by Betty Neels
She was getting ready for bed, much later, when the thought darted into her sleepy head that Adam de Wolff—she couldn’t remember the rest of his outlandish name—wouldn’t have enjoyed himself much either. She got into bed, dismissing the idea as being disloyal to Rimada and her mother, who were being so kind.
More friends came before lunch the next morning; Rimada’s mother had an unending succession of them, it seemed. Pleasant, talkative people, who sympathized with her in their excellent English because she was a nurse, and in the case of the men, told her how pretty she was. Everyone was so kind and friendly, which made her feel meaner than ever at not enjoying their company more than she did. And Rimada’s mother, kind though she was, began to irritate her, for she felt that the kindness was superficial and would disappear quickly enough if that lady’s comfort was interfered with in any way. I must be getting old and crabby, thought Loveday miserably; all this luxury and I’m not really enjoying it one bit—she might have liked it better if she had been brought up in it. She resolved to try harder; Rimada’s mother was really rather sweet although she spoilt Rimmy beyond anything, and once or twice, when she had been crossed, the sweetness had cracked, and as for Rimada—well, she was a poppet really, with a heart of gold.
Rimada had a hairdresser’s appointment after lunch and her mother always had a rest; it was easy enough to convince them that she would like to explore the country instead of looking at the shops in Den Haag, waiting for her friend. She started off briskly—there was wooded country close by and dunes in the distance. The weather was kinder with a blue sky and a hint of chill in the air. Loveday walked steadily looking around her as she went, stopping to study the farmhouses she passed and stare at the coated cows in the fields bordering the pleasant country road. The trees were further away than she had supposed; she reached them at last to find that they bordered the dunes, and urged on by a heady wind blowing in from the North Sea, she scrambled across them to stand on the beach at last and look at the wide expanse of water before her. It looked cold and grey, and already on the horizon the water was a rapidly darkening reflection of the great bank of clouds creeping over the sky. She stayed ten minutes or more and turned back regretfully, plodding over the dunes once more and then through the trees. The sun had lost its strength by now; she shivered a little in her jersey dress and walked faster. There was no one invited for that evening, she remembered with pleasure, and Rimada’s mother had asked her to unpick and reset the stitches of some embroidery she was doing—she found herself looking forward to the quiet little task.
It had turned four o’clock by the time she got back to the house. She went through the garden door, intending to slip upstairs and tidy herself; Rimada wouldn’t be back for another hour, but her mother would be in the sitting-room. Loveday closed the door quietly behind her and then stood motionless in the hall. Her hostess was already in the sitting-room, having what sounded very like an attack of hysterics. Loveday started forward at a particularly loud wail and was brought up short by a man’s voice. She recognized it immediately even though it spoke another language and registered anger. She was still standing, her mouth a little open with surprise, when the sitting-room door was flung open and Rimada’s guardian, on the point of coming out, changed his mind at the sight of her, and leaned against the door instead, his hands in his pockets, a quite unpleasant expression upon his handsome face. He said: ‘Hullo, Miss Loveday Pearce. Eavesdropping?’
Her mouth closed with a snap, her fine eyes sparkled with instant fire. ‘I am doing nothing of the sort,’ she protested in a voice throbbing with rage. ‘How dare you speak to me like that? I’ve just this minute come into the house and you instantly abuse me!’ Her bosom heaved on a deep breath. ‘You’re far, far worse than Rimada told me!’
He strolled across the hall to stand before her, effectively blocking her path. ‘Surely you don’t have to rely on her opinion?’ His voice was silky. ‘I fancy I didn’t create too good an impression last time we met.’
She coloured faintly. ‘You’re insufferable! I…’ She was prevented from saying more by the appearance of Rimada’s mother, her tears hastily dried, her voice nicely under control once more. ‘Oh, you two have met,’ she declared in a hostess voice. ‘But let me introduce you, all the same. Loveday, this is my nephew, Professor Baron de Wolff van Ozinga—Adam, you know.’
She smiled coldly at him. ‘And this, Adam, is Rimtsje’s great friend, Loveday Pearce.’ She ignored their stony faces and went on brightly: ‘Just in time for tea, dear—we have been talking tiresome business and I am so relieved to have it all settled. Come into the sitting-room.’
‘I’ll just tidy myself, if I may.’ Loveday ignored her hostess’s obvious desire to have her company and went upstairs, where she took her time to do her hair and face while she wondered what the argument had been about. It had been a hot one, of that she was sure, probably about Rimmy. The quicker the poor girl got married and away from her guardian’s bullying influence the better, thought Loveday, applying lipstick with care. Who was he to interfere, anyway? The head of the family, presumably—she remembered that he was a baron as well as a professor and wondered how she should address him. She was still trying to decide as she went downstairs and entered the sitting-room. After the sea air of the afternoon, she found it over-warm and heavily scented by the great vases of hothouse flowers on the tables; they must have cost a fortune—perhaps they had been the cause of the argument. She chose a chair as far away from the Baron as possible, but he had risen to his feet as she went in and instead of sitting down again in the great armchair opposite his aunt, he walked across the room and took a chair close to her own.
‘I had an idea that you might be here,’ he told her affably. ‘I hear that my feather-brained cousin is planning a cruising holiday in your company.’ He saw her questioning look and went on smoothly: ‘I had occasion to telephone her at the Royal City, and was told that she had come home for a couple of days.’ He glanced across at his aunt, sitting on the edge of her chair, looking apprehensive. ‘My aunt tells me that you plan to go shortly. It should be pleasant at this time of year.’
‘I hope so,’ Loveday spoke warily. ‘I haven’t been to Madeira before.’
His brows rose. ‘Surely you will be visiting other points of call?’
She clasped her hands in her lap and stared at his chin—a very determined chin. ‘Oh, yes—only Madeira comes first, you know. I believe the weather there is delightful at this time of year.’ An inane remark, she knew, and he must share her opinion, judging by the glint in his eyes. But she had to say something; she stared down at her hands and failed to see the little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
‘Oh, undoubtedly—a wonderful excuse for Rimada to buy a huge number of clothes.’
‘The poor child never has enough,’ put in her mother plaintively. ‘You have no idea how important clothes are to a girl, Adam. It is all very well for you; you indulge your every whim, I have no doubt, but you have no sympathy for your cousin…’
‘My dear aunt, you wrong me. I have a great deal of sympathy for Rimada—as well as taking an interest in her well-being.’
He got up to hand round the tea cups and for a few minutes the conversation was safe and trivial, so that Loveday didn’t need to think of every word she uttered. She had actually relaxed sufficiently to answer the Baron’s civil questions about her work at the hospital, when the front door banged and a moment later Rimada came in. She stopped short in the doorway, the picture of consternation, as her cousin got to his feet once more.
‘My dear Rimtsje,’ his voice was suavely affectionate, ‘how delightful to see you, and how charming you look—a new hair-style, is it not?’ He crossed the room unhurriedly and kissed her on one suddenly pale cheek. ‘I’ve surprised you?’ he wanted to know gently.
‘Your car wasn’t outside,’ stated Rimada uncertainly.
‘Ah—nor was it. I took it round to the garage so that Jos could give it a quick
clean.’ He beamed at her, ‘Loveday has just been telling me all about your trip—it sounds very interesting.’
Loveday, from behind his enormous back, frowned and nodded and made an urgent face and then smoothed it to instant calm as he turned to face her. ‘We shall enjoy ourselves enormously,’ she made haste to say with over-bright enthusiasm; Rimada seemed to have lost her tongue. ‘The cruise lasts for two weeks, you know, and we’re both keen to see Gibraltar and Lisbon—that’s during the second week.’
She could almost hear Rimada’s sigh of relief. ‘There are some summer palaces,’ she went on, glad that she had read up the guide books so thoroughly. ‘We hope to see as many as possible, don’t we, Rimmy?’
The Baron had sat down again, close to Loveday. Rimada cast her coat down on a chair and went to sit by her mother, who had remained silent but now broke into lighthearted chatter about mutual friends and various functions she hoped to go to. Her nephew waited for her to draw breath before he asked quietly: ‘I hope you will invite me to dinner, Aunt.’
She was instantly in a fluster. ‘Of course, Adam. Had I not already done so? I fully intended…we have no guests for this evening, just we three women. You won’t be bored?’
Loveday looked up and caught his eyes upon her in a thoughtful stare. ‘No,’ said the Baron in the greatest good humour, ‘I shan’t be bored. On the contrary, Aunt.’
CHAPTER THREE
DINNER was unexpectedly pleasant; the Baron made no further reference to their holiday, but asked casual questions about their work and life in hospital, and presently he turned the talk to Loveday’s home and family, neither of which subjects she wished to discuss with him. But Rimada, no doubt relieved at the safe turn the conversation had taken, answered his questions very readily, and launched into a quite unnecessarily detailed account of Loveday’s parents, adding, for good measure, a meticulous description of her home.
‘It sounds charming,’ observed her cousin, and glanced at Loveday’s expressionless face. ‘You are interested in old houses, Miss Pearce?’
So it was to be Miss Pearce, was it? Her yes was cool, but not cool enough, or he must be a singularly unobservant man, for he went on suavely:
‘Then you must visit my home. It is not perhaps as beautiful as an Elizabethan house might be, but it is an excellent example of eighteenth century Dutch architecture at its best.’ He smiled at her with charm and her heart hurried a little. ‘You are here for only four days, are you not? Then perhaps you would like to come tomorrow.’
Loveday hesitated: she wanted very much to see his house, and, she suspected, him, but she was going to refuse. An intention he forestalled smartly by enlisting the support of the other two ladies, who, to her surprise, instantly agreed with him. She found herself, without having uttered a word, committed to spending most of the following day in his company, and listened, fuming silently, while Rimada and her mother made arrangements with such enthusiasm that there was no need at all for her to open her mouth. Not that anyone would have listened to her if she had; the two of them seemed bent on arranging her day for her, and when she tried to catch Rimada’s eye, she discovered that her gaze was being deliberately avoided.
Ten in the morning was decided upon as a suitable hour at which she was to be fetched; both ladies vying with each other to point out to her the advantages of leaving early—the weather, the beautiful morning light, the condition of the roads, the fact that Adam was spending the night, most conveniently with friends at Leiden, and could fetch her so easily. They gave her no chance to speak at all and now Rimada was looking at her in a most beseeching fashion; plainly, she was to be the sacrificial lamb on the altar of one of her friend’s schemes. She glanced at the Baron, who had made no effort to coax her in any way, once he had delivered his invitation, and found him looking at her with the thoughtful stare which she was beginning to find disconcerting.
He left soon afterwards, taking a casually affectionate farewell of his relations and what Loveday considered to be a barely civil one of herself. The front door had scarcely closed behind him before Rimada burst into speech. ‘You didn’t mind, Loveday?’ She waited until her mother had gone from the room. ‘What a gift from heaven that Adam should have suggested that you should spend the day at his house!’
‘Why?’ asked Loveday baldly.
‘You are so clever,’ her friend replied promptly. ‘You will not answer his questions when he asks them—besides, if he is busy showing you his house he will not have much time to ask them, will he? So I do not need to worry,’ she finished complacently.
‘Well,’ declared Loveday, struck by this egotistical attitude, ‘I must say I like that…’ and was prevented from uttering the diatribe on her tongue by the return of the lady of the house, who echoed her daughter’s views with great complacency, even though her reasons were not the same. ‘Only fancy!’ she declared indignantly. ‘Adam believes you to be plotting some mischief—something to do with that young man, Terry someone or other, the one you thought you wanted to marry, lieveling, but I told him that it was all nonsense—a passing fancy, no more.’ She smiled in satisfaction. ‘I could see that he believed me. All the same, it is tiresome that he takes his guardianship so seriously—anyone would think that it is his own money which he minds with such care.’ She sank back on one of the over-stuffed sofas. ‘Not that it signifies, he is as rich as Croesus.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘I shall read for a short time, my dears, for I have had an exhausting day and I need to compose myself before I go to bed, so you may say good night now. I daresay I shall not sleep one wink.’ She offered a beautifully tinted cheek to each in turn and opened Elle. ‘Rimtsje, we will go shopping tomorrow—that green dress we were not certain about, I think it will do after all.’ She nodded her head in a satisfied way and became at once absorbed in her magazine.
‘I don’t really want to go to your guardian’s house,’ declared Loveday as they went upstairs, ‘and I can’t think why he asked me.’
Rimada tucked a hand under her elbow. ‘I can—you see, he may have believed Mama, but he wants to be quite sure about Terry. Don’t tell him anything, will you?’
‘No, I won’t, but I don’t think he’ll ask.’ Loveday spoke bracingly, although there was uncertainty in her mind.
But it seemed as though she would be proved right. The Baron arrived on the stroke of ten, driving a silver-grey Rolls-Royce Corniche, settled her in the seat beside him without more than half a dozen words, and those of a purely conventional nature, and drove out of the villa gates. He had barely glanced at her, and she, who had taken infinite pains with her appearance, was annoyed. She maintained a cold silence for several minutes, but as he showed no desire for conversation—indeed he might just as well have been on his own—she essayed a question.
‘You live in Den Haag?’ she asked politely, and then, remembering: ‘I have no idea what to call you—do I say Professor or Baron?’
‘Adam,’ he suggested.
But for some reason she couldn’t do that; she was determined to dislike him as much as he appeared to dislike her, and one didn’t call someone one didn’t like by their Christian name. ‘I’ll call you Baron,’ she decided positively.
‘No, you won’t.’ He sounded just as positive.
‘Well, then, I’ll call you Professor de Wolff—the other bit doesn’t matter, does it?’ She was blissfully unaware that the Ozinga part of his name—the Friesian part—was as old as antiquity, well known and respected in Friesland, and he didn’t choose to enlighten her. ‘Call me anything you like, it will make no difference in the end,’ he answered her cheerfully.
Of course it wouldn’t; she was unlikely to meet him again once she went to England. The thought gave her a fleeting sense of sadness. It would be a good thing when this day was over, she told herself; he was far too charming, even if she did dislike him. And he could at least carry on a conversation. She tried again. ‘You haven’t told me where you live.’
‘In a small village cal
led Akmarujp, near Sneek.’
Her knowledge of Holland was negligible. ‘Sneek? Is that close by?’
They had joined the motorway and were tearing along it. ‘Roughly a hundred and twenty miles. It’s in Friesland.’
‘But that’s right in the north of Holland.’ She was dumbfounded.
‘It isn’t in Holland at all—just as Scotland isn’t in England.’
‘Oh. It’s a long way, though, just to show me your home.’
He slowed the car’s rush and shot her a sidelong glance. ‘Perhaps you would prefer not to make such a long journey.’ His voice mocked her gently. ‘We can easily turn back, I’m sure Rimada would love to have our company on yet another shopping expedition.’
She had a vision of Rimada’s shocked face if that were to happen. ‘No,’ she said hastily, ‘I—I didn’t mean that; I didn’t intend to be rude—I’m sorry…I should like to see your house.’ And as she said it she knew that she really did mean it.
They stopped in Haarlem for coffee, at a charming restaurant in the woods, and the Baron, far from asking awkward questions, talked knowledgeably and in a manner to compel her interest about the countryside around them, and presently she forgot that she had made up her mind not to like him. They would go through Alkmaar and over the Afsluitdijk, he explained, and regaled her with stories about the Spanish Occupation, and when they reached the great sluices of the dyke, he explained exactly how they were built; the Rolls had eaten up the dyke’s twenty-mile length before he had finished.
Once in Friesland, he took the road to Sneek and a little beyond that delightful town turned off on to a country road with glimpses of lakes on either side. The village, when they came to it, was small indeed, a red brick church, old and austerely simple, and a cosy group of small houses scattered around it, and half a mile further on, the Baron’s house.
Loveday liked it immediately. It was red brick, like the church, square and two-storied and with no embellishments other than the elaborate plasterwork over its double door. It stood in a large garden, ringed with shrubs and trees and with wide lawns; she could imagine sitting there in the summer, or picking the roses from its great circular beds, still showing a brave autumn display. There were old-fashioned wrought-iron railings enclosing it from the neighbouring fields and a great gate, gold-tipped, standing open on to a straight gravelled drive to the door. Simple and large, and despite its simplicity, very homelike.