The Chain of Destiny Page 11

  She mentioned a sum which Suzannah thought she could manage on if she were careful. ‘There’s a bedsit in the basement, and you’d have to live in. Sundays off and most Saturday afternoons. It’s quiet here, not a bad area, although it’s a bit run-down. I live at the top of the house, but I must warn you that once I’m there of an evening, I don’t want to be disturbed.’ She stared across the table at Suzannah. ‘Have you references?’

  Suzannah handed them over. A letter from Lady Manbrook, another one from Mijnheer van Dijl and one from the vicar at home. Mrs Willis read them carefully. ‘Done any teaching?’

  ‘No. I have four A-levels and have been offered a place at a university. I couldn’t take it up because the aunt I lived with became ill.’

  ‘I usually check references, but I’m pretty desperate for help. How do you feel about coming here? A month’s trial?’

  ‘I should like to work here. I have a cat; may he live here in the bed-sitting-room?’

  ‘Why not, as long as he’s not a nuisance? You’d better come and see the place.’

  She led the way out of the front door and down the area steps to another door beneath them, took a key from her pocket and unlocked it. The room was rather dark and cold, but it was clean, with a small gas stove in one corner and a door leading to a toilet and shower-room. The furniture was sparse and cheap, but the curtains were cheerful and there was a small gas fire in front of the old-fashioned grate.

  ‘It’s rent-free,’ said Mrs Willis. ‘Goes with the job. You can bring any bits and pieces of your own.’

  ‘I haven’t any. I’d like the job, Mrs Willis, and I could move in today if you would like me to. If I could have an hour or two to settle in and get some milk and bread and food, I could start first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Want the job that bad?’

  ‘Yes, I do. And I’ll work hard.’

  Mrs Willis smiled. ‘Let’s hope you can kept it up. We don’t have holidays here like the schools. I close on Christmas Day and Boxing Day and at Easter for a couple of days, but the women around here work most of their days and there’s nowhere to take the kids. Any plans for Christmas?’

  ‘None, Mrs Willis.’

  ‘Good. I’m going over to my sister’s at Northolt as soon as the last child’s gone on Christmas Eve, and I’ll be back late on Boxing Day. Mind being here alone?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘The houses on either side, they’re used as warehouses for small firms, but there are folk living across the street and further down the road.’

  She handed Suzannah a key. ‘Let yourself out and come back when you’re ready. You’d better see round the place then. I can’t spare the time now.’

  Well, she had a job and somewhere to live, thought Suzannah on her way back to the professor’s house. Not ideal, but better than nothing, and since she was to be paid weekly she could afford to lay out some of the money she had on a store of groceries and one or two small comforts.

  She had some difficulty in persuading Cobb to allow her to leave in the taxi she had prudently hired. ‘I don’t know what the professor will say,’ he said worriedly. ‘I was to see you safe and sound at your friend’s house…’

  ‘Well, he didn’t know—and nor did I—that my friend would get a taxi to bring me back here to collect Horace and my things. It’s outside now, waiting. Could you explain that to the professor? And tell him that I’ve got a good job with a nice little flatlet.’ She shook his hand. ‘Thank you and Mrs Cobb, and please thank the professor for me; I’ll write to him.’

  So Cobb had let her go, looking doubtful still and presently she was back in the basement room, making a list of the things she would need, with Horace, glad to see her but not best pleased with his surroundings, sitting suggestively before the unlit fire.

  She put fifty pence in the slot and lit it before she hurried out to the few shops she had seen at the end of the street. At that hour of the afternoon there weren’t many shoppers; she bought what she needed, prudently stocking up on tins of soup, then she ordered milk and collected bread and food for Horace and hurried back again. With the curtains drawn and the light on, the room didn’t look too bad. She fed Horace and made a cup of tea for herself, filled the hot-water bottle she had bought and put it in the divan bed in one corner and went back up the steps to the front door.

  It was open now and there were women coming and going, collecting children after their day’s work. Mrs Willis saw the last of them away, said goodnight to a dispirited-looking girl who followed them out and who, it transpired, was another teacher, and led Suzannah round the house. The rooms were given over to the children: four quite large rooms on the ground floor, although with two helpers short she and the girl had been managing between them in two of the rooms. ‘We’ll split the children up tomorrow, that will mean ten or twelve each. They play and learn a bit until noon, then they have their dinners and you and Melanie take it in turns to keep an eye on them all while they rest for an hour. So every other day you’ll get a bit of free time for shopping. We close at five o’clock, though sometimes I’ll keep a child until six if the mother can’t get here before then.’

  All the while she had been talking she had been marching round the house, pointing out where everything was kept. It was all very clean and there were small hand-basins in the cloakroom and a long, low table with small chairs for the children’s meals.

  ‘You and Melanie eat with the children, but you get your own tea and take it in turns to have it. We open at eight o’clock, so have your breakfast first.’

  They were back at the front door again. ‘I said before that it’s hard work but I treat you fairly, and if you can’t stick it, just say so.’

  It was nice to have Horace to talk to; Suzannah aired her plans and doubts to him while she got her supper ready. The contrast between their new home and her comfortable bedroom at the van Dijls’ was cruel, but that was something she could remedy, given time and money; in the meantime, she assured him, they would be cosy enough. He was a docile cat and had quickly discovered that, although he might go into the concreted area, that was his limit. She arranged an old woolly scarf before the fire and he curled up without fuss.

  At least the water was hot in the shower and the room had warmed up nicely; she ate her supper, made a list of shopping and went to bed. To her surprise her last thoughts were of the professor. Rather sad, although she didn’t know why.

  He was thinking of her too, but without sadness. Cobb, when questioned, had been unable to give any accurate information as to where Suzannah had gone, and the professor was fair-minded enough not to blame him for letting her leave without giving an address, but he was annoyed that she should go in such a fashion. Almost as though she didn’t want him to know just where she had gone; she should have remained at his house until he had made sure that this good job really was good. He frowned; the wretched girl was intruding too deeply into his busy life and it was nonsensical of him to concern himself with her; she had shown clearly enough that she was quite capable of looking after herself. But a nagging doubt remained; he felt compelled to telephone first his aunts and then Mrs Coffin, asking them to let him know if Suzannah should get in touch with them.

  Suzannah was up early, breakfasted and tidied her room and had seen to Horace and was ready in the hall when the first of the toddlers arrived. And after that the day became too busy to think. The children for the most part were good, but they needed amusing, and the older ones had to be given simple lessons. Midday dinner was chaotic but thankfully, when it was over, the children were ready to rest for an hour or so. Suzannah had agreed to mind them while Melanie had her free hour, and Melanie, glad to have someone to help her, agreed to Suzannah slipping down to her room to see Horace before she went. She was a melancholy girl but, like Suzannah, needed to earn her own living, and she was good with the children. She lived with a widowed mother at the other end of the street and had a boyfriend who wanted to marry her. ‘Only of cours
e there’s Mother,’ said Melanie. ‘She doesn’t like him overmuch and won’t have him to live at home, so we have to wait until we can find rooms or a small flat.’

  Suzannah listened with sympathy, begged her not to hurry back and settled down to watch over the toddlers, arranged in neat rows to sleep. The day seemed endless, but the next day was easier; it was her turn to be free while the children rested and she went shopping with an eye to Christmas, now so close. She found the public library too and chose two books. When she returned she spent a short time with Horace and went back to sing nursery rhymes with the ten children she was looking after.

  She saw very little of Mrs Willis, but on the second day, as they passed each other in the hall, she paused long enough to ask if Suzannah was managing and was she warm enough in her room?

  Suzannah said cheerfully that she was perfectly happy and everything was fine. All the same, she cried herself to sleep that night. Even with Horace for company, she was lonely.

  On Christmas Eve the children had a party so that they were fetched a little later than usual, and when they had all gone the three teachers cleared away the card-board plates and mugs, tidied the place, wished each other a happy Christmas and went their separate ways. By early evening the house was quiet, for Mrs Willis had gone and so had Melanie, and Suzannah was very conscious of the silence, even with the radio on. She had bought a chicken already cooked, sausage rolls and a few mince pies and a few sprigs of holly. She would go to church in the morning, she decided, and on Boxing Day go for a walk in one of the parks.

  She ate a mince pie, gave Horace an extra snack of sardines, drew the rather down-at-heel armchair close to the gas fire and settled down to read.

  She wasn’t a girl to mope; all the same she was quite glad to think that the place would be open the next morning as she got ready for bed on Boxing Night. She had gone to church on Christmas morning and come back to share the chicken with Horace and listen to the radio, and on Boxing Day she had gone for a really long walk, finding her way to Green Park and then into St James’s Park and walking all the way back again. She had had a good think as she walked, and she knew what she was going to do: stay with Mrs Willis for six months and then apply to one of the London hospitals to train as a nurse. She would have liked to have done that sooner, but there was the problem of Horace; she would need to save enough money to rent a room so that she could live out while she trained, and if she was careful and saved every penny she could spare and added it to the money she already had, she would be able to manage on a student nurse’s pay. She had walked the long way back, doing mental arithmetic and pondering ways and means; the results weren’t always very clear, for the sums kept coming out differently because she found that her thoughts were side-tracked far too often by thoughts of Professor Bowers-Bentinck.

  ‘And I can’t think why,’ she observed crossly to Horace, ‘for he was a ship passing in the night, as they say.’

  She was more than busy when the children arrived in the morning; most of them were tired, queasy from too many sweets and pettish and whiney in consequence. She spent a good deal of her day mopping up after puking toddlers, and the rest-hour was a nightmare of grizzling moppets. They were feeling more themselves on the next day, and since it was her turn to have an hour off in the afternoon she was able to go to the shops and stock up once more, and after that everyone fell easily enough into the usual routine. It was broken again at the New Year, but only for a day, and Suzannah, now quite at home in her job, hardly noticed the small upsets caused by upset tummies and a rash of head colds.

  She had been there rather more than a month when Mrs Willis decided that the children, well wrapped up against the cold, should be taken for a short walk twice a week. Suzannah and Melanie welcomed the idea; it would fill in the later part of the morning before dinner, and it would be nice to have a breath of air. A school-leaver glad of the pocket money agreed to give a hand, and the first expedition went well. The children were, on the whole, good, and the weather, though cold, was bright and it made a nice change for everyone.

  The dry, cold weather held and the morning walks became part of the week’s regime, down side streets, across the Tottenham Court Road and ten minutes running around in the grassy square on the other side and then back again.

  It was when the procession of small children was wending its toddling way back, with Melanie in front, the teenager in the middle and Suzannah bringing up the rear, carrying a reluctant walker, that Professor Bowers-Bentinck, waiting at the traffic lights for the slow-moving procession to trot across the road, saw Suzannah, one toddler clinging round her neck, another held by the hand, making her careful way behind the string of small people.

  Shaken from his usual calm, he uttered a startling sound between a groan and a great sigh, and only when the driver behind him hooted urgently did he see that the lights were green again and the wavering crocodile was disappearing down a street on the opposite side. He had perforce to drive on, but presently he found a side turning, reversed the car and drove back the way he had come, to stop by a parking meter, get out and make his way to the row of shops across the pavement.

  He tried several shops before he found somebody who could answer his questions. Oh, yes, said the beady-eyed old lady behind the counter in the general stores, there was a nursery school not too far away. ‘Want to send the little ‘uns there?’ she wanted to know. ‘Well, you could do worse than Mrs Willis. Takes the kids when the mums go to work, and one or two besides.’ She paused infuriatingly to think and scratch her permed head with a pencil. ‘Felix Road, that’s where she is. Near the hospital.’

  The professor thanked her with a suave charm which left her smiling, and went back to the Bentley. He had no difficulty in finding Felix Road, and he drew up outside the house, spent a few minutes telephoning to his registrar and sat, a prey to a number of thoughts. But when he saw the door open and Suzannah go down the steps to her basement, he got out and followed her without hurry.

  It was her turn to have an hour off. She was feeding Horace when the door-knocker was thumped. She opened it and the professor walked in.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE PROFESSOR walked in without hesitation, so that Suzannah retreated before him until she came up against the table and couldn’t go back any further. It took her a moment or so to find her voice, surprise and a sensation she had no time to guess at had taken her breath, so that her, ‘Hello,’ was uttered in a strangled squeak.

  Rather disconcertingly, he said nothing, merely stood there, looming over her, his ice-blue eyes cold. Presently he took his gaze from her face and studied his surroundings. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and gentle.

  ‘You were going to write,’ he said mildly.

  She could see that he was coldly angry, despite his tolerant tones.

  ‘Yes, well, I did mean to, and then I thought it was a bit silly…’ He raised his eyebrows and she hurried on, ‘I mean, you’re busy, going here and there and everywhere, and important too, I dare say, and you must have a great many friends. We weren’t likely to see each other again—there seemed no point…’ Her voice petered out under his stare.

  He said harshly, ‘I see. But was it necessary to lie to me, Suzannah?’

  She went red. ‘I’m sorry about that, but I didn’t want to be a nuisance; you have done such a lot for me—I can’t think why.’

  ‘Nor can I.’ A reply which she found disconcerting.

  She said politely, ‘Will you sit down. I have to go back to the children in half an hour or so; it’s my free hour—we take it in turns.’

  He sat down on the wooden chair at the table and it creaked alarmingly. He asked casually, ‘You live here? The other teachers too?’

  ‘Mrs Willis, the one who owns the school, lives on the top floor in a proper flat. Melanie, the other helper, lives with her mother at the end of the street.’

  ‘And do you intend to make this your life’s work?’

  ‘Oh, no. I thought I’d s
tay here for six months, then I can train as a nurse.’

  ‘Why not sooner than that?’

  ‘Well, I’ll need to have a room and live out because of Horace.’

  She was sitting on the edge of the divan, her hands in her lap.

  ‘I’ve had time to think about it. I don’t want to teach; I like children, but I don’t think I’d make a good teacher.’

  ‘So you have your future settled.’

  ‘Yes. How did you know I was here?’

  ‘You crossed the road with a string of infants a short while ago; I was waiting at the traffic lights and my curiosity got the better of me.’ He gave her a hooded glance. ‘Are you lonely, Suzannah? Where did you spend Christmas?’

  ‘No. I’m too busy to be lonely.’ She said it too quickly, without looking at him. ‘I spent Christmas here.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘I had Horace.’ She spoke defiantly, uneasy at his questions. ‘I really am very happy.’

  He got to his feet, dwarfing everything around him. ‘I am delighted to hear it.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Do you want me to go?’

  ‘Yes. I have a great deal to do…’

  ‘You said that once before,’ he reminded her. ‘And once before I came to see if I could help you, but it seems that I am once more mistaken.’

  He went to the door and with his hand on the door knob turned to ask, ‘There was no friend, was there, Suzannah?’

  ‘No.’

  He nodded his head and opened the door, and went up the steps, got into his car and drove away.

  She stood listening to the Bentley’s quiet departure and made no move to sit down. ‘I don’t suppose I shall ever see him again,’ she told Horace. ‘I said all the wrong things, didn’t I? I didn’t even thank him for coming to see me, and there was no need for him to have done that. I thought I didn’t like him, but I think I do, even when he’s angry and goes all icy and quiet!’ There seemed no reason why she should burst into tears, but she did, so that when she went back presently and Melanie commented upon her puffy eyes and red nose, she had to pretend that she had a cold.