Esmeralda

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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