A Happy Meeting Part 17

"Have you enough money?"

"Yes, thank you. They're paying my fare. If I don't come back I must return it," "Don't do that, Cressy; they want to repay you for all you've done and for going out to look for Anna and Baby." She hesitated.

"Is there anything I can do for you--messages or the like?"

Cressida got to her feet.

"No, Charity, dear, I'll say my goodbyes tomorrow but please say goodbye to Tyco for me and thank you both for being so kind to me. I've been very happy here. I'm glad I was here when little Tyco was born. Oh, and I do love the little girls."

Charity went to the door with her and watched her get into the Mini.

Tyco was in Leeuwarden at the hospital, it would be easy enough to ring him up, but he would be home at teatime and he would know what to do. She waved goodbye and went indoors, longing for the day to be over and for Tyco's rea.s.suring calm.

There was one other person Cressida wanted to say goodbye to the do mine He was in his study at the severe little house by the church, writing what she supposed was his sermon. He was pleased to see her but his face fell when she told him why she had come.

"I had hoped that you would be staying with us," he told her.

"I.

believe that we might have become good friends. "

"Well, I hope we're friends already," said Cressida, "I've been very happy here, you know and I'll not forget any of you. Perhaps we shall meet again one day."

"You do not intend to come back?"

"I don't know. It very much depends on Miss Mogford. I can't just leave her, you see she was with my family for years and years and she has no family now that her sister has died, and no money."

"That is sad. You will miss us, then?"

"Indeed I shall."

"But I think that there is some reason why you wish to go away from Friesland and not return." His eyes searched her face.

"You do not wish to talk about it but I would respect your confidence."

"Oh, I know you would, and you're quite right, there is a reason I want to go away from here. If Miss Mogford hadn't telephoned me I think that I would have gone anyway; the only thing that would have stopped me was the inconvenience to Mevrouw ter Beemstra."

Presently she said goodbye and drove back to the house, packed her case and went to talk to Anna in the queer mixture of Dutch and English which they used together, and then when Mevrouw ter Beemstra came back with the twins there were the careful explanations to make the little girls understand and the last-minute arrangements to make with their mother.

Leave-taking was hard; she hadn't realised quite how much she had absorbed of the life in Friesland and now that she was going away she felt that she was leaving part of herself behind. She had been happy there and she had grown to love Aldrik there too; it wasn't just part of herself, she reflected sadly, it was her whole heart. Since there was nothing else to be done, however, she would do her best to forget him and make a new life in England. She would have to help Moggy first, of course, although she had no idea at the moment how she could. She would at least go and see Mr. Tims or write to him and get his ad vice. If the nephew who was to have the house didn't want to live in it he might even agree to rent it to her at a rent she could afford; he might even be generous enough to add a little to her pension and if she could herself find a job locally she could get settled in the house with Moggy and share the expenses. It would be like old times. She watched the flat coast of Holland disappear under the plane's wing, fighting her tears. Everyone had been so kind; the children had been upset and so had the ter Beemstras and she was really going to miss Charity and Tyco.

She swallowed her tears with the coffee and then concentrated on the problem of settling poor Moggy.

She was in Templecombe by teatime. The cottage was close to the station and she walked to it, burdened by her heavy case and a plastic bag filled with presents from the children and several packages from Charity and Mevrouw ter Beemstra, as well as the rather wilted bunch of flowers she had bought at Schiphol for Moggy; she had bought a bottle of wine too. It might help them to make sensible plans together Moggy, she saw with a shock, had aged in the few months since they had last seen each other, but her welcome was very warm.

Moggy, who never cried, cried now.

"I'm a selfish old woman," she mumbled into Cressida's sympathetic shoulder, 'but I'm at my wits' end. A couple of weeks, that's all I've got to find somewhere to go. I went along to the job centre in Yeovil but the lady there said I'd find it difficult to get anything I'm too old. "

"Hush, Moggy, dear," said Cressida, "I'm going to write to Mr. Tims and see if he can help and if he can't I'll go and see Stepmother and ask her to help. Then I'll get a job and we can pay her back. I'd better see whoever is advising the nephew..."

"It's Snide and Snide in Yeovil my sister's nephew lives in Leeds."

They had dropped everything in the little hall and gone to sit in the kitchen and Moggy had made tea.

"You mean to say that he is coming here to live?"

Moggy shook her head.

"That's just it he's going to sell the place lock, stock and barrel there's been one or two enquiries already."

"Is he a poor man?"

Moggy snorted.

"Got a tidy little business, 'e 'as, no children and a wife who goes out to work."

Cressida finished her tea.

"Well, you're not to worry any more, Moggy.

I'm sure something can be done about it. "

She spoke rea.s.suringly, but she had her doubts, and Moggy was too upset

to share them.

She went first to Snide and Snide where, after being kept waiting for all of half an hour, she was seen by the junior partner in the firm, a young man who took one look at her and decided that this rather plain girl with the quiet voice hardly merited his full attention. No, he

told her, their client was adamant about Miss Mogford leaving the cottage; he intended to sell it.

"How much does he want for it?" asked Cressida.

He named a sum which she thought excessive, and in any case there was

no hope in raising such a sum unless her stepmother would help.

She went away presently and was glad to go. She didn't like theyounger Mr. Snide and she was aware that he felt the same about her.She tried Mr. Tims next, this time with a carefully worded letter, and she received a reply by return of post telling her that're ally there was little he could do unless she was in a position to buy the cottage. However, he did promise to look into the matter in case there was some loop hole.

Cressida was discouraged but she had no intention of giving up.Despite protests from Moggy she took herself off to her home.The girl who answered the door knew Cressida."Miss Cressida have you come back home? How nice to see you...""I've only come to see my stepmother, Mary. If you would tell her I'm here, please?"

Her stepmother looked up from her chair as she went in.

"Cressida the last person I expected to see. Why have you come? You didn't expect to be welcome, did you?"

"No. I wouldn't have come on my own account. I want to talk to you about Miss Mogfbrd." Cressida sat down unbidden.

"If you would listen," she began, and explained briefly.

"I wondered if you would lend us the money to buy the cottage? I'll pay you back as soon as I've got a job; something each month."

Her stepmother gave an angry laugh.

"What a silly little fool you are, Cressida. Do you really suppose that I would lift a finger to help either you or Miss Mogford? You've wasted money on a bus, my girl.

Now go away and don't come back; next time you won't be admitted. "

There was nothing for it but to go back to Moggy, to make light of her visit to her stepmother and tell her that there was almost a fortnight still, "And any thing could happen," said Cressida hearteningly. A statement which seemed to cheer Moggy but which did nothing to improve her own low spirits.

Three days after Cressida had gone back to England the doctor returned to Holland. His lecture tour had been successful, even if gruelling, and he had carried out his role as examiner of medical students in several of the medical schools he had visited with such proficiency that he had earned high praise. He had no thought for that. On the long flight back he bent his powerful brain to the ways and means of seeing Cressida as soon as possible. She had got under his skin and taken possession of his heart as well and he supposed with hindsight that he had fallen in love with her the moment he had set eyes on her, sitting forlornly on the gra.s.s with Caesar. She was, he reflected, the only woman in the world for him; he would tell her so the moment he saw her. Before then he had commitments which couldn't be ignored; by the time the plane landed at Schiphol he had a tightly scheduled programme planned which he had whittled down to three days' hard work in Leiden. Far too long but she would still be there. Wester was waiting for him with the Bentley, the two dogs in the back, panting with delight at the sight of him, and they drove at once to Leiden. It was still early morning and the doctor, stopping only to shower and eat his breakfast, went to the hospital to confer with his registrar, see his patients and in the afternoon take an out-patients clinic.

"You're doing too much. Doctor," said Wester severely when he got back to his house, and Mies chimed in, "All that way in one of those dreadful aeroplanes, too, you're tired to the bone and don't deny it."

The doctor looked from one to the other of his faithful old friends.

"Yes, I'm tired, but I want to get to Janslum as soon as I can and that means doing some work."

He didn't say why he needed to go but they both nodded and when he had gone to his study Mies said, "It'll be that nice English miss he brought here..."

Wester nodded.

"He brought her to Janslum, a deftig young lady."

It was midnight of the third day when the doctor opened his house door content that he had done everything he had planned to do. Now he was free to go to Friesland. Too late tonight, he reflected, but first thing in the morning. He and Wester and the dogs set off before it was light, sent on their way by a cosily wrapped Mies. Halfway there, he said, "Phone Tyske, will you, Wester, and ask her to have breakfast for us--in about an hour's time?"

It was a cold morning, inclined to drizzle from a lowering sky, and it was no better by the time they had breakfasted.

The doctor took the dogs for a brisk walk and then got into his car and drove rather too fast to the ter Beemstras' house. It was mid morning now and he judged that Cressida would be available.

It was Beatrix ter Beemstra who came to greet him when he was admitted.

"How nice to see you, have you had a good trip? You have been away for too long were the lectures successful?"

Aldrik was a man of monumental patience; he even spent several minutes discussing the weather, enquiring after the children and Anna's leg before asking to see Cressida.

"She's not here you didn't know? No, of course you didn't. She went back to England six days ago. Her old housekeeper telephoned she was in some kind of trouble and Cressida said that she would have to go and help her." Beatrix glanced at the deceptively calm face before her.

"I think she was glad to go indeed, she said that she needed to get away. She didn't say why and I didn't ask her. She is a dear girl and she would not have wished that unless her reasons were very real."

"You have her address?"

"Well, I'm afraid not when she went she went within a day, you know, and there was so much to arrange. Charity will know, however. We miss her very much such a gentle girl."

The doctor stayed for a few minutes longer, making polite small talk, and then he got into the Bentley again and drove to Charity's house.

Here he had no need to stand on ceremony. He gave her a friendly hug and she kissed his cheek and then stood back to look at him.

"Before I take you to see your G.o.dson, Aldrik, Cressy's either with this Miss Mogford or at her stepmother's. I'll tell you about it and you'll know what to do. Please come and see the infant Tyco first, then we'll have coffee and I'll tell you as much as I know."

The baby was asleep. Charity hung over the cot. The spitting image of his dad," she said proudly.

"Next time when you come perhaps he'll be awake."

"He's a splendid fellow and you are right, he is just like Tyco. Do the girls like him?"

"When they are at home I have to fight my way to get at him--we're all so happy..." She stopped and went pink.

"And you're not, are you? But you will be. Come downstairs and we'll talk."

Over coffee she explained about Nicola's visit.

"I knew it wasn't true but she had made it all seem as though it were and it was unforgivable of her to tell Cressy those lies about you being afraid that she was getting fond of you. No wonder she couldn't wait to get back to England. Poor old Miss Mogford's troubles came at just the right time."

She peeped at Aldrik's face. It looked quite frighteningly grim.

"I can catch the night ferry," he said at once, 'and be there during the morning. Have you Miss Mogfbrd's address? "

"Yes, I've written it down for you, but she may be at her stepmother's house. I'd go there first. Will you go to Lady Men-ill's?"

He nodded.

"I can call in at Cressy's home on the way." He got to his feet, "My dear, you've been a real friend." He bent to kiss her.

"Tell Tyco I'll see him when we get back and be sure and take care of that son of yours."

When he got back home he told Wester to pack a bag and book a berth on the night ferry from the Hock and then he took the dogs for a long walk. The time had to be filled in before he could leave for England.

He drove away from Harwich on a dismal grey morning, he had had breakfast on board and he didn't intend to stop until he reached Cressy's home, he had studied the map and took the road through Hatfield, Watford and Slough, cutting out London entirely, to join the M3 and later on the A303. He drove steadily, keeping to the maximum speed, and the further west he went, the better the weather. When at last he stopped in the drive before Cressida's home the sun was s.h.i.+ning.

Mrs. Preece was coming downstairs as the maid admitted him. She recognised him at once and came forward, smiling archly.

"Doctor how delightful to see you again. You are on your way to see Lady Men-ill?

Too late for coffee, but do have a drink and tell me all your news. "