Little Girl Lost (36 page)

‘He did,' Margriet agreed. ‘But Oma, this is the best part. Mr Ramsey wanted to sell the house too, and he would have, if Papa had not been so very clever.' She gave a triumphant grin. ‘He left the house to me, which means Mr Ramsey can't touch it. And our lawyer arranged for me to buy all the shares Mama had left in the Vandergroene business from her because Ramsey can't touch anything of mine. And so he's gone back to York, and although I can't tell you what might happen next, we're hoping to be rid of him altogether.'

‘So,' Oma said cautiously, ‘how is your mama managing if she doesn't have any money?'

‘Our lawyer says that Mr Ramsey will have to pay her a monthly allowance because she is suffering financial hardship, and in the meantime she has her dowry to pay the servants and tradesmen, because no one else could touch that. And of course we are being very prudent and economical.'

‘I see.' Gerda's opinion of her daughter-in-law was changing the more she heard, from thinking of her as a frivolous woman unable to recognize a charming fraudster when she saw one, to regarding her more amiably in consideration of her attitude to her servants and tradespeople. ‘So how has this man's behaviour opened your eyes? I don't see the connection.'

‘I realized that I must try to earn some money until I reach twenty-one and can claim my inheritance.' She frowned a little. ‘But it's not just that. I know some young people of my age who live on the streets. They try to work, but there are few opportunities for them, and they don't have houses to live in or feather beds to sleep on or even a proper meal every day. I thought how lucky I was to have so much, and so …' She handed her grandmother a folded sheet of paper. ‘I've written it all down for you so I don't miss anything out.' Would her plan seem impossible? Might Oma laugh at the proposal? ‘It might not work,' she murmured. ‘And I need your help.'

Florrie came back just then, so she fell silent. She was pleased to see that her
oma
continued to glance through her plan as Florrie was talking.

‘I love Amsterdam,' she was saying. ‘It reminds me of Hull, except there are more waterways, but some of 'buildings seem similar. What I really like to see is 'women in their old costumes.'

Gerda nodded vaguely, her eyes still on the document. ‘Not so many here in Amsterdam, but in some villages the women wear the traditional costume most of the time.'

‘Yes,' Margriet said, ‘and in Gouda the men do too, I remember when Papa took me.' She paused, thinking. ‘We brought back some cheese, and we called on …'

‘Mevrouw Jansen,' her grandmother reminded her.

‘Tante Lia! Yes. And Klara and Hans. Klara and I played together but Hans was studying in his room. I liked him; he was very friendly, and polite to my father.' She smiled. ‘They called him Uncle Freddy, which I thought very funny.'

Gerda nodded. The child hadn't suspected then or seemingly since that Lia had been her father's mistress. ‘They live in Amsterdam now,' she told her. ‘Along the Amstel, not far from here, and I see them quite often. As a matter of fact, Hans called to see me only recently to say he was about to start work with the Vandergroene Company.'

‘Really? What a coincidence! I would love to meet them again. Would it be possible, do you think?'

Her
oma
, who had picked up on the gist of Margriet's ideas, thought how strange it was that life had so many connections. Not coincidences, she didn't really believe in those, but rather she felt that somehow there was a master plan being developed and worked on so that eventually everything would fall into its proper place.

‘I think it is more than possible. Perhaps we could go tomorrow? Floris, would you like another walk? And perhaps you would too, Margriet, to stretch your legs. Why don't you call at the Jansens' to ask if it would be convenient? Mevrouw De Vries, Mevrouw Jansen's mother, will be at home even if no one else is.' Gerda got up from her chair and looked in a drawer for pen and paper. ‘She doesn't speak English, so I'll write a note,' she said. ‘I've been meaning to call for a few days. How opportune.'

Florrie didn't go with them the following day, and as it was a sunny morning she said that unless Mevrouw Vandergroene had anything she would like her to do, she would take another walk along the Amsterdam canals. ‘I don't think I'll get lost,' she said, ‘but I'll write down your address just in case.'

Margriet was puzzled to see her
oma
pick up the document she had given her, but Gerda explained that it just so happened that Hans had told her that his grandmother was an excellent seamstress.

‘So everything is falling into place,' she said, patting the piece of paper. ‘You will go home with everything you require.'

Mevrouw De Vries was sitting in her doorway knitting something bright and colourful. She got up immediately when she saw them and began chatting volubly to Gerda, though Margriet could understand nothing of their conversation. Lia came downstairs to welcome them.

‘I am so pleased to see you again, dear Margriet,' she said, and Margriet thought she sounded rather emotional. She gently touched Margriet's cheek. ‘You have become a beautiful young woman since I last saw you.'

Margriet dipped her knee and thanked her. She remembered how kind Tante Lia had been, and how easy to talk to. ‘It's lovely to see you again. How is Klara? And my
oma
said that Hans is now working at the Vandergroene Company.'

‘Klara is out visiting a friend, but she will be home soon. And would you believe that Hans is in England! He rushed home the night before last and said that his manager wanted him to go with him to the Hull office and they were leaving that evening; after Hull they will be travelling on to other towns. He will be so sorry that he has missed you.'

Gerda, whose conversation with Mevrouw De Vries did not prevent her from listening to Lia and Margriet's, frowned slightly, muttering ‘Tsk'.

‘I will be coming again,' Margriet said as she followed Lia upstairs to her apartment. ‘Oh, this is so nice,' she exclaimed. ‘What a lovely view of the canal and the boats and the bridges.' She went to the window and looked one way and then the other. ‘I remember the pretty garden you had in your other house,' she said. ‘You must miss it, but the view of the Amstel must make up for it, doesn't it? We live upstairs at home too, but we don't have such a view or a garden either, just rooftops and alleyways.'

‘But you can have pots and baskets of plants, which is all I have now,' Lia said. ‘My tulips are in flower already.'

‘Yes,' Margriet said eagerly. ‘That's one of the reasons why I'm here – as well as to visit Oma, of course,' she added hastily. ‘And I think, Tante Lia, I might ask for your advice on tulips!'

She was invited to sit down in the window and Lia pulled forward a small table so that she might put out a coffee cup and plate for her. Margriet thought wistfully of the time she had visited the Jansens in Gouda with her father, and eaten waffles sitting on a canal wall. Unbidden, tears came to her eyes; she missed him still.

Lia seemed to understand. ‘We are both thinking of your father, I think,' she said softly, and Margriet nodded, too choked to speak. ‘He was a good friend to us,' Lia went on. ‘To my husband, and to me and my children too after Nicolaas died.' Her voice faltered as she continued speaking. ‘I – we never thought that losing someone so special could happen again. Life is very hard sometimes.'

Margriet wiped her eyes. ‘I feel his presence here very strongly,' she said. ‘Perhaps it's because we are in his own country.'

‘He loved being with you in England,' Lia murmured, and Margriet nodded, remembering that he had once told her that. ‘I think what you are feeling now is the great love that he left behind?'

‘Yes,' she said wistfully. ‘Perhaps so.'

Her grandmother told her that everything was arranged and that Mevrouw De Vries was willing to help them. ‘Mevrouw and I will go out this afternoon, and buy everything that is required.'

Then the plan was explained to Lia, who smiled and said she would help too, as she was also a good seamstress.

‘And I can sew a neat hem, and so can Florrie,' Margriet said excitedly. ‘She used to let down the hems of my dresses when I had outgrown them. I'll tell her about it and she'll want to help too.'

‘So we'll have a sewing circle,' Lia said. ‘How long do we have before you return to England, Margriet?'

‘Less than a week. Then I must go home to Mama. She'll be lonely without me.'

Klara came home in time for lunch, and then the two grandmothers trotted off to the draper's and the haberdasher. Lia, Margriet and Klara, who tucked her arm into Margriet's, set off for a local flower market, where Lia showed Margriet the stone pots and hanging wicker baskets and how the tulips, hyacinths, primroses and other spring flowers were displayed. ‘If you haven't much space you can stand pots one on top of another to make a tower, and plant trailing ivy so that it grows over the edges, or put them on a wall or ledge.'

They saw Florrie on the other side of a canal and called to her, then watched as the young man she was with gave a short bow and left her, lifting his hand in farewell. Florrie crossed a bridge and came towards them, and blushed when Lia teasingly lifted her eyebrows as Margriet introduced her.

‘I – erm, the young man asked if I was lost,' she explained, ‘and he gave me directions. I got mixed up with the canals.'

In the flower market there was a stall selling refreshments and they perched on high stools to drink piping hot coffee. Florrie gave a sigh of pleasure; there were no such treats for her at home, where she was constantly looking after other people's children. Margriet told her about her idea, which seemed to be coming to fruition.

‘I can help,' Florrie said. ‘I make my own clothes, and things for my sister's children too. And I'm quick. I can hem a skirt faster than anyone I know.'

‘Well, there's a challenge.' Lia laughed. ‘Wait until we tell your
oma
, Klara; she thinks no one can hem faster than her.'

When they trooped back to Lia's house they found that the two grandmothers had arrived first, and the table in the ground-floor apartment was strewn with a mound of black woollen cloth, a heap of white and striped cotton, a box of different-coloured silk thread and bobbins of white and black cotton.

Mevrouw De Vries took a tape measure from a drawer, and gave Margriet's grandmother a pencil and notebook to write down the figures. She stood Margriet on a stool to measure her from waist to feet, and then asked her to stand down so that she might measure her shoulder width, front and arms, and lastly her head.

She nodded in satisfaction, went back to the drawer and flourished a pair of scissors, saying something that Margriet couldn't understand. She looked questioningly at Lia.

‘And so we begin,' Lia translated.

They cut and stitched and cut and hemmed, and Lia threaded coloured silk and embroidered patterns of padded stem stitch, blanket honeycomb and French knot in various shades of green and blue and gold on to black cloth and they all looked and admired.

Then Klara took Florrie to the kitchen and they made starch in a deep bowl and plunged in squares of white cotton which they squeezed and partially dried and then pressed with a hot iron that drew off steam but didn't scorch, and took them back to Mevrouw De Vries, who tucked and turned and stitched then ironed again so that the item stood up on the table crisp and taut without falling over.

In between times, Lia or Klara made coffee or brought lemonade, biscuits and cake, and now and again one or other of the group would get up and walk round the table to help their circulation, and then Mevrouw Vandergroene called out ‘One finished'. An hour later, Mevrouw De Vries called ‘
Twee afgewerkte
', and Florrie smiled and translated ‘Two finished', and the Dutch ladies laughed and clapped their hands. Then, as the day darkened and a lamp was lit, a third was finished and they sat back and sighed.

‘Now only the boys,' Klara said, and her mother declared that the rest could be completed the next day.

‘Thank you,' Margriet said. ‘I can't thank you enough.'

‘Come then, Margriet,' Lia said. ‘Let us see the fruit of our labours. Klara, will you begin to make supper? We have soup, ham, cheese and herring.'

‘I'll make pancakes too, Moe,' Klara said. ‘Everyone likes those,' and Florrie said she would help.

Lia gathered up an armful of finished garments and asked Margriet to come to her bedroom. ‘There's a cheval mirror in there and we can see how you look.'

Margriet followed her into her bedroom. It was a pretty room, with landscape paintings of high mountains and green meadows adorning the walls. A white lace covering was spread over the bed and on this Lia draped the garments. Margriet raised her arms to undo the buttons at the back of her bodice and out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw her father. He was smiling.

She must have made a small breathy sound because Lia turned quickly. ‘Something wrong?' she asked. ‘Margriet,
lieveling
, are you all right?'

‘Y-yes. Thank you. I turned a little dizzy, that's all.'

‘You are so pale.' Lia was concerned. ‘You have been sitting for too long.' She opened the window and a soft breeze rushed in, bringing with it the scent of hyacinths and narcissi. ‘You must take a short walk before we have supper. Perhaps you would like to do that now?'

‘No, no, it's nothing, really. Could you – would you mind unbuttoning my gown?' It had been the sudden movement that made her feel dizzy, she thought as Lia unfastened the buttons at her neck. But why would I think of Papa now, especially here where he has never been?