Esmeralda

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.