wasn’t quite as pleasant as she went into Mrs Dowling’s room.
‘There you are!’ Her patient’s harsh voice was pitched high with impatience; she scarcely glanced up from manicuring her nails. ‘You’ve been a long time.’
‘Not quite half an hour,’ said Constantia quietly. She put the newspaper and the silk on a table with the little pile of change, which Mrs Dowling leaned over and counted carefully before telling Constantia to give her her handbag. ‘Did you meet someone?’ she demanded.
‘Doctor van der Giessen.’
Mrs Dowling closed her handbag with a snap. ‘Him?’ Her lip curled in a sneer. ‘Sweet on him, are you? I told you that he was as poor as a church mouse—so rumour says—and likely to stay that way, with three children to look after. More fool he!’
Constantia was collecting the odds and ends Mrs Dowling had shed around the room. The remark ruffled her patience and her temper, but she had no intention of letting her patient see that. ‘Probably he prefers children to money,’ she commented lightly, ‘some people do.’
Mrs Dowling shot her a peevish look. ‘That’s ridiculous, and you’re being impertinent, Nurse.’
Constantia let that pass. ‘Would you like cheese or ham with your salad?’ she wanted to know.
‘Neither. You can think up something else; that’s what I pay you for, isn’t it? I’m tired of this dreary diet. I’m sure Doctor Sperling has exaggerated the whole business—I’ll have escalope of veal with a cream sauce.’
‘Followed by a diabetic coma,’ Constantia added silently while she observed out loud, ‘I’m afraid a diet is necessary, Mrs Dowling. Once you’re stabilised Doctor Sperling will allow you more variety. I’ll go and see about your lunch and then give you your injection.’
She was almost at the door when Mrs Dowling called after her in her penetrating voice: ‘Are you going to ask for time off to meet your doctor? I daresay he could afford a cup of coffee somewhere.’
Constantia fought and conquered a desire to throw something at her patient and went out of the room without saying a word, although she muttered nastily to herself on her way to the kitchen.
Wednesday came; Constantia bounced out of bed, observed that it was a lovely morning, even if cold still, and set about dealing with her patient’s wants. It was almost lunchtime when the doorbell rang and a visitor was shown in by Nel—a young man with rather vapid good looks, who embraced Mrs Dowling with every appearance of delight and addressed her as Vera.
‘My nephew, Willy Caxton—passing through Delft and lunching with us,’ explained Mrs Dowling briefly. She nodded at Constantia. ‘My nurse.’
They exchanged a cool greeting because Constantia was smarting under the assumption that she had no name and he obviously didn’t consider it worth his while to ask. ‘Give Mr Caxton a drink,’ decreed Mrs Dowling, ‘and then go and see about lunch. Nel should have it ready.’
It was almost one o’clock. Constantia, hurrying a Nel who didn’t want to be hurried, found herself fretting and fuming that she wouldn’t be able to escape for her half day. Luckily she wasn’t expected until half past three…
It was during lunch that Mrs Dowling told Constantia that she was to escort her nephew to as many of the local places of interest as could be squashed into a couple of hours.
‘It’s my half day, Mrs Dowling, and I’ve already made other arrangements.’
‘Nonsense, what arrangements could you possibly have?’ Her employer’s eyes narrowed. ‘Going out with your doctor, I suppose? Well, he’ll just have to wait, won’t he? Mr Caxton will be leaving at four o’clock, you can have the rest of the day to yourself.’
Constantia was on the point of refusing point blank; it was Willy’s rather plaintive request to agree to his aunt’s wishes which melted her too-soft heart. He was so obviously anxious to get away as soon as possible. ‘Until half past three?’ she conceded, and went to get her outdoor things.
He was hard going; not in the least interested in the town or its lovely buildings. Indeed, he confided in Constantia, if it wasn’t that Aunt Vera had left him a tidy little sum in her will, he wouldn’t bother to come and see her at all. Constantia liked him even less for saying that; his good looks were skin-deep and she had the strong impression that the only thing that mattered to him was himself and his own doings. She rushed him from one church to the next, pointed out some of the more beautiful buildings, knowing that he wasn’t in the least interested, and wanted to know, with some asperity, if he wouldn’t like to cut short his sightseeing. It was already well past half past three—she would never get to Doctor van der Giessen’s house in time now.
They were standing on the edge of the Markt where he had parked his car, while she urged him to get in and drive away as nicely as she could without actually giving him a push, when Doctor van der Giessen’s battered Fiat drove slowly by. He saw them but he didn’t stop, only gave her an expressionless look which held no hint of an invitation to tea.
It was a pity that Willy Caxton chose that moment to catch her by the hand and look earnestly into her face. He was only begging her to assure his aunt that he had had a delightful afternoon and to refrain from mentioning that he was leaving before he was supposed to, but she could hardly stop the doctor’s car to tell him that.
She gave Willy only half her attention as she watched the Fiat rush round a corner and out of sight. She wouldn’t dare to go to tea now; she had wasted almost half an hour getting the wretched Willy to go, and probably the doctor thought that she had stood his tea party up for the pleasures of Willy’s tiresome company.
Her half day was spoiled; she waved Willy a thankful goodbye and wandered away, wondering if she should telephone the doctor’s house or even go there. But in the face of that bland look she had received from the car she didn’t dare. She would write a little note. She had tea in the little tea shop by the market, composing it in her head while she did so. She went for a long walk afterwards, eating her supper in a snack bar and then walking again. The half day she had so looked forward to had been a washout.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS the following afternoon as she was returning from her few hours off duty that Constantia encountered Elisabeth. The child was crying, and so upset that Constantia had to remind her who she was before she would stop sobbing to say:
‘We’ve lost Prince—Pieter and Paul are looking for him too—we aren’t supposed to be out, but we left the garden door open when we got home and he ran out. We didn’t find out at first, and when we went to look for him he’d gone.’ She burst into fresh sobs and Constantia stooped to wipe the woebegone little face and say comfortingly: ‘He can’t be far, poppet, and he knows his way home, doesn’t he?’
‘We’ve only had him a week or two—Oom Jeroen found him in a ditch and brought him home to live with us.’ The little girl raised her tear-stained face to hers and Constantia said cheerfully, ‘Look, darling, you go home—carefully, mind, and I’ll start looking for Prince. Will you do that and wait until I come? Promise?’
The moppet nodded and Constantia took her across the narrow street and saw her safely on her way before starting her search for the little dog. She found him within ten minutes, lying in a gutter of one of the side streets she had been methodically combing.
