It had turned into a dull afternoon and Meadow Road, when they reached it, looked drab. He stopped outside her flat and turned to look at her.
‘Are you going to invite me in for tea?’
It was the last thing she had expected. ‘Well, I hadn’t intended to but if you’d like to come in, do.’ That sounded rude; she amended it hastily, ‘What I mean is, I didn’t imagine you would want to come to tea.’
He said gravely. ‘You shouldn’t let your imagination run away with you, Claribel—and I should like to come to tea. That was an infernal afternoon.’
She laughed then, quite forgetting that she didn’t like him. ‘Yes, it always is, but it’s only twice a year. Such a pity it has to be on a Saturday, though.’
They got out of the car and he opened the door and stood aside for her to go in. The cats rushed to meet them and he bent to tickle their heads and then stood up; his size made the room even smaller. She said, ‘Do take off your coat—there’s a hook in the lobby. I’ll put the kettle on.’
She threw her coat on the bed and changed her shoes, decided her face and hair would have to do and went into the tiny kitchen. There was a cake she had baked that morning and one of her mother’s homemade loaves. She sliced and buttered, cut the cake, added a cup and saucer to the tray and made the tea.
Mr van Borsele was sitting in the largest of the chairs with a cat on either side of him. He got up as she opened the door, took the tray from her and set it on the small table on one side of the fireplace and went to fetch the cake. The cats followed him in what she considered to be a slavish fashion and when he sat down again, resumed their places on either side of him.
‘You like cats?’ Hardly a conversational gambit, but they would have to talk about something.
‘Yes. My grandmother has two—Burmese.’ He accepted his tea and sat back comfortably and she found herself wondering what his grandmother was like—somehow he was such a self-contained man, obviously used to getting his own way, that it was hard to imagine her—a small, doting mouse of a woman, perhaps? And his wife? If he was married.
He was watching her, his dark eyes amused. ‘I have two of my own,’ he told her. ‘Common or garden cats with no pedigrees, and two equally well-bred dogs who keep them in order.’
She passed him the bread and butter. ‘And your wife? She likes animals?’
The amusement deepened but he answered gravely, ‘I am not yet married.’ He took a bite. ‘Homemade bread. Are you a cook, Claribel?’
‘Well, I can, you know, but my mother is quite super.’
She watched him consume several slices and made polite conversation. She didn’t like him, she reminded herself, but there was something rather pathetic about a very large man eating his tea with such enjoyment. As she offered him the cake, she wondered briefly where he was living while he was in London.
‘Do you go home frequently?’ He sounded casually polite and she found herself talking about Tisbury and her friends there and how she loved her weekends. He led her on gently so that she told him a good deal more than she realised; she was telling him about Sebastian and how clever he was when the phone rang.
She was going out that evening—one of the girls she worked with was getting engaged and there was to be a party; she wanted to make sure that Claribel would be there.
‘Yes, of course. I haven’t forgotten. Eight o’clock. I’ll be ready at half past seven.’
‘I’m so happy,’ burbled the voice at the other end.
‘Well, of course you are.’ Claribel smiled at the phone as she put down the receiver.
Mr van Borsele was watching her with an expressionless face.
As she sat down again he said easily, ‘A date this evening? I’ll be on my way. A pleasant hour, Claribel, between this afternoon’s tedium and the evening’s pleasure.’ He added thoughtfully, ‘Surprising, really, for you still aren’t sure if you like me, are you?’
He stood up and she got to her feet, facing him. She gave him a clear look from her beautiful eyes. ‘No, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? There must be any number of women who—who admire you!’
‘Probably.’ He spoke without conceit. ‘But I’m really only concerned with one girl, not untold numbers.’
‘Oh, well in that case it doesn’t matter what I think about you, does it, Mr van Borsele?’
He shrugged into his coat, offered a gentle hand to Enoch and Toots and went to the door. He didn’t answer her, only wished her the politest of goodnights as he left.
Several times during the evening she found herself wishing that Mr van Borsele had been there, which, considering she didn’t like him, seemed strange.
Back in her flat, lying in bed with the cats curled up at her feet, she decided it was because he was so much older than the young men who had been at the party, mostly newly qualified housemen or final-year students. ‘After all, I am getting a bit long in the tooth,’ muttered Claribel to her unresponsive companions.
Of course she knew other older men. There was one in particular, Frederick Frost, the junior registrar on the orthopaedic wards, a serious man who had given her to understand that he had singled her out for his attention. She had gone out with him on several occasions now, and liked him well enough although she found him singularly lacking in romantic feeling. He would be a splendid husband; he would also be very dull.
Sometimes she lay in bed and wondered if she had been wise to refuse the offers of several young men who had wished to marry her. She hadn’t loved any of them; liked them well enough, even been fond of them, but that was all. Somewhere in the world, she was convinced, was the man she could love for always; she had no idea what he would look like but she supposed that when she met him she would know that he was the one. Only here she was, the wrong end of the twenties, and it looked as though she would never meet him.
Frederick had asked her to spend Sunday afternoon with him; she came back from church in the morning, ate her solitary lunch and took a bus to Hyde Park where they were to meet. Frederick believed in good fresh air and exercise; he walked her briskly from the Marble Arch entrance to Green Park and thence to St James’s Park, talking rather prosily all the way. Claribel, brought up in the country and fond of walking, nonetheless was relieved when they finally reached the Mall and Trafalgar Square and entered a modest café for tea and toasted teacakes.
Frederick was on duty at the hospital at six o’clock. He saw her on to a bus, assuring her that she looked all the better for the exercise they had taken that afternoon, and invited her to repeat it on the following Sunday.
Claribel’s feet ached and her head buzzed with the various diagnoses he had been entertaining with her; she said hastily that she would be going home, thanked him prettily for her tea and sank thankfully on to a seat in the bus.
The cats were pleased to see her and her little room looked cosy as she went indoors. She kicked off her shoes, took off her outdoor things and turned on the gas fire. She would sit and read for an hour before getting her supper.
It was barely ten minutes before the knocker on her front door was given a sound thump. She got up reluctantly, dislodging the cats, and
