Saturday's Child. Бетти Нилс

Miss Abby. I got a room at the top of the house—very snug and warm it is too.’

      ‘You don’t have to work too hard?’

      ‘Lord love you, no, Miss Abby—nice little bit of garden behind, and I does the odd job—and I’m to go to his other house in the country once a week and see to the garden there.’

      Abigail stood silent, digesting this new aspect of Professor van Wijkelen. ‘Well …’ she began, and was interrupted by the door opening to admit a small round dumpling of a woman with a pleasant face. She shook Abigail by the hand and said in very tolerable English, ‘The housekeeper, Mevrouw Boot,’ and Abigail, mindful of her Dutch manners, replied: ‘Miss Abigail Trent.’

      Mevrouw Boot eyed her with kindly curiosity as she spoke. ‘The professor begs that Miss will return to hospital when she must. There is a car at the door in five minutes. He excuses himself.’

      She smiled again and went quietly out of the room, and Abigail looked at Bollinger and said with unconscious sadness, ‘He doesn’t like me, you know,’ and had this statement instantly repudiated by Bolly who exclaimed in a shocked voice:

      ‘That I can’t believe, begging your pardon, Miss Abby—a nice young lady like you …’

      ‘Well, it doesn’t matter in the least,’ said Abigail with such firmness that she almost believed what she was saying—but not quite, because it mattered out of all proportion to everything else. ‘I’d better go, I suppose it’s a taxi and I oughtn’t to keep it waiting. Come to the door with me, Bolly.’

      They crossed the hall, lingering a little. ‘The professor says you’re to come whenever ye’re inclined,’ Bolly explained, ‘but not the days I go to the country.’

      She nodded and stopped. ‘All right, Bolly, I’ll remember. I’m very grateful to him. Do you suppose I should write him a letter?’

      He looked astonished. ‘You see him, don’t you, can’t you do it then?’

      She shook her head. ‘I told you he doesn’t like me,’ and as if to underline her words one of the doors opened and Mevrouw Boot came into the hall and before she closed the door behind her, Abigail and Bollinger had an excellent view of the professor sitting at a desk facing it—the powerful reading lamp on it lighted his face clearly; he was staring at Abigail with no expression, giving her the peculiar feeling that she wasn’t there, and then lowered his handsome head to the papers before him. The door closed and when the housekeeper had gone, Abigail said softly:

      ‘You see, Bolly? He doesn’t even want to see me, let alone speak.’

      She smiled a little wanly, wished him a warm goodbye and went outside. The Rolls was before the steps, an elderly man at the wheel. He got out of the car when he saw her and opened the door, smiling nicely as he did so although he didn’t speak, and she returned the smile, for he had a kind face, rugged and lined—like a Dutch Bolly, she thought as she settled herself beside him for the journey back to the hospital. During the short ride she tried her best to reconcile the professor’s dislike of her with his kindness to Bollinger. There had, after all, been no need to offer the old man a job, even a temporary one. She hoped that Bolly hadn’t told him too much, although she discounted as ridiculous the idea that he might have acted out of sympathy to herself as well as Bollinger. It was all a little mysterious and she gave up the puzzle and began to ask her companion some questions about Amsterdam, hoping that he could understand. It was an agreeable surprise to find that he could, and moreover, reply to them in English.

      At the hospital, she thanked him for the ride, wondering who he was and not liking to ask for fear the professor would hear of it and consider her nosey. She went back to her patient with her curiosity unsatisfied, to find him feeling so much better after a refreshing nap that he wanted to know what she had been doing with her afternoon. She told him, skating over the more unexplainable bits, and rather to her surprise he made very little comment, and that was about herself and Bollinger. About the professor he had nothing to say at all.

      The days slid quietly by, each one bringing more strength to Professor de Wit. He was to go home in a week’s time, said Professor van Wijkelen when he called one morning soon after Abigail had been to his house, and as he had said it, both he and his patient looked at her.

      ‘You’ll come with me, Abby?’ asked her patient, who considered himself on sufficiently good terms with her by now to address her so. The professor’s cool, ‘I hope you will find it convenient to go with Professor de Wit for another week, Nurse Trent,’ sounded all the more stilted. She said that yes, of course she would, hiding her delight at the idea of seeing the professor, even if he hated her, for another few days, and the lesser delight of knowing that she would be able to repay Bolly quite a lot of money. She went away to fetch the latest X-rays the professor decided to study, walking on air.

      She told Bollinger about it the next day when they met, as they often did, for a cup of coffee and half an hour’s chat. Bollinger, she was glad to see, looked well, and he was happy with his gardening and the odd jobs he was doing around the house. He had been to the country too, but Abigail didn’t press him with questions about this; somehow she felt that the less she knew about the professor’s private life, the better it would be.