‘Why, of course, Hannah, but I’m sure your mother would manage for a week or two with someone to help her. Is she ill or an invalid?’
‘No, no, she’s…she’s just…’
Mevrouw van Eysink gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Well, you talk to her, Hannah,’ she advised briskly, ‘and let us know tomorrow. Perhaps if she realised how important it is for little Paul to thrive for the next few weeks—and he does it better with you than with anyone else—I am sure she will fall in with your plans.’
Hannah, looking at the two smiling, happy faces, decided not to argue the point. She would have to think of something; she would be off in the evening and although she hadn’t meant to, she would go home and talk to her mother.
She stayed a few minutes longer and then went over to the home, where she joined her closest friends over the inevitable pot of tea and told them her news. They were flatteringly surprised and excited, although one or two of them wondered privately if she would be able to persuade her mother to let her go—they had met Mrs Lang upon occasion and found her charming, pretty and quite ruthless when it came to having her own way.
Hannah went on duty in the morning, half prepared to find that the van Eysinks had changed their minds, but the moment she entered Mevrouw van Eysink’s room, she was met with an eager demand for her answer.
She picked up little Paul and handed him to his mother before she replied. She would have to explain a little more about her mother, and she did it carefully, anxious that her patient wouldn’t think that she was finding excuses not to go to Holland. ‘So you see,’ she finished, ‘it’s just a question of finding someone to be with Mother while I’m away, only it is a little difficult. She hasn’t many friends and almost no family, and she would dislike a stranger.’ She wrapped herself in the bathing apron and went to fetch Paul from Mevrouw van Eysink.
‘We must think of something, Hannah.’ Lost in thought, Mevrouw van Eysink nibbled at a beautifully manicured finger. ‘I think perhaps I know what to do, but I will say no more at present.’ She smiled brilliantly. ‘You will see your mother this evening? Good, then we must hope, is it not?’
‘I’m bound to think of something,’ declared Hannah, more to comfort herself than anyone else. She bathed and fed Paul while his mother kept up a lively chatter about nothing in particular. And Hannah, her neat head bowed over the scrap on her knee, tried to think of someone whom her mother would accept as a companion for a few weeks. She could call to mind no one at all.
Presently, her two patients comfortable, she tidied everything away, and with the promise of sending coffee as soon as she could reach the kitchen, she picked up her tray and left the room. She was halfway along the corridor when she met Uncle Valentijn. He passed her with a coolly courteous good morning and a glance which didn’t really see her. She doubted very much if he remembered who she was.
CHAPTER TWO
BUT HANNAH WAS WRONG. Uncle Valentijn greeted his favourite niece with a kiss, peered at the baby and asked: ‘What have you been saying to your so sensible Hannah? She was fairly dancing down the corridor.’
He was told with such a wealth of detail that finally he put up a large, well-kept hand. ‘Now let me get this straight. She’s to go back with you? A splendid idea; she’s been with you both since you were admitted, hasn’t she? She seems a very calm young woman, hard-working and presumably unencumbered by boy-friends?’
‘Well, you make her sound very dull!’ declared Mevrouw van Eysink indignantly.
‘She is not what I would call eye-catching.’ He was laughing at her.
‘Pooh, I’d rather have her than six of your Nerissas—lanky, self-centred…’
Uncle Valentijn’s eyebrows drew together and the smile disappeared. ‘Perhaps I should mention to you that Nerissa and I have just become engaged.’
‘Oom Valentijn, you haven’t!—it’s a joke!’
‘No, it is time that I married again. I’m nearly forty, you know, liefje. Nerissa is a lovely girl, very chic and good company.’
‘Is that what you want?’ His niece’s voice was quite shrill. ‘Don’t you want to love someone and be loved and give you a nice family?’
He got up and walked over to the window. He said flatly: ‘I used to think that I did. Nerissa and I suit each other very well; I think I am past the fine raptures of youth.’ He added soberly: ‘And I’ll thank you to be courteous to my future wife at all times.’
He turned round and smiled at her, but his eyes were angry, so that she said weakly: ‘Yes, of course, Uncle Valentijn,’ and then to change the subject as quickly as possible, ‘What shall I do about Hannah? Her mother—it seems she is likely to make it difficult for Hannah to come with us. Not that Hannah said so, but the nurse who relieves her told me that Mrs Lang is a very selfish woman; she is a widow and has been spoilt all her life. Hannah goes out very seldom, I am told, because although her mother is never unpleasant, she makes Hannah feel guilty. And I am sure that she hasn’t enough money to get a companion, and even then her mother might refuse to have such a person. What am I to do?’ She raised tearful blue eyes to her listener.
‘You’ve set your heart on having Hannah, haven’t you?’
‘She saved little Paul’s life when everyone else said that he had no chance, and she made me be brave. If anything should happen to little Paul now…’
‘In that case we must think of something, must we not?’ He turned round as a ward maid came in with the coffee tray. ‘Leave it to me, my dear.’
Stowing her worries away behind a calm face, Hannah worked her way through her day and then took herself off home, reluctant to have to explain what her mother would regard as unwelcome news, and still vainly searching for some argument which her mother might agree to. Not that that lady would refuse point blank, nor would she rant and rave, but she would weep a little and point out that she led a lonely life and Hannah mustn’t consider her, so that Hannah, with her too soft heart, would give in.
And Mevrouw van Eysink had made her promise to go and see her when she got back to the hospital, declaring dramatically that she wouldn’t sleep until she knew if Hannah was to go with them or not, and because the staff nurse on night duty was a friend of Hannah’s and would turn a blind eye to a late visit, she had agreed, which added yet another worry, for how was she to explain if her mother had made it quite impossible for her to go with baby Paul?
She made her way home with mixed feelings—reluctance to start an argument with her mother, and eagerness to get it over, and as luck would have it, the bus was dead on time and had never gone so fast. She found herself walking down the street, only a few steps from the front door, with not a thought in her head.
As she turned the key in the lock she was surprised to hear her mother’s quite cheerful voice call: ‘Oh, there you are! I was expecting you—come in and tell me all about it.’
Hannah advanced cautiously into the sitting room, to find her mother sitting in her favourite chair with, of all things, a tray with glasses and a bottle of sherry upon it.
‘Whatever…?’ began Hannah, quite at a loss.
Her mother smiled archly. ‘I’ve had a charming visitor.
