BUT THE DAY wasn’t splendid at all; she was in theatre for hours as it turned out, with an emergency; some poor soul who had fallen from a fourth floor balcony. The surgeons laboured over her for patient hours and no one thought of going to dinner, although two or three of the nurses managed to get a cup of coffee. But Lavinia, being scrubbed and taking the morning’s list, went stoically on until at length, about three o’clock in the afternoon, she had a few minutes in which to bolt a sandwich and drink some coffee, and because the morning’s list had been held up it ended hours late; in consequence the afternoon list was late too, and even though she didn’t have to scrub, she was still on duty. When she finally got off duty it was well past seven o’clock. There was no reason why she should look for the professor on her way to supper; he was unlikely to be lurking on the stairs or round a corner of any of the maze of passages, so her disappointment at not meeting him was quite absurd. She ate her supper, pleaded tiredness after her long day, and retired to the fastness of her room.
A good night’s sleep worked wonders. She felt quite light-hearted as she dressed the next morning; she would be off at four o’clock and the lists weren’t heavy; perhaps she would see Professor ter Bavinck and he would suggest another quick snack… She bounced down to breakfast, not stopping to examine her happiness, only knowing that it was another day and there was the chance of something super happening.
Nothing happened at all. Work, of course—there was always plenty of that; it was a busy hospital and the surgeons who worked there were known for their skill. The morning wore on into the afternoon until it was time for her to go off duty. Neeltje was off too—they were going out with some of the other nurses; a trip round the city’s canals was a must for every visitor to Amsterdam and they would take her that very evening. She got ready for the outing, determined to enjoy herself. She had been silly and made too much of the professor’s kindness—it was because she went out so seldom with a man that she had attached so much importance to seeing him again. Heaven forbid that she should appear over-eager, indeed, if he were to ask her out again she would take care to have an excuse ready, she told herself stoutly. She stared at her reflection in the looking glass—he wasn’t likely to ask her again, anyway. He was in the hospital each day, she had heard someone say so, and there had been plenty of opportunities…
She left her room and took the short cut to the hospital entrance where she was to meet the others. The last few yards of it gave her an excellent view of the forecourt so that she couldn’t fail to see the professor standing in it, talking earnestly to a young woman. It was too far off to see if she was pretty, but even at that distance Lavinia could see that she was beautifully dressed. She slowed her steps the better to look and then stopped altogether as he took the girl’s arm and walked away with her, across the tarmac to where his motorcar was standing. She didn’t move until they had both got into it and it had disappeared through the gates, and when she did she walked very briskly, with her determined little chin rather higher than usual and two bright spots of colour on her cheeks.
When they all got back a couple of hours later, the professor was standing in the entrance, talking to two of the consultants, and all three men wished the girls Goeden avond. Lavinia, joining in the polite chorus of replies, took care not to look at him.
She wakened the next morning to remember that it was her day off. The fine weather still held and she had a formidable list of museums to visit. She was up and out soon after nine o’clock, clad in a cool cotton dress and sandals on her bare feet and just enough money in her handbag to pay for her lunch.
She went first to the Bijenkorf, however, that mecca of the Amsterdam shopper, and spent an hour browsing round its departments, wishing she had the money to buy the pretty things on display, cheering herself with the thought that before very long, she might be able to do so. But it was already ten o’clock and the museums had been open half an hour already, she started to walk across the Dam Square, with its palace on one side and the stark war memorial facing it on the other, down Kalverstraat, not stopping to look in the tempting shop windows, and into Leidsestraat. It was here that she noticed that the blue sky had dimmed to grey, it was going to rain—but the museum was only a few minutes’ brisk walk away now, she could actually see the imposing frontage of her goal. The first few drops began to fall seconds later, however, and then without warning, turned into a downpour. Lavinia began to run, feeling the rain soaking her thin dress.
The Bentley pulled into the curb a little ahead of her, so that by the time she was level with it the professor was on the pavement, standing in the rain too. He didn’t speak at all, merely plucked her neatly from the pavement, bustled her round the elegant bonnet of the car, and popped her into the front seat. When he got in beside her, all he said was: ‘You’re very wet,’ as he drove on.
Lavinia got her breath. ‘I was going to the museum,’ she began. ‘It’s only just across the road,’ she added helpfully, in case he wanted an excuse to drop her off somewhere quickly.
‘Unmistakable, isn’t it?’ he observed dryly, and drove past it to join the stream of traffic going back into the city’s heart.
Her voice came out small. ‘Are you taking me back to St Jorus?’
‘Good lord, no—on your day off? We’re going to get you dry, you can’t possibly drip all over the Rijksmuseum.’
He was threading the big car up and down narrow streets which held very little traffic, and she had no idea where she was; she didn’t really care, it was nice just to sit there without question. But presently she recognized her surroundings—this was the square she had visited that afternoon, and she made haste to tell him so. ‘I remember the houses,’ she told him, ‘they’ve got such plain faces, but I’m sure they must be beautiful inside. If you want to set me down here, I know my way—I expect you’re going to the hospital.’
‘No, I’m not.’ He circled the square and on its third side stopped before the large house in the middle of the row of tall, narrower ones, and when she gave him a questioning look, said blandly: ‘I live here. My housekeeper will dry that dress of yours for you—and anything else that’s wet.’ He spoke with friendly casualness. ‘We can have our coffee while she’s doing it.’
‘Very kind,’ she said, breathless, ‘but your work—I’ve delayed you already.’
He leaned across her and opened the door before getting out of the car. ‘I have an occasional day off myself.’ He came round the car and stood by the door while she got out too, and then led her across the narrow cobbled street to his front door.
She had no idea that a house could be so beautiful; true, she had seen pictures of such places in magazines, and she was aware that there were such places, but looking at them in a magazine and actually standing in the real thing were two quite different things. She breathed an ecstatic sigh as she gazed around her; this was better than anything pictured—a large, light hall with an Anatolian carpet in rich reds and blues almost covering its black and white marble floor, with a staircase rising from its end wall, richly carved, its oak treads uncarpeted and a chandelier of vast proportions hanging from a ceiling so high that she had to stretch her neck to see it properly.
‘You don’t live here?’ she wanted to know of her companion, and he gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, but I do—have done all my life. Come along, we’ll find Mevrouw Pette.’
He urged her across the floor to a door at the back of the hall, beside the staircase and opened it for her, shouting down the short flight of stairs on the other side as they began to descend them. At the bottom there was a narrow door, so low that he was forced to bow his head to go through. It gave on to a surprisingly large and cheerful room, obviously the kitchen, decided Lavinia, trying not to look too curiously at everything around her. Nice and old-fashioned, but with all the modern gadgets any woman could wish for. There were cheerful yellow curtains at the windows, which looked out on to a narrow strip of garden at the back of the house, and the furniture was solid; an enormous wooden dresser against one wall, a scrubbed table, equally enormous, in the centre of the brick floor and tall Windsor chairs on either side of the Aga cooker. There were cheerful rugs too, and rows of copper pots and pans on the walls. It was all very cosy and one hardly noticed the fridge, the rotisserie and the up-to-date electric oven tucked away so discreetly. Out of sight, she felt sure, there would be a washing-up machine and a deep-freeze and anything else which would make life easier. The professor must have a very good job indeed to be able to live so splendidly—and there were no fewer than three persons working in the kitchen, too. The elderly woman coming to meet them would be the housekeeper and as well as her there was a young girl cleaning vegetables at the sink, while another girl stood at the table clearing away some cooking utensils.
The professor spoke to them as he went in and they looked up and smiled and then went on with what they were doing while he talked to Mevrouw Pette at some length. She was a thin woman, of middle height, with a sharp nose and a rosy complexion, her hair, still a nice brown, drawn back severely from her face. But she had a kind smile; she smiled at Lavinia now and beckoned to her, and encouraged by the professor’s: ‘Yes, go along, Lavinia—Mevrouw Pette will take your dress and lend you a dressing gown and bring you down again for coffee,’ Lavinia followed.
So she went back up the little stair once more and across the hall to the much grander staircase and mounted it in Mevrouw Pette’s wake, to be ushered into a dear little room, all chintz and dark oak, where she took off her dress and put on the dressing gown the housekeeper produced. It was blue satin, quilted and expensive; she wondered whose it was—surely not Mevrouw Pette’s? It fitted tolerably well, though she was just a little plump for it. She smoothed back her damp hair, frowned at herself in the great mirror over the oak dower chest against one wall, and was escorted downstairs once more, this time to a room on the right of the hall—a very handsome room, although having seen a little of the house, she wasn’t surprised at that. All the same, she had to admit that its rich comfort, allied with beautiful furniture and hangings of a deep sapphire blue, was quite breathtaking.
The professor was standing with his back to the door looking out of a window, but when he turned round she plunged at once into talk, feeling shy. ‘You’re very kind, and I am sorry to give you so much trouble.’
He waved her to an outsize chair which swallowed her in its vast comfort and sat down himself opposite her. ‘I’m a selfish man,’ he observed blandly. ‘If I hadn’t wished to trouble myself, I shouldn’t have done so.’ He crossed one long leg over the other, very much at his ease. ‘You didn’t look at me yesterday evening,’ he observed. ‘You were annoyed, I think—I hope…and that pleased me, because it meant that you were a little interested in me.’
He smiled at her look of outrage. ‘No, don’t be cross—did I not say that we could be nothing but honest with each other, as friends should be? I have been back for three days and I had made up my mind not to see you for a little while, and then yesterday I changed my mind, but I met an old friend who needed advice, so I was hindered from asking you to come out with me.’
She had no idea why he was telling her all this, but she had to match his frankness. ‘I saw her with you.’
He smiled again. ‘Ah, so you were hoping that I would come?’
The conversation was getting out of hand; she said with dignity and a sad lack of truth: ‘I didn’t hope anything of the sort, Professor,’ and was saved from further fibbing by Mevrouw Pette’s entrance with the coffee tray, but once the coffee was poured, her relief was short-lived.
‘You probably think that I am a conceited middle-aged man who should know better,’ said the professor suavely.
She nibbled at a spicy biscuit before she replied. ‘No. You’re not middle-aged or conceited. And I did hope you’d ask me out again, though I can’t think why, me being me. If I were a raving beauty I don’t suppose I’d be in the least surprised…’
He laughed then, suddenly years younger. ‘Is your young sister like you?’ he wanted to know.
‘To look at? No; she’s pretty, but we like the same things and we get on well together—but then she’s easy to get on with.’
‘And you are not?’
‘I don’t know. My aunt says I’m not, but then she doesn’t like me, but she has given Peta a home for a year now and sent her to school…’
‘But not loved her?’
‘No.’
He passed his cup for more coffee. ‘You think your sister will like Amsterdam?’
‘I’m sure she will. She takes her O levels this week and then she’ll leave school—just as soon as I can get somewhere to live here she can come. I thought she could have Dutch lessons…’
‘And you plan to stay here for the foreseeable future?’
Lavinia nodded cheerfully, happy to be talking to him. ‘I like it, living here. I feel quite at home and I earn so much more, you see, and if I stay here for a year or two I could save some money, enough to go back to England if Peta wanted to, and start her on whatever she decides to do.’
‘No plans for yourself?’
She said a little stiffly: ‘I’m quite happy, Professor.’
His thick eyebrows arched. ‘Yes? I ask too many questions, don’t I?’ He got up and went to open the french window and a small hairy dog, all tail and large paws, came romping in, followed by an Irish setter, walking with dignity. ‘You don’t object to dogs?’ asked the professor. ‘Dong and Pobble like to be with me as much as possible when I’m home.’
Lavinia was on her knees making friends. ‘Nonsense Songs!’ she cried happily. ‘Which one’s Dong?’
‘The setter. My daughter named them—most people look at me as though I’m mad when I mention their names, but then the Nonsense Songs aren’t read very widely.’
‘No—my father used to read them to me when I was a little girl.’ She got to her feet. ‘I’m sure my dress must be dry by now—you’ve been very kind, but I’m wasting your morning; I’ll go and find your housekeeper if I may.’
For answer he tugged the beautifully embroidered bell-pull beside his chair, and when Mevrouw Pette came said something or other which caused her to smile and nod and beckon to Lavinia, who got up obediently and followed her out of the room.
Her dress was dry once more and moreover pressed by an expert hand. She did her face and hair, laid the dressing gown lovingly on the thick silk bed quilt, and went downstairs. The professor was in the hall, and she stifled a pang of disappointment that he appeared so anxious to speed her on her way, even as she achieved a bright, friendly smile and hurried to the door. He opened it as she reached his side and she thrust out a hand, searching frantically for something suitable to say by way of farewell. But there was no need to say anything; he took her hand, but instead of shaking it, he gripped it firmly, whistled piercingly to the dogs, and went out of the door with her. At the car she halted. ‘Thank you,’ she tried again, in what she hoped was a final sort of voice. ‘There’s really no need…I know where I am.’ She glanced up at the sky, the greyness had changed back to blue once more. ‘I shall enjoy walking.’
‘Fiddle,’ declared her companion, and opened the car door. ‘I’m going to show you the Rijksmuseum, and we’ll have to take the car because these two like to sit in the back and guard it when I’m not there.’
He opened the other door as he spoke and the two astute animals rushed past him and took up position with a determination which brooked no interference on Lavinia’s part; she got in too, at a loss for words.
Her companion didn’t appear to notice her silence but drove off with the air of a well-contented man, and only when they were almost at the museum did he remark: ‘Everyone comes to see the Nachwacht, of course—it’s a wonderful painting, but there are several which I like much better. I’d like to show them to you.’ He paused and added gently: ‘And if you say how kind just once more, I shall wring your neck!’
Lavinia jumped and gave him a startled look; he wasn’t behaving like a professor at all, nor, for that matter, like a man who would never see forty again. ‘I can’t think why you should speak to me like that,’ she reproved him austerely, and was reduced to silence by his: ‘Am I cutting the corners too fine for you? It seemed to me that since we liked each other on sight, it would be a little silly to go through all the preliminaries, but if you would prefer that, I’ll call you Miss Hawkins for a week or two, erase from my mind the sight of you in Sibendina’s dressing gown, and drop you off at the next bus stop.’
She had cried: ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ before she could stop herself, and went on a little wildly: ‘You see, I’m not used to—to…well, I don’t get asked out much and so none of this seems quite real—more like a dream.’
‘But dreams are true while they last—your Tennyson said so, what’s more doesn’t he go on to say: “And do we not live in dreams?” So no more nonsense, Lavinia.’
He swept the car into the great forecourt of the museum, gave the dogs a quiet command and opened her door. He took her arm as they went in together and it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should do so. She smiled up at him as they paused before the first picture.
There was no hurry. They strolled from one room to the next, to come finally to the enormous Nachtwacht and sit before it for a little while, picking out the figures which peopled the vast canvas, until the professor said: ‘Now come and see my favourites.’ Two small portraits, an old man and an old woman, wrinkled and blue-eyed and dignified, and so alive that Lavinia felt that she could have held a conversation with them.
‘Nice, aren’t they?’ observed her companion. ‘Come and look at the Lelys.’
She liked these even better; she went from one exquisitely painted portrait to the next and back again. ‘Look at those pearls,’ she begged him. ‘They look absolutely real…’
‘Well, most likely they were,’ he pointed out reasonably. ‘Do you like pearls?’
‘Me? Yes, of course I do, though I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen any real ones. The Queen has some, but I don’t suppose there are many women who possess any.’
He smiled and she wondered why he looked amused. ‘Probably not. Will you have lunch with me, Lavinia?’
She hesitated. ‘How k…’ She caught the gleam in his eye then and chuckled delightfully. ‘I’ve never fancied having my neck wrung in public, so I’ll say yes, thank you.’
‘Wise girl.’ He tucked an arm in hers and began to walk to the exit, then stopped to look at her. ‘How old are you?’ he wanted to know.
She breathed an indignant: ‘Well…’ then told him: ‘Twenty-six,’ adding with an engaging twinkle: ‘How rude of you to ask!’
‘But you didn’t mind telling me. I’m getting on for forty-one.’
‘Yes, I know.’ And at his sharp glance of inquiry: ‘One of the nurses told me—not gossiping.’
He said very evenly: ‘And you were also told that I am a widower, and that I have a daughter.’
‘Oh, yes. You see, they all like you very much—they’re a bit scared of you too, I think, but they like it that way—you’re a bit larger than life, you know.’
He didn’t answer at once, in fact he didn’t speak at all during their short drive back to the house, only as he drew up before his door he said in a quiet voice: ‘I don’t care for flattery, Lavinia.’
Her pleasant face went slowly pink; a quite unaccountable rage shook her. She said on a heaving breath: ‘You think that’s what I’m doing? Toadying to you? Just because you’re smashing to look at and a professor and—and took me out to supper…and so now I’m angling for another meal, am I?’
She choked on temper while she made furious efforts to get the car door open. Without success at first and when she did manage it, his hand came down on hers and held it fast. His voice was still quiet, but now it held warmth. ‘I don’t know why I said that, Lavinia, unless it was because I wanted to hear you say that I was wrong—and you have. No, leave the door alone. I’m sorry—will you forgive me?’ And when she didn’t answer: ‘Lavinia?’
She said stiffly: ‘Very well,’ and forgot to be stiff. ‘Oh, of course I will; I fly off the handle myself sometimes—only you sounded horrid.’
‘I am quite often horrid—ask my daughter.’ His hand was still on hers, but now he took it away and opened the door for her, and when she looked at him he smiled and said: ‘Mevrouw Pette has promised us one of her special lunches, shall we go in?’
She smiled back; it was all right, they were back where they had been; a pleasant, easy-going friendship which made her forget that she wasn’t a raving beauty, and allowed her to be her own uncomplicated self.
‘Super, I’m famished, though I keep meaning not to eat, you know—only I get hungry.’
He was letting the dogs out and turned round to ask: ‘Not eating? A self-imposed penance?’
‘No—I’m trying to get really slim.’
Dong and Pobble were prancing round her and she bent to rub their ears and then jumped at his sudden roar. ‘You just go on eating,’ he said forcefully. ‘I like to be able to tell the front of a woman from her back, these skeletal types teetering round on four-inch soles don’t appeal to me.’
She laughed. ‘It would take months of dieting to get me to that state, but I promise you I’ll eat a good lunch, just to please you.’
They went into the house then, the dogs racing ahead once they were inside so that they could sit as near the professor as possible, while Lavinia went upstairs to do things to her face and hair, and when she came down again they had drinks, talking companionably, before going into lunch, laid in what the professor called the little sitting-room, which turned out to be almost as large as the room they had just come from.
‘The dining-room is so vast that we feel lost in it,’ he explained, and then as a door banged: ‘Ah, here is Sibendina.’
Lavinia had only just noticed that there were places laid for three on the table and she wasn’t sure if she was pleased or not; she was curious to meet the professor’s daughter, but on the other hand she had been looking forward to being alone with him. She turned to look over her shoulder as the girl came into the room, at the same time advising herself not to become too interested in the professor and his family; he had befriended her out of kindness and she must remember that.
Sibendina was like her father, tall and big and fair, with his blue eyes but fortunately with someone else’s nose, for his, while exactly right on his own handsome face, would have looked quite overpowering on her pretty one. She came across the room at a run, embraced her father with pleasure and then looked at Lavinia, and when he had introduced them with easy good manners, she shook hands, exclaiming: ‘I’ve heard about you—may I call you Lavinia? I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.’
She sat down opposite her father and grinned engagingly. ‘Now I can practise my English,’ she declared.
‘Why not, Sibby? Although Lavinia might like to practise her Dutch—she’s already having lessons.’
‘And hours of homework,’ said Lavinia, ‘which I feel compelled to do, otherwise Juffrouw de Waal makes me feel utterly worthless.’
They all laughed as Mevrouw Pette brought in lunch, and presently the talk was of everything under the sun, with Sibendina asking a great many questions about England and Peta’s school. ‘She isn’t much older than I am,’ she observed, ‘but she sounds very clever—what is she going to study next?’
‘Well, I don’t really know; if she comes here to live with me I thought she might have Dutch lessons, then if she’s passed her eight O levels, she might be able to take a secretarial course—the Common Market,’ Lavinia finished a little vaguely.
‘Not nursing?’ the professor wanted to know.
Lavinia shook her head. ‘Peta’s too gentle—she can’t stand people being angry or bad-tempered, and there’s quite a bit of that when you start training.’
Sibendina was peeling a peach. ‘She sounds nice, I should like very much to meet her. When does she come?’
‘I don’t know if the hospital will keep me yet—if it’s OK I’ll find somewhere to live and then go and fetch her.’
‘And this aunt she lives with—will she not mind?’
Lavinia smiled at the girl. ‘I think perhaps she will mind very much—I’m rather dreading it, but I promised Peta.’
‘But if you did not go what would your sister do?’
‘I think she might run away,’ said Lavinia soberly. ‘You see, she’s not very happy.’
Sibendina looked at the professor, sitting quietly and saying almost nothing. ‘Papa, you must do something.’ She looked at the Friesian wall clock. ‘I have to go; I shall be late for class—you will excuse me, please.’ She went round the table and kissed her father. ‘Papa,’ she said persuasively, ‘you will do something, please. I like Lavinia very much and I think that I shall like Peta too.’
He spoke to her but he looked at Lavinia. ‘Well, that’s a good thing,’ he observed blandly, ‘for I’m going to ask Lavinia to marry me—not at once, I shall have to wait for her to get used to the idea.’
Lavinia felt the colour leave her face and then come rushing back into it. She hardly heard Sibendina’s crow of delighted laughter as she ran out of the room, calling something in Dutch as she went. She was looking at the professor who, in his turn, was watching her closely. ‘Don’t look like that,’ he said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘I shan’t do anything earth-shattering like dropping on one knee and begging for your hand; just let the idea filter through, and we’ll bring the matter up again in a few days. In the meantime what about a brisk walk to the Dam Palace? It’s open for inspection and worth a visit.’
She spoke in a voice which was almost a whisper. ‘Yes, that would be very nice—I’ve always wanted to see inside a palace. Is it far?’
‘No, but we’ll go the long way round; the nicest part of Amsterdam is tucked away behind the main streets.’
She could see that he had meant what he had said; he wasn’t going to do anything earth-shattering. With an effort she forced herself back on to the friendly footing they had been on before he had made his amazing remark, and even discussed with some degree of intelligence the architecture of the old houses they passed, and once they had reached the palace, her interest in it and its contents became almost feverish in her efforts to forget what he had said.
They had tea at Dikker and Thijs and then walked slowly down Kalverstraat while she looked in the shop windows; a pleasant, normal occupation which soothed her jumping nerves, as did her companion’s gentle flow of nothings, none of which needed much in the way of replies on her part. They turned away from the shops at last and the professor led her through the narrow streets without telling her where they were going, so that when they rounded a corner and there was the hospital a stone’s throw away, Lavinia almost choked with disappointment. He was going to say good-bye; he had decided to deliver her back safely after a pleasant day, foisted on him by the accident of the rain. He had been joking, she told herself savagely—he and Sibendina, and she had actually been taken in. She swallowed the great unmanageable lump in her throat and said politely: ‘Well, good-bye—it’s been lovely…’
His surprise was genuine. ‘What on earth are you talking about? I’ve only brought you back so that you can change your dress—we’re going out to dinner.’
She didn’t stop the flood of delight which must have shown in her face. ‘Oh, are we? I didn’t know.’
He shepherded her across the street and in through the hospital gates. ‘I’ll be here at seven o’clock, Lavinia—and don’t try and do any deep thinking—just make yourself pretty and be ready for me.’
Her, ‘Yes, all right,’ was very meek.