children, he added. It made it sound as though the village were some vice-ridden haunt full of desperate characters with flick-knives waiting at every corner. Cassandra suppressed a giggle and they set off sedately, each with a child holding a hand. At the door she felt bound to ask him in, and was quite downcast when he accepted.
He didn’t stay long, although she had the impression that he would have done so if time hadn’t been pressing. She saw him to the door, murmuring politely about the tea-party, and suggesting vaguely that he and his sister might care to take tea with them at some future date. When he had gone, Andrew rounded on her. ‘Aunt Cassandra, how could you? Ask him to tea, I mean. He’s all right, I suppose, but Miss Campbell’s always so cross. Did you hear her telling Penny off because she made crumbs, and she couldn’t help it.’
Cassandra led the way to the kitchen. ‘Darlings, I know. I made crumbs too, but you see it would be so rude not to invite them back. But if they come on a Sunday they have to be back by six o’clock—earlier—so it wouldn’t be too bad.’
She opened the fridge and took out some milk, and Andrew, standing beside her, said: ‘He fancies you, Aunt Cassandra.’
She gave him a look of horror. ‘Andrew, you’re making it up! He couldn’t—you mustn’t make remarks like that,’ she rebuked him. ‘You’re only repeating something you’ve heard.’
He mistook her meaning. ‘That’s right. I heard someone in the shop yesterday—that’s what they said.’ He was speaking the truth; Cassandra said lightly: ‘Oh, gossip, darling, you shouldn’t listen to that, no one ever means it. Now, supper—I planned a rather nice one.’
The pastor wasn’t mentioned again, for after supper they played Monopoly until bedtime, which left no time to talk. It was later, when she was sitting in the quiet house, writing to Rachel, that Cassandra paused to worry about Andrew’s remark. Mr Campbell was a very nice man, she had no doubt, but definitely not her cup of tea. Besides, she didn’t like his sister. She would do her best to avoid him as much as possible, though how to do that in a village of such a small size was going to be a problem. She brightened at the thought that it was only just over a month until she would be gone and the problem would solve itself, but her relief was tempered by a very real regret that she would never see Mr van Manfeld again; even in a rage he was interesting company, and surely, sometimes he was good-tempered. It would be nice to know, but she doubted if she ever would.
She had the opportunity of doing so the very next day. She had taken the children back to school after their dinner and was sitting on the floor before the fire with the animals, doing nothing, when the front doorbell rang.
Mr van Manfeld stood outside with Jan beside him. He wore a sheepskin jacket which made him truly vast, so that Jan, similarly clad, looked like his very thin shadow. The ogre said politely: ‘Good afternoon, Miss Darling. I sent you two notes; you didn’t reply to them. We came to visit you yesterday afternoon, but you were not home. Taking tea with the reverend, so the village tells Jan.’
‘Come inside,’ said Cassandra in a no-nonsense voice. ‘Coming all this way—you must be mad! You can’t possibly see where you’re going…’ She stopped and bit her lip because her choice of words hadn’t been too happy.
‘Jan is my sight.’ He had followed her into the hall with Jan close behind. ‘I must own, my dear girl, that you are the only person I have met since my accident who hasn’t cried crocodile’s tears over me or wanted to lead me around like a dumb animal. I find it refreshing.’ He towered over her, standing in the centre of the spacious hall. ‘Can you imagine what it is like to be without sight?’
She returned the blank stare of the dark glasses steadily. ‘I think so—a kind of little hell. But you’re going to see again; you know far better than I do that if there’s any sight left after an optic nerve injury, it’s more likely to improve than worsen. Come into the sitting-room.’
She didn’t attempt to show him where the chairs were; Jan had taken his jacket, now he guided him unobtrusively to one of the armchairs by the fire and at Cassandra’s smiling invitation, took one close by.
‘Why have you come?’ she wanted to know, and sat down on the floor again with Bob and the cats.
Mr van Manfeld crossed one long leg over the other. ‘Another thing I like about you, dear Miss Darling, is your direct approach. I came because I wanted to see you again—er—figuratively speaking, of course. I am selfish, full of self-pity and evil-tempered, but I enjoy your company, therefore I force myself—and Jan—upon you, since you aren’t civil enough to answer my notes.’
‘Civil!’ Cassandra’s voice was shrill with annoyance. ‘Whatever next—when I took the trouble to walk up to your cottage on Friday and you didn’t so much as offer me a cup of tea…’
‘Tea?’ interrupted Mr van Manfeld. ‘That would be delightful. I was only saying to Jan that perhaps a little female society might do us both good.’
‘How right you are!’ exploded Cassandra. ‘But don’t count on me being the female.’
He had stretched out in his chair and one of the cats had got on to his knee. He was stroking her with a large square hand—a surgeon’s hand. ‘But you are very female, Miss Darling. You are as bold as a lion and just as rude as I am when occasion demands. Besides, Jan and I find your cakes delicious. Do you suppose we might enter into an uneasy friendship?’
She had to laugh. She had never met anyone like him before; she wondered what he was really like behind that façade he had built up—a façade to protect him from pity. She wondered for the hundredth time what kind of accident he had had. She got up and went and stood in front of him and held out her hand. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘an uneasy friendship, but don’t expect me to be a doormat for you to wipe your rages on, because I won’t.’
He shook her hand gravely, ‘I think you are hoaxing me,’ he remarked. ‘Only a pretty girl would speak with so much confidence. I find it an incentive to regain my sight as quickly as possible.’
‘No,’ she declared positively, ‘you mustn’t think that, because I’m plain—I told you so.’ She appealed to Jan: ‘I am, aren’t I?’
The black eyes were amused. ‘I have described you to Mijnheer, miss, so there is no need for me to do so again.’
‘There, you see?’ she inquired of the ogre, who said instantly and with gentle blandness: ‘No, I don’t see, but I have great faith in Jan.’
‘Oh, I am sorry,’ said Cassandra contritely. ‘I keep forgetting, you must think me a hard-hearted, uncaring person.’
‘No, I don’t think that at all.’ He smiled, which delighted her so much that she said at once: ‘You’ll stay for tea, won’t you? The children will be out of school in half an hour, if you don’t mind sitting here while I fetch them? I don’t like them to be out alone, I know it’s not far, but I feel I should be extra careful of them. Rachel—my sister—would never forgive me.’
‘We should very much like to stay, and Jan will fetch the children, won’t you, Jan? They know him, I believe—they meet in the shop.’
Which remark put her in mind of the inadequate purchases Jan made. Mr van Manfeld didn’t look poor, but then there were some people who never did, preferring to starve than tell anyone. She wondered what they had eaten for their dinner, and decided to add a plate of sandwiches to the hot buttered toast and the cake. Her thoughts were interrupted by her guest inquiring
