Читать книгу Tulips for Augusta - Бетти Нилс - Страница 8

AUGUSTA, getting out of the train at Alkmaar, thought how nice it was to be in Holland again. She had forgotten how wide the sky could be, and how incredibly flat and peaceful the countryside was. And she was delighted too, that her Dutch, although a little rusty and slow, was still adequate. The station was a little way out of the centre of the small water-encircled town; she got herself a taxi, and spent the short ride rediscovering landmarks she had almost forgotten. Her great-aunts lived in a seventeenth-century house with a stepped gable in the heart of the bustling town; it was awkward by modern standards, with steep stairs, high ceilings and quantities of heavy furniture which needed constant polishing. But the bathroom and kitchen, though they might look old-world, were remarkably well equipped, and the house had the cosy air of having been built for comfort hundreds of years earlier, and having, through thick and thin, retained that comfort. Augusta loved it, and when, on occasion, she heard some sightseer or other remark upon its picturesque appearance, she was apt to swell with pride, even though her connections with it were extraneous.

Maartje opened the door—she had been cooking and cleaning and housekeeping for the aunts for as long as Augusta could remember, and excepting for her hair, which had faded from pale corn to silver, she hadn’t changed at all. They greeted each other like the old friends they were.

‘Your aunts are in the little sitting room,’ said Maartje, ‘go straight in, Augusta, and I will bring the coffee.’

Augusta made her way down the passage, narrow and panelled and hung with china plates and dim portraits; and knocked on the door at its end, and obedient to the quiet voice which bade her enter, went in. Her aunts were sitting as they always sat. At the round table in the middle of the room, both very upright in their straight, overstuffed chairs. The table had a finely woven rug thrown across it, upon which rested a Delft blue bowl filled with fruit. The windows, small and narrow, were hung with thick dark red curtains, and the wooden floor, worn and polished with its age, was partly covered with hand-pulled rugs. It looked exactly the same as when she had last seen it, three years ago…so did her great-aunts. Probably their clothes were different, for they were sufficiently well provided for to indulge in varied wardrobes, but as they invariably had their new dresses made exactly as those they were wearing, it was difficult to know this. They wore a great deal of black, the material being always of the finest and they each wore a quantity of gold jewellery, inherited from their mother, who had inherited it from her mother, and so on back over several generations, so that their rings and brooches and delicate dangling earrings were quite valuable. Both ladies were tall—a good deal taller than their great-niece, and they wore their hair in identical buns, perched high on their heads.

Augusta greeted them warmly, for she was fond of them both—and they, she knew, were fond of her. She stood patiently so that they might take a good look at her and comment on her looks and clothes, and she was pleased and not a little relieved when they approved of her new green coat and matching dress. Then, at their invitation, she took the coat off, and sat down between them as Maartje brought in the coffee and little biscuits called Alkmaarse Jongens. She sipped the delicious coffee and ate the Alkmaar boys, wondering, as she always did, why the Dutch had such picturesque names for their biscuits. She must remember to take some home with her…the thought put her in mind of all the messages she had been charged to deliver. She gave them now, stopping to search for a forgotten word from time to time, and occasionally muddling her verbs. When she had finished, Tante Marijna observed in a gentle voice that it was a good thing that she had come to pay them a visit, for, although her Dutch was fluent enough, her grammar was, at times, quite regrettable. Tante Emma, who was the younger of the two old ladies, echoed this in a voice even more gentle, adding the rider that her English accent was fortunately very slight.

‘You shall do the shopping, Augusta, while you are with us—there is no better way of improving your knowledge of our language—and we will have a few friends in, so that you will have an opportunity to converse.’

Augusta smiled and said with genuine pleasure that that would be nice, and how about her going up to her room so that she could unpack the presents which she had brought with her. The old ladies looked pleased and a little excited, and she left them happily engaged in guessing what the presents would be, while she went upstairs to the room in which she always slept when she paid them a visit.

It was two flights up, and overlooked the street below—a rather small room, plainly whitewashed and furnished simply in the Empire style. The curtains were a faded blue brocade and the coverlet was of patchwork, made by the great-aunts’ mother before she married. There were a variety of samplers upon the walls—Augusta knew them all by heart, as well as the histories of those who had stitched them. She walked slowly round the room, looking at each in turn—it was a little like meeting old friends again—then she unpacked quickly and took her armful of parcels downstairs; pale pastel woollen stoles for the old ladies, warm sheepskin slippers for Maartje, English chocolates and homemade marmalade and tins of chocolate biscuits, and some packets of their favourite tea from Jacksons in Piccadilly. By the time all these delights had been tried on and tasted and admired, it was lunch time. The old ladies had Koffietafel at noon each day—a meal of rolls and different sorts of bread, with cheese and sausage and cold meat and a salad arranged before each place upon a small silver dish—and of course, coffee. Augusta, who was hungry after her journey, ate with a healthy appetite which pleased the aunts, who were, as far as she could remember, the only members of her family who had not, at one time or another, made some reference to her delicate plumpness. She still remembered how, when she was a little girl, she had paid them a visit with her parents from time to time, and they had staunchly maintained that she was exactly as she should be, remarks which had endeared them for always to a small girl sensitive to the word fat, and possessed of a brother who teased.

The transient excitement of her arrival had died down by the evening, and when she got up the next morning, it was as though she had been integrated into the even tenor of their lives without any change in its placid routine. She went shopping after breakfast, and then, because there was no hurry, strolled down Houtil towards Laat, peering in shop windows until she fetched up in Vroom and Dreesman’s store, wandering happily from one counter to the next, pricing tights and undies and even trying on a few hats. But it was still early, and although the aunts had coffee soon after ten o’clock each morning, she could always get a cup from Maartje later. She turned her steps towards the Weigh House, because it was Friday and May and the cheese market would be in full swing. It was still a little early in the year for tourists, but there was a small crowd watching the cheese porters in their white shirts and trousers and coloured straw hats, going briskly to and fro in pairs, each pair carrying a large curved tray piled with cheeses between them. She had seen it all a dozen times before, but she stood and watched now with as much pleasure as though it was for the first time. The carillon was playing from the Weigh House tower too—she listened to Piet Hein and other Dutch folk songs she had half forgotten and then lingered just a little longer so that she could watch, as the clock struck the hour, the little figures of knights on horseback, high up on the tower, come charging through their doors, lances raised, while the clarion trumpeted over them. It made her a little late getting back, but the excuse that she hadn’t been able to leave the cheese market until the clock had struck was quite sufficient for her aunts. They were proud of their town and its traditions and found it quite proper that she should have wanted to renew acquaintance with one of her childhood’s pleasures.

The days resolved themselves into a slow, smooth pattern of doing nothing much. Friends came to tea or coffee, until one afternoon a car was hired and the aunts, incredibly elegant, drove, with her between them to Bergen, a large village on the edge of the sand dunes bordering the North Sea, to visit family friends. Augusta had been a little amused at their sharp-eyed scrutiny of her person before they went. She had put on another dress, the colour of caramel and simply cut, with an important chain belt encircling her slim waist, and offset by the jade earrings her father had given her because they matched her eyes. Apparently her appearance pleased them, for they smiled in unison and nodded their old heads before embarking on the tricky business of getting into the car.

The friends were elderly—a distant cousin and his wife. Augusta sipped sherry and made polite talk in her best Dutch and found herself wishing for a slightly younger companion. Her wish was to be granted, for presently the drawing room door was thrown open and a young man came in. She guessed he was a year or two older than herself, maybe twenty-five or six, and barely had time to wonder who he was before he had greeted everyone in the room and was standing beside her with their hostess. He was, it appeared, the son of another dear old friend. ‘Pieter van Leewijk,’ he murmured as they shook hands, ‘but call me Piet. I’ve heard about you, of course, and I daresay we may have met years ago when we were children.’

He smiled charmingly, first at her, then at his hostess, accepted a glass of sherry, and steered Augusta over to the window. They stood side by side looking out across the broad road to the island of grass and trees in its centre, inhabited by a few small, graceful deer.

‘Such a nice idea,’ she remarked, ‘deer living in the centre of the village.’ She smiled at the young man, who wasn’t looking at the deer but staring at her. He spoke in Dutch. ‘You are fluent in our language—someone said you were a nurse. I always thought nurses were dowdy, worthy girls.’

She raised sable brows. ‘Indeed? Perhaps you don’t get around a great deal.’

He laughed. ‘I was paying you a compliment.’

She decided that he was, but he sounded a little too sure of himself. She asked sweetly, ‘And you—what do you do?’

‘I’m a fashion photographer. You see, it was a compliment.’ He smiled again and took her glass. ‘More sherry?’

She shook her head. ‘Tell me about your work—it sounds interesting.’

It wasn’t. It took only a few minutes for her to realise that he wasn’t interested in anything else but beautiful models and how much money he could make, and how quickly he could make it. They went in to lunch, and inevitably, she found herself sitting beside him, with the older members of the party beaming at her, delighted with themselves that they had produced such a nice young man to entertain her. Only he didn’t; he wasn’t interested in anything she had to say—it was sufficient for her to say Yes and No and look suitably impressed. All the same, she tried her best to like him, for he was probably the only young man she would meet while she was in Alkmaar. He might even ask her out, and being a fair-minded girl, she was quite prepared to admit that she wasn’t quite as groovy as the models. Probably he found her dull—all the same, if he did ask her out, she thought she would go.

He said carelessly, ‘You shouldn’t wear these new long skirts—they’re for tall, slim girls—long legs and…’ His eyes swept over her. They were eating a rich ice pudding with a great deal of cream. Augusta checked a desire to throw her portion into his smiling face.

She said crisply in English, ‘Of all the insufferable, conceited bores that I’ve met, you’re easily the prize specimen! How dare you tell me what to wear, and—and criticize my legs? Keep your shallow-brained remarks for the bird-witted creatures you purport to photograph.’

She smiled at him, her eyes like green ice, and was pleased to see him getting slowly red. She had been rude, but then so had he…and she had enjoyed every word of what she had said.

‘Perhaps you don’t know that I have a very good knowledge of English?’ he queried stiffly.

‘Why, I counted on that,’ she said quietly. She flipped her eyelashes at him, smiled without warmth and said for the benefit of anyone who might have paused to listen to them, ‘How delicious this pudding is—how lucky I am not to have to diet.’

They went back to the drawing room soon afterwards and she allowed herself to be drawn into a conversation on the subject of cheeses with her host, and later, when she took her departure with her two great-aunts and everyone was shaking everyone else by the hand, she allowed hers to rest a bare second in Pieter van Leewijk’s, and under cover of the hum of farewells, murmured, ‘Goodbye, Piet. So interesting meeting you,’ and gave him a naughty smile before turning away.

On the way back to Alkmaar, the old ladies, on either side of her, discussed their outing. ‘Such a pleasant young man,’ remarked Tante Emma guilelessly, ‘perhaps he invited you out, liefje?’

‘No, Tante Emma, Pieter is a busy young man, you know…he’s going back to Utrecht this evening.’ She saw their old faces drop—they had always wanted her to marry a Dutchman. ‘I daresay he’ll be back,’ she added gently. ‘He told me a great deal about his work,’ and was rewarded by their pleased faces.

They were almost home when Tante Marijna complained of feeling a little sick. Augusta thought that the excitement of the day and the rather rich food they had eaten might be the cause; all the same, she asked a few pertinent questions—the aunts were nearly eighty and were of the generation which stoically concealed goodness knows what behind a well-bred reticence—but the old lady would admit to no pain or headache or tingling of the fingers. Nonetheless, she readily agreed to go to bed early, and when Augusta suggested that weak tea and a bischuit would suit a queasy stomach, agreed to that too, and when Augusta went to see her, last thing before she went to her own bed, she looked comfortable enough, and assured her niece that she would sleep all night.

It was in the small hours of the morning that Augusta was wakened by Tante Emma, wrapped untidily in a voluminous dressing gown and looking quite distraught. ‘Your dear aunt,’ she said, a little wildly. ‘She’s ill—dying, I believe.’

Augusta got out of bed. She said in an instinctively soothing voice:

‘All right, Tante Emma,’ her mind already busy. That sickness—but there hadn’t been any other symptoms unless Tante Marijna had been holding out on her. She flung her pale pink housecoat over its matching nightie, pushed her feet into heelless slippers, said a trifle breathlessly to her aunt, ‘Don’t hurry, darling—I’ll go down,’ and was off down the stairs, her bright hair flying, her feet making no sound on the thick carpet. Outside Tante Marijna’s door she stopped and then went in with deliberate, calm steps and no trace of worry upon her face.

The old lady lay against her pillows, very pale. Her blue eyes were resolutely open while the sweat trickled slowly down her drawn face. Augusta went to the bedside, possessed herself of her aunt’s hand and took her pulse, saying at the same time, ‘Hullo, Tante Marijna—is there a pain in your chest?’

The lids dropped over the anxious blue eyes, giving her the answer she had expected. She said gently, ‘Keep very still, darling—you’re going to be all right, but I have to fetch the doctor.’ She smiled reassuringly and turned to Tante Emma who had just come into the room.

‘Will you stay here while I telephone him—is the number in the book on the hall table?’

Tante Emma nodded and Augusta flew down another flight of stairs and picked up the receiver. Dr van Lindemann—she noted the name and dialled the number.

The voice that answered her sounded alert and calm and merely stated its name and didn’t interrupt at all while she gave her brief details, being careful to get the Dutch as correct as she could, although she fancied, thinking about it afterwards, that she might have muddled a few verbs. However, she must have made sense, for the voice said crisply that yes, he would be round in ten minutes.

She ran back upstairs and found Tante Marijna just the same and Tante Emma in quiet tears. She wiped the sweat from the former’s face and the tears from Tante Emma’s woebegone countenance, breathed a few words of reassurance once more, and took flight once again, this time to the top of the house, to Maartje’s room. Maartje was a little deaf; it took a minute or two to make her understand, but once she did, she was at once her sensible quick-witted self. She listened carefully to what Augusta had to tell her and was already throwing back the bed-clothes as Augusta left the room. She had barely reached her aunt’s room again when the front door bell pealed—just once and gently. The doctor. Once more she sped down the narrow staircase and flung open the door. He came into the hall, and the old-fashioned lamp, hanging from its high ceiling, shone on his straw-coloured hair, so that it appeared white. He stared at her from the pale blue eyes which had occupied her thoughts more often than she cared to think. He said, softly, ‘Hullo, Miss Augusta Brown,’ and she, speechless, led him upstairs, aware of a sudden delight despite her anxiety for her aunt.

It seemed he was no stranger to her aunts. Tante Emma greeted him tearfully. ‘Constantijn, I am so glad to see you—my sister…’

He smiled at her with great kindness. ‘Why not go back to your room with Maartje—I’ll come and see you presently.’

While he was talking he had been standing by the bed, looking at his patient, who stared back at him and presently smiled very faintly at him. He smiled back warmly, and gently pressed the hand he was holding. He said quietly and with great calmness, ‘I’m going to have a look at you—I believe I know what is wrong, but I must be sure, then you shall have something to take away the pain and allow you to sleep. When you wake up you will feel better.’

He set about his examination and Augusta helped him, because it was the natural thing to do, even without her cap and apron, and he seemed to expect it anyway. When he had finished, he opened his bag and took out a phial of morphia and presently slid a needle gently into Tante Marijna’s arm. The old lady’s eyes slid from his impassive face to Augusta’s and back again.

‘I absolutely refuse to go to hospital,’ she said in a clear thready voice.

‘I hadn’t thought of it,’ said Dr van Lindemann. ‘Why should you when you’ve a perfectly good nurse here?’

His glance flickered across the bed. ‘Stay here a moment, will you, while I talk to your aunt?’ He didn’t wait for her nod, but disappeared through the door, to reappear presently with Maartje.

‘Maartje will sit here for a short while…there are a few things… I’ve given Juffrouw van den Pol some trichloral; I think she’ll settle.’ He glanced at the bed. ‘Your aunt will be all right, I think. Maartje tells me there’s coffee in the kitchen—come down and have a cup while we decide what to do.’

Augusta followed him meekly, and found the coffee pot warm on top of the stove; there was milk in a double saucepan too, hot enough to have a creamy coat wrinkling its surface. The doctor strolled around the kitchen collecting cups and saucers and a sugar pot, talking as he did so.

‘Your aunt’s had an attack of angina—just as you thought—nasty enough, but she’ll recover. She’s as fit as a woman of half her age and has great determination. Five days’ complete bed rest and then gradual convalescence.’

Augusta nodded, the coffee pot in one hand, the milk in the other.

‘Do you like the skin?’ she inquired.

He looked as though he was going to laugh. ‘Yes—do you?’

She began to pour. ‘Yes. You’d better have it as you’re the guest.’

‘How nicely you put it,’ he said smoothly. ‘We’ll share.’

They sat down opposite each other on the rush-seated wooden chairs that any museum would have been glad to possess. ‘How long are you staying?’ He was the doctor again, deliberate and detached.