Dearest Eulalia

‘What a heavenly meal,’ she observed. ‘I shall remember it for years.’

‘Good. The Cotswolds are at their best in the autumn, I think.’

He drove to Shipton-under-Wychwood, on to Stow-on-the-Wold and then Bourton-on-the-Water where he obligingly stopped for a while so that she might enjoy its charm and the little river running through the village. At Burford he stopped for tea at a hotel in its steep main street, a warm and cosy place where they sat in a pleasant room by the fire and ate toasted teacakes oozing butter and drank the finest Assam tea.

‘This is bliss,’ said Eulalia, mopping a buttery mouth. She smiled at him across the little table. ‘I’ve had a heavenly day. Now we have to go back, don’t we?’

‘I’m afraid so. I’ll settle up and see you at the car.’

Eulalia, powdering her beautiful nose, made a face at her reflection.

This has been a treat, she told herself. It isn’t likely to happen again and so I mustn’t like him too much. Even if I were to meet him at St Chad’s it wouldn’t be the same; he might not even recognise me. He’ll go back to Holland and forget me.

It was already getting dusk and this time Mr van der Leurs took the main roads, travelling at a steady fast pace while they carried on an easy flow of small talk. But for all that, thought Eulalia as they were once more enclosed by the city’s suburbs, she still knew almost nothing about him. Not that that mattered since she was unlikely to see him again. She hadn’t asked him when he was going back to Holland but she supposed that it would be soon.

At the house, he came in with her. They were met by Jane in the hall.

‘You’ll have had your tea, but the kettle’s boiling if you’d like another cup. The Colonel’s nicely settled until supper time. I’m off to church.’

She smiled at them both. ‘You’ve had a nice day?’

‘Oh, Jane, it was heavenly.’

‘I thought it might be. I’ll get my hat and coat.’

‘I don’t suppose you want more tea?’ Eulalia asked Aderik.

‘I’d love a cup. While you are getting it may I have five minutes with the Colonel?’

‘He’d like that. Do you want me to come up with you?’

‘No, no. I know my way. I won’t stay more than a few minutes.’

He went up the staircase, tapped on the Colonel’s door and, bidden to enter, did so.

The Colonel was sitting in his chair doing a jigsaw puzzle but he pushed it to one side when Mr van der Leurs went in.

‘Aderik. You had a pleasant day? Where did you go?’

Mr van der Leurs sat down beside him and gave him a succinct account of the day.

‘You found Lally good company? She goes out so seldom. Never complains but it’s no life for a girl. I do wonder what will happen to her when I am no longer here. She can’t stay here—the place has to go to a nephew. A good chap but married with children.’

‘Perhaps I can put your mind at rest about that, sir. I intend to marry Eulalia.’

The Colonel stared at him and then slowly smiled. ‘Not wasted much time, have you?’

‘I’m thirty-eight. Those years have been wasted romantically. I fell in love with her when I first saw her at St Chad’s a day or two ago. I see no reason to waste any more time. You have no objection?’

‘Good Lord, no. And your father would have liked her, as I’m sure your mother will.’ He paused to think. ‘She has no idea of your intentions?’

‘None.’

‘Well, I’m sure you know how you intend to go about that. You have lifted a load off my mind, Aderik. She’s a dear girl and she has a loving heart.’

Mr van der Leurs got up and the Colonel offered a hand. ‘You’ll stay for supper?’

‘No. I think not; enough is as good as a feast. Is that not so?’

The colonel rumbled with laughter. ‘You’re very like your father. Goodnight, my boy.’

Eulalia was in the kitchen. She and Jane were to have jacket potatoes for their supper but it was hardly a dish to offer to a guest. She hadn’t asked him to stay to supper but she expected him to. She made the tea and when he entered the kitchen gave him a worried look.

‘Shall we have tea here? Would you like to stay for supper?’ She didn’t sound at all eager and he hid a smile.

‘Thank you but I mustn’t stay. I’ve an appointment this evening. Tea would be fine.’

He drank his tea, waved aside her thanks for her day out, bade her a brisk goodbye and drove himself away. Eulalia shut the door as the Bentley slipped away, feeling hurt and a little peevish. He could at least have waved; it was almost as if he couldn’t get away fast enough.

She poured herself another cup of tea. Of course he might be late for his appointment—with a girl? She allowed her imagination to run riot and then told herself sternly to stop being a fool. He was almost a stranger; she had only met him a couple of times; she knew nothing about him… So why was it that she felt so at ease with him, as though she had known him all her life?

If she had hoped to see him at the hospital the next day, she was disappointed. Her journeys into the hospital proper were limited to her visits to the supply department, the general office for requisitioning something for the canteen or taking money from the canteen at the end of the day to one of the clerical staff to lock away, but those trips took her nowhere near the wards and, since she had no idea as to what he actually did, even if she had the opportunity she had no idea where to look for him.

Filling rolls with cheese as the first of the day’s patients began to surge in, she told herself to forget him.

Since it was the haematology outpatients clinic the benches were filling up fast. She recognised several of the patients as she poured tea and offered rolls. Anaemia in its many guises took a long time to cure, and if not to cure at least to check for as long as possible…

The clinic was due to start at any moment. She glanced towards the end of the waiting room to the row of consulting rooms and almost dropped the teapot she was filling. Mr van der Leurs, enormous in a white coat, was going into the first room, flanked by two young doctors and a nurse.

‘But he’s a mister,’ said Eulalia to the teapot. ‘A surgeon, so why is he at this clinic?’ She had picked up quite a bit of knowledge since she had been working at St Chad’s, not all of it accurate but she was sure that haematology was a medical field. He had disappeared, of course, and he wouldn’t have seen her.

In this she was mistaken.

When the clinic was finally over she was at the back of the canteen getting ready for the afternoon’s work and didn’t see him leave.

It was six o’clock by the time she had closed the canteen, checked the takings and locked up. She got into her coat, picked up the bag of money and went through to the hospital. The clerk on night duty would lock it away and she would be free to go home. It was a pity that she had seen Mr van der Leurs again, she reflected. It had unsettled her.

She handed over the money and made for the main door. With any luck she wouldn’t have to wait too long for a bus and the rush hour was over.

She pushed open the swing doors and walked full tilt into Mr van der Leurs.

He said easily, ‘Ah, Eulalia, I was on my way to look for you. I have a book for your grandfather and I wondered if you would like a lift?’

She said slowly, ‘I saw you in Outpatients this morning. I thought you were a surgeon—Mr, you know?’

He had taken her arm and was leading her to where the Bentley was parked.

‘I am a surgeon, but I do a good deal of bone marrow transplanting and I had been asked to take a look at several patients who might benefit from that.’

He popped her into the car, got in beside her and drove away.

Eulalia said, ‘Oh, I see,’ which wasn’t very adequate as a reply but it was all she could think of, and she answered his casual enquiry as to her day just as briefly; she hadn’t expected to see him again and it had taken her by surprise.

He went straight up to the Colonel’s room when they reached the house and when he came down again after ten minutes or so she was in the hall. There wasn’t a fire in the drawing room. If he accepted her offer of coffee he would have to drink it in the kitchen; the drawing room would be icy…

He refused her offer. ‘I’m leaving for Holland in the morning,’ he told her, then he smiled down at her, shook her hand, and was gone.

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