Ring in a Teacup. Betty Neels

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СКАЧАТЬ subject of their conversation was standing where she had left him, looking amused, but he greeted Mrs Prendergast charmingly and then made small talk with Lucy in the sitting room while her mother went in search of the Rector. That gentleman, duly primed by his wife, kissed his youngest daughter with affection, looking faintly puzzled and then turned his attention to his guest. ‘A drink?’ he suggested hospitably, ‘and of course you will stay to lunch.’

      Mr der Linssen shot a sidelong glance at Lucy’s face and his eyes gleamed with amusement at its expression. ‘There is nothing I should have liked better,’ he said pleasantly, ‘but I have an appointment and dare not stay.’ He shot a look under his lids at Lucy as he spoke and saw relief on her face.

      Her mother saw it too: ‘Then another time, Mr der Linssen—we should be so glad to give you lunch and the other children would love to meet you.’

      ‘You have a large family, Mrs Prendergast?’

      She beamed at him. ‘Five—Lucy’s the youngest.’

      The rector chuckled. ‘And the plainest, poor child—she takes after me.’

      Lucy went bright pink. Really, her father was a darling but said all the wrong things sometimes, and it gave Mr der Linssen the chance to look amused again. She gave him a glassy stare while he shook hands with her parents and wished him an austere goodbye and added thanks cold enough to freeze his bones. Not that he appeared to notice; his goodbye to her was casual and friendly, he even wished her a pleasant holiday.

      She didn’t go to the door to see him off and when her mother came indoors she tried to look nonchalant under that lady’s searching look. ‘Darling,’ said her mother, ‘did you have to be quite so terse with the poor man? Such a nice smile too. He must have been famished.’

      Lucy’s mousy brows drew together in a frown. ‘Oh, lord—I didn’t think—we did stop in Sherborne for coffee and buns, though.’

      ‘My dear,’ observed her mother gently, ‘he is a very large man, I hardly feel that coffee and buns would fill him up.’ She swept her daughter into the kitchen and began to dish up dinner. ‘And why isn’t he to know that you’re going to Holland?’ she enquired mildly.

      Lucy, dishing up roast potatoes, felt herself blushing again and scowled. ‘Well, if I’d told him, he might have thought…that is, it would have looked as though… Oh, dear, that sounds conceited, but I don’t mean it to be, Mother.’

      ‘You don’t want to be beholden to him, darling,’ suggested her mother helpfully.

      Lucy sighed, relieved that her mother understood. ‘Yes, that’s it.’ She took a potato out of the dish and nibbled at it. ‘Is it just the three of us?’

      ‘Yes, love—the others will come in this evening, I hope—the boys just for the night to see your godfather. Kitty’s visiting Agnes’—Agnes was a bosom friend in Yeovil—‘but she’ll be back for supper and Emma will come over for an hour while Will minds the twins.’

      ‘Oh, good—then I’ll have time to pack after dinner.’

      She hadn’t many clothes and those that she had weren’t very exciting; she went through her wardrobe with a dissatisfied frown, casting aside so much that she was forced to do it all over again otherwise she would have had nothing to take with her. In the end she settled for a jersey dress and jacket, a swimsuit in case it was warm enough to swim, a tweed skirt she really rather hated because she had had it for a couple of years now, slacks and a variety of shirts and sweaters. It was September now and it could turn chilly and she would look a fool in thin clothes. She had two evening dresses, neither of them of the kind to turn a man’s head, even for a moment. It was a pity that both her sisters were tall shapely girls. She rummaged round some more and came upon a cotton skirt, very full and rose-patterned; it might do for an evening, if they were to go out, and there was a silk blouse somewhere—she had almost thrown it away because she was so heartily sick of it, but it would do at a pinch, she supposed. She packed without much pleasure and when her mother put her head round the door to see how she was getting on, assured her that she had plenty of clothes; she was only going for a fortnight, anyway. She added her raincoat and a handful of headscarves and went to look at her shoes. Not much there, she reflected; her good black patent and the matching handbag, some worthy walking shoes which she might need and some rather fetching strapped shoes which would do very well for the evenings. She added a dressing gown, undies and slippers to the pile on the bed and then, because she could hear a car driving up to the Rectory, decided to pack them later with her other things; that would be her father’s friend, Doctor de Groot.

      She had forgotten how nice he was; elderly and stooping a little with twinkling blue eyes and a marked accent. Her holiday was going to be fun after all; she sat in the midst of her family and beamed at everyone.

      They set off the next morning, and it didn’t take Lucy long to discover that the journey wasn’t going to be a dull one. Doctor de Groot, once in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes, turned from a mild, elderly man with a rather pedantic manner into a speed fiend, who swore—luckily in his own language—at every little hold-up, every traffic light against him and any car which dared to overtake him. By the time they reached Dover, she had reason to be glad that she was by nature a calm girl, otherwise she might have been having hysterics. They had to wait in the queue for the Hovercraft too, a circumstance which caused her companion to drum on the wheel, mutter a good deal and generally fidget around, so that it was a relief when they went on board. Once there and out of his car, he reverted to the mild elderly gentleman again, which was a mercy, for they hadn’t stopped on the journey and his solicitous attention was very welcome. Lucy retired to the ladies’ and did her hair and her face, then returned to her seat to find that he had ordered coffee and sandwiches. It took quite a lot of self-control not to wolf them and then help herself to his as well.

      They seemed to be in Calais in no time at all and Lucy, fortified with the sandwiches, strapped herself into her seat and hoped for the best. Not a very good best, actually, for Doctor de Groot was, if anything, slightly more maniacal on his own side of the Channel, and now, of course, they were driving on the other side of the road. They were to go along the coast, he explained, and cross over into Holland at the border town of Sluis, a journey of almost two hundred and thirty miles all told. ‘We shall be home for supper,’ he told her. ‘We don’t need to stop for tea, do we?’

      It seemed a long way, but at the speed they were going she reflected that it wouldn’t take all that long. Doctor de Groot blandly ignored the speed signs and tore along the straight roads at a steady eighty miles an hour, only slowing for towns and villages. He had had to go more slowly in France and Belgium, of course, for there weren’t many empty stretches of road, but once in Holland, on the motorway, he put his foot down and kept it there.

      It seemed no time at all before they were in the outskirts of Amsterdam, but all the same Lucy was glad to see the staid blocks of flats on either side of them. She was tired and hungry and at the back of her mind was a longing to be at home in her mother’s kitchen, getting the supper. But she forgot that almost as soon as she had thought it; the flats might look rather dull from the outside, but their lighted windows with the curtains undrawn gave glimpses of cosy interiors. She wondered what it would be like to live like that, boxed up in a big city with no fields at the back door, no garden even. Hateful, and yet in the older part of the city there were lovely steepled houses, old and narrow with important front doors which opened on to hidden splendours which the passer-by never saw. To live in one of those, she conceded, would be a delight.

      She caught glimpses of them now as they neared the heart of the city and crossed the circular grachten encircling it, each one looking like a Dutch old master. She craned her neck СКАЧАТЬ