Britannia All at Sea

The evening had been very pleasant, she decided, lying in her warm bed some hours later. Dinner had been a substantial meal, taken in a rather sombre dining room and served by a hefty young girl who looked at them rather as though they had arrived from outer space and giggled a good deal. Berthe, explained Mevrouw Veske, was learning to be a general help in the house and doing her best. There was an older woman, it seemed, with the astonishing name of Juffrouw Naakdgeboren, who was away at a family wedding. ‘Very important they are, too,’ explained their kindly hostess, ‘in the country at least it’s a very gay affair.’ She smiled at them both. ‘That’s something you have to look forward to, isn’t it?’

Britannia had smiled back, agreeing fervently if silently, though whether the professor would fit into a gay affair was something she very much doubted. And really, she reminded herself crossly, she must stop behaving as though she were going to marry him; it was one thing to make plans and hope, quite another to take it for granted. She had the feeling that the professor wouldn’t take kindly to being taken for granted.

It was raining when they got up the next morning, but since they were on holiday they had no intention of letting the weather spoil their days. They put on raincoats again, muffled themselves in scarves, thick gloves and high boots and accompanied Mijnheer Veske to the garage, where there was quite a selection of bicycles. Britannia, mounting her rather elderly machine dubiously, almost fell off again because she hadn’t realised that its brakes were operated by putting the pedals into reverse, but after a rather hilarious start they pedalled off, down the drive and out into the lane, to take the cycle path running beside the road. Hoenderloo was their destination, and once there they intended to have coffee, buy stamps and have a look round its shops before going back for lunch. Their surroundings, even on a bleak November morning, were pleasant; the bare trees lining the lane formed an arch over their heads, and the woods behind them held every sort of tree.

‘Estates,’ explained Joan. ‘Some of them are quite small, some of them are vast. There are some lovely places tucked away behind these trees, I can tell you, but we shan’t get much chance to see many of them—Mevrouw Veske visits here and there, but only the smaller villas. There’s a gateway along here, look—something or other rampant on brick pillars and the drive curving away so that we can’t see anything at all. It’s a castle or moated house or some such thing, I asked Mevrouw Veske last time I was here.’

Britannia was balancing precariously with an eye to the brakes. ‘Does anyone live there?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes, but I haven’t a clue who it is.’

They spent a happy hour or so in Hoenderloo, pottering in and out of its small shops, managing, on the whole, to make themselves understood very well, before having coffee and apple cake and cycling back again. They went with Mevrouw Veske to Apeldoorn in the afternoon, their hostess driving a small Fiat with a good deal of dash and verve and a splendid disregard of speed limits. She took them on a tour of the city’s streets, wide and tree-lined and, she assured them, in the summer a mass of colour, and then bustled them back to the town’s centre to give them tea and rich cream cakes and drive them home again. They played cards after dinner and went quite late to bed, and on the following day the same pleasant pattern was followed, only this time the girls cycled to the Kroller-Mullermuseum to stare at the van Gogh paintings there, and after lunch Mevrouw Veske took them by car again to Loenen so that they might see the Castle ter Horst, and in the evening they played lighthearted bridge. Britannia, who didn’t much care for cards, was glad that neither her host nor her hostess took the game seriously.

It was raining the next morning and Mevrouw Veske was regretfully forced to postpone her plan to take them to Arnhem for the day, so they settled down to writing postcards and then tossed to see who should go to Hoenderloo and post them. Britannia lost and ten minutes later, rather glad of the little outing, she wheeled her bike out of the garage and set off in the wind and the pouring rain. She had reached the gate and was about to turn on to the cycle path when she saw something in the road, small and black and fluttering. A bird, and hurt. She cast the bike down and ran across to pick it up, the wind tearing the scarf from her head so that her hair, tied back loosely, was instantly wet, flapping round her face and getting in her eyes. It was because of that that she didn’t hear or see the approaching car, a magnificent Rolls-Royce Camargue, its sober grey coachwork gleaming in the downpour. It stopped within a foot of Britannia and she looked over her shoulder to see Professor Luitingh van Thien get out. She had the bird in her hand and said without preamble: ‘I think its wing is broken—what shall I do?’

‘Fool,’ said the professor with icy forcefulness, ‘darting into the road in that thoughtless fashion. I might have squashed you flat, or worse, gone into a skid and damaged the car.’ He held out a hand. ‘Give me that bird.’

She handed it over, for once unable to think of anything to say. So dreams did come true, after all, but he hardly seemed in the mood to share her pleasure in the fact. She stood, the rain washing over her in a relentless curtain, while he examined the small creature with gentle hands. ‘I’ll take it with me,’ he said finally, and nodded briefly before getting back into his car. Britannia, made of stuff worthy of her name, followed him.

‘Do you live near here?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ He gave her a cold look which froze the words hovering on her tongue, and drove away.

She stood in the road and watched him go. ‘I must be mad,’ she cried to the sodden landscape around her. ‘He’s the nastiest man I’ve ever set eyes on!’ She went back to collect her bike and got on to it and rode off towards Hoenderloo. ‘But he took the bird,’ she reminded herself, ‘and he could have wrung its neck.’

She was almost there and the rain had miraculously ceased when he passed her again, going the other way, and a few moments later had turned and slid to a halt beside her so that she felt bound to get off her bicycle.

‘The bird’s wing has been set; it will be cared for until it is fit to fly again.’ He spoke unsmilingly, but she didn’t notice that, she looked at him with delight.

‘Isn’t it incredible?’ she declared. ‘I mean, meeting like this after the sluice at St Jude’s and now you here, almost next door, as it were.’

He looked down his splendid nose. ‘I can see nothing incredible about it,’ he said repressively. ‘It is a coincidence, Britannia, they occur from time to time.’

He could call it that if he liked. She thought secretly of good fairies and kindly Fate and smiled widely. ‘Well, you don’t need to be so cross about it. I’ve never met such a prickly man. Have you been crossed in love or something?’

The ferocious expression which passed over the professor’s handsome features might have daunted anyone of lesser spirit than hers. ‘You abominable girl!’ he ground out savagely. ‘I have never met anyone like you…’

Britannia lifted a hand to tuck back a wet strand of hair. ‘What you need,’ she told him kindly, ‘is a wife and a family.’

His mouth quivered momentarily. ‘Why?’

She answered him seriously. ‘Well, you would have them to look after and care for and love, and they’d love you and bring you your slippers in the evening, and…’

His voice was a well-controlled explosion. ‘For God’s sake, girl,’ he roared, ‘be quiet! Of all the sickly sentimental ideas…!’

Two tears welled up in Britannia’s fine eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks. The professor muttered strongly in his own language, and with the air of a man goaded beyond endurance, got out of his car.

‘Why are you crying? I suppose that you will tell me that it’s my fault.’

Britannia gave a sniff, wiped her eyes on a delicate scrap of white lawn and then blew her nose. ‘No, of course it’s not your fault, because you can’t help it, can you? It’s just very sad that you should think of a wife and children as being nothing more than s-sickly s-sentiment.’ Two more tears spilled over and she wiped them away impatiently as a child would, with the back of her hand.

The professor was standing very close to her. When he spoke it was with surprising gentleness. ‘I didn’t mean that. I was angry.’

She said in a woeful voice, ‘But you’re always losing your temper—every time we meet you rage and roar at me.’

‘I neither rage nor roar, Britannia. Possibly I am a little ill-tempered at times.’ The gentleness had a decidedly chilly edge to it now.

‘Oh, yes, you do,’ she answered him with spirit. ‘You terrify me.’ She peeped at him, to see him frowning.

‘I cannot believe that you are terrified of anyone or anything, certainly not of me. Try that on some other man, my dear girl, I’m not a fool.’

She sighed. ‘Well, no—I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me.’

He looked at her with cold interest. ‘And were the tears a try-out too?’

She shook her head slowly; she might have met him again, just as she had dreamed that she might, but it hadn’t done much good. She said quietly: ‘Thank you very much for taking care of the bird,’ and got on to her bike and wobbled off at a great rate, leaving him standing there.

She tried very hard not to think of him during the rest of the day, but lying in bed was a different matter; she went over their meetings, not forgetting a word or a look, and came to the conclusion that he still didn’t like her. She was on the point of sleep when she remembered with real regret that she had hardly looked her best; surely, if she had been wearing the new pink dress, he would have behaved differently? Men, her mother had always said, were susceptible to pink. Britannia sighed and slept.

CHAPTER THREE

IT SEEMED THAT Britannia was never to discover the professor’s taste regarding pink-clad females, but that was a small price to pay in the face of the frequency of their meetings. For she met him again the very next afternoon. Joan, laid low with a headache, had decided to stay indoors and Mevrouw Veske had an appointment with her dentist. Britannia, restless and urged by her friend to take advantage of the unexpectedly pleasant day, donned slacks, pulled on two sweaters, tied a scarf under her chin and went to fetch her bicycle. There was miles of open country around her; she chose a right-hand turn at the crossroads and pedalled down it, feeling a good deal more cheerful while she plotted ways and means—most of them quite unsuitable—of meeting the professor again. An unnecessary exercise as it turned out, for seeing a picturesque pond among the trees on the other side of the road she decided to cross over and get a better view. She was almost there when the professor’s magnificent car swept round the curve ahead and stopped within a foot or so of her.

She jumped off her machine, quite undisturbed by the sight of his furious face thrust through the open window, and his biting: ‘This is becoming quite ridiculous—you’re not fit to ride a bicycle!’

Britannia, a girl of common sense, nonetheless realised that her fairy godmother, kind Fate or just plain good luck were giving her another chance. The sight of the professor glowering from the opened window of his stupendous car sent a most pleasing sensation through her, although her pretty face remained calm. She said: ‘Hullo,’ and got no reply; the professor was swallowing rage. When he did at length speak, his voice was cold and nasty.

‘You were on the wrong side of the road. I might have killed you.’

She stooped to pick up her bicycle, observing that it had a puncture in the back tyre which seemed of no great importance at the moment; it was much more important to get him into a good mood. She said reasonably: ‘I’m a foreigner, so you have to make allowances, you know. You aren’t very nice about it; after all, we have met before.’

The blue eyes studied her in undisguised rage. ‘Indeed we have, but I see no reason to express pleasure at seeing you again. I advise you to travel on the correct side of the road and use the cycle path where there is one.’ He added morosely: ‘You’re not fit to be out on your own.’

Britannia took his criticism in good part. ‘You can come with me if you like,’ she invited. ‘I daresay some healthy exercise would do you good; there’s nothing like fresh air to blow away bad temper.’ She smiled at him kindly and waited for him to speak, and when he didn’t she went on: ‘Oh, well, perhaps you can’t cycle any more…’

The professor’s voice, usually deep and measured, took on an unexpected volume. ‘You are an atrocious girl. How you got here and why is no concern of mine, but I will not be plagued by you.’

She looked meek. ‘I don’t mean to plague you. My back tyre’s punctured.’

‘Mend it or walk home!’ he bellowed, and left her standing there.

‘He drives much too fast,’ remarked Britannia to the quiet road. ‘And how do I mend a puncture with nothing?’

She turned her machine and started to walk, doing sums as she went. She had been cycling for almost an hour—not hurrying—so she must have come at least ten miles. She would be late for lunch, she might even be late for tea. She had passed through a village some way back, but as she had no money and no one there would know or understand her, it wouldn’t be of much use to stop there. She had been walking for twenty minutes or so when an elderly man on a bicycle passed her, stopped, and with the minimum of speech and fuss, got out his repair kit. He had almost finished the job when the professor, coming the other way, slid his car to a halt beside them.

Britannia gave him a warm smile. ‘There, I knew you weren’t as nasty as you pretended you were!’

He surveyed her unsmilingly. ‘Get in,’ he said evenly. ‘The bike can be fetched later.’

She shook her head at him. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that; this gentleman stopped to help me and I wouldn’t be so ungrateful as to leave him now.’ She shook her pretty head at him again. ‘You really must get out of the habit of expecting people to do what you want whether they wish to or not. This kind man hasn’t shouted at me, nor did he leave me to mend a puncture all alone in a strange land, which I couldn’t have done anyway because I had nothing to do it with.’

She paused to see the effect of this speech. The professor’s splendid features appeared to be carved in disapproving stone, his eyes pale and hard. She sighed. ‘Oh, well…it was kind of you to come back. Thank you.’ She had no chance to say more, for he had gone, driving much too fast again.

She very nearly told Joan about it when she got back, but really there didn’t seem much point; beyond meeting the professor again, nothing had happened; he still disliked her, indeed, even more so, she thought. There was the possibility that she might not see him again. She paused in the brushing of her mane of hair to reflect that whether he liked her or no, they had met again—she could have stayed her whole two weeks in Holland and not seen hair nor hide of him; she tended to regard that as some sort of sign. Before she got into bed she sat down and wrote to her mother and father; after all, she had told them about him in the first place, they had a right to know that her sudden whim to go to Holland had borne fruit. Rather sour fruit, she conceded.

But not as sour as all that; she was on her way down to breakfast the following morning when Berthe came running upstairs to meet her. She pointed downwards, giggling, and then pointed at Britannia, who instantly thought of all the awful things which could have happened to either Mijnheer or Mevrouw Veske and rushed past her and down the stairs at a great rate.

‘I had no idea that you were so eager to see me again,’ said the professor. ‘Should I be flattered?’

He was standing in the hall, in his car coat with his gloves in his hand, and gave her the distinct impression that he was impatient to be gone.

‘No,’ said Britannia, ‘you shouldn’t—I thought something awful had happened to the Veskes. What are you doing here? Is someone ill?’

The professor’s lip twitched faintly. ‘Cut down to size,’ he murmured. ‘I called to see you.’

Britannia’s incurable optimism bubbled up under her angora sweater, but she checked it with a firm metaphorical hand and asked: ‘Why?’

‘I owe you an apology for my behaviour yesterday. I offer it now.’

‘Well, that’s handsome of you, Professor, I’ll accept it. I expect you were worrying about something and felt irritable.’

‘You concern yourself a little too much about my feelings, Miss Smith. Perhaps it would be better if you were to attend to your own affairs.’

She had annoyed him again. The optimism burst its bubble and she said quietly: ‘I’m sure you’re right. Thank you for coming—I expect you want to go…’

He gave her a long look and went to the door without a word, but before he could open it she had nipped across the hall to stand beside him. ‘I’m only here for a fortnight,’ she told him, and then, unable to resist the question: ‘Do you really live near here?’

‘Yes. Goodbye, Britannia.’

So that was that. She went into breakfast and made lighthearted rejoinders to the questions fired at her, and presently they all began talking about their plans for the day and the professor was forgotten.

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