A Match for Sister Maggy Read online

  She went scarlet under his amused gaze, and said haughtily,

  ‘I’m aware, Doctor. He told me so—’ She remembered what else he had said, and looked down at her plate, so that her black lashes lay on her cheeks, wishing to be anywhere but where she was.

  ‘Did he tell you that I have a passion for big women too?’

  She refused to look up, and after a moment he said with a laugh in his voice, ‘Poor Maggy, I mustn’t tease.’

  The tea came, and with it the return of her composure. The doctor maintained an easy flow of small talk, and as always in his company, she found herself responding to his friendliness.

  She passed him his tea, and watched while he helped himself lavishly to sugar, then turned to choose a monumental confection of chocolate and whipped cream and pineapple from the proffered tray. She eyed it with healthy pleasure, and attacked it with the endearing enthusiasm of a small girl having an unexpected treat. The doctor chose boterkoek and asked,

  ‘Did you see Nanny?’

  ‘Yes, she came and sat with me in the garden and told me tales of when you were a little boy. You were naughty, weren’t you?’ she added severely.

  ‘Oh dear! Not the one about the Ambassador’s wig?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, Dr Doelsma, and the frog in your Great-Aunt Wilhelmina’s bed, and skating instead of going to school…’

  He held up a large hand. ‘Enough! Maggy, I’m on my knees. Nanny has been devastatingly plain-spoken, as always.’ He passed his tea cup for more tea. ‘Did you like the villa?’

  ‘Aye, Doctor, such a dear wee place, and the beautiful garden and the river close by.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, it’s pretty enough—just right for my uncle. Nanny finds it quiet; she has an insatiable passion for babies and small children.’

  Just for a moment Maggy glimpsed a lovely impossible dream, then said in a bright voice,

  ‘She looks just as a nanny should look. She’s very fond of you, isn’t she?’

  ‘I believe so, though I can’t think why. I must have been a great trial to her. She seems to have—er—unburdened herself to you.’

  Maggy looked surprised. ‘Did she? She asked me to call her Nanny,’ she added.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Did she indeed? That’s unusual. She’s more fiercely family than we are, you know. I’ve never known her do that before.’

  Maggy agreed. ‘I realised that. I felt honoured. She told me about her second sight too.’

  The doctor gave her a long stare across the table, and said nothing, watching Maggy tie on her scarf again.

  ‘Thank you for my tea, Doctor, and I’ll be on my way.’

  Outside it was raining in earnest and the wind was coming and going in spiteful little gusts. The doctor took her arm and said,

  ‘It won’t take any longer to walk this way—I’ll show you the University. We can cross the bridge there and walk back on the other side.’

  They stepped out briskly, not saying much until they reached the old building. ‘Did you study here, Doctor?’ Maggy asked.

  ‘Yes—it’s the oldest university in Holland, you know, and we’re all rather proud of it. I was at Cambridge too, and Edinburgh Royal, but I came back here.’

  They walked on, more slowly.

  ‘Do you like Leiden?’ he asked.

  ‘Very much, so far. The Rapenburg is beautiful. Do you prefer it to Oudehof?’

  They crossed the bridge, she could see his home now, and the Rolls-Royce standing outside.

  ‘What a difficult question to answer. I think I like them both equally.’

  They reached the house, and he went up the steps with her, pulled the old-fashioned bell, and waited until Anny opened the door. He didn’t go in, but said,

  ‘Goodbye, Maggy. Will you make my excuses to my mother? I’m going over to Utrecht and shan’t be back until late. Have a good day in Amsterdam if I don’t see you again.’

  He sounded casual. Maggy answered him quietly and went through the door and up the stairs to her room, where she stood before the mirror looking at herself. He had said ‘You look delightful,’ but he hadn’t meant it, of course. Slow tears started to trickle down her cheeks. He would be on his way to Utrecht now—on his way to Stien. She tore off her coat and scarf and washed her face and changed into uniform again, and went, with a cheerful face, to deliver Paul’s message to his mother.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MAGGY LEFT the house quite early the next morning making sure before she went that Mevrouw Doelsma’s gently patterned day should run smoothly. She sat in the train, wondering whether she should make the suggestion that there was really no further need of her services. She got out at Amsterdam with the question still unsolved, and then forgot all about it in the excitement of being in a strange city in a strange land, and with all day before her to explore it.

  It seemed logic to take a canal trip straight away—there was a launch standing beside its own small pier just across the street. Maggy crossed cautiously, bought her ticket and spent the next hour or so looking at Amsterdam from the water. She didn’t listen to the guide, saying everything three times in three languages; she didn’t care about the names of the old buildings they passed, or who owned them, but just sat quietly, looking about her; she would go for a second time on her next free day, and behave like a tourist.

  Back on the Damrak, she took out her map and studied it carefully, then made her way to the Palace and the War Memorial in the Dam Square; she studied them both at length, then strolled down the Kalverstraat, looking at the shops—they were inviting and expensive. Maggy studied the gay autumn colours. It would be nice to buy anything one fancied without having to worry if it would wear well or look fashionable in a year’s time. She glanced down at her own dress, a navy blue and white checked tricot, well cut but not, she realised, spectacular. There was a vivid coral pink jersey dress in one window, very plain, very well cut. It had no price tag. Maggy went inside, and speaking good clear Scots, asked to see it. The price was high, but as the saleswoman assured her, it was exactly the right dress for her. Looking at herself in the long, elegant mirror in the small fitting room, Maggy had to agree. It was a beautiful dress. She paid for it quickly before her practical mind told her that she was being extravagant, and left the shop happily.

  She lunched at the Formosa Café, because the doctor had told her to do so, and ate her way through a twaalf, studying her map. The Rijksmuseum was easy to find, but after half an hour she decided that she was doing the magnificent paintings less than justice by offering them the glance that was all the time she had for them. She wanted to sit and look at them in her own good time. She would most certainly have to return on the second free day Mevrouw Doelsma had promised her.

  She walked back towards the centre of the city, getting happily lost, and spending far too long peering into the antique shops in the narrow streets lining the canals. Eventually she found her way back to the Kalverstraat, and because she couldn’t find a tea-shop, ventured rather shyly into the Hotel Polen, where a fatherly waiter gave her tea, straw-coloured and very weak, and dish of delightful cakes. The day had passed very quickly. Maggy looked at her watch and decided that she would just have time to visit the Scottish Church before she went back to the station. It was easy enough to find, and surprisingly peaceful, standing in the little square of old houses, with the bustle of the city all round it. She left it reluctantly, and found her way back to the Dam Square; and because she had a little time to spare plunged into the Nieuwendijk. According to the map, the station would be at the other end, and it looked interesting, with a great many shops each side of a very narrow street, there was a strip of pavement on either side of the cobblestones, and Maggy walked briskly, resisting the temptation to stop and look in the shop windows; she wasn’t sure how far away the station was.

  There were a great many people about; she was pushed and jostled and bumped into, but all with the greatest good humour, and after a time she hardly noticed it until a small w
oman, darting out of a narrow alley, knocked against her and would have fallen if Maggy hadn’t caught her by the shoulder. Their surprise was mutual—it was Madame Riveau. Maggy recognised her at once, and Madame Riveau knew her too. She was very pale, her black eyes blank with what might have been pain. Maggy blinked with astonishment. The woman looked far worse than she had ever looked at St Ethelburga’s. She said gently, remembering to speak French,

  ‘Are you hurt, Madame Riveau? You are so white.’

  The woman shook her head, staring at Maggy as though she could not believe her eyes.

  ‘You’re not well?’ Maggy went on. This time Madame Riveau mumbled, ‘Yes, yes, Sister.’ Maggy, puzzled at her strange behaviour, tried again.

  ‘Do you live near here?’

  Her companion nodded again, and this time nodded reluctantly, displaying toothless gums.

  ‘So you’ve had your teeth out,’ said Maggy, glad of something to talk about to this awkward woman. ‘Do you remember that I said you should do so?’ She remembered how unpleasant the men had been about it. ‘Was your husband angry?’ She saw fear flicker in the woman’s eyes. ‘Does he take you to the doctor?’

  Madame Riveau went even whiter. So that was it! She said, ‘Sister, come again, I must see you. Why are you here?’

  ‘I came to Holland to work,’ Maggy said briefly. She saw no reason to tell the woman more—besides, her vocabulary was being stretched to its limits. She held out her hand, but surprisingly Madame Riveau became all of a sudden quite friendly.

  ‘Do you often come to Amsterdam, Sister?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Maggy, ‘but I shall be here again tomorrow or the next day.’

  Madame Riveau was still holding her hand. ‘I should like to see you and talk—I am not well, you saw that, did you not? I live near here. Perhaps if you come again, about this time—just for a few minutes.’

  Maggy gently withdrew her hand; the woman certainly looked ill, and after all she wasn’t a stranger. She nodded reluctantly. ‘I may come, but I can’t promise,’ she said.

  Madame Riveau smiled her horrible toothless smile. ‘Good, good, I shall count on you. Au revoir, Sister.’

  She disappeared into the crowd of people milling around them on the narrow pavement, and Maggy, mindful of her train, quickened her steps to the station.

  When she got back to the doctor’s house, she was fully occupied with Mevrouw Doelsma until dinner time. The doctor joined them in the dining room, but it wasn’t until half way through the meal that he asked Maggy casually if she had enjoyed her day. She answered briefly, afraid that it would bore him to have a detailed account of her comings and goings. He listened courteously, but didn’t press her for details, and presently began to talk about plans for his mother’s proposed holiday later on—it seemed that he owned a villa in the south of France as well. She supposed he was quite rich, and the thought depressed her.

  Maggy turned to answer a question from Mevrouw Doelsma; she wasn’t wearing uniform but had put on a sleeveless dress in a pink patterned silky material; its simple lines accentuated her delightful figure, the colour suited her clear skin and brown hair. She felt the doctor’s eyes on her and looked at him and smiled pleasantly and entirely without coquetry, and turned her attention back to his mother. Paul sat deep in thought, remembering what Nanny had said to him earlier that day. He became aware of Maggy’s lilting voice saying something about meeting a woman she knew; he caught the name and asked,

  ‘Do you mean that peculiar French woman with the gastric ulcer in your ward at St Ethelburga’s?’

  She half turned her head. ‘Yes, Doctor, only she is a Belgian. Do you remember her too? She had a horrid husband and an ugly wee brute of a son—she ran out of an alley today and almost knocked me down. She looked so frightened at first, and then became quite friendly. I expect she was as surprised as I was.’

  He was on the point of asking her where she had met the woman when Anny came in to tell him that he was wanted on the telephone, and presently he came back to say that he had to go out to a patient and they didn’t see him again that evening.

  The next day was cold and blustery. Mevrouw Doelsma’s hairdresser came in the morning, and after lunch they drove to the Hague where Maggy accompanied her patient from shop to shop. Mevrouw Doelsma had a nice taste in dress and bought several things that caught her fancy, never once, to Maggy’s astonishment, enquiring their price. There was no sign of the doctor when they got back at tea time, nor did he appear at dinner. Anny volunteered the information that her master had gone to Utrecht again, and didn’t know when he would be back.

  ‘He’s always in Utrecht,’ grumbled Mevrouw Doelsma, ‘but really I haven’t the heart to say anything to him; after all, it is what he wants.’

  Maggy murmured non-committally and looked at the trifle on her plate, something to which she was very partial, then found that she had no appetite for it. She would have to go back to London as soon as possible; she seemed incapable of controlling her feelings any more. If she never saw Paul again, perhaps she would be able to forget him; the unlikelihood of this was of no comfort to her. She swallowed the lump in her throat, and before she could change her treacherous mind, said, ‘Mevrouw Doelsma, you’ll not be needing me much longer. I’ll be sorry to go, but I should return to hospital, you know.’

  The little lady blinked at her across the beautifully appointed table.

  ‘Maggy! Go? But I shall miss you terribly. I know I don’t need you, but couldn’t you stay another week or so?’ She looked at Maggy’s face, and sighed. ‘No, I see you couldn’t. But what will Paul say? Has he mentioned it to you?’

  Maggy shook her head without speaking. ‘Well,’ said Mevrouw Doelsma, ‘you can’t go until the doctor says so.’

  ‘Doctor Bennink said that you were ready to return to normal life, didn’t he? And you are his patient.’

  ‘Maggy, you sound as though you wanted to go.’

  Maggy made haste to deny this and said hastily, ‘No indeed, I’ve enjoyed every moment of my stay in Holland—and Friesland,’ she added, mindful of the doctor’s strong views, even though he wasn’t there. ‘There’s a shortage of staff at St Ethelburga’s, and I ought to go.’

  Mevrouw Doelsma sighed for a second time. ‘Yes, my dear. I understand, but I shall be very sorry to see you go. We’ll tell Paul tomorrow. We shall be going back to Oudehof in a few days’ time; you can return from there, can’t you?’

  Maggy thanked her gravely. ‘I’ll write to Matron…’ she began, to be interrupted by Mevrouw Doelsma.

  ‘And, Maggy, you must go to Amsterdam again tomorrow as you planned. Mijnheer Doelsma will be coming to lunch, and will be very cross to miss you—but you may not have another chance. Oh dear! I can’t bear the thought of you going.’

  Maggy smiled at her. She had become very fond of Paul’s mother while she had been nursing her.

  ‘Now that you can lead a usual life again, you won’t miss me for long,’ she consoled her. ‘You’ll be going on holiday soon, and visiting your daughters, and seeing all your friends again.’

  She led the conversation back to more cheerful topics, and succeeded so well that by bedtime Mevrouw Doelsma was happy again.

  Maggy went to her own room, determined not to think about the doctor. She got out her map and began to plan her visit for the next day. She must remember to go down the Nieuwendijk again, in case Madame Riveau was looking for her. Maggy hoped that she wouldn’t be there, but she had promised to look out for her, and her dislike of the woman was no reason for breaking her word.

  She put the map aside and got up from the little chintz-covered chair by the window, and started to walk restlessly about the charming room, her thoughts a muddle of bitter regret at leaving and the certainty that she was doing the only thing possible.

  Her eye lighted on the cardboard box containing her new dress. What a terrible waste of money! Paul was unlikely to see her in it now—that, she was honest to admit to herself, was
why she had bought it. She shook it out of its tissue paper wrappings, and tried it on, then stood looking at her reflection in the long mirror hanging on one wall. She wasn’t a vain girl, but she could see that it was very becoming to her. She decided to wear it in the morning, and took it off and hung it carefully in the vast wardrobe, thinking how nice it would be if Paul were to come back from Utrecht before they left for Oudehof, but it was unlikely that he would return from Utrecht just to wish her goodbye.

  It was still early when she finally got to bed, and she wasn’t in the least sleepy. She had been down to the library earlier in the evening, and spent a little while choosing a book, and when she came across The Wind in the Willows with Paul’s name written on the fly-leaf, in a careful large hand, with the date, she had taken it. She liked the story, but she had chosen it because it had belonged to him when he was a small boy. She lay in bed, turning the pages, and wondering what he had been like all those years ago, and after a little while she fell asleep.

  The persistent, gentle tapping on the door roused her, she sat up in bed and looked at her watch—it was past one o’clock. Maggy reached for her dressing gown, ran barefooted to the door, and flung it open, the only thought in her mind the one that Mevrouw Doelsma had been taken ill. The doctor looked enormous in the dim light of the passage.

  She clutched at an elegant coat sleeve. ‘Your mother?’ she asked breathlessly.

  He answered coolly, ‘Sleeping soundly. I’m sorry if I wakened you; your light was on—it’s rather late, I wondered if there was anything wrong.’

  Maggy became aware of her hand, still on his arm. She whipped it away as though the fine cloth had burned it.

  ‘Wrong? With me? No; I fell asleep with the lamp still on. It was careless of me. I’m sorry, Doctor.’ She sounded very polite. The doctor didn’t move, and Maggy, aware of bare feet and a dressing gown bundled around her like a sack, put a tentative hand up to her hair, certain that she looked terrible. She would have liked to shut the door; the longing to put out her hand again and touch him was so great that she put her hands behind her back like a small girl, and stood looking at him wordlessly.