At Odds With Love. Betty Neels
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She heard Dr Willoughby’s rather elderly Ford coming along the drive to the house as she was putting the finishing touches to Mrs Wesley’s hair; ill she might be, but the old lady still had her small vanities.
They came up the old uncarpeted staircase unhurriedly with Bessy ahead of them to open the door and usher them in, and Jane looked up expectantly. She hadn’t been sure what to expect but her expectations had been coloured by the various consultants at the hospital where she had been a ward sister: older men, dignified and a little remote, made so by the knowledge that they had crammed into their heads over the years. This man, towering beside Dr Willoughby, didn’t tally with her guess; he was still young, not yet forty, she judged, a giant of a man and heavily built. He was good-looking, too, with a high arched nose and a thin mouth above a determined chin, and when he was introduced as Professor van der Vollenhove he offered a large cool hand, and looked at her briefly from eyes the colour of a winter sea, pale and cold, and indifferent to her.
With her grandmother, however, it was an entirely different matter. He sat down beside her bed and talked to her in a slow, slightly accented voice and presently he set about examining her. Dr Willoughby had gone to stand by the window, and Jane, by the bed, ready to do whatever was asked of her, had ample opportunity to study the professor at close quarters.
His suit was superbly tailored, she noticed, his linen pristine, the gold cufflinks plain. She was pleased that there was no sign of baldness in his thick grizzled hair; it must have been very pale brown when he was younger. It pleased her when he said something to make her grandmother chuckle weakly and he laughed himself. He was probably quite nice when one got to know him.
She eased Mrs Wesley into a more comfortable position and stepped back from the bed. The professor was talking in a quiet voice and she couldn’t hear all that he was saying, but he sounded reassuring without being hearty and her grandmother looked cheerful.
They shook hands presently, his large one engulfing her small bony one very gently, and then he got up. ‘You are in very capable hands,’ he observed. ‘Dr Willoughby and I will have a talk and probably try out some further treatment. I will come and see you again if I may?’
Jane saw the hope in her grandmother’s pale little face. ‘Please do. Jane will get you coffee downstairs.’ She turned to look at her. ‘Run along, dear, and look after the gentlemen. I should like to rest for a little while.’
Jane led the way downstairs, ushered the two men into the drawing-room where Bessy had lighted a fire and went along to the kitchen. In answer to the housekeeper’s look she said, ‘They haven’t told me anything yet, Bessy. I’ll tell you when they do. I’ll take the tray in—you pop up and make sure Granny’s all right, will you?’
She poured the coffee from the silver coffee-pot into the delicate china cups and handed the shortbread she had made the previous evening. It was only when she had seated herself without fuss that anyone spoke.
The professor put down his cup. ‘As Dr Willoughby rightly suspected, Mrs Wesley has a small pulmonary embolism. In a young person I would advise operation, a serious matter as you no doubt know, but your grandmother is an old lady and very weak and I cannot advise that. I am sorry to tell you that there is nothing much to be done other than to see that she is free from pain. She is likely to die suddenly and soon.’ He added gravely, ‘I am so sorry to have to tell you this.’
Jane’s cup rattled in its saucer but her voice was steady. ‘Thank you for being frank, Professor van der Vollenhove. I’m sure if there was a chance you would take it.’ She looked at them both. ‘You will make sure that Granny is as comfortable as possible?’ She stopped to swallow the lump in her throat. ‘She is a very brave person.’
‘Rest assured of that.’ The professor sounded kind and she had no doubt that he was to be trusted. She wondered fleetingly what he was like—the man behind the perfection of his professional manner. She remembered the coldness of his eyes when they had met, not so much dislike as indifference. Not that it mattered; held firmly at the back of her mind was the knowledge that her grandmother was going to die, to be held at bay until she would be free to give way to her grief. Meanwhile, life would go on as usual and she would do everything she could to keep the old lady happy.
She listened carefully to the two men debating what was best to be done and presently the professor wrote out a prescription. ‘This won’t make your grandmother drowsy or prevent her from enjoying her daily routine, but it will keep her calm and unworried. Discontinue everything else.’
‘Will you come again?’
‘I am at your disposal should I be needed.’ She got up and he shook her hand. Looking up into his face, she saw that his eyes were a clear light blue and his glance serious. She thanked him gravely and saw them both to the door.
‘I’ll be round this evening,’ Dr Willoughby promised. ‘You know you can phone me at any time.’
She watched the car go down the drive and turn into the lane beyond and then she went in search of Bessy.
The housekeeper was washing up the coffee-cups. ‘Bad news, Miss Jane?’
Jane told her. Bessy had been with her grandmother for a very long time; Jane remembered her from when she had been sent as a child to stay with her grandmother while her parents were abroad, and she was as much a family friend as a housekeeper. ‘And I must phone Basil …’
Basil was Jane’s only other relation, a cousin, an orphan like herself, but that was all they had in common. They had never liked each other as children and now they were adults they saw very little of each other. He was older than she was by a year or two and would eventually inherit his grandmother’s house and possessions. He was making his career in banking and hadn’t been to see Mrs Wesley for a long time. When she rang him presently it was apparent that he had no intention of doing so now.
‘Let me know how the old lady is,’ he told her. ‘I can’t possibly get away, and I doubt if she knows who I am anyway.’ He rang off before she could say anything else.
It was three days later, as Jane was reading the last few pages of Phineas Finn, that her grandmother said softly, ‘Basil will look after you, my dear,’ and died as gently and quietly as she had lived.
There was a great deal to do; Jane got on with it, holding her grief in check, time enough for that when everything which had to be done was done. Basil, when told, said that he would come for the funeral and made no offer of help, not that she had expected him to. Dr Willoughby was a tower of strength and Bessy, tight-lipped and red-eyed, saw to it that some sort of a normal routine was maintained.
Mrs Wesley had had many friends—the village church was full and after the service those who knew her well went back to the house. Jane, circulating with plates of sandwiches and offers of coffee or tea, saw that Basil had already assumed the air of master of the house. Presently, when everyone had gone and Mr Chepstow, their solicitor, had taken a seat in the sitting-room, he followed her into the kitchen where she had gone with a tray of plates. ‘You’d better come, I suppose,’ he told her. ‘Old Chepstow seems to think you should be there.’ He turned to Bessy. ‘And you—whatever your name is—you are to come too.’
‘This is Bessy, grandmother’s housekeeper,’ said Jane coldly. ‘She has looked after her for years.’
He shrugged and turned away and they followed him back to the sitting-room where Mr Chepstow was toasting himself before the small bright fire.
‘Well, shall we get started? I must get back to town this evening—I’ve an important meeting …’
Mr Chepstow wasn’t to be hurried. He read the will slowly and Jane was pleased to hear that Bessy was to have a small pension for the rest of her life; she herself was to receive five hundred pounds with the wish that her cousin Basil would take upon himself the duty of giving her a home for as long as she wanted it, and making such financial provision for her as he deemed fitting. The estate was left entirely to him.
Mr Chepstow folded the will carefully and stood up.