The White Voyage by John Christopher Read Free Book Online

you?’
    ‘Well enough.’
    She shivered slightly. Mouritzen put his arm on her shoulders. She suffered it to remain there for a moment, and then drew away.
    ‘This journey to Amsterdam,’ she said. ‘It has a purpose. I am going there to be married.’
    The disappointment was something more than was to be expected from the fact of an attractive woman making such a remark at such a time. Mouritzen said:
    ‘My congratulations. Then your fiancé is already in Holland?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘He is working there? Has he been there long?’
    ‘All his life,’ she said. ‘He is Dutch.’
    ‘And he came to Ireland on a visit, and met the beautiful colleen, and now draws her across the sea to the dull and heavy Netherlands as a wife? That is not much like a Dutchman. He is exceptional.’
    She did not answer. Mouritzen went on:
    ‘Is that how it was? Have I guessed rightly?’
    ‘Something like that,’ she said.
    ‘And his profession? Might I know that?’
    ‘You are very curious.’
    He jerked his head. ‘It does no harm. Does it?’
    ‘He’s a shopkeeper. Hardware. He has stores in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.’
    ‘That is interesting. Then it is unlikely that he went to Ireland on business. On holiday, perhaps? That is still unusual. Not many Hollanders go to Ireland except on business or to visit friends.’
    Mary said, after a short silence: ‘He hasn’t been to Ireland. In fact, we haven’t met. I advertised in a newspaper, saying that I wanted to meet a man that I might marry. It was an English newspaper. He saw it because he was thinking of marrying an English wife. He wrote to me.’
    ‘How old is he?’
    With some defiance, she said: ‘Forty-three.’
    ‘That is a waste,’ Mouritzen said.
    ‘Waste?’
    ‘For a young and beautiful woman to become the wife of a Dutchman twenty years older than she. Even though he has hardware shops in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.’
    She said coldly: ‘Are you criticizing me?’
    ‘No. Nor your Dutchman, either. If I criticize anything, it is life that permits such things to happen.’
    She was still angry. ‘I suppose in an ideal world, all young women would remain free and available for the pleasure of young bachelors?’
    ‘No. Only the young and beautiful ones.’ He took her arm, but in an entirely friendly manner, and she did not pull away. ‘I have no right to talk like this about your life and what you wish to do with it. I am sorry, Mary. The world is hard on women.’
    ‘With men like you about, it is.’
    ‘Why do you say that?’
    ‘You had a romance with the Simanyi girl last April, didn’t you? And you would have started one with me, if I’d allowed you to.’
    ‘Is there much harm in that? We are all free to choose what we do.’
    ‘It’s all fun for you, isn’t it?’
    ‘No. Not all fun. There is frustration also.’
    With heavy irony, she said: ‘I’m sorry that you should be frustrated occasionally.’
    Mouritzen took his hand from her arm, and grasped the rail. He said:
    ‘When I first asked you about your husband-to-be, you told me a lie – only a little one, but a lie. And then a little later you told me the truth. You did not need to do this. Why did you do it?’
    ‘It wasn’t a lie. You suggested something, and I said: “Something like that.”’
    ‘Not a lie, then. But a deception? Yet afterwards you told me the truth.’
    She said: ‘I don’t like deceiving people, even when it doesn’t matter.’
    ‘That is what I thought,’ Mouritzen said. ‘A man does not often meet a woman like you. That is the frustration – to find her already married, or promised in marriage.’
    ‘I think I’ll go down now.’ She stopped; Mouritzen stood by waiting for her. ‘Go back to Nadya. You don’t like waste, and you are wasting your time.’
    ‘Must you talk like that?’
    ‘I don’t mind charm,’ she said. ‘It’s the pretence of sincerity I don’t like.’
    ‘It is not a pretence.’
    ‘I don’t want to argue. We aren’t