by Betty Neels
Naturally enough, after this pleasant interlude, the girls found it imperative to do a little window shopping. They admired the hats—unpriced in Van Dooren’s window; speculated as to the cost of the fur coats in Kulme’s, and were only dissuaded from going into La Bonneterie to inquire the price of an enchanting organza dress by Wierd, who pointed out that unless they intended to spend the rest of the day looking at clothes, which, he pointed out reasonably, were obtainable anywhere and probably far cheaper than in s’Gravenhage; it was high time they were on their way to Scheveningen.
Their combined efforts to make him see the silliness of his remarks about clothes being the same anywhere lasted until they reached the car, and, as far as they could see, had no success at all.
The sea looked cold; slow, pale blue waves rolled in steadily on to the wide sands. The three of them walked along the sea front, the wind tangling their hair; it had a nip in it which made them step out briskly. They admired the hotels lining the broad road, and gazed at the famous pier, then turned back to walk the other way so that Harriet could see the fishermen’s wives in their costume. She wished she had brought her camera; instead, she bought a great number of postcards; it was amazing what a lot of people there were to whom she hadn’t sent this proof of being abroad. They went back to the car at length, discussing where they should have tea. Sieske’s quiet persistence won the day and Harriet found herself back at The Hague, taking tea amidst the Victorian splendour of Maison Krul. It was a leisurely little meal and inevitably the talk was of the wedding. When they at length got up to go, Wierd decided to go back to Amsterdam on the motorway. ‘I don’t know what time Friso is coming,’ he said, ‘but I don’t suppose he’ll want to wait around, and I must get back myself.’
They shared the motorway with a horde of other drivers, all presumably competing in a Le Mans of their own. Wierd apparently shared their ambition, for he did his best to out-Jehu them; it seemed with some success, for as they reached the outskirts of Amsterdam, he looked at his watch and announced with quiet pride that he had knocked off three minutes of his previous record. Harriet, who was a tolerable driver herself, applauded his efforts, and acquitted herself so well in the ensuing conversation that he confided to Sieske afterwards that for a foreigner, her friend Harriet was a very sensible girl, as well as being pretty, if you happened to like small women. Sieske smiled at him fondly and said nothing. She was very fond of Harry, and she liked everyone else to like her too; they almost always did.
It was still quite early as they rounded the last corner into the Weesperzijde. There were already a great many cars parked along the side of the street, none of them Friso’s Harriet felt disappointment like a physical pain take possession of her. The faint hope that he had parked somewhere else and was in the flat waiting for them was quickly dispelled when they arrived at the top of the stairs and found Tante Tonia standing at her door. Quite a few minutes were wasted while she wanted to know if they had had a good day and had the weather been fine and what did they think of the Keukenhof this year. When, after what seemed like hours to Harriet, they went into the sitting-room it was to find it empty. She went a little pale, fending off a premonition that something, somewhere, had gone wrong. Her dismal thoughts were cut short by Tante Tonia asking her if she was tired. ‘For you look rather white. It is perhaps good that you do not return to Franeker this evening.’ She smiled at them both, a bearer of what she thought was good news. ‘Friso telephoned—he regrets that he cannot come for you. I am to tell you you will be fetched tomorrow morning, after breakfast.’
Harriet felt a little better. It was a bitter disappointment, but tomorrow morning wasn’t far off. He must have been called out on a case or got held up in some way. Being a doctor’s daughter, she was able to think of half a dozen causes which could upset the best laid plans. She cheered herself up with this reflection, and resolutely ignored a niggling doubt at the back of her mind that there was something…
It was half-way through the evening meal that she found herself wondering if he would telephone, and apparently Sieske had thought the same thing, for when Oom Jan suggested a walk and a cup of coffee, she asked if there was anyone to take a message if they were out.
‘But why should he telephone again?’ asked Oom Jan reasonably. ‘He has already said what he had to say, and tomorrow morning you will go home.’
There was no argument against his logic. They fetched their coats, and accompanied their host and hostess down the stairs and out on to the pavement, where they turned their faces towards the imposing pile of the Amstel Hotel. It was a pleasant evening, cool and windy, and the Amstel, still loaded with traffic, reflected the evening sky and gave a glow to its surroundings. They turned the corner and went over the bridge and past the hotel. Harriet had a good look at it as they went slowly past. It looked remote and welcoming at the same time; she thought that she would like to stay there and wondered if she ever would. They crossed the Amstel again and turned their steps towards the centre of the city, and Tante Tonia and Oom Jan argued equably as to which was the best place to have coffee. They settled for the Haven restaurant, which was thirteen floors up and afforded a fine view of the whole city, so that Harriet almost forgot how unhappy she was and spent a delightful hour picking out landmarks under the others’ guidance. They had drinks as well, and a great many sorts of tiny savoury biscuits to nibble. She had advocaat and enjoyed it very much.
Surprisingly, she slept all night, although her last troubled thoughts had been of Friso. He hadn’t telephoned while they had been out; there was no need to do so this morning. It was the first thing that she thought of when she awoke—that he would be coming in a few hours’ time. She lay in bed, impatient of the clock, and at last got up earlier than usual on the pretext of writing another batch of postcards; it was better than doing nothing. Sieske woke up after half an hour or so, stretched and yawned and lay watching her friend. ‘I shall miss you very much, Harry,’ she said at length. ‘Just because you are going back to England our friendship does not end, you understand?’
Harriet put down her cards—it was a dull job, anyway—and said with emphasis, ‘Of course not, Sieske. You’ll both be over to see us as soon as you can, won’t you?’
‘First you will be here, Harry, for you will be bridesmaid at my wedding.’
‘So I shall,’ said Harriet briskly. ‘And that’s only a month or two away. I must book my holidays.’
She paused. Hospital, that small world of its own, seemed unimportant. If—no, when she went back, it would absorb her ruthlessly and become her way of life again.
She jumped visibly when Sieske said idly, ‘I wonder why Friso didn’t come yesterday. It must have been something serious to keep him. He told me that he would come.’ She turned a vague gaze upon Harriet. ‘Did he not say so to you also?’
Harriet found her tongue. ‘Yes, he did. I—I wondered too.’
Sieske got slowly out of bed and wandered around the room in search for her stockings. ‘Well,’ she remarked cheerfully, ‘we’ll soon know, for he’ll be here after breakfast.’
The remark threw Harriet into a fever of activity. The cards were forgotten; she padded along to the bathroom on urgent feet, decided that her nails were in need of a manicure, and having put her hair up with extraordinary care pulled it all down again, declaring that she looked a complete fright. Throughout this exhibition of nerves on her part, Sieske had continued to dress herself without haste, making appropriate soothing noises at intervals, and contriving to get her down to the breakfast table not more than five minutes late. As they were leaving the bedroom she stopped in the doorway and looked back over a shoulder. ‘He feels exactly the same as you do, Harry. At least, I’m almost sure he does—I’ve known him a long time.’ She smiled into her friend’s suddenly pink face and led the way to the dining-room.
For once, Harriet’s splendid appetite had failed her, she sat at the table watching the minute hand crawl around the clock’s face, making a roll last
a very long time, and talking so much that no one noticed that she wasn’t eating; but how could she eat when she was so happy? They had finished at length and the two girls were standing at the window when a car drew up in front of the house. It was neither the AC 428 nor the Bentley, but Dr Van Minnen’s BMW.
‘It’s Father,’ exclaimed Sieske, and then, ‘And Maggina and Taeike.’ She sounded puzzled, but went at her usual unhurried pace from the room. Harriet stayed where she was by the window, fighting a childish desire to burst into tears of disappointment, and what was worse, a growing unease. She tried not to look too eagerly at the doctor as he came into the room, and fancied that he looked uneasily at her, although he sounded as cheerful as usual.
‘Good morning, Harry. You see we have all come to fetch you home. The girls are free today, and months ago I promised that I would take them to see the Dam Palace, and here we are. We shall drink coffee first, eh?’ He looked at his sister-in-law. ‘And then we will spend a little time at the Palace before we go back to Franeker. You will like that?’ He added carefully, ‘Friso regrets that he could not come.’
She ignored that and said, ‘The Palace? How lovely.’
Her voice sounded full of false enthusiasm in her own ears, but apparently no one else thought so, for the talk went on uninterrupted around her and lasted right through coffee and their good-byes and during the car ride to the Dam Square.
It was while they were inside the Palace that Harriet found herself standing with Taeike at one end of the windows. They were in one of the salons and had turned their backs upon the glories of its Empire furniture and yellow brocade, to gaze at the bustle of the city all around them. Harriet was struggling to carry on a conversation without much success, for Taeike was proving a difficult companion, and Harriet’s efforts were not perhaps as wholehearted as they might have been, for her mind was full of Friso. There was something wrong—very wrong; he could have telephoned or sent a note by Dr Van Minnen. He had done neither. They had parted the best of friends—more than friends, for there had been a promise of something more than friendship between them. She gave her head a weary little shake and asked a completely unnecessary question about the street organ in the square below. Her question wasn’t answered, instead, Taeike said, ‘Friso takes Vader’s surgery this morning.’
The niggling doubt in the back of Harriet’s mind resolved itself into something icily tangible, sending chilly fingers down her spine to make her shiver. She said merely, ‘Oh?’ and waited.
‘Yesterday I saw him.’ Taeike looked sideways at Harriet, who met the look with a credible smile.
‘Did you? I expect he was busy.’
‘No, he was at home, and not busy at all. I know why he did not wish to come yesterday.’ She hesitated, struggling with her English. ‘It is secret.’
‘Then we shouldn’t talk about it, should we?’ said Harriet crisply, longing to do just that. ‘Just look at all those pigeons!’
Taeike ignored this obvious red herring. ‘It is secret, yes,’ persisted the Dutch girl. ‘But I think not for you, for you go away tomorrow—and I think also that you do not tell secrets if you say that you will not.’ She eyed Harriet shrewdly. ‘And you will not tell, not even to Friso, that you know?’
The icy fingers had gone, leaving a hard cold lump in her chest. So there was something…the sooner she knew the better. ‘Very well,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Although I think you should have told Friso first; and I can’t understand why you should want to tell me.’
It had cost an effort to sound cheerful, but when Taeike reiterated, ‘You promise you will not tell—and that you will not say to Friso that you know?’ she answered readily, ‘I promise that I won’t say a word.’
She smiled at the pretty face beside her; after all, it was hard to keep a secret when you were little more than a child. She braced herself against bad news. Perhaps Friso had to go away—or could he be ill? She discarded the thought as ridiculous; Friso was so obviously never ill.
‘He is going to be married,’ said Taeike.
Harriet was looking at the street organ. She would, she knew, remember every detail of it until the day she died. It was playing ‘The Blue Danube’; the strains of music came faintly upwards through the closed windows—a tune she had always liked. It seemed a very long time before she heard her voice say, ‘Is he? But why is that a secret? Most—most people marry.’
She steeled herself to look at Taeike as she spoke, and was puzzled at the expression on her face. It could have been pity, mixed with a kind of speculation. Harriet turned her head again and looked out of the window again, without seeing anything at all of what was going on outside.
‘You like Friso.’ It was a statement, not a question.
Harriet closed her eyes and became aware that the pounding in her ears was the pounding of her heart. She didn’t want to believe a word of what Taeike had said, but at least she would have to hear her out. She said evenly, ‘Yes, I do. You do too, don’t you, Taeike?’
The girl beside her lifted her head proudly. ‘I have known Friso since I am little—always we are friends; therefore you understand why he tells me. He says to me, I do not see Harriet again—she is too nice; too—too deftig.’ Taeike used a word which Harriet recognized as meaning dignified and respectable and decorous. ‘You are not, he says, a flirt, but a good friend. He wished to tell you of his marriage, but he knows that you like him…’ She stopped, and then said softly, ‘I’m sorry, Harry.’
Harriet went on looking out of the window at nothing at all. She knew now how people felt when they died of shame, because it was happening to her too. She clutched her handbag very tightly because she wanted something to hold on to. She had to think clearly, but it had become difficult to think at all. There was a question she had to ask, too.
‘Taeike, Friso could have told me this himself.’
The pretty little face was sympathetic. ‘Yes, that is so. But perhaps he thinks that as you go away for ever tomorrow, it is nicer—kinder for you like this.’ She frowned. ‘He has only to say that he is too busy…you see?’
It made sense in a horrid sort of way. Harriet swallowed the unpalatable truth. Her dream had shattered around her, and really she only had herself to blame; what had been a couple of weeks’ friendship for Friso she herself had glorified into something much more serious—and he had been the one to see it. But why had he said the things he had? She tried to think about it and concluded that it wasn’t until after he had said them that he had realized that she wasn’t just having fun with a holiday flirtation. She couldn’t bear to think about it any more; it was a relief to see the rest of their party advancing towards them, for she realized that further conversation, such as it was, was quite beyond her.
CHAPTER TEN
THE REST OF the day was unending. Harriet had the sensation of listening to her voice and watching her own actions as if they were those of a stranger, but apparently her behaviour was entirely normal, for no one made any comment; she supposed that she was saying and doing the right things. Fortunately there had been a great deal to talk about in the car on the way back to Franeker and she had joined in the chatter with a feverish animation that she hoped would drown her other feelings. This hadn’t been the case, of course, but at least it had prevented her thinking any more about the conversation in the Palace. They got back for a late lunch, rendered even later by the number of questions and answers which Mevrouw Van Minnen asked and received. Harriet went to her room afterwards on the pretext of packing, something that she could easily do in a few minutes, but she wanted to think. Just half an hour by herself and she might be able to sort out the situation, for to accept it without a struggle seemed to her to be very poor-spirited. She put her case on the bed and began half-heartedly to empty a drawer, but she had barely had time to open it before there was a knock on the door and Aede’s voice asking if he might come in. She called to him in a falsely cheerful voice and summoned up a welcoming smile as he opened the door.
‘No. Urgent family business,’ he laughed. ‘Father told me about your adventure at Bal’s cottage. What an experience to have on holiday! Did you mind very much?’
‘Mind? Oh, no. I was frightened, but there was so much to do.’
He crossed the room and stood looking down into the street. ‘I heard all about Moses too. Friso told me; he thought it most amusing.’ He seemed to notice the case for the first time. ‘What are you doing?’
Harriet picked up a handful of tights. ‘Packing.’
‘Now? It’ll only take a few minutes surely, and you can do it this evening or even tomorrow morning. I’ve got the car and I don’t have to be back until six o’clock or thereabouts. Let’s go for a run and you can bid a temporary good-bye to Friesland. You’re coming over for Sieske’s wedding, aren’t you?’
‘Of course.’ As she said it, she wondered how she would be able to avoid returning. She would hate to miss her friend’s wedding, but she didn’t want to see Friso…Yes, she did want to see him; but not with another girl. She smiled at Aede, which encouraged him to say with some awkwardness, ‘I’m thinking of getting engaged myself—a girl I met in medical school; so you’ll have my wedding to come to too. Not yet, of course—in a year maybe. Now, are you coming out?’
Harriet tied a scarf over her hair and picked up a cardigan.
‘Yes, I’d love to, and you must tell me all about your girl.’
They went downstairs and found Sieske in the hall, and stood talking for a minute or so, Harriet wasn’t paying much attention to what was being said, nor did she see the understanding look the brother and sister exchanged.
Aede didn’t ask her where she wanted to go but went straight out of the town towards Leeuwarden, and rather to her surprise, right through it and on to the Groningen road. It was a broad motorway, but the country on either side was delightful, green and placid. Just looking at it had the effect of calming Harriet so that presently she found herself listening with real interest to Aede’s plans for the future.
