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Updated: May 29, 2025
"How good you are," he said warmly. And I didn't dare look at Mr. van Buren, for the idea came to me that maybe he would not now believe what I had told him a little while ago. This morning I scolded Nell before our chaperon for her coldness to Jonkheer Brederode, when he had done so much for her. "How could you," I asked, "when the poor fellow seemed so pleased to think you cared? It was cruel."
Jonkheer Brederode had planned to go northward, skirting the coast to see two more Dead Cities of the Zuider Zee, Hoorn and Enkhuisen, and cut across the sea to Stavoren on the other side, to enter the Frisian Meers. But now he refused to take us that way.
It is odd, Nell and I used to tell each other every thought we had, and we talked over all the people we knew; but now, though I think a good deal about Jonkheer Brederode, and wonder how he really does feel toward us both, I never speak about him to Nell when I can avoid it, and she never mentions his name to me.
If Robert had been on board at this juncture he would probably have wished to box his cousin's ears, but I had no such desire, though mine were tingling. Perhaps he'd given the impression that I had boasted an intention to meet her within a given time, and she took this for my brutal way of carrying out the boast. "What is a Jonkheer?" the pseudo Lady MacNairne demanded of Starr.
"He congratulated Robert as sweetly as possible; but Robert said his face changed when he heard the news. I didn't dare to look up when the Jonkheer came and made me nice wishes, for fear he might be looking sad; and there was a heavy sound in his voice, I thought. Oh dear, life's very complicated, isn't it?" "Yes," I admitted. "Even in Holland." Perhaps these women are right.
This made Nell furious, and she said that in her opinion Jonkheer Brederode ought to be flattered if we were in the least nice to him, but she for one didn't intend to be. I was a little prejudiced against him, too, although I admired him very much when I saw him in the Prinzenhof at Delft, and afterwards at the Concours Hippique.
So I tried to be nice to him, just as I have to Mr. van Buren; and, oddly enough, both times with the same motive to make up for Nell's naughtiness. I could see that the Jonkheer was grateful, and liked me a little; but the night Mr. van Buren met us at Volendam so unexpectedly Lady MacNairne gave Nell and me both quite a shock.
But at last Lady MacNairne, hearing a clock chime ten, announced that she had some writing to do before going to bed. "I suppose you will have a look at the Kermess again?" she said to our two knights. "I've seen dozens of such fairs; and when you've seen one, you've seen pretty well all, nowadays. But if the Mariner would like to go, I shall be glad to go with him," Jonkheer Brederode answered.
Jonkheer Brederode was almost superhumanly nice, considering what he had endured at Nell's hands, and that it was really through her obstinacy that we'd suffered so much, and made ourselves and everybody else concerned so much trouble.
Morning was clear in the sky when we came to Groningen, and we were not in the least tired, though we had not even tried to doze. At a nice hotel, called by the odd name of the "Seven Provinces," where Jonkheer Brederode had arranged for us to stop a night if our plans had not been suddenly changed, there was a telegram for Nell.
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