Little Girl Lost

by Val Wood

  She smiled and nodded. ‘And now I’m going to meet some new friends and I’m really looking forward to that, although I expect that Hans is too old to play games.’

  They were in time for the cheese market and Margriet was delighted by the colourful costumes of the porters and the way that the traders clapped hands to seal a bargain. Her father told her that this part of Netherlands was called Holland, and that she would probably see many people in traditional dress and wearing clogs like the ones she had at home.

  ‘I ought to have another pair, Papa,’ she said. ‘I’ve grown out of the old ones.’

  He laughed and said he’d buy her another pair and a winged cap too, and then she’d feel like a proper Dutch girl. He bought them both waffles and they ate them sitting on the canal wall before he took her to see the weigh house and the ancient town hall. She licked syrup from her fingers and he gave her a handkerchief to wipe her mouth and hands. ‘I don’t think we should tell Mama that we’ve been eating outside, Papa,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t think she would like it.’

  He nodded solemnly. ‘I quite agree, Daisy. I think this must have to be our special secret.’

  Klara had been watching for Margriet’s arrival, and opened the door to them. ‘Hello, Margriet. Are you going to stay with us? Can she, Uncle Freddy?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but not this time, Klara,’ Frederik answered, seeing Margriet’s eyes open wide at ‘Uncle’. He knew there would be questions later. ‘Margriet’s oma is expecting us back tonight.’

  ‘Well, come up to my room now.’ Klara reached for Margriet’s hand. ‘But first you have to meet Hans. He’s up in his room studying, even though it’s the holidays, but he wants to meet you too.’

  ‘Wait, wait.’ Cornelia came out of the kitchen. ‘I must say hello to Margriet first.’

  Margriet dipped her knee. ‘Hoe doe je, Mevrouw Jansen?’ she asked in perfect Dutch.

  Cornelia smiled delightedly. ‘I’m very well, thank you, Margriet. You’ve been practising your Dutch!’

  ‘Papa taught me,’ she said. ‘He said it would be polite if I knew a few words.’

  ‘You have a very good accent,’ Cornelia said. ‘But we can all speak English, so that will be easier for you, and you may call me Tante Lia if you wish. Klara and Hans call your papa Uncle, but they have known him a long time, of course.’

  ‘Ah, I see!’ Margriet exclaimed. ‘I thought they might be more cousins. I’ve met my Amsterdam cousins already.’

  ‘No, not cousins,’ her father said. ‘But very good friends, which is why they call me Uncle.’

  The two girls ran up the stairs to see Hans, and Lia led Frederik into the sitting room. He closed the door and kissed her tenderly. ‘I can’t bear being away from you,’ he whispered. ‘It’s agony to be within a few miles and not able to hold you in my arms.’

  ‘We must be careful,’ she said. ‘Margriet is young, but she just might say something untoward to her mother.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think Rosamund would care, quite frankly. But you’re right: I wouldn’t for the world want Margriet to be confused or worried.’

  ‘She won’t be, lieveling.’ She kissed him. ‘We’ll be discreet.’

  Back home in Hull Rosamund already had her suspicions. Frederik was much more light-hearted than he had been for some time; in fact more like the man he had been before and during the early days of their marriage. It was her fault, she confessed only to herself; the change began in their marriage bed. She wouldn’t mind his having an affair if he were discreet, especially if his lover lived abroad. She had noticed how eager he was to be back in Amsterdam. Separation, on the other hand, was unthinkable. What if he were to leave her on the grounds that she had refused him his conjugal rights? Her friends had long noses for scandal and would soon put two and two together; even a hint that her marriage was not as perfect as she made it out to be would be all over town in no time, and she couldn’t bear that. She nipped the skin on her fingers with her teeth in her anxiety. She really couldn’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  November 1846

  The last four years had passed quickly and Margriet was happier at ten years old than she had ever been before. She had met her Dutch cousins and had Dutch friends; she and Klara corresponded regularly, with Margriet using the few Dutch phrases she had learned and Klara practising her English.

  Margriet had travelled three times to stay with her grandmother during the school holidays and at Easter, but she had also holidayed with her parents in Scarborough, taking a larger house in St Nicholas Cliff as Rosamund had wanted and again meeting up with the Sanderson family.

  Rosamund had relaxed her severe hold on Margriet, allowing her more freedom than she had enjoyed previously. Although she was still accompanied to school by Florrie in the morning, she was sometimes allowed to come home with Julia Sanderson; they walked together to the top of Parliament Street, where Julia was met by Imogen, who had now left the dame school, or by the nursery maid.

  On one such occasion, having waved goodbye to the Sanderson girls and knowing that her mother would not yet be home from one of her tea parties, instead of continuing down Parliament Street Margriet about-turned and retraced her steps along Whitefriargate to Land of Green Ginger. She hadn’t seen Anneliese at her window for a while and was curious to know where she was. The street was busy, with people cutting through into Bowlalley Lane or heading towards Broadley Street or Quay Street, and Margriet stood in a doorway as if waiting for someone and kept an eye on the Lindegroens’ house. After waiting ten minutes without seeing even a twitch of the curtains, she knew she had to go home, but she worried that Anneliese might think that she had neglected her. It’s because of school, she told herself in excuse, that’s why I haven’t been to see her so often.

  Nowadays she ate at seven in the evening with her parents, but had a glass of milk and a biscuit in her room when she got home from school. Florrie brought it up on a tray. ‘You were late home today, Miss Margriet,’ she said. ‘You didn’t go wandering off, did you?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Margriet said innocently. ‘Julia and I were talking and I suppose we dawdled and didn’t realize the time.’

  ‘Well, you mustn’t dawdle but come straight home,’ Florrie said. ‘I was on ’point of coming to look for you. If your mama hears about it I’ll have to start fetching you home again, especially now that winter’s here and ’nights are drawing in. It gets dark very quickly.’

  Margriet heaved a sigh. ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m old enough to come home on my own.’

  ‘Well, mebbe,’ Florrie said. ‘I went everywhere on my own when I was your age, but your mama would have a fit if I told her about you being late, so you’d better not do it again.’

  ‘I won’t, I promise. Please don’t tell, Florrie.’

  ‘Tell who what?’ Neither of them had heard her father come upstairs. ‘What has Margriet been up to, Florrie?’

  Florrie decided to tell the truth. Mr Vandergroene was much more understanding than her mistress. ‘Nothing much, sir,’ she said. ‘Just that she was a bit late home from school and I said I’d have to start fetching her back again if Mrs Vandergroene heard about it.’

  ‘Oh ho!’ Frederik said with mock severity. ‘So what do you suggest? Bread and water in her room tonight instead of supper downstairs?’

  She nodded in collusion. ‘That’s about right, sir.’

  ‘Which would be a pity,’ he went on, rubbing his beard, ‘especially as I’m leaving for Netherlands in the morning and I won’t see her for a week.’

  ‘Oh, Papa!’ Margriet jumped up and put her arms round his waist. ‘Please, no! Are you joking of me again?’

  He laughed and ruffled her hair. It amused him that she still asked the question in the same way and he never corrected her. ‘I’m joking about the bread and water,’ he said. ‘But you must always come straight home. Florrie is responsible for you when your mama isn’t here, and it’s not fair to worry her.�
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  Margriet hung her head. ‘I’m sorry, Papa. Sorry, Florrie.’ She sighed. ‘When will I be old enough to do things on my own? Or will I always have to have someone with me, as Mama does?’

  He patted her cheek. ‘When you’re grown up you can make your own decisions, Daisy,’ he said softly. ‘I promise you that.’

  At supper that night he told his wife and daughter that he was about to take delivery of a massive consignment of tulip bulbs from Amsterdam, for which he had taken orders from growers all over England.

  Rosamund nodded politely. ‘Is this instead of your other supplies or as well as?’

  He looked at her in surprise; she didn’t normally ask any questions. ‘As well as. There’ll still be cheese and Genever and other commodities coming in, as well as timber.’ Although his father had set up the Hull office to export English wool and English oak and import wood from the Baltic, when Frederik took over the business he had decided to add selected perishables with a quicker turnaround. That trade was now flourishing, but he was excited by the success of the bulb venture.

  ‘I love tulips,’ Margriet said. ‘Tante Anna took us to see the bulb fields last spring, and’ – she spread her arms wide – ‘there were millions!’

  Frederik smiled at her enthusiasm. ‘Well, there will be cut flowers coming too, for the local market. Tulips, hyacinths and narcissi. We’ll fill the town of Hull with them.’

  He was leaving early the next morning on a steamer packet carrying produce and a dozen or so passengers. The owner, Captain Simpson, had said he could travel out on any of his ships whenever he wanted, as they made daily sailings to both Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Frederik was keen to have the option of frequent carrier travel for the import of bulbs, flowers and foodstuffs, and Captain Simpson seemed keen for the business, so he had decided to try him out. For his other contingents of timber and heavy goods he would still use the bigger trading vessels.

  As always, he was eager to see Lia. His life now had a kind of pattern to it, and although it was not ideal, he thought as he stowed his travel bag in the tiny cabin – the bunk was too short to stretch out his legs and the overhead locker was on a dangerous level with his forehead – he was prepared to endure it in order to be with the woman he loved and the daughter he adored, for he wasn’t prepared to give up either of them.

  One day, he thought, when Margriet was older and able to understand, he would tell her. She knew Lia now and seemed to like her, and Rosamund didn’t appear to think anything of it when she mentioned Tante Lia and Klara in conversation.

  It was a very rough crossing and he barely slept. This was such a spiteful sea, he thought irritably as he struggled to dress in his outdoor clothes early the following morning. One day it was like a millpond and the next it was trying to take back the land that had been stolen from it.

  All Dutch children grew up with the knowledge that the sea must be treated with caution. Dutch engineers were known the world over for the great feats of engineering that kept the sea from their low-lying marshy land, but sometimes the hungry tides tricked them and colluded with the hurricane force winds and swept in, driving a great force of house-high water that engulfed all that lay before it.

  He had to use all his strength to open the door on to the deck. When he looked out the deck was awash and he knew he would be putting his life in danger if he left the cabin. He saw a wall of water rise, about to break above the deck, and swiftly shut the door again. These seamen, he thought, as he sat back again on his bunk. They do this every day of their lives, delivering our goods and fishing for our food, and most of us just take them for granted.

  As they neared the Dutch coast the wind eased a little and it became less rough, so he ventured out on deck in search of the galley – the caboose, as the Dutch seamen called it – and a hot drink. Captain Simpson was in there, swaying easily on his feet in front of the stove and making cocoa from a steaming kettle. He handed a cup to Frederik and told him to help himself to rye bread.

  ‘Did you sleep, sir?’ he asked. ‘It was a rough old night.’

  ‘Not much,’ Frederik admitted. ‘Are we going to be late in?’

  ‘An hour, maybe, and we might have to make a detour if the port is flooded.’ He shrugged. ‘But it is how it is; we can’t control the sea, no matter how we try.’

  Frederik repeated the captain’s words to his mother and Lia when he eventually saw them, and both expressed concern that he should travel in such dire weather. ‘You don’t need to come in the winter,’ his mother said crossly. ‘You are just like your father – you must always do things yourself even though you have plenty of staff to do them for you.’

  Lia said she would rather wait longer for a visit than worry about his safety. ‘It is a vicious sea,’ she said vehemently. ‘Wanting always to reclaim the land! People should live up on a mountain, not on the ocean bed as we do in Netherlands.’

  He kissed her cheek and laughed. ‘But here we are, as we have been for a thousand years, and the engineers are coming up with new ideas all the time to keep us safe. The Dutch are the best in the world at building sea defences.’

  But she wouldn’t be convinced and only implored him not to travel again before spring, until at last he agreed. ‘But I can’t wait until Easter to see you,’ he insisted. ‘I’ll come early in the New Year, after Margriet’s birthday.’

  She gave a shiver. ‘It will still be winter, lieveling,’ she said. ‘January is as cold and windy as November.’

  ‘You’re tired of me,’ he teased.

  ‘Never,’ she said. ‘Never, never, never!’

  And so he didn’t come, but he wrote to her and she sent letters to his Hull office. Christmas came and went and Margriet was thrilled by a visit to the newly opened theatre in Paragon Street as a special eleventh birthday treat. A week later they took a train ride on the railway line from Hull to Bridlington, also newly opened only a few months previously. In Bridlington, wrapped warmly because of the icy wind, they walked through the village and along the seashore before returning to the station.

  ‘So what do you think about rail travel, Margriet?’ her father asked her as the train huffed and chuffed its way back to Hull, emitting great clouds of smoke and sounding its whistle as they passed through the intervening villages. ‘We are a little late in getting this line, but it will open up many opportunities for the people of Hull.’

  ‘I love it, Papa,’ she shrieked above the screech of the wheels. ‘It’s just like Amsterdam, isn’t it, when we go to Utrecht to see Tante Lia and Klara and Hans?’

  Frederik swallowed, but smiled guilelessly as Rosamund, wrapped in blankets and shawls, turned her eyes from Margriet to him. However, she said nothing except to remark on how well travelled Margriet appeared to be.

  By February he was desperate to see Lia, but the weather was atrocious and a ship was lost on a voyage to Hull from Hamburg; he knew it was foolish to attempt travelling and he wrote to her again, assuring her of his love and wishing that they could be together more often.

  I am tempted, he wrote, to ask if you would consider living on this side of the cruel sea that divides us as I have considered moving back to Netherlands, but I am only too aware that we both have responsibilities to our families and this, alas, keeps us apart. But I will come, my dearest love, just as soon as I am able.

  And in turn she wrote to say that just knowing that he wanted to be with her was enough for the time being. I will keep you warm in my heart for ever, even whilst we are apart.

  At the end of February the weather was still cold, but it was less windy and he decided to make the journey, but on a bigger passenger ship. The packet was still crossing most days and bringing in his goods to the docks.

  The journey was uneventful, but his mother scolded him for travelling. Amsterdam was still freezing, but he conducted his business as usual and then caught the train to Utrecht. By now he had a regular coach driver willing to drive him to Gouda whatever the weather, and the man accepted his extra tip
with gratitude.

  ‘You have been away a long time, meneer,’ he said. ‘I trust business has been good. Your wife will be pleased to have you back at home.’

  Frederik took in a breath. ‘I hope so,’ he said amicably, ‘but she won’t be when I tell her that I shall be leaving again in two days’ time.’

  ‘Ah, tut! Work is not everything. But there again, I know how it is. We must work to eat.’

  Cornelia had opened a shutter when she heard the rattle of the carriage wheels and now she hurried to let him in. She kissed him tenderly before calling upstairs to Hans and Klara that Uncle Freddy was here.

  ‘Hans?’ Frederik queried. ‘Not at school?’

  Hans came down the stairs to greet him. ‘Studying,’ he said. ‘I have another exam next week.’ He shook hands with Frederik, who remarked that the boy was now as tall as he was.

  ‘I’ll be sixteen in June,’ Hans said, ‘and I’m still growing. Will you excuse me, sir? Perhaps we can talk over supper? I’d like to ask you a few things, if I may.’

  Klara came down and gave him a kiss, and then she too disappeared back up to her room. Lia smiled.

  ‘You see how it is,’ she said. ‘My babies are growing up and don’t need their moeder any more.’

  ‘I think they always will.’ He kissed her mouth. ‘Just as I do. What fine children they are. Hans is so sensible, and handsome too; he takes after his mother.’

  She laughed. ‘So he does. He wants to talk to you about his future. He’s very good at maths and has a head for business, so his tutors say, rather than the classics. He’s not sure that he wants to go to university, and that’s why he would like to talk to you.’

  Frederik nodded. ‘He is a very personable young man. I will help him all I can, and if he decides to go into commerce perhaps he might like to start in my office, when the time is right?’

  ‘That, I think, is what he was hoping you would say.’