Tabitha in Moonlight

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‘For years. He must be twelve now—he used to come swimming with me.’

He asked abruptly: ‘You were happy, weren’t you? Here in your lovely home, with all your friends. Has your family been here long?’

‘About a hundred and fifty years—the house was built during the Regency period.’

‘And what will happen to it now—is it to be yours, or will your stepmother…?’

Tabitha turned away so that he wouldn’t be able to see her face. She spoke steadily. ‘My father didn’t leave—that is, he didn’t make a will. My stepmother owns it, naturally. I expect when Lilith marries she will live there.’

He sounded surprised. ‘Lilith live there? I simply can’t imagine it. She likes London, I imagine—a flat in a modern block of skyscrapers and Harrods just around the corner.’ He spoke lightly, almost jokingly, and she answered carefully.

‘Lilith is pretty and very popular—she has dozens of friends. Of course she likes a carefree life, but she’ll settle down in a year or so.’

He didn’t answer. She stooped to pat Fred. ‘Well, I must be getting back.’ She edged away, but not fast enough, for he reached out and caught her bare arm.

‘I’ll run you back—I’ve got the car at the end of the Cobb. There’s no hurry.’

She said ‘No,’ quickly, and then because he gave her such a strange look, went on: ‘It’s kind of you, but I like walking. I wouldn’t like to disturb my sister and stepmother, they’re still sleeping.’

Mr van Beek gave her a long considering look. ‘I see that you have another idée fixe,’ he observed mildly, although he didn’t tell her what it was this time. ‘In which case, since you don’t care for me to drive you back, I will, if I may, walk with you.’

Tabitha caught her breath. ‘No—yes, well it’s two miles across the fields and along the cliff path.’ She looked at him anxiously.

His face bore no expression other than that of polite interest. ‘Yes? In that case I daresay Fred and I shall give up about halfway. We are neither of us as young as we were.’ If he heard Tabitha’s sigh of relief he gave no sign, and now that the danger of arriving at Chidlake with him and being seen by a furious Lilith was averted, Tabitha became quite cheerful.

They started to walk back along the Cobb with Fred lumbering beside them. They were halfway along its length when Mr van Beek said:

‘You should wear your hair like that more often.’

Tabitha slowed her pace to look at him. ‘Like this?’ she asked in an amazed voice. ‘Just hanging—I’ve tied it back anyhow.’

‘And very nice too, although I do appreciate that it might not do under a sister’s cap.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ her voice was matter-of-fact, ‘it took hours and I’d never have time in the morning.’

He stooped and picked up a pebble and threw it for Fred, so that they had to stand and wait while he shuffled after it. ‘Yes, I daresay, but surely after a little practice you would be quicker?’

She accepted Fred’s proffered pebble and gave him an affectionate pat before she replied: ‘I suppose I could try. But what’s the point?’

‘Why, to prove to yourself that you aren’t plain, of course.’

Tabitha felt temper well up inside her. ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ she cried, ‘and stop patronizing me just because you’re sorry for me. You’ve got Lilith…’

They were off the Cobb now, climbing the steep road to the footpath. She started to run, not looking back, and didn’t stop until she was almost at the end of the path, with Chidlake in sight across the fields.

She went back before tea, pleading an interview with Matron which couldn’t be avoided. That Matron would wish to interview any of her staff on a Sunday was highly improbable, but it was the only excuse Tabitha had been able to think of and in any case neither of her listeners were sufficiently interested to want to know more. She said her goodbyes thankfully and drove the Fiat out of the gate and up the hill, away from the village and the sea. At the top she stopped and looked back. It was a very clear day, Chidlake stood out sharply against its panoramic background. She could see every window and every chimney, even the roses at the front door. She saw something else too—the Bentley gliding up the hill below the house, then turning in at its gate to stop before the door. She didn’t wait to see Mr van Beek get out, but started the little car’s engine with a savagery quite alien to her nature and drove, a great deal faster than was her habit, back to her own little flat.

CHAPTER THREE

TABITHA had regained her usual calm by the time Mr van Beek arrived on the ward the next day. She wished him good morning in a stony voice and pretended not to see his swift glance at the fiercely screwed-up bun beneath her starched cap. She led him firmly round the ward, speaking when spoken to and not otherwise, and then only on matters connected with her patients’ broken limbs. George Steele and Tommy looked at her first with astonishment and then frankly puzzled, and when George enquired, sotto voce, if she was sickening for something and had his head bitten off for his pains, they exchanged a bewildered look, for this wasn’t their good-natured Tabby at all. Only Mr van Beek, going impassively about his business, appeared oblivious of anything amiss. At Mr Bow’s bedside he paused for a minute after examining the leg exposed for his inspection.

‘You’re doing well, Knotty,’ he offered. ‘We’ll have you in a boat before the summer’s out, even if we do have to carry you.’

The old man smiled. ‘You were always a man to get your own way, Marius, so I’ll not contradict you.’ He sighed. ‘I must say it sounds tempting.’

‘Leave it to me,’ said Mr van Beek. ‘I have everything planned, even Podger.’

They all moved away, Tabitha wondering what the plans for Podger might be. It seemed she wasn’t to be told until Mr van Beek saw fit, which annoyed her to the point of frowning, and Mr Raynard snapped: ‘What’s bitten you, Tabby? Where’s all the womanly charm? You look as though you’re encased in metal armour plating. Wasn’t the weekend a success?’

She was about to answer this when Mr van Beek answered for her.

‘Miss Tabitha Crawley danced the lot of us into the floor,’ he remarked, ‘and looked delightful doing it too. What is more, she was up with the sun the next morning. I know, because I was up too, exercising my host’s dog. We met.’

He smiled at Tabitha, who stared woodenly back and uttered a brief and equally wooden ‘Yes’. But if she had hoped to discourage him from recalling the happenings of the weekend, she failed lamentably, for he went on to describe it in detail in a lazy, good-natured manner, even remarking upon the extreme good looks of Lilith.

‘A bit young,’ remarked Mr Raynard obscurely. ‘I met her mother once—terrifying woman, always smiling.’ He coughed and added hastily: ‘Sorry, Tabby—quite forgot. I’m sure she’s very—er—competent,’ he finished inadequately.

What at? wondered Tabitha, unless it’s making me out to be a halfwit with a face that ought to be veiled and no taste in clothes. She frowned again and changed it quickly into a smile because the men were looking at her.

‘Shall I get someone to bring your coffee in here?’ she enquired, a little haughty because they had all been staring so. ‘Unless there’s anyone else Mr van Beek wants to see.’

They agreed, still puzzled, because it had become the custom for them all to crowd into Tabitha’s office after a ward round and drink their coffee there, wreathed in pipe smoke and eating their way steadily through her week’s supply of biscuits. So Nurse Betts, a little mystified, took a tray into Mr Raynard’s cubicle, and presently Tabitha, drinking her own Nescafé while she wrestled with the off duty, listened to the hum of cheerful talk coming from his bedside. Someone was being very amusing, judging from the bellows of laughter. She gave up the off duty after a few minutes and went along to the linen cupboard to see if there were enough sheets. They were on the top shelf and she had climbed on to the shelf below the better to count them, when the door opened behind her. She froze, because the nursing staff were supposed to use the steps, not climb around the cupboard like monkeys, and whoever it was, Matron, or worse, Fanny Adams, the Assistant Matron, would point this out to her in the tone of voice used by someone who had discovered wrong-doing and felt justified in censuring it. She took a firmer grip on the upright of the top shelf and looked down behind her. Mr van Beek was lounging in the doorway, his hands in his pockets, watching her with interest. She waited for him to make the obvious remark about the steps and when he didn’t, felt compelled to say: ‘This is so much easier than those little steps. I thought you were Matron.’

‘Heaven forbid!’ he murmured gravely. ‘Come down, I want to talk to you.’

Tabitha stayed where she was. ‘I’m busy, sir, counting sheets.’ A sudden thought struck her. ‘Unless it’s urgent?’

‘It’s urgent,’ he said instantly.

‘Then I’ll come down,’ said Tabitha, to find herself instantly clasped round her waist and lifted to the ground. The linen room was small, a mere cupboard, and they were forced to stand very close. She put a hand to her cap and said a trifle anxiously: ‘Not Mr Bow…he was fine.’

‘And still is. Why did you run away?’

A question Tabitha didn’t wish to answer. She said instead: ‘It was urgent.’

‘I consider it urgent, and I should like an answer.’

She saw that she would have to give him one or stay imprisoned with the sheets and pillowcases for an unlimited period. She drew a breath and began quietly: ‘I don’t want to be pitied. To be compared with Lilith and then pitied is more than I can stand—it makes me bad-tempered and envious and I try not to be, and then you come along and stir me up.’

‘Good,’ said Mr van Beek with lazy satisfaction.

Tabitha flashed him a cross look and found his eyes, very calm and clear, contemplating her. Her voice throbbed with the beginnings of temper. ‘It’s nothing of the sort. I’ve made a life for myself; I’ve a home and Meg and a job that I can keep for the rest of my life.’

‘God forbid!’ interposed Mr van Beek with deep sincerity, and when she gaped at him he added: ‘No, no—I don’t mean that you’re not a splendid nurse—you are, but there are other things. You seem to think you’re not entitled to any of them.’

She made a small sound, half snort, half sigh. ‘You’re not a girl.’

His lips twitched. ‘No—meaning that I am unable to understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Tabitha baldly, ‘that’s exactly what I do mean. And now if there’s nothing more you want to say, I think I should get on with my work.’

His eyes twinkled. ‘Shall I lift you up, since I lifted you down?’

She shook her head and he turned away from the door and then paused to ask:

‘Would it be possible to do the Wednesday round half an hour earlier? That beguiling young sister of yours has teased me into taking her to Torquay, and if I could get away by eleven…’

Tabitha fought a violent desire to burst into tears, box Mr van Beek’s ears and find Lilith at once and do her some injury. She was still feeling surprise at her strong feelings as she said stonily: ‘That will be perfectly all right, sir,’ and stood waiting for him to go, and when he saw that she wasn’t going to say anything more, he said: ‘Well, goodbye.’ He stretched out a large, well-shaped hand and touched her hair lightly.

‘Still determined to be Cinderella?’ he enquired as he went.

Tabitha prayed wickedly for a cyclone, a terrific thunderstorm, or just a steady downpour of rain, starting just before eleven o’clock on Wednesday, but the faint promise of rain on Tuesday evening had evaporated before a clear blue sky when she went on duty the following morning, and by the time the round began the sun was blazing down from a cloudless sky, justifying Mr van Beek’s elegant summer suiting and beautiful silk shirt.

Tabitha, handing X-rays and reports and whisking bedclothes off plastered arms and legs, wondered where he would take Lilith. There was an hotel in Torquay famed for its food—she couldn’t remember its name, but she felt sure that that was where Lilith would expect to go, and no doubt Mr van Beek would spend his money very freely indeed just for the pleasure of having such a pretty girl for his companion. She scowled fiercely at Mr Prosser, who was so taken by surprise that for once he was left speechless.

The round was businesslike, and although Mr van Beek did all that was expected of him by each of the patients, he wasted no time on unnecessary chatter. Even Mr Bow received only the briefest of remarks and when they reached Mr Raynard, that gentleman besought his friend not to hang around; he was doing nicely enough, and unless Tabby chose to kill him off in the meantime, he would still be there on the following day. As the party moved towards the door Tabitha spoke.

‘You would rather not wait for coffee, I expect, Mr van Beek.’ She went through the door into the office ahead of the others and turned to smile bleakly at him. ‘I hope you have a very pleasant day,’ she added insincerely, and smiled warmly at George Steele and Tommy, indicating with a little nod the coffee tray ready on her desk. Mr van Beek paused for the smallest moment of time, his eyebrows lifted. Then his eyes narrowed.

He said smoothly: ‘Thank you. The pleasures of the day will doubtless make up for the lack of coffee now.’

He stalked away and Tabitha watched him go, feeling wretched and miserable because he had seemed to mind so much, and excusing her own bad temper as concern that a man as nice as he was should fall for someone like Lilith. She attempted to throw off the peculiar sense of loss she was sustaining by being extra bright and chatty to George and Tommy, leaving them even more puzzled. They went away presently, shaking their heads over her, for they liked her very much, having a brotherly fondness for her which allowed them to appreciate her good points without noticing her plain face.

The day dragged; Tabitha took an afternoon off duty so that Staff Nurse Rogers could have a half day—Mrs Burns, the part-time staff nurse, would stay until five o’clock. She went home to the flat and helped Meg turn out cupboards, then sat idly with Podger on her lap, trying not to think about Lilith and Mr van Beek. Sunbathing, she supposed, or having tea on the terrace of some hotel and then later, dinner and a drive back in the moonlight. She found her imagination unbearable and got up so quickly that Podger let out a protesting miaouw and only allowed his ruffled feelings to be soothed by a saucer of milk and the small portions of sandwich with which he was fed when Meg came in with the tea.