by Betty Neels
A compliment—even if a tepid one. ‘Thank you,’ said Venetia, and earned a quick, frowning look.
He said testily, ‘My work takes me from home a good deal. I have had to rely upon various ladies…’
‘Well,’ said Venetia soothingly, ‘now you don’t need to any more. I’m here, aren’t I?’
She picked up the tapestry work she had begun; she wasn’t very good at it, but she guessed that she would have plenty of time in which to improve. She stole a good look at him and saw that he was staring at her. A habit he had got into which she found a little disturbing. She said thoughtfully, ‘I have been wondering if it might be a good idea if I did some kind of work…’ She watched his eyebrows fly up and went on hastily, ‘By that I mean some kind of charity—there must be children’s homes or geriatric wards where I might help once or twice a week, and I think I might persuade Anneta to come with me. She has no idea of how the other half lives, you know.’
‘That’s a very good idea. I’ll see what there is in Leiden, and there’s a children’s hospital in Amsterdam. You don’t mind what you do?’
She shook her head. ‘Anything to help out. There’s another thing, Duert—I’d love to learn to drive a car.’
‘Why not? Would you like Wim to teach you in the Mini?’
‘Yes, please. Anneta can drive, she tells me.’
‘But she’s too young. She is also a bad driver. Have you ever driven?’
‘No.’ She wondered if he remembered what a restricted life she had lived before he married her, and thought it unlikely.
He picked up the sheaf of papers on his knee. ‘I must go and deal with these. By the way, we may expect invitations very shortly from friends and colleagues. Drinks and dinner and the usual hospital balls.’
‘How nice,’ said Venetia faintly. What a blessing that Anneta was there to suggest what she should wear.
At the door he said, ‘Anneta should be back shortly, say goodnight to her from me, will you?’
She watched his vast form go through the door. He shut it gently behind him, leaving her alone with her tapestry.
Anneta came home presently, sat for a moment to talk about clothes for the dinner parties, and then, declaring she was tired, went to bed. She had looked rather flushed, Venetia thought, but that was probably due to the warmth of the room after the cold night outside. She sat on for some time, but Duert didn’t come back, so she went to bed, too.
The first of the invitations arrived the next morning, and Duert, breakfasting with them for once, handed it to Venetia. ’ The Burgermeester,’ he observed. ‘Drinks and dinner. Black tie and long dresses. Get a dress and anything else you want. Anneta, you are invited, too.’
‘I don’t want to go, thank you. A lot of dull, middle-aged fuddy-duddies telling me what a big girl I’ve become.’ She pouted prettily. ‘I need not accept, Duert, darling?’
‘You will accept, and come with Venetia and me. It is time that you learn a little about the polite world, or you will be at a great disadvantage when you marry.’
‘Venetia doesn’t know anything about the polite world, and she manages quite well.’
Venetia made a business of buttering toast, and hoped that no one would notice her blush.
‘You will apologise for that remark,’ said Duert, ‘and I can hope only that when you eventually marry you will behave with the same charm and grace as Venetia.’
Venetia thought he was laying it on a bit thick, but it was nice of him, all the same. She received Anneta’s apology with a smile and a murmur that she knew she hadn’t meant it anyway. ‘And it would be lovely if you came with us. Duert won’t be with me all the time, and I shall feel quite lost.’
Anneta’s expression was sulky, and the professor’s face wore the bland look which she was fast becoming aware covered impatience. ‘We might go to den Haag,’ said Venetia rather hurriedly. ‘I don’t think I’ve got anything quite grand enough.’
Anneta brightened at the prospect, and Duert picked up the letter he had begun to read, and the meal was finished with everyone on good terms with everyone else.
Invitations came thick and fast. Some included Anneta, but not all, and Venetia, ably tutored by her, answered them all in her neat writing, worried away at her Dutch conversation, and spent a good deal of money on clothes. To Anneta’s suggestion that she might go to a fashionable hairdresser and have her hair arranged more elaborately she said a firm no, although she did agree to wear rather more make-up. She dressed for the Burgermeester’s dinner party in some trepidation. Her dress was new and deceptively simple with its full skirt and long-sleeved bodice with its low-cut neck; its russet-brown silk flattered her mousy hair and gave her grey eyes a sparkle, and she tripped downstairs, her cheeks pink with excitement. She had dressed early and there was no one about. She crossed the hall, admiring her bronze slippers as she went, and entered the drawing-room. Digby came to meet her, and she patted his head as she went to the hearth to examine her image in the vast mirror to one side of it. She gazed critically at her person, rotating slowly, her head over one shoulder, trying to get a back view.
‘Very nice,’ said the professor from one of the big wing-chairs by the window. ‘You have no need to worry, Venetia. You look charming from every angle.’ He got up and came to where she was standing, and she saw that he was already dressed. ‘I’m glad you came down early; there is something I want to give you.’
He had a long velvet case in his hand and he opened it now to reveal a double row of pearls. He took them out and said, ‘Stand still while I put them on. They were my mother’s, and my father’s mother’s before her, and her mother’s before that.’
She had turned obediently so that he could fasten the jewelled clasp. ‘Oh, but I can’t possibly wear them…’
He said evenly, ‘You are my wife, Venetia, and they are in your keeping now.’ He turned her round to face him. ‘There is something else—a little late in the day, only something I overlooked before we married.’
He put a hand in his pocket, took out a small box, and lifted the lid. There was a ring inside—a sapphire surrounded by diamonds in an old-fashioned setting. ‘My mother’s,’ said the professor, and he slipped it on to her finger above her wedding ring.
She looked up at him uncertainly. It had seemed to her quite logical that a marriage such as theirs hardly merited any outward show of an affection which didn’t exist. ‘There is no need—’ she began.
‘No, but I wish it, Venetia.’ He smiled, and bent and kissed her—not the usual peck on one cheek which he was careful to give her when, as so often, Anneta was there, but a kiss to stir her to a pleasurable warmth. It was pure ill fortune that Anneta should come into the room just at that moment, to stop short when she saw them and exclaim, ‘I’m interrupting! Shall I go away and come in again?’
The professor released Venetia without haste. ‘Why should you do that? It is normal practice for man and wife to kiss upon occasion.’
Anneta looked at Venetia’s pink cheeks. ‘Actually,’ she said slowly, ‘it must be rather nice. I mean, there’s kissing and kissing, isn’t there?’
‘As you will discover for yourself one day.’ He had kept an arm around Venetia. ‘If you are quite ready, we should go.’
Anneta twirled in front of him. ‘Well, do I suit your ideas as to how a girl should dress? Venetia persuaded me…’
He studied his ward and nodded his head. ‘You look delightful, and very correctly dressed, too.’ He smiled down at Venetia. ‘How did you do it?’
‘Anneta has excellent taste. I didn’t have much say in the matter.’
Anneta dropped a careless kiss on her cheek. ‘You really are a nice person, Venetia. I can quite see why Duert wanted to marry you.’
Venetia busied herself checking her little evening-bag, and didn’t look up. She wondered what Anneta would say if she knew the truth.
The Burgermeester’s gathering was a splendid affair. He stood at the head of the great staircase
in his house, his wife beside him, and greeted his guests. He was a tall, stout man with a magnificent beard and moustache, and his wife was almost as tall and certainly as stout. They greeted Duert as an old friend, kissed Anneta and shook hands with Venetia, beaming at her.
‘So nice,’ said the Burgermeester’s wife, ‘that Duert is now married. We shall hope to see much of you, and there are many here tonight who wish to meet you.’
Venetia wasn’t aware that she was a success; she had never attracted much attention at St Jude’s, or among her friends in London, and she hadn’t expected it here, only hoped that she would pass muster. But she was liked at once—not only because she was Duert’s wife, but because her quiet charm and ability to listen were a refreshing change from the usual party gossip. She went in to dinner with a colleague of Duert’s, Dr van Tiele, who teased her gently about her smattering of Dutch, expressed his hope that now Duert was married he would cut down on his work, and asked her about her life in England. She talked to her other partner, an elderly man whose English was heavily accented and who talked endlessly about fishing, and she turned with relief to Dr van Tiele again.
‘And Anneta? You get on well with her? You are, perhaps, a good influence on her. I haven’t seen her so sensibly dressed for a long time—so well behaved, too. She has given Duert a good deal of trouble, but I expect you know that.’
‘We get on very well; happily, she has been a great help to me. Perhaps she was bored. I’ve asked Duert to see if there’s any kind of work we could do at one of the hospitals. Not nursing, just helping around once or twice a week.’
‘My dear lady, if you can persuade Anneta to employ her time usefully you will indeed have wrought a miracle.’
She didn’t see him again to talk to, for after dinner the ladies sat together for a time gossiping until the men joined them, and presently everyone went home, leisurely departures involving a good deal of chatting on the way to their cars.
Back home Anneta said at once, ‘I’m dying for my bed. What a boring evening. I’m so glad I haven’t been invited to that dreary drinks party with the Gieringers.’ She kissed Venetia, pecked the professor’s cheek, and ran up the staircase.
Venetia made to follow her, but Duert caught her by the hand. ‘No, stay for a little, Venetia. Truus will have left coffee on the stove.’
He urged her through the door at the back of the hall and into the kitchen, warm and redolent of coffee and the aftertaste of a well-cooked meal. He stared down at her and then sat her by the Aga, and Digby and Truus’s cat both opened sleepy eyes, yawned and closed them again.
The professor strolled round his kitchen, gathering mugs, coffee, sugar and cream with the air of a man who had done it many times before. When he had assembled everything to his satisfaction he poured the coffee, offered Venetia a mug and went to sit opposite her by the Aga.
‘This is very pleasant,’ he observed. ‘Usually I return from one of these evenings and go straight to my study or to bed, but now you are here to mull over the party with me. Did you enjoy yourself?’
‘Very much, thank you. I shall enjoy it even more when I can understand Dutch and speak it a little.’
‘It seemed to me that you were managing very well. Van Tiele was enchanted by you, and so was the Burgermeester who, I must tell you, is very much a ladies’ man.’
It would have been nice, thought Venetia, sipping her coffee, if Duert had found her enchanting, too… She said quietly, ‘I’m glad they approved of me. Anneta looked very pretty, didn’t she? She’s a very lovely girl.’
‘Her mother was a beautiful woman—an American. It was tragic that she should have died so young and that her father should have been killed in a car crash. I have done my best, but I sometimes think that I could have done better. I must admit that you have already done a great deal to steady her down.’
Venetia could think of nothing to say to this. She finished her coffee, put her mug tidily in the sink and declared her intention of going to bed. The professor was looking forbidding and she didn’t know why. She wished him goodnight and rustled her way upstairs, wanting very much to be on more friendly terms with him. Just for a moment that evening, when he had given her the ring, she had thought that perhaps their relationship was developing into something warmer, but now she doubted it.
He had gone when she went down to breakfast the next morning, and Anneta was still asleep. The post had arrived and the professor had opened it and left a small pile of invitations by her plate with a scrawled, ‘We had better accept all of these,’ written across the top envelope. Which sent Venetia into a worried reverie about clothes once more.
It was surprising how quickly the weeks passed. They went out a great deal, and sometimes she wondered if that was entirely to Duert’s liking. To come home after a long day in the theatre and Out Patients and have to change and go out again, with almost no time to do more than snatch a hurried cup of coffee and a sandwich, seemed to her to be burning the candle at both ends with a vengeance. Not that he appeared tired. All the same, she ventured to protest one evening as they drove to yet another dinner party.
She had short shrift. ‘It is expected that you should be introduced to my friends, and now that we are married they wish to meet you. Besides, it helps to keep Anneta amused.’ He drew up before an old town house in Delft where they were to dine. ‘I think it is almost time for us to give a dinner party ourselves. Several.’
Anneta had accompanied them to almost all the drinks and dinner parties to which they had been invited. She had been compliant, but Venetia had a feeling that the girl’s willingness to go along with her guardian’s wishes wasn’t as whole-hearted as it seemed. What was more, Venetia was beginning to wonder about the dental appointments which, considering the perfection of Anneta’s teeth, seemed excessive.
‘What exactly is wrong with your teeth?’ she asked one morning in as casual a voice as she could muster.
Anneta had launched into a lengthy description of fillings and dental surgery which Venetia found hard to believe, and one morning, after another rather dull dinner party, when the girl had come downstairs with the news that she had yet another appointment with the dentist, she had voiced her uncertainty, to come face to face with a very different Anneta.
‘You may be Duert’s wife, but you have no right to pry!’ she stormed. ‘Is that why he married you? To spy on me? You’re no better than those awful companions…’
‘Why should I need to spy on you?’ asked Venetia calmly. ‘I merely wanted to know about your teeth.’
Anneta was instantly full of apologies. ‘Darling Venetia, I didn’t mean to be so snappy. It must be all these late nights. And anyway, this will be my last appointment.’ She glanced sideways at Venetia. ‘Did Duert want to know when the dentist would be finished?’
‘Not that I know of. I’ve not mentioned it to him.’
It was disquieting to see the look of satisfied relief on Anneta’s face.
By now Venetia had her life organised. Her Dutch was coming along nicely; her conversation was limited, but she could understand Truus well enough, and even shop without nearly so much difficulty. She hesitated to speak Dutch to Duert or Anneta and, since they spoke English with the same fluency as they spoke their own language, there seemed no need to do so. All the same, she found that she was beginning to understand the language, sometimes to her disquiet.
Anneta had invited some of her friends for coffee one morning in late February. The snow had long since gone, and now and again there was a fine day, still cold, but with a hint of spring in the air. On such a morning they had all spilled out into the gardens, Venetia with them. She had walked a little apart, not wanting to intrude into their laughing chatter, but after a time she realised that she was understanding what they were saying among themselves. Anneta’s voice, carelessly loud, was easily recognisable even in Dutch, although Venetia missed some of the words.
‘My dears, she knows nothing. I have been going to the dentist—’
there was a spate of laughter at that ‘—for weeks now, and she believes me. She is very nice, but she is also trusting. I have no difficulty with her. So tomorrow you, Hilde, will telephone and ask me over for lunch.’ They all laughed and she went on. ‘You, Piet, will be waiting with the car as usual. Where shall we go?’
Venetia missed the rest of it, but she had heard enough. And what was she supposed to do about it? Only one thing seemed adequate.
She decided, and said loudly, ‘Just a minute. I don’t speak much Dutch, but I can understand it, and I’ve heard everything you’ve just said—enough, at any rate.’
She faced half a dozen surprised young faces. ‘Anneta is in my care, and until she goes to America she should do as her guardian wishes. So forget this outing tomorrow. Hilde—which of you is Hilde? Please don’t telephone, and Piet…’ She glanced round her. ‘There will be no outing.’
Anneta turned on her. ‘I suppose you will tell Duert?’
‘Why should I do that? Don’t be silly, Anneta, his work keeps him busy enough and worries him enough without your pranks. Now let’s go indoors and have some more coffee.’
Thinking it over later, she wished that she and Duert had a closer relationship. He was kind and considerate and treated her with an impeccable politeness which chilled her, but he wanted no contact with her, and evinced no desire to talk to her; only from time to time he would ask about Anneta very much in the same way as he might ask a ward sister how his patients did. Perhaps when we get to know each other better, she mused, we could talk—really talk—and not just make conversation.
With help from Duert she and Anneta went twice a week to help at the children’s hospital in Amsterdam. She wasn’t sure if Anneta liked going very much, but she certainly did. The children were sweet, and since they had only the convalescents to feed and amuse for the afternoon their work was not onerous. Wim drove them, and just once or twice they had gone with Duert when he had had occasion to consult with one of the surgeons there. And on these occasions Venetia had sat in the back of the car; it seemed to her that Anneta didn’t see enough of her guardian and, indeed, it did improve matters, for the two of them laughed and joked together in their own language and she, watching them, was aware of satisfaction. It was not quite perfect, though, for she was conscious of a feeling of loneliness, too, but that was dispelled when they reached the hospital and Duert took her arm for a moment.