A Betty Neels Christmas: A Christmas ProposalWinter Wedding Page 20

  He was an accomplished host; in no time at all she was the centre of a group of aunts and uncles, who in turn passed her on to more aunts and uncles and cousins and finally she found herself by old Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn’s chair.

  The old lady put out a hand and took hers. ‘How charming you look, my dear—your hair is different, I think. Renier was quite right when he told me that you grow on one. He hardly noticed you at first, did he? but one of the surgeons told him that and he found out for himself that it was true.’

  Emily blushed and wondered if the Professor had told his grandmother to tell her that; he was quite capable of it. She contradicted herself at once. He wouldn’t do anything as petty as that; if he wanted to be nasty, he did it in a big way. She saw that the old lady was still waiting for her answer. ‘That’s very kind of him,’ she said in a quiet little voice, and was intensely relieved when one of the uncles joined them and began to talk about the coming festivities.

  Christmas Day was something she had never imagined and which she would never forget. The entire party went to the village church in the morning, sitting in the family pews and overflowing into the rest of the little church, and afterwards there was a light lunch before everyone dispersed to do what they liked until tea time. The Wrights already knew many of the Professor’s family and Emily, suddenly shy of attaching herself to any of the cheerful, gossiping groups, slipped away and up the stairs to her room. No one would miss her and she could go down at teatime. Perhaps it would be an idea to go for a walk; it was cold but dry and light for another hour or so. She went to the window to look out and when someone tapped on the door she said ‘come in’ without turning round.

  ‘Now, why did you make off?’ asked the Professor, coming into the room. ‘No, don’t tell me—the family are overpowering—I did warn you. Put on your coat and a scarf, we’ll go for a walk—the dogs need exercise.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Really. I’ll meet you by the front door in one minute.’

  They walked right round the park, with the dogs running races round them, barking their heads off, talking about nothing much, sometimes just walking in a companionable silence, and Emily was happy down to her bones; it wouldn’t last, she knew that, but just for the moment life was everything she could wish for. No one seemed to have missed them when they got back; they had tea and presently everyone drifted away to dress.

  Emily was glad she had bought the pink dress when she got downstairs again; the women’s clothes were lovely and so were their jewels. She joined the Wrights for a few minutes and blossomed under their compliments, and when Franz joined them with: ‘Hullo, my beauty,’ she beamed at him with delight. Elizabeth Arden must be doing some good after all!

  It was the Professor who set the seal on her evening with his: ‘Emily, I hardly recognised you.’ He twirled her round to get a better view. ‘Quite superb. And unexpected.’

  The dinner party was a large one, and Emily, between two cousins, enjoyed every minute of it. And Bep had certainly excelled herself: avocado pears with a shrimp stuffing, turtle soup, turkey with everything that went with it, and then a giant Christmas pudding borne aloft by Hans, blue flames licking at it. Emily clapped with everyone else as it was brought to table and drank, rather recklessly, a third glass of champagne.

  Coffee was in the drawing room, but first the presents were to be distributed; a lengthy business, with something for everyone. Emily opening her own presents—gloves from the Wrights, a delicate porcelain cup and saucer from Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn, and old print from Evelina and Franz—paused at the last unopened gift to watch the Professor. She hadn’t known what to give him; he had everything, so in the end she had settled for a silver mouse with a long tail, small enough to go into a pocket or for that matter, tuck away in a drawer and forget. She studied his face anxiously as he opened it and was pleased to see that he slipped it at once into his waistcoat pocket. Only then did she untie her last present.

  It was a small velvet box and inside was her locket and a little card: ‘With best wishes from Renier Jurres-Romeijn.’ She fastened it round her neck with fingers that shook and presently when he came to thank her for the mouse, she asked urgently: ‘Did you buy it—my locket? Was it you who got there before Louisa?’

  He smiled down at her. ‘Yes. It goes well with your dress.’

  ‘Thank you—you’ve no idea—thank you very much!’ She stared up at him, her nice eyes wide. ‘It was so kind…’

  He laughed down at her. ‘I’m not sure if I should feel flattered or not!’

  She hardly saw him to speak to on the following day. Several carloads went up to Amsterdam to spend most of the day at Evelina’s house on one of the grachten; there seemed to be so many people there that Emily decided that she only had the chance to speak to everyone once, and to the Professor not at all. There were several pretty girls there too with their attendant young men, friends of Evelina. They swarmed round Renier like bees round a honeypot and from what she could see, he was enjoying it immensely.

  They didn’t get back to his house until late in the evening and because Doctor Wright was tired she helped him to bed, saw that he had his supper and his favourite books and then went downstairs to say goodnight herself. Mrs Wright was on the point of going to bed herself. She kissed Emily goodnight with the cheerful remark that Reg hated her to fuss over him and it was a good thing that Emily was there to order him around when he needed it. Emily kissed her back warmly: ‘And mind and see that he’s got the bell handy, though I think he’s going to sleep soundly, he’s so tired.’

  ‘Yes, dear. Renier’s in his study, telephoning the hospital about something or other. He said you’re not to go to bed until he’s said goodnight.’

  So Emily went and sat down by the fire, and presently the cat got on to her lap and what with the warmth and all the champagne she had drunk, she dozed off. She woke to find the fire dying and the hands of the clock at two o’clock in the morning. She stared at it unbelieving for a moment, then removed the still sleeping cat, turned out the table lamp and started for the door. She was in the hall when the front door opened and the Professor came in. He had his bag with him and he put it down on the nearest chair and took off his coat before he spoke. ‘What on earth are you still up for?’ he demanded. He sounded so ill-tempered that she chose her words carefully.

  ‘Well, when I came downstairs Mrs Wright gave me a message saying that I wasn’t to go to bed until you’d said goodnight. So I went and sat by the fire and went to sleep.’

  It seemed prudent to take herself off. She was on the stairs when he caught up with her. ‘Emily, I’m sorry—I did say that. But I had to go to the hospital in a hurry and I entirely forgot about you.’

  She went on up the stairs. ‘It doesn’t matter a bit; it was lovely by the fire. But I think I’ll go to bed now. Goodnight.’ She turned to smile at him before she reached the gallery. He was on the bottom step, incredibly handsome and tired to death. Heaven knew what he had been doing; she’d ask another time. As she got ready for bed she thought sadly that she was the kind of girl a man would forget entirely. She stared at her reflection as she rubbed a nourishing cream into her pale face. It wasn’t a nourishing cream she needed, it was a new face, the kind of face a man remembered.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT SEEMED THAT no sooner was Christmas over than preparations for the New Year were under way. Emily spent a whole morning with Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn, listening to every detail of what would take place while Emma, the old lady’s devoted maid, made coffee for them both. ‘Cards,’ explained the little lady. ‘We all send cards to each other with good wishes, and at midnight we eat Olie Bollen.’ She paused. ‘In English that is oil balls, but that is I think not correct.’

  Emily knit her brows. ‘Doughnuts?’ she essayed, and was pleased to find that she had hit on something near enough to the truth to please her companion. ‘And we sing, of course,’ went on Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn, ‘and toast the New Year�
��it is a splendid time.’

  Emily left her presently and wandered off to find Mrs Wright to discuss the vexed question of what to wear.

  ‘Oh, the pink, my dear, it’s a very dressy occasion, you know. I shall wear the velvet again.’

  ‘Will there be the same people or a lot of new ones?’

  ‘Both—Renier has open house at New Year, he’s the head of the family, you see.’

  ‘Lots of pretty girls?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Bound to be.’ Mrs Wright shot her a thoughtful look. ‘Franz will be coming and Evelina and her husband. Franz has a different girl each time I see him. It’s time he settled down.’

  ‘Oughtn’t R-Renier to settle down first?’

  ‘Oh, he’s made up his mind who he’s marrying.’

  Emily turned away. She said brightly: ‘This is such a lovely house for a family, isn’t it?’

  She dressed carefully for the evening, although there seemed no point in it any more. She admitted to herself that the unlikely chance of the Professor getting even faintly interested in her was now washed out. He’d made up his mind to marry and although he might flirt around with a dozen pretty girls they meant nothing to him. And she wasn’t even pretty.

  The evening was fun, all the same. Certainly there were pretty girls there, but there were an equal number of young men, all willing to entertain her, and when it was discovered that she danced like a dream, there was no lack of partners. It was almost midnight when Renier swept her away from Franz with the remark that it was his turn to dance with her, ‘If,’ he added, ‘you can bear to dance something as old-fashioned as a waltz.’

  Speechless, Emily nodded. Her carefully arranged hair had come a little loose and her cheeks were flushed and she had to crane her neck to see his face. He danced well, and she—she floated round on air, loving every second, wanting to go on for ever.

  Actually it was only a few minutes before the band stopped playing so that everyone could hear the great clock in the hall chime midnight, and at its last stroke there was a sudden burst of good wishes and kissing while Hans and Bep and the maids wove their way around with more champagne.

  Emily drank her toast at the last stroke and said in a quiet little voice: ‘A Happy New Year, Renier.’

  He bent and kissed her cheek: ‘And to you, Emily.’ He smiled as he said it and the next moment was engulfed in a wave of singing, laughing guests. Emily, caught up between two elderly gentlemen she had never seen before, lost sight of him altogether.

  The party went on for hours, but she didn’t dance with the Professor again. She saw him partnering one pretty girl after the other and she looked in vain for the one he must surely intend to marry, but he spent no more time with one that the other. It seemed strange, but perhaps she was away or even lived in another country. Emily occupied herself while she danced with imagining what his wife would be like. Beautiful and blonde, of course—an older edition of Louisa.

  She was so tired by the time she got to bed that she really didn’t care any more.

  She was up at the usual time in the morning, she was too young and healthy to notice a late night—besides, Renier would be at breakfast. Only he wasn’t; he’d gone out early, Hans told her, an urgent call from the hospital. Emily didn’t see him all day.

  She had a message from Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn the next morning, asking her if she would like to go to her rooms after lunch and talk over the party, and since there was still no sign of the Professor although Hans had assured her that he was free that day, and the Wrights had nothing on hand which needed her company, she went along about two o’clock.

  There was no sign of the old lady when she reached the wing where she had her rooms. Emily, thinking she had been mistaken, searched through the house for her fruitlessly and retraced her steps. It seemed strange that the old lady wasn’t in her rooms. Emily, by means of basic English and the half dozen words she had learned, asked Emma where she was and got a shake of the head in reply, accompanied by spread hands and raised eyebrows. ‘Is she out?’ Emily tried again.

  Emma went away to look in the vast wardrobe in Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn’s bedroom and came back looking shaken. ‘Hoed, mantel-weg.’

  So the old lady had got on her outdoor things, but the question was where was she? Emily stood and thought carefully while Emma wrung her hands. Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn had said something on Christmas Eve; about not going to see one of the retired maids who was ill because Renier had told her not to go on account of the weather. She had sounded very put out, Emily remembered, and moreover she was an old lady who liked her own way. She patted Emma’s stout shoulders, nodding and smiling, and before that lady could burst into speech, hurried away.

  It wouldn’t be any good telling the Wrights—it wouldn’t be any good telling anyone. The household was taking its post-prandial rest and Renier, who would have known what to do at once, wasn’t home, nor would he be until the evening. She had watched him drive away with a pretty girl who had called that morning, someone he knew well, she supposed miserably, for she had flung her arms round his neck and kissed him and he had laughed down at her and taken her arm and they had disappeared into his study for half an hour. Emily remembered just how long it was because she had been reading the Telegraph to Doctor Wright, and could see both his study door and the great wall clock in the hall from where she was sitting.

  She went straight to her room, put on her coat, tied a scarf over her hair, snatched up her gloves, rammed her feet into her boots, and let herself out of a side door. She was just shutting it when Hans came into the passage. He gave her an enquiring look but didn’t say anything, and she didn’t wait; something told her that she must find Renier’s grandmother quickly.

  She knew where the retired members of the household lived—a pleasant row of small cottages on the edge of the estate, ten minutes’ walk away, but only five if she cut across the park. It was very cold and slippery underfoot and before long her hands and feet were numb, so that she skidded unsteadily on the rutted path. But presently she came out by the cottages, six of them, all very neat and one or two with lights shining from the windows already although it was still barely three o’clock. She hadn’t bothered much until that moment as to what she was going to say and she hesitated at the first door, but surely just to mention Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn by name was sufficient? She thumped the old-fashioned iron knocker and stamped her cold feet.

  An old woman came to the door, peering round it in the manner of one who wasn’t over-keen to open it anyway, but her face cleared when Emily asked politely: ‘Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn is here?’ It sounded the same in both languages and the old woman shook her head at once and pointed to the cottage at the other end, so Emily said, ‘Dank U, mevrouw,’ in her politest manner and made her way over the brick path connecting the cottages to one at the end of the row, where she repeated her performance all over again, to be met this time with a flood of information which meant nothing at all to her. It took a few minutes of hand-waving, nodding and head-shaking to discover that Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn had indeed been there, but instead of going back the way she had come, had gone on, taking the vague path which skirted the water meadows. Emily looked at them now, a bleak stretch of frozen grass fading into an early dusk. There was a scattering of trees along one side and what looked like a copse beyond them. Probably, she thought miserably, the old lady was lying in it, frozen solid to the ground or, worse, had tumbled into one of the many canals which crisscrossed the meadows. She nodded at the old woman, waved an arm towards the copse and set off. The afternoon was fast sliding into a cold, grey dusk, and as she picked her way along she felt a few drops of sleet. ‘Oh, God,’ prayed Emily out loud, ‘do for heaven’s sake let me find her quickly and don’t let it rain until I do.’ She meant every word of it, which was perhaps why the rain, or whatever it was, ceased almost at once.

  The path she followed was indeed a vague one; several times she missed it altogether and she had no idea where it led. The cottages were on
the extreme edge of the Professor’s land, so presumably she was on someone else’s property, although there was no sign of a house. As she neared the copse and the trees she began calling, standing still and straining her ears for a reply. But there was none, so she plodded on, muttering to herself about the gathering gloom and the weather and why had she ever come to Holland in the first place. But she fell silent as she reached the trees, a clump of firs with a great deal of under-growth; they would be difficult enough to search in broad daylight. She ventured into them, scared now because it was almost dark under their branches and she was convinced that she would never find the way out again and even if she did it would be bound to be the wrong end. ‘I wish I had a torch!’ She spoke loudly and her voice sounded so strange in the middle of the silence that she caught her breath. At the same time she caught her toe in something and fell sprawling. The something was Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn, lying very still. Emily scrambled to her knees and bent over her, but when she spoke the old lady didn’t answer. ‘And I’m not surprised,’ said Emily, talking to herself again, ‘you probably hit your head on something and now you’re half frozen.’

  She felt for a wrist and was heartened to find a steady pulse, but the old lady was icy cold. Emily took off her coat and wrapped it round the small body while she thought what was best to do. She could run back to the cottages and tell someone, but on reflection that wasn’t such a good idea. She hadn’t the faintest idea which way she had come into the trees and it was now so dark she might lose her way even if she gained the water meadows, besides which, it would take a long time to explain what had happened and in the meantime Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn might recover, take fright, and disappear again, and if she didn’t do that, she might freeze to death—after all, she was old.

  Emily decided reluctantly to stay where she was and hope that someone would come and find them. After all, Emily knew Hans had seen her go out and if someone called at the cottages they would be able to direct help. She felt her unconscious companion carefully and discovered a badly swollen ankle. There was nothing she could do about that, but she lifted the old lady very gently so that she was cradled in her arms. There was a chance that she would keep tolerably warm cuddled against Emily, although Emily was getting colder with every minute—not only that, she was half sitting, half crouching on the frozen ground and its icy hardness was boring straight into her. It was very quiet; no bird was going to open its beak on an evening like this and no wild creature with any sense would poke its nose out of its hidey-hole. Only the branches above her head creaked in the wind until the silence was broken by the sound of steady rain. After a few minutes it found its way through the branches and trickled down her neck and on to her scarf. She pulled Mevrouw Jurres-Romeijn’s fur hat over part of her face and tightened her hold, suddenly uncertain if she were doing the right thing. Perhaps no one would come; Mrs Wright had said that the Professor wouldn’t be back until after tea and if he were enjoying himself with the pretty girl Emily had seen, then she for her part couldn’t blame him if he were even later than that. Hans might come, of course; she cheered up at the thought and began to shout, astonished that she hadn’t thought of doing so before. She was even more astonished when she was answered by a distant bellow. ‘In the trees!’ she screamed, and then, stupidly: ‘Over here!’