Бетти Нильс – An Apple from Eve (страница 2)

It was quite some time later when Dr Bell came back and beckoned her from the door. ‘Dr van Diederijk has gone up to St Jude’s—he intends to discuss your father’s case with a surgeon there. He’s made his decision, but he prefers to say nothing more until he’s talked to Mr Crisp.’

‘And you?’ she asked a little sharply. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me anything either?’

‘We must have patience, my dear,’ said Dr Bell kindly, ‘it’s an important thing to everyone concerned.’

‘When shall we know?’

Dr Bell looked awkward and she wondered why. ‘At the latest tomorrow morning. Have you told the boys?’

‘I’m about to telephone them.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s almost five o’clock: If I ring Stowe now they can put them on a train as soon as possible and they could be home this evening—late this evening.’ She frowned a little. ‘Tomorrow morning wouldn’t be a better idea?’ She looked past the old man. ‘Father’s very ill, I can see that for myself, but if they do a valve replacement…’

Dr Bell muttered something in a soothing voice. ‘Travelling will be easier for them this evening—the trains are always crowded in the morning and taxis are harder to get.’

She supposed he was right, but she was too worried and unhappy to think about it. She telephoned the boys’ school and was assured that they would be sent home at once. She went to find Ellen, sent her to the kitchen to coax Mrs Cross to stay a bit later and get a meal ready, then went herself to her father’s room where Dr Bell was standing by his patient’s bed. ‘I have evening surgery,’ he told her, ‘but I’ll come the moment you want me. I’m afraid there’s nothing much we can do until we have the consultants’ opinions.’

Euphemia drew up a chair and sat down beside her father, sleeping peacefully, a drugged sleep, but she was thankful for it; he wasn’t a man to bear with illness and she couldn’t have borne to have seen him lying there worrying about himself. Presently Ellen came in with a supper tray.

‘I’ll take over when you say so,’ she whispered, but, Euphemia shook her head.

‘I’m not tired, you stay downstairs and make sure everything is ready for the boys. Oh, and be a dear and ring St Cyprian’s and tell them that I can’t come back tonight—explain, will you? I’ll telephone them in the morning.’

Dr Bell came again much later. The Colonel was still unconscious and beyond taking his pulse he did nothing.

‘Shouldn’t he go to hospital?’ asked Euphemia urgently.

‘Dr van Deiderijk thinks it unwise to move him for the moment.’

She looked at the kind elderly face she had known for all of twenty years. ‘If you say so…’ She sighed. ‘If you hear anything from that man you’ll let me know at once—won’t you?’

‘Of course. You don’t like him, my dear?’

‘No,’ said Euphemia flatly.

The boys got home late that night and in the early hours of the morning her father died. Euphemia, sitting with him, didn’t call them from their beds; there was no point in doing so. Dr Bell came in answer to her telephone call, and surprisingly, Dr van Diederijk came with him. It was almost five o’clock now and a pearly morning that promised to be a warm day, and beside Dr Bell’s hastily dragged on clothes, the Dutchman’s appearance suggested that he had been up, freshly shaved, and immaculately dressed after a long restful night.

Euphemia greeted them with a face stony with fiercely held back grief. It was later, downstairs in the shabby sitting-room, that she asked:

‘Was it your decision not to admit my father to hospital, Dr van Diederijk?’

He was standing before the fireplace, his hands in his pockets.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ She took a breath and went on in a rush: ‘You took away his only chance! What right had you to do that—he might be alive now if you’d advised operation…’

‘Alive, yes, if you can call it living to be attached to monitoring machines and drips and ECGs. Your father was an intelligent man, he would have been only too aware that he was being kept alive but with no hope of leading a normal life again. It would have been a matter of days only—can you imagine what that would have meant to him? You must know in your heart that I made the right decision—he had been ill for a long time, I understand—far too long for a replacement to be satisfactory. Besides, he wasn’t a young man any more…’

‘Then why wasn’t I told?’ Her voice shook with rage and grief.

‘I have it from Dr Bell that he didn’t wish you to be told.’ He looked at the other man, who nodded.

Euphemia turned her back on them both so that they shouldn’t see the tears. In a moment when she had control of her voice she said: ‘If I’d known, I could have stayed at home and nursed him.’

‘For that very reason he wished nothing to be said. I must say that I can understand his wishes; you must try and understand too.’

She spun round to face him. ‘Well, I don’t, but then I’m not made of ice…he was my father, you know—and even if he weren’t I wouldn’t be so cold-blooded about it as you are!’

She rushed out of the room, brushing past him, one small corner of her numbed brain aware of the faint whiff of expensive aftershave as she did so. She went to the kitchen, made herself a pot of tea, had a hearty cry and pulled herself together. It was all of twenty minutes by the time she had made her way back to the shabby, comfortable sitting-room. The two men were there, waiting patiently, and she asked them in a wooden voice if they would like coffee. She looked a fright by now, her beautiful nose red with weeping, her eyelids swollen, but she really didn’t care. When they refused, she enquired politely if there was anything else to be done, and when Dr Bell told her that he would make all the necessary arrangements, accompanied them to the door and bade them good morning, remarking on the beauty of the day as she did so. Dr Bell patted her shoulder, said he’d be back later and made for his car, while Dr van Diederijk paused on the doorstep. ‘Give yourself a double whisky and go and lie down for a couple of hours,’ he advised her. ‘It will help you to get through the day.’

She didn’t answer him, only gave him a cold glance and went indoors. All the same, she did as he had said. The whisky went straight to her head; she prudently set the alarm for eight o’clock and got on to her bed and fell instantly asleep.

The man was right, she had to admit later. She awoke refreshed and clear-headed, able to tackle the day ahead of her, full of so many problems. It was at the end of it that she began to think about the future. The boys would be all right; their school fees would be covered by a fund their father had set up for them years ago. She herself would be able to keep herself easily enough, but Ellen was a different matter. She couldn’t remain at home by herself, but on the other hand she had had no particular training. Euphemia frowned over the problem and then decided to ask Mr Fish their solicitor’s advice.

She had only the vaguest notion of her father’s income; there had never been much money and the house had grown shabby with the years, but he had lived comfortably and money had been something he had never discussed with her. She dismissed the matter and set herself to writing to various relations and friends. The boys she had sent to stay with friends close by for a couple of days and Ellen was of no use at all, declaring that she couldn’t possibly think of anything except her father’s death. Euphemia had comforted her gently and sent her to bed early, staying up late herself, writing her letters until, quite worn out, she went to bed herself.

She got through the following days with outward calm. She was a girl with plenty of common sense, and it stood her in good stead now. She loved her father and she grieved for him, but life had to go on. He would have been the first to remind her of that.

Aunts, uncles and cousins she barely knew came to the funeral, and when Aunt Thea, a mild-looking middle-aged lady with a deplorable taste in hats, suggested with genuine eagerness that Ellen should go back to Middle Wallop with her for a long visit, Euphemia thanked heaven silently for settling one of her most pressing problems. The boys were going back to school on the following day and she would return to the Men’s Medical ward at St Cyprian’s on the day after that. There only remained the reading of her father’s will, and that would hold no surprises.

She couldn’t have been more mistaken. Sitting in the small room the Colonel had used as his study, watching Mr Fish gather together his papers after the will had been read, Euphemia tried to take it all in and failed. She hadn’t expected there would be much money, but she had never guessed at debts, still less that the house—their loved home—was mortgaged and would have to be sold. Mr Fish had been adamant about that; either she must lay her hands on the very considerable sum the house was worth, or sell it and pay off the mortgage. People, said Mr Fish in his dry, elderly voice, tended to be businesslike about such things. The fact that they were rendering someone homeless was secondary to their instinct for good business.