A Brighter Tomorrow by Maggie Ford (read with me .txt) 📕

‘I have tried my best, Bertram, to tolerate the girl, but the sight of her makes my flesh creep. How can you even look on her as you do?’

‘In the same way as you look on her sister, young Dora,’ he’d retorted angrily.

‘She is different.’

‘How different?’ he’d challenged her. ‘They are sisters!’

She had turned away in a huff and said no more, leaving things as unsolved as ever. So when it came to this young man requesting to take Ellie to art galleries and museums as he himself had once done, he knew he had to reluctantly agree or heighten his wife’s suspicions that there must be even more to his association with Ellie Jay than he admitted.

This evening Bertram remained glowering at the closed door after Michael Deel had left to tell Ellie that he had permission to take her to the latest visit on his menu.

A myriad of thoughts ran through his head. How far had this relationship gone? These secretive walks bothered him. Did they exchange furtive kisses, passionate kisses? Had it gone further than that?

He was sure Michael wasn’t a man to take advantage of Ellie. Nor, he trusted, would she have allowed it if he had tried. She was a strong-minded young woman and the terrifying memory of her father would prevent her from allowing any man to touch her. But what about love? Were they in love?

The thought seemed to clamp his brain with an iron grip. It had to stop before it went any further. He might lose Ellie. Michael Deel had said previously that one day she would want to marry and leave this house – leave him. Nor would she ever come to visit him – he knew that instinctively.

Again came the thought that tormented him. She wasn’t his loving daughter, no matter how he tried to pretend she was. He meant nothing to her. She could go off with anyone she fell in love with and he would never see her again. The notion petrified him. He had to put a stop to it before it was too late.

Making up his mind as the little dinner bell in the hall below buzzed softly, he made his way downstairs and, instead of proceeding to the dining room, slipped quickly into his surgery, just in time to avoid his wife on her way downstairs to dinner. What he was about to do would not take long.

Bertram sat in one of the many comfortable, leather, button-back armchairs in the gentlemen’s club, his rotund figure dwarfed by the well-built, broad-shouldered man with the strong jaw, typical of the Dutch, sitting beside him.

Both lounged comfortably, both enjoying a cigar and sipping brandy brought to them by a silent, deferential waiter. The room was hushed, the low murmur of men’s voices hardly breaking the silence. In this atmosphere Bertram fingered his glass and stole a glance at his companion.

‘I can’t apologize enough for putting this matter at your door,’ he began.

‘I’m very glad you did, Doctor Lowe. I do have my son’s future welfare constantly at heart. I would have been happy rather that he did not have this idiotic notion that he is some sort of an artist and concentrated all his energies on his career as a medical man.’

Doctor Henk Deel spoke impeccable English, had come to England forty years ago to study medicine, had married an English girl of a good family and settled here after graduating. At sixty he was heartened to have his younger son Michael set to follow him into medicine.

His older son, Willem – known as Willy – was senior to Michael by eight years. Their sister Julia, born in between, was married and nicely settled. But Willy took after his mother – quite an accomplished artist in her way – and, having no intention of following his father into the medical profession, had taken himself off to roam the world, painting and falling into debt, forever sending distress calls home for help out of some financial crisis or other. Henk Deel had despaired of him years ago.

Fortunately, although Michael had also inherited his mother’s artistic bent, he was far more malleable than his older brother. He’d studied hard at university and was his father’s pride. However, not wanting to stunt the young man in his need to express himself artistically, he’d allowed him to study art. When Doctor Lowe, a friend of many years standing, had asked if the boy could help this odd child he’d befriended recently to speak better English and develop her own artistic skills, he’d seen it as an outlet for his son’s hobby and perhaps a way of getting it out of his system. He’d tried to stop Willy, and look where that had landed the boy!

Thus he sat back to hear what was bothering his old friend. Lowe had revealed little over the telephone he had recently had installed on the wall of his surgery, leaving Henk to chuckle as the man rang off having uttered just a few words, no doubt unnerved still by the newness of the instrument.

‘So tell me: what is on your mind?’ he asked, laying his cigar in the ashtray to make it seem that he was ready to concentrate on what his friend had to say.

Bertram gnawed at his thick lips. ‘First, I must thank you for allowing your son to tutor Miss Jay. As far as I can see, he has done a decent job.’

‘Decent?’ echoed Deel.

‘I mean, an excellent job, obviously. But I think he has gone as far as he can with the girl.’

Deel leaned forward. ‘Why are you taking such pains over this girl? After all, she is not connected with you or your family.’

Bertram hastily shook his head. ‘It’s merely that…’

He paused. Henk Deel had no inkling of his feelings for the girl. All that the man knew was that he’d taken in and employed her and her sister out