A Matter of Chance

‘Who for?’ Her lovely eyes opened in surprise.

‘I’m on my way to London, I shall be at the Royal General tomorrow.’

Cressida stared at him; he would ask anyone there and they would tell him why she had left; that her parents had died; that she had had to get away. She said: ‘No, thanks,’ in a doubtful voice, and he said at once: ‘Don’t worry, I shan’t try to find out anything about you—you’ll tell me yourself sooner or later.’

He left her sitting there, staring down at the sheet of typewriting in front of her, the only thought in her head that he would keep his word.

He was back in two days and this time she saw him arrive, for she had been for a brisk walk after lunch, well wrapped up in her good tweed coat against the cold and damp. The sky had been sullen all day and now it was rapidly darkening, the little village looked sombre and bleak and there were already lights in some of the small houses. An afternoon for tea round the fire… She sighed involuntarily and quickened her step. The book was going very well, but she would have to keep at it. The next day was Sunday and she would be free, but she already had plans to work for a large part of the day. She had nowhere to go and nothing much to do. She would go to church in the morning and then browse through the bookshelves until she found something to her liking. She had her knitting, and any number of letters to write too, but still she felt sure that there would be time and to spare for her typing.

She started round the square towards the doctor’s house and then turned her head at the sound of the car coming from the other end—a Bentley, silver grey and sleek, whispering powerfully to a halt. She stood and watched while Doctor van der Teile got out and took the shallow steps two at a time to the front door of her employer’s home. Even at that distance she could see that he was elegantly turned out, his car coat making him appear even larger than he was. When the door opened and he had gone inside, she walked on, but instead of using the great brass knocker on the front door, she went past it to the surgery entrance and so to Doctor van Blom’s study, where she took off her outdoor things, warmed her chilly hands by the stove and then sat down at her desk. It wasn’t time for tea yet, she might as well get another page done.

She had typed just three lines when the door opened and Doctor van der Teile came in. Cressida jumped a little at the suddenness of his appearance and made a muddle of the work she was typing—he was a disquieting person. She erased the mistake, said ‘Good afternoon, Doctor,’ and gave him an inquiring look.

‘Hullo.’ He sounded friendly. ‘You weren’t here just now. Do you use a secret passage or something?’

‘I came in through the surgery.’

His eyes rested briefly on her coat. ‘Ah—you didn’t want to be seen, was that it? Probably you saw me arrive… All right, you don’t have to say anything; your face is an open book. What are you doing tomorrow?’

Really it was no business of his, and yet she found herself giving him a brief resumé of her plans.

‘I’ll be here at nine o’clock,’ he told her. ‘Where would you like to go?’

‘Go?’ repeated Cressida.

‘Come, come, girl, you must have some preference. Leeuwarden? Groningen? the Afsluitdijk? Amsterdam?’

‘Are you asking me out?’ And before he could reply: ‘I was going to church.’

‘We will go to Groningen, there is a very beautiful church there, then we might go back to Leeuwarden and then Alkmaar.’

She said stiffly: ‘You’ve very kind, but I can’t impose on your free time.’

‘You won’t be; I have to see a friend of mine who lives close to Leeuwarden. He has an English wife who asked me for lunch, and when I told her about you being here she asked me to bring you.’ He paused and went on persuasively: ‘They have a baby and two toddlers and three dogs.’

Cressida had to laugh. ‘Are those an inducement?’

‘Yes. I think you like babies and children and dogs. Am I right?’

‘How on earth…’

‘Did I not tell you that your face was easy to read? Will you come?’

‘Thank you, I should like to—you’re sure your friends won’t mind?’

‘No, they’ll be delighted.’ He straightened up from leaning against the door and opened it. ‘Shall we have tea?’

‘I was going to type…’

‘After tea.’ He waited while she joined him. ‘Doctor van Blom is delighted with your work; he’s a clever man and this book has been his pleasure and study for some time. I fancy it will be well received when it is published.’

Surgery was over for the afternoon and both doctors were back from their rounds. They all had tea together, talking about nothing in particular, and presently Cressida excused herself and went back to her desk. She worked hard until bedtime, spurred on by the thought of her day out on the morrow. She hadn’t seen Doctor van der Teile again, although she had heard the Bentley’s quiet engine as he drove away later in the afternoon. It struck her that she still had no idea where he lived; it couldn’t be far away if he worked in both Leeuwarden and Groningen, and besides, Doctor van Blom had told her that as a general rule he took a surgery with them at least twice a week, but of course he had been in England…

It would be super to have a day out, seeing something of Holland. She frowned; it would be vexing if they annoyed each other, though. She would have to be careful and frightfully polite whatever he said. After all, he would be giving up quite a lot of his day too, even though they were going to visit his friends. The happy thought that she might be able to glean some information about him from his friend’s wife popped into her head as she got into bed and turned out the light. It would be interesting to know—she wasn’t being curious, or was she? She fell asleep wondering.

The sky was still sullen when she woke up the next morning and there was more than a hint of rain in the air; she put on a dark green woollen dress she had been saving for some special occasion and brushed her hair into shining smoothness before going down to breakfast. The two doctors were already at table, deeply immersed in some medical argument which Cressida begged them to continue while she drank her coffee and gobbled her roll and cheese. She was putting on her coat when she heard the car draw up in the square below, and pausing just long enough to tug on her round fur hat, snatch up her handbag and gloves and take one last look at herself in the looking glass, she hurried downstairs. At least she hurried until the thought struck her that Doctor van der Teile might be amused to see her rushing to meet him like an enthusiastic schoolgirl. She slowed her impatient feet to a dignified walk, greeted him with pleasant coolness, accepted with a charming smile the two older doctors’ good wishes for an enjoyable day, and allowed herself to be ushered out of the house and into the cold morning outside. But the car was warm, deliciously so, with a faint smell of leather. Cressida wrinkled her lovely nose with pleasure at it.

‘If you’re not warm enough there’s a rug in the back,’ her companion said laconically as he got in beside her. ‘A pity it isn’t a better day.’

She murmured something about it being November, feeling suddenly shy; she didn’t know this man beside her at all, and on the occasions when they had met they had hardly been on the best of terms. Now the whole day stretched before them. In all likelihood they would fall out within the first hour of it. But long before the hour was up she knew that she had been wrong about that; he had no intention of giving her cause to dislike him, even argue with him. His conversation was confined to the countryside around them until they reached Groningen, and after that they were in St Martin’s Church, a splendid edifice about which he seemed to know a great deal. During the service he confined himself to whispered directions as to what came next, finding the hymns for her, and even though she couldn’t understand a word of it, opening the prayer book at all the right places.

They lingered on after the service was over, so that she might take a closer look at the dim, lofty interior, and then went outside, where she craned her neck to see the five-storied spire. When she had had her fill, they didn’t go back to the car right away, but walked across the vast square and into a wide main street, to drink coffee in one of the cafés there. He was a nice companion, Cressida decided, restful and gently amusing and always ready to answer her questions. The day was going to be fun after all and she started to relax, so that by the time they were in the car once more, speeding towards Leeuwarden, she had lost her shyness and was talking away as though she had known him for years.

The people they were to lunch with lived in a small village west of Leeuwarden and close to Franeker, so that her view of Leeuwarden was confined to a drive round its streets, with the doctor pointing out everything of interest before they drove on, to reach the village, turn in through a great pair of wrought iron gates, and stop finally before a pleasant old house, square and solid and peaceful. But only for a moment; its doors was flung wide and a large, comfortably plump woman stood waiting for them to enter.

‘Anna, the housekeeper,’ said Doctor van der Teile, and paused on the step while everyone shook hands. ‘Ah, here is Harriet.’

His hostess was a year or so older than Cressida, small and dainty and pretty. She came dancing down the staircase to meet them and flung herself at the doctor. He gave her a kiss and a hug and said: ‘Harry, this is Cressida, working for Doctor van Blom as I told you.’ He left the two girls together and went on into the hall. ‘Friso, how’s life?’

Friso was large too, and very dark and good-looking. He shook Cressida’s hand and exclaimed cheerfully, ‘Hullo, how nice to meet you. Giles, this house is filled with women and children—Harry may be only one woman, but she seems like half a dozen—which is delightful, mind you, and the children get into and on to everything.’ He smiled at Cressida. ‘I hope you like children?’

She said that she did and was borne away to remove her outdoor things and take a quick peep at the baby. ‘Ducky, isn’t she?’ asked Harriet, looking down at her very small daughter in her cot. ‘Little Friso is four and Toby’s two and she’s almost three months. We’re so pleased to have a girl.’

She led the way downstairs again and into the sitting-room, a large, comfortable well-lived-in apartment with easy chairs grouped around a great fire. The two men were standing before it with the three dogs. J. B., a bulldog, Flotsam, a dog of no known make with an enormous tail and an engaging expression, and a great black shaggy dog with yellow eyes and a great deal of tongue hanging out of its enormous jaws—Moses. They came to meet the two girls, were patted and made much of and rearranged themselves before the fire once more, taking up a lot of room. They all got up again when the door was opened to admit Friso and Toby, who, having been introduced, got on to their father’s knee, where they sat staring at Cressida unwinkingly until it was time to go in to lunch.

It was a delicious meal; onion soup to keep out the cold, as Harriet explained, chicken à la king and a magnificent trifle, which she disclosed with some pride she had made herself. ‘It’s about all I’m any good at,’ she explained to her guests, but Friso interrupted from his end of the table with: ‘You make an excellent stew, my love,’ and smiled at her in such a way that a pang smote Cressida’s heart. It would be wonderful to be loved like that…

‘The first meal Harry ever cooked for me was a stew,’ Friso told her. ‘We ate it in a flooded house under the dyke while the tide came in; it had everything in it and it smelled like heaven.’ He put a spoon into Toby’s small fist and smiled again at his wife before he went on to talk of something else.

They didn’t stay long after lunch, which was a pity because Cressida, robbed of a cosy chat with Harriet, hadn’t been able to discover anything about Doctor van der Teile. True, there had been frequent references to mutual friends, but she was still in the dark as to where he lived and what exactly he did. A consultant—well, she knew that, but in which branch of the profession? and had he a practice beside the one he shared—if you could call it sharing—with his partners? And what was his home like and where was it? She wondered if the girl he was going to marry approved of it. She made her farewells with real regret and got into the Bentley.

‘Nice people,’ commented the doctor as he took the road to the Afsluitdijk and Alkmaar. ‘I’ve known Friso for years, of course—Harry came to Franeker to spend a holiday with a friend and they met there and married in no time.’

They were on the Afsluitdijk now, tearing along its length in the gloom of the afternoon, but Cressida didn’t notice the gloom; just for a little while she felt happy and blissfully content; somehow her companion had, in a few hours, lightened her grief. Probably when they next met they would fall out, but for the moment they were enjoying each other’s company.

She found Alkmaar enchanting. They parked the car and walked through its narrow streets, looking at the cheese market and the Weigh House, and waiting for the figures on the topmost gable to ride out and encircle the clock when it struck the hour. If it hadn’t been so cold, Cressida would have gone back and had another look, but a mean little rain was falling now and the suggestion of tea was welcome. They went to a small tea-room in the main street, almost empty of customers but cosily warm and pretty, with its pink lampshades and small tables. A tiny jug of milk was brought with their miniature teapots, and Cressida, just beginning to get used to the weak, milkless tea the doctors drank, was delighted. Nor did the cake trolley fail in its delights. She chose an elaborate confection of nuts and chocolate and whipped cream and ate it with the gusto of a schoolgirl on a half-term treat, something which caused her companion a good deal of hidden amusement.

It was getting dark as they went into the street again and walked back to the car, and it was as they started back in the direction of Groningen that Cressida inquired artlessly: ‘Do you have far to go after you drop me off?’

‘No great distance.’ And that was all he said, and that in a cool voice which didn’t invite any more questions. Probably he thought that she was being curious, but he need not have sounded so snubbing. In a polite, wooden voice she remarked: ‘What a pity it is dark so quickly, but I have enjoyed my day—it was so kind…’

‘It’s not over yet, and I’m not kind. I felt like company.’

Her pleasure in the day evaporated and gave way to temper, so that she said tartly: ‘How convenient for you that I accepted your invitation, although now that I come to think about it, you didn’t invite me—you took it for granted that I’d come.’ She added sweetly, ‘Pray don’t expect that a second time.’

‘Who said anything about a second time?’ he wanted to know silkily, and put his foot down hard, so that the Bentley shot forward at a pace to make her catch her breath. Nothing would have made her ask him to drive more slowly, so she sat as still as a mouse and as stiff as a poker until he remarked carelessly: ‘It’s all right, you don’t need to be frightened.’

If it had been physically possible, she would have liked to box his ears for him.