An Apple from Eve. Betty Neels
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Dr Bell patted her shoulder, said he’d be back later and made for his car, while Dr van Diederijk paused on the doorstep. ‘Give yourself a double whisky and go and lie down for a couple of hours,’ he advised her. ‘It will help you to get through the day.’
She didn’t answer him, only gave him a cold glance and went indoors. All the same, she did as he had said. The whisky went straight to her head; she prudently set the alarm for eight o’clock and got on to her bed and fell instantly asleep.
The man was right, she had to admit later. She awoke refreshed and clear-headed, able to tackle the day ahead of her, full of so many problems. It was at the end of it that she began to think about the future. The boys would be all right; their school fees would be covered by a fund their father had set up for them years ago. She herself would be able to keep herself easily enough, but Ellen was a different matter. She couldn’t remain at home by herself, but on the other hand she had had no particular training. Euphemia frowned over the problem and then decided to ask Mr Fish their solicitor’s advice.
She had only the vaguest notion of her father’s income; there had never been much money and the house had grown shabby with the years, but he had lived comfortably and money had been something he had never discussed with her. She dismissed the matter and set herself to writing to various relations and friends. The boys she had sent to stay with friends close by for a couple of days and Ellen was of no use at all, declaring that she couldn’t possibly think of anything except her father’s death. Euphemia had comforted her gently and sent her to bed early, staying up late herself, writing her letters until, quite worn out, she went to bed herself.
She got through the following days with outward calm. She was a girl with plenty of common sense, and it stood her in good stead now. She loved her father and she grieved for him, but life had to go on. He would have been the first to remind her of that.
Aunts, uncles and cousins she barely knew came to the funeral, and when Aunt Thea, a mild-looking middle-aged lady with a deplorable taste in hats, suggested with genuine eagerness that Ellen should go back to Middle Wallop with her for a long visit, Euphemia thanked heaven silently for settling one of her most pressing problems. The boys were going back to school on the following day and she would return to the Men’s Medical ward at St Cyprian’s on the day after that. There only remained the reading of her father’s will, and that would hold no surprises.
She couldn’t have been more mistaken. Sitting in the small room the Colonel had used as his study, watching Mr Fish gather together his papers after the will had been read, Euphemia tried to take it all in and failed. She hadn’t expected there would be much money, but she had never guessed at debts, still less that the house—their loved home—was mortgaged and would have to be sold. Mr Fish had been adamant about that; either she must lay her hands on the very considerable sum the house was worth, or sell it and pay off the mortgage. People, said Mr Fish in his dry, elderly voice, tended to be businesslike about such things. The fact that they were rendering someone homeless was secondary to their instinct for good business.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something,’ Euphemia promised her brothers and sister. ‘No one’s going to do anything for a month at least, there’s plenty of time to fix something up.’ She spoke so cheerfully that they actually believed her.
‘Uncle Tom—would he lend us the money?’ asked Ellen hopefully, and, ‘Cousin Fred drove here in a socking great Jag,’ observed Nicky, the elder of her brothers.
‘But he’s getting married,’ Billy, the youngest, chimed in, and added with all the wisdom of twelve years, ‘He’ll need all his money.’
Euphemia swept them all to their feet. ‘Well, we’re not going to worry about it now, Father wouldn’t have liked it. Ellen, shouldn’t you go and pack, and you two, put out what you need and I’ll pop up presently.’
She went back to the drawing-room where the last of the family were bidding each other goodbye. They met seldom, only at christenings or weddings or funerals, when they enjoyed a good gossip. Dr Bell was still there too. Euphemia whispered: ‘I want to speak to you,’ as she went past him, and when the last of her relatives, barring Aunt Thea who had gone to help Ellen pack, had disappeared through the open gate, she turned to him.
‘Dr Bell, I want your advice. Father has left some debts—not many, but they must be paid, and the house is mortgaged. Mr Fish says we must sell it, but…well, it’s our home. There must be another way of getting the money, only I can’t think of it at the moment.’
He beamed at her, pleased that he could help. ‘There is another way—at least, you can postpone selling the house for a time. Find a tenant, and let it furnished. I believe that might bring in enough to pay the instalments on the mortgage. I’m not going to say it’s the right answer, but it would give you a breathing space, and who knows, something may happen…’
‘You mean win a prize from Ernie or marry a millionaire?’ She beamed at him. ‘Dr Bell, you’re an angel! That’s what I’ll do. How do I start? Advertise? And how much rent should I ask?’ She faltered for a moment. ‘If only Father…’ She blinked back tears and smiled again, a shaky, lopsided smile this time. ‘Bless you for thinking of it, Dr Bell.’
He patted her arm. ‘As I said, it may serve its purpose for a breathing space while you all get adjusted. I’ll ask around—I meet a good many people, someone somewhere will be looking for just such a place as this.’
Ellen and Aunt Thea joined them then and when they had driven off, Ellen tearful but happy to have her immediate future settled for her, Euphemia bade the doctor goodbye and went up to the boys’ room to help them pack. The house seemed very quiet and empty, and would be even more so presently when they had gone. She got out the car and drove them to the station and stood waving until the train was out of sight.
It was getting dark when she got back to the house, with an overcast sky and the threat of thunder. She made herself a pot of tea and ate some of the leftover sandwiches, then went along to her father’s study to start sorting out the papers in his desk. Her sadness had gone beyond tears; she felt numb, anxious to get as much done as possible before she went back to the hospital in the morning. She worked until late into the night and then wandered through the nice old house, wondering if she would be able to let it at a good rent, whether she would ever have the chance to pay off the mortgage; it was for a frighteningly large amount. She was still doing sums in her head when she fell asleep in the pretty bedroom she had had since she was a small girl.
She had been dreading returning to the hospital. She had a great many friends there; she had done her training with most of them, worked her way up the ladder of promotion until she had been offered Men’s Medical two years previously, and now at the age of twenty-seven, she had a safe future before her. Not that she wished to remain a nurse for ever; she wanted to marry, preferably a man with enough money to support her in comfort somewhere in the country—a garden, she had daydreamed idly from time to time, with a donkey and dogs and children to play in it. But none of these things would be of any use unless she loved him and he loved her.
Driving to work through the early morning she realised that her vague dreams would have to go by the board for the present. Ellen had to be thought of, and the boys. No man in his right mind would be prepared to take on a whole family, and even if she succeeded in finding someone to rent their home she would have to go on working. She could see no chance of ever paying the mortgage off, but with each year of instalments paid, there was the chance that something might happen. She turned the car into the hospital forecourt and parked neatly. As she crossed to the swing doors she decided that Ellen would probably marry someone rich who would want to live in the house and thus keep it in the family—a childish notion but comforting none the less.
Everyone was very kind to her. The Senior Nursing Officer, a tart middle-aged lady who seldom had a kind word for anyone, was surprisingly sympathetic, and Euphemia’s own friends lingered on their way to their wards to offer their sympathy. And once on her own ward, her nurses, who liked her because she was sensible and fair and kind as well as very pretty, made it their business to murmur conventional stilted phrases. It was the tray of tea on her desk and the vase of flowers beside