by Betty Neels
An odd remark which she would have challenged if the girls hadn't come in at that moment.
It was Sibendina who remarked, after they had exchanged good mornings: `You look awfully pleased with yourself, Lavinia. Has Papa given you a diamond coronet?"
'Oh, much nicer than that,' said Lavinia, stifling an ungrateful wish that his gift had indeed been some extravagant trifle to adorn her commonplace person. `A car-a Mini.'
The two of them chorused their pleasure and Sibby wanted to know when she would have one too.
`When you're eighteen, liefje,' her father declared firmly. `And Peta too, of course.'
This statement was met with cries of delight and a sudden surging of the pair of them from their places at table, to hug him. He bore their onslaught with fortitude, looking at Lavinia over their heads with a faintly mocking smile which caused her to pinken deeply; the difference between the girls' rapturous thanks and her own staid gratitude was only too well marked. Should she have leapt to her feet and rushed round the table and hugged him too? She wondered what he would have done if she had. She busied herself with the coffee cups and didn't look at him again, not until she raised startled eyes to his, when, Peta and Sibby once more settled in their chairs, he remarked: `I've ordered another car too, though we shall have to wait a long time for it. It's the new Rolls-Royce-the Camargue.'
The girls burst into excited chatter, but he took no notice of them, looking down the table at Lavinia, her mouth a little open with surprise. `You'll like that, Lavinia?"
'Like it?' she managed. 'It'll be out of this world! But won't it be too big?'
`Not a bit of it just right for holidays with the four of us-besides, I take up a lot of room. You'll look nice sitting in a Rolls, my dear.' He got up from the table. `I shall be late home this evening; I have to go to Utrecht to give a lecture. I'll leave there about six o'clock, I expect, and get here half an hour later.' He kissed Sibby good-bye and then Peta, and last of all Lavinia, a brief peck on her cheek. `Unless, of course,' he added smoothly, `I meet any old friends who want me to spend the evening with them.'
`Old friends?' Sibby giggled. `Lady friends, Papa?"
'That's telling,' he grinned at her, and a moment later the front door closed behind him.
Lavinia had a busy day before her; her usual lesson with Juffrouw de Waal, some shopping to do for Sibby, who was going back to school the next day, and some books to buy for Peta's lessons. Besides, her mother-in-law was coming to have coffee with her and in the afternoon she had promised to go to the hospital to Zuster Smid's tea party, given in honour of Neeltje's birthday. She bustled around, seeing the girls off for a walk with the dogs, arranging lunch with Mevrouw Pette and arranging the flowers she had bought from the nice old man who came past the door each week with his barrow. She was running downstairs after tidying herself at the conclusion of these housewifely exertions, when Mevrouw ter Bavinck was admitted, and the two ladies went at once to the sitting-room, gossiping happily about nothing in particular, pleased to be in each other's company.
It was after they had been seated for ten minutes or so and the first cups of coffee had been drunk that Mevrouw ter B avinck inquired: `Well, Lavinia, how do you like being married to Radmer?'
Lavinia cast her companion a startled glance, wondering why on earth she should ask such a question. `Very much,' she said at length.
`And has he told you about Helga?"
'No-I don't think he intends to.'
Her companion blinked at her. `No? And do you not wish to know?"
'Very much, but I wouldn't dream of asking him.'
The older woman put her cup and saucer down on the table beside her. 'Radmer has led a solitary life for a good many years now, and it is all a long time ago-all the same, I find it strange that he hasn't explained...'
Lavinia stirred uncomfortably. `Perhaps he can't bear to talk about her-he must have loved her very much.' She didn't look up. `Oh, I know-at least I heard at the hospital that she was-was rather frivolous...'
She was cut short abruptly. `Loved her?' questioned her mother-in-law. `My dear child, after the first few months he had no feeling for her at all. She was quite unfitted to be his-any man's wife, but because she was expecting Sibby by then, he looked after her and to the outside world at least, they were happily married. Perhaps Radmer thought that when the baby was born, they might be able to patch things up again, but it was actually worse. She had not wanted Sibby in the first place, and once she was born she was left to a nurse and Helga went back to her own way of living, and although Radmer no longer loved her, he had Sibby to consider. When Helga was killed-and I will leave him to tell you about the accident-he told me that he would never allow himself to love a woman again, and at the time he meant it. Then you came along, my dear, and everything was changed.'
She beamed at Lavinia, who smiled back with an effort. As far as she could see, nothing was changed. Radmer lived in a world of his own making, content with it, too, not needing her or her love, only a sensible young woman who would mother his daughter and order his household. She said now: `That is very sad. What does Sibby think of it?T
'It was explained to her that her mother died in an accident when she was visiting a friend, and as she cannot remember her at all, it has never mattered to her very much. She loves her father very much, you will have seen that for yourself, and he has done his best to be father and mother to her, although I believe that you will make her an excellent mother, Lavinia-she loves you already, you know. The dear child goes back to school tomorrow, does she not?'
They talked of other things after that, and presently the elder lady went off to do her shopping and Lavinia was left to do her own small chores while she mulled over what her mother-in-law had told her. She would have to get used to the idea of Radmer not loving Helga, although that fact made it clearer than ever why he had chosen to marry herself. He must have felt quite safe in marrying her, knowing that he had not a spark of love for her. The idea of falling in love with her must have been so remote to him that it would have been laughable.
She did her shopping in a sour state of mind and for the first time found Sibby's and Peta's chatter at lunch almost more than she could bear, but they went off arm-in-arm to play tennis at last, and Lavinia was able to indulge her desire to be alone and think. It was only a pity that after a few fruitless minutes she discovered that her rather woolly thoughts were of no value to her at all, and she had no idea as to how she could charm Radmer into loving her. She gave up and took the dogs out.
Six o'clock came and went and there was no sign of Radmer, an hour later the three of them sat down to dinner, and Lavinia did her best to check the girls' uneasiness. She was uneasy herself, but perhaps not for the same reasons as they; she remembered only too clearly what he had said about spending the evening with old friends, and he hadn't really denied it when Sibby had teased him about going out with a lady friend. Perhaps he had already arranged to meet her. He talked cheerfully to her two companions while her imagination ran riot, providing her with an image of some strikingly beautiful girl, superbly dressed and loaded with charm-the type men fell for...
The evening passed emptily and at nine o'clock the girls, at her suggestion, went to bed.
`I'll stay up,' she told them bracingly.
`Probably your papa has met old friends after all, Sibby.'
`Then why didn't he telephone?' demanded his daughter.
`Oh, darling, probably there wasn't a telephone handy.' It was a silly remark; Radmer, if he had wanted to telephone, would have found the means of doing so. But it contented Sibby, who gave her an affectionate kiss and went off to bed with Peta.
The bracket clock had chimed eleven o'clock in its small silvery voice when Lavinia went down to the kitchen. Bep had already gone to bed, Mevrouw Pette was sitting at the table, knitting. He looked up as Lavinia went in and said: `The professor is late, Mevrouw.'
Lavinia answered in her careful, slow Dutch. `Yes, I'll stay up, M
evrouw Pette, you go to bed. Perhaps you would leave some coffee ready?' She said good night and went back upstairs into the quiet room, where she sat down on one of the enormous sofas, a dog on either side of her. The house was still now, and the square outside was silent. She sat doing nothing, not thinking, watching the hands of the clock creep round its face. It was almost two o'clock when she fell asleep, still sitting bolt upright, the dogs' heads on her lap.
She wakened from an uneasy nap to hear the gentle click of the front door lock. Radmer was home. Lavinia's eyes flew to the clock's face; its delicately wrought hands stood at twenty minutes to three in the morning. She had been sitting there for simply hours. Rage and relief and love churned together inside her as she got off the sofa and erupted into one vast surge of feelings which manifested themselves in a cross, wifely voice. `Where have you been?' she demanded in a loud whisper as she sped across the hall, quite forgetting that she had been weeping and that her face was puffy and stained with tears.
Radmer had given her a penetrating look as she spoke, not missing the tears or the sharp anxious voice on her white, tired face. If she had been nearer to him and the light had been brighter, she might have seen the sudden gleam in his eyes, very much at variance with his calm face.
He said now, as meekly as any husband would: `I got held up, dear girl.'
Lavinia was so angry that she didn't wmi for him to continue. `You've been spending the evening with your old friends, I suppose ."she declared in a waspish whisper, `not that I can blame you; you married me because I'm sensible, not because I was good company. . . " She drew a deep breath and went on, anxioous only to have her say, and not bothering aboui the consequences. `Was she good fun, ()i shouldn't I ask that?' She paused, gave a snort of sheer temper and went on: 'I'm being vuIgar, aren't I? and I'm quite enjoying it! Just to say what I...' She stopped, choked a little and went on in a quite different voice: `I beg your pardon, Radmer, you look very tired, though I don't suppose that matters to youi I hope you enjoyed yourself.' She wanted to giggle and cry at the same time, and it cost her quite an effort to say quietly: `There's coffee in the kitchen, shall I fetch you some?'
He shook his head. `No, thank you. Go to bed, Lavinia.' He spoke quietly and she knew that he was angry. She turned on her heel without another word and went upstairs to her room.
CHAPTER NINE
LAVINIA WAS LATE for breakfast, for after tossing and turning until the sky was light, she had fallen into a heavy sleep and wakened only when she had heard Sibby and Peta laughing and talking their way downstairs.
Radmer was reading his newspaper when she entered the dining-room, but he got up, wishing her good morning as he did so, pulled the bell-rope for more coffee, and sat himself down again. The girls greeted her with rather more animation, and then seeing her swollen eyelids and peaky face, demanded to know if she was feeling well. `Not that I am surprised that you look as you do,' explained Sibby, `for you must have been greatly upset when Papa came home and told you about the accident.'
`Accident? What accident?' Lavinia looked at them in turn, their faces expressing nothing but concern and astonishment. Radmer, invisible behind his paper, had apparently not been listening.
`But, Lavinia, you must have seen Papa when he came home ... ?"
'I dozed off in the drawing-room, I hadn't gone to bed. Radmer?'
The newspaper was lowered and his blue eyes, very calm, met hers. His bland: `Yes, my dear?' was all that a wife could have wished for, but she almost snapped at him: `You didn't tell me what happened? Were you hurt?'
`You were tired, Lavinia.' He smiled kindly. `You shouldn't have stayed up for me, my dear.'
She wished irritably that he would stop calling her his dear when she wasn't anything of the sort. 'Yes-well, now I'd like to know.'
Before he could reply, Sibendina and Peta chorused together: `There was a pile-up on the Utrecht motorway-it was on the news this morning, we heard it while we were dressing-and Papa stopped to help.'
`What a pair of gossips you are,' Radmer interpolated mildly. `Suppose you go and get ready to go to school?'
They went, grumbling a little. Lavinia heard them going upstairs to their rooms, and when she could no longer hear their voices, she asked crossly: `And why didn't you tell me? You let me say all those things about about ... you could have stopped me...'
`And then you wouldn't have said them,' he pointed out reasonably, `only thought them to yourself. At least you have been honest.'
`I wasn't-I'm not.' Her voice, despite her best efforts to remain calm, had become a good deal higher. `Anyone would suppose that you had done it deliberately so that I should say all the...' She stopped, because he wasn't looking at her, but over her shoulder, towards the door, and when she turned her head to look, there were the two girls, standing silently, watching them. She wondered if they had been there long.
But Radmer was smiling at them and he spoke easily, just as though they had been enjoying a pleasant conversation. `I'll give you a lift,' he told them, `and drop you off at the end of the street; Peta can walk round to Juffrouw de Waal from there.'
He wished Lavinia a cheerful `Tot ziens' and a few minutes later she heard the three of them leave the house, the two girls chattering happily. Probably, she told herself uneasily, they hadn't heard anything-Radmer would have seen them the moment they reached the door.
He came home at teatime-a great pity, for Lavinia, with the whole day in which to indulge in self-pity, was spoiling for a quarrel, but as he brought the girls with him, there was nothing she could do but turn a cool cheek to his equally cool kiss, inquire as to his day, and then join in the schoolgirl high spirits of Peta and Sibendina, both of whom had a great deal to say for themselves. They looked at her curiously once or twice, for in her efforts to be bright and gay, she only succeeded in talking much too much and laughing a great deal too often.
Nobody mentioned the traffic pile-up of the previous evening. Lavinia, who had struggled with little success to read about it in the newspapers, had actually started out to enlist Juffrouw de Waal's help in the matter, but on the point of doing so, she remembered that this was one of the days when Peta would be there with the teacher until teatime. And what would the pair of them think if she were to burst in, demanding to know about something which any husband, in normal circumstances, would have told his wife the moment he opened his own front door?
Presently the girls went away to do their homework together in the small sitting-room on the first floor, and as Radmer got up in his turn and started for the door, she said humbly: `I did try to read the papers, and I was going to get Juffrouw de Waal to help me, but Peta was there-and your parents were away from home. There is no one else I can ask about last night, so please will you... ? 1'm sorry about last night.'
He came back at once and sat down opposite her. `One is apt to forget that your Dutch is fragmental,' he observed in a faintly amused voice. `There was a multiple crash ,a tanker jack-knifed and caught a car as it was passing on the fast lane. The cars behind couldn't stop in time-there were thirty or so cars damaged, I believe.'
She asked impatiently: `But you? What about you?'
He gave her a quick, hooded glance. `There was a fair amount of first aid to be done,' he observed mildly.
`Couldn't you have telephoned?'
He smiled faintly at some private joke. `No. There was a great deal to do.' And before she could speak again, he was on his way to the door again. `And now I really must get those notes written up.'
Lavinia dressed defiantly and rather grandly for dinner that evening. Mijnheer de Wit and his wife were coming, and another surgeon whom she had met briefly at their wedding, and she had taken the precaution of inviting Sibby's student friend as well as a young cousin of Radmer's, still in his first year at Leiden medical school.
She was downstairs long before anyone else, wandering restlessly from room to room in her pink-patterned organza dress, the pearls clasped round her throat, her hair carefully c
oiled. She was giving the dining table a quite unnecessary inspection when Radmer looked in.
`Very nice,' he commented, and she wondered if he was referring to the table, the beautiful room, or her own person. She played safe. `White linen always looks perfect,' she assured him earnestly, `and I thought the pink roses would be just right with the silver and glass.'
He left the door and strolled across the room to where she was standing. He was in a dinner jacket and looked somehow taller and broader than ever. A few inches from her he stopped, half smiling. `I must admit,' he said suavely, `that considering your low-your very low opinion of me as a husband, you have excelled yourself in the management of our home, and since I am now quite beyond the pale, I might, if I may mix my metaphors, as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.'
She felt herself held fast and pulled close by one great arm, while his other hand lifted her chin. He kissed her fiercely, and when she opened her mouth to speak, he kissed her again, but this time gently, still holding her tightly.
