Love's Odyssey Page 4

  The woman glanced curiously at her as she listened to Adrien, but the look was friendly. She clasped her hands together and shook her head pityingly. Suddenly she came forward and took Romell into her arms, patting her on the back. To Romell's surprise and distress, she found herself in tears, clinging to the stout woman and sobbing helplessly.

  "I shall leave you here then," Adrien said to her. "Mevrouw Bonus will care for you until I locate your relatives. She speaks only Portuguese and Yiddish, so I fear you'll not be able to understand her, but I'll be back as soon as possible."

  By the time Romell had wiped away her tears, she found Adrien gone. Her hostess pressed her into a chair and rang for a servant. Soon food and drinks were set before Romell.

  "Mevrouw," she began, hoping she had the word right, hoping it meant, as she thought it must, Madame.

  Her hostess laughed, pointing to herself. "Francesca," she said.

  Romell smiled and nodded. She pointed to herself. "Romell," she said. By the time Adrien returned the next day, Romell had become the pet of the household. Two other women, sisters of Francesca—or so Romell believed—had found her suitable clothes, altering the brocade gown to fit, ordering servants to dress her hair, to bring her food. She was able to greet Adrien clean of body and somewhat composed of mind.

  "I've found Miss Halva and Miss Greta Roosevelt,” he told her. "The Mejuffrouws Roosevelt, in Dutch. They live here in Amsterdam."

  Francesca questioned him in Portuguese. When she learned that Romell would be leaving, she shook her head sadly and patted Romell’s face.

  "Tell her I will be forever grateful for her kindness," Romell said to Adrien. "Tell her I'll come back to see her when I can."

  After she was alone in the carriage with Adrien, Romell asked him how many other languages he spoke besides Dutch and Portuguese and English. "I know only English and French," she said.

  "I speak French and have a smattering of Spanish," he told her. "Actually, my Portuguese is quite poor and my Dutch only fair."

  "Did you study these languages? From what my father said I thought only Latin and Greek were taught in the English schools."

  "I was tutored in French," Adrien said. "The others I picked up as I heard them. You'll find Dutch easy to learn."

  "I hope so." She glanced at him. Today he seemed politely friendly. She would be the same. There was no need for them to remain enemies. After all, it was not likely that she'd see him again after she was united with her cousins. Romell swallowed, suddenly feeling an aching sense of loss. Never see Adrien again?

  "What are your plans?" she asked him.

  "I'm not certain yet. I may go to France. On the other hand, I have a friend in Sumatra. I may try to join him."

  "Sumatra? Where is that, pray?"

  "In the East Indies, an island west of Java. These Hollanders have most of the Indies spice trade, but England has a factory in Sumatra. We're on the way to establishing ourselves in the East Indies."

  "I've heard of Java," she said. "The East Indies seems so far away."

  "At least a six-month voyage in a Dutch East Indiaman."

  "You won't be staying in Holland then."

  Adrien shook his head. The carriage clattered up, then down a hump-backed bridge over a wide river. "The Amstel," he told her.

  They passed rows of the tall thin redbrick houses with their sandstone decorations, all very much alike except for the different designs of the gables. The houses grew fewer and farther apart, but Romell saw new ones in various stages of building. Everywhere people seemed to be busy.

  "Amsterdam is so much cleaner than London," she remarked.

  Adrien grimaced. "Cleaner, wealthier, and far duller." He gestured out the window. "Look at them—dressed in black, decent, hardworking, pious men. Clever merchants, wily traders."

  "Don't you like Hollanders? I found Francesca Bonus delightful."

  "Mevrouw Bonus is not Dutch. She is a Jewess. The family fled religious persecution in Portugal years ago, bringing their diamond-cutting skills with them. I fear you'll find your Roosevelt cousins quite different from her." He paused, looking away.

  Romell waited, but he didn't go on. "I'd welcome your suggestions," she said finally.

  "If I were you, I'd mind my manners once you're with your cousins," he told her. "They're older and strict Calvanists, from what I've managed to discover. They'll expect circumspect behavior on your part. You know-- demure, ladylike. I'm afraid they'd find your unchaperoned trip with me shocking."

  She stared at him. Was he saying she didn't behave like a lady? That she was forward and bold? If the trip had been shocking, it was certainly more his fault than hers.

  "How kind of you to point out my deficiencies," she said coolly.

  Adrien drew in a deep breath, let it out. "I am merely attempting to help you fit into a Dutch household. You have—"

  "How dare you say no one will like me as I am?" Romell clenched her hands into fists as she turned on the seat to face him. "Do you think everyone is another Adrien Montgomery? Like me you may not, but change me you shan't!"

  His blue eyes flashed. "I have only your best interests at heart. If you must live with those stiff-necked old spinsters, it's best you realize from the beginning what they'll expect of you."

  "I'll manage, thank you. And you needn't make sport of my cousins simply because they've remained unmarried. From what I've seen of men lately, I can see certain advantages to staying a spinster all my life."

  He burst into laughter.

  "What do you find so amusing, pray tell?"

  "My dear girl, a glance in your mirror should tell you that you're made for marriage. Indeed, I'm surprised you're still a spinster at—how old are you? Seventeen?"

  "I'm eighteen. And my father didn't find any of the men in Virginia suitable," she said indignantly. "What business is it of yours why I haven't married? I surely would not wed you if you were the last man alive."

  "I'll admit I'm relieved," he told her.

  Her eyes widened and she was momentarily speechless.

  Adrien turned toward the coach window. After a moment he said, "There's the Bank of Leening, actually a municipal pawnshop. The loans are made for six months, then if an article isn't redeemed, it's sold at public auction."

  "How interesting," she said stiffly. "You appear to be well acquainted with Amsterdam."

  "I've traveled a bit."

  I hate him, Romell told herself. Arrogant, vain—I hope he chokes on his words.

  "Perhaps you'd like to know something of the city's history," Adrien went on. "Gysbrecht II founded Amsterdam in 1204, when he built a castle and choked the flow of the Amstel River by putting a dam across it. The current stadholder, Prince Frederick Hendrick, is building a royal palace but—"

  Interested in spite of her annoyance, Romell broke in to ask, "Stadholder?"

  "No kings for the Hollanders. That's what Prince Frederick is, actually, though with limited power since he's supposed to be merely a representative of Felipe IV, the emperor of Spain. Of course, it's more complicated than that, since Holland has been fighting Spain for some seventy years. They don't care much for the Spanish Habsburgs."

  "Neither did my father. He said—" Romell, who'd intended to share with Adrien her father's opinion of the Spanish ruling family, broke off and clamped her lips tightly together.

  I won't be friends with him, she thought. I want nothing between us at all. The sooner he leaves Holland, the better. I never want to see him again.

  The coach was now traveling along a street with smaller houses. The municipal buildings of Amsterdam had been left behind, and Romell saw cows on the other side of a canal to the left of the road. The driver turned the horses into a street that was little better than a rutted lane.

  "Stop here," Adrien ordered, and the driver halted his horses.

  Adrien handed Romell out in front of a two-story brick house with a thatched roof. As they came up the walk toward the door, it opened; a white-capped maid
stood aside for them to enter. She closed the door behind them and ushered them into a sitting room where two women dressed in black satin sat in straight-backed chairs. White caps hid the color of their hair, but the wrinkled faces showed age.

  Romell moved hesitantly across the wine and gold tiled floor to stand in front of them. They stared at her with identical eyes of pale blue.

  "Cousin Greta, Cousin Halva—" Romell began.

  "Ik heb Engels niet," one of them said firmly. She appeared to be the oldest of the two.

  "Neither of your cousins speaks English," Adrien told Romell. He stepped forward until he stood beside her and bowed to the seated women.

  "Mag ik U voorstellen: Mejuffrouw Romell Wellsley," he said to them, turning his head toward Romell.

  "Hoe maakt U het?" the elder woman asked.

  Romell smiled nervously. Obviously she was going to have to learn the Dutch language as rapidly as possible.

  Adrien answered for her, and there was silence as both women examined her. Romell became conscious of the colors in the gown she wore, colors that had seemed ordinary enough at Francesca's house. Now the dull reds and deep blue of the brocaded skirt seemed to flare conspicuously in the sedately-furnished sitting room. She felt a flush creep up her face and thought she must appear to be aflame, with her red face and her uncapped head of curling cinnamon hair.

  "De ogen. Bruin," This was the first time the younger woman had spoken. She smiled timidly at Romell. "Halva," she added shyly, pointing to herself.

  "She says your eyes are brown," Adrien told Romell.

  Like my mother's, Romell thought. Cousin Halva must remember her. Perhaps if I learn enough Dutch, she'll tell me about my mother.

  "They do want me here?" she asked Adrien.

  "Oh yes, I made certain of that yesterday. I explained your unhappy circumstances. Give your cousins time, you're as strange to them as they are to you." He looked at her for a long moment, seemed about to say more, then bowed.

  "Farewell, Miss Wellsley. I hope you do fare well—and happily."

  He bowed to the sisters. "Goedemiddag," he told them.

  Before Romell could think of what she wanted to say, Adrien turned on his heel and strode from the room. She took a step after him, stopped, put a hand to her lips. He was going, leaving her-- she'd never see him again. Tears stung her eyes. She had a sudden impulse to rush after him, cling to him, tell him she did want to marry him, wanted never to be parted from him.

  Romell blinked back her tears, raised her chin and turned back to her cousins. She would never run after any man--especially not Adrien Montgomery.

  Chapter 4

  Romell woke to Greta’s voice. "Goedemorgan, Romell."

  Three months had passed since the day she’d arrived at her cousins’ house. She’d not only learned a fair amount of Dutch, she’d also learned that her elder cousin Greta, called the tune and both she and Halva must dance to it.

  She sat up in bed, yawning and stretching. From her small upstairs window she could see that it promised what she’d come to think of as the usual Amsterdam day—misty, with lowering clouds. In August!

  In Virginia the sun would be warm—too warm for comfort by midday, a true summer. The weather wasn’t cold here, but despite the flowers blooming in almost every yard, Romell found it difficult to feel that summer visited Amsterdam.

  She grimaced as she remembered that she must suffer through another diner tonight, to meet yet another eligible young—or maybe not-so-young—man. Her cousins were certainly trying their best to marry her off as quickly as possible.

  But the men! How could she cooperate when confronted by a fat widower who only wanted a mother for his five children? Or, just as bad, a younger man, son of a wealthy merchant, who spent the evening bragging about how well he was doing in the Baltic grain and timber trade—"Mother Commerce," as he called it.

  Romell sighed, threw back the covers and got to her feet. Greta would be calling her again if she didn't bestir herself. Young women didn't lie abed of a morning in the Roosevelt household. Not that Romell was lazy, but the sense of being driven to each duty was new to her. Greta hung about supervising her every move until she felt like screaming.

  Still, her cousins had given her shelter, had fed and clothed her. Romell grimaced again as she picked up her black silk gown with its lace collar and cuffs. The white lace was finely wrought and the silk was a handsome fabric, but so staid, so old looking. A mourning dress. Not that she didn't mourn for her father and for Sir Thomas, too, but she longed to wear colors again.

  Both Greta and Halva wore black by choice. Would she, in time, come to resemble them if she didn't choose a man from the wilted bouquet of suitors being offered to her?

  Romell smiled at the thought of a nosegay of men. The fat widower could be a hyacinth, though not so sweetly fragrant, the arrogant young man a showy poppy. Why were there no tulips being offered to her? A man like a tulip—graceful, a natural aristocrat, handsome without being obvious—such a man she might consider.

  She'd heard about the tulip madness of a few years ago, when a fine house might be traded for a single Admiral Liefkins tulip bulb and a Semper Augustus bulb was worth more than its weight in gold. Now, though tulips were cultivated carefully, their price was reasonable. A beautiful flower. Would she find a tulip among the men at tonight's diner?

  The dinner that evening was in one of the tall brick houses on the other side of the Amstel, a house that faced onto a canal. Romell had already discovered that many of the Amsterdam houses were laid out very much like Francesca's. One entered through the front door into a wide hallway that narrowed just past the spiral stairs leading to the bedrooms and ended at the door to the kitchen. On one side there would be a suite of rooms, the one facing the street used as the sitting room. The second room looked out on the back garden and was the dining room.

  The floors were tiled, the windows small-paned and narrow, the rooms painted in dark colors. But these dark walls displayed an astonishing variety of oil paintings. Only last week, Greta had spoken to Romell twice about the way she'd stared at one painting--a country landscape featuring a bridge over a canal. The host had told them the artist was a Rembrandt van Rijn who lived on Bree Straat. Her cousins had smiled and nodded. They'd heard of the man, a painter of merit.

  Romell didn't care a whit about the artist, although she had wondered briefly if he lived near Francesca, the painting was what mattered. There was no sun, yet a golden light touched the trees and the water and the clouds in such a way that the viewer understood that the mist soon would rise, that beauty was everywhere . . . waiting.

  Sir Thomas had family portraits at Three Oaks, but these Dutch paintings caught Romell’s attention in a way her uncle's had not. Still, tonight she'd try not to make herself conspicuous by staring.

  The talk at the dinner table was of the East Indies, of the profits in trade there, of the factory in Java where the Dutch East Indies Company had built a walled fortress-city named Batavia.

  "Mijnheer Brouwer," Cousin Greta said to an older heavyset man near the end of the table. "You've been to Batavia. Would you be so kind as to give me your opinion of living conditions there?"

  He smiled graciously. "Except for the fever, no finer place can be imagined. I don't count our own Amsterdam, of course." He chuckled, then sobered. "My son Pieter will be going out to Batavia on the next ship. Sailing perhaps as soon as October. I've purchased a post for him as a cadet officer. Be the making of the boy."

  There was a curious lack of comment on this event, and the host rather quickly began to talk of a new plan to drain Haarlem Lake. Romell caught the gist of much of what was said, having quickly learned these past three months the Dutch words that were similar to English. After the meal was finished and the women withdrew, the daughter of the house, a dark-haired plump girl of sixteen named Cornelia, asked Romell if she would like to see the jardin.

  "Graag, dank U," Romell told her, speaking carefully. She could understand Du
tch much better than she could speak it. She wasn't exaggerating by telling Cornelia she'd "love to, thanks." The offer to stroll the garden was a relief, since she now had an excuse to get out of the house and away from Greta for awhile.

  The moment they stepped outside the back door, Cornelia burst into giggles. Romell smiled, thinking her the liveliest girl she'd met so far. She looked at the neat beds of flowers, at the separate plot of vegetable rows, at the fruit trees near the far end of the long garden where shadows hid the wall.

  "Oh, I shouldn't be doing this," Cornelia sputtered, still laughing.

  "Doing what?"

  "I promised him I'd bring you outside so he could talk to you. Of course, he wasn't invited tonight. No one understands him."

  Romell didn't understand either.

  "Mother will be so angry if she finds out. I'll be punished!" But still Cornelia giggled. She grasped Romell by the arm. "Look. By the wall."

  Romell stared into the shadows. There in the darkness stood a man, and her heart seemed to stop even though she knew it couldn't be Adrien.

  Cornelia gave her a push. "Go on. He wants to meet you,"

  Romell stumbled forward, regained her balance and walked slowly toward the wall. The man was tall enough to be Adrien. Was it somehow possible . . . ? Her pace quickened.

  He stepped toward her. "Goedenavond," he said.

  Romell stopped dead. Not Adrien's voice, not Adrien at all. Now that she was closer, she could see the difference in build. This man was broader than Adrien. Suddenly uneasy, she looked back toward Cornelia, but the girl seemed to have vanished.

  "Who are you?" Romell asked the man. "What do you want?" In her nervousness, she spoke English.

  "I speak little English," the man said, with a heavy Hollander accent. "I be Pieter Brouwer. I do not mean harm."

  Pieter. The son of the man inside. The son who was being shipped off to Java as a soldier. The son who had not been invited. Curious and intrigued, Romell moved close enough to see his face. In the dim light of late evening, she could tell he was young, blond, and had a moustache and a small beard.