Бетти Нильс – A Girl Named Rose (страница 3)

“Look,” she cried loudly. “There he is, over there…”

Too far away for him to see them, Rose judged, watching the Rolls slide between two trams with Mijnheer Werdmer ter Sane at the wheel. Besides, what would be the point, even if he did? They weren’t going to meet again.

They lunched at the hotel, cheese rolls and coffee because the hotel didn’t cater for cooked meals at midday, and then they boarded their coach. Rose felt a twinge of regret as they were driven through the city’s heart and its suburbs; streets of neat houses and flats, all exactly alike and not in the least resembling the lovely old houses in the centre of the city. At least she had investigated the inside of one of them, and very nice it was too. She allowed her thoughts to dwell on the pleasures of living in such a house, lapped around with comfort, no, not comfort, luxury. She said out loud, “I wonder if he was married?”

Sadie, sitting beside her, chuckled. “Well, of course he would be—I daresay he had a handful of children too, on the top floor with Nanny.”

Rose was surprised to find that the idea quite upset her.

The coach kept to the motorway, giving her little time to do more than glimpse the villages to be seen on either side of it. “Next time I come, if I ever do,” she told Sadie, “I shan’t go on a single motorway; I’m sure there is heaps to see.”

“Well, I don’t suppose you’ll come again,” said Sadie comfortably; she sounded faintly smug; more or less engaged to a solid young man with his feet firmly on the first rung of banking, her own future was already cut out for her. She added, “I mean, you are sure to get offered a sister’s post—there’s Sister Coutts on children’s medical due to retire, and the junior night sister leaving to get married at Christmas.”

Rose resolutely brushed away the vague daydreams floating around inside her head. She didn’t much care for medical nursing and nor did she like night duty; she would like to work on the children’s surgical ward, but chance was a fine thing; the ward sister there was young enough to be there for another twenty years, and certainly had no intention of marrying. Rose consoled herself with the thought that she might be going there as a staff nurse. Perhaps when she had more experience she would look for a sister’s post at another hospital, as far away from her home as possible. Not that it was home any more. Even after two years it hurt to think of her father; they had lived so happily together after her mother died until quite out of the blue, just after she had started training, he had told her that he was going to marry again.

Her stepmother was still quite young, a well preserved forty, with a pretty face and a charm which she lavished on Rose when there was anyone there to see it. They had disliked each other on sight, but Rose had done her best to understand her father’s remarriage and had tried hard to like her stepmother. It wasn’t until her father died suddenly and her stepmother married again within six months of his death, that Rose admitted to herself that she didn’t like her and never would. She couldn’t stand Mr Fletcher, a tall thin man, who doted on her stepmother but treated Rose with cold severity. It was like having two strangers in her home and during the following year she had gradually stopped spending her days off and holidays there, feeling an interloper each time she went to the village near Tunbridge Wells. Instead she had answered her mother’s elder sister’s invitation to visit her and now she felt more at home there in Northamptonshire. Her aunt lived at Ashby St Ledgers, in a comfortable little house, a rather sterner version of Rose’s mother, but kind and affectionate and ready to welcome her niece. She was an enthusiastic gardener, a staunch supporter of the church and had a finger in every village pie and was looked after by a little dumpling of a woman Rose remembered from her childhood when she had been taken on a visit to Aunt Millicent. Both ladies, in their way, made much of her, her aunt in an off-hand manner which didn’t quite conceal her very real affection, and Maggie with a cosy warmth made apparent by the nourishing meals she dished up and the hot milk she insisted Rose should take to bed each night.

“I’d like to see more flesh on your bones,” she would mutter, pressing the nourishing drink into Rose’s hands when she went to bed, and each time Rose went to stay, she would return with a large cake in her case; devoured with gratitude by Rose and her friends the moment it was unpacked.

She thought of her aunt now; she would be going to see her in a few weeks’ time but first she would have to settle down on whichever ward she was sent to. Hopefully back on children’s surgical, she had been there for three months as a student nurse and loved it. She turned to say something to Sadie but that young lady was asleep, her pretty mouth slightly open, her curls, rather untidy now, framing her charming face. No wonder the Dutchman had been so taken with her, thought Rose, quite without envy.

The bus stopped just before they reached Zeebrugge and they all got out and had tea and a biscuit; the tea—a teabag in a saucer with a glass of almost boiling water, and no milk, was refreshing but not at all like the dark strong brew they shared in each other’s rooms when they came off duty. They were off again within fifteen minutes and shortly after went on board, where they left everything in the bus and climbed the stairs to the upper decks. They knew the journey would take four hours and there was still the drive to London from Dover; they wouldn’t be at the hospital until midnight at least. Luckily none of them were on duty until one o’clock the next day. Their main thoughts were now centred on food. Lunch had been light and hours ago; Rose counted what was left of the money and then shared it out between the six of them. There wasn’t a great deal, not enough to go to the restaurant with the other travellers in the coach, but there was a cafeteria on board. They trooped along its counter, getting value for their money, spending it on rolls and butter, cheese, hardboiled eggs and cups of tea.

It had been great, they all agreed, sitting round a table, munching, for the most part the food had been good and generous; they had seen a lot and their fellow passengers had been friendly.

“But next time I go,” declared Sadie, “I’ll travel by car and eat all the time at those heavenly restaurants we saw and never went into. I’d like to spend at least a week in Amsterdam, wouldn’t you, Rose?”

Rose drank the last of her tea. “Oh, yes—but I’d like to see a lot more of Holland too. But Amsterdam was smashing.”

Alice said slyly: “I bet you’d like to meet that Dutchman again…”

“Yes I would.” Rose spoke readily enough in her composed way. “One meets someone and wonders about them and that’s as far as it goes. Shall we go on deck for a bit? We’ll have to sit in that coach presently.”

It was most fortunate that the coach went within a hundred yards of St Bride’s and the driver, being a kind man, took them almost to the door. They tumbled out, exchanging goodbyes with the other passengers, collected their cases, thanked the driver, handed him the tip Rose had been jealously guarding, and hurried across the street from the hospital to the Nurses’ home. The warden on duty let them in with a good deal of shushing and requests to be quiet, and rather dampened in spirits, they went softly up the stairs to the second floor where the staff nurses had their rooms. They did not linger over getting ready for bed; there was a brisk to-ing and fro-ing in competition for baths, quick good nights and then sleep. Rose, laying her head in a cloud of soft brown hair on her pillow, spared a thought for the Dutchman and then resolutely shut him out of her mind. The last few years had taught her to make the best of things and try to improve on them if possible, and never, never, to waste time on wanting something she couldn’t have: to see him again. She closed her eyes and slept.

There wasn’t much leisure in the morning; they got up for breakfast for the simple reason that if they didn’t they would be hungry, but it was a cheerful rather noisy meal, for everyone wanted to know about their trip. Besides there was the hospital gossip to catch up on, and once they were back in their rooms, there was the unpacking to do, clean caps to make up and another pot of tea, made in their own little pantry, and by then it was time to go to the office, one by one, to be told where they were to go on duty.

There were no surprises for Rose; staff nurse on children’s surgical and she was to report to Sister Cummins at one o’clock. As an afterthought she was asked if she had enjoyed her holiday, to which she made a suitable reply before getting herself tidily out of her superior’s presence.

Sister Cummins seemed pleased to see her; she was a big, vigorous young woman, quite wrapped up in her work and a splendid nurse. She had no use for nurses who weren’t prepared to work as hard as she did, and made a point of saying so, so that she wasn’t popular, but Rose got on well with her, going calmly about her work and refusing to take umbrage at some of Sister Cummins’ more caustic remarks. And as for the children, they got on splendidly together; she settled down quickly into the chaotic routine of the ward, and if, just now and again, her thoughts turned to the lovely old house and its handsome owner in Amsterdam, she shook them off briskly.