Esmeralda Part 10

"Do you speak any Dutch at all, Esmeralda creased her forehead in thought.

"About forty words, I suppose, and a few basic sentences."

Loveday nodded.

"The days of the week," she decided, 'the months, the time, numbers. "

"Mr. Bamstra is out?" suggested her husband.

"Mr. Bamstra is in?" added Thimo helpfully.

The girls giggled and Loveday said severely: "Be quiet, do! I'm sure Esmeralda's bright enough to pick up a few essentials. That's settled, then. Let's have coffee in the sitting room."

She led the way, her arm through Esmeralda's, and began to explain about the days of the week, followed by the two men, blandly smiling.

"Is it far to your house?" Esmeralda wanted to know, as, half an hour later, she found herself once more beside Mr. Bamstra, driving along a narrow ribbon of road with a ca.n.a.l on one side of it for company and a pleasant vista of green fields on the other.

"Ten miles--it's on the edge of some water called the Wijde Ee--I sail a good deal."

"I've never been much use in a boat..." She remembered something.

"Mr. B... Thimo, where are your dogs?"

"At home. I usually bring them with me, but I shall be spending a good deal of time at Loveday's; it seemed best not to bring them with me."

He added carelessly: "You must meet them some time, they're a splendid pair, although Hanna spoils them both."

Hanna--and who was she? thought Esmeralda irritably. He was surrounded by women, she told herself with gross exaggeration. Anyway, she would soon find out about Toukje.

The road wound itself across the ca.n.a.l and into a small wood, crisscrossed by leafy lanes. Thimo turned down one of these and turned again, this time into a well-kept drive, nicely screened by shrubs and trees. It was short and curled round to open out on to a broad sweep before a fair-sized flat-fronted house with an elaborately gabled roof crowned by two carved swans. The house was of red brick and its paintwork was pristine; every window shone and sparkled in the suns.h.i.+ne. Esmeralda had the impression that someone had just that minute rushed indoors with a bucket and a scrubbing brush. She glanced at her companion and saw the look of content on his face, and at once the house was no longer strange, but a well-loved home.

Thimo had barely helped her out of the car when the front door was opened by an immensely tall, rather gaunt woman with silvery hair fastened back in a tight bun, wearing a black dress and a very white ap.r.o.n. She marched down to the car, talking as she came.

"Toukje," said Mr. Bamstra, his eyes twinkling, 'and speaking Fries--you will have to excuse us for a moment. "

He advanced to meet the woman, whom Esmeralda could see clearly now was elderly despite her upright walk and vigour, flung an arm round her shoulders, and said something which made her break off and laugh with him, then smile at Esmeralda to whom she extended a large, bony hand and offered an unintelligible greeting.

"Aangenaam," said Esmeralda in her dreadful Dutch, not to be outdone, and Toukje smiled again, a nice, cosy smile which reminded her forcibly of Nanny, and not without reason, as it turned out, for Thimo said: "This is Toukje, my housekeeper and ex- nanny she almost always speaks Fries, although she speaks Dutch too, so do your best, even if it is only a word or two."

He tucked a hand under each of their elbows and they all went into the house together. It had looked rather staid and plain from the outside, but inside it was a different matter. There were the black and white tiles and the plaster walls and ceiling, a fitting background for the ma.s.sive oak furniture, gleaming with decades of polis.h.i.+ng, which graced the large square hall, and the sitting room was beautiful too, with comfortable chairs and sofas dispersed among lamp tables and wall cabinets and chests. Mr. Bamstra invited Esmeralda to sit down and said something to Toukje before taking a seat near her.

"It isn't a bit as I imagined it," she told him.

"Not even Toukje?" His voice was full of laughter.

She settled a fold of her dress very precisely and then met his gaze.

"I thought--before I saw her--that she was your wife, but I see now that I am wrong, because your real home is somewhere near Leiden, isn't it? You mentioned someone called Hanna--is she your wife?"

He sat back comfortably.

"Who told you that I was married?" he asked with interest.

Her green eyes were steady.

"Why, no one-- I just supposed that you were."

"Hanna looks after my home near Leiden. I'm not married, Esmeralda."

She was momentarily surprised at the pleasure his remark gave her.

"And not going to be, either?" she enquired boldly.

"I must confess that I hope to marry quite soon."

The pleasure evaporated a little. Esmeralda forced her eyes from his and fastened them on the view from one of the wide windows.

"I expect you'll like that," she offered inanely.

Mr. Bamstra's fine mouth twitched ever so slightly.

"I expect I shall," he agreed, his voice still bland.

"I'm glad that you have decided to take that small job, by the way. We must get down to basic facts--hours and salary, mustn't we?"

"Oh, I don't want a salary--I've money enough, thank you, and Mother gave me some more when she came."

"Quite," his voice was noncommittal as he broke off to fondle an enormous black dog which had padded silently into the room, and stood now, wagging his tail while he fixed Esmeralda with a doubtful eye.

"This is Toukje's dog. Pirn." He spoke softly to the beast and it went to stand by her, and when she put out a hand, bowed his enormous head so that she might fondle his ears.

"As we were saying," went on Mr. Bamstra, 'it might be a little awkward if we were not quite businesslike about everything--don't you agree? I think it would be best to pay you at the normal hourly rates. " He didn't wait for her to agree to this, but went on smoothly: " That's settled, then. Here's Toukje with a drink for us, and I daresay after that you might like a stroll round the garden? It's pleasant in the summer--then we can have tea and drive back by another road in time for dinner at Loveday's. "

It was a pleasant afternoon. Esmeralda, listening to her companion's desultory talk about nothing in particular, felt soothed and peaceful.

She was given no opportunity to indulge her own thoughts either, and since their conversation was purely impersonal, Trent's, her work there-indeed, anything which might have reminded her of Leslie, was never mentioned. She pottered happily round the gardens, which were a good deal bigger than she had supposed, and then went back indoors to eat her tea with a bigger appet.i.te than she had shown for some time.

And later, back in Loveday's house, changing her dress in her pretty bedroom, she admitted to herself that although she was still unhappy, the first awful smart had dulled. She went downstairs, nicely made up and wearing a simple sage green silk dress with a floor-length skirt, determined to enjoy her evening. And she did; the dinner was delicious, and afterwards they played a rowdy game of Monopoly until Thimo declared that he would have to leave.

"And Esmeralda shall see me to the door," he declared, 'for she hasn't walked an inch for the last two hours--she needs the exercise. "

So she tip tapped her way out of the room and across the hall beside him and went to stand in the open doorway, looking out on to the lovely summer night.

"Nice," said Esmeralda, and sniffed with her una.s.suming nose.

"Roses and verbena and that white flower which scents the evening..."

"Your mother has a beautiful garden too." Mr. Bamstra was leaning against the great door, making no effort to go.

"Yes. She and Father planned it when they were first married and it's not been altered since;' There was a little silence which she felt She should fill.

"Have you a garden at your other home?" she asked politely.

"Oh, yes, though perhaps not quite as large as this one. Sometimes when I have nothing to do I poke around in it--1 like planting things." He stirred a little.

"You will be happy here for a week, Esmeralda?"

"Yes, very happy, thank you." Her voice was over bright and he made a small movement towards her and then stopped.

"Good," was all he said, 'make the most of it; I shall drive you hard, you know. And that reminds me, we haven't sealed our bargain yet, have we? "

He did move this time, very quickly, to catch her close and kiss her soundly.

His quiet good night floated back to her as he ran down the steps and got into his car.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

when Esmeralda wakened the next morning she lay in her luxurious bed contemplating the charming room around her and thinking about the previous evening and, inevitably, Mr. Bamstra. The discovery that he wasn't married had been quite a shock, and really, now that she thought about it, it had been remarkably silly of her to have presumed that he was. She frowned and thumped her pillows greater comfort; perhaps it was because he had the calm, friendly air of a happily married man. Anyway, she reminded herself peevishly, why was she fussing about him and his love life? It was nothing to do with her.

She thrust aside a wish to meet the girl he was going to marry and allowed her thoughts to dwell on the more sombre prospect of her own future. Her mother had suggested that she might like to go home and stay there for a few weeks, taking her time in choosing another job, but right at the back of her own mind was the foolish desire to meet Leslie just once more--preferably at some big ball, where she would dance every dance in the daintiest of slippers, both feet as good as, if not better than any other girl's there--just so that he might see what he had missed. She knew it was a stupid idea; he had proved himself selfish and unkind and more interested in her money than herself, but somehow the idea stuck.

She drank her morning tea, still weaving day dreams, and would probably have continued for hours in much the same vein if Loveday hadn't come in to see how she had slept.

"Breakfast in an hour," she said cheerfully.

"Adam and I go to church, but we thought you'd rather not, and in any case Thimo will be over here by eleven--he goes to church too, but for some reason the service is an hour earlier than ours--if we're not back perhaps you'll entertain him for us." She smiled and nodded and went away again, looking quite eye-catching with her splendid hair hanging round her shoulders.

Back in the seclusion of their bedroom she told Adam: "She's not coming to church. I said she wouldn't like it very much--not understanding a word--and I told her Thimo would be here by eleven o'clock, but she didn't seem very interested."

"My dear love," said the Baron, 'put yourself in the poor girl's shoes--no, one shoe and a plaster. She's just been thrown over in a very unpleasant fas.h.i.+on by some type or other she thinks she is in love with, and you expect her to be head over heels in love with old Thimo. "

"He isn't old--he's just right for her." Loveday started to brush her hair.

"Oh, Adam, wouldn't it be awful if nothing came of it?"

He took her hairbrush away from her and kissed her.

"There's something important you've overlooked," he observed.

"Thimo, if he's made up his mind about something, will not be shaken from his purpose--and I imagine that he made up his mind some time ago, sweetheart."

Loveday eyed him fondly.

"Oh, Adam, you're such a comfort!"

Left alone in the house, its quietness broken only by the subdued sounds coming from the kitchen, Esmeralda wandered through its rooms, looking about her, peering at portraits and examining the china and gla.s.s in the wall cabinets, but after a little while she decided to go into the garden. It was still only a little after ten o'clock, and there was plenty of time before Thimo would come. She stomped slowly round the outside of the house, then crossed the small formal garden to one side of it and then, because it looked so inviting, went through the narrow gate at its end, on to a shady path wandering off into a copse. That ended in a gate too, and she found herself on a narrow country road with trees on either side of it.

It was quiet and cool and she stood still, listening to the summer sounds around her--but there was another sound, too. She couldn't make it out at first, a small whimpering which came and went at intervals.

It was difficult to discover from which direction it came, but finally she decided to the left; going slowly, she made her way along the side of the road, looking in the long gra.s.s and shrubs which bordered it. She didn't have far to go. There was a woman lying there, half hidden by trees, a young woman, grubby and badly dressed but pretty too. She appeared to be asleep and the whimpers came from the very small baby she held close to her.

"Oh, my goodness me!" exclaimed Esmeralda, and bent to take a closer look.

The girl was alive and breathing, but the breaths came slow and stertorous and she was a nasty colour.

"Overdose?" Esmeralda asked herself aloud, and took a good look at the baby.

It was very small, a week or two old, perhaps, no more, as grubby as its mother and judging by the weary little sounds it was making, it was desperately hungry and too weak to cry any more. Esmeralda picked it up and held it gently while she thought what would be best to do.

Should she take the baby back to the house with her and get help to the girl?

But if the girl regained consciousness and discovered that her baby had gone, she might make an effort to search for it and do herself some harm. On the other hand, she was quite incapable of moving the girl and perhaps it would be better if she stayed with her and the baby until someone came along the road and she could get help.

She cuddled the smelly little thing and wished worriedly that she knew enough Dutch to be of some use. She was only ten minutes' walk from the Baron's house and although Thimo was due to arrive at any moment, the chance that he would walk that way was so slight as to be hopeless, for as far as she knew, no one had seen her go into the garden.

Five minutes went by, and very slowly they went too; the girl hadn't stirred and the baby, sucking hopefully at Esmeralda's little finger, had dropped off into an uneasy doze.

"How I do wish Mr. Bamstra would come with one of his miracles," declared Esmeralda loudly.

And with all the convenience of a fairy tale's plot, she heard, at that very instant, someone whistling. The tune was "We'll meet again," as sure a sign from heaven as anyone could hope for, thought Esmeralda, and wasting no time, she bawled "Thimo!" at the top of her voice. The whistling stopped and Mr.

Bamstra's voice, rea.s.suringly calm, called: "Coming!" and indeed he appeared at the gate not ten seconds later, saw her at once and strode towards her.

"That's a very small baby," he remarked, still with calm, and bent to look at it. Thank heaven, thought Esmeralda in a flood of relief, that he wasn't one of those men who had to have everything explained first; the i's dotted, the t's crossed.

"Dehydrated," he p.r.o.nounced, and turned his attention to the girl.

"No sign of awareness?" he asked as he rolled up her eyelids.

"None--but a very slow pulse, and she's cold."

"Possibly an overdose." He looked at Esmeralda.

"You're not damaged at all?"

She shook her head.

"What do you want me to do?"

He leaned over and to her great surprise, kissed her cheek gently.

"What a sensible girl you are," he remarked, and even in the anxiety of the moment, she found herself annoyed at that. There wasn't much glamour attached to being sensible, but then she wasn't glamorous. "Give me that unhappy creature," he went on.