by Betty Neels
Abigail murmured suitably and enquired if the doctor had left any message for her.
‘No,’ said Mrs Goldberg, ‘because he’ll be here in a couple of hours. Clara will tell you all about herself, won’t you, Girlie?’
Abigail judged it a good idea to get her oar in before her patient did, for she looked ill and tired and that was probably why she looked peevish. Her voice was persuasive. ‘Would you like me to give you a bed-bath and a fresh nightie and make you more comfortable? You’ll feel better for it.’
Her patient agreed, and while she submitted to Abigail’s kindly hands, discoursed at length upon her condition, its seriousness, the possibility of an operation, the need for her to return to the States as soon as she could, and the kindness of her friends the Goldbergs. That there was a thick thread of self-pity winding through her narrative was natural enough; it hadn’t taken Abigail long to gather that her patient was rich, spoilt and self-indulgent. She had, it transpired, been widowed twice, and, a still attractive woman in her early forties, was prepared to marry again should she find someone she liked sufficiently. Abigail listened without envy, because it wasn’t in her nature to be envious, and a certain amount of pity, because it seemed to her that Mrs Morgan was lonely too, despite her silver-backed hairbrushes and silk nighties and enormous bottles of perfume. But talking cheered her up, and by the time Abigail had smoothed the last wrinkle from the sheets, she declared that she felt a new woman.
‘I do believe we’re going to get on just fine,’ she declared. ‘I must admit that the idea of an English nurse didn’t appeal to me, but I’ll admit to being mistaken, though your uniform is pretty antiquated, isn’t it?’
Abigail admitted that perhaps it was. ‘They’re trying to change the uniforms in England, but you see, some of the hospitals are very old and they like to keep their own, however old-fashioned. Especially the caps—it’s like a regimental badge, everyone knows which hospital you were trained at just by looking at your cap.’
‘Well, I must say whoever thought of yours had a nice eye for something sexy.’
Abigail was folding towels neatly. No one had ever called her cap sexy before! She remained silent, nonplussed, and then said:
‘I think a nice milky drink, don’t you? I’ll go along and see about it.’
Milk and water, in equal proportions with afters of Mist. Mag. Tri., were her patient’s portion for lunch. Abigail measured carefully, arranged the two glasses on a little tray with a pretty cloth and bore them away to the sickroom, where she put the tray on the bed table, together with a selection of novels, the daily paper and a handful of glossy magazines, and then, quite famished, found her way to the dining room.
Mr Goldberg had come home to lunch. A small fat man with large glasses and a fringe of greying hair, possessed of a charming smile. Abigail liked him at once and wasn’t surprised to hear that he was something important to do with a permanent trade mission—anyone with a smile like that deserved to have a top job! They sat her between them at a large rectangular table and plied her with food. It was cold and grey outside, but here in the warm, over-furnished room, there was no need to think about the weather. She drank her soup, accepted a glass of wine and embarked on beef olives while she listened to her host and hostess and made polite replies to their questions whenever they asked them, which was frequently. She would have liked to have lingered over coffee with them, but she was on a job, after all. She excused herself and went back to her patient to find her asleep.
It seemed a good opportunity to unpack her few clothes and scribble a quick note to Bolly; most likely she would have the chance to post it before bedtime; if not, surely the hall porter would do it for her. She wrote the address with a little lump in her throat, because Bolly would probably be sitting by himself in that dreadful little back room with no other view than the house behind.
Dr Vincent came shortly afterwards. He was a tall man in his thirties, with regular features and an excellent command of the English language. He was obviously relieved to see Abigail and after he had examined Mrs Morgan and talked to her for a little while, he retired to the sitting room with Abigail so that he might discuss their patient. They sat opposite each other, on the edge of over-stuffed and very large easy chairs, because to sit back in them would have meant a complete loss of dignity on both their parts and the doctor was nothing if not dignified. He took her carefully through the ins and outs of Mrs Morgan’s illness. ‘This evening a specialist will come, Nurse—I shall of course accompany him. He is a consultant surgeon at several of our big hospitals and very well known. I feel that his opinion will be invaluable. It would be a pity for our patient to undergo an operation unless it is absolutely necessary. If we can get her well enough, she would much prefer that she should return to the United States with all speed. You are prepared to stay here until she returns, I hope?’
Abigail said that yes, she was. ‘What have they in mind?’ she wanted to know. ‘A gastrostomy? Surely if it’s a bad ulcer they’ll have to do an end-to-end anastimosis.’
Dr Vincent eyed her warily. ‘I think, Nurse, that we must leave such things for Professor van Wijkelen to decide.’
With a name like that, Abigail thought flippantly, a man ought to be able to decide anything. He would have a beard and begin all his remarks with -er. She would probably dislike him. Dr Vincent was speaking again, so she listened carefully to his instructions and forgot about the professor.
He came that evening, an hour or so after her patient had had another glass of milk and water with its attendant powder, and Abigail herself had had a short break for her own tea. Mr and Mrs Goldberg were out, and it had been brought to her on a tray in the sitting room. It had been pleasant to sit down for a little while on her own, while she had it, and then have the time to tidy herself, powder her ordinary nose and put on more lipstick. The results weren’t very encouraging, she considered, looking in the bedroom mirror. She had gone back to her patient’s room and taken her temperature and pulse, and sat her up more comfortably against her pillows, and was on a chair in her stockinged feet, reaching for a vase of flowers which someone had placed out of reach, and which, for some reason, Mrs Morgan had taken exception to, when there was a knock on the door and Doctor Vincent came in. The man who came in with him eclipsed him completely. He was a giant of a man, with a large frame which radiated energy despite the extreme leisureliness of his movements. He was handsome too, with pale hair, thickly silvered at the temples, a high-bridged nose and a well-shaped, determined mouth. His expression was one of cold ill-humour, and when he glanced up at her, still poised ridiculously on the chair, Abigail saw that his eyes were blue. It struck her with something of a shock that they were regarding her with dislike.
She got down off the chair, the flowers clutched in one hand, hastily put them down on one of the little tables which cluttered the room, crammed her feet into her shoes and reached the bedside at the same time as the two men. Doctor Vincent introduced the professor, adding a corollary of his talents, and Mrs Morgan, suddenly interested, shook hands. ‘And our nurse,’ went on Doctor Vincent, ‘arrived from England today and is already, I see, attending to the patient’s comfort. Miss Trent, this is Professor van Wijkelen, of whom I spoke.’
She held out her hand and he shook it perfunctorily and said nothing, only looked at her again with the same cold dislike, before sitting on the side of Mrs Morgan’s bed and saying, ‘Now, Mrs Morgan, will you tell me all your troubles, and perhaps Doctor Vincent and I can help you to get well again.’
His voice was charming, deep and quiet and compelling, and Mrs Morgan was nothing loath. Her recital, with various deflections concerning her own personal courage in the face of grave illness, her fears for the loss of her good looks and the fact that she had been twice widowed, took a long time. The professor sat quietly, not interrupting her at all, his eyes upon her face while she talked. He seemed completely absorbed and so, to his credit, did Doctor Vincent, who, Abigail guessed, must have heard
the tale at least once already. She herself stood quietly by the bed, a well-trained mouse of a girl, her eyes, too, on her patient, although she would very much have preferred to fix them upon the professor.
Mrs Morgan finished at length and the professor said, ‘Quite, Mrs Morgan,’ and went on to ask her several questions. Finally, when he was satisfied with the answers, he turned to Abigail and asked her to prepare Mrs Morgan for his examination. He asked courteously in a voice of ice; Abigail wondered what had happened to sour him and take all the warmth from his voice as she bent to the task of getting Mrs Morgan modestly uncovered while the two men retired to the window and muttered together in their own language.
‘He’s ducky,’ whispered Mrs Morgan, and then sharply, ‘Don’t disarrange my hair, honey!’
She lay back, looking, to speak the truth, gorgeous. Abigail, obedient to her patient’s wish, had been careful of the hair; she had also arranged her patient’s wispy trifle of a bedjacket to its greatest advantage. Now she stood back and said briskly, ‘Ready when you are, sir,’ and watched while the professor conducted his examination. He prodded and poked gently with his large, square hands while he gazed in an abstracted fashion at the wall before him. At length, when he had finished and Abigail had rearranged Mrs Morgan, he said: ‘I think that there will be no need for an operation, but to be quite sure there are several tests which it will be necessary to do, and I am afraid that they must be done in hospital.’ He paused to allow Mrs Morgan to pull a pretty little face and exclaim:
‘Oh, no, Professor—I was so utterly miserable when I was there just a week ago, that’s why I engaged Nurse Trent here.’
‘In that case, may I suggest that you take her with you to hospital? She can attend you during the day and I am sure that we shall be able to find an English-speaking nurse for night duty. I should suppose that three or four days should be sufficient, then you can return here to await the result of the tests. If they are satisfactory, a week or so should suffice to see you on your feet again and well enough to return home.’
‘If you say so, Professor,’ Mrs Morgan’s voice was just sufficiently plaintive, ‘though I’m sure I don’t know how I shall get on in that hospital of yours. Still, as you say, if I take Nurse with me, I daresay I’ll be able to bear a few days.’
She smiled at him after this somewhat frank speech, but he didn’t smile in return, merely inclined his head gravely and offered his hand.
‘You’ll come and see me again, Professor?’ Mrs Morgan was still smiling. ‘I sure feel better already, you’ve a most reassuring way with you.’
If the professor was flattered by this remark he gave no sign. ‘Thank you, Mrs Morgan. I think that there is no necessity to see you again until you enter hospital. I will arrange that as soon as possible and you will of course see me there.’
‘I look forward to that—and be sure that I have a private room. I’m so sensitive, I can’t bear the sights and sounds of hospital, Professor.’
He walked to the door and then turned to face her with Doctor Vincent beside him. ‘I feel sure that Doctor Vincent will arrange everything to your liking, Mrs Morgan, and you will have your nurse to shield you from the—er—sights and sounds you so much dread.’ His smile was fleeting and reluctant, a concession to good manners, and it didn’t last long enough to include Abigail. He nodded curtly to her as he went away.
Surprisingly, he came the following day, late in the afternoon when Abigail had returned from her few hours off and was sitting with her patient, reading the New York Herald Tribune to her. She read very nicely in her quiet voice, sitting upright in a truly hideous reproduction Morris chair. She had enjoyed her afternoon off, and wished that her patient lived in one of the old houses beside the canals, because she would have dearly loved to see inside one of them. The flat in the Apollolaan was comfortable to the point of luxury, but all the same, she wouldn’t have liked to live in it for ever, but the brick houses with their gabled roofs reflected in the still waters of the grachten—they were a different matter; it would be wonderful to live in their serene fastness.
The morning had been successful too; Mrs Morgan seemed to like her, for she had chatted animatedly while Abigail performed the daily nursing chores, talking at great length about Professor van Wijkelen. ‘A darling man, Nurse,’ she mused. ‘I must find out more about him—such good looks and such elegance.’ She smiled playfully at Abigail. ‘Now mind, dear, and tell me anything you should hear about him. You’re bound to find out something in the hospital, aren’t you?’
Abigail had said that probably she would, provided she could find someone who could speak English. She had gone to lunch with Mr and Mrs Goldberg after that, and they had asked her a great many questions about her patient and seemed, she thought, a little relieved that dear Clara was to leave them for a day or two. Without someone in constant attendance, she must have put quite a strain on their good-natured hospitality.
Mrs Goldberg had asked her kindly if she had everything she needed and to be sure and say if she hadn’t and then told her to hurry out while she had the chance. And Abigail had, wrapped in her well-cut but not new tweed coat against the damp cold winds of Amsterdam. She hadn’t been able to do much in two hours, but at least she knew where she would go when next she was free; the complexity of grachten, tree-lined, their steely waters overlooked by the tall, quaintly shaped houses on either side of them, needed time to explore. There was no point in looking at the shops, not until she had some money to spend, but there was enough to see without spending more than the price of a tram fare.
The knock on the bedroom door had taken them both by surprise. Mr and Mrs Goldberg were both out, neither Abigail nor her patient had heard the maid go to the front door. She came in now and said in her basic English, ‘A person for the Zuster.’
Abigail put down the paper, which she was a little tired of anyway, saying: ‘Oh, that will be instructions from the hospital as to when we’re to go, I expect. I’ll go and see about it, shall I?’ and followed the maid out of the room. The visitor was in the sitting room. Abigail opened the door and went in and came to a standstill when she saw the professor standing before the window, staring out.
‘Oh, it’s you!’ she declared, quite forgetful of her manners because of her surprise, and was affronted when he answered irritably:
‘And pray why should it not be I, Nurse? Doctor Vincent has been called out unexpectedly and finds himself unable to call, and I had to come this way.’
‘Oh, you don’t have to explain,’ Abigail said kindly, and went on in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘You’ll want to see Mrs Morgan.’
‘No, Nurse, I do not. I wish merely to inform you that there will be a bed in the private wing tomorrow afternoon. Be good enough to bring your patient to the hospital at three o’clock. An ambulance will fetch you—you will need to bring with you sufficient for three days, four perhaps. Be good enough to see that Mrs Morgan fasts from midday tomorrow so that no time is wasted.’
He spoke shortly and she wondered if and why he was annoyed, perhaps because he had had to undertake Doctor Vincent’s errand, although surely he had a sufficiency of helpers to see to such mundane things as beds … He looked very arrogant and ill-humoured standing there, staring at her. She said briskly, ‘Very well, sir—and now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back to my patient.’
He looked faintly surprised, although he didn’t bother to reply. Only as she started for the door did he ask, ‘What is your name?’
She barely paused. ‘Trent, sir.’
He said impatiently, ‘I am aware of that—we met yesterday, if you care to remember. What else besides Trent?’
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to mind his own business, but she wasn’t given to unkindness and perhaps he had some very good reason for looking so irritable all the time. ‘Abigail,’ she offered, and watched for his smile; most people smiled when they discovered her name; it was old-fashioned and quaint. But he didn’t smile.
&nb
sp; ‘Why?’
‘I was born on a Saturday,’ she began, a little worried because he wasn’t English and might not understand. ‘And Abigail …’ She paused. ‘It’s rather a silly reason and I don’t suppose you would know …’
He looked more annoyed than ever, his thick almost colourless brows drawn together in a straight line above a nose which to her appeared disdainful.
‘You should suppose nothing. I am sufficiently acquainted with your English verses—Saturday’s child has to work for her living, eh? and Abigail was a term used some hundreds of years ago to denote a serving woman, was it not?’
‘How clever of you,’ said Abigail warmly, and was rewarded with another frown.
‘And were your parents so sure that you would be forced to work for your living that they gave you this name?’
She said tight-lipped, because the conversation was becoming painful:
‘It was a joke between them. You will excuse me now, sir?’
She left him standing there and went back to her patient, who, on being told who the visitor was, showed her displeasure at not receiving a visit, although she brightened again when Abigail pointed out that she would see a good deal of him in hospital once she was settled in there. They spent the rest of the day quite happily, with Abigail opening and shutting cupboards and drawers in order to display various garments to her patient, who, however ill she felt, intended to look as glamorous as possible during her stay in hospital. It was much later, when Abigail had packed a few things for herself that, cosily dressing-gowned, she sat down before her dressing-table to brush her hair for the night. She brushed it steadily for some time, deep in thought, and she wasn’t thinking about herself, or her patient or Bollinger, but of Professor van Wijkelen. He was the handsomest man she had ever seen, also the most bad-tempered, but there had to be a reason for the look of dislike which he had given her when they had met—as though he had come prepared to dislike her, thought Abigail. She finished plaiting the rich thickness of her mousy hair and stared at her face in the mirror. Plain she might be, but in an inoffensive manner—her teeth didn’t stick out, she didn’t squint, her nose was completely unassuming; there was, in fact, nothing to cause offence. Yet he had stared at her as though she had mortally offended him. She put the brush away and padded over to the bed, thinking that she would very much like to get to know him better, not because he was so good-looking; he looked interesting as well, and for some reason she was unable to explain she found herself making excuses for his abrupt manner, even his dislike of her. She got into bed wondering sleepily what he was doing at that moment—the idea that he was a happily married man dispelled sleep for a few minutes until she decided that he didn’t look married. She slept on that surprisingly happy thought.
