Cassandra by Chance Read online

  ‘What happens then?’ she wanted to know. ‘You go into the operating theatre without glasses, I suppose, and then wonder why you have a headache and can’t see a thing!’

  He laughed so that he looked much younger and the idea of calling him Mr van Manfeld seemed all of a sudden absurd. But she didn’t know his name.

  ‘Sensible Cassandra! It is to be hoped that in that time you will have forced me into so strict a routine that I shan’t dare to change it. Let us be serious. If everything goes well, I may be allowed to use my eyes—tinted glasses, of course—and start work, consulting and the practice. The theatre will have to wait.’

  Cassandra stopped fidgeting with the silver and walked round the table. ‘It’s wonderful news,’ she told him. ‘I should have said that first, shouldn’t I? I’m very happy for you—you’ll go back to Holland and forget all this.’

  ‘No, I’ll not forget,’ he spoke quietly, his face turned away. ‘You won’t come. I’m sorry.’ He got to his feet. ‘It’s a pleasant morning even though it’s cold,’ he informed her conversationally. ‘I think I’ll go and meet Jan; I know the track well enough.’

  If he had sworn at her or displayed his icy ill-humour or even sneered just once, she would have held out against him, even though she longed to go with him. It was ridiculous that a giant of a man could manage to look so lost and pathetic. She got to the door just ahead of him.

  ‘No—that is, yes, I’ll come. Just for a week or two, but it’s crazy! I can’t speak Dutch and I’ll lose my place for my midwifery training—and anyway I can’t go until Rachel comes back.’

  He loomed over her; he didn’t look lost or pathetic at all, and although his face was carefully smooth the glasses gave the game away; they were dazzling in their triumph.

  ‘Why,’ she began, ‘you...’

  ‘You promised, Cassandra, just this minute. God’s teeth, for one awful moment I thought you wouldn’t come...’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t say that,’ she said waspishly. ‘And now see what you’ve made me do!’

  He caught her hand. ‘Dear girl, you have only to say that you won’t come and we’ll forget the whole thing. I admit I acted a little deceptively.’ He sighed and took her other hand. ‘I want to get back to work,’ his voice was serious now, ‘and I think you’re the one person who can help me.’

  Put like that, she could see reason for his persistence. ‘Very well, but I’ve just told you, I can’t go until Rachel...’

  ‘Gets back. Let me see, that will be on December the second, if Penny had her dates right. We’ll leave the day after that.’

  ‘I’ve no uniform,’ she said weakly. ‘I couldn’t possibly.’

  ‘Buy it—surely in Oban you can get something? You’re a tall girl, from the sound of your voice—are you big with it? Do you have to have things made to measure?’

  Cassandra choked. ‘You’re abominable!’ she managed. ‘I’m quite tall, but I’m not—not outsize.’

  He grinned. ‘I’ll not comment. Buy what you need and send the bills to me.’

  ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘Cassandra, you will do as I ask. What salary were you receiving at the hospital?’ She told him. ‘A pittance,’ he snorted, and named a sum well in excess of it. ‘And don’t dare to argue,’ he finished in a voice which brooked none.

  ‘Very well,’ she found herself answering him meekly, ‘but you’re paying me much too much, you know.’

  He was still holding her two hands. ‘I tell you, Cassandra, if the tests aren’t successful, you will deserve every penny of your salary.’

  She agreed with him silently; the possibility didn’t bear thinking of, the thought of him never seeing again hurt her. She said sturdily:

  ‘You’re not to talk like that—they’re going to be one hundred per cent successful.’

  He smiled. ‘You have a passport?’

  ‘Yes. How shall we go?’

  ‘By plane to Schipol—drive from there. There’ll be a day or two at home before I have the tests.’ He gave her back her hands and bent to kiss her gently. ‘There’s Jan at the door.’

  Jan was admitted and told the news, and she saw the satisfaction on his dark face. He nodded to himself, smiled at her and said, ‘This is a good thing, miss! You wish to keep it a secret, mijnheer?’ he spoke to Mr van Manfeld.

  ‘No,’ drawled the ogre, ‘if we keep it a secret it’s sure to leak out, and that would hardly do. We’ll tell everyone, including the children.’ He felt around for his stick. ‘Jan, we must go. Cassandra, you will come and read to me this afternoon?’

  It sounded like a command, but nicely put. She said that she would.

  The children, though crestfallen at the idea of losing their ogre, were excited to hear that their aunt would be going to Holland with him.

  ‘To marry him, Aunt Cassandra, and live happy ever after?’ asked Penny.

  Cassandra stared at her niece. How wonderful it would be if she could say yes to that question! She dismissed the foolish idea and answered in a practical voice. ‘No, love. As his nurse. He needs someone to help him for a little while. Jan will have enough to do without looking after Mr van Manfeld as well.’

  ‘Perhaps when you’ve finished being his nurse,’ persisted Penny, to be interrupted by Andrew, who said loudly, ‘Don’t be a silly little girl! The ogre will marry a princess with golden hair like those stupid fairy stories Aunt Cassandra reads you.’

  His aunt cast him a smouldering look. What chance had she if a six-year-old dismissed her so swiftly from the matrimonial scene? And hadn’t Mr van Manfeld called her a dragon? With a heart of gold, it was true, but what was the use of that? No one could see it, only the dragon’s exterior. She sighed to herself and went to fetch her raincoat, for the rain was coming down in earnest now.

  She was a little prim that afternoon, reading non-stop and very correctly, glad for once that her companion couldn’t see her. When she got up to go he asked her, ‘Overwhelmed, Cassandra, or regretting your promise?’ And when she didn’t answer, went on, ‘I don’t have to see to know that something’s worrying you.’

  She denied it vigorously. How to tell him that she was bowed down with the knowledge that he thought of her as a dragon?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WITHIN HOURS THE village knew. Cassandra, who preferred to take the bull by the horns rather than wait to be gored by it, went into Mrs MacGill’s shop that afternoon for some quite unnecessary sugar, and was greeted by that lady’s ‘Weel, so ye’re off to foreign parts, I hear, Miss Cassandra.’

  There were two other ladies in the shop; they would spread the news around very nicely. ‘That’s right, Mrs MacGill,’ Cassandra agreed pleasantly. ‘Mr van Manfeld is going back to his home for some tests on his eyes and he’ll need a good deal of help—in and out of hospital and so forth,’ she added, embroidering it a little. ‘The specialist who saw him the other day hopes that his sight is returning, but it may mean patience for that.’

  ‘What does he do exactly?’ asked Mrs MacGill.

  The time seemed ripe to allow the village in on the ogre’s well-kept secret. ‘He’s an ear, nose and throat specialist, he did a great deal of operating and hopes to do so again.’

  ‘A doctor!’ breathed Mrs MacGill erroneously. ‘Now that’s an entirely different kettle of fish, the puir man. Married?’ She flung the question at Cassandra like a bullet from a gun, but Cassandra was ready for her.

  ‘Wedded to his work,’ she assured her audience solemnly, and departed with her bags of sugar, well content with her work.

  It all came back to her, of course. That very afternoon as she sat reading an article on Vincent’s Angina to Mr van Manfeld, Jan came back with his own shopping. He paused just inside the door and said: ‘Mijnheer, you have become a saint within a few hours—you are a world-famou
s specialist, so great and good that you have no eyes for women.’

  His employer sat up slowly. ‘Jan, have you been drinking?’

  ‘No, mijnheer, this is what I am told in the shop.’

  ‘Well, they’re rather wide of the mark,’ conceded the ogre mildly, ‘except the bit about having no eyes for the women—just let them wait until I get my eyes back!’

  Cassandra had no doubt of that. She said now in a small voice, ‘I’m afraid I...’

  Her host rounded on her. ‘Don’t tell me—Miss Busybody again! Now what have you said?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ she told him, ‘and I only added the bit about you being wedded to your work,’ she faltered at the look he gave her, ‘because I didn’t know.’

  ‘You astonish me—didn’t know what?’

  ‘If you’re married, or—or...’

  ‘Ah, yes, how very tactful of you, Cassandra. I can see that you will be of the greatest possible help to me in the next few weeks.’

  Such an unsatisfactory answer, she fumed to herself as she went home.

  She had the opportunity of telling Rachel all about it that evening when her sister telephoned, and Rachel had been astounded and then a little apprehensive.

  ‘Couldn’t he have got a Dutch nurse?’ she asked cautiously. ‘I mean, did you tell him you were waiting to fill a vacancy for your midwifery? And what will you do about that? They’ll never hold it for you.’

  Cassandra had had plenty of time to think about that. ‘I’ll do private nursing for a month or two,’ she told her sister, ‘and apply for the next course; you see, he needs someone from this end—for the journey and so on, Jan will have enough to do.’ Even in her own ears it didn’t sound very convincing. She began to wonder herself why Mr van Manfeld hadn’t arranged to be met by a nurse in Holland. She would ask him.

  She did, a day or so later when she had gone up the hill to read to him.

  He had turned the dark glasses upon her and said coolly, ‘I should have thought you would have known that without having to ask me. I know you well enough to be sure that you won’t run screaming from the house if I happen to lose my temper; that you’ll steer me through the tests with the minimum of fuss; that if things go wrong you’ll not panic or drip useless tears over me. What had your sister to say about it?’

  ‘Well—she, that is, she was surprised.’

  He laughed. ‘Horrified too, I suspect, that her young, untried sister is about to embark on a job with a foreigner of whom she knows nothing.’

  Cassandra said calmly, ‘Something like that. Only we know it’s not like that, so that I don’t see that it matters what anyone else thinks.’

  ‘The more I see of you—metaphorically speaking, my dear Cassandra Darling—the more I am convinced that I have unearthed a treasure. I should like to meet your sister—I have already met your brother-in-law briefly. Could you arrange that?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Will you come down or will they come up?’

  ‘I’ll come down—with Jan, of course.’

  Cassandra got up to go. She was pulling on her gloves and making rather a work of it before she spoke again. ‘Look, Rachel is sure to ask if there’s a housekeeper or—or someone...’

  ‘I should expect that. You had forgotten to ask me that question, had you not? Or is your faith in me so touching that you found it unnecessary?’

  ‘I forgot,’ she answered him shortly because there was a mocking little smile on his lips. ‘I’m asking now.’

  ‘Set your mind at rest, I have arranged for an aunt—an elderly aunt—to stay with me for a short time. There is also Miep, who cooks and housekeeps for me. Satisfied?’

  ‘Quite.’ She heard her voice quiver hatefully. ‘You have the most unpleasant way of making me feel a fool, Mr van Manfeld, and as far as I can see, I haven’t earned it.’

  She bounced through the door and was on the point of shutting it when his voice arrested her. ‘Have we quarrelled,’ he asked mildly, ‘or will you come tomorrow?’

  She raced down the path, her ill humour giving her long legs a fine turn of speed. He was the most annoying man! For two pins she would change her mind and not go with him. He would be able to manage quite well without her, for Jan had looked after him all these weeks. Reason reminded her that now that he was to be examined exhaustively, entailing visits to hospital, doctors’ consulting rooms and the like, Jan might not have the time to cope. She wasn’t sure, but she believed that the older man acted as general factotum in the surgeon’s house; once they were back in Holland, he would have enough to do without accompanying him here, there and everywhere. She dismissed the subject from her mind, whistled to Bob and went to fetch the children. It was only a job, after all, and a very temporary one at that.

  The remaining days before Rachel and Tom returned flew by. Cassandra and Mrs Todd cleaned the house, polished silver and windows and Cassandra spent almost all of one day in the kitchen, cooking. Even so, she managed to visit Mr van Manfeld most afternoons, and the children seized every opportunity of visiting him too. She had seen nothing more of the pastor or his sister; probably he felt that he should avoid her since she and Miss Campbell had their altercation. She was surprised, therefore, to find him on the doorstep when she answered the doorbell the day before Rachel and Tom were due back. She invited him in, thankful that she wasn’t doing anything in particular for an hour or so. He followed her into the sitting-room and sat down and she perched on the chair opposite, saying in her friendly way, ‘I’ll make tea presently—it’s a little early.’

  Mr Campbell looked up nervously. ‘Oh, no tea, thank you, Miss Cassandra, I can stay only a few minutes, but despite my sister’s advice I felt that I must come and see you.’

  Cassandra felt a pang of pity for his worried look. ‘That’s kind of you,’ she murmured, and smiled helpfully.

  ‘It is my duty,’ he went on, adopting the sonorous tones which she recognized as those he used when he was preparing to embark on his Sunday sermon. ‘I hear from various sources that you contemplate returning to Holland with Mr van Manfeld. I can only deplore this decision, my dear young lady. Doubtless you are going in the role of nurse, but I feel strongly that a nurse could be obtained in Holland and I can see no reason for your going.’

  Cassandra stifled an urge to speak her mind, but she supposed he meant it kindly. She said reasonably, ‘No, I don’t expect you do.’ After all, the poor man had doubtless been fed a great number of unlikely stories. She went on: ‘Mr van Manfeld does need help on the journey, you know. Jan will have the luggage to see to and so on. And in Holland there’ll be plenty for me to do—treatment, preparation for the tests, going to the hospital. I think that you—everyone—forgets that I’m a nurse with my living to earn. If I didn’t look after Mr van Manfeld I should look after someone else, man, woman or child—all’s grist that comes to my mill.’ She smiled at him and added gently, ‘I shall be in uniform all the time.’

  It seemed a silly remark, but she could see that it carried great weight with him for it conjured up a picture of herself, no longer a girl but a nurse, different, aloof, and above the wild temptations Mr Campbell so obviously had in mind.

  ‘That is, of course, different.’ He put his hands together and tapped his fingers gently one against the other. ‘I wonder if I should have a word with Mr van Manfeld.’

  Cassandra eyed him with some alarm. ‘I don’t think that would be necessary, Mr Campbell. He’s a distinguished surgeon in his own country, he has a reputation to maintain; he’s unlikely to do anything which would injure that in any way.’

  She had said just the right thing again. Mr Campbell relaxed at last and when she suggested tea again, agreed to a hasty cup. Over it he remarked: ‘I am sorry that my sister...’ He looked at her anxiously. ‘She is a little out of this world,’ he offered.

  And you can say
that again! thought Cassandra to herself, and asked after the garden which she knew was his pride and joy.

  It was half an hour later, on the doorstep saying goodbye, that Mr Campbell said suddenly: ‘Despite your assurances, Miss Cassandra, I think it may be a good idea if I go and have a little talk with the doctor—man to man, you know. I hope you agree?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Cassandra bluntly, ‘and he’s not a doctor, he’s a surgeon.’ She envisaged a lively picture of the ogre involved in a manly talk with her companion and eyed him with pity. She began: ‘I’m sure there’s no need...’

  He took one of her hands and patted it. ‘Allow me to be the best judge of that, my dear young lady,’ he begged her.

  He was barely through the garden gate when she left the house herself with Bob lumbering along beside her. She must fetch the children from school and go straight to Ogre’s Relish. They greeted the news that they were to pay their ogre a visit with glee.

  At the door, with Cassandra’s hand lifted to ply the knocker, it was arrested by the sound of Mr van Manfeld’s voice. ‘Where the hell have you put them?’ he was demanding in a subdued roar which penetrated the stout door without diminishing its strength. The children exchanged delighted glances tinged with delicious fright—their ogre was at last behaving like one—but their aunt only sighed as she applied herself to the knocker. It was one of those days; she needed no second sight to know that.

  There was a brief silence before Mr van Manfeld shouted impatiently: ‘Well, come in, whoever you are!’