‘I think this room is awfully romantic, everything looks so ancient,’ said Marianne. ‘It’s easy to imagine yourself living in the Middle Ages, with all this dark panelling on the walls and the coats of arms over the doors.’
Frédérique donned her nightgown and crawled into the four-poster bed.
‘It’s big enough to drown in!’ she laughed. ‘I’ve never slept here before.’
Marianne, still dithering about in her bare feet, lifted the window-curtain a moment, letting a shaft of moonlight into the room.
‘Look, Freddie, how eerie! Don’t I look like a ghost in this light?’
‘Oh, Marianne, stop fussing, will you? Why don’t you come to bed, then we can have a nice gossip.’
Marianne dropped the curtain, undressed hurriedly and nestled herself beside Freddie.
‘Good gracious! This bed is gigantic! Oh, I’d die if I had to sleep in it by myself. Don’t you think it’s scary? Not even a little?’
‘Of course not. It’s your imagination, that’s all.’
‘Yes, I’m always imagining things, such as seeing ghosts, or being in a haunted house, or other things like meeting a knight in shining armour. But you’re different, all cool and collected, so I don’t suppose you dream up all sorts of stories for yourself the way I do.’
‘Stories? No, no. What sort of stories?’
‘Oh, entire novels sometimes. Then I imagine that I am a noble damsel, and that the boys are my grooms and the little ones my pages. And then I fall in love with a knight, who wants me to elope with him because my father’s so cruel and bloodthirsty, and won’t have him for a son-in-law.’
‘What a flattering portrait of your papa!’ giggled Frédérique. ‘And what about your knight — is he dark or fair?’
‘That depends on my mood. I say, Freddie, have you ever been in love?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Truly not? I’ve fallen in love a dozen times already, but it never lasts very long with me, just three or four weeks at the most. In Bonn, for instance, I had a drawing master whom I adored. And then there was a young man — fair hair and blue eyes, he had — who used to bring me bonbons on the sly.’
An elaborate enumeration of Marianne’s beaus followed.
‘But tell me, Marianne, how old are you now? Seventeen? Eighteen?’
‘I’m already eighteen!’
‘Goodness me!’ laughed Frédérique. ‘And your head is still full of ghosts and drawing masters! You’re as bad as Etienne, he never seems to grow up either.’
Marianne took offence at this and began to shake Freddie, whose laughter only increased.
‘And what about you? You’ve never even been in love! How grown-up is that?’
‘It’s time we went to sleep, Marianne. I wish you sweet dreams of a certain blue-eyed someone, then!’ laughed Freddie.
Marianne soon drifted into sleep, with her head touching Freddie’s shoulder.
Freddie lay awake for a long time; she had to smile at how childish Marianne seemed, despite being all of eighteen years old! She herself was twenty-three — quite a difference with Marianne there — and all that romantic fantasising about knights in armour and noble damsels was a thing of the past as far as she was concerned. But what kind of thoughts did she have nowadays? She often thought badly of herself, it was true — but who else did she think about? There was one person she thought about rather often, someone she wished were different in some ways, although in which ways she was not sure. So why did she think about him at all, if he was not as she would have liked him to be?
‘It’s so peculiar, so very peculiar,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Why I keep thinking of him is beyond me. It isn’t as if I want to think of him, I just can’t get him out of my mind.’
She was tempted to drift off into some pleasant daydream, but checked herself, sensing the stirrings of pride in her heart. She had self-worth, Theodore had said; she had breeding! The person she kept thinking of did not deserve her wholehearted attention. He was — she could see it quite clearly now — unserious, and besides, he was egotistic, the sort of person who made himself popular with everyone.
Theodore’s words had struck a chord, for there was in her character a trait that she had barely been conscious of before: a sense of pride, not merely pride in her high birth and her surname, but an innate pride inherited from noble forebears, which resonated in every nerve of her being. Yes indeed, she was proud, but that did not mean to say that she felt satisfied with herself. On the contrary! Oh, on the contrary!
She lay awake for hours, staring at the faded nymphs and cupids on the ceiling with Marianne beside her, fast asleep, breathing softly and regularly like a child. Countless times she asked herself the unanswerable question: why did she keep thinking of Paul?
. .
The following morning saw the arrival of Otto, who was to spend a week at De Horze before taking up his new position of steward to the royal estates. His appointment was in the environs of Elzen, and he would therefore be living fairly close by, a consoling thought to Madame van Erlevoort, who felt that the proximity of the happy household of De Horze might assist him in casting off his sorrows.
Theodore was out for the day, taking Arnold van Stralenburg on a tour of the grounds, and Truus was busy in the house while the children played in the park and the gym room under the supervision of the nursemaids. Otto joined the ladies — Madame van Erlevoort, Mathilda, Suzanne, Frédérique and Marianne — on one of the spacious, creepered verandas.
‘How is Etienne getting on?’ he asked.
Madame van Erlevoort beamed.
‘He got up early,’ said Freddie. ‘He made a tremendous to-do rearranging the furniture in his room when he arrived, to make himself a proper study, and he’s putting it to good use, as you see.’
Marianne stood up.
‘Where are you off to, Marianne?’ Suzanne wanted to know.
‘I am going to my favourite little spot at the back of the park!’ she said. ‘Oh, Freddie, it’s so lovely there, full of lilies of the valley. Why don’t you come with me? Then I can tell you all about the book I’m reading: Ein Gebet, by Carmen Sylva — oh, it’s just wonderful!’
Marianne left with Frédérique in tow, after which Otto and Suzanne set out for a stroll together. They had not seen each other for a long time, as Otto had gone to stay with his relatives in London the previous summer instead of coming to De Horze. Suzanne found him altered: he look older, and his face resembled a mask of quiet mourning, in which she detected a trace of bitterness.
She took his arm, and wordlessly they wandered down the broad oak-lined avenue, shaded from the baking July sunshine by the lush foliage. Giant ferns spread their fans along the ditches all ashimmer with metallic hues, delicate spider webs festooned the bushes like filaments of silvery glass, and now and then, through a break in the trees, they glimpsed a weather-beaten statue on a pedestal, a Flora or Pomona velvety with moss. The sweet-smelling wild honeysuckle ran riot along the verges, flinging its tangled shoots in every direction, while the blossoming cow parsley raised its flat heads of white froth. Otto and Suzanne proceeded at a leisurely pace. Ahead of them, in the distance, they saw two small figures in light-coloured clothes plunging into the greenery: Frédérique and Marianne, bound for the lilies of the valley. At their back they heard peals of laughter from the children frolicking on a heap of sand in the shade of the big house.
‘How beautiful it is here!’ Suzanne said at length. ‘I am so glad Theodore is letting nature have its way in the park, even if it’s only for the sake of economy. It looks like a jungle! I can remember when I was little Papa had a whole regiment of groundsmen, and the park always looked as tidy as a garden, with gazebos and vases and statues. And now it’s all tumbling down — some of the statues are broken, too. Oh, do you remember that time when you climbed on top of that nymph over there? You broke her arm, remember?’