The Magic of Living

by Betty Neels

  The man grinned down at her. ‘Gone for help,’ he told her briefly, ‘and there’s help here besides.’

  He lifted Billy as though he had been made of feathers and disappeared with him, to reappear after a moment and climb through the door. The bus had been overcrowded before, what with its cockeyed seats and scattered luggage and terrified children. Now there was no room to move, for he was an immensely tall man and largely made. But they were not cramped for long; another man appeared above them and now the children were being passed swiftly upwards and out to safety. Arabella, with an eye to the men’s speed, began at once to unbuckle the remaining children so that no time should be lost. It was a difficult task, for the children were frightened, making their helplessness even more marked. She soothed them as best she could and tried to control wildly waving arms and legs, wishing that Sister Brewster could pull herself together and give a hand, although probably she was busy with the children already rescued.

  ‘Would it be easier to get the rest of the children out of the back door?’ ventured Arabella.

  Her companion didn’t pause in his rescue operations. ‘No—the bus is beginning to tilt at that end; we don’t want to shift the balance, it might make it more awkward.’

  She considered that nothing could be more awkward than their task at that moment, but she kept silent. It was hardly an occasion for conversation, and the men seemed to know exactly what they were doing.

  There were only five children left when she heard several cars stop close by with a tremendous squealing of brakes. The man beside her had called to his helper above, who in his turn shouted down to whoever it was who had arrived, and a moment later a round, serious face, crowned by a peaked cap, appeared at the door above them. ‘Police,’ muttered Arabella, and redoubled her efforts with the incredible muddle Sally Perkins had got herself and her straps into. The owner of the face seemed to know the man in the bus, for he listened to what he had to say, nodded his head in agreement and disappeared again.

  Arabella could hear the singsong warning of the ambulances now, and the thought flitted through her head that she hadn’t the least idea of what was to happen to them all; presumably someone would arrange something—perhaps Sister Brewster? No, on second thoughts, old Brewster would be waiting for someone else to do it for her. The last child was heaved gently aloft, so that he could be lifted clear of the bus, and Arabella found herself clipped round her neat waist and held high, so that she could be lifted through the door too, to be deposited gently on the grass. She was barely on her feet when the two men joined her. The second man spoke no English, but he smiled kindly at her, dusted her down, said ‘OK’ and when she thanked him, shook her by the hand and made off after a brief word. She wondered if the man who had come to their rescue was going too; his car was close by—a Bentley, a silver-grey piece of elegance which stirred her to envy.

  ‘We had better take a look at these children before they go to hospital,’ remarked her companion.

  ‘Hospital?’ she echoed stupidly.

  ‘In Doesburg.’

  ‘In Doesburg?’ repeated Arabella, still stupid, knowing she sounded like a bad Greek chorus and unable to do anything about it.

  He smiled at her very kindly. ‘I imagine that the other lady is in charge?’ and at her nod: ‘If you will tell me her name? I think I should speak to her, then we will have a quick look at everyone and get them settled as quickly as possible.’ He turned to go and then paused to add: ‘I’m a doctor, by the way.’

  He glanced at the huddle of small figures lying and sitting awkwardly on the grass verge, being tended by ambulance men and police, and then allowed his gaze to rest upon Arabella, who looked deplorable; her overall stained with heaven knew what, her hair hanging wispily around a far from clean face; her cap—the cap Sister Brewster had insisted that she should wear, with some vague idea that it would uphold the prestige of the British nurse abroad—crushed and dirtied by desperate little fingers, pulled askew by some unhappy child.

  Arabella was in no state to mind her appearance; she was indeed unaware of the doctor’s amused and critical eye. Relief was surging through her, because they were all out of the ruined bus and here was a doctor at hand to help the children. She declared with fervour: ‘Gosh, I am glad!’ and started at once on the difficult task of discovering which of the children, if any, was seriously hurt.

  The doctor was back beside her within a few minutes. ‘Sister Brewster will go with those children who can help themselves a little—they’re going to the hospital now. Do you mind staying and giving a hand here?’

  She accompanied him from child to child as he examined each one, leaving her to put on an emergency dressing here and there before they were whisked away to an ambulance. On the whole, they had got off lightly; cuts and bruises and terror, and a nervous excitement which had caused the children’s condition to be grossly exaggerated. Only Billy Trent and Sally Perkins had suffered serious injury, for they each had broken a leg. Surprisingly, they were quieter than the other children, possibly exhausted by fright and pain and bewilderment. The doctor muttered to himself as he made them as comfortable as possible in the last waiting ambulance. ‘Hop in,’ he ordered Arabella tersely, and the expression sounded strange in his correct English. ‘I’ll go ahead in the car.’

  He banged the door on her as though the very sight annoyed him, but she forgot that at once in her efforts to keep Billy and Sally happy once the ambulance was on the move.

  They turned off the road after a very few minutes, to go through heathland and woods, cross beneath two main roads after a mile or so, and enter a small, pleasant town. The hospital was situated some way back from its main street, a fairly modern building at the end of a cul-de-sac lined with small old houses. Its courtyard was a hive of activity and from what Arabella could see from the ambulance windows, there was no lack of helpers. Several people detached themselves now and came hurrying to undo the ambulance doors and convey the children inside; Arabella was swept inside too, with a kindly nurse’s hand firmly under her elbow. She had time to glimpse the silver-grey of the Bentley parked on one side of the small forecourt before she was borne through the doors into what was apparently the entrance hall. But they didn’t stay here. The trolleys bearing the children were already turning down a short passage leading away from the hall, and Arabella, urged on with gentle insistence by her companion, trotted obediently after them. Casualty, she saw at once, quite a nice one too, but just now filled to capacity with spastic children… She barely had time to glimpse Sister Brewster lying back with her eyes closed, when the doctor appeared from nowhere beside her.

  ‘Keep with these two,’ he counselled her. ‘X-Ray first, and then probably the plaster room—they’ll feel better about the whole thing if they see you around.’

  She nodded, and then remembered to voice a doubt at the back of her mind. ‘Mr Burns—his people in England, and Wickham’s—should someone do something?’

  ‘It’s being done now. Off to X-Ray—I must go and have another chat with Sister Brewster.’

  Arabella perceived that for the moment at any rate she was a nurse, not a young woman who had had a nasty fright and needed, above all things, a nice cup of tea and a good cry. She said quietly: ‘Yes, very well, Doctor,’ and was brought to a halt by his: ‘She has brown hair, and speaks soft like a woman.’

  ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor,’ she stated automatically, and wondered if he had sustained an injury to his head while he was in the bus. It seemed not.

  ‘The sight of you called it to mind,’ he explained, and walked away, leaving her to accompany Billy and Sally to X-Ray.

  It took a long time to get everyone sorted out, especially as Sister Brewster, instead of being helpful and efficient, lay back and declared that she was far too poorly to be bothered with a lot of questions and plans. Arabella, freed for a short time from Billy and Sally while they were anaesthetized while their legs were put in plaster, drank the cup of coffee someone put into her
hand and then helped get the remaining children into their beds.

  The hospital had risen nobly to the occasion; extra beds were being put up, more staff had been called back on duty, there was a supply of night garments and a trolley of warm drinks and soup. Arabella, almost dropping with tiredness, her appearance more deplorable than ever and starving for food, toiled on. The children had rallied amazingly. They had all been examined by now; two house doctors and the doctor who had come to their help in the first place had checked each one of them carefully. There was nothing, they declared, that could not be put right by a good night’s sleep and a day or two’s rest before being sent home. Excepting for Sally and Billy, of course, who would have to stay for a week or two.

  Sister Brewster had retired to bed in the Nurses’ Home, tearfully contradicting herself with every breath and far more worried about a bruise on her arm than anything else. Arabella, called away from the children to speak to her superior, was put out to find that Sister Brewster didn’t much care what happened to anybody but herself; she made no enquiries as to Arabella’s state of mind or body, declared peevishly that Mr Burns should never have been sent on the journey without a medical examination, and even implied that it was all his fault, which annoyed Arabella so much that she would have liked to have answered back, only she had a sudden urge to cry, and that would never have done. She wished Sister Brewster a cold good night instead and went back to the children, to help them eat their suppers and then go from bed to bed, tucking them in and kissing them in a motherly fashion.

  She was on her way down to the hospital dining room with a friendly group of nurses, intent on her comfort, when a voice over the intercom requested, in good English, that the nurse who had accompanied the children should present herself at Doctor van der Vorst’s office. ‘The younger of the two nurses,’ added the voice.

  ‘Who’s he?’ demanded Arabella of those around her, a little cross because her thoughts were bent on supper and bed. She neither knew nor cared for the moment what arrangements had been made nor who was making them. Presumably someone would sort everything out and they would all be sent home, but now all that she wanted was food and a good sleep so that she could forget Mr Burns, dying with such awful suddenness, and the children’s terrified little faces—she had been terrified herself.

  No one had taken any notice of her question, perhaps they hadn’t understood, but she had been led down a short passage and stood before a door upon which several helpful knuckles rapped before opening it and pushing her gently inside.

  Doctor van der Vorst looked quite different, sitting at a large desk piled most untidily with a variety of papers, but the look he gave her was the same calm, friendly one which had cheered her when she had peered up in that awful bus and seen him staring down at her. He got up as she took a few steps into the room and said: ‘Hullo—I do apologise for taking up your time, you have been working for two since you got here, so I’m told, you must be asleep on your feet. But I must have some particulars, and unfortunately Sister Brewster doesn’t feel able to help.’

  He paused, waiting for her comment, no doubt, but Arabella, much as she disliked old Brewster, was loyal. ‘She’s very shocked,’ she offered in her pleasant voice, a little roughened because she was so tired, and took the chair he offered her, facing him across the desk. The door behind her opened and a homely body, very clean and starched, came in with a tray.

  ‘Coffee?’ enquired the doctor. ‘It will keep you going until you can get to your supper.’

  The coffee was hot and milky and sweet, and there were little sandwiches besides. Arabella gobbled delicately and when she had drunk her coffee and her cup had been filled again, the doctor spoke.

  ‘I’ve done what I could,’ he began in his slow, pleasant voice. ‘I’ve telephoned your hospital, who are dealing with notifying relatives and so forth, attended to the matter of Mr Burns and made a preliminary list of children’s names, but not yours…’ He paused, his eyebrows raised in enquiry and Arabella, whisking the last delicious crumb into her mouth with a pink tongue, made haste to tell him: ‘Arabella Birch.’

  He scribbled. ‘You are a nurse at Wickham’s Hospital?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ve still a year’s training to do before I take my Finals, but I’m children’s trained.’ And because he still looked enquiring, she went on: ‘I’m twenty-two and I live with my aunt and uncle when I’m not in hospital. Mr and Mrs Birch at Little Dean House, Little Sampford, Essex.’

  ‘There is a telephone number?’

  She gave that too and he picked up the receiver beside him and spoke into it, then turned to the papers before him. ‘Will you check these names with me?’ He hardly glanced at her, but began to read down the list in front of him, a slow business, for she had to correct him several times, give the children’s ages and the extent of their disability and any other details she could remember. They were almost at the end when the telephone rang once more. ‘They are getting your home,’ he told her, ‘and will ring back. I expect you would like to speak to your family.’

  ‘Oh, yes—you’re very k-kind. I’m sure Wickham’s w-will have t-telephoned, but that’s not the s-same…’ she added suddenly. ‘P-poor Mr Burns!’

  The doctor stared at her across his desk. ‘I telephoned his wife a little while ago—I too am deeply sorry. Shall we get on with this list?’

  It was complete by the time the telephone rang again. The doctor grunted something into the receiver and pushed the instrument towards her.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her, and smiled nicely as he went out of the room. Just the sort of man, thought Arabella, watching him go, one would wish to have with one in a tight corner—quite unflappable, and knowing what to do about everything. She picked up the receiver and waited patiently until her aunt’s excited voice had calmed a little before embarking on the skeleton of their day’s adventure. When she had finished her aunt said: ‘You’re coming back home, of course, Arabella—your uncle will come down and meet you…’

  Her heart warmed to this unexpected kindness. ‘That’s very sweet of him, b-but I d-don’t know…I should think the ch-children would be travelling b-back in a d-day or so, but I don’t know how, and there are t-two of them who will have to stay—they both have f-fractures. I’ll t-telephone you as soon as I know.’

  She said goodbye then and sat quietly in her chair, waiting for the doctor to come back. It was peaceful in the room, and in an austere way, pleasant too; there were a quantity of bookshelves stuffed with heavy tomes, a gently ticking clock on the wall and thick blue curtains drawn across the tall windows. The walls were hung with portraits of wise-looking gentlemen whom Arabella took to be previous governors and members of the medical profession attached to the hospital—the one behind the desk was particularly severe; she closed her eyes to avoid his pointed stare and went to sleep.

  She wakened within minutes to find the doctor standing over her.

  ‘I’m s-so s-sorry,’ she began, and was annoyed to find that her stammer, which hadn’t been too much in evidence, had returned. ‘I was t-trying not t-to look at th-that m-man over there.’

  ‘My great-grandfather,’ remarked the doctor briefly. ‘You’re tired out, we’ll talk again in the morning—there are still several things…’ He smiled suddenly. ‘Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas—I must say you look as though you’ve come through stormy seas and you have certainly toiled.’

  She ignored the last part of his remark, but: ‘Spenser,’ she confirmed, ‘isn’t it from the Faerie Queen?’

  He nodded as she got to her feet. ‘I don’t feel that I have anything in common with someone as delicate and dainty as that,’ she said soberly, and he laughed again.

  ‘No? I daresay I shan’t recognise you in the morning, you will look so prim and neat.’ He opened the door. ‘Good night, Arabella.’

  There was a nurse hovering outside, waiting for her, a large, friendly girl, who sat with her while she ate her supper and then took her upstai
rs to a small, nicely furnished room where the bed had been invitingly turned down and someone had thoughtfully arranged a nightie, a brush and comb and a toothbrush on a chair.

  Arabella looked with horror at her appearance in the mirror, had a bath, brushed her hair in a perfunctory fashion and jumped into bed, considerably hampered by the nightie, which was a great deal too large. She was asleep within seconds of laying her head on the pillow.

  She felt quite herself in the morning, for she was young and strong, and besides had learned from an early age to school her feelings; giving way to these had been something her uncle had discouraged; he never gave way to his, and although Hilary and her mother were allowed to be the exception to his rule, everyone else about him was expected to be what he described as sensible. So Arabella wasted no time in self-pity but dressed in the clean overall someone had found for her, pinned a borrowed cap upon her now very neat head, and when a nurse knocked on the door and asked if she were ready for breakfast, declared cheerfully that she was.

  Not that she thought much of the meal; bread and butter and cheese and jam seemed a poor exchange after Wickham’s porridge and bacon, but the coffee was delicious and everyone was very kind, chattering away to her in sketchy English and occasionally, when they forgot, in Dutch. And they were quick to help, for when she asked if she might see Sister Brewster, she was taken at once to that lady’s room, to find her sitting up in bed with a tray before her.

  ‘I feel very poorly,’ declared Sister Brewster as soon as Arabella entered the room. ‘I have hardly closed my eyes all night and I have a shocking headache. I shall be glad to get back to Wickham’s and have a few days off in which to recover, for I have had a great shock.’