Uncertain Summer
Staff thought so. ‘He’s in number twenty-one, Sister,’ she advised her, and darted off with the faintly harassed air of someone who had a lot to do and not enough time in which to do it.
Number twenty-one’s door was closed, Serena tapped and went in and came to an abrupt halt just inside the door because the doctor had a visitor; the large man who had got out of the dilapidated Mini—he had draped his length into the only easy chair in the room and unfolded it now at the sight of her, to stand silent and faintly smiling. It was the patient who spoke first.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he remarked cheerfully, ‘to brighten up an otherwise very dull day.’
‘Dull?’ Serena was astonished; people who had car accidents and broke legs and what have you didn’t usually refer to such happenings as dull.
‘Oh, yes, only not any more—it’s turned out to be a red letter day, I shouldn’t have met you otherwise, should I?’
She went faintly pink because although she was used to admiration, it wasn’t usually quite so direct. She said repressively: ‘I hope you’re feeling more comfortable, Doctor,’ put a hand behind her and started to turn the door handle. ‘I’ll come back later—or tomorrow…’
‘Don’t go on my account,’ said the large man with lazy good humour, and his voice was the voice of the man who had spoken to her on the telephone. ‘When Laurens remembers I daresay he’ll introduce us, although I believe there to be no need—Miss Potts, is it not? I’m the patient’s cousin, Gijs van Amstel.’
He smiled gently and engulfed her hand in his large one.
‘How do you do?’ Serena wanted to know politely, and remembering, added: ‘Why did you say incredible?’
‘Ah, yes—so I did. You see, your voice isn’t the kind of voice I would associate with someone called Miss Potts.’
‘He’s right,’ said his cousin. ‘What is your name? And you had better tell me or I shall call you my beautiful gipsy and cause gossip.’
Serena choked; very much on her dignity, she said: ‘Potts is a good old English name,’ and before any one could take her up on it, went on rapidly: ‘I only came…I didn’t know you had a visitor…I must be going.’
‘All right, Gipsy Potts,’ the young man in the bed was laughing at her, but very nicely, ‘but I haven’t got a visitor, only Gijs, and he doesn’t count—he’s come over to bail me out and get a solicitor and see about the car.’
For someone who didn’t count it seemed quite a tall order; perhaps he was a poor relation or a junior partner. She took a lightning look at the man standing on the other side of the bed. He was good-looking, she admitted rather grudgingly, if one should fancy a high-bridged nose and a determined chin, and although his tweed suit was superbly cut and of good cloth, it was decidedly shabby. He looked—she wasn’t sure of the right word, for lazy wasn’t quite right, perhaps placid was the better word, although she had once or twice detected hidden amusement behind the placidity. She wasn’t sure if she liked him—besides, he had been beastly about his poor injured cousin.
The poor injured cousin continued: ‘I shan’t be in bed long, you know. As soon as I can get a good stout stick in my hand, the stitches out of my head and this damned headache gone, we’ll go out and live it up.’ He looked beseechingly at her. ‘You will, won’t you? And don’t look like that—do say you will.’
She found herself smiling at him because she wanted to see him again quite badly; besides, he had the kind of smile to charm any woman. She answered carefully. ‘Well, we’ll see how you go on, shall we, Doctor van Amstel?’ and looked away to encounter the surprisingly sharp stare of his cousin. His placid expression hadn’t altered at all; all the same, she had the strong impression that he had been waiting to hear what she would say.
‘Call me Laurens,’ commanded the younger Doctor van Amstel.
Serena looked down at his still pale face on the pillow. ‘I’m going now,’ she stated in her pleasant voice. ‘I hope you have a good night.’
She went round the bed and shook the hand the older man was offering.
‘I hope you don’t have too much trouble getting things sorted out,’ she remarked, and thanked him politely as he went to the door and opened it for her.
She met Joan outside in the corridor. Joan was tall and slim and blonde and they were firm friends. She grinned engagingly when she saw Serena and said with a chuckle: ‘Stealing a march on me, ducky? I know you saw him first…’
‘I only came up to see how he was—I didn’t know he’d got someone with him—some cousin or other…’
‘Yes, rather nice, I thought, though I’ve only said hullo so far. A bit sleepy, I thought.’
Serena nodded. ‘Yes, I thought so too. He’s come over to see to everything—I suppose he’s a partner or something. I saw him downstairs, he’s got the most awful old Mini,’ she paused, feeling a little sorry for anyone forced to drive around in anything so battered. ‘Perhaps he’s not very successful.’
‘Can’t say the same for the patient,’ said Joan. ‘I hear it’s an E-type Jag he was driving and it’s a write-off.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll be here long, though. It’s a simple fracture, once he’s got his walking iron on and his head’s cleared, he’ll be up and away.’ She gave Serena a shrewd glance. ‘You like him, Serena?’
‘I don’t know—I don’t know him, do I? But he’s so alive, isn’t he?’ she appealed to her friend, who nodded understandingly; they had both dealt with so many patients who were just the reverse.
Serena went over to the Nurses’ Home and washed her smalls and then her hair, went to supper and so, presently, to bed, feeling that the evening had somehow been wasted. It would have been nice to have gone out with someone—someone like Doctor van Amstel, who would probably have been ridiculously and untruthfully flattering and made her feel like a million dollars. She went over to her mirror and stared into it; she was almost twenty-five, an old maid, she told herself, although she had probably had more proposals than any other girl in the hospital. But she had accepted none of them, for none of them had come from a man she could love. She sighed at the pretty face in the mirror and thought, a little forlornly, that perhaps she would never fall in love—really in love, especially as she wasn’t quite sure what sort of a man she wanted to fall in love with. She amended that though; he might possibly look a little like the owner of the E-type Jag.
She wasn’t on duty until one o’clock the next day; she got up early, made tea and toast in the little kitchen at the end of the corridor, and went out, to take a bus to Marks and Spencers in Oxford Street and browse around looking for a birthday present for her mother, who, even though she was fifty, liked pretty things. Serena settled on a pink quilted dressing gown and then loitered round the store until she barely had the time to get back to Queen’s. She went on duty with seconds to spare and found the department, for once, empty, but not for long; within half an hour there was a multiple crash in, as well as an old lady who had had a coronary in the street and a small boy who had fallen off a wall on to his head. It was almost five o’clock before she could stop for a quick cup of tea in the office and it was while she was gulping it down that Joan telephoned.
‘When are you off duty?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got this mad Dutchman wanting to know when you can come and see him.’
‘I’m up to my eyes,’ said Serena, crossly, ‘and likely to be for hours yet. I’m not off until nine o’clock anyway and I doubt if I get to supper at the rate we’re going.’
‘Come on up when you’re off, then—he needs cheering up. That cousin’s been in and I don’t know what he said, but Laurens is a bit down in the mouth.’
‘Laurens already!’ thought Serena as she said: ‘Surely he wouldn’t be so mean as to upset him after the accident…’
‘Well, Laurens did tell me that he’s done this sort of thing several times, and I suppose it’s a bit of a nuisance for his cousin having to leave the practice and sort things out.’
‘Probably,’ commented Serena, not much caring. ‘I’ll come if I can get away in time.’ She rang off, aware that whether she was on time or not, she would go.
He was lying in bed doing nothing when she got to his room at last. He looked pale and there was a discontented droop to his mouth which she put down to the after-effects of his accident; probably he still had a bad headache. But he brightened when he saw her and began to talk in a most amusing way about himself and his day. Of his cousin he said not a word and Serena didn’t ask, content to be amused at his talk.
She saw him again the next morning during her dinner time, for she went, as she sometimes did, to Joan’s office for the cup of tea they had before the start of the afternoon’s work. It was, of necessity, a brief visit and as she left his room she passed Doctor Gijs van Amstel in the corridor. She wished him a good day and gave him the briefest of glances, because she had the feeling that if she did more than that he might be disposed to stop and talk to her, and for some reason—too vague to put into words—she didn’t want to do that.
The next few days began to form a pattern drawn around her visits to the surgical floor. She still went out in her off duty, for she had a great number of friends. She shopped too and went to the cinema with Bill Travers, but the only real moment of the days was when she tapped on the door of number twenty-one and heard Laurens’s welcoming: ‘Come in, Serena.’
She had seen no more of his cousin, and when she mentioned it to Joan it was to discover that he had returned to Holland and would be back again shortly. And Laurens never spoke of him, although he talked about everything else under the sun. Serena listened, hardly speaking herself, wrapped in a kind of enchantment because here, at last, was the man she had been waiting for and who, she was beginning to hope, had been waiting for her.
It surprised her that Joan, although she admitted to liking Laurens very much, could find anything wrong with him. ‘He’s a charmer all right,’ she agreed, ‘but ducky, be your age—can’t you see that if he can chat you up so expertly, he’s probably had a lot of practice and doesn’t intend to stop at you?’
Which remark made Serena so indignant that she could hardly find the words to answer such heresy. ‘He’s not,’ she insisted. ‘He’s cheerful and nice to everyone, and why shouldn’t we be friends while he’s here?’
Joan smiled. ‘I daresay you’re right, Serena, only don’t get that heart of yours broken, will you, before you’re sure it’s worth risking it.’
She went home that evening, to spend her two days off at the large, old-fashioned rectory where her father and mother had lived for most of their married life.
She caught a later train than usual that evening, because she had gone to see Laurens first and it was quite dark by the time she got out at Dorchester to find her father waiting for her in the old-fashioned Rover he had had for such a long time. She kissed him with affection and got in beside him, suddenly glad at the prospect of the peace and quiet of home. They didn’t talk much as they went through the town and out on to the road to Maiden Newton because she didn’t want to distract her parent’s attention. He was an unworldly man in many ways; he had never quite realized that traffic had increased since he had first taken to motoring; in consequence he drove with a carefree disregard for other cars which could be alarming unless, like his family, his companions knew him well.
Serena, who had iron nerves and was a passable driver herself, suffered the journey calmly enough; there wasn’t a great deal of traffic on the road and once through Frampton they turned off into a winding lane which although narrow, held no terrors for either of them for they knew every yard of it.
The village, when they reached it at the bottom of a steep hill, was already in darkness; only the Rectory’s old-fashioned wide windows sent splashes of brightness into the lane as they turned in the always open gate. They had barely stopped before the door was flung open, and Serena jumped out to meet her family.
CHAPTER TWO
THERE were quite a lot of people in the doorway—her mother, as small as Serena herself and almost as slim, Susan, who was seventeen and constantly in the throes of some affair of the heart, so that everyone else had the utmost difficulty in remembering the name of the current boyfriend, Margery, twenty, and married only a few months earlier to her father’s curate, a situation which afforded great pleasure to the family and her mother, especially because she was the plain one of the children, and Serena’s two young brothers, home from boarding school for the Easter holidays—Dan was twelve and George, the youngest, was ten. Their father hoped that they would follow in his footsteps and go into the Church, and probably they would, but in the meantime they got up to all the tricks boys of their age usually indulged in.
It was lovely to be home again; she was swept inside on a cheerful tide of greetings and family news, all of which would have to be repeated later on, but in the meantime the cheerful babble of talk was very pleasant. ‘Where’s John?’ Serena tossed her hat on to the nearest chair and addressed Margery.
‘He’ll be here. He had to go and see old Mrs Spike, you know—down by Buller’s Meadow, she’s hurt her leg and can’t get about.’
Serena took off her coat and sent it to join her hat. ‘Being married suits you, Margery—you’re all glowing.’
Her sister smiled. ‘Well, that’s how it makes you feel. How’s the hospital?’
‘Oh, up and down, you know…it’s nice to get away.’
They smiled at each other as Serena flung an arm around her mother’s shoulders and asked her how she was. The rest of the evening passed in a pleasurable exchange of news and the consuming of the supper Mrs Potts had prepared. They all sat around the too large mahogany table, talking and eating and laughing a great deal. The dining-room was faintly mid-Victorian and gloomy with it, but they were all so familiar with it that no one noticed its drawbacks. Presently, when there was no more to be eaten and they had talked themselves to a standstill, they washed up and went back to the sitting-room, to talk again until midnight and later, when they parted for the night and Serena went to her old room at the back of the house, to lie in her narrow bed and wonder what Laurens van Amstel was doing.
Breakfast was half over the next morning when the telephone rang; no one took any notice of it—no one, that was, but Susan, for the family had come to learn during the last few months that almost all the telephone calls were for her, and rather than waste time identifying the young man at the other end of the line, finding Susan and then returning to whatever it was they had been interrupted in doing, it was far better for all concerned if she answered all the calls herself. She tore away now, saying over her shoulder: ‘That’ll be Bert,’ and Serena looked up from her plate to exclaim: ‘But it was Gavin last time I was home—what happened to him?’
Her mother looked up from her letters. ‘Gavin?’ She looked vague. ‘I believe he went to…’
She was interrupted by Susan. ‘It’s for you,’ she told Serena. ‘A man.’
Serena rose without haste, avoiding the eyes focused upon her. ‘Some query at the hospital,’ she suggested airily as she walked, not too fast, out of the room, aware that if that was all it was, she was going to be disappointed. There was no reason why Laurens should telephone—he didn’t even know where she was; all the same she hoped that it was he.
She went into her father’s study and picked up the receiver. Her voice didn’t betray her excitement as she said: ‘Hullo?’
It was Laurens; his voice came gaily over the wire. ‘Serena!’
‘How did you know where I was?’ She sounded, despite her efforts, breathless.
He laughed softly. ‘Your friend Joan—such a nice girl—after all, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t know where you live, is there? What are you doing?’
‘Having breakfast. I’m not sure that I…’
‘You’re not sure about anything, are you, my dear gipsy? I miss you. When are you coming back?’
‘On 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 too languid in his manner. And probably he was already a parent. He was, after all, older than Laurens and must have settled down by now. She dismissed him from her mind, bade the happy mother and her offspring goodbye, and departed to make her second visit—a more difficult one—the organist’s wife had lost a small baby since Serena had been home last, it had been a puny little creature with a heart condition which everyone knew was never going to improve, but that hadn’t made it any easier for the mother. Serena spent longer there than she had meant to do, trying to comfort the poor woman while she reflected how unfair life could be.