went indoors, and presently, after she had unpacked in her own pretty bedroom, she went down to the kitchen, and carried the tea tray through to the sitting room on the other side of the flagstoned hall. There were flowers everywhere, and the furniture shone with well cherished age—it was a warm afternoon, but there was a small wood fire burning in the stone fireplace. She sighed contentedly. It was nice to be home again.
After tea, she wandered outside with Stanley, the spaniel, walking sedately at her heels and the two Jack Russell terriers, Polly and Skipper, running in circles before her. She crossed the garden and went through the wicket gate at its end into a small paddock, used for convalescing horses and ponies, and permanently inhabited by Bottom, the family donkey. He wandered towards her now, nosed out the carrot she had thoughtfully brought with her, and allowed her to pull his rough furry ears and throw an affectionate arm about his neck. After a while, she wandered back again and in through the kitchen door, to sit down at the kitchen table and peel apples and talk to her mother, with Maudie the persian cat on her knee, and Fred, the battered old outcast tomcat who had latched himself on to them years ago, sitting beside her. They gossiped quietly until she bestirred herself to answer the telephone and fetch Charles.
She spent the evening getting her things ready to go to Holland, but only after helping her father with his evening visits. Quite a few calls had come in during the afternoon. She drove him from one farm to the other and then back to the small surgery near the house, enjoying the unhurried routine. They sat a long time over supper that evening, for there was a lot to talk about. She hadn’t been home for several months; there was a lot of local news to catch up on, and she had plenty to talk about too, and presently, when the talk turned to herself, her father asked, as he usually did when she went home:
‘Well, Augusta, think of getting married yet?’ Her mother said gently, ‘How’s Archie?’
Augusta bit into an apple with her excellent teeth. ‘Fine—but don’t get romantic about him, Mother. We like going out together, but he’s got years and years of work ahead of him and he’s ambitious, which means he’ll probably marry a girl with lots of money. I think I’m destined to be an old maid!’
Which remark called forth a good deal of amused comment from her brother, a quiet. ‘Yes, dear’ from her mother and a grunt from her father.
The next day went very quickly—too quickly, she thought, as she put the final touches to her packing in the evening. It was surprising how delightfully occupied it was possible to be, with no clock to watch and no reports to write, and feverish planning of off duty. She had, indeed, strolled down to the village stores and made a few purchases for her mother—an undertaking enlivened by a long chat over the counter with the grocer and any customers who had chanced to come into the shop—and in the afternoon she had got out the car and driven her mother down to the vicarage to join the committee organising the annual jumble sale. She had helped the vicar’s wife hand round the tea, and passed the time of day with the ladies present, most of whom had known her since she was a baby. And occasionally, much against her will, she had thought about the man who had sent her tulips because the sun had been shining.
She thought about him again as she was going to sleep that night; wondering where he was and what he was doing. She wished she knew if he and Miss Belsize were…she sought for the right expression, and decided that ’emotionally involved’ would do very well. It was difficult to tell with those sort of people. She didn’t go too deeply into what sort of people they were—the subject was unrewarding; she pulled the blankets over her ears to shut out his too well-remembered voice, and went to sleep.
Charles took her up to London the next day and put her on the Harwich train and rather unexpectedly kissed her goodbye. ‘Have fun,’ he said and they both laughed, for staying with the great-aunts, pleasant though it was, held few excitements. ‘Good for your Dutch,’ he added, as the train gave a preliminary shudder. ‘I’ll pick you up when you get back. ‘Bye.’
She settled back in her seat and picked up Vogue, which Charles had thoughtfully provided for her.
CHAPTER THREE
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
