by Betty Neels
She went home by bike, on an ancient machine which creaked and groaned through the morning traffic and brought her finally to the block of flats where she and her mother lived. The building looked bleaker than usual as she wheeled it to the basement shelter and chained it up for the day before walking up two flights of stairs to the second floor, the pineapple, very much the worse for wear, secure on top of the knitting in her bag. It looked a bit second-hand by now, but at least most of it would be edible.
Second-hand or not, Mrs Bennett was delighted with it, making light of the damage. ‘What a lovely surprise,’ she declared happily. ‘We’ll have it at supper.’ Her still pretty face creased into a ready smile, while her eyes, hazel like her daughter’s, noted the tired white face.
‘A bad night, love? Well, only two more nights before you get nights off—what shall we do with them? There’s that exhibition of pottery—oh, and your aunt wants to come and see us…’
Eloise had cast off her outdoor uniform and was putting on the kettle. ‘Oh, Mother, must she? She only comes when she wants something.’
‘Yes, I know, darling, but this time she’s bringing Deborah Pringle with her—remember I knew her years ago and we were always great friends—still are in a way, for we write regularly even though she doesn’t live in England. I should like to see her again.’
She went back into the kitchen and made the tea and they went into the sitting room, small and rather crowded with the furniture they had brought with them from Somerset; all the same, it was a pretty room with a few flowers and some small pieces of silver on the sideboard. The pair of them sat down by the window and drank their tea and presently Eloise went off to have her bath and go to bed. Really, night duty was no life at all, she thought sleepily as she brushed her hair; here it was almost eleven o’clock and she would have to be up soon after five so that she could eat her supper in peace before going back on duty—there was no time to read or talk. ‘Poor Mother,’ she muttered, ‘it’s even worse for her.’
She went to say goodnight to her parent, busy in the kitchen, and then retired to take her night’s rest in her topsy-turvy world. It had been a horrid night, she reflected gloomily as she curled up in bed. At least, not quite horrid, for there had been that nice man… She fell asleep thinking about him.
Her mother called her, as she always did, with a cup of tea and sat on the end of the bed while she drank it. ‘You’ve not slept very much, have you?’ she wanted to know.
‘Well, once the children get out of school…’ Eloise tried to sound cheerful because she knew that her mother worried about her wakefulness, and her mother nodded and went on:
‘That pineapple, dear—was there something special about it?’
‘Just a pineapple, Mother.’
‘Yes, I know that—but a special delivery man called after lunch with a Fortnum and Mason basket, I opened it because all the man said was “name of Bennett”, the way they always do—and it’s crammed with fruit: three pineapples and grapes and those enormous pears and apples…there’s a note.’
She handed an envelope to her daughter and didn’t say a word while Eloise opened it and read the brief note inside: ‘Allow me to offer compensation for the damage done by my foot this morning.’ The signature was unintelligible and it was addressed to the Pineapple Girl.
‘Well!’ said Eloise, and then: ‘He must be nuts.’
‘Who, dear?’ Mrs Bennett’s voice was casual, masking her seething curiosity.
‘Well, there was this man…’ Eloise related the morning’s happening without trimmings. ‘And my hair was coming down—I looked a perfect fright—you know…’ She paused. ‘Mother, have I ever reminded you of a pineapple?’
Her mother took the question seriously. ‘No, dear. You’re not a beauty, but you’re not knobbly—your hair grows very prettily too, not out of the top of your head.’
‘How did he know where I lived?’
‘He only had to ask, presumably. Porters, or someone,’ said Mrs Bennett vaguely. ‘If he was talking to Sir Arthur Newman he must have been respectable, so of course they would have told him.’
Eloise looked at her mother with loving amusement. ‘Yes, well…’ She finished her tea and went along to the sitting room where the basket was displayed on the table. It was indeed a splendid sight, Eloise walked all round it, eyeing its contents. ‘I can’t thank him,’ she observed at length. ‘I haven’t a clue who he is, have I? I could ask, I suppose, but I don’t think I want to—I mean if—if he’d wanted to see me again he would have put an address or said so.’ She glanced at her mother and said seriously: ‘He was a very handsome man, he’d hardly lower his sights to me, you know. I expect he just felt sorry.’
She sighed; usually she didn’t waste time pining for a beautiful face, but just for a moment she wanted most desperately to be absolutely eye-catching. ‘Oh, well,’ she said at length, and then: ‘We’ve got enough fruit to open a shop, isn’t it marvellous?’
It seemed only fair to take Mrs White’s gift back on duty that evening, to be shared among her friends at their midnight dinner; it made a nice change from the creamed rice and jellied fruit which were on the menu night after night. But Eloise didn’t get any herself; she got down late to her meal because Mrs Fellows had made the early part of the night hideous with her loud moans and complaints. She had been sedated early because the day staff had been hindered in their evening’s work by her constant demands for this, that and the other thing, but that had worn off by ten o’clock, and although Eloise got the house surgeon on duty to come and look at her and write her up for further sedation, he had told her to wait until midnight before giving it.
‘She’s not in pain,’ he declared, ‘just determined to make life hell for everyone else—let’s see, supposing we give her…’ He wrote busily. ‘That should keep her quiet until morning and you can repeat it at six o’clock if she’s still rampaging.’ He thrust the chart at Eloise. ‘It was only an EUA, after all…not even surgery.’
Cycling home in the morning, Eloise reflected that the night had been awful—thank heaven there was only one more to go before her nights off.
And that night was so madly busy that she had no time for her own thoughts at all; with operation cases to settle, two severe accident cases to admit, an emergency case for the theatre at two o’clock in the morning, and Mrs Fellows, due home in the morning, but still complaining loudly, adding her quota to the night’s bedlam. Eloise, too tired to know whether she was coming or going, ate her breakfast in a trance, got herself home and fell into her bed after a quick cup of tea and a hot bath.
She had six nights off due to her and it was on the third of these that Mrs Bennett’s visitors came. Her sister-in-law arrived first; a tall, commanding woman with a penetrating voice and cold good looks, she pecked at their cheeks, told them that they both looked tired, chose a chair with deliberation and loosened the expensive furs she was wearing. Watching her aunt, Eloise found herself wondering how she had come to marry her father’s elder brother in the first place, although perhaps it wasn’t so strange, as he had been successful; making money as easily as a good cook makes pastry, quite unlike her own father, content to work in his book shop, specializing in rare books and engravings. That he had loved herself and her mother she had no doubt, but books were his real love and he had lived largely in a world of his own far removed from the more mundane life around him. Which had probably accounted for the fact that when he died very suddenly from a coronary, it was discovered that his insurances had lapsed for a number of years and that he had mortgaged the shop and house in order to find the money to buy the rare books he had coveted. As a consequence he had left his wife and daughter very ill provided for and although neither of them had blamed him in the slightest for this, his sister-in-law had never ceased, on every possible occasion, to mention his improvidence.
The lady made just such a remark now, once she had settled herself, and went on in her bossy way: ‘You need a change, both
of you, and I have the solution.’
She held up a beringed hand to stop any questioning, although neither of her listeners had had any intention of speaking; they had long ago decided that the only way to treat their overbearing relation was to give every appearance of attention and then go their own way, but the lady went on, just as though she had received a gratifying murmur of admiration: ‘But I shall say no more until Deborah Pringle arrives.’ She frowned and glanced at her watch. ‘She should be here now.’
As though Mrs Pringle had been given her cue, the doorbell rang and Eloise went to answer it. She had met Mrs Pringle a number of times and liked her; she was a small bustling creature with a kindly nature which never sought to boss others around and Eloise had often wondered how she had come to be a friend of her aunt’s. She came in now, exclaiming cheerfully, ‘I’m a little late, but the taxi couldn’t find you and I’m hopeless at telling people how to get to places.’ She gave Eloise a kiss and added warmly: ‘Your lovely hair—how I do envy you, my dear. How’s your mother?’
Eloise said dryly: ‘Aunt says she needs a holiday…’
‘And I daresay she does but she’s not one to waste time pining for something—not if I know her, and I should do after all these years.’ She smiled widely and whispered: ‘What’s the betting that I’m wearing the wrong kind of hat?’
She was greeted with pleasure by Mrs Bennett and more austerely by that lady’s sister-in-law, who, sure enough, told her at once: ‘That’s not the hat for you, Deborah—far too young…’
‘But I feel young.’ Mrs Pringle sat down between her two friends and looked at them in turn, rather like a referee might look at two boxers before a fight. She said cheerfully: ‘Well, Mary, it’s delightful to see you again—a pity I don’t come to England more often and when I do, it’s almost impossible to get away; Cor likes me to be with him all the time.’
‘He’s not with you this time?’ asked Mrs Bennett.
‘He went back last week—simply had to…’ And when her friend cast her an inquiring look: ‘I wasn’t allowed to travel; I came over here for an operation, nothing vital, but I have to stay for a check-up before I go home.’ She changed the conversation then, and it wasn’t until Eloise had fetched the tea and they had finished the sandwiches and home made cake that she reverted to herself.
‘I’ve a favour to ask,’ she began a shade diffidently. ‘You see, I met Maggie a short while ago,’ she paused to smile at that forbidding lady, ‘and I mentioned that I was going back home in a short time and wanted to take a nurse with me, just for a little while, you know, and so she telephoned you, Mary, meaning to ask if Eloise was free, and you told her that she had a holiday in a couple of weeks. Now that would be simply splendid if only she would agree to come with me.’ She flashed a smile at Eloise. ‘Nothing much to do, just a small dressing and my temperature and so on, and I promise her that she shall have plenty of time to do what she likes.’
Eloise found her astonished voice. ‘How kind of you to think of me,’ she exclaimed, ‘but you see I can’t leave Mother alone…’
‘Ah,’ Mrs Pringle beamed in mild triumph, ‘it just so happens in the most extraordinary way imaginable that I met Mrs Plunkett last week—remember her at Eddlescombe? Well, she was asking about you, Mary, and said how much she would like to see you again and if only you were on your own she would love to have you to stay—you know she has only that dear little cottage with two bedrooms?’ She paused and looked around her. Mrs Bennett was staring at her with rapt attention, Eloise’s nice, ordinary face betrayed her suspicion that the whole thing was a put up job and her aunt looked vaguely irritated as she always did when someone else was doing the talking.
‘I know it sounds too good to be true,’ declared Mrs Pringle with a glance at Eloise, ‘but that’s exactly what happened, and I thought how marvellous it would be if Eloise were to come with me and you, Mary, could go and stay with Beryl Plunkett. What do you say?’
Eloise darted a quick look at the longing on her mother’s face. ‘I think it’s a super idea, Mrs Pringle; I’d love to look after you, and if Mother’s with Mrs Plunkett I should be quite happy about going. What do you think, Mother?’
Mrs Bennett smiled widely at no one in particular. ‘Well, darling, it does sound delightful, but you’re sure you…you’ll have a lovely time… Eddlescombe will be heavenly at this time of year…’
Mrs Pringle smiled too. ‘Then that’s settled. Eloise, when does your holiday start? I planned to go down to say goodbye to Beryl. You could drive down with me, Mary, and I’ll come back and collect Eloise on the following day.’
Mrs Bennett looked overwhelmed. ‘You’re really going down to Eddlescombe? It would be lovely to drive down with you—if Eloise could manage for a couple of days?’
‘Easily, darling.’ Eloise smiled at her mother. She hadn’t seen that look on her face for a long time; even if she hadn’t wanted to go with Mrs Pringle, she would have declared her delight at the prospect—and she did want to go, not only because it would give her mother the chance of a holiday; it would be fun to go somewhere different. Which reminded her. ‘You know, I’m not at all sure where you live,’ she told Mrs Pringle.
‘Holland, my dear. We’ve lived all over the world, you know, but now Cor is permanently based there, and he being a Dutchman finds that very satisfactory—so do I; we live in Groningen, in the north and within easy reach of the city. There’s a car if you care to drive it, and the country around us is delightful—quiet but not isolated. Cor is away a good deal, but he’s always home at weekends and we have friends—I think you might like it.’ She caught the questioning look in Eloise’s eye and added: ‘I’ll tell you about myself later; one’s little illnesses are always so boring for other people.’
She turned back to Mrs Bennett. ‘That’s settled, then, and how very pleased I am. Shall I collect you in—two weeks, is it? We’ll fix the exact day later—and Eloise will be free the day after you go to Eddlescombe, won’t she? Nothing could be better.’ She gathered up her gloves and handbag. ‘I really must fly—can I give you a lift, Maggie?’
She so obviously expected her offer to be accepted that Eloise’s aunt got to her feet quite quickly and with unusual meekness, and it was during their rather protracted farewells that Mrs Pringle said quietly to Eloise: ‘You’re back on duty in two days, aren’t you? Could you manage to meet me one morning before you come home?’
There was no time to ask questions. Eloise said yes and named a day and time and wondered what she was going to be told, for obviously Mrs Pringle was going to tell her something; something which she didn’t care to discuss with everyone; something to do with her op. Eloise reviewed her surgery and decided that it was probably a good deal more serious than Mrs Pringle had implied.
It was; sitting in the visitors’ room in the Nurses’ Home after breakfast a few mornings later, her visit disclosed quite simply that she had inoperable cancer; that there was little more to be done and that she and her husband had decided that she should return to Groningen and live out the rest of her life among her friends and in the home she loved. ‘I have a simply splendid doctor,’ she told Eloise cheerfully. ‘It was he who sent me to Sir Arthur Newman in the first place—you’ve worked for him, haven’t you, dear? I was in a nursing home, of course, though I should have been just as happy in hospital, but Cor insisted, bless him…’ She smiled. ‘So now you know—or did you guess?’
‘Almost—I thought it might be more serious than you wanted us to think, and when you mentioned a dressing…’
‘And you really don’t mind coming? It’s silly of me, I know, but I have to get used to the idea and I thought if I had someone I knew with me, just for a little while, then I can face it. They tell me I can expect six months, perhaps a little longer.’
Eloise got out of her chair and went to kneel by her visitor. ‘You’re brave, Mrs Pringle, and I’ll do all I can to help you. Your husband must be very upset.’
‘Poor d
ear, he is. Do you believe in miracles, Eloise?’
‘Yes, and I think most nurses and doctors do; you see, now and then there is a miracle, and who knows, it might be yours.’
Her visitor smiled crookedly. ‘Bless you for saying that! I believe we’re going to get on very well together.’ She got to her feet. ‘Not a word to your mother, mind—no one knows, only you and Cor and Sir Arthur, and of course my own doctor.’
‘Dutch?’ asked Eloise.
‘From Groningen.’ Mrs Pringle looked vaguely speculative for a moment. ‘I expect you’ll get on well with each other; he’s a mild sort of man. Now I’m going for you have to go home and go to bed. Will you tell your mother that I’ll write to her within the next day or so? And I’ll let you know at what time I’ll call for you.’ She leaned up and kissed Eloise’s cheek. ‘You’re a dear girl.’
Eloise cycled home thoughtfully, only half her mind on the traffic. Mrs Pringle was indeed a brave woman, and the idea of leaving her alone again after a couple of weeks went against the grain. She frowned over the problem until she was brought back to the present by a bus driver alongside her, waiting at the traffic lights, asking her from his cab if she had taken root. He said it nicely, for she was in uniform, but it recalled her to her whereabouts. She made haste home after that and spent the next hour or so listening to her mother’s delighted comments on her forthcoming holiday. ‘I am looking forward to it,’ declared Mrs Bennett for the hundredth time, ‘and I only hope you’ll enjoy yourself too, darling.’
Eloise gave her mother a hug. ‘I shall enjoy every minute of it,’ she assured her, reflecting that to do anything else wouldn’t help Mrs Pringle at all. ‘And now I’m off to bed, darling—I had a beastly night.’