The Moon for Lavinia

by Betty Neels

  They were to go to Friesland for a shore holiday in August; the professor had a yacht which he kept at Sneek and they would go sailing for a good deal of the time, as well as touring Friesland. Lavinia, collecting a suitable wardrobe with the help of Sibby, who knew all about life on board a boat, hoped thai she would quickly pick up all the salient points about sailing. She had mentioned, rather diffidently, that she didn't know one end of a boat from the other, but Radmer had only laughed and told her that she would soon learn.

  They set off one Saturday, in a brilliant morning which promised to become hot later in the day, and drove straight to the to the Bavinck estate, where Juffrouw Hengsma was waiting for them, and this time Lavinia was able to address her in Dutch, which pleased her mightily and made Radmer laugh.

  `You are making progress, Lavinia,' he observed. `Now you must learn the Friesian language, because Juffrouw Hengsma prefers to speak that.' He had spoken to her in Dutch too, to her secret delight, and she answered him haltingly in that tongue, feeling that sharing his language was a small link between them.

  They had coffee together before they went to their rooms to unpack and then meet again to wander round the house and grounds. Radmer ran a small stable and naturally enough they spent a good deal of time there, and when he offered to teach Peta to ride, she flung her arms round his neck. `You really are a darling!' she declared. `I do hope there'll be someone like you for me when I grow up.'

  He laughed gently at her and tweaked her ear. `I'll make a point of finding just the right one,' he assured her. 'Sibby has already told me whom she intends marrying, so I'll only have you to worry about.'

  He flung an arm round Sibby's shoulders. 'Sibby has made a very wise choice, too,' he added, and she grinned widely.

  `I don't mind Lavinia and Peta knowing," she told him, and tucked an arm into Lavinia's. `He's a student at St Jorus, but I've known him for years, ever since I was a baby. Peta, who do you want to marry?'

  `I've just said-someone like Radmer, and we'll have dozens of babies and they'll grow up very clever and be doctors...' She looked at Lavinia. `Are you going to have some babies, Lavinia?'

  Lavinia felt her cheeks redden, although she said airily enough: `There's certainly heaps of room for them, isn't there? And wouldn't this be a gorgeous place for their holidays? Did you like coming here when you were a little girl, Sibby?'

  She only half listened to Sibby's reply. She was dreaming, just for a few delightful moments, of a carload of little boys, blue-eyed and flaxen-haired like their father, and a sprinkling of little girls, much prettier than their mother, tumbling around, laughing and shouting. She blinked the dream away and asked Radmer when he intended to go sailing.

  The marvellous weather held. They spent long, lazy days swimming in the pool in one corner of the grounds, playing tennis on the court behind the house, or just sitting and doing nothing. Lavinia felt herself unwinding slowly so that she was able to think of the future, if not through rose-coloured spectacles, at least with a degree of optimism.

  `I shall get fat,' she worried out loud as they lounged on the terrace after breakfast. `I don't do anything...'

  Radmer looked up from his newspaper and allowed his gaze to sweep over her. `Never fat-curvaceous is the word, I believe. It suits you-besides, you're hardly idle; you swim and play tennis, and now you're not frightened any more on Juno, we shall have you galloping in all directions before we go back to Amsterdam.' He stood up slowly. `I've some

  telephoning to do, then we'll drive over to Sneek and take a look at the yacht.'

  She watched him go, her heart in her eyes, and in turn she was watched by Peta and Sibby. When he had rounded the corner of the house Sibby spoke: `You are happy, aren't you, Lavinia?' She sounded anxious, so that Lavinia said at once and warmly: `Oh, my dear-yes. Why do you ask?'

  It was Peta who joined in. `We've noticed-you never kiss each other or-or hold hands, do you? Oh, I know Radmer pecks your cheek twice a day-I don't mean thatI mean...' she hesitated. `Well, we expected you'd be... You act like good friends.'

  `We are good friends, my dears,' said Lavinia steadily. `There are lots of ways of loving people, you know, and perhaps you forget that your papa-Radmer-is a busy man. He comes home tired. Besides, his work is more important to him than anything else.' She looked across at Sibendina and smiled. `That doesn't mean you, Sibby.'

  And because the girls looked so unhappy still, she went on gaily: `How about getting ready?' She looked down at her nicely tanned person. `Ought I to wear slacks?'

  They decided that she should and they all went upstairs, laughing together, so that Lavinia was quite reassured that Sibby's little outburst had been quite forgotten.

  She was the last down, and she hadn't known that they would all be waiting for her in the hall. She had put on the pale blue denim slacks and an Indian cotton shirt which matched them exactly, and her hair she had brushed back, plaited into a waist-long rope and tied with a blue ribbon. She looked, she had considered, exactly right for a day's sailing.

  It was therefore a little disconcerting to hear Sibby's cry of: `Oh, smashing, Lavinia, and very sexy too-isn't she, Peta?"

  'Oh, rather,' echoed Peta. `Hey, Radmer, what do you think... ?'

  But Lavinia interrupted her, studying herself worriedly. `But I thought it was exactly right...'

  Radmer had been bending over the straps of the picnic basket, but he had straightened up to watch Lavinia come down the stairs. His blue eyes, very bright under their heavy lids, met hers.

  `It's exactly right,' he told her, and his placid voice set her doubts at rest at once, so that, quite happy again, she skipped down the last stair or two, declaring that she must just have a word with Juffrouw Hengsma before they went. She was pleased that Radmer found her appearance quite normal, although a small, sneaking wish that he could have found her sexy too persisted at the back of her mind. She dispelled it sternly; of course he wouldn't, and come to think of it, she wasn't.

  She felt that she had further proof of this when they got into the car, for Radmer suggested in the nicest possible way that Sibby might like to sit in front with him, which meant that Lavinia shared the back seat with Peta and the dogs. She listened to Sibby's happy chatter, and told herself it was foolish of her to feel hurt; Sibby had as much right to sit beside Radmer as she had-besides, it had seemed to her just lately that he had become somehow remote, retreating behind a friendly front which while pleasant enough, kept her at arms' length. Was he regretting their marriage already, and if he were, what had she done or not done to make him feel that way?

  She made up her mind to discover what it was. Perhaps she had been spending too much? There had been clothes, more than she needed, she thought guiltily, and although Radmer invariably complimented her when she appeared in something new, he might be annoyed at her extravagance, and then there had been clothes for the girls, the new furniture for the conservatory, the flowers she delighted in buying, her lessons, Peta's lessons... He had told her not to worry about money, but she had no idea how much of it he had. She had better ask him at the first opportunity and have a sensible talk at the same time before the constraint between them had built itself up into an insurmountable barrier.

  Having come to this decision, she sensibly decided to forget about it for the time being, and applied herself to the pleasant task of answering the girls' excited babble. An opportunity would present itself sooner or later, she felt sure.

  Sooner, as it turned out. They had boarded the Mimi at Sneek, and Lavinia had been quite overcome by the size and comfort of her. Sibby had taken her and Peta on a tour of inspection while Radmer got the yacht ready to sail, and she had admired the cabins and the galley and all the mod cons which she had never expected to find. It was all simply lovely. She went back on deck and told him so, a little breathless with the excitement of it all, that the Mimi was the most marvellous boat she had ever thought to see, and he had thanked her gravely. `And later on,' he had added, `when we've had lun
ch, the girls can sunbathe and I'll give you your first lesson in sailing her.'

  They had set sail then, using the Mimi's engine to travel down the canal which took them to Sneekemeer, and once there, they had bowled along before a stiff breeze until the girls clamoured for their lunch, when they tied up to a small, broken-down jetty on the further bank of the lake and eaten their sandwiches and fruit. The younger members of the party had packed up afterwards while Lavinia was shown how to sail the yacht out into the lake again. She managed rather well; almost stammering with pleased surprise at herself, she cried: `I did it-isn't it a marvellous feeling? May I carry on for a while?' She looked around her; there were plenty of other boats about, but none very near. `I shan't bump into anything, shall I?'

  Radmer was lounging beside her, apparently content to let her take the yacht where she wished. `Not at the moment. Set a course for that clump of trees at the end of the lake; there's a canal close by which leads to a charming stretch of water.'

  Peta and Sibby had stretched themselves out in the bows, lying on their stomachs, half asleep. There was only the gentle splash of water around them and the faint sounds from the shore mingling in with the bird cries. Very peaceful, thought Lavinia, and closed her eyes to enjoy it all better. But only for a second; she felt Radmer's hand clamp down on hers and his voice, half laughing, said: `Hey, you can't sail a boat with your eyes shut!' His blue eyes surveyed hers. `Would you like to sunbathe too?'

  She was very conscious of his hand, still holding hers fast. 'No-no, I'd like to talk, if you don't mind.'

  He was lighting his pipe, but he paused to look at her. `Of course we can talk, dear girl. What about?'

  She met his gaze bravely. `You and meus. It's a little awkward and I daresay I'll get a bit muddled, only if we don't talk about it now it'll only get worse.' She paused, but he said nothing, looking at her now with the faintest of smiles. `You see, we were friends, weren't we? I mean before we married, and afterwards too, and I thought it was going to be all right-we both knew what it was going to be like, didn't we? Only it's not turning out ...I thought we were getting on rather well; I tried to keep out of your way as much as I could-I still do, for you did tell me that your work was more important to you than anything else and I-I can understand that, and I can understand you not wanting to talk about your wife-you must have loved her very much, even if ... so it's natural for you to...' She came to a stop, finding it much harder to explain than she had imagined it would be. `I told you it would be muddled,' she said crabbily.

  He had taken his hand away. Now he put it back again in an absent-minded manner, but he said nothing, so that after a moment she felt forced to go on. `I wondered if I'd been spending too much money...' and stopped at his laugh.

  'Lavinia, did I not tell you not to worry about money? You could buy a dozen dresses at a time if you had a mind to do so. I think you have been very careful in your spending-and there is not the least need of that.'

  She looked ahead of her. `Are you very rich?' she asked.

  `Very. You see, I have money of my own I inherited it from my grandparents-a great deal of money, Lavinia, and besides that, I make a good living at my work.'

  `Oh, well, it isn't that, is it?' She smiled at him with relief. `That's one thing settled. So it must be your wife...'

  He gave her a long searching look from under his heavy lids. `Are you not my wife, my dear?'

  She frowned at him. `Yes, of course I am, but you know very well what I mean.' She rushed on, anxious to say what she intended as quickly as possible. `You see, now we're married, perhaps you feel that I'm trying ... that is, I do want you to understand that I'll never come between you and her.' Her voice became rather high and very earnest. `I wouldn't want to anyway.'

  `Shall we be quite blunt?' His voice was bland. `What you are trying to say, in carefully muffled-up ladylike phrases, is that you have no wish to-er-form a deeper relationship with me and that any fears I had on that score may be safely put at rest and we can be friends again. Is that not the gist of the matter? Well, Lavinia,' he spoke with deliberation, `let me set your mind at rest; you could never come between me and Helga.'

  Lavinia heard these words with a sinking heart. She had said what she had wanted to say, true enough, but his answer, which should have satisfied her, had only served to make her wish to burst into tears. But she did know where she stood now-any faint hopes she might have been cherishing that he might fall in love with her could be killed off once and for all. She let out a long sigh, quite unconscious of doing so, and slamming a mental lid down on the conversation exclaimed: `Oh, look, we're almost at the end of the lake. Shall I hand over to you now?'

  She was looking away from him as she spoke, studying the scenery with eyes which really saw none of it, so that she failed to see the expression on her companion's face.

  Peta came to take her place soon afterwards and she went and lay down close to Sibendina, letting the sun warm her, although she felt that the coldness inside her would never go away again.

  They had another few days of sailing before they returned to Amsterdam, and although Radmer treated her with an easy-going friendliness and consideration, Lavinia couldn't help but notice that he avoided being alone with her, so although she was sorry to leave the lovely old house and the simple pleasures of their holiday, she was relieved to be involved once more in the routine of their Amsterdam home. Sibendina was still on holiday, and although Peta went each day to Juffrouw de Waal, she was free for a good deal of the day. The three of them went out a good deal together, exploring the city, and in the evenings Radmer, putting aside his work for the time being, took them to the Concertgebouw, the Stadsschouwburg for the opera, and on a tour of the city's canals after dark. He was an excellent escort, she discovered, for he knew the city well and took pains to tell her as much about it as possible. They went to den Haag too, to dine out and visit the Koninklijke Schouwburg. The season was over, but although the ballet was finished, there were plays-in Dutch, which Radmer pointed out were very good for Lavinia and Peta.

  They went to Delft, to watch the military tattoo. Lavinia had never been out so much in her life before, nor, for that matter, had she been able to indulge her taste in clothes to such an extent. She should have been very happy, and she tried hard to present a bright face to the world while she saw Radmer becoming increasingly remote-if only he wasn't so nice, she thought desperately, if only there was a good reason to have a quarrel-it might clear the air. But he remained kind, good-natured, and despite his preoccupation with his work, careful that she should want for nothing. All the same, they were almost never alone, and on the two occasions when the two girls had gone to bed, leaving them sitting together in the drawing-room,

  Radmer had excused himself within a very few minutes on the grounds of work to be done, and after that second time Lavinia had taken care to follow the girls upstairs, to sit lonely in her room with her unhappy thoughts.

  It was a morning shortly after this, as she faced him across the breakfast table before the girls got down, that he said casually: `I've ordered a Mini for you, Lavinia. I thought you might like a car of your own-you've proved yourself a good driver, so I don't need to worry on that score, but I'm afraid you will have to wait several weeks for it to be delivered.'

  She had picked up the coffee pot, but now she set it down again. `For me?' she asked. `A car for me? How very kind of you, Radmer-thank you very much-how absolutely super! I'll have to get a licence, won't I?' She smiled with delight. 'I'll be able to visit your mother...'

  He was buttering toast and didn't look at her. `You get on well with her?'

  `Oh, yes, we're already the best of friends. She calls here quite often, you know-when she comes to Amsterdam to shop. She's going to take me to Bergen-op-Zoom one day soon, to visit your sister.'

  He frowned. `Something I should have done already.'

  She had picked up the coffee pot once more. `Why should you? You're at St Jorus all day and almost every day,' s
he answered quietly. She smiled at him as she spoke and was astonished at the expression on his faceRage? Exasperation? She wondered which; she had always supposed him to be an eventempered man, but now suddenly she wasn't sure. The look had gone so quickly, though, that she was left wondering if she had imagined it, and his face was as bland as his voice. `That is so, my dear-you don't object?'

  She buttered a roll. `You said once that I was a sensible girl and that my feet were planted firmly on the ground. They still are, Radmer'

  Their eyes met and he made an impatient gesture. `Did I really say that?' he wanted to know, and added inexplicably: `But in another world.'