Cassandra By Chance. Бетти Нилс

was normally a composed girl, not given to impulsive actions, but now she put out her hand and touched his arm gently and said: ‘Jan, I’m so sorry about this—I wanted to tell you.’

      Jan looked at her then; his eyes were black and she thought for a moment that he was very angry, but he wasn’t. He smiled and patted her hand and said: ‘Thank you, miss.’ He might have said more, but Mr van Manfeld gave a short mocking laugh.

      ‘Spare me a mawkish scene!’ he begged nastily. ‘And should you not be going back to your charges, Miss…?’

      ‘Darling,’ Cassandra told him crisply, ‘and don’t dare to be funny about it!’

      ‘I’m never funny,’ he assured her, ‘and if it is your inappropriate name to which you refer, I can think of nothing more unsuitable. There is nothing darling about you—you invade my privacy without so much as a by-your-leave, you subject me to your quite unnecessary sentiment, and you assure me that you are not pretty. I really think you should go.’ His voice was cool, faintly amused, and mocking.

      Cassandra stared at the dark glasses. The mouth below them was pulled down into a half smile which was fast becoming a sneer—and he had smiled so nicely. She sighed. ‘I’m not surprised that the children call you an ogre,’ she informed him tartly, ‘because you are a most ill-mannered man, which is a pity, because I expect you’re quite nice really.’

      The glasses glared. ‘Oh, go away!’ he snapped, and got up from his chair. He looked very large and almost menacing. ‘God’s teeth,’ he ground out savagely, ‘what have…’

      Cassandra’s firm chin went up in the air. ‘What a shocking remark to make!’ but he didn’t allow her to finish.

      ‘Don’t be so prissy,’ he advised her sourly, ‘I’m no mealy-mouthed parson.’

      She allowed herself a moment’s comparison of Mr Campbell and the man before her and was surprised to find that Mr Campbell came off second best. ‘I’m sure he’s a very good man and kind.’

      ‘Meaning that I’m not? As though I care a damn what you think, my pious Miss Darling—going to church in your best hat and probably making the reverend’s heart flutter to boot. You sound just his sort.’

      ‘I’m not anyone’s sort, Mr van Manfeld.’ She picked up her empty basket and went to the door, her voice coming loud and rather wobbly. ‘It’s a good thing you can’t see me, because I’m extremely angry.’

      His voice followed her, still sour. ‘But I can see you after a fashion. It’s true you’re dark blue and very fuzzy round the edges, but since you assure me that you’re a plain girl, I don’t really see that it matters, do you?’

      Cassandra ground her teeth without answering this piece of rudeness and banged the door regrettably hard as she went out.

      There was a note the next day, presumably delivered by hand while she had been out. It was typed and signed rather crookedly with the initials B. van M. It begged her pardon and asked her to go to the cottage and stay for tea. She read it several times, then tore it up. There was another note the following day; it was waiting for her when she got back from church with the children, and she tore that one up too and hurried to get their dinner because, having run out of excuses, she had accepted Miss Campbell’s invitation to tea that afternoon, and she was to take Andrew and Penny with her. She had, she told herself firmly, no intention of going anywhere near the ogre ever again. She found the idea distressing.

      Tea at the Manse was run on strictly conventional lines. Everyone sat round the drawing-room eating slippery sandwiches and crumbling cake from plates which weren’t quite big enough. The children, coaxed into exemplary behaviour, sat like two small statues, making despairing efforts to catch the crumbs before they reached the floor, and Cassandra, seated with her hostess on a remarkably hard sofa, watched them with sympathy. It was a relief when the clock struck five and she was able to say that they should be going home before the dusk descended. ‘And anyway,’ she went on politely, ‘you will want to get ready for church, I expect.’

      She had no ready reply when her host, despite the speaking look his sister gave him, professed himself ready to accompany them to their door.

      ‘There’s no need,’ cried Cassandra, who even if he hadn’t, had seen the look and didn’t want his company anyway. ‘It’s only ten minutes’ walk, and it’s not dark yet.’

      Which made it worse, because the pastor pointed out that he couldn’t possibly allow a young and pretty woman to go that distance, especially with the 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