by Betty Neels
She stirred a little and his hands tightened their grip. ‘Well, I shall never see you once I’ve gone back to England at the end of the week. Would it matter very much if we saw each other just once more, to say goodbye?’
‘It’s your own fault that we do say goodbye, you silly, stubborn, high-minded girl—and don’t expect sympathy from me, for you’ll get none.’ He caught her close and kissed her so hard that she rocked on her feet and then without another word, marched her to the door, opened it and then turning away with a brief goodnight, got into his car and drove away.
Britannia went indoors, shutting the door silently behind her. There was a good deal of laughing and talking in the sitting room so that no one would have heard her come in. Half an hour in her room would give her a chance to pull herself together; it had been harder than she could have imagined because she loved the professor so much; too much, she reminded herself, to let him make a mistake he might regret later on. He had said that he was more than a little in love with her, but she wasn’t sure if that was quite enough. Infatuation seemed like love, but it didn’t last, and they had only met a few weeks ago and then only briefly. For herself she was quite sure that she loved him, but that wasn’t enough either, although it was tempting to pretend that it was. She crossed the hall silently and was on the stairs when the sitting room door burst open and Joan ran out.
‘I saw the car lights,’ she cried. ‘Britannia, never mind about going to your room; come into the sitting room and drink our health—Dirk and I are engaged, isn’t it wonderful. He’s got to go back in a few days, but he’ll get leave and come back in six weeks’ time and we’ll get married then.’ She caught Britannia by the arm and danced her into the sitting room, which seemed full of people all talking at once. Britannia went around shaking hands, laughing and talking with an animation she didn’t feel, although two glasses of champagne did help. It was late by the time she got to bed; she had changed quickly and there had been a long-drawn-out dinner party with more champagne, so that her slightly muddled wits had been unable to cope with her own problems. But in the morning, after breakfast, it was easy enough to make an excuse about buying stamps while Joan wrote letters and telephoned her family. She put on the anorak once more and went along to get her bike. She had the morning before her, she would take one of the narrow country lanes where there was no traffic to bother her, and sort out her problems.
She was standing outside the front door, pulling up her anorak hood against the cold wind, when a Mini estate car drove up and stopped beside her, and the short stout man who had opened the door of the professor’s home got out. His ‘good morning’ was cheerful as he handed her an envelope and stood waiting. Her name was scrawled on it and she knew it was from the professor, so that her fingers shook a little as she opened it. The note inside was brief: ‘Will you come out to dinner with me this evening? Half past seven.’ It was signed J. L. T.
‘You will be so good as to give me the answer?’ asked the patient man beside her.
‘Will you please tell Professor Luitingh van Thien that I shall be delighted to accept.’ It would be their last meeting, she guessed, and she had no intention of refusing.
‘I was to tell you also, miss, that it is hoped that you will have sufficient time in which to make yourself ready.’
Britannia chuckled; the prospect of seeing the professor again had quite cheered her up, even though it hadn’t solved any problems. Let those wait, she told herself defiantly. ‘That’s very considerate of the professor. Will you thank him for me? I don’t know your name…?’
‘Marinus, miss.’ His cheerful beam swept over her. ‘Good day, miss.’
‘Good day, Marinus.’ She watched him get into the Mini and drive away and then went back to the house to tell Mevrouw Veske that she would be out that evening; she had to face a barrage of questions, of course; her hostess, with her goddaughter’s future nicely settled, wasn’t averse to her friend doing the same thing.
Britannia cycled a long way, trying to make herself think sensibly. She was aware that she was being foolish in seeing the professor again; a strong-minded girl would have said goodbye then and there… She sighed and got off her machine, leaned it against a gate and went to sit on a fallen tree. It was dim and damp along the lanes; the trees, their leafless branches arched above her head, shutting out what winter light there was. But it exactly suited her mood. Her impulse to refuse to see the professor again once she had returned home had been right, she felt sure; the reasons were good sound ones and sensible, but that didn’t make them any easier to accept for herself. As for him, very likely he would thank her in years to come.
Presently she got up again and began her ride back to the villa; there was lunch to be eaten, and the afternoon to get through before she could get ready for her evening. The pink dress, she reflected, although she very much doubted if the professor would notice it, but it would give her low morale a much-needed boost; the evening, she had determined, was going to be a success, something happy to remember for always. It was to be hoped that he wouldn’t lose his temper or raise his voice; his note had been a little terse. She patted the pocket where she had put it and started to sing cheerfully, keeping her thoughts on the evening ahead and no further than that.
CHAPTER FIVE
BRITANNIA DRESSED with great care, with a meticulous attention to detail which would have done credit to an aristocrat on the way to the guillotine, and if truth were told, in very much the same mood. Fate and the kind fairies hadn’t been so kind after all, or had they abandoned her because, with the professor in her hand, as it were, she had been too scrupulous?
She was ready far too soon and she went downstairs to sit with the Veskes, trying not to see Mevrouw Veske’s coy glances while her host explained about the return trip he had booked for herself and Joan.
‘Such a pity that you should have to return,’ she observed, remorselessly interrupting her husband, ‘but of course Joan will be with us again in a few weeks—perhaps you will be coming too, Britannia?’ She added guilelessly: ‘You also have friends here.’
Britannia gave her a limpid look. ‘Oh, yes, you’ve all been so super—but Joan’s only having a quiet wedding, no bridesmaids and only family and you, of course—besides, I’ve no more holidays due.’
Mevrouw Veske knitted a bit of complicated pattern with effortless ease. ‘You might like to come back on your own account, my dear.’
‘Oh, you mean work here?’ said Britannia, carefully misunderstanding. ‘Well, it might be fun, but there’s always the language difficulty, and…’ She paused thankfully as Berthe bounced in to say that the gentleman had arrived.
‘Then show him in,’ Mevrouw Veske begged her in her own language, and got up as she spoke to greet her visitor.
The professor was at his most charming and very elegant, his dark overcoat open to reveal a dinner jacket and shirt of pristine whiteness. Britannia, returning his cool greeting with one equally cool, thanked heaven that she had put on the pink dress; it was a little late in the day to capture his fancy—she seemed to have done that with nothing more glamorous than slacks and a sweater—but she felt well dressed and that made her feel confident. Ten minutes were spent in polite conversation before the professor got to his feet, murmuring that they had better make a start if they wanted their dinner, and Britannia went thankfully to fetch her coat. The professor helped her into it and just for a moment she wished that it had been mink or chinchilla instead of sensible tweed. Well, it wouldn’t have made much difference, anyway, she told herself sensibly. But it seemed that her companion wasn’t quite so unobservant as she had imagined. He shut the front door behind them, kissed her with quite surprising force and remarked: ‘Don’t complain—if you will dress up in that pink thing, you must expect the consequences. You’re beautiful, Britannia.’
It was a promising start to the evening; she got into the car determined to make the most of what she had. Surely Madeleine wouldn’t grudge her a few hours of ha
ppiness when she had a whole lifetime before her, for despite the professor’s protestations, Britannia thought the girl would somehow manage to marry him. She waited until he had got in beside her, then said: ‘Thank you,’ without either conceit or coyness.
‘And thank God you don’t simper,’ observed her companion.
‘And is that a compliment too?’ she wanted to know severely.
He was taking the road south towards Arnhem. ‘Ah, so my shortcomings are to be preached over, are they? My manners are at fault…’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she begged him in a motherly voice. ‘Your manners are very good indeed and you know that, and I’m not going to preach, truly I’m not.’
‘Good. We’re going to Scherpenzeel, just over twenty miles west of Arnhem. There’s a delightful inn there. We can turn off the motorway just outside Arnhem and go through Ede. I know it’s dark, but at least there are villages. Do you find the motorways rather bleak?’
‘Those I’ve been on, yes—I expect they vary.’
He said silkily: ‘Shall we discuss them in depth—so safe a conversation, don’t you agree?—or may we talk about ourselves?’
‘Well, I don’t much care to talk about roads,’ said Britannia reasonably. ‘But there’s nothing to say about us—we’ve said it all.’
‘You’re being a silly girl again. Why do you suppose I’ve brought you out this evening?’
She kept her voice very steady. ‘A sort of goodbye dinner, I thought.’
He gave a great laugh. ‘I shan’t say goodbye until the very last minute, Britannia, and that is still two days away. I shall spend the evening persuading you to marry me.’
The pink dress must be doing its work very well. She said in her calm way: ‘That will be a waste of time, and you know it.’
‘I shall have you in the end.’
She allowed a few seconds of delight at the prospect and then damped it down with common sense. ‘Perhaps we had better talk about roads,’ she observed primly.
They had swung off the motorway on to the road to Ede, running through wooded country. ‘We’ll do no such thing. Tell me about your family.’
She began a little reluctantly, but he put skilful questions from time to time, so that she told him a good deal more than she had intended, although she stopped herself just in time from telling him just where her home was. She tried in her turn to ask questions too, without any success at all; his bland replies told her nothing; he had a mother, she knew that, but other than that she knew nothing about him and it was obvious that he had no intention of telling her; he kept the conversation strictly about herself and her own family until they arrived at Scherpenzeel.
De Witte Holevoet was an attractive inn, quite small but already almost full of people dining. The professor whisked Britannia inside, waited while she disposed of her coat before being shown to their table and then sat back in his chair to look at her. ‘You’re getting admiring glances from all the men in the room,’ he assured her. ‘It must be that pink thing—irresistible, isn’t that the word?’
She answered him seriously, although her cheeks were as pink as her dress. ‘That’s what Mother always says.’
‘And that is why you packed a pink dress to come to Holland?’ His voice was bland, although she thought that he was amused.
She said defiantly: ‘Yes.’
He smiled at her with a charm to melt her bones. ‘I feel more hopeful. What would you like to drink?—we’ll order presently.’
And from then on he kept the conversation light and impersonal, and she, cautious at first, presently realised that he wasn’t going to talk about themselves at all—he had been joking about persuading her to marry him—she quenched quite unreasonable disappointment and followed his lead.
The meal was delicious; Britannia, who enjoyed her food, ate her way through lobster mousse, Poulet au Champagne and a lemon sorbet, helped along by a claret which even she, who knew very little about such things, realised was very fine. It was when they had finished their meal and she was pouring their coffee that she asked suddenly: ‘Have you a dog?’
‘Two—you didn’t see them at my home because they were in the kitchen having their meal. Why do you ask?’
She handed him his coffee. ‘Well, I just wanted to know something about you…’
‘You will have every opportunity of knowing everything about me when we are married.’ He was smiling at her and she didn’t suppose that he was serious.
‘What sort of dogs?’ she persisted; anxious to seem as lighthearted as he, she smiled back at him.
‘A Bouvier and a Corgi. They’re the best of friends.’ He added, still smiling: ‘My housekeeper has a cat, and the gardener’s children have rabbits and a tortoise.’
‘Where does the gardener live? I saw a dear little house up against the wall when I cycled there…’
He nodded. ‘That is his home. Marinus and Emmie—the housekeeper—and his wife, live in the house, so do a couple of maids. The laundrywoman lives in the other cottage.’
Her eyes were round. ‘The laundrywoman—that sounds quite feudal! She surely doesn’t do all the laundry for that great place.’
‘Lord, no—just the personal things. I don’t allow anyone else to iron my shirts.’
‘Why, you are feudal!’
His smile mocked her. ‘Disapproving? There are a great many things you don’t approve of, aren’t there, Britannia? But none of them matter, you know, and if you think about it, it’s fair enough—old Celine does my shirts, and when she’s ill, I look after her.’
She had to admit that that was true enough and he added in a wheedling tone: ‘I’m quite a nice chap, really.’
‘That isn’t what you said in London. You told me that you were rich and something of a hermit and you didn’t need to please anyone.’
‘Ah, I wanted you to know the worst first.’
She laughed at that, but he didn’t say any more, but began to tell her about the nearby castle of Scherpenzeel. ‘It’s owned by a family with the impressive name of van der Bosch-Royaards van Scherpenzeel, but no one lives there. It’s neo-Gothic and I think rather nice.’
‘Not as nice as your house. What is it called?’
‘Huize van Thien.’
She asked meekly: ‘May I know something about it?’
He passed his cup for more coffee. ‘The oldest part is thirteenth-century, the whole of the front was added in the eighteenth century. The round tower at the back is fifteenth-century, its rooms are furnished, but we only use the sitting room on the ground floor.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘You remind me of a schoolteacher examining her class! Myself, my mother when she is staying with me and my three sisters when they pay me a visit.’
‘Three sisters?’ repeated Britannia, much struck with this homely piece of information. ‘You’re the eldest, of course.’
‘Yes.’ He went on blandly, ‘I prefer the newest part of the house; they built roomily in the eighteenth century and their enormous windows let in the light. Tell me about your home, Britannia.’
She really had no choice after all her questions, and anyway, there would be thousands of small houses like her own home, there would be no fear of him discovering where it was. ‘It’s very small, a late Georgian cottage, built of stone with a slate roof. There’s quite a big garden, though, with some rather ramshackle outbuildings. There are woods all round us and it’s very peaceful, even in summer; the tourists don’t come near us, only if they lose their way, and the village is so small there isn’t even an hotel, just a pub.’
‘I like your English pubs,’ said the professor idly. ‘What’s this one called?’
‘The Happy Return.’ She hadn’t meant to tell him that, she would have to guard her tongue, though it was a common enough name, and besides, why was she worrying? Once she had gone, he wouldn’t come after her; he would see, as soon as they had parted, that the whole episode was just a pleasant little interlude. She had thou
ght it so often that she almost believed it herself.
They lingered over their coffee and returned by a different road, across the Veluwe and a good deal further round, but as the professor pointed out, it was a charming route once they were through Barneveld, taking them through the National Park along a minor road which, he assured her, was quite delightful in daylight. So they didn’t arrive back at the Veskes’ villa until well after midnight, to find the house in darkness excepting for a welcoming light shining from the hall window. The professor got out and walked round the car to open her door. ‘You have a key?’
‘Yes.’ She gave it to him and as he put it in the lock, said: ‘Thank you for a lovely evening. I did enjoy it.’
He didn’t open the door. ‘We shall have many lovely evenings and enjoy them too, Britannia.’
She didn’t know how beautiful she looked under the dim light streaming from the hall. She stared up at him and said earnestly: ‘Please, Jake—I’m only a passing fancy.’
His face darkened. ‘So I’m to be preached at again, am I? I don’t know why I stand for it; how can you know what I want and what I think, and who are you to tell me what I must do and not do? I’ll tell you: you’re a sharp-tongued obstinate woman who thinks she knows best and spends her time poking her nose into my affairs so that I lose my temper.’
He opened the door and held it wide. ‘In with you.’ His voice was a muttered roar as she went past him and heard the door shut behind her. She had gone perhaps six paces when the door-knocker was thumped and she flew back to open the door before the whole house was roused.
‘Such a noise!’ she told him severely. ‘You’ll wake everyone, it’s long past…’
‘Not another word,’ he said softly. ‘I forgot something.’
He caught her close and kissed her slowly. Presently he loosened his hold a little. ‘Will you come out to dinner with me tomorrow, Britannia?’ And when she hesitated: ‘You go home the day after. I’ll behave exactly as I ought and we will say goodbye very correctly.’ His voice was gentle, but she had the strange idea that he was laughing too, although when she looked up into his face it was serious enough. She found it quite impossible to say no, and indeed, she had no wish to say it. She nodded her head without speaking and he kissed her again, this time very gently, and pushed her just as gently into the hall and shut the door. She heard the car slide away a few seconds later.