is a good thing that my self-esteem does not depend upon your good opinion of me,’ said Dr van Rijgen softly. ‘Would it be a good idea if we were to have a tray of tea? I have found that tea, to the English, soothes even the most unhappy breast. Come to that, the most savage one, too.’
Fran didn’t look at him but went in a dignified way to the kitchen and asked Eddie, the ward maid, to lay up a tea tray.
‘’As ’is nibs taken a liking for it?’ asked that elderly lady. ‘Not like ’im, with ’is foreign ways.’
Fran explained, knowing that if she didn’t Eddie was quite capable of finding out for herself.
‘Give me ’arf a mo’, Sister, and I’ll bring in the tray. Three cups?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so. Mrs Owen won’t want to sit and drink it by herself.’
She would rather not have gone back to the office but there was no reason why she shouldn’t. Dr van Rijgen was still admiring the view and he didn’t look at her when she sat down at her desk. Indeed, he didn’t move until one of the nurses tapped on the door, put her head round it in response to Fran’s voice and said that Mrs Owen was there.
Fran sat her down: a small plump woman, her round face so anxious. ‘It’s Jack, isn’t it, Sister? He’s not so well. I’m that worried…’
Fran poured the tea and said in a quiet way, ‘Mr Owen has been seen by Dr Beecham and Dr van Rijgen this morning, Mrs Owen.’ She handed the doctor a cup. ‘Dr van Rijgen will explain how things are…’
He had got to his feet when Mrs Owen had been ushered in; now he sat on the edge of the desk, half turned away from Fran. He looked relaxed and unworried and Mrs Owen’s troubled face cleared. His explanations were concise and offered with matter-of-fact sympathy; he neither pretended that there was much chance of Mr Owen recovering, nor did he paint too dark a picture of his future. ‘We shall do what we can, Mrs Owen, that I can promise you,’ he told her finally and Fran, listening, was aware that if she were in Mrs Owen’s shoes she would believe him; what was more, she would trust him. Which, considering she didn’t like the man, was something to be wondered at.
Dr van Rijgen went away presently, leaving Fran to give what comfort she could, and Mrs Owen, who had kept a stern hold on her feelings while he had been talking, broke down then and had a good cry, her grey head tucked comfortingly into Fran’s shoulder. Presently she mopped her eyes and sat up. ‘So sorry,’ she said awkwardly, ‘but it’s a bit of a shock…’
Fran poured more tea and murmured in sympathy, and Mrs Owen went on, ‘He’s nice, isn’t he? I’d trust him with my last breath. Funny, how you can feel he means what he says. Though I suppose he has to talk to lots of people like that.’
‘Oh, yes, I’m sure he must. He’s a very eminent doctor even though he’s not English, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t understand your husband’s case, Mrs Owen, and have every sympathy with you both.’
‘And you, you’re a kind girl too, Sister. My Jack thinks a lot of you.’
Fran made a comforting murmur and, since Mrs Owen was calm again, embarked on the business of ways and means. ‘I still have to arrange things with the ambulance; it’ll be some time tomorrow morning, quite early, if you could manage that? If you could come here? The ambulance will have to come back here, but I expect you’d like to stay for a bit and see Mr Owen settled in? Do you have friends in Bristol where you could stay?’
Mrs Owen shook her head.
‘Then I’ll phone the Infirmary and ask them to fix you up—they have a room where you can be comfortable and they’ll see that you get a meal. There is a morning bus from Bristol, isn’t there? And another one in the late afternoon. I should take an overnight bag.’ She added in a gentle matter-of-fact voice, ‘Are you all right for ready money, Mrs Owen?’
‘Yes thank you, Sister. You don’t know how long I might have to stay?’
‘Well, no, but I’m sure the ward sister will tell you and you can ask to see Dr Beecham and Dr van Rijgen.’
Mrs Owen went away presently and Fran went into the ward to cast an eye on things and to reassure Mr Owen that his wife would be with him when he was transferred. Other than that there wasn’t a great deal to do; she sent the nurses to their dinner and Jenny with them and, leaving the aides in the ward, filling water jugs, went back to her office, where she sat down at her desk and started on the laundry list. She felt restless; perhaps it was the sight of the quiet country she could see from her window, or perhaps it was the knowledge that, after her busy days at the Infirmary, she wasn’t working here up to her full capacity. Anyway, she felt unsettled and a little impatient with her life. Was she to go on for ever, living and working in this little country town? Her aunts were dears but they still treated her as though she were a child and she would be twenty-six on her next birthday. Another five years and she would be thirty… She shook her head at her own gloom; nothing ever happened. She turned back to the laundry list and Willy, the porter, came in with the second post. A handful of letters for the patients and one for herself. She got up and went into the wards and handed them all out. Jenny had done the dinners while she had been busy with Mrs Owen and the patients were resting on their beds for an hour. She made her quiet way round the two wards, stopping here and there to have a whispered word, and then went back to the office.
The letter on her desk had a Dutch stamp. It would be from a cousin she hardly knew; the aunts had had a brother who had died and his daughter had married a Dutchman and lived in Holland. Fran remembered her vaguely as a child when her own mother had taken her to visit the family. She had gone to her wedding, too, but although they liked each other their paths didn’t cross very frequently.
She opened it now—it would make a nice change from the laundry—and began to read. When she had finished it, she went back to the beginning and read it again. Here was the answer to her restlessness. And one the aunts could not but agree to. Clare wanted her to go and stay. ‘You must have some holidays,’ she had written, ‘two weeks at least. I’m going to have a baby—I was beginning to think that I never would—and I’m so thrilled, I must have someone to talk to about it. I know the aunts make a fuss if you go off on your own, but they can’t possibly mind if you stay with us. Do say you’ll come—phone me and give me a date. Karel sends his love and says you must come.’
Fran put the letter down. She had two weeks leave due to her and the wards were slack enough to take them; moreover it was a good time of year to ask before autumn brought its quota of bronchitis and asthma and nasty chests. A holiday might also dispel this feeling of restlessness.
She went to the office after her dinner and asked for leave and Miss Hawkins, aware of Fran’s worth, graciously allowed it: starting on the following Sunday, and Sister Manning might add her weekly days off to her fortnight.
All very easy. There were the aunts to deal with, though. Fran, off duty that evening, tackled that the moment she got home. The ladies were sitting, as they always did of an evening, in the old-fashioned drawing room, knitting or embroidering, waiting for Winnie, the housekeeper, to set supper on the table. Fran, poking her head round the door to wish them a good evening before going up to her room to tidy herself, wondered anew at the three of them. They were after all not very old—Aunt Kate was the eldest, sixty-seven, Aunt Polly next, a year or two younger, and Aunt Janet a mere fifty-eight. And yet they had no place in modern times; they lived now as they remembered how they had lived in their childhood years between the two wars. It was only Fran’s mother, five years younger than Aunt Janet, who had broken
