Betty Neels - Midnight Sun's Magic

She left London very early in the morning, having said her goodbyes on the previous day, and that had included a rather uncomfortable ten minutes with Arthur. He had been rather superior about it all, treating it as a joke and declaring in his calm way that she would probably hate the whole set-up when she got there. ‘I might even renew our very pleasant relationship when you return, as most certainly you will.’ He had smiled at her and for a brief moment she wondered if she was being a complete fool, but she had pushed the idea away at once, feeling resentful at his smugness. And now in the train she wasn’t thinking about him at all, she was thinking with regret of the ward she had left; all the funny, noisy, pathetic children and babies who lived in it, however briefly. She would miss them; she would miss her friends too; she had made a great many during her years in hospital. She settled back in her seat and picked up the morning paper. There was no point in getting sentimental, she told herself firmly.

It was a two-hour journey to Gillingham, the nearest station to Mere. Only a handful of people got out there; a small, pleasant country town where the ticket collector had time to smile and say good morning as they filed out of the station. Great-Aunt Mary was outside at the wheel of the Morris 1000 which she had bought years ago and didn’t intend to change. ‘It will last as long as I shall,’ she had declared to a car salesman who had done his best to persuade her to trade it in for a more modern car, ‘and that’s more than can be said for a great many motor cars put on the market these days, young man.’

She waved to Annis now and then put her head through the window to say: ‘Put everything in the boot, dear, I shall need the back for the groceries.’

She offered a sunburnt cheek for Annis to kiss and took a good look at her. ‘London doesn’t suit you. I’m glad you’re going on this trip with Freddy, it sounds a most unusual set-up, but then I never have pretended to understand these modern atomic things…’

‘I think it’s electronics, too,’ murmured Annis.

‘All one and the same,’ declared Great-Aunt Mary largely, ‘but I should think that part of the world should be rather interesting.’

She was driving at a stately pace along the crown of the road, taking no notice of those who would like to overtake and couldn’t. ‘Who’s meeting you when you get there?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Annis. ‘I hope it’s Freddy, then he can tell me a bit about it. I don’t even know how long I’m to be there.’

‘A nice change from living to a timetable. It’ll do you good, my dear—another year or two at that hospital and you would have been an old maid, whether you’d married that Arthur fellow or not.’

Annis didn’t answer that, for it was very probably true; she said instead: ‘Well, I am looking forward to it. Are you stopping at Walton’s?’

‘Only to pick up a few things they’ll have ready for me. Do you really have to go back this evening?’

‘Yes, Aunt. The plane goes very early in the morning—I’m spending the night at an hotel close by the airport—my case is there already.’

Great-Aunt Mary had slowed down as they entered the village, swung round the corner between the two local pubs, and stopped before the grocer’s.

‘What clothes are you taking?’ she wanted to know. She was a poor dresser herself; she had a short, plump figure which she declared nothing off the peg fitted, and she was right, but that didn’t stop her loving clothes. They talked about them while the groceries were loaded, and didn’t pause when she drove on presently to stop a few hundred yards further, pull into a side road and stop.

They walked from the car to the cottage, carrying the groceries between them, down a narrow path running beside a clear stream and crossed at intervals by little bridges leading to the back gardens on the other side.

Great-Aunt Mary’s cottage had a bridge too, leading to a tiny triangle of grass and flowers which fronted her home: a red brick Victorian cottage, its side wall rising straight out of the stream with windows opening on to it. It was bigger inside than it looked from the lane—true, the hall was narrow but the staircase was nicely placed and the dining room and what its owner called the drawing room were a fair size, and to make up for the Lilliputian kitchen, there were innumerable cupboards, big enough to house a piano if needed. Annis loved it; she had lived there for a few years after her parents died, going as a weekly boarder to Sher-borne School for Girls while Freddy had gone to Bryanston, coming home for school holidays, and she had always returned for holidays all the time she had been at St Anselm’s. She looked around her now, at the white walls hung with a wide variety of pictures, some really good, some framed cards which her aunt had taken a fancy to, at the old-fashioned furniture which fitted so well into the Victorian appearance of the little place and the windows with their pretty chintz curtains. ‘It’s nice to be home,’ she said.

It was over lunch that Great-Aunt Mary remarked suddenly: ‘Of course, I should very much have preferred it if you had been getting married, though not to Arthur. You’re twenty-seven, aren’t you, Annis?’ she eyed her niece’s splendid figure across the table, ‘and there can’t be all that number of men in the world to match up to you.’

‘Match up to me?’ asked Annis faintly.

‘Looks, my dear, and height, and come to that, size. You’re hardly petite, are you? Perhaps there’ll be someone suitable among the Norwegians.’

Annis giggled. ‘I’ll keep an eye open,’ she promised.

She left early that evening with regret. The little house looked delightful in the late sunshine and the hills around were turning to golden. Snow and ice, she thought—I must be mad!

But due reflection made it obvious to her that it was rather less mad to go traipsing off to the top of the world than to continue the lukewarm and far too cautious relationship with Arthur. At least Spitzbergen was different, or she hoped it would be; indeed, the more she thought about it the better she liked the idea. She slept soundly on it, ate a good breakfast and arrived, unruffled and very neat, in good time for her flight.

She had flown before, but only short flights, and she was disappointed to find that the journey was over so quickly. She had expected that the six-hour trip would have given her plenty of time to look at the passing world beneath her, but what with take-off and coffee and then, just as she was picking out the coastline below, lunch, she had very little time to peer out of her porthole. They were landing before she had had more than a glimpse of Tromso, on the islands below her, hugging Norway’s rugged coast.

Freddy was waiting for her and although she was a girl well able to look after herself, she was more than pleased to see him. There were any number of questions she wanted answered too.

‘Not now, Sis, I’ve got a company plane waiting to take off.’

‘Oh, don’t we have any time at all here? A cup of tea…?’

He grinned. ‘They’ll wait that long. Come on, over here, just stand there while I get someone to take your luggage.’

It wasn’t tea, but coffee, strong and dark, accompanied by large, satisfying buns. ‘How long does it take?’ asked Annis, her mouth full.

‘It’s eight hundred miles—about three hours; as it doesn’t get dark at all we don’t have to worry about landing.’

‘Oh, but how shall we…?’

Freddy was on his feet. ‘We’ll have to go—there’ll be plenty of time to talk later.’

She had expected that they would return to the airfield, but Freddy got into a small Saab with the driver already at the wheel and she got in with him, prudently asking no more questions. There was plenty to keep her occupied. Tromso was delightful with the forest all around it, joined to the mainland by a long bridge, its wooden houses gay with flowers, and having an air of happy bustle. There were ships of all sorts in its harbour, too, and she looked at Freddy, a little puzzled; he had said a plane…