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 others, 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 other 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 a.s.sured 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 Princ.i.p.al 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 1 propose to do on your foot. I had no opportunity of telling you," he a.s.sured her suavely.

She choked with temper.

"I'm quite old enough to tell my mother myself!"

"Of course you are, but mothers are p.r.o.ne 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sure 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 over 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sport 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 ma.s.s 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 Citroens, large handsome Citroens, and Mercedes, but none of these were his. He stopped beside a Bristol'll4, 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?"

He eased the Bristol into the traffic and began to overtake everything on the road ahead of him, driving very fast and yet with such an easy manner that he might have been tooling along a country lane. Esmeralda thought of Leslie and his flamboyant driving and dismissed the idea as disloyal, then was recalled to the present by her companion's: "No, I'm taking you to spend the night with friends of mine--Adam and Loveday de Wolff van Ozinga--he and I were students together and Loveday is English. When I mentioned that you were coming over to have your foot put right they insisted that you should go to them first. They live in Friesland, near Sneek-we'll be there for supper and I'll pick you up tomorrow morning and take you down to Leiden. I'm doing the foot on Tuesday."

She said: "How kind," and then: "But wouldn't it have been much easier for you if you had taken me straight to the hospital?"

"Much easier, but not nearly as nice."

There really wasn't an answer to that one, so she asked: "Do you live in Leiden?"

"Er--no, I share my time between Utrecht and Leiden for the most part--there is a big orthopaedic clinic just outside Leiden, but I have beds in the general hospital too. My home is nicely in the middle of these three places--so convenient."

He allowed the car to skim past a stream of traffic and she realized that he didn't intend to tell her any more than that. All right, she thought crossly, if he wants to be cagey, let him--very mean, really, after going to her home without a by-your-leave. Her small, ordinary face a.s.sumed an expression of hauteur which her companion saw; the gleam in his grey eyes was the only sign of his amus.e.m.e.nt as he commented smoothly: "We're skirting Amsterdam now and pick up the motorway to Alkmaar very shortly--not an exciting road, I'm afraid, but quick. Once we get to Alkmaar we will cut across the polder land to the Afsluitdijk. We skirt Haarlem too, which is a pity, for there is a great deal to see there, but I promise you that before you go back to England you shall have an opportunity to see some of our cities."

It seemed only a very short time before he said: "There's Alkmaar ahead of us; we don't go into the town, but once we turn off the road is rather pretty. Would you like to stop for coffee?"

"Yes, please," said Esmeralda at once.

"I was excited and not a bit hungry."

They were already heading away from Alkmaar.

"There's a pleasant place about fifteen minutes ahead." He slowed the car's pace a little.

"I hope your mother and Nanny Toms are well? "

"Yes, they saw me off--we drove up in Mother's Rover and she was going to drive Nanny back home. They're both quite sure that you're going to cure my foot."

"And you're not, Esmeralda?"

He had slipped easily enough into calling her by her Christian name, hadn't he? Was that to emphasise the difference in their status? She hardly thought so. Perhaps it was to remind her that he was a good deal older than she was--she had no idea how old; it pleased her to think that she might be able to find out quite a lot about him from these friends they were going to.

She said simply: "Yes, I'm sure too, and anyway, when you want something very much it happens, doesn't it?"

"I agree with you--I believe it's called positive thinking, but I prefer to think of it as pure optimism."

He had turned into a short side road leading to a long, low, terraced restaurant, and Esmeralda was grateful to him when he parked so close to the entrance that she had only a yard or two to limp, and he made it easier still by strolling along beside her without offering an arm or asking her if she could manage the steps. He chose a table close by and ordered coffee.

"I don't dare to offer you anything else or Loveday will have my head," he apologised, 'but perhaps I can remedy that later on. "

She imagined him to be making the kind of polite remark one made on such occasions, and said in her turn: "That would be nice!" Then she asked: "Where are we now?"

"Very nearly at the Afsluitdijk; that's about twenty miles long and a very fast road, and once in Friesland we should be at the Ozingas' home very quickly, for it's only another twenty miles or so."

The Bristol tore along, unhindered by traffic; the d.y.k.e was straight and they could see ahead of them for miles, half way across Esmeralda exclaimed like an excited child: "Oh, look-there's the coast ofFriesland!" and listened while her companion explained the lie of the land to her, an exercise which lasted until they were on dry land again, and driving down the coast of the Ijsselmeer.

"Bolsward," said Mr. Bamstra briefly as they skirted a small town with a great many picturesque spires and gabled roofs. And a few minutes later: "Sneek."

He turned off just outside the town on to a country road running between lakes, and presently reached a small village, and on its further side, the Ozingas' house. It was a large, square red brick building, standing in a quite beautiful garden, but Esmeralda barely had time to glimpse it before they drew up before its solid front door, which was opened with such alacrity that she could only suppose that someone had been on the watch for them. The door-opener was a large man, very much of Mr. Bamstra's size but a year or so older. He said: "Hullo, there," in a soft, slow voice, gave his friend a friendly thump on the shoulder which would have felled a lesser man, and smiled charmingly at Esmeralda.

"I'm Adam," he volunteered, 'and you are the Esmeralda Thimo has told us about. " He offered a hand and engulfed hers in it.

"Loveday won't be a moment; she's been hovering for hours and now little Adam, in his ill-timed way, has chosen to sick up. Come in." He looked across at Mr. Bamstra.

"You'll stay for supper? You can't expect Toukje to cook for you at this hour."

Esmeralda stored the strange sounding name away in the back of her head.

Later, given the opportunity, she would find out about the owner of it. It was a little disquieting, although she didn't know why, to hear Mr. Bamstra say casually: "I wouldn't expect her to, you know. But she would all the same we have a wonderful relationship."

She pondered this remark as they entered the house and then forgot it at once because there was so much to see. She hadn't been to Holland before, but she had seen prints and pictures and read books, so that the tiled floor, plastered walls and delicately plastered ceiling weren't a surprise. It was the solid richness of everything which took her breath; she doubted if anyone in the house knew what the word plastic meant, although it was obvious to her female eye that the good old fashioned elbow grease was not only known well, but used. She tore her eyes from a delightfully arranged vase of flowers on the solid hall table and caught Mr. Bamstra's interested gaze. He didn't speak, however, because someone was coming down the staircase Loveday; it couldn't be anyone else, for no other girl could have been such a splendid foil for Adam Ozinga's outsize good looks. She was dark and pretty, and unlike Esmeralda, who couldn't suppress a twinge of envy at the sight of her, tall and well built. She raced down the handsome staircase and went straight to Esmeralda.

"Oh, I'm so glad you've come," she cried, 'even if it is only for a few hours--I wish you could stay longer, but next time you shall. " She turned to offer a cheek to Mr. Bamstra.

"Prettier than ever," he declared.