Read Online The Chain of Destiny by Betty Neels - Free Book Online Page B

form for a passport from under the post office counter. ‘You fill that in now, love,’ she urged, ‘and post it this very day. You can run across to the doctor’s and the vicar’s and get them to sign it for you. Get photos in Marlborough for it from the post office and send them off.’
    She spent the rest of the day speculating as to theexact nature of the job Suzannah had accepted. ‘Perhaps it’s someone rich,’ she observed, ‘or a titled lady, living in Holland, too—let’s hope you’ll be able to understand her.’ She glanced at Suzannah. ‘You’ll need some clothes, dearie.’
    Suzannah supposed that even a faceless person sitting in the background would need to be decently clad. She had the new skirt, of course, and the sweater was half knitted. Her suit would have to do, but she would need a couple of blouses and another sweater and a decent dress besides.
    â€˜I’ll have to buy one, there might not be time to make it,’ she said out loud.
    She was quite right, there was a letter for her the next day, giving the name of the patient, a Juffrouw Julie van Dijl, twenty-two years old, whose home was in the Hague. Unmarried, with parents and two brothers. There followed details of her condition and a veiled warning that she might be prone to short bouts of ill-temper and depression.
    â€˜Aren’t we all?’ muttered Suzannah, reading the businesslike typing.
    But the salary was written there clearly to be seen, and so were the conditions of her job; two hours to herself each day and a free day each week, though she must be prepared to be at her employer’s beck and call at all hours, which seemed a bit ominous. But the money was generous and would make all the difference to her future.
    She got the next bus to Marlborough and enriched her wardrobe with two blouses, a thin sweater, some underwear and a very plain silk jersey dress in pewter-grey. Well-satisfied, she returned to Mrs Coffin’s and spent the next two days knitting like one of the furies, uncertain as to how long she would have before beingsummoned. The letter had ended with a curt request for her to be prepared to start work at short notice, so she packed the best of her clothes under the eye of a suspicious Horace and washed her hair and possessed her soul in patience.
    She didn’t have long to wait. Her passport arrived several days later; the professor must have a member of his family or a close friend at the passport office, she decided. And two days later there was another letter, requesting her in impersonal type to hold herself ready to leave in two days’time. She would be taken to London by car, Horace would be deposited as agreed and she would then join the lady she was to accompany. It was signed by the professor, his signature strongly resembling a spider in its death throes.
    The driver of the car, when it arrived, proved to be a fatherly man, very spruce but certainly not a chauffeur. He introduced himself as Cobb, stowed her luggage in the boot, arranged Horace in his basket on the back seat and held the door open for her.
    Suzannah gave Mrs Coffin a last hug and then asked to sit in front with him; he looked kind and perhaps he would give her some information about the professor.
    In this she was mistaken; Cobb was kind, chatty as well, but not one word did he let drop about the professor other than to say that he was employed by him. So Suzannah passed the journey to town in trivial conversation, alternately feeling excited and apprehensive.
    They had left early in the day and the morning rush was over by the time they reached London; all the same, it took a little time for Cobb to arrive at their destination: a quiet backwater of a street, tucked away behind Harley Street, lined with tall, splendidly maintained houses gleaming with paintwork, their brass door-knockers glistening with daily polishing. Cobb drew to a gentle halt before one of