Tempestuous April

by Betty Neels

  ‘Come down to the door with me, will you, Harriet?’

  She got up wordlessly and followed him out of the flat down the steep stairs. He opened the door and they stood on the top step in the sunshine and because she could not bear the silence any longer she said,

  ‘Please give my love to Moses.’

  ‘Of course. Why did you scowl so at luncheon?’

  Harriet examined the pink nails of one hand, and said untruthfully,

  ‘I did not scowl!’ and added, ‘You were laughing at me.’

  ‘But you have a most endearing habit of making me laugh at you. Didn’t you know that?’ He possessed himself of one of her hands. ‘Shall you be glad to see me when I come to fetch you?’

  She looked at him then. He wasn’t laughing at her now; his grey eyes were tender and sparkling, but his face was grave. She said equally gravely, ‘Yes, I shall be glad to see you again, Friso.’

  He kissed her on the mouth with a gentleness she hadn’t expected of him. ‘Dear Harriet. You still remember the Friesian oath?’

  She was still a little breathless from his kiss. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. So long as the wind from the clouds shall blow—my dear.’

  He was gone. She stood on the steps and waved, then went back upstairs, to present to the people waiting there a face transformed by happiness.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE NEXT DAY was a cataclysm of sound and colour, historical buildings, museums and canals. Harriet, sitting beside Sieske in one of the boats touring the canals of the city, craned her pretty neck to see everything, while her ears tried to take in the information offered in Sieske’s soft slow voice, Tante Tonia’s quick, much louder one, and Oom Jan’s precise English, spoken with such deliberation that he was inevitably describing some subject already dealt with by his wife and niece. Harriet nodded agreeably to each piece of information and concentrated on Oom Jan who appeared to know his Amsterdam like the back of his hand. Back on dry land, a brisk altercation, conducted in the friendliest of terms, took place. The ladies, naturally enough, considered that the shops were a vital part of the sightseeing programme, whereas Oom Jan, who detested shopping with females, urged a visit to the Rijksmuseum, followed by a look at the Mint Tower and the Begijnhof Almshouses. He was, of course, doomed to failure. Sieske pointed out in her calm way that the Mint Tower was at the end of the Kalverstraat, where all the best shops were, and that it would be the easiest thing in the world to turn aside half-way down this fascinating thoroughfare and spend a little time in the Begijnhof, which was a mere stone’s throw from it. It was a happy solution, for the ladies left their escort to browse in a bookshop, and spent an agreeable half hour window-shopping, before allowing him to lead them to the Begijnhof. Harriet was delighted with the peaceful little place; it seemed incredible that anything so quiet could exist for centuries in the heart of the bustling city. She wanted most desperately Friso to be there too, so that she could tell him how she felt. Her mouth curved into a happy smile at the thought of seeing him again. The fact that she was leaving in two days’ time wasn’t important any more; all that mattered was what Friso would say to her before she went…

  Via the Mint Tower, they crossed the Munt Plein and took coffee in the comparative luxury of the Hotel de l’Europe, so that they could watch the unending traffic on the water; and then made their leisurely way down the Leidseweg towards the museum. It was cool inside the big rooms, and they wandered through their vastness, gazing at a seemingly unending vista of paintings. It was almost one o’clock by the time they had finished, and when Oom Jan suggested lunch in the museum restaurant they lost no time in following him through the big glass doors and allowing themselves to be led to a table by the window. The food was good; soup—real soup, not out of a tin; Wienerschnitzel with tiny peas and potatoes creamed to incredible smoothness, and a sweet composed largely of whipped cream. Harriet devoured it all with a healthy appetite and obediently drank the glass of wine she was offered. Presently, relaxed and revitalized, they started to plan their afternoon.

  ‘The Palace,’ said Sieske, ‘and probably you’ll see one of those street organs you asked about.’

  Harriet smiled at her friend, thinking what a dear she was; she was going to miss her when she got back to hospital. She dragged her thoughts away from the future; time enough to do that in two days’ time.

  ‘No good,’ said Tante Tonia, ‘the Palace isn’t open today—we’ll have to fit it in tomorrow. What about diamonds?’

  It was a happy thought. The afternoon passed quickly, for after a visit to Van Moppes’ diamond showrooms, they walked down some of the narrow streets lining the canals, peering into the small shop windows of countless antique dealers. They took their tea in a very small room behind a pastrycooks’, where the cakes were so various and rich that Harriet was quite unable to choose for herself and ate her way happily through a rich confection of chocolate and cream and nuts which Sieske assured her was delicious; she would have eaten a second of these confections if her host had not looked at his watch and declared that if they didn’t go home that minute they would be late.

  ‘What for?’ they asked, but he laughed and refused to say, merely exchanging a conspiratorial smile with his wife. It wasn’t until they were sitting down doing justice to various cold meats and an enormous bowl of salad that he answered their question.

  ‘I have seats for the Stadsschouwburg—The Netherlands Opera Company are performing Tosca.’ He smiled, well pleased with the girls’ delight and they finished the meal in a little rush of excitement, which augured well for the success of the evening. And success it was—the theatre was bright with lights and pleasantly crowded. Their seats were a little to the side of the circle with an excellent view of the stage. They settled themselves comfortably and whiled what time there was before the curtain went up by studying the audience and discussing what they would do when Wierd arrived the following morning. He would have to go back about tea time, but Sieske was determined to make use of him and his car. A short trip, she thought, before lunch at Scheveningen. Harriet agreed happily to everything suggested. Friso was to come after tea; until then she didn’t mind in the least what she did. The curtain rose, and she became absorbed in the music, and perhaps because she was so much in love herself, almost burst into tears as the tragic story unfolded itself.

  It was fortunate that the interval intervened and Oom Jan whisked them all away to the foyer to drink something dark red and velvety in a glass, which had the immediate effect of making her feel very cheerful indeed, but later caused her to feel more and more sad at the complications the people on the stage were forced to endure. But by the time the opera was finished she had quite recovered her volatile spirits and was delighted to be taken to a café for coffee before going back to the Weesperzijde, to go to bed and sleep almost immediately, while listening to Sieske’s soothing voice from the next bed, still plotting and planning for the next day.

  The sun was shining when they got up. It was still early by the time they had had breakfast, but they had barely finished their coffee when Wierd arrived. Sieske went downstairs to meet him, and Harriet wondered if she would have the chance to do the same when Friso arrived that evening. The thought made her smile, so that Wierd wanted to know if it was Amsterdam that made her look so happy. She said seriously,

  ‘Amsterdam is lovely, but Friesland is beautiful.’ She looked dreamily out of the window, not seeing the street outside, but Friso, busy with his patients, and only turned round when she heard Sieske say,

  ‘Well, you’re going back this evening, Harry. But now Wierd wants to take us to the Keukenhof gardens.’ She slipped an arm into that of her fiancé. ‘And then perhaps Den Haag—and we can eat at Saur’s.’

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ Harriet said. Indeed, she had only a slim idea as to what the Keukenhof was, and didn’t much care, but if it was a pleasant way of passing a day, that was all right. She went to get a jacket and her handbag, wondering if ‘evening’ mean
t just after tea or quite late. She wanted very much to ask Sieske if Friso had a surgery to take before he came to fetch them, but she felt shy of talking about him, even to Sieske. She mooned about, doing unnecessary things to her face and hair, and was quite surprised when Sieske put her head round the door, and asked, her usual placidity ruffled, ‘Harry, what do you do? You have to fetch only your jacket and bag, and it is already ten minutes.’

  Harriet was opening and shutting drawers in a guilty fashion. She turned a rather pink face to her friend, and said,

  ‘I’m sorry, I was thinking about—’

  She stopped herself in time, and ended tamely, ‘Just thinking.’ She looked so contrite that Sieske smiled at her.

  ‘It will be beautiful in the Keukenhof, Harry; it is like Friso’s garden, but many hundred times larger.’ She went over to the mirror and poked at her pretty hair, missing Harriet’s sudden vivid blush.

  There was another delay occasioned by Tante Tonia, who gave a good many well-meaning instructions as to how they could reach the Keukenhof in the shortest time and the most suitable method with which to explore it when they got there. When they finally reached the car, Wierd said, speaking in his careful English, ‘We have the time to go along the little roads, if you would like, Harry.’

  Harriet, sitting in the back and watching a very long, very thin barge glide down the Amstel, agreed very readily to this plan. The motorways were wonderful if you need to get from here to there in a hurry, but it seemed that today there was no need of that. They drove through the ordered incomprehensible confusion of Amsterdam’s traffic into the comparative quiet of Amstelveen, where they turned off on to a road running along the top of a dyke, which had the double attraction of Schipol on one side of it, and a canal on the other. Harriet, anxious to miss nothing, craned her neck to look at everything her companions felt she should see and listened to Wierd while he gave her a potted history of the Haarlemmermeer Polder. He did it very well, only she did wish that he wouldn’t use such long and difficult words—it couldn’t be because he wanted to air his English, because he wasn’t that sort of man at all. Her ears rang with strange Dutch names from long ago, and detailed accounts of windmills and steam pumps and their uses, as well as a great many useful and interesting facts which Sieske slipped in from time to time. It was a relief to reach Aalsmeer where they stopped for coffee, and explained to her why they weren’t going to stop there for her to see the flower auction. ‘It’ll take a long time to see it properly,’ Sieske pointed out, ‘and then we should have to hurry round the Keukenhof if we’re going to The Hague as well. When you come to visit us again—’ she blushed faintly, ‘Wierd and me—we can come.’

  Harriet said, ‘Yes, of course,’ and smiled, mostly at her own secret thoughts—perhaps Friso would be with her.

  They left Aalsmeer by the same road so that Harriet could have a glimpse of the lake, then Wierd turned down what he described as a local road, bisecting the polder, until they came to another canal with its accompany road, which in due time led them to Lisse and the Keukenhof.

  Harriet hadn’t quite known what to expect, certainly not the blaze of colour which met her eyes. They got out of the car, and Wierd said, ‘No plan, I think? Just to amble?’

  Harriet was only too delighted to agree, having already ambled in several directions just to make sure that everything was real. It was surprisingly quiet and free from people; the coachloads and bus tours, said Wierd, would come about lunch time. They wandered up and down the paths and along the edge of the water, where the flowers grew as though nature had put them there and not astute bulb-growers with an eye to getting big orders. The water was criss-crossed with little rustic bridges; they were half-way over one of these when Harriet’s eye was caught by a group of people coming towards them from the other side. Well in advance of the others walked a smallish figure, escorted by a tall man, talking animatedly. They were very close to Harriet when she realized who it was. She looked round rather wildly for Sieske, who had stopped with Wierd to hang over the bridge to watch the fish. They were standing with their backs to the balustrade, looking unconcerned, as were the few people opposite them. All anyone had done, as far as she could see, was to move back as far as possible to make a little more room. She did the same thing herself a bare moment before Queen Beatrix walked past, flashing a pleasant smile as she went, followed by the members of her entourage, struggling manfully to keep up the pace. When they had gone, and the small brisk figure was no longer visible, Harriet joined the others, open-mouthed.

  ‘That was Queen Beatrix,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Sieske’s voice was as calm and unhurried as ever it was. ‘She comes here because she loves to look at the flowers too, but she does not care to make an occasion of it—she prefers that we do not stare or gather to watch her.’

  ‘Oh? Well, I’m so glad I’ve seen her. She looked charming and just as a queen should look—she smiled at me too. Who was the man with her?’

  Wierd answered. ‘That would be the Directeur of the Keukenhof, and the people with her are the members of her household.’

  ‘She walked very fast,’ commented Harriet. ‘The people at the back were almost running.’

  ‘Our Queen,’ said Wierd a trifle pompously, ‘is a very energetic person—she is also much loved by her people.’

  Harriet saw that he was slightly hurt and very much in earnest. She said hastily, ‘I’m sorry if I sounded if I was criticizing the Queen. I didn’t mean to. I like and admire her very much and I’m very happy to have seen her.’ She smiled at her two friends. Meeting the Queen seemed a sort of good luck symbol for the future…she sighed on a sudden little glow of happiness and asked,

  ‘Those tulips over there by the trees—they’re gorgeous. What are they called?’

  Sieske followed her gaze. ‘Kaufmanniana,’ she murmured knowledgeably. ‘Gluck, I think. Is it not so, Wierd?’

  He nodded. ‘Yellow and carmine—Friso has some in his garden; you will have seen them?’ He looked inquiringly at Harriet, who to her vexation felt her cheeks grow hot at Friso’s name. But she answered coolly enough, ‘So he has, by the pool.’ Her words conjured up such a clear picture of herself standing on Friso’s verandah with Friso beside her that for a moment she forgot where she was.

  Sieske gave her a long considered look. ‘You will see them again,’ she said positively, and Harriet, certain of it too, flashed a smile that caused Wierd to say, ‘How very happy you look, Harriet. It is as though you are in…’ He didn’t finish his sentence, for his future bride had given him an unseen but none the less extremely painful kick on the shin with a well-shod size seven. Rendered speechless with pain, he caught her warning eye; but his drastic reminder had been unnecessary, for Harriet had not been paying attention anyway. She had caught sight of a bed of yellow hyacinths she had admired in Friso’s garden. She searched her memory. ‘City of Haarlem,’ she said dreamily, and smiled again at nothing at all, not noticing the understanding glances her companions exchanged as they started to stroll along beside her.

  ‘If you come this way,’ suggested Wierd, ‘there are some daffodils—jonquils. If you remember Friso has them naturalized beside that little path between the glasshouses and the house.’

  Of course she remembered. Friso had kissed her by the potting shed and they had walked down that same path together. The three of them stopped by the sweet-smelling bed; its fragrance made memory even more vivid. She beamed at Wierd. ‘What a lovely day this is being,’ she breathed.

  It had turned fine, with a well-washed sky and pale sunshine, which despite its lack of warmth held a promise of summer. It was pleasant amongst the flowers and the newly leafed trees. The storm and flood seemed distant and vague, like some half-forgotten news she had read a long time ago. But it was only three days. Time, she discovered, had very little meaning for her, only in relation to the amount of it she had to spend away from Friso. She no longer cared about the blonde, or the brunette, nor for
that matter any other girl he most certainly had known at some time or other. She was a victim of her own dream, and she didn’t care.

  They got to The Hague in time for lunch. Harriet had felt a sharp disappointment as they passed through its suburbs, they were so remarkably unforeign, but as they got nearer the heart of the city, she could find no fault with it, by the time they had found somewhere to put the car and walked up Lange Voorhoust, she was quite enchanted with it.

  Saur’s was fun too. They went downstairs to the smart, expensive snack bar, crowded with young people like themselves eating delicious bits and pieces. Harriet left the ordering to Wierd and was surprised when he asked if she was hungry. She said simply, ‘Yes, of course,’ then added hurriedly, in case he was short of money, ‘But a sandwich will do.’

  He looked horrified. ‘I ask only because you are so small a person and perhaps eat only a little.’

  Sieske giggled. ‘Harry eats like a horse,’ she eyed her friend’s fragile form. ‘No one know where it all goes to, for she always looks the same. If you order the same for her as you intend to order for us two outsizes, she’ll eat every crumb of it.’

  When the food came, her sapient remarks were completely justified. It seemed the restaurant was noted for its seafood. Harriet ate her way happily through everything put before her. She had imagined that, like so many lovesick women, she would have lost her splendid appetite, instead of which she was enjoying it all very much. It was after two o’clock by the time they had finished, and when she noticed the time, her heart gave a little leap at the thought that there were only a few hours before she would see Friso.