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‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘I asked him once—oh, a long time ago, and he said he was waiting for the girl.’ He shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘It didn’t make much sense …’ He broke off. ‘Here’s Franeker again; we’re a bit late, but I don’t suppose it will matter.’
Harriet smiled at him. ‘It was lovely, Aede. I enjoyed every minute of it.’
He brought the car to a rather abrupt halt in front of the house and they both went inside.
‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ said Harriet, and flew upstairs, to throw down her raincoat, look hastily at herself in the mirror and then race downstairs again. Almost at the bottom of the staircase she checked herself abruptly and continued down to the hall with steps as sedate as the voice with which she greeted Dr Eijsinck, whom she had observed at that very moment standing there. Disconcertingly he didn’t answer, and she stood looking up at him—he was in her way, but his size precluded her from passing him unless she pushed by. It seemed a long time before he said reluctantly,
‘You smiled. Why?’ He gave her a hard, not too friendly stare. ‘You didn’t know me.’
So he had seen her after all. Harriet felt her heart thudding and ignored it. She said in a steady voice,
‘No, I didn’t know who you were, Dr Eijsinck. It was just … I thought that I recognized you.’ Which was, she thought, perfectly true, although she could hardly explain to him that she had dreamed about him so often that she couldn’t help but recognize him.
He nodded, and said, to surprise her, ‘Yes, I thought perhaps it was that. It happens to us all, I suppose, that once or twice in a lifetime we meet someone who should be a stranger, and is not.’
She longed to ask him what he meant and dared not, and instead said in a stiff, conversational voice,
‘What excellent English you speak, Doctor,’ and came to a halt at the amused look on his face. And there was amusement in his voice when he answered.
‘How very kind of you to say so, Miss Slocombe.’
She looked down at her shoes, so that her thick brown lashes curled on to her cheeks. He was making her feel awkward again. She swallowed and tried once more.
‘Should we go into the drawing-room, do you think?’
He stood aside without further preamble, and followed her into the room where she was instantly pounced upon by Sieske so that she could meet Wierd and see for herself that he was everything that her friend had said. He was indeed charming, and exactly right for Sieske. They made a handsome couple and a happy one too. Harriet suppressed a small pang of envy; it must be nice to be loved as Wierd so obviously loved Sieske. She drank the sherry Aede brought her and sat next to him during the meal which followed and joined in the laughter and talk, which was wholly concerned with the engagement party. It was discussed through the excellent soup, the rolpens met rodekool, the poffertjes—delicious morsels of dough fried in butter to an unbelievable lightness—and was only exhausted when an enormous bowl of fruit was put on the table. Harriet sat quietly while Aede peeled a peach for her, and listened to Dr Eijsinck’s deep voice—he was discussing rose grafting with her hostess, who turned to her and said kindly, but in her own language,
‘Harry, you must go and see Friso’s garden, it is such a beautiful one.’
Aede repeated her words in English, and then went on in the same language.
‘We went past your place this evening, Friso. I took Harriet for a run and we stopped while she admired your flowers.’
Harriet looked across the table at him then and smiled, and was puzzled to see his mobile mouth pulled down at the corners by a cynical smile, just as though he didn’t in the least believe that she had a real fondness for flowers and gardens. When he said carelessly, ‘By all means come and look round, Miss Slocombe,’ she knew that he had given the invitation because there was nothing else he could do. She thanked him quietly, gave him a cool glance, and occupied herself with her peach. She took care to avoid him for the rest of the evening, an easy matter as it turned out, for Dr Van Minnen had discovered that she had only the sketchiest knowledge of Friesland’s history, and set himself to rectify this gap in her education. It was only at the end of the evening that Dr Eijsinck spoke to her again and that was to wish her good night, and that a most casual one.
Later, in her pleasant little room, she sat brushing her hair and thinking about the evening. Something had gone wrong with her dream. It had seemed that kindly fate had intervened when she had met him again, but now she wasn’t so sure, for that same fickle fate was showing her that dreams had no place in her workaday world. Harriet ground her even little teeth—even though he had a dozen beautiful girl-friends, he could at least pretend to like her. On reflection, though, she didn’t think that he would bother to pretend about anything. She got into bed and turned out the light and lay in the comfortable darkness, wondering when she would see him again.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE AWOKE EARLY to a sparkling April morning and the sound of church bells, and lay between sleeping and waking listening to them until Sieske came in, to sit on the end of the bed and talk happily about the previous evening.
‘You enjoyed it too, Harry?’ she asked anxiously.
Harriet sat up in bed—she was wearing a pink nightgown, a frivolous garment, all lace and ribbons. Her hair fell, straight and gold and shining, almost to her waist; she looked delightful.
‘It was lovely,’ she said warmly. ‘I think your Wierd is a dear—you’re going to be very happy.’
Sieske blushed. ‘Yes, I know. You like Aede?’
Harriet nodded. ‘Oh, yes. He’s just like you, Sieske.’
‘And Friso?’
Harriet said lightly, ‘Well, we only said hullo and good-bye, you know. He’s not quite what I expected.’ She explained about the gravy stains and the permanent stoop, and Sieske giggled.
‘Harry, how could you, and he is so handsome, don’t you think?’
Harriet said ‘Very,’ with a magnificent nonchalance.
‘And so very rich,’ Sieske went on.
‘So I heard,’ said Harriet, maintaining the nonchalance. ‘How nice for him.’
Sieske curled her legs up under her and settled herself more comfortably. ‘Also nice for his wife,’ she remarked.
Harriet felt a sudden chill. ‘Oh? Is he going to marry, then?’ she asked, and wondered why the answer mattered so much.
Sieske laughed.
‘Well, he will one day, I expect, but I think he enjoys being a … vrijgezel. I don’t know the English—it is a man who is not yet married.’
‘Bachelor,’ said Harriet.
‘Yes—well, he has many girl-friends, you see, but he does not love any of them.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Harriet in a deceptively calm voice.
‘I asked him,’ said Sieske simply, ‘and he told me. I should like him to be happy as Wierd is happy; and I would like you to be happy too, Harry,’ she added disarmingly.
Harriet felt herself getting red in the face. ‘But I am happy,’ she cried. ‘I’ve got what I wanted, haven’t I? A sister’s post, and—and—’ The thought struck her that probably in twenty years’ time she would still have that same sister’s post. She shuddered. ‘I’ll get up,’ she said, briskly cheerful to dispel the gloomy thought. But this she wasn’t allowed to do; the family, it seemed, were going to church at nine o’clock, and had decided that the unfamiliar service and the long sermon wouldn’t be of the least benefit to her. She was to stay in bed and go down to breakfast when she felt like it.
Sieske got up from the bed and stretched herself.