Little Girl Lost (6 page)

They chatted of this and that, of people they knew, and when he had finished only half of his milky coffee Nicolaas said to his wife, ‘Cornelia,
lieveling
, I want to talk to Freddy about boring business things. Why don't you take the opportunity to go out for an hour? It's a nice afternoon – you could sit in the garden, or take a walk. You need some fresh air; always you are cooped up with me. Why not?'

He smiled so sweetly and lovingly at her that it broke Frederik's heart to see it.

‘Ah,' she said scornfully. ‘You will talk of men's secrets, I know it.' She got to her feet. ‘Well, yes, I will escape for an hour. Frederik, will you stay with us tonight?' She had already asked him, but this was for Nicolaas's cognizance. ‘We would like that, wouldn't we, Nicolaas?'

‘Oh, yes. Please do. Perhaps I'll come down for supper.'

‘I'd be delighted to,' Frederik agreed. ‘Thank you. Where are the children?'

‘With my mother,' Cornelia said. ‘She asked if they could stay and keep her company for a few days and of course they love to go, and it is easier for them to go to school from her house, so we can have a quiet supper, just the three of us. How lovely. I'll think of what we shall eat whilst I am out.'

Nicolaas gazed out of the window until he saw Cornelia go out of their gate and then look up, when he gave her a wave.

He sighed. ‘I'm so pleased you have come, Frederik. It is as if you have answered my call. I wish to ask you something, my friend; a very great favour.'

‘Forgive me, I haven't asked,' Nicolaas said. ‘How is your wife? And your daughter?'

‘Very well,' Frederik replied. ‘I hope one day to bring Margriet over to meet my mother. She's too young to come yet – but yes, I'm making plans. I will bring her to meet you.'

‘I'd like that,' Nicolaas said, and both were aware that that plan wouldn't come to fruition. ‘And Cornelia would too, of course. She loves to have a houseful of children.' He settled himself back in his chair and straightened his blanket. ‘You will perhaps realize, Freddy, that Cornelia and I have gone well past any pretence about my condition. The way we acted just now was entirely for your sake. But, good friend that you have been for so long … how long is it, do you think? We were students together in Amsterdam, and even when we went our separate ways we always kept in touch, did we not? I have always known that in any difficulty I could approach you, and I hope that you felt the same about me.'

Frederik swallowed. ‘Indeed I did,' he said with difficulty. ‘What times we had. Do you remember when you fell in the Herengracht canal?'

Nicolaas laughed, and then broke into a fit of coughing. ‘Yes. And the night you were locked out of the Athenaeum and spent the night sleeping under an archway.'

‘And then my father found out and decided the time had come for me to join him in the business where he could keep an eye on me!'

Nicolaas nodded. ‘It was good to have such friendship,' he said quietly, ‘and I hope I do not break that bond with the question and favour I am about to ask you.'

‘I'm quite sure that you won't,' Frederik answered. ‘You may ask anything at all and I'll do my best to comply with your wishes.'

Nicolaas nodded his thanks. ‘I thought you would say that, but it is a great thing to ask, particularly as you live in England.'

‘But I come home often,' Frederik demurred and was surprised to realize that he still regarded Netherlands as home, even though his life with his wife and child was firmly entrenched in England.

‘I have little time left,' Nicolaas murmured. ‘A month or two if I'm lucky, a few weeks if I am not.' He sighed. ‘But the waiting – for Cornelia particularly it is very hard.'

Frederik felt a quickening of his pulse. What was Nicolaas going to ask of him? Life, however long or short, was precious.

‘It is of Cornelia I speak,' Nicolaas went on. ‘She is still a relatively young woman.' He smiled fondly. ‘We were married when she was eighteen. She is a woman with a huge heart, a zest for life; she deserves happiness. She has been happy with me – we have been happy together – but it is wrong that she should be deprived of any contentment with someone else.'

Frederik thought of Hugh Webster's words and remembered that he still hadn't been to see his lawyer about renewing his will. He made a mental note to do so when he returned to England. ‘But you are anxious that she might choose someone who will not take care of her as you have done?' he said.

‘Yes, and no,' Nicolaas answered. ‘I cannot rule her life from the grave and she may well choose someone that I wouldn't care for, but I want her to find happiness with someone, not live the rest of her life alone. Nevertheless, she will be vulnerable for quite some time, and I would hate to think that anyone might take advantage of her. So what I am asking you, my friend, is will you watch over her, when you can, of course, and be her friend as you have been mine? Care for her, if you will, so that she can trust you and ask your advice if she should need to?'

Frederik pondered. Cornelia seemed to him to be a strong woman and not vulnerable at all, unlike his own wife, who he thought might possibly make some wrong choices. However, Cornelia would undoubtedly be well provided for by Nicolaas, and there was no question that a comely widow with a large fortune might well be targeted by a scheming seducer.

‘I want someone to love her as I have loved her,' Nicolaas said simply. ‘To make her happy again.'

It would be easy enough for anyone to love her, Frederik mused as he sat downstairs by the window in their sitting room, waiting whilst Cornelia prepared food and Nicolaas took a rest. Presently he got up and went into the kitchen to find her, but she wasn't alone. The maid and an older woman who was scrubbing potatoes in the sink were also there.

He thought of an excuse for his intrusion and asked, ‘Do you mind if I walk in your garden?'

‘Of course not.' Cornelia looked up and smiled, but her smile was wistful, he thought, and the sadness was back in her eyes. ‘And whilst you're there, will you pick me some herbs? Chives, mint, oregano, rosemary.'

‘I will, if I recognize them,' he said wryly.

‘Chives look like thick-stemmed grass. You'll know the mint and rosemary by the scent, and possibly the oregano too, for it has a distinctive smell, and like rosemary it has excellent healing properties.' She lowered her eyes. ‘So they say.'

‘And what else is rosemary for? It sounds familiar.'

‘For remembrance,' she said softly. ‘In
Hamlet
. Ophelia says, “There's rosemary, that's for remembrance”.' She sighed. ‘It is believed to have medicinal qualities too.'

He couldn't find any words, none that would comfort her anyway, and stepped out into the paved and gravelled garden, which had a dyke at the bottom of it.

The area was small but full of flowers and shrubs. Growing out of cracks in the paving were plants which smelled sweet and aromatic as he crushed them beneath his feet. He bent to draw in the fragrance of a white rose, its petals pure and unblemished perfection. He strode the few yards to the edge of the swiftly running water and gave a small smile as he remembered the dyke at the foot of their own garden when he was a boy. He wondered if the Jansen children played in the water as he once did. Nicolaas had told him that they both attended local schools and didn't have tutors or a governess, like Margriet.

That was the answer, he thought suddenly. Margriet must go to school! To a local school, not a boarding school, so that she could come home every afternoon. There must be many private dame schools in Hull, and she would be with other children and not alone as she was now. Why hadn't he thought of it before? He would discuss it with Cornelia to gauge her opinion, and then he would put it to Rosamund, although he feared she would raise objections.

He found the herbs that Cornelia had asked for growing together in a sunny corner, and behind them a tall clump of white marguerites which made him smile and think of his daughter again. It was a pity they didn't have a garden in Hull, he pondered, but only a yard where the servants emptied the slops and hung their dusters. He vaguely considered the possibility of moving somewhere with a garden, but he loved the house they were in and it was in a convenient position both for his business and for Rosamund's shopping and social activities. Perhaps at some time in the future, when he was finished with business and had more leisure time on his hands, he might think of it again.

He wondered if Cornelia would stay in this house alone, but then berated himself for being morbid, even though Nicolaas's life was hanging by a thread.

Frederik helped his friend downstairs for an early supper. Nicolaas's bony frame was light and angular and he winced at every step, which he took one at a time. ‘Well done,' Frederik murmured as they reached the bottom.

‘
Ja
,' Nicolaas muttered breathlessly. ‘A small but significant success. I haven't been downstairs for several weeks. I can't ask Cornelia to help me, she isn't strong enough.'

‘Indeed not,' Frederik agreed, thinking that he would try to rework his appointments to give his friend the pleasure of coming downstairs to sit with his wife. ‘Could I make a suggestion?' he asked as they entered the kitchen.

Cornelia smiled. ‘Please do.' She placed a tureen of pale green soup on the table and hurried to settle Nicolaas in his chair.

‘How would it be, if it is agreeable to you, if I stayed here with you for this visit rather than at my hotel? Then, Nicolaas, when you feel up to it, I can assist you downstairs before I leave for work in the mornings so that you might spend all day with your lovely wife, and even perhaps see your friends when they call to enquire how you are?'

Nicolaas smiled. ‘Rather than greet them upstairs as an invalid!
Ja
, I would like that. Cornelia? What do you think? Would that be a nuisance to you?'

‘Of course it wouldn't be a nuisance,' she said warmly. ‘I would love you to be downstairs where I can talk to you. We can put your chair by the window where you can see the garden, and when it is sunny we can open it wide or even – perhaps – you could sit outside in the herb corner? Thank you, Frederik. That would be splendid.'

She began to serve the soup into bowls. ‘This is a spring broth,' she said, ‘with chicken meatballs. It also has celery, carrot, onion and the chives that Frederik kindly picked.' She gave a sudden laugh that lit up her face. ‘And grass!'

Frederik apologized profusely, thinking how very beautiful she looked when she laughed. She wore an open expression of merriment and he caught a glimpse of how she had been before sadness overtook her. He glanced at Nicolaas and saw that he was watching her as well, a small poignant smile hovering on his lips as if he too was remembering how she once had been.

As they ate the rest of their supper of tender duck breast with asparagus and salad, he understood why Nicolaas wanted her to be happy when he had gone. It was what any man would feel who truly loved his wife: he wished her to know the joy of loving, and being loved, again.

Frederik stayed with the Jansens until the end of the week but then reluctantly had to leave. Before he went to his last appointment he made sure that Nicolaas was safely back upstairs in his room, though he was a little disturbed that his friend asked to be helped into bed rather than into his chair.

‘I hope being downstairs so much hasn't overtired you, Nicolaas?' he said compassionately.

‘Not a bit.' Nicolaas shifted about to make himself comfortable and then settled with a sigh. ‘But no matter, anyway. I shall be getting plenty of rest before long and would rather not welcome that respite too soon. I must make the most of the time I have left and I thank you most sincerely for helping me to do that. I have enjoyed our time together immensely, and I know that Cornelia has too.'

Frederik nodded. He and Cornelia had sat talking until midnight after Nicolaas had gone to bed, and he had heard so much about the family that he felt he knew them better than he ever had before.

‘I've cancelled my afternoon appointments so that I can see my mother before catching the ship home this evening,' he said in as normal a tone as he could manage, reluctant to utter the words of farewell.

‘I'm sorry if we've curtailed some of your business.'

‘It's of no consequence, none at all. I've done enough, and I've enjoyed the opportunity of being here with you and Cornelia.' He laughed, although he felt not in the least merry. ‘Friendship is far more important than selling cheese and gin, after all.'

Nicolaas put his head back on his pillow. ‘Try telling that to the purveyors of cheese and gin,' he said croakily. ‘I think you'll find they have a different opinion.'

Frederik told him that he hoped to be back in Netherlands within three weeks and Nicolaas said he would look forward to it and he must stay with them again. He put out his hand. ‘Take great care, my good friend, and thank you for your friendship. I shall rest more easily now that I know you will watch over Cornelia, although I won't hold you to any commitment that you can't easily accomplish.'

Frederik took the offered hand and tears fell unbidden down his cheeks. ‘Farewell,' he said huskily. ‘Not goodbye, for I look forward to seeing you next time,' and bent and kissed his boyhood friend tenderly on the forehead. ‘
God zegene u
.' God bless you.

At the bottom of the stairs he held his fingers to his eyes to quell the tears before he went to say goodbye to Cornelia. ‘Forgive me,' he whispered as he took her hand. ‘I do not have your strength to withstand such anguish.'

‘It is a matter of taking one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time,' she said softly. ‘And that way the whole day passes and you are through it and ready for the next one.' She gently brushed his wet cheek with her fingertips. ‘We shall hope to see you again soon, and if anything should occur before then, perhaps I might write to you?'