by Betty Neels
It was on her third day, at the end of a busy morning's list, that she was asked to go up to the next floor with a specimen for section. The Path. Lab. usually sent an assistant down to collect these, but this morning, for some reason, there was no one to send and Lavinia, not scrubbed, and nearest to take the receiver with the offending object to be investigated, slid out of the theatre with it, divested herself of her gown and over-shoes and made her way swiftly up the stairs outside the theatre unit.
The Path. Lab. was large-owing, she had been told, to the fact that Professor ter Bavinck, who was the head of it, was justly famed for his brilliant work. Other, smaller hospitals sent a constant stream of work and he was frequently invited to other countries in order to give his learned opinion on some pathological problem. Neeltje had related this in a reverent voice tinged with awe, and Lavinia had concluded that the professor was an object of veneration in the hospital; possibly he had a white beard.
She pushed open the heavy glass doors in front of her and found herself in a vast room, brightly lighted and full of equipment which she knew of, but never quite understood. There were a number of men sitting at their benches, far too busy to take any notice of her, so she walked past them to the end of the room where there was a door with the profes
sor's name on it; presumably this was where one went. But when she knocked, no one answered, so she turned her back on it and looked round the room.
One man drew her attention at once, and he was sitting with his back to her, looking through a microscope. It was the breadth of his shoulders which had caught her eye, and his pale as flax hair, heavily silvered. She wondered who he might be, but now wasn't the time to indulge her interest.
She addressed the room in general in a quite loud voice. `Professor ter Bavinck? I've been sent from Theatre B with a specimen.'
The shoulders which had caught her eye gave an impatient shrug; without turning round a deep voice told her: `Put it down here, beside me, please, and then go away.'
Lavinia's charming bosom swelled with indignation. What a way to talk, and who did he think he was, anyway? She advanced to his desk and laid the kidney dish silently at his elbow. `There you are, sir,' she said with a decided snap, `and why on earth should you imagine I should want to stay?'
He lifted his head then to stare at her, and she found herself staring back at a remarkably handsome face; a high-bridged nose dominated it and the mouth beneath it was very firm, while the blue eyes studying her so intently were heavy-lidded and heavily browed. She was quite unprepared for his friendly smile and for the great size of him as he pushed back his chair and stood up, towering over her five feet four inches.
'Ah, the English nurse-Miss Hawkins, is it not? In fact, I am sure,' his smile was still friendly, `no nurse in the hospital would speak to me like that.'
Lavinia went a splendid pink and sought for something suitable to say to this. After a moment's thought she decided that it was best to say nothing at all, so she closed her mouth firmly and met his eyes squarely. Perhaps she had been rude, but after all, he had asked for it. Her uneasy thoughts were interrupted by his voice, quite brisk now. `This specimen
a snap check, I presume-Mevrouw Vliet, the query mastectomy, isn't it?"
'Yes, sir.'
'I'll telephone down.' He nodded at her in a kindly, uncle-ish way, said: `Run along,' and turned away, the kidney dish on his hand. She heard him giving what she supposed to be instructions to one of his assistants as she went through the door.
She found herself thinking about him while they all waited for his report; the surgeon, his sterile gloved hands clasped before him, the rest of them ready to do exactly what he wanted when he said so. The message came very quickly. Lavinia wondered what the professor had thought when his sharp eyes had detected the cancer cells in the specimen, but possibly Mevrouw Vliet, lying unconscious on the table and happily unaware of what was happening, was just another case to him. He might not know-nor care-if she were young, old, pretty or plain, married or unmarried, and yet he had looked as though he might-given the right circumstances-be rather super.
It was much later, at supper time, that Neeltje wanted to know what she had thought of him.
`Well,' said Lavinia cautiously, `I hardly spoke to him-he just took the kidney dish and told me to go away.'
`And that was all?"
'He did remark that I was the English nurse. He's ...he's rather large, isn't he?'
`From Friesland,' explained Neeltje, who was from Friesland herself. `We are a big people. He is of course old.'
Lavinia paused in the conveyance of soup to her mouth. `Old?' she frowned. `I didn't think he looked old.'
`He is past forty,' said a small brown-haired girl from across the table. `Also he has been married; his daughter is fourteen.'
There were a dozen questions on Lavinia's tongue, but it wasn't really her business. All the same, she did want to know what had happened to his wife. The brown-haired girl must have read her thoughts, for she went on: `His wife died ten years ago, more than that perhaps, she was, how do you say? not a good wife. She was not liked, but the professor, now he is much liked, although he talks to no one, that is to say, he talks but he tells nothing, you understand? Perhaps he is unhappy, but he would not allow anyone to see that and never has he spoken of his wife.' She shrugged. `Perhaps he loved her, who knows? His daughter is very nice, her name is Sibendina.'
`That's pretty,' said Lavinia, still thinking about the professor. `Is that a Friesian name?"
'Yes, although it is unusual.' Neeltje swallowed the last of her coffee. `Let us go to the sitting-room and watch the televisie.'
Lavinia met the professor two days later. She had been to her first Dutch lesson in her off duty, arranged for her by someone on the administrative staff and whom probably she would never meet but who had nonetheless given her careful instruction as to her tenminute walk to reach her teacher's flat. This lady turned out to be a retired schoolmistress with stern features and a command of the English language which quite deflated Lavinia. However, at the end of an hour, Juffrouw de Waal was kind enough to say that her pupil, provided she applied herself to her work, should prove to be a satisfactory pupil, worthy of her teaching powers.
Lavinia wandered back in the warmth of the summer afternoon, and with time on her hands, turned off the main street she had been instructed to follow, to stroll down a narrow alley lined with charming little houses. It opened on to a square, lined with trees and old, thin houses leaning against each other for support. They were three or four stories high, with a variety of roofs, and here and there they had been crowded out by much larger doublefronted town mansions, with steps leading up to their imposing doors. She inspected them all, liking their unassuming facades and trying to guess what they would be like on the other side of their sober fronts. Probably quite splendid and magnificently furnished; the curtains, from what she could see from the pavement, were lavishly draped and of brocade or velvet. She had completed her walk around three sides of the square when she was addressed from behind.
`I hardly expected to find you here, Miss Hawkins-not lost, I hope?'
She turned round to confront Professor ter Bavinck. 'No-at least...' She paused to look around her; she wasn't exactly lost, but now she had no idea which lane she had come from. `I've been for an English lesson,' she explained defensively, `and I had some time to spare, and it looked so delightful...' She gave another quick look around her. `I only have to walk along that little lane,' she assured him.
He laughed gently. `No, not that one-the people who live in this square have their garages there and it's a cul-de-sac. I'm going to the hospital, you had better come along with me."
'Oh, no-that is, it's quite all right.' She had answered very fast, anxious not to be a nuisance and at the same time aware that this large quiet man had a strange effect upon her.
`You don't like me, Miss Hawkins?'
She gave him a shocked look, and it was on the tip of her tongue
to assure him that she was quite sure, if she allowed herself to think about it, that she liked him very much, but all she said was: `I don't know you, Professor, do I? But I've no reason not to like you. I only said that because you might not want my company.'
`Don't beg the question; we both have our work to do there this afternoon, and that is surely a good enough reason to bear each other company.' He didn't wait to hear her answer. `We go this way.'
He started to walk back the way she had come, past the tall houses squeezed even narrower and taller by the great house in their centre-it took up at least half of that side of the square, and moreover there was a handsome Bentley convertible standing before its door.
Lavinia slowed down to look at it. `A Bentley!' she exclaimed, rather superfluously. `I thought everybody who could afford to do so drove Mercedes on the continent. I wonder whose it is-it must take a good deal of cunning to get through that lane I walked down.'
`This one's wider,' her companion remarked carelessly, and turned into a short, quite broad street leading away from the square. It ran into another main street she didn't recognize, crowded with traffic, but beyond advising her to keep her eyes and ears open the professor had no conversation. True, when they had to cross the street, he took her arm and saw her safely to the other side, but with very much the tolerant air of someone giving a helping hand to an old lady or a small child. It was quite a relief when he plunged down a narrow passage between high brick walls which ended unexpectedly at the very gates of the hospital.
`Don't try and come that way by yourself,' he cautioned her, lifted a hand in salute and strode away across the forecourt. Lavinia went to her room to change, feeling somehow disappointed, although she wasn't sure why. Perhaps, she told herself, it was because she had been wearing a rather plain dress; adequate enough for Juffrouw de Waal, but lacking in eye-catching qualities. Not that it would have mattered; the professor hadn't bothered to look at her once-and why should he? Rather plain girls were just as likely two a penny in Holland as they were in England. She screwed her hair into a shining bun, jammed her cap on top of it, and went on duty, pretending to herself that she didn't care in the least whether she saw him again or not.
She saw him just one hour later. There had been an emergency appendix just after she had got back to theatre, and she had been sent back to the ward with the patient. She and one of the ward nurses were tucking the patient into her bed, when she glanced up and saw him, sitting on a nearby bed, listening attentively to its occupant. The ward nurse leaned across the bed. `Professor ter Bavinck' she breathed, `so good a man and so kind-he visits...' she frowned, seeking words. 'Mevrouw Vliet, the mastectomy-you were at the operation and you know what was discovered? When that is so, he visits the patient and explains and listens and helps if he can.' She paused to smile. `My English-it is not so bad, I hope?"
'It's jolly good. I wish I knew even a few words of Dutch.' Lavinia meant that; it would be nice to understand what the professor was saying-not that she was likely to get much chance of that.
She handed over the patient's notes, and without looking at the professor, went back to theatre. Zuster Smid had gone off duty, taking most of her staff with her, there were only Neeltje and herself working until nine o'clock. She had been sorting instruments while her companion saw to the theatre linen, when the door opened and Professor ter Bavinck walked in. He walked over to say something to Neeltje before he came across the theatre to Lavinia.
`Off at nine o'clock?' he asked.
`Yes, sir.'
His mouth twitched faintly. `Could you stop calling me sir? Just long enough for me to invite you out to supper.'
`Me? Supper?' Her eyes were round with surprise. `Oh, but I...'
`Scared of being chatted up? Forget it, dear girl; think of me as a Dutch uncle anxious to make you feel at home in Amsterdam.'
She found herself smiling. `I don't know what a Dutch uncle is.'
'I'm vague about it myself, but it sounds respectable enough to establish a respectable relationship, don't you agree?'
A warning, perhaps? Letting her know in the nicest way that he was merely taking pity on a stranger who might be feeling lonely?
`Somewhere quiet,' he went on, just as if she had already said that she would go with him, `where we can get a quick snack-I'll be at the front entrance.'
`I haven't said that I'll go yet,' she reminded him coldly, and wished that she hadn't said it, for the look he bent on her was surprised and baffled too, so that she rushed on: ` I didn't mean that-of course I'll come, I'd like to.'
He didn't smile although his eyes twinkled reassuringly. `We don't need to be anything hut honest with each other,' a remark which left her, in her turn, surprised and baffled. He had gone while she was still thinking it over, and any vague and foolish ideas which it might have nurtured were at once dispelled by Iveeltje's, `You go to supper with the Prof. Did I not tell you how good and kind a man he is? He helps always the lame dog...'
Just for a moment the shine went out of the evening, but Lavinia was blessed with a sense of humour; she giggled and said cheerfully: `Well, let's hope I get a good supper, because I'm hungry.'
She changed rapidly, not quite sure what she should wear or how much time she had in which to put it on. It was a warm evening and still light; still damp from a shower, she looked over her sketchy wardrobe and decided that the pink cotton with its jacket would look right wherever they went. As she did her face and hair she tried to remember if there were any snack bars or cafes close to the hospital, but with the exception of Jan's Eethuisje just across the road and much frequented by the hospital staff who had had to miss a meal for some reason or other, she could think of none. She thrust her feet into the pink sandals, checked her handbag's contents and made her way to the entrance.
The professor was there; it wasn't until she saw him, leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets, that she realized that she hadn't been quite sure that he would be. He came across the hall to meet her and she noticed that his clothes were good; elegant and beautifully cut if a little conservative-but then he wasn't a very young man.
He said hullo in a casual way and opened the door for her and they went out to the forecourt together. It was fairly empty, but even if it hadn't been, any cars which might have been there would have been cast into the shade by the car outside the door.
`Oh, it's the Bentley!' cried Lavinia as her companion ushered her into its luxury.
`You like it? I need a large car, you see.' He got in beside her. `One of the problems of being large.'
She sat back, sniffing the faint scent of leather, enjoying the drive, however short, in such a fabulous car. And the drive was short; the professor slid in and out of the traffic while she was still trying to discover which way they were going, and pulled up after only a few minutes, parking the car on the cobbles at the side of the narrow canal beside an even narrower street, and inviting her to get out. It seemed that their snack was to be taken at what appeared to be an expensive restaurant, its name displayed so discreetly that it could have passed for a town house in a row of similar houses. Lavinia allowed herself to be shepherded inside to a quiet luxury which took her breath and sitting at a table which had obviously been reserved for them, thanked heaven silently that the pink, while not anything out of the ordinary, at least passed muster.
It was equally obvious within a very few moments that the professor's notion of a quick snack wasn't hers. She ran her eyes over the large menu card, looking in vain for hamburgers or baked beans on toast, although she doubted if such an establishment served such homely dishes.
`Smoked eel?' invited her companion. `I think you must try that, and then perhaps coq au vin to follow?' He dismissed the waiter and turned to confer with the wine waiter, asking as he did so: `Sherry for you? Do you prefer it sweet?'
She guessed quite rightly that it wasn't likely to be the same sort of sherry they drank at hospital parties. `Well...' she smiled at him, `I don't know much abo
ut it-would you choose?'
The sherry, when it came, was faintly dry and as soft as velvet. Lavinia took a cautious second sip, aware, that she hadn't had much to eat for some time, aware, too, that converrationally she wasn't giving very good value. Her host was sitting back in his chair, completely at his ease, his eyes on her face, so that she found it difficult to think of something to talk about. She was on the point of falling hack on the weather when he said: `Tell me about yourself-why did you take this job? Did not your family dislike the idea of you coming here? There are surely jobs enough in England for someone as efficient as you.' He saw the look on her face and added: `Dear me, I did put that badly, didn't I? It just shows you that a lack of female society makes a man very clumsy with his words.'
She took another sip of sherry. `I haven't a family-at least, only a sister. She's fifteen, almost sixteen, and lives with an aunt. She hasn't been happy with her and when I saw this job advertised I thought I'd try for it-I shall be able to live out, you see, and Peta will be able to come here and live with me. I couldn't do that in England-not in London at any rate, because flats there are very expensive and nurses don't earn an awful lot.'