Wish with the Candles. Betty Neels

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      He had come to stand beside her, now he lifted an elegantly shod foot and gently kicked that piece of bumper which the Ford had wrapped round the Rolls. It fell to the road with an apologetic clang and Emma, watching it with her mouth open, didn’t wait for its last rattle before she burst into hot speech.

      ‘How dare you—how dare you kick my car, just because it’s old!’ She could have been accusing him of kicking an old lady from her throbbing accents; her voice shook with temper; her quite ordinary face seemed to have taken on a more vivid sheen. The man turned to look at her once more, intently this time, as if he were studying something he had previously overlooked.

      ‘And how dare you drive on the wrong side of the road?’ he queried mildly, ‘an offence which I fear in this country is frowned upon by the law.’

      As if some demon god had been listening to his words, a small white car skimmed round the bend of the road, made as if to pass them, and then stopped. It had the word Politie painted on its sides and the familiar blue lamp on its roof, and if that wasn’t enough to convince Emma that Damocles’ sword really had fallen, its doors opened and two large square men in the uniform of the Dutch police stepped out, advanced with the deliberate step of their kind and then stood to look about them. After a minute one of them spoke, and Emma, supposing it to be the equivalent of ‘Well, well, what’s all this?’ said apologetically, ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t understand…!’ and then turned to the stranger. ‘Do you speak the language at all?’ she wanted to know. ‘Perhaps you could make them understand.’

      He looked at her without expression. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he told her shortly, and then turned to the two policemen and broke into crisp speech, not a word of which did Emma understand. The policemen could though, they listened thoughtfully, inspected his papers and smiled at him as though he were an old friend. They smiled at Emma too and the stranger said, ‘They wish to see your licence.’

      She produced it and then, upon request, her passport, and stood patiently while they studied it, but her patience wore a little thin when the man received the passport from the police and instead of handing it back to her, had a good look at it himself, thereby culling the information that she was Emma Hastings, single, Theatre Sister by profession, hazel-eyed and brown-haired, and that she had been born at Mutchley Magna in the County of Dorset on the first of May, 1945. She longed to tell him how grossly impertinent he was, but since he had apparently smoothed things over with the police, she didn’t dare.

      He handed it back to her without a word and turned to the police once more, who wrote in their notebooks for a while and then laughing with him in what she considered to be a quite offensive manner, went to ease the Rolls away from her car while the stranger, without so much as a glance in her direction, got into the Ford and reversed it until there was a space between the cars’ bonnets once more. This done, the police saluted her politely, made some cheerful remark to her companion and shot away in their little car. As they disappeared round the bend of the road Emma said accusingly, ‘You’re not English—you’re Dutch! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?’

      The green eyes twinkled even though he said gravely enough:

      ‘I imagine that I wasn’t feeling lighthearted enough. I trust you will forgive me?’

      He was laughing at her behind the blandness. She went a fiery red and said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry I was rude. Thank you for—for…’

      ‘Getting round the law? Think nothing of it, young lady, although I feel sure that you would have managed very well for yourself—our policemen, while by no means lighthearted, are kind.’ His voice was mocking; Emma shot him a look of annoyance which he ignored as he walked over to the Ford and leaned through its open window to speak to her mother. She stood uncertainly watching him and listening to her mother’s pleasant, still youthful voice mingling with his deep one. Presently her mother laughed and called from the car, ‘Emma dear, do come here a minute.’

      Emma went, reluctant yet dying of curiosity to know what they were talking about.

      ‘Just fancy,’ said her mother, ‘this gentleman knows Oudewater very well. I was just telling him that we intend to be weighed on the Witch’s Scales there and perhaps spend the night, and he tells me that there is a very comfortable little hotel there. We might do better than one night and stay a day or two—we could reach Gouda and Schoonhoven very easily from there.’ She glanced at the stranger for collaboration and he smiled with a charm which Emma found strangely disquieting even though the smile was directed at her mother.

      ‘You like castles?’ he asked. ‘You have of course heard of the performances of Son et Lumière at the castle of Wijk bij Duurstede?’ He spoke to Mrs Hastings and didn’t look at Emma. ‘It is only a few miles along the river from Schoonhoven—you could perhaps visit it; there is a pleasant hotel there too—old-fashioned but comfortable, and the service is most friendly.’

      ‘It sounds just the sort of thing we’re looking for,’ exclaimed Mrs Hastings, and Emma sighed quietly; there really was no need for her mother to take this man into her confidence as she was obviously going to do. A man who drove a Rolls worth several thousand pounds and wore silk shirts and hand-tailored suits wasn’t likely to be interested in the smaller hotels in out-of-the-way villages; probably he was just being polite. She caught her mother’s eye and frowned slightly, and that lady gave her the innocent round-eyed look she adopted when she didn’t intend to take any notice of her daughter. ‘We’ve three days left,’ explained Mrs Hastings, ‘and not much money.’

      ‘Mother!’ said Emma in a repressive voice, and avoided the man’s amused eyes.

      Her mother looked unworried. ‘Well, dear,’ she said reasonably, ‘anyone looking at our car can see that for themselves, can’t they? Besides, we aren’t likely to meet you again, are we?’ She smiled at the man, who smiled back so nicely that Emma instantly forgave him for looking amused. She loved her mother very much, but now that her father was dead her mother needed someone to protect her from making friends with everyone she met. She went a little nearer the car and said quietly, her voice a little stiff: ‘If you will let me have your name and address—so that I can pay you for the repairs…’

      She looked sideways at the Rolls as she spoke and couldn’t see anything wrong with it at all, but that didn’t mean to say that there wasn’t something vital and frightfully expensive that needed doing under its elegant bonnet.

      He, it seemed, wasn’t going to give her either his name or his address. He said mildly, ‘I’ll contact you through the AA when the repairs, if they’re needed, are ready—the police have all the particulars.’ And when he saw her worried look, ‘No, they’ll do nothing more. I explained. And now allow me to make sure there is no damage to your car before you resume your journey.’

      Emma went with him, to peer at the engine and watch while he pulled at a few wires, which, she had to admit to herself, she hadn’t realized were of any importance at all, and turned a few screws with large hands—well-kept hands, she noticed, with square-tipped fingers. She took a good look at his face too and silently agreed with her mother that he was indeed good-looking in a rugged way. He looked up suddenly, gave her another cool stare and said unsmilingly, ‘Try the lights, will you? and then switch on the engine.’

      She did as she was bid and after a minute or so he observed, ‘Everything seems all right—you’ve got a worn plug, though.’

      He took out a pocket book as he spoke and scribbled a note and tore out the page and handed it to her. ‘There’s a garage in Oudewater, on the СКАЧАТЬ