Esmeralda
Betty Neels
Mills & Boon presents the complete Betty Neels collection. Timeless tales of heart-warming romance by one of the world’s best-loved romance authors.Esmeralda Jones was a very nice girl. It seemed to Esmeralda that she was also invisible to the opposite sex. Perhaps the real reason for this was the impaired foot she had struggled with since childhood.When the brilliant surgeon Thimo Bamstra offered to cure her, Esmeralda was over the moon, Thimo also managed to mend her broken heart, Esmeralda had never imagined marriage as part of her future, but she could dream of little else.
“I have a suggestion to make which you might like to consider,” said Thimo.
“I have a private practice in Leiden. I employ two nurses, and one, Willi, is going to Australia to see her brother. She will be away…for a month or six weeks, and I wondered if you would care to take over her job for that time.”
“I can’t speak Dutch,” claimed Esmeralda.
“I daresay Loveday will help you there. You won’t need more than a few routine phrases.”
Her impulse was to say yes at once, for it would be just the thing to fill her days usefully, but she was a practical girl and could see several snags.
“I’ve no uniform. And where will I live?”
“Willi will let you borrow hers, and she has a very small house near my rooms.”
She said contritely, “I’m sorry, Dr. Bamstra. You’ve been so kind to me.” She looked down at her plastered leg with the cotton sock pulled over the toes to keep them clean.
“Call me Thimo.”
“Thimo, then, though I don’t think I should.”
“You find me too elderly?” His voice was bland.
“Don’t be silly. Of course not, but you are a senior consultant at the hospital and I’m your patient….”
About the Author
Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of BETTY NEELS in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit lives on in all her stories.
Esmeralda
Betty Neels
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
THE orthopaedic ward for children at Trent’s Hospital was in the throes of its usual periodical upheaval: Sister Richards, on the edge of retirement, and, after a lifetime of caring for the small, sick children, a trifle eccentric, was making the cot change, an exercise which entailed her little charges being moved up and down the ward as well as from side to side, until none of them—and that included the nurses—knew exactly where they were any more, so that the children were either screaming with delight at being at the other end of the ward, or roaring with rage at being moved at all, and the nurses, especially those who were new to the experience, were on the edge of hysterics. And this time she had been fortunate in enlisting the help of the two housemen who had unwittingly arrived to write up their notes, and instead now found themselves, under Sister Richards’ inspired direction, shifting cots too. One of them, trundling a cot containing a very small and cross girl, asked furiously: ‘Is she out of her mind? Can’t someone stop her? My notes…’
The girl he had addressed was guiding him towards the far corner of the ward. ‘Certainly not,’ she protested in a pleasant, cheerful voice, although it held a faintly admonishing note. ‘It works splendidly, you know—the children are mostly here for weeks and they get bored; moving them round is good for them—they never know where they’ll be next.’
‘And nor do you, I’ll be bound, Staff.’
‘Well, it’s a bit awkward at first, but we soon get sorted out.’
They pushed the cot into a corner, and he said: ‘I do believe you like the old thing.’
‘Yes, I do—and she’s a wonderful nurse.’
He stood aside and watched her settle the small girl against her pillows, thinking that she seemed a nice little thing; not much to look at though; too small and thin, and all that mousey hair piled high—if it wasn’t for her eyes she would be downright plain, but those green eyes, with their thick, dark lashes were really something. It was a pity about her foot, of course—he gave it a quick look and glanced away as she limped round the end of the cot. He was fairly new on the orthopaedic side and he had been warned about Staff Nurse Esmeralda Jones; she didn’t take pitying glances easily, and anyone wanting to know, however tactfully, why it was that one small foot dragged so horribly behind its fellow would get a cold green stare and no answer at all. True, there was one person who could apparently say what he liked to her—the orthopaedic Registrar, Leslie Chapman. The young houseman had heard him boasting about it in the common room one day, and hadn’t much liked him for it.
‘Anyone else to shift?’ he wanted to know cheerfully.
Esmeralda beamed at him. ‘No thanks, you’ve been a Trojan. Sister will be having coffee in her office, I expect, and I’m sure she’ll give you a cup—after all this, you’ll be in her good books.’
He started to move away. ‘What about you?’
She was adjusting a gallows frame with careful skill.
‘Oh, I’ll be along in a minute—it’s Mr Peters’ round in half an hour and this place looks like a fairground—we’ll have to tidy it up a bit.’
She knew as she spoke that she would probably not get her coffee—even with three nurses to help her, it would take time to get the place straight, especially when half the children were objecting at the tops of their voices to being moved. She coaxed and scolded gently, slicked down untidy heads of hair, wiped faces and hands and then, with a minute or two to spare after all, was hurrying down the ward with the intention of swallowing a quick cup of coffee in the kitchen, when the ward doors were swung open—Mr Peters, bother the man, was early.
He was a short man, looking older than his forty years, and already going bald, which might be why he cultivated a heavy moustache and a formidable beard. The children loved him and the nurses went out of their way to fulfil his every whim. He stood just inside the doors now, bellowing good morning to the children, and added: ‘Hullo, Esmeralda—taken you by surprise, have I?’
She fetched up in front of him, said ‘Good morning, sir,’ in an unflurried manner and added: ‘I’ll fetch Sister, she’s in the office.’
‘I know, I’ve been there—I thought you might like to know that I’ve brought someone with me. I’ve known him for years, we were students together—he’s over here doing a few odd jobs, wanted to see the ward.’ His eye roamed round his surroundings. ‘Good lord, girl, Sister Richards’ been having a moving day. Where’s Benny?’
‘Right at the other end, Mr Peters. Sister thought that he might like to see out into the inner yard.’
Mr Peters started up the ward. ‘I’ll say hullo to him while we’re waiting,’ he declared. ‘You might as well come along too.’
Benny was his pet; he was everyone’s pet as a matter of fact. He had come in weeks ago with a congenital dislocation of both hips, which was being painstakingly corrected by Mr Peters’ skilled surgery, and beside having the appearance of an angel, he behaved like one too; he was never put out, grizzly or bored, and his Cockney sense of humour could be relied upon to cheer up anyone within range of his strident little voice, even on the gloomiest of days—but today was fine and warm, for it was almost midsummer, and he was sitting up in his bed, working away at a jigsaw puzzle which he immediately invited them to finish for him. They had obliged with one or two lucky attempts when the ward doors opened once more and the rest of Mr Peters’ entourage spilled into the ward.
‘Go and tell ’em to come up here, there’s a good girl,’ Mr Peters begged Esmeralda, and she set off across the shining parquet.
For some reason everyone had paused just inside the doors, so that she had the whole ward to walk down, and as always when there was someone she didn’t know looking at her, she was conscious of her limp—more conscious than she need have been, too, she thought crossly; the man standing beside Sister Richards was staring at her as though she were exhibit A. She lifted her chin and stared back. He was something to stare at, she had to admit, tall and broad-shouldered and remarkably good-looking, with hair so fair that it was difficult to know if its fairness was silver. She looked away from his cool grey gaze as she reached them and addressed herself to Sister before attaching herself to the outer fringe of the party and going back up the ward once more. It was like Mr Peters to start in the middle of the round instead of at the first bed by the door like everyone else; Esmeralda received the little pile of folders from a harassed nurse and rearranged them quickly; it was too bad of Sister Richards to have had a moving day just before the consultant’s round, and now there was no time to sort out the notes or the X-rays. She sighed, and using the foot of a cot as a desk, set to work to remedy that.
She had taken care not to send more than a fleeting glance in Leslie Chapman’s direction, although she was well aware that he had been trying to catch her eye. How awful if their date for that evening had to be broken for some reason—their first, for though he had been unaccountably friendly towards her during the last week or two, it wasn’t until the previous day that he had asked her out. She stacked the notes tidily, frowning a little; when Leslie had first joined Mr Peters’ team, he had ignored her completely—worse, she had caught him eyeing her crippled foot once or twice with a kind of indifferent pity. And then one day he had stopped her in a corridor and asked some trivial question—she couldn’t even remember what it had been any more, and after that he had shown a decided preference for her company, and when, rather shyly, she had asked him why he bothered to waste his time on a girl with a crippled foot, he had dismissed it airily, just as though it hadn’t mattered at all, although he hadn’t asked how it came to be crippled in the first place, and she, who was so touchy with anyone else who dared to ask her that question, found herself wishing that he would. Perhaps he might even know of someone who could perform a little miracle and turn her foot into a normal one again.
So many specialists had seen it and suggested first one thing and then the other, none of them the least use, so that for the last few years she had refused to have it looked at at all, even kind Mr Peters, when he had mentioned casually not so long ago that he thought he might have a solution, had received a firm refusal, and rather to her surprise, he had accepted it without demur.
She handed Mr Peters the notes he was asking for, caught Leslie’s eye and smiled at him, and then stopped smiling rather abruptly because Mr Peters’ old friend was watching her. She met his look for a moment and then turned away, wondering why he was there; not for consultation, evidently, for he had had little to say so far. True, he was nice with the children and his manner was pleasant and unassuming, but he was making no attempt to draw attention to himself. Probably he was paying a casual visit at Mr Peters’ invitation, but she wasn’t sure about that. He had an air of authority about him, and he was remarkably elegantly dressed for a GP; nothing off the peg—she peeped quickly as she looked for another set of notes; silk shirt, and unless her eyes were deceiving her, expensive shoes on his large feet.
She limped round the cot to prepare the occupant for Mr Peters’ examination, taking care not to look at him again, although she found herself unwillingly wanting to know more about him. It seemed a little pointless to pursue this train of thought, though, for she wasn’t likely to meet him again and it wasn’t important.
But she was to meet him again; Mr Peters came back into the ward several hours later, just after Sister Richards had gone off duty, leaving Esmeralda with a list of jobs to be done, which, even if she had had twelve pairs of hands, she would have no hope of executing. She was toiling through the most tedious of them; arranging the written requests for holidays, days off and the like, so that her superior needed only to consult the neat list when she next made out the off duty, when the office door was opened and Mr Peters came in.
‘Ah, not busy, I see,’ he said; it was his usual greeting whatever the recipient of his attentions was doing, and Esmeralda, inured to constant interruptions, said politely: ‘Oh, no, not in the least, sir. Did you want to see one of the children?’
‘No, you.’
‘Me?’ she asked blankly. ‘Whatever for?’
‘What did you think of Mr Bamstra?’ he wanted to know.
‘That very big…your friend who came this morning? Well, I—I don’t know—I didn’t speak to him.’ Anxious not to hurt his feelings, she added hastily: ‘He looked very nice…’ She was stuck there and finished lamely: ‘The children seemed to like him—he got on well with them.’
‘He gets on well with everyone. That foot of yours—remember how the last time you allowed me to look at it, I told you that what it needed was someone who was a genius with a hammer, to smash the joints and then put them together again properly? Well, Bamstra does just that—half a dozen times so far, and each case a success. I asked him to come over and take a look at you.’
‘You what?’ She wasn’t sure if she felt angry or excited or just disbelieving.
‘Don’t waste time pretending you didn’t hear, Esmeralda, I’m a busy man.’
His tone implied that she was very much at fault and she found herself apologising as he said impatiently: ‘Well, what do you say? He hasn’t time to waste hanging around while you think about it—he’ll want to talk to you and make certain that you’ve a good chance of a complete cure if he does operate. He seemed to think that he could do something from what he saw of you this morning.’
Esmeralda drew an indignant breath. ‘So that’s why you came into the ward first and went right to the other end, and then sent me all the way back with a message—so that he could watch me limp…’ She choked with her feelings.
‘That’s it—how else was he to get a sight of you?’ He added kindly: ‘He wasn’t looking at you, only casting a professional eye over your foot.’
‘Well!’ She had no breath left with which to be indignant. ‘And why, may I ask, am I singled out for his attention?’
‘Because you’re a nice girl and you’ve been taking it on the chin for years, and it’s time that stopped or you’ll turn into a frozen spinster.’
Esmeralda gave him an outraged look and he added quickly, ‘No, on second thoughts you wouldn’t, not with those eyes—my daughter has blue eyes, bless her, but I’ve always fancied green, myself.’ And when she gave a chortle of laughter: ‘I’ll ask Mr Bamstra to come in.’
And before she could say another word, he slid through the door.
For a man of such massive proportions, Mr Bamstra was remarkably silent; he had taken Mr Peters’ place while Esmeralda was still staring at the door. He said with a deceptive meekness which she didn’t for one minute believe: ‘Is it all right if I come in?’
She said vexedly: ‘Well, but you are, aren’t you? Sister left me with a great deal to see to, and I’m not even half way through it all.’
His smile was kind, it was also beguiling. ‘You’re put out,’ he observed, his voice kind too, ‘and I’m very much to blame, but it was a little difficult, you know. I could hardly drop in and say: “Oh, hullo, I’ve come to look at that foot of yours,” could I?’ He added more seriously. ‘I didn’t think you would want it mentioned until we had talked about it.’ He sat down on a corner of the desk, looking down at her with intent grey eyes. ‘You do want it put right, don’t you?’
Her vexation had given way to a rather doubtful hope. ‘Oh, more than anything in the world,’ she assured him fervently. Her green eyes were full of dreams, although her voice was prosaic enough. ‘A great many surgeons have seen it, you know, but just lately I’ve refused to let anyone see it.’
He pushed his large, well-kept hands into his pockets and studied his shoes. ‘Tell me as briefly as you can just how it happened and what treatment you have had.’
He didn’t look at her at all, which made it easier. ‘I was three. I fell off my pony and he trod on my foot—nothing else was injured, just that foot; he crushed the metatarsals, pulped them into a squashy mess. The surgeon who saw it said he could do nothing then, that perhaps when I was older the bones would separate again and he could operate; only they didn’t, they set themselves exactly as they were—they fused into a lump of bone. My mother took me to any number of specialists when I was a little girl, but none of them could do anything—they said that something should have been done when the accident happened. I’ve been to several other specialists since I started nursing, and they all thought that it had been left too late; that I would have to learn to live with it—that the limp didn’t notice very much…’
‘I noticed it,’ said Mr Bamstra with a detached candour which didn’t hurt at all. ‘Shall I have a go?’
Her hands were clasped on her aproned lap, the fingers entwined so tightly that the knuckles showed white. There were no reasons to suppose that this man was any different from the others who had wanted to help her, and yet she felt no hesitation in saying yes: ‘Only it might be a bit difficult. I mean, I’d have to get leave and all that—would it take long?’
‘A couple of months, perhaps. Of course you would be in a walking plaster in no time, so you would be able to get about.’ He stopped looking at his shoes and looked at her. ‘Will you let me see what I can arrange? You would have to come to my hospital, you know.’
‘Oh—where’s that?’
‘Holland—either Utrecht or Leiden, whichever has a bed for you.’ He got off the desk. ‘Think it over,’ he advised her. ‘I shall be here until tomorrow evening.’ He nodded with casual friendliness and left her sitting at the desk, her head in a whirl.
But a look at the clock warned her that sitting and thinking about her own affairs was inadvisable; she couldn’t hope to get finished before Sister Richards came back on duty, but at least she could get as much done as possible. She rushed through the rest of the requests and went down the corridor to check the clean linen, working with such a will that she was all but finished when Sister arrived. She went off duty herself an hour later, her head no longer full of Mr Bamstra’s visit but of the evening ahead of her.
This was her first date for quite some time. Of course she went out often enough with the other nurses, frequently a bunch of them, together with housemen or students, made up a party, but although she was popular in a quiet way, no one had singled her out for an evening à deux, not that that surprised her in the least. If she were a young man, she wouldn’t have bothered with a girl who couldn’t dance, who couldn’t even run for a bus without looking grotesque; she had no brothers of her own but she was aware that young men didn’t like to be made conspicuous. Her mother and old Nanny Toms, who still lived at her home and did the house-keeping, had both assured her over and over again that when Mr Right came along her foot wouldn’t matter to him at all, but here she was, all of twenty-six, and no one, let alone Mr Right, had even taken a second glance at her—not until now. Leslie Chapman’s sudden attentions had taken her by surprise at first, but now, finally won over by his apparent desire for her company and his disregard for her limp, she was allowing herself to respond to him, and because her warm nature had been frustrated, hidden behind the matter-of-fact manner she had learned to assume against pity, it was threatening to take over from her hard-learned common sense.
She made her way to her room, refused the offer of a cup of tea with a handful of off-duty friends, and opened her wardrobe door. Unlike many of the girls she worked with, she had plenty of clothes, pretty and quite often expensive, for again unlike them, there was no need for her to help at home. Her mother had been left comfortably off in the small manor house in the New Forest, and she herself had, over and above her salary, a generous allowance from the substantial capital her father had left for her. Only if she should marry before she was thirty would she come into full possession of her sizeable fortune, and in the meantime the fact that she was by way of being a minor heiress hadn’t altered her independent nature in the slightest; she recognised that it was pleasant to have sufficient money to buy the things she wanted, but she had no highflown ideas about her inheritance and it said much for her nice nature that her friends, even if they were at times envious of her, never cast it in her teeth. And she, for her part, never mentioned it to them, nor, for that matter, did she mention the countless small acts of generosity she performed; the small sums she had lent and never wanted back, the countless times she had stood treat without anyone quite realizing it…she would have been horrified if anyone had found out.
She stood now, debating the merits of a pinafore dress in a soft pink with a white muslin blouse to go with it, or a green-patterned voile dress with a tucked bodice and short sleeves. She had no idea where they were going. Leslie had mentioned, rather vaguely, going out to eat; she had been a fool not to have asked him where. She chose the dress finally, if she wore her thin wool coat over it it would pass muster almost anywhere, and she hardly expected to go to Claridges or Quaglino’s. She bathed and changed rapidly, slid her feet into pale shoes, wincing at the ugly built-up sole on one of them, matched them with a handbag and took a final look at herself in the looking glass. She supposed she looked as nice as she could; her mousey hair shone with brushing and she had coiled it smoothly on top of her head, although one or two tiny curls had broken free at the back of her neck. Her face was nicely made up, the dress was in excellent taste even if it was a little on the plain side, and she forced herself to take a matter-of-fact look at her feet. Standing very still with her crushed foot tucked behind the sound one, it hardly showed, but that was cheating. She brought it into full view and contemplated it in all its clumsiness.
She would have this operation Mr Bamstra had suggested, even if she had to go to the other side of the world and stay for months; Leslie liked her now, perhaps more than liked…surely if she had two good feet he might actually fall in love with her? She turned away from her image, rather defiantly sprayed Dioressence upon her person, and went down to the Nurses’ Home entrance.
Leslie was waiting for her in his Lotus Elan, a showy, rather elderly model with far too much chrome-work on it, and painted an aggressive yellow. Esmeralda didn’t much care for it; her father had always driven a sober dark blue Rover, and her mother, since his death, had merely changed one model for another. She herself had a Mini which she drove rather well despite the drawback of her damaged foot, and that was a sober blue too, but this evening, with Leslie sitting behind the wheel smiling at her, she told herself that she was becoming stuffy in her tastes, even slightly priggish. She hurried towards him, quite forgetting her hideous limp.
He opened the car door for her, his eyes on her face, not on her foot, and at any other time Esmeralda might have asked herself with her usual common sense what there was about her ordinary features which should cause him to look so enrapt, but she had no common sense for the moment. She was spending the evening with one of the best looking young men in the hospital, and these emotions were going to her head like champagne, giving a glow and sparkle to her usual calm.
She got in beside him, scraping her lame foot over the door, and he winced, although when she looked at him he was smiling. ‘You look charming,’ he told her warmly. ‘I thought we’d go to that Greek restaurant in Charlotte Street, if you would like that?’
Esmeralda said with all the eagerness of a happy child: ‘Oh, yes, very much,’ and then sat back while he drove through the hospital gates and joined the evening traffic. He was a showy driver, full of impatience and blaming everyone else except himself, but she wouldn’t admit that, staying quiet until he pulled up with a squeal of brakes outside the restaurant.
It was a small pleasant place with candlelit tables and an intimate atmosphere. They decided on kebabs and Leslie made rather a thing about choosing the wine, so that Esmeralda felt a tiny prick of irritation deep under her pleasure, but she lost it once he had made his choice and settled down to entertain her, and presently, as they ate, he began to tell her of his hopes and ambitions. He had set his sights on a consulting practice, rooms in Harley Street and a pleasant house not too far away. ‘It will be hard work,’ he commented, laughing, ‘but worth it if I have the right girl with me.’ And he had looked at her in a way which quickened her breath.
‘You’ll need an attractive wife,’ she told him, ‘someone who can entertain for you and run your home and join in your pleasures—dancing…’ She drank some wine and looked at him with a calm little face.
He moved restlessly in his chair, although he was smiling at her. ‘There are other things than dancing.’ He added: ‘You’re thinking about that foot of yours, aren’t you? It’s unimportant compared to a great many other things.’
She didn’t stop to wonder what the other things might be; she said eagerly: ‘Oh, don’t you really mind? I’m used to it, of course, but it’s not…’ She smiled widely.
‘That surgeon who came today—Mr Bamstra—he says he can cure it. He’s already done several—he asked me to think about it.’
Leslie looked at her sharply. ‘Did he indeed—he’s a foreigner.’
She looked bewildered. ‘Well, yes—Dutch. But nowadays people don’t seem foreign any more, do they? I’ll have it done…’
Her companion’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t know anything about him—he might just be after your money.’ And when she stared at him in surprise, he went on quickly: ‘Probably he’ll charge enormous fees and you’ll have to borrow to pay him. I know what you nurses get—you’ll be the rest of your life paying it back.’ He smiled then. ‘I only wish I could pay the fees for you.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that there was no need, that she could easily afford to pay him herself; that it had not, in fact, once entered her head, but something stopped her. She didn’t think that he knew about her inheritance, for he had had no way of discovering it, and she wanted him most desperately to like her, for herself and no other reason—and if he did know, she would never be sure if it had been her money… His smile became tender, so that the doubts she had been harbouring melted away. All the same, she decided then and there to allow the Dutch surgeon to examine her foot. If Leslie liked her enough to take her out and not mind her awkward limp, surely if her foot were to be put right…? Esmeralda left the question unanswered.
CHAPTER TWO
ESMERALDA was doing the medicine round the next morning when Sister Richards sailed down the ward to her. ‘It comes to something,’ she complained crossly, ‘when I’m forced to do my staff nurse’s work while she dallies round with the surgeons—a foreigner, too.’ She made it sound as though the visitor had horns and a forked tail. ‘And you’d better not keep him waiting,’ she added unexpectedly, ‘he’s one of those quiet men who explode when you least expect it.’
Esmeralda murmured suitably and hurried away, not caring about the limp for once. She didn’t think that Mr Bamstra would explode, but as she hadn’t had much experience of men, she couldn’t be sure. She hurried on her own account; she had spent a wakeful night interspersed by dreams of a smitten Leslie completely won over, for as in dreams, not only had she two marvellous feet like everyone else, she had become quite beautiful too… She tried to clear her head of these ridiculous ideas as she went. Mr Bamstra wouldn’t want to waste his time, he would expect clear answers to his questions, and somehow she must find the opportunity to ask him about fees.
Mr Bamstra was leaning his enormous bulk against Sister’s desk, studying the off-duty book. He looked up as she went in, said ‘Hullo,’ in a friendly voice and then: ‘What inconvenient off-duty you have!’
It wasn’t at all what she had expected. ‘Well, yes,’ she said because she could think of nothing else on the spur of the moment.
He put the book down and studied her with a detached air. ‘Have you decided to let me have a go?’ he asked her placidly.
‘Well, yes.’
‘Good,’ his voice was casual, ‘I take it you have talked it over with someone or other—your parents?’
‘Well…’
‘Yes?’ He smiled as he spoke and Esmeralda chuckled. ‘I was going to say no,’ she told him forthrightly. ‘You see, Father’s dead, and Mother has spent years trying to get my foot seen to—I thought I’d like to have it all arranged before I told her—she’ll be wild with delight.’ She added: ‘And so shall I.’
‘Ah—there is a young man, perhaps?’
She said seriously: ‘Yes, at least I hope—I think so. He doesn’t seem to mind that I’m a cripple, but it would be so much nicer…only he’s not very keen on you doing it.’
Mr Bamstra studied the nails of his well-kept hands. ‘He doesn’t approve of surgeons?’ His gentle voice would have coaxed words from a stone.
She spoke without thinking. ‘Oh, but he’s a surgeon himself. You met him yesterday—Leslie Chapman.’
Mr Bamstra, finding nothing wrong with his nails, transferred his attention to his well-polished shoes. ‘Ah—I am a foreigner,’ he declared mildly. ‘He thinks I wouldn’t be competent.’
Esmeralda was standing in front of him, her hands clasped in front of her neat waist. ‘He says you’ll charge enormous fees—that you are after my money…’
He threw back his great head and roared with laughter. ‘And is that what you think too, young lady?’
She eyed him impatiently. ‘Of course not! You’re a successful surgeon—I expect your fees are huge, but I don’t suppose you need the money.’ She added reluctantly: ‘Anyway, I can afford to pay them. Leslie doesn’t know that, though.’
Mr Bamstra made a small sound which he turned into a cough. ‘I—er—thought a nominal fee would be in order. After all, the operation is still in its experimental stages—I daresay we might come to some agreement about that; besides, we have a National Health Service in Holland, too.’ He got up from the desk and strolled over to the window. ‘Take off your stockings or tights, or whatever it is you wear, and let me see your foot.’
He examined the poor squashed thing with gentle hands, and when he had finished said, more to himself than to her: ‘The middle metatarsals are flattened and fused, the last two pushed up and out of alignment—they’ll need to be broken down, reset, and those two chisseled back into some sort of shape.’ He set her foot gently on to the floor again. ‘Why on earth didn’t someone do something when it happened?’
‘Well, I was only three, and Mother called in our doctor at once. He had it X-rayed at the local hospital and he felt sure that as the bones were still growing, they would right themselves. I—I was put to bed for a couple of weeks and then encouraged to walk. I had physiotherapy too.’
‘Indeed?’ The surgeon’s face was inscrutable. ‘And it got steadily worse?’
‘Not straight away—it hurt for quite a while, just an ache, you know, and then it stopped hurting and I began to limp. Mother and Father took me to any number of specialists, and they all said that after so many years there was really nothing to be done.’
He nodded his head and took out a notebook and scrawled something in it. ‘I’ll see your matron—no, Principal Nursing Officer now, isn’t it? I feel sure that something can be arranged—would you be prepared for whatever is suggested?’
Esmeralda said eagerly: ‘Of course,’ and felt quite disappointed when he walked to the door.
‘I’ll arrange for an X-ray,’ he told her in such a vague voice that she felt sure that he was thinking about something else. As he went through the door: ‘I’ll keep in touch.’
Which could mean anything, and so often were words uttered by someone who was opting out… She went back to her medicine trolley wondering when she would see him again. If he was a very important man, and he seemed to be, although he had given no hint of that, it would probably be months before she heard. She thanked Sister Richards, fighting a disappointment that was so strong that the muddled state of her usually spick and span trolley caused her to do no more than sigh perfunctorily.
She had put away her medicines and embarked on the daily dressings when Sister Richards stalked up the ward once more.
‘X-Ray,’ she said in tones of umbrage. ‘You’re to go at once, Staff Nurse.’ And then in quite a different voice, letting Esmeralda see the motherliness which only her little patients knew about: ‘What’s the matter, child? Is that foot of yours being a nuisance?’
‘I was going to tell while we had coffee,’ Esmeralda told her breathlessly, and poured it all out in an excited spate of words.
‘H’m—well, there’s no knowing what that foreign man can do, I suppose—the children like him, so I suppose there’s some good in him.’ She reverted to her usual brisk manner: ‘Go along, Staff Nurse, you’re keeping them waiting.’
It was a pity that when Esmeralda returned to the ward it was to find that Leslie had paid his morning visit and had gone again, now it wasn’t likely that she would see him again that day. He had said nothing about seeing her again; nothing certain—although he had hinted that he hoped that their evening out would be one of many, and though he hadn’t kissed her, he had held her hand for quite a long time. Esmeralda, who was old-fashioned and way behind the times in such matters, thought that that constituted quite a step forward. She spent the rest of the day in a rather dreamlike state, wondering about Leslie’s real feelings towards her. She wondered about her feelings towards him too, for somewhere at the back of her mind was an uncertainty that the whole thing might be moonshine: she wasn’t such a fool that she didn’t realize that his interest in her might be fleeting and casual.
But something happened to change that; she was going off duty, her limp rather more pronounced than usual because she was tired, when Leslie caught up with her as she crossed the inner courtyard.
‘So you’ve been X-rayed,’ he remarked in an interested voice, and when she asked in surprise how he knew that: ‘I was down there an hour ago, looking at Benny’s last lot of X-rays, and I happened to see the report on yours. They’re in a mighty hurry, aren’t they? Getting the report out within a few hours—what’s the haste?’
‘I don’t know, unless Mr Bamstra asked them to be quick with it.’ She glanced at her companion’s face, but it looked unconcerned.
‘You’ll tell everyone, of course?’ he wanted to know. They had reached the Nurses’ Home. ‘Oh, yes—and it’s my weekend, so I can go home.’
He smiled charmingly at her. ‘Would it be an awful nerve if I offered to drive you? It’s my weekend too.’ He added softly: ‘And I’m very anxious to know more about it and that you should do the right thing, Esmeralda.’
She stared up at him, trying to read his face. She asked bluntly: ‘Would you be glad if my foot could be put right?’ She took a deep breath. ‘Why?’
‘My dear girl, do I have to dot the I’s and cross the T’s? Of course I would be glad, although you are quite delightful as you are—still, if you’ve set your heart on it…’ The smile came again. ‘I must admit that a doctor’s wife who can dance and play tennis and generally keep her social end up is a great asset.’
‘Oh,’ said Esmeralda, and then again: ‘Oh—well, it would be very nice if you drove me home. You’d stay the night, wouldn’t you?’
He masked triumph with another delightful smile. ‘I’d like to very much—wouldn’t it be inconvenient for your people, though?’
‘Mother won’t mind, and there’s plenty of room— I’ll telephone her tomorrow.’
He caught her hand briefly and gave it a squeeze, and then because a small party of nurses had almost reached them, said a brief goodbye and strode away. Esmeralda, joining her companions, spent the evening in a dream, from which she was impatiently roused by her friends from time to time. ‘Anyone would think that you were in love,’ declared Pat Sims, the staff nurse on the Medical side and one of her closest friends. Esmeralda longed to say ‘I am’ and dumbfound them all, but she held her tongue.
They drove down to the New Forest on the Friday evening—it had been a hot, sunny day and now the warmth was tempered by a small breeze. Esmeralda, in a cool cotton dress, sat contentedly beside Leslie, hardly noticing his impatient driving, her thoughts already far ahead of her, wondering if her mother and Nanny would like him, and what he would think of her home. Once through the worst of the traffic, however, Leslie relaxed a little and laid himself out to entertain her, and the journey passed quickly enough, although she thought secretly that he drove a good deal too fast, and felt relieved when they turned off the A35 on to the open road which would lead them to Burley. It was still light, but the sky had paled and the road ribboned between rolling heath and patches of forest, fading into twilight ahead.
‘There are ponies,’ she warned him. ‘They roam everywhere.’
‘I know that,’ he began impatiently, and then gave an apologetic laugh. ‘Sorry, I must be getting tired—that was quite a list we had this morning.’
Esmeralda was instantly sympathetic. ‘And Mr Peters goes like the wind, doesn’t he?’
Leslie grunted. ‘That Dutchman was there—scrubbed too…showing off…’
She heard the malice in his voice. ‘You don’t like him.’ She started and realized at that moment that she did.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that. He’s so damned sure of himself, though, just because he’s perfected a method of correcting crushed bones—why, anyone could do that.’
‘Then why haven’t they?’ she demanded sharply, ‘And that’s a beastly thing to say, for he’s not here to defend himself.’
Leslie pulled the car savagely round the next bend and had to brake hard to avoid a pony in the middle of the road. He said grudgingly: ‘Sorry again, I told you I was tired—perhaps I shouldn’t have suggested bringing you.’
She protested warmly at that. ‘And if you’re tired, a day at home will be just the thing,’ she assured him. ‘Mother loves having people to visit her and Nanny will spoil you.’
But Nanny did no such thing. Esmeralda, getting ready for bed in her own pretty room, looked back on the evening with mixed feelings. Her mother had been delighted to see her; she always was, for they were devoted to each other, and she had welcomed Leslie with gracious friendliness. They had gone into the low-ceilinged sitting room, with its oak beams and beautiful furniture, and had drinks and Leslie had looked about him and made just the right remarks about everything. He had been impressed, and that had pleased her; she loved her home, and his low whistle of involuntary admiration and surprise as they had approached the house had delighted her, for it was indeed beautiful—not large, but perfect of its kind and set in charming grounds of some size, and he had been just as impressed when they went inside.
It was Nanny who had come to take him to his room. She had entered the sitting room, a round, old-fashioned, cosy woman, no longer so young; submitted to Esmeralda’s affectionate hugs with obvious pleasure and had then said her how do you do’s very correctly, her sharp brown eyes taking in every inch of the young man as she led him away.
It had been an hour later, while they had been waiting for her mother in the drawing room, that Leslie had commented, half laughing: ‘Your Nanny doesn’t like me, I fancy.’
Esmeralda had told him that Nanny quite often didn’t like people when she first met them, which was fairly true but a little disturbing, for she had wanted everyone to like him. She frowned as she got into the little fourposter bed she had slept in all her life; she wasn’t quite sure about her mother either. Her parent had been just as she always was, a delightful hostess, a pretty, middle-aged woman, thoughtful for her guest, prepared to entertain and be entertained, and yet there had been something… Esmeralda rearranged her pillows and frowned heavily in the dark.
It had been a pity that Leslie had made that remark about the silver in the display cabinet—lovely old stuff, worth a fortune, he had said, and although Esmeralda had seen no change in her mother’s expression, she knew quite well that that lady was displeased, and he had made it worse by asking how many servants there were and if the house cost a lot to run. Her mother had answered him lightly without telling him anything at all, and turned the conversation with practised ease to himself and his work. He had made no secret of his ambition, and Esmeralda, defending him, saw nothing wrong in that—young surgeons who wanted to get on early in life, needed ambition to keep them going—only he had rather harped upon money, and she, fortunate to have been brought up in a home where money had been plentiful, and taught from her youth to be glad of it but never to boast of its possession, didn’t quite understand his preoccupation with it. Her father, when he had been alive, had pointed out to her that having money, while pleasant, was by no means necessary for happiness. Leslie seemed to think that it was. She went to sleep thinking about it and woke in the morning with the thought still uppermost in her mind.
It was a gorgeous morning again. Esmeralda dragged on her dressing gown, stuck her feet into slippers and went along to her mother’s room with the intention of sharing morning tea, a little habit they had formed after her father’s death. Once curled up on the foot of her mother’s bed, sipping her tea, Esmeralda plunged into the subject uppermost in her mind.
‘Do you like Leslie, Mother?’ She leaned across and took a biscuit.
Her parent eyed her fondly. ‘He’s a very attractive man, darling, and I’m sure he’s clever—he should go far in his profession. Is he sweet on you?’
‘Mother, how old-fashioned that sounds! I don’t know—would you mind if he were?’ She didn’t give Mrs Jones time to reply but went on eagerly: ‘You see, he doesn’t mind about my foot, and if I had it put right…’
‘Yes, dear, we must have a little talk about that—there wasn’t much opportunity last night, was there? You’ve decided to have something done?’
‘Do you think I should? It was all rather unexpected and I don’t want to be rushed into anything—only this Mr Bamstra…’
‘Such a nice man,’ interpolated her mother unexpectedly.
‘Mother, you don’t know him? How could you—you’ve never met.’ Esmeralda turned bewildered green eyes on her mother’s unconcerned face.
‘I met him on Thursday; he came to see me about you—to explain about…no, dear, don’t interrupt. I think it was very nice of him. Not every mother likes the idea of her daughter going off to another country, even if it is for an operation by an eminent surgeon.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘Pass your cup, love.’
She poured more tea while her daughter held her impatience in check. ‘I like him,’ said Mrs Jones at length, ‘and so did Nanny; she gave him some of her cowslip wine, and you know what that means—what’s more, he drank it like a man and complimented her on it in a nice sincere way, nothing fulsome.’ She popped a lump of sugar into her mouth and crunched it. ‘Nanny says he’s Mr Right.’
‘Mother!’ exploded Esmeralda. ‘He’s years older—at least, I suppose he is—he must be married and have a horde of children. Besides, there’s Leslie.’
‘Yes, dear, that’s what I told Nanny just now when she brought me my tea. What would you both like to do today? You don’t need to go back to Trent’s until tomorrow evening, do you?’ She passed the rest of the biscuits to her daughter. ‘What does Leslie think of this operation?’
‘He isn’t very keen—well, he wasn’t at first. He doesn’t like Mr Bamstra, although yesterday he said it might be a good idea…’
‘A doctor’s wife—a successful doctor’s wife—would have a certain number of social duties,’ mused her astute parent, ‘naturally, it would be very much to your—and his—advantage if you had two pretty feet.’ She paused. ‘Do I sound heartless and flippant, darling? You know I’m not—if I could ever have that foot of yours, I would; I’ve never ceased to regret…”
Esmeralda bounced across the bed and put her arms round her mother’s shoulders. ‘Mother darling, you’ve always been a brick about it. If it hadn’t been for you being so sane about it, I should have been a neurotic old maid by now. It was you who showed me how to live with it, and I do, you know—only now, with Leslie… I’d like to take a chance.’
‘It won’t be a chance; not with that nice man, it’ll be a certainty.’
Esmeralda had thought vaguely that they might ride over the forest during the morning. She rode well herself—everyone did in that part of the country, although she didn’t hunt; she had too much sympathy for the fox, but ambling around on her mare Daisy was something she enjoyed, and it surprised her, when she broached the subject at breakfast, to discover that Leslie didn’t ride; what was more, he didn’t like horses. She had noticed the previous evening that he had repelled the advances of Maudie and Bert, the elderly labradors, but she had excused him then on the grounds of him not knowing them, but now it was apparent that he didn’t like animals very much. She suggested a walk instead and was instantly sorry, for he said at once in a concerned voice: ‘Oh, my dear, no—not with that foot of yours.’
Nanny had been passing as she spoke and she had uttered the small tutting sound which Esmeralda remembered so well as a sign of her disapproval. She had given Nanny a green stare of anger; couldn’t she see that Leslie was concerned for her comfort? She agreed readily enough after that to go in his car to Ringwood, where they wandered round the shops amongst the holidaymakers, an exercise far more tiring to her crippled foot than a morning’s stroll in the forest. It was fortunate that after lunch Mrs Jones should suggest that they might go over to some friends a few miles away and swim in their pool. ‘They told me to bring you over the next time you were home,’ she declared, ‘and it’s a heavenly day. I’ll take my car, shall I? I know the way.’
The friends lived in a Victorian villa of great size and ugliness but with plenty of ground around it. The pool was at the back of the house and already the younger members of the family were in it or lying around in long chairs at its edge. Swimming trunks were found for Leslie, and Esmeralda went off to change.
She knew everyone there; most of them since she had been a small girl. She dived neatly off the side and swam a length or two before going to the side to call Leslie. ‘It’s heavenly,’ she cried, ‘come on in!’ And she swam off again, as smoothly as a seal, happily aware that however much she was hampered on dry land, in the water she was just about as good as she could be, so that his look of surprised admiration made her glow with happiness. The glow faded a little when she got out of the water and went to sit with the rest of them; no one took any notice of the grotesque little foot stretched out on the grass, no one save Leslie, who gave it a quick, furtive glance and looked away again, and then, as though fascinated, looked again. But his manner towards her didn’t change; he was still charming and just a little possessive and full of praise for her swimming; the glow started up again, so that her lovely eyes sparkled and her cheeks pinkened, and when they went back home after tea she told her mother, quite truthfully, that she hadn’t enjoyed herself so much for years.
She changed into one of the pretty dresses hanging in the fitted cupboard in her room and went along to her mother’s room once more, to perch on the bed and watch that lady do her face.
‘Mother, what did Mr Bamstra say?’ she asked at length.
Her mother laid down her lipstick and turned to look at her. ‘He told me exactly what he was going to do; he told me that he intended to arrange for you to go to Holland so that he could operate there—in his own theatre. He said that you would be walking, God willing, with all the grace of a princess—yes, he said that—in a matter of two months, and dancing like a fairy in three. He suggested that I might like to come over and see you, and of course I said yes.’
‘That would be marvellous, but Mother dear, how am I to get leave to go?’
Her mother smiled. ‘I think perhaps he has all that sorted out.’ She turned back to her mirror. ‘Your father would have liked him.’ She added on an afterthought: ‘He comes from Friesland, I suppose that’s why he’s so very outsize.’
She gave a final pat to her hair, mousey hair like her daughter’s and only lightly streaked with grey. ‘And now let’s go downstairs and give that young man of yours a drink.’
The evening passed pleasantly and Leslie was so charming and such an entertaining companion that Esmeralda relaxed completely; her mother must surely see now just how super he was. She went to bed presently, feeling quite content with her world. Everything was going to come right after all; she wouldn’t be a cripple any more, and Leslie would go on falling in love with her and they’d get married. She floated off to sleep on a dream, which, while quite impractical, was nevertheless most satisfying.
And nothing happened on Sunday to mar her satisfaction. They went to church in the morning, taking it for granted that Leslie would go with them, and when they got back Esmeralda went to the kitchen to help Nanny to get the lunch, just as she had always done, for Dora, Nanny’s niece, had the day off on Sundays, and Mrs Pike, the daily help, never came at the weekends.
‘He’ll have to put up with cold,’ said Nanny as soon as Esmeralda put her face round the door. ‘There’s soup and a raised pie I made yesterday, and one of my trifles.’ Nanny, over the years, had turned out to be as good a cook as she had been a nanny. She thumped the pie down on the large scrubbed table in the middle of the kitchen and said rather crossly: ‘You can make a potato salad, Miss Esmeralda, if you’d be so good.’ She stirred her soup. ‘Do you see much of this young man at the hospital?’
‘Well, yes, Nanny—he’s the registrar on the ward where I work, you know. I see him most days.’
‘And after work too, I’ll be bound.’ Nanny’s voice was sharp.
‘Sometimes. Don’t you like him, Nanny?’ Esmeralda’s voice was wistful although she didn’t know it.
‘Now, love, if he’s the man for you and you want to marry him and he’ll make you happy for the rest of your life, then I’ll dote on him.’ She bustled to the sink and turned on the taps with a great deal of vigour. ‘I hear from your mother that you’re going away to have that foot of yours seen to. I always knew that there was someone in the world who could put it right for you. It’ll be a treat to see you dance—I only hope I live to see the day.’
Esmeralda put down the potato cutter she was busy with and went over to the sink. ‘Nanny, what a thing to say! Why, you’ve always vowed that you’ll be nanny to my babies even if you have to live to be a hundred.’
Nanny thumped a saucepan down hard. ‘And it’ll have to be a good deal sooner than that if I have my wish, and I will. You mark my words—Nanny’s always right.’
And having uttered this familiar phrase, so often repeated during Esmeralda’s childhood, she nodded her head, picked up her pie and told her erstwhile nursling to make haste with what she was doing.
Lunch was a gay meal and afterwards they sat in the garden, doing nothing much until Esmeralda went to get the tea, because on Sunday afternoons Nanny went into Burley to have tea with a friend and then go to church with her—and then it was time for them to drive back to London. When their goodbyes were said, Esmeralda was quick to notice that her mother didn’t suggest that Leslie should come again, although she said in her sweet, rather vague way: ‘I expect we shall see each other again, Leslie,’ and added the motherly rider: ‘And do be careful driving, won’t you. You know what the Sunday evening traffic is at this time of year.’
He had carried their cases out to the car then, and Esmeralda had hugged her mother and seized the opportunity to say: ‘I’m very happy—I really am. I’ll be down again just as soon as I know what’s happening next.’
‘Do, darling. I had thought of doing a little shopping soon. We might manage an hour or two together while I’m in town. I’ll only come up for the day, though— London’s awful at this time of year.’
They smiled at each other with deep affection and Esmeralda got into the car. Leslie was already in it; he leaned across her and shut the door and waved a careless hand, but she waved until her mother was a speck on the porch before the door.
They stopped for dinner at Alton, and because the traffic had been thick on the road and there were still another fifty miles to go, Leslie was a little impatient. Esmeralda, who was hungry and had been looking forward to a leisurely meal at the Swan or Alton House, found herself eating a leathery omelette and refusing a pudding so that they could get on to the road again as soon as possible. But she was happy enough not to mind too much, and when they at length reached the hospital and Leslie dropped her off at the Nurses’ Home and kissed her rather perfunctorily, she was more than content; she hadn’t been kissed so many times that she was aware of its lack of warmth. She went up to her room, made a pot of tea, had a bath and got into bed, to fall asleep at once.
CHAPTER THREE
ESMERALDA didn’t see Leslie during the whole of Monday; by the evening she was as cross as two sticks and her long-suffering friends were glad when she declared that she had a shocking headache and would go to bed early.
‘Clever Boy hasn’t been near her all day,’ explained Pat. ‘He’s playing the poor poppet like a trout; he’s after that money of hers, of course—it’ll come in handy when he sets up in Harley Street, won’t it?’
There was a general snort of indignation. ‘Can’t we warn her?’ asked someone.
Pat shook her head. ‘Esmeralda’s a darling,’ she said, ‘still believes in fairies and being happy ever after and strong, silent heroes. She’s also got a very nasty temper once it’s aroused; she’d only throw everything in sight at us and do exactly what she wanted.’ She paused to refill her mug from the teapot. ‘But now I’ll tell you something. You know Paddy, the new radiographer? Well, he told me that that foreign surgeon—old Peters’ friend, isn’t he?—asked for an X-ray of her foot. Now I wonder…’
Her friends drew a little closer. They were fond of Esmeralda and the more worldly ones had a very shrewd idea of the registrar’s plans—not that they had any objection to him marrying money if he wished to, but they didn’t like the idea of him marrying Esmeralda in order to get it. ‘And for heaven’s sake,’ said Pat, ‘if this man’s going to patch up her foot, let her have some fun with it before she settles down—and not with our Leslie. Now, not a word from anyone. She’ll tell us when she’s ready, bless her, and it’ll be up to us to encourage her to have something done. Who knows, while she’s away Clever Boy will probably find himself another heiress.’
Esmeralda went on duty the next morning in a decidedly touchy mood, divided between the hope that Leslie would surely pay his usual daily visit to the ward, and the determination to treat him with casual coolness. She didn’t have long to wait before getting the chance to carry out her intentions; he came through the doors a few moments after Sister Richards had gone across to drink coffee with Sister Brown on Women’s Surgical, and made straight for her as she went from cot to cot, charting the TPRs.
He said at once with an apologetic smile: ‘Hullo—yesterday wasn’t the same, not seeing you, but each time I started off to come here, I got held up.’
Esmeralda’s green eyes were very bright; she had seen him on two separate occasions during Monday, being held up by two of the prettiest nurses… ‘Oh? I had a busy day too, as a matter of fact. I’m busy now; Sister wants this done before she gets back.’ She smiled nicely at him and hoped that the pleasure of seeing him didn’t show too clearly on her face. It couldn’t have done, because he was taken aback.
I thought we might have had five minutes together in Sister’s office,’ he frowned. ‘You’re a bit scratchy, aren’t you?’
No girl, however much in love, likes to be called scratchy by the object of her affections. Esmeralda frowned quite fiercely. ‘I am…’ she began stiffly, and stopped abruptly because the ward doors had been opened and Mr Bamstra was advancing towards them with his leisurely stride. He interrupted them without apology, bidding them good morning in a no-nonsense voice.
‘If you could spare me five minutes of your time, Staff Nurse?’ he enquired with the faintest hint of sarcasm. ‘In Sister’s office, I think—I have asked her permission to interrupt your work.’ He bestowed a frosty smile upon the registrar and then turned his back on him, his eyebrows lifted. ‘Now?’ he queried gently. ‘I am rather busy.’
She went down the ward with him, a little pink in the face, the built-up sole of her shoe sounding like thunder in her ears, but for once she didn’t care, and when he asked: ‘Did I interrupt something? I do hope not.’ She said peevishly: ‘Yes, you did—surely you could see…’
‘Oh, dear, yes,’ he assured her blandly. ‘All your little patients could see too—were you quarrelling?’
They had reached the office door and he opened it and stood aside for her to stomp past him, then he shut the door quietly behind him and leaned against it, staring at her. ‘Never mind—next time you meet him you will have forgotten what it was all about,’ he told her kindly, and smiled. ‘But much though I would like to, I have no time to advise you on your—er—affairs of the heart. No, don’t interrupt me, I beg you, just listen to what I have to say and then I’ll go. I’ve spoken to your Principal Nursing Officer and she suggests that the best thing for you to do is to resign as from now—you have three weeks’ holiday due, I’m told, which means that you will be free to leave at the end of next week. When you are fit to work again, you will be re-engaged—about ten weeks’ time, I should suppose, but we can’t be too arbitrary about that at the moment. There will be a bed for you at Leiden and if you can arrange to come over on—let me see, today is Tuesday—Sunday week, I will see that you are met at Schiphol.’
He had his hand on the door, ready to leave. ‘Get a single ticket,’ he warned her, ‘for you might wish to return by sea.’ He actually had the door open when she managed to get a word in.
‘You went to see Mother.’
‘Ah, yes—it seemed to me that she should know a little about me and about the operation I propose to do on your foot. I had no opportunity of telling you,’ he assured her suavely.
She choked with temper. ‘I’m quite old enough to tell my mother myself!’
‘Of course you are, but mothers are prone to worry about their children, aren’t they? I might have been a charlatan, you know; convincing enough to have taken you in and charming enough to persuade you against your better judgement, as well as emptying your pockets. Now she is satisfied that I am merely a run-of-the-mill surgeon with a passion for straightening crooked bones.’
Esmeralda’s bad temper had melted away, and she nodded her head like a small, obedient girl. ‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed, and smiled. ‘Nanny liked you.’
‘A mutual liking, I assure you.’ He nodded briefly and went, leaving her with a dozen questions on her tongue and no one to answer them.
Most of them were dealt with by Miss Burden, whose summons to the office she obeyed half an hour later, and if she had had any doubts about the whole undertaking, that lady’s calm acceptance of the situation put them completely at rest. ‘Take your days off on Friday and Saturday of next week,’ she commanded kindly. ‘I will speak to Sister Richards—that will give you time to pack your things and go to your home. I understand from Mr Bamstra that you are to fly and that he recommends a late afternoon flight—he asked me to give you this telephone number so that you may let him know at what time you will arrive at Schiphol.’ She smiled briefly. ‘I daresay you are surprised that you have been asked to resign, Staff Nurse, but that seems to be the simplest way of doing things; as soon as you are pronounced fit for work again, you may apply for your post and I am sure that you will get it again without difficulty, but should you feel that you needed a quieter job, it leaves you free to take one. I should point out to you, however, that Sister Richards will be retiring soon and I have long considered you as Ward Sister in her place, but that is a matter to be discussed later. Whether Mr Bamstra will find you fit for light duties before you return here is entirely up to him.’
Esmeralda said: ‘Yes, Miss Burden,’ and thought privately that there were a great many loopholes in the scheme, but it was hardly her place to say so. People like Miss Burden seldom admitted to mistakes; to be fair, they seldom made them. She went back to the ward, her head filled with a nice jumble of what clothes to take with her, plans for a day at home before she left, and the resolve to give a party to her friends. Strangely enough, she had forgotten all about Leslie.
The rest of that week and the next went very quickly, it was Friday before Esmeralda realized it; the evening before she had filled her room to capacity with all her friends and handed round sherry—good sherry at that, and plates of delicious bits and pieces she had fetched from Fortnum and Mason. There had been a lot of laughter and joking, and although they had talked about her trip to Holland, the reason for her going was passed over lightly, although they had taken it for granted that she would be with them again in two or three months’ time.
She hadn’t seen much of Leslie, although he had taken her out for a drink earlier in the week and managed to have a quick chat with her when they had met in the hospital. He had adopted a slightly proprietorial role towards her and she rather liked it. No one—no young man, at any rate, had ever been like that before; she blossomed under his attentions, scanty though they were, and when she wished him goodbye she felt emboldened to ask: ‘Could you come over and see me? Later, I mean…’
He had responded with flattering eagerness, kissed her lightly and on the plea of urgent work elsewhere, strode away. She had waited to see if he would turn round and wave, but he didn’t.
And as for Mr Bamstra, she didn’t see him at all; presumably he had gone back to Holland, and in due time she would be put on his theatre list and be just another operation.
She drove herself down to the New Forest in the Mini, crowded round with her possessions, and any half-smothered ideas about Leslie going with her were scotched by his regretful explanation that he had promised to stand in for the Surgical Registrar so that he might go home on family business. She had been disappointed, but there was no point in making a fuss, and he had said that he would come and see her while she was at Leiden—at least, Esmeralda corrected herself, he had almost said so.
She arrived home in a cheerful frame of mind, nonetheless, to be fussed over and spoilt by her mother and Nanny, both of whom talked of nothing else but her forthcoming journey. Leslie wasn’t mentioned at all, but Mr Bamstra was, frequently, but in an oblique, vague fashion which made him not so much a person as a nebulous fount of wisdom. The two days passed too quickly, Nanny occupying them in going over Esmeralda’s clothes and re-packing them in what she considered to be the correct manner, and Esmeralda and her mother pottering round the garden, which they both loved, or going for gentle walks in the forest while they made plans about telephoning each other and when and where they would do so.
She left on Sunday, driving her mother’s Rover, with her parent beside her and Nanny on the back seat. They would see her off and then drive back to Burley, and now that she was on the point of going, Esmeralda had the unpleasant feeling that she was being hustled and bustled into a situation she wasn’t too keen about. After all, supposing her foot couldn’t be put right, supposing Mr Bamstra made a botch of it…impossible of course, she couldn’t imagine him making a botch of anything, all the same… She shook off a vague depression, made cheerful conversation all the way to the airport and bade her companions goodbye in a bright voice, even making a little joke about dancing to meet them the next time she saw them, and then followed the rest of the passengers to the aeroplane.
It took her most of the short journey to talk herself into a rational state of mind, but by the time they touched down at Schiphol she was, outwardly at least, quite composed, and allowed herself to be wafted along the telescopic corridor to the airport itself, where she transferred herself to the travelator. Once in the reception area, she found her luggage, offered her passport for inspection and then made a little hesitantly for the Tourist Bureau in the centre of the vast place; she had been asked to wait there when she had telephoned the time of her arrival and the unknown, friendly voice which had answered her had been very insistent about that.
She stood quietly, a porter beside her, and wondered which of the mass of people milling around her would be the one looking for her. None of them, as it turned out; Esmeralda was eyeing a matronly lady obviously in search of someone and wondering if she should accost her, when she was tapped on the shoulder, and when she turned round it was to find Mr Bamstra, elegant and cool in a thin tweed suit, smiling pleasantly down at her. His hullo was friendly and he followed it with a conventional ‘Welcome to my country, Esmeralda,’ as he turned to speak to the porter. As the three of them set off, Esmeralda said tardily: ‘Hullo—I didn’t expect to see you.’
‘I try to keep Sundays free,’ he told her gravely. ‘The car’s through this door.’
He led the way outside to a crowded car park, and she wondered, as she limped along beside him, which of the cars would be his. There was a predominance of small, ugly Citroëns, large handsome Citroëns, and Mercedes, but none of these were his. He stopped beside a Bristol 114, large, elegant, and a pleasing shade of dark grey; a very expensive car, she knew that, with a subdued, understated style which made the cars around it look a little vulgar. She thanked the porter, got into the front seat at Mr Bamstra’s invitation, and waited while the porter was tipped, her baggage stowed and her companion had taken his place beside her.
‘It was kind of you to meet me,’ she observed as he wove his way towards the motorway running close to the airport. ‘Are we going straight to the hospital?’
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