Cassandra by Chance Read online

  The mouth beneath the dark glasses sneered. ‘Yes, but you asked for it, young woman.’

  She got to her feet, laid the cake carefully down on the table and said in a sensible voice: ‘Yes, I did, didn’t I? I shall know better next time, if ever there is a next time. I came because I thought you might be lonely, but I see now that I’ve been officious and I expect you find me a prig as well. I’m sorry.’ She was at the door, she opened it, said good-bye and was through it and away down the path with such speed that she didn’t hear his sharp exclamation.

  She had put the children to bed and was sitting with her gros-point in her lap, thinking about her afternoon visit and its awful failure, when there was a knock on the door. It was Jan, and when she invited him in, he shook his head and said: ‘I’m not to stop, miss. Mr van Manfeld sent me to ask if you would go and see him again—tomorrow, perhaps? He wishes to talk to you.’

  Cassandra felt an instant pleasure, which in the face of her recent reception at the cottage, was ridiculous. She said cautiously, ‘Oh, I can’t possibly come tomorrow, or the day after that—let me see...’ she frowned over mythical engagements, ‘perhaps Friday afternoon.’

  ‘Not tomorrow?’ inquired Jan, disappointed.

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’m afraid it’s quite impossible. I’ll come on Friday. Would you like a cup of coffee before you go?’

  He gave her a suspicious look. ‘No—no, thank you, miss. I was to say that the cake was very good. I’ll be going.’

  They wished each other good night and she shut the door upon him and stood leaning against it, wondering why the ogre should want to see her again. He hadn’t liked her, had he? he had said so, not in so many words, perhaps—all the same...perhaps it was the cake. She went back to her embroidery, her mind already busy with the making of another cake, and possibly an apple pie. Her pastry was excellent, and men liked pies.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CASSANDRA CLIMBED THE hill path on Friday afternoon, carrying a basket this time and wrapped against the fine rain and boisterous wind in an elderly anorak of Rachel’s, and this time when she knocked on the door, Jan opened it for her and ushered her inside as Mr van Manfeld rose from his seat by the fire to greet her. She hadn’t quite expected that, and although he didn’t smile at least his face wore a look of polite welcome. She stared at the dark glasses and wondered what colour the eyes they concealed would be, then, rather belatedly, wished him a good afternoon. ‘I’ve brought another cake, a chocolate one, and an apple pie—I was making one for us and it seemed silly not to...’

  She stopped because it was a stupid sort of speech anyway, but someone had to say something. Jan had nodded at her and disappeared through a door leading presumably to the kitchen, and Mr van Manfeld took so long to say anything that she had to quell a desire to put her basket on the table and go away again.

  ‘I didn’t think that you would come,’ said her host at length. ‘Why did you?’

  ‘Well, you asked me, and I said I would—and besides, I thought you might be glad of another cake.’

  He smiled then and his whole face changed. ‘I have a vile temper,’ he informed her, ‘and I have allowed it to get out of hand—I hope you will forgive me for my rudeness.’

  Cassandra, ever practical, was taking off her anorak and went to hang it behind the door. ‘Yes, of course, and you’re not as rude as all that. The village...’

  ‘Discuss me? Naturally. But I came here to get away from people. Will you sit down?’

  She took the chair opposite his and tried not to stare at the glasses; instead she picked up a small ginger kitten sitting before the fire, and put it on her lap. ‘You said you were going home soon—so I suppose you came here to convalesce or wait for results.’

  The eyebrows rose. ‘Is that a guess?’ and when she said yes, he went on:

  ‘I’m awaiting results. There is a good chance that my blindness isn’t permanent, what sight I have has already much improved, but I depend on my eyes for my work—I’m a surgeon.’ He added impatiently, ‘But I can’t expect you to understand.’

  ‘Yes, you can. I’m a nurse, you see, and I’ve just done six months in theatre and I’ve watched the surgeons at work. Is it an optic nerve injury?’

  ‘Yes. A paralysis which is slowly righting itself, I hope.’ He spoke curtly and without any wish to continue the subject, something which became apparent when he went on: ‘I asked you to come so that I might apologize to you. I was abominably rude and you were most forbearing. I should warn you that I frequently lose my temper.’

  The silence after this frank statement became rather long. Cassandra sat, wondering if she was supposed to go, or was she to stay a little while, even have tea? She was on the point of making some remark about getting back when Jan came in from the kitchen. To her disappointment he was empty-handed; she had, after all, come quite a long way and at Mr van Manfeld’s request. Whatever better feeling had caused him to invite her had cooled. She got up and offered Jan the basket. ‘If you wouldn’t mind putting these in the kitchen,’ she asked, and he nodded without looking at her and put out a stringy arm upon which the hideous tattoo stood out sharply.

  She was normally a composed girl, not given to impulsive actions, but now she put out her hand and touched his arm gently and said: ‘Jan, I’m so sorry about this—I wanted to tell you.’

  Jan looked at her then; his eyes were black and she thought for a moment that he was very angry, but he wasn’t. He smiled and patted her hand and said: ‘Thank you, miss.’ He might have said more, but Mr van Manfeld gave a short mocking laugh.

  ‘Spare me a mawkish scene!’ he begged nastily. ‘And should you not be going back to your charges, Miss...?’

  ‘Darling,’ Cassandra told him crisply, ‘and don’t dare to be funny about it!’

  ‘I’m never funny,’ he assured her, ‘and if it is your inappropriate name to which you refer, I can think of nothing more unsuitable. There is nothing darling about you—you invade my privacy without so much as a by-your-leave, you subject me to your quite unnecessary sentiment, and you assure me that you are not pretty. I really think you should go.’ His voice was cool, faintly amused, and mocking.

  Cassandra stared at the dark glasses. The mouth below them was pulled down into a half smile which was fast becoming a sneer—and he had smiled so nicely. She sighed. ‘I’m not surprised that the children call you an ogre,’ she informed him tartly, ‘because you are a most ill-mannered man, which is a pity, because I expect you’re quite nice really.’

  The glasses glared. ‘Oh, go away!’ he snapped, and got up from his chair. He looked very large and almost menacing. ‘God’s teeth,’ he ground out savagely, ‘what have...’

  Cassandra’s firm chin went up in the air. ‘What a shocking remark to make!’ but he didn’t allow her to finish.

  ‘Don’t be so prissy,’ he advised her sourly, ‘I’m no mealy-mouthed parson.’

  She allowed herself a moment’s comparison of Mr Campbell and the man before her and was surprised to find that Mr Campbell came off second best. ‘I’m sure he’s a very good man and kind.’

  ‘Meaning that I’m not? As though I care a damn what you think, my pious Miss Darling—going to church in your best hat and probably making the reverend’s heart flutter to boot. You sound just his sort.’

  ‘I’m not anyone’s sort, Mr van Manfeld.’ She picked up her empty basket and went to the door, her voice coming loud and rather wobbly. ‘It’s a good thing you can’t see me, because I’m extremely angry.’

  His voice followed her, still sour. ‘But I can see you after a fashion. It’s true you’re dark blue and very fuzzy round the edges, but since you assure me that you’re a plain girl, I don’t really see that it matters, do you?’

  Cassandra ground her teeth without answering this piece of rudeness and banged the door regre
ttably hard as she went out.

  * * *

  THERE WAS A note the next day, presumably delivered by hand while she had been out. It was typed and signed rather crookedly with the initials B. van M. It begged her pardon and asked her to go to the cottage and stay for tea. She read it several times, then tore it up. There was another note the following day; it was waiting for her when she got back from church with the children, and she tore that one up too and hurried to get their dinner because, having run out of excuses, she had accepted Miss Campbell’s invitation to tea that afternoon, and she was to take Andrew and Penny with her. She had, she told herself firmly, no intention of going anywhere near the ogre ever again. She found the idea distressing.

  Tea at the Manse was run on strictly conventional lines. Everyone sat round the drawing-room eating slippery sandwiches and crumbling cake from plates which weren’t quite big enough. The children, coaxed into exemplary behaviour, sat like two small statues, making despairing efforts to catch the crumbs before they reached the floor, and Cassandra, seated with her hostess on a remarkably hard sofa, watched them with sympathy. It was a relief when the clock struck five and she was able to say that they should be going home before the dusk descended. ‘And anyway,’ she went on politely, ‘you will want to get ready for church, I expect.’

  She had no ready reply when her host, despite the speaking look his sister gave him, professed himself ready to accompany them to their door.

  ‘There’s no need,’ cried Cassandra, who even if he hadn’t, had seen the look and didn’t want his company anyway. ‘It’s only ten minutes’ walk, and it’s not dark yet.’

  Which made it worse, because the pastor pointed out that he couldn’t possibly allow a young and pretty woman to go that distance, especially with the children, he added. It made it sound as though the village were some vice-ridden haunt full of desperate characters with flick-knives waiting at every corner. Cassandra suppressed a giggle and they set off sedately, each with a child holding a hand. At the door she felt bound to ask him in, and was quite downcast when he accepted.

  He didn’t stay long, although she had the impression that he would have done so if time hadn’t been pressing. She saw him to the door, murmuring politely about the tea-party, and suggesting vaguely that he and his sister might care to take tea with them at some future date. When he had gone, Andrew rounded on her. ‘Aunt Cassandra, how could you? Ask him to tea, I mean. He’s all right, I suppose, but Miss Campbell’s always so cross. Did you hear her telling Penny off because she made crumbs, and she couldn’t help it.’

  Cassandra led the way to the kitchen. ‘Darlings, I know. I made crumbs too, but you see it would be so rude not to invite them back. But if they come on a Sunday they have to be back by six o’clock—earlier—so it wouldn’t be too bad.’

  She opened the fridge and took out some milk, and Andrew, standing beside her, said: ‘He fancies you, Aunt Cassandra.’

  She gave him a look of horror. ‘Andrew, you’re making it up! He couldn’t—you mustn’t make remarks like that,’ she rebuked him. ‘You’re only repeating something you’ve heard.’

  He mistook her meaning. ‘That’s right. I heard someone in the shop yesterday—that’s what they said.’ He was speaking the truth; Cassandra said lightly: ‘Oh, gossip, darling, you shouldn’t listen to that, no one ever means it. Now, supper—I planned a rather nice one.’

  The pastor wasn’t mentioned again, for after supper they played Monopoly until bedtime, which left no time to talk. It was later, when she was sitting in the quiet house, writing to Rachel, that Cassandra paused to worry about Andrew’s remark. Mr Campbell was a very nice man, she had no doubt, but definitely not her cup of tea. Besides, she didn’t like his sister. She would do her best to avoid him as much as possible, though how to do that in a village of such a small size was going to be a problem. She brightened at the thought that it was only just over a month until she would be gone and the problem would solve itself, but her relief was tempered by a very real regret that she would never see Mr van Manfeld again; even in a rage he was interesting company, and surely, sometimes he was good-tempered. It would be nice to know, but she doubted if she ever would.

  She had the opportunity of doing so the very next day. She had taken the children back to school after their dinner and was sitting on the floor before the fire with the animals, doing nothing, when the front door bell rang.

  Mr van Manfeld stood outside with Jan beside him. He wore a sheepskin jacket which made him truly vast, so that Jan, similarly clad, looked like his very thin shadow. The ogre said politely: ‘Good afternoon, Miss Darling. I sent you two notes; you didn’t reply to them. We came to visit you yesterday afternoon, but you were not home. Taking tea with the reverend, so the village tells Jan.’

  ‘Come inside,’ said Cassandra in a no-nonsense voice. ‘Coming all this way—you must be mad! You can’t possibly see where you’re going...’ She stopped and bit her lip because her choice of words hadn’t been too happy.

  ‘Jan is my sight.’ He had followed her into the hall with Jan close behind. ‘I must own, my dear girl, that you are the only person I have met since my accident who hasn’t cried crocodile’s tears over me or wanted to lead me around like a dumb animal. I find it refreshing.’ He towered over her, standing in the centre of the spacious hall. ‘Can you imagine what it is like to be without sight?’

  She returned the blank stare of the dark glasses steadily. ‘I think so—a kind of little hell. But you’re going to see again; you know far better than I do that if there’s any sight left after an optic nerve injury, it’s more likely to improve than worsen. Come into the sitting-room.’

  She didn’t attempt to show him where the chairs were; Jan had taken his jacket, now he guided him unobtrusively to one of the armchairs by the fire and at Cassandra’s smiling invitation, took one close by.

  ‘Why have you come?’ she wanted to know, and sat down on the floor again with Bob and the cats.

  Mr van Manfeld crossed one long leg over the other. ‘Another thing I like about you, dear Miss Darling, is your direct approach. I came because I wanted to see you again—er—figuratively speaking, of course. I am selfish, full of self-pity and evil-tempered, but I enjoy your company, therefore I force myself—and Jan—upon you, since you aren’t civil enough to answer my notes.’

  ‘Civil!’ Cassandra’s voice was shrill with annoyance. ‘Whatever next—when I took the trouble to walk up to your cottage on Friday and you didn’t so much as offer me a cup of tea...’

  ‘Tea?’ interrupted Mr van Manfeld. ‘That would be delightful. I was only saying to Jan that perhaps a little female society might do us both good.’

  ‘How right you are!’ exploded Cassandra. ‘But don’t count on me being the female.’

  He had stretched out in his chair and one of the cats had got on to his knee. He was stroking her with a large square hand—a surgeon’s hand. ‘But you are very female, Miss Darling. You are as bold as a lion and just as rude as I am when occasion demands. Besides, Jan and I find your cakes delicious. Do you suppose we might enter into an uneasy friendship?’

  She had to laugh. She had never met anyone like him before; she wondered what he was really like behind that façade he had built up—a façade to protect him from pity. She wondered for the hundredth time what kind of accident he had had. She got up and went and stood in front of him and held out her hand. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘an uneasy friendship, but don’t expect me to be a doormat for you to wipe your rages on, because I won’t.’

  He shook her hand gravely, ‘I think you are hoaxing me,’ he remarked. ‘Only a pretty girl would speak with so much confidence. I find it an incentive to regain my sight as quickly as possible.’

  ‘No,’ she declared positively, ‘you mustn’t think that, because I’m plain—I told you so.’ She appealed to Jan: ‘I am, aren’t I?’
<
br />   The black eyes were amused. ‘I have described you to Mijnheer, miss, so there is no need for me to do so again.’

  ‘There, you see?’ she inquired of the ogre, who said instantly and with gentle blandness: ‘No, I don’t see, but I have great faith in Jan.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ said Cassandra contritely. ‘I keep forgetting, you must think me a hard-hearted, uncaring person.’

  ‘No, I don’t think that at all.’ He smiled, which delighted her so much that she said at once: ‘You’ll stay for tea, won’t you? The children will be out of school in half an hour, if you don’t mind sitting here while I fetch them? I don’t like them to be out alone, I know it’s not far, but I feel I should be extra careful of them. Rachel—my sister—would never forgive me.’

  ‘We should very much like to stay, and Jan will fetch the children, won’t you, Jan? They know him, I believe—they meet in the shop.’

  Which remark put her in mind of the inadequate purchases Jan made. Mr van Manfeld didn’t look poor, but then there were some people who never did, preferring to starve than tell anyone. She wondered what they had eaten for their dinner, and decided to add a plate of sandwiches to the hot buttered toast and the cake. Her thoughts were interrupted by her guest inquiring the name of her training school in London, and when she had told him, he went on to ask where her home was, and when she explained that she hadn’t got one, looked taken aback. ‘And where do you go for your holidays?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘To Rachel and Tom, only they came up here to live a year ago so that Tom could get his book finished—it was a bit far away, but now I’m here for six weeks while they are in Greece. Besides, it’s wonderful for me, because I’d planned to leave Duke’s and take my midwifery.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When Rachel and Tom come home.’

  ‘Have you already applied?’

  She was surprised at his interest, but perhaps he welcomed the chance to talk about something different. She answered readily enough: ‘No—at least, I applied months ago and I have to let them know by the end of the month.’