Fate takes a hand Read online

  `A pleasure, miss, and a joy to see the young gentleman enjoying it.'

  No one spoke as they drove away until Peter observed, 'I like Mr Dodge—he looks sad, but he isn't, is he?'

  Mr van Linssen laughed. 'Not in the least. I believe him to be quite happy inside.'

  `Oh, good. Why was that lady cross?'

  `Hush, Peter,' said Eulalia, in what he called her `aunt' voice, so he hushed.

  At the flat Mr van Linssen got out, opened her door and helped her out and did the same for Peter, and then stood looking down at her while she started on her thank-you speech. She had barely begun it when he said, 'Shall we go inside and see if Miss Trott is back?'

  She stopped in mid-sentence. 'Come inside? You want to come inside?'

  `Shall I not be welcome?'

  `Of course you are welcome, and do come in, only I thought—I thought you'd want to get back home quickly.'

  He didn't answer but followed her down the steps, took the key from her and opened the door. Peter skipped ahead of them to hug Trottie and gabble the excitements of the afternoon to her. She kissed his happy face and said, 'Darling, how very nice. You shall tell me all about it presently, but here's Mr van Linssen... Can we offer you tea? And how nice to see you again,' added Trottie in her soft country voice.

  She offered a hand and he took it and bent to kiss her cheek as well.

  `We have just had tea, Miss Trott, at my house.'

  He glanced at Eulalia. 'I, for one, have enjoyed a most pleasant afternoon.'

  `But the lady was cross,' said Peter, and was immediately hushed by Eulalia.

  Trottie saw the look on her face and launched into an account of her own day. 'And such lovely weather—you can't beat our English summers.'

  `But, Trottie, it rains a lot— '

  `Of course it does, things have to grow, don't they? You're a foreign gentleman, sir, what do you think of our weather?'

  `Delightful, on the whole. Holland is flat and there is always a wind, and it can be very cold in winter.'

  Without quite knowing how it had happened, Eulalia discovered that they were all sitting round the table, and there they stayed for the next half-hour, while Mr van Linssen led Trottie on to talk about her younger days until he said reluctantly, 'I must go back home, I'm afraid, and I dare say it's Peter's bedtime.'

  He made his farewells briskly and this time he didn't kiss Eulalia.

  When he had gone Trottie said, 'Well, that was a nice little visit to end the day, wasn't it? I'll start the supper, Miss Lally, while you get Peter bathed and ready for bed. I dare say he could eat something in his dressing-gown, for once.'

  It was over supper that Peter, warm from his bath and wrapped in his dressing-gown, brought up the subject of Miss Kendall again.

  `Why was she so cross?' he wanted to know.

  `Well, dear, I think she was surprised to find us there. You see, she wanted Mr van Linssen to take her out and I dare say we spoilt her evening.'

  `She was rude,' he persisted. 'She didn't shake my hand, and if she's going to marry Mr van Linssen why didn't she kiss him?'

  `I expect she'll do that when he gets home. Now, eat your supper, darling, and then off to bed. School in the morning, remember.'

  Later that evening, Trottie said, 'That Miss Kendall doesn't seem the right kind of wife for dear Mr van Linssen. Such a good man. He needs a loving wife, not a woman with a nasty temper and no manners.'

  `I dare say she's quite different when she's with him, Trottie.'

  `You may depend upon that; that's how she caught him in the first place.' She nodded her elderly head. `Depend upon it too that she doesn't care twopence for him. Smart, is she, as well as pretty?'

  Eulalia thought back. 'Yes—very smart—lovely clothes, Trottie, and perfect make-up. Let's be honest, she's the kind of a wife a man in his position needs—you know, dinner parties and so on.'

  Trottie gave her a sharp look over her spectacles. `If that's what you think a man needs in a wife, then you're much mistaken, Miss Lally.'

  `Anyway,' said Eulalia defiantly, 'he has a bad

  temper and he can be very rude. I dare say they'll get on very well together.'

  `You don't like him,' said Trottie flatly.

  `I don't know him well enough to have an opinion about him,' said Eulalia which, although not quite true, put an end to the conversation.

  She took Peter to school in the morning and then went back to do the chores which Trottie was beginning to find tiring and, those done, she fetched her basket and went shopping, laying out the housekeeping money in a prudent fashion, and all the while her thoughts, which should have been centred on groceries, kept straying to Mr van Linssen.

  She didn't like him, of course, but she had to admit that he had been very kind to Peter. He had a nasty temper, all the same, and she didn't think that his Ursula would improve that—a very unpleasant young woman and, as she had reminded herself so often, deserving of him and he of her.

  She went back and had her lunch with Trottie and embarked on the ironing. There were never enough hours in a Monday.

  It was ten days later when he came into the shop once more. Eulalia, on her own as it was lunchtime, was sitting on a stool at the back of the shop, eating her lunch out of a paper bag: cheese sandwiches and an apple, and a mug of tea which Mrs Pearce allowed her to brew.

  She put the sandwich, half eaten, back in the bag, and in a voice thickened by bread and cheese, wished him good afternoon.

  `More flowers?' she wanted to know. 'You must be a very quarrelsome man.'

  `What an impertinent girl you are! I never seek a quarrel, and I might point out that it is no concern of yours if I choose to quarrel.'

  `True. Is it to be red roses this time?'

  It gave her quite a jolt when he said yes. So he did love Ursula, after all. She felt an unexpected pang of regret. 'A dozen? Two dozen?'

  `Two dozen. Send them by Interflora to this address.'

  He gave her a card with the address—it was somewhere in Holland—and she wrote it down in the order-book and asked, 'Is this place a town? Will there be an Interflora shop there?'

  `No, Leiden is the nearest place.'

  `I can look it up in our international directory. We get a good many of our roses from Aalsmeer, they'll be beautifully fresh. Do you want to send a message with them?'

  Pen poised over the form she was filling in, she waited.

  `Yes—happy birthday, and sign it "Fenno".' `That's an unusual name,' observed Eulalia, busy writing.

  `So is Eulalia.'

  `Yes, well—this will cost you a pretty penny.'

  `That, again, is no concern of yours.'

  She raised large grey eyes to him, allowing the lashes full play. 'We make it a custom to mention the cost before the customer pays—just in case they can't afford it!' She gave him a kind smile and a motherly nod of the head, and saw his mouth set like a rat-trap. Why, she wondered, did she feel the need to annoy him when they met? Why didn't she treat him with a cool indifference and be polite? If Mrs Pearce heard her she would be given a week's notice for cheeking a customer.

  She began to work out the cost, doing most of it on her fingers.

  `Do you not use a calculator?' he wanted to know impatiently. 'I cannot stand here all day while you add and subtract like a schoolchild.'

  `I never was any good at maths, and please don't interrupt me or I'll have to start all over again.' `I'm surprised that you keep your job.'

  `Well, you see, Mrs Pearce always takes Interflora orders, only she's not here.' She added her sums and told him the total and dealt with his credit card. 'I'll see that it gets phoned through today,' she told him. `Does it matter if it's delivered morning or afternoon?'

  `Morning.' He turned to go and at the door paused. 'How is Peter?'

  `Very well. His plaster is covered with his friends' names and rude messages. We had a note from the

  hospital to say that he must go there to have a new plaster tomorro
w.'

  `That is convenient for you?'

  She looked her surprise. 'Well, no, but nothing's convenient, if you see what I mean, not when I'm here all day, but Trottie will take him and bring him back.'

  'I'll fetch him and take him home again. He'll be going to Outpatients?'

  `Yes, but we can't impose on your kindness again. Trottie

  He cut her short. 'I have said that I will take him and bring him home—I shall be taking Outpatients' orthopaedic clinic.' He opened the door, wished her a curt goodbye over his shoulder and went into the street.

  When she got home that evening she told Trottie and Peter what Mr van Linssen had arranged.

  `There,' said Trottie. 'Didn't I know what a good man he is—so thoughtful of others, knowing as how you weren't free to take Peter yourself?'

  `Oh, magnificent,' said Peter, who was forever trying out long words. 'Perhaps he'll have time for a game of draughts when he brings me home.'

  `Not very likely,' said Eulalia sharply. 'He has to work like anyone else.' Which remark earned her surprised looks from her companions.

  Mr van Linssen, driving back to the hospital, told himself that it was interest in Peter which had driven

  him to offer to take him back to Outpatients in the morning. Certainly it was not his intention to please Eulalia: a tiresome girl and far too outspoken. She needed a firm hand and she wasn't likely to get it, for it would be hard to find a man prepared to put up with her ways. Of course, he conceded, she was devoted to the boy and very protective of Miss Trott, hard-working too, and not easily discouraged. She deserved some sympathy, although she would probably throw it back in the face of anyone offering it.

  He parked the car and stalked into his clinic where, contrary to his custom, he snapped the heads off his two housemen, a handful of students and an unfortunate nurse who dropped a pile of notes on the floor.

  His clinic lasted longer than usual and his temper, although once more in control, was no better. When he remembered that he was taking Ursula to the opera that evening it grew decidedly worse. To go home and change into a dinnerjacket, go without his dinner and spend the evening being sociable to her many friends, have supper with them afterwards and get home too late to work at the series of lectures he was to give was more than he could tolerate, although he saw no help for it. For once, however, Fate was to treat him kindly, even if she hadn't been as kind to the elderly man knocked down in the street outside the hospital and rushed inside. He was preparing to leave Sister's office, where he had been discussing his list for the following afternoon, when

  the phone went and he was asked if he would go to Casualty. Theatre Sister was surprised at the cheerful manner with which he responded.

  The man was severely injured: a fractured pelvis, fractures of one leg and an arm. Mr van Linssen forgot all about Ursula and the opera and spent several hours in Theatre, putting the bones together again. It was late. when he left to go home to Dodge and the kind of meal only Dodge could conjure up at a moment's notice. He was sitting at the table, finishing his coffee, when Dodge told him that Miss Kendall had telephoned twice and he had informed her that his master was delayed at the hospital. He didn't add that she had carried on something shocking, but said smoothly that she had seemed a little upset.

  `I'll ring her presently.' He glanced at his watch. `No, it's too late now. I'll have to do it tomorrow when I've finished the clinic.'

  Peter was waiting for him when he drove to the flat in the morning. 'I knew you'd come,' he said happily. 'Grown-ups don't always do what they say they're going to, but you do, don't you?'

  `As far as possible, old chap. Jump in or we shall be late.' He bade Trottie goodbye and settled the boy beside him and, once at the hospital, handed him over to the young doctor who had first seen him. `Give me a ring when you're ready. I'll be in Theatre for half an hour, then in Outpatients.'

  It was rather more than half an hour by the time Peter was dealt with, and a nurse was detailed to take him over to Outpatients. Here he was sat on a bench and told to wait until Mr van Linssen came for him, something he was delighted to do, for there was so much to see—patients going in and out, nurses, doctors, porters wheeling trolleys and, best of all, presently Mr van Linssen himself in a long white coat, surrounded by the registrar, his housemen, several students and Sister. He looked, thought Peter, like one of the men in his book of heroes. His small chest swelled with pride because they were friends.

  Mr van Linssen lifted a hand in greeting and disappeared through another door, and after ten minutes or so came out again, this time without his white coat.

  `Trottie said she'd have coffee ready,' said Peter hopefully in the car.

  `Just what I need, but I can only stay for five minutes. I'm operating this afternoon and I must go round the ward first.'

  `Yes, of course,' agreed Peter solemnly. 'I'm sure Trottie will understand.'

  Mr van Linssen, nicely filled with coffee and a slice of Trottie' s cake, went back to work. He had quite forgotten Ursula.

  She phoned that evening soon after he got home and he listened patiently to her cross voice telling him just what she thought of him and, since he felt guilty, he apologised handsomely. It was after he had

  put the receiver down that it occurred to him that he would have to send more flowers...

  Eulalia had just opened the shop when he got there the next morning. At the sight of him she said, 'Peter's all right—Trottie said so.' She eyed him anxiously. 'Is something wrong?'

  He gave her a pointed good morning. 'Of course not. How you do fly into a panic at the sight of me— am I such a harbinger of bad news?'

  `Each time I see you I think it will be the last,' she declared. 'Not more flowers? Hadn't it better be a diamond brooch from Cartier?'

  He gave her a level look. `Do not provoke me. I have a nasty temper, and don't be impertinent!'

  He came a little further into the shop and she saw how tired he was. She said, 'I'm sorry, it's my tongue, it runs away with me. I do try to think before I speak but I don't always remember.' She smiled at him. 'You're tired and that makes you cross. You should have a holiday, away from the hospital and London.'

  `And my patients?' He was amused and all of a sudden brisk. 'Now, these flowers—something rather special this time, I think.'

  Lucky Ursula, reflected Eulalia. She only hoped the wretched girl realised it. It seemed unlikely, but perhaps she really did love him in her way, and she thought he must love her. 'How about pale mauve orchids and fern in one of these vases? They're a bit

  expensive because they're nineteenth-century Staffordshire—Mrs Pearce goes around the antique shops and buys up the real thing when she can find it.' She held it up for his inspection. 'I'm sure Miss Kendall would love it...'

  He said without much interest, 'Very well, send it to her home, will you—some time today?' He paid her, and with a brief goodbye left the shop. She watched him cross the street and get into his car and drive away. Perhaps this really was the last time she would see him...

  He hadn't written a card. His car had disappeared into the stream of traffic and there was nothing to do about it. She told Mrs Pearce when she arrived, and was told to write a card herself and take the flowers in her lunch-hour. 'I'll stay here until you get back,' said Mrs Pearce. 'You can go more easily than usual—there'll be plenty of buses around noon.'

  It was nice to be away from the shop, even if it was her lunch-hour. Eulalia rang the bell of Ursula's home and a severe woman in a black dress and apron opened the door.

  `Flowers for Miss Kendall,' said Eulalia.

  She was about to hand them over when she heard Ursula's voice call out, 'Who is it?' and she came into the hall. She eyed Eulalia with dislike. 'You again. More flowers.' She turned to the woman. 'All right, you can go, Mrs Parkes. Hasn't he got more sense than to send flowers? Good God, I get flowers from everyone.' Her eyes narrowed. 'Perhaps he

  likes to go to your shop and talk to you—is that it? After h
im, are you? I know your kind, on the lookout for a rich husband, although probably you wouldn't mind if he wasn't your husband.' She sniggered.

  Eulalia went pale with rage. 'Here are your flowers. You are a very vulgar woman and spiteful...'

  She had thrust the carefully wrapped vase and flowers at Ursula, who took them and then deliberately dropped them on the ground, lifted up a foot and stamped on the orchids.

  `They're only flowers,' said Eulalia slowly. 'They never did you any harm and they were beautiful— so was the vase.'

  `You haven't heard the last of this,' declared Ursula, and went indoors and banged the door shut.

  Eulalia, shaking with rage, told Mrs Pearce when she got back to the shop.

  `Oh, dear, they're good customers too, and we were to do the wedding-flowers. You'd better apologise, Eulalia—the customer's always right, you know.'

  Eulalia stared at her. 'Mrs Pearce, she was unforgivably rude to me. I didn't start it, you know.'

  Mrs Pearce shrugged her shoulders. 'Apologise, all the same, Eulalia—she could lose me a lot of custom, telling tales to her friends; she knows a great many people, you know.'

  Eulalia said steadily, 'I'm sorry, Mrs Pearce,' and went to serve a customer.

  She told Trottie when she got home that evening, after Peter was in bed and asleep. 'Mrs Pearce was annoyed because I wouldn't apologise, but Trottie, what would I apologise for, and how dare that woman say things like that? She made me feel cheap ...'

  `A very nasty person,' Trottie allowed, 'and don't you say you're sorry, Miss Lally, whatever happens.'

  `Whatever' did happen; Eulalia was given a week's notice when she got to work next Tuesday. `I'm sorry to lose you, Eulalia,' said Mrs Pearce, 'but I can't afford to lose any business. I'll give you a good reference and you'll get another job easily enough, I dare say.' She paused. 'You won't reconsider apologising?'