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she had gone Mrs Reece, who owned the shop said, ‘Now she’s gone, do tell us, Caroline, did you meet anyone nice?’
Everyone there knew that she meant a young man. ‘Well, no, the other people on the trip were middle-aged couples, and two schoolteachers…’
‘You must have met a lot of people—in the street, I mean,’ persisted Mrs Reece, who had a fondness for Caroline and would have liked to see her married.
‘I did meet one person—I had to deliver a parcel…’ Caroline related her visit to the magnificent house by the canal and her tumble. ‘I felt a fool,’ she ended, ‘and I ruined a pair of tights.’
‘Was he very handsome?’ asked Mrs Reece.
‘Oh, yes, very—and tall and big.’
‘“Ships that pass in the night”,’ the vicar’s wife quoted, ‘One so often meets a person one would wish to know better if one had the opportunity.’ She handed Mrs Reece a list of groceries, ‘I remember when we were in Vienna…’
Caroline was the last customer. ‘Well, dearie, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, though it’s a shame that there weren’t any young folk around.’
Never mind the young folk, reflected Caroline, inspecting the cheeses, Mr Marius van Houben would do very nicely.
That day and the next went all too quickly. She took a late afternoon bus to Basingstoke and got on the train, hanging out of the window until the last minute, waving to Aunt Meg. She would be back again in two weeks’ time for her days off but at the moment she derived little comfort from that. She hated going back and yet once she was there, in the hospital, busy on the ward, she was happy.
The nurses’ home, a grim appendage to the hospital, looked bleak from the outside, but inside it was cheerful enough, and although the rooms were decidedly small they were nicely furnished and there were three sitting-rooms, one for the sisters, one for trained staff and one for the student nurses. Caroline poked her nose round the door of the last mentioned and was greeted by several girls lounging around reading and drinking tea.
They begged her to put her case down and tell them all about her holiday while she drank a mug of tea, unpacked the cake her aunt had made for her and handed it round.
‘Meet any nice men?’ asked one of the girls, Janey, a pretty fair-haired girl.
‘No—at least, I did meet one, I’m not sure if he was nice…’
She had everyone’s attention. ‘Do tell…’
She told and when she had finished Janey exclaimed. ‘You could have fainted or burst into tears, you know—captured his attention.’ She sighed. ‘Really, Caro—for a woman of twenty-four you’re hopeless at catching the male eye!’
‘I didn’t feel faint, and you know how hideous I look if I cry.’
There was a protesting chorus telling her that she hadn’t needed to feel faint; just to look pale and helpless would have done very well.
Caroline said meekly that she would know what to do next time, with the secret thought that being pale and helpless would cut no ice with a man like Mr van Houben. His eyes, compellingly blue though they were, were razor-sharp.
She went on duty the next morning, back to Women’s Surgical, chock-a-block since it was take-in week, with beds down the centre of the ward and several disgruntled ladies forced to sleep in Women’s Medical where they had beds empty.
‘It’s a funny state of affairs,’ observed Staff Nurse James, deftly shortening a tube and putting on a fresh dressing while Caroline handed things and made cheerful remarks to the nervous patient. ‘Here’s us bursting at the seams, and two whole wards closed because there’s no money to keep them open. There, that’s done, Mrs Crisp, and I’m sure you’ll feel more comfortable now. Clear away, will you, Nurse, and then go and get your coffee?’
Corinna was in the canteen and as Caroline went in she called her over to the table where she was sitting. ‘Did you find the house?’ she wanted to know. ‘I hope it wasn’t too much of a nuisance for you? I’m very grateful—the book was far too precious to send by post—a first edition. Thanks awfully. Did you have a good time?’
‘Yes, delightful, thank you.’ Corinna, she thought, was very like her cousin; her eyes were bright blue too, although her nose was a delicate beak, which rather added to her good looks. If she had known Corinna better she might have told her that she had met her cousin; as it was, she went and got her coffee and sat down at another table with several of her friends.
She was tired by the time she went off duty at six o’clock; there had been two emergency admissions who had gone to Theatre during the day and one of the student nurses had gone off sick during the afternoon, which meant that two of them were doing the work of three.
Caroline kicked off her shoes, made a cheerful telephone call to Aunt Meg and curled up with a book in the sitting-room. Exercise in the fresh air was essential to a nurse’s well being, Sister Tutor had been telling decades of students that, but Caroline decided that her day had provided enough exercise, and anyway the air, laden with fumes from the never-ending traffic of the East End of London, wasn’t fresh. The book, she decided after ten minutes’ reading, was dull, so she closed it and allowed her thoughts to wander.
The holiday in Amsterdam had been a success; Aunt Meg had had a long-cherished dream fulfilled and they had seen as much as possible of the city. It would have been nice to go inside some of the magnificent houses they had inspected so avidly from the streets. It was a pity she hadn’t had the wit to do as Janey suggested; if she had fainted, or appeared to faint, she would have had to spend much more time inside Mr van Houben’s house and had a chance to look around. As it was she had barely glimpsed the hall before the brief session in his study while he dealt with the grazes. She would know better next time—only there wouldn’t be a next time. She and her aunt had saved for some time for their holiday; there wouldn’t be one next year, and if there was enough money for the year following that Aunt Meg would want to go somewhere else. When holidays were few and far between one couldn’t afford to go to the same place twice, not if one wanted to see as much of foreign parts as possible.
Impatient with herself for feeling discontented, she went away to wash her hair and by the time it was dry and fastened neatly once more it was time for supper. Afterwards, everyone lucky enough to be off duty crowded into the sitting-room to drink tea, talk shop and compare notes about their boyfriends. There was the usual hospital gossip too: who was going out with which house doctor, Mr Wilkins’ nasty fit of temper in Theatre that afternoon, Casualty Sister’s unjust treatment of one of their number who had had the misfortune to drop a pile full of sterile dishes… By the time she got to bed she had forgotten her discontent. Life, she thought sleepily, was really quite fun, and somewhere, some time, she would meet the man she would marry. He had until now been a nebulous figure, vague as to feature and voice, but now he bore a striking resemblance to Mr van Houben. ‘Which really won’t do at all,’ muttered Caroline as she closed her eyes.
Life was by no means fun the next day. Mr Wilkins’ morning round was far from smooth; he had come on to the ward in a bad temper to start with, which rendered the already nervous students even more nervous so that they were either struck dumb or gave all the wrong answers; moreover, several of the ladies lying in their beds dozing peacefully deeply resented being wakened so that he might examine them. Sister Cowie, who prided herself upon the perfection of her ward, pursed her lips and said very little; later several people would get the sharp edge of her tongue. Certainly her nurses would be held to blame for allowing the patients to drop off when Mr Wilkins’ round was imminent. Those who could kept prudently out of sight, but Staff Nurse and Corinna, following in Sister’s footsteps bearing charts, X-ray forms and all the impedimenta needed to keep Mr Wilkins happy, were very aware of her displeasure. Staff would get the blame, of course, which she would pass on to everyone else.
Two more patients and the round would be finished and Mr Wilkins and his registrar would drink coffee with Sister. He was approaching the