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She poured the tea from a silver teapot into paperthin china cups, reflecting that no one had ever called her motherly before; homely, plump, dull, uninteresting—all these, repeated so often that they no longer hurt; indeed anything her stepmother said to her now had no effect at all, and even though she was aware that there was truth in what she said, she enjoyed the friendship of a large number of people who didn’t seem to notice her unassuming looks. The others sat down presently and she handed cups and as she did so admired her host’s good manners, and when he turned to her and asked her what she thought of Holland, she answered him unselfconsciously in her pleasant voice. After a few moments she noticed that he was asking apparently casual questions, all of which she answered with polite vagueness, completely wasted from her point of view for Sadie broke in to give him chapter and verse about St Bride’s, with a wealth of unnecessary detail about their training and how they had passed their exams not six months previously and now held Staff Nurses’ posts. “Rose is the gold medallist,” she informed him, “she’s the only one of us with any brains; anyway she studied and we didn’t. There were always other things to do in the evenings when we were off duty.” She added ingenuously, “You know, housemen and the senior medical students.”
Mijnheer Werdmer ter Sane’s blue eyes rested fleetingly on Rose’s face; what he saw there caused him to say kindly, “I imagine that a gold medal is worth at least half a dozen housemen, your family must be very proud of you.”
This tactful remark didn’t have the effect he expected; Rose’s face flooded with colour and then went pale and she mumbled something, luckily lost in Sadie’s chatter. “That’s why we’re here,” she explained, “we’ve been saving up for months to have a holiday—to celebrate, you know. Only a week.” She sighed dramatically. “Back to work in two days’ time.”
She turned blue eyes to him. “You speak perfect English. Have you been in England?”
His voice was smooth. “Yes, from time to time. We are, of course, taught it in school; Dutch is a difficult language so we need to be proficient in the more widely used tongues.”
“You sound like a professor,” declared Sadie.
“Oh, I do hope not. Now shall I explain your street map to you?”
A nicely worded hint that they should think of leaving; Rose got to her feet at once and followed him to the table between the windows and handed him her map, and he took a pen from his pocket, marked a cross on it and then inked in their return route. “So that you will know exactly where you had got to,” he pointed out, “but I hope you will allow me to drive you back to your hotel—there’s always the chance that you will get lost again.” He handed Rose the map and tugged an embroidered bell-rope by the fireplace and when Hans came, spoke to him in his own language.
Hans came back almost at once with their cardigans and their host said easily, “It’s a bare ten minutes drive; Hans will fetch the car round.”
He helped Sadie into her cardigan and answered her light-hearted chatter good naturedly and then turned to Rose. But she was already buttoned neatly into hers, standing quietly with the map in her hand.
“We are very grateful,” she told him gravely. “It’s quite frightening, being lost—and then the storm…but there’s no need for you to drive us back, now we know how to follow the map we can walk quite easily.”
“I am sure that you could, you seem to be, if you will forgive me for saying so, a very practical young lady, but I should prefer to take you back; besides I have enjoyed the company of both of you—the gratitude should be mine for helping me to pass a dull afternoon in my own company.”
Oh, very polished, thought Rose, even if he doesn’t mean a word of it.
They went out into the hall and before Hans opened the front door, she had time to have another quick look round. The staircase was at the back of the hall, thickly carpeted, with barley sugar balusters, curving up gracefully to the floor above; there was a massive chandelier above their heads and a great carved oak table against one wall. It was tantalising to have a glimpse of such a fine house before they were out on the narrow pavement and being ushered into the dignified dark grey Rolls-Royce motor car standing there.
Sadie slid into the front seat, exclaiming prettily that it had always been her ambition to travel in a Rolls, and Rose got into the back, quite content to do so, only half listening to her friend rattling on about one thing and another while she looked out of the window, trying to see both sides at once; she wasn’t likely to come to Amsterdam again for some time, indeed if ever, and she wanted to see as much as could be crowded into their brief stay.
At their hotel they bade their host goodbye, thanked him once more, and Sadie said, “I hope you come to London and we see you again; don’t forget where we are—St Bride’s.” She gave him a beguiling smile as they shook hands. “I think you’d be much more fun to go out with than any of the housemen I know!”
He made some laughing reply and opened the hotel door for them.
Inside Rose said doubtfully, “Sadie, weren’t you a bit—you know…? After all he is a complete stranger…”
Sadie laughed. “Look who is talking—who knocked on his door, then?”
“Well, we had to get in out of the rain and I didn’t know he was living there, did I?” They began to climb the steep stairs to their rooms on the top floor. “The others will be back and I’m famished.”
The rest of the party were milling around the small, plainly furnished rooms gossiping about their day. As Rose and Sadie reached the top landing they surged out of doors, full of questions.
“Where have you been?” demanded a lanky girl with a long face. “We’ve been getting worried; after all, Rose, you’ve got all the plans for tomorrow and the money for the hotel…”
Rose began mildly and was cut short by Sadie’s exuberant voice. “We walked miles and got lost and then there was that awful storm so Rose knocked on the door of a simply huge house and we had tea there and came back in a Rolls-Royce.”
The lanky girl goggled at her. “You’re making it up.”
“It’s quite true,” said Rose composedly. “We did get lost, Alice. Did you have a good time shopping?”
“I’ll say,” a girl with red hair interpolated, “a good thing you’ve got the money to pay the bill here, Rose, I’m skint.”
“I’ll pay this evening, we don’t leave until after lunch, so if there’s any money over we’ll share it out.”
The little group dispersed to tidy for the evening and Rose went into her own room and changed her damp dress for a cotton jersey and did her hair again. Which done she made up her face and then stood peering into the very small looking-glass which hung on the wall. She was undoubtedly a plain girl; not, she conceded, hopelessly so, her skin was good, she had nice eyebrows and her eyes were passable, only her nose was too short and turned up very slightly and her mouth was too wide, and as for her hair…fine and silky reaching to her waist but most uninterestingly pale brown. She pinned it severely to the top of her head and went to join the others. There was no point in her being sorry for herself and indeed she seldom was, but today it had struck her forcibly that no man, certainly not one as handsome as Mijnheer Werdmer ter Sane, would bother to look at her twice. Not that he had ignored her; his manners had been beautiful but she thought that they would have been just as beautiful if she had been an elderly aunt or a chance acquaintance he wasn’t likely to see again.
They trooped down to their high tea and joined the other members of the coach party in the basement dining-room; they were mostly elderly couples with a sprinkling of middle-aged ladies on their own who treated the six of them with a guarded friendliness and greeted them now with looks of mild reproof.
“We spent a delightful afternoon doing