Uncertain Summer

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She explained about weekends and was gratifyingly flattered when he observed: ‘Just my luck—if it had been last weekend, we could have spent it together.’

‘Not very well,’ Serena, being a parson’s daughter, saw no hidden meanings in this remark, ‘for you can’t drive and I haven’t got a car, you know, and the train journey would have tired you out.’

She spoke happily because it had made everything seem more real because he had taken it for granted that he would have spent the weekend at her home. She certainly didn’t notice the hastily suppressed astonishment in his voice when he answered her.

They talked about other things then, and it was only when she was wishing him goodbye, with the promise to lunch with him on the next day, that he said:

‘You’re quite a girl, Serena—full of surprises, too.’ He kissed her lightly on the cheek and added: ‘Tomorrow.’

She went to bed in a haze of dreams, all of them with happy endings, and none of them, she realized when she woke in the morning, capable of standing up to a searching scrutiny. She decided rebelliously that she wasn’t going to be searching anyway. She dressed with care in the white jacket and skirt and decided against a hat.

They had almost finished their early lunch when Laurens said: ‘I shan’t see you tomorrow then, my sweet. I shall miss you—will you miss me?’

Serena had never been encouraged to be anything but honest. ‘Yes, of course,’ she answered readily ‘very much. But you’re coming back—you said…’

He laughed a little. ‘Oh, yes, I’m coming back, and next time when I go you’re coming with me, remember?’

‘Well, yes,’ she stammered a little, ‘but I wasn’t sure if you meant it.’

He put his head on one side. ‘Then you must be sure. I shall ring you up when I get back, then you will give in your notice to your so good Matron and pack your bags and come to my home and learn something of Holland.’

‘Oh,’ said Serena, her heart was pattering along at a great rate, ‘are you—that is, is this…’

‘It seems so. How else am I to get you, my beautiful gipsy?’

They said goodbye soon after that and when he kissed her she returned his kiss with a happy warmth even though she couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing him for several weeks.

It was fortunate that when she got on duty there was a dearth of patients; it hadn’t been so quiet for weeks. Serena sat in her office, making out the off duty and requisition forms and holiday lists and all the while her head spun with a delightful dreamlike speed, littered with a host of ideas, all of which she was far too excited to go into. It was like dipping into a box of unexpected treasure, and some of her happiness showed on her face so that her friends, noticing it, exchanged meaningful glances amongst themselves.

She had thought that she wouldn’t sleep that night, but she did, and dreamlessly too, and she was glad to have had a good night’s rest when she went on duty in the morning, for the Accident Room was going at full pressure. About half past eleven there was a lull, however, so she went along to her office and drank her coffee and thought about Laurens; she had forgotten to ask him at what time he was going; perhaps he was already on his way… The wistful thought was interrupted by one of the nurses with the news that there was a flasher coming in.

Only one ambulance man came in, carrying a very small bundle in a blanket. As soon as he saw her he said, ‘Glad you’re on, Sister. I got a battered baby here. Proper knocked about, she is…’

Serena forget all about Laurens then. She whisked into the nearest cubicle, saying: ‘Here, Jones, any idea what happened?’ She was already unwrapping the blanket from the small stiff form and winced when she saw the little bruised body. Without pausing in her task she said: ‘Nurse, telephone Mr Travers, please—he’s on duty, isn’t he? Ask him to come at once—tell him it’s a battered baby.’

She had her scissors out now and was cutting the odds and ends of grubby clothing from the baby’s body. ‘Well, Jones?’

‘Neighbours,’ he began. ‘They heard a bit of a bust-up like, and went to fetch the police—the coppers took the baby’s dad off with them, the mum too. There’ll be a copper round to inquire. Hit her with a belt, they said.’

‘With a buckle on the end of it, Jones. The brute—I’d like to get my hands on him!’ Which, considering she was five foot three and small with it, was an absurd thing to say, although the ambulance man knew what she meant.

‘Me, too,’ he said soberly. ‘Shall I give the particulars to nurse, Sister?’

‘Yes, please.’ She was sponging, with infinite care, the abrasions and cuts, hoping she would be able to complete the cleaning process before the baby became conscious again.

Bill was beside her and as she wiped the last of the superficial dirt away, bent over the baby. ‘Alive, anyway,’ he observed, and spoke to someone behind her—someone she hadn’t known was there and who came round to the other side of the examination table as Bill spoke. Doctor Gijs van Amstel. ‘You don’t mind, Serena,’ Bill was intent on the baby, ‘if Doctor van Amstel has a look? He’s by way of being an authority on this sort of thing and he happened to be here…’

Serena nodded, staring at the calm face of the man opposite her, and then went a bright pink because if he was here, surely Laurens would be with him. She dismissed the idea at once because it was hardly the time to let her thoughts stray. She watched the large, quiet man bend over the baby in his turn. His hands were very gentle despite their size, and although there was no expression on his face she knew that he was angry. He said nothing at all until he had finished his examination. Then: ‘I find the same as you Bill—concussion, suspected ruptured spleen—you felt that? and I wonder what fractures we shall see…this arm, I fancy, and these fourth and fifth ribs, there could possibly be a greenstick fracture of this left leg—you agree?’

Bill Travers nodded and Serena found herself admiring the Dutchman for fielding the diagnosis back to the younger, less experienced man. She gave Bill the X-ray form she had ready and then sent a nurse speeding ahead with it, and when she prepared to take the baby she found that both men were with her. The Dutchman seemed to know the radiologist too—the three men crowded into the dark room to study the still wet films and when they came out it was the radiologist who spoke. ‘A couple of greenstick fractures of the left humerus, a hairline fracture of the left femur, and a crack in the temporal bone—and of course the spleen. Quite shocking…have the police got the man who did it?’

‘Yes,’ said Serena savagely, ‘they have, and I hope they put him in prison for life.’ She signed to the nurse who had come with her and they wheeled the trolley back to the Accident Room and presently the men joined her.

‘I’ve telephoned the boss,’ Bill told her—the boss was Mr Sedgley, tall and thin and stooping and wonderful with children. ‘She’s to go straight to theatre. OK, Serena?’

She was drawing a loose gown over the puny frame. She nodded and arranged a small blanket over the gown, then wrote out the baby’s identity on the plastic bracelet she slipped on its wrist. Which done, she sent for the porters and leaving the nurse in charge, went with the baby straight to theatre.

When she got back Bill was still there, so was Doctor van Amstel. There was a policeman with them too and Serena lifted her eyebrows at one of the student nurses, who disappeared, to appear with commendable speed carrying a tray of tea. ‘You too, Sister?’ she whispered. But Serena shook her head; she couldn’t drink tea until she had got the taste of the battered baby out of her mouth. She left the nurses to do the clearing up and went back to her office; the case would have to be entered in the day book and she still had the list of surgical requirements to tackle. She was half way through this when there was a tap on the door and Doctor van Amstel came in. He wasted no time. ‘You must be wondering why I am here and if Laurens is with me. I called to settle some bills and so forth and convey his thanks—he didn’t feel like coming himself. And I want to thank you for taking such good care of him and for cheering him up while he was here. He hates inaction, you know.’

She sat at her desk, looking at him and wishing he would go away. The baby had upset her—she was used to horrible and unpleasant sights, but this one had been so pointless and so cruel, and now on top of that this man had to come—why couldn’t it have been Laurens?

She said woodenly: ‘That’s quite all right. It must have been very dull for him, but he’ll soon be fit again, won’t he?’

He nodded. ‘A pity,’ he observed slowly, ‘that we shan’t meet again.’ His voice was casual, but his eyes, under their drooping lids, were not.

‘Oh, but I daresay we shall,’ Serena declared. ‘Laurens has asked me over to stay with his mother—I expect we shall see each other then.’ She glanced up at him as she spoke and was surprised to see, for a brief moment, fierce anger in his face; it had gone again so quickly that afterwards she decided that she had imagined it.

‘Indeed?’ his voice was placid. ‘That will be pleasant—when do you plan to come?’

‘I—don’t know. Laurens is going to telephone or write.’

‘Ah, yes, of course.’ He held out a hand. ‘I shall look forward to seeing you again, Miss Potts—or perhaps, since you are to—er—continue your friendship with Laurens, I may call you Serena, and you must learn to call me Gijs.’

He smiled and went to the door and then came back again to say in quite a different voice: ‘I’m sorry about the baby. I’m angry too.’

She nodded wordlessly, knowing that he meant what he said. He closed the door very quietly behind him and she listened to his unhurried footsteps retreating across the vast expanse of the Accident Room and wondered why she felt so lonely.

CHAPTER THREE

THE days were incredibly dull; it wasn’t so bad while she was on duty, for the Accident Room, whatever else it was, could hardly be called dull. But off duty was another matter, and for the first three days she heard nothing from Laurens either. It was on the fourth morning that she had a letter from him, a brief, cheerful missive which told her nothing of the things she wanted to know. She waited two days before answering it and then wrote a stilted page or so in reply, and the following day was sorry she had done so, for a reed basket full to the brim with roses arrived for her with a card inside saying: ‘To my gipsy from Laurens.’ She felt better after that and better still when he telephoned that evening. He sounded in tearing spirits and her own spirits soared, to erupt skyhigh when he asked:

‘Will you give in your notice tomorrow, Serena?—I’ll be coming over in a month’s time to collect the car, and I want to bring you back with me.’

She gasped a little, then: ‘You mean that, Laurens? You truly mean that?’

‘My darling creature, don’t be so timid. Will you do it? I don’t approve of working wives, you know.’

It wasn’t quite a proposal, but it was probably all she would ever get. She agreed breathlessly and was rewarded by his: ‘Good girl, I’ll tell you the date and so on next time I ring up. ‘Bye for now.’

She replaced the receiver because he hadn’t waited for her to wish him goodbye—perhaps, she thought, he felt as excited as she was. She went up to her room, and while her common sense lay buried under a mass of excited thoughts, she wrote out her resignation.

She hadn’t realized that Matron was going to be so surprised and so openly critical. She had accepted the resignation, of course; there was nothing else she could do, but she had questioned Serena’s wisdom while she did so.

‘You’re a sensible young woman,’ she told a surprised Serena, ‘and certainly old enough to know what you’re doing. But do you think you have given the matter enough thought?’ And when Serena had nodded emphatically, went on: ‘At least I will say this, if things should not turn out as you expect them to, you may rest assured that there will always be some kind of a job for you here—perhaps not in this hospital, but in one of the annexes.’

Serena had thanked her nicely, knowing that Miss Shepherd had her welfare at heart, knowing too, that nothing would persuade her to work in one of the annexes—Geriatrics, Convalescent, the dental department, Rehabilitation; she could think of nothing she disliked more, and in any case there was no need for her to think about them at all, for the likelihood of her returning to hospital was a laughable impossibility. She even smiled kindly at Miss Shepherd because the poor dear was all of forty-five and there was no wonderful young man waiting for her to be his bride, then thanked her politely and went back to her department and in due course, to the dining-room for her dinner, where her appearance, hugely enhanced by excitement and happiness, drew so many comments from her friends that she felt compelled to tell them her news, so happy in the telling that she didn’t notice the worried little frown on Betsy’s face nor the look she and Joan exchanged.

It was Joan who spoke after the first babble of congratulations had died down. ‘Serena,’ she began, ‘are you sure? I mean, you don’t know anything about his home or his family and you might hate Holland.’

‘Well, I’ve thought about that, and I don’t see how I’m to know unless I go there and see for myself.’ She pinkened faintly. ‘I mean, we—I can always change my mind.’

Joan agreed with her a little too hastily and Betsy said: ‘Your parents, I bet they’re surprised.’

‘I haven’t told them yet. I told them about Laurens coming in and—and how nice he was, and of course they met his cousin.’

‘Oh, yes, I forgot. Though they’re not a bit alike, are they?’

Serena spooned sugar into her post-prandial cup of tea. ‘Heavens, no,’ she agreed, and just for a brief moment remembered the gentle touch of Gijs van Amstel’s hands on the battered baby. She had never seen Laurens working, of course, but he would be just as kind—and he was a good deal more entertaining. She smiled and someone said: ‘Oh, lord, we’ll have to give you a wedding present.’

Serena put down her cup. ‘No, oh no, you mustn’t—I don’t know when—there’s nothing settled.’

‘Time to save up,’ said someone else. ‘Give us plenty of warning, Serena.’

They all laughed and presently dispersed to their various duties, and Serena, caught up in the usual afternoon rush, had no time to think about herself. She got off duty late too, so that the half-formed idea that she would write home and tell her parents came to nothing. Time enough, she argued as she got ready for bed, when she went home the following weekend.