A Match for Sister Maggy (15 page)

‘We're on a dead dyke,' he explained. Maggy stood still and looked around her. They were indeed walking above the level of the fields all around them. But the sea was several miles away.

‘It's not needed any more,' she hazarded. ‘You reclaimed the land, and so another dyke was built…'

‘Clever girl!' He sounded pleased at her interest. By the time they reached the village, he had told her all about Sleepers and Dreamers and Watchers.

‘Such lovely names,' she said. ‘They sound like sentinels on duty.'

Paul smiled. ‘But that's just what they are,' he said.

They were in the village by now and he slowed his pace a little. The few people about greeted him with smiles and nods and incomprehensible words.

‘We like to speak our own language,' he explained briefly as he knocked on the door of a very small house indeed; the end one in a similar row. ‘You were disgusted with Madame Riveau's house, weren't you? Now you shall see how a Friesian housewife keeps house.'

The woman who answered the door was big and tall—as tall as Maggy herself—but no longer young. When she saw Paul she beamed and shook hands, and when he introduced Maggy, wrung her hand too.

‘We're to go inside and have tea—Mevrouw Stijlma is the sexton's wife; we can get the keys of the church from her.'

The three of them almost filled the tiny room. Maggy, pushed gently into a chair by Paul, looked around her with interest.

‘May I stare?' she enquired of him. ‘I know it's rude, but there's so much to see.'

The room sparkled and shone with a perfection of cleanliness Maggy had seldom seen. The walls were almost covered with enlarged photos, some of them a dingy brown with age, and all framed in dark wood. They jostled some of the most beautiful plates; worthy of a museum. The mantelpiece was shrouded in plum-coloured chenille with an important bobble fringe; it held brass candlesticks of as fine a workmanship as could be found. She guessed that they were probably two hundred years old. The furniture was solid and Victorian in style and draped in snowy anti-macassars, but the wooden chairs round the table were painted in the traditional bright colours of Hindeloopen and were a great deal older than the rest of the furniture.

Paul left her to gaze her fill, and then asked, ‘Well?'

‘It's so clean. I mean everything—and some of the things are beautiful.'

Her startled eye lighted on a large woollen square hung on the wall, woven into a startling picture of unlikely kittens and a ball of very pink wool. Next to it hung a sampler, exquisitely stitched and almost colourless with age.

‘Things get handed down from one generation to another.' Paul's eyes were twinkling. ‘There's quite a variety.'

They drank their tea, milkless and in paper-thin cups, while he and the sexton's wife talked with little pauses while the conversation was translated for Maggy's benefit. After a little while they took their leave, the church keys swinging from Paul's hand.

It was a large church, old and rather austere, with a thin spire crowned by its weathercock. Paul opened the low wide door and it creaked ajar to let them pass through. It was quiet and cool inside, with plain white-washed walls and no stained glass windows or ornaments, and no flowers. Maggy found it very much to her taste, for it reminded her
of the bare little church near her own home. It seemed natural for Paul to take her hand and lead her down the centre aisle between the high wooden pews with their carved ends, each with its card, neatly inserted in its brass holder, bearing the names of its occupants. He stopped by the front pew and she stooped down to see his name, Van Beijen Doelsma, and his mother's name beneath it, and when she looked at the stone flags they were standing upon, his name was there too. The letters were impossible to understand but the name was clear and the date: 1649.

She said quietly, ‘It makes you feel small, doesn't it?' and then, ‘You really belong here, don't you?'

They were peering up at a wall plaque, a riot of carved plumes, elaborate scrolls and cherubim arranged around the stone profile of a haughty-looking gentleman with a determined chin and a Napoleonic hairstyle.

‘Great-great-Grandfather,' said Paul. ‘He didn't take kindly to being occupied by the French troops under Napoleon. He spent a lot of time in prison, leaving his wife to bring up six children—they're all here—each generation follows the same pattern of life as the previous one. We are christened and married and buried here.' He looked down at her. ‘And I shall follow that pattern.'

Maggy had a sudden blindingly vivid picture of Stien standing in the aged church, a vision in white satin and tulle. She said hastily, to forget it, ‘Won't that be rather difficult for you? You work in Leiden and you are often in Utrecht.'

They moved slowly side by side down the aisle and contemplated the magnificent sounding-board above the pulpit.

‘I shan't need to go to Utrecht so often,'—Maggy silently agreed; he would have Stien with him always, wouldn't he?—‘We'll spend the week in Leiden and come up here for weekends, and my wife and children will do the same.'

‘Naturally,' murmured Maggy. She supposed Stien wouldn't mind—after all, she would have the best of both worlds and Paul for a husband; what more could any girl want?

They wandered slowly to the door and so out into the late afternoon and back down the road to return the keys to Mevrouw Stijlma, and when they turned to leave, Maggy, rather shyly, said, ‘
Dag,
Mevrouw,' which released a flood of kindly praise, not one word of which she could understand.

‘Very nice,' said Paul. ‘Have you managed to acquire any Dutch while you've been in Holland?' He sounded really interested, and Maggy was emboldened to recite her vocabulary—a hotch-potch of words she had heard and remembered to look up in her dictionary. He laughed a good deal at some of them, and spent the whole of the walk back to Oudehof explaining the complications of Dutch grammar to her. Maggy listened attentively and thought wistfully that there were more interesting things to talk of other than the pitfalls to be found in the Dutch language.

The afternoon had become unpleasantly chilly by the time they had reached the house. Great clouds billowed over the wide sky, the wind tore at Maggy's headscarf and whipped her hair around her face. The hall was warm and welcoming. Maggy stood at the foot of the staircase, taking off her gloves. Her face glowed with the chill; her eyes sparkled. She refused Paul's offer of tea and in reply to his enquiry as to whether she had enjoyed her walk, said soberly,

‘Aye, it was a grand wee walk, Dr Doelsma. Thank you for showing me the kirk…'

He interrupted her rather impatiently.

‘There's no question of thanks, Maggy. I don't know when I have enjoyed a walk so much, perhaps because I
seldom have the chance of airing my knowledge to such a good listener as yourself.'

‘Och, aye,' Maggy said shortly. Her brows knitted into a frown; she was suddenly out of temper with her world. If it had been Stien with Paul, it wouldn't have mattered what sort of a listener he had…

‘I'm away to Mevrouw Doelsma.' She didn't look at him, but went upstairs at a great rate, her long legs taking two steps at a time.

By the time she had left Mevrouw Doelsma there wasn't more than half an hour to dinner. She changed rapidly into the pink dress and pinned her hair neatly. It was still damp from her bath and she brushed the curly tendrils tidily aside, and then, when they sprang loose again, threw down her brush with an unwonted impatience, and with barely a second glance in the mirror went down to the drawing room to find Mevrouw Doelsma and the doctor already there.

Dinner passed pleasantly enough. The talk was of the kind that needed very little thought, the food and pleasant surroundings had their effect on her. Maggy rose from the table quite cheerful and went as usual to her room while Paul and his mother had their hour or so together. It was almost ten o'clock when she returned to the drawing room. Mevrouw Doelsma was more than ready for bed and got up at once and kissed her son. ‘Goodnight, Paul. I'll see you before you go in the morning.'

‘Of course.' He looked at Maggy standing quietly near the door. She said goodnight, too, but he didn't answer at once, and she turned to go. He said, at his most persuasive, ‘Come riding in the morning, Maggy? Is seven o'clock too early for you?'

She hadn't meant to say yes. She was half way up the
stairs, still trying to decide why she had been so weak-willed, and at the same time bubbling over with happiness.

 

It was a wild grey morning, but dry, Maggy was at the stables well before the hour, to find the doctor gentling Cobber and Biddy ready for her. They swung into the saddles and started off across the park and out into the little lane at its back, not hurrying, but talking idly. She was completely taken by surprise when Paul said casually,

‘I should like to take you out, Maggy. Perhaps we could have dinner and dance somewhere, if you would like that.'

She took so long to reply that he turned to look at her.

‘Of course, if you don't want to, my dear girl, don't hesitate to say so.'

‘Of course I want to come!' Maggy burst out, and stopped. She did, but was it rather unwise? She squashed her more prudent thoughts, and said, ‘You see, I haven't a dress.'

He chuckled. ‘That's the first time I've heard that used as an excuse for not going on a date! Usually it's the other way round; surely an invitation is a good reason for buying a new dress?'

They turned the horses and started for home.

‘Mother shall go with you to Leeuwarden. You may have discovered already that she loves to shop. There's bound to be something to fit you there. They cater for big women here, you know.'

Maggy said indignantly, ‘I wish you wouldn't call me a big woman!'

He gave her a sideways glance; there was a gleam in his eye. ‘Certainly I won't call you a big woman if you don't like it. I can think of several alternatives—shall I try out a few?'

Maggy frowned. ‘No,' she said severely.

He said. ‘Just as you like, Maggy,' in a deceptively meek
voice, so that she had to laugh. ‘That's better,' he said. ‘Now about this evening…'

 

He left soon after breakfast, and his mother came down to see him off.

‘You'll be in Leiden for lunch,' she remarked.

‘I'm going to Utrecht, Mother.' He was stuffing papers into a briefcase.

‘I can't think why you don't live there!' his mother declared rather pettishly.

‘Yes, you can, dearest. You know how much I am attached to my home in Leiden, I could never give it up. Besides, my son must inherit it in his turn, must he not?'

Maggy, standing rather uncertainly close by, not sure if she was wanted, heard him. He looked very handsome and more arrogant than ever. She thought of him in his house on the Rapenburg, with a very large family and a devoted and well-loved wife. She couldn't bear it and turned to slip quietly upstairs, but he had seen her move and put out a long arm and swung her round to walk with them to the door, where he kissed his mother, then turned and dropped a light kiss on the tip of her own nose and got into his car and drove away.

He had said that he was coming back in two days' time to take her out. Maggy had plenty of time to think about it meanwhile. She supposed that the evening out was a kind of thank-you from a grateful employer. She would be going back to England in a few days, just as soon as she heard from Matron. Paul, she thought without conceit, had grown to like her as a friend, and there was no reason why two friends shouldn't have a pleasant evening together. She hadn't expected to see him again; she would make the most of what would most certainly be their last meeting.

M
AGGY STOOD
in front of the mirror in her bedroom at Grotehof, and looked at herself. She supposed she was all right—it was a pity that there was so much of her—but the dress was certainly rather nice, cream guipure lace over a matching slip with a narrow blue velvet ribbon at the waist. It just skimmed her knees, showing off her long legs to advantage; it was sleeveless too. She had been rather doubtful about so much bosom showing, but Mevrouw Doelsma had told her that a low décolleté was quite a proper thing.

Maggy gave her hair a final pat, picked up her little evening purse and went downstairs. Paul and his mother were sitting by the fire in the hall. He saw her first and got up and came towards her, looking elegant and immensely tall. She stood shyly on the bottom step while he looked her frankly up and down.

‘Delightful, Maggy. I can see that you will turn all the men's heads this evening.'

But not yours, Paul, she thought, and added out loud, ‘Och, who'd want to look at a great lass like me?'

She went over to the fire to show herself to Mevrouw Doelsma, who pronounced herself more than satisfied with Maggy's appearance.

‘I'll get my coat,' said Maggy, but before she could take more than a couple of steps, Paul stopped her.

‘It will be quite chilly later on—it's a long drive.' He took no notice of her look of surprise, but went on, ‘I wondered if you would like to borrow Cousin Marthe's coat—it's only gathering dust in a closet upstairs.' He lifted an armful of superb cashmere coat from the back of one of the chairs, and stood holding it out.

Maggy put out a hand and touched it. ‘It's beautiful!' she breathed. ‘It looks like cashmere.'

‘It is cashmere,' he answered.

‘But I can't wear it; what would your cousin say?'

The doctor looked at her, his head a little on one side.

‘Nothing at all,' he said, with perfect truth. He strode forward and wrapped it around Maggy. ‘It fits you very well, too,' he said, avoiding his mother's eye.

Maggy walked slowly over to the large gilt-framed mirror on one wall, and stood in front of it, stroking the coat gently. ‘I've never had a cashmere coat,' she murmured. She looked anxiously at the doctor over one shoulder. ‘Is it not impertinent to wear something so costly? I mean—' she sought for words—‘I would never be able to buy a coat like this one in my whole life.'

Paul was getting into his own coat and replied easily,

‘Well, if it were an old coat, you'd not think twice about it, would you? But we haven't an old tweed coat to fit you, so you'll have to do with this one.' He didn't give Maggy time to think too deeply about this, but he had spoken in such a matter-of-fact voice that her face cleared and she walked over to Mevrouw Doelsma with her doubt dispelled, and said goodnight before going out to the car with the doctor.

It was barely half-past six. Paul allowed the Rolls to idle
along the narrow road to Heerenveen, but once on the main road to the south he allowed the needle to creep up to the hundred mark and steady itself there. He settled himself so that he could watch her face, and said,

‘Do you like travelling fast, Maggy?'

‘Aye, I like it fine, Doctor.' She gave him a fleeting smile. ‘Though I'd not dare myself,' she added truthfully. ‘I'd not feel safe.'

‘I trust you feel safe with me?'

She laughed. ‘You know I do, Doctor.'

He sighed loudly. ‘Maggy, must we have this formality? If my memory serves me aright, you've called me Paul on previous occasions.'

She said, with rather a heightened colour, ‘Well, I was a wee bit fashed…'

‘Is it only when you're fashed that you forget to guard your tongue, Maggy?'

She made a fierce little sound; the weak ghostling of some old Gaelic word. ‘I shall not say, Doc…'

‘Paul,' he said.

‘Paul,' she finished.

He chuckled and gentled the Rolls back to a ladylike pace as they went through Amersfoort, so that he could point out some of the more interesting aspects of the pleasant town. ‘We're almost there,' he said.

Maggy gave him a questioning look. ‘It's a long way to come for dinner,' she said. ‘Wasn't there anything nearer Oudehof?'

The doctor's lips twitched as he thought of the numbers of young ladies who had been only too glad to travel for an hour in his company.

‘Is my company so irksome?' he asked. ‘I thought you would like the ride; I'm sorry if you have found it boring.'

He kept his attention on the road as they passed an articulated lorry, travelling hell-for-leather from Germany to the coast; he was trying not to laugh.

Maggy gave a gasp, and put a hand on his knee, ‘I didn't mean that,' she uttered. ‘You must know I didn't, I wanted to go out with you.' She took a sharp breath—she hadn't meant to say quite that—and made haste to modify it. ‘I mean,' she said carefully, ‘you've gone to so much trouble to arrange the evening, even finding a coat for me—and there must be any number of hotels near Leeuwarden where we could have gone, and you need not have spent the entire evening…' She stopped. He had steered the car into the slow traffic lane, and now he took a hand off the wheel and covered hers with it. He wasn't laughing any more.

‘Maggy, stop! Why do you suppose I asked you out this evening?'

‘Well, Doc… Paul,' she explained, ‘I think it's a…a kind of treat because my job is finished and I'll be leaving…'

‘A sweet after the medicine?' he asked quietly.

‘Aye, that's it.'

He pulled into the side of the motorway and stopped the car, then turned deliberately in his seat so that he could see her.

‘I asked you out because I wanted to spend an evening with you, Maggy—I enjoy your company. I am not giving you a treat—I am the one who is having that. You could have easily refused to come.'

She looked back at him steadily. ‘I never thought to do that,' she replied honestly.

He switched on the engine again. ‘Having cleared up that knotty little problem, let's dine. I hope you're hungry, for I'm famished. Years ago, I took a girl out to dinner at this same place. She was very small and dainty and had an
appetite to match. She refused almost all solid food, and I spent a dreadful evening, dancing on an empty stomach.' They laughed together and fell into a comfortable discussion about food, until he drew up outside the imposing doors of the Hotel Kasteel Hooge Vuursche. Maggy found its splendid magnificence rather overpowering, but she suffered the cashmere coat to be taken from her, and followed the waiter to a table on the edge of the dance floor. Paul following her, nodded to several acquaintances, and watched the interested glances cast at Maggy. She didn't seem to notice them, but sat down with charming dignity, as though she were in the habit of dining there every evening. She studied the menu card, and Paul picked up his own and waited, not sure if her schoolgirl French could cope with it. Presently he said, ‘Is there anything particular you would like, or will you leave it to me?'

She gave him a grateful glance. ‘Please will you choose? Though I would very much like to try the
caneton à la Rouennaise
'—she pronounced it beautifully.

The doctor wondered where she had got her knowledge of the famous dish, but was far too well-mannered to ask; but she seemed to think that an explanation was due to him.

‘I've never eaten it—I've never been to a restaurant grand enough to serve it—but the laird—my father is his factor—used to walk with me sometimes and talk about food, and it was one of the dishes he told me I must try if ever I had the opportunity.'

‘It's an excellent choice, Maggy. Shall we have
consommé
first and then
Sole Normande,
and finish with a
bombe bouché aux fruits?
'

‘It sounds lovely.' She looked around her while he conferred with the waiter. This done, he sat back in his chair and said,

‘And now I'll answer the questions I can see trembling on your lips. You want to know what the place is and how old it is and who lived here, don't you?'

Maggy looked surprised. ‘Yes, I do, but how did you know?'

‘You have an expressive face; besides, I can read your thoughts.' He spoke lightly and plunged into the hotel's history until he was interrupted by the wine waiter. Maggy allowed her gaze to wander once more—it really was delightful, and very smart. She had never been to anything quite like it before, and, she reminded herself soberly, was very unlikely to do so again. She was glad she had on a pretty dress. Would they dance? she wondered. The band seemed good. She turned back to Paul, to find him watching her.

‘We'll have a drink, then perhaps you would like to dance?'

The drinks were brought, and she wasn't quite sure what they were.

The doctor raised his glass. ‘Champagne cocktail,' he explained, ‘to put wings on our feet.'

Maggy didn't need wings. She was a good dancer and as light as a feather despite her size. They were well matched, and circled the floor, not speaking; it didn't seem necessary.

They went back to their table and started a leisurely dinner, and when the waiter removed the remains of the
Sole Normande,
Paul stretched out a hand. ‘Let's dance again, shall we?'

Maggy got up at once, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks pink with excitement and the excellent champagne he had chosen. The band was playing a Viennese waltz and they drifted around, scarcely talking. His arm tightened around her and she raised her face to his, smiling, and said, ‘I could dance for hours—it's wonderful!'

‘You're a beautiful dancer, Maggy.' He was staring down at her.

‘And you're a beautiful woman too.' He spoke quietly, without smiling.

Her eyes widened. ‘Thank you,' she stammered a little. ‘I've never been called beautiful before, it makes a wonderful evening even more wonderful.'

‘Don't you believe me?'

She smiled and shook her head. ‘No, not really, but it's nice all the same.'

The duckling was everything it should have been, so that it seemed sacrilege to follow it with anything else, but the
bombe bouché aux fruits
was perfection of its kind. When she had eaten the last morsel, Maggy said, ‘I'll never forget this dinner, or any moment of this evening.'

‘Nor I,' he replied. ‘I have seldom enjoyed myself so much. What shall we do, talk or dance?'

‘Both,' she answered promptly. ‘I should like to know more about the hospital at Leiden.'

He obliged her with a great many interesting details, and she listened absorbed, until he said suddenly,

‘You know, it's a great waste of time to talk about work when we could be dancing.' They danced for an hour or more, and if they talked Maggy had no idea what the conversation was about. They were standing waiting for the band to play an encore, when she asked,

‘I wonder what the time is?'

Paul looked at his watch. ‘Almost twelve.'

‘It can't be! We must go home; you have to be in Utrecht by ten tomorrow—you said so.'

The band started up again. He scooped her up neatly, and they were half way round the room before he answered her.

‘Plenty of time if I leave Oudehof by eight o'clock.'

‘But we're not there yet.'

‘What a fearful bully you are, Maggy! We'll go after this dance, provided you promise not to say another word.'

They finished their dance in a companionable silence, and went outside to the car. The night air was cool, and there was plenty of wind, but the sky was clear. Maggy was glad of the soft warmth of the sable coat, despite the warmth of the car. She sat quietly beside Paul, and he didn't speak until they were clear of Baarn.

‘Tired?' he asked.

‘No, not a bit. It's just so restful sitting here while you drive; and my head's buzzing with the wonderful evening I've had.'

He said he was delighted to hear it, and led the conversation round to her family and home, but while she answered his apparently guileless questions readily enough, she gave him no clue as to where her home actually was. She had told him that it was in the Highlands; but that was a vast, sparsely populated area. He tried again now, but she changed the subject gently but firmly enough for him to be unable to continue with his questions without being guilty of bad manners. He followed her lead, and Maggy sighed with relief. She had made up her mind that when she left Oudehof it would be with no trace of herself left behind.

There was a light in the hall when they returned, Paul got out of the car and opened the big door for her, then said, ‘There'll be hot coffee in the kitchen. I'll put the car away while you fill the mugs.'

Maggy waited for the doctor, sitting on the kitchen table, swinging her long shapely legs. She was in a dreamlike state of happiness which she was well aware was only temporary; but the future seemed a long way off at that
moment. Paul came in and closed the door quietly behind him, and Maggy slid off the table and poured the coffee, then went and sat sedately in the comfortable old Windsor chair near the stove. The doctor, mug in hand, leaned against the table, watching her. Presently he spoke. ‘Shall we go riding before breakfast, Maggy?'

Maggy looked at the old wall clock; it was already three—she didn't feel in the least tired. She agreed happily.

‘About seven? Just a quick gallop before you go? I'd like that fine.'

Their eyes met and held and she felt the pink creeping into her cheeks, and hoped he wouldn't see it by the single light she had switched on; she found it impossible to look away.

‘Why do you stare so?' she asked at length.

‘I'm sorry,' he said quietly. ‘I was remembering the night you came down here armed with the poker…'