A LITTLE MOONLIGHT
by
BETTY NEELS


CHAPTER ONE

it was mid-September and the day had been grey so that dusk had come
early.  Almost every window in the Royal Hospital was lighted, making a
cheerful splash of colour amid the dingy streets of small houses and
corner shops over which it towered.  Only on the top floor of the
hospital, where the windows were much smaller, were they in
darkness--all save one, a corner room, furnished in a businesslike way
with filing cabinets, shelves of reference books, a large desk on which
was an electric typewriter, a computer and a word-processor, a small
hard chair against one wall and another more comfortable one behind the
desk.

There was a girl sitting in it, a smallish person with a tidy head of
mousy hair pinned severely into a bun, and an ordinary face whose small
beaky nose and wide mouth were enlivened by large hazel eyes, fringed
with a long set of curling lashes.  She was typing with the ease of
long practice, frowning over the sheet of handwriting beside her, but
presently she stopped.  The writing was by no means easy to read and
she was used to that, but she had come to a halt.  After a minute's
frustrated study she spoke her mind to the empty room.

"Well, now what?  Is it endometrioma or endometriosis?  Why must he use
such long words, and why wasn't he taught to write properly?"  She
sounded vexed, and for a good reason;

it was long after five o'clock, the top floor, used by typists and
clerks and administration staff, had become empty and quiet and she was
lonely, hungry and getting rapidly more annoyed.

"It's all very well for him," she went on, talking out loud to keep her
spirits up, 'he'll be home, with his feet up, while his wife gets his
supper.  "

"Actually," said a deep slow voice from behind her, 'he's here,
although the picture you paint of domestic bliss is tempting.  "

The girl shot round in her chair, but before she could speak the man
standing in the doorway went on, "I feel that I should apologise for my
writing it is, I'm afraid, too late to do much about that, and as for
the long words, they are inevitable in our profession."  He advanced
into the room and stood looking down at her.

"Why have I not seen you before now, and where is Miss Payne?"

She looked up at him with a touch of impatience, untroubled by the awe
he engendered in the regular hospital staff.

"Miss Payne is off sick influenza."  She cast an eye over the small
pile of work still to be done.

"And probably overwork, from the look of these."

"Your name?"  he asked with cold courtesy.

"Serena Proudfoot."  Her arched silky eyebrows asked the question she
didn't utter.

"Dr.  ter Feulen."

"Oh, I've heard about you, you're a Dutch baron as well..."

She smiled at him with the air of one ready to forgive him for that.

He was a handsome man, with grizzled hair and pale blue eyes as cold as
a winter sea; moreover, he was a splendid height and broad-shouldered.
Serena had only half believed the other girls who worked in
administration and dealt with the medical correspondence when they had
enthused about Dr.  ter Feulen, but she could see that they had been
right.  All the same, he appeared to be both arrogant and sarcastic. 
He ignored the remark and she stopped smiling.

"You are from an agency?"  he queried.

"Yes, just as a temporary until Miss Payne is well again.

And now, if you don't mind, I'll get on.  "

He didn't move.

"Why are you working late?"

A silly question, but she answered it patiently.

"Be cause there was a backlog of your letters to be done and I was
warned that you would expect them ready for your signature before you
left the hospital."

"And are they ready?"

"No, but if I can be left in peace to type them you can have them in
half an hour."

He laughed suddenly.

"Have you been working long as a typist?"

"Several years."

"But never in a hospital, that is obvious."  He strolled back to the
door.

"Be good enough to bring them to the consultants' room when you are
ready, please.  Perhaps no one told you that we don't watch the clock
in hospital.  It is to be hoped that Miss Payne is soon back at her
desk."

He had gone before Serena could utter her heartfelt agreement.

She put a fresh sheet of paper into her machine.

"And why did he have to come here in the first place?"  she demanded of
the empty room.

"Why, to see what had happened to my letters," observed Dr.  ter
Feulen. He had returned and was standing in the doorway again.

"I have come back to warn you that I have an outpatients' clinic in the
morning and you will have a good deal of work to do in consequence.  So
let us have no more grumbling about late hours; Miss Payne never
uttered a word."

"More fool her," said Serena with spirit.  She answered his goodnight
with cold asperity.

It was almost an hour later when she covered her machine and turned out
the lights.  The consultants' room was on the ground floor.  She tapped
on the door and, since no one answered, opened it and went in.  There
was only one small table light on and the large, gloomy room was dim.
She laid the papers she had been typing on the ponderous centre table
and turned to go again.  A faint sound stopped her; Dr.  ter Feulen,
his vast person stretched at ease in a leather armchair, his large
feet, shod in the finest shoe leather, resting on a nearby
coffee-table, was asleep and, without any loss of dignity, snoring
gently.  She stood and looked at him.  He really was extremely
good-looking, although now that she was able to study his face at her
leisure, she could see that he was very tired.

She was tired too.  She made her way from the room and out of the
hospital and joined the queue at the nearest bus-stop.

She got off the bus at East Sheen and walked down a side street leading
to a road lined with a terrace of red brick Edwardian villas, all very
well kept.  Halfway down she took out a key and let herself into the
house through its pristine black-painted door, hung her coat in the
narrow hall and went into the sitting- room.  Her mother was there,
sitting before a gas fire reading.  She looked up as Serena went in.

"You're late."  She glanced reproachfully at the clock on the
mantelpiece.

"I just didn't feel like getting the supper."

She smiled charmingly at her daughter.

"Aren't I a lazy old mother?  It's cottage pie and you make such a good
one, and if the oven's on I thought you might make one of your fruit
tarts."

Serena crossed the rather shabby room and kissed her mother.

"I'll go and start the pie," was all she said.

"I'm sorry if you've had a bad day."

"My nerves," said Mrs.  Proudfoot, 'and all the worry of managing on
the pension.  If only your father had known.  "

"We manage quite well," replied Serena matter-of- factly.

"The pension isn't so bad.  Mother, and there's my money."

"Oh, I do know, darling, but you have no idea how unhappy I am when I
think of all the things you're missing... dances and theatres and trips
abroad.  You might have been married by now you're twenty- five..."

Mrs.  Proudfoot eyed her daughter with a look of resignation;

how she had come to have this serious, rather plain girl who made no
push to get herself a husband was something she couldn't understand.
She had been considered quite pretty as a girl, and even now in her
fifties she was still that, or so she told herself.  That a good deal
of the pension went on cosmetics and hairdressers and pretty clothes
was something she never dwelt on.  Serena had an allowance from her
salary not a big one, it was true, but then at her age she didn't need
expensive creams and lotions, and since she worked in some dreary
office for five days out of the seven, she didn't need many clothes.
Mrs.  Proudfoot, a good-natured woman as long as she had her own way,
said kindly, "I saw such a pretty blouse today, just right for you,
darling, it would cheer up your skirts."  She picked up her book.

"I

won't keep you gossiping, or we'll never get sup per.  "

Serena went into the kitchen, peeled potatoes for the cottage pie,
minced yesterday's joint and, while the potatoes cooked, made pastry
for the tart She was tired, too tired to summon the energy to point out
to her mother that she had had a long and exhausting day and a slow bus
ride home, standing all the way.  Besides, she loved her mother and
quite understood that after years of being spoilt by her husband, she
was quite unable to alter her way of life.

She made her pastry and thought about Dr.  ter Feulen.  A very
ill-tempered man, she reflected, possibly overworked, but there had
been no need for him to have been quite so rude.

He had looked very tired, sleeping in his chair.  She wondered what his
home life was like.  With no wife he probably lived in a service flat
and cooked lonely meals for himself, and that was why he had been so
terse.  She put the tart in the oven with the pie and went across the
hall to set the table for their supper.  It made a lot of extra work,
fetching the cloth and napkins and cutlery and the crystal glasses her
mother insisted on using, but as she had pointed out many times,
standards had to be kept up at all costs.

Serena, who ate a hasty break fast in the small kitchen before she left
for work, would have been quite happy to have eaten her supper there
too.

They ate their supper presently while Mrs.  Proudfoot reminisced gently
about earlier days.

"We had old Sadie then," she reminded Serena.

"Such a pity she decided to retire, she kept the house so well if only
my health were better!"  She sighed, and Serena asked sympathetically,
"Have you had a bad day.  Mother?"

"My dear child, I seldom have a good one.  Just the effort to go
shopping and get myself a morsel to eat during the day exhausts me."
Mrs.  Proudfoot contrived to look as though she were bravely combating
ill health without complaint.

"I'll have a morsel more of that pie, darling, I've eaten almost
nothing all day."

It was hard to believe.  She was plump and still pretty in her fifties,
dressed with taste and at some expense and not lacking the attention of
the hair dresser and the beauty salon, both of which took up a good
deal of her empty days.

While her husband had been alive there had been a nanny for Serena and
someone to run the house, and as she was goodnaturedly indolent by
nature, it had never entered her head to alter her way of living.  From
time to time she deplored the fact that Serena had inherited none of
her good looks, but it hadn't entered her head to do anything about
it.

Serena had uncomplainingly taken a course of shorthand and typing and
found herself a job so that there was enough money for her mother to
continue to live more or less as she had always done.  If, now and
again, she wished for something more from life than she was getting,
she stifled the thought.

"I shall be late home tomorrow too," she told her mother.

"This doctor whose work I'm doing warned me this evening."

Mrs.  Proudfoot dismissed him with a wave of the hand.

"How perfectly horrid of him!  You should have told him that you're
needed at home in the evenings that you have a mother in poor
health."

"Yes well, if I did.  Mother, he would probably tell someone to get
another typist until his usual one gets back from sick leave.  The next
job might be even more awkward..."

Mrs.  Proudfoot sighed.

"Ah, well, I suppose I must manage.

Perhaps I'll go to that little restaurant in Albert Street and have a
light meal.  " She added hastily, " You could make yourself an omelette
when you get in?  "

Serena said, without rancour, "Yes, Mother," and went to fetch the
coffee.

The following morning passed very much as usual letters and reports and
accounts.  Judging by the number of the latter, Serena guessed that Dr.
ter Feulen had a large practice.

While she typed she mused; a doctor's life would never be dull;
anti-social hours, short nights perhaps, interrupted meals and tiresome
patients.  Very hard on their wives.  She paused to think about that,
but they wouldn't be dull either, because no two days would be the
same, unlike her own days which were, to say the least, monotonous.

She went to the canteen for her coffee with two of the other medical
typists and then, mindful of Dr.  ter Feulen's warning, went back to
her desk.  There were still a few odds and ends to clear up and she
wanted to be ready for the mass of work he had predicted.

She had been sitting for perhaps five minutes, her desk tidied, her
hands poised over the first short're port, when the phone at the other
end of the room rang.

Mrs.  Dunn, the senior and the least hard-working of the typists,
picked it up, listened and put it down again.

"Miss Proudfoot, you're to go to OPD, and take your notebook with you.
And look sharp, Dr.  ter Feulen doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Serena finished the report, laid it neatly on her desk, took her time
getting notebook and pencil and got up without haste.

"Do hurry, Miss Proudfoot!"  hissed Mrs.  Dunn.

"Dr.  ter Feulen mustn't be kept waiting; I've told you that
already."

"Yes, Mrs.  Dunn."  Serena, still without haste, began the tortuous
journey through the hospital to the Out patient Department.  Dr.  ter
Feulen had had ample time to warn her that she would be wanted in OPD,
and if he thought she would come running the moment he wanted her, he
must think again!

He was in his consulting-room, looking at X-rays with his registrar,
and Serena paused inside the door to ask, "You sent for me, sir?"

He looked over his shoulder.

"Ah, Miss Proudfoot, you will be good enough to take notes of the
patients, together with their names and case sheet numbers, get them
typed out and let me have them this evening."

"If I can get them finished by then," observed Serena
matter-of-factly.

"It depends on how many patients there are, doesn't it?"

"In that case it will be necessary for you to remain until you have
finished, will it not?"  He raised thick eyebrows.

"I believe I warned you that you might have to work late today."

"So you did," said Serena cheerfully.

"Is this where I'm to work?"

The eyebrows stayed up, and judging by the look on the registrar's face
she wasn't behaving as Miss Payne would have done.

"Yes, this is the place.  Be good enough to sit on that chair over
there.  If you are uncertain about anything you are to say so at once.
I doubt if you have the same high standards of medical knowledge as
Miss Payne has."

"Well, no, I don't suppose I have, but then she's been at it for twenty
years, hasn't she?"  She gave him a friendly smile.

"I dare say I'll be as good in twenty years' time."

Outpatients Sister came in then and Serena settled on to her hard
chair, pencil poised, looking efficient, while her thoughts wandered.
It seemed to her that Dr.  ter Feulen was a crusty bachelor, much in
need of a wife and children to bring out the softer side of his nature;
he must have one buried away somewhere under that bitingly cold
manner.

Surprisingly it came to light during the morning's session.

It was a different man sitting at the desk now, listening patiently to
his patients, women of all ages, reassuring them that they hadn't got
cancer, examining them at length and laying before them the treatments
they needed.

Serena's pencil flew over the pages, occasionally faltering at some
long-winded word which escaped her knowledge.  All the same, when Dr.
ter Feulen asked her between patients, "You are getting all this down.
Miss Proudfoot?"  she said composedly, "Yes, thank you, sir."

When the clinic was over she would ask the registrar about the words
she hadn't managed to get down.

It was almost two o'clock when the last patient went away and Sister
and one of the nurses started clearing up.  Dr.  ter Feulen and his
registrar got to their feet and started for the door.  Serena stayed
where she was, praying silently that they would part company, so that
she could get the registrar on his own, but instead of that Dr.  ter
Feulen paused in the doorway, then walked back to her.

"Well, what didn't you get down?"

It annoyed her that he took it for granted that she hadn't been able to
cope.  She reeled off several words she had been unable to spell and
added with some spirit, "I've done my best, sir, but please remember
that I'm not Miss Payne."

She saw the registrar's face out of the corner of her eye.

Shocked horror were the only words to describe it, and then she heard
Sister's hissed breath.  It struck her that she wasn't at all suitable
to work for a leading consultant in a famous teaching hospital.  She
didn't stand in suitable awe of him, so it was perhaps a good thing
that Miss Payne would be back shortly and she could return to her
typing agency and be given a job in a warehouse or a factory, typing
invoices against a background of uninhibited voices.

"The words?"  asked Dr.  ter Feulen.

"Kindly repeat them."

She did, and with a brief nod he went away, leaving her to gather up
her notebook and pencil and go to the canteen.

Midday dinner was long over.  She had some soup and a roll and a pot of
tea, and then hurried back to her desk.  She had enough work to keep
her busy until the evening.

She hadn't finished when the other typists went home at half-past five.
A nearby church clock had struck six when the phone rang.

"Bring your work down to the consultants' room when it is finished,
Miss Proudfoot."

He hung up before she could so much as breathe a 'yes, sir'.

Half an hour later, dressed in her outdoor things, she knocked on the
door and was bidden to enter.  He was sitting at the table writing, but
rather to her surprise he got up as she went in.

"Ah, thank you.  Miss Proudfoot."  He glanced at his watch.

"I

trust your evening has not been spoiled.  "

Serena assured him that it hadn't.

"I hardly ever go out in the evening," she told him chattily, disposed
to be friendly since he was still working himself.  Speaking her
thought out loud, she added, "Well, you're not as tired as you were
last night you were asleep, you know, and snoring just a little.  Had
you had a busy day?"

He regarded her with some surprise.

"Yes, I had.  Tell me.

Miss Proudfoot, do you take an interest in everyone you meet?  "

"Well, yes, most people."  She saw him frown.

"You think I'm being nosy and I suppose I ought to treat you with
respect you are a senior consultant.  I must try and remember that
while I'm here."

"It might be as well!  Goodnight, Miss Proudfoot, and thank you."

"Goodnight, sir.  I should go home and have an early night if you can
you look tired, almost as tired as you did yesterday."

She closed the door quietly as she went out and forgot him while she
racked her brains for a suitable meal to cook when she got home;
something quick, but it would have to be tempting because of her
mother's poor appetite.  Dr.  ter Feulen resumed his seat but made no
attempt to continue his writing.  He sat looking at nothing in
particular, and presently he smiled.

Mrs.  Proudfoot was out of sorts when Serena got home.

"Really, darling," she began as soon as Serena put her head round the
sitting-room door, 'this is too bad; I've been alone all day!  "

Serena kissed her mother's cheek.

"You went out for a meal?"

"Well, yes, but that's not the point.  I'm really not well enough to be
left alone for hours on end."  Her mother's pretty face puckered like a
child's and Serena made haste to say, "Well, as far as I know, I'll be
home on time tomorrow, and the day after is Saturday."

Her mother brightened.

"Ah, yes, I've asked one or two people in for the evening, so we might
have a rubber or two of bridge.  If you'd make some of those dear
little savoury biscuits we could have coffee..."

"Yes, of course, and now how about an omelette?  And could we eat it in
the kitchen?  It's a bit late and I've had quite a busy day."

Mrs.  Proudfoot sighed.

"Well, just this once, although I do deplore this slovenly way of
eating in the kitchen."

Saturday morning was always set aside for shopping.  Mrs.  Proudfoot
liked to go into Richmond and have coffee at one or other of the smart
cafes, and then after a leisurely stroll around the boutiques and dress
shops she would visit an art gallery or have more coffee with
acquaintances while Serena did the house hold shopping.

Serena, a laden basket on one arm, examining cauliflowers at the
greengrocer's, failed to see Dr.  ter Feulen, driving his Bentley Turbo
RLWB down the busy street.  But he saw her, and although he didn't
slacken speed he had ample time to note the shopping basket.

Three people came in that evening to play bridge, Mrs.  Pratt from the
residential hotel near the river, Mr.  Twill who owned an antique shop
in Richmond and Mr.  King, a retired civil servant who had spent a good
deal of his life in foreign parts and never tired of talking of them.
The four of them settled down to play, and Serena busied herself with
drinks and presently went away to make coffee and arrange the savoury
biscuits and some sandwiches on plates.  It had never been suggested
that she should play, and, since she was hopeless at the game, she
accepted this as reasonable, and if sometimes she wished that her
Saturday evenings were a little more entertaining she never voiced the
thought.

Presently she settled down in a chair by the window, ready with a
polite reply if any of the players spoke to her while she knitted a
mohair cardigan for her mother; the fine wool made her sneeze and
covered everything in fairy like threads.  While she knitted she
allowed her thoughts to stray.  Since her teens she had known that she
had no looks to speak of, and that had made her shy with people of her
own age.  More over, she had never mastered the airy, amusing chatter
which her friends seemed to have acquired without any effort.  She had
friends, but somehow the pleasant social life they enjoyed had passed
her by, largely because her mother had so often hindered her from
taking part in it never with obvious intention, but the sight of her
mother with a woebegone face, pleading with her not to take any notice
of the migraine which she was suffering, but to go out and enjoy her
self; or a sad face bravely smiling at the prospect of a lonely
evening, had had their effect over the years.  Serena stayed at home
or, if her mother went to a cinema or theatre, went with her.  That
couldn't stop her dreaming impossible dreams, she was the first to
admit, in which some handsome man would meet her and fall instantly in
love and marry her.  He would have a charming home and money enough so
that if she wanted new clothes fashionable ones, not the sober,
hard-wearing ones she bought now she could walk into a boutique and
indulge her choice, and there would be children, nice cuddly babies,
and someone to help in the house.

She was aroused from these pleasant thoughts by her mother's voice.

"Darling, we would all love some more coffee and some more of those
dear little sandwiches you make so nicely."

The evening ended, Serena tidied up, saw her mother to bed and went to
her own room.  It was a lovely night.  Ready for bed, swathed in her
dressing- gown, she opened her window wide and looked up at the sky. 
It was bright with stars and the light of the enormous moon creeping
slowly above the housetops.

She addressed the moon softly.

"It's funny to think that you're shining down on all kinds of people.
It would be nice to know who else is looking at you this very
minute."

Dr.  ter Feulen was one of them, pausing to look up as he strode across
the hospital courtyard to his car after the emergency operation he had
just performed and which had made havoc of his evening.  He was tired,
and for no reason at all he remembered the neat, plain girl with the
lovely eyes who had bidden him have an early night.  She would be in
bed long ago, he reflected; it was easy to imagine the staid well
ordered life she led.  A little moonlight might do her a great deal of
good.  He laughed at the thought, got into me car and drove himself
home.

It was towards the end of the following week that Serena, once more
working late, had another visit from Dr.  ter Feulen.  He came without
warning, and she stopped typing and sat, her hands in her lap, waiting
for what she felt sure was coming.  The excellent Miss Payne would be
returning and she would no longer be needed.  She was surprised how the
thought depressed her, for she hadn't found the work easy at the
hospital.  Dr.  ter Feulen was hardly the easiest of taskmasters; in
fact he was impatient, frequently ill tempered and a perfectionist who
expected everyone else to be perfect.  She watched him cross the room
towards her and wondered why he should be the one to tell her and not
Mrs.  Dunn.  After all, he had nothing to do with engaging the
administrative staff, permanent or otherwise.

Dr.  ter Feulen drew up a chair and sat down opposite to her, wishing
her an austere good evening as he did so.

"Good evening, sir," said Serena, and added in a businesslike voice, "I
haven't finished your letters.  Do you want me to take them anywhere
for you to sign?"  She glanced at the clock and added tartly, "I'll be
another fifteen minutes, provided I'm not interrupted."

"I am interrupting you, but for a good reason.  Miss Proudfoot.  I have
been to see Miss Payne.  She has decided to retire and I have come to
offer you her job."

Serena stared at him, her eyes round with amazement.  The ?

Do Miss Payne's work?  I couldn't possibly!  She never uttered a word,
you said, and I grumble--besides, you don't.  " She paused and went a
rather pretty pink.

"Like you?"  He studied her face, alight with surprise and near-panic,
and reflected that a few similar shocks would do much to improve her
looks.

"Liking has very little to do with it.  Let me tell you something. Miss
Proudfoot.  Miss Payne, as you so succinctly put it, never uttered a
word at her awkward hours, but she wasn't afraid of me.  You aren't
afraid of me either, are you?"

She thought about it.

"No, I don't think I am."

"Good.  Then that's settled.  You don't need to see anyone about it,
I'll attend to the details.  You will be better paid, of course."  He
got up from his chair.

"Oh, and I shall be returning to Holland in two weeks' time.  I have a
series of lectures to give and as I'm a consultant at several hospitals
there I shall be operating for several weeks.  I am also writing a
book.  I shall want you with me, of course."

Serena was speechless, while a variety of feelings engulfed her.  To
travel; see a little of the world, even if it was only a few hundred
miles across the North Sea, meet people she would need new clothes. 
She said in a bemused voice, "Aren't you coming back here?"

"Of course.  Most of my work is here."

"Surely you can't write a book and operate and lecture, not all at
once?"

"Yes, I can, and I shall expect you to type notes, letters and
whatever, answer the phone, check my appointments and type my book.
Miss Payne could and did; I see no reason why you shouldn't do it too
you're a good deal younger, for a start."

Serena frowned.  Miss Payne was obviously nearing retirement age, so to
be told that she was a good deal younger wasn't much of a compliment.
Dr.  ter Faulen read the frown unerringly.

"You are twenty-five, half a lifetime younger than Muriel..."

"Muriel?  Oh, Miss Payne.  Well, may I think about it?  I mean, I'd
have to..."  She stopped suddenly and a look of dismay on her face
caused him to go back to his chair and sit down again.  His "Well?" 
was uttered with just the right amount of interest and sympathy.

"I can't.  Truly, I can't.  You see, there's Mother..."

"Widowed?"  and when she nodded, "She is ill?"

"No, just well, just delicate."

"Why is that?  She has a heart condition?  A chest condition?

Diabetes?  Arthritis?  " He fired the words at her and she blinked.

"No, no, nothing like that.  She suffers from nerves, she finds it
difficult to do things..."

"Housework, shopping and so forth?"

"Yes."

He sighed gently.  Selfish widows with loving daughters were still only
too common, and this small, neat girl with the beautiful eyes deserved
something more in life.  He said slowly, "In that case we might kill
two birds with one stone.  Miss Payne, when she accompanied me, had
lodgings close to the hospital and came to work just as she did here.

There is no reason why your mother should not accompany you and stay at
these same lodgings.  I shall be in Amsterdam for most of the time, and
there is plenty to see and do there.  "

"She doesn't understand Dutch nor do I."

"My dear girl, almost everyone in Holland speaks English."

He watched excited hope chase away the dismay.

"Oh, do you really mean that?"

"I always say what I mean.  Go home and talk it over with your mother
and let me know tomorrow morning."

He got up for a second time and this time, with a nod and a casual
goodnight, went away.

She finished her work, tidied her desk and wondered what she should do
with the sheaf of letters waiting to be signed.  She was hesitating
whether to phone the consultants' room when the head porter rang up.
She was to leave everything with him and Dr.  ter Feulen would collect
his letters later.

She handed in her work and hurried to catch her bus, rehearsing what
she would say to her mother.  Her spirits sank as she neared home her
mother would never consent to the upheaval in her well- ordered life.
She let herself into her home, resigned to disappointment but all the
same determined to do her best to persuade her parent that a change of
scene would do her a great deal of good.

She cast off her outdoor things in the hall and went into the
sitting-room.

Her mother was sitting at her writing desk, pen poised.

"There you are, darling.  What splendid news I've had such a long chat
on the telephone with Dr.  ter Feulen.  He sounds a delightful man
apologised for keeping you so late and told me how much he depends upon
your assistance.  And this mar venous job you're to take over, and
going to Holland too!  I can hardly wait.  He is of the opinion that a
change of scene is just what is needed for someone as delicate as I
am."

Her mother paused for breath and Serena said in a voice she strove to
keep calm, "He rang up?  So you know all about it?

And you'd like to go?  It won't be too much for you.  Mother?  "

"Certainly not!  It will probably take a few days for me to get over
the journey, but I will willingly tire myself out for you, darling. I'm
making a list of the clothes I shall need... Have you had supper? I've
been so busy... Could you get us something now?  I must keep up what
strength I have."

She looked at Serena.

"You look a bit white, dear.  You need a meal too, I dare say."

"Mother, I haven't said I'd take the job yet."  Her mother gave her an
outraged look.

"Darling, why ever not?  What a funny little thing you are!  Why ever
not?"

"I wasn't sure if you would like the idea."  Her mother laughed.

"Darling, I love the idea!  Tell me, how old is this Dr.  ter
Feulen?"

"I don't know about thirty-five or -six, I should think."

"Married?"

"I've no idea."  A fib, and she wasn't sure why she had said it.

"Well, we're bound to get to know a lot of people in Amsterdam.  Pour
me a glass of sherry, will you, Serena?  I need the stimulant."

There was little opportunity to think her own thoughts that evening.
Mrs.  Proudfoot made plans, discussed clothes and speculated as to the
pleasures in store.

"Mother, it won't be quite like a holiday," Serena warned carefully.

"I shall be working very hard every day, so you'll be on your own for a
great deal of the time."

"I'm on my own every day now, darling, and deadly boring it is too.  If
only I had your health and strength."

They got to bed at last, and Serena lay awake for a long time wondering
if she had done the right thing, or rather if the right thing had been
done for her, for she had had little say in the matter.

She wasn't sure if she was pleased at the doctor's intervention either.
He had forced her hand and there was no going back now, for her mother
was deter mined to go.  All the same, when she saw him in the morning
she would tell him that he had no right to interfere.  On this firm
resolution she at last slept.

CHAPTER TWO

serena was still firmly resolved to speak her mind to the doctor when
she went to work in the morning.  It was unfortunate that it wasn't
until the end of the day that she had the opportunity to do so.

She was on the way to the side entrance she normally used when she came
face to face with him.  She slid to a halt and said briskly, "Oh, good,
I wanted to see you, Dr.  ter Feulen."

He stood in front of her, blocking the way.

"Ah, Miss Proudfoot, should I be greatly nattered at your eagerness to
see me again?"  He paused and looked at her earnest, rather cross
face.

"No, that is too much to expect.  I have annoyed you?"

She suspected that he was laughing at her.

"I think it was most--most unfair of you to telephone my mother before
I'd had a chance to talk to her.  I haven't said I'll take the job,
have I?  So what right have you to--to--to...!"

"Interfere?"  he suggested helpfully.

"Meddle in your affairs?  No right at all.  My intentions were purely
selfish.

After some years of Muriel's calm acceptance of my ill humour,
impatience and bad handwriting, I have been terrified of engaging her
successor.  Who knows what foibles she might have?  A desire to finish
her work at the correct time, an inability to ignore my bad temper, a
desire to answer back pertly as well as a failure to spell correctly. 
" He smiled at her and she found herself smiling back.

"You are the nearest thing to Miss Payne that I have met."

A kind of compliment, Serena decided, and warmed just a little towards
him.  But only for a moment

"You are unobtrusive," he went on.

"There is nothing about you to distract my attention from my work "
Just like Miss Payne," said Serena through her teeth.

"Exactly so, and I must remind you that a change of scene may be a help
to your mother and aid her to overcome her ill health.  She seemed
delighted at the idea."

Serena, hanging on to politeness by the skin of her teeth, agreed that
that was so.

He smiled again, looking faintly smug, and she longed to refuse the job
out of hand, but the thought of her mother stopped her.  She said
reluctantly, "Very well, I'll work for you, Dr.  ter Feulen."

"Splendid."  He glanced at his watch.

"And since I have kept you talking I will drive you home and make the
acquaintance of your mother."

She opened her mouth to protest, and closed it again.

Getting the better of him was like getting the better of a feather
mattress with a solid core of steel.

Her annoyance was very slightly mitigated by the pleasure of riding in
a Bentley, but not sufficient for her to do more than answer his casual
talk with mono syllables.

She opened her front door and said with false politeness, "Do come in,
Dr.  ter Feulen," and flattened herself against the wall to allow his
consider able bulk to get past her.

Her mother's voice sounded thinly from the sitting- room.

"Serena?  You're late again, darling I hope you've thought of something
nice for my supper, I'm far too exhausted to do anything about it.
Perhaps a glass of sherry...?"

The doctor glanced at Serena's face, which was a little pale and weary
after a day's work.  He had been right in his surmise about her mother;
a selfish woman, not unkind but quite uncaring of anyone but herself.
He put a large hand on her shoulder and smiled a little, and she
stifled an urge to fling herself on to his big chest and have a good
cry.

"Come and meet Mother," she invited in a small controlled voice.

The doctor had charm.  He also had guile and the self-assurance to deal
with difficult situations without anyone else realising the fact.
Within half an hour, over a glass of sherry, he had arranged matters
exactly to his liking, with Mrs.  Proudfoot agreeing to every word, and
although he had included Serena in the conversation she was bound to
admit later that she had been given no opportunity to say anything
much.

The whole matter had been settled by the time he took his leave.

The moment he had gone Mrs.  Proudfoot went back to her desk.

"My dear," she exclaimed excitedly, 'this is all so thrilling and so
little time!  I shall need several more dresses.  Be a darling and
start the supper while I go over my list.  "

Over supper Mrs.  Proudfoot discussed the trip.  She had for the moment
overlooked the fact that it was to be no social round.  She was
envisaging days packed with outings, theatres and little dinners.  In
none of these plans did Serena figure.

"Mother," said Serena, matter-of-factly, "I don't suppose it will be
quite as exciting as you suppose.  We don't know a soul in Holland she
ignored her mother's quick " Dr.  ter Feulen," I shall be away all day,
and I imagine that the lodgings the doctor has in mind will be fairly
quiet."

Her mother made a pouting face.

"Darling, you are so prosaic!  It's the chance of a lifetime, and you
might at least be pleased about it and not spoil my pleasure by boring
on about your work."  She patted Serena's arm and smiled beguilingly.

"Serena, don't mind me saying this, but I am your mother and I want the
best for you.  Take care you don't become a prig sometimes you're too
good to be true."

She gave a tinkling laugh.

"There, don't I sound horrid?  But I say it for your own good.  You
don't want to spend all your life in a dull office, do you?"

She patted her carefully arranged curls.

"Besides, I might marry again."

Serena, the memory of whose father was still a well-hidden sorrow,
poured coffee and handed her mother a cup.

"Anyone I know?"  she asked.

"Well, no, dear, but I flatter myself that I'm still fairly youthful as
well as being good company, and who knows, I might meet someone I like
in Holland."

Perhaps she had done the wrong thing in agreeing to take on the new
job, thought Serena worriedly, and when, some days later, she met Dr.
ter Feulen at the hospital, she begged a moment of his time, and when
he paused impatiently with a politely curt, "Well, what can I do for
you?"  she wasted no time in coming to the point.

"I don't think it will help Mother at all to go to Holland," she said,
not mincing matters.

"She leads such a quiet life, and she's delicate..."

"Since you were worried about your mother's health.  Miss Proudfoot, I
made a point of visiting her.  And as we are speaking plainly, I must
tell you that I formed the opinion that there is nothing the matter
with your mother.  Her health would improve immediately if she were to
take up some occupation house work, cooking, voluntary work of some
kind.  If that sounds to you harsh I do not mean it to be so.

I have no doubt that during the weeks she will be in Amsterdam she will
find friends and perhaps involve herself in some activity or other.  "
He glanced at his watch.

"Forgive me, I'm due in theatre."

Not a very satisfactory conversation, reflected Serena.

She was kept busy at home as well as at work.  She had been unable to
discover for how long they would be away, but all the same all the
particulars appertaining to the closing of the house had to be attended
to, arrangements had to be made at the bank so that her mother's
pension could be transferred and pass ports renewed, which didn't leave
much time over for her own shopping.

It was October now and, although the pleasant autumn weather still
held, there was a nip in the air and yet it might not be cold enough
for a winter coat.  She dug into her savings and got herself a short
wool coat in a pleasing shade of aubergine and found a pleated skirt in
a matching check.  An outsize cream sweater and a couple of blouses
completed the outfit and would, she considered, stand her in good stead
for the duration of her stay in Holland.  A dark green jersey dress, by
no means new but a useful addition to her wardrobe, and a brown
velveteen dress, very plain but nicely cut, a raincoat, a pair of court
shoes and a sensible pair of walking shoes would, she considered be
sufficient for her needs, although at the last minute she added a thick
tweed skirt and a rather elderly anorak as well as woolly gloves and a
woolly cap.  Mrs.  Dunn had told her that Miss Payne, on a previous
visit to Holland, had suffered badly from nipped fingers and cold
ears.

Her mother's wardrobe was much more varied and very large and certainly
there was enough to cover the entire winter, but Serena forbore from
remarking on this after a first attempt which had ended in her mother
saying pettishly that it was obvious that she wasn't wanted and she
might as well stay at home alone as she always was.

"After all I've done for you," she ended, and Serena, soothing her back
to a good humour, sighed to herself.  A good and loving daughter,
nevertheless sometimes she longed to have her freedom; to lead her own
life and make friends of her own age.  She had friends, of course, but
nowadays they were either married and living miles away or living on
their own with splendid jobs entailing a good deal of travelling and
meeting important people.  From time to time they had suggested to her
that she might share a flat and find a job, but her mother had made
that impossible; not by standing in her way but by becoming pale and
silent and pathetically cheerful about the future.  She would, of
course, manage, she told Serena.  She would sell their home, of course,
for she could never manage to run it alone, and she would find one of
those flats where there was a warden to look after one if one became
ill and didn't wish to worry one's family.  There wouldn't be much
money, of course, without Serena's contribution, but she had no doubt
that she would contrive.

And all this said with a brave smile and a wistful droop that wrong
Serena's heart and squashed any hopes of a life of her own.

It was several days after her conversation with Dr.  ter Feulen that
she found a letter on her desk when she arrived at work a typed letter
setting out the day on which she and her mother were to travel and from
where.  They were to fly, and she would receive their tickets in due
course.  They would be met at Schiphol airport and taken to the
boarding-house where rooms had been reserved for them.  She was to
report for work on the following morning at eight o'clock.  Her
timetable would be at the boarding-house.  He had signed it M. Dijkstra
ter Feulen.

When Serena got home she showed her mother the letter.  Mrs.  Proudfoot
was put out.

"I can't see why we couldn't go over to Holland in his car!  He must be
going at about the same time.  With my poor health all this business of
getting to Heathrow and flying to Amsterdam is bound to upset my
nerves."

Serena held her tongue.  The doctor had made it plain that he
considered that her mother was as fit as the next woman, but he had
spoken in confidence.  Perhaps when the time was right, he would
suggest that she should change her lifestyle.

"Possibly he'll travel at an awkward time," she suggested tactfully.

It was two days before they were due to leave that she heard quite by
accident that he had already left the hospital.

"Left late last night," Mrs.  Dunn told her, 'and he's not expected
back for several weeks, so Theatre Sister tells me, although there are
several cases lined up for him before Christmas.  " She eyed Serena
curiously.

"Don't you know how long you'll be gone?"

"Not exactly.  It depends on his work in Holland."

"Oh, well, you're a lucky girl, stepping into Miss Payne's shoes and
getting a chance to travel a bit.  Mind you, he expects a lot from his
secretary.  Miss Payne was with him for quite a time, it'll be hard to
live up to her standards..."

Not a very cheering prospect, but one Serena was prepared to ignore.
However hard she would have to work she would be in a foreign country
and she intended to make the most of it.

Moreover, from the moment she stepped on to Dutch soil, she would be
earning considerably more money.  If they were back home for Christmas,
and she was sure that they would be, they would be able to go to a
theatre or two, and buy all the extras which made all the difference at
the festive season, perhaps have a day shopping at her mother's
favourite stores.  "I'll do my best," she assured Mrs.  Dunn
cheerfully.

Mrs.  Proudfoot had insisted on a taxi to Heathrow, an expense which
Serena could well have done with out, and, once there, her mother
complained about having time to wait for their flight, the coffee, the
lack of comfortable seats and how exhausted she was.  Serena, occupied
with luggage, tickets and passports, bit back impatient words, assured
her mother that once they were on the plane everything would be fine,
and so it was.

The flight was brief, the coffee and biscuits they were offered passed
the time very nicely and in no time at all they were at Schiphol.

There was a tricky delay while Serena fetched their bags from the
carousel and a few anxious moments wondering if they would be met,
quickly forgotten when an elderly man approached them.

"Mrs.  Proudfoot and Miss Proudfoot?  Dr.  Dijkstra ter Feulen wished
me to meet you.  My name is Cor, if you will please follow me."

He was a sturdily built man and made light of their suitcases, walking
ahead of them out of the airport entrance and leading them to a dark
blue Jaguar.  He opened the car door and ushered them in, put their
bags in the boot and got into the driver's seat.

"A drive of half an hour," he told them, and started the car.

Mrs.  Proudfoot had stopped complaining, for there was nothing to
complain about--indeed, she became quite animated as they neared
Amsterdam, exclaiming over the churches, old houses and canals once
they had gone through the modern encircling suburbs.  Cor stopped
finally in a narrow street with blocks of flats interspersed with solid
houses, built of red brick round the turn of the century.  It was to
one of these that he led them, rang the bell and waited with them until
the door opened.  The woman who answered it was middle-aged and stout,
with a pleasant face and small beady eyes.

"The English ladies," she greeted them.

"Welcome.  Come in, please."

Her English was as good as Cor's but heavily accented.  She spoke to
him in their own tongue and he went to the car and fetched the luggage
and put it in the hall.

"I wish you a pleasant stay," he told them, and Mrs.  Proudfoot smiled
graciously.

Serena shook his hand and thanked him.

"It was so nice to be met by someone who speaks English; it all seems a
bit strange, and we are most grateful."  She started to open her purse,
but he laid a large beefy hand on hers.

"No, no, miss.  That is not necessary the doctor has arranged all..."

He gave her a beaming smile, said something to their landlady and went
away.

"So, now we will go to your rooms.  My name is Mevrouw Blom and I am
glad to know you.  Come..."

Serena picked up one of their cases and Mevrouw Blom took the other
two, while Mrs.  Proudfoot carried her umbrella.  The stairs leading
from the narrow hall were steep, covered in serviceable carpeting and
led to a narrow landing.  Mevrouw Blom opened two of the three doors
and waved Serena and her mother into the rooms.  They were identical as
to furniture:

a bed, a table under the narrow window with a small mirror, a small
easy chair, a small table by the bed and a large, old-fashioned
wardrobe.  The floors were wooden, with rugs by the beds and under the
windows.  There were overhead lights as well as bedside lamps and a
radiator against one wall in each room.

"You will tidy yourselves," said Mevrouw Blom cheerfully, 'and then
return to the room below and take coffee.  "

"The bathroom?"  asked Serena.

"Ah, yes--there is a shower-room."  The third door was opened to show a
tiled shower-room with a washbasin.

Mevrouw Blom went back downstairs and Mrs.  Proudfoot turned to
Serena.

"I thought it would have been a hotel," she complained peevishly.

"It's nothing but a cheap boarding-house!"

"Mother, it's clean and warm and quite nicely furnished, and you
mustn't forget that the doctor is paying for both of us;

he had to pay for me, I know, but he needn't have done so for you.  "
She kissed her mother.

"Let's tidy ourselves and go downstairs."

Mevrouw Blom was waiting for them and ushered them into a large room
which opened into a second smaller room at the back of the house.  Both
rooms were well furnished with comfortable chairs, small tables, and,
in the smaller of the rooms, several tables were laid for a meal.  Mrs.
Proudfoot brightened at the sight of the TV in one corner and the
closed stove in the larger of the rooms.  She sat down in a chair close
to it while Mrs.  Blom poured coffee and handed cups with small sugary
biscuits.  The coffee was delicious and she sipped it.  Perhaps it
wasn't too bad.  "I have a letter for you, miss," said Mevrouw Blom,
'from Dr. Dijkstra ter Feulen.  He tells me you go to work at eight
o'clock, therefore there is breakfast for you at half-past seven.  The
hospital is five minutes' walking I will show you.  You eat your supper
here each evening and if you are late that is OK.  " She chuckled.

"Miss Payne, when she was here, was sometimes late, but that is not
important."

She poured more coffee and Serena, with a murmured excuse, sat down
near the window to read her letter.

It was a cold businesslike missive, but she hadn't expected anything
else.  She was to present herself at the porter's lodge at eight
o'clock, where she would be taken to the room where she was to work.
She was to be prepared to go to the wards, outpatients' clinic or the
theatre block, and she should familia rise herself with the hospital at
the earliest opportunity.  Here her normal working day would end at
five o'clock with an hour for lunch, but these hours might be varied. 
He was hers, M. Dijkstra ter Feulen.  At least she supposed the
unreadable scrawl was his.

She folded the letter and put it back in its envelope.  He might have
expressed the hope that she would like her work, or something equally
civil.  He was not a man to waste words on polite nothings, however. 
To her mother's enquiry as to the contents of the envelope, she replied
in her calm way that it only contained instructions as to her work.

"I shall be away all day, Mother, so for the time being don't plan any
thing for the evenings, as Dr.  ter Feulen mentions that I may need to
work late.  I shall know more when I've been there for a day or two."

Her mother was prepared to argue, but at that moment several people
came into the room and Mevrouw Blom with them.

"These ladies and gentlemen are also staying here," she explained.

"I make them known to you now."

There were two middle-aged ladies, stout and well dressed, who smiled
broadly, shook hands and murmured.

"They tell their names," said Mevrouw Blom.

"Mevrouw Lagerveld and Mevrouw van Til, and the gentlemen..."

Mijnheer van Til shook hands and spoke, to Serena's relief, in
English.

"I am charmed, now I may exercise my English?"

and Mijnheer Lagerveld, shaking hands in his turn, essayed a few words
with the excuse that his English was poor.

"Here we have a surprise," chimed in Mevrouw Blom, looking pleased with
herself.

"This is Mr.  Harding, from England, who stays with me while he studies
the old houses of Amsterdam."

He was a thin man of middle height, nice-looking with grey hair and
mild blue eyes.  Serena guessed him to be in his early sixties.

"This is a most pleasant surprise," he observed as he shook hands.

"I hope you'll be staying for some time."

Mrs.  Proudfoot smiled charmingly.

"Oh, I think so.  My daughter is to work at the hospital for some weeks
and I've come with her my doctor considered a change of scene might
improve my health."

She looked round her and sighed with pleasure.  Perhaps it wasn't such
a cheap boarding-house after all.  Here was company, people she could
talk to, and Mr.  Harding looked quite promising.  Serena left them
presently and went upstairs to un pack her things, and then, since her
mother had done nothing about her own luggage, unpacked for her, too,
hung everything tidily away in the wardrobe and went back to her room
to read the doctor's letter again.  If she had hoped to read a little
warmth into it she failed.

The evening meal was at six o'clock a substantial one of soup,
meatballs, vegetables and potatoes, followed by blancmange.  Mrs.
Proudfoot, who normally pecked at the kind of invalid diet she had
devised for herself, ate everything, explaining to Mr.  Harding that
after their tiring journey she needed to keep up her strength.  It
surprised and pleased Serena to see her mother so animated, and indeed,
when she suggested that she must be tired and an early night might be
advisable, Mrs.  Proudfoot said prettily that she was enjoying the
company far too much to leave it so early and advised Serena to go to
bed herself.

"For I dare say you'll have a busy day, darling."  She put up her cheek
for Serena to kiss.

"I'll see you tomorrow evening, you leave far too early in the morning
She smiled around the room.

"I sleep badly and usually doze off just as everyone else is getting
up!"

Serena wished everyone goodnight and climbed the steep stairs once
more, had a shower, set her alarm clock, and then climbed into bed.  It
was altogether a relief that her mother seemed happy, and it was
providential that there was the English Mr.  Harding for her to talk
to. He would probably have the leisure to spend some time with her; at
least he would be there to talk to her at meals.  Serena burrowed her
mousy head into the large square pillow and went to sleep.

When she went downstairs soon after seven o'clock the next morning she
found Mevrouw Blom waiting for her.  The rooms were spotless, the
tables laid for breakfast, the stove already lighted.

"You sleep well?"  asked Mevrouw Blom.

"I bring coffee and rolls if you will sit."

Serena wasn't very hungry, she was too excited for that, but she
managed to eat the boiled egg and a roll and cheese and drink the
contents of the coffee-pot.  No one had mentioned arrangements for her
midday meal.  Perhaps she was expected to go into the town for it, or
return to Mevrouw Blom, but at the moment her lunch was the least
important of her thoughts; she was more concerned in getting to the
hospital and being where Dr.  ter Feulen expected her to be by eight
o'clock.

The hospital was very close by, indeed she could see it looming over
the housetops as she went out of the front door, and once there, with
ten minutes to spare, she went to the porter's lodge and gave her
name.

The porter was elderly with a craggy face and a neat fringe of hair
around his bald head.  He answered her good morning with a remark in
his own tongue and picked up the telephone.

Since the conversation meant nothing to her, Serena took a look around
her.  The hospital entrance was imposing, with a paved floor and a wide
sweeping staircase opposite the doors.  They led to a landing lined
with lifts as far as she could see, and then branched on either side to
the floor above.

"Wait, if you please," said the porter in very bad English, and turned
back to sorting the letters.

So she waited, one eye on the enormous clock above the stairs; it was
five minutes to eight and she didn't care to arrive late on her first
morning.  The minute hand had moved to four minutes before a stout
woman with iron-grey hair and a severe expression came from somewhere
at the back of the hall.

"Miss Proudfoot good morning.  You are to come with me."  She looked
Serena over.

"You are a good deal younger than Miss Payne..."  She held out a
hand.

"Juffrouw Staal."

"Serena Proudfbot," said Serena, and smiled hopefully.  But all
Juffrouw Staal did was to nod her head briskly and lead the way to the
back of the hall and through a door.  There was a stone staircase
beyond it and she started up it, saying over her shoulder, "You will
come this way each day, you will not need to speak to the porter."

They climbed to the third floor and went through a swing-door into a
wide passage with rooms opening from it on either side.  Almost at the
end of it Juffrouw Staal stopped.

"Dr.  ter Feulen comes to this room to dictate his letters and give you
his instructions.  You will also be required to go to the wards and
clinics if he wishes to record some of his cases."

She indicated the desk and chair set under the window.

"You will go for your coffee at ten o'clock.  The canteen is on the
ground floor--someone will show you.  You will also lunch there at
fifteen minutes past twelve.  You may have ten minutes for tea, and
that is at half-past three.  The cloakrooms are at the end of this
corridor."

Serena thanked her.

"You speak English awfully well," she said.

Miss Staal unbent very slightly.

"I have lived in your country for a year or so.  You will be here only
a short time, but I advise you to learn a few basic phrases as soon as
possible."

She nodded and went away, leaving Serena to take the cover off her
typewriter, look into the drawers and cupboards and make sure that her
pencils were sharpened and, that done, she went to the window to look
out over the neighbouring streets.  It was a grey morning and there was
a mean wind, but the city looked interesting from where she stood,
looking down on to its roofs.

"I suppose I stay here until someone comes, and let's hope that's soon
he might turn nasty if I'm late."  She had spoken out loud, as she so
often did when she was alone, and a slight sound made her turn round in
a hurry.

Dr.  ter Feulen had come into the room.  He gave her an unsmiling good
morning and added, "Since you're not late I can see no reason to turn
nasty.  You have a poor opinion of me.  Miss Proudfoot."

She had gone pink, but she didn't avoid his eye.

"No, not really, it's just that I'm a bit nervous of doing the wrong
thing, and to be late would be such a very bad start."

He nodded carelessly.

"You are comfortable at Mevrouw Blom's house?"

"Oh, very, thank you, and Mother is so pleased.  There are other people
there who speak English and an English gentleman..."  She stopped
because he was looking impatient.

She asked quickly, "What do you wish me to do first, sir?"

He stood looking at her and she wondered if there was something wrong
with her.  She had left the house as neat as a new pin, but the hurried
climb up the stairs might have loosened her tidy head of hair, or was
her blouse rumpled?

She surveyed her person with an anxious eye, relieved at last to hear
him say, "No, there's nothing wrong.  Miss Proudfoot.  And must I call
you that?  You won't object to being called Serena?"

"Not in the least, sir."

"Then let us make a tour of the hospital so that when you are sent for
you don't take all day to get there."

She said crossly, quite forgetting to whom she was speaking, "You do
have a most unfortunate way of making me feel inadequate!  I'm sure I'm
quite capable of finding my way around without anyone's help."

"Oh, undoubtedly.  But all the same, perhaps you will be good enough to
come with me now."

She went out of the room with something of a flounce, not seeing his
smile, and after ten minutes of traipsing up and down stairs and along
corridors which all looked alike, she was forced to admit that without
him she would have been hopelessly lost.  She took care to look where
she went; the theatre block was on the top floor and Outpatients was on
the ground floor at the back of the hospital.  She was introduced to
the ward sisters, and it wasn't until they were back in the office
where she was to work that she realised how difficult it would have
been to find her way around the vast place without a guide.  She said
apologetically, "I'm sorry I was so rude.  It was kind of you to show
me round--I would have got hopelessly lost."

The doctor nodded, unsmiling.

"Indeed you would, and I might have turned nasty!"  He saw the look on
her face and said hastily, "No--it is I who am sorry.  I had no reason
to say that.  I think we shall get on very well together.  Let us begin
as we mean to go on.  I have a clinic in ten minutes' time.  Bring your
notebook and pencil--there's a long morning's work ahead of us."  He
nodded again, but this time he smiled.

He was really rather nice, she decided, watching his broad back
disappear along the corridor.

That evening, reviewing her day, Serena decided that she hadn't done so
badly.  It had been very like working at the Royal, and although the
doctor had spoken Dutch to his patients he had detailed his notes in
English, and he and his registrar had spoken together in that language
with as much ease as if they were speaking their own tongue.  Serena
had been nervous at first, but by the end of the morning she had found
her feet and had gone down to the canteen for her lunch with two of the
other hospital clerks and had quite enjoyed herself.  She had spent the
afternoon typing up the notes, typed up the details of an operation the
doctor had performed that afternoon, this time from a tape recorder,
and handed the whole lot to him when he came to the office just after
half-past five.  She had asked him if he wanted her for anything else
and he had replied that no, he thought not, she had done sufficient for
her first day.

"I shall be operating in the morning," he told her, 'but I'll send
someone up with my letters and a couple of tapes.

Have them ready by two o'clock, will you?  "

They had wished each other goodnight and she had gone back to Mevrouw
Blom's house to find the evening meal already eaten, although she was
given soup, pork chops, wurkool and delicious floury potatoes by an
attentive Mevrouw Blom, followed by ice-cream and coffee, while
everyone else sat in the sitting- room.  Her mother had been remarkably
cheerful, full of her day, and beyond a perfunctory question or two as
to what Serena had done, she had little interest in it.  But Serena
hadn't minded, it was a relief to find that her mother was actually
enjoying herself.  There was no trace of boredom and no complaints of
head aches or tiredness indeed, she was the life and soul of everyone
there, and barely noticed when Serena after an hour or so slipped away
to her bed.  It was nice to see her mother so happy, she thought
sleepily, and that nice Mr.  Harding had been very kind, taking her
mother into the heart of the city and showing her where all the best
shops were.  Serena, curled up in her comfortable bed, went to sleep.

By the end of the week she had to admit that she was enjoying herself.
It was all work, but interesting, and she hardly noticed that she had
very little leisure.  Dr.  ter Feulen was a glutton for work; when he
wasn't operating he was dictating letters, giving lectures or examining
students.  Serena made copious notes, typed them neatly and left them
each evening with Juffrouw Staal.  She saw the doctor each day, but be
yond wanting to know in a rather impatient manner if she was all right,
he had nothing of a personal nature to say to her.  She returned to the
cheerful haven of Mevrouw Blom's house each evening, tired and hungry
but satisfied that she had done a good day's work and delighted to find
that her mother was enjoying herself.  Mr.  Raiding had taken her under
his elderly wing and each evening she recounted to Serena the various
pleasures of her day.  She didn't want to know about Serena's; she
dismissed it as boring, and beyond a fleeting concern that Serena
didn't seem to have much time to herself, she had no comment to make.

"Well, I'll be free on Saturday," said Serena.

"Oh, will you, darling?  You'll love to potter round the shops.  Mr.
Harding is taking me to Utrecht there are some patrician houses there
he wants to see.  He says I have a great eye for architecture..."

Serena swallowed disappointment.  She had been looking forward to a day
sightseeing with her mother, but all she said in her sensible way was,
"That sounds fun.  I'm so glad you're enjoying yourself.  Mother, and
you look years younger."

Mrs.  Proudfoot peered into the small looking-glass.

"Yes, I do, don't I?"  she agreed complacently, and added without much
interest, "You're not working too hard, are you, darling?"

Serena assured her that she wasn't.

She was asked that question again on the following morning, but by the
doctor.  She assured him that she had never felt better, and he gave
her a quizzical look.

"You are free tomorrow and Sunday, so you and your mother will be able
to explore."

"Well, actually, she's going out with Mr.  Harding who's at Mevrouw
Blom's--they're going to Utrecht to look at old houses."

"And you?"

The?  Oh, I'll look at the shops and wander about.  " She had spoken in
a cheerful and matter-of-fact voice, but something in her face made him
give her a thoughtful look.

He said, "There is quite a lot to see in Amsterdam," and Serena said
too quickly, "Oh, yes, I know, I'm looking forward to it."

He went away and she started her day's work, resolutely determined not
to feel sorry for herself.

She found herself unwillingly tidying her desk that evening, knowing
that she wouldn't be at it for two days.  She felt secure while she was
working, and she was beginning to make the acquaintance of other girls
who worked along the corridor; they were friendly and kind and they all
spoke English of sorts.  Serena was last, as usual.  She turned off the
lights as she went, ran down the stairs and out of the side door and
into the street, then hurried along the pavement to Mevrouw Blom's
house, watched by the doctor, sit ting in his car, waiting for a gap in
the traffic.

CHAPTER THREE

serena got up early the next morning, had her breakfast with Mevrouw
Blom, tidied her room and went to say good morning to her mother.

"Darling, why so early?"  asked Mrs.  Proudfoot.

"Are you going somewhere nice?"

"I'm going to explore.  Mr.  Harding is having his breakfast--what time
are you going?"

Mrs.  Proudfoot took a close look at her face and gave a satisfied
nod.

"I must go down now, we're leaving by half-past nine.  Come down with
me and pour my coffee, darling."

So Serena in her new jacket and skirt, silk blouse and sensible
low-heeled shoes, since she intended to walk a great deal, went back to
the dining-room and poured her mother's coffee, then made small talk
with Mr.  Harding and the Lagervelds and the van Tils.  She had got to
her feet with a cheerful remark about going on her way when Mevrouw
Blom opened the door.

"Serena--here you have a visitor."  She beamed around the room and
stood aside as Dr.  ter Feulen walked past her.

The size of him made the room all at once smaller.  Serena, who had
never seen him in anything but exquisitely tailored dark grey suits and
long white hospital coats, thought the tweeds he was wearing made him
look younger, but this reflection was swallowed up in the supposition
that he wanted her to go back to the hospital and do some work.

His greeting to everyone in the room was polite and genial, and Mrs.
Proudfoot exclaimed, "Dr.  ter Feulen, how delightful He cut her short
with practised ease.

"I'm glad to see you looking so well."  He rested his cool look on
Serena.

"I

intend to show you something of Amsterdam, Serena.  " He paused and
added, " Unless you had any other plans?  " His deep voice held a note
of disbelief that she might have any ideas of her own, and she opened
her mouth to refuse while at the same time a small voice inside her
head reminded her that here was a chance to go sightseeing without any
effort on her part, and, what was even nicer, she wouldn't be on her
own.  The loneliness she had been feeling ever since her mother had
told her that she would be spending the day with Mr.  Harding melted
away under his look.

She heard herself say with just the right tone of pleasure, "No, I
didn't make any special plans, and I should enjoy seeing something of
Amsterdam."

He nodded.

"Good.  Let us go, if you are ready."

"There's something I need from my room..."  She raced upstairs to
repowder her nose and deplore its beakiness, and tidy the already tidy
head of mousy hair.  There was a bottle of Femme somewhere.  She found
it and sprayed her person, then raced down again.

They bade everyone goodbye, Serena in a quiet composed voice masking
excitement, the doctor gravely, very appreciative of the faint aura of
Femme around Serena.

Outside on the pavement she paused.

"I thought you'd come to ask me to do some work... Do you really want
to take me sightseeing?"

He assured her gravely that it would give him pleasure to show her
something of the city.

"We have both been working very hard," he pointed out.

"Besides, it will make further sightseeing trips for you somewhat
easier."  He stowed her into the Bentley.

"Although," he went on smoothly, "Mr.  Harding may invite you as well
as your mother?"

Serena turned to look at him as he got in beside her.

"Oh, I shouldn't think so.  Two's company, three's none, you know.

He and Mother get on so well together, she really is having a lovely
time.  "

"Then we must see if we can also have a lovely time."  He drove off,
and Serena sat back against the comforting leather seat.  She was still
very surprised at the doctor's appearance, but she intended to enjoy
every minute of her unexpected treat.  He must have a reason, she
reflected, and thought she had discovered it when she heard him say
abruptly, "I shall be going to den Haag on Monday.  I shall be there
for several days, operating and in consultation.

You will accompany me, of course.  You will be given a room in the
hospital where I shall be working.  Your work will be the same as it is
here.  "

She said in her quiet way, "Very well.  Doctor.  Mother will stay
here?"

"Why not?  She seems happy.  She sees very little of you?"

"Well, yes.  What I mean is, no, she doesn't see a great deal of me."

"In that case it would be kinder to leave her at Mevrouw Blom's, would
it not?  You will probably be back by the weekend."  He sounded
uninterested.

"Why did you ask me out?"  Serena asked abruptly.

"Muriel and I invariably had a few hours of sight seeing when we came
here," he told her blandly.  Which was the kind of answer she might
have expected from him.  Only it wasn't an answer really.

He had driven into the heart of the city, and Serena, her head
swivelling from side to side in order not to miss anything, asked, "Is
that the Munttoren?"

"Yes.  You shall see it presently.  We will park the car first and have
some coffee."

He turned into Nieuwe Doelenstraat and stopped before the Hotel de
1"Europe.

"Here?"  asked Serena.

"Here."  He unfastened her safety-belt, got out and opened her door,
then marched her to the hotel entrance, stopping to say something to
the doorman.

"Your car?"  queried Serena, shocked at the way he had left it there
without so much as locking its doors.

"That's taken care of," said the doctor, ushering her into an extremely
comfortable foyer with a large lounge beyond.

"They'll keep it here for me until I want it."

He sat her down at a small table by the window with a view of the river
and beckoned a waiter, ordered coffee and took off his car coat.

"We shall return to Amsterdam at the start of next week," he
announced.

"I shall be at the hospital here for two or three days and then I have
to go to appointments in Leeuwarden.

These will keep me there for a weekend or more.  You will accompany me,
of course.  "

Serena poured the coffee and handed him a cup.

"What about Mother?"  she asked urgently.

"I can't leave her."

He sat back comfortably.

"But you leave her every day, do you not?  And it seems that she is
perfectly happy without your company."

"What a very nasty thing to say," said Serena.

"You know as well as I do " Probably better," he said suavely, ignoring
her cross look.

"You don't wish to believe me, but your mother is as fit as you or I. I
suspect that she has been bored and with nothing to do has invented ill
health.  And don't look at me like that; your mother is a charming
woman and still pretty.  She should many again."

Serena drew an indignant breath.

"Well, of all the things to say, I never He handed his cup for more
coffee.

"You strike me as being an honest girl, Serena, so give me an honest
answer."  He smiled at her eyes widened by his charm and warmth.

"Your mother is happy in this Mr.  Harding's company, is she not?

And were you asked to go with them today?  "

"Yes," said Serena slowly, 'and no, I wasn't.  "

"Good.  Now, having cleared up that small problem, let us enjoy
ourselves."

He plunged her into the Muntplein, pausing to point out its history,
and then swept her on into the Kalverstraat, a narrow, long street
lined with shops and bustling with people.  Serena's little beaky nose
twitched with pleasure at the sight of the small elegant shops and the
doctor, waiting patiently, let her peer into their windows until she
glanced at his impassive face.

"Oh, sorry, I dare say shops bore you only I haven't seen any..."

He took her arm.

"There are some splendid shops in den Haag.

We're going in here.  " He pointed to the street sign.

"Begijnsteeg it leads to some amis- houses, the oldest are fourteenth
century, and there's a church which we gave to your country in the
seventeenth century."

The Begijnhof was beautiful and serene under the autumn sky, its small
houses crowded together in a circle round the church.  Serena stood
very still, feeling its peace.

"Who lives here now?"  she asked softly.

"Respectable widows and old maiden ladies.  You like it?"

He was watching her face alight with pleasure.

"It makes you feel contented," she said.

"At last we are able to agree upon something."  He led her back into
the Kalverstraat.

"Now we will visit the Rembrandthuis.  It is in the Jewish quarter, and
there are other interesting buildings there."

The museum appeared closed when they arrived at it, but the doctor beat
a tattoo on its door and it was opened immediately.  He urged Serena
inside.

"This is Mijnheer de Vries, the caretaker.  The museum is closed, but
he has kindly allowed us to look round for half an hour."

Mijnheer de Vries shook hands, had a short talk about nothing in
particular and took himself off.

"Is he a friend of yours?"  asked Serena.

"Yes.  Now come and look at these etchings..."

Half an hour later Mijnheer de Vries joined them.

"You need a day, two days," he said regretfully.

"But half an hour is better than nothing at all," said the doctor.

"I'm grateful..."

Mijnheer de Vries broke into English.

"Grateful?  It is I who am grateful you saved my wife's life..."

"She is well?"

"Almost her old self, thanks to you.  Doctor."

"That is good news.  Now we must go.  We're cram ming several days'
sightseeing into a few hours."

They all shook hands again and the door was shut behind them.

"Do you mean to say that he opened up the museum specially for us?"
asked Serena.

"Yes."  The doctor hailed a taxi and popped her in side and got in
beside her.

"There is time for a trip on the canals before lunch," he told her, and
ten minutes later helped her on board one of the excursion boats. 
There weren't many passengers.  Serena sat and gaped and goggled at the
lovely old houses lining the canals, rather squashed since the doctor's
bulk took up most of the seat.  There was a guide on board, explaining
everything in three languages, and the doctor sat silent, watching her
rapt face, wondering idly how it was that he had thought her a plain
girl.  The beaky nose was rather charming, and her eyes were really
beautiful with their long sweeping lashes.  He had no idea why he had
had a sudden urge to take her out for the day, and he was already half
regretting it.  He could have spent the weekend in Friesland with his
mother, visited his sisters and brothers, looked up one or two friends,
and instead he had elected to spend a day with a mouse like girl who
lived a dull life with a selfish mother.  However, she wasn't dull and
her tongue could be astringent at times.  He smiled a little, and
Serena, peeping at him, hoped that he wasn't finding it as boring as
she had first thought.

They had lunch after the canal tour.  They had it in the grill-room, Le
Relais: to mates suisses, tender steaks with tiny peas and new
potatoes, and creme caramel almost hidden in a mound of cream.  Serena
did justice to all of it, drank the claret she was offered and poured
their coffee with a contented sigh.  It had been a pleasant meal, she
reflected.

The doctor, when he chose to be so, could be entertaining, and his
manners were excellent.  She asked, like a trusting child expecting a
treat, "Where else are we going this after noon?"

He told her with grave courtesy, "I thought the Rijksmuseum.

It's a must for anyone who comes to Amsterdam.  "

"Oh, yes sixteenth- and seventeenth-century paintings, but aren't there
some galleries of porcelain and silver too?"

"Indeed there are.  So many tourists go to see the paintings and quite
forget the other exhibits.  If you are ready we will go."  He glanced
at his watch.

"We have the rest of the afternoon."

Serena walked beside him out into the street again.

"Of course you'll be going out this evening," she observed composedly,
and to his sharp, "Why do you say that?"  she went on, "Well, you must
know any number of people, and because you're Dutch I dare say you have
family here as well; you wouldn't want to waste your evening."

"Are you saying that I am wasting my day?"  His voice had an edge to
it.

"Good heavens, no, that would be very ill- mannered of me, wouldn't it?
I'm having a lovely time and I'm most grateful, but if I were you, I
don't think I'd want to take me out."

"Why not, Serena?"  His voice was silky.

"Well, for one thing you've seen all this before, haven't you?  And for
another, I'm not witty or fascinating or amusing, and I'm nothing much
to look at..."

"What an abominable girl you are!"

"Am I?  I don't mean to be, but we could get on much better together if
we just took it for granted that you're you and I'm me."  She gave him
an anxious look.

"If you see what I mean?"

He laughed then and stopped in the middle of the pavement and turned
her to face him.

"Did I say you were abominable?

I'll say it again, for want of a better word.  " He turned her round
and marched her along until they reached the museum, where they spent
over two hours while he explained meticulously the portraits and
landscapes, the silver, the porcelain and the glass and furniture.

An early dusk was falling as they left.

"Tea?"  he asked as they reached the pavement.

"Dikker and Thijs are fairly close by on the Prinsengracht."  He took
her arm and crossed the busy street.

"And let me add that there is plenty of time before my evening date."

"Then I'd love a cup of tea."

They had their tea in the elegant surroundings of Dikker and Thijs, and
Serena took care not to linger too long over it, something which didn't
miss the doctor sharp eyes, and since it was by now almost dark they
took a taxi back to the hotel, waited while the Bentley was driven
round from wherever it had been all day, and presently drove back to
Mevrouw Blom's house.

The doctor got out with her, thumped the knocker and listened civilly
to her thanks, and when Mevrouw Blom opened the door he bade Serena
goodnight with casual friendliness and waited politely until she had
gone indoors.

"A good day?"  asked Mevrouw Blom.

"All are out, for dinner also, but I will get you a fine meal very
soon."

Serena stood in the hall.

"I'm not hungry, Mevrouw Blom.  If I could have a sandwich or something
presently?"

The kind soul nodded.

"A sandwich, yes, and a bowl of my oh, so good soup, also some coffee.
And there is a programme on the televisie that you will like.  Take off
your coat and then come down, eh?"

Serena went to her room.  The house was very quiet and the room was
chilly.  She hung her coat away and put on a pair of soft slippers, and
went to look at herself in the small looking-glass.

"I'm surprised he spent the whole day with you, my dear," she remarked
to her reflection.

"He must have been bored.  I wonder where he's going this evening?
Dinner?  Dancing?  The theatre?  With some lovely creature who can make
him laugh..."

She wandered over to the window and looked out at the rooftops around
her, feeling lonely, but she didn't stay there long.

"Don't you start being sorry for yourself, my girl!"  she said
loudly.

"You've had a marvelous day and a heavenly lunch and you've seen a
great deal.  What more can a girl want?"

She didn't answer her question, but went down stairs, ate her
sandwiches, congratulated Mevrouw Blom on her simply delicious soup and
sat down be fore me TV.

"You are happy?"  asked Mevrouw Blom anxiously.

"I have my brother with me, or I would sit with you..."

"I'm fine, Mevrouw Blom.  I shall enjoy the television, and that was a
delicious supper."

So when Mevrouw had gone she was alone, watching a discussion between
several clever-looking men, but since they were speaking their own
language she couldn't understand what they were saying.  It didn't
matter, she had a lot to think about; the canals and the lovely old
houses lining them, the museum, the hotel and the shops and, of course,
the doctor.

Then she glanced at the clock above the stove.  He would be dining
somewhere by now, and opposite him there would be an elegant,
beautifully dressed girl who would call him darling what was the Dutch
for darling?  she wondered and make him laugh.  The restaurant, in her
mind's eye, would be magnificent with candles on the tables and soft
music, and it stood to reason that the food would be superlative.  She
felt a little sad thinking about it all, especially the doctor.

Marc Dijkstra ter Feulen, eminent medical man, top of his profession
and a baron in his own right, was, strangely enough, thinking about
Serena.  Strangely, because his attention should have been centred on
the very pretty woman sitting opposite him.  She was nibbling Melba
toast while she gave him an amusing account of the trip she had just
taken to the South of France.  Now if it had been Serena sitting here,
he mused, she would have ignored the Melba toast and tucked into the
splendid meal without any nonsense about putting on a pound or two.
Come to think of it, she was just right as she was.  He frowned
faintly, remembering that he had expected to have a boring day
sightseeing with her, but in fact he had enjoyed himself.  "You may
well frown," said his companion.

"I thought it was disgusting having to wait more than an hour for the
plane.  I do so dislike tiresome journeys."  She smiled at him.

"Are you going to be here for long, Marc?  We haven't seen each other
for ages."

"Another few days at the Hague, and then to Leeuwarden before I go back
to London."

"No days at your home?  You work too hard.  You need a wife to keep an
eye on you."

He said indifferently, "I'm far too busy.  Would you like to dance?"

Serena went to bed rather early.  The clever men had given way to an
American film which she remembered seeing a long time ago.  Besides,
the film had Dutch subtitles which made it all very confusing.  She had
a shower and washed her hair, then got into bed and went to sleep at
once.

It was still quite early when she woke.  She peeped into her mother's
room and found her sleeping soundly, so she dressed and went quietly
downstairs.  Mevrouw Blom was setting out cups and saucers for
breakfast.

"You sleep well?  Good.  You want your breakfast?  I think no one will
come down for a long time, they came home late--one o'clock this
morning.  Your mother is asleep?"

Serena nodded.

"She goes with Mr.  Harding to Scheveningen today.  He wishes to
examine the pier.  You will go too?"

"No, I don't think so.  I'll see if Mother's awake after I've had
breakfast."

She took as long as possible over her rolls and cheese and coffee, and
then went back upstairs.  And this time, as she went into her mother's
room, Mrs.  Proudfoot lifted a sleepy head from her pillow.

"Darling, up already?  Going somewhere nice, are you?  We'll have a
nice long chat this evening."

"Yes, Mother.  Have a lovely day."

Mrs.  Proudfoot's head sank back on the pillow again and she slept
soundly.

The day stretched ahead, and it had to be filled.  Church, Serena
decided, only which one?  She knew at once.  The English church in the
Begijnhof, of course.  There were notices in the hall concerning the
times of the various entertainments, the whereabouts of restaurants and
museums and when church services were held.  She found what she was
looking for and decided that if she walked smartly she would be there
in time.

"I'll be back for lunch," she told Mevrouw Blom, and since it was a
cold day got into her coat and crammed her one and only hat, a not very
becoming felt, on to her head, then hurried out into the street.

There were few people about, and she remembered the way from the drive
she had had with the doctor.  With minutes to spare she found herself a
seat in the little church and sat back, breathing rather hard, for the
last few hundred yards had almost been at a trot.

There was quite a large congregation, and presently she looked around
her.  Mostly elderly people with a sprinkling of children wedged
between parents.  Her gaze wandered and came to a surprised halt.  Well
in front, towering head and shoulders above everyone else, was Dr.  ter
Feulen.

The congregation knelt, and she took the opportunity to peep at him
through her fingers.  He wouldn't see her, and thank heaven for that;
he was most un likely to turn round and stare about him during the
service, and the moment the choir and the vicar had gone out she would
nip out.

She stood with everyone else, and while she sang the hymn thanked her
stars that she had seen him; to have come face to face with him would
have been upsetting, to say the least.  He might even think that she
was following him around!

She settled down to listen to the sermon, and at the end of it, not
having heard a word, sang the last hymn, anxious to be gone.  None the
less, she couldn't do that before she had breathed a humble little
prayer apologising for not giving the service her full attention.

The doctor, casting a keen eye around the church, saw her at once; he
was waiting for her as she went out of the church.

Serena walked straight into him and came to an abrupt halt.

"Oh, dear!"  she said, and then, "I had no idea that you would be
here," she told him earnestly.

"Why should you?"  He didn't tell her that he had gone to the church on
an impulse, guessing that it was the most likely place to find her.

"It's a nice day," said Serena inanely.

"I'll say goodbye."

A large hand on her arm stopped her from moving away.

"Coffee?  There is a Brown Cafe here, the coffee is very good.  If you
intend walking back to Mevrouw Blom's then you must have a drink
first."

She had every intention of refusing, but she was given no chance.  He
had turned her round and walked her down the steeg to the coffee shop,
then he sat her down at a small table and ordered coffee before she
could think of a graceful refusal.

Over their delicious coffee he asked, "And what do you intend to do
today?  An outing with your mother?"

She said too quickly, "Oh, I expect so.  When I left she was only just
awake she was out rather late last night."

"I dare say she has planned a pleasant afternoon for you.

You will be ready to leave, with everything that you might need for a
week, for den Haag at eight o'clock tomorrow morning.  Don't keep me
waiting.  "

She eyed him thoughtfully.

"Did Miss Payne ever keep you waiting?"

"Never."

Greatly daring, she asked, "And if I do?"

"The question doesn't arise; you won't keep me waiting."  He sounded so
absolutely sure of it that she found herself agreeing.

It was pleasant sitting there, but she refused a second cup, thanked
him politely and took her leave.  He walked with her to the end of the
Steeg, and watched her walk away.

She walked briskly, wishing to give the impression that she was
actually going somewhere, which meant that presently she found herself
lost in a tangle of narrow streets leading from the Leidsestraat.
Presently she found herself on the Herengracht and turned north instead
of south, so that crossing a bridge she found herself in Spuistraat and
eventually came out into the Dam Square.  It was almost twelve o'clock,
and Mevrouw Blom served lunch then.  Serena stood un certainly, not
quite sure which way to go.  The sight of a taxi solved her problem. 
She waved it down, gave the address in her carefully learned Dutch and
was whisked back just in time.

"I am full of worry," observed Mevrouw Blom.

"I think that perhaps you are lost."

"Well, I was just for a bit.  I hope I haven't kept everyone
waiting."

"No, no, they are all gone until the evening to Schevingenen.  I have
soup for you, and cheese and cold meat."

"I'm sorry you had to get lunch just for me, Mevrouw Blom.  I could
easily have had a sandwich out."

"I must eat also, it is no trouble.  But this afternoon?  You go out
again?"

"Well, no.  I have to go to den Haag in the morning and I must pack a
few things."

"You will not mind if I go to my sister's?  It is a good chance, with
so few guests..."

"Of course not."

"I will leave tea if you would not mind to boil the water?"

"Of course not."  A quiet afternoon, Serena told her self, was just
what she would like.

It was certainly quiet once Mevrouw Blom had gone.  She packed her
case, made sure that she had a notebook, pencils and pen ready to use
and went downstairs to the sitting-room, switched on the TV and went to
make herself a cup of tea.  The kitchen was cosy and rather
old-fashioned.

She lingered as long as possible and then bore the tea-tray back and
sat down by the stove to drink her tea, leaf through some Dutch
magazines and glance from time to time at the television, also Dutch.
The hours passed slowly and she was glad when she heard Mevrouw Blom's
key in the lock.  But it was another two hours before her mother and
Mr. Harding came in.

"There you are, darling!"  exclaimed Mrs.  Proudfoot.

"Have you had a lovely day?  I haven't enjoyed myself so much for
years... Now I'm exhausted.  Be an angel and take my things upstairs
and bring me back my other shoes the black pumps."

She sat down in the chair Serena had vacated and patted the sofa close
to it.

"Come and sit by me," she begged Mr.  Harding prettily, 'and tell me
some more about the King of Prussia, William the First, arriving there
at the end of the wars with Napoleon.  "

It was some time before Serena had the chance to tell her mother that
she would be going to den Haag in the morning.

"The Hague?  But, darling, why?  I know the doctor was going to work
there, but surely you could go to and fro each day?"

"It's about fifty miles.  Mother, and it's only for a week."

Her mother pouted.

"And am I not allowed to see something of it?"

Serena was saved from answering by Mr.  Harding.

"Margaret, I promise you you'll miss nothing I shall be going there in
a few days' time to study the architecture of the Ridderzaal, and I
shall be delighted if you would accompany me each day."

Mrs.  Proudfoot smiled.

"Well, in that case, Arthur, I'll say no more.  Indeed, I shall enjoy a
visit there so much more with someone who can explain everything to
me."  She gave him an arch look.

"I'm not much good on my own, you know, I've always lived such a
sheltered life."

Serena gave a small sigh of relief, and at the same time stifled a
feeling of hurt because her mother had forgotten to ask her what she
had done with her day.  Not that it mattered.  Except for half an hour
in Dr.  ter Feulen's unpredictable company, the day had been extremely
dull.

* * * She was ready when the doctor arrived in the morning.  She had
bidden her mother goodbye, assuring her that she would be back by the
start of the following week and promising to phone in the evening.  She
got into the Bentley, waved goodbye to Mevrouw Blom and sat as quiet as
a mouse as Dr.  ter Feulen wove his way through the early morning
traffic and out on to the road to den Haag.

Once they were clear of the city he said, "I have an outpatients'
clinic this morning, and I shall want to have you there to take notes.
This afternoon I have a number of consultations.  I should like the
notes typed up by five o'clock there won't be very many.  Someone will
bring you a folder during the after noon the book I am writing.  Type
as much as you can before you leave the hospital."

"And when will that be?"  asked Serena.

"Six o'clock or thereabouts," he told her carelessly.

"Tomorrow I shall be in theatre, anaesthetising.  Carry on with the
manuscript until I send you my letters."

"Very well.  Where am I to lodge?"

"In the nurses' home it is a few yards from the hospital.

There is a canteen there where you will get your meals.  You have no
need to worry or pay for anything that is all taken care of.  The
following day I shall be at a children's hospital, and you will go with
me.  "

Serena said faintly, "You're going to be busy."

"So are you, make no mistake about that."  He glanced at her.

"Too much for you?"  he wanted to know blandly.

"Certainly not!  If Miss Payne coped I suppose I can too."

He said casually, "Oh, Muriel took everything in her stride;

she was most competent.  "

"I'm not sure if that's meant to encourage me or warn me to expect the
sack," said Serena tartly.

He laughed then.

"Neither.  Believe me, Serena, you would have been back in England by
now if you hadn't measured up to her standards.  You'll do very
well."

"I'm flattered."

"I never flatter."

His profile looked so stern that she forbore from saying another
word.

The hospital in den Haag was large and modern.  On their arrival Serena
was whisked away by a severe woman in an old-fashioned nurse's uniform
and a fiercely starched cap with its tail hanging down her back.

"You will come with me," said this lady in a voice that dared her to
disagree, then she led the way, away from the doctor, who muttered a
casual, "I'll see you presently, Serena."

Serena was walked briskly along a number of corridors, taken up several
floors in a lift and led through a swing-door into a corridor very like
the one in Amsterdam.

"Your office," said her companion.

"Leave your things here.  There is a cloakroom at the end of the
corridor where you may tidy yourself."  Her look implied that this was
an urgent necessity.

"You will take your midday meal at noon and someone will come for you
and show you where to go."

"My room?"  asked Serena, getting a word in edge ways.

"After your midday meal you will be shown your room.  Your case will be
taken there in the meantime."  The severe lady eyed her doubtfully.

"I hope you will be happy during your stay."

"Oh, so do I," said Serena fervently, but not quite sure about it.

CHAPTER FOUR

serena barely had time to tidy herself, arrange her desk to her liking
and put her notebook and pen ready before the phone on her desk rang.

"Take the lift," said the doctor's voice in her ear, 'and come down to
the ground floor.  Someone will meet you there.  "

He hung up before she could say a word.

She got into the lift and was met by a solemn young man in large
glasses.

"Miss Proudfoot?"  He offered a hand.

"Dirk Moennan."

They shook hands rather solemnly, but he gave her no time to speak.

"This way," he urged her, and hurried her along another corridor and
into a vast hall overflowing with people sitting on long benches and
all talking animatedly.

There was a young woman with a trolley serving coffee, and Serena's
little beaky nose twitched at its aroma.  A smell of it was all she was
likely to get if even a fraction of the people there were outpatients
of the doctor's!

His consulting-room was at the other end of the hall and he was already
at his desk, reading the notes being handed to him by a tall, very
pretty girl in a sister's uniform.  She looked up and smiled at Serena,
but Dr.  ter Feulen merely twitched an eyebrow.

"That chair over there in the corner, Serena."  Then, to her surprise,
"Have you had your coffee?"

She sat composedly.

"No, sir."

He waved a hand at the sister, who in turn said something to a nurse
who had just joined them.  Then he said, "You had better gulp it down
now, you won't have another chance.  This is Zuster de Vries, she
speaks very good English."

Serena nodded and smiled and longed suddenly to speak very good Dutch.
She drank the coffee when it was brought, trying to make sense of what
was being said around her.  No wonder they all spoke English so well,
for no one but the Dutch could understand their own language, although
presently she was cheered to hear several medical terms which sounded
near enough to those in English.  She polished off the coffee, tucked
back a stray wisp of mousy hair and held her pencil at the ready as a
very stout lady was ushered in.  She looked frightened, and Serena
watched the doctor put her at her ease before starting his patient
questioning.  He had charm, she reflected as she took down his concise
notes, taking care to get the medical terms right.  He might be quite
nice.  His calm voice stopped and he spoke to the sister, who led the
patient away to a cubicle.  He talked for a few minutes to the youngish
man who had just joined him and turned to Serena.

"This is my registrar, Willem Bakker--Serena Proudfoot--I mentioned
her.  Add this to my notes, if you please..."  He dictated for a few
moments and when he had finished Serena said softly, "Oh, the poor
soul!"

"Fortunately it's curable.  We'll have her in at once, Willem."

He went away to examine his patient then and Willem Bakker with him.
Presently, from the agitated voice from the cubicle, Serena guessed
that the patient had been told that she would need surgery.  At
intervals, between the cries and outbursts of the woman, she could hear
the doctor being soothing to good effect, for presently they all
emerged once again and the patient was led away looking quite
cheerful.

Dr.  ter Feulen sat himself down again, spoke to the sister and buried
his nose in the papers before him, but he got to his feet as the next
patient was ushered in an old man, bone-thin, well turned out in well
worn clothes, with bright blue eyes in a calm face.

He wished everyone good day and sat down and said something to the
doctor to make him laugh a little.  The pair of them talked for a
minute or two, and then went into the little cubicle, but not for long.
The old man came out with the doctor, still spruce and cheerful, bade
everyone goodbye and went away.  The doctor sat down again.

"Lucius de Groot," he began to dictate.

"Carcinoma of left lung.  Refuses admission.  Non-operable.  Reference
notes..."  He quoted numbers.

"A delightful man," he added to Serena.

The morning wore on, but no one looked at the clock.  The doctor was
apparently tireless and expected everyone else to be the same.  From
time to time the nurse would appear briefly, whisper to Sister and go
again, and it wasn't until almost two o'clock that the last patient for
the doctor's clinic went away.

The doctor got to his feet, thanked everyone with cool politeness and
went away with his registrar.  Zuster de Vries smiled at Serena.

"A long morning you know where to go to eat?"  When Serena shook her
head she said, "Then you come with me."  She glanced at her watch.

"I have only a short time before the next clinic.  But I eat first."

The canteen was at the back of the hospital, a large airy place with a
long counter running its length and tables set in orderly rows.  Very
like the hospital at home, reflected Serena, collecting a tray and
joining Zuster de Vries to assemble soup, cheese rolls, a salad and
coffee on it.  While they ate, sitting alone in the empty room, they
talked.

The Dutch girl was friendly.

"I will tell Zuster Graaf to come here and show you to your room.  You
will work this afternoon?"

"Oh, yes.  Dr.  ter Feulen wants the notes by five o'clock and then I'm
to type up his manuscript."

Zuster de Vries nodded her pretty head.

"He works hard, so we work hard also."

"He's not always here?  I mean, what do you do when he's away?"

The other girl rolled her eyes.

"Work Willem Bakker sees to that and the doctor comes many times,
sometimes just for a day, perhaps two, to operate or examine some
difficult cases.  He also goes to Amsterdam but you know that."

Serena finished her coffee.

"Yes, he works hard in London too."

"He is a good man, but how do you say?  wrapped in himself?"

The pair of them left the canteen, and Zuster de Vries went to a wall
phone and talked for a few moments.

"She comes, Zuster Graaf.  You will wait here?  I must go back now."
She smiled dazzlingly.

"To morrow it is my free day and I go with my fiance to his home."

"I hope you have a lovely time."  Serena was aware of a distinct
feeling of relief at the news, although she didn't know why.

Zuster de Vries paused in her flight.

"You have a boyfriend?

You are engaged?  "

Serena shook her head and gave what she hoped was a carefree smile.

"You should have you are a nice girl.  Dr.  ter Feulen told me so."

Serena was left pondering this remark, trying to make something of it
and failing.  Not for long, how ever, for the severe woman arrived,
looking a shade less severe, thank heaven.

"You come with me?"  she invited, and looked pleased when Serena said,
"Thank you, Zuster Graaf."

The nurses' home was in a ten-storey block built on to the hospital and
reached by an outside passage or a bridge on its fourth floor. 
Serena's room was on this floor and close to the bridge something,
painstakingly pointed out by Zuster Graaf, that would make it easier
for Serena to get herself to and from the hospital.

Serena thanked her gratefully and admired her room.  It was small but
comfortable, with bright curtains at its window and a warm bedspread on
the divan bed.  The shower-rooms were at the end of the corridor, she
was told, and she would be called each morning with the nurses at
half-past six.

"You are expected to have your light out by half-past eleven,"
concluded Zuster Graaf.

If the morning's work was anything to go by, thought Serena, her light
would be out long before then.

Left to herself, she unpacked her few things and sped back to the room
where she was to work.  By dint of keeping strictly to the task at hand
she had the notes ready by five o'clock, and, since no one had told her
how long she was to work, she started on the doctor's manuscript.

It was an involved work full of incomprehensible words and couched in
the sort of language she supposed members of the medical profession
understood.  Probably the work of a genius written in almost
unintelligible script.  She hoped she was getting it right.

It was almost six o'clock and she was tired, hungry and thirsty.  No
one had come near her since a mug of tea had been offered round about
three o'clock, and she had neglected to ask at what time she was
supposed to stop work and, what was more important, when she might eat
her supper.

She looked up hopefully as the door opened, but it was Dr.  ter Feulen,
a sheaf of papers in one hand, and her face fell.

"Not pleased to see me?"  he wanted to know blandly.

"I'm pleased to see anyone," she told him tartly.

"I should like to know for how long I go on working and where and when
there'll be any supper?"  She added crossly, "And now you're here, with
more work!"

"No, no," he told her soothingly, 'merely work for tomorrow.

I am sorry if no one told you about working hours and meals.

You work until six o'clock and go to the canteen for your supper at
half-past seven.  You don't need to go if you wish to spend your
evening elsewhere.  I thought that perhaps we might have dinner
together?  "

"Us?  Have dinner?"  Her surprise hardly nattered him, and the corners
of his firm mouth twitched with amusement.

"Well, we have to eat, do we not?  And I for one am hungry and I must
add that I have a busy day tomorrow and there will be no time in which
to tell you what I shall want you to do."

"Oh, well, in that case," she conceded kindly, and added, "I haven't
anything to wear..."

"Somewhere quiet," he assured her.

"I'll be outside in the car in fifteen minutes."

He held the door open for her and she skipped past him, her mind
already intent on what she should wear.

It was clear it would have to be the green jersey.  She raced through a
shower and got into it, did her face and hair and pushed her feet into
the plain black pumps she so seldom wore.  Her reflection in the long
looking-glass in the corridor wasn't encouraging.  The dress was all
right, it fitted her and it had a certain elegance; all the same, it
was the kind of dress no one ever saw.  She put on the jacket, found a
hand bag and raced back to the hospital and out of its front door, to
skid to a halt within inches of the doctor's substantial bulk.

He greeted her with one hand.

"I would have waited, you know," he told her gently.

"With four sisters I have been educated to expect all women to be at
least fifteen minutes later than the time arranged."

"Four sisters?"  Serena stood on the pavement looking up at him in
surprise.  Somehow she had never considered the possibility of his
having a family parents, brothers, sisters.  "Brothers too?"

"Three."

"Well, I never!"  She stared up at him with her lovely hazel eyes,
fringed with their long curling lashes.

"What I mean is... well..."

She paused, and he helped her out with smiling ease.

"I'm the eldest."  He smiled down at her and opened the car door.

"I hope you're hungry--I had to miss lunch."

She had barely glimpsed den Haag that morning;

it was dark now and she had no idea where they were going.

He drove through the centre of the city and within a few minutes turned
into a broad street leading away from its heart.

"There's a very pleasant place in Wassenaar--that's the outskirts of
den Haag.  We're almost there."  He glanced sideways at her quiet
face.

"I expect you're tired--I've worked you hard."

"You warned me," she reminded him, 'and it was all very interesting.  I
wish I understood more about your work, but I dare say I'll pick up the
basic facts in time.  "

He had turned into a narrow tree-lined street and parked the car beside
what appeared to be a country inn--a sight to reassure Serena, still
doubtful about the green jersey.

Inside, she felt even better, for it was in truth an inn, decked out
with little tables with coloured tablecloths, candlelit, and with a
heavily beamed low ceiling.  There was a bar at one end and a fair
number of people, some of them dressed as simply as she was.  She
heaved a sigh of relief, not unnoticed by her companion, and
surrendered her jacket before being led to the bar.

They drank their sherry and studied the menu.  It might be a country
inn, Serena reflected, but a very expensive one, judging by the prices,
which even when changed into pounds were sky-high.  With an eye on the
doctor's pocket she selected the lowest- priced food she could find,
only to have her choice quietly contradicted.

"Take my advice," he begged her, 'the garlic mushrooms are delicious
and they do a splendid lobster here.  May I alter your mind for you? 
"

He didn't wait for her answer but spoke to the waiter, ordered wine
without looking at the wine list and settled back in his chair.

"What do you think of the hospital?"  he wanted to know.  His quiet,
friendly manner invited confidence, and Serena, long starved of a
sympathetic listener, for her mother had no interest in hospitals or
indeed anything that smacked of illness, gave her opinions full rein.

The doctor listened gravely, putting in an encouraging word here and
there, and if he was amused at some of her remarks nothing, save a
gleam in his half- shut eyes, showed of it.

They dined presently at a table set discreetly in a window where they
could observe without being observed.  Serena looked around her with
pleasure, happily unaware that he had asked for a table where the
plainness of her dress would go largely unobserved.

His discerning eye had seen quickly enough that while at first sight
the women there appeared to be simply dressed, the simplicity was
expensive, and for some reason he hadn't bothered to probe he didn't
want Serena to feel unhappy about that.

He was a practised host and a pleasant companion when he chose to be.
She ate the mushrooms and the lobster and on his advice followed them
by a mountainous confection of ice-cream, chocolate and whipped cream
topped off thickly with nuts and can died fruit.  She drank the wine he
poured for her, but refused a second glass, nor would she have brandy
with her coffee.

"I'm not very used to it," she told him matter-of-factly.

"I don't go out a great deal."

Hardly ever, but she wasn't going to tell him that.

She had refilled his coffee-cup when he said, "I should like you to go
on with the manuscript tomorrow.  You will most likely not get my
letters until the late afternoon.  I should like them ready to sign by
half-past six at the latest; I've an evening engagement He went on to
detail the rest of the week:

clinics, a session with private patients which she would attend, two
more theatre sessions the notes of which would have to be typed up, and
more clinics.

"You will be free on Saturday and Sunday.  Be ready to return to
Amsterdam with me on Monday morning.  I'll give you the time later on
in the week."

Serena observed that then- pleasant evening was over, a matter for
regret on her part but perhaps not on his.  It had been delightful; she
told him in her sensible way that she would like to return to the
hospital, "For I've plenty of work waiting for me in the morning, and
you will have too.  Thank you very much for my delicious dinner, and in
such a delightful place..."  She looked round her once more and this
time took note of the women's clothes.

"I'm not dressed for it, you know--you don't mind?"

She spoke with the unconscious candour of a child and without
self-pity, and the doctor said kindly, "You look very nice, Serena, and
I wouldn't have minded if you were wearing a potato sack."  Which
wasn't quite true, but with four sisters to practise on he had
perfected the art of saying the right thing and at the right time.

He was rewarded by the pleased smile on her face.

"Oh, good."

At the hospital he got out, opened the car door and was at her side to
show her in to the entrance hall.  He wished her a pleasant but brief
goodnight and went along one of the downstairs corridors.  From his
purposeful walk Serena concluded that he had already forgotten her. 
Why should he remember me?  she reflected, making her way over to the
nurses' home and her room.

She didn't see him the next day.  She typed his manuscript, wished she
could understand even a small part of it, and soon after four o'clock a
porter brought her a pile of letters as well as notes from the doctor's
day in theatre.  She abandoned the manuscript with relief, dealt with
the letters and started on the notes.  It was almost half-past six by
then, and when the same porter came back she gave him the letters,
tidied her desk and went over to the nurses' home.  Supper and an hour
watching the TV in the company of some of the other nurses in the
nicely furnished sitting-room filled the rest of the evening, and she
went to bed armed with a Dutch-English dictionary one of the nurses had
lent her.  It had some useful phrases tucked away on the back page. 
She tried out those under the heading "Restaurants and dining'; it was
most unlikely that the doctor would ever ask her out again, but one
never knew... She had got as far as " Toast, buttered or dry' when she
fell asleep.

The rest of the week went by in a punishing round of constant work.  By
Friday evening Serena was heartily sick of her little office, and had
she had the strength she would gladly have hurled the typewriter
through the window, but she had coped with every thing, obeying the
doctor's terse instructions to the letter, never looking at the clock,
mindful of Miss Payne's perfections.  To her surprise he had put his
head round the door as she was tidying everything away for the last
time and thanked her for her hard work.

"I'll take those if they're ready," he said, and scooped up the papers
and letters she had just finished.

"Be outside by eight o'clock on Monday morning.  We will go straight to
the hospital from here, but after the morning clinic I shan't need you
until the following morning, so you will be able to go to Mevrouw
Blom's and see your mother."

She thanked him and watched him walk away down the corridor before
switching off the lights and closing the doors, vexed that she had
forgotten to thank him for the envelope she had found on her desk that
morning.  There were Dutch banknotes in it and his scrawled message
that she might like some of her salary so that she could shop if she
wished.

It was delightful to have a whole day to herself.  She had telephoned
her mother on the previous evening, but she had been out and Mevrouw
Blom had told her that she and Mr.  Harding were planning to go to
Amhem at the weekend and should she give her a message.  Serena had
told her not to bother.

"Just say that I'll be back some time on Monday, please, Mevrouw Blom,
and give her my love."

She had rung off feeling let down; there had been the vague idea that
her mother might have come to den Haag for the day and they could have
gone shop ping together, but probably Amhem would be much more
interesting.

She went out soon after breakfast with a map and a guidebook and spent
the morning inspecting the Ridderzaal, then she took herself through
the Binnenhof to the Mauritshuis, a lovely Dutch Renaissance house, its
rooms filled with the finest seventeenth-century paintings.  She could
have stayed there for a very long time, but she had a lot to see still,
so she went along Korte Vijverberg and Lange Vijverberg so that she
could admire the facades of the old houses there.  By then she was
hungry and went in search of a coffee house, where she ate a kaas
broodje and drank several cups of coffee before set ting off once more.
The shops, she decided, as she had Sunday in which to explore the
churches and the parks, so the afternoon was spent with her small nose
pressed to boutique windows, showcases of jewellery and small shops
filled with expensive leather goods.  She turned away from them finally
and went into the Bijenkorf, which had the familiarity of a small
Selfridges, had an elegant tea on the balcony high above the busy
counters below and then went in search of a present for her mother and
something for Mevrouw Blom; silver filigree earrings for her mother and
a silk headscarf for Mevrouw Blom, who never seemed to leave the house
without one.  She browsed round the delightful cosmetic counters too,
and after a good deal of deliberation bought a new lipstick and a cream
guaranteed to erase lines and wrinkles.  That she had neither was a
small matter; she was fulfilling an urge to improve her looks.

She spent Sunday exploring den Haag once again, the churches this time;
Sint Jacobs Kerk, and close by the Holy Ghost Almshouses, hardly
changed in three hundred years.  From there she walked to the
Kloosterkerk and presently found a coffee shop for her snack lunch, and
since it was a cold day she had a bowl of erwtensoep, almost solid with
peas and tiny pieces of ham and sausage.

Madurodam was something she had promised her self she would see.  Armed
with the number of the tram she must take in order to reach it, she
paid her modest bill and went back into the street.

It was as wonderful as the nurses in the hospital had told her a
miniature city; streets, already lighted since the afternoon was
dimming to dusk, canals, trains, trams and buses, houses of every
description, churches, theatres and shops.  There was even an air port
and an amusement park.  She spent a long time there, until the chilly
evening reminded her that she needed some tea.  She took a tram back to
the centre of den Haag, had tea in an elegant and wickedly expensive
cafe, then went back to the hospital.  A lovely weekend, she decided,
as she went to her room.  She felt vaguely guilty about it, for of
course the doctor would have been hard at work.

Nothing of the sort.  He had spent a delightful weekend in Friesland.

Serena was punctual on Monday morning, but he E was already waiting in
the car.  He got out, put her case in the boot and opened the door for
her.

"I'm not late she began.

"Good morning, Serena.  No, I am early, so smooth your ruffled feathers
and tell me what you did with your weekend."

He was at his most amiable, and she responded happily, but was careful
to keep her remarks brief in case he got bored.

They were approaching Amsterdam in a welter of early morning traffic
when he observed, "I have to spend a few days in Leeuwarden in
Friesland a couple of lectures and some consultations.  From there we
shall return to England.  You will go with me it will be a good
opportunity to get on with the manuscript."

She said quietly, "Yes, Doctor," and then, "My mother?"

"I imagine she will be agreeable to remaining in Amsterdam for another
few days?  We can pick her up on our way back."

He gave her a brief glance.

"You can discuss it with her this afternoon."

"Yes.  When do you wish to go to Friesland?"

"Let me see, today is Monday.  I have a list there on Friday morning,
so we should drive up there on Thursday evening.

They will put you up in the nurses' home there.  If there are no
hindrances, we should leave there on the following Monday.  You will be
back home some time that day.  I'm sorry I can't be more explicit at
the moment.  "

They were silent then until he stopped the car be fore the hospital
entrance, got out to open the door for her, fetched her case and
carried it as far as the lift.

"I'll see you in about twenty minutes," he told her, 'in the
outpatients' clinic.  "

There were a great many patients.  Serena filled her notebook and hoped
that the doctor wouldn't want everything typed by five o'clock.  It
seemed that he didn't.  The clinic over at last, he told her, "Go to
Mevrouw Blom's after your lunch.

There is no need for you to come back until nine o'clock tomorrow type
what you can.  I shall be operating tomorrow, so you will have the
morning in which to finish them.  There will be letters in the
afternoon.  " At the door he turned to say, " Take a taxi and add it to
your expenses

Serena went back to her office, put everything ready to start work
later on, hurried down to the can teen for a quick meal and, dressed
and with her night- case in her hand, got a taxi and was ringing
Mevrouw Blom's doorbell in nice time for the afternoon cup of tea.

Mevrouw Blom prided herself on adapting her ways to her guests.  The
English liked their tea at four o'clock, so that was when it was
served.  She was coming into the hall with her empty tea-tray when
Serena rang the bell, and she opened the door at once.  Her welcome was
warm.

"Serena, just as I take in the teapot!  Take off your jacket and go at
once to the drawing-room.  Your case can stay in the hall."  She beamed
in her kindly fashion.

"You tell me all soon, eh?"

Serena said that yes, of course she would, and went into the
drawing-room.  They were all there, and there were cries of, "Well,
well, Serena, how nice!"  and, "Just in time for tea," and, "Are you
staying?"

She smiled and murmured replies, then went to her mother to kiss her.

"Darling!"  cried Mrs.  Proudfoot.

"How simply lovely to see you!"  She studied her daughter's face.

"You look very tired, you should do something about your hair have it
tinted.  Have you had a lovely time?  Met lots of new friends and gone
on the town?"  She patted the chair beside her.

"Come and sit down beside me."  Someone handed Serena a cup of tea and
her mother went on, "I've had such a splendid week!  We that is, Mr.
Harding and I have been to so many places I've lost count."  She gave a
pretty little laugh.

"Silly little me, but it was all so interesting."

There was a general babble of talk, with Mijnheer van Til airing his
English at some length and Mijnheer Lagerveld, not to be outdone,
enthusing about the delights of den Haag, their wives nodding and
smiling as though they understood every word.  Mr.  Harding had very
little to say, though.

Tea over, Mrs.  Proudfoot excused herself charmingly

"I must go upstairs with Serena," she apologised smilingly, 'and help
her unpack!  "

Something she had never done in her life before.  Serena supposed it
was an excuse to have a chat, and she was glad of the chance to tell
her mother that she was off to Friesland in a few days.  She didn't
think her mother would mind; she seemed very happy at Mevrouw Blom's.

In her room she opened her case and started to take out her things,
while her mother strolled over to the window and stared out into the
street below.

"Mother," began Serena carefully, "I quite thought we would be going
back to London this week, but the doctor has to go to Leeuwarden and
I'm to go with him.  Would you mind staying here for just a few more
days?"

Her mother turned round, laughing.

"But my dear girl, nothing could be better!  Mr.  Harding is returning
to England on Wednesday and has offered me a lift, and I've accepted.

You know how I hate flying.  We shall go in his car and I shan't have
to bother about anything.  " She saw the look on Serena's face and
added, " Besides, it really is time I went back to the house and made
sure that everything is all right.  It has been lovely here, darling,
but this is too good a chance to miss, travelling from door to door in
comfort.  "

Serena said, "Yes, of course.  Mother.  You'll be all right on your own
at the house?"  She folded a blouse slowly.

"I shall be back in a week, I suppose Dr.  ter Feulen didn't say
exactly when."

"I shall be perfectly OK," said her mother sharply.

"I'm not an old woman, you know, Serena!"  She glanced in the
looking-glass and patted her hair.

"Of course you must stay, since you work for the doctor.  You must be
having a lovely time."

"Yes, Mother.  I'd better tell Dr.  ter Feulen, hadn't I?"

Mrs.  Proudfoot frowned.

"Why bother?  It must be all the same to him whether I go or stay. Tell
him on Wednesday better still, I'll write him a little note and you can
give it to him."

"Very well.  I'm sorry we haven't had the chance to go anywhere
together.  It would have been fun to have done some shopping."

"Oh, darling, that reminds me I bought the prettiest dress in Amhem.
There are some lovely shops there.  Very pale grey crepe with the most
elegant cut you must see it."  With that Mrs.  Proudfoot went to the
door.

"I'll leave you to get tidy, darling see you at dinner."  She paused at
the door to ask, "You're staying here?"

"Only for this afternoon.  Mother.  I'm going back to work tomorrow on
an early morning bus.  Dr.  ter Feulen thought I'd like to see how you
were."

Her mother made a little face.

"Then I'd better write that note and let you have it this evening and
we can say goodbye then, my pet.  You know how awful I feel if I don't
get my sleep, and I'll be out tomorrow night."

When she had gone Serena sat down on her bed.  She would have liked a
good cry, but there was neither the time nor the place.  Besides, she
should be feeling delighted that her mother was so happy after her
years of ill health.  However, she wasn't delighted.  She was hurt and
lonely and forlorn, and unless she snapped out of it she would be
wallowing in self-pity.  She finished her unpacking; after their
evening meal she would have to do some washing.  The doctor hadn't said
if they were to go to Friesland from the hospital or whether she would
have an hour or two at Mevrouw Blom's.  She would have to ask.

She did her face and her hair, changed into another blouse and went
downstairs again.

She would have to be up early the next morning, but since Mevrouw Blom
was an early riser that was no problem.  She said goodbye to her
mother, took the letter for the doctor and, after due thought, repacked
her case.  For all she knew he would want to go straight to Friesland
from the hospital on Thursday.  She wondered idly as she did so who saw
to his spotless linen and his beautifully pressed suits; he never
looked anything but immaculate.

She was at her desk by nine o'clock, eyeing the little pile of letters
and notes already on it.  The manuscript was there too.  She set to
work and typed steadily until her lunch break.  When she got back there
was another pile, notes of the work he had been doing in theatre all
the morning.  She had them ready by half-past five and had embarked on
the manuscript once more when he walked in.

His nod was casual.

"I'll sign everything here perhaps you would take them down to the
lodge as you go."

Her, "Yes, sir," was, as usual, quiet.

"Your mother is well?"  His head was bent over his papers.

"Yes, thank you.  I that is, she asked me to give you this note."

He put out a hand, not looking at her, finished what he was doing and
opened it.  Serena watched his face as he read.  It was impossible to
know what he was thinking from its blandness.

"You have no objection to staying on for a few more days?"

he wanted to know.

"Your mother seems quite content with her plans."

"Of course I'll stay," she told him matter-of-factly.

"Mother came because you were kind enough to allow her to do so.  I'm
very grateful; she's been very happy..."

"And no longer suffering ill health," he added drily.

"I'm glad."

He picked up his pen again and finished signing the papers.

"I must go I'm already rather late.  What do you do with your evenings,
Serena?"

She was taken by surprise.

"Well, there's supper and the TV, and I'm trying to learn one or two
Dutch phrases..."  It sounded pretty thin.

She watched him go after wishing her goodnight and giving her a brief
reminder that, since he would be operating again in the morning, she
was to get on with the book.

The days passed quickly.  Serena phoned her mother on Wednesday morning
and wished her a good trip home.

"I'll ring you this evening," she told her.

"You'll be back by then."

"No, don't do that, darling," said Mrs.  Proudfoot hastily.

"I

shall be exhausted after such a long journey even in comfort, so I
shall go straight to bed.  Give me your phone number and I'll ring you.
"

"I'm going to Friesland on Thursday," Serena're minded her.

"Oh, I'll get in touch during the morning, darling.  Have fun!"  Her
mother had rung off.

There was a final clinic on Thursday morning, and it seemed to Serena
that there were more patients than ever.  They were to leave at six
o'clock from the hospital, and she had found time to phone Mevrouw Blom
to tell her so.  It was early afternoon before her mother telephoned,
to say that she had had a delightful journey and she intended to spend
a few days quietly.

"And see you very shortly, darling," she added airily, 'and mind you
have some fun!  "

Serena cast a rather jaundiced eye at the pile of notes still waiting
to be typed.  They hardly allowed for fun, and she supposed it would be
the same in Friesland and indeed in London once they returned.

She reminded herself that she had no reason to complain.  Her salary
was good, she had a pleasant home to go to each evening and her
mother's company She finished her work and wasted a few minutes doing
sums on a piece of typing paper.  She would have more than enough to
buy all the clothes she wanted and contribute more to the household
budget too.  She covered the typewriter, left her desk neat and hurried
to get ready to leave with the doctor.

CHAPTER FIVE

'have you had a meal?  " the doctor asked her as he urged her into the
car and took her case.

Serena hadn't had the time, but she wasn't going to say so.

Her, "Yes, thank you," was prim.

"A pity.  I didn't stop for lunch and the cup of tea Theatre Sister
gave me did no more than whet my appetite."

He got in beside her and fastened his seatbelt.  He sounded resigned,
and her warm heart was touched.

"As a matter of fact," she told him, "I haven't had anything since
lunch."

And when he turned his cold questioning eye on her, "Yes, I know, but I
didn't want ... that is, I thought you were being polite--you know what
I mean?"

"No, I don't know what you mean, and I am never polite unless the
occasion merits it.  Serena, don't fib to me again."

"Well, I won't unless I really need to."

"That need should not arise.  There is a place in Hoom, we can get
there in half an hour."

He started the car and, once free of Amsterdam, drove north.

The restaurant in Hoom was pleasant, brightly lighted and only half
full.  They had a table in the window and ate sole bonne femme, braised
celery and plain boiled potatoes, and, since the doctor was driving and
Serena liked it, they drank Vichy water and followed that with
poffertjes and coffee, and while they ate he outlined his programme for
the next two days.

"I shall be in theatre all day tomorrow, and on Saturday there are one
or two cases lined up for me.  I'm on the hospital board and there will
be a meeting some time during the day.  There will be the notes of the
theatre cases for you to type and file, the rest of the time you can
get on with the book."

"Will you be working on Sunday?"  she asked.

"No.  We shall leave on Monday morning.  I'll tell you when later
on."

It was dark by now.  They left the restaurant and drove on, over the
Afsluitdijk and into Friesland, and since it was impossible to see any
of the scenery the doctor didn't bother to tell Serena anything about
it, leaving her to peer through her window as they swept through one
small village after another.  Only as they slowed to go through a
sizeable town did he say, "Franeker we're almost there."

"The signposts aren't in Dutch," said Serena.

"Or some of them aren't."

"Well, of course not, we're in Friesland now, and everyone speaks
Fries."

"Not Dutch as well?"

"Of course they speak Dutch, but among them selves they speak their own
language."

"Oh--do they speak English?  I've managed to learn one or two basic
sentences in Dutch..."

"Have you, indeed?  But don't worry, English is widely spoken."

He was slowing the car again as they entered Leeuwarden, driving down a
broad road lined with fair-sized red brick houses.  They could have
been in the outskirts of Bath or Basingstoke.  But the houses faded
away, and the road became narrow as they reached the heart of the city.
The streets were almost empty by now, but the shop windows were
lighted and Serena could see that the buildings were old and
picturesque, but she had very little time to look.  The doctor swept
the car into a narrow street and turned in between two stone pillars,
into a courtyard beyond which she could see the hospital.  It was
large, larger than she had expected, and from what she could see
modern, its lighted windows giving it a cheerful appearance.

The doctor undid her seatbelt and got out to open her door, and she
waited quietly while he got her case from the boot, then followed him
to the entrance.  There was a porter there.

He held open the door and, when the doctor spoke to him, took her case
and nodded before going to the lodge to telephone.

"You weren't speaking Dutch," observed Serena.

"Of course not."  The doctor smiled down at her in what she considered
to be a rather smug fashion.

"I'm Friesian."

He turned away to take the phone from the porter and presently put it
down and came back to her.

"HoofdZuster Grimstra is coming for you.  She will take you to your
room and you will be called in the morning, shown where to have your
meals and then taken to the room where you are to work.

If you get into difficulties, you can contact me.  "

"But I won't know where you are."  Serena suddenly felt lonely.

"No, but anyone here will know how to reach me."  He said something to
the porter, who listened and then nodded.

"Piet here will tell the porters on duty to keep an eye on you.  If you
want me but only if it's urgent, please it will be enough for you to
say my name to one of them."

She wondered what it must be like to be so important that everyone knew
immediately who you were.  She thanked him, and he smiled, but not at
her.  She turned round to face the person who had just joined them a
splendidly built woman, not young but handsome, with fine blue eyes and
grey hair pinned into an old-fashioned bun.  She wore uniform and an
imposing cap and held herself very erect.

She shook the doctor's hand and smiled at him, exchanging a few words
before he said, "This is Serena Proudfoot, my secretary.  HoofdZuster
Grimstra, who will look after you.  Go with her now, Serena."  He saw
her slight frown and added, "If you please.  I'll see you some time
tomorrow."

Her, "Goodnight, sir," was uttered in a waspish voice.

She had to trot to keep up with HoofdZuster Grimstra's stride.  They
went through the long corridor running from one end of the hospital to
the other and climbed the stairs leading from a second entrance hall.

"This door you will use," said her companion, 'also this staircase. 
The nurses' home is through this door.  "

They had reached a wide landing and she opened a stout door on one side
of it.  Another long corridor, lined with doors, one of which she
opened and ushered Serena inside.  The room was very like those she had
slept in at the other hospitals, with a welcome addition.

"You like tea," stated HoofdZuster Grimstra, 'there fore here is a tray
and a kettle and a teapot.  "

"How very kind!"  Serena smiled happily at her.

"Thank you very much."

"You will be called at seven o'clock, a nurse will show you to the
dining-room.  I wish you a good night, Serena."

HoofdZuster Grimstra nodded and smiled and made her stately way back
along the corridor, leaving Serena to examine her room.  There were
tea-bags, little packets of powdered milk and sugar lumps arranged
neatly on a tray beside the kettle.

She took off her jacket, filled the kettle from the washbasin and
switched it on, reflecting that the Dutch sister was both kind and
thoughtful for her comfort.  In this she was correct; she didn't know
that the dear soul was only obeying the doctor's request, indeed it
would have been the last thing that she would have expected of him.

A cheerful young nurse came for her in the morning and bore her down to
the ground floor for her breakfast, and when she had eaten her bread
and butter and cheese and drunk the delicious coffee, HoofdZuster
Grimstra carried her off to a small room high up in the hospital where
she found the doctor's manuscript on a desk beside a typewriter and
enough paper to keep her occupied for days.

"You will eat at twelve o'clock," said HoofdZuster Grimstra, and sailed
away.

The morning went quickly, although by noon Serena realised that she was
a little lonely, but the cheerful attempts of the nurses in the
dining-room to carry on a conversation with her mitigated that; she
went back to her typing and worked with a short break for a cup of milk
less tea halfway through the afternoon.  Of the doctor there was no
sign, but round about four o'clock a porter brought her a bundle of
notes to type.

"Written with his left hand and blindfolded," declared Serena to the
empty room.

"I never saw such a scrawl!"

It took her an hour or more to decipher them and render them into
neatly typed reports.

She had mushed by six o'clock and since there was no sign of the doctor
she bore her work down to the lodge.

"Dr.  ter Feulen," she said firmly, and handed it over to the porter.

He understood what she was talking about.  He took the papers from her,
summoned a junior porter, handed them to him and gave him some
instructions.

"Dr.  ter Feulen?"  asked Serena, just to be on the safe side.

"Yes, yes, miss.  He goes now."  She watched the porter race away,
hoping she had done the right thing.

The evening meal was at half-past six; bread and butter, cheese,
sausage, cold meat and a salad.  She ate it with appetite, carrying on
a conversation of sorts with the nurses around her.  They were friendly
girls;

they bore her off presently to a large sitting-room where she watched
TV and drank more coffee before going to her bed.  It had been quite a
nice day, she decided as she jumped into bed, even though she hadn't
seen the doctor.

An unseen hand had left more of the manuscript on her desk.

She spent the whole of Saturday typing, happy to know that she would be
free to do as she liked on Sunday.  There was Leeuwarden to explore for
a start, and she would find somewhere to have a nice meal.  The shops
would be shut, of course, but she could look in the windows.  She
finished the last of the typing, tidied her desk, covered her
typewriter and gathered her work neatly together.  She would have to
take it down to the lodge again, she supposed;

there had been no sign of the doctor.  Probably tied up with his
meetings, she decided, and switched off the lights.

They were switched on again at once.

"Finished?"  asked Dr.  ter Feulen.

"Splendid.  Give me those, if you please.  Be outside the entrance at
nine o'clock to morrow morning."

"Another hospital?"  asked Serena faintly.

"No.  We will, I hope, enjoy a few hours' leisure before we return on
Monday."

"Where?"

"Shall we keep it as a surprise?"  he wanted to know blandly.

He stood aside for her to pass him and shut the door after them both.

"You have been comfortable here?"

"Yes, thank you," Serena said coldly.

"I was looking forward to exploring Leeuwarden, I'm not sure that I "
Well, if you're not sure you won't mind postponing that until another
time, will you?  "

They had gone down the staircase together, and now he turned to go in
the opposite direction to her.

"Don't forget, nine o'clock."  He smiled at her suddenly.

"Goodnight, Serena."

She marshalled all the reasons she had for not going with him while she
ate some supper and sat with the nurses watching an old American film.
The reasons, on second thoughts, seemed petty, and moreover she had
earned any treat he might have in store for her.  She would wear the
checked skirt and the jacket and the ivory silk blouse she had most
fortunately brought with her.  She was still deciding which shoes she
should wear when she fell asleep.

It was a fine morning, but cold.  Serena dressed, did her face and hair
and got into the court shoes.  Suede boots would have been the thing,
but the court shoes, while probably unsuitable, were unobtrusive.

She had her breakfast, packed her case once more and went downstairs to
the forecourt.  She had very little idea as to when they were to leave
the next morning, so it seemed prudent to leave everything as ready as
possible.  He had said a few hours, which could mean anything.  The
Bentley was drawn up before the entrance and the doctor was deep in
conversation with an elderly man.  Serena slowed her steps, not sure
what to do.

"Good morning, Serena.  Come and meet Dr.  Heringa, he's the director
of the hospital."  He turned to the other man.

"My secretary and right arm, Serena Proudfoot."

She shook hands with the elderly man and said in English, "Good
morning."

He replied, "You will enjoy your day, I am sure.  I am delighted to
meet you.  Miss Proudfoot.  I will not keep you from your pleasure." 
He clapped the doctor on the shoulder.

"I will see you before you go.  Marc."

Serena felt a thrill of pleasure as she settled into her seat.  The car
was warm and comfortable and she was looking as near her best as it was
possible to be.  Her euphoria was shortlived.

"You should be wearing a winter coat," observed her companion
carelessly with a sideways glance which bore all the interest of a man
looking at a heap of potato sacks.

"Well, I decided not to," she told him with a snap, 'and what I wear is
of no concern to you!  "

"My dear girl, don't fly at me like that.  And it is my concern; I
don't want a secretary with a streaming cold in the head."  He had
started the car, but now he stopped and turned to look at her.

"Shall we cry pax?"

Serena said with dignity, "Certainly, Dr.  ter Feulen," and then,
forgetting her dignity, "Where are we going?"

"Ah, wait and see," was all he would say.

He drove out of Leeuwarden, going north, and presently she saw a
signpost to Dokkum.

"Are we going towards the coast?"

she ventured.

"Yes."  His rather stern profile gave nothing away, and she decided not
to say any more.  She knew Dokkum was associated with St.  Boniface and
thus had connections with England.

Perhaps he was going to show her something of it.  The country was
pleasant under a wintry sky and here and there she glimpsed water.
There were farms, lying well back from the road, flat-faced and broadly
built, connected to the I huge barns behind them by a narrow passage.
There wasn't much traffic on the road and the villages they ;

went through were quiet.

"Everyone is in church," said the doctor.  | Serena would have liked to
have stopped in Dokkum when they reached it; there was a canal run- j
ning through the centre of the little town, and its old i buildings
were charming, but the doctor went on, still going north.  He had
turned off the main road now S[ and was driving along a brick country
road, running ^ beside a canal.  They drove through two villages, small
circles of houses with a church brooding over each of them, and now she
could see trees ahead of them, topping a slight rise in the ground.

There was a village tucked into the trees, nicely sheltered from the
wide land around it.  The church dominated the tiny square and the
houses were for the most part small, but every one of them gleamed with
paintwork and shining windows, draped in whiter- than-white curtains.
In among them were larger houses and what she took to be a miniature
town hall opposite the church.

"What a dear little place--like an illustration in a fairy-tale!  What
is it called?"

"Oosterzum."  They were leaving the village behind and now there were
tall iron railings on one side of the road.  They curved inwards
between stone pillars, and the doctor turned the car between them into
a straight drive leading to a large square house, with white walls and
green shutters at each of its orderly row of windows.

"Where's this?"  asked Serena sharply.

"My home."  He stopped the car before the massive door, undid her
seatbelt and then got out to open her door, take her firmly by the arm
and go across the gravel just as the house door was thrown open and
allowed children, dogs and a number of people to emerge.

"My family," said the doctor, and gave her a wicked look.

It seemed they were all there.  She was introduced to his sisters, four
young women, tall, blonde and good-looking with bright blue eyes.

"Talitha, Sanna, Wibekke and Prisca," said the doctor.

"You can sort them out later."  And he left her for a moment to join
his brothers while they shook her hand, all talking at once.

"My brothers; Wilbren, Kaeye and Stendert."

"Don't bother to remember our names," the young man called Wilbren said
cheerfully, 'and I must warn you that there are more of us inside.  "

They bore her indoors with the doctor and his sisters following, but as
they entered the hall from the porch he was beside her again.

"Come and meet my mother," he invited, and crossed the hall an
apartment Serena would dearly have loved to inspect at her leisure,
with its lofty ceiling walls almost covered with paintings in huge
ornate frames and a chandelier, dripping cascades of crystal above her
head.

There was a curving staircase at the back of the hall, but she was
given no time to do more than glimpse it.

They went through double doors, solid wood with carved swags of flowers
and fruits over their arches, and into a room which was as lofty as the
hall and far lighter by reason of the long, wide windows, their velvet
curtains echoing the patterned carpet which covered almost the whole
floor.  Very old, she observed silently, and probably priceless.

There were several people in the room; four men were standing between
the windows and there were two young women with them, all tall and
good-looking.  But the elderly lady coming to meet them wasn't tall,
nor was she particularly handsome, more over, she wasn't much taller
than Serena.  Her hair was mousy too, as mousy as Serena's own tidy
head, but it was streaked with silver and dressed severely in a French
pleat.  She was dressed with an elegance that didn't detract from her
welcoming smile; she would have looked as nice in a pinny, thought
Serena happily.

The doctor bent his great height to kiss his mother.

"Mama, here is Serena.  She has been working hard for the last few days
and a change of scene seemed a good idea."

Serena shook the hand held out to her and smiled at the older woman; a
nice friendly face, and the blue eyes were gentle.

"My dear, you must think that Marc has brought you to a madhouse! There
are so many of us.  When ever he comes to Holland we try to get
together here so that we can have a family gathering.  Have you
brothers and sisters?"

"No, mevrouw.  I live with my mother."

"You have a busy life too, I'll be bound."  She turned to the group by
the windows.

"Come and meet Serena," she said, and added, "Sons-in-law, my dear, and
my youngest daughter's fiance the two girls are Wilbren and Stendert's
wives."  She chuckled.

"There are two adorable babies in the nursery as well as the children
running around here."

It was a lovely day; Serena was passed from one group to the next,
talked to, teased a little in the kind est possible way, asked about
her work, and after a splendid lunch they took her on a tour of the
house and then walked her round the grounds, and all this time she
hardly spoke to the doctor.  He seemed content to leave her to the
friendly care of his brothers and sisters, and after a while she lost
her initial shyness and began to enjoy herself enormously.  Once or
twice she wondered if she were in a dream, for the sight of the doctor,
strolling along with one or other of his family, playing with the
children, throwing sticks for the dogs, was so alien to her concept of
him.  There was no sign of his casual coolness, his polite
indifference, his confident expectancy that she would do exactly what
he wished without argument.  He was treating her exactly as he treated
his sisters and sister-in-law.  Upon reflection Serena was vexed at the
thought.

Over tea she had a talk with his mother, a conversation skilfully
conducted by that lady which left her in possession of a fair picture
of Serena's life.  The men went away to play billiards after tea and
the women gathered together.  The Baronne stitched at her embroidery
frame, several of the girls had knitting with them, while the rest sat
idle, chatting, careful to include Serena in their talk, and all the
while children and dogs and a large black cat wandered from chair to
chair. Serena had never been so happy.

The children were borne away to bed presently and the grown-ups had
supper: watercress soup, lobster patties, beignets and salad and a
pavlova to finish.  They sat over their coffee, and Serena could have
stayed there for hours, just listening to the cheerful hum of talk
around her, but the doctor put an end to that.

"Time we went back," he declared cheerfully.

"We're leaving early in the morning."

"You'll come again soon?"  asked his mother.

"Yes--I'm examining at the Medical School in Groningen in a few weeks'
time."

"And Serena?"  Friendly faces beamed at her.

The?  Oh, I don't suppose I'll come to Holland again.  " She caught
sight of the doctor's raised eyebrows and hurried on, " What I mean is,
only if the doctor has work for me.  "

"Does he drive you hard?"  asked Kaeye.

"And do you always call him Doctor?"

"Yes, always."  She smiled because Kaeye was fun, the youngest of the
brothers, with an easy friendliness that had melted her shyness.

"Take no notice, Serena," said the doctor from the head of the table He
sounded amused.

"And do call me Marc if you would like to."

She said thoughtfully, "Thank you, but I don't think it would do.  I
might forget in hospital and that wouldn't be very nice for you."

"I quite agree," chimed in the Baronne.

"Marc wouldn't have a patient left if everyone addressed him so.
Doctors have a certain mystique..."  There was a howl of laughter from
everyone at the table When it had died down, she went on calmly, "Not
for me, of course, but there are still any number of people who think
of the medical profession as a race apart."

There was more laughter as the doctor got to his feet.

"You're undermining my ego," he observed.

"It is a good thing I'm not operating tomorrow, I've lost all my
self-assurance!"

There was more laughter as they all trooped into the hall, while Serena
got into her jacket and went round shaking hands with everyone.

"I've had such a lovely day," she said to the Baronne.

"I'm going to remember it forever... I had no idea..."

Her hostess kissed her cheek.

"I'm very glad you came, my dear, and I hope that one day perhaps you
will come and see us all again."

Serena, getting into the Bentley, reflected that there was nothing she
would like more, but she supposed it was politeness on the part of her
hostess, kindly meant, in the same way as her mother so often begged a
chance-met friend to come to tea one day without meaning it at all.

The doctor had nothing much to say, merely wanted to know if she was
tired, reminding her that he intended to leave at eight o'clock the
following morning, and beyond a few remarks about the darkness of the
evening and their prospects for a speedy journey back to England he had
nothing to add.  He was his usual self once more, retreated into his
bland and distant shell.  She sighed gently; the glimpse she had had of
him had been exciting.

Everyone had seen them off.  They lingered on the steps outside the
porch, watching the tail-lights disappear round the bend in the road.

The Baronne turned to go into the house.

"A very sweet girl," she observed.

"She will do very well."

"Mama, you matchmaker!"  said Talitha.

"She is just right, though."

"Of course she is, my dear."

"But Marc isn't..."

"Marc wishes her to be happy, he is concerned for her but he does not
want to show it.  He has been in love many times, I am sure, but to
love as well as being in love, that is something else.  He is not yet
aware..."

"And Serena?"

"Ah, she does not expect to be loved and so she is also unaware."  The
Baronne took Talitha's arm.

"We shall see."

They went indoors and the elderly Hans, who had served the family for
almost all his life, shut the door behind them.

"A nice young lady the baron brought home," he said in Fries with the
respectful familiarity of an old and trusted servant.

"Tiele thinks the same, mevrouw."

The Baronne paused by him.

"You are both right, Hans--a charming young lady."  She put a hand on
his sleeve.

"Let us hope that we see more of her."

At the hospital the doctor got out of the car and went with Serena into
the entrance hall.  She stopped inside the door to look up at him.

"Thank you for my lovely day.  Doctor.  I can't remember when I've
enjoyed myself so much, and your family were so kind."

She added shyly, "I don't know much about large families--they must be
tremendous fun."

He had taken her hand in his.

"They are.  I'm glad that you were happy with us."

"I'll never forget it.  Goodnight, Doctor."  She turned away and
paused.

"Ought I to call you Baron?  I didn't know you were so--so important!
One of your sisters--no, it was a sister-in-law, I think--said that you
were the head of the family and that the house and grounds and several
farms were yours and your people had lived there for hundreds of
years."

"That would be Sebbie, the chatterbox.  And don't ever dare to call me
Baron, Serena.  That's all very well in Friesland but unthinkable in
hospital."

His words were severe, but uttered in such a kindly voice that she
smiled widely at him.

It was raining when they left the next morning, with a chilly wind
blowing in from the Waddenzee, but the car was warm and Serena settled
into her comfortable seat, prepared for a long drive.  The doctor had
told her that he intended driving to Boulogne.  Once they were on their
way he told her more.

"We shall go over the Afsluitdijk and down to Amsterdam, then Utrecht,
south to Antwerp and across to Boulogne."

"It will take all day?"

"Not in this car.  I hope you will be home by late afternoon, possibly
before that.  We shall stop for coffee north of Amsterdam and have
lunch round about Breda, but if you want to stop you mustn't hesitate
to say so."

They drove in silence for a time, rushing across the dijk, swallowing
the miles to the other side.

"Take the day off tomorrow," said the doctor presently.

"I won't be going into the hospital and you will be glad of some time
to yourself."

"Thank you."  She sought for something else to say and could think of
nothing sensible.  She sat looking out at the wet countryside,
conscious that she was reluctant to leave Holland.  Partly, she had to
admit, because she had had a glimpse of what life could be like if one
lived in a lovely old house surrounded by a family who seemed to enjoy
their lives.

They stopped in Hoom for their coffee.  The Keizerskroon Hotel was old
and its restaurant was pleasant and warm, but Serena wasn't allowed to
linger and within twenty minutes they were on their way again.

There was a good deal of traffic on the road by now, all moving fast,
and the nearer they got to Amsterdam the busier it began to be.  They
didn't go into the city but took the ring road that joined the motorway
to Utrecht.  They avoided that city and drove on to Breda.  South of
the town the doctor stopped in Princehage.

"There's a restaurant here the Mirabelle.  You must be hungry."  He
turned to smile at her.

"I know I am!"

They lunched with good appetites; erwtensoep, grilled sole, and
finished their meal with poffertjes and a pot of coffee and, much
refreshed, got back into the car once again.

"Not long now," observed the doctor.

"You're not tired?"

Even if she had been she wouldn't have said so.  He had planned the
trip to get them back by a certain time, and to delay him wouldn't do
at all.  They swept on to Antwerp, Line and finally Boulogne.

It was still raining and the afternoon was dwindling into a miserable
dusk.  The doctor had timed his journey accurately.  They went aboard
the Hoverspeed within half an hour, and Serena heaved a sigh of relief
at the sight of the tea she was offered.  It seemed to her that they
were at Dover in no time at all.  They went through Customs without
hindrance and slid with deceptive speed up the motorway on the last leg
of their journey.

They had spoken very little, but the silence had been a comfortable
one.  As they slowed through the suburbs Serena said, "Are you going to
the hospital?  Would you mind putting me down there, please?"

"I'm not going there.  I'll drop you off at your home."  He spoke in a
voice she had learned not to argue with, and anyway, it would be nice
to be taken right to her door.

East Sheen contrasted badly with Oosterzum, and the house looked small
and uninviting as the doctor stopped before its door.  There were no
lights showing and he asked sharply, "Is there no one at home?  Does
your mother not know that you are coming back to day?"

"Well, I tried to get her on the phone yesterday and the day before
that, but I dare say she was out... I expect she's visiting friends;
she'll be back for sup per."  She undid her seatbelt, and he got out of
the car, opened her door and got her case from the boot.

"I don't like to leave you alone he began, but she interrupted him
briskly.

"I often come home when Mother is out, please don't worry."

All the same, he took the door key from her and opened the door and
followed her into the house, turning on lights as he went.  The rooms
were tidy, but there was no sign of a welcome, no tray laid, no sign of
a meal prepared.  He said slowly, "I think you had better come with me
and I'll bring you back later when your mother is home."

She said vigorously, "That's kind of you, but quite unnecessary I'm
fine."

"You want me to go?"

"Yes, I do."  As she uttered the words she knew them for a lie.  She
didn't want him to go; suddenly the thought of not seeing him for even
one day was unbearable.  Of course she didn't want him to go, she
wanted him to stay with her for the rest of her life.  It was a shock
to discover that she loved him, and she said feverishly, "Do please go
and thank you for bringing me home."

"If that is what you want."  He stood close to her, staring down into
her face.

"I shall telephone later to make sure that you're all right."  He
swooped suddenly and kissed her hard, then went out of the door into
his car and drove away.

She closed the door and stood in the hall, getting over the shock of
the kiss.  Why had he kissed her?  she wondered, and then caught a
glimpse of her face in the hall looking-glass.

It gave her the answer; she looked pale and tired and her hair was
untidy, her nose shone she was an object of pity.

The kiss, she felt sure, had been given in the same spirit as a kindly
man would have stroked a forlorn kitten or patted a lost puppy.  Two
tears dripped down her cheeks and she wiped them away with a gloved
hand, leaving a grubby smear on her cheeks.

Crying wasn't going to help: she went to her room and unpacked her
case, tidied herself and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on.  Tea
and toast would make her feel better.

The house was cold and she stayed in the kitchen to drink her tea.
Obviously her mother hadn't expected her; perhaps her letter had never
arrived.  She got up and went into the sitting-room, turned on the gas
fire and looked around her.

Her letter was on one of the lamp tables.  She picked it up and reread
it; there were just a few lines to remind her mother of the day on
which she would return.  She went upstairs then and looked in her
mother's bed room, which was much as usual, and she went down stairs
again to drink her tea.

When she heard the front door open she got up and went into the hall.
Her mother was taking off her coat.

"Darling, there you are!"  She shivered.

"This house is icy I shall catch a chill."

Serena kissed her.

"Did you forget I was coming home.

Mother?  "

"Well, no, not really, darling, but I'd made arrangements I didn't want
to break."  She laughed suddenly.

"I've got a surprise for you, Serena.  I'm going to marry Mr.  Harding
Arthur!"

CHAPTER SIX

serena was silent for so long that Mrs.  Proudfoot said petulantly,
"Well, aren't you going to wish me happy?"

"Yes, of course.  Mother.  I hope you'll be very happy.  Do tell me all
about it."  She smiled, and it felt as though her face had cracked.

"Come into the sitting-room--I lit the fire."

Her mother sat down in an easy chair.

"You're surprised, I suppose.  But you were so wrapped up in your
work," she sounded accusing, 'there seemed no point in talking to you
about it.  Anyway, it has all turned out so well.  Arthur--Mr.
Harding--has a house in Shropshire, near Ludlow, and you'll be able to
spend your holidays there.  He's staying in London for a few more days.
We shall be married by special licence--there's no point in waiting.
I've put this house up for sale.  "

She saw Serena's look of simply dismayed astonishment.

"You can have some of the money to rent a small flat.  You'll like
that, darling--to lead your own life and have fun with your friends."
She leaned forward, brimful of her news.

"There's already someone waiting to buy this place.  He'll let me know
tomorrow.  You can have what furniture you want, of course."  She gave
her tinkling laugh.

"Darling, you'll have to go flat-hunting can you get some days off?"

"Only tomorrow Serena broke off as the phone rang.  She had forgotten
that the doctor had said he would phone.  She got up to answer it, and
when she did he said, " Serena?  Is your mother back?  "

She answered steadily, "Yes, Doctor.  Thank you for ringing."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing."  She had thought her voice sounded as it always did.

"I dare say I'm tired."

"Then go to bed.  I shall want you in Outpatients at eight o'clock the
day after tomorrow."

"Very well, Doctor.  Goodnight."

His 'goodnight' was terse before he hung up.

Her mother asked without much interest, "Who was that?  The doctor? Did
you tell him about me?"

"No, Mother.  Where will you be married?"

"Oh, at the local register office.  I've bought the sweetest outfit
pearl-grey wool with such a pretty blouse.  You'll come, of
course..."

"When is it to be?"

"Next week Thursday.  We shall drive straight to Ludlow.

Isn't it exciting, darling?  " Mrs.  Proudfoot be came faintly
accusing.

"Of course you don't under stand what I've suffered, living here all
alone doing the shopping and the housework and the cooking..."

"But, Mother, I've been living here too..."  She almost added.  And
I've done most of the shopping and cleaning and cooking.

"Oh, I know that, but you've had an interesting job and met young men
and women of your own age."  Mrs.  Proudfoot was getting rapidly
crosser.

"Though much good it's done you you've never once brought anyone back
here.  Oh, I know Dr.  ter Feulen came, but you're hardly his type.  I
dare say he's able to take his pick of pretty girls."

Serena agreed silently to this, but all she said, in a soothing voice,
was, "Are there going to be many guests at the wedding?"

"Oh, friends Arthur has no immediate family, thank goodness, and nor
have we, only your father's elder sister, who hates me anyway."

"Aunt Edith?  She's actually married to the rector of a village in
Dorset, isn't she?"

"Great Canning.  I haven't heard from them since your father died."

Serena decided it wasn't the right moment to tell her mother that Aunt
Edith wrote to her from time to time.  Stiff letters without much news,
but at least she had kept in touch, and Serena had answered them.

Her mother yawned.

"I shall go to bed.  I'm quite exhausted, but Arthur insisted on taking
me out to dinner."  She dropped a kiss on Serena's cheek.

"Bring me some warm milk when I've had my bath, darling.  I must keep
my strength up for another busy day tomorrow," she added in a satisfied
voice.

"I'm almost certain that man is going to buy the house."

Serena went to the kitchen and fetched the milk for her mother from the
fridge and poured it into a sauce pan.  It was a good thing she had
something to do, for she seemed unable to think sensibly.  She
remembered that her mother hadn't asked her about her journey or shown
any interest in her trip to Leeuwarden.  She smiled a little then.  It
must seem very unimportant to her mother with such an upheaval taking
place.  She carried the milk upstairs, locked the door and closed the
windows, then went to her own bed.  She hadn't realised she was cold.
She lay in a hot bath, making herself review the situation sensibly.
Tomorrow would be a busy day.

There would be her clothes to press, blouses to wash and iron, her hair
to wash too.  She mustn't lose sight of her job, it merited a neat
appearance at all times and she couldn't risk slacking in any way.  Her
mother had talked about a flat, but she would never be able to afford
the rent of even a modest place.  It would have to be a furnished
flatlet or something similar.  Perhaps she would be able to take some
of the smaller furniture with her and store the rest if her mother
didn't want it.

She got into bed and lay thinking.  It was no good worrying about the
more distant future, the thing was to find somewhere quickly and hang
on to her job.  Her mother hadn't suggested that she should find work
near Ludlow, and even if she had Serena would have refused, for that
would mean that she would never see Marc again.  She smiled to herself
in the dark, remembering her day at his home; just for a moment her
thoughts were happy, and she closed her eyes and went to sleep in the
middle of them.

She was up early and breakfasted alone, for as her mother sleepily
pointed out when she took her a cup of tea, "As you're home, darling,
you might spoil me a little.  I should love my breakfast in bed."

Serena had tidied the house, washed her smalls and was pressing her
skirt when the prospective buyer arrived.  He was pleasant and very
polite and businesslike, and he had made up his mind.  He went over the
house again, pronounced it just what he and his wife were looking for
and said that he would go at once to his solicitor.  Mrs.  Proudfoot,
over the coffee Serena had made, pressed him for a date.

"I'm remarrying," she told him prettily, 'and I should be so glad to
have the matter settled before we leave here.  "

The man glanced at Serena.

"Your daughter is going with you?"

"No, oh, no--she has a marvelous job at one of the hospitals here, we
shall find her a nice little flat."  She spoke with such conviction
that Serena believed her.  There would be enough money to buy something
modest; the house was being sold for a substantial sum.

When the man had gone she asked, "Had I better start flat-hunting.
Mother?  Shall we go together?"

"I'm going out to lunch with Arthur he'll be here in half an hour.  You
go by all means, darling, see if you can find somewhere that you can
afford out of your salary."

"To buy?  Mother, you know I've almost no money of my own, I couldn't
afford a mortgage."  She went on quietly, "I heard you telling that man
you were going to buy me a flat..."

"Did I?  I was too excited to know what I was saying I've talked it
over with Arthur; he thought we ought to get somewhere for you, but I
pointed out how independent you were.  You'd much rather have a rented
place of your own, wouldn't you, darling?  Then if you want to move or
get another job, you could do so easily.  You can have any of the small
furniture the big stuff will all go with the house.

You've ample time to find something it'll be a while before they can
take over.  Of course you can stay here until then unless you find
something in the mean time.  " She sighed.

"Darling, do stop fussing about yourself!  I have so much to think of,
and that's Arthur at the door now and I'm not ready."

She hurried up to her room, and Serena opened the door and invited Mr.
Harding in.  He was a nice man, easygoing to a fault, but kind.  He
asked about her work, and since from what he said she gathered that he
imagined that her future had been nicely settled, she forbore from
mentioning it.  Once she was alone in the house she sat down with
pencil and paper.  Writing everything down might help her to make
sensible plans as it was, the half-baked ideas running round and round
in her head were useless, for all she was really thinking about was
Marc.  She wouldn't tell him, that was something she was quite sure
of.

She wrote it down and underlined the note before making a list of the
likely streets near the hospital.  Without help she would have to
settle for a flat let or even a bed-sitter.  Her salary was quite good
now and she had a little money in the bank, but there was the future to
think of.  Marc might go back to Holland and it might be difficult to
get another job.  The very idea sent her heart plummeting.

Over a pot of tea she decided what to do and not waste time about it.
It was nearly lunchtime and the buses were almost empty; she caught one
that stopped close to the hospital and began to search for some where
to live.

She ignored the shabbier streets close to the hospital and turned her
attention to the small side streets, most of them culs-de-sac, lined
with tall houses with basements and from the number of bells beside
their doors occupied by several occupants.  Quite forgetful of lunch,
she walked up and down each street.  Any one of them would do within
ten minutes' walk of the hospital, as quiet a neighbourhood as one
could expect in that part of London and a shopping street close by. 
Only there was nothing vacant.  She made her way to the shops and
studied the cards in a news agent's window.  It was a nice surprise to
find several vacancies in the streets she had explored.  She studied
them carefully and chose one that might do.  For one thing, it
mentioned the fact that it was close to the hospital, which might mean
that the other occupants were nurses or staff from the Royal, and the
description, even taken with a pinch of salt, sounded possible.  A
large room at the back of the house with use of the garden, partly
furnished with kitchenette and shower.

The rent would take a good deal of her salary, but it might be worth
that; it was going to be her home, after all.

She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich in a small cafe next to the news
agent then walked briskly to the rather in aptly named Primrose Bank in
Park Street.  There wasn't a park within miles either.

There were several bells, and since she had no idea which one to ring
she thumped the knocker.  The door was opened with something of a
nourish by a tall thin woman who could have been any age between forty
and sixty.  She had a forbidding cast of feature, but she was nicely
dressed in a nondescript fashion and her voice, although brisk, was
quiet.

"Yes?  You want to see me?  I own the house Mrs.  Peck."  She stood
aside.

"You have a flatlet, Mrs.  Peck?"  began Serena.

"Is it still to let?"

For answer she was waved into the hall, which was long and narrow and
rather dark.

"This way."  Mrs.  Peck walked rapidly to the back of the hall and
opened a door.  There were a few steps beyond it and another door.

"Semi-basement," she said over her shoulder as she opened it.

It was a good deal better than Serena had hoped for, with two windows
overlooking a rather neglected strip of garden and a stout door beside
them.  The room was rather dark, but the walls were distempered and it
was very clean.  The kitchenette, poky and dark, was spotless too, with
a small sink and an even smaller cooking stove.  The shower was an
elongated cupboard but adequate.  Serena walked slowly round, looking
at the furniture; bare necessities, a divan against one wall, a small
table, two chairs and some bookshelves.

Mrs.  Peck said with a touch of belligerence, "The advert says partly
furnished."

"I've some small bits of furniture you wouldn't mind if I had it here?
I work at the Royal, they'll give you a reference..."

"Don't need one.  I've got three nurses in the first- floor flat.  It's
weekly paid in advance and you pay your own gas.

The electric lights come in the rent.  "

"Can I use the garden?  There is a way to the street from here?"

"Yes, but it's kept locked can't have prowlers.  You're on your own?"

"Yes.  Would you object to a cat if I got one later on?"

"Not that I know of, as long as it keeps to itself."

"Then I'd like to come, Mrs.  Peck.  I'm not sure when I'm moving.  May
I pay you a week's rent now and arrange for all my things to be
delivered some time within a week?"

"Suits me."

Serena went back home and found the house empty.  She was hungry and a
bit excited, and once she had made herself a meal of sorts she took
pencil and paper once more and went round the house, choosing what she
hoped her mother would let her take with her.  That done, she went and
sat down, no longer thinking of the day's happenings but of Marc.  He
would be home, she supposed, and she wondered where home was.  A flat
in one of those expensive blocks on the other side of London?  A house?
He wouldn't need a house just for himself, but could he bear to live
in a flat, however large, after the spacious comfort of his home in
Friesland?

"What a waste of time," she told the empty room, 'worrying about him;
he's more than capable of looking after himself and getting what he
wants, and it's me I should be worrying about.  " Which, though erring
in grammar, was right.

It was late evening when her mother returned.  Serena heard the car
stop outside the house, but Mr.  Harding didn't come in this time.  Her
mother had had a splendid day; she went over every detail of it, and
only when she had exhausted every aspect of it did she ask
perfunctorily, "And you, darling?  Have you had fun?"

"I've rented a flatlet near the Royal in Park Street.  Quite nice, and
it opens on to the back garden.  It's partly furnished..."

"Oh, good.  You must choose a few bits and pieces from here, Serena.
When do you plan to move?"

"As soon as the things I choose can be collected and delivered.  Will
you miss me.  Mother?"  She hadn't meant to dwell on that.

"Miss you?  Well, of course I shall, darling, but you must come and see
us when you have a holiday, and of course we shall come up to town from
time to time.  You must be very excited at the idea of having a place
of your own."

Serena told herself that her mother didn't mean to be unkind or
thoughtless perhaps she really did think that living in a poky room on
one's own was fun.

"I made a list," she said, 'if you would take a look?  "

She watched her mother scan the list.

"Darling, you do want a lot, don't you?  Still, I suppose you can have
them, they're not worth much.  Don't take the good china, though, will
you?  It's quite valuable, and there's that little man in the antique
shop in Richmond who'll give me a good price for it."

Serena said, "Very well.  Mother," in a colourless voice.  All these
years, she reflected with surprise, I've done my best to look after her
and love her, and it hasn't meant a thing to her.  I'd feel better
about it if I were younger and pretty.  She gave herself a mental
shake.  She was a sensible girl and she despised self- pity.  Probably
life would be quite exciting once she had settled into Primrose Bank. 
She said out loud, "I shall get a cat--' Her mother laughed.

"Oh, Serena, old maids have cats!"

Serena said cheerfully.

"But I am an old maid, Mother.  Now could you tell me about the
wedding?  I'll get time off to come."

"Two o'clock at the Richmond Register Office and, afterwards, Richmond
Hill Hotel, just for a drink and to cut the cake before we leave."

Surely the doctor wouldn't object to her having a few hours off in the
afternoon?  She could stay late if there was a lot to do.  It was quite
a journey from the Royal.  She would have to take the Underground, her
lunch hour was one o'clock, so all she needed were three hours tacked
on to that.  She remembered suddenly that she hadn't given her mother a
wedding present, and she would have to arrange for the things she had
chosen to be collected.

There was no time for that the next morning.  She got to the hospital
with only minutes to spare and was sitting at her desk, a bit
breathless, when Mrs.  Dunn poked her head round the door of the little
room Serena had been given to work in.

"Back, are you?"  she asked needlessly.

"Did he work you hard?  Miss Payne was always exhausted."

"I worked hard, but I'm not tired, Mrs.  Dunn."

"Well, that's a good thing he's got a backlog of work from here to
there.  He's got an extra Outpatients' this morning, you're to be there
by half- past eight."  Her eye sought the clock on the wall.

"It's twenty past eight now."

"So it is," agreed Serena gravely.  Mrs.  Dunn had an aptitude for
stating the obvious.

"I'll be there.  Mrs.  Dunn, I'd like the afternoon of Thursday week
off will that be all right with you if I get Dr.  ter Feulen's
permission?"

"Suits me you don't work for anyone else but him.  He won't be best
pleased he likes everyone to be at his beck and call."

That, thought Serena, was only too true.  She would have to go to the
wedding whatever he said.  He would, however, she hoped, be in a good
temper.

Good temper, for the moment at any rate, had eluded the doctor.  He
greeted her cheerful good morning with a rumbling grunt which might
have been anything in any language.  Later, at the end of a long
morning, he strode away, uttering no more than his punctilious thanks
to those who had been working with him.

Something would have to be done about that, thought Serena, skipping
down to the canteen to devour mince, potatoes and unspecified greens.

"And you're lucky to get that," declared the cross-faced woman who
served her, 'coming late like this you ought to know better.  "

"Try telling that to Dr.  ter Feulen," said Serena, her mouth full.

She typed without pause until five o'clock, and, when the porter's
lodge phoned to tell her that she was to hand in her work to Sister's
office on Men's Surgical since Dr.  ter Feulen would be there, she sat
down and composed a note requesting a free after noon on Thursday week
for urgent family reasons.  She clipped it to the top of her typing and
took it downstairs, and just to be on the safe side in case he should
be there and think of something else he wanted done, she put on her
outdoor things.

He was there, squashed in with Sister, his registrar and a pile of
notes, busy writing what Serena had no doubt were sapient instructions
which no one would be able to decipher without the aid of a magnifying
glass and a medical dictionary.

She laid the papers down on the desk, wished everyone good evening and
whisked herself away.  By the morning he would have had time to read it
and have got used to the idea.

She had reached the entrance when he fetched up beside her, breathing
normally, although he must have gone like the wind.  She had overlooked
the fact that he was a very large man with long legs; he probably knew
some short cuts too.  She pretended that he wasn't there and put out a
hand to push the door open.  He took the hand in his and gave it back
to her.

"What's all this?"  His voice was so mild that she prepared herself for
an argument.

"Is it not clear?"  she asked politely.

"I would like an afternoon off on Thurs " I can read that.  Why?  "

"Urgent family business."

She glanced at him and saw that he expected a reason.  Family business,
after all, could be anything from a grandmother's funeral to failure to
pay the rates.  She said gently, "I hardly think it would interest you.
Doctor; a family wedding."

Just for a moment the look on his face baffled her, but it had gone
again, smoothed into his usual blandness.

"Yours?"

"Certainly not!"

"Take the afternoon off by all means."  He held the door open for
her.

"There will probably be a backlog of work when you get back."

"Well, yes, I know."  She gave him a wide smile.

"Thank you very much.  Doctor.  Goodnight."

The door was open, but she couldn't get past him unless she trod on his
feet.  He stood looking down at her and then smiled suddenly so that
her heart turned over and took her breath.  He watched the slow colour
creep into her cheeks before he stood aside and she scuttled past
him.

Her mother was home, sitting at her desk, writing.

"There you are, darling, just in time to make me a cup of tea.  I've
been so busy all day."

That makes two of us, thought Serena naughtily, but she took off her
things and went to the kitchen, where she got a tea-tray ready and
presently took it back to the sitting-room.

"Arthur's been so kind," said her mother.

"I know you'll be grateful; he's arranged for the things you want for
your flat to be collected and delivered;

they're coming in the morning.  I expect you're dying to get settled
in. "

Serena agreed pleasantly.

"I'll pack my things on Saturday and Sunday and go there on Monday
after work."  She added with unconscious wistfulness, "Un less you'd
like me to stay until the wedding?"

Mrs.  Proudfoot spoke hastily.

"Of course not, darling, I'd be the last one to hinder you.  In fact, I
thought you might have wanted to move before the weekend..."

"I'm working."

"Of course how silly I am!"  She gave a little laugh.

"There's so much to do, it's so fortunate that Arthur's here to help me
you know how helpless I am about business."  She sipped her tea and
nibbled a biscuit.

"Don't forget, darling, that you'll always be welcome at Ludlow."  She
put down her cup.

"I almost forgot we're going away for Christmas and the New Year.

Arthur thinks a warm climate will do me good.  You know I can never
stand the miserable winters we have here, but I dare say you'll have a
lovely time.  Are there other young people in the other flats?  "

Serena just stopped herself in time from reminding her mother that a
flatlet wasn't a flat, it was a bed sitter, gone up market

"Some nurses from the Royal."

"There, didn't I say so?"  Mrs.  Proudfoot sounded triumphant.

"I knew you'd find something to please you.  A pity that I simply
haven't the time to come and see it before we go... Still, I did tell
you we'll come to town from time to time, and you won't want visitors
until you've settled in."

Serena poured second cups and her mother said presently, "I did mention
that I'd let you have some money for a flat, Serena.  You have enough
to go on with, haven't you?  It will be some time before the money is
dealt with, but I won't forget; if you're in dire straits you might let
me know."

The week wound its busy way to a close, and be yond brief instructions
as to her work, good mornings and good evenings and his usual courteous
thanks at the end of them, Dr.  ter Feulen had nothing to say to
Serena, and, being a sensible girl, she had hardly expected anything
else.

She spent her weekend packing her possessions and on the Saturday went
to Park Street to arrange the furniture which had been delivered.  The
room looked much better once she had disposed the small easy chair, the
lamp table and the colourful rug from the dining-room which her mother
had never liked.  She spent the afternoon hanging one or two pictures,
arranging her china and kitchen equipment, putting up lampshades and
making up the divan and covering it with a bedspread from her room at
East Sheen, then, still with time to spare, she went to the shops and
stocked up on basic food, arranged for the milkman to deliver and
bought a bunch of dahlias in vivid reds and golds.  It would do very
well, she told herself, and she had been lucky to find it, and at a
fairly reason able rent too.

She closed the door, put the key in her pocket and took a bus back to
East Sheen.

Her mother had said she would be home on Sunday.  Mr.  Harding had to
drive down to Tunbridge Wells to see an old friend and she had declared
prettily that she wanted to spend the day with Serena.  But she wasn't
there when Serena got back;

instead there was a note on the kitchen table.  Arthur had called and
persuaded her that a quiet weekend in the country was just what she
needed.

"So we shall be back tomorrow in the early evening," the note ended,
'and we can all have supper together.  "

So Serena was faced with a Saturday evening with nothing to do but
watch TV, wash her hair and go to bed with a book, and since she was on
her own there wasn't much point in getting up early on Sunday morning.
She pottered around the house, read the Sunday papers, did her nails
and made a cake.  There was still a lot of the day left.  Her mother
had said they would have supper, all of them together, so perhaps she
should do something about that.  She poked around the fridge and larder
and assembled the ingredients for a quiche and a salad, and then went
to her room to make sure that she had packed everything in the case she
had left for the last-minute items.  She would have to take it with her
on the bus in the morning.

The evening was well advanced when her mother and Mr.  Harding
returned.

"Darling," called her mother, 'we're here at last!  It was so late that
we stopped and had dinner on the way back I knew you wouldn't mind. 
Did you cook yourself something?  "

Serena came out of the kitchen, kissed her mother and wished Mr.
Harding good evening.

"No," she said equably, "I understood you'd both be back and we'd be
having supper together, but don't worry, I can boil an egg."

She met Mr.  Harding's faintly worried look with a pleasant smile and
went back to the kitchen, where she gave vent to her outraged feelings
by hurling eggs, milk and butter into a saucepan and scrambling eggs.
Then she cleared the table she had set so care fully and fetched a
tray, made a salad and dished up the eggs.  There was sherry in the
kitchen dresser.  She fetched the bottle and a glass and tossed off a
glass, then refilled it.  She was halfway through the eggs when Mrs.
Proudfoot came into the kitchen.

"Darling, I thought you were making coffee..."  Serena took a good sip
of sherry.

"I'm having my supper, Mother."  She said it cheerfully, but she wished
above all things to burst into tears and wallow in self-pity.  Instead
she daringly poured a third glass of sherry; she would be sorry for
that later, but it did give her Dutch courage.  And that reminded her
of Dr.  ter Feulen;

she would see him in the morning, and that was something to look
forward to.  She finished her eggs while her mother made the coffee,
muttering in a hurt way about the ingratitude of children and how
exhausted she was.  Serena, deep in thoughts of Marc, scarcely heard
her.

She took her mother a cup of tea before she left in the morning, with
the assurance that she would be at the register office on Thursday.

Rather belatedly Mrs.  Proudfoot wanted to know how she was to manage
until then.

"I shall have to cope alone," she uttered helplessly.

"I suppose you couldn't pop in after work?  I've got all my packing to
do..."

Serena said firmly that no, she couldn't, at the same time reflecting
that she was becoming very hardhearted.

"I don't leave until half-past five or six o'clock.  Mother, and by the
time I got here it would be time for me to go back to Park Street."

She kissed her parent, reiterated her promise to be at the wedding and
took herself off to work burdened with her case.

Dr.  ter Feulen was distantly polite in his manner when she went to his
clinic.  She could only assume that he had thought better of inviting
her to his home and was anxious to let her see that.  It shattered her
loving heart, but pride stiffened her.  Let him be as distant and
polite as he wished.  Two could play at that game!

Not that there was any time to play at anything.  Her small beaky nose
was kept to the grindestone all day.  She handed in the last of her
work just before six o'clock, but this time she left it in the empty
consultant's room, and with the case dragging heavily, made for home.
He was standing just outside the entrance, impervious to the cold
evening, talking to his registrar, and as she slipped past he turned to
speak to her.

"Going home, Serena?  My regards to your mother."

She thanked him and hurried away before he could say anything else,
then remembered just in time that her usual bus-stop for East Sheen was
on the right of the hospital entrance.  Now she would travel in the
opposite direction, and if he happened to be looking he might wonder.
She turned right towards the East Sheen bus as if to join its queue,
and then slid her way behind it, crossed the street and caught a bus
which would take her the short distance to Park Street.  She would walk
in future, she decided, sitting squashed between two ladies exchanging
details of their operations just as though she were not there.  The
exercise would be good for her and she would save the fare.

Primrose Bank didn't look too bad as she climbed the two steps to its
front door and unlocked it; there were lights on in most of the windows
and it was pleasant and warm as she went in.  Her own room didn't look
too bad either.  She went and switched on the lights, turned on the gas
fire and drew the curtains, took off her coat and got herself some
supper.  She looked around her as she ate; the chairs and tables she
had brought with her fitted in very nicely and the TV set, which at the
last moment her mother had rather grudgingly agreed to her having, gave
the room a pleasant appearance of being lived in.  She washed up, put
everything ready for the morning and switched on the nine o'clock
news.

Only later, when she was in bed, she had the frightening feeling that
she had been uprooted.  There was nothing left of her former life; she
would have to start again.

"And I will too!"  she declared loudly and defiantly.

It was on the Wednesday, just as she was packing up for the day, that
Dr.  ter Feulen walked into her room.  His abrupt, "What is the matter,
Serena?"  took her quite by surprise, so that she just sat silent,
goggling at him.

"Matter?"  she managed after a silence which just had to be broken.

"What should be the matter?  Nothing."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Never mind, I shall find out."

She said strongly, "There's nothing to find..."

He smiled.  It wasn't a nice smile, she considered.  She remembered
that he had told her never to lie to him and although it wasn't much of
a fib she felt guilty.

He watched her blush.

"I believe I told you never to fib to me, Serena, so I shouldn't waste
time doing it if I were you."

She was startled that he had read her thoughts, but she couldn't think
of anything to say to that.  He went away without another word and left
her sitting there with the nagging thought that he might be able to
discover about her mother remarrying, but on consideration she didn't
see how he could find out.  She went back to her room and laid her
clothes ready for the wedding on the morrow.

Her winter coat was by no means new, but the jacket would look all
wrong with the green jersey dress; there was a velvet beret to go with
the coat and her shoes and gloves were good.  She busied herself
polishing the furniture and tried not to think about the doctor.

It was a cold bright day the next morning.  She worked feverishly all
the morning to get as much done as possible, and for once stopped
typing at noon precisely

She had eaten a sandwich with the morning coffee and there was no need
to stop for lunch.  She caught a bus and got to the register office in
good time.

Her mother looked charming and very pretty.  Mr.  Harding had given her
a pale mink coat and she carried a bunch of violets.  There were a
dozen or so guests at the ceremony.

Serena knew them all, and at the hotel, over the canapes and wine, she
laughed and chatted and agreed that her mother looked as young as her
daughter and what a lucky girl she was to have such a splendid job and
a flat.  They nodded and smiled at her and said that they had heard all
about it from her mother.

Mr.  Harding bore his bride away after an hour or two and everyone went
home.  It was almost four o'clock by now and Serena had to wait for a
bus, and when she did get one it stopped every few yards, so that she
was in a fine state of fidgets by the time she got to the Royal.  Most
of the clerical staff had already gone home, but she had said that she
would finish any work there was.  She uncovered her typewriter, took
off her coat and beret, flung them over a chair and sat down.

The doctor had taken her at her word.  There was a good-sized pile of
notes to be typed up.  Serena set to work.

CHAPTER SEVEN

marc ter feulen had splendid eyesight.  He had seen Serena dodging
behind the bus queue, weighed down by the case she was lugging with
her.  She was up to something, and he found himself wondering what it
was and, moreover, anxious to find out, but it wasn't until the day
after the wedding that he found the time to satisfy his curiosity.

It was almost seven o'clock when he got into the Bentley and drove
himself to East Sheen.  Serena would be home by now, although at the
back of his mind was the vague doubt that she wasn't.

There were lights streaming from all the windows as he stopped the car,
got out of it and rang the doorbell.  The young woman who came to the
door certainly wasn't Serena.

She looked at him enquiringly and he asked with inborn authority,
nicely mingled with courtesy, "Mrs.  Proudfoot no longer lives here?"

"Got married yesterday and gone to live somewhere--Ludlow, I believe."
She eyed him with faint suspicion.

"Are you a friend of hers?"

He put out a large hand.

"Dr.  ter Feulen.  I've been out of the country for a few weeks.  I had
no idea that she was marrying again.  Serena--her daughter?"

He saw the faint suspicion leave her face.

"Oh,

you're a doctor.  Well, I suppose it's all right to tell you where Miss
Proudfbot has gone.  Went ever so quickly too, but Mrs.  Proudfoot sold
this house with out telling her, so my husband said, so she had to find
something.  " She held the door open.

"Come into the hall, I'll find the address for you."

When she came back with it she said doubtfully, "I suppose it's all
right letting you have it?  It's near the Royal Hospital."

The doctor said gently, "If you would prefer that I shouldn't have it I
can get it easily from the Royal.

I er know several people on the staff.  "

"Well, of course you would, being a doctor."  She handed him the
paper.

"A nice young lady, my husband said, and very quiet."

He agreed gravely.

"She will doubtless tell me all about the wedding."  He smiled at her,
shook hands and wished her a goodnight and got back into the Bentley.

He was hungry and tired, for he had had a busy day and there was no
reason why he should spend what should have been a quiet evening
tracking down Serena.

"Tiresome girl," he muttered as he drove back the way he had come.

There was a fine drizzle falling and Park Street, dimly lighted, its
pavements glistening with wet, looked depressing.  The houses looked
depressing too, even though they were for the most part well kept.  He
stopped outside Primrose Bank and examined the row of cards by the
bells.  The bottom one was blank, so he thumped the knocker.

Mrs.  Peck opened the door on its chain.  Her "Yes?"  was brisk and
unfriendly.

"I am so sorry to have disturbed you," said the doctor, at his most
urbane.

"I've come to call on Miss Proudfoot.  Dr.  ter Feulen from the Royal
Hospital."

Mrs.  Peck took the door off its chain and bade him come in.

It was interesting, he felt, how the mention of the word doctor put
people at their ease.

"She's got the basement room."  She led the way to the door at the back
of the hall and opened it, nodding at the further door.

"That's it."

He thanked her, and she shut the door behind him as he knocked on the
further door.  Serena had opened a tin of beans for her supper and just
put the saucepan on the little stove.  She turned off the gas and with
the saucepan in her hand went to open the door.  Mrs.  Peck had said
earlier that evening that she would leave an other saucepan for her and
that would be it, she sup posed.

The doctor was leaning against a wall, and all she could think of to
say was, "I was expecting Mrs.  Peck with a saucepan."

He swept her quite gently back into the room, took the saucepan from
her and put it on the table

"Your supper?"  he wanted to know, pleasantly.

She had retreated backwards until her back came against the table

"How did you know where I was?"

"I went to East Sheen."  She saw him smile suddenly.

"Get your coat, we're going to have a meal and you shall tell me all
about it."

"No," said Serena tartly, "I won't!"  and she didn't look at him, not
when he was smiling like that.

"Just one room?"  he asked gently, and strolled round examining it.

He edged his large person into the kitchenette and the shower-room
too.

"All mod cons," he observed, and wandered back to where she was still
standing.  Then he said gently, "Get your coat, Serena."

There was no point defying him--indeed, she didn't, in her heart, wish
to.  She got her coat from behind the curtain hung across one corner of
the room which served as a wardrobe and put it on.

"My hair..."  she said crossly.

"I've had no time..."

"You look very nice," he observed, using the kind of voice he employed
on his more nervous lady patients, and Serena was sufficiently soothed
by it to go with him without another word.

Mrs.  Peck was in the hall, poking at a spider plant that took up all
of one corner.  The doctor paused deliberately by her.

"I'm taking Miss Proudfoot out to supper and shall see her safely back
here at a reasonable hour, madam."

"She could do with more meat on her bones," observed Mrs.  Peck, and
smiled just a little.

Serena gave a gasp of rage as he swept her out of the house.

On the pavement she stood still.

"You seem to forget," she told him icily, 'that I'm a woman of
twenty-five, old enough to come and go as I like if I wish to stay out
until the small hours I shall do so!  "

Which hadn't been quite what she had meant to say, only the words had
come out wrongly.

"Now that," said the doctor smoothly, 'sounds very promising.  Do you
like to dance the night away or shall we take a drive in the country?
After a meal, of course.  "

"That isn't what I meant and you know it.  I I think I won't come out
with you, thank you all the same."  She made to turn round and make for
the door, but his large hand on her arm stopped her.

"You're tired," he said in a quite different voice.

"Come and have supper, and afterwards you shall vent your rage on
me."

She looked up at him and saw that he was smiling gently, and without
being able to help it she smiled back.

"That's better."  He bent and kissed her cheek.

"How fierce you looked I felt quite intimidated!"

She laughed then, and he tucked her hand in his arm and walked across
to the car and stowed her into it, got in himself and drove away.  She
was too occupied thinking about the kiss to notice where they were
going, but presently she saw that they were driving west through the
city and presently through a number of side streets, quiet now after
the day's bustle until they reached Wigmore Street and then Wimpole
Street and finally turned into a tree-lined street bordered by narrow
houses.  The doctor had kept up a placid conversation about nothing
much as he drove, not allowing her the chance to ask questions but when
he stopped halfway down the street she asked, "Why have we come
here?"

"I live here."  He leaned over and undid her seatbelt and the door,
then got out himself, bustled her across the narrow pavement and put a
key in an elegant door.  The hall was long and narrow, but unlike
Primrose Bank it was carpeted and softly lighted and the stair case
curved gracefully up one wall.  As the doctor closed the door a short
stout man with a fringe of grey hair came through a door at the back of
the hall.

"Good evening.  Bishop," said the doctor.

"This is Miss Proudfoot, come to share my supper.  Serena, Bishop and
his wife look after me."

He was taking off his car coat as he spoke and turned to help her out
of hers.

"There's a cloakroom by the stairs if you want to tidy yourself. Bishop
will show you.  I'll pour us a drink."

He spoke in matter-of-fact tones which made everything seem just as it
should be.  Serena followed Bishop and was bowed into a cloakroom which
held everything required for the improvement of her appearance.  As she
inspected the result in the looking-glass she wondered how many other
girls had prinked before it.

"And a good deal prettier than I am," she told herself, 'and I can't
think why he's doing this, unless he wants me to do an extra load of
work.  "

Whatever her host's motives were he didn't allow them to show.  He
ushered her into a charming sitting- room, furnished with a pleasing
mixture of comfort able chairs and sofas and a scattering of what she
guessed to be genuine Regency tables and cabinets, the whole nicely
welded together by the soft lighting and plum-coloured velvet curtains
which echoed the faded colours of the silky carpet under her feet.

The doctor pulled forward a chair and she stared round her, and then
sat down near the brisk fire and accepted the drink he offered her,
while he settled himself opposite to her.

It was then that she became aware of the dog sitting beside his chair.
It peered at her through shaggy hair;

it was of no great size and as far as she could judge of no known
breed.

"Harley," observed the doctor.

"He's shy of strangers.  Do you like dogs?"

"Oh, yes!  I had one she paused a long time ago."

"Say hello, Harley," said the doctor, and the dog came from beside his
chair and walked sedately to her.  She rubbed his ears and mumbled at
him, and he stared at her with melting eyes.

"He's nice."  She looked him over.

"Where did you get him?"

"In the gutter in Harley Street.  He was a puppy then, of course.  I've
had him for a couple of years."

Harley went back to sit by his master, and a few minutes later Bishop
came to tell them that dinner was served.

The dining-room was behind the sitting-room, a smallish room but still
capable of seating eight people with ease round the oval table.  The
marquetry on the chairs and side table was quite beautiful, and the
table was set with damask, silver and shining crystal.  The meal, too,
was as far removed from the saucepan of baked beans as it was possible
to be: lettuce soup, chicken a la king with luscious roasted potatoes
and braised chicory, and an apple pie and cream by way of pudding.
Serena drank the wine the doctor poured for her; it was pale and dry
and delicious, and she joined in his casual talk, for the moment happy.
She hadn't known what to expect, but the evening was a delightful
surprise.

They had their coffee in the sitting-room, and it wasn't until she had
poured it that he said quietly, "Now you shall tell me everything,
Serena."

However, when she just sat there, saying nothing, he went on, "Your
mother has married again, has she not?"  and when she nodded, "Suppose
you start at the beginning and leave nothing out?"

She found herself telling him, slowly at first and doing her best to
leave out the worst bits, but when she did that he took her back over
it again until she had told him the whole.  When she had finished he
said nothing.

The silence lasted too long.  Serena said quietly, "I think I'd better
go back, if you don't mind."

He took no notice of this.

"Is there anything I can do to make things easier for you?"  When she
shook her head he asked, "What about Christmas?  Are you to go to
Ludlow?"

She had been very honest with him too honest, she reflected ruefully.
Now she said in her quiet way, "Oh, yes, that's all arranged.  I have a
few days' leave owing to me, so I shall be able to stay there for a
while over the holidays."

"How will you travel there?  It is quite a long way."

It was quite true; telling one lie only made it necessary to tell
another and then another.

"Mr.  Harding will fetch me."

He nodded.

"Good, and the leave will be convenient, for I shall be in Friesland."
He frowned.

"You are comfortable where you are?  You can afford the rent?"

"Oh, yes, thank you.  It's kind of you to ask."

He became all at once remote.

"You must not forget that you are my secretary, Serena, and I am to
acer tain extent responsible for you."

She took a gusty breath.

"That's nonsense!"  She spoke heatedly.

"I must remind you once more that I am twenty-five and quite capable of
looking after my self."  She let the breath out.

"I'm not one of your your household."

He said blandly, "No, you have no need to remind me of that, Serena.  I
must apologise for interfering in your life.  Have no fear I'll not do
so again.  Now how about some fresh coffee?"

She got to her feet and he with her.

"I think I'd better go back.  It's been very kind of you to give me
supper I enjoyed it."

"A pleasure, Serena."  He had touched the bell by the fireplace and
Bishop came in, and presently they were in the hall ready to leave.
Serena bade Bishop goodbye, got into the car and was driven back to
Park Street.  The doctor talked about this and that as they went and
she took care to answer him, and at the door of Primrose Bank she held
out her hand.

"Thank you again it was lovely.  I'm sorry if I was rude."

She couldn't see his face clearly for the street lighting was poor.  He
said, aloof once more, I didn't no tice anything, and it is I who
should thank you for a pleasant evening.  " He took the key from her
and opened the door and walked with her down the hall, waiting while
she got her key, which he took from her and opened her own door.  He
switched on the light too, and when she had stepped past him, bade her
a quiet goodnight.

Serena sat for a long time, heedless of the chill, thinking about the
evening and Marc.  She wasn't sure if she would be able to go on
working for him, seeing him day after day, aware that over and above
his concern for her he had no interest in her at all.  He had been
careful to point out to her only an hour or so ago that because she
worked for him, he was responsible for her.  On the other hand, never
to see him again was something she couldn't even contemplate.

"And I told him all those fibs about Christmas," she muttered, getting
into bed at last.

"Not that he's likely to find that out he'll be in Holland."

She had an unsettled night, waking every now and then to worry about
Christmas.

Unnecessarily, as it turned out.  There was a letter the next morning
from Aunt Edith, sent on from East Sheen.  The writer had met an old
friend when she had been shopping in Devizes two days previously.  The
old friend lived in Ludlow and had mentioned in passing that an
acquaintance of her husband's, a Mr.  Arthur Harding, was marrying
again a Mrs.  Proudfoot.

Aunt Edith had failed to gain any further information about this and
would like to know exactly the circumstances.

"It is unlikely," she wrote in her large clear hand, 'that there are
many Proudfoots around, and I was told that she was a widow.  Be good
enough, Serena, to write to me without delay.

Your uncle and I are concerned as to your circumstances in the light of
these recent events.  " She was hers affectionately.

There was a PS too.  They would be delighted to welcome her for
Christmas if by any chance she happened to be free.

That evening, Serena sat down and answered the letter.  It was a
difficult letter to write, for Aunt Edith had never liked her mother.
Serena, faithfully setting down the happenings of the last month or so,
skimmed over the parts of which her aunt wouldn't approve, ending with
an acceptance of her Christmas invitation.

A good start to the week, thought Serena, walking briskly to work the
following Monday.  There was a pile of work waiting on her desk and
Mrs. Dunn, her face as long as a fiddle, warned her that she might have
to work late.

"I know Dr.  ter Feulen is in theatre, but there's some special case
been added at the last minute--you won't get the notes before the late
afternoon."

She looked at Serena's rather pale face.

"You look under the weather.  Not much chance to gallivant around if
you're working for him, you know!"

It didn't matter for whom she worked, reflected Serena.  She had, so
far, had little chance to gallivant.

"I dare say he'll slow down once he's married," went on Mrs.  Dunn, a
remark which left Serena without breath.

Presently she managed, "Oh, is he getting married?"

"He told his registrar so; said he might want to cut down on his
work-load.  I wonder who she is?"  Mrs.  Dunn didn't expect an answer,
for she went on, "There's that pretty fair girl I saw him with once.

Well, whoever she is, she'll do very well for herself;

she'll be a baroness or whatever they call it in Holland, and she'll
have everything she could possibly want.  He's got a house too,
somewhere near Wigmore Street--he's got consulting-rooms there, of
course.  I dare say he's got a home in Holland too.  " Mrs.  Dunn
paused.

"Oh, well, I don't suppose you're in the least interested.  Why should
you be?

Settled in, have you?  "

"Yes, thank you, Mrs.  Dunn.  I'm very comfortable."

Mrs.  Dunn went away, and Serena inserted the first of the sheets of
paper into her typewriter.  She made no attempt to start work, though.
She sat quite still, her hands quiet in her lap, getting used to the
idea that Marc was going to marry.

It was several days before she saw him again.  He phoned several times
with instructions and additions to his notes, but other than that he
had nothing to say.  Which, she told herself, was a very good thing.

On Tuesday she had a letter from her mother, full of the delights of
her new home, the satisfaction of having someone to do the housework
and cook, the delightful shops in Ludlow, and since the weather was so
cold and wet they were leaving for Madeira several weeks earlier than
they had first planned, which meant that Serena wouldn't be able to
visit them until the New Year.  Beyond a cursory remark about the
splendid time Serena must be having, she had little else to say.

The letter from Aunt Edith was much more satis factory.  They were
looking forward to seeing her at Christmas and she was to stay as long
as she could.  She didn't mention her mother at all, but reiterated
that she would be as welcome as their own daughter, "For," wrote Aunt
Edith, abandoning her stiffly correct writing, "I loved your father
very dearly."

It was nice to be wanted.  Serena slept soundly for the first time in
weeks.

It was the following day that she acquired a cat.  She had got home
cold and wet, walking through a sleet which penetrated everything and
stung her face.  It had been a beastly day too; she had had to refer
back to the doctor about several of his notes, and at the end of the
afternoon, just as she was finishing for the day, he had sent up half a
dozen letters he wanted typed at once.

Her room, despite the cheerful lampshades she had bought, looked
miserably bare.  She lighted the gas fire, took off her wet things and
switched on the TV, then went to put on the kettle.  The TV was making
a strange thumping noise and she went to see what was wrong.  However,
it wasn't the TV the thumps were coming from the garden something was
trying to get in.  She turned the sound down and listened, her heart
thumping too.  Perhaps someone had left the garden gate unlocked.  The
noise came again and in the silence which followed a faint miaow.

Serena opened the door and then a small, very wet cat crawled in.  It
was so wet that it could be any colour, its fur plastered to a bony
little body.  She fetched a towel and picked up the small creature and
dried it gently, warmed some milk and watched it lapping feebly.

"Well, I wanted a cat," she told it, 'and now I've got it.

Only I have to get you well fed and content again, don't I?  "

She made a nest of a woolly scarf and laid the little beast before the
fire, where presently it went to sleep, and when she had had her own
supper she fed it again before it dropped off once more.  When she went
to bed she picked it up, scarf and all, and laid it carefully on the
divan.  It purred a little then and she stroked it very gently.

"You'll have to be alone all day," she told it.

"But I'll leave food for you and we'll get organised tomorrow, and soon
it will be Saturday, so I'll be here all day."

She got up earlier than usual to see to the little cat, who, though
still looking bedraggled, showed signs of taking an interest in its
surroundings.  It had a large breakfast, then got back on to the divan
and curled up once more.  Serena hoped it would stay like that until
she got home.

The weather had worsened and by the afternoon it was snowing; a wet
snow which turned to slush as soon as it had fallen.  By the time she
was ready to leave it was dark as well, and she debated whether to
queue for a bus or walk.

She would walk, she decided, poking her nose out of the entrance and
get ting it covered in snowflakes.

She pushed the door open wider and then had it taken from her grasp.

"I'm going your way, I'll give you a lift," said the doctor, and swept
her along with him across the forecourt and into his car.

When he stopped outside Primrose Bank she thanked him politely and made
to get out, but his "Stay where you are' stopped her.  He got out and
walked round the car to open her door and then go with her to the front
door.

"There's really no need," said Serena, and had the key taken from her
hand.

Short of making a fuss and commotion in the hall there was no way of
stopping him from going with her down the hall and through the door, to
take the second key from her and open her room door.  He stood aside
for her to go in, and then followed her.

The cat was curled up in a rather dirty furry ball on the divan.  It
opened one eye as they went in, then closed it again.

The doctor shut the door behind him.

"You have a companion."

He went to look at the little beast and touched it with a gentle
hand.

"Starved," he commented.

"How did you come by it?"

"It tapped on the door yesterday evening.  I hope it will be all right,
it was very wet.  I'm glad to have it."  She frowned.

"I can't go on calling it " it"..."

The doctor picked it up gently.

"A little lady cat," he told her, 'and I think a very pretty one once
she's fit again.  While you find her some food, I'll put the kettle
on.

We can decide on a name while we have our tea.  "

With the kitten tucked under one arm he saw to the kettle, put cups and
saucers on a tray, found the milk and sugar and took biscuits from the
cupboard.  Serena, preparing bread and milk, thought of any number of
things of a withering nature to say concerning people who invited
themselves to tea, but somehow she didn't say them.  The doctor had
contrived to look like a man who needed his tea after a hard day's
work, and she hadn't the heart to refuse him.  Besides, having him
there, making tea as though he did it every day of his life, which she
very much doubted, made a bright patch of happiness in her sober
life.

They drank their tea, decided to call the kitten Beauty and watched it
climb laboriously on to the divan and fall instantly asleep.  The
doctor looked at his watch.

"I've an evening engagement."  He got to his feet and asked carelessly,
"All arranged for Christmas?"

"Yes, thank you."  She saw him to the door and stood by it watching him
until he had disappeared through the door to the hall.  He would be
spending the evening with the girl he intended to marry.  She washed
up, tidied her kitchenette and sat down by the fire.  There was a lot
of evening left, and she had got clever at filling it after the first
few evenings, when she had had her supper as soon as she came in and
then had to fill in hours before bed.  Presently she began a letter to
Mevrouw Blom, who hadn't as yet been told about her mother's
marriage.

It was still snowing in the morning.  She attended to Beauty's needs,
had her breakfast and, wrapped in her elderly coat and wearing her
Wellingtons, she left earlier than usual, intent on walking, as the
buses would be packed.

Her way took her through back streets and for part of the way alongside
a small disused canal.  The snow was blinding and she had her head
tucked down to shield her face so that she saw very little, but as she
reached the canal she heard a shout and stopped to look around her.
There was no one in sight.  It must have been someone in the houses on
the other side of the street.  Without delay she walked on, but at the
second shout she stopped again, peering through the curtain of snow.

There was someone in the canal, floundering around, and as she looked
disappearing beneath its murky surface.  A head bobbed up--it was
impossible to see whether it was man, woman, or child, and this time it
wasn't a shout, more a water-filled gasp.  Serena looked around her.
There was no one to be seen and she doubted if she could get help from
the houses across the street; quite a few of them were boarded up
anyway.  She gave a small sigh, got out of her coat, pulled off her
Wellingtons and lowered herself down the slippery bank into the dark
brown and very cold water.  She was a good swimmer and she had no doubt
that she could haul whoever it was in the canal out of it.  She gasped
as she began to swim towards the bobbing head, and the icy water bit
into her.

Marc, free until his appointments with private patients at noon, stood
looking out of his sitting-room window.  A very nasty day, he thought,
and observed to Harley, "I pity anyone forced to go out in this."  He
glanced at his watch.

Serena would be leaving for work shortly.  He saw her in his mind's
eye, arriving at the hospital looking like a small half-drowned mouse
and soaked to the skin through that shabby coat.  A few minutes later
he left his house with the faithful Harley, Bishop's pleas that he
should at least eat his breakfast falling on deaf ears.  He was
probably going on a wild goose chase, he pointed out to the beast as
they got into his car.

There was little point in going to Park Street.  Serena might have left
already, but if he took the route from the hospital which she had told
him she used each day, he might come upon her and at least drive her
the rest of the way.

There was no sign of her as he passed the hospital and followed the
road she should be taking by now.

"I'm a fool," he told Harley.

"In all probability she has managed to get on to a bus."

He turned into the shabby street by the canal and saw the small group
of people halfway down it, watching something in the water more than
some thing.  Two heads bobbing up and down, making slow difficult
progress to the bank.

He had called the police and ambulance by the time he reached the spot,
and then he was out of the car, his Burberry flung on its bonnet, and
clambering down the bank, before anyone there had time to see what he
was doing.  The two in the water were a little nearer now, and under
the oil and filth he saw Serena's face as he slid into its murky
depths.

"Get yourself on to the bank," he told her.

"I have her now!"  and Serena, numb with cold and tired to death, did
as she was bidden, only when she got to the bank hauling herself out of
the water was more than she could manage.  She heard Marc's voice
giving orders in a voice which expected obedience, and at the same time
she was given an efficient and un dignified boost from behind while
several hands pulled her on to the snowy path.  She lay there, glad to
be alive, her teeth chattering, dripping icy water while she listened
to a good deal of heaving and pushing and hard breathing close by. 
Someone laid a coat over her and she heard Marc say, "Hold on, dear
girl.  She's alive, but only just."

She slipped back into an icy limbo then until the ambulance and the
police arrived, and very shortly after the blessed sound of Marc's calm
voice.

"You're going in the ambulance, Serena.  You need a check up and a few
hours to get warm again."

"No, I'll go home... Will she be all right?  The woman?"

"Thanks to you, yes, I think so."  She heard him chuckle.

"Next time pick someone your own size, Serena, she must weigh all of
fifteen stone!"

She felt his hand on her hair.

"I'm filthy," she muttered.

"Indeed you are."  He turned and looked down at her dirty face, pale
under the mud, her hair in rats' tails, a small bruise over one eye,
and she didn't see his smile.

She seemed to have lain there for hours, although in fact it was only
minutes.  The doctor politely picked her up and carried her to the
ambulance, and she found herself lying on a stretcher beside the woman
she had rescued.  Marc was quite right, she was a very fat woman
indeed, conscious now and complaining in a disjointed way.  Serena
closed her eyes and dozed off.

She was dreadfully sick in Casualty, and what with that and the dirt
and mud and her clothes sticking wetly to her it all got a bit too
much.  She wept while Sister and a nurse undressed her and sponged her
with warm water, and she was still weeping when the doctor, looking
very clean and dressed in some miraculous way in a dry and elegant
suit, came to look at her.

"Been sick?"  he wanted to know cheerfully.

"Good, Sister, I'll take a look at her chest--are there any cuts and
abrasions?"

She had been put into a theatre gown, and Sister lifted it here and
there to show a few grazes and more bruises.

"Anti-tetanus to be on the safe side," said the doctor, his stethoscope
going from one end of her shoulder blades to the other.

"Sounds all right.  She had better be warded for twenty-four hours." 
He smiled down at her and, seeing her greenish face, handed her a bowl.
Just in time!

"So sorry!"  she gasped.

"No need.  It's the best thing that could happen."  He patted her on
the shoulder and went away.

"There," said Sister, 'you'll probably be quite yourself by tomorrow.
"

"He was in the water too," said Serena.

"Yes, dear.  How very fortunate that he happened to be passing and saw
you both.  You're a very brave girl."  She smiled kindly and passed the
bowl again.

Sister was quite right--Serena felt perfectly well again by the next
morning.  She had been put in a room by herself and given delicious
food and allowed to lie for ages in a hot bath and wash her hair.  They
had done that in Casualty, but only to get the worst of the debris out
of it.  She had woken early and started to worry about Beauty, but
Night Sister, doing her last round, assured her that someone was
looking after the kitten and that her coat and handbag had been
collected and brought to the hospital.

"Someone will fetch you some clothes presently so that you can go home.
You'll need a day or two before you go back to work."

"The woman who was in the water is she all right?"

"Doing nicely, dear.  She'll be here for a few days, though.

Now I'm going to get Nurse to bring you a cup of tea.  "

Serena went to sleep again after her breakfast, and when she woke there
were her clothes neatly piled on a chair by the bed.  She could hear
the distant clatter of plates, which meant dinnertime for the patients.
It might be a good idea to get herself dressed before her dinner came,
and then she supposed she would be allowed to go back to Park Street.

She was sitting quietly, dressed and ready for what ever was to happen
next, when the doctor came in.  Sister was with him, and they both
stood and studied her for a moment.  When he said quietly, "Ready to go
back, Serena?"  she stood up and said just as quietly, "Yes, thank you,
sir," and got her jacket.  It wasn't really warm enough, but her coat. 
Sister had told her, had been sent to the cleaners.  The doctor held it
for her, waited while she thanked Sister for her care and ushered her
out of the room.

In the corridor she stopped.

"I haven't had the chance to thank you for saving me--us--yesterday.  I
am very grateful."

He nodded, and she wondered why he looked so aloof, and yet on their
way to the entrance he was friendly enough.

"I'll get a taxi," she told him, and held out a hand.

He took it and walked her through the door, opened the Bentley's door
and popped her in.

"There's no need--' she began, and stopped at his curt, " Don't argue,
Serena.  "

So she sat silently, but not for long.

"This isn't the way to Park Street," she pointed out.

"You are to stay in my house for a few days.  Mrs.  Bishop will look
after you."

"I can't, you know I can't!  There's Beauty, she's all alone."

"She's at my house.  I fetched her yesterday when I went for your
clothes."

She looked at his stern profile.

"But there was no need..."

He didn't answer, and she became silent, feeling puzzled.

There was something wrong, she knew that because she loved him, and she
longed to ask him what it was, but she had no right to.

Bishop was hovering as they went into the house and Mrs.  Bishop, small
and round and cosy, came from the kitchen to lead her upstairs to a
pretty room, warm and carpeted and glowing with soft colours.

"Just you take off that jacket, miss, and come right down for your
lunch," said Mrs.  Bishop, and stood over her while she tidied her hair
and powdered her small nose.

The doctor was waiting for her.  They drank their sherry, making small
talk until Bishop ushered them into the dining-room.  He stayed in the
room all the time so that Serena was quite unable to say anything she
wanted to say.

It was tiresome uttering platitudes and having them capped by her
companion.  She ventured a peep at him now and again.

He looked inscrutable and, she fancied, angry.  She wondered why.

She soon found out.  They sat facing each other by the fire with Harley
curled up on his master's feet and Beauty on her lap.  Serena poured
the coffee and, still conscious of the silence between them, cast
around for something to say.  Much as she wanted to stay at Marc's
house, she had decided during the last half- hour that it wouldn't do
at all.  He was being kind only because he felt it was his duty.

He put his cup down.

"I telephoned your mother, Serena."  His quiet voice sent a shiver down
her back.

"You have been telling me a pack of lies."

CHAPTER EIGHT

there was no point in denying it.  Serena said, "Yes, I know.

I'm sorry.  " A remark which was received with a mocking smile and a
raised eyebrow so that she felt compelled to add, " You're the very
last person in this world I would lie to.  "

A silly remark, she realised the moment she had uttered it, and justly
deserving the doctor's look of cold disbelief.  It would be better if
she stayed silent.  She stroked Beauty and looked at her shoes.

The doctor settled back in his chair.

"And now, suppose you tell me the truth of the matter, Serena."

And, since there was really nothing else she could do about it, she
did.

"You see," she hastened to add when her tale was finished, 'it's all
turned out very well, for I shall spend Christmas with Aunt Edith at
Great Canning.  "

His eye fell on the kitten.

"And Beauty?"

"Oh, I'll take her in a basket, I'm sure she'll be welcome."

She was doing her best to behave naturally, but she could sense the
barrier between them.  Perhaps he would never trust her again, she
thought gloomily, and it would serve her right, although at the time
she had thought that she was doing the right thing.  Overcome with
sudden and ridiculous self-pity, she found herself wishing that she had
drowned in the canal, then perhaps he would have been sorry.  She had a
clear picture of her lifeless form with him bending over her, full of
remorse.  "Stop daydreaming, Serena, and listen to me.  I shall be away
for two days.  You are to stay here, and Mrs.  Bishop will take care of
you.  By then you should be fit for work again.  I will arrange for
Bishop to drive you back to Park Street in two days' time so that you
may start work on the following morning.  If by some chance you don't
feel that you have completely recovered be good enough to let Mrs. Dunn
know so that she can arrange for someone to take over from you."

Serena said quickly, "Is that what you would like, someone to work for
you instead of me?  I I'd quite understand if you did."

"Don't be ridiculous, Serena!  I thought you a girl of common sense
you're talking like an irritable child."

This was too much!  She got to her feet, clutching Beauty.

"I

think it would be best if I went to bed.  "

It was disconcerting when he got up with a cheer- fill, "Yes, a good
idea.  Your good sense will return after a sound night's sleep."

He held the door for her and she went past him without looking up,
muttering goodnight as she went.

Later, lying in her soft warm bed, she tried to be sensible and think
what was best to be done.  The dignified thing would be to find another
job and go miles away where she would never see him again, but he might
possibly guess at her reason, and that was unthinkable.  Her love for
him was a secret she was determined that no one would share, let alone
guess.  Common sense, gradually taking over again, urged her to go on
just as she had been doing.  She was, after all, just someone who
worked for him, and in time he would forget the whole thing.  Besides,
he would have his wife to absorb his thoughts.  Perhaps he was going to
spend the two days with her.  Serena began to imagine her; young and
fair and beautiful, that went without saying, with cupboards full of
lovely clothes and a delightful nature.

She closed her eyes resolutely on tears and presently fell asleep.

No one could have been kinder than Mrs.  Bishop.  Breakfast in bed, a
gentle walk in the narrow garden at the back of the house, with Beauty
darting to and fro, and then Bishop coming to call her indoors so that
she could drink her coffee.  The house was run on oiled wheels and
Serena was treated like an honoured guest.  Two days had never passed
so quickly or so delightfully.  At the end of the second one she
collected her few possessions, and, with Beauty tucked under an arm,
got into the Rover which Bishop had brought to the door, and was driven
away with Mrs.  Bishop waving from the doorstep.

Park Street, still under a thin mantle of dirty snow, looked uninviting
as Bishop drew up before Primrose Bank, got out, rang Mrs.  Peck's bell
and held the door for Serena to get out.

"I'll see to your things, miss," he assured her.

"You go ahead and open the doors if you will."

Mrs.  Peck greeted her with a warmth she had hardly expected and
followed her through the door to her own room.  Serena unlocked the
door, but made no attempt to go in.  Someone had lit the gas fire and
there were flowers on the table a bowl of hyacinths on the bookshelf.
There was even a tray laid for tea.  "Oh, how very kind!  Mrs.  Peck,
did you do all this?  Thank you."

"Well, yes, in a manner of speaking I did," said Mrs.  Peck, and stood
aside to allow Bishop to go past her with a large cardboard box.

He put it on the table

"Mrs.  Bishop thought it might make things easier for you if you had
your supper cooked ready for you."  He took a quick look round the room
and thought how unsuitable it was for such a nice young lady.

"If there's anything I can do, miss, I'd be glad..."

"No, thank you.  Bishop.  But please tell Mrs.  Bishop how grateful I
am for my supper, and you have both been so kind to me.  Thank you
again."

"A pleasure, miss."  He cast a superior eye over Mrs.  Peck.

"I

leave you in good hands, I have no doubt.  "

He was not mistaken.  Mrs.  Peck, despite her brusque manner, had a kind
heart.  Besides, Dr.  ter Peulen had given her more than enough for the
flowers and all the extra gas she had used keeping the room warm, not
to mention the tea and coffee and biscuits and So on she had been asked
to purchase.  She put the kettle on now and made the tea, observing
gruffly that Serena was a heroine and make no mistake, and it was the
least she could do.  She then took herself off, looking embarrassed at
showing so much sentiment.

Alone, Serena fed Beauty, who gobbled up her food and then settled
before the fire, then sat down to drink her tea, and because she
couldn't help but compare her surroundings with the comfort of the
doctor's house she busied herself unpacking the box.  There wasn't just
supper in the form of a chicken pie, game chips and a winter salad,
there were eggs, rolls, butter, cheese, a half-bottle of wine and a box
of fruit.

"Well, look at all this," declared Serena to a somnolent Beauty.

"How very kind of Mrs.  Bishop!"  She began preparations for her
supper, wondering if the housekeeper would tell the doctor what she had
done and if he would mind.  Not that it mattered she had every
intention of eating everything there and sampling the wine as well.

Someone had hung her coat behind the curtain, newly cleaned and
pressed, and she was glad of it in the morning, for it was cold and
although it was dry the sky was grey and threatening.  She walked to
work, racing past the canal as hard as she could go, not wanting to be
reminded about it if the woman hadn't fallen in and she hadn't gone in
after her then there would have been no need for Marc to have res cued
her and discovered about her mother.  Oh well, it was over and done
with now, and probably he had already put it out of his mind.

Which seemed to be the case, for beyond a pre occupied 'good morning'
as she joined his team in Outpatients, he had nothing to say to her.
Her day was busy, as usual, enlightened by several of the staff going
out of their way to compliment her on her bravery, to all of whom she
pointed out quite truthfully that if it hadn't been for Dr.  ter Feulen
most probably she and the woman would have got into difficulties.

During the next few days it was as if he was avoiding her.

Work appeared on her desk, set there by an unseen hand, sometimes with
a scrawled note attached, and it wasn't until his last clinic of the
week that Serena saw him again.

He stopped her as she was leaving the hospital.

"You have fully recovered?"  he asked her austerely, and looked down
his magnificent nose at her so that she wanted to turn and run away
from him and his scornful look.

"Yes, thank you," and since she hadn't had the chance to thank him
properly, "I'm very grateful to you and to Mr.  and Mrs.  Bishop, they
were so kind..."  She blushed then, for it sounded as though he hadn't
been kind too.  She added feebly, "You too, of course, sir."

His courteous, "Thank you, Serena," chilled her to the bone.

Even if she had wanted to make amends she was given no chance, for he
bade her a good evening in the same austere voice and stood there
waiting for her to go on her way.

It wanted only a few weeks to Christmas, and everyone said that just
for once it would be a white one, since it snowed on and off almost
each day, although never enough for it to settle.  Serena had had two
postcards from her mother, both overflowing with the delights of sun
and warmth and ending with a meaningless, "See you soon," which she
didn't quite believe.  She had had letters from Aunt Edith too, each
one reiterating her pleasure at meeting Serena again for Christmas and
making no objection to Beauty's presence then.

Serena bought suitable presents and a cat basket, and in a fit of
extravagance spent too much money on a pair of soft leather boots.

Life would have been dull if it hadn't been for the fact that she went
to work each day in the hope of seeing Marc.

Of course, on his clinic days she was there with the rest of his team,
but beyond his usual civil and cool greeting he didn't speak to her
unless it was something concerning her work.  But that was better than
nothing.

Watching him walk away after a businesslike session with his notes, she
found it hard to believe that he was the same man who had taken her to
see his family in Friesland.  She must have annoyed him in some way,
although she couldn't think how.  Of course, he had ruined a suit going
into the canal that morning, but he could certainly afford to buy a new
one, and as far as she knew he was satisfied with her work.  She
worried about it quite a lot.

Christmas, as it always did each year, loomed within a day or two after
weeks of being a vague festival ages away.  The doctor had a clinic on
Christmas Eve, and there was no suggestion that any one should opt out.
He did concede that the clinic should start an hour earlier than usual
and close down at four o'clock so that anyone concerned would have a
chance to get away to wherever they were going.  Serena prudently
packed her case on Christmas Eve morning, saw to her room, apprised
Mrs.  Peck of her absence for a couple of days, and went to work in
good time.  She was left alone in the morning so that her desk was
cleared by the time the afternoon clinic started, and since it was so
near Christmas there weren't as many patients as usual.  If the doctor
had a spark of pity in him he would let her off the typing until she
got back after Christmas. The festive season appeared to leave him
unmoved.  The clinic wound its slow way through the afternoon and there
were still two patients to see at four o'clock.  Staff Nurse had been
allowed to go because she was catching a train to York, but Sister was
still there and so were the registrar and his houseman as well as two
students.  Serena, in her corner, sharpened another pencil and tried
not to feel impatient.  She hadn't the time to get her ticket first,
and if the queue at the booking office was very long she would miss her
train and the next one as well.

Beyond that she didn't dare to think.  The last patient went at quarter
to five and the process of tidying up around the doctor, still writing
busily at his desk, began.

Serena, resigned and cross, asked woodenly, "When would you like these
notes, sir?"

"When you return to work, will do, Serena."  He glanced up briefly.

"Are you going to your aunt's by train?"

"Yes."

"I have to go to Bristol tonight.  Be ready by six o'clock and I'll
drop you off on my way.  Have you got your train ticket?"

"No!"  She put a great deal of ill temper into the word.

"Good.  You will have little chance of getting a train this evening
without one; by the time you have bought it the last train will have
left."

"What a good idea, sir," sighed Sister kindly.

"What luck for you, Serena!  Run along quickly and get home and get
your things so you don't keep the doctor waiting."

Serena looked at the faces smiling at her, all except the doctor's, of
course.  They all had something to say and they all urged her to get
home fast as she could.  There was really nothing she could do about
it, although she longed to refuse him.  She said quite meekly, "Thank
you, sir, that is very kind of you."  She glanced at him and saw his
faintly mocking smile, and wished she hadn't spoken.  She gathered her
things together, wished everyone a happy Christmas and hurried away to
lock the notes in her desk and drag on her coat and race out of the
hospital.  Be ready by six o'clock, he had said in his arbitrary way,
which gave her a little less than an hour.

She would have been ready for him when he knocked on her door, but
Beauty had decided right at the last minute that a cat basket was the
very last place in which she wished to be.  She had retreated behind
the little cooking stove and no amount of blandishments would budge
her.

The doctor breezed in with, "Not ready?"  uttered in a tone which
implied only too clearly that he hadn't expected her to be anyway.

"I'm quite ready," said Serena crossly, 'but Beauty doesn't like her
basket.  "

It was really most annoying when he called, "Puss, puss!"  in a
beguiling voice, and Beauty scampered out at once and made no fuss at
all when he picked her up and popped her into the basket.

"You see?"  he said smugly.

"Pooh!"  said Serena pettishly, and then, "I could have gone by
train..."

"So you could, provided you had caught Beauty in time, found a taxi,
and bought a ticket before the last train had left."

Which was true enough.

Traffic was light, as most people who were going away for Christmas had
long since gone.  The doctor went west out of the city, got on to the
motorway and then the A303.  The journey was just over a hundred miles,
and a little over two hours later he was slowing down at the approach
to Great Canning.  During that time he had been a delightful companion,
carrying on a vague conversation which was about nothing at all and
never once showing the least interest in herself.  Serena, sitting
quietly beside him, wasn't sure whether to be' pleased about it or
not.

"I should think the vicarage is close to the church," she offered
uncertainly as they drove into the main street and she glimpsed its
tall spire, and sure enough just past the church a pleasant old house,
its windows lighted, came into view.  It stood back from the road with
its gate, opening on to a short drive, wide open.

The doctor stopped before the door and she said quickly, "You'll come
in?  My aunt and uncle will want to meet you if you can spare the
time."

"I shall be delighted.  At what time did they expect you?"

"Well, about ten o'clock.  I was going to get a taxi from Devizes..."

"In that case, if you'd like to ring the doorbell I'll collect your
case and Beauty."

Aunt Edith came to the door.  She looked as stiff and proper as the
letters she wrote, but her voice was warmly welcoming.

"Serena, my dear child."  She offered a cheek for Serena to kiss.

"You're early you caught an earlier train?"

She caught sight of the doctor then, and Serena said, "This is Dr.  ter
Feulen, who very kindly gave me a lift.  He has to go to Bristol."

Her aunt shook hands and peered at him through her spectacles.

"How very kind!  Do come in.  You will have time for a cup of tea or
coffee?"

He assured her gravely that he had, put the case down in the hall and
handed Beauty in her basket to Serena.

Her aunt led the way into the sitting-room, comfortable and a little
shabby but bright with flowers and a brisk fire.

She said, slightly flustered, "Do take off your coats, I'll put them in
the hall.  You must forgive me, I didn't expect... That is, I had no
idea you had a young man, Serena."

Serena went a delicate shade of pink and the doctor, watching her,
smiled.  He said nothing, and it was left to her to answer as best she
could.

"Not my young man.  Aunt Edith," she said in what she hoped was a
perfectly natural voice.

"Dr.  ter Feulen is a consultant at the Royal Hospital, and I do his
typing.  He he just happened to be coming this way, and since I had
Beauty and the trains are all over the place and I hadn't got my
ticket..."  She stopped, aware that she was making too much of the
whole thing.

"A perfectly natural mistake," said the doctor smoothly.

"Serena is my right hand."

Aunt Edith waved them to chairs and sat down her self.

"You're not a married man?"  she wanted to know.

If the doctor was taken aback at this remark he gave no sign.

"Not at the moment, though I plan to marry very shortly."

Aunt Edith nodded her head.

"Doctors should be married men," she observed, 'just as clergy should.
" She broke off as the door opened and her husband came in.

"I heard voices," he said, and smiled at the room's occupants.

"I see that Serena has arrived how delightful!

When I saw you last, my dear, you were a very little girl.  "

He kissed her in an absent-minded fashion and turned to the doctor, who
had got to his feet.

"And you're her young man?"

"That's what I thought," said Aunt Edith, 'but he's not.

This is Dr.  ter Feulen from the hospital where Serena works, and he
has given her a lift.  "

"How very kind."  He offered a hand.

"You'll stay the night?"

"I regret I can't do that I have appointments this evening..."

"In Bristol," said Serena, just to remind him.

"I'll get the coffee," observed her aunt, and shook her head at
Serena's offer of help, leaving her to sit there while the two
gentlemen started an absorbing conversation about medieval churches.
Serena listened to Marc giving as good as he got, tossing hagioscopes,
dossal curtains and sedilia into the discussion and countering her
uncle's par close screens, parvis stairs and naves with knowledgeable
ease.

Serena sat there listening to these gems of architectural knowledge,
her mouth slightly open, until the doctor caught her eye.

"Your uncle has a church to be proud of," he told her.

"Twelfth-century, and with such a history."

"I haven't been here since I was a little girl," answered Serena
coldly, 'and I can't remember the church.  "

"Ah, well," his voice held kind indulgence, 'you will have an
opportunity to refresh your memory.  "

Her mumbled reply was overlooked as her aunt returned with the
coffee-tray and a plate of mince pies.

The doctor had two cups of coffee and several mince pies before he got
to his feet and expressed his thanks and good wishes for a happy
Christmas.  Then he said that he should be on his way.  He shook hands
with her aunt and uncle and they all went into the hall to see him off.
His coat on and ready to go, he paused by the open door and before
Serena could move out of his reach had kissed her.

"I shall be here at eight o'clock on Boxing Day," he told her, and got
into the car and drove away.

Her uncle closed the door and Aunt Edith said, "A very nice man, he
must be splendid to work for," and then as they all went back into the
sitting-room, "I dare say it's the usual thing to kiss in modern times.
We're a little out of date here."

Serena, all the good sense knocked out of her, pulled herself
together.

"It's because it's Christmas," she offered, and was relieved to see
that her companions accepted her explanation.  Only it wasn't one she
could accept herself.  There was really no reason for Marc to kiss her
with such--she hesitated for a word--enthusiasm seemed to fit.  But
whatever the reason, she had enjoyed it.

Marc, driving back the way he had come, bent on getting to the airfield
where his chartered plane was waiting, had enjoyed it too.  It was a
pity he couldn't have stayed on to see how Serena had reacted.

The airfield, some miles outside London, was an hour and a halts drive,
the plane was waiting for him, and he transferred himself and his
luggage without loss of time, leaving the Bentley to be garaged until
he returned.

"Should be a good trip," the pilot told him.

"You'll be there by midnight--anyone to meet you at Leeuwarden?"

"Yes.  Do you fly back here tonight?"

The man grinned.

"I've got a wife and kids.  But I'll be there on Boxing Day--don't give
yourself much of a break, do you?"

"No--but it's Christmas, worth making the effort."

"I bet you need it--a doctor, aren't you?  It's in the book.  Nod off
if you've a fancy to do that--been hard at it all day, have you?"

"You could say that, and I think I'll take your advice."  The doctor
closed his eyes, but he didn't go to sleep.  He thought about Serena.

She was sitting between her aunt and uncle, eating her supper.  No one
said anything more about Marc, which disappointed her, for she longed
to talk about him, but she was questioned closely about her mother and
her new husband and the circumstances leading to Serena having to find
herself somewhere to live.

"It's not my business to criticise," said Aunt Edith, doing just that,
'but surely there was sufficient money from the sale of your father's
house to allow you to buy a small flat.  As you know, child, your
mother and I never got on, and if I speak plainly you must forgive me. 
I can only hope that you are comfortably situated.  Park Street sounds
pleasant enough.  " Her eye fell on Beauty, sitting as good as gold on
the carpet.

"And having that dear little kitten for company must make your flat
homelike."

Serena agreed, having no wish to disillusion her companions about the
pleasantness of Park Street or the homely sphere of her room.  They
were dears, their view of life quite different from hers, but they were
anxious to make her happy.  Uncle Edgar, tall and thin and stooping,
had accepted her as well as Aunt Edith.

They went back to the sitting-room after they had helped Mrs.  His
cock, the family help, to clear the table, and presently Aunt Edith
suggested that Serena might like to go to bed.

"For you will want to go to church with me in the morning.

Your uncle will have the midnight service later, but you must be too
tired for that.  "

"I'd like to come with you, if I may.  It's the nicest service of
Christmas, and I'm not a bit tired."

It was the start of a lovely Christmas.  They came back at one o'clock
in the morning to hot cocoa and more mince pies, and Serena slept
dreamlessly in the nice old room with the creaking floorboards and a
fearful draught from its old warped windows.  The bed was cosy and
someone had put a hot-water bottle in it.

Uncle Edgar had to take the early morning service, and she got up to
help her aunt tidy the house before he came back for his breakfast,
since Mrs.  His cock wouldn't be coming.

They went to church again for matins and had their Christmas dinner at
three o'clock, at which time they opened their presents.  Uncle Edgar
had given her a book token and Aunt Edith had knitted her a thick
cardigan.  She was glad that she had splashed out on the presents she
had bought for them a pretty shawl for her aunt and a combined diary
and notebook for her uncle.  They pulled crackers, ate their turkey and
Christmas pudding and drank a glass of port the vicar produced, before
washing up and then going to sit round the fire comfortably doing
nothing.

Serena, who had been dreading Christmas, discovered that she was
enjoying herself, and sitting there with her somnolent companions on
either side of the fireplace, she had the leisure to think about Marc.
She didn't know about Christmas in Holland, but surely his family would
have gathered together.  But he had gone to Bristol.  She allowed her
thoughts to become exaggerated, thinking of him in the bosom of some
family whose daughter he was going to marry.

It was a relief when her aunt suggested that they might have a cup of
tea.

Aunt Edith, never one to beat about the bush, wanted to know what
Serena's mother had sent her for Christmas.

"Well," said Serena, "I rather think she may have forgotten that it's
Christmas.  You see, it's more or less summer there, isn't it, so there
won't be anything to remind her..."

Aunt Edith snorted in a well-bred fashion.

"It is December the twenty-fifth all over the world," she pointed out
severely, ignoring her husband's gentle remarks about latitude and
longitude and differences in time.

"I expect there will be something when I get back," said Serena,
anxious to avoid the penetrating questions her aunt fired at her.

Aunt Edith had a thirst for knowledge.

"This nice doctor who gave you a lift here do you know him well?  You
work for him, so presumably you must have close contact with him?"

"Well, in a way, yes.  But I quite often don't see him for several days
he leaves work for me, and little notes, and of course the clinics
happen fairly often, and then I just sit and take shorthand notes about
the patients, and afterwards I type them and he signs them."  She
paused.

"He is really very nice to work for."

Her voice had taken on a warmth she hadn't realised.  Her aunt gave her
a sharp look and gave another prod in search of more information.

"You are fortunate, Serena.  I dare say he gives you a lift home if
you're late?"

Serena fell into the trap without thinking.

"Oh, yes, and when he got me out of the canal he took me to his home
and his housekeeper looked after me she was so kind, even though he
wasn't there, and when he got back he drove me back to Park Street."

Aunt Edith digested this rapidly.

"You fell into the canal?"

"Well, no, not quite you see, there was a woman who had fallen in and I
went to help, and he got us both out."

Aunt Edith knew when to stop.

"How very fortunate that he was at hand," she commented, and went on
vaguely, "London must be such a busy place.  It is years since we were
there."

So they talked about that, and the doctor wasn't mentioned again.

Boxing Day St.  Stephen's Day had its quota of church services, but her
aunt suggested that a good walk would do Serena more good than going to
church, and she was packed off in the kindest way possible to go to
Roundway Down, the scene of the Royalist victory over the Roundheads in
the middle of the seventeenth century.  It was a mile away from the
village, and Serena enjoyed the walk there and back.  It was a bleak
day, but even in midwinter the country looked beautiful in a quiet,
sleepy way.

It was later that day, after they had washed up lunch and gone to sit
by the fire in the sitting-room while her uncle went to his study, that
Aunt Edith said suddenly, "You're not happy, are you, Serena?  Were you
upset when your mother married again?"

"Yes, I think I was, but I don't think I was surprised.  You see, she's
the kind of person who needs someone to look after her..."

"Something which you were doing!"  Her aunt's voice was tart.

"Yes, but you see, she was alone all day.  I didn't get home until
about six o'clock..."

"She had all day, then, to look after the house and to shop and
cook."

"We had a nice maid when Father was alive, and he did a lot..."

"And you carried on," observed Aunt Edith drily.

"Where did your mother meet this Mr.  Harding?"

"In Amsterdam."  Serena paused and her aunt said, "Yes?  Hadn't you
better tell me all about it, my dear?  There is something making you
unhappy, and to talk about it may help.  I dare say we shan't see each
other for a while, which makes it even easier."  Her rather stern face
relaxed into a smile.

"It isn't just your mother, is it?"

"No, but it's all a bit--a bit silly..."

"Love is never silly," said Aunt Edith.

"Suppose you start at the beginning, dear?"

It was such a relief to talk.  Once she had started Serena couldn't
stop, and somehow Marc crept into everything she said.  She did her
best to keep to her usual matter-of-fact manner, but she got to the bit
where her aunt had mistaken him for her young man and she stopped
because she wanted to cry, and that wouldn't do at all.

"You love him very much, don't you, dear?"  said her aunt gently.

It was no use.  Two tears trickled their slow way down Serena's
cheeks.

"Oh, yes!  What am I going to do?"

She got up and cast herself down beside her aunt's chair, and that lady
put her arms round her.

"Have a good cry, child," she advised.

"It will clear your head."

Serena lifted a weeping face.

"But he'll be here..."

"He said eight o'clock, and it's barely four o'clock.  Cry all you
want, Serena, and when he comes meet him with a cheerful face."

She allowed Serena to sob and sniff and presently asked, "Does he like
you, dear?"

Serena's voice came muffled from her aunt's lap.

"I don't know.  He looks down his nose at me."

A childish remark which made her aunt smile faintly.

"I

don't know a great deal about such matters and I hesitate to give
advice.  " She broke off as the door opened and her husband, followed
by the doctor, came in.

The vicar disappeared at once; he had heard the car and opened the door
before the bell could be rung and ushered their visitor into the
sitting-room, unaware of anything amiss.  The fewer people there the
better, he decided.

Besides, Edith was so good at dealing with awkward situations.

So was Marc.  He took in the situation at a glance, advanced to the
room's occupants and said disarmingly, "I must apologise, I'm so much
earlier than I intended."  He didn't appear to see Serena, although he
removed the sopping wisp she was clutching and substituted a large and
very white handkerchief from his pocket.

"The vicar admitted me, but really I should have given you some
warning."

Aunt Edith rose to the occasion.

"We are delighted to see you, and you have no need to
apologise--indeed, I am delighted, because now you can have sup per
before you leave.  Cold turkey hangs heavy on one's hands after a day
or so you can help us to eat it up."  She patted Serena's shoulder.

"And you run along, my dear, and take a couple of aspirins before that
headache gets any worse."  And as Serena got to her feet, "She's been
such a comfort to us, and such splendid company."

"Hello," said Serena, forced at last to say some thing.  She had mopped
her face more or less dry and she knew she looked just about as awful
as any girl could look, so she avoided looking at him.  She had cried
herself to a standstill and she didn't care what she looked like.  She
added with a rather watery snap, "I didn't expect you just yet."

To all of which he said nothing, only opened the door for her and then
came to sit down at Aunt Edith's invitation.

"Did you have a pleasant time in Bristol?"  asked Aunt Edith.

"I've been in Holland at my home."  He smiled a little.

"I

wanted to drive Serena here and I had to have an excuse Bristol seemed
a suitable one.  "

"Are you sorry for Serena?"  asked Aunt Edith bluntly.

"Certainly not, if by that you mean that I pity her.  She is a
resourceful girl and far too independent.  She is, if I might put it
rather clumsily, a hard nut to crack."

Aunt Edith chuckled.

"But you'll crack it?"

"Certainly."

They smiled at each other in perfect understanding as Serena, nicely
made up and neat about the head, her beaky nose still pink, came back
into the room.

CHAPTER NINE

the doctor got to his feet with the unselfconscious good manners which
Aunt Edith entirely approved of.

"Your aunt has been telling me that Beauty has behaved beautifully and
has everyone in the house a slave."

A remark which included Serena immediately in the conversation, and
since she had to make some sort of a reply it gave her no chance to
feel awkward.  Presently the vicar joined them and the two ladies went
away to get the tea.

"Sandwiches," decided Aunt Edith in the kitchen.

"Your uncle likes Gentleman's Relish and I dare say Dr.  ter Feulen
does too.  Cut the bread, will you, dear?  I'll warm up some mince
pies."

She swiftly bustled round the kitchen carrying on a monologue about
supper.

"Cold turkey and the ham, and I'll put some potatoes in the Aga to
bake.  Perhaps you would make a salad, dear?  Do you suppose biscuits
and cheese would do, or should I do something with the rest of the
pudding?"

"Cheese and biscuits.  Aunt Edith, did he notice?  I must have looked a
perfect fright!"

Then aren't observant," declared Aunt Edith un truth frilly adding
silently, " Only when they want to be," and Serena sighed thankfully.

"It was kind of you to say I had a headache."

Her aunt arranged cake on the plate.

"Your uncle doesn't condone lies, but I felt justified on this
occasion, because a bout of weeping always brings on a severe
headache."

"Did he say if he'd had a good Christmas?"

"Yes, he had had a splendid time, he told me, but far too short."

"Well, I expect so," said Serena sadly, imagining him bidding an
unwilling farewell to whoever it was in Bristol.

"It's clinic day tomorrow too."

"You will be hard at work again, child.  But you must promise me that
you will come and see us soon.  You will be more than ever welcome, you
and Beauty."  She cast an eye over the sandwiches.

"Do you suppose we should cut the crusts off?  I can put them out for
the birds.  Will you feed Beauty before you go?  It will be late for
her supper by the time you .  get back."  | They bore the tea-tray back
to the sitting-room and | there was a mild shuffling of chairs, handing
of plates J and teacups before everyone had settled down.  "Tea around
the fire is so pleasant," observed the vicar, 'one of the compensations
of winter.  You enjoyed your Christmas?  "

"Very much," declared the doctor, and avoided Aunt Edith's eye.

"Do you take evensong this evening?"

"Indeed, yes."  The good man gave the doctor a faintly enquiring
look.

"Then may I come along too?"

"A pleasure and it will give the ladies the opportunity to get our
supper ready."

That night, tucked up in her divan bed, back in her flatlet, Serena
reviewed the evening.  They had had supper, a splendid meal she and her
aunt had contrived and they had sat over it, the conversation lively,
amusing and occasionally so well informed that she hadn't been sure
what they were talking about, and when at last they had made their
farewells they had driven back to Park Street, and so calm and casual
had been Marc's manner that she had forgotten about her disgraceful
bout of weeping and had enjoyed every minute of the journey.  At
Primrose Bank he had carried her case and Beauty into her room,
switched on all the lights, lighted the gas fire, tested the locks on
the doors and windows and wished her a friendly goodnight, adding a
reminder that the morning's clinic would be a heavy one.

It had been midnight by then, and she had made herself a warm drink,
fed a sleepy kitten and tumbled into bed.  The Christmas she had been
dreading had turned out to be one of the nicest she could remember,
with the added bonus of Marc's company.  She hugged that thought to
her. There was so much about him that she loved even when he was at his
most annoying.

She curled up around her hot-water bottle and Beauty curled up with
her.

"All the same," said Serena to herself, "I shall have to go away, you
know; he's not a fool, and sooner or later he's going to guess, and I
couldn't bear it if he pitied me.  Perhaps we might go nearer to Aunt
Edith."

Beauty stopped purring for a moment to miaow sleepily.

"You're not much help," said Serena, and went to sleep herself.

The day began badly; she overslept, laddered her tights and hadn't the
time to do her face properly, which, coupled with the cold grey
morning, did nothing for her looks.  The buses were few and far between
and full of cross people having to go to work when they wanted to stay
at home.  When she got to the hospital she had to race up and down
forbidden stairs and through corridors sacrosanct to the use of the
consultants and their like.  There was no one to see her, which was a
good thing.  She gained the doctor's clinic with moments to spare,
rather out of breath and very conscious of the ladder, but she wished
everyone a good morning and tried not to mind when the doctor looked up
from his desk and glanced at her as though she wasn't there.

No one was feeling particularly good-natured.  The thought that outside
the hospital there would be untold thousands still enjoying a prolonged
Christmas break soured those working within it, and the patients
weren't best pleased at having to give up what might have been a nice
lie-in to attend the clinic.

The doctor appeared impervious to the peevishness of his patients, and
those working with him knew better than to voice their own ill humour.
In any case, they liked him as much as they respected the way he
worked.

The clinic over, Serena went off to her lunch, long overdue, and began
work on the notes, and then with out pause started on those she hadn't
typed on Christmas Eve.  Underneath those was a folder another few
pages of the book.  It would have to wait until the next day; it had
gone five o'clock a long time ago, and the quicker she went home and
got the rest of the day over the better.

She was left in peace for the next few days.  The doctor was catching
up on ward rounds, private patients and theatre work, and when the next
clinic an afternoon one came round everyone was back to normal.
Christmas was over for another year and the talk was of New Year.

She was free on New Year's Day; she got home the evening before,
looking forward to a lazy day in Beauty's company.

She had hardly set eyes on Marc, but that didn't stop her thinking
about him all the time.  She was more than ever determined to find a
job away from London, for she could see no future for herself; she had
thought just once or twice that he liked her and, indeed, he had been
friendly and al ways kind, but since Christmas he had retreated be hind
his bland face and only spoken to her when it was necessary.  It was
silly to go on like that, she told herself, and she would have to do
something.  She fed Beauty, poked her nose into her tiny food cupboard
and decided on soup out of a tin and scrambled eggs for supper, and
even decided to have a shower before she ate.

Dressing-gowned, her hair loose around her shoulders, she was weighing
the merits of cream of tomato against chicken noodle soup when someone
knocked on her door.  She frowned.

It was barely eight o'clock and Mrs.  Peck had told her that the nurses
upstairs were all going to a party and the elderly couple on the top
floor had gone to their daughter's for the New Year.  It could, of
course, be Mrs.  Peck wanting a gossip.  Serena went to the door as the
knock was repeated

"Mrs.  Peck?"

The unmistakable deep voice of the doctor answered her.

"Certainly not.  Be good enough to open the door, Serena."

"Well, I don't think I can I'm in my dressing- gown, getting my
supper."

"Much too early for supper and recollect that I have four sisters, all
of whom I have seen in dressing- gowns."

He sounded like a big brother too.  She opened the door.

He looked at the tins of soup and his lip curled.

"I thought we might celebrate the New Year together.  Mrs.  Bishop has
prepared a splendid meal which it would be sinful to eat alone."

"I'm just going began Serena.

"Ah, yes, I can see that.  Cream of tomato soup in a tin."  He appeared
not to look at her.

"I'll wait out side.  Let me have Beauty in her basket and then get
some clothes on ten minutes long enough?"

"But I don't..."

He did look at her then.  He smiled too, although he said nothing, and
she said weakly, "All right.  Do I have to dress up?"

"Wear that grey thing, and for heaven's sake put on a thick coat.  It's
freezing outside."

He had captured Beauty and was urging her gently into her basket.

"Ten minutes," he reminded her as he closed the door gently behind
him.

She flew into her clothes, did her face with care, arranged her hair in
its usual neat bun and got into her coat.  It took only a few moments
to turn out the fire, check the windows and door and switch off the
lights, then lock the door behind her.

Marc got out of the car as she left the house, bundled her smartly into
the car, got in himself, and drove off.  Serena, turning her head to
make sure that Beauty was safe on the back seat, encountered Harley's
melting gaze.  He thumped his tail in greeting and she said, "How nice
to see you again, Harley."  It crossed her mind that Marc must surely
have friends with whom he might spend his New Year's Eve, which thought
naturally compelled her to ask, "You're not having a party, are you?"

"No, Serena, just you and I," and since there was a lot of traffic she
forbore from saying anything else for fear of distracting his
attention.

Bishop opened the door as they got out of the car and she was hurried
into the warmth of the hall, where Bishop took her coat, undid Beauty's
basket and handed her over very gently before opening the sit ting-room
door.

The room welcomed her; it was warm and softly lighted and there was a
bright fire burning in the hearth.  There was music too, something
quiet and soothing.

"Delius?"  asked Serena, taking the easy chair Marc offered her and
settling Beauty on her lap.

"Very restful."  The doctor sat down in his chair with the faithful
Harley at his feet and began a meandering conversation about classical
music, and Serena, who had been feeling rather uncertain about
everything, relaxed.

Presently he got up, gave her a drink and got himself one, and edged
the conversation round to her own affairs.  He did it very carefully
and she wasn't aware of it at first.  But in the middle of explaining
exactly why it wasn't possible for her to go to Ludlow, she realised
that he had been egging her on to tell him a deal more than she had
ever intended.

She finished what she was saying rather lamely and sat twiddling her
thumbs round the glass in her hand.

"Why do you want to know about me?"  she asked.

"Anyway, you already know as much as you need."  She encountered his
quizzical gaze and blushed.

"That was awfully rude; I didn't mean it quite like that.  What I meant
was that you must have a great many other things to be interested
in..."  She put the glass down on the lamp table by her chair.

"I don't think I should have had that sherry I didn't have time for any
lunch..."

"Mrs.  Bishop will be delighted to hear that; you will do full justice
to dinner."

As if he had been waiting for his cue.  Bishop came to tell them that
they were served.

"I'll take the little cat, miss, and Mrs.  Bishop will give her a meal
when she feeds Harley."

The meal was superb.  Mrs.  Bishop, who on various previous occasions
had been forced to produce nouvelle cuisine, only to have half of it
uneaten by the sylph like ladies who had come to dine with the doctor,
allowed herself the pleasure of making rich sauces, dishing up lobster
thermidor, vegetables in butter and preceding these with a rich
artichoke soup laced with cream, and by way of afters a trifle, loaded
with calories.

"Because," she explained to Bishop, 'that nice Miss Proudfoot enjoys
good food, and an other pound or two won't spoil that nice figure of
hers.  "

The doctor must have been of the same opinion, for he pressed Serena to
second helpings and passed her a dish of petits fours with the
coffee.

Serena, who hadn't been looking forward to the New Year in the least,
found herself enjoying her evening.  Dinner had been splendid, but she
would have been just as happy without it since she had Marc for
company.

They hadn't hurried over their meal, and it was after ten o'clock when
they went back to sit by the fire with Harley and Beauty, nicely full,
sitting side by side before it.

The conversation until now had been pleasantly general and they had
fallen into a friendly silence, to be broken by the doctor.

"What do you wish for the New Year, Serena?"  he asked.

She stared at him, collecting wool-gathering thoughts in order to make
a sensible reply.

"Oh, well I don't know."

It was the best she could manage at a moment's notice.  She could, of
course, tell him that she wished very much to stay with him for the
rest of their lives;

she wondered what he would say.  "You must have some idea," he prompted
gently.

"To travel, perhaps, come into a fortune, get married?"  He was smiling
at her in a way to make her heart turn over.  She looked away and the
thought came into her head that this was an opportunity to tell him
that she would like to go away--right away from London, for to her that
seemed the most sensible thing to do.  She couldn't stay, seeing him
continuously and loving him a little more each day and finally
dwindling into a lovelorn old maid.  He was going to marry.  She
wondered for the hundredth time who the girl was.

Dutch, of course.  She spoke in a rush and rather too loudly.

"Yes, there is something I want to do more than anything else--leave
London and the hospital and go miles away to some small town--perhaps
near Aunt Edith.  I want to start again, have another future.  There
must be something round the corner..."

If Marc was surprised nothing of it showed on his face.  He said
slowly, "Do you suppose you're so anxious to see what is round the
corner that you're missing something?  You can be so busy looking for
the moon that you miss the moonlight."

"Oh, pooh!"  said Serena, quite forgetting her manners.

"I'm all for carving a career."

"Starting at the New Year?"

"Yes."  She bent over Beauty so that she didn't need to look at him,
which was a good thing, because the thoughtful calculation on his face
might have warned her.  She was already sorry that she had been so
wehement and was casting around for some means of putting things right
when Bishop came in, bearing champagne in an ice-bucket.

Then she had no more chance, for it was almost midnight and Bishop,
with Mrs.  Bishop in tow, joined them, ready for the first stroke of
Big Ben.  He timed the opening of the champagne to a nicety.  They were
raising their glasses as the New Year was ushered in, exchanging
greetings and good wishes, and when the Bishops had gone again Serena
said feverishly, "That was lovely.  Thank you for a lovely evening.  I
must go back..."

Marc showed no sign of having heard her.  He was sitting in his chair
looking comfortably relaxed.  He said, "You want to start again?  You
were serious, Serena?"

She bit off the "No' she wanted to utter.

"Of course," she told him.

"In that case, let me make things easier for you.  You can leave at the
end of the week nothing could be easier.  I am going on holiday for a
couple of weeks and someone can be found to replace you during that
time.  Let me have your resignation in writing when you come to work
and I'll arrange things for you."

It was a shock, like taking a step that wasn't there.  Serena gaped at
him while she sought for words.

"You mean I can leave just like that?"

He nodded, smiling.

"Haven't I been satisfactory?"  A silly question, but she had to
know.

"Quite satisfactory," he told her seriously, 'very nearly as good as
Muriel.  "

"I should like to go home.  It's been a lovely evening, but it's
late."

He made some sort of civil remark, the kind any good host might make,
and Bishop was summoned to get her coat.

Presently she was sitting beside Marc with Harley and Beauty in the
back of the car, being driven back to Park Street.

There were people on the streets, celebrating, but not much traffic,
and Serena, desirous of keeping her end up at all costs, made small
talk, so intent on doing so that she failed to notice that her
companion, be yond the odd murmured grunt, had almost nothing to say.

At Primrose Bank he slid to a silent halt, got out and opened her door,
lifted Beauty from the back seat and, leaving Harley to guard the car,
crossed the pavement to the door.  Serena, her key clutched in her
hand, offered the other one.

"Thank you very much," she said politely, 'and it was a lovely dinner.
Mrs.  Bishop is a gem, isn't she?

Your your wife will be delighted to have her.  "

He ignored her hand, took the key from the other one and opened the
door.

"They will get on very well," he observed, and at once stood aside to
let her pass him.  He opened her room door too, switched on the light,
inspected the windows and curtains as he always did, and put Beauty's
basket down before the fire, stooping to light it.

"Thank you very much," said Serena, and wished she could think of
something else to say.

He crossed the room to stand before her.  He didn't speak, but took her
in his arms and kissed her, thoroughly and without haste.

"Do you still want to go away?"  he asked her.

Serena found her voice, rather a small one, for she was shaken to her
very bones.  It would be so easy to say no, but she drew back a little
and he let her go at once.

"Yes, yes, I do."

"Will you tell me why?  Don't you think you should do that?"

She stared up into his face.  He looked kind and understanding and at
the same time detached.

She said, "You're going to be married."

He nodded, smiling a little.

"Yes, and very soon.  Goodnight, Serena."

He had gone.  She stood looking at the door and seething with temper
nicely mixed with such a deep sorrow she didn't dare think about it.

"He was laughing!"  she told Beauty in a furious voice.

"Not so that you could see, but inside him."  She flung a cushion at
the door to relieve her feelings, then burst into tears.

"I dare say he's been wanting to get rid of me for weeks he put the
words into my mouth, didn't he?"  she asked wildly.

"So that he didn't have to sack me."

She sat there grizzling and muttering, not at all her usual quiet self,
clasping a mildly protesting Beauty to her, her head in such a tangle
of misery that she had no idea what she was saying.  A good thing too,
for her remarks, uttered in a tear-sodden voice, had become hopelessly
illogical.

She went to bed finally and lay awake until after five o'clock, when
she dropped off into an exhausted sleep and didn't wake until Beauty,
wanting her breakfast, woke her.

She got up then, fed the little cat and put the kettle on.  A cup of
tea would be welcome;

she had a headache, and one glance in the looking- glass had sent her
spirits back into the soles of her feet.

"I wonder what he's doing now?"  she asked Beauty as she sipped very
strong tea.

Marc was at his desk.  He had just made three very satisfactory phone
calls, and all that remained now was to go and see Mrs.  Bishop.  He
had already had a talk with Bishop while he breakfasted.  He got up,
whistling, and with Harley at his heels took himself off for a walk in
Hyde Park.

Serena squeezed under the shower, washed her hair, did her nails and
did the best she could with her face;

never a beauty, she had suffered from her weeping.  Then she dressed,
had a cup of coffee and took herself out for a brisk walk.  She went in
the opposite direction to the hospital through the shabby streets for
the most part quiet after the previous evening's junketing, and as she
went she did her best to discard all thoughts save those appertaining
to her future.  There were three days left of the week, precious little
time in which to decide what to do next.  It would be best if she
delayed giving Mrs.  Peck a week's notice until she had somewhere to
go. She hesitated to ask Aunt Edith if she might stay with them until
she had found a job, since there was no knowing how long that might
take. She had a little money, enough to tide her over for a week or so;
she would be able to keep her room on for another week and then pay a
week in lieu of notice if something turned up.  Tomorrow, she told
herself firmly, she would go to the public library and scan the jobs
columns in the national newspapers.  There were the nursing magazines
too, and The Lady.  The least Marc could do would be to give her a good
reference. She turned for home, pondering where she would like to live;
somewhere in the West Country, or failing that the Cotswolds.  Far
enough away from London to be able to start a new life.  When she got
back to her room there was the rest of the day to get through, and
that, if possible, without thinking about Marc.  An impossibility.

She dreaded seeing him the next morning.  She got to the hospital
early, typed out her resignation, and since there was a clinic later
she was able to nip down to OPD, and put the envelope on his desk. 
That done, she felt better, or at least resigned, and, since there was
work waiting for her on her desk, she went ahead with it until it was
time to go to the clinic.

As usual after a holiday, the waiting-hall bulged with patients, and
for once Serena was pleased, for that meant she wouldn't have a moment
for anything but work all day.

Marc was already there as she went in, but so were all the others his
registrar, sister and three students so it was easy to address a
general good morning without looking at him.

The clinic, once started, went on and on.  Someone brought them coffee,
but it grew cold before they could spare time to drink it, and the
doctor went steadily ahead, giving his attention to each patient in
turn, seemingly tireless, and when the last patient had gone he left at
once to do a delayed ward round, but not without thanking his
companions for their morning's work.

"Thank heavens that's over," said Sister, sweeping up notes and charts
and X-ray forms.

"I'm famished!  That man's a workaholic.  A good thing he's getting
married it'll give him something else to think about."

Everyone had gone but Serena, who found it necessary to make some sort
of a reply.

"Will you go to the wedding?"  was all she could think of to say.

"I believe it's to be a quiet affair, but, knowing him, he'll invite
those who work for him.  He may be a baron in his own country and a
noted consultant in this one and as rich as Croesus, so I've heard, but
he's no snob, and so very kind."  She paused.

"He'd be angry if I told you some of the things he's done to help out,
and never a breath of what he's done for anyone."  Sister sighed.

"Ah, well, his wife's a lucky woman.  Let's go to the canteen and see
what's left."

For the rest of that week Serena hardly set eyes on Marc.

Work appeared on her desk reams of it, for all the world as though he
intended to get the last ounce of work out of her before she left.  In
a way, she was glad of it, for she was too busy to brood.  By the time
she got home each evening and fed Beauty, got her own supper and
studied the vacancies in the various magazines and newspapers she had
bought on the way, she found that there was little time to do more than
go to bed.

She was miserably unhappy, but to get her future settled had priority
over personal feelings, and so far there had been nothing she had
wanted to apply for.  She had decided to try to find a post as
receptionist in a country practice, as far away from London as
possible, and failing that a job in one of the smaller provincial
hospitals.

The last morning came.  There was the usual pile of work waiting for
her, but first of all she went along to see Mrs.  Dunn.  She had
already told that lady that she was leaving and had been relieved when
she had taken it for granted that Serena wanted to be nearer her mother
now that she had remarried.  Indeed, most of the people she knew in the
hospital thought the same thing, and she didn't enlighten them; it made
her leaving easier.

There was an afternoon clinic, and she took care to be in OPD before
Marc should arrive so that she could bid everyone there goodbye before
he got there.  In that way she would be able to slip away at the end of
the clinic, type up the notes and then leave quickly and quietly.

There weren't as many patients as usual, and it was barely four o'clock
when the doctor got up from his desk.  He said his usual thanks to
everyone there, and then turned to Serena.

"I'm sure that we all wish you a very happy future, Serena.

We shall miss you.  I hope you find exactly what you have in mind and
that, when you have, you will send us a postcard.  "

He smiled nicely at her, nodded briskly and went away.

"Now that was a funny thing to say," said Sister, "And he didn't shake
hands or anything..."

"Well, I dare say I shall see him again before I go, Sister.

I've got these notes to type for him.  "

A remark which satisfied Sister, although there was no truth in it. 
She had seen Marc for the last time.  The notes didn't take long. 
Serena put them in their folder ready to hand to the head porter as she
left, tidied her desk for the last time, went to wish Mrs.  Dunn and
the other typists goodbye, got into her out door things and left the
office.  She had the strange feeling that it wasn't really happening,
that on Monday she would be there again, just as usual, that none of
this was happening to her.

However, it was.  She went down to the front entrance, handed in the
folders and walked to the door.  She was almost there when the porter
called after her.

"Miss Proudfoot, you're wanted in Matron's office.  Would you go there
now, please?"

Serena turned round, searching her head to think what it was that she
had omitted to do before she left.  Surely Matron didn't expect her to
say a personal goodbye to her?  She hardly knew her, only as a
formidable figure whom she had occasionally en countered in the
hospital corridors.

She paused by the lodge.

"Have I done something?"  she asked.

"Didn't Matron say why she wanted me?"

"No, Miss Proudfoot, just the message."

"I suppose I'd better go?"

"I would if I were you, love," said the head porter, all at once quite
fatherly.

She went down the main corridor and knocked on Matron's office door,
and when the green light above it showed, opened the door and went
in.

Matron wasn't there, but Marc was, sitting on the side of the desk,
studying his shoes.

Serena stood staring at him, going slowly pale.

"Oh, no--not you," she muttered, and turned tail, to be halted by his
placid, "Don't run away, Serena."  He got off the desk and came slowly
towards her, stretched out an arm and closed the door, then put the arm
round her.

"I always thought," he observed thoughtfully, 'that a girl knew when a
man was in love with her.  "

She gave a wriggle to escape his arm, and he put the other one around
her as well and clamped her gently against his great chest.  She said
in a small voice muffled by his waistcoat, "You're going to get
married... everyone says so--so did you."

"Well, of course I am.  To you, my dearest love."

"But you gave me the sack!"  She sniffed dolefully.

"You didn't mind a bit..."

"Of course I didn't.  I was delighted.  You're no longer working for
me, we can marry as soon as I can arrange a licence."

She sniffed and lifted her head.

"You haven't asked me if I want to marry you."

He kissed her gently.

"Will you marry me, my darling?  But only if you want to."

"Of course I want to," said Serena tartly, and then in a loving little
voice, "Oh, Marc, I've been so unhappy!"

"Not any more, my love.  I'll make sure of that."  He kissed her again,
this time at some length.

"Now we will go home and fix a date for the wedding."

"You mean to Park Street?"

"Heaven forbid!"  He ran a gentle finger down her cheek.

"You're not going back there."

"I must Beauty and all my things..."

"Beauty is in the car outside, I fetched her half an hour ago, and Mrs.
Peck packed what she thought you might need you're coming back with me,
dearest."

Serena, wrapped in a mist of happiness, made one more effort to be
sensible.

"Mother and Aunt Edith, and your family..."

"We will send a telex to your mother.  As for Aunt Edith, I phoned her
yesterday.  You're to stay there until your uncle marries us.  My
mother and the family know too, they can't wait to welcome you."

"You were very sure."

"Oh, yes that I loved you and would marry you."

"I might have said no," said Serena, making a great effort to assert
herself.

"But you said yes, my darling."  His voice was gentle and loving.

She nodded into his shoulder.

"You're quite sure?"  she asked anxiously.

He didn't reply, but kissed her again instead; a most satisfactory
answer, blotting out any doubts there might still be at the back of her
head.

"And now we will go home," he told her, which was exactly what she most
wanted to do.