Betty Neels - Fate Takes A Hand

‘Perhaps she has prospects of marrying? An old friend—an admirer?’

‘Admirers enough,’ said Trottie, ‘but that’s not her way—too proud to accept help. Besides, she’s not found the right man yet.’ She gave a sniff. ‘Besides, he’ll have to be a proper man, if you know what I mean, able to take her troubles on to his shoulders. She’s not one of these modern young women wanting to be something big in the business world, but she’s no doormat, neither—’

She broke off as Peter came into the kitchen, his small face alight with excitement. ‘Are we going in your car? Is that why you’re here?’

‘Indeed it is. Are you ready? We’d better be off or we’ll be late.’

Mr van Linssen allowed Peter to chatter away as he drove to the hospital, but presently he asked casually, ‘Do you want to go to the Cotswolds too, Peter?’

‘Yes, ‘cos Aunt Lally does. We shall go one day. She said so—she’s going to make her fortune and we’ll go to the village where she was a little girl and she’s going to open a flower shop there and we’ll have a dog and a cat and a rabbit and there will be a garden.’

‘You might have to wait a bit, old chap.’

‘That’s what Aunt Lally says too, but I don’t mind. When I’m a man I’ll be a doctor like you, and then I can give her the money.’

Mr van Linssen’s rather stern face broke into a smile. ‘And why not?’ he wanted to know.

He parked the car and led Peter to the X-ray department, and, when he had been X-rayed, handed him over to Casualty Sister, who fed him chocolate biscuits and a glass of lemonade until Mr van Linssen came back to say that everything was splendid and that he was to come back and have a fresh plaster put on his arm in three weeks’ time. ‘You’ll have to keep that one for another five or six weeks, Peter, but you can use your arm as much as you like, as long as you keep it in a sling if it feels tired.’

‘Aunt Lally will be pleased. I’ll tell her.’

‘Maybe I’ll come along some time and explain it to her. Now we must go back.’

‘Are you very busy?’ asked Peter, as they went back to the car.

‘Not this morning, but this afternoon I’m going to operate.’

‘Oh, I’d like to watch you.’

‘So you shall, when you are a medical student and I’m grey-haired and elderly.’

Peter laughed at that. ‘With a beard and floppy moustache and specs!’

‘I do wear spectacles occasionally,’ said Mr van Linssen apologetically.

He didn’t stay when they reached the flat. ‘Everything’s just as it should be, Miss Trott,’ he said. ‘I’ll let your doctor know how things are, and I’ve no doubt he will get in touch with Miss Warburton.’ He sounded all at once very like a medical man, kind in a distant manner,

but quite impersonal.

* * *

When Eulalia got home that evening she listened first of all to Peter’s excited account of his visit to the hospital, and then to Trottie. Everything was all right, it seemed, and she was grateful to Mr van Linssen for taking so much trouble. She had no reason to suppose that he would leave any message for her; all the same, she felt a vague disappointment.

The weather turned suddenly wet and chilly, which meant that on Sunday, instead of their usual trip to one or other of the parks, she and Peter took a long bus ride, sitting on’ the front seat on top, sharing a bag of buns and pointing out everything which took their attention. And on Monday Peter went back to school.

It was halfway through the week when Mr van Linssen walked into the flower shop. Eulalia was alone, for it was the lunch-hour and Mrs Pearce had gone home for a while, leaving her to eat her sandwiches and get on with making bouquets for yet another wedding. She sighed as the doorbell tinkled, hoping it was someone who knew what they wanted and wouldn’t keep her for minutes on end while they decided what to do. She put down the roses in her hands and went into the shop.

Mr van Linssen, looming over the floral displays, looked larger than ever and bad-tempered to boot.

Eulalia went delightfully pink, and to cover her sudden shyness said, ‘Good afternoon, more yellow roses?’

It annoyed her then that she felt shy; from his forbidding appearance he had no recollection of kissing her, and certainly when he spoke it was quite without warmth, ignoring her remark.

‘It is only proper that I should inform you of the result of Peter’s X-ray, Miss Warburton, and as I was passing this way it seemed as good an opportunity as any at which to do it.’

‘It’s all right? Trottie said—’

‘It is perfectly satisfactory. He must return for a new plaster in three weeks’ time and continue to wear it for a further few weeks. He must use his hand normally. Do not get it wet, of course, and if it aches at all there is no reason why he shouldn’t have a sling.’

‘Thank you for telling me. I really am most grateful.’

He nodded impatiently. ‘Do you not close the shop for your lunch-hour?’

‘Heavens, no. Lots of customers come between one and two o’clock.’

‘When do you take your lunch-hour?’

‘Well, I don’t. I mean, I have sandwiches and eat them when there’s time.’

‘The owner?’

What a lot of questions, thought Eulalia. ‘Oh, Mrs Pearce goes home. She has a husband to feed, and she has to see wholesalers and so on—it’s convenient to do that over lunch.’

His growl was so fierce that she wondered what she had said to annoy him. A quick-tempered man, no doubt. ‘You will be good enough to send some flowers to Miss Kendall. What do you suggest?’

‘Well, it depends, doesn’t it? If it’s just a loving gesture, red roses are for love, aren’t they? But if it’s by way of saying you are sorry about something, then a mixture of flowers—roses and carnations and some of those lilies there and an orchid or two…’

‘Perhaps you will make up a bouquet and have it sent round?’

‘A large bouquet? Any particular flowers?’

‘No. Make your own choice. I’ll write a card.’

She watched him scrawl on the card and put it in its envelope.

‘It’s a waste of money,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘Miss Kendall threw the yellow roses at me, you know.’

‘Indeed?’ He gave her a bland look. ‘Don’t you have a delivery boy?’

‘Good heavens, no, that would be eating the profits.’

‘You enjoy your work, Miss Warburton?’

‘I like flowers and arranging them.’

‘But you do not enjoy living in London and working in this shop?’

It wasn’t really a question, just stating a fact, and she wasn’t sure how to answer him. ‘I’m glad to have a job.’ She added with sudden asperity, ‘And I can’t think what business it is of yours.’

‘Upon reflection, nor can I. Good day to you.’

He shut the door gently behind him as he left.

‘High-handed,’ said Eulalia loudly, ‘as well as bad-tempered. If I hadn’t disliked that Miss Kendall on sight, I’d be sorry for her.’

It was almost the end of the following week when Peter rushed to meet her when she got home. ‘Aunt Lally, oh, Aunt Lally, something splendid—Mr van Linssen’s going to take me round his hospital on Sunday afternoon. He knows I’m going to be a surgeon like him and he said I deserved a treat because I’ve been a good boy. Do say I can go—he says he’ll fetch me in his car and bring me back.’

Eulalia took off her jacket and kicked her shoes from her tired feet.

‘Darling, when did he say all this?’

‘He stopped here on his way home and he said he was sorry you weren’t here but he hoped you’d let me go with him. Two o’clock,’ added Peter.

She looked down at the eager little face.’ He didn’t have many treats. His small school-friends had fathers and mothers who took them to fun-fairs and the zoo, and in the summer to the sea for a holiday, but he had never voiced a wish to do that, although she was quite sure that he longed to do the same. She might not like Mr van Linssen, but for some reason or other she trusted him. She said at once, ‘Darling, how lovely. Of course you can go, and how kind of Mr van Linssen to ask you. Did you thank him?’