by Betty Neels
‘But Jake…’
He smiled and spoke to the saleswoman and went back to his little chair and presently, carrying an elegant dress box, they left the shop. ‘Well,’ said Annis, ‘they’re lovely, absolutely divine, but haven’t I spent more than my allowance?’
‘You haven’t spent any of your allowance. I’ll make you a present of them.’
‘Jake, thank you!’ She stopped to look at him. ‘You are a dear…’
He didn’t answer her, only looked at her with faint mockery so that she went rather red. ‘You’ll need shoes,’ he said after a silence she would have liked to break. ‘There’s a good shop in the next street.’
She forgot the awkward little moment in the excitement of choosing the shoes and later they had driven home in great spirits and spent the rest of the evening after dinner, in the drawing room, with Mike between them, laughing a great deal over Annis’s attempts at holding a conversation in Dutch.
The dinner party was fixed for the following week and Annis spent anxious hours closeted with Katrina, frequently interrupted by calls for Cor to help out with translation. She was determined to make a success of this, her first attempt at entertaining, and since Jake had said carelessly that she could arrange whatever menu she wanted, she spent a good deal of time browsing through cook-books and reading recipes. And when she wasn’t doing that she was crouched over the desk in the library, muttering away at suitable Dutch phrases with which to entertain her guests. She tried them out on Jake each evening at dinner and he, with a decided twinkle in his eyes, pronounced her progress quite remarkable.
She decided to wear the green crêpe-de-chine after trying on both dresses at least three times, and then, dressed far too soon, went downstairs. Jake came in as she reached the hall, but beyond a brief: ‘Hullo, that’s nice,’ he said nothing but went straight upstairs, completely destroying her self-satisfaction. She wasn’t a vain girl, but standing in front of the pier-glass in her room she had known that she looked just about as dishy as any girl could; the dress was exactly right, her hair, newly washed, wreathed her pretty face and danced in soft curls on her shoulders, the pearls glowed on her neck and her make-up had repaid the time she had taken over it. To have all this dismissed as ‘nice’ with barely a glance to justify such a poor compliment annoyed her very much. She swept into the drawing room and poured herself a glass of sherry and tossed it off. By the time Jake got downstairs, very elegant in his dinner jacket, she had a splendid colour and a slight headache. He took one look at her as he came in and asked: ‘Have another sherry, Annis?’
She gave him a defiant look. ‘I’m nervous,’ she told him as he came over with her drink. But he didn’t give it to her at once; he bent his head and kissed her gently first.
‘No need,’ he said in a voice as gentle as his kiss, ‘you’ll outshine every woman in sight.’
He put the glass in her hand and went to fetch his own drink, and presently began to tell her of his day.
Mevrouw van Germert arrived ahead of everyone else, sailing into the room, splendidly attired in dark blue velvet. And if I didn’t know her, thought Annis, watching her regal progress, I’d be terrified of her. As it was her mother-in-law kissed her warmly, told her that she was a beautiful girl and then went to offer a cheek to her son.
‘You make a handsome pair,’ she pronounced. ‘Annis, that is a charming dress. And you, Jake, how is your leg progressing?’
‘Splendidly, Mama. You’re looking very handsome yourself.’
His mother nodded her regal head. ‘Thank you, my dear.’ She accepted a glass of sherry and sat down. ‘Annis, come and sit beside me and tell me what you have been doing. I hear from Jake that you are making tremendous progress with your Dutch.’
Annis blushed faintly. It was nice of Jake to praise her to his mother, especially when she wasn’t there. She said now: ‘Well, I’m doing my best. Jake found me a wonderful teacher, Mevrouw Pette…’
Which started Mevrouw van Germert off on a rather rambling tale about that lady which lasted until the first of the guests arrived.
Olympia and Waldo came last of all and Annis, seizing an opportunity when everyone else was talking, whispered urgently: ‘Olympia, there’s something I want to ask you when I get a chance—before you go.’
Olympia studied her face. ‘Of course. It’s important, isn’t it? I can see that. There’s bound to be a chance later on.’
The dining room looked rather grand. Annis had chosen to have an enormous white tablecloth falling to the ground, its pristine whiteness showing off silver and glass and beautiful Delft china. She had arranged the flowers herself, a low bowl of bronze chrysanthemums and yellow roses, and flanked it by silver candelabra, their lighted candles casting a soft glow over the table. She felt a little upsurge of pride as they seated themselves; the women’s pretty dresses and the men’s austere black and white were so exactly right in the dignified old room. She saw Jake’s eyes on her from the head of the table and smiled at him before turning to Oom Karel, sitting on one side of her. He was a nice old man, she had only spoken to him for a few minutes at her wedding, but now she saw the chance to put a few questions, discreet of course, about Jake. But Oom Karel, although he regaled her with a dozen tales about the family, hardly mentioned him. And the uncle on her other side, still a little austere in his manner until he got to know her better, kept to generalities.
She ate her way through her carefully thought out menu: artichoke hearts with garlic sauce, tender, juicy little steaks with peppercorns and in a cream and brandy sauce, served with fennel and tiny pommes frites and to follow these, a soufflé glacé, pleased to see that their guests were enjoying what was on their plates. She rose from the table a little flushed with triumph and the excellent wine Jake had chosen, and indeed, in the drawing room the ladies of the party were quick to gather round her and compliment her. She poured coffee with a hand which shook just a little with the excitement of it all and wondered, as she made polite conversation with aunts and cousins, when she would have the opportunity to get Olympia alone. But Olympia’s pink gown was almost invisible at the other end of the room, surrounded by several ladies of the party, and Annis, talking painstaking Dutch to Tante Wilhelmina, gave up for the moment.
Her chance came later; the men had joined them and the company had settled down into little groups, comfortably exchanging gossip. Annis, with a glance at Olympia, seated herself on a small sofa a little apart and was quickly joined by her.
‘Well?’ asked Olympia, not wasting time.
‘I’ve no time to explain and I expect you’ll find it a funny question. Who’s Nina?’
Her companion didn’t answer at once, then: ‘Have you asked Jake?’
‘Yes, but he keeps putting it off and now I don’t like to ask any more, but I must know… One of his cousins at the wedding told me…’
‘That silly…’ Olympia’s fine eyes expressed her opinion better than any words. ‘She’s a nasty creature, always making trouble for the fun of it. I suppose everyone thought he’d marry Nina—oh, it was years ago now. She went to America, but she came back last year sometime…’ Olympia saw the look on Annis’s face and hurried on: ‘No, don’t worry, she doesn’t mean a thing—he’s had girl-friends before and since, but never serious. We thought he’d never marry.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you.’
‘I asked you to,’ Annis reminded her, ‘and I’m glad I know. Now I’ll know what to say to the abominable Ria next time I meet her, though I hope I never shall.’
Olympia giggled. ‘She’s ghastly, isn’t she? And the trouble is that sometimes there’s a grain of truth in what she says and she manages to twist it.’
‘Well, she’d better not try it on me,’ said Annis fiercely, and switched on a smile as Tante Beatrix and Tante Coralie, who seemed to do everything together, bore down upon them. She saw Jake looking at her from the far end of the room, his brows drawn together in a frown; perhaps she had been sitting too long with
Olympia. She gave her new friend a conspirator’s wink and started an animated, impossible to understand conversation with Tante Beatrix.
She must have imagined the frown, she decided, listening to Jake’s comments on the evening after the last guest had gone, and then drew a sharp breath at his voice, a little cool now: ‘And what were you asking Olympia so earnestly, Annis? Or is it a secret I may not share?’
She let out the breath. ‘Well, no—it’s not a secret, not mine, anyway, and it’s you who don’t want to share it with me, so I asked Olympia about Nina. Ever since that cousin of yours…’
‘I must admire you for your persistence, Annis, even if it is wasted on something as trivial.’ His voice held mockery although he was smiling. On second thoughts she wasn’t sure if she liked the smile, but she went on sturdily:
‘I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t have told me yourself. At least, there is one reason, of course. Perhaps you’re still—still…’
‘In love with Nina?’ he finished for her smoothly. ‘Do you really suppose I would marry you if that had been the case, Annis?’
‘Well, I can’t see why not,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘If she wouldn’t have you and I was…’ She paused, at a loss for words.
‘Nina and I, you and Ola,’ he said softly. ‘So that’s it, that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
He started towards her and then stopped as the telephone rang. As he lifted the receiver he said: ‘We need to talk, you and I, my dear,’ and then became totally absorbed in what was being said to him. Finally he spoke briefly, hung up and said: ‘I have to go at once—don’t wait up, it may be a long job.’
He had gone before she could utter and when she went into the hall Cor was there, ready to open the door for his master. Annis watched Jake go without a glance in her direction, and then bade Cor a quiet goodnight and went upstairs. But not to sleep.
And in the morning when she got downstairs, it was to find Cor waiting with a message from Jake to say that he might not be back for lunch.
‘What happened, Cor?’ She tried not to sound anxious. ‘An accident?’
‘Yes, Mevrouw—a bad one on the main road. They have been very busy at the hospital, the doctor was there most of the night, he came back early to shave and eat his breakfast and went back within the hour.’
She sat down and ate her solitary breakfast, took Mike for a walk and then, unable to settle to her lessons, went down to the kitchen, a vast old-fashioned place in which all the mod cons had been installed without spoiling its charm. Here she sat down at the scrubbed wooden table and set about the business of discussing the day’s meals with Katrina and the cook, a rather slow business still, although she was learning fast.
When she had mastered this task she asked in her slow Dutch: ‘Is there any shopping?’
There was—not much, fruit from the greengrocers next to Hema’s, if she would be so kind.
Annis, restless, was only too glad to have something to do until it was time for Mevrouw Pette to give her her lesson. She fetched the corduroy jacket which matched the grey skirt she was wearing, found a basket and walked into the town. She wouldn’t think about Jake, she told herself as she went, and then thought of no one else, so that she didn’t bother overmuch about what she was buying. It was a good thing that the greengrocer knew that she was Doctor van Germert’s wife and saw to it that only the very best of his goods were sold to her.
She had time to spare and the way home past the Raadhuis and the church, although longer, was prettier. She had rounded the market square and was half way past the church when a man got out of a car parked on the side of the road and started towards her. It wasn’t until he was really close that she noticed him and came to an abrupt halt, her face suddenly white.
‘Ola?’ she asked in astonishment.
He looked even more handsome than she had remembered and well dressed too, and the smile he gave her was the old charming smile, only it didn’t quicken her pulse one beat. When he held out his hand she took it reluctantly.
‘This is a surprise.’ She spoke just as reluctantly in a stiff voice.
‘Yes? I had business in Rotterdam. I flew from Norway yesterday and the first thing I have done is to come here and see you, my darling.’
‘I’m not your darling,’ declared Annis roundly, ‘I’m Jake’s wife.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, that—a marriage of convenience. How could it be anything else for you? And he such a cold fish.’
‘He’s nothing of the kind,’ she said hotly and when he smiled again: ‘How did you know where I was?’
‘So easy—I have merely to ask where Jake lives, and then I ask, oh, so casually, where you are, and I am told…’
‘Who told you?’
He opened his blue eyes wide. ‘My darling Annis, I telephoned a man from the station who was on holiday in Norway.’
Her eyes flashed green fire. ‘Indeed?’ Her voice was icy. ‘Well, I have to go; I have an appointment.’
‘Coffee first?’ He was using all his old charm again. ‘There is so much that I have to say to you.’
‘No coffee, and there’s nothing to say, Ola. Goodbye.’
She walked away trying not to hurry, because then he might think that she was running away from him, which, she admitted to herself, she was. When she got back home she was breathless and shaking and Cor, who had been in the hall when she went in, said at once: ‘Mevrouw, you are ill? What has happened?’
Annis mumbled something or other and went up to her room and shut the door before going over to the dressing table and sitting down before it. Her knees felt weak and her still pale face stared back at her from the mirror.
‘Oh, why couldn’t Jake have been there?’ she whispered to her reflection. ‘He’d have known what to say and do.’ But perhaps he wouldn’t have said anything, she thought unhappily; she supposed he still thought that she loved Ola, he might even have stood aside and given Ola a second chance—but he was married, or perhaps not any more? She sat for a little while feeling tired and drained, not even thinking, until it was time for her to go down for her lesson with Mevrouw Pette, but she, poor lady, got no sense out of her during the next hour. She looked hard at Annis’s abstracted face and ventured: ‘Perhaps you have been working too hard, Mevrouw van Germert. We will cut short our lesson, I think, and you will not do your homework, only read the papers if you wish and remember to speak Dutch as often as possible.’
She went away, shaking her head at her own stupidity in letting Annis work too hard at her lessons.
The rest of the day was awful. Jake didn’t come home for lunch and Annis, in a fever that Ola would come knocking at the door, and yet afraid to go out in case she met him again, mooned around the house and then took Mike into the garden until it was time for tea, which she drank with an ear cocked for the sound of Jake’s key in the door.
It wasn’t until almost seven o’clock that he came home, and then he looked so tired that she had no heart to tell him about meeting Ola. He went upstairs almost at once and when he joined her in the sitting room it was to tell her that he would have to go out again without delay. ‘A patient I should have seen this afternoon,’ he explained. ‘He’s coming to my consulting rooms, and afterwards I may call in at the hospital again. Don’t wait up for me.’
She said, ‘Very well,’ in a quiet little voice, and added: ‘Haven’t you time to tell me what’s happened?’
He smiled at her from his tired face. ‘Not now, my dear, I must go.’
She nodded. ‘Of course. I’ll see that there’s a Thermos of coffee and some sandwiches left for you.’
‘You’re a splendid wife, Annis,’ he told her as he went.
As she heard the front door close she got up and wandered to the window in time to see the Bristol shoot away. ‘Not even time to kiss me,’ she told Mike bitterly, ‘but perhaps he doesn’t want to.’
She ate a solitary dinner, then went back
to the sitting room and picked up the newspaper she had been painstakingly trying to read. She was frowning over the small ads when she heard the front door bell and Cor going to the door. She knew who it was before Cor had opened the door to ask her if she would see a Mr Ola Julsen. She said yes at once, surprised to see that her hands, folding the newspaper, were quite steady.
Ola came in with a self-assurance she envied. ‘Jake’s not home?’ He smiled. ‘I do not need to ask, of course, I saw him leave the house. He will be away for the evening, I suppose. I hear that the hospital is very busy.’
‘He’ll be back at any moment,’ said Annis. ‘Why have you come?’
He smiled again and she thought irritably that he was always smiling—why hadn’t she noticed that before? ‘To see you, my darling girl.’
‘I am not your darling girl, you’re wasting your time, Ola. Please go.’
He didn’t budge. ‘Not until I have begged your forgiveness for the way in which I treated you, Annis, not until you say that I am forgiven. Oh, my dear, we could be so happy together, just the two of us.’ He sat down. ‘I do not believe that you and Jake are in love—you, who are so full of life and warmth and he so calm and cold, hardly noticing you. Ah, the times I could have knocked him down for the cool way he treated you.’
Annis was on her feet. ‘You be quiet!’ Her voice had risen with her temper. ‘Who are you to talk of his treatment of me? What about your treatment? And what about your wife?’
He shrugged. ‘A divorce—so easy. We could marry later if you wished.’
‘I can think of nothing I would dislike more,’ said Annis furiously. ‘I think you’re mad!’ Her voice got a little too loud. ‘Now for heaven’s sake go before I throw something at you!’
She tugged the bell pull and Cor came so quickly that she wondered if he had been just outside the door—not listening, Cor would never do that, just staying close by in case she should need him. He held the door open without a word and Ola blew her a kiss and with a shrug of his shoulders followed Cor into the hall.