A Girl in a Million

by Betty Neels

  ‘Then you’ll have to do something about it.’ She sounded quite fierce.

  ‘Very well,’ said Mr van Houben, allowing a vague plan to take shape at the back of his powerful brain. ‘I’ll see what can be done.’

  He wouldn’t say any more. They ate their duckling with orange sauce, straw potatoes and baby carrots, followed by feather-light castle puddings, and then sat over their coffee.

  ‘I must say that you live very comfortably,’ said Emmie, reverting to Dutch. ‘I mean, you’ve got the house in Amsterdam and Fram and Anna to look after you, and when you come here you’ve got the Breezes—I must say she’s a splendid cook.’ She glanced at her brother-in-law across the table. ‘Don’t you ever want to marry and spend your money on a wife and children?’ She saw his quick frown. ‘Oh, I know you almost married, but that was years ago. Do you ever think about her?’

  He said rather curtly, ‘No,’ but Emmie persisted.

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember what she looks like any more…?’

  He gave a reluctant laugh then. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘So there you are. Come and stay with us when you have a few days to spare, Marius, and I’ll line up some girls for you to meet.’

  ‘The very idea terrifies me. Shall we go back to the drawing-room? Bartus should be back soon. I’m taking Corinna out to dinner, by the way.’

  He had closed the door in her face; they were fond of each other but he had never permitted her to know too much of his private life. They spent the next half-hour talking about nothing in particular, although Emmie returned over and over again to Marc.

  ‘Try not to worry,’ her brother-in-law advised her gently. ‘I think it’s very likely that Marc senses your fears and that isn’t going to help him.’

  He was sitting opposite her in one of the comfortable armchairs scattered about the room, unshakeably calm. He smiled at her very kindly and she smiled shakily back. ‘You’re really a very nice man,’ she told him. ‘I’m going to feed the baby. When Bartus comes, will you both come up and see her?’

  Bartus came in very shortly afterwards and the two men sat talking until the maternity nurse who was to stay until Emmie and Bartus went back to Holland came to tell them that Mevrouw was waiting for them.

  Mr van Houben took Corinna to the Savoy, a cousinly gesture which delighted that young lady. ‘You have no idea how dull it is in the hospital,’ she confided. ‘Oh, I like the work, I really do, and when I’ve trained I shall come home and specialise in something or other.’

  ‘No, you won’t—you’ll get married.’

  ‘Well, yes, I intend to do that as well, but I’m not going to sit idle waiting for someone to come along and fall in love with me. You wouldn’t if you were me, would you?’

  ‘Certainly not. How much longer do you have to do?’

  ‘Four months.’

  He watched her spoon her raspberry sorbet and added, ‘You can’t leave before then?’

  ‘Of course I can. Trained staff have contracts, or if they don’t they have to give quite a long notice.’

  ‘But students may not return and resume their training if they change their minds?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I shouldn’t think so; if they did they’d have to lose training-time—make up whatever time they’d been away for. I didn’t know you were interested in nurses?’

  He shrugged. ‘Idle curiosity.’ He sat back while she studied the sweet trolley. Just for a moment he wondered if Caroline would enjoy dinner at the Savoy. No, not the Savoy, somewhere quiet and small…

  ‘I shall have the trifle,’ said Corinna. ‘It’s loaded with calories but it’s mince tomorrow and I never eat that, so it won’t matter.’

  She gave him a wide smile across the table. ‘You really are a dear, Marius. I got out quite a bit with some of the housemen, but they don’t run to the Savoy.’

  He took her back to the hospital and drove thoughtfully back to his house.

  The next morning he went in search of Sister Crump. He found her with little Marc, checking his charts, and since he was asleep she went with him to her office.

  ‘I shall be glad when Nurse Frisby gets back from nights off. I suppose it’s a dull job, sitting with the child for hours on end, but they don’t seem to have the good sense to stimulate him when he wakes. He’s getting on well though. Have you come to see Mr Spence? He’ll be here directly—it’s his round.’

  ‘Yes, I have, Sister, but I wanted to talk to you too.’

  She sat down behind her desk and he took the only other chair in her office, a small wooden one which creaked alarmingly under his giant person.

  ‘This may not be possible,’ he began, ‘but regarding little Marc’s future treatment…’ He talked for some time and Sister Crump listened without interrupting.

  Only when she saw that he had finished speaking did she say, ‘Well, it would be an ideal arrangement. Marc has always responded to her, you know, and she is—how shall I put it?—steadfast. It is possible for a nurse not to give up meticulous treatment upon an apparently moribund patient while in her mind she has convinced herself that it is useless. Nurse Frisby is like a bulldog; once she gets her teeth into something, she doesn’t let go. We have her to thank for his recovery, I consider. Just sitting there day after day, enticing him back, if you see what I mean.’

  For Sister Crump, who never spoke more than half a dozen words at a time, this was an unusual speech.

  ‘You will do all you can to further my idea?’

  ‘Yes, most certainly. I pride myself on getting my patients well, by whatever means. It remains for Mr Spence to agree…’

  ‘Oh, he’ll agree. What about the nursing hierarchy?’

  Sister Crump chuckled. ‘There will be three of us… but of course, Nurse Frisby has to agree without any coercion.’

  ‘Of course. I shall leave that to you and Mr Spence.’

  She shot him a thoughtful glance. ‘Very well.’ She looked at the clock. ‘He should be here at any moment.’

  Mr Spence came into the office as she spoke.

  He wished her good morning and turned to Mr van Houben. ‘Marius—the very man I wanted to talk to. You will be going back to Holland in a day or two? I think we should come to some decision about Marc, don’t you? I’m taking him off everything in easy stages; we shall have to keep an eye on that lung for a while but I’d like to get him back to normal life in moderation. You agree? That means his return to his own home, and to be on the safe side I’d like a nurse with him for a period of time, depending on how he gets on. Could you find a suitable nurse and drill her before we send him back?’

  ‘We were talking about that when you came in. What’s wrong with sending Nurse Frisby home with him for a while? He responds to her more so than to any other person, other than his parents, of course. It might cause a bit of a set-back if we change his nurses midstream?’

  Mr Spence nodded. ‘I like the idea. What about Nurse Frisby?’

  ‘She doesn’t know anything about it,’ Mr van Houben said blandly. ‘She might possibly refuse—she would have every reason to do so; she is still training and I’m not sure how a period away from the hospital would affect that.’

  ‘A special case?’ Mr Spence looked at Sister Crump. ‘What do you think, Sister?’

  ‘I should have thought the two of you could bend the rules a bit. You’ll need to get the SNO on your side. I think it’s a good idea and I’m sure that if Nurse Frisby is approached in th
e right way she will agree. Whoever sees her had better be ready with all the answers—she’s a quiet little thing, but no fool.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘No time like the present,’ she said briskly. ‘The SNO will be in her office for the next half-hour.’

  Mr van Houben leaned over the desk and kissed her cheek. ‘You’re a jewel of a woman,’ he told her. ‘When I marry we shall have you for godmother for our eldest.’

  ‘That’s as likely as a pig flying,’ she said, but all the same she smiled widely. ‘And remember to let me know what is to happen.’

  Mr Spence was at the door. ‘I’ll be back,’ he promised her.

  Caroline had four nights off and the weather was kind, so that she could spend her days in the garden, planting seeds and bedding out the various things her aunt had nurtured in her tiny greenhouse; and when she wasn’t doing that they shopped in a leisurely fashion in the village stores, and she and Aunt Meg went into Basingstoke and had a good prowl round Marks and Spencer, planning her spring wardrobe. Each morning, as soon as they had had breakfast and she had helped with the chores around the house, she took herself off on her bike and wandered round the ruins of Basing House. There wasn’t much left of it, it had been looted and destroyed by fire during the Civil War, but there was a beautiful dovecote, quite undamaged, and the surrounding grounds were a pleasant place in which to wander. They had been excavated and yielded a rich harvest of Iron Age pottery, Roman coins and bits and pieces left over from the Civil War, and Caroline was always hopeful of finding something herself. Not that she looked very hard, but mooned around, enjoying the quiet and the splendid views, her thoughts vague and dreamy until she looked at her watch and remembered that she had promised to do the shopping and plant the wallflowers… Her aunt never reproached her if she had been away too long, only Theobald, sitting as usual in the porch, cast a reproachful eye upon her.

  Three days didn’t last forever, and the cumbersome pile of the hospital looked unwelcoming as she crossed the forecourt, thankful that she was on the morning shift for a week…

  She went on duty at half-past seven the following morning, delighted to find that Marc had shed most of the paraphernalia to which he had been attached for so long. She took the report from the night nurse and was delighted when he woke up and smiled at her.

  ‘Well, well, and what have you been doing since I saw you last?’ she wanted to know.

  He told her in his own language, of course, and she nodded and smiled and said, ‘Well, well I never…’ and tickled him gently so that he gurgled with delight.

  Mr van Houben apprised of her arrival and approaching quietly, congratulated himself on the brilliance of his scheme. It merely remained for him to convince the girl that she would be rendering a vital service by going to Holland with Marc.

  His good morning was casual but pleasant. Caroline, who hadn’t expected to see him, murmured something as she sat down and he sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘I think we might have a talk,’ he said, and smiled charmingly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘WHAT about?’ asked Caroline, refusing to be charmed.

  ‘Mr Spence considers that Marc is almost well enough to go back to his home in Holland—another week or ten days; he has suggested to me,’ said Mr van Houben, lying with a calm face, ‘that a suitable nurse should go with him—a new face might bother the little chap. It seems to be a good idea, do you not agree?’

  ‘Well, yes, but it’s nothing to do with me…’

  ‘No, no, of course not. I expect you will be glad to get back to your usual ward duties.’ He stayed a little longer but didn’t mention the matter again and presently he went away, well satisfied. Unless he was mistaken, Caroline Frisby, seeds of the idea planted in her head, would be all the more willing to listen to Mr Spence, if only to take him down a peg for assuming that the thought of sending her with Marc had never entered his head. He strolled into Sister Crump’s office and over coffee told her that he would be in touch with Mr Spence. ‘I have to go back to Holland this evening,’ he added, ‘but I’ll get him to talk to my sister—if Nurse Frisby agrees…’ He smiled slowly. ‘But she will, of course.’

  Caroline, reciting ‘Hickory, Dickory Dock’ over and over again, because Marc found the bit about the mouse running up the clock irresistibly funny, allowed her thoughts to dwell on Mr van Houben. He hadn’t said so, but it seemed to her that he didn’t consider her suitable to go back with Marc to his home; indeed, he had implied that she was longing to go back to the ward. Of course, it was for Mr Spence to decide, but the pair of them seemed on very good terms and from what she had seen of Mr van Houben he possessed great powers of persuasion coupled with an ability to keep things to himself if he wished. Perhaps it was Nurse Foster he had in mind. Caroline left the mouse and the clock for the moment and started on ‘Goosey Goosey Gander’ for a change. Madge Foster was all right, she supposed—very clever theoretically, and quite unable to make a patient comfortable in bed. However, she was also a pretty girl; not only that, she had heard with her own ears Madge telling Marc’s mother that she loved foreign languages; seemed to have an ear for them and had no difficulty in picking up the basics… ‘The sly creature,’ declared Caroline loudly, with the result that Marc laughed and brought her to her senses.

  There was absolutely no point in getting annoyed; she wasn’t even trained yet and Madge would be taking her finals in a few months.

  Three days went by, and there was of course no sign of Mr van Houben. It wasn’t until Marc’s mother mentioned casually that he was in Holland that Caroline knew that. A good thing too, she reflected, always poking his nose in… That she missed him was something she had no intention of admitting even to herself.

  Mr Spence came twice a day, but beyond routine questions and a polite hello and goodbye he had nothing to say to her, and Madge was looking very smug.

  ‘Never mind how I know,’ she whispered to Caroline before she went off duty, ‘but a nurse is to go back with Marc to Holland—’ she smiled in a pleased manner ‘—and I think it’s going to be me. After all, I’m almost trained and I speak fluent French and German…’

  ‘I thought they spoke Dutch in Holland,’ said Caroline matter-of-factly, and Madge gave her a sharp look to see if she was being got at.

  ‘Well, of course they do, but I’m very quick at languages; besides I’ve been top of my set for all the tests.’ She paused to think. ‘I wonder what kind of social life there is there?’ She closed her lovely blue eyes for a moment and sighed happily. ‘They’re loaded, you know.’

  Caroline chose to be dim. ‘Who? The Dutch?’

  ‘Don’t be so stupid—Marc’s people, of course.’

  ‘Did you ask them?’

  Madge turned to go. ‘You’re hopeless; no wonder none of the men will even look at you—your brain’s as dull as your face.’

  Caroline watched her go; if you were pretty enough you could get away with any amount of rudeness. All the same, remarks like that had a nasty habit at least of hovering at the back of one’s mind.

  She turned her attention to Marc and was sitting on his bed giving him his morning milk when Sister Crump and Mr Spence came in together.

  It was after an unusually lengthy examination of the little boy that Mr Spence asked, ‘Could a nurse be found to relieve Nurse Frisby for a little while? I should like to have a talk. You too, Sister.’

  Caroline, following them out into the ward and into Sister Crump’s office, wondered wha
t she had done, and was still going over her various duties as Mr Spence politely stood aside to let her enter Sister Crump’s office on the heels of that lady.

  Inside she was offered the chair while he leant against the wall, his hands in his pockets. He stared at her in a rather intimidating way so she looked at Sister Crump, her hands quiet in her lap while her insides churned.

  ‘Marc will be going home in a week’s time,’ said Mr Spence. ‘I should like you to accompany him and stay for a couple of weeks while he adjusts to home life again. He likes you and his parents approve of you. They live in Alpen-aan-de-Rijn, which is near Leiden and is surrounded by very pretty country. Mevrouw van Houben would of course wish to talk to you should you agree to go with them to settle all the details and so on…’

  ‘I wouldn’t be allowed to go,’ sighed Caroline. ‘I’m not trained, sir, I’m only in my second year, and I’m not sure if I would be able to break my training.’

  ‘That is a matter which I think can be dealt with satisfactorily if you agree to go with Marc. You would perhaps like a little time in which to think it over?’

  Caroline knitted her mousy brows. ‘No, I don’t think so, thank you, sir. If you think it is a good idea for me to go back with Marc, then I’ll go. As long as it doesn’t interfere with my training.’

  ‘Spoken like a sensible woman. I will see that you are kept informed, Nurse.’

  At a nod from Sister Crump she went back to Marc, nettled at being called a sensible woman, although she was fair enough to assume that he had meant it as a compliment. Her feelings were soothed by Marc’s pleasure at seeing her again. He was a dear little boy, still given to lapses of silence alternating with restlessness, but there was every chance that within a few weeks now he would be leading the normal life of a small boy of his age.