Esmeralda. Betty Neels
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he told her warmly. ‘I thought we’d go to that Greek restaurant in Charlotte Street, if you would like that?’
Esmeralda said with all the eagerness of a happy child: ‘Oh, yes, very much,’ and then sat back while he drove through the hospital gates and joined the evening traffic. He was a showy driver, full of impatience and blaming everyone else except himself, but she wouldn’t admit that, staying quiet until he pulled up with a squeal of brakes outside the restaurant.
It was a small pleasant place with candlelit tables and an intimate atmosphere. They decided on kebabs and Leslie made rather a thing about choosing the wine, so that Esmeralda felt a tiny prick of irritation deep under her pleasure, but she lost it once he had made his choice and settled down to entertain her, and presently, as they ate, he began to tell her of his hopes and ambitions. He had set his sights on a consulting practice, rooms in Harley Street and a pleasant house not too far away. ‘It will be hard work,’ he commented, laughing, ‘but worth it if I have the right girl with me.’ And he had looked at her in a way which quickened her breath.
‘You’ll need an attractive wife,’ she told him, ‘someone who can entertain for you and run your home and join in your pleasures—dancing…’ She drank some wine and looked at him with a calm little face.
He moved restlessly in his chair, although he was smiling at her. ‘There are other things than dancing.’ He added: ‘You’re thinking about that foot of yours, aren’t you? It’s unimportant compared to a great many other things.’
She didn’t stop to wonder what the other things might be; she said eagerly: ‘Oh, don’t you really mind? I’m used to it, of course, but it’s not…’ She smiled widely.
‘That surgeon who came today—Mr Bamstra—he says he can cure it. He’s already done several—he asked me to think about it.’
Leslie looked at her sharply. ‘Did he indeed—he’s a foreigner.’
She looked bewildered. ‘Well, yes—Dutch. But nowadays people don’t seem foreign any more, do they? I’ll have it done…’
Her companion’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t know anything about him—he might just be after your money.’ And when she stared at him in surprise, he went on quickly: ‘Probably he’ll charge enormous fees and you’ll have to borrow to pay him. I know what you nurses get—you’ll be the rest of your life paying it back.’ He smiled then. ‘I only wish I could pay the fees for you.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that there was no need, that she could easily afford to pay him herself; that it had not, in fact, once entered her head, but something stopped her. She didn’t think that he knew about her inheritance, for he had had no way of discovering it, and she wanted him most desperately to like her, for herself and no other reason—and if he did know, she would never be sure if it had been her money… His smile became tender, so that the doubts she had been harbouring melted away. All the same, she decided then and there to allow the Dutch surgeon to examine her foot. If Leslie liked her enough to take her out and not mind her awkward limp, surely if her foot were to be put right…? Esmeralda left the question unanswered.
CHAPTER TWO
ESMERALDA was doing the medicine round the next morning when Sister Richards sailed down the ward to her. ‘It comes to something,’ she complained crossly, ‘when I’m forced to do my staff nurse’s work while she dallies round with the surgeons—a foreigner, too.’ She made it sound as though the visitor had horns and a forked tail. ‘And you’d better not keep him waiting,’ she added unexpectedly, ‘he’s one of those quiet men who explode when you least expect it.’
Esmeralda murmured suitably and hurried away, not caring about the limp for once. She didn’t think that Mr Bamstra would explode, but as she hadn’t had much experience of men, she couldn’t be sure. She hurried on her own account; she had spent a wakeful night interspersed by dreams of a smitten Leslie completely won over, for as in dreams, not only had she two marvellous feet like everyone else, she had become quite beautiful too… She tried to clear her head of these ridiculous ideas as she went. Mr Bamstra wouldn’t want to waste his time, he would expect clear answers to his questions, and somehow she must find the opportunity to ask him about fees.
Mr Bamstra was leaning his enormous bulk against Sister’s desk, studying the off-duty book. He looked up as she went in, said ‘Hullo,’ in a friendly voice and then: ‘What inconvenient off-duty you have!’
It wasn’t at all what she had expected. ‘Well, yes,’ she said because she could think of nothing else on the spur of the moment.
He put the book down and studied her with a detached air. ‘Have you decided to let me have a go?’ he asked her placidly.
‘Well, yes.’
‘Good,’ his voice was casual, ‘I take it you have talked it over with someone or other—your parents?’
‘Well…’
‘Yes?’ He smiled as he spoke and Esmeralda chuckled. ‘I was going to say no,’ she told him forthrightly. ‘You see, Father’s dead, and Mother has spent years trying to get my foot seen to—I thought I’d like to have it all arranged before I told her—she’ll be wild with delight.’ She added: ‘And so shall I.’
‘Ah—there is a young man, perhaps?’
She said seriously: ‘Yes, at least I hope—I think so. He doesn’t seem to mind that I’m a cripple, but it would be so much nicer…only he’s not very keen on you doing it.’
Mr Bamstra studied the nails of his well-kept hands. ‘He doesn’t approve of surgeons?’ His gentle voice would have coaxed words from a stone.
She spoke without thinking. ‘Oh, but he’s a surgeon himself. You met him yesterday—Leslie Chapman.’
Mr Bamstra, finding nothing wrong with his nails, transferred his attention to his well-polished shoes. ‘Ah—I am a foreigner,’ he declared mildly. ‘He thinks I wouldn’t be competent.’
Esmeralda was standing in front of him, her hands clasped in front of her neat waist. ‘He says you’ll charge enormous fees—that you are after my money…’
He threw back his great head and roared with laughter. ‘And is that what you think too, young lady?’
She eyed him impatiently. ‘Of course not! You’re a successful surgeon—I expect your fees are huge, but I don’t suppose you need the money.’ She added reluctantly: ‘Anyway, I can afford to pay them. Leslie doesn’t know that, though.’
Mr Bamstra made a small sound which he turned into a cough. ‘I—er—thought a nominal fee would be in order. After all, the operation is still in its experimental stages—I daresay we might come to some agreement about that; besides, we have a National Health Service in Holland, too.’ He got up from the desk and strolled over to the window. ‘Take off your stockings or tights, or whatever it is you wear, and let me see your foot.’
He examined the poor squashed thing with gentle hands, and when he had finished said, more to himself than to her: ‘The middle metatarsals are flattened and fused, the last two pushed up and out of alignment—they’ll need to be broken down, reset, and those two chisseled back into some sort of shape.’ He set her foot gently on to the floor again. ‘Why on earth didn’t someone do something when it happened?’
‘Well, I was only three, and Mother called in our doctor at once. He had it X-rayed at the local hospital and he felt sure that as the bones were still growing, they would right themselves. I—I was put to bed for a couple of weeks and then encouraged to walk. I had physiotherapy too.’
‘Indeed?’ The surgeon’s face was inscrutable. ‘And it got steadily worse?’
‘Not straight away—it hurt for quite a while, just an ache, you know, and then it stopped hurting and I began to limp. Mother and Father took me to any number of specialists, and they all