An Apple from Eve. Betty Neels
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followed the two men out of the room and ignoring the consultant’s cool annoyance, addressed herself to Dr Bell.
‘Did Father know that he was ill? Was this unexpected? And if it wasn’t why wasn’t I told?’
‘He expressly forbade me to mention it, Euphemia.’ Dr Bell looked uncomfortable. ‘A question of valves,’ he went on. ‘I suggested that he might put himself in the hands of a surgeon some months ago, but he wouldn’t hear of it, and now it’s become imperative.’
‘He could recover if they operate?’
‘That’s for Dr van Diederijk to say.’
She turned to the silent man watching her. ‘You’re not a surgeon?’
‘No, a physician.’
‘So it’s your advice which will decide whether surgery will give my father a chance.’
He nodded his splendid head. ‘That is so.’ He added softly: ‘And now if Dr Bell and I might go somewhere undisturbed…’
She hated him; cold, arrogant, rude, self-important…she had quite a list of adjectives by the time she was back in her father’s room.
Ellen was standing forlornly looking out of the window, and Euphemia gave her a loving understanding glance as she went to the bed. Ellen had always been the baby, even though both the boys were younger than she; she hated violence and sickness, and bad temper, and Euphemia had tried to shield her from all these. It hadn’t been too difficult, because Ellen had been the one to stay at home and run the house with the help of Mrs Cross who came in to oblige every day. She would have to send for the boys, thought Euphemia—just in case…
She sat down by the bed and took her father’s hand again. He was too ill to talk and she made no effort to speak, sensing that peace and quiet was what he wanted. Presently she said softly to Ellen: ‘Go down and make coffee, will you, darling? Those two men will want something.’
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