A Match for Sister Maggy (14 page)

Maggy felt contrite. ‘Madame Riveau! How awful of me to forget her. Did you telephone the hospital—is she all right?'

The bridge started to swing down. Paul, with his eyes on the traffic lights, said, ‘I went to see her this morning—they operated last night. She should do well now—no thanks to those graceless menfolk of hers.'

The Rolls surged ahead again. Maggy took a quick look behind her, to see Mevrouw Doelsma still happily reading her letters. ‘I'm glad she'll be well again—she worried me when I had her on my ward at St Ethelburga's.'

‘You take your work very seriously, don't you?' Paul asked.

Maggy raised her eyes to his. ‘Don't you, too, Doctor?'

His eyes were on the road ahead. They were approaching Haarlem, and he slowed down. ‘I? Of course, but I have the advantage over you, have I not? For when I marry, I shall have a wife and children to fill my life, as well as my work.'

The pain in her heart seemed physical. ‘You mean that I have only my job? But that keeps me very busy.'

‘Don't you want to marry, Maggy?' he asked casually.

‘I'm quite happy, Doctor,' she said, and gasped as he said,

‘You're a poor liar, my girl,' and before she could think of a reply, ‘Mama, shall we stop in Alkmaar for coffee and show Maggy the cheese market?'

The conversation became three-cornered and stayed so until they entered Alkmaar, when Paul slowed the car so that Maggy might admire the grass-encircled water before they entered its narrow streets. It was getting on for midday, and the streets were pleasantly bustling.

‘What a cosy place!' Maggy cried.

Paul agreed. ‘Though it wasn't always so—the Spaniards laid siege to it in the sixteenth century, you know. I imagine it was far from cosy then.'

They had reached the end of the main street, and he turned the car into a very narrow street, lined with small
shops. It opened rather unexpectedly on to a cobbled area, with a canal on one side and a row of houses and shops on the other. In its centre stood the Weigh-House, its delightful step gables climbing upwards, to culminate in a weather vane. Paul parked the Rolls just beyond this fairy-tale edifice and looked at his watch.

‘We're just in time to see the clock. Jump out, Maggy.' He leaned across her and undid her belt and opened the door. ‘We'll be back in a moment, Mama.'

Maggy found herself being hustled over the cobbles, just in time to watch the quaint little figures appear as the clock chimed. She stood gazing upwards, her eyes alight with interest, her lovely mouth slightly open. Paul stood beside her, an arm flung carelessly around her shoulders. When it was finished she said, ‘I think the bells and chimes are the things I'll remember most. They're so beautiful.'

They started back towards the car, walking slowly, his arm still around her while he told her of the town. They collected Mevrouw Doelsma and crossed the cobbles to a small unpretentious café facing them. It was warm and very clean and smelled appetisingly of soup with a distinct whiff of brandy. They sat at a table covered with what Maggy thought was a run, and drank delicious coffee, while the proprietor stood chatting to them. She had to admire the way Paul contrived to translate for her, without interrupting the flow of the conversation.

The weather had clouded over by the time they left the café. There was a cold wind blowing; it ruffled the canal water and made the trees rustle dryly. They got back into the car and Paul drove out of the little town on to the Den Helder road; it ran alongside a canal, running as straight as a ruler through the flat bare country. Maggy didn't care for it, and said so. Paul agreed. ‘But I came this way so that
you could see as much of Holland as possible. It isn't all as beautiful as the country around Oudehof.'

The road was empty ahead of them. The Rolls flashed along without hindrance. The tall blocks of flats on the outskirts of Den Helder appeared on the skyline. Maggy looked at them with a critical eye and offered the opinion that it appeared to be an ugly place.

‘Very ugly,' said Mevrouw Doelsma. ‘Fortunately you aren't likely to come this way again; I shall close my eyes,' she added, ‘and you can tell me when we get to Hippolytushoef, for there it is much prettier.'

This she did, leaving Paul to point out the meagre attractions of the town and then to explain the far more interesting details of the dyke they were about to cross. They went sedately through the great sluices and on to the road under the great sea dyke wall. Maggy thought it was a pity that it hid the sea from their sight, but the Ijlselmeer on their other side held sufficient of interest to keep her busy asking questions for the first few miles. Paul answered her carefully and with no sign of impatience, until she paused and asked, ‘Am I boring you? It must be tedious for you to tell me all this…'

They were approaching the café half way along the Afsluitdijk. The car leapt ahead, eating up distance with effortless ease, as the needle crept up and up. Paul looked at her, and said, unsmiling,

‘You never bore me, Maggy, and never will. I thought you knew that.'

‘No. I didn't know,' said Maggy. Happiness swelled up inside her; it wouldn't last, but it would be something to treasure—something she wouldn't forget. She fidgeted like an awkward child, knowing that he was looking at her.

‘All right, you want to change the subject, don't you?'
He scarcely waited for her nod. ‘That's Friesland ahead—once we're on the mainland, we turn off for Bolsward.'

She watched the coastline rushing to meet them, grey against a grey sky, and presently they passed through a tongue of land, standing forlornly with a single row of small houses and a tiny lock, abandoned by the mainland. There was a woman hanging washing on a line in one of the back gardens, and no one else to be seen.

‘Do people really live there?' Maggy wanted to know, ‘What do they do?'

‘Work on the
dijk,
fish…' Paul answered carelessly. ‘It's called Kornwerderzand.'

They laughed at her attempts to pronounce it, but after half a dozen attempts she thought she did it rather well—it was another word to add to her small vocabulary.

The mainland was reached and with it the Friesian farm-steads, standing solidly, backed by their enormous barns and surrounded by their acres of rolling meadows. Mevrouw Doelsma gave a satisfied sigh.

‘Oh, how nice to be back! I love Leiden, but this is my home.'

‘Mother's a dyed-in-the-wool Friesian in everything but size,' Paul teased gently. ‘Fortunately for her self-esteem, the girls and I managed to achieve the height and size she had set her heart on.'

He had pulled into the side of the road while a high, wide farm cart, drawn by a magnificent Flemish horse, rolled slowly past.

‘Yes, I have been so glad about that,' murmured his mother, ‘and now all the children are shooting up so satisfactorily,' she sighed. ‘I hope yours will be true Friesians, Paul.'

They were moving again, and on the outskirts of Bolsward.

‘We shall have to wait and see, shan't we, Mother?' Paul
answered blandly, and then, ‘Look on your left, Maggy, here's the Gemeentehuis you so much admired.'

She looked obediently, glad to have her thoughts diverted, and asked intelligent questions which kept the conversation safely impersonal, if slightly dull. It was a relief to leave Sneek behind and know that the journey was almost over. Probably Paul would go straight back after a late lunch. She fell silent, weighed down by the possibility that she would probably not see him again and that there was nothing that she could do about it. It was with feelings of relief that she saw that they were approaching Oudehof. They swept through the gates, and as Paul stopped the car, the front door opened to reveal Pratt, who had gone back several days earlier, his elderly sombre face wreathed in rare smiles. Mrs Pratt came bustling across the hall as they went in and in a surprisingly short time had them sitting down to the excellent luncheon she had prepared for them.

They had eaten their smoked filleted eel on its hot buttered toast, and were half way through the
Rolpens met Rodekool
—spiced and pickled minced beef and tripe and apples and red cabbage—when Mevrouw Doelsma, who had been talking about nothing in particular, asked,

‘Paul, do you have to go back at once?'

He put down his knife and fork and sat back in his high-backed chair so that he could watch Maggy.

‘No, Mama. If I may, I'll stay until tomorrow morning.'

Maggy's hands tightened on her own knife and fork, but she didn't look up when his mother said,

‘Of course you may stay, Paul. What nonsense to ask when it's your house! I felt sure you would want to go to Utrecht.' He made no answer and she went on airily, ‘I suppose I shall have to rest until teatime. May I not lie down on the sofa in the drawing room—just for once?' She
looked enquiringly at Maggy, who smiled and said comfortably that she didn't see why not—just for once, and then relapsed into silence while Paul and his mother discussed the visits she was planning to make to her daughters.

It was as they were leaving the dining room that Mevrouw Doelsma said,

‘Why don't you take Maggy for a walk, Paul? I'm sure you would both enjoy the exercise.'

Maggy watched the dark brows gather in a frown before he answered shortly. His, ‘Yes, of course,' was uninviting. ‘Would you like that, Maggy?' He barely glanced at her.

Maggy gave him a cool stare. She loved him with her whole heart, but he could annoy her very much too! ‘I think not, thank you, Dr Doelsma, there are several things I should like to do before tea.'

She might have saved her breath. As he opened the door for them to pass through, he said coolly,

‘I have some telephone calls to make. I'll be in the study…about ten minutes, if that suits you?'

She made no answer; what was the use? She wasn't going to stand there wrangling about a walk, but she had no intention of going with him, not after that frown. Besides, she told herself for the hundredth time, the less she saw of him before she went back to England, the better.

She followed Mevrouw Doelsma into the drawing room and unhurriedly set about making her comfortable on the large velvet-covered sofa before the log fire, and lingered about her small tasks in the beautiful room, until, lying back against high-piled cushions, glasses and book within reach, her patient said, ‘There, Maggy, there's not another thing I want. Go and enjoy your walk.'

But Maggy lingered. ‘Would you not like me to read to you, Mevrouw Doelsma?'

‘Not today, my dear. I shall go to sleep at once.'

She closed her eyes in proof of her statement, and Maggy walked reluctantly to the door. It was a large double one, but it opened noiselessly under her hand; she closed it quietly behind her. The walls of the old house were very thick, but she didn't think anyone—Paul—would hear her. The study door was across the hall to her left, and she kept her eyes on it as she took off her shoes. If she could get upstairs to her room he would probably forget about the wretched walk. There was a vast expanse of black and white tiles between her and the staircase. Maggy started to cross it, her eyes on the door.

She had almost reached the stairs when she froze at Paul's voice. Without turning round she knew where he was. There was a great chair by one of the console tables on the right of the drawing room door…she hadn't even glanced that way.

‘Were you thinking of changing your shoes? There's no need, you know. It isn't wet underfoot.' He was gently mocking; she knew that if she looked at him, he would be smiling. She sat down deliberately on the bottom stair and put on her shoes.

‘I did say that I would prefer not to go for a walk, Doctor,' she said in a reasonable voice. ‘I meant it.' She ventured to look at him. Yes, he was smiling—she looked away quickly, and reiterated, ‘There are some things I wish to do.'

He had got up from his chair. ‘Something very secret,' he remarked affably, ‘since it requires you to creep about the house in your stockings.' He walked over to where she was standing on the lowest stair, and despite her own six feet, he still looked down at her. ‘And now tell me the real reason. Maggy.'

She said, very calm and composed. ‘You frowned…
you looked quite—quite saturnine. I have no intention of going for a walk with someone who finds the prospect so unwelcome.'

She turned on her heel and started up the stairs, to be caught round the waist and swung round and put gently on her feet beside him.

He released her at once. ‘Maggy, I'm sorry. What an ill-mannered boor you must think me.' His grey eyes looked very bright; she wanted to look away and found she couldn't. ‘Will it be enough if I say that I should very much like to go walking with you?'

It was impossible to say no when he was looking at her like that. She went over to the table where she had put hat and gloves, and he followed her over and opened a drawer, pulled out a scarf and tossed it to her.

‘Here,' he said lightly, ‘tie your hair up in this—there's a wind blowing.'

They went out of the door together and started down the short drive.

‘Let's go to the village—have you seen the church?'

‘No,' said Maggy. ‘It's always shut, and I didn't know how to ask for the key.'

He gave her a brief look. ‘Poor girl, we've treated you very badly. You've been left a great deal to your own devices, haven't you?'

Maggy looked surprised. ‘I'm not on holiday, Doctor.'

Paul looked as though he was about to say something else, but he remained silent, striding along the pleasant road. Maggy for once was glad to match him for size; anyone smaller would have been running by now… Stien, for instance. She squashed the thought—she would enjoy herself; had Paul not said that he had wanted to take her walking? She looked at him and met the same bright gaze
she had found so disturbing in the hall. He blinked rapidly and his eyes were their usual cool grey once more.