Uncertain Summer. Betty Neels
Monday. I come up on an early morning train.’
‘Not this time—I’ll send Gijs down to pick you up, he’ll drive you.’
She shook her head, although he wasn’t there to see her vehement refusal.
‘No, thank you, I prefer to go by train—it’s very kind…’
‘Rubbish! Gijs won’t mind, he does anything anyone asks of him—more fool he.’ He spoke jokingly and she laughed with him.
‘All the same, I’d rather come up by train.’
He sounded very persuasive. ‘Not to please me? I hate to think of you travelling in a crowded train, and at least Gijs can give you lunch.’
She said in a panicky little voice: ‘But that’s impossible. I’m on duty at one o’clock.’
‘My beautiful gipsy, how difficult you make everything! Gijs will pick you up about nine o’clock on Monday morning. What are you going to do today?’
‘Nothing very interesting, just—just be at home.’ How could she tell him that she was going to make the beds for her mother and probably get the lunch ready as well and spend the afternoon visiting the sexton’s wife who had just had another baby, and the organist’s wife, who’d just lost hers? She felt relief when he commented casually: ‘It sounds nice. Come and see me on Monday, Serena.’
‘Yes—at least, I will if I can get away. You know how it is.’
‘Indeed I do—the quicker you leave it the better.’
‘Leave it?’ she repeated his words faintly.
‘Of course—had you not thought of marrying me?’
Serena was bereft of words. ‘I—I—’ she began, and then: ‘I must go,’ she managed at last. ‘Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, gipsy girl, I shall see you on Monday.’
She nodded foolishly without speaking and replaced the receiver gently. She hadn’t heard aright, of course, and even if she had, he must have been joking—he joked a lot. She sat down in her father’s chair behind his desk, quite forgetful of breakfast, trying to sort out her feelings. They slid silkily in and out of her head, evading her efforts to pin them down—the only thought which remained clearly and firmly in her mind was the one concerning Gijs van Amstel; she didn’t want to go back to London with him. The idea of being in his company for several hours disquieted her, although she didn’t know why; he had done nothing to offend or annoy her, indeed, he had exerted himself to be civil, and she had no interest in him, only the fact that he was Laurens’s cousin was the common denominator of their acquaintance, so, she told herself vigorously, she was merely being foolish.
She went back to her interrupted breakfast then, and although no one asked her any questions at all she felt compelled to explain into the eloquent silence. When she had finished, omitting a great deal, her mother remarked: ‘He sounds nice, dear, such a change from your usual patients—is his English good?’
Serena, grateful for her parent’s tactful help, told her that yes, it was, very good.
‘And this cousin—he’s coming to fetch you on Monday morning?’
Serena drank her cold tea. ‘Yes.’
‘Where will he sleep?’ her mother, a practical woman, wanted to know.
Serena’s lovely eyes opened wide. She hadn’t given a thought to the man who was coming to fetch her, and now, upon thinking about it, she really didn’t care where he slept. Perhaps he would leave early in the morning. She suggested this lightheartedly and her mother mused: ‘He must be a very nice man then, to spoil a night’s sleep to come and collect someone he doesn’t even know well.’
‘Oh,’ said Serena, her head full of Laurens, ‘he seems to do exactly what Laurens tells him—I suppose he’s a poor relation or a junior partner or something of that sort. He’s got the most awful old car.’
‘Oh?’ it was her father this time. ‘Is he a very young man, then?’
Serena dragged her thoughts away from Laurens and considered. ‘Oh, no—he must be years older—he looks about thirty-five, I suppose. I haven’t really noticed.’
Her mother gave her a swift, penetrating glance and said with deceptive casualness: ‘Well, we can find out on Monday, can’t we?’ she smiled at her eldest child. ‘And how old is this Laurence?’
‘Laurens,’ Serena corrected her gently. ‘About twenty-six.’
‘Good-looking?’ asked Susan, who had been sitting silent all this time, not saying a word.
‘Yes, very. Fair and tall.’
‘What a rotten description,’ Susan sounded faintly bored. ‘If you’ve finished, shall we get washed up? There’s such a lot to do and there’s never time.’
Serena rose obediently from the table, understanding very well that what her younger sister meant was not enough time to do her hair a dozen ways before settling on the day’s style, nor time enough to see to her nails, or try out a variety of lipsticks. She sighed unconsciously, remembering how nice it was to be seventeen and fall painlessly in and out of love and pore for hours over magazines—she felt suddenly rather old.
In the end she did the washing up herself because Susan had her telephone call and the two boys disappeared with the completeness and silence which only boys achieve. She stood at the old-fashioned kitchen sink and as she worked she thought about Laurens, trying to make herself think sensibly. No one in their right minds fell in love like this, to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. She was, she reminded herself over and over again, a sensible girl, no longer young and silly like little Susan; she saw also that, there was a lot more to marriage than falling in love. Besides, Laurens, even though he had told her so delightfully and surprisingly that she was going to marry him—for surely that was what he had meant—might be in the habit of falling in love with any girl who chanced to take his fancy. She began to dry the dishes, resolving that, whatever her feelings, she would not allow herself to be hurried into any situation, however wonderful it might seem. She had put the china and silver away and was on her way upstairs to make the beds when she remembered the strange intent look Gijs van Amstel had given her when Laurens had suggested she should go out with him. There had been no reason for it and it puzzled her that the small episode should stick so firmly in her memory. She shook it free from her thoughts and joined her mother, already busy in the boys’ room.
The day passed pleasantly so that she forgot her impatience for Monday’s arrival. When she had finished her chores she duly visited the sexton’s wife, admired the baby—the sixth and surely the last?—presented the proud mother with a small gift for the tiny creature, and turned her attention to the sexton’s other five children, who had arrived with an almost monotonous regularity every eighteen months or so. They all bore a marked resemblance to each other and, Serena had to admit, they all looked remarkably healthy. She asked tentatively: ‘Do you find it a bit much—six, Mrs Snow?’
Her hostess smiled broadly. ‘Lor’ no, Miss Serena, they’m good as gold and proper little loves, we wouldn’t be without ’em. You’ll see, when you’m wed and ’as little ’uns to rear.’
Serena tried to imagine herself with six small children, and somehow the picture was blurred because deep in her bones something told her that Laurens wouldn’t want to be bothered with a houseful of children to absorb her time—and his. He would want her for himself… The thought sent a small doubt niggling at the back of her mind, for she loved children; provided she had help she was quite sure she could cope with half a dozen, but only if their father did his share too, and Laurens, she was sure, even though she knew very little about him, wasn’t that kind of man. Disconcertingly, a picture of his cousin, lolling against the bed in his well-worn tweeds, crossed her thoughts; she had no doubt that he would make an excellent father, even though he did strike her as being a thought