Tolck. The hotel wasn’t large and except for a couple of commercial travellers and a rather subdued family—on their way, the manager confided, to a funeral on the outskirts of the town—they were the only guests. True, by the time she had joined her father and Tom in the bar, a trickle of young men with their girls came in, but they kept to themselves although they were friendly enough. Amelia, sipping her sherry, made idle conversation and kept an eye on the door. Doctor van der Tolck was just the kind of man to join them for the evening unasked.
She was mistaken. He sauntered in presently, nodded pleasantly and joined the two Norwegians at the bar and either he spoke their language or they spoke Dutch, because they entered into a lengthy conversation and Amelia, her ears stretched, was sure that it wasn’t English they were speaking. It was annoying when he looked up suddenly and caught her looking at them, and still more annoying that he didn’t smile.
He dined at a table alone too, and she was a little surprised that her father hadn’t asked him to join them. She didn’t say anything, but when her father said casually: ‘I didn’t ask van der Tolck to join us—I hear from Tom that you don’t like him,’ she went pink and shot Tom a peevish look which in the circumstances was quite unjustified.
But he was there in the morning. She had gone out before breakfast to inspect the high slender bridge which joined Stokmarknes with the neighbouring island of Langoya. It was a bit too far to walk to, she saw with regret, but perhaps she and Tom would get a chance to reach it later in the day. She had supposed that it was much nearer, but appearances were deceptive, and even though she hurried to where the houses began to peter out against the base of the mountains, the bridge seemed as far away as ever. She turned round with regret and started back to the hotel, picking her way carefully along the uneven road. She hadn’t gone a quarter of the distance when a Saab swept past her and then stopped. Doctor van der Tolck was driving and Amelia said good morning in a cool voice as she drew abreast of him. He held the door open. ‘Like a lift?’ he enquired in a voice which suggested that he couldn’t care less either way. ‘I’m going back for breakfast.’
‘Thank you.’ She got in without argument. She had vowed to avoid him, but he was exactly the kind of man to demand to know why she refused if she did. He leaned across to slam the door shut and drove on without saying a word. What a good thing, she thought sourly, that the drive was a short one, for she couldn’t think of anything to say even if he had been disposed to make conversation. She peeped at him from under her lashes. He looked inscrutable—a silly, novelish word but it did describe the expression of his profile. A rather splendid profile too; a pity she didn’t like him. If he had been friendly it would have been nice to have talked… She had Tom, she reminded herself happily, and smiled quite nicely at her companion as they stopped at the hotel and he opened the door for her.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I daresay we shall be seeing each other very shortly.’
He agreed politely, but his smile disconcerted her; it was for all the world as though he had a secret joke which amused him very much and that after she had held out the olive branch—well not exactly held it out, but… She let the thought slide away; it was a great pity that she couldn’t opt out of the day’s fishing trip.
She did indeed suggest to Tom that they should take the bus to Sortland and have a look round, and they were arguing gently about it when Doctor van der Tolck came over to their table to speak to her father and he, despite a heavy frown from his daughter, at once suggested that the two of them should join forces for the day. ‘For Amelia is dead set on going to Sortland and of course Tom will go with her. There’s a bus…’
‘A splendid idea,’ agreed the doctor, so promptly that she suspected that he would be glad to see the back of her. He turned to Tom. ‘I’ve a Saab outside—rented it for my stay—why not borrow it? The road runs alongside the fjord and is pretty good going. There’s a bridge at Sortland and you can cross over to Hinney Island and visit Harstad; it’s quite a sizeable place and a military headquarters.’ He added, glancing at Amelia, ‘A street of shops, too.’
The faintly mocking glance he gave her from under his lids instantly made her change her mind. ‘Perhaps another day,’ she said coolly, to be overruled by Tom’s:
‘That’s jolly decent of you, if the weather changes we might not get another chance, and I’ll be going back in three days’ time.’
Amelia poured herself some more coffee which she didn’t want, but it was something to do while she argued. ‘Yes, but what about you, Father?’
Her parent was of no help at all. ‘Oh, we’ll manage very well, my dear—you and Tom go off and enjoy yourselves together.’
‘Yes, but you can’t manage the boat alone,’ she persisted.
‘Who said I was going to? We’ll use mine and share a picnic lunch. If the weather holds we shan’t come back before four o’clock, so don’t hurry on our account.’
The day had not been a qualified success. Amelia, soaking herself in a hot bath that evening, mulled it over at leisure and tried to decide where it had gone wrong. They had started off well enough—indeed, the drive to Sortland had been pleasant. The road, just as the doctor had told them, had followed the fjord the whole way and Sortland, when they reached it, was charming. They had coffee there, walked around the village, and then decided to go on to Harstad, so they drove over the bridge to the neighbouring island, Hinney, and took the only road, at first following the fjord and then going inland and taking a ferry once again. It proved to be a longer journey than they had expected and when they got to Harstad it was raining. They lunched at the Viking Nordic and then walked along the main street, looking at the shops, and Amelia, determined to take back some token of their trip, spent far too long in a rather splendid bookshop where she bought a couple of paperbacks, some writing paper and a pen she didn’t really need. Tom bought nothing at all, waiting patiently while she pottered round the shelves, and it was almost three o’clock when he suggested mildly that they should think about getting back to Stokmarknes.
And none too soon. The rain had settled down to a steady drizzle and the sky was an unrelieved grey, merging with the mountains, their snowy tops completely hidden by cloud. ‘We’ll have tea in Sortland,’ suggested Tom as they started back, but by the time they had reached it, it was dark, Tom was quietly apprehensive and Amelia becoming shorttempered. The day had been a waste. They hadn’t talked about themselves at all; her secret hopes that with time on their hands they could have got their future settled were coming to nothing. Tom was in no mood to talk about weddings—indeed, he had never been less romantic, advising her somewhat tersely to keep a sharp eye on the road, which, now that it was dark, wasn’t nearly as easy as it had been that morning.
They arrived back at the hotel at six o’clock, relieved to be there but unable to be lighthearted about it and meeting the doctor in the foyer didn’t help matters. He was sitting comfortably reading a Dutch newspaper, a drink at his elbow, but he got up as they went in, enquired kindly if they had enjoyed their day, expressed regret at the weather and invited them to have a drink. Tom, after a glance at Amelia, accepted, but she refused, declaring she wanted a cup of tea before she did anything else.
The doctor obligingly pressed the bell for her. ‘No tea?’ he asked with what she decided was quite false sympathy. ‘There’s a good hotel in Sortland.’
‘We left Harstad rather late,’ she explained stiffly, and when a waitress came asked for tea to be brought to her room, to drink it under the doctor’s amused eye was more than she could manage.
But tea and the bath soothed her, so that by the time she got downstairs she was feeling quite cheerful again. Tom was already there, so she went across the bar to him and tucked her hand into his arm. ‘Sorry if I
