Tangled Autumn. Betty Neels

you see?’ Antonia addressed the room at large and smiled widely at Sappha. ‘I know we’re going to be friends.’ She studied Sappha’s heightened colour and went on with devastating candour: ‘You’ve gone very red—it makes you prettier than ever. Rolf…’

      He didn’t look up and his voice was bland. ‘I’m sure Nurse wants to take off her coat.’ And Sappha cast him a look of relief mingled with the vexed thought that he had called her nurse again. She said primly:

      ‘I’ll be back with your supper presently, Baroness,’ and went away.

      Hours later, sitting up in bed thinking about the evening, Sappha had to admit that she had enjoyed herself. Antonia had lent a sparkle to the conversation, and so too, surprisingly had Rolf. He was certainly very fond of his sister and she, for her part, was equally devoted to him, and although it was apparent that she could twist him round her little finger, it was also quite clear that she had a wholesome respect for him too. Sappha smiled to herself, thinking about her; she was spoilt and a little wilful but so good-natured and sunny-tempered that she doubted if anyone, even her eldest brother, could be annoyed with her for more than a couple of seconds at a time. And, reflected Sappha, she had been instantly obedient to the suggestion that it was her mother’s bedtime, and afterwards, sitting on the end of Sappha’s bed while the latter rearranged her hair, she had asked some remarkably sensible questions about her mother’s illness and when Sappha had hesitated to answer them, said: ‘I know a great deal about it already—Rolf said it would be better for me and for Mother if I did. And of course he’s right. He always is,’ she added simply.

      Sappha thought it wise to say nothing to this; quite obviously, the Baron ruled his family with a rod of iron, albeit a well camouflaged one. She found herself speculating upon the poor girl he would coerce into marrying him and felt fiercely sorry for her. She could imagine what it would be like—’Half a dozen children,’ she muttered to herself, thumping her pillows. ‘The woman’s place is in the home, and all that, however luxurious that home might be.’ She had a sudden vivid mental picture of the Baron sitting at the head of a table lined with little barons and baronesses, all with miniature satyr’s eyebrows and herself at the end. She pulled herself up short, hastily substituting this ridiculous idea with the interesting question as to what a baron’s children were called, but before she could go deeply into the matter she was disturbed by her patient’s voice from the bedroom next door, asking if she might have another sleeping tablet because one hadn’t seemed to be enough. Sappha got out of bed, her unruly thoughts forgotten. She said soothingly: ‘It’s only because you’ve had such an exciting evening—you have been to sleep and you’ll soon drop off again. I’ll read to you, shall I? Are you quite comfy?’

      She made a few deft movements amongst the pillows and bedclothes.

      ‘There, not a wrinkle in sight. Close your eyes—I’ll go on with Jane Eyre.’

      She read for several minutes until the Baroness interrupted her to say:

      ‘What an arrogant man he was—but of course he loved Jane, and she loved him. Was the man you loved—still do perhaps, Sappha—arrogant?’

      Sappha looked up from her reading. Her dressing gown was a soft pink, a perfect contrast to the dark hair hanging around her shoulders. She smelled faintly of Roger and Gallet’s Violet soap and she looked as pretty as the proverbial picture. Her patient, studying her closely, thought it a great shame that there was no one other than herself to see her.

      Sappha said in a wooden voice: ‘No, not arrogant. It was just that he found someone else—blonde and sexy and willing to give him what I wouldn’t—I’m old-fashioned about marriage…’

      ‘Me too,’ said the Baroness briskly, ‘and you would be surprised at the number of men who want an old-fashioned girl for a wife—a girl who will love them and run their home with pride. And children—men want children.’ She waved her plastered arm in the air. ‘It’s no good me telling you that you will get over it and meet another man—there aren’t any other men at the moment are there? And you’re sure that you will never get over him, aren’t you?’

      She took another look at Sappha, and it was a pity that Sappha, instead of looking at her companion, was looking backwards over the last few disastrous months, for the Baroness’s pretty face wore the look of someone who had just had a brilliant idea. She did, in fact, look very like her young daughter when that young daughter was plotting mischief. There was a little pause until Sappha said quietly: ‘Shall I go on reading?’

      The Baroness yawned daintily. ‘I do believe I begin to feel sleepy again, dear. Would it be too much trouble if I asked you to fetch me just a little warm milk?’

      Sappha padded downstairs and presently, with the milk in her hand, went back again through the quiet old house, to stop in the bedroom doorway at the sight of Rolf, still dressed, lounging over the end of his mother’s bed. He said nothing at all, but his gaze swept Sappha from head to foot. It was the Baroness who said in her soft voice:

      ‘Sappha, Rolf heard us talking and came to see if anything was the matter.’ She smiled at them in turn, giving her son a bright glance which dared him to imagine otherwise. He stared back at her, his eyes snapping with laughter. ‘And now that I see you are in such excellent hands, I’ll leave you to settle, dear Mother.’

      He bent and kissed her, said a brief goodnight to Sappha without apparently seeing her, and went back to his room.

      The Baroness accepted her milk with the blameless air of a good child.

      ‘You poor girl,’ she said contritely, ‘I’ve kept you from your bed, but I’m sure that I shall sleep very well now.’ She finished the milk, allowed Sappha to settle her once more, said goodnight in a grateful voice and closed her eyes, leaving Sappha to go back to bed, but not at once to sleep. It was a pity that her patient had asked her those questions—answering them had made Andrew very clear in her mind once more, and she wanted so much to forget him.