The Silver Thaw

Her parent was in high good humour. ‘Hullo, my dear,’ he beamed at her. ‘You see I’ve found another enthusiast. This is Doctor van der Tolck from Holland, like us, on holiday. My daughter Amelia and her fiancé, Doctor Tom Crouch.’ He stood back smiling while they shook hands and murmured politely, and Amelia, meeting the Dutchman’s sleepy gaze, had a sudden strange feeling, as though everything had changed; that nothing would ever be the same again; that there was no one else there, only herself and this giant of a man, still staring at her. She put out a hand and caught Tom’s sleeve in a fierce grip which made him glance at her in surprise. Tom was there, right beside her, and she was going to marry him…

The man smiled faintly, just as though he read her thoughts and mocked them, and made some remark to Tom. She told herself, seconds later, that she had imagined the whole puzzling thing.

‘Doctor van der Tolck has a boat here too,’ observed Mr Crosbie with satisfaction. ‘He’s staying at the hotel, got here last night on the coastal express. We might go out together—he tells me that the Raftsund is a good area for cod.’

‘What are we going to do with the catch?’ asked Amelia.

‘Oh, let the hotel people have it,’ declared her parent carelessly. ‘Well, how about moving off?’

She took a quick peep at the Dutchman, who was standing quietly, saying nothing, apparently waiting for the rest of them.

‘We’ll go and pick up the food,’ she offered, and gave Tom’s sleeve a tug. ‘Tom?’

‘Do that, my dear, and ask them to let you have Doctor van der Tolck’s sandwiches at the same time.’

‘I have to go back to the hotel,’ he had a slow deep voice, ‘I’ll pick my food up then.’ He smiled at Mr Crosbie. ‘Shall I come down to the quay with you—you were going to show me that rod of yours.’

Amelia turned away with Tom beside her. On the way to the hotel she said with a touch of pettishness: ‘Why on earth does Father have to dig up these chance acquaintances—I expect he’ll stick like a leech now!’

‘You don’t like him?’

‘No, I do not,’ she said a little too sharply, ‘butting in like that.’

‘Probably your father suggested that we should join forces—rather difficult to refuse in the circumstances.’

‘Rubbish, Tom—he could have made some excuse.’

He gave her a long considered look. ‘You do dislike him, don’t you?’

She bounced through the hotel door. ‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘I shall keep out of his way.’

A decision which Doctor van der Tolck had apparently made too, for he had little or nothing to say to her when she and Tom rejoined him and her father presently—polite enough, but she mistrusted the wicked gleam in his eyes and the faint smile when he spoke to her, which he did only when politeness made it imperative.

He left them presently, agreeing easily with Mr Crosbie that he would join them in his own boat within ten minutes. He was as good as his word, manoeuvring it alongside their own vessel while he exchanged opinions with Mr Crosbie as to the best area in which to fish. They settled the important question at last, working their way down towards the Raftsund and presently they anchored, not too far apart, and settled down to the serious business in hand. The clouds had strengthened and the sun no longer shone even fitfully, the mountains around them were grey and cold and Amelia secretly found them a little frightening. She went into the cabin and made coffee and sat there in comparative warmth, drinking it after handing out mugs to her father and Tom. The doctor, she saw out of the corner of her eye, had a thermos flask and even at a distance was a picture of contentment.

The weather worsened as the day went on and by three o’clock it was disagreeably cold and windy. Mr Crosbie reluctantly conceded the wisdom of returning to dry land before the rain, falling gently so far, became torrential. But he had had a good day; he and Tom sorted their catch while Amelia took the wheel. She was good at it. She passed their new acquaintance within a few feet, sending the boat tearing through the dark water before he had even got his engine going. It was galling, half way there, to be overtaken. He was making fast as she approached the quay and without speaking to her, performed the same service for her, and when she thanked him, rather haughtily, he grunted.

She left the three men there, telling each other fishy tales while they gloated over their catches, and went up to the hotel, where she ordered tea in her room and had a bath, far too hot.

It was difficult to avoid Doctor van der Tolck. The hotel wasn’t large and except for a couple of commercial travellers and a rather subdued family—on their way, the manager confided, to a funeral on the outskirts of the town—they were the only guests. True, by the time she had joined her father and Tom in the bar, a trickle of young men with their girls came in, but they kept to themselves although they were friendly enough. Amelia, sipping her sherry, made idle conversation and kept an eye on the door. Doctor van der Tolck was just the kind of man to join them for the evening unasked.

She was mistaken. He sauntered in presently, nodded pleasantly and joined the two Norwegians at the bar and either he spoke their language or they spoke Dutch, because they entered into a lengthy conversation and Amelia, her ears stretched, was sure that it wasn’t English they were speaking. It was annoying when he looked up suddenly and caught her looking at them, and still more annoying that he didn’t smile.

He dined at a table alone too, and she was a little surprised that her father hadn’t asked him to join them. She didn’t say anything, but when her father said casually: ‘I didn’t ask van der Tolck to join us—I hear from Tom that you don’t like him,’ she went pink and shot Tom a peevish look which in the circumstances was quite unjustified.

But he was there in the morning. She had gone out before breakfast to inspect the high slender bridge which joined Stokmarknes with the neighbouring island of Langoya. It was a bit too far to walk to, she saw with regret, but perhaps she and Tom would get a chance to reach it later in the day. She had supposed that it was much nearer, but appearances were deceptive, and even though she hurried to where the houses began to peter out against the base of the mountains, the bridge seemed as far away as ever. She turned round with regret and started back to the hotel, picking her way carefully along the uneven road. She hadn’t gone a quarter of the distance when a Saab swept past her and then stopped. Doctor van der Tolck was driving and Amelia said good morning in a cool voice as she drew abreast of him. He held the door open. ‘Like a lift?’ he enquired in a voice which suggested that he couldn’t care less either way. ‘I’m going back for breakfast.’

‘Thank you.’ She got in without argument. She had vowed to avoid him, but he was exactly the kind of man to demand to know why she refused if she did. He leaned across to slam the door shut and drove on without saying a word. What a good thing, she thought sourly, that the drive was a short one, for she couldn’t think of anything to say even if he had been disposed to make conversation. She peeped at him from under her lashes. He looked inscrutable—a silly, novelish word but it did describe the expression of his profile. A rather splendid profile too; a pity she didn’t like him. If he had been friendly it would have been nice to have talked… She had Tom, she reminded herself happily, and smiled quite nicely at her companion as they stopped at the hotel and he opened the door for her.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I daresay we shall be seeing each other very shortly.’

He agreed politely, but his smile disconcerted her; it was for all the world as though he had a secret joke which amused him very much and that after she had held out the olive branch—well not exactly held it out, but… She let the thought slide away; it was a great pity that she couldn’t opt out of the day’s fishing trip.

She did indeed suggest to Tom that they should take the bus to Sortland and have a look round, and they were arguing gently about it when Doctor van der Tolck came over to their table to speak to her father and he, despite a heavy frown from his daughter, at once suggested that the two of them should join forces for the day. ‘For Amelia is dead set on going to Sortland and of course Tom will go with her. There’s a bus…’

‘A splendid idea,’ agreed the doctor, so promptly that she suspected that he would be glad to see the back of her. He turned to Tom. ‘I’ve a Saab outside—rented it for my stay—why not borrow it? The road runs alongside the fjord and is pretty good going. There’s a bridge at Sortland and you can cross over to Hinney Island and visit Harstad; it’s quite a sizeable place and a military headquarters.’ He added, glancing at Amelia, ‘A street of shops, too.’

The faintly mocking glance he gave her from under his lids instantly made her change her mind. ‘Perhaps another day,’ she said coolly, to be overruled by Tom’s:

‘That’s jolly decent of you, if the weather changes we might not get another chance, and I’ll be going back in three days’ time.’

Amelia poured herself some more coffee which she didn’t want, but it was something to do while she argued. ‘Yes, but what about you, Father?’

Her parent was of no help at all. ‘Oh, we’ll manage very well, my dear—you and Tom go off and enjoy yourselves together.’

‘Yes, but you can’t manage the boat alone,’ she persisted.

‘Who said I was going to? We’ll use mine and share a picnic lunch. If the weather holds we shan’t come back before four o’clock, so don’t hurry on our account.’

The day had not been a qualified success. Amelia, soaking herself in a hot bath that evening, mulled it over at leisure and tried to decide where it had gone wrong. They had started off well enough—indeed, the drive to Sortland had been pleasant. The road, just as the doctor had told them, had followed the fjord the whole way and Sortland, when they reached it, was charming. They had coffee there, walked around the village, and then decided to go on to Harstad, so they drove over the bridge to the neighbouring island, Hinney, and took the only road, at first following the fjord and then going inland and taking a ferry once again. It proved to be a longer journey than they had expected and when they got to Harstad it was raining. They lunched at the Viking Nordic and then walked along the main street, looking at the shops, and Amelia, determined to take back some token of their trip, spent far too long in a rather splendid bookshop where she bought a couple of paperbacks, some writing paper and a pen she didn’t really need. Tom bought nothing at all, waiting patiently while she pottered round the shelves, and it was almost three o’clock when he suggested mildly that they should think about getting back to Stokmarknes.

And none too soon. The rain had settled down to a steady drizzle and the sky was an unrelieved grey, merging with the mountains, their snowy tops completely hidden by cloud. ‘We’ll have tea in Sortland,’ suggested Tom as they started back, but by the time they had reached it, it was dark, Tom was quietly apprehensive and Amelia becoming shorttempered. The day had been a waste. They hadn’t talked about themselves at all; her secret hopes that with time on their hands they could have got their future settled were coming to nothing. Tom was in no mood to talk about weddings—indeed, he had never been less romantic, advising her somewhat tersely to keep a sharp eye on the road, which, now that it was dark, wasn’t nearly as easy as it had been that morning.

They arrived back at the hotel at six o’clock, relieved to be there but unable to be lighthearted about it and meeting the doctor in the foyer didn’t help matters. He was sitting comfortably reading a Dutch newspaper, a drink at his elbow, but he got up as they went in, enquired kindly if they had enjoyed their day, expressed regret at the weather and invited them to have a drink. Tom, after a glance at Amelia, accepted, but she refused, declaring she wanted a cup of tea before she did anything else.

The doctor obligingly pressed the bell for her. ‘No tea?’ he asked with what she decided was quite false sympathy. ‘There’s a good hotel in Sortland.’

‘We left Harstad rather late,’ she explained stiffly, and when a waitress came asked for tea to be brought to her room, to drink it under the doctor’s amused eye was more than she could manage.

But tea and the bath soothed her, so that by the time she got downstairs she was feeling quite cheerful again. Tom was already there, so she went across the bar to him and tucked her hand into his arm. ‘Sorry if I was a bit snappy,’ she said softly. ‘It was disappointing, wasn’t it—all that rain.’

He agreed placidly and ordered her a drink, moving a little way away so that she had to take her hand away, and she frowned a little. Tom hated any form of affectionate display in public and just for the moment she had forgotten that. Amelia perched herself on a stool at the bar and began a rather banal conversation with the barman and Tom and they were presently joined by her father and Doctor van der Tolck, both with the air of men who had enjoyed every minute of their day and were now prepared to enjoy their evening just as much. And strangely enough, the evening was so pleasant that she had gone reluctantly to bed, much later than usual. Doctor van der Tolck had joined them for dinner and proved himself to be an amusing companion without attempting to hog the conversation—indeed, his aptitude for listening with interest to whatever was being said contributed to the success of the evening and even Amelia, wary of his friendly manner, found herself telling him about St Ansell’s. She only just stopped herself in time from telling him that she intended continuing to work there after she and Tom were married. She had told him too much already…

She stopped almost in mid-sentence and asked: ‘Are you married, Doctor van der Tolck?’

He had dropped his lids so that she couldn’t see his eyes. He said evenly: ‘No, I am not. Shall you be going fishing tomorrow?’

It was a palpable snub and she flushed a little, admitting to herself that she had deserved it. All the same, thinking about it afterwards, she came to the conclusion that while he had extracted quite a lot of information about her, he had said precious little about himself. Not that she was in the least interested.

She avoided him as much as possible for the next two days, although he shared their table now, to her father’s pleasure and to her own unease, but she had Tom to talk to, although not for much longer now, since he would be leaving the next day, and she wondered once or twice if it would be a good idea if she went back with him. She even suggested it, to be met with a very natural surprise on Tom’s part. ‘What on earth for?’ he wanted to know. ‘Your father would be left on his own and you know he wanted you to go with him in the first place.’

‘Yes, well—there’s Doctor van der Tolck to keep him company.’

Tom shook his head. ‘He told me that he was going further north after salmon.’

She told herself that she was delighted at the news. ‘Oh, well, then I’ll stay.’

‘You won’t be bored?’