by Betty Neels
His words reminded her. ‘You wanted to talk to me,’ she said again. ‘Was it about them?’
He smiled down at her and flung an arm around her shoulders. ‘What a girl you are!’ he commented, although he didn’t say what kind of a girl. ‘Yes, it was. Could you persuade Knotty to have breakfast in bed, do you think? He’s getting on, and although he’s as strong as a horse for his age, he’s going to be too active. And Bill?’
Tabitha thought. ‘Well, I think I can persuade them both. That’ll give me time to get their chairs ready before they come down; if they see them there they’re less likely to want to do something else.’
‘Perceptive girl!’ His voice sounded amused. ‘That’s my idea too.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s almost time for breakfast and I told Anneke not to take up their morning tea until eight, which gives you plenty of time to work on them.’
Which she did, to such good effect that it was midmorning by the time the two well-rested gentlemen, amenable as to any suggestion made as to their comfort, were helped across the street to where their chairs had been arranged within hailing distance of the yacht. On board, Tabitha and Muriel, under Marius’s casual direction, made ready for their first trip, a delightful task which took the rest of the morning with an interval for iced lemonade which an obliging waiter from the Struyskelder, just across the street, brought them. He stood a little while talking to Marius, and Mr Bow tried out some of his Dutch on him and was elated to find that it wasn’t so rusty after all.
That afternoon they went for a short sail, just to get their hand in, as Marius put it, and Tabitha was surprised and amused to see of what little consequence a leg in plaster could be when its wearer was enjoying himself. They took their tea with them and she and Muriel boiled the kettle in the galley and took the tea tray up on deck. They didn’t turn back until the sun was beginning to drop in the still blue sky, and as they neared the harbour Tabitha thought there had never been anything as beautiful as the little town, its gabled roofs and fairytale spire silhouetted against the early evening light. As they passed the walls of the Campveerse Toren, she looked up and saw that the restaurant was candlelit ready for its diners. Marius caught her glance and said mildly:
‘Romantic, isn’t it? Couples come from all over Holland to be married here and have their reception at the hotel for that very reason.’
A remark which Tabitha found difficult to answer except with a polite: ‘Oh, really?’
The next three days passed with the speed of complete happiness. They sailed and talked, picnicked and swam and just lay in the sun, and in the evenings they ate Hans’s beautifully cooked dinners and talked again. It was amazing what a lot they all had to say to each other, and although Tabitha wasn’t much alone with Marius she knew that their friendship had deepened even in those few days. She comforted herself with the thought that he liked her as a friend and tried to be thankful as Meg had told her she should.
CHAPTER SIX
THE MORNING had begun for Tabitha with no inkling of the shattering blow she was to be dealt later in the day. True, it was raining, but that hadn’t mattered in the least, for once the invalids were attended to and helped downstairs, they were left to plan the following day’s outing, and Marius was free to fulfil his promise to show Muriel and Tabitha over his home. They had explored it thoroughly and lightheartedly, peeping into his own rather austere room and then into the room below Tabitha’s—a very splendid room indeed with a walnut four-poster bed hung with muted pinks and blues and a carpet as deep and soft as moss under their feet. It had a vast fitted wardrobe along one wall and several very comfortable chairs. The dressing table, between the windows, was inlaid with Dutch marquetry and held a silver-framed winged mirror; Tabitha could imagine how delightful it would be to sit before it, brushing her hair with a silver-backed brush to match the mirror… There was a very modern bathroom too, hidden behind another door so that its streamlined perfection did nothing to detract from the old-world charm of the bedroom. Across the landing was the one-time nursery, small and cosy and as Marius laughingly explained, quite inadequate. ‘This was used by my youngest sister, she was born several years after us—we had your room, Muriel.’
‘Which you plan to use, Marius?’ Muriel had asked the question which Tabitha had longed to put herself; she waited for his answer, wondering if he had minded.
‘That question’s a little previous, isn’t it?’ He was laughing and not in the least annoyed. ‘But yes, since I should hope for a large family I suppose the room you are in now would be converted into a nursery again. Come up and see the attic,’ he went on easily, ‘we used it as a playroom and later on as a bolthole if we wanted to get away from each other.’
He took them on a leisurely tour of the rest of the house and then rejoined the others, still bent over their maps and charts, and by the time they had had their coffee the weather was clearing a little and the two girls decided to make a more detailed inspection of the few shops in the little town. It was on their return, laughing and very pleased with themselves and their purchases from the boutique on the quay, that they walked into the sitting room and found the men sitting where they had left them, only now Lilith, her golden beauty highlighted by a simple white shift dress, was sitting on the arm of Marius’s chair.
Tabitha, who never felt sick, felt sick now. She stood in the doorway staring at her stepsister and listening to the sound of her pathetic little castles in the air tumbling about her ears. She said from a mouth gone dry: ‘Hullo, Lilith—what a surprise.’
‘Hullo,’ said Lilith airily, and got up as Marius rose to introduce her to Mrs Raynard. ‘It was such heavenly weather and I said to Mummy, do let’s go and see Marius—I knew he’d love it, because he must be finding it a bit dull—I mean you, Mrs Raynard, have your husband and Mr Bow has Tabby to look after him, but there’s no one to keep Marius company.’
She gave him an angel’s smile and he smiled back with lazy good nature and went to pour the drinks. Tabitha, covertly studying his face as he did so, could detect no annoyance in it; indeed, Lilith seemed to be amusing him, just as she was amusing everyone else, excepting Tabitha, who sat quietly, feeling all her newfound confidence and happiness draining away, just as though Lilith were sucking her dry.
‘May I stay to lunch?’ Lilith smiled enchantingly at Marius and made play with her long eyelashes, causing Tabitha to seethe with hopeless rage; it hardly helped when Marius said laughingly: ‘No, you may not. Your mother will be expecting you and it’s hardly fair to leave her alone—besides, we’re going out. But don’t worry, you’re only a stone’s throw away. I daresay we shall see a great deal more of you.’
Lilith pouted and got to her feet. ‘You old bear! At least walk me to the hotel.’ Which he did with a show of willingness which turned Tabitha’s rage into icy misery. They passed her with a smile; Marius’s was absentminded, Lilith’s openly triumphant.
The conversation at lunch, naturally enough, was largely of Lilith’s visit, although Marius said nothing which could be construed into a romantic interest in her, at the same time agreeing readily enough that she was a beautiful girl with most engaging ways. Tabitha, a little pale, joined in the talk with a kind of desperate cheerfulness and even steeled herself to tell the company just how popular her stepsister was. ‘She’s clever too,’ she went on, determined to turn the knife in the wound while she was about it. ‘She has three A levels and she could easily have gone on to university.’
‘Why didn’t she?’ Muriel’s voice was dry.
‘I—I think my stepmother wanted her at home,’ said Tabitha a little wildly. ‘She’s such good company.’ She looked up and found Marius’s eyes upon her; he looked slightly mocking and whatever it was she had intended saying flew out of her head so that there was a little silence, covered by Muriel saying: ‘It’s unusual these days to find a girl who doesn’t want a job of some sort.’
As if she had given him a cue, her husband said: ‘Perhaps she wants to get marri
ed.’
Mrs Raynard gave him a wifely look. ‘Darling, you must be joking—she’s eighteen, and if I might venture to say so without being offensive, not the domesticated kind.’
Mr Bow, who had been sitting silent, not missing a word, now made a pronouncement of his own. ‘It seems to me that this young woman is absorbing far too much of our interest. No one has mentioned our trip tomorrow; Bill and I have worked out a magnificent day for us all and nobody has even asked…’ He sounded aggrieved, and Marius said at once:
‘Forgive us, Knotty. Bring out your maps and tell us all about it.’ Which the old gentleman did, with a good deal of interruption from Bill Raynard. Finally, when they had both had their say, Marius remarked cheerfully: ‘It sounds great—let’s get away early. I’ll tell Hans to get the food packed—he’d better come with us, and Smith, of course. Now, who’s for a run to Middelburg?’
The afternoon was spent pleasantly enough, driving slowly round the old city and then parking the car. And after assisting Mr Bow and Mr Raynard on to chairs outside De Nederlands Koffiehuis, going to get a closer view of the St Nicholas Abbey, the magnificent Town Hall and the museum attached to it, and Tabitha, during their sight-seeing tour, couldn’t but notice that although he was his usual placid self and very attentive to their wishes, Marius was undoubtedly, behind the façade of his calm good looks, very busy with his own thoughts.
She half expected that Lilith and her stepmother, or at least Lilith, would pay them another visit that evening, but when she thought about it she was forced to concede that her stepmother was far too clever for that. She went to bed uneasily wondering what exactly Lilith planned to do, for it was inconceivable that she had come to a place as alien to her tastes as Veere unless she had some very good reason. Tabitha, unable to sleep, got out of bed and went and sat by the open window. The reason, of course, would be Marius, and the knowledge of this was hardly conducive to sleep; she fetched her dressing gown and a pillow from the bed and sat staring out at the quiet night sky, trying to guess what would happen.
Nothing happened—at least, not in the morning. They were on board and casting off soon after eight o’clock, calling good mornings to other boat owners doing the same thing, exchanging opinions on wind and weather in the cheerful early morning bustle echoed by the early risers going about their business around the little harbour. They glided past the hotel, the diesel chugging softly to itself, and Tabitha couldn’t refrain from a quick peep at the windows, half expecting to see Lilith looking out of one of them.
‘Not up yet,’ observed Marius, seeing her glance. ‘People who lie in bed don’t know what they’re missing.’
He smiled at her, his eyes half shut in their web of laughter lines. ‘Let’s have some sail—there’s a good breeze and we can cut the engine.’
They were all kept busy according to their various capabilities, and Tabitha, doing as she was bid, forgot her worries in the splendour of the morning and the delight of being on the smooth blue water. It promised to be hot; by the time they had reached their objective—one of the islands which dotted the lake, it would be just right for a swim. She went below to help Muriel with the coffee, feeling almost happy. At least here, in the middle of the Veerse Meer, there was no chance of meeting Lilith.
The island was everything it should have been. The invalids were helped ashore by Marius and Hans while Tabitha and Muriel set out the picnic. They had almost finished when Marius asked: ‘What about a swim first?’ The owners of the plastered legs refused for obvious reasons, Hans said he would swim later, Muriel, without hesitation, said that she couldn’t possibly until she had recovered from her crewing.
‘Come on, Tabby,’ Marius’s voice was off-hand. ‘It’s safe enough.’
She cast him an indignant look, caught up her beach bag and disappeared behind the trees behind them. She put on the bikini; after all, she had to start wearing it some time and it was very hot. When she emerged Mr Bow looked her over. ‘If I were younger,’ he said, ‘I should whistle; as it is I will content myself by saying that you look extremely eye-catching, my dear Tabitha.’
‘I shall whistle,’ declared Bill Raynard, and did while Muriel laughed and called out to her that she looked simply super, and Hans, not to be outdone, murmured in his turn: ‘Most super, Miss Tabitha.’
But Marius said nothing. He was standing by the water’s edge, waiting for her, and when she was close enough he said:
‘Come on, Tabby,’ and started to wade purposefully out to deep water. She followed him, smiling for the benefit of the rest of the party while she suppressed a childish desire to cry with disappointment. Everyone had noticed, and even if they had exaggerated a little, she knew that she really looked quite nice. Perhaps he just hadn’t noticed, but she scotched this idea at once as being silly; he had a normal man’s eye for such things and he was surely no monk.
She began to swim away from the shore without bothering to see where he was, and presently changed to a crawl, cleaving her way through the water as though it were so much glass to be splintered into fragments by her arms. When she was tired she rolled over on to her back and found him beside her, moving through the water without effort. ‘Well, that’s one way of getting rid of your temper,’ he observed.
She tossed her hair out of her eyes. ‘Temper?’ she spluttered. ‘Why should I be in a temper?’ She turned over again and began to swim lazily towards the shore and he turned with her.
‘I can think of several reasons, dear girl.’ He grinned at her. ‘I’ll race you.’
He allowed her to win by an inch or so and then walked beside her up the beach. By then the sun was so warm that they were almost dry by the time they reached the little group waiting patiently round the spread cloth.
They swam again later in the afternoon, this time with Muriel and Hans and Smith barking at them from shallow water where he occasionally made a sortie to paddle alongside anyone who came near enough. They ate a vast tea after that, and then because the wind was right, set sail for Veere. They were edging their way in amongst the other boats when Tabitha saw Lilith and her stepmother watching them from the hotel wall. They waved gaily and Marius waved back, his gesture followed more slowly by the Raynards. Mr Bow had his eyes closed, although Tabitha could have sworn that they had been open a few seconds earlier. She herself was too busy preparing to make fast to do more than smile vaguely in their direction; she doubted if they noticed anyway.
In a kind of hopeless defiance, Tabitha put on the ivory silk dress she had worn to the wedding, that evening. She had become very brown during the last few days and the contrast between the dress and her tanned skin was very effective. She put on some small old-fashioned coral earrings she had had from her mother, and a coral bracelet. She had found time to wash her hair too and had piled it with all the skill she could muster into the coils and rolls she had first tried out at Lilith’s party. She looked passable, she thought, studying herself in the big mirror in her bedroom before she went downstairs with the dull certainty deep inside her that Lilith and her stepmother would call during the evening.
They came after dinner, just as everyone had settled down to an uproarious game of Canasta, which had, perforce, to be abandoned. Tabitha, who had been feeling nervous all the evening, felt the familiar thrill of apprehension and dislike as her stepmother came into the room. Mrs Crawley was still a pretty woman and a charming one when she chose to be. Now she smiled and talked her way gracefully through the introductions before she sought out Tabitha.
‘Well, Tabitha, I must say you don’t look much like the hired help.’ She gave her a thinly veiled look of contempt. ‘My dear girl, you look more like a gypsy! Your skin’s ruined—too much sea air, I suppose, and what on earth possessed you to do your hair in that ridiculous fashion? It looks as though this holiday, or whatever you choose to call it, has gone to your head. It’s a good thing I shall be here for a week or so to advise you.’
Tabitha listened to this speech without comment while sh
e digested the awful news that Lilith and her stepmother would be in Veere for the next week—a whole week out of the twelve days left of her holiday! When she didn’t reply, Mrs Crawley said impatiently: ‘Well, have you lost your tongue? Though God knows when you do talk you never have anything to say that’s worth listening to.’
‘In that case,’ said Tabitha quickly, ‘do come and talk to Mr Bow. He’s a most interesting man and a lifelong friend of Marius’s.’
She went away after that to the other end of the room, and sat down by Bill Raynard, who said in a grumbling voice:
‘Oh, hullo—it’s you come to plague the life out of me,’ but he pulled her down on to the sofa, giving her hand a comforting squeeze as he did so, and contrived to keep her with him for the rest of the evening. They were deep in a discussion on gardens when Marius crossed the room, pulled up a chair and sat down beside them.
‘There’s a plan afoot,’ he began pleasantly, ‘that we should join forces with young van Steen—remember we met him the other day?—he’s staying at the hotel too and has his yacht here and proposes to take Mrs Crawley and Lilith for a trip tomorrow. Lilith thinks it would be a splendid idea if we take the Piet Hein out too and meet up for a picnic. What do you think of it?’
What Tabitha thought she kept to herself; clearly it would best be left unsaid, but Bill Raynard replied with a heartiness which didn’t ring quite true: ‘My dear chap, do what you like—it sounds splendid, and after all you’re the boss, none of us would dream of opposing your wishes.’
Marius gave him a measured look from suddenly bright eyes. ‘Yes?’ he looked at Tabitha. ‘And what about you, Tabby?’
She had expurged her wicked thoughts; she even felt a little ashamed of them. ‘It sounds wonderful.’ Her enthusiasm sounded just like Mr Raynard’s heartiness, but Marius must have felt satisfied, for he got up. ‘Good, then we’ll go ahead with our planning.’
