An Old-Fashioned Girl Read online

  Patience looked up, made a small bleating sound and went pale with fright. But indignation took over. ‘How dare you frighten me like that?’ She spoke with a regrettable squeak. ‘You could have been anyone…’

  He ignored this silly remark. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you. Where is Miss Murch?’

  ‘There’s a church bazaar in the village.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘She won’t be long now.’

  ‘You’re alone in the house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you aware that the garden door is unlocked?’

  ‘Well, yes. Miss Murch said she’d come in that way; the front door’s bolted and barred for the night.’

  ‘You are not nervous?’

  ‘Not really—you see this was my home for years.’

  He nodded. ‘Of course, I was forgetting, but be so good in future to keep the doors locked if you should be here on your own.’ He saw then that the fire had died down. ‘Are you not cold?’

  ‘Well, a bit, but I wear these.’ She held out her small nicely kept hands encased in knitted gloves. Smiling at him, she added, ‘They are very cosy.’

  There was only a bright reading lamp on the table, by its light he could see that she was wearing the blue plaid design skirt and the fuchsia blouse; here and there her hair had come a little loose too and now that she had got her colour back she looked almost pretty. He said casually, ‘How has the work gone?’

  ‘Quite well, I hope. I’ve finished what you left and started on the index. I don’t suppose you did any writing while you were in London?’

  ‘None at all. Will your aunts not be worried by your absence?’

  ‘Mrs Perch said she would go and tell them I would be a little late.’

  ‘In that case might we have a cup of tea together and glance through the work you have done?’

  He turned to go out of the room. ‘I’ll be in the study—there is a fire there, I presume?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid not. No one goes in there when you are away, only me with your papers.’

  ‘I, not me,’ he corrected her blandly. ‘Then I’ll bring everything here while you boil the kettle.’

  By the time she got back with the tea-tray and a tin of biscuits he was sitting on the other side of the table, turning over the pile of typed pages. He got up as she went in, took the tray from her and carried their cups and saucers over to the table. ‘You have done a great deal of work,’ he observed. ‘I’ll go through it tonight; you can get on with the index until I’ve something for you to type.’

  It seemed too good a chance to miss. ‘If there’s not too much work for a day or two could I please have another day off? You see I can’t do any shopping on a Sunday. I know I’ve plenty of time when I go home each afternoon to go to the stores and Mr Crouch, but I mean shopping…’

  ‘Clothes. Yes, of course you may have a day off. Tomorrow, if you like. I should have something for you by the following day. You’re going to Norwich?’

  She nodded and passed him the biscuits. ‘Thank you. I won’t need to go again for a long time, only the aunts must have new hats…’

  ‘Naturally,’ agreed Mr van der Beek, keeping a straight face. Very much to his surprise he heard himself telling her that he had just remembered that he had an appointment with a friend at Norwich Hospital on the following morning. ‘If your aunts would like it, I should be delighted to give you all a lift. Unfortunately I won’t be able to bring you back.’ Last-minute caution made him say that. Just because the girl looked small and lonely and he had frightened her without meaning to, there was no reason to hand out favours…

  She thanked him matter-of-factly, just as Miss Murch came back, very put out because Mr van der Beek had arrived and she hadn’t been there to welcome him. ‘Oh, don’t mind about that,’ he told her very cheerfully. ‘Patience did that.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MR VAN DER BEEK fetched the car and drove Patience to the village and went indoors with her to speak to the aunts and renew his offer of a lift. They were delighted, both at the idea of new hats and a ride in his car, and kept him talking for several minutes until he excused himself and left, reflecting that he must have been mad to have suggested it in the first place. His ordered life seemed to be disintegrating day by day. He would get the book finished—he was well ahead in any case—and go back to London to the work he loved and look up his friends, perhaps even think seriously of marrying…

  ‘A charming man,’ declared Aunt Bessy, ‘such good manners and so kind and thoughtful. I dare say he is a splendid doctor.’

  ‘He’s a surgeon, Aunt Bessy.’

  ‘All more or less the same thing,’ said Aunt Bessy largely. ‘Now, my dear, what type of hats shall we purchase? Something suitable for the entire year—a good felt, perhaps?’

  They discussed millinery for the rest of the evening and it was bedtime before Patience had a chance to wonder if Mr van der Beek was regretting his offer. He had said that he intended writing…

  He appeared to have no regrets when he came to fetch them the following morning, and, since Aunt Bessy indicated graciously that she would sit beside him so that they might talk, Patience found herself with Aunt Polly in the back with Basil panting happily at their feet.

  Aunt Bessy, having decided that she liked Mr van der Beek, proceeded to cross-examine him as to his work, his family and his life. This she did with a gentle persistence and perfect manners but she had met her match; he answered her readily enough and told her nothing. Patience, listening from the back seat

  to her aunt’s high penetrating voice, wished herself anywhere but where she was. She wasn’t helped by Aunt Polly either, who every now and then put in her own gentle oar.

  Once in Norwich, he drove down King Street, turned into one of the smaller streets close to the Cathedral and asked where they would like to be put down.

  ‘This will do very well, thank you,’ said Patience quickly. ‘I hope we haven’t taken you out of your way. I expect you are going to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, you’ll have to go through Rose Lane and All Saints’ and then into Queen’s Road—there’s an awful lot of one-way traffic.’

  He agreed politely that there was and something in his dry tone made her feel foolish. The hateful man probably knew Norwich better than she did.

  As he helped the old ladies out of the car he asked how they would get back. ‘There’s a bus this afternoon—most convenient—and it stops in the village quite near our house. Thank you very much for driving us in; it was most kind of you.’ She looked up at him, looming over them and found him smiling and, for some reason, and to her vexation, she blushed again.

  He got back into the car, invited Basil to sit beside him and sat watching the three of them walk away. Patience in the middle, holding an arm of each of her aunts, upright and dignified and frail in their old-fashioned clothes.

  The aunts always bought their hats at one shop and nowhere else. It hadn’t occurred to them that they could have chosen exactly what they wanted at any one of the High Street stores at a fraction of the cost. Patience sat watching them try on a number of hats, taking their time, arguing gently as to the merits of dark brown or black, but in the end they were satisfied and she led them from the shop with the new hats, considerably the poorer.

  They had a light lunch then she sat them on a seat in the Close and flew off to the shops again, promising to be back within half an hour or so. With an eye to the warmer days she bought a dress in a pretty floral print with a tie neckline and long sleeves; it was in a mixture of wool and cotton and she judged that she would be able to wear it for a good part of the year. There was enough money over for stockings and cosmetics; she bought a lipstick which the sales lady assured her did wonders for the face and a nourishing cream which would do wonders for wrinkles. She had none yet, but at any moment one might appea
r…

  She went back to the old ladies sitting happily in the Close, enjoying the thin sunshine, and led them away to a café for tea before they caught the bus back home. Public transport was rather a let-down after the Bentley but the aunts never complained; they sat, content with their day’s outing, surrounded by children going home from school and busy mothers laden with plastic shopping bags, talking happily about the future when they would return to their old home. They had taken it for granted that once Mr van der Beek had left they would be able to go back to the house and Patience hadn’t the heart to disabuse them.

  After the severe winter, spring was making a brave start. Provided that she wore the chunky cardigan that she had knitted for herself during the winter, the caramel and cream dress was warm enough and once she reached the house the cardigan could be discarded, for Mr van der Beek saw to it that his house was adequately heated. It had been worth the slightly chilly walk too for he had observed carelessly as she was handing in the day’s work that the dress became her. At the risk of catching cold, she wore it for the rest of that week.

  Mr van der Beek was writing furiously now, as though it was imperative that he should finish as soon as possible. If he intended to return to London as soon as the book had been delivered to the publisher then another six weeks would see him gone. Patience began to worry about that—he had signed an agreement for six months, Mr Bennett had told her, but, if he wanted to leave before then, would he still have to pay for the full period? And she would be without work. She wrote and asked Mr Bennett about it and was relieved to be told that Mr van der Beek had undertaken to pay six months’ rent whether he stayed for the whole of that time or not. A relief, though she still admitted to herself that she was just as worried about not seeing him any more.

  She worked as hard as usual, though, managing to find time to arrange daffodils and tulips around the house, give Miss Murch a hand and smooth the somewhat thorny relationship between that lady and the village shop; Mr Crouch had never recovered from her scathing comments on his pork chops, and the village stores, not having got around to the kind of cash register which did everything, quite often made mistakes, especially when the shop was full and the little sums jotted down on a handy piece of paper got mislaid. The mistakes were put right, but Miss Murch’s opinion of grocer’s shops which weren’t within a stone’s throw of Harrods was low. No one in the village liked her over-much, although Patience suspected that the housekeeper felt out of her depth and that once back in what she called civilisation she would turn into quite a nice woman. Certainly she was loyal to Mr van der Beek and ran his household on oiled wheels.

  It was more than a week after the trip to Norwich that Patience, watching Mr van der Beek, his hands in his pockets and with Basil beside him, strolling around the garden, answered the phone beside her.

  The man on the other end sounded urgent and asked to speak to Mr van der Beek without delay.

  ‘I’ll have to fetch him from the garden—who shall I say you are?’

  ‘His registrar, and please be quick.’

  She could hear Basil barking joyfully as she ran from the garden door and saw the pair of them almost at the kitchen garden. ‘Hi!’ screamed Patience at the top of her lungs. ‘Come back—there is an urgent call for you!’ As he turned and started towards her, she added, ‘He says he’s a registrar.’

  He had reached her, swept her back indoors with him and was at the phone before she had crossed the hall, and since there was nowhere else for her to go she went into the kitchen, where Miss Murch told her that if she had nothing better to do she might put the milk on for the coffee.

  She had the saucepan in her hand when he came into the kitchen. He took no notice of her but spoke to Miss Murch. ‘I’m leaving for London now. No, no, I don’t want coffee. You know where to get me if I’m needed.’

  He turned to Patience as he went out of the room. ‘There’s work on the desk,’ he told her. ‘If I’m not back, get on with the indexing.’

  She followed him out. ‘Very well,’ and then she asked, ‘Is it something very urgent?’

  ‘A heart transplant. Now run along and don’t ask so many questions.’

  A most unfair remark. She watched him drive away from her window but he didn’t look at the house as he went by.

  She wished that she could have gone with him, seen for herself this other side of his life about which she knew less than nothing. An important part of his life, she guessed, more important even than this book he was so engrossed in. Then there was his private life—where did he live? she wondered. He wasn’t married but he must have friends, perhaps a woman he loved… She sat idle, feeling sad.

  He had said get on with the indexing and once she had finished typing what he had written she got on with that, a slow, painstaking task but she had got through quite a lot of it by the time he came back again three days later.

  She knew he was back because she heard Basil barking but there was no sign of him until just before she was ready to leave that afternoon. He came into the dining-room with a handful of bits of paper. ‘Notes,’ he told her, ‘will you get them sorted? Let me have them before you go, please, I want to use them this evening.’

  Before he went away he asked, ‘Everything all right?’

  Her, ‘Yes, thank you, Mr van der Beek,’ was quiet. She would have liked to have asked if the heart transplant had been a success but she could see that, judging from the remote expression on his face, she wouldn’t get an answer, anyway.

  It was long past four o’clock by the time she had sorted out the notes but he didn’t seem to notice that when she took them to the study, wished him good evening and took herself off to the aunts.

  Typing up his manuscript was taking up more and more of her time; she took her morning coffee to the sound of Miss Murch’s gentle grumbling. ‘I was told that you would take some of the routine tasks off my hands but it seems that it is not so.’ She gave Patience a look suggestive that it was all her fault.

  ‘Mr van der Beek has got someone else from the village,’ she pointed out, ‘and I still deal with the tradespeople and answer the telephone.’ She added, greatly daring, ‘Have you talked to him about it?’

  Miss Murch looked affronted. ‘It is not my place to question my employer…’

  ‘Well,’ said Patience, reasonably, ‘I don’t see that anything can be done about it, then, do you?’

  Miss Murch gave her a nasty look. ‘I only hope that this book is quickly finished and we can return to London.’

  Patience didn’t answer, for she hoped exactly the opposite.

  Spring had come at last and the country was green and alive once more. Patience began to ponder over her summer wardrobe. There was money in the bank now; not much but a small nest egg against the rainy day which loomed ever threatening on her horizon. All the same, there was enough to buy a cotton dress or two both for herself and the aunts. Another day off would have to be asked for.

  She decided to wait for the right moment, and that required patience, for Mr van der Beek was being more remote than usual—polite but in an absent-minded manner which made it difficult to ask for favours—but when he handed her a sheaf of papers, remarking that they were the last chapter, she knew that she would have to ask soon. There were almost two months of the six left and he would certainly go back to London now that the book was finished. There was still the index to type, of course, and her fears were lessened when he observed that he would be getting the proofs not long after the last chapter had been handed in. ‘Two or three weeks’ work,’ he told her. ‘A pity you won’t be able to help me with it. Miss Murch will be delighted to have you back again to do the flowers…’

  She made no comment. Did he really think that was all she did around the house? Men, thought Patience, however clever, could be extremely unobservant.

  Two days later she took her finishe
d work to the study, tapped on the door and went in to find him on the phone.

  He glanced up and the look on his face puzzled her; relief, with a kind of wry amusement too. He spoke into the phone and asked, to surprise her, ‘Do you believe that prayers are answered, Patience?’

  It seemed a strange question, but she answered at once, ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good—so do I.’ He spoke again into the telephone and rang off. ‘Sit down; I have a favour to ask of you.’

  She put the papers on his desk and sat down with Basil’s head on her knee. Then, since Mr van der Beek remained silent, she said kindly, ‘Is it something awkward? I’ll be glad to help if I can.’ A sudden thought struck her. ‘Do you want me to leave now that the book is done? I’m sure it’s difficult giving someone the sack, but it’s quite all right—I’ve been expecting it sooner or later.’

  Mr van der Beek leaned back in his chair, looking at her with some amusement. ‘How you do ramble on,’ he observed. ‘I’m touched at your concern for my feelings, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. I have no intention of giving you the sack, as you so elegantly put it; indeed, on the contrary, I should like you to undertake a temporary job for me, or rather for my sister.’

  ‘Your sister?’

  ‘Don’t, I beg you, repeat everything I say like a poll parrot, just sit still and listen.’

  ‘I’m listening and I’m sitting still,’ said Patience snappily, ‘and stop talking as though you were addressing a meeting…’

  His eyebrows rose at that, and then he laughed. No one had talked to him like that for a long time and he rather enjoyed it. ‘I will be brief. My sister and her husband and small daughter are staying at my house in Chiswick. They brought their nanny with them but she has just been admitted to hospital with appendicitis and my sister has phoned to ask how and where she can get a temporary nanny. Don’t run away with the idea that she isn’t capable of looking after the child herself; she is expecting another baby in a couple of months and needs another pair of hands. I fancy yours would do very nicely.’