An Unlikely Romance

by Betty Neels

  She answered him eagerly, glad to change the conversation. ‘Yes. I think it’s just as you like it to be...’ She went into rather too much detail about the plans and he listened with every appearance of interest while he watched her face. Why, he wondered, had he not seen how gentle her mouth was, how sweetly she smiled, what pretty hands she had? His smile was faint and derogatory; he was behaving like a lovesick youth.

  He sat in the drawing-room with her after dinner, keeping up a steady flow of small talk about his family and their arrival the next day.

  ‘I’ll have go to Leiden in the morning, but I’ll be back in good time for lunch. Mother and Father will be here and possibly Luisje and Alco. The rest of them should be here by teatime.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it. I hope everything will go exactly right...’

  ‘I can’t imagine why it shouldn’t.’

  She went up to bed presently, excited and a little apprehensive about a house full of guests, and she stayed awake for a long while, wondering what had made Krijn look so strange when he had come home. He had said that he was tired but even after only a few weeks of marriage she knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t a man to tire easily. A hard day’s work and getting caught in bad weather was something he would toss off without a thought. Why had he been so wet anyway? He had been in the car, hadn’t he? His coat had been soaking; a thick jacket, heavily lined, which would take an hour’s downpour to reduce it to such a terrible state...there was something wrong.

  He was his usual calm self when he got back the next morning. His parents had already arrived and so had Luisje and Alco as well as Pibbe and Bruno and the twins. Lunch was a lively meal, and shortly afterwards Soeske and Reka joined them with their husbands and children. The house came alive with the children running to and fro and the grown-ups catching up on all the family news. Trixie found herself drawn into their circle, being questioned about their Christmas in London, listening to snippets of gossip. She discovered that she was enjoying herself despite the fact that Krijn and she had very little opportunity to be together. The children took a great deal of his attention and the men tended to gather together and talk, and when he did speak to her she sensed his coldness despite his pleasant manner. There were so many people there, she consoled herself, it would go unnoticed. Only it didn’t; her mother-in-law’s eyes had seen through her son’s bland manner towards his wife, and she wondered about it.

  After tea everyone dispersed to dress for the evening. Trixie had decided to wear the green velvet—it seemed to her to be the most suitable for her role of hostess—and she put on the necklace and the earrings too and they were remarked upon when they all gathered once more, this time without the children, before dinner. ‘Krijn gave you them, of course,’ observed her mother-in-law, and Trixie touched the necklace with a gentle finger.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it lovely—the earrings too.’

  She had gone to great pains over the dinner and the dining table, the silverware and crystal sparkled on the damask cloth and the centre-piece of holly and Christmas roses and blue hyacinths had taken her a long time to do, and the food, chosen with such care with Wolke, was very delicious: cold watercress soup, roast goose, champagne sorbets, and a magnificent trifle. Over the cheese and biscuits everyone praised the meal and Soeske said, ‘Krijn, you have a wonderful little wife...’

  ‘Yes, I know...’ He raised his glass to Trixie, sitting at the other end of the table, and someone cried ‘speech’ but he shook his head. ‘The guests we have coming will be arriving at any moment now—we had better go into the drawing-room.’

  Krijn had a great number of friends and family and they all came. The rooms filled with laughing, chattering groups, drinking champagne and nibbling the canapés Trixie and Wolke had agreed upon, and presently someone turned on a cassette and everyone took to the floor. Trixie, circling the drawing-room with Krijn, saw Andre first. He had just arrived and was talking to Luisje while his eyes roamed the room and fastened on Trixie, who looked away quickly with a brief smile.

  ‘This is a lovely way to see the New Year in,’ she observed to Krijn a little too brightly, and he, who had seen Andre at the same time as she had and noted the smile, agreed in a silky voice which she found disturbing.

  After that dance she gaily changed from partner to partner, contriving to keep away from Andre. Not for long, however; she couldn’t avoid him all evening.

  ‘I want to talk to you,’ he said softly. ‘Can we not escape somewhere quiet?’

  ‘Certainly not, and anyway I don’t want to.’ She added crisply, ‘I wish you would find yourself a girl, Andre. Do you like making mischief?’

  He gave a little crow of laughter. ‘Ah—has my sleepy-eyed cousin woken up at last? It will do him good to discover that life isn’t always exactly as he intends it to be.’

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ said Trixie in a stony voice, ‘and if we were anywhere else I would slap your face for that. Krijn is a wonderful man and the finest husband in the world.’

  ‘I do believe you’re in love with him.’ Andre sounded uncertain.

  ‘Of course I am; why else would I marry him? And now you must excuse me—I want to speak to my mother-in-law.’

  She slipped away to join that lady sitting in a quiet corner and sat down beside her. Mevrouw van der Brink-Schaaksma saw her eyes sparkling with rage and the colour in her cheeks and looked round for her son. He was dancing with an elderly cousin who lived at the other end of the country and rarely met the family. He was listening with every appearance of interest to what she was telling him, but behind his placid face his mother knew that he was holding down a rage as strong as Trixie’s. She said cheerfully, ‘I saw you dancing with Andre. He’s family so of course he gets invited to all the family gatherings, but he isn’t like the rest of us; he adores making mischief—it’s high time he settled down. I do hope that he will meet some strong-minded woman who will change his ways for him.’

  ‘You won’t mind if I say that I don’t like him? He’s amusing but he’s unkind too...’

  Her mother-in-law patted her knee. ‘I don’t like him either,’ she said comfortably. ‘How nice you look, dear, you have excellent taste. Krijn is proud of you.’

  Trixie said softly, ‘I’m proud of him too.’ She smiled at her companion. ‘I’d better just make sure Rabo has everything ready—it’s almost midnight.’

  Someone switched off the music and turned on the radio while the champagne was carried round and Rabo, Wolke and the two maids with glasses in their hands took their places by the door as the first stroke of the New Year sounded. Trixie, standing with Krijn, drank her champagne and said shyly, ‘Happy New Year, Krijn.’

  ‘Happy New Year to you, Beatrice.’ He caught her close and kissed her hard. She had closed her own eyes and when she opened them she saw that his were hard and cold like steel. How is it possible, she thought in bewilderment, to kiss that way and look like that at the same time? She had no chance to think any more about it; everyone was moving round the room, greeting everyone else, and when she came face to face with Andre she turned her face so that his kiss hardly brushed her cheek.

  It was two o’clock before the last guest had gone and the family had wished each other a sleepy goodnight and gone to their beds. Trixie lay awake for a long time, listening to the comforting creaks and rustles of the old house as it settled into the quiet of the night while she tried to think sensibly about Krijn and herself. He was angry; she knew him well enough to know that, but she didn’t think he was angry with her—and besides he had kissed her in a most satisfactory manner. Dwelling upon the delightful memory she fell asleep.

  It seemed, in the light of early morning, the sensible thing to do was to have a talk to Krijn. Everyone would be leaving some time during the day but perhaps in the evening...

  She hardly saw him to speak to during that day; she wa
s fully occupied with her duties as hostess, and when at last they had waved away the final carload Krijn observed that he had a good deal of telephone calls to make and would be in his study until dinner. So Trixie took a long time changing into her prettiest dress, did her face and hair, taking pains over them both, wound the gold chain round her neck and went to the drawing-room where she arranged herself under the pink-shaded lamp and took up her needlework, aware that she looked rather nice in its dim light and anxious to make a good impression when Krijn joined her. ‘I am no beauty,’ she confided to Percy, sitting curled up at her feet, ‘but I am fast learning to make the most of what I have.’

  She mulled over what she was going to say and since she had to make up Krijn’s answers she was fairly satisfied with the result. It was a pity that when he did come he said almost at once, ‘I should really go to the hospital after dinner—you don’t mind?’

  The neat arrangement of questions and answers she had rehearsed so carefully was shattered. She said with unwonted tartness, ‘Yes, I do mind. You’re only going so that you don’t have to spend the evening here with me.’ She glared at him so fiercely that he smiled, which spurred her on to utter a hotchpotch of muddled thoughts, which, while not making sense, allowed him to see that she was in a splendid rage. ‘And I want to know,’ she finished, ‘why you are so angry about something. What have I done?’

  His calm was infuriating. ‘You have done nothing; indeed I am not angry with you, Beatrice. Angry at myself, yes, and circumstances... I should not have married you, you know—I did it for my own convenience, you understood that, did you not? But I failed to take into account that you are so much younger than I. It is only natural that you should find in Andre all the things lacking in me.’

  ‘Are you saying that you wouldn’t mind...that is, if...’ She faltered, horrified at what she was going to say.

  The professor had strolled to the window and was standing with his back to her, looking out into the dark garden. ‘I would like you to be happy, Beatrice.’

  ‘You would let me go?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Oh, yes, if you wished—I should miss you, but I have my work.’ It seemed to her that he sounded both impatient and a little bored.

  ‘Your work’s very important to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Now, having cleared the air, shall we have a drink before dinner?’

  She sipped her sherry. For her the air wasn’t clear at all; she was in a fog of misunderstanding and she wasn’t sure what to do next. He was a kind man, often lost in thought, absorbed in his work, frequently oblivious to what was going on around him but now he had got this idea in his head about Andre and it seemed to her that he didn’t mind. Perhaps he wished that he had never married her? In which case, she would only make things worse by telling him that she loved him, something she very much wanted to do. But she held her tongue.

  They dined in a civilised manner, talking trivialities while she reflected that if only she could see beyond that bland face sitting opposite to her, and shout and rave and have a good cry, they might be able to understand each other.

  Indeed, she was on the point of that when Rabo came in to say that Mijnheer ter Vange was on the phone and would Mevrouw care to drive up to Alkmaar on the following afternoon? He had business there and she might enjoy the run.

  ‘I shall be delighted,’ said Trixie without stopping to think. If Krijn wanted to get rid of her, she would do all she could to assist him. She peeped at him over the floral arrangement in the centre of the table but there was nothing to see in his face. ‘I shall enjoy it,’ she added defiantly and rather too loudly, hoping that he might say something—anything. However, he didn’t.

  She went to bed early and cried herself to sleep. Of course she wouldn’t spend the afternoon with Andre—any man with sense would have guessed that, but Krijn, engrossed in his horrible glands, had forgotten about women and falling in love and being misunderstood. She woke several times during the night and snivelled in a miserable way so that when she got down to breakfast she looked just about as plain as a girl could look. Not that he’ll notice, she told her reflection as she piled her hair untidily; he doesn’t even see me.

  She was wrong, of course—the professor noted every small detail as she sat down at the table and wished him a cool good morning and presently he asked, ‘At what time is Andre coming for you?’

  She crumbled toast, not looking at him. ‘I suppose after lunch.’ She drew a steadying breath. ‘Krijn...’

  He was already on his feet, and halfway to the door he paused long enough to tell her that he didn’t expect to be home until the evening. ‘Enjoy your day,’ he told her.

  Trixie, a mild-tempered girl, sat and seethed. He wasn’t going to give her a chance to say anything, and, anyway, how would she say it? Meet him in the hall when he got home and tell him that she loved him and what did he intend to do about it? ‘That is the last thing I shall do,’ she told Percy, drowsing under the table.

  She planned her day carefully. Andre knew that they lunched normally at half-past twelve, so he wouldn’t arrive until after that. She asked Wolke if she might have a light lunch at noon sharp, discussed the evening’s meal with her, approved some necessary purchases, rearranged the flowers and went to look at the weather. The sky was grey and lowering and faintly yellow round the edges. There had been a frost overnight and the shrubs and trees were weighed down with ice; moreover, Rabo, bringing in the coffee-tray, informed her in his atrocious English that the weather was worsening. ‘Not a day in which to travel, mevrouw. There will be bad weather very soon.’

  She ate her lunch quickly and went to her room, where she pulled on boots, dragged a woolly cap down over her ears and got into her parka. A walk would clear her head and there was a good deal of open country to the north of the village between the motorways going to Amsterdam. She would take a closer look at the lake; an hour’s brisk walk would get her to it... She had her hand on the door when Rabo appeared from nowhere to enquire if she would be back shortly. ‘I think you go out with Mijnheer ter Vange?’ he said.

  ‘Well, no—I’ve changed my mind. Will you tell him when he comes, please?’

  ‘Certainly, mevrouw. You will be back for tea?’

  ‘I don’t know...’

  ‘If I may speak, mevrouw, the weather will be bad very soon now.’

  ‘I’ll take shelter, Rabo, don’t worry about me. I feel like a good walk.’

  She set off briskly, glad to be out of doors even though it was already getting dark and the wind from the sea was icy. The road was a lonely one running between polder land and empty save for a farmhouse or two in the distance. She hardly noticed that; indeed, she didn’t notice where she was going until she saw a glimmer of water a short distance from the brick road she was on. It glinted like cold steel under the darkening sky and just for a moment she hesitated, but she had come quite a long way by now and to go back without actually getting a close view of the lake seemed silly. She slid down the dyke upon which the road was built and started walking towards the water. Until that moment she hadn’t paid heed to the unnatural darkness, nor had she noticed that the wind had dropped. She stopped, suddenly uneasy, and looked behind her. Grey fog was rolling in from the sea, blanketing the open country; she was halfway back to the road when it enveloped her in icy swirls so that she could no longer see. She stood still, dumb with fright, wondering what to do. The fog was ice-cold, and she would freeze to death if she stood still, but on the other hand she didn’t dare to move. The unpleasant thought that people lost in fog walked round in circles crossed her mind. ‘Krijn—Krijn, do come.’ The ridiculous words, uttered in a wispy voice, were carried away by the soft gloom swirling round her. ‘He can’t hear,’ she added, taking comfort from the sound of her voice. It was a cold comfort.

  * * *

  THE PROFESSOR WASN’T able to hear her, but he was thin
king about her. He had had a heavy morning; a ward-round, his clinic in Outpatients and then his private patients, whom he had seen in his rooms and the last of whom had just left. Juffrouw Niep had gone to her lunch and he sat at his desk, a cooling cup of coffee before him and the faithful Samson’s bulk squashed around his feet. Beatrice’s unhappy face was vivid in his mind—she had wanted to say something to him at breakfast and he hadn’t stayed to listen. He glanced at his watch; even now she was probably getting into Andre’s car, a bit early perhaps. If he went home now he might be able to persuade her not to go, at least until they had talked. He was, he told himself, quite prepared to listen; he was a reasonable man although he had to admit to a strong desire to batter Andre into the ground. His nurse came in with a plate of sandwiches and put it down beside the coffee.

  ‘I have to go home, Zuster,’ he told her. ‘There is nothing for this afternoon, is there? Ask Juffrouw Niep to make any appointments for tomorrow; I want to be free for the remainder of today. Refer anything urgent to my registrar at the hospital, will you?’

  The nurse, rather mystified, went away, and he telephoned the hospital, spoke to his registrar and left his rooms with Samson. Outside the fog was sliding gently into Leiden and he was forced to drive slowly as he left the town behind him. The village was already blanketed and Rabo had turned on the lights at the gate as he turned the car into the drive. He was at the door before the professor had got out of his car, looking as agitated as his unflappable dignity would allow. Normally he spoke Dutch but now he broke into Friese. ‘I telephoned the hospital and your rooms, Professor. Mevrouw went out more than an hour ago...’