Promise of Happiness. Betty Neels

surgery and the restaurant. ‘For you may need to visit all of them at some time or other,’ remarked the Baroness, ‘and it’s so much easier if you know your way around.’

      It was a beautiful ship and not overcrowded. Becky, while she was at it, explored all its decks, peeped into the vast ballroom and the various bars and lounges, walked briskly round the promenade deck, skipped to the lowest deck of all to discover the swimming pool and hurried back to her patient, her too thin face glowing with excitement. ‘It’s super!’ she told her. ‘You know, I’m sure I could manage the wheelchair if you want to go on deck—I’m very strong.’

      The Baroness gave her a faintly smiling look. ‘Yes, Becky, I’m sure you are—but what about your sea legs?’

      Becky hadn’t given that a thought. The sea was calm at the moment, but of course they weren’t really at sea yet; they had been passing Tynemouth when she had been on deck, but in another half hour or so they would be really on their way.

      ‘Now let us have some room service,’ observed the Baroness. ‘Becky, telephone for the stewardess, will you?’

      The dark-haired, brown-eyed young creature who presented herself a few minutes later was Norwegian, ready to be helpful and friendly. ‘I shall have my breakfast here,’ decreed the Baroness, ‘and you, Becky, will go to the restaurant for yours.’ She made her arrangements smoothly but with great politeness and then asked for the hotel manager, disregarding the stewardess’s statement that he wouldn’t be available at that time. Becky picked up the telephone once again and passed on the Baroness’s request, and was surprised when he actually presented himself within a few minutes.

      ‘A table for my nurse, if you please,’ explained the Baroness, and broke off to ask Becky if she wanted to share with other people or sit by herself.

      ‘Oh, alone, please,’ declared Becky, and listened while that was arranged to her patient’s satisfaction. ‘We’ll lunch here,’ went on Baroness Raukema van den Eck, ‘and dine here too.’ And when the manager had gone, ‘You must have some time to yourself each day—I like a little rest after lunch, so if you settle me down I shall be quite all right until four o’clock or so. I’m sure there’ll be plenty for you to do, and I expect you’ll make friends.’

      Becky doubted that; she had got out of the habit of meeting people and she didn’t think anyone would bother much with a rather uninteresting nurse. But she agreed placidly and assured her companion that that would be very nice. ‘I’ve found a library, too,’ she said. ‘Would you like a book?’

      ‘A good idea—I should. Go and find something for me, my dear, and then we’ll have a glass of sherry before dinner. Don’t hurry,’ she added kindly, ‘have a walk on deck as you go.’

      It didn’t seem like a job, thought Becky, nipping happily from one deck to the other, and it was delightful to be able to talk to someone again. She wondered briefly what the Baron was doing at that moment, then turned her attention to the bookcases.

      They dined in the greatest possible comfort with a steward to serve them, and Becky, reading the menu with something like ecstasy, could hardly stop her mouth watering. Her stepmother kept to a strict slimming diet and Basil had liked nothing much but steaks and chops and huge shoulders of lamb; too expensive for more than one, her stepmother had decreed, so that Becky, willy-nilly, had lived on a slimming diet as well, with little chance of adding to her meagre meals because she had to account for the contents of the larder and fridge each morning. Now she ate her way through mushrooms in sauce ré-moulade, iced celery soup, cold chicken with tangerines and apple salad, and topped these with peach royale before pouring coffee for them both. She said like a happy little girl: ‘That was the best meal I’ve ever had. I used to think about food a lot, you know, when you’re always a bit hungry, you do, but I never imagined anything as delicious as this.’ She added awkwardly: ‘I don’t think you should pay me as much as you said you would, Baroness, because I’m not earning it and I’m getting all this as well…it doesn’t seem quite honest…’

      ‘You will be worth every penny to me, Becky,’ her patient assured her, ‘and how you managed to bear with that dreadful life you were forced to lead is more than I can understand. Besides, I am a demanding and spoilt woman, you won’t get a great deal of time to yourself.’

      Which was true enough. Becky found her day well filled. True, she breakfasted alone in the restaurant, but only after she had spent half an hour with the Baroness preparing that lady for her own breakfast in bed. And then there was the business of helping her patient to dress, getting her into her wheelchair and taking her to whichever part of the ship she preferred. Here they stayed for an hour or so, taking their coffee, chatting a little and enjoying the sun. Becky read aloud too, because the Baroness said it tried her eyes to read for herself, until half an hour or so before lunch when Becky was sent off to walk round the decks or potter round the shop and buy postcards at the purser’s office for the Baroness. They were to dock at Tilbury in the morning and as the ship wouldn’t sail for Hamburg until the late afternoon the Baroness had suggested that Becky could go up to London and do some shopping and rejoin the ship after lunch. But this Becky declined to do; so far, she considered, she hadn’t earned half her salary. She had been hired to look after her patient and that she intended to do. Instead, the two of them spent a peaceful day in the Baroness’s stateroom playing bezique, and taking a slow wander round the deck on the quiet ship. But by tea time the passengers were coming aboard and the pair of them retired once more to the little balcony leading from the suite, from where they watched the bustle and to-ing and fro-ing going on below them.

      They sailed soon afterwards and Becky, leaving her patient with a considerable pile of mail to read, went on deck to watch the ship leave. She hung over the rails, determined not to miss a thing, and it was half an hour before she tore herself away from watching the busy river scene and returned to the stateroom. The Baroness was telephoning, but she broke off what she was saying to tell Becky: ‘It is Tiele—making sure that we are quite all right.’ And at Becky’s look of surprise: ‘He’s back in Friesland, and I’m to tell you that Pooch and Bertie have settled down very well.’ She nodded dismissal and Becky slipped away to her own cabin.

      She had collected all the literature about the voyage that she could lay hands on, and now she sat down and studied it; Hamburg next and then Trondheim. There was a whole day at sea first, though, and more than a day between Hamburg and Trondheim. She began to read the leaflet she had been given and only put it down when her patient called to her through the slightly open door.

      At Hamburg the Baroness declared her intention of going ashore. The purser, summoned to the cabin, assured her that a taxi should be arranged without difficulty, that help would be at hand to wheel the chair down the gangway and that the Baroness need have no worry herself further. To Becky, accustomed to doing everything for herself, it seemed the height of comfort. And indeed, when the ship docked there was nothing for her to do beyond readying her patient for the outing and then walking beside the chair while a steward wheeled it carefully on to the quay. There were several busloads of passengers going on shore excursions and they had been advised by the purser to get back before these returned or the new passengers began to embark. ‘Plenty of time,’ said the Baroness easily. ‘We will drive round the city, take a look at the Binnenalster and the Aussenalster and the driver can take us to a confectioner’s so that you can buy me some of the chocolates Tiele always brings me when he comes here.’

      She was arranged comfortably in the taxi, accorded a courteous farewell by the officer on duty whom she warned not to allow the ship to leave until her return, and was driven away, with Becky sitting beside her.

      It was all very exciting; first the journey through the dock area, which the Baroness didn’t bother to look at, but which Becky found absorbing, and then presently the shopping streets and a brief glimpse of the inner lake. ‘It is much prettier once we have crossed the Kennedybrucke,’ said the Baroness. She said something to the driver in German and he slowed down to take the pleasant road running alongside the lake, its calm water gleaming in the sunshine, the well kept villas in their splendid grounds facing it. Becky’s face lighted up and a little colour came into it. ‘Oh, this is super!’