Visiting Consultant

by Neels, Betty

  Sophy went on up to her room, turning the oddness of it all over in her mind. As she reached the top of the stairs in the nurses’ home, she saw Zuster Viske’s dressing-gowned figure flitting along ahead of her. She came silently back when she heard Sophy’s subdued call, and added to the oddness by assuring Sophy that she was in the best of health and most definitely on call for theatre.

  Sophy went on duty the next morning, determined to ask Max to explain things. She had a half day, for he, for some reason, had changed the lists and there was to be no operating that afternoon; she would have to try and see him that morning. It seemed impossible, however, for beyond a guarded good morning, she had said a bare dozen words to him by coffee time. She sat, drinking absent-mindedly from her mug, while the three men discussed the next case. She was about to get up and go back to theatre when Max said casually to Karel and Jan,

  ‘I believe Sister Greenslade wishes to speak to me privately—would you two mind?’ When they had gone, he got to his feet, towering over her. ‘Well, Sophy, I am waiting to hear your reproaches.’

  She put her coffee mug down, so clumsily that a little of it spilt over the pristine whiteness of the blotter. ‘You did it on purpose,’ she said quietly, aware that she was saying aloud now what she had known all along.

  ‘Are you surprised? I told you Harry wasn’t your type.’

  ‘You spoilt my evening,’ she said in a small, fierce voice.

  ‘Did I? Did I, Sophy? Look at me, my girl. That’s better.’

  Sophy stared back into the cool blue eyes. ‘No, not really,’ she said honestly.

  Max nodded. ‘That’s better. What a pity your choice of boy-friends is so unsuitable. John Austin didn’t do you much good, either, did he?’

  Her face flamed, her eyes, usually so gentle, glinted with rage. She fought to keep the shake out of her voice, and almost succeeded. ‘I amuse you, don’t I? You enjoy watching me make a fool of myself.’ She swallowed carefully, to ease the ache in her throat. ‘I think I hate you!’ She got up and walked to the door and went out without looking at him.

  She was rigidly correct towards him in the theatre for the rest of the morning and was vexed to find that he didn’t appear to notice it, indeed, from his own manner, they might never have had their conversation in the office. As she was leaving the theatre to go down to dinner, he called to her from the anaesthetic room where he was talking to Karel. ‘Sister Greenslade, you have a half day, I believe.’

  She stood still, not quite facing him, and said, ‘Yes, sir,’ in a colourless voice.

  ‘Would you come to the Consultants’ room at two o’clock? I have a surprise for you.’

  ‘Is that an order, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘No, certainly not.’

  ‘In that case you must excuse me, sir.’ She walked on, her starched apron crackling; her head, with its flighty muslin cap, held very high. She thought she heard him chuckle as she went through the doors.

  She was in her room changing into her tweed suit when there was a knock on the door. She called ‘Come in,’ and then, in her carefully learned Dutch, ‘Kom Binnen’ and Aunt Vera came in. Sophy, half in and half out of her skirt, stood poised on one stockinged leg, quite speechless with surprise.

  Her aunt tripped across the room. ‘Hullo, Sophy dear. Max told me you didn’t want to go to the Consultants’ room and suggested I got someone to show me where your room was.’

  Sophy abandoned her skirt and embraced her aunt warmly. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘How lovely to see you.’ She paused. ‘Did Max know you were here?’

  Aunt Vera nodded happily. ‘Of course. He arranged it all—he wanted to surprise you; we hadn’t intended coming just yet, but he told your uncle that he thought you might be glad to see someone from home.’

  Sophy bent down to pick up her skirt and hide her face. She recalled only too clearly that she had told Max that she hated him, and all the while he had been planning this!

  Aunt Vera had made herself comfortable on the side of the bed. ‘Max and your uncle are poking around the theatre,’ she said. ‘They’ll be at the front door at half past two and we’ll all go back to Huys Oosterwelde together. We only arrived an hour or so ago; just in time for luncheon—oh, and Max says will I ask you if you would care to come to Huys Oosterwelde for the rest of the day—such an unnecessary message—but still, he seemed to think that you might have some other arrangements made...and of course, if you didn’t know we were coming, you well might.’

  Sophy was putting up her hair, sticking the pins in with a quite unnecessary ferocity. ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘I haven’t anything else planned, and I should love to come with you.’ She turned a brightly smiling face towards her visitor and started bombarding her with questions about home.

  Her uncle and Max were talking to Hans when she and her aunt reached the hall. Uncle Giles gave her a hug and then held her away from him, the better to see her face.

  ‘You look marvellous,’ she smiled up at him.

  ‘Can’t say the same for you,’ he growled. ‘You look like a doused candle—Max working you too hard?’

  ‘No—oh, no. It’s delightful working here—isn’t the theatre absolutely super?’

  Max was talking to her aunt; Sophy gave her uncle’s arm a little tug and started to walk towards them. She would have to speak to Max sooner or later; it would be better to do it in company. It proved easy, after all, for he spoke first.

  ‘Hullo, Sophy—I’m so glad you’re able to come.’

  ‘Yes, so are we all,’ said Aunt Vera, ‘especially after Max had gone to all that trouble to change the list so that you could have a half day.’

  Sophy caught her breath and cast a contrite glance in Max’s direction, but he wasn’t looking at her.

  In the car, she sat listening to her aunt spilling news lavishly, and not hearing any of it, but presently the conversation became general, and she found that Max was deliberately drawing her more and more into the talk, so that when they reached the house and her aunt evinced a strong desire to be shown round it immediately, she had lost her initial embarrassment and became wholeheartedly absorbed in the treasures Max showed them. She looked at walnut hooped-back chairs, cabinets, gilded and ornamented with marquetry, and listened carefully while Max and her aunt argued gently as to the exact dates of ball and claw feet and the slightly later lion’s paw, and then wandered off while they were still disputing to look at a side table with quite different feet. She drew Max’s attention to this in a perfectly normal fashion before she remembered that they had quarrelled. She immediately went pink and fixed her gaze with rapt attention on the table while he explained about pad feet. When he had finished, she plucked up courage to look at him and say ‘Thank you, how interesting.’ He returned her look with an expressionless face and eyes dancing with laughter.

  It was after a leisurely tea, taken around the fire in a small sitting room that she found wholly delightful, that Aunt Vera brought up the subject of the dance.

  ‘Which evening is it to be, Max?’ she wanted to know. ‘For we are only here for a week, if you remember.’

  ‘I’ve sent out invitations for today week,’ Max replied. ‘I’ve asked around sixty people, most of whom find a Saturday evening the best for going out.’

  Sophy sat quietly, studying her hands in her lap. She would be on duty until five o’clock next Saturday, and then on call for the night. She wouldn’t be able to go. Her hands tightened their clasp of each other, as she realised that he hadn’t invited her anyway.

  Aunt Vera was speaking again. ‘What shall you wear, Sophy?’

  Sophy achieved a creditable smile. ‘I shall be on duty; and on call for the night.’ Even if he went down on his knees, she thought, I won’t go.

  ‘Sophy hasn’t been invited yet,’ said Max easily. ‘I thought a surprise would be rather nice.’ He looked directly at her; she could see him smiling in the lamplight. ‘May I have the pleasure of your company at a dance next Satu
rday, Sophy?’ he asked formally, but with a charm that made nonsense of her ideas of refusal.

  All the same, she said with resolution, ‘Thank you—but I shall be working,’ and added pettishly, ‘Did you not hear me telling Aunt Vera so?’

  He countered her waspishness with urbanity. ‘Well, you know, you come off duty at five o’clock—you will have three hours to dress; and I have already spoken to the Directrice about someone going on call in your place.’

  Her aunt and uncle were watching with faint amusement, tempered with a trace of unease, but that didn’t prevent her saying with some stubbornness, ‘I haven’t anything to wear.’

  Max looked long-suffering, to infuriate her. ‘That was a charming dress you wore the other evening...’

  Aunt Vera pounced. ‘What other evening?’ she asked.

  Sophy said quietly, ‘Max had a party here—for my birthday.’

  Her aunt sat up. ‘Max, how kind of you!’

  Sophy gave up. He had manoeuvred her into a trap, to get out of which she would either have to appear ungrateful, ill-mannered and ungracious, or give in. She gave in. She looked across to Max and said nicely, ‘Thank you very much, I should like to come.’

  He said briefly, ‘Good,’ and began a conversation with Uncle Giles about an entirely different subject, leaving her to recount the birthday party, down to the smallest detail, to Aunt Vera.

  Tineke arrived half an hour later: Max introduced her, and she explained that she had intended to be there to meet them on their arrival but had been called away on an urgent errand. She had slipped a beautifully manicured hand under Max’s arm as they stood talking to Uncle Giles and Sophy, seeing the look on her aunt’s face, said softly under cover of the talk, ‘Tineke is a very old friend of Max’s. Isn’t she pretty? She’s a dear too,’ she added generously.

  Karel van Steen arrived shortly after, and she went upstairs with her aunt and prowled around the bedroom while Aunt Vera changed her dress, although Max had been at pains to say that no one was bothering to change. He hadn’t seemed to notice Tineke’s elegant appearance. Sophy was examining a very beautiful silver candlestick; she put it down gently and remarked, wholly without envy, ‘What a beautiful home Max has.’

  Her aunt agreed in an absent-minded fashion, then said, ‘This Tineke—are she and Max going to be married?’

  Sophy picked up a small coloured glass scent bottle and looked at it with unseeing eyes. ‘I don’t know; but I would imagine so. Tineke comes here a great deal and I’m told that they spend a lot of time together. No one has said anything—but I have that impression.’

  Her aunt gave no answer to this, but asked, ‘Have you no other dress, dear?’

  ‘No, Aunt,’ Sophy said tranquilly, pleased that she was hiding her feelings so successfully, ‘but it doesn’t matter in the least—there’s no Prince Charming to fascinate.’

  They went downstairs and joined the others for drinks and then went into the dining room, where she found that she was to sit between her uncle and Karel. She talked animatedly to them both, trying not to hear Tineke’s pretty laugh followed by Max’s deeper one.

  After dinner they sat in the rather grand drawing room, talking, until someone suggested bridge, and Sophy looked at the lantern clock on the vast mantelpiece, wondering if she should go. When Max said blandly, ‘You’d like to leave, I expect, Sophy,’ she got hastily to her feet and made her adieux hurriedly before going out into the hall, where Goeden stood with her coat. Max had come with her, and they walked to the door, saying nothing. Sophy pulled on her gloves and shivered. She would have to apologise on their way back for her rudeness that morning. It seemed the opportunity she had been waiting for— but it wasn’t. Goeden, coming soft-footed behind them, opened the door to disclose the car parked outside; he ran down the steps and opened the door and waited expectedly, while Max stayed where he was, by the door.

  Sophy looked up at him, contemplating her gravely from his height. She was unaware that she looked both hurt and bewildered, but said with an absurd childish politeness, ‘Thank you for having me; it was so nice to see my aunt and uncle again.’

  ‘The pleasure was mine,’ he answered in a voice as grave as his face, ‘though I regret that, in the light of recent events, my invitation was so ill-timed.’

  There was nothing to say to this; she wished him goodnight in a small bleating voice, and got into the car.

  Chapter 10

  The opportunity to apologise came the very next day. The theatre had been going all the orning with what Sophy called knife-and-fork cases—too serious for Cas to tackle, but still simple enough for Jan to manage. She went down to a late dinner, and came back to find him in the office.

  ‘There’s an internal injuries in,’ he said. ‘He’s having a transfusion now—ruptured kidney and probably some crushed gut as well—He fell off a roof.’

  Sophy nodded. ‘Shall you do it?’ she asked in her usual composed way.

  Jan looked startled. ‘Hemel, no! The Profs coming in to have a look at him; he’ll do it, of course. He’ll be here any minute now; I’d better go down. I’ll ring you as soon as I know something. You’ll be ready?’ He spoke anxiously.

  ‘We’ll be ready,’ she assured him gravely. She watched him walking rather importantly through the swing doors, back into the hospital, then went unhurriedly to warn her nurses. She had two on as well as a theatre porter. She set about getting everything organised and didn’t leave the theatre until it was quite ready.

  There was no sign of the patient as she walked back to the office. Nobody had telephoned; she might as well sit down and learn a few more Dutch words while she was waiting. She opened the door and went inside. Max had already arrived. He was sitting at the desk with a case folder before him, scribbling in notes. He glanced up and said, ‘No need to go, Sister,’ as she turned to go out again, so she sat down quietly on the stool and looked her fill of his down-bent head, holding on to a thin veneer of composure—to have it instantly cracked.

  ‘Why do you stare, Sophy?’ he asked, without looking up.

  ‘I—um—’ She was going to say that she hadn’t been staring, but it was stupid to lie about such a small thing. She remained silent while he put down his pen and sat back, his eyes searching her face. They were clear and very bright, but his face was tired and lined, but in her anxiety to get her apology over and done with, she ignored that and plunged into speech.

  ‘I was rude to you the other day, sir. I beg your pardon for it—I had no right to speak to you as I did. I...’

  He interrupted her carelessly. ‘My dear good girl, you have a perfect right to say what you like, though it’s blow hot, blow cold with you, isn’t it?’

  Sophy had no answer to that, for it was true. She had said that he was a good, kind man and within a few days had informed him that she hated him.

  He spoke quietly into the silence. ‘I dare say you have your reasons for your volte-face’ He picked up his pen again, and went on, ‘I’ll operate in fifteen minutes, Sister. Perhaps you’ll be so good as to telephone my home.’

  She did as she was bid silently and then handed him the receiver, saying, ‘Goeden is on the line, sir.’

  ‘Ask him to get Mevrouw van de Wijde, will you?’ and then—’See that there’s another litre of blood handy for this patient, please.’

  She handed him the receiver again, ‘Mevrouw van de Wijde, Doctor, and there’s another litre already in the fridge.’

  ‘Good; don’t go, there’s no need—I’m going to speak Dutch.’

  She stood without a sound, listening to the gentleness of his voice as he talked with Tineke.

  The case went surprisingly well—the patient was young and strong and Max, operating with his usual skilful patience, had the relaxed manner of a man who had all day before him with nothing to do; so that, when they had finished and Sophy made a rather stiff offer of tea, she was inordinately surprised when he said harshly,

  ‘Tea, girl? When Tineke’s downstairs
waiting for me? I’ve no time to waste drinking tea!’

  Sophy’s ordinary face became animated by a gust of temper. ‘Don’t call me girl,’ she said in a voice throbbing with rage.

  He was already half-way to the door, but he stopped and looked at her over his shoulder, his mouth curved in a mocking smile, ‘No? I don’t recollect your encouraging me to call you anything else—should you prefer darling?’

  It was difficult, the following morning, explaining away her wan looks to Uncle Giles, who had brought Aunt Vera into Utrecht to renew their acquaintance with that city.

  He stared at his niece with a kindly, critical eye and said forthrightly, ‘Well, you never were a beauty, my dear—only when you smile—and you’re quite out of looks this morning. I really must speak to Max; he’s obviously overworking you.’

  Sophy, who had no illusions about her looks, was not in the least put out by his remarks, but tucked a hand under his arm and said lightly, ‘Nonsense, Uncle, he’s a most considerate man. I didn’t sleep; it’s the unexpected excitement of seeing you again.’

  This remark was accepted by Aunt Vera, and after some hesitation by her uncle, and no more was said as they made their way to the Van Baeren Museum, where they admired the patrician house and then the silver, but when they came to the paintings, Sophy wandered off on her own. She didn’t care for dead game arranged artistically around apples and oranges and bottles of wine. She prowled around for a while until she found something to her taste; a group of small portraits by Lely, which she paused to admire, looking with pleasure at the smiling, placid faces, so content with their pearls and lace and satin gowns. Could they have been unhappy too? she wondered; perhaps they had learned to conceal their true feelings better than she.