She was standing outside the front door, pulling up her anorak hood against the cold wind, when a Mini estate car drove up and stopped beside her, and the short stout man who had opened the door of the professor’s home got out. His ‘good morning’ was cheerful as he handed her an envelope and stood waiting. Her name was scrawled on it and she knew it was from the professor, so that her fingers shook a little as she opened it. The note inside was brief: ‘Will you come out to dinner with me this evening? Half past seven.’ It was signed J. L. T.

‘You will be so good as to give me the answer?’ asked the patient man beside her.

‘Will you please tell Professor Luitingh van Thien that I shall be delighted to accept.’ It would be their last meeting, she guessed, and she had no intention of refusing.

‘I was to tell you also, miss, that it is hoped that you will have sufficient time in which to make yourself ready.’

Britannia chuckled; the prospect of seeing the professor again had quite cheered her up, even though it hadn’t solved any problems. Let those wait, she told herself defiantly. ‘That’s very considerate of the professor. Will you thank him for me? I don’t know your name…?’

‘Marinus, miss.’ His cheerful beam swept over her. ‘Good day, miss.’

‘Good day, Marinus.’ She watched him get into the Mini and drive away and then went back to the house to tell Mevrouw Veske that she would be out that evening; she had to face a barrage of questions, of course; her hostess, with her goddaughter’s future nicely settled, wasn’t averse to her friend doing the same thing.

Britannia cycled a long way, trying to make herself think sensibly. She was aware that she was being foolish in seeing the professor again; a strong-minded girl would have said goodbye then and there… She sighed and got off her machine, leaned it against a gate and went to sit on a fallen tree. It was dim and damp along the lanes; the trees, their leafless branches arched above her head, shutting out what winter light there was. But it exactly suited her mood. Her impulse to refuse to see the professor again once she had returned home had been right, she felt sure; the reasons were good sound ones and sensible, but that didn’t make them any easier to accept for herself. As for him, very likely he would thank her in years to come.

Presently she got up again and began her ride back to the villa; there was lunch to be eaten, and the afternoon to get through before she could get ready for her evening. The pink dress, she reflected, although she very much doubted if the professor would notice it, but it would give her low morale a much-needed boost; the evening, she had determined, was going to be a success, something happy to remember for always. It was to be hoped that he wouldn’t lose his temper or raise his voice; his note had been a little terse. She patted the pocket where she had put it and started to sing cheerfully, keeping her thoughts on the evening ahead and no further than that.

CHAPTER FIVE

BRITANNIA DRESSED with great care, with a meticulous attention to detail which would have done credit to an aristocrat on the way to the guillotine, and if truth were told, in very much the same mood. Fate and the kind fairies hadn’t been so kind after all, or had they abandoned her because, with the professor in her hand, as it were, she had been too scrupulous?

She was ready far too soon and she went downstairs to sit with the Veskes, trying not to see Mevrouw Veske’s coy glances while her host explained about the return trip he had booked for herself and Joan.

‘Such a pity that you should have to return,’ she observed, remorselessly interrupting her husband, ‘but of course Joan will be with us again in a few weeks—perhaps you will be coming too, Britannia?’ She added guilelessly: ‘You also have friends here.’

Britannia gave her a limpid look. ‘Oh, yes, you’ve all been so super—but Joan’s only having a quiet wedding, no bridesmaids and only family and you, of course—besides, I’ve no more holidays due.’

Mevrouw Veske knitted a bit of complicated pattern with effortless ease. ‘You might like to come back on your own account, my dear.’

‘Oh, you mean work here?’ said Britannia, carefully misunderstanding. ‘Well, it might be fun, but there’s always the language difficulty, and…’ She paused thankfully as Berthe bounced in to say that the gentleman had arrived.

‘Then show him in,’ Mevrouw Veske begged her in her own language, and got up as she spoke to greet her visitor.

The professor was at his most charming and very elegant, his dark overcoat open to reveal a dinner jacket and shirt of pristine whiteness. Britannia, returning his cool greeting with one equally cool, thanked heaven that she had put on the pink dress; it was a little late in the day to capture his fancy—she seemed to have done that with nothing more glamorous than slacks and a sweater—but she felt well dressed and that made her feel confident. Ten minutes were spent in polite conversation before the professor got to his feet, murmuring that they had better make a start if they wanted their dinner, and Britannia went thankfully to fetch her coat. The professor helped her into it and just for a moment she wished that it had been mink or chinchilla instead of sensible tweed. Well, it wouldn’t have made much difference, anyway, she told herself sensibly. But it seemed that her companion wasn’t quite so unobservant as she had imagined. He shut the front door behind them, kissed her with quite surprising force and remarked: ‘Don’t complain—if you will dress up in that pink thing, you must expect the consequences. You’re beautiful, Britannia.’

It was a promising start to the evening; she got into the car determined to make the most of what she had. Surely Madeleine wouldn’t grudge her a few hours of happiness when she had a whole lifetime before her, for despite the professor’s protestations, Britannia thought the girl would somehow manage to marry him. She waited until he had got in beside her, then said: ‘Thank you,’ without either conceit or coyness.

‘And thank God you don’t simper,’ observed her companion.

‘And is that a compliment too?’ she wanted to know severely.

He was taking the road south towards Arnhem. ‘Ah, so my shortcomings are to be preached over, are they? My manners are at fault…’

‘Don’t be silly,’ she begged him in a motherly voice. ‘Your manners are very good indeed and you know that, and I’m not going to preach, truly I’m not.’

‘Good. We’re going to Scherpenzeel, just over twenty miles west of Arnhem. There’s a delightful inn there. We can turn off the motorway just outside Arnhem and go through Ede. I know it’s dark, but at least there are villages. Do you find the motorways rather bleak?’

‘Those I’ve been on, yes—I expect they vary.’

He said silkily: ‘Shall we discuss them in depth—so safe a conversation, don’t you agree?—or may we talk about ourselves?’

‘Well, I don’t much care to talk about roads,’ said Britannia reasonably. ‘But there’s nothing to say about us—we’ve said it all.’

‘You’re being a silly girl again. Why do you suppose I’ve brought you out this evening?’

She kept her voice very steady. ‘A sort of goodbye dinner, I thought.’

He gave a great laugh. ‘I shan’t say goodbye until the very last minute, Britannia, and that is still two days away. I shall spend the evening persuading you to marry me.’

The pink dress must be doing its work very well. She said in her calm way: ‘That will be a waste of time, and you know it.’

‘I shall have you in the end.’

She allowed a few seconds of delight at the prospect and then damped it down with common sense. ‘Perhaps we had better talk about roads,’ she observed primly.