The Quiet Professor

by Betty Neels

The orphanage had been well planned. The rooms were light and decorated in pale colours; dormitories of eight or nine beds, a big playroom, a smaller room for the older children, and, running the length of the building facing the dunes, the nurseries, opening from each other with changing-rooms for the babies and cots widely spaced. A balcony ran their whole length, covered in and with sliding glass panels to shut out the wild winter weather; Sine assured Megan that it was common enough. Last of all she was taken to the sickroom, well equipped with two cubicles with a bed in each and another screened off with a cot. There was everything here needed if there should be an emergency. Megan remarked upon it and Sine said, ‘We are not near a big hospital, so it is necessary that we are prepared.’

  ‘Is there a doctor who comes?’

  ‘Yes. Each week he visits and also in time of need.’ She led the way downstairs. ‘We will drink coffee and then you will go and look outside.’

  They had their coffee in a small room furnished with square tables seating four and here again the walls were painted in a pretty shade of blue and the curtains were a darker blue of some thick material and drawn well back from the windows. There were several older girls in the room and Megan was introduced to them each in turn, confused by their various names but relieved to find that they all spoke English of a sort. Even if she was to be there for a short time she would do her best to learn some Dutch at least. She had had the foresight to bring a dictionary with her; she could study it when she was free.

  The girls were kind and very friendly. ‘Tomorrow,’ said Sine, ‘you will be free in the morning and one of us will go with you to the village so that you may then go alone.’

  ‘Letters? The post office?’ asked Megan.

  ‘There is a postkantoor in the village and also the postbode comes each day; you may give him letters. Also there is the telefoon in the hall, and we may use it. I show you.’

  All the basic needs, thought Megan, and, coffee finished, went to her room to get notepaper and envelopes and small change. She phoned her mother first, ringed round by willing helpers, and then, a cardigan over her overall since the wind from the sea was chilly, she found her way into the grounds around the orphanage. There was a revolving chalet beyond the sweep of grass and behind the building rows of small garden plots—the children’s—and beyond those a well kept kitchen garden. There was a gate in the fence which separated the grounds from the dunes and a path beyond leading to a short flight of wooden steps which presumably led to the sands beyond. She would have liked to have explored further but she had been warned that the midday meal was served in two shifts and she was to go to the first one at twelve o’clock. There was just time to write a quick note home, and, if she had the leisure still, a polite note to the professor, thanking him for his help. The writing of it hung over her head like a cloud but it was something that would have to be done. She would have to ask the directrice where to send it for she hadn’t asked the name of his house or what the village was called and he hadn’t volunteered any information. Perhaps he didn’t want her to know. She resolutely dismissed him from her mind and embarked on a cheerful letter home. She had it finished with five minutes to spare before her dinner and went indoors to join whoever was in the dining-room.

  Sine was there, waiting for her and the two other girls at the table were introduced: Helene and Anneke. Anneke was to work with Megan in the nursery that afternoon, a stoutly built girl with a pretty round face and rosy cheeks.

  She spoke basic English, but Helene beyond a few words didn’t. Nevertheless, they all got on splendidly together eating gehakt balletjes, the Dutch version of rissoles, boiled potatoes and carrots. There was yoghurt to follow, and big cups of coffee. Plain fare but well cooked. ‘This evening at six o’clock,’ explained Sine, ‘there is the brood maaltijd—the bread meal, again with coffee.’

  She didn’t explain further and Megan didn’t like to ask; it sounded a bit frugal but looking around her at the healthy-looking girls at the tables she consoled herself with the thought that there would probably be something to put on the bread.

  There were still a couple of hours before she needed to go on duty and when Anneke offered to show her the way down to the shore she decided to leave the letter to the professor and go with her. They went through the gate and along the path between the dunes and up the few wooden steps. The sea lay before them, coldly blue, and as far as they could see on either side of them there was a wide stretch of golden sand stretching into the distance.

  ‘Nice?’ asked Anneke.

  ‘Lovely, I had no idea. Do the children come here?’

  ‘The bigger ones, yes, but not the babies. When you are free you can walk for kilometres—up to den Helder or down to Haarlem.’ She laughed. ‘But not in the winter, for it is cold then.’ She added, ‘But then you will not be here.’

  A pity, thought Megan; to walk along the sand in the teeth of a howling gale and with the sea crashing on to the beach would be an experience. Preferably with the professor…she crushed the thought—it was no good thinking about him. She told herself this every hour or so without any success.

  Once in the nursery, however, she had little chance to think about him or anything else. The babies provided a constant round of feeding, changing, bathing, and in some cases—the three older ones—amusing. Anneke was a tower of strength and patience, making sure that she knew where everything was and giving her titbits of information about each baby. They were well-cared-for and there was time to cuddle them. ‘Are they all orphans?’ asked Megan.

  ‘Yes—how do you say?—abandoned. Little Jan—’ she nodded towards the smallest baby that Megan was feeding ‘—he was found in a paper bag in the dunes. He was then a few days old but he is now a handsome boy, is he not?’

  Megan stared down at the scrap she was cuddling. ‘He’s beautiful. And he’ll be happy here.’

  ‘Lise, over there in the second cot—the professor found her in a street in Beverwijk. He has a great interest in the children.’

  ‘I’m sure he is a very kind man,’ said Megan, her cheeks pink.

  She was left on her own after that first day. The directrice did a round of the orphanage twice a day, a leisurely walk, taking the time to talk to the staff and children alike, and, beyond asking Megan if she was quite happy, she had no comment. It was hard work but she enjoyed it and there was no time to sit around and be sorry for herself, and when she was off duty there was always someone else free to show her the village or the dunes or walk along the sands. At the end of the week she changed to the morning shift so that she was free each afternoon and when she had her first day off she borrowed a bike and took herself off to Castricum. It was a pleasant little town with a few shops and a restaurant in Dorpsstraat where she had some lunch before cycling on, going north to Egmond, where she parked the bike and had tea on the boulevard. She felt nicely filled with fresh air as she made her way slowly back to the orphanage. She was thinking about the professor, of course, wishing with all her heart that he were there with her. ‘He will have forgotten me by now,’ she mused sadly, ‘but he was quite right persuading me to come here. I’m too busy to think about me and when I’m free it’s so peaceful.’

  She had written him a letter, of course, a stiff little note which had taken her hours to compose. The professor had read it and smiled a little and folded it carefully and put it in his waistcoat pocket. He would be in Holland for several weeks and he had every opportunity to go to the orphanage and see her, but, much though he wi
shed to do so, he didn’t; he was a man who could bide his time and Megan must have the time to listen to her own heart.

  She made friends with the other girls well and quickly enough; within days she was trying out a few words of Dutch and they encouraged her, took her with them when they shared her free time, cycling or walking along the golden sands, or going to the village for stamps or to post their letters. She wrote letters; any number, for she had plenty of friends at Regent’s as well as her family. She had sent a postcard to Oscar extolling the beauties of her surroundings and saying how much she liked her work. The only person she didn’t write to was the professor; she had written that once, and sent it, on the directrice’s advice, care of the hospital in Leiden. She hadn’t expected to have a reply but she had hoped for one.

  She was halfway through her second week and busy with the ten o’clock feeds for the babies when the directrice came into the nursery and with her a youngish man. He was of middle height and stockily built, with fair hair and a pleasant open face and dressed in trousers and a light jacket over an open-necked shirt.

  ‘Dr Timuss,’ said the directrice. ‘He visits us regularly and will come in an emergency.’ She smiled at Megan. ‘And this is Megan, who has come from England for a little while Mien is in Canada.’ She nodded at them both. ‘Now I shall leave you to show Dr Timuss round the nursery, Megan, and do not be afraid; he speaks very good English.’

  Dr Timuss grinned cheerfully. ‘Have you had any chance to try your Dutch yet?’

  Megan laughed. ‘Almost none at all. Does everyone speak English in Holland?’

  ‘No, no, not everyone, but most of us. And we are always delighted when we have an opportunity to air it.’ He smiled. ‘Now where shall we start? Have you any problems?’

  ‘Well, no, I don’t think so. Jantje isn’t a very happy baby but perhaps that’s because he was left in a paper bag; he feeds well and he loves to be cuddled. He’s putting on weight.’

  She had picked the baby up and tucked him under one arm. He looked bad-tempered but he didn’t cry and when the doctor took him from her he gave a small grunt of satisfaction. ‘Poor little devil,’ said Dr Timuss, ‘but once we’ve got him going he will be fine. How’s our Lise doing? She was so ill when the professor brought her here. You’ve met him, of course?’

  Megan was vexed to feel her cheeks grow warm. ‘Yes, I was at Regent’s in London. It was he who found this job for me.’

  ‘He’s a fine man. A bit crusty but quite brilliant.’ He handed Jan back and they went on round the cots and as he left he said casually, ‘I’ve a practice in Castricum; perhaps when you’re free one day I might be allowed to show you something of the country round here.’

  ‘Why, thank you, I should like that.’

  ‘Good. We must fix a day soon.’ He nodded goodbye and left the nursery and she went back to the feeds and the chores which made up her hours of duty. She forgot him at once for, however hard she tried, she was unable to prevent her thoughts turning to the professor. Crusty or not, there was no other man in the world for her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE following week on her day off Megan went to Alkmaar, cycling to Castricum and catching a bus for the less-than-ten-mile journey. Alkmaar, she had been told by her newfound friends, was well worth a visit, especially as her day off happened to be on a Friday when there was the famous cheese market. The bus took her through the town to the building where the cheeses would be sold and she joined the crowd of sightseers to watch the porters carrying the cheeses on a kind of wooden stretcher to a ring where the selling took place, and, when the sale had been completed by a clasping of hands, the cheeses were loaded on to the stretchers again and the porters, each with a leather strap around his neck attached to the stretcher, jogged away with their load. All the while the carillon played until noon when the doors of the bell tower opened and to the accompaniment of trumpeting figures horsemen circled the tower. Megan, enjoying every moment enormously, craned her neck to see with the rest of the tourists and then turned her steps towards the main street, intent on coffee and a kaas broodje. There were plenty of cafés to choose from, and she was standing undecided outside one of them when she was tapped on her shoulder and Dr Timuss wished her a cheerful goodday. ‘Sightseeing?’ he wanted to know. ‘If you have nothing better to do have some lunch with me—I had to come to the hospital here and I have no surgery until five o’clock.’

  ‘Oh, how nice.’ Megan beamed at him; she had enjoyed her morning and she had been contemplating an afternoon of sightseeing but all the same she had been feeling lonely. ‘I was going in here…’

  ‘Fine for a sandwich, but I’m hungry.’ He took her arm and steered her through the crowds and turned in at De Nachtegaal Hotel, where he asked for a table by the window and sat down opposite to her. ‘A sherry?’ he suggested and when a waiter handed her a menu he asked, ‘Will you let me choose for you? Smoked eel on buttered toast, a ham salad with pommes frites and one of our magnificent ice-creams to finish.’

  He ordered and began an easy conversation; was she happy at the orphanage? Did she like what she had seen of Holland? Did she intend to see the country before she returned to England? ‘You are only here for a few weeks, the directrice tells me—have you a job to go back to?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I wanted a change. I think that I may stay in Holland for a little while; I’d like to see Amsterdam and Delft and perhaps the Hague.’

  The eels came and she pronounced them delicious; so was the ham salad. He had offered her wine and when she refused he hadn’t pressed her but ordered tonic for her and a Pils for himself. He was a good companion and she felt at ease with him, and when over the promised ice-cream he asked her if he might show her the St Laurenskerk she agreed happily. ‘It will be closed,’ he told her, ‘but I can get the key from the custodian and he will show us round.’

  The church was at the top of the town and they didn’t hurry. There were shops to linger before and old buildings to be admired and when they finally reached the church there was a great deal to see in it. The tomb of Floris the Fifth who had fought the Frisians, for one thing, and the splendid organ. It was after three o’clock when they emerged into the street at last and Dr Timuss said, ‘A cup of tea? I’ll drive you back, unless you had planned to stay until the evening?’

  ‘I was going to get back in time for the six o’clock meal,’ she told him.

  ‘Splendid, let’s find a café. There’s a nice little place along here.’

  They had tea—hot water in tall glasses with a tea bag in the saucer—and enormous cream cakes, while Dr Timuss told her about his fiancée, Imogen, in her last year at Groningen University, studying medicine. ‘We shall marry next year and have a partnership. Castricum is getting bigger from year to year and there is work enough for us both.’

  ‘How very nice,’ said Megan. ‘Tell me about her—is she dark or fair…?’

  It was like taking the cork out of a bottle. By the time they reached the orphanage she knew everything there was to know about Imogen. Rather belatedly he asked, ‘And you, Megan—do you have the prospect of marriage?’

  She told him quietly that no, she hadn’t, and he was too polite to ask any more questions. She thanked him for his company and bade him a friendly goodbye. At the evening meal later she described her day to the girls sitting at her table. ‘It was nice meeting Dr Timuss. I would never have seen the church if he hadn’t known how we could get inside. I thought I would go to Haarlem o
ne day; there’s a splendid church there, isn’t there?’

  The meal ended with everyone making suggestions as to where she should go for her next free day. ‘So much to see,’ said Anneke, ‘and you have but a few weeks.’

  The days became warm and sunny, the cots were wheeled out on to the balcony each morning and the older babies crawled and staggered around their playpens. Megan was happier than she had been for weeks; she was busy—too busy to brood over her own unhappiness, for she had friends among the other girls and there was always something with which to fill her free hours. Best of all she liked to walk along the sand at the water’s edge with one or other of the girls, listening to their gossip, learning a little Dutch and laughing at her own mistakes. True, the professor was never far from her thoughts, but life, she reminded herself, had to go on. In a few weeks she would go back to England and start again. A week or so at home while she made up her mind where she wanted to go and then the worrying search for a post as a ward sister. Oscar and Melanie had decided to settle in Kent or Sussex. Oscar had been offered a post as Senior Registrar at one of the London teaching hospitals and since Melanie firmly refused to live there they planned to buy a small house near enough for him to get home in his free time until such time as he could get a partnership in a general practice. It would be better, Megan had decided, to get right away from London for a time at least. She reflected that it would have been nice to have stayed on at the orphanage where there were no reminders of her unhappy past few months and where there was always the chance that she might see the professor again, but that was very unlikely.

  She was to be proved wrong. Two days later she was standing at the end of the nursery with Dr Timuss; she had Jantje tucked under one arm and they had paused in his round so that he might show her a photo of his Imogen.