Kitabı oku: «Winter of Change», sayfa 3

‘I’ve a week’s holiday before Christmas, that’s all, and I’m supposed to give a month’s notice. There’s nothing to keep me in London, but all my clothes and things are at Pope’s.’

‘We will pick them up as we go. What is the name of your matron?’

‘Miss Shepherd—she’s called the Principal Nursing Officer now.’

‘Presumably in the name of progress, but what a pity. I shall telephone her now.’ Which he did, with a masterly mixture of authority and charm. Mary Jane listened with interest to his exact explanations, which he delivered unembellished by sentiment and without any effort to enlist sympathy. It didn’t surprise her in the least that within five minutes he had secured her resignation as from that moment.

When he had replaced the receiver, she remarked admiringly, ‘My goodness, however did you manage it? I thought I would have to go back.’

‘Manage what?’ he asked coolly. ‘I made a reasonable request and received a reasonable reply to it—I fail to see anything extraordinary in that.’

He returned to his writing, leaving her feeling snubbed, so that her manner towards him, which had begun to warm a little, cooled. It made her feel cold too, as though he had shut a door that had been ajar and left her outside. She went to the kitchen presently on some excuse or other, and sat talking to Mrs Body, who was glad of the company anyway.

‘You’ve not had time to make any plans, Miss Mary Jane?’ she hazarded.

‘No, Mrs Body. You know that Grandfather left me this house, don’t you? You will go on living here, won’t you? I don’t think I could bear it if you and Lily went away.’

The housekeeper gave her a warm smile. ‘Bless you, my dear, of course we’ll stay—it would break my heart to go after all these years, and Lily wouldn’t go, I’m sure. But didn’t I hear Doctor van der Blocq say that you would be going back to Holland with him?’

Mary Jane explained. ‘It won’t be for long, I imagine—if you wouldn’t mind being here—do you suppose Lily would come and live in so that you’ve got company? I’m not sure about the money yet, but I’m sure there’ll be enough to pay her. Shall I ask her?’

‘A good idea, Miss Mary Jane. Supposing I mention it to her first, once everything’s seen to? I must say the doctor gets things done—everything’s going as smooth as silk and he thinks of everything. That reminds me, he told me to move your things back to your old room.

Mary Jane looked surprised. ‘Oh, did he? How thoughtful of him,’ and then because she was young and healthy even though she was sad: ‘What’s for dinner—I’m hungry.’

Mrs Body beamed. ‘A nice bit of beef. For a foreign gentleman the doctor isn’t finicky about his food, is he? and I always say there’s nothing to beat a nice roast. There’s baked apples and cream for afters.’

‘I’ll lay the table,’ Mary Jane volunteered, and kept herself busy with that until Mr van der Blocq came out of the study, when she offered him a drink, prudently declining one herself before going upstairs to put on the grey dress once more. The sight of her face, puffy with tears and tense with her stored-up feelings, did little to reassure her, and when she joined Mr van der Blocq in the sitting room, the brief careless glance he accorded her deflated what little ego she had left. Sitting at table, watching him carving the beef with a nicety which augured well for his skill at his profession, she found herself wishing that he didn’t regard her with such indifference—not, she told herself sensibly, that his opinion of her mattered one jot. He wasn’t at all the sort of man she… He interrupted her thoughts.

‘It seems to me a good idea if you were to call me Fabian. I do not like being addressed as Mr van der Blocq—inaccurately, as it happens. Even Mrs Body manages to address me, erroneously, as Doctor dear.’ He smiled faintly as he looked at her, his eyebrows raised.

She studied his face. ‘Well, if you want me to,’ her voice was unenthusiastic, ‘only I don’t know you very well, and you’re…’

‘A great deal older than you? Indeed I am.’

It annoyed her that he didn’t tell her how much older, but she went on, ‘I was going to say that I find it a little difficult, because Grandfather told me that you were an important surgeon and I wouldn’t dream of calling a consultant at Pope’s by his first name.’

The preposterous idea made her smile, but he remained unamused, only saying in a bored fashion. ‘Well, you are no longer a nurse at Pope’s—you are Miss Pettigrew with a pleasant little property of your own and sufficient income with which to live in comfort.’

She served him a baked apple and passed the cream. ‘What’s a sufficient income?’ she wanted to know.

He waved a careless, well kept hand, before telling her.

She had been on the point of sampling her own apple, but now she laid down her spoon and said sharply, ‘That’s nonsense—that’s a fortune!’

‘Not in these days, it will be barely enough. There’s your capital, of course, but I shall be in charge of that.’ His tone implied that he was discussing something not worthy of his full attention, and this nettled her.

‘You talk as though it were chicken feed!’

‘That was not my intention. I’m sure you are a competent young woman and well able to enjoy life on such a sum. The solicitor will inform you as to the exact money.’

‘Then why do I have to have you for a guardian?’

He put down his fork and said patiently, ‘You heard your grandfather—I shall attend to any business to do with investments and so forth and have complete control of your capital. I shall of course see that your income is paid into your bank until you assume full control over your affairs when you are thirty. It will also be necessary for me to give my consent to your marriage should you wish to marry.’

She was bereft of words. ‘Your consent—if I should choose’ She almost choked. ‘It’s not true!’

‘I am not in the habit of lying. It is perfectly true, set down in black and white by your grandfather, and I intend to carry out his wishes to the letter.’

‘You mean that if anyone wants to marry me he’ll have to ask you?’

He nodded his handsome head.

‘But that’s absurd! I never heard such nonsense…how could you possibly know—have any idea…?’

His voice had been cool, now it was downright cold. ‘My dear good girl, let me assure you that I find my duties just as irksome as you find them unnecessary.’

This shook her. ‘Oh, will you? I suppose they’ll take up some of your time. I’ll try not to bother you, then—I daresay there’ll be no need for us to see much of each other.’

His lips twitched. ‘Probably not, although I’m afraid that while you are at my uncle’s house you will see me from time to time—he’s too old to manage his own affairs, and my cousin, who lives with him, isn’t allowed to do more than run the house.’

They were in the sitting room drinking their coffee when she ventured: ‘Will you tell me a little about your uncle? I don’t know where he lives or anything about him, and since I am to stay there…’

Mr van der Blocq frowned. ‘Why should I object?’ he wanted to know testily. ‘But I must be brief; I’m expecting one or two telephone calls presently. He lives in Friesland, a small village called Midwoude. It is in fact on the border between Friesland and Groningen. The country is charming and there is a lake close by. The city of Groningen is only a few miles away; Leeuwarden is less than an hour by car. You may find it a little lonely, but I think not, for you are happy here, aren’t you? My uncle, I have already told you, is difficult, but my cousin Emma will be only too glad to make a friend of you.’

‘And you—you live somewhere else?’

‘I live and work in Groningen.’ He spoke pleasantly and with the quite obvious intention of saying nothing more. She had to be content with that, and shortly after that, when he went to answer his telephone call, Mary Jane went into the kitchen, helped Mrs Body around the place, laid the table for breakfast and went up to bed.

Now if I were a gorgeous creature with golden hair and long eyelashes, she mused as she wandered up the staircase, we might be spending the evening together—probably he had some flaxen-haired beauty waiting for him in Groningen. For lack of anything better to do and to keep her thoughts in a cheerful channel, she concocted a tale about Mr van der Blocq in which the blonde played a leading part, and he for once smiled frequently and never once addressed the creature as ‘my dear good girl’.

The next few days passed quickly; there was a good deal to attend to and Major had to be taken for his walk, and time had to be spent with the Colonel’s friends who called in unexpected numbers. The lawyer came too and spent long hours in the study with her guardian, although he had very little to say to her.

It wasn’t until after the funeral, when the last of the neighbours and friends had gone, that old Mr North asked her to join him in the study and bring Mrs Body and Lily with her. Mary Jane half listened while he read the legacies which had been left to them both, it wasn’t until they had gone and she was sitting by the fire with Fabian at the other end of the room that Mr North gave her the details of her own inheritance. The money seemed a vast sum to her; she had had no idea that her grandfather had had so much, even the income she was to receive seemed a lot of money. Mr North rambled on rather, talking about stocks and shares and securities and ended by saying:

‘But you won’t need to worry your head about this, Mary Jane, Mr van der Blocq will see to everything for you. I understand that you will be travelling to Holland tomorrow. That will make a nice change and you will return here ready to take your place in local society. I take it that Mrs Body will remain?’

She told him that yes, she would, and moreover Lily had agreed to live in as well, so that the problem of having someone to look after the house and Major was solved.

‘You have no idea how long you will be away?’ asked Mr North.

‘None,’ she glanced at Fabian, who took no notice at all, ‘but I’m sure that Mrs Body will look after everything beautifully.’

The old gentleman nodded. ‘And you? You will be sorry to leave your work at the hospital, I expect.’

She remembered Sister Thompson. ‘Yes, though I was thinking of changing to another hospital.’ She smiled at him. ‘Now I shan’t need to.’

He went shortly afterwards and she spent the rest of the day packing what clothes she had with her and making final arrangements with Mrs Body before taking Major for a walk by the lake. It was a clear evening with the moon shining. Mary Jane shivered a little despite her coat, not so much with cold as the knowledge that she would miss the peace and quiet even though she had it to come back to.

She went indoors presently and into the study to wish Fabian good night. He stood by her grandfather’s desk while she made a few remarks about their journey and then said a little shyly, ‘You’ve been very kind and—and efficient. I don’t know what we should have done without your help. I’m very grateful.’

He rustled the papers in his hand and thanked her stiffly, and she went to her room, wondering if he would ever unbend, or was he going to remain coldly polite and a little scornful of her for the rest of their relationship? Eight years, she told herself as she got into bed, seemed a long time. She would be thirty and quite old, and Fabian would be…she started to guess and fell asleep, still guessing.

CHAPTER THREE

MARY JANE HAD never travelled in a Rolls-Royce—she found it quite an experience. Fabian was a good driver and although he spoke seldom he was quite relaxed, she sat silently beside him, thinking about the last two weeks—such a lot had happened and there had been so much to plan and arrange; she hoped she had forgotten nothing—not that it would matter very much, for her companion would not have overlooked the smallest detail. He had told her very little about the journey, beyond asking her to be ready to start at eight o’clock in the morning.

They were on the motorway now, doing a steady seventy, and would be in London by early afternoon, giving her ample time in which to pack her things at the hospital before they left for the midnight ferry.

‘Anything you haven’t time to see to you can leave,’ he had told her, ‘and arrange to send on the things you don’t want—Mrs Body can sort them out later. You can buy all you need when we get to Holland.’

‘Oh no, I can’t, I’ve only a few pounds.’

‘I will advance you any reasonable sum—do you need any money now?’

‘No, thank you, but what about my fare?’

‘Mr North and I will take care of such details.’

They had settled into silence after that. Mary Jane stared through the window as the Rolls crept up behind each car in turn and passed it. Presently she closed her eyes against the boredom of the road, the better to think. But her thoughts were muddled and hazy; she hadn’t slept very well the night before, and fought a desire to doze off, induced by the extreme comfort of the car, and had just succeeded in reducing her mind to tolerable clarity when her efforts were shattered by her companion’s laconic, ‘We’ll stop for coffee.’

She glanced at her watch; they had been on the road for just two hours and Stafford wasn’t far away. ‘That would be nice,’ she agreed pleasantly, and was a little surprised when he left the motorway, taking the car unhurriedly down side roads which led at last to a small village.

‘Stableford,’ read Mary Jane from the signpost. ‘Why do we come here?’

‘To get away from the motorway for half an hour. There’s a place called The Cocks—ah, there it is.’ He pulled up as he spoke.

The coffee was excellent and hot, and Mary Jane ate a bun because breakfast seemed a long time ago, indeed, a meal in another life.

‘What time shall we get to London?’ she wanted to know.

‘A couple of hours, I suppose. We will have a late lunch before I take you to Pope’s. I’ll call for you there at seven o’clock.’

‘The boat doesn’t go until midnight, does it?’

‘We shall dine on the way.’

‘Oh.’ She felt somehow deflated; if he had said something nice about dining together, or even asked her—obviously he was performing a courteous duty with due regard to her comfort and absolutely no pleasure on his part. She followed him meekly out to the car and for the remainder of the journey only spoke when she was spoken to and that not very often. Only when they were driving through London’s northern suburbs did he remark: ‘We’ll go to Carrier’s, it’s an easy run to Pope’s from there.’

The restaurant was down a passage, double-fronted and modern, and Mary Jane, by now famished, chose fillet of beef in shirtsleeves, because it sounded quaint and filling at the same time. She was given a dry sherry to drink before they ate; she would have preferred a sweet one, but somehow Fabian looked the kind of man who would wish to order the drinks himself and she felt certain that he knew a great deal more about them than she ever would; she might be a splendid nurse, a tolerable cook and handy in the garden, but the more sophisticated talents had so far eluded her. It surprised her when he suggested, after she had disposed of the beef in its shirtsleeves and he had eaten his carpet bag steak, that she might like to sample Robert’s Chocolate Fancy.

‘Women like sweet things,’ he told her tolerantly, and asked for the cheese board for himself.

Pope’s looked greyer, more old-fashioned and more hedged in by the towering blocks of flats around it than ever before. ‘You’ll have to see the Matron—you had better do that first,’ said Fabian as he helped her out of the car. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

She declined politely and with secret regret; it would have been a pleasure to have walked through the hospital with Fabian beside her; she could just imagine the curious and envious glances that would have been cast at her.

He nodded. ‘Good. I’ve one or two things to do. I’ll be here at seven exactly.’

There was a great deal for her to do too. After the interview with Miss Shepherd, which was unexpectedly pleasant, there was a brief visit to Women’s Surgical, where Sister Thompson wasn’t pleasant at all, and then a long session of packing in her room. It was amazing what she had collected over the years! After due thought she packed a trunk with everything she judged might be unsuitable in a Dutch winter, which left her with some thick tweeds in a pleasing shade of brown, a variety of sweaters, a couple of jersey dresses and a rather nice evening dress she couldn’t resist taking, although she saw no chance of wearing it. It was pale blue and green organza with long tight sleeves and a pie-frill collar, and it suited her admirably.

When she had finished packing she went along to the sitting room, where most of her friends were having tea, and found so much to talk about that she had to hurry to complete the tiresome chores of handing in her uniform to the linen room and waiting while it was checked, and then running all over the home to hand in the key of her room, both tasks requiring patience while the appropriate persons were found, the right forms filled in and signed and the farewells made, but she was at the hospital entrance by seven o’clock, wearing the brown tweeds and a felt hat which did nothing for her at all. All the same, she looked nice; her handbag and gloves and shoes were good and the tweed suit and coat suited her small slender person.

She reached the door just as Fabian drew up and got out of the car. He gave her a laconic ‘Hullo’, put her case in the boot and enquired about the rest of the luggage.

‘It’s in my trunk—one of my friends will send it on to Mrs Body.’

‘Good. And Miss Shepherd—any difficulties?’

‘No, thank you. None.’

‘Get in, then.’

She didn’t much like being ordered about, she was on the point of saying so when those of her closer friends who were off duty or who had been able to escape from their wards for a few minutes arrived in a chattering bunch to see her off. They embraced her in turn and with some warmth, at the same time taking a good look at Mr van der Blocq, who bore their scrutiny with a faint smile and complete equanimity, even when Penny Martin, the prettiest and giddiest of the lot of them, darted forward and caught him by the arm.

‘Take care of Mary Jane,’ she begged him with the faint lisp which most of the housemen found irresistible, ‘and if you want another nurse at any time, I’d love to come.’

He smiled down at her, and Mary Jane, glimpsing the charm of it, felt quite shaken by some feeling she had no time to consider. He had never smiled at her like that; he must dislike her very much. The supposition caused her to be very quiet as they drove away from the cheerful little group on the steps, in fact, she didn’t speak at all until they had crossed the river, gone through Southwark and joined the A2.

‘You’ll miss your friends,’ commented her companion, slowing down for the traffic lights, ‘and hospital life.’ The car swept ahead again. ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t go back to work there later on—you could spend your holidays in Cumbria.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that,’ declared Mary Jane, startled out of her silence. ‘I shall like living in Grandfather’s house and I shall find plenty to do. I shall miss Pope’s, of course, but not the ward I was on.’

He shot her a brief, amused glance. ‘Oh? Tell me about it.’

She did, rather haltingly at first, but he seemed interested and she found herself saying more than she intended.

‘There is certainly no point in you going back to Women’s Surgical,’ he agreed. ‘It sounds a joyless place, and your Sister Thompson needs to go on the retirement list.’

‘But she’s quite young, only forty.’

‘You think that forty is quite young?’

‘Heavens, yes.’ She broke off as he turned the car down a side road. ‘Where are we going? I thought this led to the M2.’

‘There’s a good place at Hollingbourne, and we have plenty of time.’

The restaurant was pleasantly quiet and the food exceptional. Mary Jane was beginning to think that Fabian wouldn’t go anywhere unless the food and the service were near perfection. She remembered the simple meals she and Mrs Body had cooked and wondered, as she ate her Kentish roast duckling, if he had enjoyed them. Probably not.

They kept up a desultory conversation as they ate—the kind of conversation, she told herself hopelessly, that one sustained with fellow patients in a dentist’s waiting room. Before she could stop the words, they popped out of her mouth. ‘What a pity we don’t get on.’

If she had hoped to take him by surprise, she had failed. His expression didn’t change as he answered in the pleasantest of voices.

‘Yes, it is. Probably as we get to know each other better, our—er—incompatibility will lessen.’ He smiled briefly and changed the subject abruptly. ‘Tell me, do you ride? If so, there is a good stables near my uncle’s house—they could let you have a mount.’

‘Oh, could they? I should like that. I’m not awfully good, but I enjoy it.’

‘In that case you had better not go out alone.’

Which remark compelled her to say, ‘Oh, I can ride well enough, you needn’t worry about that—it’s just that I’m not a first-class horsewoman.’

They sipped coffee in silence until she said defiantly, ‘I shall buy a horse when I get back home,’ and waited to see what he would say. She was disappointed when he replied blandly, ‘Why not? Shall we go?’

They were at Dover with time to spare. They left the car in the small queue and had coffee in the restaurant and Fabian bought her an armful of magazines. Once on board he suggested that she should go to her cabin. ‘We berth very early,’ he warned her, ‘half past four or thereabouts. We’ll stop for breakfast on the way to Friesland.’

His advice was sound. Mary Jane slept for a few hours, and fortified by tea, joined him on deck as the boat docked, and then followed him down to the car deck. There was no delay at all as they landed; they were away in a few minutes, tearing down the cobbled street towards the Dutch border.

The Rolls bored through the motorway from Antwerp towards the frontier and Breda, going through the town without stopping. It was quiet and dark, although a slow dawn was beginning to lighten the sky; by the time they reached Utrecht there was a dim, chilly daylight struggling through the clouds. Mary Jane shivered in the warm car and Fabian spoke after miles of silence. ‘We’ll stop here and have breakfast.’

It seemed a little early for there to be anywhere open, but he stopped the car outside Smits Hotel, said, ‘Stay where you are,’ and went inside to return very quickly and invite her inside, where she was welcomed by the hall porter with a courtesy she would have found pleasant in broad daylight, let alone at that early hour of the morning, but Fabian seemed to take it all very much for granted, as he did the breakfast which was presently set before them. They ate at leisure, lingering over a final cup of coffee while he explained the route they were to follow. ‘Less than a hundred miles,’ he told her. ‘We shall be at my uncle’s house for coffee.’

And they were, after a drive during which Mary Jane, after several efforts at polite conversation, had become progressively more and more silent, staring out at the flat, frost-covered fields on either side of the road, observing with interest the cows in their coats, the large churches and the small villages so unlike her own home, and wishing with all her heart that she was back there—she even wished she was back at Pope’s, coping with Sister Thompson’s petty tyranny, but when her companion said, ‘Only a few more miles now,’ she pulled herself together; self-pity got one nowhere, and if Grandfather could know what she was thinking now he would be heartily ashamed of her show—even to herself—of weakness.

She sat up straight, rammed the unbecoming hat firmly upon her head and said, ‘I’m glad, and I’m sure you must be too—travelling with someone you dislike can be very tiresome.’

Mr van der Blocq allowed a short sharp exclamation to leave his lips. ‘Does that remark refer to myself or to you?’ he queried silkily.

‘Both of us.’ She spoke without heat and lapsed into silence, a silence she would have liked to break as he took the car gently through a very small village—cluster of one-storied cottages, a shop and an over-sized church—and turned off the road through massive iron gates and a tree-lined drive, and pulled up before his uncle’s house. She would have liked to exclaim over it, for it was worthy of comment; built of rose brick with a steep slate roof and an iron balcony above its massive front door. It had two stories, their windows exactly matching, and all with shutters. It reminded her of some fairy tale, standing there silent, within the semicircle of sheltering trees, most of them bare now. She was impressed and longed to say so.

Fabian got out, came round to help her out too and walked beside her up the shallow steps to the opening door. A white-haired man stood there, neatly dressed in a dark suit and looking so pleased to see them that she deduced, quite rightly, that this wasn’t Jonkheer van der Blocq. Fabian quickly put her right, explaining as he shook the old man’s hand, ‘This is Jaap, he has been in the family for forty years—he sees to everything and will be of great help to you.’

Mary Jane put out a hand and had it gently wrung while Jaap made her welcome—presumably—in his own language. She nodded and smiled and followed him into a handsome lobby and through its inner glass doors to the hall, an imposing place, its walls hung with dark, gilt-framed portraits, vicious-looking weapons and a variety of coats of arms. It needed flowers, she decided as she glanced about her, something vivid to offset the noble plastered ceiling and marble floor with its dim Persian rugs. She was arranging them in her mind’s eye when Fabian said: ‘The sitting room, I suppose—the first door on the left.’

She followed Jaap through a double door into a room whose proportions rivalled those of the hall—the ceiling was high, the walls, painted white and ornamented at their corners with a good deal of carved fruit and flowers, carried a further selection of paintings. The furniture was massive and she had the feeling that excepting for the easy chairs flanking the large open fire, and the Chesterfield drawn up before it, the seating accommodation would be uncomfortable—an opinion which Fabian probably shared, for he advised her to take a chair by the fire, taking her coat and tossing it to Jaap.

‘My cousin will be here in a moment,’ he told her, and went to look out of the windows, while Mary Jane, left to herself, rearranged the furniture in her mind, set a few floral arrangements on the various tables and regarded with awe a large cabinet on the opposite wall; it was inlaid, with a good deal of strapwork, and she considered it hideous.

‘German?’ she asked herself aloud.

‘You’re right,’ agreed Fabian from the window. ‘The Thirty Years’ War or thereabouts, I believe, and frankly appalling.’

She turned to look at him. ‘Now isn’t that nice, we actually agree about something!’ She added hastily, ‘I don’t mean to be rude—I have no business to pass an opinion…’

He shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘I’m flattered that we should share even an opinion.’

‘Now that’s a…’ She was saved from finishing the forceful remark she was about to make by the entry of a lady into the room. The cousin, without doubt—fortyish, tall and thin and good-looking, her face marred by the anxious frown between her brows and the look of harassment she wore. Indeed, she appeared to be so hunted that Mary Jane expected to see her followed by Fabian’s uncle in one of his more difficult moods. But no one else appeared; the lady trod across the room to Fabian, crying his name in a melodramatic fashion, and flung her arms around him. He received her embrace with a good-humoured tolerance, patted her on the shoulder and said in English: ‘Now, Emma, you can stop behaving like a wet hen. Here is Mary Jane come to nurse Oom Georgius.’

He turned round and went to Mary Jane’s side. ‘This is my cousin Emma van der Blocq—I’m sure you will be good friends, and I know she is delighted to have you here to lighten her burden.’

‘Indeed yes,’ his cousin joined in, shaking Mary Jane’s hand in an agitated way. ‘I’m quite worn out, for my father thinks I am a very poor nurse and I daresay I am—I’m sure you will be able to manage him far better than I.’ She sighed deeply. ‘The nurses never stay.’

It sounded as though the old gentleman was going to be a handful, Mary Jane thought gloomily, but she had promised her grandfather, and in a way she was glad, because she would be too occupied to brood over his death. She said in her pleasant voice, ‘I’ll do my best. Perhaps when you have the time, you will tell me what you would like me to do.’

Cousin Emma became more agitated than ever. ‘Oh yes, of course, but first you shall see your room and we will have lunch.’ She looked at Fabian. ‘You will go and see Father?’

He nodded and followed them out of the room and up the elegant staircase at one side of the hall, but on the landing they parted, he going to the front of the house while Mary Jane and her hostess entered a room at the head of the stairs. It was a large room, but not, she was relieved to see, nearly as large as the sitting room. It was furnished with a quantity of heavy Mid-Victorian furniture, all very ornate, carved and inlaid. The bed was a ponderous affair too, but the curtains and coverlet were pretty and the carpet was richly thick under her feet.