and the telly, as well as the library ladies coming round twice a week and more old ladies and gentlemen to talk to. She went from one to other of them now, stopping to chat, admire knitting, discuss the weather or look at some picture in a paper. She always stopped longer than she should on the top floor, because the poor old things were mostly incapable of getting down the stairs for themselves, and Aunt Maria, although she paid them a daily visit, rarely stopped for more than a few moments. Olympia, tidying beds and listening with half an ear to their occupants, reflected for the hundredth time on the improvements she would bring about if she could take Aunt Maria’s place and run the home herself. Not that she liked geriatric nursing; she had loved her three years’ training at a large London hospital and she had done well there. She had wanted, above all things, to specialize in surgery, but she had given her word to her aunt before she began her training, and she hadn’t broken it, although sorely tempted to do so.

She knew now that Aunt Maria had been quite unscrupulous and totally unfair towards her. True, she had educated her well, bought her sensible, hard-wearing clothes which had been agony to wear in the company of her better dressed friends, and instilled into her, over the years, the fact that she must never cease to be grateful to an aunt who had taken her as a toddler and devoted her life to her upbringing. And when, at the age of fifteen or thereabouts, Olympia had expressed a wish to take up nursing, her aunt had agreed readily, at the same time pointing out that Olympia, as a grateful niece, could do no less than hand over the bulk of her salary, when the time came, to an aunt who had spent a great deal of money over the years. Moreover, she had extracted a promise that upon the completion of her training, Olympia should return to the nursing home and work for her aunt at a very modest wage indeed, because, it was made clear to her, she would be living free, and what girl in these days was lucky enough to have a good home where she could live for nothing?

Olympia, at that age, hadn’t known much about that; she promised, only asking: ‘And may I never go back to hospital? I think I should like to be a surgical nurse, and perhaps in a year or two, when I’ve trained, I could get a Sister’s post.’

Aunt Maria had laughed. ‘Why should you wish to leave?’ she wanted to know. ‘You have a duty to me, you know.’

‘Supposing I should want to get married?’ Olympia, almost sixteen, had been a romantic.

Her aunt had laughed again, a little unkindly, and had taken her time in replying. ‘My dear,’ she had said at length, ‘I cannot imagine any man wanting to marry you—you aren’t the marrying type.’ She had picked up her pen to signify the end of the interview. ‘But if such an unlikely event should happen, then naturally you may leave.’

And that had been eight years ago now; Olympia had finished school and until she had been old enough to start her training, had helped her aunt in the nursing home, running errands, cooking when Mrs Blair had a day off, making beds and sorting linen. She had been eighteen when she had left the house near Primrose Hill and gone to live in hospital, and the next three years of her life had been the happiest she had known. She had loved the work and the busy routine; she had made many friends too and had done well; so well that she had been offered the Sister’s post she had so much longed for. But Aunt Maria had nipped that in the bud; reminding her of her promise, so that she had gone back to work in the chilly nursing home and was still there, two years later. And because she was paid very little and seldom went out, she met no one at all; the doctors who visited the patients were mostly elderly GPs and even the visitors were old, or at least, middle-aged. At first, in hospital, she had cherished dreams of meeting some young man who would wish to marry her and thus solve the future for her, but beyond one or two dates which had never got beyond the first meeting, nothing had happened. Perhaps, as her aunt had pointed out, she wasn’t a girl men would want to marry.

She went slowly downstairs presently, to supervise the patients’ dinners, then went back upstairs to feed old Mrs Blake, who could no longer feed herself. The old people were out of their beds by now, sitting round the table; they enjoyed their meals, they broke the monotony of their days. They lingered over their pudding, talking quite animatedly, and after a little while Olympia left Miss Snow to attend to their little wants and get them on to their beds for their afternoon nap, then went downstairs to the dining-room where her aunt was waiting. They lunched quickly with the minimum of conversation, and that pertaining to the running of the home. ‘You must go down to Selfridges tomorrow afternoon,’ said Miss Randle as she portioned out the steamed pudding. ‘I want you to buy some sheets.’

‘It’s my half-day off,’ Olympia reminded her.

‘I’m aware of that, but what difference should that make? I imagine you will enjoy going to Oxford Street—you have no plans.’

‘Yes, I had, Aunt Maria. I’m going to the National Gallery—there’s an exhibition of paintings I want to see, and I’ve arranged to meet Sally Grey for tea afterwards.’ Sally had been one of her friends at hospital.

Her aunt helped herself to more steamed pudding. ‘You can telephone her and tell her that you will meet her on another day,’ she said positively. ‘As for the National Gallery, there is always some exhibition or other being held there; you can see something else later on.’

Olympia forbore from commenting upon this remark, for she knew that it would be useless; instead she asked reasonably: ‘Perhaps you could go to Selfridges? Mrs Cooper will be on duty…’

Her aunt eyed her coldly. ‘When I want your advice as to what I should and should not do, Olympia, I will ask for it. You will be good enough to go to Selfridges. And by the way, I have Mr Gibson coming to supper and we shall have a great deal to discuss about the next church bazaar, so be sure that you are back here in good time—not later than six—that will leave me free to entertain him.’

Olympia said: ‘Yes, Aunt,’ in a wooden voice, excused herself, and went upstairs to her patients. It would be very satisfying to throw something at her aunt, she thought fiercely as she busied herself at the medicine cupboard; it would be wonderful, too, to pack her bags and leave the home for ever and never see Aunt Maria again, only if she did that she would break her promise. Besides, the old people she looked after might miss her; they would certainly suffer from the shortage of staff—Aunt Maria would have difficulty in getting anyone to take her place. Two room buzzers sounded together, both from the first floor, Olympia sighed, hastily finished what she was doing, and went to answer them.

Mrs Cooper was nothing if not punctual on the following day. Olympia handed over the keys, gave a brief report and rushed away to change. She hadn’t expected to get away so early, with luck she would be able to spend most of the afternoon as she had planned after all. She put on the tweed suit she had worn now for a couple of years—a dull, brownish garment of a material which refused to wear out—she would be stuck with it for years, she thought resentfully, tying her head-scarf under her chin and snatching up the leather gloves she had saved so long to buy. Aunt Maria had been disgusted with her for her extravagance in purchasing them; gloves, she had argued, did not need to be of leather, there were several good imitations these days; neither did they have to be purchased at Harrods. British Home Stores, she had continued, warming to her theme, had an enormous variety at a very reasonable price, and it was both unkind and thoughtless of Olympia to waste her aunt’s money in such a fashion. That Olympia had worked hard and long for a salary no other girl would have dreamed of accepting seemed to have escaped her mind; when Olympia had reminded her of it, it was to bring down a storm of recrimination on her head. She remembered it now as she let herself out of the door and heaved a sigh of relief at being free once more, even if only for a few hours. She caught the bus going down Primrose Hill, busily planning the hours before her.

Selfridges was crowded. She found her way to the linen department, and uncaring of her aunt’s minute instructions about the careful examination of the sheets before she ordered them, chose the first pair she was shown, had them entered on Miss Randle’s account, and turned her attention to more interesting merchandise. Coloured sheets, she mused, flowered ones, stripes even, would cheer up the clinical austerity of the rooms at the nursing home at very little extra expense. She had suggested it once and her aunt had been horrified, deploring the regrettably extravagant streak in her niece’s character. Olympia wandered along, through the dress department and the coats, feasting her eyes upon the clothes she would like to wear, given the chance, until a glance at the clock caused her to leave the store. It was a pity she had telephoned Sally and cancelled their tea together; she could have fitted it in nicely after all, but she still had several hours to herself. She got on a bus once more, got off at the National Gallery and ran up the steps. On the last step of all she tripped and fell on her face.

The hands which picked her up were large and firm and gentle, they set her on her feet with no fuss, dusted her down, tweaked her head-scarf straight and then dropped lightly on to her shoulders.

Olympia rubbed a sore knee and looked up at her rescuer; a large man, very tall and not so very young; forty, she judged, with pale-coloured hair heavily sprinkled with grey and a handsome face which rather took her breath. Such men seldom came her way, and now, she thought with regret and annoyance, she had to be fool enough to fall down so absurdly—her suit would be a mess too—she glanced down at it and he spoke. He had a nice voice too, slow and deep and faintly accented. ‘Not much harm done, I think—sore knees perhaps, and a bruise or two…’

She answered him shyly. ‘I was really more bothered about my clothes.’

His blue eyes studied her without haste. ‘Nothing a clothes brush can’t tackle.’ He dropped his hands from her shoulders and went on with casual friendliness. ‘Were you going to the exhibition? If so, I daresay an attendant could find a brush for you.’

She nodded once more. ‘But I think I’d better go home.’

He gave her another long, considered look. ‘Surely no need for that? I suggest that you go and tidy yourself, and be sure and wash your grazes with soap and water. I’ll wait and we’ll walk round together.’

His cool command of the situation should have nettled her, but it didn’t. ‘But…’ began Olympia.

He interrupted her crisply. ‘We will introduce ourselves,’ his voice became mild, ‘and then all will be most proper, will it not? I’m Waldo van der Graaf,’ he held out a large hand and she put hers into it and he wrung it gently.

‘Mine’s Randle—O-Olympia.’

He showed no signs of amusement but queried: ‘You are not married?’

It was more of a statement than a question, and she winced a little that he should have taken it for granted, though heaven knew by the look of her he had no reason to suppose otherwise. She said, ‘No,’ rather defiantly.

They went inside then and she found herself, after her companion had murmured briefly to one of the attendants, being led away to a cloakroom, where mindful of the large man’s words, she washed the dirt from her knees and then stood patiently while the attendant got to work on the stains. She looked a little better then, but still woefully inadequate to be a companion to such a handsome and distinguished-looking man. She went back into the entrance hall, half expecting him to be gone, but he was still standing where she had left him, studying a catalogue in an unconcerned way, as though he had all the time in the world before him. He looked up as she reached him and smiled, and then without speaking took her arm and ushered her into the first room.

They didn’t hurry, and she was so absorbed that she didn’t notice the time; it was delightful to be with someone who actually listened to her, and even shared her tastes, and when he didn’t, refrained from ramming his own down her throat. They were still lingering in the last room when she happened to see a clock.

‘I must go,’ she declared, appalled. ‘It’s almost half past four, the bus queues will be packed if I don’t hurry—I’ll never get back in time.’

He gave her a quick side-glance. ‘You have to return at a certain time?’

She told him, guardedly, about Aunt Maria and Mr Gibson coming to supper. ‘So you see, I must…’ she smiled at him, feeling as though he were an old friend. ‘It’s been a lovely afternoon, thank you.’

She held out a hand, but instead of shaking it he took it between his own. ‘You have to be back by six o’clock? Time enough for a cup of tea together, and it just so happens that I have to go to—er— Hampstead this evening. I should be delighted to offer you a lift in my taxi.’

She eyed him uncertainly. ‘But won’t it be…? That is, you won’t mind? And you’ll be sure and get me there by six?’

He smiled down at her, kind and reassuring and yet casual. ‘Cross my heart—is that not what you say in English?’

They had walked slowly out of the entrance and down the steps as they were talking. ‘You’re not English?’ Olympia wanted to know.

‘Dutch, but I come often to England—I have English relations.’ He lifted a hand at a passing taxi and settled her into it, then got in beside her. She heard him say: ‘Fortnum and Mason, please,’ with a sudden childish excitement; she had never been there in her life, not inside at any rate. She said now a little anxiously: ‘I’m not dressed for a super place like that,’ and was instantly and ridiculously reassured by his quiet: ‘You are very nicely dressed, Miss Randle.’

All the same, she was a little apprehensive as they seated themselves in the elegant tea-room; the place seemed to her excited mind to be full of fur coats and what the fashion magazines always referred to as little dresses, which cost the earth, she had no doubt. She took off her headscarf and smoothed her neat head with a nervous hand and met his eyes, twinkling nicely, across the table. ‘Tea?’ he inquired. ‘Earl Grey, I think—and buttered toast and little cakes.’ His firm mouth turned its corners up briefly. ‘I enjoy your English tea.’

She enjoyed it too; her companion had the gift of making her feel at ease, even amongst the Givenchy scarves and crocodile handbags. She found herself telling him about Aunt Maria and the nursing home and then stopped rather suddenly because she was being disloyal to her aunt and he was, after all, a stranger. He didn’t appear to notice her discomfiture, however, but talked on, filling awkward pauses with an easy blandness, so that by the time she got up to go she was a little hazy as to what she had actually said.

He talked nothings in the taxi too, so that by the time they arrived outside the nursing home she had quite forgotten, for the time being at least, a good deal of what they had talked about during tea.

He got out with her and walked to the door and when she had bidden him good-bye and opened it, he gave the cold, austere hall the same shrewd look as he had given her, but he made no remark, merely said that he had enjoyed his afternoon without evincing any wish to see her again, as indeed, she had expected. She was not, she reminded herself sadly, the kind of girl men wanted to take out a second time; she had no sparkle, no looks above the ordinary, and living for years with Aunt Maria, who liked to do all the talking, had hardly improved her conversation. She wished him good-bye in a quiet little voice, thanked him again, and went into the house.

If she was more subdued than ever that evening, her aunt was far too absorbed in her conversation with Mr Gibson to notice; certainly she had no time to question her niece as to how she had spent her afternoon, something for which Olympia was thankful. She got the supper and cleared it away again, then went to her room with the perfectly legitimate excuse that she was on duty early the next morning. But she didn’t go to bed immediately; she sat and thought about Mr van der Graaf; she thought about their tea together and then, a little uneasily, of the things she had told him; she was still hazy as to exactly what she had said, but as she would never see him again, she consoled herself with the fact that it wouldn’t really matter, he would have forgotten her already; he had whisked in and out of her life, large and elegant and very sure of himself. Olympia sighed, frowned at her reflection in the old-fashioned dressing-table mirror, and went to bed.




CHAPTER TWO


THE NEXT FEW DAYS WENT QUIETLY BY. The local doctors made their visits and relations made their infrequent appearance, and Olympia went about her duties with her usual quiet competence, and very much against the counsel of her common sense, found herself thinking far too much about the man she had met so unexpectedly. It took her several days to discipline her thoughts into more workaday channels, and she had just achieved this laudable object when she went to open the street door because the daily maid hadn’t come that day, and found him on the doorstep. Not alone—he was with old Doctor Sims. Doctor Sims was an old dear, kind and wise, and despite his advanced years, still clever. He was untidy, too, and rotund and addicted to smoking cigars. He had one in his mouth now; the ash from it fell on to his coat and he flicked it on one side with an impatient finger which scattered it disastrously.

He said cheerfully: ‘Morning, Olympia—don’t stare so, girl, you’ve seen me a hundred times, anyone would think that you were seeing a pair of ghosts.’ He waved a careless hand at his companion. ‘This is Doctor van der Graaf, son of an old friend of mine, now alas, dead. I’ve brought him along to see Mrs Parsons.’

Olympia stood aside to allow them to pass her into the hall, said: ‘How do you do?’ to the Dutchman’s sober tie and shut the door carefully behind them. He answered her with a casual friendliness which took away her awkwardness immediately. ‘Hullo again—have the bruises gone?’

She nodded, on the point of finding her surprised tongue, when Doctor Sims asked testily: ‘Where’s the girl who opens the door? Why are you doing it?’

‘She’s taken a day off—she does sometimes, and nobody says anything because daily maids are hard to get. My aunt’s out. I’ll take you up to Mrs Parsons, shall I?’

The old gentleman grunted, flicked ash on to the pristine floor and took off his overcoat.

‘Well run place,’ he mumbled to no one in particular. ‘Clean—food’s quite good too. Warm enough, plenty of bed linen, but it’s all too stark, not enough nurses either. Your aunt’s a woman to make a success of a place like this though—gets a packet out of it, I don’t doubt. But you do the work, don’t you, Olympia?’

He started up the stairs with her behind him, trying to think of some suitable reply to make to this remark, and behind her came Doctor van der Graaf, silent but for his few words of greeting. Despite his silence, though, she was intensely aware of him, and as they reached the first floor she was annoyingly sure that her appearance could have been improved upon; her hair had escaped from the severely pinned bun and was bobbing around her ears in wispy curls. She put up a tentative hand and arrested it in mid-air when he said quietly: ‘It looks nice like that, leave it alone.’

She didn’t turn round, though she put her hand down again as she led the way up the next flight of stairs and then pausing to allow Doctor Sims to regain his breath, started up the last narrow staircase.

Mrs Parsons shared a room on the top floor with three other old ladies because the pension she received as a rather obscure Civil Servant’s widow didn’t stretch to anything else. She was very old now, afflicted with a variety of minor ailments and quite alone save for a nephew who came to see her at Christmas, who criticized the treatment she was receiving, presenting her with a box of rather inferior handkerchiefs when he had done so, before returning to some obscure country retreat. No one, certainly not his aunt, took much notice of him, and Olympia, backed up by Doctor Sims, had done her best to act as substitute for the family she no longer had.

She was a garrulous old lady, given to repeating herself continually and forgetting what she had said as soon as she had said it, but the two doctors sat down beside her chair and talked pleasantly about the small things which might amuse her, and listened with patient kindness to her jumbled answers. She had accepted Doctor Sims’ companion without surprise, merely stopping to ask him every few minutes what his name might be, and each time he answered with no sign of impatience. Olympia, straightening beds nearby, decided that he was the nicest man she had ever met and certainly the handsomest, and when he looked up suddenly and smiled at her, she smiled back, the whole of her quiet little face lighting up.

The two men went away presently and Olympia stifled disappointment because Doctor van der Graaf said nothing more than a brief good-bye. Making beds after they had gone, she told herself that she had no reason to be disappointed; he had asked after her bruises, hadn’t he? and said hullo and good-bye. What more could she expect? Distinguished and good-looking men who wore gold cuff links and silk shirts and exquisitely tailored suits wouldn’t be likely to look twice at a rather colourless girl who, even if she had had warning of a meeting, would still have looked unremarkable despite all her best efforts. He had been nice about taking her to tea at Fortnum and Mason, though, and he had told her to leave her hair alone and it had somehow sounded like a compliment.

She dropped the blanket she was spreading and went to the mirror over the washbasin. Her face was faintly flushed with the excitement of the visitors and the exertion of bed-making, so that her hair was still curling in little tendrils round her ears. She gave one an experimental tug and then let it go; the front door below had closed with the decisive snap which was the hallmark of Aunt Maria’s comings and goings. Olympia turned away from the mirror, finished the bed and went soberly downstairs; her aunt would expect her to go immediately to her office and render an account of what had happened during her absence.

Aunt Maria dismissed the visitor with a shrug; Doctor Sims had a habit of bringing friends with him from time to time; they seldom returned, she didn’t even inquire closely about him, so that Olympia was saved the trouble of saying much about him, something she had felt curiously unwilling to do; he was a secret, a rather nice one and the only one she had. Her aunt dismissed her with a curt nod and sent her back to her duties without any further questions.

Doctor van der Graaf came exactly two days later, although Olympia was unaware of his visit until Miss Snow came fluttering upstairs with a message that she was to go to her aunt’s office immediately. Olympia consigned old Mr Ross, tottering to slow recovery after a stroke, to Miss Snow’s care and went slowly downstairs, wondering what she had done wrong now.

She was quite unprepared for the sight of the Dutchman sitting calmly in the chair opposite her aunt’s desk, the very picture of a man who was confident that he would get his own way. He got up as she went in, smiling a little at her surprise, and said easily: ‘Good afternoon, Miss Randle. I have been persuading your aunt to allow you to act as guide; there are things I wish to purchase and I am woefully ignorant as to how to set about my shopping. I remembered you and I wondered if you would be so kind?’

‘Oh, that would…’ She paused and began again. ‘You’re very kind to think of me, but I’m working until eight o’clock.’

Miss Randle interrupted her in an irritable manner; she wasn’t used to people riding roughshod over her wishes, but she seemed quite unable to argue with this tiresome giant of a man. ‘I will make an exception, Olympia, you may take your free time this afternoon, but you will, of course, return to evening duty at half past five.’

It was barely half past two; Olympia murmured dutifully and got herself out of the room; her aunt would have to take over until she got back, there were no other trained nurses on duty—she might change her mind, thought Olympia, desperately tearing off her uniform and putting on the tweed suit like lightning. Thank heaven it was a fine day even if cold. She did her hair with a speed which did nothing to improve her appearance, tucked a silk scarf given her by a grateful patient round her neck, snatched up her gloves and bag and raced upstairs. He was still there. He took a leisurely farewell of her aunt, assured her of his gratitude, opened the door for Olympia and closed it with firmness behind him.

‘What do you want to buy?’ asked Olympia at once.

He stood on the pavement outside the house, deep in thought. ‘Well, let me see, something for Ria—my little daughter, you know. She is almost five years old and very precocious, I’m afraid. Her mother died a week or so after she was born.’

Olympia restrained her feet from the impatient dance she felt like executing; any moment Aunt Maria might change her mind and they were still standing just outside the door. Quite shocked at what he had told her, she said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and felt inadequate. Of course he would have been married; men like him didn’t go through life like monks; perhaps he had loved his wife very much, perhaps he was still grieving for her. She tried again. ‘It must be terrible for you.’

He looked taken aback, but only for a moment. ‘Ria is a handful,’ he said blandly. ‘Shall we go?’

They went to Selfridges, this time to the toy department, where, after a prolonged tour of its delights, Olympia, asked to choose a suitable present for a five-year-old girl without worrying too much about the price, picked out a doll’s house. It was a thing which she herself would have loved to possess and never had; it was furnished down to the last miniature saucepan in its magnificent kitchen, and was everything which a little girl could wish for. She spent a long time hanging over it, switching on the lights, opening and shutting the miniature doors, rearranging the furniture. When at last she looked up it was to find her companion’s blue eyes regarding her with a tolerant patience which coloured her cheeks with guilty pink. She said apologetically: ‘I always wanted a doll’s house—your little daughter will love this one.’

She watched while he wrote a cheque for it—a fabulous sum, she considered, and fell to wondering how it was that he was able to write cheques when he was a Dutchman, living, presumably, in Holland. She spoke her thought. ‘You live in Holland, don’t you?’

He smiled. ‘Oh, yes—I have a large practice in the country town called Middelburg. That is my home, but I do a good deal of lecturing, some of it in England.’

So that accounted for the cheque book. ‘Have you been here ever since we—since you helped me that day?’

‘No. I wished to see you again, so I came over three days ago.’

She had nothing to say to that, and anyway the saleslady wanted to talk to him about the packing up of the doll’s house. When he turned to her again it was only to say: ‘I think we have time for tea before you have to be back. Shall we go to Fortnum and Mason again, or would you prefer somewhere else?’

Olympia could not, from her limited experience, think of any place to better it, so she murmured a polite: ‘That would be nice,’ while her sober head buzzed with the effort of guessing why he had wanted to see her. They were in the taxi, travelling in a companionable silence, before a possible reason struck her. He was looking for a governess for his small daughter and had picked on her. The possibility of such a miracle filled her with a warm glow of delight, to be instantly quenched by the recollection of her promise to her aunt—only if she were to marry might she leave, Aunt Maria had said. She clenched the cheap handbag on her lap with suddenly desperate fingers so that her companion, watching her from his corner, asked: ‘Supposing you tell me what’s bothering you?’

Her voice rose several notes in its urgency. ‘Nothing—nothing at all.’

He said, his manner very placid, ‘We haven’t known each other very long, but I hoped you might feel able to confide in me.’

She turned to look at him. ‘Confide…?’ she began, and then: ‘In you?’

‘Next time, perhaps,’ he replied casually as the taxi stopped, and for the rest of their afternoon together, he talked about nothing in particular. Only as he walked up to the front door of the nursing home with her and she put out her hand did he say, ‘I’m coming in—I wish to see your aunt.’

Olympia allowed her hand to drop back to her side, pausing before she opened the door. ‘Why?’ she asked.

‘I should like her to understand quite clearly that I wish to get to know you,’ he said to astonish her.

She stared up at him for a long moment and spoke wistfully: ‘It won’t be any good, you know, she won’t let me go…’ And she was unaware of what she had said.

He smiled, but his voice was firm. ‘I think that she will.’

Olympia opened the door. She had never known anyone get the better of Aunt Maria, but presumably there had to be a first time for everything. She wished him success from the bottom of her heart. ‘I’ll see if she’s in her office,’ she offered, and left him standing in the chill of the hall.

She was back within a minute. ‘Aunt will be pleased to see you,’ she told him, and shivered. He paused beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘This damned cold hall,’ he remarked feelingly, then astonished her by asking, ‘Why are you called Olympia?’

She smiled then and her eyes widened and twinkled at him so that she looked pretty. ‘Father was an archaeologist, he met Mother during a dig in Greece. I—I like it.’

‘So do I.’ He went through the door behind her as he spoke, leaving her to run downstairs and change back into uniform.

She had no moment of time in which to think about him after that; her aunt had done none of the things the nurses did towards easing the evening’s work. There were beds to turn down, medicines to give, supper trays to lay, the old people to help with their preparations for bed, and Miss Snow, if she were to be believed, had been left to cope with the patients’ teas all by herself and was so incensed in consequence that Olympia took ten minutes of her precious time to soothe her down and persuade her not to give in her notice then and there. Perhaps, she thought, as she dished out the light supper at a great rate, it would be as well if Aunt Maria told Doctor van der Graaf not to call again.

But she hadn’t, or if she had, he had taken no notice of her, for he came again the very next day, this time in the morning just as Olympia was going off duty for the split her aunt insisted was necessary for her to take twice a week—that meant that she went on duty at half past seven in the morning, was free from half past ten until one o’clock, and then worked through the remainder of the day until the night staff came on, a wretched arrangement which no hospital nurse would have tolerated unless circumstances made it vital. She found him standing in the hall on the way down to her room and had given him a rather surprised good morning, followed by an inquiry as to whether he wished to see her aunt again.

‘God forbid,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve come for you. Your aunt gave me the times of your off duty—I thought we might go somewhere and have coffee—lunch is out of the question, I take it.’

He stood looking at her, his head on one side. ‘I thought that the modern nurse had improved her lot to a certain extent; it seems that doesn’t apply to this place.’

‘My aunt hasn’t many nurses—only me and Mrs Cooper, and she’s part-time. Miss Snow and Mrs Drew aren’t trained—they’re very good, though.’

‘You do not complain. I suspect that the writer of that poem—I can’t remember much of it—had you in mind when she wrote: “While just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.”’

She was quite shocked. ‘Oh, you mustn’t think that; I’m not kind at all. Sometimes I could leave everything just as it is, and run through the door—if you knew how I want to escape…’

‘But you don’t?’

‘I promised… I explained to you…’

He didn’t answer, only smiled at her and told her to go and put on something warm; the March wind was cold, as though it were making a last effort to keep April at bay. Olympia put on the suit again and tied a scarf over her hair because the only hat she had was a dreary affair reserved for church. They were going to have coffee, he had said—there were plenty of small cafés not too far away, and none of them had a smart clientele. She sighed unconsciously as she ran upstairs to join him; perhaps today, if he had got his way with Aunt Maria, he would offer her a job. Her heart leapt at the prospect and she beamed at him as she reached the hall.

There was a taxi waiting and she looked at him questioningly as she got in. ‘A wretched day,’ he offered. ‘I thought we might go somewhere warm and cheerful.’

They went to a small Viennese café near Bond Street and over their delicious coffee and creamy cakes, Olympia found herself talking to her companion as though she had known him all her life. Indeed, afterwards, when she was back in the home, once more at work, she chided herself for talking too much. She would have to guard her tongue, for he had a way of asking questions…she frowned, not that that mattered; he had said nothing about seeing her again.

But it was the first of a succession of similar outings. Olympia, longing to ask him what he had said to her aunt so that lady had raised no objections to his continued visits, made wild, unsatisfying guesses as to his reasons for wishing to seek her company; surely if he had wanted her for a job he would have mentioned it by now. But his visits continued, sometimes with Doctor Ross, but more often his arrival was timed to coincide with her off-duty. It was at the end of a second week of afternoon walks and leisurely coffee drinking that she ventured to ask him if he was on holiday. They were strolling round the Zoo at the time, taking advantage of the thin April sunshine and watching the antics of the monkeys.

He turned to look at her. ‘No,’ he told her with deliberation, ‘I have been attending a seminar—it finishes tomorrow. I am also visiting an aunt—an Englishwoman, the widow of my father’s elder brother.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘I should like you to meet her. You are free tomorrow afternoon, are you not?’

She nodded.

‘Good—I will call for you about two o’clock.’

‘Then you will be going back to Middleburg?’

‘Yes.’ They strolled on in silence while she thought that this was the end—well, almost the end, of their friendship. She was going to miss him very much, there was no denying that fact; what to him had been a small interlude had been for her a delightful few weeks in her dull life. Of course, she knew very little about him and nothing at all of his life—just as well perhaps, since she was unlikely to have a place in it after tomorrow. These rather unhappy thoughts were interrupted by his cheerful: ‘How about tea? There’s time enough before you have to go back.’

She dressed with extra care the following afternoon; the same tweed suit, of course, but having received her miserable salary a day or so earlier, she had bought a new woolly from Marks and Spencer—a pale apricot which gave her face a pleasant glow and cheered up the suit enormously; she had bought a brown velvet bow to set in front of her bun of hair, too; studying herself in the long looking glass at the back of the hall, she decided that she was at least presentable although woefully dowdy. It was to be hoped that the aunt wasn’t a fashionable old lady who would despise her.

It seemed at first that her forebodings might prove true. They had walked, she and the doctor, for it was a fine day and his aunt lived in Little Venice, in one of the terraces facing the Grand Union Canal. They had entered the park through the Gloucester Gate and crossed it diagonally to arrive within a stone’s throw of a row of substantial houses.

‘A flat?’ hazarded Olympia, gazing up at their solid fronts, with their well-painted doors and window boxes. Her companion took her arm and guided her through a solid gate set between equally solid walls.

‘No—the whole house.’ He pealed the bell and the door was opened with alacrity by a neat elderly woman who smiled at them as they went in. In the hall he helped Olympia out of her jacket, divested himself of his own coat and threw it on a chair in what she considered to be a rather careless manner, and upon the elderly woman begging them to go upstairs, did so, taking Olympia with him.

The room they entered was very fine; large, and filled with large furniture too, covered with silver photo frames enclosing a variety of out-of-date photographs, an astonishing assortment of china and silver and the whole shrouded with heavy dark blue curtains half drawn over the old-fashioned Nottingham lace which screened the windows. And the lady who came across the room to meet them matched it very nicely for size; she was tall and stout, with a straight back and a proudly held head crowned with iron-grey hair, dressed smoothly. She might have been any age from the lightness of her step and the elegant timelessness of her clothes. Olympia’s heart sank; she had no idea why Doctor van der Graaf had brought her here with him, but she felt sure that it had been a mistake. Only his firm hand under her arm, propelling her gently forward, prevented her from turning tail and racing away from someone she felt instinctively would make her feel dowdier than she already was.

She couldn’t have been more mistaken; her companion’s, ‘Hullo, Aunt Betsy,’ changed everything. The majestic, elegant woman surging towards her wasn’t anyone to be nervous of after all; her exquisitely made up face wore a beaming smile and her voice when she spoke could only be described as cosy.

‘Waldo, dear boy—and this is Olympia.’ She turned her beam upon her. ‘Dear child, how accurately he described you to me. Come and sit down and tell me all about yourself.’

Olympia sat, not sure if her hostess really wanted the details of her rather prosaic life, but she was saved from answering because Aunt Betsy went on almost without pause: ‘That is a charming colour—one of Marks and Spencer’s, of course. You should wear it often—I always buy my woollies there.’

This reassuringly homely remark got them well launched into a comfortable chat about clothes, with her hostess sustaining a monologue which needed nothing added save a nod and a smile from time to time, which gave Olympia the opportunity to think that she liked Mrs van der Graaf very much and how nice it would have been if Aunt Maria had been like her.

‘Pink, with marabou round the hem,’ said her hostess, cutting into her thoughts, and followed that with: ‘Yes, yes, Waldo, you are a patient man, I know, but I can see that you wish to be alone with Olympia. I shall go and see if Mary has the tea ready, but in half an hour I shall return, I warn you—I like my tea at four o’clock and it is now precisely half past three.’ She sailed majestically to the door, smiling at them in turn and stopped to peck the doctor’s cheek when he opened the door for her.

Olympia, sitting on the edge of a large brocade covered chair, watched her departure with some surprise. When the doctor had shut the door behind his aunt, she asked: ‘Whatever did she mean? Why do you want to be alone…’ She stopped; of course it was about the job he was going to offer her—he had brought her along to be vetted by his aunt before offering it to her and presumably she was satisfactory. She sighed with relief. ‘Oh, so you are going to offer me the job after all.’

He looked astonished, but only for a moment; the astonishment was replaced by amusement. ‘With my little daughter in mind?’

‘Well, of course.’ Olympia hesitated. ‘You did say that she was badly in need of someone to mother her.’ She went a little pink. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything—it was only a guess because that’s why I thought you wanted to get to know me, and anyway, even if…’ She looked down at her clenched hands in her lap. ‘Aunt Maria wouldn’t allow it.’

He strolled across the room and sat down facing her. ‘I asked you to come here with me because I wanted to talk to you and I dislike holding private conversations in taxis or some tea-shop or other, not because I wanted Aunt Betsy to look you over.’ He smiled nicely at her. ‘She knows that I am quite capable of doing my own looking over. And you made no mistake, it does concern you and Ria, but not, I think, in quite the manner you have assumed. I have no intention of offering you a job, Olympia. I should like you to marry me.’

She had the peculiar sensation that she wasn’t sitting on the enormous chair at all, but floating in nothing. The room came and went in a rather alarming manner and the silence which followed his words seemed to go on for ever. Presently she found her voice to say: ‘You did say marry you?’

‘Yes.’ He was sitting back, quite at ease.

There were a great many things she could have said, but she discarded them all in favour of a bald: ‘Why?’

‘Because it is obviously such a suitable arrangement for both of us…’

She didn’t let him finish. ‘You can’t really mean that!’ and knew as she said it that he most certainly did.

He continued just as though she had said nothing at all. ‘You see, Olympia, I need someone to care for Ria, to love her, if possible, and check her tantrums and, as you so aptly put it, mother her. I need someone to run my house too—I have an admirable housekeeper, but she cannot play hostess to my friends or arrange dinner parties or make a home of it. And you—you want to get away from that domineering… I beg your pardon—from your aunt and that dreary home. You told me yourself that you had promised to remain there unless someone asked you to marry him. Well, I am that someone; we shall both be helping each other, and I think we have seen sufficient of each other now to know that we shall get along very well. You won’t see a great deal of me, but being a nurse, you are already aware of the kind of life I lead, and we neither of us complicate the situation by our emotions.’

Olympia received this dry-as-dust speech in silence and took her time in answering it. ‘I don’t quite understand why you haven’t just asked me to be a governess—I mean you don’t really want a wife, do you?’

He considered gravely before he replied. ‘A wife in the accepted sense, no. But as I told you, I need someone to run my home and act as hostess and of course, care for Ria, someone who is a good friend, who will fit into my way of living.’ His smile was kind; he was quite unaware of her poor trampled feelings. ‘Besides, I enjoy your company, Olympia. You are restful and sensible and even-tempered.’

She felt almost insulted; there were surely other adjectives he might have used. Who wanted to be any of these worthy things? And he was wrong about her even temper; she was aware that beneath her serene front she was nicely on the boil.

‘You might come to dislike me in a month or so—even after a number of years.’

He shook his head and declared positively: ‘No, my opinions do not change easily. I like you, Olympia, and shall always do so, whatever happens.’

He had an answer for everything and she knew nothing at all about him, only the few bare facts he had told her, and yet she trusted him, and he had said that he would like her for his wife—an unusual kind of wife, she thought ruefully, but half a loaf was better than no bread. She was unhappy in the house on Primrose Hill and as far as she could see into the future, she had no hope of leaving it unless she married. Aunt Maria was barely middle-aged and likely to live for many years to come. She had an unhappy little picture of herself in ten, twenty years’ time, with not even youth to give her ordinary face an edge of attractiveness. Undoubtedly this was her chance—she frowned as she remembered the old people she looked after. ‘There’s no one to do my work if I go,’ she told him in a small voice. ‘Mrs Cooper’s only part-time, there has to be a trained nurse…besides, there will be no one at night to get up…’

The doctor’s eyes narrowed. ‘You get up at night as well as working during the day?’

‘Well, I have to.’ She spoke almost defensively. ‘If something happens that needs a trained nurse.’

‘So that is why you have shadows under your eyes—you are also too thin.’

She brushed this aside almost impatiently; what did it matter if she was thin and plain with it? He wasn’t marrying her for her looks, was he? She spoke suddenly. ‘It’s not because you pity me, is it?’

His lips twitched a little at the fierceness of her look. ‘No, I don’t pity you, Olympia.’ He had got up and was standing by one of the windows, looking at her. ‘I think you mustn’t hunt around in your head for reasons which aren’t reasons at all. I have told you why I should like to marry you; there are no other reasons—none at all. But I have taken you by surprise, haven’t I? Perhaps you would like a little time to decide?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘I’ll call and see you tomorrow. You are off duty in the morning, aren’t you?’ He added kindly: ‘And if it will help you in any way, I will undertake to find a nurse to replace you, immediately.’

‘Oh, will you really? I…’ She stopped because the door had been thrown open and Mrs van der Graaf, followed by Mary carrying the tea-tray, came in.

She began to talk the moment she was in the room, but not about them; every other subject under the sun, Olympia couldn’t fail to notice, but not one question, not even a look of inquiry. They ate their tea, borne along on a tide of cheerful conversation which Olympia found soothing after her rather surprising talk with the doctor. And when she went back with him presently, by taxi this time, the subject lying so heavily on her mind wasn’t mentioned. Indeed, back in her little basement room, she wondered if she had dreamed the whole thing. An observation of her aunt’s came into her head. ‘Sleep on it,’ she would say. Olympia slept on it.




CHAPTER THREE


SHE SLEPT SOUNDLY, WITH NO half-hoped-for dreams to offer her their guidance, and the pleased old faces which welcomed her as she began her morning’s work offered her a mute but sound reason for refusing the doctor’s offer, although he had said—no, promised—that he would find someone to take her place. But her mind was made up for her in quite another manner; she had been getting the old people on the top floor out of their beds when her aunt had walked in. She had nodded briefly to the patients, for this wasn’t her usual mid-morning round when she stopped and spoke briefly to each one of them, careful never to give them a chance to say much themselves, but now her interest was centred upon her niece.

‘Come outside, Nurse Randle,’ she invited in a voice which boded no good for Olympia, and once they were outside on the little landing, ‘I have been considering the matter, Olympia, and I have decided that there is no point in seeing any more of Doctor van der Graaf.’ She frowned. ‘Indeed, I cannot imagine how I ever allowed myself to be persuaded in the first place—however, I feel sure that by now he will be only too glad to have a decision made for him. I feel sure too that he must be heartily sick of you by now; probably he is too kind a man to say so. When he comes again I shall tell him that you have decided not to see him again.’

Olympia choked back rage, humiliation and sheer fright that what her aunt had said might be true—but how could it be? She said in a quiet little voice which gave no hint of her strong feelings, ‘You are mistaken, Aunt, and I can’t see why I shouldn’t go out with Doctor van der Graaf if I want to. He’s coming to see me this morning…’

‘He’s here,’ interposed the doctor from the stairs behind them, and before either of the ladies could say a word: ‘Good morning, and before you say anything further, Miss Randle, I have asked Olympia to be my wife…’ He paused for a second and shot a glance at her and something in her white face must have given him his answer, for he went on smoothly: ‘And she has consented.’ He crossed the landing and took Olympia’s hand in his and smiled down at her, and she, feeling that events were moving of their own accord without any help from her, smiled nervously back.

‘I shall not allow…’ began Miss Randle, much incensed.

‘Oh, but I think you will. Has not Olympia honoured her promise to you for a number of years? Now it is your turn to do the same, Miss Randle.’ His voice was bland enough, but he didn’t smile and his eyes were cool.

‘I…’ began Olympia, wishing to put her oar in, and was hushed before she could say another word by the doctor who went on in a conversational manner, ‘A quiet wedding, I think, if Olympia agrees. We neither of us have many friends in London, and no family. You will, of course, have no objection to her leaving at once, Miss Randle? I have been fortunate enough to find someone who will take her place immediately.’

‘Now?’ They spoke together, staring at him, Miss Randle with a furious face suffused with wrath, Olympia with delight and relief and a kind of wonder. Any minute now, she thought, I shall open my eyes and find I’ve been dreaming.

‘Now,’ said Doctor van der Graaf in a gentle voice which nevertheless invited obedience, ‘if you will pack what you need, dear girl, I will wait for you.’

Aunt Maria looked to be on the point of apoplexy. ‘There is no one to do her work—I cannot possibly manage—this is most unethical!’

He agreed cheerfully and went on smoothly: ‘The nurse I have secured will arrive this afternoon, Miss Randle. She will, of course, expect to be paid the salary agreed by the General Nursing Council, and since you have mentioned the word unethical, I wonder what salary you have been paying Olympia? Not, I fancy, the amount to which she has been entitled.’ He gave her a bland smile and pushed Olympia gently towards the stairs. ‘Go along,’ he told her, ‘though perhaps you had better say goodbye to your patients first.’

She looked at him; it was like a dream still. ‘I feel very mean leaving them.’

‘You shall come back and visit them, that’s a promise. Besides, they will be delighted to know that you are going to be married. Everyone likes a wedding, you know.’

It took her half an hour to pack her things, and barely five minutes in which to say good-bye to Aunt Maria, who washed her hands of her in no uncertain terms, predicted that no good would come of it and that Olympia would live to rue the day. ‘And don’t come running back to me, my girl, for I’ll not lift a finger to help you, just you remember that.’

‘I’m sorry you’re angry,’ said Olympia, anxious to part friends even though she was glad to be going.

‘Angry?’ her aunt snapped back. ‘Of course I’m angry; the years I’ve devoted to you, given you a home, educated and clothed you…’

‘And the years I’ve worked for you for little more than pocket money!’ retaliated Olympia, stung to sudden indignation. ‘And I would have gone on for the rest of my life if Doctor van der Graaf hadn’t come along.’

‘And may you never live to regret the day,’ was her aunt’s parting shot.

There was obviously no more to be said; Olympia, with a murmured good-bye, left her sitting at her desk, her head already bowed over the papers before her.

Doctor van der Graaf was waiting in the hall, pacing up and down, his hands behind his back, deep in thought. He shot her a penetrating look as she went towards him and said on a half laugh: ‘Don’t stop to have second thoughts. I know exactly what is in your mind; regrets and a half-formed resolution to make a martyr of yourself—and how will your aunt manage and what about the old people.’ He caught her hand in his. ‘Olympia, I promise you that everything will be all right. Will you trust me?’

She studied his kind blue eyes. ‘Yes.’ She even achieved some sort of a smile, because no man wanted a watering pot for a wife. ‘Where am I to go?’

‘Aunt Betsy, just until I can make arrangements for us to get married.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t!’ They were getting into the taxi which the doctor had prudently kept waiting. He said placidly as he got in beside her:

‘Do you dislike her so much? I admit she’s formidable in appearance, but she has the kindest heart imaginable—besides, she likes you.’

She answered him a little breathlessly; things had happened so fast that she felt at that moment that she would never catch up with them. ‘Does she? I like her too, only I thought…’

He observed unexpectedly: ‘You have never had a chance to spread your wings, have you, Olympia? I think that you will find the world full of people who will like you.’

‘Aunt Maria always told me…’ began Olympia a little unhappily.

‘Your Aunt Maria,’ said the doctor deliberately, ‘is an odious woman, bent on making you her slave for as long as she needed you and taking gross advantage of your gentle nature. She is making a fortune from that nursing home of hers, and although I grant you that it is well run and the patients cared for adequately, she does it purely for business reasons and not out of pity for her less fortunate fellow beings. She is a hard woman and you are well shot of her.’

Olympia was regarding him with an awakened interest; he had never talked like this before, he seemed suddenly a great deal younger and much more approachable.

‘But she told me that she was only just able to make ends meet—that’s why she didn’t pay me very much.’

‘How much?’

She mentioned the miserable sum and was answered by an indignant: ‘Good lord, barely enough to keep you in stockings—or is it tights?’ His eye surveyed the tweed suit. ‘So that’s why you wear that thing all the time.’

She sat up very straight, her voice tart. ‘That is very rude,’ she told him. ‘It is—was—quite a good tweed when I bought it.’

He grinned, quite unabashed. ‘I’m sorry. Does it help if I tell you that you would look nice in anything? And dear girl, since we are to be man and wife, let us be honest with each other. We are already good friends, let us remain so, with no false pride between us, and if we must, let us argue and quarrel and make it up again, just because we are friends, and more than anything else, let us enjoy each other’s company.’

Olympia received this speech with mixed feelings; the doctor sounded so very sure of himself, rather like a cook, who, having got hold of a good recipe, was convinced that come what may, it would turn out to be a success. She nodded, bolstered up by a determination to make their marriage succeed.

She was given a welcome such as she had never had before in her life. Mrs van der Graaf, it seemed, could think of nothing nicer than that Olympia should stay with her for as long as she wished. She was swept upstairs, her hostess steaming ahead of the convoy, as it were, with Olympia, flanked by Mary, and the doctor, burdened with her luggage, bringing up the rear. The stairs led to a landing with four doors. Mrs van der Graaf opened one of them and ushered her party inside. The room was not over-large, but by Olympia’s standards, the epitome of luxury. The furniture was painted white and the bed was covered with a pink satin bedspread and eider-down which looked far too magnificent for use.

There were a great many little table lamps dotted about, with frilly shades tied with velvet ribbons, and they and the curtains and carpet were of a deeper shade of pink with a delicate pattern of blue upon them. It was the sort of bedroom any girl would have loved; perhaps a little exaggerated in its prettiness, but to Olympia, fresh from her austere little room, it was perfection. She stood speechless while Mary disposed of her luggage and Mrs van der Graaf inspected the small pile of books on the bedside table, giving it her opinion that a few magazines wouldn’t come amiss. She then tweaked the counterpane into even smoother folds, begged Olympia to remove her coat and tidy herself and then come downstairs for a nice glass of sherry before lunch.

They drank it in the sitting-room and the conversation was quite impersonal, sustained almost wholly by the doctor and his aunt. Presently, however, what with the sherry and the return of her self-confidence Olympia began to join in the talk, and because both aunt and nephew shared the gift of putting people at their ease, she began to feel normal again, and not someone living in a dream, although heaven knew that life seemed strange enough at the moment. They were on the point of going in to lunch when her hostess remarked, ‘You must be wondering why I haven’t wished you happiness, Olympia, but you looked…never mind that now. But I do, child, wholeheartedly. You will both of you be very happy.’

She nodded her head in deep satisfaction and led the way to the dining-room.

The doctor left after lunch and as she had had no chance to speak to him alone, Olympia saw him preparing to leave with something like panic. He wished her good-bye matter-of-factly and added, ‘Tot ziens,’ and when she wanted to know what that had meant, said: ‘I suppose “Until we meet again” is as good a translation as any.’

‘When shall I see you?’ she wanted to know in a voice which held sudden panic.

‘This evening. I thought that we might go out and celebrate, you and I. Would you like that?’

She nodded, enchanted at the idea, then remembered unhappily: ‘I haven’t anything to wear—I couldn’t possibly go, I haven’t even got a party dress.’

He was at the door, looking very large in his coat and very reassuring too. ‘My dear, my aunt will take you out with her this afternoon and you shall choose everything you need—my wedding present to you.’

She thanked him shyly and he bent and kissed her cheek, rather awkwardly, as though he wasn’t sure about it.

The afternoon was the most wonderful she had ever known; it was as if all the birthday treats, Christmas parties and presents which she had never had, combined together to make her wildest dreams come true. They went to Harrods, driven there in an elderly Rolls-Royce by an equally elderly chauffeur, and once in the store they repaired to the Gown department where Mrs van der Graaf, apparently a well-known customer, commanded instant attention. Seated bolt upright and with the head saleswoman in close attendance, she began briskly: ‘Now, Olympia, look around you and choose a few dresses to try on.’ She peered into a little notebook she had taken from her handbag. ‘Let me see—a couple of evening dresses, I think, and something pretty for dinner—a suit and a light coat and something for the day—undies, of course—but let us get the dresses first.’

Olympia heard her out, her eyes getting rounder and rounder. She fastened them upon the saleswoman who retreated to a tactful distance while Olympia said in a frenzied whisper: ‘Mrs van der Graaf, I couldn’t possibly—I think there’s some mistake. Why, that’s several outfits, not just one, and this…’ She looked around her at the opulence of their surroundings, ‘isn’t the right department—it’s the model gowns, far too expensive.’





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