Wedding Bells for Beatrice

He said to infuriate her still more, ‘No, no, why should you? You have a very good expression in English—to vent one’s spleen—so very apt, I have always thought. Besides, bad temper suits you. Pray don’t give a thought to apologising.’

‘Well, I won’t. It is a very good thing that we are never likely to see each other again, for we don’t get on.’

‘Apparently not.’ He sounded uninterested, waiting for her to end the conversation.

‘Goodbye,’ said Beatrice. If she had known how to flounce she would have done so, but she didn’t, so she walked away with her chin up and a very straight back. She looked just as delightful from the back, the man reflected, watching her go.

Beatrice, sitting beside her father as he drove home through the scattering of houses and up the hill on the other side to where they lived, replied rather absentmindedly to her mother’s comments about the party, while she reflected, very much to her surprise, that she wished that she could meet Gijs van der Eekerk again. Not because she liked him, she hastened to assure herself, but to find out more about him.

Her mother’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘Will you see Tom tomorrow?’

Tom?’ Beatrice sounded vague, ‘Oh, I don’t know …’

Mrs Crawley’s maternal instincts were at once on the alert. ‘What a charming man that was who came with Derek—I wonder where he comes from and what he does …?’

Beatrice muttered, ‘I’ve no idea,’ and her father made no effort to enlighten them; instead he made some placid remark about the evening.

Christmas was only two days away. George, the Crawleys’ son, a medical student nine years younger than his sister, would be coming home for two days’ leave and two elderly aunts would be arriving in the morning to spend Christmas—there was more than enough to keep Beatrice busy what with helping her mother prepare for Christmas and helping with the flowers at the church. Making mince pies and arranging holly wreaths made a welcome change from her job at St Justin’s Hospital in the heart of the East End of London. She liked her work—being responsible for the smooth running and maintainance of the extensive laboratory attached to the hospital. She had gone there straight from her domestic science course and gradually worked her way up to her present job—as high as she could go. Sometimes the thought that she would be there for ever crept into her mind—twenty-eight was no longer the first flush of youth and despite several offers of marriage she had felt no urge to accept any of them. There was always Tom, of course, who tended to behave as though he had only to beckon and she would come. He was ambitious, working his way ruthlessly to a consultant’s status, and she sometimes suspected that the love he professed for her was a good deal less than his anticipation of a path smoothed for him by a father-in-law who knew all the right people. He was a pleasant companion and she saw a good deal of him—had even invited him home for a weekend. Her mother and father had been hospitable and friendly but she was aware that they hadn’t liked him.

George arrived soon after breakfast on Christmas Eve, laden with a bag of washing, a crate of beer and a great many parcels. ‘Presents,’ he explained cheerfully, ‘but I’ve not had time to wrap them up—I know you’ll do it for me, Beatrice.’

‘I’ll be sorry for your wife when you get one,’ said Beatrice good-naturedly and filled the washing-machine before going in search of paper and labels. He sat at the kitchen table drinking mugs of coffee and telling her what to write on the labels in between answering his mother’s questions about his work. He was just starting his second year and had passed his first exams; he loved it, he assured her, and Beatrice, who had a very good idea of a medical student’s life, smiled at him. They got on well together despite the difference in their ages and, perhaps because of this, he had always confided in her.

She finished the presents, cut him a hunk of the big fruitcake on the dresser and went to answer the doorbell.

It was the aunts, elderly and rather old-fashioned, having been driven from Aylesbury in a hired car. They were sitting in the back, very erect, their faces composed under formidable felt hats. Beatrice greeted them and the chauffeur, asked him to bring in the luggage and went to help her aunts out of the car. They were both quite capable of helping themselves but it never entered their heads to do so. They never spoke of the lordly head of the family but they didn’t forget him either. Certain standards had to be maintained; they reminded each other of this from time to time and they had no intention of altering a way of life which had been normal in their youth, but despite their stiff manners they were dear old things—Beatrice loved them.

She eased them out carefully, kissed the proffered cheeks and led the way indoors.

Later that morning, the old ladies settled in and the chores done, Beatrice got into the elderly cloak hanging behind the kitchen door and worn by everyone in the family and took herself off to the church to find Mr Perkins. He was putting a plug on the fairy-lights on the Christmas tree and making a bad job of it. Beatrice took it from him, rearranged the wires, screwed them down and handed it back to him. He was a nice old man, everyone in the village liked him, but he needed a great deal of looking after since his wife had died.

He thanked her warmly. ‘I asked you to come and see me but I’m afraid I can’t remember why.’ And before she could suggest anything, he said, ‘What a very nice man that was with young Derek—I wish I had had more time to talk to him. I trust we shall see him again …’

‘Well, I shouldn’t think so,’ said Beatrice. ‘He’s Dutch, you know, and only here on a visit.’

‘A pity. Ah, I’ve remembered what I wished to ask you, my dear. If you could give a hand with the children during the blessing of the crib?’

‘Yes, of course. Six o’clock this evening, isn’t it?’

‘So kind. When do you go back to your work, Beatrice?’

‘Boxing Day, in the evening. It’s lovely to be home for Christmas. I must fly—the aunts and George are staying with us, and Mother needs a hand in the kitchen.’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ He smiled gently. ‘Run along … It seems only the other day that you were a little girl. How old are you now, Beatrice?’

‘Twenty-eight.’

‘You should be married with children.’

‘As soon as I can find a husband I’ll do just that, and you shall marry us.’ She laughed as she spoke, but really, she reflected as she sped home, it was no laughing matter. She hadn’t lacked for prospective husbands but somehow none of them had touched her heart. ‘I dare say I shall make a splendid aunt,’ she said to Horace, the elderly cat who had invited himself to live with them some years ago and had been there ever since.

Horace jumped down off the wall and followed her into the house. He had long ago realised that when she was at home he could be sure of getting his meals on time. Her romantic future was of no concern to him.

She hadn’t been home for Christmas for three years and she enjoyed every moment of it, especially the blessing of the crib with the children milling around, some of them dressed in curtains and their mothers’ dressing-gowns and gold paper crowns, enacting their own little play round the crib. Beatrice, nipping smartly to and fro, shushing the noisiest of them and rearranging the curtains which had come adrift, thoroughly enjoyed herself. She went home to supper when it was all over and listened to her aunts’ gentle reminiscences of their youth and presently slipped out of the room to join George and listen to his account of his life at the hospital. She gathered that it wasn’t bad—he was clever and when he chose worked hard and didn’t mind the long hours of study. He had friends too, and his social life, as far as she could gather, was a lively one.

‘What about you?’ he wanted to know. ‘Isn’t it about time you got married?’ He added, ‘What about Tom?’

She took this in good part. ‘It’s a funny thing, George, I’ve done my best to fall in love with him, but it’s no good. You see, I don’t think it’s me he wants, it’s a quick way to the top, and Daddy could help him …’

‘Toss him out, my dear. Isn’t there anyone else?’ She said no in a doubtful voice while Gijs van der Eekerk’s handsome features floated around in her head. She shook it vigorously and said ‘no’ again quite violently. Why should she think of him when she so disliked him?

George gave her a curious look and said nothing. So there was someone, even if she didn’t know it herself. The thought pleased him; he had never liked Tom, who patronised him.

Christmas Day, its traditions never varying from year to year, came and went with its presents, church in the morning, turkey and Christmas pudding, crackers and cake, and then Boxing Day, pleasantly easygoing after the hustle and bustle, followed it all too swiftly. Beatrice loaded her bag into her own Mini, added a box of food which her mother considered necessary to augment what she considered to be the hospital stodge, hugged everyone and promised to be home again as soon as she could get a couple of days off, and drove away, down the lane past Lady Dowley’s imposing house and through the village. A pity Derek had a week’s leave, she reflected; she saw very little of him at the hospital but from time to time they saw each other going their various ways and very occasionally they had gone out to supper when they were both free.

She took a side-road to Aylesbury and presently joined the A41 which took her to the outskirts of London. She was a good driver and there was very little traffic. She went across the city, a lengthy business, weaving in and out of streets becoming more and more shabby as she went east. Presently she could see the bulk of St Justin’s ahead of her, towering over the rows of grimy little houses and shops, and turned in through its open gateway to park her car at the back of the hospital and go in through a side-door. It opened on to a passage going left and right and she took the one going away from the hospital to the newer block which housed the path. lab and the various departments appertaining to it. Her flatlet was on the top floor, a large room, nicely furnished, with its own little shower-room and tiny kitchenette. The view from its windows was depressing enough—chimney-pots and boarded-up shops and warehouses—but she kept an array of pot plants on the sills which screened the worst of them and had added over the years bright cushions, and pretty lamps so that the place was welcoming. She was a lucky young woman, she told herself as she unpacked her bag. She had a good job, reasonably well paid, and she liked her work. On the ground floor she had her office where she dealt with the cleaners, the part-time cook who came in from time to time to provide the laboratory staff with meals if they weren’t able to go to the hospital canteen, and, as well as this, she paid the bills, and worked her way through a great deal of paperwork which the hospital administration demanded of her. She kept a motherly eye on everyone too, reporting sickness or injuries, and she dealt with the mundane running of the place—the plumber, painters, maintenance men—and, over and above that, dealt with the foibles of the varied learned gentlemen who worked there with their assistants. She was known rather grandly as the administrator but she thought of herself as the housekeeper.

She was opening a can of soup when the telephone rang. ‘You’re back,’ said Tom. ‘I thought of you living in the lap of luxury while the rest of us worked ourselves into the ground. I suppose you went to several marvellous parties …’

‘One,’ said Beatrice and wondered why she felt no sympathy for him.

‘Lucky girl. How about telling me all about it tomorrow evening? I shall be free for a few hours—we might go and have a meal somewhere. Seven o’clock suit you?’

She frowned, faintly annoyed that he was so sure of her accepting. ‘I shall be busy tomorrow—everyone will be working late; there’s the seminar on the following day …’

For heaven’s sake!’ He sounded as peevish as a spoilt child. ‘Why must you fuss over those old back-room boys?’

‘I’m not fussing, just doing my job.’ She spoke sharply and he was quick to hear it.

‘Sorry, Beatrice—I’m tired, I suppose. Let’s meet around eight o’clock and have a cup of coffee—tell you what, I’ll be in the car and if you aren’t there by half-past I’ll know you couldn’t make it.’

She couldn’t in all fairness object to that; she agreed and hung up with the nagging thought that perhaps she had been unreasonable. He was a busy man and good at his job and she was aware that sooner or later he would ask her to marry him, and always at the back of her head was the unpleasant thought that he didn’t love her—not with the kind of love she wanted, anyway. She was sure that if she had been a hospital clerk with a father who had no influential friends he would never have entertained the idea of marrying her. On the other hand, he was ambitious and hard-working and had a charming manner when he needed it; he would make a success of his career and she would have a pleasant enough life. She wandered around the room, picking things up and putting them down again, feeling unsettled.

There was plenty to keep her occupied the next day. Very neat in her dark grey dress with its white collar and cuffs, she toured the whole place, making sure that the domestic staff were doing what they were supposed to do, calculating with the cook just how many morning coffees and afternoon teas she would have to get ready. She hadn’t had the list of names yet, which was vexing, although she did know the number of men who would be attending; at least she could make sure that the lecture-room near her small office could be got ready.

The various laboratories were all hard at work again after Christmas and she was kept busy: an urgent call for a new light bulb, a worn washer on one of the sink taps, demands for hot milk from Professor Moore, the dermatologist, who had a frightful cold, more demands for Panadol from his secretary, who was convinced that she had caught it.

Really, thought Beatrice, I’m actually the caretaker with a bit of book-keeping thrown in. Administrator was far too grand a word for it.

Several of the labs were working late; she sent up coffee and sandwiches to the technicians and took herself off to her flat. It was already after seven o’clock and she would have liked to have a shower, get into her dressing-gown and eat her supper by the small gas fire, with a good book. Instead she showered and changed into a green wool dress and put on a thick wool coat, rammed a woolly cap on to her head, found gloves and handbag and went out of the building, along the passage and through the hospital until she reached the entrance. Tom was there; she could see him sitting in his car, reading the paper. He saw her too as she crossed the forecourt, folded the paper and opened the door for her.

‘I was going to give you another five minutes, but I guessed you would come.’ He sounded smug.

His tone implied that she would always come running … never mind if she were tired or cross or just not feeling like going out. She busied herself with her safety-belt and stayed silent. He made it worse by remarking that she would feel better after a drink and launching into a very complicated account of his own busy day.

Beatrice, feeling ruffled because he hadn’t bothered to ask her if she had had a good Christmas, wished she hadn’t come. And why had she come? she asked herself. Force of habit? She had allowed herself to drift into something more than casual friendship with Tom and it struck her now that it was time it ended. She was a kind-hearted girl and although he was exasperating her now she was honest enough to admit that she had enjoyed several pleasant evenings with him when they had first become friendly; it was only later that she’d realised that he was using her as a means to an end. Perhaps she could talk to him presently.

‘We’ll go to the Tower Thistle,’ he told her, ‘have something in the bar. I mustn’t be away for more than an hour or so, and I’ll probably get called up during the night. I could do with some sleep too. We had a splendid party on Christmas night, didn’t get to bed until two o’clock and got called out just after five. Ah, well, it isn’t for ever—once I get a decent private practice—a partnership, perhaps …’ He went on at some length, sure of himself and her attention.