ESMERALDA.

By: BETTY NEELS.

Dear Reader, Looking back over the years, I find it hard to realise that twenty-six of them have gone by since I wrote my first book--Sister Peters in Amsterdam. It wasn't until I started writing about her that I found that once I had started writing, nothing was going to make me stop--and at that time I had no intention of sending it to a publisher. It was my daughter who urged me to try my luck.

I shall never forget the thrill of having my first book accepted. A thrill I still get each time a new story is accepted. Writing to me is such a pleasure, and seeing a story unfolding on my old typewriter is like watching a film and wondering how it will end. Happily of course.

To have so many of my books re-published is such a delightful thing to happen and I can only hope that those who read them will share my pleasure in seeing them on the bookshelves again . And enjoy reading them.

CHAPTER ONE.

The orthopaedic ward for children at Trent's Hospital was in the throes of its usual periodical upheaval: Sister Richards, on the edge of retirement, and, after a lifetime of caring for the small, sick children, a trifle eccentric, was making the cot change, an exercise which entailed her little charges being moved up and down the ward as well as from side to side, until none of them-and that included the nurses--knew exactly where they were any more, so that the children were either screaming with delight at being at the other end of the ward, or roaring with rage at being moved at all, and the nurses, especially those who were new to the experience, were on the edge of hysterics. And this time she had been fortunate in enlisting the help of the two hous.e.m.e.n who had unwittingly arrived to write up their notes, and instead now found themselves, under Sister Richards' inspired direction, shifting cots too. One of them, trundling a cot containing a very small and cross girl, asked furiously: "Is she out of her mind? Can't someone stop her? My notes..."

The girl he had addressed was guiding him towards the far corner of the ward.

"Certainly not," she protested in a pleasant, cheerful voice, although it held a faintly admonishing note.

"It works splendidly, you know--the children are mostly here for weeks and they get bored; moving them round is good for them--they never know where they'll be next."

"And nor do you, I'll be bound. Staff."

"Well, it's a bit awkward at first, but we soon get sorted out."

They pushed the cot into a corner, and he said: "I do believe you like the old thing."

"Yes, I do--and she's a wonderful nurse." He stood aside and watched her settle the small girl against her pillows, thinking that she seemed a nice little thing; not much to look at though; too small and thin, and all that mousey hair piled high--if it wasn't for her eyes she would be downright plain, but those green eyes, with their thick, dark lashes, were really something. It was a pity about her foot, of course--he gave it a quick look and glanced away as she limped round the end of the cot. He was fairly new on the orthopaedic side and he had been warned about Staff Nurse Esmeralda Jones; she didn't take pitying glances easily, and anyone wanting to know, however tactfully, why it was that one small foot dragged so horribly behind its fellow would get a cold green stare and no answer at all.

True, there was one person who could apparently say what he liked to hera"the orthopaedic Registrar, Leslie Chapman. The young houseman had heard him boasting about it in the common room one day, and hadn't much liked him for it.

"Anyone else to shift?" he wanted to know cheerfully.

Esmeralda beamed at him.

"No, thanks, you've been a Trojan. Sister will be having coffee in her office, I expect, and I'm sure she'll give you a cup after all this, you'll be in her good books."

He started to move away.

"What about you?"

She was adjusting a gallows frame with careful skill.

"Oh, I'll be along in a minute it's Mr. Peters' round in half an hour and this place looks like a fairground we'll have to tidy it up a bit."

She knew as she spoke that she would probably not get her coffee even with three nurses to help her, it would take time to get the place straight, especially when half the children were objecting at the tops of their voices to being moved. She coaxed and scolded gently, slicked down untidy heads of hair, wiped faces and hands and then, with a minute or two to spare after all, was hurrying down the ward with the intention of swallowing a quick cup of coffee in the kitchen, when the ward doors were swung open Mr. Peters, bother the man, was early.

He was a short man, looking older than his forty years, and already going bald, which might be why he cultivated a heavy moustache and a formidable beard. The children loved him and the nurses went out of their way to fulfill his every whim. He stood just inside the doors now, Bellowing good morning to the children, and added: "Hullo, Esmeraldaa"taken you by surprise, have I?"

She fetched up in front of him, said "Good morning, sir," in an un flurried manner and added: "I'll fetch Sister, she's in the office."

"I know, I've been there--I thought you might like to know that I've brought someone with me. I've known him for years, we were students together--he's over here doing a few odd jobs, wanted to see the ward." His eye roamed round his surroundings.

"Good lord, girl. Sister Richards' been having a moving day. Where's Benny?"

"Right at the other end, Mr. Peters. Sister thought that he might like to see out into the inner yard."

Mr. Peters started up the ward.

"I'll say hullo to him while we're waiting," he declared.

"You might as well come along too."

Benny was his pet; he was everyone's pet as a matter of fact. He had come in weeks ago with a congenital dislocation of both hips, which was being painstakingly corrected by Mr. Peters' skilled surgery, and besides having the appearance of an angel, he behaved like one too; he was never put out, grizzly or bored, and his c.o.c.kney sense of humour could be relied upon to cheer up anyone within range of his strident little voice, even on the gloomiest of days--but today was fine and warm, for it was almost midsummer, and he was sitting up in his bed, working away at a jigsaw puzzle which he immediately invited them to finish for him. They had obliged with one or two lucky attempts when the ward doors opened once more and the rest of Mr. Peters' entourage spilled into the ward.

"Go and tell 'em to come up here, there's a good girl," Mr. Peters begged Esmeralda, and she set off across the shining parquet.

For some reason everyone had paused just inside the doors, so that she had the whole ward to walk down, and as always when there was someone she didn't know looking at her, she was conscious of her limp--more conscious than she need have been, too, she thought crossly; the man standing beside Sister Richards was staring at her as though she were exhibit A. She lifted her chin and stared back. He was something to stare at, she had to admit, tall and broad-shouldered and remarkably good-looking, with hair so fair that it was difficult to know if its fairness was silver. She looked away from his cool grey gaze as she reached them and addressed herself to Sister before attaching herself to the outer fringe of the party and going back up the ward once more.

It was like Mr. Peters to jstart in the middle of the round instead of at the first bed by the door like everyone else; Esmeralda received the little pile of folders from a hara.s.sed nurse and rearranged them quickly; it was too bad of Sister Richards to have had a moving day just before the consultant's round, and now there was no time to sort out the notes or the X-rays. She sighed, and using the foot of a cot as a desk, set to work to remedy that.

She had taken care not to send more than a fleeting glance in Leslie Chapman's direction, although she was well aware that he had been trying to catch her eye. How awful if their date for that evening had to be broken for some reason--their first, for though he had been unaccountably friendly towards her during the last week or two, it wasn't until the previous day that he had asked her out. She stacked the notes tidily, frowning a little; when Leslie had first joined Mr. Peters' team, he had ignored her completely-worse, she had caught him eyeing her crippled foot once or twice with a kind of indifferent pity. And then one day he had stopped her in a corridor and asked some trivial question--she couldn't even remember what it had been any more, and after that he had shown a decided preference for her company, and when, rather shyly, she had asked him why he bothered to waste his time on a girl with a crippled foot, he had dismissed it airily, just as though it hadn't mattered at all, although he hadn't asked how it came to be crippled in the first place, and she, who was so touchy with anyone else who dared to ask her that question, found herself wishing that he would. Perhaps he might even know of someone who could perform a little miracle and turn her foot into a normal one again.

So many specialists had seen it and suggested first one thing and then the other, none of them the least use, so that for the last few years she had refused to have it looked at at all, even kind Mr. Peters, when he had mentioned casually not so long ago that he thought he might have a solution, had received a firm refusal, and rather to her surprise, he had accepted it without demur.

She handed Mr. Peters the notes he was asking for, caught Leslie's eye and smiled at him, and then stopped smiling rather abruptly because Mr. Peters' old friend was watching her. She met his look for a moment and then turned away, wondering why he was there; not for consultation, evidently, for he had had little to say so far. True, he was nice with the children and his manner was pleasant and una.s.suming, but he was making no attempt to draw attention to himself. Probably he was paying a casual visit at Mr. Peters' invitation, but she wasn't sure about that. He had an air of authority about him, and he was remarkably elegantly dressed for a GP; nothing off the peg-she peeped quickly as she looked for another set of notes; silk shirt, and unless her eyes were deceiving her, expensive shoes on his large feet.

She limped round the cot to prepare the occupant for Mr. Peters' examination, taking care not to look at him again, although she found herself unwillingly wanting to know more about him. It seemed a little pointless to pursue this train of thought, though, for she wasn't likely to meet him again and it wasn't important.

But she was to meet him again; Mr. Peters came back into the ward several hours later, just after Sister Richards had gone off duty, leaving Esmeralda with a list of jobs to be done, which, even if she had had twelve pairs of hands, she would have no hope of executing.

She was toiling through the most tedious of them; arranging the written requests for holidays, days off and the like, so that her superior needed only to consult the neat list when she next made out the off duty, when the office door was opened and Mr. Peters came in.

"Ah, not busy, I see," he said; it was his usual greeting whatever the recipient of his attentions was doing, and Esmeralda, inured to constant interruptions, said politely: "Oh, no, not in the least, sir. Did you want to see one of the children?"

"No, you."

The? " she asked blankly.

"Whatever for?"

"What did you think of Mr. Bamstra?" he wanted to know.

"That very big.. your friend who came this morning? Well, I--I don't know--I didn't speak to him." Anxious not to hurt his feelings, she added hastily: "He looked very nice..." She was stuck there and finished lamely: "The children seemed to like him--he got on well with them."

"He gets on well with everyone. That foot of yours remember how the last time you allowed me to look at it, I told you that what it needed was someone who was a genius with a hammer, to smash the joints and then put them together again properly? Well, Bamstra does just that half a dozen times so far, and each case a success. I asked him to come over and take a look at you."

"You what?" She wasn't sure if she felt angry or excited or just disbelieving.

"Don't waste time pretending you didn't hear, Esmeralda, I'm a busy man."

His tone implied that she was very much at fault and she found herself apologising as he said impatiently: "Well, what do you say? He hasn't time to waste hanging around while you think about it he'll want to talk to you and make certain that you've a good chance of a complete cure if he does operate. He seemed to think that he could do something from what he saw of you this morning."

Esmeralda drew an indignant breath.

"So that's why you came into the ward first and went right to the other end, and then sent me all the way back with a message so that he could watch me limp..." She choked with her feelings.

"That's it how else was he to get a sight of you?" He added kindly: "He wasn't looking at you, only casting a professional eye over your foot."

"Well!" She had no breath left with which to be indignant.

"And why, may I ask, am I singled out for his attention?"

"Because you're a nice girl and you've been taking it on the chin for years, and it's time that stopped or you'll turn into a frozen spinster."

Esmeralda gave him an outraged look and he added quickly, "No, on second thoughts you wouldn't, not with those eyes--my daughter has blue eyes, bless her, but I've always fancied green, myself." And when she gave a chortle of laughter: "I'll ask Mr. Bamstra to come in."

And before she could say another word, he slid through the door.

For a man of such ma.s.sive proportions, Mr. Bamstra was remarkably silent; he had taken Mr. Peters' place while Esmeralda was still staring at the door. He said with a deceptive meekness which she didn't for one minute believe: "Is it all right if I come in?"

She said vexedly: "Well, but you are, aren't you? Sister left me with a great deal to see to, and I'm not even halfway through it all." His smile was kind, it was also beguiling.

"You're put out," he observed, his voice kind too, 'and I'm very much to blame, but it was a little difficult, you know. I could hardly drop in and say: "Oh, hullo, I've come to look at that foot of yours," could I? " He added more seriously: " I didn't think you would want it mentioned until we had talked about it. " He sat down on a corner of the desk, looking down at her with intent grey eyes.

"You do want it put right, don't you?"

Her vexation had given way to a rather doubtful hope.

"Oh, more than anything in the world," she a.s.sured him fervently. Her green eyes were full of dreams, although her voice was prosaic enough.

"A great many surgeons have seen it, you know, but just lately I've refused to let anyone see it."

He pushed his large, well-kept hands into his pockets and studied his shoes.

"Tell me as briefly as you can just how it happened and what treatment you have had."

He didn't look at her at all, which made it easier.

"I was three. I fell off my pony and he trod on my foot--nothing else was injured, just that foot; he crushed the metatarsals, pulped them into a squashy mess. The surgeon who saw it said he could do nothing then, that perhaps when I was older the bones would separate again and he could operate; only they didn't, they set themselves exactly as they were--they fused into a lump of bone. My mother took me to any number of specialists when I was a little girl, but none of them could do anything--they said that something should have been done when the accident happened. I've been to several other specialists since I started nursing, and they all thought that it had been left too late; that I would have to learn to live with it--that the limp didn't notice very much. "

"I noticed it," said Mr. Bamstra with a detached candour which didn't hurt at all.

"Shall I have a go?"

Her hands were clasped on her ap.r.o.ned lap, the fingers entwined so tightly that the knuckles showed white. There was no reason to suppose that this man was any different from the others who had wanted to help her, and yet she felt no hesitation in saying yes: "Only it might be a bit difficult. I mean, I'd have to get leave and all that would it take long?"

"A couple of months, perhaps. Of course you would be in a walking plaster in no time, so you would be able to get about." He stopped looking at his shoes and looked at her.

"Will you let me see what I can arrange? You would have to come to my hospital, you know."

"Oh where's that?"

"Holland either Utrecht or Leiden, whichever has a bed for you." He got off the desk.

"Think it over," he advised her.

"I shall be here until tomorrow evening." He nodded with casual friendliness and left her sitting at the desk, her head in a whirl.

But a look at the clock warned her that sitting and thinking about her own affairs was inadvisable; she couldn't hope to get finished before Sister Richards came back on duty, but at least she could get as much done as possible. She rushed through the rest of the requests and went down the corridor to check the clean linen, working with such a will that she was all but finished when Sister arrived. She went off duty herself an hour later, her head no longer full of Mr. Bamstra's visit but of the evening ahead of her.

This was her first date for quite some time. Of course she went out often enough with the other nurses, frequently a bunch of them, together with hous.e.m.e.n or students, made up a party, but although she was popular in a quiet way, no one had singled her out for an evening a deux, not that that surprised her in the least. If she were a young man, she wouldn't have bothered with a girl who couldn't dance, who couldn't even run for a bus without looking grotesque; she had no brothers of her own but she was aware that young men didn't like to be made conspicuous. Her mother and old Nanny Toms, who still lived at her home and did the housekeeping, had both a.s.sured her over and over again that when Mr. Right came along her foot wouldn't matter to him at all, but here she was, all of twenty-six, and no one, let alone Mr. Right, had even taken a second glance at her--not until now. Leslie Chapman's sudden attentions had taken her by surprise at first, but now, finally won over by his apparent desire for her company and his disregard for her limp, she was allowing herself to respond to him, and because her warm nature had been frustrated, hidden behind the matter-of-fact manner she had learned to a.s.sume against pity, it was threatening to take over from her hard-learned common sense.

She made her way to her room, refused the offer of a cup of tea with a handful of off-duty friends, and opened her wardrobe door. Unlike many of the girls she worked with, she had plenty of clothes, pretty and quite often expensive, for again unlike them, there was no need for her to help at home. Her mother had been left comfortably off in the small manor house in the New Forest, and she herself had, over and above her salary, a generous allowance from the substantial capital her father had left for her. Only if she should marry before she was thirty would she come into full possession of her sizeable fortune, and in the meantime the fact that she was by way of being a minor heiress hadn't altered her independent nature in the slightest; she recognised that it was pleasant to have sufficient money to buy the things she wanted, but she had no high flown ideas about her inheritance and it said much for her nice nature that her friends, even if they were at times envious of her, never cast it in her teeth. And she, for her part, never mentioned it to them, nor, for that matter, did she mention the countless small acts of generosity she performed; the small sums she had lent and never wanted back, the countless times she had stood treat without anyone quite realizing it. she would have been horrified if anyone had found out.

She stood now, debating the merits of a pinafore dress in a soft pink with a white muslin blouse to go with it, or a green-patterned voile dress with a tucked bodice and short sleeves. She had no idea where they were going.

Leslie had mentioned, rather vaguely, going out to eat; she had been a fool not to have asked him where. She chose the dress finally, if she wore her thin wool coat over it it would pa.s.s muster almost anywhere, and she hardly expected to go to Claridges or Quaglino's. She bathed and changed rapidly, slid her feet into pale shoes, wincing at the ugly built-up sole on one of them, matched them with a handbag and took a final look at herself in the looking gla.s.s.

She supposed she looked as nice as she could; her mousey hair shone with brushing and she had coiled it smoothly on top other head, although one or two tiny curls had broken free at the back of her neck. Her face was nicely made up, the dress was in excellent taste even if it was a little on the plain side, and she forced herself to take a matter-of- fact look at her feet. Standing very still with her crushed foot tucked behind the sound one, it hardly showed, but that was cheating. She brought it into full view and contemplated it in all its clumsiness.

She would have this operation Mr. Bamstra had suggested, even if she had to go to the other side of the world and stay for months; Leslie liked her now, perhaps more than liked . surely if she had two good feet he might actually fall in love with her? She turned away from her image, rather defiantly sprayed Dioressence upon her person, and went down to the Nurses' Home entrance.

Leslie was waiting for her in his Lotus Elan, a showy, rather elderly model with far too much chrome work on it, and painted an aggressive yellow.

Esmeralda didn't much care for it; her father had always driven a sober dark blue Rover, and her mother, since his death, had merely changed one model for another. She herself had a Mini which she drove rather well despite the drawback of her damaged foot, and that was a sober blue too, but this evening, with Leslie sitting behind the wheel smiling at her, she told herself that she was becoming stuffy in her tastes, even slightly priggish.

She hurried towards him, quite forgetting her hideous limp.

He opened the car door for her, his eyes on her face, not on her foot, and at any other time Esmeralda might have asked herself with her usual common sense what there was about her ordinary features which should cause him to look so enrapt, but she had no common sense for the moment. She was spending the evening with one of the best looking young men in the hospital; she felt beautiful and graceful and sought after, and these emotions were going to her head like champagne, giving a glow and sparkle to her usual calm.

She got in beside him, sc.r.a.ping 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.