Henrietta's Own Castle. Betty Neels

Her companion looked astounded. ‘Nothing. He’s a neighbour, he would feel insulted. Have you done your shopping?’

       ‘I’m on my way—there must be a shop…’

       ‘A general store, I believe you would call it in English. We will go together, unless of course you have sufficient knowledge of our language to make your purchases?’

       She was being overwhelmed with kindness, and yet behind his bland face she thought there was laughter lurking. ‘I can’t speak a word,’ she told him.

       They crossed the cobbles, skirted the bandstand and turned a corner into an exceedingly narrow street, crammed with little houses and paved with cobblestones, too. The shop was half way down its length and there were quite a number of women inside, having, from the sound of their voices, a pleasant gossip. They fell silent as Mr van Hessel opened the door and ushered her in, and she had the strange idea that in a bygone age they would have dropped him a curtsey; as it was they chorused with respectful voices and waited to hear what he had to say. Of course Henrietta couldn’t understand a word, but he smiled at them as he spoke, and they smiled back, but still with respect, and after a minute of talking he turned to ask: ‘How much milk do you want?’

       ‘Oh, a pint each day.’

       ‘You forget, my good…I beg your pardon—Miss Brodie, that we do not have your pints here, only litres. I suggest a litre every other day.’

       She nodded. At least he had remembered not to call her his good girl!

       ‘Bread?’

       ‘Well, I thought I’d make my own, but just until I’m settled, yes, please. Can I buy it here?’

       ‘No. The baker comes three times a week, his van is parked in the square and you fetch it for yourself.’ He stopped to speak to the woman behind the counter. ‘He doesn’t come today, but Mevrouw Ros will let you have half a loaf. What else?’

       ‘Bacon…’

       ‘No, most people don’t eat your sort of bacon. What else?’

       ‘Eggs, cheese, butter…’

       ‘Butter? That is expensive in Holland, not many people eat it.’

       ‘Oh, well, margarine, I suppose. Where do I buy meat?’

       He said something or other to the woman. ‘The butcher comes twice a week, he will be here in half an hour or so—in the square. I will tell Mevrouw Ros that somebody must help you with the money and so on.’

       ‘Don’t you mean ask?’ she wanted to know. ‘You sound like a feudal lord.’

       His lips twitched. ‘Unpardonable of me,’ he murmured. ‘Vegetables? Willemse takes his van round every day except Sunday, he comes to the door and you can buy what you want from him. I should point out that we have not moved with the times here, we cling to our old habits. In the big towns and modern villages, the shopping is done much as it is in England—although I imagine that you have not had much experience of that—St Clement’s has a large nurses’ home, and very likely you lived in.’

       She gaped at him. ‘However did you know?’ she began, to be halted by his impatient: ‘Oh, later, later, I have no time now. Do you wish to pay for these things now or will you have an account?’

       ‘I’ll pay now, please.’

       She opened her purse and handed him the money he asked for and he paid it while she smiled round at the interested faces watching her. ‘I didn’t realize that it would be so foreign,’ she declared as they left the shop.

       He had her basket, and from the surprised glances from the women they passed in the street, he wasn’t often seen with a shopping basket. They crossed the square together and at her door she took it from him. ‘I should like to see you about the ground rent,’ she began. ‘Mr Boggett didn’t tell me about it. Do I pay you, and how much is it?’

       ‘I haven’t the least idea,’ he told her blandly. ‘We’ll look into it some other time.’

       ‘Very well, but I should like to know, so that I can…’ She stopped; she wasn’t going to tell him that she had to be careful with her money. ‘Where do you live?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps I could come and see you about it.’

       He took the basket from her once more and set it down on her doorstep, and without speaking took her arm and walked her to the big gates.

       ‘Here,’ he said, and stopped midway between the great pillars. Henrietta hadn’t gone that way until now, they had walked to the shop along the other side of the square. She stared before her at the short drive, leading straight as a ruler from the gates, and at its end a square-walled castle, surrounded by a moat. There was a bridge spanning it so that cars could reach its great wooden door exactly facing the open gates, and a sweep of gravel just sufficiently large to allow of them to turn. The castle’s whitewashed walls rose straight and solid from the steel-grey water and were capped by a tiled roof like a clown’s hat, and there were a great many small windows. On either side of it, half way round the moat and almost out of sight, she could see two smaller bridges, connecting the castle with the drive which encircled the outer edge of the moat. She could think of nothing to say; this then was the castle the guide book had mentioned and which she had mistakenly assumed was a ruin—but this was no ruin, it bore all the signs of care and money lavished upon it, and when she looked around her she saw the coat of arms engraved on each pillar. No wonder the women in the shop had been so polite to Mr van Hessel!

       ‘Are you the lord of the manor?’ she wanted to know.

       ‘Well, we don’t call it that.’ He was amused again.

       ‘But you do own these houses?’ She pointed to the neat row of houses on either side of the gates. ‘Almshouses, are they?’

       ‘My dear good…Miss Brodie, they are not almshouses—the leasehold is mine, certainly, but the houses are given as gifts, usually for the recipient’s lifetime. In your case your aunt’s house was given to her together with the right to leave it to any member of her family, should she wish to do so.’

       Henrietta stared up at him, wishing she could read his face; there was a great deal she wanted to know. She had opened her mouth to ask the first question when he said: ‘Forgive me, I have an urgent appointment,’ and was gone, stalking up the drive to his own front door—from his back she thought it probable that he had forgotten all about her.

       She spent the day cleaning her little house, tidying cupboards and polishing furniture. Some of it, she discovered upon closer inspection, was very old and probably valuable. There was a rosewood davenport in the sitting-room, and the dining table was a magnificent example of marquetry, and when she took the loose covers off the easy chairs it was to find that they were upholstered in a rich red velvet, as good as new. She left the covers off and brushed the velvet with care; the little room looked quite beautiful now—she would need flowers, though; she would go to Tilburg in the morning, see the bank manager and give him Mr Boggett’s letter and then do a little shopping. She wound the Friesian clock hanging on the dining-room wall and the small carriage clock on the sitting-room mantelpiece and, well satisfied with her work, went to make herself some belated coffee.

       She had just finished it when there was a knock on the door; the neighbour, come to chop the wood; there was no doubt of that, for he swung a nasty-looking axe from a hamlike hand. They smiled and nodded in speechless friendliness as she ushered him out to the shed and went back to answer the door once more. One of the women who had been in the shop this time, smiling and pointing across the square where a van had parked. Henrietta remembered the butcher, put on her coat and walked with her guide across the cobbles and bought her meat. It was amazing how one could manage without speaking a word, she reflected, receiving change from the butcher, exchanging smiles and nods from the other customers as she went back across the square to find the greengrocer at the door. And this was even easier; all she had to do was walk round the van pointing to what she wanted and when she had made her choice he kicked off his klompen and carried