The Language of Love

by Saunders, Jean

  “There’s no need to go on with this, Pieter,” she said tightly. “I’ve helped you to get first prize at the festival –”

  “Don’t you know by now there’s only one prize I want?” He was still teasing, still not realizing how his words shamed her. He’d thought her too easy, Annette thought agonizingly.

  “You’ll have to do your celebrating with...someone else, then.” She couldn’t bring herself to say Helga’s name. He’d know, anyway. How many times had he and Helga spent hours together in the special suite upstairs? The idea of it was repugnant to Annette. She should have known that a virile, attractive man like Pieter wouldn’t be without a woman’s company.

  “Why do you think I want someone else?” She heard the edge in his voice now, as if it had dawned on him that she was resisting all his teasing. She had become wooden in his arms, not letting herself feel the charisma of the man, nor his physical qualities that could weaken her resolve.

  Annette forced herself to give a light laugh. “You said yourself you weren’t without women in your life, Pieter, and why not? You’re a catch for any woman – rich, successful, part of an old Amsterdam family with a beautiful home...” She knew she was angering him by talking in this way, but let him be angry, she thought tremulously. She could cope with his anger.

  “I’m not interested in just any woman,” he said flatly.

  “I realize that!” The imagery of the two of them together so intimately in this very hotel made her suddenly sway against him. She could hear the thudding of his heart, matching hers. Together they had been so beautiful. She felt her mouth tremble as he looked deep into her eyes, as if trying to fathom what she was trying to say. She didn’t want to feel so exposed to his look, as if he could read all her longing for him, despite what her voice was saying.

  “Please, Pieter, leave me alone,” she said vibrantly. “I just want to be left in peace while I’m here. I just can’t deal with all these emotional scenes. You promised, for Elena’s sake –’’

  “I remember exactly what I promised,” he said as the music ended. To her dismay, he kissed her full on the mouth before he let her go, stirring up all her innermost yearnings.

  “And you remember that, if I’m to leave you alone,” he said deliberately. “Remember how it could be between us when you retreat into your lonely little shell, my sad little Annette, too timid to take a second chance on love! But if that’s what you want of me, so be it.”

  He let her go, and she followed him back to their table, where the two little girls were nearly falling asleep now that the excitement of the long day was over. Elena said she thought perhaps it was time they all went home, and Annette realized how unutterably weary she was, and just how many hours she had been up. The dawn drive into Gerrit’s shop seemed like a lifetime ago, in more ways than one.

  “You’ll take Annette back with you, won’t you, Nels?” Pieter was saying. “I’ve a few things to do here, and it would be best if I stayed at the hotel for the night.”

  Annette didn’t look at him, but it was impossible to ignore the lurch in her stomach at his words. She’d been apprehensive about driving back to the Van Ness house with Pieter, for if he started demanding to know why she’d turned cold on him, she might be in danger of blurting out what Helga had told her, and revealing her jealousy. But this was worse. The others wouldn’t recognize it, but it was a deliberate snub to her. Pieter was telling her that if she didn’t want his advances, someone else did. Helga was still around, and perhaps Annette had foolishly pushed him straight into her arms.

  Once back at the house, Annette went straight to bed, expecting to fall asleep right away. But she was overtired, and her imagination was too keyed up to let her sleep. Each time her senses drifted a little, she would be imagining Helga, no longer in the slinky, glittery red gown she wore for her performances, but floating toward Pieter in garments of gossamer silk. She would conjure up Pieter’s face, dark and sensual and caring, with the little laughter lines beside his eyes that she found so endearing, and the look of love in his gray eyes, warm as summer. But the look was not for her. The fantasies were always of Pieter and Helga, and each time they came to her mind, she would find herself jarringly awake again, with the stab of tears behind her eyes.

  She would never have taken Pieter to be a collector of women in the sense that he’d play one off against the other. He’d seemed too mature for such selfish games. It shook Annette to discover she’d been such a bad judge of character, and it was all the more poignant to know he was the one man to whom she would willingly have given all her heart and her love. In seeking another love such as the idyllic young marriage she’d shared with Tony, she’d overlooked her own maturity in the intervening years. And Pieter had fulfilled all her hesitant requirements to such perfection that the blow of his double-dealing was even more acute.

  She’d taken a chance and come to Amsterdam to discover her own feelings, and now that she knew exactly what they were, and that she had the capacity to become a whole woman again, it was too late. For the first time in years, Annette turned her face into her pillow and wept.

  Everyone slept late on Sunday morning. Annette woke to find Mrs. Luykens at her door with coffee, and she knew she’d better take some aspirin with it. She’d slept badly. In trying to push away the image of Pieter and Helga together, she’d only succeeded in reliving the one evening they’d shared so exquisitely in his hotel suite. And in her dreams all the anger between them had melted away, leaving only the love and the sweet seduction with which he’d awoken all her sleeping desires.

  “Are the others downstairs yet, Luykey?” she said quickly, having long ago adopted the nickname for the elderly housekeeper.

  “Only just,” she replied with a smile. “They will all stay for lunch, and then go back to The Hague this afternoon. Miss Elena thought you might like to accompany them for the drive.”

  “That would be lovely.” Annette threw off the covers, refusing to remember Pieter’s remark that she would be a third wheel with Elena and Nels – a remark meant to induce her to allow Pieter himself to escort her around town. He wasn’t here now, and she would feel happier to be out of the house all day in case he came back.

  It was ridiculous, she thought angrily, as if they were playing some cat-and-mouse game, but she didn’t want him to look at her with that knowing look, as if he were viewing the sensual dreams she’d had about him the previous night.

  She was determined to be bright and cheerful, and when Gerda and Lise insisted that she sit between them in the back of their parents’ car, she made no objection. It was a pleasant drive to The Hague, through more flat green countryside, with the ever-present narrow waterways, and here and there a picturesque windmill, reminding them of a more leisurely past. It must have been a marvelous sight to see them all in working order, with the wind creaking through the sails, Annette reflected.

  They left the children and their parents at their home on the outskirts of The Hague. It was a square old house with the sparkling clean windows of which Dutchwomen were justly proud, the prettily draped net curtains framing the many house plants on the sill. Nels had traveled to Amsterdam with his sister and her family, so now he sat beside Elena as she drove the remaining distance to his home, while Annette sat in the back. She was curious to see Elena’s future home, and also to get her first sight of the country’s capital city, with its wide boulevards and air of prosperity, its beautiful historic buildings and splendid palace, and the government buildings from where Holland was ruled.

  It was obvious when they neared Nels’s home that he lived in a style similar to Elena in Amsterdam. They were admirably suited in every way, Annette thought, happy for her friend.

  “You must come and meet my family, Annette,” Nels said, his eyes twinkling. Two huge, boisterous dogs leaped ecstatically over their master as soon as Nels opened the door. His housekeeper, practically a carbon copy of Luykey in manner, welcomed them all, bringing tea and hot buttered toast for them in fro
nt of a blazing fire. Oh, Elena was going to be so happy here, Annette thought with a twist of envy. She was already so at home, with the dogs nuzzling her arm, and Nels so obviously adoring her.

  She was given a tour of the house, with its old Dutch masters’ paintings and antiques that had been in Nels’s family for generations, admiring everything sincerely, and later giving the two dogs a great hug while Elena and Nels made their private good-byes. And then it was time for the drive back to Amsterdam, with Elena prattling happily about the few changes she would make in the house once they were married.

  “It’s already perfect, to my mind,” she told Annette, “but just a little impersonal in some respects. Nels’s father worked for the government and was fiercely patriotic, hence all the tributes to the country’s history around the place. I’d like to make it just a little softer, and Nels agrees that it will benefit from a woman’s touch. Perhaps you and I can go looking at some furniture after next week when I finish at the school, Annette.”

  “That would be very interesting.” She tried to put some enthusiasm into her voice, but truth to tell, she was beginning to feel horribly flat, and hoped Elena wouldn’t think her uninterested in her future plans.

  It was partly because of the aftermath of the flower festival, Annette knew. Now that all the preparations and excitement were over, she was suddenly left with no purpose, and she hated this feeling of being in limbo with too much time to think. Then too, last night hadn’t helped. While she was still high on a cloud after the marvelous thrill of gaining first prize for her efforts in the Van Ness float, she’d come tumbling down so fast after Helga’s calculated remarks, she felt as if her feet still hadn’t touched the ground. She was still spinning somewhere in space, alone and unaccountably depressed. And it was no way to be, when Elena was happily outlining their plans for the few weeks leading up to the wedding!

  “Are you all right, Annette?” Elena glanced at her as they sped through the dusk-lit roads. “You seem very quiet all of a sudden.”

  She’d forgotten that Elena knew her so well. From the very beginning, there had been a special empathy between them, and it was time to be honest – at least, to a degree.

  “I’m fine, really. Just very tired after last night and all the excitement of the festival yesterday. And feeling just a little nostalgic, too, seeing that lovely home – where you’ll live happily ever after, I have absolutely no doubt. It could hardly be more different from the tiny flat where Tony and I began.”

  She felt a lump in her throat. The surroundings didn’t matter and never would, as long as love was there between the right two people to share it.

  Again, Elena was completely attuned to her mood. “But you wouldn’t have changed a thing, would you?” she said softly. “Even though the time you had together was so short, I know it was perfect. It’s taken you a long time to move on, Annette, but I’m so glad you have at last. You’ve lost the haunted look that was sometimes in your eyes. I know how much your work has meant to you all these years, but I hope you’ll find love again one of these days.”

  She was right, of course, in all she said, but Annette was glad the growing darkness hid much of her face now, or surely Elena would see that some of the bleakness was still there in her eyes. Yes, she had moved on, but she wasn’t at all sure where she had moved on to. All her fame and success and the work that she loved seemed to have lost much of their sparkle for her in the space of a few short hours, and the thought of shopping and sharing in someone else’s wedding made her want to run and hide, to be uninvolved, to retreat to that empty world she’d known eight years ago. But she couldn’t go back. She mustn’t let herself, though the future stretched ahead like an empty void she couldn’t fill.

  Chapter Eleven

  When all else failed, work had always been the panacea, Annette reminded herself, and she forced herself to take refuge in it. Since the flower festival’s success, Gerrit now had a poster in his window, proudly announcing his pleasure in Annette’s major part in the triumph of the day. Annette had become very fond of him, and of Karole, his chief assistant, and the other girls too. She had slipped so easily into the familiar format of the work here that sometimes it was her London shop that seemed more like a distant dream.

  It wasn’t, of course. She was in constant contact with Margaret by phone. Every Friday evening she put through the call to London, to be answered by the same cheerful response: “Of course we’re managing, Annette! Everything’s under control, and the flat hasn’t been burglarized or burned down. There’s no need for you to panic, so go on and enjoy yourself. It’s about time...and how’s the gorgeous Dutchman?”

  Margaret was so predictable! At first Annette had grinned when the inevitable question popped up – Margaret was clearly hoping for wedding bells – but now Annette didn’t find it so amusing, since it was never likely to happen. Not for her, anyway, and the fact that she freely admitted she loved Pieter, to herself at least, made Margaret’s arch questions even harder to take.

  “He’s fine,” she said briefly. “Not that I see all that much of him now the festival’s over. We were a great team while it lasted, but that was all.”

  “Oh!” For a second Margaret was speechless, but with her it never lasted long. “You’ll have to find yourself another one, then. Shame, though, I thought he was so dishy, and exactly right for you.”

  Please don't go on, Annette thought, gripping the cord of the phone. Nobody knew better than she did that Pieter was exactly right for her, or so she had believed. But the right one had to be totally faithful and reliable, according to the values Annette cherished.

  “Stop talking about Pieter and tell me about orders in the shop,” she demanded. “It sounds as if you’re managing very well without me!”

  “We are,” Margaret teased. “Orders haven’t dropped off, which should please you, and we’ve got the usual commission for the Honorable Mrs. Smythe-Hacket’s shindig next month.”

  It all seemed so far away. London was almost like another world. In a few short weeks Annette had become immersed in the Dutch way of life and in the city she had grown to love, along with Pieter Van Ness.

  “Fine. I’ll call you again next week, Margaret,” she said brightly.

  “...and give my regards to the dishy Dutchman.” Annette hung up. It was absurd how Pieter had become so prominent in her life. Even when he wasn’t actually near her, she couldn’t be unaware of him. Here in his house she was surrounded by his possessions. You can get to know a lot about a person by absorbing the way he lives. He’d said it more than once to her, and it seemed to be indelibly imprinted on her mind.

  A few days after the festival, Elena had wanted a particular book to read. It was upstairs, and since Annette was going up to fetch her sketchpad, she offered to bring it down for her.

  “There’s no hurry, but if you would, love, it’s in Pieter’s room, on his bedside table, I expect. Luykey always puts any stray books there.”

  Annette wished she hadn’t offered. She hadn’t been in Pieter’s room before. It was just another room, she told herself, and it was stupid to feel her heartbeats quickening as she opened the door. She could see the book Elena wanted at once. All she had to do was walk quickly across the room and pick it up, turn around, and close the door behind her.

  She stood inside the room with her back to the door, her eyes moving slowly around. The furniture was dark and tasteful, the furnishings a rich dark burgundy, the carpet soft and sand-colored. Pieter hadn’t slept here for several nights, yet he was intangibly still here. She knew instantly just what he had meant in saying a room absorbed its owner’s aura.

  She moved toward the bed to collect the book for Elena. Pieter wasn’t due back today, so the bedcovers weren’t turned down. It all looked smooth and pristine. A pulse beat in Annette’s throat as she unwillingly remembered the evening in his hotel suite. Almost against her will she reached out a hand to stroke the softness of the quilt, and in her imagination she smoothed Pieter’s s
trong bronzed back, remembering the moments when she had arched against him in the exquisiteness of their lovemaking. The memory of it was so poignantly overwhelming it made her close her eyes for a moment.

  “Pieter...” she whispered to the room in which he slept, in the air he breathed, in the aura that was so intimately his. “Why did we have to meet too late?”

  Once said, the words wouldn’t stop revolving in her mind. It was too late for them if Helga and Pieter were going to be married. Everything pointed to it, even Elena’s own words, and whatever Pieter thought, Annette had no intention of breaking up someone else’s happiness. Even if it was at the expense of her own. She removed her hand from the silk bedcover as if it were red-hot, snatched up the book for Elena and fled out of the room to find refuge in her own until she could control her surging emotions. It wasn’t fair...oh, fate wasn’t fair, she thought again.

  Finally she was able to return downstairs with her sketchbook and plans for Elena’s wedding flowers. Time was moving swiftly now, and orders had to be placed at Aalsmeer. She and Gerrit had already been to the huge flower auctions several times in the early mornings, and once he had insisted on driving her to the bulb fields to the west of Aalsmeer, where the tulips made a breathtakingly beautiful sight in a waving sea of colors, from scarlet and pink to brilliant yellow and white, and the incredible blues and purples. That had been the day Gerrit made his proposition...

  “I think you have fallen in love with my country, Annette.” He smiled at her.

  “You’re right,” she told him. “Everything’s so clean and fresh and colorful. I could be very happy staying here forever!”

  It had been said jokingly, but he’d taken her seriously.

  “Then why don’t you? I’ve been thinking for some time that I’m getting too old to run this business single-handedly. I should take a partner – and I can think of none better than you, Annette. I know it would be asking a lot for you to give up your own very successful business in London, but we work well together, and you would have total control of the artistic side of the business. What do you say?”