Three for a Wedding

by Betty Neels

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE rest of the day was exciting, tiring and somewhat frustrating; everything was just a little different. She had accompanied the Directrice to her office, drunk coffee and listened to the details of the life she would lead while she was in the hospital, given in a fluent though sometimes quaint English; her salary, her off duty—which the Ward Sister would discuss with her—the length of hours she would work, the advisability of getting herself a dictionary at the first convenient moment … Full of undigested information, she was handed over to the Nurses’ Home warden, a white-overalled, elderly woman who walked her through a great many corridors and small passages, an odd staircase or two and through a door in a wall which opened into a modern hallway. That at least, thought Phoebe, was exactly the same as the hall in the Nurses’ Home at St Gideon’s. Apparently hospital decorators the world over had the same unimaginative ideas about dark varnished wood and pale green walls. But her room, when she reached it, was pleasant, with a gay bedspread and curtains and a cheerful rug. Left to herself, she unpacked, changed into her uniform and mindful of her instructions, found her way back to the hospital and into Zaal Drie.

  Zaal Drie was really three smallish wards, connected to each other by means of archways driven into the ancient walls of the hospital, the only evidence of the building’s great age, for the beds, furniture and furnishings were modern and brightly coloured. There were flowers too and some budgerigars adding their tiny voices to the cheerful din, for it was already mid-morning and those children who were up were having lessons at a centre table in the first ward. They paused in whatever it was they were reciting under the direction of their young teacher and turned to stare at Phoebe, who stared back, wondering what she should do next—a problem solved for her; a small door beside her opened and the Ward Sister came out.

  Doctor van Someren had told her that everyone would speak English, but she hadn’t expected quite the degree of fluency she was encountering. Zuster Witsma addressed her in welcoming tones: ‘Ah, our English Zuster! We are all glad that you are here, and we wish you a happy stay. Come, we will have coffee and then I will show you round. Doctor van Someren tells me that you are—are bijdehand,’ she tried again, ‘handig’, and Phoebe said quickly, ‘Oh, I think you must mean handy.’

  Zuster Witsma smiled. She had a round, friendly face and Phoebe guessed her to be about her own age. ‘That you can do all things,’ she explained happily as she offered Phoebe a mug of coffee across her desk. ‘Now I will tell you all—day duty first, and then night duty every four weeks—one week. We work from seven in the morning until three o’clock on one day and on the other day from two o’clock until ten in the evening. The night nurses do duty from nine in the evening until half past seven in the morning. You find the hours strange, yes? But they work very well, you will see,’ she nodded her head encouragingly. ‘There is always much to do for the children; they depend on us to keep them happy too, and Doctor van Someren will not have that they are treated as sick. Even when they are very ill he does not like that they should know, only then we put them into the last ward—but never until there is nothing more to do, you understand.’ Her blue eyes surveyed Phoebe. ‘You are very pretty.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Phoebe smiled at the other girl, liking her, finding herself looking forward to the weeks of work ahead. ‘Where would you like me to start?’

  The rest of the morning passed on wings; at midday she went down to the basement, through a labyrinth of passages and odd stairs, with some of the other nurses, and ate her dinner with them in a long dark room with a row of small windows at one end, and listened to the chatter going on around her, wishing she could understand at least some of it, although everyone was very kind. Some of the nurses spoke good English, all had a smattering, and they took care to include her in their conversations when they could. She went back to the ward presently, to do the medicine round with Zuster Witsma and be shown the mechanism of admitting a patient, which was exactly the same as in an English hospital, and then to be initiated into the mysteries of writing the report, finally to be told kindly that she might go off duty. ‘There will be things you wish to do,’ said Zuster Witsma in a friendly voice, ‘and perhaps a little walk, no? Tomorrow at two o’clock you will come again.’

  Phoebe went off duty, conscious of a keen disappointment because she had seen no sign of Doctor van Someren; there had been a young doctor, who, before doing his round, had been introduced as Doctor Pontier, the Registrar. There were two other house doctors, he told her gravely, whom she would meet in due course, and he and they would be glad to help her in any way they could. He had smiled at her, openly admiring of her good looks, and had said with a flattering eagerness that he hoped that he would see more of her soon. She dismissed him from her thoughts as soon as she reached her room; it was already past three o’clock; she had intended to write a letter home, now she had the far better idea of telephoning. She changed out of her uniform and hurried out of the hospital and was on the point of opening its front door when a pretty blonde girl, also on her way out, stopped. ‘The English nurse?’ she asked cheerfully. ‘You would like that I go with you and show the way?’

  Her name was Petra—Petra Smit. She was, she told Phoebe rapidly in fluent, ungrammatical English, a trained nurse working on the surgical ward. ‘We all hear about you,’ she informed Phoebe gaily, ‘we hope that you will like us.’

  Phoebe assured her that she would and went on to explain that she wanted to telephone. Half way through her explanation she put her hand to her mouth. ‘Money!’ she exclaimed. ‘What a twit I am—I haven’t any Dutch money. I never thought to change it before I left and then I didn’t think about it …’

  ‘Easy,’ said her companion. ‘The banks are closed, you understand, but there is a shop—they will take your English money.’

  Phoebe got her money, and armed with it and still in the faithful Petra’s company, she went to the Post Office where her companion, with pressing business of her own, left her, giving her instructions as to how to get back to the hospital before she did so, instructions which Phoebe immediately forgot in the excitement of speaking to Aunt Martha. But it was a small town, she told herself unworriedly as she strolled along in the warm sunshine, and when she saw a tea-room on the corner of two narrow streets, she went in, took a table in one of its windows, watching the people and bicycles crossing and re-crossing the complexity of canals and bridges while she drank her tea and then applied herself to the street map Petra had thoughtfully bought for her. Refreshed, she set off on a voyage of discovery—the Prinsenhof, she soon discovered, was a useful centre from which to find her way. She had peered into no more than half the shops around it when the city clocks reminded her that it was five o’clock and supper at the hospital was only an hour away. She loitered along, peering down the narrow streets and along the canals, each lined with houses, some built into the water itself. They were narrow and old, their gabled roofs rising sharply, each with its tiny window at the very top—she longed to explore one of them.

  She played tennis after supper. Somewhere at the back of the hospital a hard court had been made in the square of ground around which the greater part of the building was built. Someone lent her a racquet, the evening was bright and still warm, and they were evenly matched. The four of them stood, getting their breaths before they played a final set, and Phoebe peered up at the windows around them, wondering which belonged to Zaal Drie. She had given up hope of finding it when a movement at one of the windows caught her eyes. Doctor van Someren was standing there, watching them. She looked away quickly and when they began the next set, her play, to her vexation, was indifferent, but at the end of the game, when she stole another look, he had gone. It was no comfort to her that she played quite brilliantly during the next game.

  She admitted to disappointment when she didn’t see him during the following day either, for he had done a round, Zuster Witsma told her, that morning, and although the Registrar came during the aft
ernoon, bringing one of the housemen with him, and both young gentlemen made themselves very pleasant to her, she went down to her supper quite put out. That this was a foolish attitude on her part she was the first to admit. There was no reason why the doctor should make a point of seeing her; she had come to learn his methods—just as easily learned from Zuster Witsma and the medical staff—and he was, moreover, an important man in his own world—he had, to coin a phrase, other fish to fry.

  She went back after supper and set about settling the children for the night. They were tired now, but some of them, despite this, were determined to stay awake as long as possible and tired though they were, couldn’t settle. She thumped up pillows, rearranged bedclothes, squeezed oranges and as a last resort with one small boy, Dirk, who had worked himself into quite a state, lifted him out of his bed and sat him on her knee, and because she could think of nothing else to do, began to talk to him in English. That he couldn’t understand a word didn’t seem to matter; her voice was soothing and gentle, presently he chuckled, tucked his lint-fair head into her shoulder, and forgetting to wail, stared up at her with huge blue eyes. She tucked him a little closer; he was one of the ones who wasn’t going to get well, so the Registrar had told her; he had been in hospital for almost a year, on and off, and Doctor van Someren had done wonders but it was a losing battle, although, he had hastened to add, several of the children went home much improved. One day they would cure all the children, he had said determinedly, and Phoebe, recalling Doctor van Someren’s absorbed face when he was on his ward round, found herself agreeing, for she imagined him to be a quietly persistent man who didn’t take no for an answer.

  She winked a gorgeous long-lashed eye at Dirk and looked up to see the man she was thinking about standing beside them. She hadn’t heard him come into the ward, probably because she hadn’t expected him. She was still deciding what to say when he said ‘Hullo, Phoebe,’ and added something in his own language, and when she asked in a whisper what it was he had said he shook his head and smiled. ‘All alone?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, but only for a short time—Zuster Witsma’s gone to supper and the night staff will be here shortly.’

  He sat down on the edge of Dirk’s bed. ‘You think you will like it here?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, very much—I felt a bit lost yesterday and today …’ There was faint reproach in her voice although she was unaware of it, but he must have heard it, for he said at once: ‘I do a good deal of work at Leyden—the Medical School is there, as you know, but I contrive to come here at least once a day, twice if necessary—sometimes more often. I must confess I like working here, although a more out-of-date place would be hard to find.’

  ‘But it’s beautifully equipped.’

  He nodded a little absently, staring ahead of him and frowning. Presently he asked: ‘You’re comfortable in the Nurses’ Home? I’m afraid you can’t qualify for the Sisters’ quarters.’

  She flushed. ‘That’s quite all right. I knew I’d be working as a staff nurse. I don’t deserve it anyway. My room is very comfortable and everyone is kind to me.’

  He got to his feet, took the sleepy Dirk from her and laid him in his bed. His good night was abrupt and she stared after his broad back in surprise, wondering if she had said something to annoy him.

  She was on duty at seven o’clock the next morning, and when Zuster Witsma came on at eight, she did the medicine round with her again, studied a case history with an eye to Doctor van Someren’s methods, and then listened to the Ward Sister’s painstaking explanations of the smallest detail to do with running the ward before going down to the dining room for her coffee. She was half way through the ward door when Zuster Witsma called her back.

  ‘A little talk about your journey home for your sister’s wedding,’ she said kindly. ‘Doctor van Someren has asked me to arrange that you have a sufficiency of free days—for such an important family event it is necessary that you have the maximum.’ She led the way into her office, waved Phoebe to a chair and sat down at her desk. ‘It is easy,’ she went on, refreshing her memory from the odds and ends of forms, notebooks and folders before her. ‘You will do the night duty—seven nights, and then you will have five nights in which to make your trip.’

  She beamed across at Phoebe and Phoebe beamed back because she had been worrying as to how she should ask for the time off. Apparently Doctor van Someren wasn’t so forgetful after all! ‘That will be lovely,’ she agreed. ‘It’s in a few weeks’ time …’

  ‘Just right; by then you will know the ward routine and you will have learned a little of Dutch, yes?’

  Phoebe echoed the yes and hoped she would. It sounded an awful language, but perhaps by then she would have picked up an odd word or two—surely if everyone around her could speak at least a little English, she could do the same with Dutch. She remembered the dictionary in her uniform pocket and promised herself a little steady work with it each day.

  She went to coffee then, wondering why Doctor van Someren hadn’t seen fit to tell her that she would be able to go home—perhaps he considered it hardly his business; she was not a very important cog in the wheel of his scheme, and there was no reason for him to put himself out.

  She was free that afternoon, she went out into the early June sun, determined to see as much as possible. Her guide book told her to go to the Markt, with its fourteenth-century New Church and its Town Hall, but although she started off in that direction, she quickly became diverted by a great many other things equally interesting. Shops for a start, little streets with old crooked houses which looked half forgotten, canals lined with trees and behind them, gracious houses with narrow flat fronts and heaven knows what treasures behind their solid doors. She strolled along, looking almost fragile in her sugar pink cotton dress, oblivious of the admiring glances cast at her as she walked. She had stopped to listen to a street organ when a bunch of small boys came tearing along, on their way home from school, she supposed, stepping prudently against the wall to give them room on the narrow pavement. But they stopped, pushing and shoving and fighting as small boys will, hemming her in entirely, so that she came in for more than her share of kicks and blows. Phoebe tucked her handbag under her arm for greater safety and, conscious of sore shins and trodden-on feet, gave vent to her feelings.

  ‘Oh, move on, do!’ she apostrophised them loudly. ‘Quarrelsome brats, why don’t you kick each other’s shins instead of mine?’

  Naturally no one took any notice, at least, none of them except one small boy of about eight who had just fetched her an unintentional blow with his school satchel—its buckle had etched a weal above her wrist. They stared at each other for a long moment and she realised with a shock that he had understood what she had said. He put his tongue out at her, shouted something at his companions, and they all made off together—a good thing, she thought crossly, for her own tongue had itched to retort in kind.

  The weal was still very much in evidence when she went on duty the following morning. Zuster Witsma, clucking sympathetically, cleaned it up, but nothing could disguise the nasty bruise around it. She had told everyone that she had bumped into something and left it at that, and when Doctor van Someren, with his registrar and a posse of students entered the ward, she took care to keep her hands behind her back, just in case he might, for no reason at all, want to know how she had come by it, and she had no intention of telling him —she might never see the little boy again, but that was no reason to tell on him.

  It was unfortunate that during the round she should be asked to get one of the children ready for examination, for the bruise, although she did her best to conceal it, was very much in evidence; but it wasn’t until the round was over, the students bunched at the ward doors, the Registrar standing a little apart and Doctor van Someren standing in the middle of the ward having a few words with Sister, that Phoebe, hanging up charts and tidying beds and buttoning pyjama jackets, saw Zuster Witsma look across the ward in her direction and then walk towards her. She wa
s smiling largely, as though she were the bearer of splendid news. ‘Doctor van Someren wishes to speak to you—in the office. Go quickly, Nurse Brook, he is not to be kept waiting.’

  Phoebe saw no reason to go quickly; it smacked of being back at school, summoned to the Head because she had been naughty, and as usual, caught at it. The thought put her in mind of the little boy; for some reason his angry face with its thatch of fair hair had stayed in her memory. She pushed open the door, feeling faintly angry herself.

  Doctor van Someren was standing by the narrow window, his hands in his pockets, his attention apparently taken by the blank brick wall which was all the view there was, but he turned round as she went in and said without preamble: ‘Ah, yes—you have a bruise on your arm. Why?’

  And there’s a silly question, thought Phoebe pertly. ‘Something hit it,’ she told him, the pertness in her voice.

  He glanced at his watch and frowned. ‘Do not waste my time, I beg of you, Miss Phoebe Brook; I am responsible for your person while you are here. I wish to be certain that the—er—something was reasonably clean.’ He raised his eyes to her face. ‘I am indifferent as to its cause; I have no wish to pry …’

  Phoebe could feel her annoyance melting away. She caught at the shreds of it and said a little tartly: ‘I’m quite capable of looking after myself, and you have no reason to worry, it was only a school s—the buckle of a bag—someone quite accidentally swung it against my arm. It’s as clean as a whistle.’

  He was staring at her with a kind of alert thoughtfulness which she found strangely disconcerting; just as though he had remembered something and was putting two and two together.

  ‘Yes? Very well—but please take care; you are not to be replaced.’