by Betty Neels
Charity put her cup down carefully and said just as carefully: “Well, you see I’m not a fast worker and I’ll be gone again quite soon, I think. Besides…”
“A boy in England?” asked Tina quickly.
It was an easy way out of a conversation she wasn’t much enjoying.
“Yes.”
“But, of course,” said someone, “Charity is pretty, she is already engaged, perhaps?”
“We shall be when I get back to England,” stated Charity firmly, and actually believed what she said.
After that day she had her off duty like everyone else, only Zuster Doelsma begged her to forfeit her days off. “If you would not mind too much?” she asked. “I am sure that once you are back in den Haag, they will certainly be made up to you.” She paused. “You see, your Mr Boekerchek is sometimes a little difficult with my nurses and not so very easy to understand—and he is a private patient…” She didn’t finish the sentence and Charity said at once, understanding her very well: “Of course I don’t mind—I couldn’t do much anyway, for I don’t know my way around. I’m perfectly happy with my free afternoons and that seems to suit everyone, doesn’t it?”
So every day, when she had settled her patient for his post-prandial nap, she went out, sometimes with Sisters who were off duty too, sometimes on her own. There was plenty to engage her interest; she visited museums and churches and wandered the streets, and then went back and gave Mr Boekerchek her impressions of what she had seen while she prepared him for bed.
Professor van Tijlen only came once a day now, in the mornings, and beyond asking her in a civil way if she was satisfied with everything, had nothing more to say. He had become a little remote, she discovered, though he had never been over-friendly in the first place. All the same she had to admit that he was nice to work for; her quick mind understood his directions almost before he had said them, and they saw eye to eye in all matters concerning the patient. Indeed, she found herself looking forward to his visits, telling herself it was because she admired and respected him for his work, whatever her opinion of him as a man might be—which was a point she took care not to pursue.
Mr Boekerchek was to go home in five days’ time; he had made a splendid recovery and had responded satisfactorily to all the tests done upon him, although the professor had frowned thoughtfully when Charity reported the occasional headaches the American still had.
“I hope,” he told her, “that there is to be no recurrence of the insulinomata—there was no sign of another when I operated. You will be good enough to let me know if any of the symptoms, however slight, should return. I understand that you are to stay in den Haag for a further two weeks.”
So he didn’t intend to visit Mr Boekerchek there. She felt a strong urge to see more of him, if only to turn his attention from the pretty fair-haired girl in his car, a wish she recognised as childish in the extreme, but the chance was unlikely.
But not too unlikely, as it turned out; she met him the very next afternoon. It was a glorious day and she had put on a white sleeveless dress, green sandals, and slung a matching shoulder bag on her arm and gone off to explore on her own. The whole afternoon was before her; she stood on the edge of the pavement, trying to decide if she could stroll round viewing the city or go to yet another museum.
Her mind was made up for her by the professor, who appeared suddenly and without fussy comment at her side. “Going somewhere particular?” he wanted to know.
“No—I was just deciding…”
“In that case, allow me to show you a little of Holland.”
His car was at the kerb although she hadn’t noticed it. She found herself sitting beside him as he drove through the busy streets, without quite knowing how it had happened.
“Well, really,” she began, “did I say I’d come with you?”
He laughed. “No—surprise is a good tactic, is it not?”
“Yes—well, it’s very kind of you, but I have to be back on duty at half past five.”
“And it is now two o’clock. Time enough and to spare.”
They were out of the city now, tearing along the motorway, but presently when they reached a village, he turned off into a narrow country road.
“The river Vecht,” explained the professor, “noted for the houses built along its banks. The rich merchants built them during the eighteenth century and they are still inhabited by members of their families. A friend of mine who works at the hospital—Max Oosterwelde—lives in one of them. He’s married to an English girl, by the way. The river is enchanting, is it not, and the houses decidedly picturesque.”
He was right, on such a day they could be nothing else. There was little traffic on the road and the shining little river with the nice old houses crowding its banks appeared the epitome of peace. Charity sighed with content.
“It’s beautiful,” she agreed fervently. “It must be nice living here.”
“Very convenient for Utrecht,” her companion pointed out, “though at weekends and during the holiday period it can get crowded. It’s a show-place.”
They had reached a fork in the road, and he took the right-hand one.
“The village of Loenen,” he told her, “a great sailing centre. We’ll have tea.”
They had their tea at a charming café by the water’s edge while the professor discoursed about his country. “A pity you are not here for a longer stay,” he remarked casually, “but of course you want to get back to England as soon as possible. I am told that you are intending to marry.”
She might have known that Dutch hospitals had grapevines as well as their English counterparts. She said a trifle tartly: “I shouldn’t have thought that you would have listened to gossip, Professor.”
His straight brows rose slightly. “Gossip? My dear good girl, I take a fatherly interest in the nurses who work for me.”
He didn’t look in the least fatherly; he looked shockingly handsome, very sure of himself, and slightly amused. Charity’s tongue spoke the words she had thought but never intended to voice. “You didn’t look in the least fatherly the other evening.”
Her green eyes sparkled with rising temper, not improved at all by his laugh. “I’m flattered that you were sufficiently interested to notice us,” he said smoothly, “but I must point out that I said that I was fatherly towards my nurses.”
She bit savagely into a sandwich. If that wasn’t a snub, she would like to know what was. “I am not in the least interested,” she began haughtily.
“A pity,” he was smiling faintly. “Try one of these little cakes, I can recommend them.”
Charity took one, feeling awkward. Presently she spoke with the air of someone maintaining the social graces at all costs. “Do you come here often?”
A silly remark, she realised too late. For: “Indeed I do—it is one of my favourite places to which I bring my girl-friends,” he answered in a silky voice.
Unanswerable. “Would you like some more tea?” she asked stiffly, and took a long time filling his cup while she tried to think of something to talk about.
“Mr Boekerchek is doing very nicely,” she remarked brightly as she passed the cup back again, only to be squashed by his: “I never discuss my patients when I’m off duty, dear girl.”
“I’m not your dear girl,” she snapped.
“Not at the moment,” he agreed placidly, and just as though he were being the pleasantest of companions: “I like your name, although it is a little unusual. Are you called Charity by your family?”
His voice was friendly and almost soothing, she felt her temper improving as she told him that no, she was called Cherry at home, and when he asked where home was, she told him that too, and about her parents and Lucy who wanted to marry the doctor’s son and her brother in the Army and married. She stopped presently with the nasty suspicion that she was talking too much. “How I do run on,” she observed apologetically. “I’m sorry, it’s so boring for you.”
“I’m not bored. I thought your parents l
ooked delightful, even though your father seemed annoyed.”
She eyed him in astonishment. “But how did you know which car…?”
“My dear Charity, I may be middle-aged, but I still have the use of my faculties.”
She said quickly: “You’re not middle-aged—what utter nonsense!”
They were getting up to go. “How kind,” he drawled. “I must invite you out again, you’re good for my self-esteem.”
He smiled mockingly as he spoke and she could think of nothing to say.
She saw him only once more to speak to, other than the brief words which passed between them concerning the patient. It was her last evening in the hospital; they were to leave in the morning, travelling by car this time. Charity had made everything ready for their departure, made her own farewells and acted as dispenser of coffee, general messenger, and anything else Mr Boekerchek, cock-a-hoop at being fully alive again, had chosen to think up for her. She felt tired and dispirited although she had no reason to be; it had been a happy day; Mr Boekerchek had handed out parting gifts with the lavishness of Father Christmas, and there had been a constant stream of visitors to his room. None of these things had worried her, she was just as happy as anyone else that her patient was well—or almost so—again, it was something which he had said which had clung so persistently to her thoughts.
The professor had promised to look in that evening, and hours before then Mr Boekerchek had shown her a handsome silver salver, suitably engraved, which he intended to give his surgeon. “A little extra something,” he had explained to her, “for he’s a mighty clever man, is Professor van Tijlen, and worth every gulden of his fee.” And he had mentioned a sum of such magnitude that Charity had uttered a surprised “oh” of astonishment; that the professor deserved to be well paid for his work she would have been the last to deny, but his fee was surely very high—no wonder he could indulge himself with expensive cars, beautifully cut suits and silk shirts—probably he lived in one of those modern penthouses and changed the revolting avant-garde furniture several times a year; and possibly, she thought waspishly, the beautiful fair-haired girl had her pickings, too. For some reason the very thought put her out of temper, so that when she came face to face with him in the corridor, she made no attempt to take the scowl off her pretty face, framed as it was in a veritable bower of hothouse flowers her patient had bidden her take over to the Nurses’ Home. The professor stopped as he drew abreast of her.
“Ah, Miss Dawson,” he uttered suavely, “bearing away the spoils of victory?”
This remark, coming as it did hard on her reflections concerning his fee, was sufficient for her to send discretion to the four winds and give vent to her feelings.
“A remark more appropriate to yourself, Professor,” she declared fierily, her fine eyes flashing.
He stood looking down at her, his hands in the pockets of one of the exquisite suits she had been thinking about. “Do explain,” he invited her, and smiled a little.
She mistrusted the smile and she certainly had no business talking to a senior member of the hospital staff in such a manner, but it was too late to have cold feet about it now and she wasn’t going to apologise.
With only the faintest shake in her voice she said: “Mr Boekerchek told me how much your fees were.” She paused; his expression hadn’t altered at all. She wondered briefly what he was thinking behind that calm face and went doggedly on: “I think it was a great deal of money.” She gulped. “Too much.”
He still looked calm. Charity peered out from the tastefully arranged bouquets of roses and carnations and fern, and clutched them desperately, wishing he would speak. When he did, his voice was so soft that she could scarcely hear it.
“The devil you do, Miss Dawson,” he remarked, and sounded the very soul of good nature, “but you forget my expensive tastes, do you not?—my cars, my girl-friends—for all you know, I drink champagne with every meal. A man must live, dear girl, something I suspect you have not yet begun to do.”
Her mouth opened in a regrettable gape, but no sound came from it; she had expected anger, a demand for an apology, even summary dismissal, but not this quiet voice like steel. She managed at last: “Oh, I do beg your pardon, I had no right—I must have been mad.” And then, because she was an honest girl: “But I meant what I said.”
He was staring at her very hard; she thought that he was going to say something, but he didn’t, only smiled, unexpectedly and with great sweetness, and went on his way, whistling softly.
They left the next morning in a good deal of pomp, in the Embassy car and with a chauffeur to carry the remaining flowers and Mr Boekerchek’s personal treasures, and Mrs Boekerchek, wringing everyone by the hand twice over. They were seen off by a great many people too, but the professor wasn’t there. Charity, who had been nervous of meeting him again, told herself that it was a good thing he wasn’t, for it would have been a little awkward. Besides, she reminded herself even while she searched the people around them in case he had come at the last moment, she had no wish to see him again. She had been interested in him; now she wasn’t any more. By a great effort of will she managed not to look back as they drove away from the hospital; he could have been at one of the windows.
The apartment in den Haag seemed very quiet and a little dull after hospital life. True, she had the delightful bedroom again and every conceivable comfort and not a great deal to do. Dr Donker called each day, chatted with the patient, looked at her carefully kept charts, enquired as to symptoms, and went on his way again, leaving her to coax her patient to take sufficient rest between the constant stream of callers. He was up for most of the day now, pottering around the apartment and taking gentle little strolls in the Haagsche Bos, driven there in the Cadillac. Charity went with him, of course, for there was little else for her to do; there were still tests to be made at regular intervals, but his progress was steady, and she wasn’t surprised when he told her, with genuine regret, that she might make arrangements to return to St Simon’s. “But not until after Saturday,” he urged her. “There is to be a little party at the Embassy and you are invited—besides, I should like you to be there, it’ll be my first real outing and I reckon I’m nervous.”
So she wrote to Miss Evans, saying that she would be returning on the following Sunday, and went along to Mrs Boekerchek’s little sitting-room to discuss the important topic of what to wear. It was only Tuesday, so she had time enough to buy something; she had explored the city during her free time and she knew which shops to go to and, because she had had very little chance to spend it, a moderately full purse.
Full evening dress, Mrs Boekerchek had told her, and led her to her bedroom to exhibit the grey embroidered lace she had bought specially for the occasion. “It’s not a very large party,” she explained, “a hundred or so, and it’s always the same people, you know—but it’s really a celebration of Arthur’s recovery.” She broke off to ask anxiously: “He’ll be OK, won’t he, honey—I’m so nervous.”
“You don’t need to be,” Charity assured her, “and I promise you that I’ll keep an eye on him and if I see he’s getting tired, I’ll let you know at once, and you can persuade him to come home.”
Mrs Boekerchek beamed at her. “I don’t know how we’ll get on without you, Charity—or that nice professor. Doesn’t it strike you as providential that Arthur should have met you both like that the very first time he was ill, and it was the pair of you who got him well again?” She looked kindly at Charity. “You don’t hear from him?—the professor, I mean.”
Charity shook her head and made her voice matter-of-fact. “No, Mrs Boekerchek, and I don’t expect to. Any number of nurses work for him, you see, and consultants don’t notice us as people, really—just nurses to do what is required for the patient’s good.”
“It doesn’t seem right, somehow,” said her companion vaguely, and when Charity could find nothing to say to this, asked if she intended buying a new dress.
Charity went shopping the very
next afternoon and found just what she wanted at the Galeries Modernes, although the price was an extravagant one. A long white dress, full-skirted and long-sleeved, with a high, demure neckline. It was collared and cuffed with lace threaded with aquamarine ribbons with a sash of the same colour, and quite carried away by its charm, she matched this confection with satin slippers. She bore her purchases home in triumph and tried them on under Mrs Boekerchek’s motherly eye and received her heartfelt admiration. “Just the thing for your hair,” said that lady generously. “I reckon you’ll be a success, Charity; the men will be so glad to see a new face.” She added, “And such a pretty one, too.”
The rest of the week passed too quickly. Charity had seen almost nothing of Holland, save for that one short outing with the professor, and there wasn’t sufficient time to explore den Haag during her free afternoons, for she needed that to buy presents to take home. Mr Boekerchek was depending less and less on her, too, although he enjoyed her company when he took his exercise. He was going back to his office in a few weeks after he and his wife had been on holiday. The whole episode was almost closed; she would go back to St Simon’s and take up the reins of management once more and after a little while she would have difficulty in remembering anything about her visit to Holland. That this assumption bore no resemblance to the truth she refused to admit, even to herself. She pushed the thought to the back of her head, and concentrated deliberately on Saturday’s junketings.
They arrived a little late at the Embassy, for Mr Boekerchek had dozed off after his tea and Charity had been reluctant to wake him, so that the evening was in full swing by the time they arrived. To Charity, standing in the imposing entrance hall, waiting for Mrs Boekerchek to return from the urgent re-arrangement of her hair, the affair seemed more like a reception than a party, for the gentlemen were resplendent in white ties and tails, and the ladies were in long dresses. She was thankful that she had bought a new dress for such a grand occasion and that it was so entirely suitable. True, a few pearls or a diamond piece would have been nice to adorn her person; most of the women had a great many jewels, and she had nothing at all. But the dress was pretty, she assured herself as at last Mrs Boekerchek rejoined them and they started up the stairs.