Our Dutch hostess—or rather, the woman we are hoping will host us once we show up on her doorstep—is known to everyone but me. And though I had been warned about Johanna Hoffman’s friendliness and large dogs, there is no way to be truly prepared for either. When the door to her canal house opens, three dogs that look as though they each weigh more than I do spill out, followed by a plump, bright-faced woman in a pink dress that matches the bows around each dog’s neck. When she sees Felicity, she screams. In spite of not having anything in her hands, I swear she somehow still drops a vase. She throws her arms around Felicity, squeezing her so hard she nearly lifts her off the ground. “Felicity Montague, I thought you were dead!”
“Not dead,” Felicity says. One of the dogs tries to wedge itself between the two of them, tail wagging so furiously it makes a thumping drumbeat against the door frame. A second snuffles its nose against my palm, trying to flip my hand onto the top of its head in an encouragement to pet.
“It’s been years. Years, Felicity, I haven’t heard from you in years.” She takes Felicity’s face in her hands and presses their foreheads together. “Hardly a word since you left! What on earth are you doing here? I can’t believe it!” She releases Felicity just long enough to turn to Monty and throw open her arms to him. “And Harold!”
“Henry,” he corrects, the end coming out in a wheeze as she wraps him in a rib-crushing hug. The dog gives up nudging my hand and instead mashes its face into my thigh, leaving a trail of spittle on my trousers.
“Of course, Henry!” She lets go of him, turns to me, and says with just as much enthusiasm, “And I don’t know who you are!” And then I too am being hugged. She smells of honey and lavender, which makes the embrace feel like being wrapped in a loaf of warm bread.
“This is Adrian,” Felicity says.
“Adrian!” Johanna cries. One of the dogs lets out a long woof in harmony and the others take up the call, an off-key, enthusiastic chorus.
She releases me, then turns to Felicity again, but Felicity holds up a preemptive hand. “All right, that’s enough. No more hugs.” She brushes an astonishing amount of dog hair off the front of her skirt, then says brusquely, “It’s good to see you, Johanna.”
In return, Johanna smacks her on the shoulder. “You tell me you’re going to Rabat with some scholar and then you never come back and I never hear a single word! Why didn’t you write? Come inside, come on, push the dogs out the way, they won’t bite.”
As we follow her into the hallway and then the parlor, she’s speaking so fast I can hardly understand her. “Where are you staying? Wherever it is, cancel it; let me put you up here. Was your luggage sent somewhere? I can have one of my staff collect it. We have plenty of room, and I can make up the parlor for you, Harry—”
“Henry,” Monty corrects, then corrects himself. “Monty, Jo, I’ve told you to call me Monty.”
She waves that away. “I know but it always feels so terribly glib! You were nearly a lord! But I’m happy to set you up down here so you needn’t navigate the stairs on your leg—gosh, what have you done to it? Your lovely Percy isn’t here, is he? Though we’ll have to do something so the dogs don’t jump on you in the night. They usually sleep with Jan and me, but they get squirrely when we have company. One of Jan’s brokers from Antwerp stayed with us last week and he swears he locked the bedroom door, but somehow Seymour still jumped on top of him in the middle of the night. Poor man thought he was being murdered in his bed. Please sit down—the dogs will move if you crowd them.”
The dogs have all thrown themselves across various pieces of furniture in the parlor, breathing dramatically. I try to nudge one off the sofa—or at least shift his bottom enough that I can join him—but it’s like trying to move a boulder. I perch on the arm instead.
Johanna returns before I realize she left, with a pot of coffee and a plate of ginger biscuits, each stamped with a windmill. “Jan’s still at the office, but he’ll be so delighted to see you,” she says as she sets them down on the table. “Meet you,” she adds to me, then “See you,” to Monty and Felicity. “Seymour!” She whistles, and the dog on the sofa next to me sits up. A string of drool flies from his lips and adheres itself to the chandelier like an additional crystal. “Down, please,” Johanna instructs, and he vacates the sofa with such viscous theatrics that he seems more ointment than dog. “That’s Seymour,” Johanna says, pointing. “And this is Boleyn, and that big boy under the piano is Cleves. I’d like to have a complete set of six, but Jan has said three is plenty for now.”
“Only six?” Monty mumbles, nudging Boleyn with the tip of his cane in an attempt to move her. Instead the dog tips over on her side, paws in the air, shamelessly begging for attention. “Why not a dozen?”
“Oh, wouldn’t that be grand?” Johanna sinks onto the bench of the pianoforte. “But six would mean one for each of Henry the VIII’s wives. I love a theme.” She feeds a biscuit to Cleves and her entire hand disappears beneath his black lips, then emerges covered in a soapy film of drool. “I’m thrilled to bits you’re here, but I have a sense this is more than a social call. Particularly since there are two more of you than usually come with Felicity. Oh, how is your darling Percy Newton?”
Monty opens his mouth, just as Seymour puts his head on his knee with a wet suctioning sound. “He’s fine,” Monty says simply.
Johanna beams. “Oh, that’s so good to hear. And you.” She turns to me. “You must be Monty’s illegitimate son!”
Felicity bursts out laughing. Monty and I both go deeply red. “This is our brother,” Monty grumbles, swiping a biscuit off the tray and shoving it whole into his mouth. All three dogs leap to their feet, jockeying for the spot nearest him.
“Your brother?” Johanna peers at me. “Really?”
“He was born after you left,” Felicity says.
“Smile,” Johanna commands me, and I obey. “Oh yes, I see it now! It’s the dimples—dimple. Same as you—oh God, Felicity.” She presses her hands to her chest. Her dress is spectacularly low-cut and, though I’m not looking, it’s impossible not to notice how perfectly shaped her breasts are. The neckline suggests she knows this too and is deeply proud of it. “It’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you.”
Felicity gives Johanna a warm smile that seems both genuine and improbable, considering how opposite they appear to be. “I’ve missed you too.”
“Now tell me why you’ve actually come.” Johanna’s eyes flash mischievously, the joy of being visited and the fact that the visit has an ulterior motive not canceling each other out.
Felicity pries her napkin from Boleyn, who picked it up as delicately and stealthily as a dog the size of a small bear can hope to and tried to abscond with it. “Our mother died recently—”
“Oh God, Felicity.” I swear Johanna’s eyes well up with tears. “I’m so sorry. For all of you.” She looks around at Monty and me as well. “I’m so so sorry.” She says it with such sincerity that it somehow feels less maudlin than it did all those months in Cheshire of being told the same by a parade of my father’s friends.