by Neels, Betty
‘It sounds most promising, Dominic. I gather I am to be a new man by the time you have finished with me.’
‘Shall we say soundly repaired, and fit for another ten or fifteen years—and that’s a conservative estimate.’
‘And what does Nurse say?’ It was her patient who spoke.
Her smile lighted her ordinary face with its gentleness and sincerity.
‘I never think of failure—Professor van Wijkelen will operate and it will be a complete success, just as he says.’ She looked across at him as she spoke and found him staring at her, and there was no mistaking the faint sneer on his face, but because she liked him, she saw the hurt there too. Someone at some time had turned him into a cold, embittered man; she wondered who it was and hated them. Once, just once, he had smiled at her and she wanted him to smile like that again, but that, at that moment, seemed unlikely.
She settled down to a steady pattern of work, the same work as she would have been doing in a London hospital, even though the language was different, but all the doctors and a good many of the nurses spoke English and she herself, with the aid of her dictionary and a good deal of good-natured help from everyone else, managed to make herself understood. The days passed quickly. Under her patient’s kindly direction she went each afternoon to some fresh part of the city, sometimes to a museum, sometimes to gaze at the outside of some old house whose fascinating history he had described to her delighted ears while she was fulfilling the various duties which made up her day. He was looking a little better, mainly due to the blood transfusions, to which he submitted with an ill grace because they interfered with his movements in bed. He was a great reader and an even greater writer and a formidable conversationalist. Abigail became fond of him, as indeed did anyone who came in daily contact with him. The day before his operation he paid her, handing her an envelope with a word of thanks and a little joke about him being strong enough to do it the following week, which touched her soft heart because although she had complete faith in Professor van Wijkelen, things quite outside his control could go wrong. She tucked the envelope away under her apron bib and as she did so wondered for the hundredth time why Solly’s last letter had been so strange; asking her not to send him any more money for at least another week. A good thing in a way, because she had not yet discovered the best way of sending it to him, all the same, she felt a vague disquiet.
Professor van Wijkelen came each day, treating her with his usual polite chill, at direct variance to the obvious regard he had for his patient. She stood quietly by while they talked together and longed for the warmth of his voice to be directed just once at herself. A wish which was most unlikely to be fulfilled, she told herself wryly, handing him charts and forms and reports and at the end giving him her own report very concisely in her clear precise voice. He liked to take her report outside the patient’s room and did her the courtesy of giving her his full attention. And now, on this day before he was to operate, he listened even more carefully than usual. When she had finished he said, as he always said: ‘Thank you, Miss Trent,’ and proceeded to give her detailed instructions as to what he wished her to do on the following day.
The operation was a success, although only the next few days would show if the success was to be a lasting one. Abigail had taken her patient to the theatre and remained there to assist the anaesthetist. For a good deal of the time she was free to watch the professor at work. He was a good surgeon completely engrossed in his work and talking very little. When at length he was finished, he thanked the theatre sister and stalked away without a word. He was in his old friend’s room within minutes of his return to it, though. Abigail was still getting the old man correctly positioned and adjusting the various tubes and drip when he came silently through the open door.
‘I don’t want him left, Nurse. I have spoken to Sister—if you wish to go off duty, she will send someone to take over. Is that clear?’
‘Perfectly, thank you,’ said Abigail, and because she was checking the closed drainage, didn’t say any more. She had no intention of going off duty; she had promised Professor de Wit that she would stay with him and she could see no reason why she shouldn’t do just that. She was, when all was said and done, his special nurse. Professor van Wijkelen said abruptly:
‘He’ll do—with careful nursing,’ and turned on his heel and left her.
She didn’t leave her patient again, only for the briefest of meal breaks and the professor came in twice more as well as his registrar, a portly little man whom Abigail rather liked. He spoke a fluent, ungrammatical English and she got on famously with him and she was grateful to him too, because he came often to check on the patient’s condition and cheer her with odd titbits of gossip so that the day passed quickly. It was half an hour before she was due off that Zuster van Rijn came rustling down the corridor to tell her that the night nurse had been struck down with a sore throat and a temperature and wouldn’t be able to come on duty, and there was no one to take her place. ‘I can put a nurse on until midnight, though, and then she need not come on until the noonday shift. Could you possibly...?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Abigail. ‘I’ll go off at eight, have supper and a sleep and come back here at twelve.’
Zuster van Rijn looked relieved. That is good—tomorrow morning I will get someone to take over while you go to bed for a few hours.’
So it was that when Professor van Wijkelen came at one o’clock in the morning, it was Abigail who rose quietly from her chair near the bed. His glance flickered over her as he went to look at his patient; it was only when he was satisfied as to his condition that he asked curtly:
‘Why are you on duty? Where is the night nurse?’
‘It’s quite all right, sir,’ said Abigail soothingly. ‘Nurse Tromp is off sick and there wasn’t time to get a full-time night nurse. I’ve been off duty, I came back at midnight.’
‘Until when?’
‘Until I can be relieved. Zuster van Rijn will arrange something.’
‘Have you had your days off?’
‘I’d rather not have them until the professor is better.’ She spoke uncertainly because he was looking annoyed again. ‘I imagine that my days off can be fitted in at any time, as I’m not a member of the hospital staff.’
‘You have no need to state the obvious, Nurse. You must do as you please and I daresay Zuster van Rijn will be glad if you remain on duty for a few days until Professor de Wit is on the mend.’
He spoke carelessly as though he didn’t mind if she had her days off or not, and indeed, she thought wearily, why should he?
He went away then and she spent a busy night, because there was a lot of nursing to do and the professor had regained consciousness and wished to be far too active. But presently, after an injection, he dropped off into a refreshing sleep and Abigail was free to bring her charts up to date, snatch a cup of coffee and then sit quietly between the regular intervals of checking one thing and another. It was, she mused, a splendid opportunity to think quietly about the future, but perhaps she was too tired, for when she tried to do so, she seemed unable to clear her mind. She gave up presently, and spent the rest of the night idly thumbing through her dictionary, hunting for words which, even when she found them, she was unable to pronounce.
The professor came again at seven o’clock. Abigail, with the help of another nurse, had made her patient’s bed and sat him up against his pillows; she had washed him too and combed his fringe of hair and his whiskers and dressed him in his own pyjamas. He looked very old and very ill, but she had no doubt at all that he was going to pull through, for he had a good deal of spirit. She was drawing up an injection to give him when Professor van Wijkelen arrived; he looked as though he had slept the clock round, and now, freshly shaved and immaculately dressed, he sauntered in for all the world as though he were in the habit of paying his visits at such an early hour. His good morning to her was brief; so brief that it seemed pointless, but she answered him nicely, smiling from a tired face th
at had no colour at all, unhappily aware that there was nothing about her appearance to make him look at her a second time.
He didn’t say much to his patient but motioned her to give the injection, walked over to the window and sat down at the table there and began to study the papers she had laid ready for him. He had given her fresh instructions and was on the point of leaving when he remarked:
‘You look as though you could do with a good sleep, Nurse.’
‘Of course she needs a good sleep,’ Professor de Wit’s voice was testy even though it was weak. ‘Just because you choose to work yourself to death doesn’t mean that everyone else should do the same.’
‘I have no intention of working anyone to death. Nurse is doing a job like anyone else and she has a tongue in her head. If she cannot carry out her duties, she has only to say so.’
He didn’t look at her but flung ‘I shall look in later,’ over his shoulder as he went.
‘Such a pity that...’ began her patient, and fell asleep instantly just as Abigail was hopeful of hearing why something was a great pity—something to do with Professor van Wijkelen, she felt sure.
The next few days were busy ones. Her patient continued to improve, but there was a great deal of nursing care needed and Abigail was a conscientious nurse. She took her daily walk because she knew that she needed the exercise in the fresh air, despite its rawness and the bitter wind which never ceased to blow, but her days off she saved up; she would take them when the case was finished. There had, as yet, been no talk of sending Professor de Wit home although it had been made clear to her that she was to accompany him. They would be in hospital another week at least—two probably; if it hadn’t been for the niggling worry about Bollinger, she would have been happier than she had been for a long time. She had made some friends in the hospital by now and she was battling on with her Dutch, helped a great deal by her patient, who now that he was feeling better spent a fair proportion of his waking hours correcting her accent and grammar.
It was the day after the drip came down for the last time and the old man had walked a few steps on her arm that Professor van Wijkelen had come to see him and on his way out again had said in his usual austere way:
‘Nurse, if you are free tomorrow afternoon, I wish you to come with me—there is someone who wants to meet you.’
‘Who?’ asked Abigail, who liked to know where she was.
‘Shall we say you must wait and see?’ he enquired silkily, and then suddenly, as though he sensed that she was about to refuse, he smiled with such charm that she would have agreed to anything he wished. ‘Please,’ said the professor.
She nodded, knowing that when he looked at her like that she wanted nothing more than to please him. She was thoughtful after he had gone and Professor de Wit said nothing, although she had expected him to. When she saw that he didn’t intend to discuss it with her, she launched into an argument on the subjunctive in the Dutch language, concentrating fiercely upon her companion’s learned comments, because Professor van Wijkelen was taking up much too much of her attention these days.
Chapter 3
The professor was waiting for her when she reached the hospital forecourt the following afternoon. He greeted her with unsmiling courtesy as he opened the car door for her to get in, and because he so obviously didn’t want to talk, she remained silent as he took the car through the gates and into the narrow streets beyond.
‘You don’t want to know where I am taking you?’ he enquired blandly.
‘Yes, of course I do, but I daresay you wouldn’t choose to tell me, so I shan’t ask.’ Abigail spoke matter-of-factly and without rancour.
‘We are going to my house.’
That startled her. ‘Whatever for?’
‘There is somebody you should meet—it seemed the best place.’
‘Oh, I see.’ She didn’t see at all and she was longing to ask him who it was and didn’t because he would be expecting it.
‘Very wise of you,’ he commented silkily, answering her unspoken thought. I’ve no intention of telling you. How do you find Professor de Wit?’
She obligingly followed his lead. ‘Determined to get well as soon as possible.’
‘Yes—I have every hope that he will. The operation wasn’t quite straightforward.’ He launched into details and then said to surprise her:
‘He likes you, Nurse Trent. I hope that you will be prepared to go home with him for a few days?’
‘Certainly,’ said Abigail. There was nothing she would like better, for a variety of reasons, which for the moment at least, she didn’t intend to look into too deeply. She looked about her. They were travelling along the Herengracht, beautiful and picturesque with its old houses on either side of the tree-lined canal. Some way down its length the professor turned the car into a short arm of the canal—a little cul-de-sac, spanned by a narrow footbridge half way down its length. Houses lined the cobbled streets on either side of the water and across its far end, and trees, even in their winter bareness, crowded thickly along its banks.
The Rolls slid sedately along its length and came to a halt outside one of the houses at the end, facing the canal. It was a very old house, with double steps leading to a great door and another, smaller door tucked away under those same steps. The windows were high and narrow and climbed up the front of the house. The higher they climbed the smaller they became, until they terminated in one very large one, heavily shuttered under the steep gable of the house. There was a tremendous hook above it, because that was the only way to get anything in or out of the houses’ top floors.
It was peaceful in the small backwater, away from the traffic, with only the wind sighing around the steeple roofs. Abigail got out and looked around her while the professor opened his house door, and then at his bidding went inside.
It was all she had expected and hoped for, with its black and white tiled floor, its plasterwork ceiling and plain white walls, upon which were hung a host of paintings, and its carved staircase rising from one side.
The furnishings were in keeping—a heavy oak table along one wall, flanked by two carved oaken chairs which Abigail thought looked remarkably uncomfortable, while the other wall held an oak chest upon which reposed a great blue and white bowl, filled with spring flowers.
Abigail rotated slowly, trying to see everything at once. ‘How absolutely beautiful—it’s quite perfect,’ she said, and was instantly sorry she had spoken, because when she looked at her companion he was looking down his long nose at her as though she had been guilty of some offending vulgarity. She went a faint, angry pink, which turned even brighter when he remarked austerely:
‘I feel sure, from the ferocious expression upon your face, that you are on the point of bidding me not to be like that, or some such similar phrase, Miss Trent. May I beg you not to do so—I am easily irritated.’
‘So I’ve noticed,’ Abigail told him tartly. ‘The smallest thing... And now, Professor, if I might meet this person.’ Her eyes swept round the empty hall; the house was very quiet, she allowed her thoughtful gaze to rest upon the man beside her and was on the point of speaking when he interrupted her:
‘No, Miss Trent, I can assure you that there is nothing of sinister intent in my request to you to accompany me here.’ He smiled thinly. ‘You surely could not have seriously supposed that?’
It was annoying to have her thoughts read so accurately. Abigail said crossly, because that was exactly what she had been thinking, ‘No, of course not. I’m not such a fool—you have to be joking.’
He said nothing to this but opened a door and said: ‘Perhaps you would like to wait in here?’
She went past him into a small panelled room, warm and snug in the light of the fire burning in the steel grate. It was furnished in the utmost comfort with a number of easy chairs, leather-covered; a charmingly inlaid pier table against one wall, I small round table, inlaid with coloured mosaic work, conveniently close to the hearth, a revolving bookcase filled with books and a sm
all Regency work-table. The professor pressed a switch and a number of table lamps bathed their surroundings in a delicate pink, highlighting the walls, which she could see were covered with red embossed paper, almost hidden along two sides of the room by the pictures hung upon it, and completely hidden on its third side by shelves of books. The room called for comment, but this time she held her tongue, walking to the centre of the room and standing quietly, waiting for him to speak first.
He didn’t speak at all, but went out of the room, shutting the door behind him, and Abigail for one split second fought an urge to rush to the door and try the handle. Instead, she turned her back on it and went to examine the paintings on the walls. Mostly portraits of bygone van Wijkelens, she decided, who had undoubtedly passed on their good looks with an almost monotonous regularity. She was peering at a despotic-looking old gentleman in a tie-wig, when the door opened behind her and she turned round to see who it was.
Bollinger stood there. She cried on a happy, startled breath: ‘Bolly—oh, Boily!’ and burst into tears. He crossed the room and patted her on the shoulder and said: There, there, Miss Abby—I gave you a shock, eh? Thought you’d be pleased and all.’
‘Oh, Bolly, I am! I’m so happy to see you, that’s why I’m crying—aren’t I a fool? But how did you get here?’ A sudden thought struck her. ‘In the professor’s house?’ She whisked the spotless handkerchief he always carried out of his pocket and blew her nose and wiped her eyes. ‘Does he know?’
‘Course he knows, love. It’s him as thought to do it. You see, he comes along one night and gives me your letter and the money, and I asks him to have a cuppa, seeing as it’s a cold night, and we gets talking and I tells him a bit about us, and he says to me, ‘Well, Bollinger, seeing as how Miss Trent’s going to be in Amsterdam for a week or two yet, why don’t you get yourself a little job and be near her?’’