Tempestuous April. Бетти Нилс
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for sleep. She lay staring at the roses on the wallpaper, contemplating her future with a complete lack of enthusiasm, and was suddenly struck by the fact that this was entirely due to the knowledge that Dr Eijsinck would have no part of it. The front door banged and she got out of bed to watch the Van Minnen family make their way down the street towards church, glad of the interruption of thoughts she didn’t care to think. It wasn’t quite nine o’clock; she slipped on the nightgown’s matching peignoir and the rather ridiculous slippers which went with it, and made her way downstairs through the quiet old house to the dining-room.
Someone had thoughtfully drawn a small table up to the soft warmth of the stove and laid it with care, for cup, saucer and plate of a bright brown earthenware, flanked by butter in a Delft blue dish, stood invitingly ready. There was coffee too, and a small basket full of an assortment of bread, and grouped together, jam and sausage and cheese. Harriet poured coffee, buttered a crusty slice of bread with a lavish hand and took a large satisfying bite. She had lifted her coffee cup half-way to her lips when the door opened.
‘Where’s everybody?’ asked Dr Eijsinck, without bothering to say good morning. ‘Church?’
Harriet put down her cup. ‘Yes,’ she said, with her mouth full. His glance flickered over her and she went pink under it.
‘Are you ill?’ he asked politely, although his look denied his words.
‘Me? Ill? No.’ If he chose to think of her as a useless lazy creature, she thought furiously, she for one would not enlighten him.
‘Well, if you’re not ill, you’d better come to the surgery and hold down a brat with a bead up his nose.’
‘Certainly,’ said Harriet, ‘since you ask me so nicely; but I must dress first.’
‘Why? There’s no one around who’s interested in seeing you like that. The child’s about three; his mother’s in the waiting room because she’s too frightened to hold him herself; and as for me, I assure you that I am quite unaffected.’
She didn’t like the note of mockery—he was being deliberately tiresome! She put her cup back in its saucer, got up without a word and followed him down the passage to the surgery where she waited while he fetched the child from its mother. She took the little boy in capable arms and said, ‘There, there,’ in the soft, kind voice she used to anyone ill or afraid. He sniffed and gulped, and under her approving, ‘There’s a big man, then!’ subsided into quietness punctuated by heaving breaths, so that she was able to lay him on the examination table without further ado, and steady his round head between her small firm hands. Dr Eijsinck, standing with speculum, probe and curved forceps ready to hand, grunted something she couldn’t understand and switched on his head lamp.
‘Will you be able to hold him with one arm?’ she asked matter-of-factly.
He looked as though he was going to laugh, but his voice was mild enough as he replied. ‘I believe I can manage, Miss Slocombe. He’s quite small, and my arm is—er—large enough to suffice.’
He sprayed the tiny nostril carefully and got to work, his big hand manipulating the instruments with a surprising delicacy. While he worked he talked softly to his small patient; a meaningless jumble of words Harriet could make nothing of.
‘Are you speaking Fries?’ she wanted to know.
He didn’t look up. ‘Yes … I don’t mean to be rude, but Atse here doesn’t understand anything else at present.’ He withdrew a bright blue bead from the small nose and Atse at once burst into tearful roars, the while his face was mopped up. Harriet scooped him up into her arms.
‘Silly boy, it’s all over.’ She gave him a hug and he stopped his sobbing to look at her and say something. She returned his look in her turn. ‘It’s no good, Atse, I can’t understand.’
Dr Eijsinck looked up from the sink where he was washing his hands.
‘Allow me to translate. He is observing—as I daresay many other members of his sex have done before him—that you and your—er—dress are very beautiful.’
Harriet felt her cheeks grow hot, but she answered in a composed voice, ‘What a lovely compliment—something to remember when I get home.’
The doctor had come to stand close to her and she handed him the little boy. ‘Good-bye, Atse, I hope I see you again.’ She shook the fat little hand, straightened the examination table, thumped up its pillow with a few brisk movements, and made for the door. She had opened it before Dr Eijsinck said quietly, ‘Thank you for your help, Miss Slocombe.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ she said airily, as she went through.
The breakfast table still looked very attractive; she plugged in the coffee pot and took another bite from her bread and butter. She was spreading a second slice with a generous wafer of cheese when the door opened again. Dr Eijsinck said from the doorway, ‘I’m sorry I disturbed your breakfast.’ And then, ‘Is the coffee hot?’
She wiped a few crumbs away from her mouth, using a finger.
‘Don’t apologize, Doctor … and yes, thank you, the coffee is hot.’
There was a pause during which she remembered how unpleasant he had been. The look she cast him was undoubtedly a reflection of her thoughts, for he gave a sudden quizzical smile, said good-bye abruptly, and went.
They were having morning coffee when he arrived for the second time. He took the cup Mevrouw Van Minnen handed him and sat down unhurriedly; it seemed to Harriet, sitting by the window with Sieske, that he was very much one of the family. He was answering a great number of questions which Dr Van Minnen was putting to him, and Harriet thought what a pity it was she couldn’t understand Dutch. Sieske must have read her thoughts, for she called across the room.
‘Friso, were you called out?’ and she spoke in English.
He replied in the same tongue. ‘Yes, for my sins … an impacted fractured femur and premature twins.’
Sieske said quickly with a sideways look at Harriet, ‘Don’t forget Atse. Weren’t you glad that Harry was here to help you?’
‘Delighted,’ he said in a dry voice, ‘and so was Atse.’
Harriet, studying her coffee cup with a downbent head, was nonetheless aware that he was looking at her.
‘So you didn’t get to bed at all?’ asked Aede.
‘Er—no. I was on my way home when I encountered Atse and his mother; I was nearer here than my own place—it seemed logical to bring them with me. I’d forgotten that you would all be in church.’
Harriet abandoned the close scrutiny of her coffee cup. So he had been up all night; being a reasonable young woman she understood how he must have felt when he found her. And the coffee—he had asked if it was hot and she hadn’t even asked him if he wanted a cup. How mean of her—she opened her mouth to say so, caught his eye and knew that he had guessed her intention. Before she could speak, he went on smoothly,
‘I am indebted to—er—Harriet for her help; very competent help too.’
Mevrouw Van Minnen said something, Harriet had no idea what until she heard the word koffie. She opened her mouth once more, feeling guilty, but he was speaking before she could get a word out.
‘What is Dr Eijsinck saying, Sieske?’ she said softly.
Her friend gave a sympathetic giggle. ‘Poor Harry, not understanding a word! He’s explaining that he couldn’t stay for the coffee you had ready for him because he had to go straight back to the twins.’
Harriet had only been in Holland a short time, but already she had realized that hospitality was a built-in feature of the Dutch character—to deny it to anyone was unthinkable. Mevrouw Van Minnen would have been upset. Friso was being magnanimous. The least she could do was to apologize and thank him for his thoughtfulness.
He got up a few minutes later and