by Betty Neels
He turned at her question. "Good lord, didn't I tell you? I'm unpardonably forgetful. Yes, she goes to morning school, that's why I thought you might like to have your Dutch lessons then-while she's there. I drop her off on the way to the surgery."
He nodded in a friendly fashion and went away, and when next she saw him he was sitting at the breakfast table, going through his post and answering Ria's insistent piping voice with great patience. Olympia wished the little girl good morning and tried not to see the lowering look she was accorded while she poured coffee for herself and buttered a roll. There was little need for her to talk, though. Ria kept up a ceaseless chatter, and the doctor, while maintaining a casual conversation between the perusal of his letters, didn't seem to expect her to answer at great length. He got up to go presently, taking Ria with him, and she was left to herself and feeling a little lost. There were surely things she should be doing about the house-make the. beds for instance? or clear the table, and was she supposed to go to the kitchen and see Emma? She decided to do that.
Joanna was washing up at the sink and Emma was writing in a small book at the kitchen table. She got up as Olympia went in, smiling and pulling forward a chair and then pointing to the book. A shopping list presumably, but who was to do the shopping? Olympia was pondering the best way of finding this out when the front door bell rang and Joanna went to answer it. It was barely nine o'clock and Olympia hadn't expected to have visitors quite so early in the morning, but she was really glad to see Elisabeth follow Joanna into the kitchen.
"I beg your pardon for coming into your kitchen as though it were my own," Elisabeth cast her an apologetic glance, "but I have done it many times before, you understand? I forget. I thought that you might want help."
"Oh, I do," said Olympia with relief. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you; I don't know what I'm supposed to do." She waved a small capable hand round her rather vaguely.
The other girl laughed gently. "How bad of Waldo to tell you nothing," she exclaimed in her soft gentle voice. "is that not like a man" and you do not speak our language. You do not mind if I talk with Emma?"
"Go ahead." Olympia felt relieved but somehow lonely as she listened to their meaningless conversation. It was better when Elisabeth said at last: 'Emma says that you do not need to do anything in the house, unless you wish to do so, she and Joanna have always done everything between them. She says it would be nice if you saw to the flowers, and that you will be busy with your lessons each morning and there is Ria to fetch home from school each morning at noon. And presently there will be visitors and friends who will call. She will be most glad to go around the house with you and show you the cupboards and drawers, and if you like to go to the shops with her, she will be happy to teach you what to buy and how much it costs."
Olympia heaved a sigh of pleasure. "Oh, that's nice-I shall like that, to know a little about things. Will you tell Emma I'd love to go with her. I'll get my teacher to explain the money to Ine today; that will be a start."
Elisabeth nodded. "That's right, and before long you will know enough Dutch to be able to order the meals and so on. There are foods which Waldo does not like, and those which he likes very much, and I will tell you of those-and Ria too, she is perhaps a little awkward sometimes, but I am sure that very soon she will like you very much and that will be nice for all of you."
Olympia frowned. "She doesn't like me at all at the moment; I'm sorry about it, but I quite understand that I'm a stranger to her, and she has no reason to like me, has she? I'm quite prepared to wait until she is used to me."
Elisabeth tucked a friendly arm into hers. "You will do very well, Olympia, and remember that I am always glad to help you. Waldo is a busy man, and besides that, he has left everything in Emma's hands for such a long timeeven when Estelle was alive she had no interest in the house, you see-if there were parties or entertaining, I saw to them for her."
Olympia was momentarily diverted; she hadn't imagined Waldo's wife like that at all; he must have loved her very much not to have minded such an arrangement; perhaps she had been so beautiful that he hadn't cared, perhaps all that mattered to him was to come home to some cherished, fragile creature who was his whole world. She realized that her imagination was running riot and that it hurt.
She cheered up later, though, for her teacher, Mijnheer Blom, was a youngish man full of confidence in his ability to teach her the rudiments of his language in the quickest possible time, and some of this confidence he transmitted to her, so that by the end of her first lesson she had mastered a handful of useful words, counted to ten, learned the money, and could say a tolerable good morning, good evening and how do you do. What was more, he promised her that within a week she would have enough words at her command to make herself understood in her own kitchen, and when she inquired, rather apprehensively, about the grammar, he urged her warmly to forget that for the moment. As he got up to go, he said hearteningly, "Tomorrow we will walk round this house and I will tell you the Dutch word for everything which we see in it; we shall do that every day until you are able to tell me, and not I you-in that way you will learn very quickly."
Olympia was left with her homework and an overpowering desire to learn all she could in the quickest way possible, and when it was time to fetch Ria from school she boldly refused Joanna's company, and armed with a street map with the school marked with a cross upon it, set off by herself. It was a pleasant day, though cool, and she found her surroundings delightful. She had discovered that the peaceful little place in which they lived was called Balans and led into a fairly busy street. She turned into it and walked, along slowly, picking out the names of the side streets as she went. The school was down a narrow cul-de-sac and the children were already coming out. She saw Ria almost immediately with a bunch of little boys and girls of her own age, and waited quietly until the child saw her, but if she had hoped for an improvement in Ria's manner towards her, she was disappointed. The child scowled, bade her small companions good-bye and came slowly towards her.
Olympia took a reluctant little hand. "Hullo," she said cheerfully, and then in her very experimental Dutch: "Wij gaan naar huffs," which at least had the effect of making Ria giggle at her funny accent and burst into childish speech which Olympia was quite unable to understand.
Ria fell silent presently, and so, perforce, did Olympia, so that the short journey back home was hardly a happy one. They didn't talk over their lunch either, although Olympia tried pointing to the things around them and saying the English, in the hope that Ria would copy her-but Ria was either not interested or unfriendly, she wasn't sure which. And their afternoon walk together was just as silent; they went through the Abbey grounds and out through the other gate into the town and looked at a few shops, then walked home again the same way.
Not a very successful day, thought Olympia as she tidied herself for tea after attending to the little girl's small needs. It was a relief when the doctor came home in the evening, very soon after tea, to find the pair of them sitting by the fire, Ria engrossed in the dolls' house and Olympia thumbing through her dictionary. No doubt they presented a pleasing picture to him, thought Olympia, her heart racing at the sight of him-if only he knew what a miserable day they had spent! But here common sense came to her aid; nothing was to be gained by self-pity; it was early days yet, there was no reason why Ria and she shouldn't become firm friends in due course. For that matter there was no reason why Waldo, aided no doubt by some miracle, shouldn't discover himself in love with her. She smiled wryly at her thoughts and asked him in a nice friendly voice what sort of a day he had had.
But she was forced to admit to herself later that for the moment he showed no signs of falling in love. They had spent a pleasant evening; an hour or so with Ria before she had put the little girl to bed, and then another quiet hour before dinner, talking in a matter-of-fact way about the day's happenings just like an old married couple, she thought wistfully. And after dinner he had excused himself on the grounds of
work to be done, and gone to his study. She had tapped on the door on her way to bed at half past ten and he had wished her a good night with the casual warmth of an old friend. She went upstairs unhappily, despite the strong reminder to herself that his behaviour was exactly what she had expected; it was exactly as it had been before they married-good friends, he had said, only she had been foolish enough to spoil it all by falling in love with him.
CHAPTER FIVE
A WEEK went by at the end of which Olympia had, just as the redoubtable Mijnheer Blom had assured her, acquired a fair number of useful words in the Dutch language, a handful of convenient phrases, and a good slice of his buoyant self-confidence. She had also acquired an even deeper love for Waldo, who was proving himself to be kind, placidly good-humoured and generous to a fault. She had been taken aback at the size of the allowance he had given her, but over and above that, when they had gone out with Ria one afternoon, he had bought her several expensive trifles she had admired, and would have gone on doing this if she hadn't realized in time that she had only to say that she liked something for him to immediately purchase it for her. And when she had pointed out that she already had a generous allowance from him and he had no need to buy her anything, he had replied that after years of being alone but for Ria, it was a pleasure to have a wife for whom he might buy pretty things. This remark had increased her self-confidence still further; she found a good hairdresser and arranged to visit hire weekly, and took even greater pains with her face, while at the back of her mind a resolve was forming that she would make him love her. She wasn't at all sure how to set about this, for she had had little experience with men-Aunt Maria had seen to that-but looking at her reflection in the great gilt-framed mirror on the landing she took courage from it; pretty clothes, a good hairdresser and the knowledge that she had begun to master the Dutch language and all its intricacies had all contributed towards turning her into a quite different girl from the one she had been-the one Waldo had, rather surprisingly, chosen to marry. What could he have seen in her? she wondered; she must have looked pretty awful-she remembered the tweed suit and shuddered.
And as the days went by, she began to take her place in the household, although she had felt nervous enough when he had mentioned one evening that he had accepted an invitation to dinner from one of his partners. "Wim Cassells," he told her. "You'll like him and his wife Netta." He glanced at her with a kindly smile. "They have been longing to meet you, but they thought you would need a little time to get used to everything first. Paul Bos, my other partner, will be there too. He's the youngest of us and has only been married a couple of years. His wife is about your age, I should imagine he's Emmeline, but everyone calls her Emmy." He had got up and strolled over to pour their drinks. "Do you want a new dress for the occasion?"
She was quite shocked. "I've several dresses I've not yet worn at all. Shall I have to dress up, do you suppose?"
His lips twitched, but he answered her gravely. "No, something pretty-like that green thing you had on the other evening."
Olympia couldn't stop herself smiling; she hadn't thought that he had noticed what she wore. "It's cashmere," she told him. "I'll wear it."
They had started a little late for their dinner party, though, because Ria had chosen to be difficult. In the ten days or so in which Olympia had lived in the house, she had begun, very gingerly, to change the little girl's routine. It had been easy enough to take over from Emma in the mornings, helping with shoelaces and difficult buttons and brushing hair, and the walk home from school each morning had become a settled matter over which the little girl no longer pouted. Indeed, Olympia hoped that she was even beginning to enjoy it a little, for now they could talk just a little. The afternoon walk had been harder to establish, but with the gentle bribe of two hours in which to play with the dolls' house when they got back home, that too had been dealt with. But bedtime was another matter; Ria disliked going to bed at a reasonable hour. Even the offer of eating her supper in the little sitting-room while the doctor and Olympia sat there too, talking over the day in a pleasant fashion, wasn't enough to persuade her. And when Olympia had mentioned it to Waldo, unfortunately at a time when he was frowning over some hospital reports, he had dismissed her uneasiness lightly and with faint impatience.
"My dear girl," he had said, "I warned you that Ria was difficult and rather out of hand. I'm sure you are doing very well with her, and do remember that Elisabeth has been giving in to her far too much and I, I'm ashamed to admit, have always been too busy. Now you mention it, she has been staying up far too late in the evening. I leave it to you to improve matters."
She had wanted to answer him back, for it seemed to her a little unfair that she should be the scapegoat for someone else's indulgence. Elisabeth was a dear, but so gentle and kind, and probably it had never entered her head to refuse Ria anything. And that particular evening Ria had been particularly trying. There had been floods of tears and faces pulled, small heels drummed on the carpeted floor and torrents of Dutch which Olympia was thankful she couldn't understand. Waldo had come home in the middle of it all and had come upstairs to the bathroom to see what all the noise was about. Olympia, soaked from Ria's angry splashings in the bath, looked up to find him standing in the doorway, and although he wasn't smiling, she was aware that he was amused. She gave him an austere frown, whisked the little girl out of the bath, wrapped her in a towel and said cheerfully, "Here's Papa."
It was the signal for a fresh outburst of tears. Olympia, always a practical girl, pulled forward a stool, waved an invitation to the doctor to sit on it, hoisted her cross burden on to his knee and said forthrightly: "The poppet is full of grievances-will you dry her and let her unburden herself? I'll be back in a minute with her nightie, then if you would carry her down to the sitting-room-she likes that, you know-I'll have her supper ready by the fire. Can you spare the time to stay with her? She's had enough of me for the moment."
His large, well-kept hands were already busy with the towel. "That sounds like a good idea. Yes, of course I can spare the time, though I was hoping to spend it with you, but never mind that now. Perhaps we shall have time for a talk after we get back this evening."
Her whole being glowed with the knowledge that he wanted her company. "Do you want a drink?" she asked.
He turned his head to look at her and smiled slowly. "What a thoughtful wife-yes, dear girl, I do. I'll have it downstairs while this imp is having her supper."
The delay had been worth it too. Ria poured out her small woes, was dried, put into her nightie and dressing gown, reproved gently and borne downstairs on the doctor's shoulder, to eat her supper in his company. By the time Olympia returned to take her to bed she had recovered a good deal of her spirits, and beyond some half-hearted grumbling as she was tucked up for the night, appeared to welcome the truce between them, however uneasy. Olympia had had to hurry after that in order to be ready for the dinner party, but she managed it with a minute or two to spare, and no one seeing her coming slowly down the stairs would have guessed that her serene appearance covered a variety of worries and damped-down unhappiness which was somehow all part and parcel of her love for the doctor.
After that bad beginning, though, the evening had been a success, and what was more, she had enjoyed herself enormously. For one thing, everyone spoke English, which made her feel instantly at home, and Waldo was everything she could have wished, charming and courteous and attentive, and yet she had to admit to herself, she could detect nothing more than his usual friendliness towards her-hardly the attitude of a newly married man, but more as though they had been a comfortably married couple of some years' standing. But there was no use in letting that worry her, indeed she would have to make up her mind to nothing more than that for the rest of their lives together, unless by some miracle she should succeed in making him fall in love with her. Her mouth curved at the thought and she glanced up to find his gaze fixed on her-an admiring gaze; even she, inexperienced though she was, could see that.
She looked away, bursting with her small triumph, wondering why the admiration had been tinged with surprise.
They returned rather late, for they had sat around talking after dinner and it was eleven o'clock before they left Wim's home on the other side of Middelburg. Olympia went into the quiet house while Waldo put the car away, and wandered into the sitting-room where a lamp had been left burning. He joined her there in a few minutes and asked her at once if she was tired.
"No, not at all," she assured him. "What a very pleasant evening."
"You enjoyed it? I'm glad." He was standing just inside the door, watching her. "I hoped you would; we see a good deal of each other, Wim and Paul and I, and that means that our wives meet frequently, too."
"That will be nice," said Olympia in a rather small voice. "I've never had many friends-I shall like it very much."
He sauntered towards her. "You're not lonely, Olympia? You're happy here?"
"No, I'm not lonely and I'm very happy," she told him steadily.
He was close now, close enough to put his hands on her shoulders. "I have a day free on Saturday, so I thought we might go out, the three of us-I have a friend, Gijs van Amstel, who has a practice in Zierikzee-that's a little town near here. He married an English girl a year or so ago, a charming creature-they're expecting their first baby very soon. They want us for lunch, would you like that?"
She smiled widely. "Oh, very much, Waldo, and so will Ria. Do we go by car?"
He nodded. "Half an hour. There is something else I promised you-a puppy. I've arranged to collect him on Sunday, after church."
Her eyes were on his, and the kindness in them made her blink back sudden tears; it was somehow ironic that this man whom she loved so very much should be the one to make her life so pleasant; all the things she had longed for and dreamed of he had given her with the casual kindness of a big brother.
