in all directions. The woman smiled uncertainly.
“Oh, are you the English nurse?”
Charity smiled and said that yes, she was. This, unless she was very much mistaken, was Mr Boekerchek’s wife. “I’m sorry to arrive so late,” she apologised. “If I could just put my car away and get my luggage…”
Her hostess went back to the door where the porter still lingered and spoke to him and then turned to Charity. “If you would let him have the keys,” she suggested, “he’ll put the car away—there’s an underground garage—and bring up your cases,” and when Charity had done this and closed the door the poor lady burst into tears.
“I never thought you’d come,” she sobbed, “and Arthur was so dead set on having you and no one else, and I thought if you wouldn’t come, he’d refuse surgery and then what would happen?”
Charity put an arm round the little lady’s shoulders and led her across the hall to a half-opened door which she hoped was a sitting-room. She was right, it was. She settled Mrs Boekerchek in a chair and sat down close by. “But I am here,” she pointed out cheerfully, “and we’ll have your husband on his feet again in no time at all.”
Her companion sniffed, blew her nose and made a great effort to calm down. “I don’t know what I expected,” she confided, “but you’re quite different, I reckon—no wonder Arthur wouldn’t budge.” She got up quickly. “There, see what an old fool I am—you must be tired to death and I’m wasting your time. There’s a meal for you—I’ll get Nel to serve it…”
Charity had got to her feet too. “That sounds lovely, but could I have five minutes to tidy myself and then go and see Mr Boekerchek? Will his doctor be coming this evening?”
“No—tomorrow morning. He’s to go to Utrecht, you know. The ambulance is coming at nine o’clock to take him to the hospital there—I’ve forgotten its name—Dr Donker said he’d see you before you went.” She was leading the way across the hall again and into one of the passages. “This is your room. I hope you’ll be comfortable—there’s a shower room beyond. Shall I come back for you in a few minutes?” She sounded wistful; Charity guessed that she needed company to take her mind off her husband’s illness.
“Give me ten minutes,” she agreed readily.
The room was luxurious; a pity, thought Charity, tidying herself hastily, that she would only have one night here. After that it would presumably be the Nurses’ Home in Utrecht. She fancied that it might be very like the Home at St Simon’s. She cast a lingering look round the room and turned to smile at Mrs Boekerchek at the door.
Mr Boekerchek certainly looked ill. He was pale and decidedly irritable despite his pleasure at seeing Charity. He had lost a lot of weight too, and confided to her that he was quite unable to work any more and suffered from a depression which was a blight both to himself and his wife.
“Hyperinsulinism, that’s my trouble,” he declared, “that professor what’s-his-name who’s going to carve me up, explained it to me—can’t say I made head or tail of it, though. But I trust him all right—lucky I’d already met him.” He managed a thin smile. “Just as long as you know what he’s talking about, eh? I’m glad they got hold of you. I do declare that I wouldn’t have agreed to surgery unless they had. I’m a daft old man, aren’t I? but thank God, I’m important enough to be humoured.”
Charity stayed with him for the rest of the evening, studying the notes the doctor had left for her before settling him for the night, eating a hasty supper and then going to sit for half an hour with his wife, whom she tried, not very successfully, to comfort before going to her room and bed. It seemed to her that her head had barely touched the pillow before Nel was shaking her awake with a cup of tea on a tray and the news that it was six o’clock, something the city’s carillons let her know, a dozen times over.
Mindful of the doctor’s visit at eight o’clock, she dressed, in uniform this time—and went along to her patient’s room. He had slept well, he told her, and was positively cheerful at the idea of getting things going at last. She helped him wash and shave, made sure that he was comfortable, checked his packed case, and went along to the kitchen. Mrs Boekerchek was up too, fussing round the stolid Nel while she prepared their breakfast. Mr Boekerchek, naturally enough, had very little appetite. Charity saw to his wants first and then made a healthily sustaining meal herself while her companion drank quantities of scalding coffee and jumped up and down like a yo-yo. She wasn’t going to Utrecht with them; Charity was to telephone her later on in the day, and tell her what had been decided, and when the decision to operate had been taken she would go over to the hospital and stay if it were considered necessary.
Charity discussed Mrs Boekerchek’s plans at length and in a cheerful voice and was rewarded by seeing the unhappy little woman’s face brighten. “Wear something pretty when you come,” she advised her, “something your husband likes; it will help him enormously, you know, if he’s feeling weak and ill, to see you looking pretty and nicely dressed—and don’t be upset when you see him after the op. He’ll look very pale and strange and there’ll be tubes and things all over the place—they look dramatic, but he won’t notice them, so don’t you either.”
Her words had the desired effect. Mrs Boekerchek fell to planning various outfits and even pondered the advisability of a visit to the hairdresser. “I have a rinse, you know,” she confided. “It needs to be done every week or so—Arthur is dead set on me not going grey, I reckon.” She eyed Charity’s burnished head with some envy. “Yours is real, I guess,” she asked wistfully.
“Well, yes,” Charity felt almost apologetic about it, “but quite often people think it isn’t.” Her pretty mouth curved in a smile. “Do you mind if I go to my room and make sure everything is ready? We mustn’t keep the ambulance waiting and I’m not certain how long the doctor will take—it’s almost eight o’clock.”
He came a few minutes later, a small dark man with thick glasses and hair brushed carefully over the bald spot on the top of his head. He spoke English with a fluency she instantly envied and plunged at once into instructions, details of his patient’s illness, and dire warnings as to what might go wrong and what she was to do if they did. She listened attentively, collected the necessary papers he had entrusted to her care, wished him goodbye and rejoined her patient. Ten minutes later they were in the ambulance, on their way to Utrecht.
It was a journey of forty miles or so, and since they travelled on the motorway for almost the entire distance and the ambulance was an elegant sleek model built for speed, they were soon on the outskirts of the city, but here their progress slowed considerably, and Charity, bent on keeping her patient’s mind on the normal things of life, encouraged him to describe the city to her, and looked when told to do so through the dark glass windows, trying to identify the various buildings he was telling her about. He had become quite cheerful during their ride together and had told her about his work and his family and home in the USA.
“This country’s OK,” he told her, “but a bit cramped, I guess—why, you can drive from one end to the other in the matter of a few hours, now, back home…” He paused. “I guess it’s OK, though, like I said—nice people, no need to learn the language, and a good thing too, for it’s a tongue-twister, all right. Where are we now?”
Charity had a look. “Going up a narrow lane, walls on either side—the backs of houses I should think. Oh, here’s a gate and a courtyard—I believe it’s the hospital.”
She was right. The ambulance passed the main entrance and drew up before a double swing door. Within minutes Mr Boekerchek was stretched tidily under his blankets on a
