But not as sour as all that; she was on her way down to breakfast the following morning when Berthe came running upstairs to meet her. She pointed downwards, giggling, and then pointed at Britannia, who instantly thought of all the awful things which could have happened to either Mijnheer or Mevrouw Veske and rushed past her and down the stairs at a great rate.
‘I had no idea that you were so eager to see me again,’ said the professor. ‘Should I be flattered?’
He was standing in the hall, in his car coat with his gloves in his hand, and gave her the distinct impression that he was impatient to be gone.
‘No,’ said Britannia, ‘you shouldn’t—I thought something awful had happened to the Veskes. What are you doing here? Is someone ill?’
The professor’s lip twitched faintly. ‘Cut down to size,’ he murmured. ‘I called to see you.’
Britannia’s incurable optimism bubbled up under her angora sweater, but she checked it with a firm metaphorical hand and asked: ‘Why?’
‘I owe you an apology for my behaviour yesterday. I offer it now.’
‘Well, that’s handsome of you, Professor, I’ll accept it. I expect you were worrying about something and felt irritable.’
‘You concern yourself a little too much about my feelings, Miss Smith. Perhaps it would be better if you were to attend to your own affairs.’
She had annoyed him again. The optimism burst its bubble and she said quietly: ‘I’m sure you’re right. Thank you for coming—I expect you want to go…’
He gave her a long look and went to the door without a word, but before he could open it she had nipped across the hall to stand beside him. ‘I’m only here for a fortnight,’ she told him, and then, unable to resist the question: ‘Do you really live near here?’
‘Yes. Goodbye, Britannia.’
So that was that. She went into breakfast and made lighthearted rejoinders to the questions fired at her, and presently they all began talking about their plans for the day and the professor was forgotten.
They spent the next day or so sightseeing; Mevrouw Veske was a splendid hostess. They drove to Arnhem and spent several hours in the Open-Air Museum, absorbing Holland’s national culture through centuries through its farms, windmills, houses from every province and medieval crafts, and were taken to lunch at the Haarhuis, where Britannia ate eel, so deliciously disguised that she had no idea what it was until her hostess told her. They spent the afternoon looking at the shops and buying a few trifles to take home, and arrived back at the villa exhausted but very content with their day.
The next day was Saturday and Mijnheer Veske had offered to take the two girls riding. The weather had turned cold and bright and he knew the charming country around them like the back of his hand. Britannia, a rather wary horsewoman, found that she was enjoying herself immensely; her mount was a calm beast who made no effort to play tricks but was content to trot along after the other two, so that Britannia relaxed presently and looked around her. There were woods on either side of them, with here and there a small estate between the trees. Mijnheer Veske, who had lived there all his life, found nothing out of the ordinary about it, but she longed to explore away from the lanes; the glimpses of the houses she saw fired her imagination, and just as they were about to return home she caught a glimpse of a really splendid house, its gables tantalisingly half hidden by the trees surrounding it. There was a narrow lane running round the walls of the grounds, too. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask her host if they might ride a little way along so that she might see more of it, but it was already eleven o’clock and she knew that the Veskes lunched at midday. She made herself a promise that before she went back to England she would either cycle or ride that way and see it for herself.
They all went to church the next morning, driving to Hoenderloo in the Citroën. Britannia couldn’t help but wonder if the service would be of any benefit to herself and Joan, but it had been taken for granted that they would accompany the Veskes, and it would be an experience.
The church was red brick, built in the jelly-mould style with whitewashed walls and plain glass windows. It was lofty and spacious and on the cold side, but Britannia forgot all about that in her interest in following the service. It seemed one stood up when one would kneel at home, and sat down when one would stand, but the hymns, surprisingly, had the same tunes even though the words were incomprehensible. They were sung rather slowly too, so that she had the chance to try out some of the verses, much to Joan’s amusement. It was as the sermon began that she saw the professor, sitting in the front of the church and to her right, and he wasn’t alone. Beside him was a fair-haired girl with a beanpole figure draped in the height of fashion. Britannia, sitting between her host and hostess, wondered about her. She was undeniably beautiful if one liked glossy magazine types. She glanced down at her own nicely rounded person and sighed to be slim and golden-haired. There was only one tiny crumb of comfort; the professor didn’t look at his companion once; his arrogant profile was lifted towards the dominee, thundering away at the congregation from under his sounding-board.
And presently, as the congregation left the church, the professor and his companion passed the Veskes’ pew. He acknowledged their greeting pleasantly, smiled nicely at Joan and then wiped the smile off his face as he bent his cold eyes on Britannia, who so far forgot herself as to wrinkle her nose at him and turn down the corners of her pretty mouth in an unlady-like grimace. If he wanted war, he should have it!
A belligerent decision which was made to look silly, for as they rose from Sunday lunch the professor arrived at the front door to enquire for her, and when she went into the sitting room where the giggling Berthe had shown him, it was to find him nattily attired in tweeds and an anorak, with the bland invitation to go cycling with him.
‘Me?’ asked Britannia, much astonished.
He opened his eyes wide in exaggerated surprise. ‘Certainly you. I was under the impression that you had asked me to accompany you—healthy exercise, you said, and the certainty that fresh air would be good for my temper.’
She eyed him with astonishment. ‘And you’ve actually got a bike? You want to go cycling? With me?’
‘Yes.’
She beamed at him; the fairies were very much on her side after all. ‘Give me two minutes,’ she begged him.
It took her rather less than that to pull another sweater over her skirt, wind a scarf round her neck and tie a scarf round her hair, and another minute to explain to Mevrouw Veske, who looked pleased if surprised. ‘Well, at least one of us has found Prince Charming,’ observed Joan.
‘Stuff!’ retorted Britannia. ‘He’s only doing it because he thinks I’m a fool on a bike.’
‘Well, you are, ducky,’ said Joan cheerfully. ‘I expect he’ll teach you the rules of the road.’
But he didn’t; they cycled amiably enough along the route she had chosen and when he asked why she particularly wanted to go that way she told him about the house she had glimpsed and hadn’t had time to see. ‘It looked exciting, like things do look when you can’t see them properly—just the gables between the trees and a lovely park.’ She turned to look at him and wobbled alarmingly so that he put out a hand to steady her handlebars. ‘I still don’t know where you live, you know, and I quite understand that you don’t want me to know, though I can’t think why, but you must have a house somewhere within cycling distance; you’ll know who the house belongs to, I expect. There’s a little lane running round the park walls. Do you suppose the owner would mind very much if we went down it and looked over the wall?’
She was so intent on riding her bicycle in a manner to win his approval that she didn’t see the professor’s expression. Astonishment, amusement and then sheer delight passed over his features, but none of these were apparent in his voice. ‘I believe it is possible to cycle right round the grounds—there should be a better view of the house. Why are you so interested?’