A Gem of a Girl

by Betty Neels

  She was tired by the time she was ready to cycle home just before six o’clock. Phil would be home, so would the boys, but Mandy wouldn’t leave the library for another half an hour. She wheeled her bike round to the shed at the back of the house, called a hullo to the boys as she passed the sitting room where they were doing their homework, and went to the kitchen. Phil would be upstairs in her room, deep in her school books, but she had left a tray of tea ready on the kitchen table for Gemma. She drank it slowly, sitting in the Windsor chair with Giddy, the family cat purring on her lap, before starting on the supper. The boys had peeled the potatoes and seen to the vegetables and she had made a steak and kidney pie the evening before; she went and got it from the fridge now and put it into the oven before going to the cupboard to see what she could serve for a pudding. She had the off duty to puzzle out, too, she remembered; she had brought it home with her and could have a shot at it while the supper cooked. She fished the book out of her cardigan pocket and sat down at the table, conscious that she didn’t want to do it at all; she wanted to sit in a chair and do nothing—well, perhaps not quite nothing. It would be nice to have time to sit and think; she didn’t admit to herself that what she wanted to think about was the professor next door.

  She wasn’t on duty until eleven o’clock the next morning; she saw everyone out of the house, raced through the housework and then pedalled through the bright sunshine to Millbury House, wishing with all her heart that she could stay out of doors. By the time she got off duty that evening it would be eight o’clock—dusk and chilly.

  Her day was long and filled with little troubles. At the end of it she wheeled her bike through the open gate, stowed it for the night and went into the house through the kitchen door. There was a cold supper laid out for her on the kitchen table and coffee bubbling gently on the stove. She sniffed appreciatively and went on through the kitchen and down the passage to the sitting room where she found the boys bent so zealously over their books that she instantly suspected them of watching the TV until they had heard her come in. She grinned at them, said: ‘Don’t you dare until you’ve finished your lessons,’ and went across to the drawing room. Phil would be upstairs, working, but Mandy would be there. She was, looking cool and incredibly pretty, and lounging opposite her was Professor Dieperink van Berhuys.

  They both turned to look at her as she went in, and the thought crossed her mind that they were a perfectly matched couple, Mandy with her gay little face and curly hair and he with his placid good looks.

  Mandy came dancing to her, bubbling over with high spirits, full of the news that the professor had happened to be outside the library when she had left it and had driven her home. She cast him a laughing glance as she spoke, and he, standing with his magnificent head almost touching the ceiling, smiled back at her, murmuring that it had been a pleasure and that now he really should go, for Doctor Gibbons would be wondering what had become of him.

  Gemma said all the right things and watched him walk out of the room with Mandy. They didn’t shut the door and she heard them talking in the hall and then go into the sitting room where there was an instant babble of talk and laughter. It made her feel suddenly lonely, which was absurd; how could she possibly be lonely with five brothers and sisters, besides the twenty-eight old ladies with whom she passed her days? Perhaps lonely wasn’t the right word. She went back to the kitchen and sat down to eat her solitary supper, and presently she was joined by everyone else, crowding round the table to tell her about their particular day, eating a packet of biscuits between them while they did so. She wasn’t all that much older, she thought, looking round at them all, but sometimes she felt just as though she was the mother of the family.

  They went to bed one by one, leaving her and Mandy to wash the mugs and sweep up the crumbs and lay the breakfast for the morning, and all the while they were doing it, Mandy talked about the professor.

  ‘He’s almost forty,’ she told Gemma, ‘but he doesn’t look it, does he? He’s not married either, but his sister is—he’s got two, the youngest one is as old as Phil, then there’s a brother in his late twenties and another one who’s in medical school, he’s twenty-one.’ She added thoughtfully: ‘You’d think he’d be married, wouldn’t you?’

  Gemma wiped out the sink and put the cloth tidily away. ‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘with so many brothers and sisters, perhaps he can’t afford to.’

  ‘His mother and father are still alive.’ Mandy perched on a corner of the table. ‘He’s got a simply super car…’

  ‘Perhaps he hired it.’

  ‘No, it’s his, it’s got a Dutch number plate.’ She smiled suddenly and brilliantly. ‘He said I was a very pretty girl.’

  Gemma pushed back her hair with a weary little gesture. ‘And so you are, darling,’ she agreed. ‘We’re a smashing lot of good-lookers except for me.’

  ‘We all think you’re lovely,’ said her sister fervently, ‘and depend on it, someone will come along and think the same.’

  Gemma ate a biscuit. ‘Then he’d better look sharp about it,’ she observed cheerfully. ‘All this waiting around doesn’t do my nerves any good.’

  They giggled together as they went up to bed, but presently, in her own room, Gemma sat down on the old stool in front of her dressing table and took a long look at her reflection. It didn’t reassure her in the least.

  She was persuading old Mrs Thomas to toddle across to the day room when she heard Doctor Gibbons arrive for his round the next day. He came regularly, for several of the patients had been his for years and he still came to see them. Gemma rotated her companion carefully and sat her down in a convenient chair and looked down the ward. Doctor Gibbons always had a chat with Mrs Thomas; she had no family left now and to her confused old mind he had taken the place of a long-dead son.

  The doctor wasn’t alone, his Dutch guest was with him, strolling along between the beds, saying good morning as he passed the elderlies while at the same time listening politely to Matron, sailing along a pace or two behind Doctor Gibbons doing the honours. Matron was a nice old thing, with mild blue eyes, a ready chuckle and a cosy figure. Gemma could see that the professor had her eating out of his hand.

  The party reached her, exchanged greetings and settled down to the confused questions and answers which took the place of conversation with Mrs Thomas, leaving Gemma free to do something else. She went reluctantly, wishing that someone in the party—the professor, perhaps—would ask her to remain. But he didn’t, only smiled his gentle smile and turned his attention to Matron, who was explaining about staff shortages, too many patients, the lack of amenities, the lack of visitors, the lack of transport…Gemma, at the other end of the ward, assembling her medicine trolley, could hear the murmur of their voices.

  Presently they came down the ward again and Matron went away and Doctor Gibbons started his ward round. They were the high spot of any day and this one was even better than usual, for Professor Dieperink van Berhuys came with them, asking intelligent questions, murmuring in agreement with his colleagues’ more profound remarks, and now and again asking her, soft-voiced, her opinion of this or that. It gave her a real uplift when Charlie Briggs came importantly into the ward, to stop short at the sight of her in animated conversation with a man who put him, in every way, quite in the shade. He wasn’t near enough to hear that they were discussing the use of water beds for the aged and infirm. She greeted him with dignity and was glad to see that, for once, he was less than his usual cocksure self. Perhaps that was due to the professor’s impassive manner and Doctor Gibbons’ brisk way of talking to him. Indeed, she began to feel sorry for him after a while, for he was showing off far too much and she strongly suspected that the professor was secretly amused; besides, there was the strong possibility that Doctor Gibbons would lose his patience with him and tear him off a strip. She was casting round in her mind how to deal with the situation when it was saved by the reappearance of Matron with an urgent message for Doctor Gibbons, and she was able t
o show the whole party to the door. She had closed it behind them and was making for Mrs Thomas once more when the professor came back.

  ‘Er—may I offer you a lift home this evening? I take it you’re off at five o’clock?’

  She stood looking up at him. He was being polite, of course, afraid that she had minded him giving Mandy a lift. He was really rather nice.

  ‘How kind,’ she said pleasantly, ‘but I’ve got my bike here and I shall need it in the morning—thanks all the same.’

  She smiled at him warmly and his answering smile was ready enough. ‘Another time, perhaps?’ His voice was casual, he made no effort to change her mind for her. With feminine illogicality she was annoyed. Her ‘Goodbye, Professor,’ as he opened the door was decidedly cool.

  CHAPTER TWO

  COUSIN MAUD came home two days later, looking tanned and at least ten years younger—not that she was all that old; a woman in her forties was no age at all; Gemma had often heard Doctor Gibbons telling her cousin that, and had thought it to be a friendly platitude, but now, watching him greet her cousin, she wasn’t so sure. She busied herself with welcoming sherry and speculated about that. Doctor Gibbons wasn’t all that old himself—in his mid-fifties and as fit as a fiddle as far as she knew. True, he was a little thin on top and he wore glasses, but he must have been good-looking when he was younger—not, of course, as good-looking as his friend the professor. She nudged the errant thought on one side and concentrated on Cousin Maud and Doctor Gibbons. But even if they wanted to marry there were difficulties. He could hardly be expected to house the six of them as well as Maud. Somehow or other, mused Gemma as she passed the glasses around, they would have to manage on their own—after all, if it could be done for six weeks, it could be done for a lifetime. She shuddered strongly at the very idea and then consoled herself with the certainty that it wouldn’t be a lifetime. Mandy would surely marry, so, in a few years, would Phil. James and John were clever boys, they would get their A levels and go on to university, and that left little George. Quite carried away, she began to weigh the chances of taking paying guests—with only George at home there would be three or four bedrooms empty, or perhaps Doctor Gibbons would offer George a home and she could sell the house, find a job and live at the hospital. The prospect was even worse than the first one. She frowned heavily and the professor said in her ear, very softly: ‘What is it that worries you?’

  She hadn’t noticed him cross the room. He loomed beside her, smiling his gentle smile, his pale brows slightly lifted.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said hastily. His vague ‘Ah’, left her with the impression that he didn’t believe her and she went on quickly before he persisted: ‘Doesn’t Cousin Maud look marvellous?’

  He glanced across the room. ‘Indeed, yes. And now presumably you will take a holiday yourself—you have been doing two jobs for the last six weeks, have you not?’

  ‘Well—the others were marvellous, you know, and it wasn’t easy for them; Mandy’s away all day and so is Phil, and the boys did their bit.’

  ‘Does Mandy not have holidays?’

  She turned a surprised face towards him. ‘Of course she does—four weeks each year, but no one could have expected her to stay home…’

  ‘Er—the thought did cross my mind—just a week or two, perhaps, so that she could have—er—shared the burden of housekeeping with you.’

  ‘It wasn’t a burden. I—I liked it.’

  He had somehow edged between her and the rest of the room. ‘That is a palpable untruth,’ he observed mildly. ‘Don’t tell me that getting up with the birds in order to do the housework before spending the rest of your day looking after a great many demanding old ladies before coming home to cook the supper, help with the homework and generally play mother, was something you liked doing.’

  He sounded so reasonable that she found herself saying: ‘Well, I must admit that it was rather a full day, but I’ll have a holiday soon.’

  ‘You will go away?’

  ‘Me? No.’ He was asking a lot of questions. Gemma asked rather coldly: ‘Would you like some more sherry?’

  He shook his head and she need not have tried to interrupt him. ‘You will stay here, fighting the washing machine, frying sausages and calling upon Mr Bates at intervals, I suppose?’

  She smiled because put like that it sounded very dull. ‘Cousin Maud will be here—she’s marvellous…’

  They both turned to look at that lady, deep in conversation with Doctor Gibbons. Perhaps, thought Gemma, it might be a good idea not to pursue this conversation. ‘When do you go home?’ she asked chattily.

  ‘Earlier than I had intended. Rienieta, my youngest sister, is ill and at the moment there’s no diagnosis, although it sounds to me like brucellosis—her fever is high and she is rather more than my mother can cope with.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s a beastly thing to have—I had several cases of it when I had a medical ward.’

  ‘So Doctor Gibbons was telling me. You must find the difference between an acute medical ward and your old ladies very great.’

  ‘Yes, I do—but they need nursing too.’ She added honestly, ‘Though it isn’t a branch of nursing I would choose. It’s convenient, you see, so near home…’

  ‘You are on duty in the morning?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, but wasn’t I lucky to be able to get a free day so that I could be home to welcome Cousin Maud?’

  Her companion let this pass. ‘I’ll take you in the morning,’ he stated. ‘I have something I wish to say to you.’

  Her eyes flew to his face, but it was devoid of any clue. ‘Oh—what about?’ She paused, remembering that he had taken Mandy in and out of Salisbury several times during the last few days, and besides that, she had come across them deep in conversation at least twice. Perhaps he had fallen in love with her? He was a lot older, of course, but age didn’t really matter; perhaps he just wanted to discover what she thought of it. She said matter-of-factly: ‘I leave at ten to eight on the bike.’

  ‘A quarter to the hour, then. That will give us time to talk.’ He moved a little and Phil came over to join them, and presently Gemma slipped away to the kitchen to see how the supper was coming along.

  It was pouring with rain the next morning when she left the house, so that she had wrapped herself in a rather elderly mac and tied a scarf over her head, which was a pity, for her hair, although it didn’t curl like Mandy’s or Phil’s, was long and fine and a pretty brown. But now, with most of it tucked out of sight, her unremarkable features looked even more unassuming than usual, not that she was thinking about her appearance; she was still puzzling out a reason for the professor’s wish to speak to her—a reason important enough to get him out of his bed and go to all the trouble of driving her to the hospital. Well, she would know soon enough now. His car, an Aston Martin convertible, was outside the gate and he was at the wheel.

  She wished him good morning in a cheerful voice, wholeheartedly admired the car and got in beside him and sat quietly; the drive would take five minutes, and presumably he would start talking at once.

  He did. ‘I shall be going home in a week’s time,’ he told her without preamble. ‘I should like you to return with me and look after my sister for a week or so—they have confirmed that she has brucellosis and she is in a good deal of pain and her fever is high. My mother assures me that she can manage for the time being, but Rienieta is sometimes very difficult—she refuses to have a nurse, too, but I thought that if you would come with me and we—er—took her unawares, as it were, it might solve that problem. She’s a handful,’ he added judiciously.

  ‘Well!’ declared Gemma, her eyes round with surprise while she hurriedly adjusted her ideas. ‘I didn’t expect…that is, I had no idea…’ She perceived that she would get no further like that. ‘I can’t just leave Millbury House at a moment’s notice, you know,’ she pointed out at length.

  ‘I had a word with Doctor Gibbons,’ said her companion smoothly. ‘He seems to think tha
t something might be arranged for a few weeks—unpaid leave is what he called it.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because you are the eldest of a large family, I suppose, and know just how to deal with the young.’

  She felt like Methuselah’s wife and said with a touch of peevishness: ‘I’m twenty-five, Professor.’

  The amused glint in his eyes belied his placid expression. ‘I beg your pardon, I wasn’t thinking of you in terms of age, only experience.’ He slowed down to turn the car into the hospital drive. ‘Of course, if you dislike the idea, we’ll say no more about it.’

  She didn’t dislike it at all, in fact she felt a rising excitement. She held it in check, though. ‘It doesn’t seem fair on Cousin Maud.’

  ‘She hasn’t the least objection. Doctor Gibbons happened to mention it to her yesterday.’ He drew up outside the side door. ‘Think it over,’ he said with maddening placidity, ‘and let me know. We’re bound to see each other during the next day or so.’

  His goodbye was so nonchalant that Gemma told herself crossly that nothing, absolutely nothing, would make her agree to his request even if it were possible to grant it, which seemed to her very unlikely. Moreover, she would keep out of his way, he really had a nerve…she shook off her ill humour as she walked on to the ward; it would never do to upset the old ladies. All the same, she was a little distrait, so that old Mrs Craddock, who had been there for ever and knew everyone and everything, exclaimed in the ringing tones of the deaf: ‘And what is wrong with our dear Sister today? If I didn’t know her for a sensible girl, I would say she’d been crossed in love—her mind isn’t on her work.’

  It was a good thing that her companions were either deaf too or just not listening. Gemma laughed, told Mrs Craddock that she was a naughty old thing and went to see about dinners. Mrs Craddock liked her food; her mind was instantly diverted by the mention of it. Gemma gave her two helpings and the rest of the day passed without any more observations from the old lady.