Tabitha in Moonlight (9 page)

Tabitha started on the cupboards; at the third she produced one and put it on to boil, took the instruments from him, popped them
in, put the lid on with a satisfied little clash and said: ‘I wonder if there's a bathroom where you can wash your hands?'

He was prowling round, looking for a clean towel. ‘I'll manage at the sink—how hard it is to find even the most commonplace things in other people's houses.'

‘Yes,' Tabitha agreed, ‘and do take off that jacket, you may get blood on it.'

She went back to have a look at their patient and found her with her eyes open. ‘Oh, lor',' said the landlady in a puzzled voice, ‘whatever's 'appened?'

‘You must have fallen down,' said Tabitha, ‘and bumped your head. It's cut a little, the doctor will see to it for you.'

‘I didn't send for no doctor.'

‘No,' explained Tabitha, ‘we came to see about Mr Bow's things, and Mr van Beek heard you calling and we came in.' She thought it best not to mention the picked lock at that moment. ‘He's in the kitchen, boiling some things.'

‘My 'ead! What things?'

Tabitha was saved from explanation by Mr van Beek's entry, carrying the saucepan and a small pudding basin, and she made haste to clear a small table of its potted plant and carry it to the bedside, where she spread it with the day's newspaper. Mr van Beek arranged his saucepan to his satisfaction, requested that the bowl should be filled with Savlon solution and swabs, and departed again, presumably to scrub his hands in the sugar-filled sink.

The landlady didn't care about having her head stitched; she said so with a good deal of vehemence, jerking her head about in such a fashion that Tabitha was hard put to it to keep it steady while Mr van Beek inserted first the local anaesthetic and then the stitches. When he had finished, he warned her that her headache would trouble her for several days, produced some tablets for her relief, and set about clearing up while Tabitha arranged a bandage around the sufferer's head.

‘Is there anyone coming home?' she enquired. ‘It might be a good idea if you went to bed.' She looked doubtfully at the television and wondered if going to bed in that room would make an atom of difference. ‘Somewhere quiet?' she ventured.

‘There's a put-u-up in the front room. My old man'll be 'ome in a minute, 'e'll see to it.' She was interrupted by the thunderous knock on the door. ‘That'll be the moving men.'

Mr van Beek came soft-footed into the room and Tabitha got to her feet.

‘Let them in, there's a good girl,' he begged. ‘Take them up to Knotty's room, will you, while I find out how this good soul cut her head and who her doctor is—I think she'll be all right now. Whoever he is, I'll warn him and he can visit tomorrow.'

There wasn't much to do in Mr Bow's room. The men appeared to know exactly what was required of them; she signed some papers, went through the cupboards and drawers once more, and returned downstairs where Mr van Beek was waiting.

In the car he asked. ‘Home?' and when she said, ‘Yes, please,' went on, ‘I'm sorry about that, but I was glad to have you with me; if I'd been on my own I daresay I should have still been looking for a saucepan. The odds and ends were safely collected?'

Tabitha said yes, they were and sat silent until he stopped outside the flat, to stay sitting quietly beside her, making no attempt to open the door. She was searching for something to say and had her hand on the door when he said, his voice plaintive: ‘I've had no tea.'

Tabitha, who had been sitting in a dim world of her own dreaming, became at once practical. He might not care a row of beans for her, but that was no reason for refusing him a meal. She said, her pretty voice motherly, as though he were one of her patients: ‘Come in and have some now, and I'm sure Meg will have a cake or some sandwiches.'

He agreed with an alacrity which she hadn't quite expected and they were in the flat's tiny hall before she had had time to decide if she had been foolish to ask him or not. But Meg had no qualms at all, for when she heard that their visitor had gone tea-less, she bustled them both into the sitting room with the promise of a suitable meal within a brace of shakes, which promise she carried out very rapidly with Tabitha's help. Presently the two of them sat down to boiled eggs, bread, jam and thick, rich cream and a very large seedcake, with Meg pouring the tea and listening to their reason for being late and making her wise, rather dry comments as they told her, and finally wanting to know if the nice old gentleman's things had been safely disposed of.

Mr van Beek removed the top of his third egg with surgical expertise.

‘Oh yes, Meg, they're safe and sound until such time as he should need them again, which won't, I hope, be long. I shall take him
back home with me until I start my lecture tour and after that we must see.'

The conversation became general after that, and when Meg went back into the kitchen to wash up he showed no sign of getting up to go, but asked instead if he might smoke and then sat back in the only chair large enough to accommodate him in comfort, and talked at some length about a new type of artificial hip joint he was interested in. And Tabitha, listening intelligently and making the right comments at the right times, wondered what it was about her that encouraged him to continue upon such a dull topic—her ability to listen, perhaps, which was something she had noticed that pretty girls didn't need to do, and her dislike of hurting people's feelings by not being interested. She should, she supposed, be grateful to be given the chance to hold even such a dry conversation as this one with him. She tried to imagine Lilith in her place and wondered what she would have done to divert him to some lighter topic, but of course he would never have started on it in the first place if it had been Lilith. Mr van Beek said suddenly, making her jump guiltily:

‘Why do I bore you with all this? But I told you did I not, that you are a very restful woman, and what is more, you look interested.'

‘Oh, I am,' said Tabitha mendaciously, and jumped again when he went on.

‘I'm glad to see that you've stopped playing the Cinderella, and very nice you look too. Does it take very long?'

She gave him a suspicious look to make sure he wasn't mocking her, but his face was grave and enquiring; he really wanted to know.

‘Well, I get up half an hour earlier than usual, but I expect I shall get quicker.' She drew a breath, then: ‘Have you—have you seen Lilith?'

He looked surprised. ‘No—was I supposed to? I've not had time, for one thing, have I? I daresay I shall run into her at the weekend, for I shall be with the Johnsons at Lyme. Do you want me to give her a message?'

He hadn't asked her if she was going to Lyme; she fought disappointment at his lack of interest and said steadily: ‘No, thank you— I—I just asked.'

But his next question sent her spirits soaring. ‘When do you intend to go to Chidlake?' he wanted to know.

‘I—that is, I don't often go, not any more.'

His voice was gentle. ‘Isn't it your home?'

She didn't look at him. ‘It belongs to my stepmother now.' She had tried to make her voice light and when he said; ‘Tabitha,' looked at him with a determined smile. He bent his head before she could draw back and kissed her cheek, and she thought she detected pity in his eyes before he dropped their lids, but she couldn't be sure. He said on a little laugh:

‘Isn't it time the prince came along with the glass slipper, my dear girl?'

‘I don't know any princes.' Her voice was sour and he ignored her remark, still smiling. ‘What a lot of Tabithas there are,' he mused. ‘Efficient Tabitha on the ward, outdoor Tabitha on the Cobb, kind Tabitha coming to Knotty's aid, Tabitha in moonlight and—er—cross Tabitha.'

She had to laugh. ‘I'm not cross, only you say things…'

‘Just as long as you listen,' he answered blandly, and got up to go.

She stood where he had left her until Meg came from the kitchen to rouse her from her thoughts with a prosaic: ‘Now, now, Miss Tabitha, daydreaming again, and you promised you'd run up and see Mrs Diment about that bathroom drain.'

‘So I did,' said Tabitha without any enthusiasm at all; her landlady was a pleasant enough person but given to a nice chat at any time of the day. She didn't want to go; she would have preferred to stay just where she was, thinking about Marius van Beek. She said for the second time: ‘So I did,' and went unwillingly out of the front door of the little flat and up the stairs to Mrs Diment's own flat.

She saw quite a lot of Mr van Beek during the next few days, but on none of these occasions did he give any sign that he remembered any part of their conversation; he was polite, pleasantly friendly even, but their talk was confined to patients and their bones, so that by the end of the week Tabitha began to wonder if her stepmother was right after all, and it was indeed a waste of time trying to improve her looks. She went off duty on Saturday evening, glad that she had changed her day off with Rogers who wanted to go to a wedding on the Monday. All the week she had gone on duty eager to see Marius van Beek; perhaps a day away from hospital with no chance of seeing him at all would bring her to her senses. Meg would be going to her sister's, she would have the flat to herself. She spent the short journey thinking of all the things she could do. Sunday loomed, inexpressibly dull, before her.

Meg's sister lived in Ottery St Mary. Tabitha ran her there in the Fiat after an early breakfast and then went back to the flat. It was going to be a delightful day, warm even for summer, with a vivid blue sky which made Tabitha disinclined for any of the chores she had told herself she would do. Nevertheless, she got her bucket and suds and cloths and started to clean the car; a job she detested but which was long overdue. She had been working without much enthusiasm for ten minutes or so when the Bentley crept up noiselessly behind her and Mr van Beek, looking cool and elegant and lazier than ever, stepped out and strolled towards her. Tabitha dropped the sponge back into the bucket with a tremendous splash and said with artificial calm:

‘Good morning. I thought you were at the Johnsons'.'

‘Hullo. Yes, I am…' before he could go on she said quickly, without thinking: ‘Lilith's not home.'

He half smiled at some secret joke she felt she wasn't sharing. ‘No, she isn't. I wondered if you would like a day out. I feel like a breath of sea air. I hope you do too.'

So that was it, thought Tabitha; Lilith had refused to spend the day with him and the next best thing was herself, because she was after all Lilith's stepsister and one of the family—or so he imagined. What more natural than for a man to cultivate the good offices of his future sister-in-law? She spent a few anxious moments warring with her pride, knowing that the battle was lost before she had offered herself even the mildest of reasons as to why she should refuse. She said amiably:

‘Yes, that would be nice, but I'm in the middle of doing this.'

He held out a hand and took the sponge from her. ‘Go and fetch whatever you swim in,' he advised. ‘I'll finish this for you. I suppose there isn't any coffee?'

She turned at the door. ‘By the time you're done, it'll be ready,' she promised.

He was putting the final polish to the roof of the car when she returned. In twenty minutes or so she had not only made coffee but changed her dress, re-done her hair and touched up her face, as well as finding a beach bag and her swimsuit. She packed it rather impatiently, because only that week she had intended to buy herself a bikini, something rather dashing and colourful, and somehow hadn't got around to it. Now she would have to wear her last year's swim
suit—not, she assured herself, that it would make a scrap of difference what she wore.

‘Coffee's ready!' she called, and as he came towards her with the bucket in one hand, ‘Thank you, Mr van Beek.'

He stopped short in front of her. ‘I know it wouldn't be quite the thing to call me Marius in the ward, but couldn't you bring yourself to do so at all other times? It makes me feel very old, for one thing, and for another, it gives me the disagreeable sensation that you don't approve of me.'

Tabitha said briskly: ‘How ridiculous! Why shouldn't I approve of you? And I certainly don't consider you old.' She added kindly: ‘I'm twenty-five myself, you know, and women get older much faster than men.'

‘And that,' said Marius as he took his mug of coffee, ‘is the sort of comforting remark which you can be relied upon to make at all times.'

Tabitha thought he was joking; it wasn't until they had sat down opposite each other at the kitchen table that she looked at his face and saw that he was serious and knew that he had meant every word—a fact which she found didn't please her at all; it merely proved that he thought of her as Tabby—kind Tabby, if you like—but Tabby, just as everyone else did.

‘Very good coffee,' said Marius pleasantly, and she nodded, unaware that he had been watching her closely. ‘We make excellent coffee in my country—you should try it some time.'

And so I would, thought Tabitha, still put out, if I had a socking great Bentley to take me there. ‘I've not been to Holland,' she said out loud. ‘I've not been abroad since my father died.'

‘You like travelling?'

She nodded. ‘Very much, though I haven't been far.'

He wanted to know where and she found herself telling him, reluctantly at first and then thawing to his charm and friendliness so that by the time they got up to go she found herself quite good-humoured again.

‘Would you like to swim first?' he asked as they got into the car. ‘I thought we might take the Totnes road and cut down to Stoke Fleming. We've plenty of time, and there's a good place for lunch at Churston Ferrers.'