Free The Dutch Wife by Eric P. McCormack Page A

I’m sure he still loves me,” she’d say to herself. “And I’m sure I still really love him.” She willed herself to believe that, for she was afraid she might easily come to hate him.
    BY THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY of her father’s death, Rachel couldn’t put up with the situation any longer. She imagined the Judge telling her what she already knew: “You’ve made a blunder.” Had he been there, he’d have dealt with the problem on her behalf. But he wasn’t, so she steeled herself to face it alone.
    One Saturday night, she and Rowland were sitting at the back of the house. He was writing in his notebook, and she was watching the sun go down on the Lake.
    She felt now was the time to speak. “You’ve changed,” she said to Rowland, as though she were reciting the opening lines of some traditional play.
    “What do you mean?” he said, putting down his notebook but giving her no help.
    “You’re no longer the man I married,” she said, surprised at how spontaneously she used the well-worn phrase.
    He looked at her in the failing light and gave an unexpected answer. “Ah, but I am,” he said. “I am.”
    Her heart sank, for she knew he was right.
    They were silent for a while.
    “I can’t go on like this,” she said, sticking to her lines regardless. “I’m not the kind of Dutch Wife you needed.”
    He didn’t seem shocked. “I have an idea,” he said in the growing darkness. “The British Museum’s just received a load of artifacts from a new dig. They’d like me to go over and help with the cataloguing. Maybe I should go. That would give us a chance to think about our situation.”
    “How long do you think you’d be gone?” she said.
    “Four or five weeks, perhaps,” he said. The horizon of the Lake had almost completely disappeared now. “We could settle things when I came back. One way or another.”
    TWO DAYS LATER, he was packed for England. Before going out the front door for the last time, he took her hand. “No matter what happens,” he said, “remember this: if you ever need me, you only have to send for me.” Then he picked up his bag and left.
    FOR TWO MONTHS, she neither sent for him nor heard anything from him. Then a telegram came saying he’d be catching the train from Halifax and would be home the next day.
    Thus it came about that she was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for him, her mind made up to settle things once and for all. She heard the ringing of the doorbell. She opened the door. A fair-haired man with a rugged face and pale blue eyes, a man who looked nothing like Rowland Vanderlinden, was standing there, saying: “I’m your husband.”
    And she let him in.
    – 13 –
    IN HIS BED IN CAMBERLOO HOSPITAL, Thomas Vanderlinden stopped talking. He reached over for the oxygen mask, put it to his face and breathed deeply. He closed his eyes and his head sank back in the pillows.
    I was a bit worried, for he suddenly looked so tired. “Are you all right?” I said.
    “I’ll be fine,” he said between breaths. “Don’t go yet.” Whatever his illness was, his battle with it had weakened him, and now he had to beat a tactical retreat.
    In the silence that followed, I thought I heard voices in the corridor, but it was only the murmur of some piece of equipment in the nurses’ station.
    Thomas put down his mask. “So, that was the story my mother told me,” he said. “It was all news to me.” He glanced towards the bedside cabinet at her photograph as a young woman looking out with that self-sufficient expression. “She always liked her own way,” he said. “I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.”
    He closed his eyes again and took a few more breaths from the mask.
    Of course, I was itching to ask some questions. Principally, why his mother had let in a complete stranger claiming to be her husband. And, even after they’d become lovers, why she wouldn’t let the man tell her who he really was. But I could see Thomas was exhausted. “I should