SUNDAY, JUNE2, 1940
While yesterday’s honesty about her marriage had given Aleida a mad sense of elation, today the resulting pity drained her.
She walked with James and Margriet Sinclair up the lane to their country house after church. Her first church service since her wedding day, another fact of her life that had shocked her aunt and uncle and added to the pile of pity.
“We’re so glad you’re here.” Faint wrinkles fanned from Tante Margriet’s eyes—eyes of bright van der Zee blue. Like Theo’s.
Aleida managed to smile. “I am glad too.”
After Sebastiaan was killed, Aleida had loaded the car with refugees and had driven to Boulogne. Days had passed until she’d found passage to England.
But in London, her search for Theo had proven futile.
Where could she even begin?
Uncle James raised his face to the fair sky. “Quite an uplifting service, was it not?”
It was, full of thanksgiving for the British soldiers snatched from Dunkirk, out of Hitler’s grasp.
Tante Margriet glanced at her husband from under the brim of her hat. “You’ll understand if we Dutch don’t celebrate.”
The Netherlands had fallen to the Germans in five days and Belgium in seventeen. Did France stand a chance? Did Britain?
Aleida gripped her left hand in her right, and she tapped one finger back and forth across her knuckles as if playing scales on a piano. One, two, three, four. Four, three, two, one.
“Regardless, my dear,” Uncle James said. “If one wishes not to live in a state of despair, one must train one’s mind toward the good, like the miracle at Dunkirk.”
“Like our Aleida’s safe escape.” Tante Margriet gave her a fond smile.
Aleida stopped tapping and breathed the fragrance of the garden surrounding the house of ancient gray stone. “Like this home.”
The van der Zee cousins had gathered at Bentley Hall each summer. They’d roamed the countryside, frolicked in the gardens, and learned to ride. Aleida and some of her cousins had been educated in England and had spent many a holiday with the Sinclairs.
Sadness marred the memories. From what she could tell, the rest of her family remained in the Netherlands under Nazi rule.
Her aunt had been stunned by how little news Aleida brought with her. Aleida had seen her family rarely since her wedding and not at all since Theo’s birth. Sebastiaan wouldn’t allow it.
But Aleida hadn’t come to Bentley Hall to grieve. She’d come for advice.
A breeze played with her hat, pinned over the coil at the nape of her neck. Now she couldn’t cut her hair or Theo might not recognize her. “Tomorrow I’ll return to London to—”
“London?” Uncle James turned wide brown eyes to her. “My dear, you mustn’t. It simply isn’t safe. Hitler is certain to attack.”
“I need to find Theo.” Her voice choked. Her son had to be terrified and confused. What must he have felt when he awakened in a stranger’s car? Or had he awakened to hear his father give him away?
Tante Margriet’s brow knit together. “Where will you look?”
“I was hoping you’d have some ideas. All I know is Theo is with a British couple bound for London. If they have a car, they have money. They must have been in the Netherlands or Belgium on business or with the government.”
“I suppose that helps.” Doubt stretched out Uncle James’s words.
Aleida strolled up the flagstone path bounded by lilac bushes. “Theo has no papers, he doesn’t know my full name, I doubt he can say his own full name, and he doesn’t speak English.” She’d been careful not to teach him English for fear Sebastiaan would discern her escape plan.
Tante Margriet sighed. “If you must return to London, please stay in our flat in Knightsbridge. We won’t return with the war on, and we haven’t been able to sell it.”
“We’ll provide any necessary funds,” her uncle said.
“That’s very generous.” A hotel didn’t feel like home. “I’d appreciate the use of your flat, but I have plenty of funds.”
