‘It’s about Jake.’ Britannia felt cold as she said it.
Madeleine nodded. ‘Yes—you see, I wish to be honest with you—it’s about Jake.’
‘And this—whatever it is you want to tell me—is it important to you, or to him? And I’m not sure I want to hear it. And why can’t you wait until he is here and tell him too?’
‘He already knows.’
They were facing each other across the charming room. ‘You want to make trouble,’ declared Britannia, not mincing matters.
Madeleine came a step nearer. ‘I don’t like you, Britannia, why should I? But it is necessary that we talk; I do not wish to make trouble, but if I do not speak now, then there may be much unhappiness later on.’
Britannia was puzzled; Madeleine sounded sincere and she looked white and strained. Perhaps she had misjudged her after all. ‘I’m listening,’ she said steadily.
Madeleine didn’t sit down. ‘You must know that I expected to marry Jake, and I own that it was a shock when I heard that it was you whom he had chosen… You see, we have known each other for years.’ She looked away for a moment. ‘But there’s more to it than that; are you quite sure that he wants to marry you? I mean, does he love you—a lasting love one needs for marriage?’
She looked briefly at Britannia, her face solemn. ‘You are pretty and you amuse him because you speak your mind to him and he finds that diverting, but perhaps in a little while he will not be diverted any more, only irritated. You see, there is a gulf between you, Britannia. You do not come from his circle of friends. He met you in an unusual manner, did he not, so you are—how do you say?—attractive to him, but if that wears thin, what is there left? You do not know how to run a large house such as this one, nor how to entertain guests as he would want them entertained; you do not dress very well, you do not even speak his language. Even if he thinks that he loves you now, will there not come a day when these things will prove a barrier between you? Can you honestly tell me that this will not happen?’
Britannia got up and walked over to a window and looked out. The grey day outside reflected her feelings. ‘I don’t think that one can be certain of anything,’ she said, and forced her voice to sound reasonable. Madeleine had touched unerringly on her own doubts, but she wasn’t going to let her see that. And she hadn’t said anything she hadn’t herself already thought of.
Madeleine went on: ‘I expect you thought that it was I who wanted to marry Jake, and that he has never loved me, but I can prove that he does—that his love for you isn’t love at all, only infatuation, that he is already regretting…’
Britannia didn’t look round, so that she didn’t see Madeleine’s quick glance, calculating and sly as she opened her bag and took out an envelope and crossed the room to give it to her. It was addressed to Madeleine in the professor’s writing and it had been opened, and the letter she pulled out was in his writing too; Britannia would have recognised that atrocious scrawl anywhere.
‘It’s in Dutch,’ said Madeleine, ‘but I’ll translate it and it will explain everything to you.’ She held out the letter to Britannia with a sudden gesture which Britannia quite misinterpreted, and she saw the first words: ‘Mijn lieveling…’ She couldn’t see any more, because of the way the letter was folded, but she knew that it meant ‘my darling’, just as she knew that unlike the English word, the Dutch used it only as a term of real endearment between two people. And as though Madeleine had read her thoughts, she said quietly: ‘You must know that we don’t use the word lieveling in the social sense as the English do—it means much more to us than that.’ She unfolded the letter and came a little nearer to show Jake’s name at the end of the page, and Britannia, looking at it, thought dully that there must be a mistake. She drew a breath and said: ‘I don’t think I want to hear it, thank you.’
‘But you must,’ insisted Madeleine, ‘otherwise you will never believe me. Why should you when you know that Jake and I…’ She shot another look at Britannia, who had gone back to her chair, sitting there with her hands folded so quietly in her lap. ‘I owe it to us all to be honest, and I am trying to be that.’ She sounded very sincere.
She opened the letter and went to the window to read it. ‘It begins: “My darling…”’
‘No,’ said Britannia sharply, but Madeleine took no notice. “‘We see so little of each other and there is so much that I want to tell you—to explain how I could have imagined myself in love—but only a little—with someone else when you were there, waiting for me, for you knew it sooner than I. I intend to see her and tell her that it is you I will marry, and I think that she will understand, for her feeling for me cannot be deep. Perhaps you are wondering why I have not told you this instead of writing it, but somehow the time and place have never been right.” It ends: “All my love, Jake.”’
‘When did you get this letter?’ asked Britannia in a dry little voice.
‘Marinus brought it round this morning.’ Madeleine walked deliberately to the bell rope by the fireplace. ‘I’ll ring for Marinus to come here—you will believe him.’ Her voice was so bitter that Britannia said at once:
‘There’s no need for that. I’ve seen the letter, haven’t I?’ She stirred in her chair. ‘Jake went to see you yesterday, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, and I had to see you first…’
Britannia glanced at the clock. Jake would be home soon and she wondered what he was going to say. Madeleine said quietly: ‘Men like new faces even though they still love the old.’ She was putting on her coat, ready to go, and Britannia got to her feet and said in a polite voice:
‘Thank you for coming. I’m—I’m sure you have done what you think is right and at least I know what to do…’ She drew a breath to steady her voice. ‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy together,’ and then: ‘I didn’t know that you loved each other.’
Madeleine didn’t answer her as she went.
The professor came into his house half an hour later, during which time Britannia had tried to sort out her thoughts and had failed lamentably. There was so much truth in what Madeleine had told her and she had sounded sincere; moreover, she had looked upset, not sure of herself, and the letter had been genuine…
So it was that when Jake entered the room she voiced her thoughts without allowing common sense to control them. ‘You went to see Madeleine yesterday.’
He paused on his way across the room and gave her a long look. ‘I did.’ The smile on his lips had gone and his mouth had taken on a rather grim look. Britannia saw it and plunged still further.
‘She told me you had—and it was in the letter, and although I believed her I thought there might be a mistake—that I hadn’t understood…’
‘Nor have I understood, Britannia. I take it that Madeleine has been here?’ He frowned. ‘And you speak of a letter?’ His eyes had narrowed and Britannia said quickly before she lost her courage:
‘The letter you wrote to her, of course. She showed it to me—well, the beginning and end with your name. I didn’t want to see any more of it, I didn’t want to hear it either, but she insisted on translating it, otherwise she said I wouldn’t have believed her.’
‘But you did believe her, my dear Britannia,’ he observed blandly, ‘without giving me the benefit of the doubt, too.’ There was a nasty curl to his lip.
‘Oh, dear,’ cried Britannia in an exasperated voice, ‘now you’re in a fine temper…’
‘Not yet, but I believe I shall be very shortly,’ he agreed silkily. ‘I thought that you trusted me, Britannia.’
She looked at him helplessly, aware that she had started all wrong and it was going to be difficult to put it right—indeed, she had the strongest suspicion that he wasn’t going to listen to anything she said. ‘Shall we talk about it later?’ she asked quietly. ‘It was my fault, jumping on you like that.’