An Old-Fashioned Girl Read online

  ‘Goodness me, that’s far too much.’

  ‘It is, I believe, the going rate for typists and office workers. You may telephone any large agency and check that if you wish.’

  ‘No, no, of course I won’t—that is, I’m sure you’re right, Mr van der Beek.’

  She handed him the last of the pages and got up. ‘I’d like to try, please, but if I’m not good enough you will tell me, won’t you?’

  Mr van der Beek, who had never put up with second best either in his home or his work, assured her that he would.

  It was another two days before she saw him again; he called her into the study soon after she arrived one morning, wished her a civil good morning and told her to choose which typewriter she preferred.

  There were three on the table, one of them an electronic model, the other two the latest in streamlined efficiency. She examined them all, taking her time and choosing the latter. ‘I’m not used to an electronic typewriter,’ she explained. ‘I believe they’re very easy and quick, but I’d have to waste time getting to know it.’ She pointed to her choice. ‘I’d like that one, please.’ She added, ‘I’d like to work in the dining-room if you don’t mind; the phone’s there and it’s near the door if anyone comes and Miss Murch wants me to answer.’

  He shrugged. ‘Just as you please. Take this first chapter and see how you get on.’

  Several times during the next few hours she almost gave up in despair. It wasn’t only his writing; she was baffled by words she had never heard of—indeed very little of the first few pages made sense to her at all. She offered them that afternoon, feeling doubtful about the outcome, bracing herself against his cool criticism. He read her efforts through without comment before remarking in the mildest of voices, ‘Quite satisfactory. See to the post when you get here tomorrow and let me have the list and then get on with the typing. Have you all you need? I told them to send everything you were likely to want with the machine…’

  ‘I’ve everything, thank you.’

  ‘Good. Good day to you, Patience.’ His head was bent over the papers on his desk; he had forgotten her, she supposed, his mind already engrossed in his writing.

  She said, ‘Good evening,’ on a gentle breath and slipped out of the room without a sound. He hadn’t heard her go but he knew she wasn’t there any more; he found that disquieting.

  A quiet country girl with a sharp tongue at times and an abominable taste in clothes; there was no reason at all why he should be aware of her. He went back to his writing and forgot her.

  Patience went back to the poky little house and told her aunts the news. They nodded their elderly heads. ‘Most suitable work, dear,’ said Aunt Bessy. ‘You say he has offered you a larger salary?’

  She told them that too and then spent some time explaining that what seemed a small fortune was in fact an adequate salary since money values had changed a good deal in the last year or two. This was an argument they had never quite understood—a pound note to them had been sufficient to purchase food for several days instead of a small metal coin just about enough to buy a lamb chop or four oranges. They had known that they had lost most of their money but they had never grasped what a difference it was going to make to their lives and Patience had done her best to conceal that from them; they had lived a good deal in the past and she saw no reason to worry them unncessarily. Certainly the extra money would be more than welcome… They accepted the change in their fortunes with equanimity, merely remarking that dear Patience must buy herself some pretty clothes.

  Patience had had the same idea; she had seen the looks Mr van der Beek had cast at her from time to time—indifference mingled with pity—and she had found them hard to bear. It would be nice to see the look of admiration appear on his handsome features. Her face might be an unassuming one but she had a nice figure and legs… She spent a pleasant few minutes before she went to sleep that night planning an outfit.

  She worked hard the next few weeks, patiently retyping her inevitable mistakes and his drastic alterations, fitting in the phone calls and acting as go-between with Miss Murch and the local shopkeepers, for Miss Murch had the unhappy knack of rubbing them up the wrong way, unmindful of the fact that in their eyes she was a foreigner. It was when she had had her third week’s increased wages that she asked if she might have a day off.

  Mr van der Beek, his splendid nose buried in a ponderous volume, didn’t bother to lift his head. ‘Why?’

  A number of replies were on the tip of her tongue; she swallowed them all. ‘Well, I haven’t had one yet,’ she pointed out reasonably, ‘and I want to go to Norwich.’ Before he could ask why again, she added, ‘To go shopping.’

  He looked up then, studying her person, clad sensibly in the tweed skirt and a blouse under a cardigan. ‘In that case go by all means. Have you sufficient money?’

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say that no woman ever had sufficient money when she went shopping. She thanked him politely, and asked, ‘When?’

  ‘When you’ve retyped this chapter that I’m correcting. You have made some imaginative attempts at the medical terms, most of them incorrect.’

  ‘I’d get them right if you wrote more clearly,’ she pointed out in a reasonable voice and then, goaded by the unfairness of it, added, ‘If you operate as untidily as you write, I’m sorry for your patients.’

  His look was scathing; so was his voice. ‘You have far too sharp a tongue, Miss Martin, and not for the first time. You will probably turn into a shrew and lead your husband the devil of a life.’ He handed her the pages he had corrected. ‘Now go away and make sense of these.’ He picked up his pen without looking at her again.

  She had no intention of apologising, but she did take care to return his work quite faultlessly typed this time.

  She went to Norwich several days later, much to Miss Murch’s disapproval, leaving the aunts in Mrs Dodge’s care for the day. It was the tail-end of winter now and the dress shops were showing spring outfits. She studied the chic boutiques, knowing that their prices were away above her head but getting from them a good idea of what was fashionable, and then she made her way to Marks and Spencer and the bigger High Street stores.

  She hadn’t a great deal of money to spend; she laid it out on a pleated skirt, fuchsia and blue on a French navy background, and topped it with a short blue jacket, then she searched for and found a fuchsia blouse which looked like silk and wasn’t. She also found a cotton-knit top in navy blue, and then, rummaging through the bargain rail, found a caramel and cream jersey dress, very plain but a splendid fit. There wasn’t much money left, so she searched for shoes—navy blue courts with a nice little heel. They were cheap and wouldn’t last long but they went with everything she had bought. She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich, bought two pretty silk shawls for the aunts, and caught the bus home.

  It was a great pity that it poured with rain for the next two days so that there was no chance of wearing her new clothes, but on the third morning the sun shone and, although it was cold, it wasn’t so cold that she couldn’t wear the new jacket and skirt. She carried the shoes—they would never stand up to the muddy lane—but once at the house she hung up the new jacket carefully and in the knitted top and skirt sat down behind her typewriter. Miss Murch had greeted her grudgingly, remarking that she had been spending her money; it remained for Mr van der Beek to notice her changed appearance.

  Halfway through the morning he opened the study door and called to her to go in. She took what she had typed and went in quietly, bidding him good morning. His glance was brief and wholly uninterested. ‘I shall have to go up to London,’ he told her, ‘nothing to do with the book—go on with as much as you can, will you? I shall be away for a few days; I’m not sure how many at the moment. There should be enough to keep you busy.’

  She bent to pat Basil’s head. ‘Very well, Mr van der Beek. Is there any
thing else which you would like me to do while you are away?’

  ‘I think not, thank you, Patience. Take these, will you, and get on with them? I’m not leaving until this evening, so come in here in the morning and collect whatever is on the desk.’ His cool gaze swept over her. ‘Thank you.’

  Back at the typewriter, Patience had a hard job convincing herself that it didn’t matter in the least that he hadn’t even noticed her outfit. She told herself stoutly that she had bought the clothes to please herself and with no other thought in mind. A palpable lie she had no intention of admitting to.

  She was covering her machine ready to go home when he came out of the study again. ‘It occurs to me that if you have time on your hands you might get started on the reference pages. I’ve roughed them out; see what you can make of them.’ At the door he turned round. ‘I like the new clothes, Patience,’ he told her. ‘Did you think that I hadn’t noticed?’ He smiled kindly.

  She was an honest girl. ‘Well, yes, but it wouldn’t have mattered—I mean I bought them because I wanted to look nice and they were pretty.’

  ‘You look very nice,’ he assured her gravely, and went away again.

  She went to the study the next morning, and, since he wasn’t there and was not likely to be for a few days, tidied his desk quite ruthlessly. Just as he had said, he had left plenty of work for her: pages of his terrible writing, unnumbered to make things harder, and a great many little notes on scraps of paper. Obviously he had had sudden flashes of inspiration, jotted them down and forgotten all about them. It was a good thing that he was going to be away for several days.

  She finished tidying the desk and found an envelope addressed to herself wedged into a scribbling pad. It contained her wages, not due until the end of the week—so he wouldn’t be back before the weekend; he might appear to work in fearful disorder, she reflected, but there was nothing disorderly about his mind. She burrowed some more and came up with a thin bundle of cheques with a note attached; she was to pay the butcher and the general stores in the village and post a cheque to the coal merchant and the plumber who had dealt with the damage the snow had caused. She went to her typewriter then although she didn’t start work immediately but sat thinking. She hoped that he wasn’t going to be away for too long; the house seemed strangely empty when he wasn’t there.

  It was more than a week before he returned and long before then she had to admit to herself that she missed him—him and his cold eyes, his bland remoteness and his sudden kindnesses and his indifference.

  * * *

  MR VAN DER BEEK, prowling round Theatre half an hour before he was to operate upon a patient who badly needed a new valve in his heart, showed, for the moment, none of these qualities. He was whistling cheerfully and thinking about Patience. He had been thinking about her a good deal and laughing at himself for doing so. He told himself that there was nothing about her to attract his thoughts; a small dab of a girl, although he had to admit that she had beautiful eyes, clear and trusting as a small girl’s. But she had been full of surprises; no one, seeing her for the first time, would credit her with the sound common sense she undoubtedly possessed. Besides, she could cook even when there had been nothing to cook with. The people in the village liked her—he suspected that they would do anything reasonable she might ask of them—and she had courage. To keep two old ladies, used to living in comfort, happy in that poky house on limited means needed courage. She deserved better things from life. The right clothes would help. Mr van der Beek didn’t know much about women’s clothes, but he had quite definite ideas about what would suit Patience—for a start he would throw out every grey or brown garment in her meagre wardrobe…

  He was prevented from further speculation by Theatre Sister, a female dragon with a waspish tongue and a heart of gold, reminding him that his patient was on the way up from the ward.

  The operation was lengthy and he didn’t leave the hospital until he knew that his patient in Intensive Care was making satisfactory progress. It was early evening as he drove himself away from the vast sprawling hospital in the heart of the city and by the time he reached his home it was almost dark. The house was one of an old row of beautifully maintained houses facing the river at Chiswick. It being the end house, it had the advantage of a double garage in the alley behind the terrace and he drove the car straight in before going into the house to be met by a middle-aged man with a bald head and a round merry face.

  He wished Mr van der Beek good evening with the reserved friendliness of an old servant who knew his place. ‘There’s a nice fire in the drawing-room,’ he pointed out. ‘Dinner’ll be half an hour, if that suits you, sir?’

  ‘Thank you, Dobbs.’ Mr van der Beek picked up his letters from the Hepplewhite side-table and made for his drawing-room, Basil at his heels.

  ‘Miss Murch telephoned, sir,’ said Dobbs, and his master turned to look at him; Dobbs was Miss Murch’s ardent admirer. ‘Just to make sure that everything was going smoothly.’

  ‘I hope you reassured her. Is all well in Norfolk?’

  ‘I understand that everything is satisfactory there, sir.’

  Dobbs went soft-footedly away to cast an eye over the housemaid, who had taken over Miss Murch’s duties while she was away, leaving Mr van der Beek to sit in his great chair by the fire with Basil on his feet and the unopened letters on his knee. The room was a charming one, furnished with a nicely balanced mixture of comfortable chairs and sofas and several pieces of walnut and yew-wood from the mid-

  eight-eenth century. There was a magnificent bracket clock of walnut and gilded brass and on either side of it a bookcase and a secretaire, both superb examples of Dutch marquetry. The walls were panelled and painted white and hung with fine paintings. The curtains were of deep rich bronze brocade, a colour echoed in the rugs strewn upon the floor. Mr van der Beek allowed his gaze to roam around the room before opening the first of his letters and the unbidden thought flashed through his mind that he would like to see Patience’s reaction to it.

  He opened the next letter, frowning. He was allowing his thoughts to wander too much in the girl’s direction. It was perhaps a good thing that the phone rang before he could think too much about that; his senior registrar, not quite satisfied with the condition of the patient they had operated upon earlier that day. Mr van der Bleek listened carefully, sighed soundlessly and said that he would be on his way in five minutes.

  Dobbs, about to serve the soup, tut-tutted softly but made no comment. What would have been the use anyway? Mr van der Beek had always put his work first; the soup would not spoil and the housemaid could put the dessert back in the fridge. He himself would prepare the sole véronique the moment Mr van der Beek got back home. Heaven alone knew when that would be, thought Dobbs gloomily. He brightened a little, though, as his master went to the door.

  ‘Ring Miss Murch, will you, please, Dobbs? Tell her I intend going up to Norfolk in two days’ time. Make sure that everything is OK there, will you?’

  It was after ten o’clock by the time he got back home, his patient once more on the road to recovery. He ate his meal, thanked Dobbs and the maid for their trouble, and took himself and Basil off for a brisk walk before going to bed. There were several ideas seething in his head concerning his book but he had had a long day. Letting himself into his quiet house, he found himself wondering if Patience was already in bed and asleep…

  She was in bed but she wasn’t asleep; she was sitting up, doing sums on the back of an envelope. Even after she had bolstered the aunts’ income to a decent level, allowed for the rainy day and paid Mrs Dodge, there was a little money over. Not a great deal, but enough for her to augment her new wardrobe. A dress, she had decided, something patterned that would look right during most of the year, but before that the aunts needed new hats. They seldom went out but church on Sunday was a must and they had never condoned a bare head in church. Getting them to Norwi
ch would be a bit of an undertaking but there were no hat shops nearer. She would have to wait a few weeks before she asked for another day off and she had wondered if, now that she was working almost all day for Mr van der Beek, she might suggest that she had a day in the week free instead of Sunday. Miss Murch wouldn’t approve of that, but then she disapproved of so many things. She wondered briefly what Mr van der Beek was doing, conjuring up an erroneous picture of him in a dinner-jacket, escorting some lovely girl to one of London’s nightclubs. That he was hardly nightclub material hadn’t occurred to her; she had only the vaguest idea of his work and that mainly gleaned from the TV where handsome surgeons in theatre green strode out of the operating theatre looking noble. Not that he looked noble; mostly he looked aloof and faintly annoyed.

  She put down the envelope and curled up in her bed; even when he was annoyed or just being his usual austere self she rather liked him.

  * * *

  MR VAN DER BEEK, at the end of a busy day at the outpatients clinic, his private patients dealt with and his operation cases doing well, decided to return to Themelswick earlier than he had intended and when Dobbs asked if he should let Miss Murch know he was told to do nothing, ‘For I shall probably stop off in Norwich—I’ve friends there and they’ll put me up for the night. There’s a call I promised to make at the hospital there—the professor of general surgery there is a friend of mine.’

  He changed his mind when he was approaching Norwich and, as it was already early evening, he decided he could just as easily drive over one morning. He took the road to Themelswick and on to the house. Patience would be gone, he reflected, but he could look over whatever she had typed before getting on with his writing.

  He went up the short drive slowly, surprised that there was only one window lighted. The dining-room. He drove round to the garage and went in through the unlocked garden door. There was no one in the kitchen; he went through to the hall and stopped short at the sound of the typewriter. It was after six o’clock and Patience had no reason to be there. He crossed the hall and opened the dining-room door.