Stars Through the Mist

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They had reached the chancel at exactly the right moment; the vicar was waiting for them with two people—his wife, apparently, and someone who might have been the daily help, pressed into the more romantic role of witness.

The service was short. Deborah listened to every word of it and heard nothing, and even when the plain gold ring had been put upon her finger she felt as though it was someone else standing there, being married. She signed the register in a composed manner, received her husband’s kiss with the same calm, and shook hands with the vicar and the two ladies, then walked out of the little church with Gerard. He was holding her hand lightly, talking quietly as they went, and she said not a word, only noticed every small detail about him—his grey suit, the gold cuff links in his silk shirt, the perfection of his polished shoes—who polished them? she wondered stupidly—and his imperturbable face. He turned to smile at her as they reached the door and she smiled back while hope, reinforced by her love, flooded through her. She was young still and pretty, some said beautiful, men liked her, some enough to have wanted to marry her; surely there was a chance that Gerard might fall in love with her? She would be seeing much more of him now, take an interest in his life, make herself indispensable, wear pretty clothes…

‘My dear girl,’ said Gerard kindly, ‘how distraite you have become—quite lost in thought—happy ones, I hope?’

They were standing by the car and he had unlocked the door as he spoke and was holding it open for her, his glance as kind as his voice. She got in, strangely vexed by his kindness, and said too brightly: ‘It was a nice wedding. I—I was thinking about it.’

He nodded and swung the car into the street. ‘Yes, one hears the words during a simple ceremony—I have always thought that big social weddings are slightly unreal.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if his previous wedding had been just such a one, but it seemed hardly a fitting time to do so. She launched into a steady flow of small talk which lasted until they were clear of the centre of the city and heading west.

But presently she fell silent, staring out at the passing traffic as the car gathered speed, casting around in her mind for something to talk about. There was so much to say, and yet nothing. She was on the point of remarking—for the second time—about the weather when Gerard spoke. ‘I think we’ll lunch at Nately Scures—there’s a good pub there, the Baredown. I don’t know about you, Deborah, but getting married seems to have given me a good appetite.’

His manner was so completely at ease that she lost her awkwardness too. ‘I’m hungry too,’ she agreed, ‘and I didn’t realise that it was already one o’clock. We should be home by tea time.’

It was during lunch that one or two notions, not altogether pleasant, entered her head and quite unknown to her, reflected their disquiet in her face. They were sitting back at their ease, drinking their coffee in a companionable silence which Gerard broke. ‘What’s on your mind, Deborah?’

She put some more sugar into her cup although she didn’t want it, and stirred it because it gave her something to do. She began uncertainly: ‘I was just thinking—hoping that Mike, my elder brother, you know, will be home for a day or two with Helen—his wife.’

He smiled very faintly. ‘Why?’

‘Well, I was thinking about—about rooms. You see, the house is very old and there aren’t…’ She tried again. ‘There is Mother and Father’s room and a big guest room, all the other bedrooms are small. If Mike and Helen are there they’ll be in the guest room, which makes it easy for us, because then we shall have our own rooms and there won’t be any need for me to make an excuse—I mean for us not sharing a room.’ She gave him a determinedly matter-of-fact look which he returned with an urbane one of his own. ‘I don’t suppose you had thought about it?’

‘Indeed I had—I thought a migraine would fill the bill.’

‘Do you have migraine?’

‘Good God, girl, no! You.’

She said indignantly: ‘I’ve never had migraine in my life, I don’t even know what it feels like. I really don’t think…’

He gave her an amused glance. ‘Well, it seems the situation isn’t likely to arise, doesn’t it? We can hardly turn your brother and his wife out of their room just for one night.’ He had spoken casually, now he changed the subject abruptly, as they got up to go.

‘It was nice of you not to mind about going straight back to Holland. We’ll go away for a holiday as soon as I can get everything sorted out at the Grotehof.’

She nodded. ‘Oh, the hospital, yes. Have you many private patients too?’

He sent the car tearing past a lorry. ‘Yes, and shall have many more, I think. I’m looking forward to meeting your family.’

She stirred in her seat. ‘Father is a little absentminded; he doesn’t live in the present when he’s busy on a book, and Mother—Mother’s a darling. Neither of them notices much what’s going on around them, but Mother never questions anything I do. Then there’s Mike—and Helen, of course, and John and Billy, they’re fourteen and sixteen, and Maureen who’s eleven. There are great gaps between us, but it’s never seemed to matter.’

They were almost at Salisbury when she ventured to remark: ‘I don’t know anything about your family and I’m terrified of meeting them.’

He slowed the car down and stopped on the grass verge and turned to look at her. ‘My dear Deborah—you, terrified? Why? My mother is like any other mother, perhaps a little older than yours; she must be, let me see, almost sixty. My two brothers, Pieter and Willem, are younger than I, my sister Lia comes between us—she’s married to an architect and they live near Hilversum. Pieter is a pathologist in Utrecht, Willem is a lawyer—he lives in den Haag.’

‘And your mother, does she live with you?’

‘No, she didn’t wish to go on living in the house after my father died—I’m not sure of the reason. She has a flat close by. We see each other often.’

‘So you live alone?’

‘There is Wim, who sees to everything—I suppose you would call him a houseman, but he’s more than that; he’s been with us for so long, and there is Marijke who cooks and keeps house and Mevrouw Smit who comes in to clean. Mother took Leen, who has been with us ever since I can remember, with her when she moved to the flat.’

‘Is your house large?’

‘Large?’ he considered her question. ‘No—but it is old and full of passages and small staircases; delightful to live in but the very devil to keep clean.’ He gave her a quick, sidelong glance. ‘Marijke and Mevrouw Smit see to that, of course. You will be busy enough in other ways.’

‘What other ways?’ asked Deborah with vague suspicion.

‘I told you, did I not, that I need to entertain quite a lot—oh, not riotous parties night after night, but various colleagues who come to the hospital for one reason or the other—sometimes they bring their wives, sometimes they come on their own. And there is the occasional dinner party, and we shall be asked out ourselves.’

‘Oh. How did you manage before?’

He shrugged. ‘Marijke coped with the odd visitor well enough, my mother acted as hostess from time to time. Remember I have been away for two years; I spent only a short time in Amsterdam each month or so, but now I am going back to live I shall be expected to do my share of entertaining. You will be of the greatest help to me if you will deal with that side of our life.’

‘I’ll do my best, though it’s rather different from handing instruments…’

He laughed. ‘Very. But if you do it half as well you will be a great success and earn my undying gratitude.’

She didn’t want his gratitude; she wanted his love, but nothing seemed further from his thoughts. Dinner parties, though, would give her the opportunity to wear pretty clothes and make the most of herself—he might at least notice her as a person. She began to plan a suitable wardrobe…

The road was surprisingly empty after they had left Salisbury behind. At Warminster they turned off on to the Frome road and then, at Deborah’s direction, turned off again into the byroads, through the small village of Nunney and then the still smaller one of Chantry. Her home lay a mile beyond, a Somerset farmhouse, with its back tucked cosily into the hills behind it, and beautifully restored and tended by Mr Culpeper and his wife. It looked delightful now in the afternoon sun, its windows open as was its front door, its garden a mass of colour and nothing but the open country around it. Deborah gave a small sigh of pleasure as she saw it. ‘That’s it,’ she told Gerard.

‘Charming,’ he commented. ‘I hope your parents will ask us back for a visit. I can see that it is a most interesting house—those windows…’ he nodded towards the side of the house, ‘their pediments appear most interesting.’

He brought the car to a halt before the door and as he helped her out she said with something like relief: ‘Father will be delighted that you noticed them, they’re very unusual. Probably he’ll talk of nothing else and quite forget that we’re married.’ They were walking to the door. ‘Do you really know something of sixteenth-century building?’