A Match for Sister Maggy (8 page)

They parted at the foot of the stairs, she to go to her room and change, and he to his breakfast. Maggy saw little of him that morning and he wasn't at lunch, but later that afternoon, when she and Mevrouw Doelsma went downstairs for their promised drive, they found him waiting for them beside the Rolls. He opened the door and helped his mother in, saying, ‘Sit in front, Maggy, we'll change seats presently.'

She slid into the seat beside his. ‘You don't mean that
I'm to drive this car?' She was astounded. ‘But it's a Rolls-Royce!'

‘Don't you want to drive it?'

‘Yes, very much; but I might be a shocking bad driver.'

‘In which case I shall tell you so, and drive myself.'

He took the same route that Pratt had taken on their first drive, and once they had entered the comparative quiet of the Oranjewoud, he stopped, got out, and waited while Maggy took his place. Having made sure that she indeed knew what she was about, he suggested that she should keep on the road they were already upon, and that he would take over again when it joined the main Assen-Meppel road. Having given this piece of sound advice he half turned in his seat and engaged his mother in conversation. Maggy was thankful for his tack; she knew quite a lot about cars but found the Rolls a little awe-inspiring. She need not have worried, though, for the Rolls was a lady, and behaved like one. She relaxed. The doctor saw it and asked,

‘Have you driven a Rolls before?'

‘No. It's like wearing a model dress when you're used to Marks and Spencers—though I've not worn a model dress,' she added, incurably truthful.

‘How long have you been driving?'

‘Five—no, six years.'

‘In the Highlands, I expect?'

‘Yes, mostly. The roads are surprisingly good, excepting in the winter.' She eased the car past a farm wagon, and put her foot down gently; the road was straight and nothing in sight. He watched the needle creep round the speedometer and said,

‘I gather that you have your advanced driver's certificate.' It was more of a statement than a question. She said.

‘Yes, Doctor,' in a meek voice and he chuckled. ‘No wonder you were annoyed with me!'

Maggy made no answer to this, but smiled, then slowed down to pass through a very small village straddling a canal, and obedient to his direction, turned into a right-handed fork towards the main road. Presently, when it was within sight, she drew in to the side of the road, stopped the car and looked at him enquiringly.

‘Very nice, Maggy; you drive as well as I do.' He said it without conceit. He turned to his mother. ‘If I didn't know better, I'd say that Maggy was wasted as a nurse, wouldn't you, Mama?'

Mevrouw Doelsma wouldn't agree to this. ‘Maggy's a born nurse, but it would be nice for her,' she went on pensively, ‘if she married a man with a Rolls-Royce.'

Maggy turned her head and looked intently at a view which hardly merited her prolonged scrutiny, and Dr Doelsma eyed her back with a slight smile and decided twinkle in his eyes. He said briskly, ‘That shouldn't be too difficult.'

He got out of the car, and Maggy slid back to her own seat as he got in. ‘Shall I get in beside Mevrouw Doelsma?' she asked, giving him a very fleeting look. But her patient declared that she was perfectly happy as she was, and Maggy was to stay where she was. She settled her length into the comfortable seat. ‘Thank you, Doctor. It was wonderful.' He answered her with some trivial remark about the car, and by the time the car was on the main road they had entered into a lively discussion concerning various aspects of motoring, so that she forgot to be shy.

Once on the high road, clear of traffic, the doctor gathered speed. There was no limit on the motorway; the
needle hovered on a hundred and sixty kilometers, and he asked. ‘Nervous?'

‘Not in the least,' Maggy retorted, ‘but what about Mevrouw Doelsma?'

The little lady in the back seat laughed. ‘I enjoy it. Pratt disapproves of me when I tell him to travel faster, but Paul knows how I like it.'

They flashed past a signpost and Dr Doelsma slowed down and turned into a narrow road.

‘We'll go back to Heerenveen across country,' he said. ‘The country's nothing like your Highlands, Maggy, but it's very pleasant.'

‘That burst of speed was most enjoyable, Doctor.' Maggy sounded sedate. ‘You'll be holding the same certificate as myself, I think.'

‘Hemel!'
He was half laughing. ‘I've been guilty of showing off.'

‘I was showing off too,' said Maggy, ‘but it's plain that you're a better driver than I am.'

They all returned to Oudehof in excellent spirits, and later at dinner the doctor made himself so pleasant that as Maggy went upstairs, leaving him and his mother together, she reflected that she hadn't enjoyed herself so much for a long time.

Mother and son settled down to their usual game of cards, and after a few minutes Mevrouw Doelsma remarked, ‘Maggy drives very well, Paul.'

Paul took a trick. ‘Yes, Mother. I noticed that you were sufficiently impressed to suggest that she should find a husband with a Rolls-Royce.'

His mother looked at her cards, wondering if she dared cheat. ‘Yes, dear, such a good idea.' She cheated, and took the next trick, and he tried not to laugh.

‘Mama, I have a Rolls-Royce.'

She looked up smilingly. ‘Yes, dear, that's what I meant,' she said.

Paul stared at her. ‘Mother dear, it has taken a whole evening of bright conversation to convince Maggy that that was not what you meant.'

His mother cheated again. ‘The poor child! I only wanted to put an idea into your head, Paul.'

Paul took a trick and said, ‘My dear, you surely know by now that the only ideas I act upon my own?' He smiled at her. ‘If you cheat cleverly enough, you'll win this game!'

Maggy came back presently, and sat in a nice old Friesian chair, painted all over with small flowers. Her uniform looked very severe against it, but she suited the chair very well; it had been made for big men and women.

The doctor stacked the cards neatly.

‘I must leave at six tomorrow morning, so we had better settle the arrangements for next week. I'll get an appointment for you, Mother, and Pratt can drive you both down. Stay for three or four days, and Maggy can have a couple of days off and go sightseeing. I'll be too busy to bring you back, but Pratt can fetch you whenever you want.'

His mother nodded. ‘It will be nice to come to Leiden for a few days, even if it is to go to the hospital. And nice for Maggy too.'

He opened the door for them. ‘It will be pleasant having you, Mother, and you too, Maggy. You'll exercise Cobber, won't you? I've spoken to Piet.' He kissed his mother, then took Maggy's hand and smiled down at her. ‘I shall enjoy showing you my house in Leiden, Maggy.'

She felt suddenly shy, and murmured something incoherent. She wouldn't see him for a week, but then she
would see him every day while she was in Leiden. She resolved, then and there, not to think about it.

 

They arrived in Leiden just in time for tea. The doctor wasn't home, but a housekeeper ushered them into the sitting room and went off to fetch their tea.

Maggy took a long look at the sitting room, and said, ‘Please may I walk round?' Her patient laughed and said of course; so Maggy made Mevrouw Doelsma comfortable by the window, and started on an eager inspection of the room. It was large, stretching from front to back of the house, with folding doors dividing its length half way. The walls were panelled and the plaster ceiling festooned with swags of fruit and flowers. She could see that it had been furnished with care and an eye for detail. She wondered who had done this, and said so, out loud.

Mevrouw Doelsma smiled at her. ‘I think you are feeling as I did the first time I saw this room. It's like walking into a Dutch interior, isn't it? All the furniture is antique and more or less as it was when the house was first built, and each generation has taken care to keep it that way. Paul loves every inch of it. He'll take you round, I expect, and tell you the history of everything, down to the last spoon.' She broke off as the housekeeper came in with the tea tray.

When she had gone, Maggy handed Mevrouw Doelsma her tea and sat herself down on the velvet covered window seat and drank her own out of a cup of very old Delft china of a delicate pinkish-mauve colour. She guessed that it was priceless, as was the silver tea tray, plain and solid, though the sugar bowl and cream jug were in the baroque style, very like those used at Oudehof. She struggled to remember who had made them, and was pleased when she recollected that it was Lely. They ate paper-thin sand
wiches and little biscuits, richly covered in almonds, and there was a rich plum cake which reminded her of her mother's cooking.

They had almost finished when she saw the Rolls draw up outside, and the doctor mount the small flight of steps to his front door. He shut it firmly, as though he had come into his own little world, snug and secure. The thought crossed her mind that there should be small children running to meet him, and a wife waiting. She wished with all her heart that she could be that wife, and turned a face full of dreams to the door as he entered the room, so that he stood, staring. By the time he had greeted his mother, however, and walked over to the window, Maggy was her usual self, calmly friendly, neat as a new pin in her uniform, ready to pour the fresh tea the housekeeper brought in, and answer readily the questions Paul put to her about their journey.

He turned to his mother. ‘I'm sorry I couldn't be here when you arrived, Mama.'

‘Yes, dear, so was I. I should have liked you to have seen Maggy when we came into this room.' She paused. ‘It sounds absurd; it had the same effect on her as it did on me, Paul. She—gathered it to her. That sounds silly, but you know what I mean, I think?'

‘Indeed I do.' He sat down in a beautiful carved chair with blue damask cushions, looking exactly like his ancestors on the wall behind him. But beyond this brief remark, he said no more about it, but entertained his mother with the kind of gossip she liked to hear, at the same time eating his way steadily through the plum cake. After a while he put his plate down.

‘Have you been up to your rooms yet?'

Mevrouw Doelsma shook her head. ‘No, dear. I thought I'd wait a while.'

‘Then I'll show Maggy the house, and by the time we're done, I daresay you'll feel like going up.'

Maggy sat quietly in the window, taking little part in their conversation, but now she looked up as the doctor came towards her.

He held out a hand wordlessly, and she stood up and took it, and he led her through the door into the hall. It was dim and cool, but not dreary. The black and white tiles glowed underfoot with the patina of age, as did the panelling, which stretched to the heavily ornamental ceiling. A carved staircase rose from the back of the hall, which narrowed to a passage leading to the back of the house, through a graceful archway.

They crossed the hall, and entered a much smaller room, with a similar panelling and ceiling, furnished with a heavy oaken table and chairs. There was a massive buffet against one wall, and in one corner, a large circular stove, with a tile surround, rising to the ceiling. Maggy lingered over the display of silver on the buffet, fingering the flat serving dishes and tureens with a loving hand, and only leaving them when the doctor invited her to inspect the engraved goblets in a corner cupboard. She held one, and marvelled at the beauty of its cupids and roses. The doctor put it back with its fellows and said,

‘It was made by David Wolff for my great-great-grand-father. He loved beautiful things. He was a doctor too.'

‘Have there always been doctors in your family?' Maggy wanted to know.

‘For the last two hundred years or so, yes,' he answered. ‘Before that we had land and ships and a great many sheep. We still have the land, but no ships and only the sheep we own on the farms.'

Maggy found this remark rather daunting; he seemed
even more removed from her world than before. She said hesitantly, ‘I thought Friesland was famous for its cows.'

‘So it is; I must take you to Leeuwarden one day and show you the statue of Mother Cow in the Zuiderplein. We have two farms in the Achterhoek—quite small ones run by cousins of mine. They find sheep pay better.'

He had opened a door as he was speaking and they entered the library. It was at the back of the house, and had ground-length windows opening out on to a small balcony overlooking a very small, beautifully kept garden which ran down to the edge of a small canal. Maggy walked round the shelves, looking at the books, and said over her shoulder, ‘Would you not like to shut yourself in here for years and read all these books?'

He laughed. ‘Well, I've read a great number of them. I daresay when I am a very old man, I shall take your advice and read the remainder.' He stood by the window, watching her browsing. ‘Please feel free to come here whenever you wish, Maggy, and borrow anything you want.'

Maggy thanked him and followed him back into the hall, from whence they mounted the staircase which opened on to a square landing, lighted by the high window over the front door. He led the way down a small passage leading to the back of the house and opened a door.

‘This will be your room. I hope you will be comfortable; anything you want my housekeeper, Anny, will gladly get for you.'

It overlooked the canal and the garden and was furnished charmingly in mahogany and chintz. There was a small fourposter bed against one wall. It had a curved canopy and a coverlet of silk and lace. Maggy had thought Oudehof a very grand place, but this house on the edge of
the Rapenburg canal, although much smaller, was even more richly furnished.

The doctor showed her several more rooms, all equally beautiful. On the opposite side of the landing he passed a door, commenting that it was his room, and led her past an elaborately carved double door, remarking briefly that it was naturally not in use, as it was the master bedroom, thence to a small narrow staircase, carved with as much skill as the one they had already ascended. At the top of the stairs was a very small sitting room with painted walls, a replica of one of the rooms at Oudehof which an ancestor had had copied, so that he should be reminded of Friesland while he lived in Leiden. The remaining rooms were intercommunicating, with wooden bars fixed across the narrow windows. In the first room there was a rocking horse pushed into a corner. The furniture was simple, rather old-fashioned and very cosy. They stood close together in the doorway, looking at it.