The Secret Pool

Fran agreed, careful not to be too eager, and in answer to Aunt Janet’s question said that she thought that Matron would allow her to have two weeks, starting on the following Sunday. ‘I’d better phone Clare, hadn’t I?’ she suggested and went to do that, to come back presently to say that Karel would meet her on Sunday evening at Schiphol.

‘Sunday?’ asked Aunt Kate sharply.

‘Well, dear, he’s free then, otherwise I’d have to find my own way…’

The conversation at supper was wholly given up to her journey. She said very little, allowing the aunts to discuss and plan and tell her what clothes to take; she had no intention of taking any of their advice but to disagree would be of no use. She helped Winnie clear the supper things presently, laid her breakfast tray ready on the kitchen table, wished her aunts good night and went up to bed. It was too soon to pack, but she went through her wardrobe carefully, deciding what she would take with her. Clare was only a few years older than she was and, contrary to her aunts’ supposition, the last person on earth to lie with her feet up; a few pretty dresses would be essential.

There was no time to think about her holiday the next day. Getting Mr Owen away to Bristol was a careful undertaking and necessitated sending Jenny with him. Mrs Owen had arrived, breathless with anxiety and haste, and had had to be given tea and a gentle talk, so that the morning’s routine started a good hour late, and that without Jenny to share the chores. Then, of course, there was a new patient coming into Mr Owen’s bed and Miss Prosser was making difficulties, something she always did when they were busier than usual. It wasn’t until Fran got home at last that she allowed her thoughts to dwell on the delights ahead. She was listening to Aunt Janet’s advice about her journey and thinking her own thoughts when the image of Dr van Rijgen popped into her head, and with it a vague but surprising thought that she might not see him again for a long time. Not that I want to, she admonished herself hastily, horrid man that he is, with his nasty sarcastic tongue, and then thought, I wonder where he lives?

Surprisingly he came again at the end of the week, on his way back to Holland, to examine with Dr Beecham one of her patients who, recently returned from the tropics, was showing the first likely symptoms of kala-azar, or so Dr Stokes thought. To be on the safe side, Fran had put her in the single ward and had nursed her in strict isolation, so that they were all gowned and masked before they went to see the patient. Dr van Rijgen, being tied into a gown a good deal too small for his vast person, stared at Fran over his mask. ‘Let us hope your praiseworthy precautions will prove unnecessary, Sister,’ he said. She caught the faint sneer in his voice and blushed behind her own mask. She had, after all, only done what Dr Stokes had ordered; he had spoken as though she had panicked into doing something unnecessary.

Which, after a lengthy examination, proved to be just that. Acute malarial infection, pronounced Dr van Rijgen. ‘Which I think can be dealt with quite satisfactorily here. It is merely a question of taking a blood sample to discover which drug is the most suitable. I think we might safely give a dose of chloroquinine phosphate and sulphate…’ He held out a hand for the chart Fran was holding and began to write, talking to Dr Stokes at the same time. ‘You were right to take precautions, Peter, one can never be too careful.’ A remark which Fran considered to be just the kind of thing he would delight in; buttering up Dr Stokes after sneering at her for doing exactly the same thing.

He had the effrontery to look at her and smile, too, as he said it. She gave him a stony stare and led the way to the office where she dispensed coffee to the three of them and ignored him. It was as they were about to leave that Dr van Rijgen asked, ‘Who takes over from you when you go on holiday, Sister?’

‘My staff nurse, Jenny Topps.’

‘I believe you start your leave on Sunday?’

‘Yes,’ and, after a pause, ‘sir’.

He looked at her from under his lids. ‘A pleasant time to go on holiday. Somewhere nice I hope?’

‘Yes.’

It was vexing when Dr Beecham chimed in with, ‘Well, the girl can’t say anything else, can she, seeing that she is going to your country, Litrik?’

‘Indeed! Let us hope the weather remains fine for you, Sister. Good morning.’

When they had gone she sat and fumed at her desk for a few minutes. He had been nastier than usual and she hoped that she would never see him again. She got up and when she’d done her desk went in search of Jenny; it was almost time for the patients’ dinners and the two diabetic ladies would need their insulin. There were several patients whom Dr Beecham wanted put on four-hourly charts, too. She became absorbed in the ward’s routine and, for the time at least, forgot Dr van Rijgen.

There was a day left before she was to go on holiday; it was fully taken up with handing over to Jenny and, when she went off duty that evening, packing.

Her head stuffed with sound advice from her aunts, just as though she were on her way to darkest Africa, she took the early morning bus to Bristol where she caught a train to London, got on the underground to Heathrow and presented herself at the weighing-in counter with half an hour to spare. There was time for a cup of coffee before her flight was called and she sat drinking it and looking around her. A small, neat girl, wearing a short-sleeved cotton dress, sparkling fresh, high-heeled sandals, and carrying a sensible shoulder bag. She attracted quite a few appreciative glances from passers-by, together with their opinion that she was the kind of traveller who arrived looking as band-box fresh as when she had set out.

They were right; she arrived at Schiphol without a hair out of place, to be met by Karel and driven to Bloemendaal, a charming suburb of Haarlem where he and Clare had a flat. It wasn’t a lengthy trip but they had plenty to talk about: the baby, of course, his job—he was an accountant in one of the big bulb growers’ offices—Clare’s cleverness in learning Dutch, the pleasant life they led…

The flat was in a leafy road, quiet and pleasant, within walking distance of the dunes and woods. They lived on the third floor and Clare was waiting at their door as the lift stopped. She was a pretty girl, a little older than Fran, and she flung her arms round her now, delighted to see her. The pair of them led her into the flat, both talking at once, sitting her down between them in the comfortable living room, plying her with questions. After the aunts’ staid and sober conversation, they were a delight to Fran.

Presently Clare bore her off to her room where she unpacked and tidied herself and then joined them for tea and a lively discussion as to how she might best enjoy herself.

‘Swimming of course,’ declared Clare, ‘if the weather holds.’ She poured more tea. ‘I rest in the afternoons, so you can poke around Haarlem if you want to. There is heaps to see if you like churches and museums. Then there is Linnaeushof Gardens and the open air theatre here and the aviary… Two weeks won’t be enough.’

‘You are dears to have me,’ said Fran. ‘It’s lovely to—to…’

‘Escape?’ suggested Clare.

Fran, feeling guilty, said yes.

It was a delightful change after life in the hospital; Karel went early to work and she and Clare breakfasted at their leisure, tidied the flat and then took a bus into Haarlem or did a little shopping at the local shops; and after lunch, Clare curled up with a book and Fran took herself off, walking in the dunes, going into Haarlem, exploring its streets, poking her nose into its many churches, visiting its museums, and window shopping.

It was on the fourth day of her visit when she went back to St Bavo’s Cathedral. She had already paid it a brief visit with Clare on one of their morning outings but Clare hadn’t much use for old churches. It was a brilliant afternoon so that the vast interior seemed bathed in twilight and she pottered happily, straining to see the model ships hanging from its lofty rafters, trying to understand the ornate memorial stones on its walls and finally standing before the organ, a vast affair with its three keyboards and its five thousand pipes. Her mind boggled at anyone attempting to play it and, as if in answer to that, music suddenly flooded from it so that she sat down to listen, enthralled. It was something grand and stirring and yet sad and solemn; she had heard it before but the composer eluded her. She closed her eyes the better to hear and became aware that someone had come to sit beside her.

‘Fauré,’ said Dr van Rijgen. ‘Magnificent, isn’t it? He is practising for the International Organists’ Contest.’

Fran’s eyes had flown open. ‘However did you get here?’ And then, absurdly, ‘Good afternoon, Dr van Rijgen. I was trying to remember the composer—the organist is playing like a man inspired.’

She studied his face for a moment; somehow he seemed quite friendly. ‘Do you live here?’

‘Utrecht.’

‘But that’s the other side of Amsterdam…’

‘Thirty-eight miles from here. Less than that; I don’t need to go to Amsterdam, there is a road south…’

She was aware that the music had become quiet and sad. ‘You have patients here?’

‘What a girl you are for asking questions. I came to see if you were enjoying your holiday.’

She goggled at him. ‘Whatever for? And how did you know where I was staying, anyway?’

He smiled slowly. ‘Oh, ways and means. Your cousin told me you would most probably be here. She most kindly invited me back for tea. I’ll drive you, but there’s time enough. Shall we wait till the end? The best part, I always think.’

Fran opened her mouth and then closed it again. What was there to say in the face of such arrogance, short of telling him to go away, not easily done in church, somehow? But why had he deliberately come looking for her? She sat and pondered the question while the organ thundered and swelled into a crescendo of sound and faded away to a kind of sad triumph.

Dr van Rijgen stirred. ‘Magnificent. Do you like our Grote Kirk?’

‘It’s breathtaking; I didn’t know it was so old…all those years building it. I must get a book about it.’

‘I have several at home; you must borrow one.’

Fran stood up and he stood up with her, which put her at an instant disadvantage for she had to look up to his face. ‘You want something, don’t you?’ she asked. ‘I mean,’ she hesitated and blushed. ‘You don’t—you aren’t interested in me as—as a person, are you?’

‘That, Francesca, is where you are mistaken. I should add that I have not fallen in love with you or any such foolishness, but as a person, yes, I am interested in you.’

‘Why?’

She spoke softly because there were people milling all round them now.

‘At the proper time I will tell you. Now, if you are ready, shall we go back to your cousin?’

She went ahead of him, down the length of the vast church, her mind in a fine muddle. But I don’t even like him, she reminded herself, and then frowned quite fiercely. Once or twice during their strange talk, she had liked him very much.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE paused outside the great entrance to the church and he touched her arm. ‘Over here, Francesca,’ he said and led her to a silver grey Daimler parked at the side. On the short drive to Clare’s flat he made casual conversation which gave Fran no chance to ask questions and once there she saw that she was going to have even less opportunity. Apparently whatever it was he wanted of her would be made clear in his own good time and not before. And since she had no intention of seeing him again while she was in Holland, he would presently get the surprise he deserved.

Her satisfaction was short-lived. She was astounded to hear him calmly telling Clare that he felt sure that she would like to see something of Holland while she was there, and would Clare mind if he came on the following day and took her guest for a run through the more rural parts of the country?

She was still struggling for words when she heard Clare’s enthusiastic, ‘What a marvellous idea! She’ll love it, won’t she, Karel?’

Just as though I’m not here, fumed Fran silently, and got as far as, ‘But I don’t…’

‘Oh, don’t mind leaving Clare for a day,’ said Karel. ‘I shall be taking her to the clinic tomorrow anyway—you go off and have fun.’ He gave her a kindly smile and Fran almost choked on the idea of having fun with Dr van Rijgen. Whatever it was he wanted of her would have nothing to do with fun. She amended the thought; perhaps not fun, but interesting? All the same, such high-handed behaviour wouldn’t do at all. She waited until there was a pause in the conversation. ‘I had planned to visit one or two places,’ she said clearly and was stopped by Dr van Rijgen.

‘Perhaps another day for those?’ he suggested pleasantly. ‘It would give me great pleasure to show you some small part of my country, Francesca.’

There was nothing to say in the face of that bland politeness. She agreed to go, the good manners the aunts had instilled into her from an early age standing her in good stead.

He left shortly after with the suggestion that he might call for her soon after nine o’clock the next morning.

‘Don’t you like him?’ asked Clare the moment the sound of his car had died away.

‘Well,’ observed Fran matter-of-factly, ‘I don’t really know him, do I? He gave us lectures when I was training and he’s given me instructions about patients on the wards… He was absolutely beastly to me when I was a student and I dozed off during one of his lectures. I think he laughs at me.’

Clare shot her a quick look, exchanged a lightning glance with Karel and said comfortably, ‘Oh, well, I should think he’s forgotten about that by now—or perhaps he is making amends.’

A fair girl, Fran said, ‘I shouldn’t have fallen asleep, you know—I expect it injured his ego.’

Clare gave a little chortle of laughter. ‘You know, love, once you’ve got to know each other, I think you and Dr van Rijgen might have quite a lot in common. He’s very well known over here; did you know that?’

‘No. He comes to Bristol to lecture on tropical diseases, that’s all I know about him.’

‘Well, he goes to London and Edinburgh and Birmingham and Vienna and Brussels—you name it and he has been there. A very clever laddie.’

Fran had turned her head to look out of the window; Fran was a dear and Clare studied her… She was a thought old-fashioned but that was the aunts’ fault, and save for her lovely eyes she had no looks to speak of. But, her hair was fine and long, and her figure was good, if a trifle plump. Clare, with all the enthusiasm of the newly wed, scented romance.

There was no romance apparent the following morning. Dr van Rijgen arrived exactly when he said he would, spent five minutes or so charming Clare—there was no other word for it, thought Fran indignantly—and then led the way to his car.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Fran and, when he didn’t answer at once, ‘where are you taking me?’

He was driving south, through the country roads criss-crossing the duinen so that he might avoid Haarlem, and there was very little traffic about. He pulled in to the side of the road and turned to look at her. ‘Shall we clear the air, Francesca? You sound like the heroine in a romantic thriller. I’m not taking you anywhere, not in the sense that you imply. We shall drive across country, avoiding the motorways so that you may be able to see some of the more rural parts of Holland, and then we shall go to my home because I should like you to meet someone there.’

‘Your wife,’ said Fran instantly.

‘My wife is dead.’ He started up the car once more. ‘On our right you can just get a glimpse of Heemstede, a suburb of Haarlem and very pleasant. And down the road is Vogelenzang, a quite charming stretch of wooded dunes; we must go there one day to hear the birds…’

Fran turned her head away and pretended to take an interest in the scenery; she had been snubbed, there were no two ways about that. If these terms were to continue all day then she began to wish most heartily that she had never come; she hadn’t wanted to in the first place. She voiced her thoughts out loud.

‘No, that was only too obvious, but it was rather difficult for you to refuse, wasn’t it?’

‘I cannot think,’ said Fran crossly, ‘why you are bothering to waste your time with me.’

‘I dare say not, but now is not the time to explain. And now, if you could forget your dislike of me for an hour or two, I will tell you where we are going. This road takes us the long way round to Aalsmeer. We shall go through Hillegom very shortly and take a secondary road to the shores of Aalsmeer which will take us to the town itself; there we shall drive down its other shore and take country roads, some of them narrow and brick, to Nieuwkoop. We have to drive right round the northern end of the lake and pick up the road which eventually brings us to the motorway into Utrecht. My home is on the far side of the city in the woods outside Zeist. We will stop for coffee at one of the cafés along the Aalsmeer.’

‘It sounds a long way,’ observed Fran.

‘No distance as the crow flies, and not much further by car. We shall lunch at my home.’

She gave him a sideways glance. His profile looked stern; he couldn’t possibly be enjoying himself so why had he asked her out? He turned his head before she could look away. His smile took years off his face. ‘I haven’t had a day out for a long time—shall we forget hospital wards and night duty and lectures by disagreeable doctors and enjoy ourselves?’

His smile was so warm and friendly that she smiled back. ‘Oh, I’d like that—and it’s such a lovely day.’

His hand came down briefly on hers clasped in her lap. ‘It’s a pact. Here we are at Aalsmeer. I’ll explain about the flowers…’

They stopped for coffee presently, sitting down by the water’s edge while he drew a map of the surrounding countryside on the tablecloth. ‘There are motorways coming into Utrecht from each point of the compass. We shall join one to the south, going round the city, and then turn off towards Leusderheide—that’s heathland…’

‘You live there?’

‘No, but very near. It’s only a short run from here.’

They got back into the car and drove on through the quiet countryside with only the farms and small villages studded around the flat green fields. But not for long. They joined the motorway very soon and presently the outskirts of Utrecht loomed ahead and then to one side of them as they swept past the outskirts. Dr van Rijgen drove fast with an ease which was almost nonchalance, slipping past the traffic with nothing more than a gentle swish of sound, and once past Utrecht and with Zeist receding in the distance he left the motorway and slowed his speed. They were on a country road now, with Zeist still visible to one side, and on the other pleasantly wooded country, peaceful after the rush of the motorway.

‘We could be miles from anywhere,’ marvelled Fran.

‘Yes, and I need only drive a couple of miles to join the road into Zeist and Utrecht.’

‘And the other way?’

‘Ede, Appeldoorn, the Veluwe; all beautiful.’

‘You go there often, to the—the Veluwe?’

He didn’t allow himself to smile at her pronunciation of the word.

‘Most weekends when I am free.’

It was like wringing blood from a stone, she reflected, wringing bits and pieces of information from him, word by word. She gave a small soundless sigh and looked out of the window.

They were passing through a small scattered village: tiny cottages, a very large church and a number of charming villas.

‘This looks nice,’ she observed.

‘I think so, too,’ said Dr van Rijgen and swept the car with an unexpected rush through brick pillars and along a leafy drive. Fran, suddenly uneasy, sat up, the better to see around her, just in time to glimpse the house as they went round a curve.

It was flat-faced and solid with a gabled roof and large windows arranged in rows across its front; they got smaller and higher as they went up and they all had shutters. The front door was atop semi-circular steps, a solid wooden affair with ornate carving around its fanlight and a tremendous knocker.

Fran didn’t look at the doctor. ‘You live here?’

‘Yes.’ He leaned over her and undid her door and her safety belt and then got out himself and went round the bonnet so that he was standing waiting for her as she got out, too. She said quite sharply, ‘I wish you would tell me why you’ve brought me here.’

‘Why, to meet my small daughter. She’s looking forward to seeing you.’

‘Your daughter? I had no idea…’

He said coolly, ‘Why should you have? Shall we go in?’

The door had been opened; a very thin, stooping, elderly man was standing by it. ‘Tuggs,’ said the doctor, ‘this is Miss Manning, come to have lunch with us. Francesca, Tuggs has been with us for very many years; he runs the place with his wife, Nel. He is English, by the way.’

Fran paused at the top of the steps and offered a hand. ‘How do you do, Tuggs,’ and smiled her gentle smile before she was ushered indoors.

It was a square entrance hall with splendid pillars supporting a gallery above it and with a fine staircase at its end. Fran had the impression of marble underfoot, fine silky carpets, a great many portraits, and sunlight streaming through a circular window above the staircase, before she was urged to enter a room at the back of the hall. She paused in the doorway and looked up at her host. ‘I’m a bit overwhelmed—it’s so very grand.’

He considered this remark quite seriously. ‘One’s own home is never grand, and it is home. Don’t be scared of it, Francesca.’ He shut the door behind them. ‘Nel will bring coffee in a few moments and you can go and tidy yourself—she’ll show you where. But first come and see Lisa.’

They were in a quite small cosy room with chintz curtains at the windows and a wide view out to a garden filled with flowers. The furniture was old, polished and comfortable, and sitting by the open window was a buxom young woman with a rosy face, reading to a little girl perched in a wheelchair.

The young woman, looking up, saw them, put down her book and said something to the child who turned her head and shrilled, ‘Papa!’ and then burst into a torrent of Dutch.

She was a beautiful child, with golden curls, enormous blue eyes and a glorious smile. Dr van Rijgen bent to kiss her and then lifted her carefully into his arms. He said something to the nurse and she smiled and went out of the room and he said,

‘This is Lisa, six years old and as I frequently tell her the most beautiful girl in the world.’

Fran took a small thin hand in hers. ‘Oh, she is, the darling.’ She beamed at the little girl, careful not to look at the fragile little body in the doctor’s arms. ‘Hullo, Lisa.’

The child put up her face to be kissed and broke into a long excited speech until the doctor hushed her gently. ‘Let’s sit down for a moment,’ he suggested and glanced up as a stout woman came in with a tray. ‘Here’s Nel with the coffee.’ He said something to her and turned to Fran.

‘This is my housekeeper; no English worth mentioning, I’m afraid, but a most sensible and kind woman; we’d be lost without her.’ He spoke to her again—she was being introduced in her turn, Fran guessed—and then got up as he said, ‘Nel will show you where you can tidy yourself.’

The cloakroom into which Fran was ushered, tucked away down a short passage leading from the hall, was so unlike the utilitarian cubbyhole in her aunts’ house that she paused to take a good look. Powder blue tiles, silver grey carpet, an enormous mirror and a shelf containing just about everything a woman might need to repair the ravages upon her make-up. Fran sniffed appreciatively at the bottles of eau-de-toilette, washed her hands with pale blue soap and felt apologetic about using one of the stack of towels. She dabbed powder on her nose in a perfunctory manner, combed her hair and went back across the hall.