The Fateful Bargain. Бетти Нилс

her pocket. Having no letter box of her own, she depended on Mrs Winter to take in any post she might get. ‘Yes, it’s from my father,’ she agreed cheerfully. ‘What a beastly morning!’

      ‘And me due at the ’airdresser’s. If that Mrs Blake ‘as ’er radio on too loud and wakes yer up, just tell me, and I’ll give her the rough edge of me tongue.’ Mrs Winter eyed Emily’s tired face. ‘Yer needs yer sleep, by the look of yer.’

      There were one or two things to do in the meantime—Emily had had breakfast at the hospital, but Podge needed his; while he ate it she went down to the floor below and had a bath in the old-fashioned bathroom. The bath was in the centre of the small room so that getting in and out was awkward and the geyser made sinister rumbling noises and smelled of gas, but the water was hot. She made a cup of tea before she got into bed and set the alarm for four o’clock; she would need to do some shopping before she had tea and went back on duty. Podge got on to the bed with her; his warm weight was cosy on her feet as she read her father’s letter.

      She folded it carefully when she had finished it, put it back into its envelope, and lay thinking about its contents.

      The letter was cheerful, amusing and totally free from grumbles, something which was a constant source of surprise to her; arthritis had crippled her father for the last two years, so that he was confined to a wheelchair for the greater part of the day, hobbling around his house with two sticks so that he could get his meals, helped by a woman from the village who came in for an hour or so each day. He had been waiting for a year or more to have a prosthesis, first in one hip, then in the other, and it would be another year before his turn would come. He and Emily had discussed it together and he had agreed, reluctantly, that she should continue her training. She had known then what she would do, although she had said nothing to him, and she had set about putting her plan into action without more ado. It meant leaving the comparative comfort of the Nurses’ Home with its mod cons and taking a room in Summer Lane; its rent low enough to enable her to save every penny of her salary which she could spare.

      She knew to a penny how much it would cost for the operation to be done privately, a considerable sum, but if she could somehow manage to get him into Pearson’s…it would have to be one hip until she could save for the second, but once she was qualified she would earn more money, and in the meantime her father would be able to leave his wheelchair, even return to work. But not to his former job as bookkeeper in the large printing firm in the neighbouring town; he had been retired from there with a small pension, enough to live on but not enough to save.

      Podge edged his way up the bed to lie on her chest and stare into her face, and Emily put out a hand to stroke him. Even if she were able to do so, she wouldn’t go back to the Nurses’ Home without him. Later, when her father was able to get about again and she was getting more money, the pair of them would move to a better neighbourhood and she would go home at least twice a month. Podge started to purr, a deep-chested rumble which soothed her busy brain into a quiet which soon deepened into sleep.

      It was still raining when she got up. She attended to Podge’s needs, had a cup of tea, tidied her room and went out to the grocer’s on the corner of the street, where she did her frugal buying and went back home again to eat her supper of baked beans on toast and more tea.

      The solid bulk of Pearson’s Hospital loomed over her as she left the Underground, its windows lighted, and as she entered a side door, greeting her with a variety of sounds she had come to recognise and ignore. She left her outdoor things in the cloakroom, picked up the plastic bag holding her knitting and study books, and went unhurriedly up two flights of stairs. She was in good time, but then she always was, there was nothing to hinder her; no boyfriend to keep her lingering until the last minute, no visit to a West End cinema to see the latest film, no mother up for the day to shop, nobody to see off home again…Emily didn’t allow herself any self-pity and indeed she felt none; she was doing something she had made up her mind to do, and do it she would, without fuss. She was only twenty-three, and in less than a year her father could have his first operation and she would be qualified. Beyond that she resolutely refused to think, although right at the back of her mind was the shadowy hope that one day someone might fall in love with her and marry her.

      As she climbed the last flight she thought fleetingly of the man who had bumped into her. It was to be hoped that he hadn’t been late for his work. She frowned. He hadn’t been the usual type she saw on the streets at that early hour of the morning, he had been well dressed and had had the air of someone unworried by clocking-in machines. In a bank, she guessed vaguely, or perhaps a solicitor.

      He was in fact walking unhurriedly along the corridor leading from the Orthopaedic theatre to Sister’s office, where, still in a white drill trousers and green smock, he sat himself down at her desk and began to write up the notes of his patient. Someone brought him a mug of coffee which he drank absentmindedly as he wrote, presently to be joined by his Registrar, Henry Parker, and his Theatre Sister, a stern-featured lady who, on hearing that there was to be a Dutch specialist in Orthopaedics for a short period, had declared herself reluctant to work for him. ‘I remember,’ she had confided to the main Theatre Sister, ‘what a terrible time you had with that Frenchman, and I dare say,’ she added darkly, ‘that a Dutchman will be even worse.’ She had drawn such a deep breath that her old-fashioned corsets had creaked. ‘Foreigners!’ she observed.

      The Dutchman, when he arrived, had addressed her in English as fluent as her own, and had treated her with a quiet courtesy which had won her over completely. Moreover, he remained calm while he operated and never left the theatre without thanking her nicely for her services.

      Rather grudgingly she had admitted that he was every bit as considerate as Mr Griffiths, the consultant he was standing in for until that gentleman had recovered from a severe attack of shingles. As for Mr Beck, the second orthopaedic surgeon, he was on the best of terms with him, and the housemen and nursing staff considered him to be the very acme of perfection. The nurses lucky enough to work on the orthopaedic wards or in theatre bought new lipsticks, made play with their eyelashes and had their hair done far more often than usual, going to meet him in corridors or on the stairs by deliberate accident, but they were forced to admit not one of them had struck even the smallest spark of interest in him.

      Mr van Tecqx finished writing as Henry Parker joined him, and they spent a few minutes discussing his patients before he bade his Registrar goodnight and made his way through the hospital. He was at the head of the staircase when the muted sounds of its late evening activities recalled something to mind and he turned back to cross the corridor which would bring him to the medical wing. There were wide glass doors at each end of the landing. He glanced through the first of them and then walked its length to glance through the second door—Women’s Medical, its occupants being settled for the night. The tall, rangy girl was scuttling down the ward in the direction of the sluice room, and going slowly from bed to bed, turning off lights, smoothing sheets and pausing to speak to the occupants, was the girl whom he had met that morning, very neat in her uniform, her hair smoothed into an unfashionable chignon under her cap, her small waist, nicely accentuating her pretty shape, encircled by its stiff white belt. As she paused under the bed lamp he could see her profile clearly; a very ordinary one with its slightly turned-up nose and wide mouth. He turned away with a shrug, wondering what quirk of fancy had made him seek her out, and went on his way down to the entrance hall, to pause at the porter’s lodge and exchange good-nights with Briggs the head porter, before walking unhurriedly through the main entrance, to get into the dark grey Bentley parked outside and drive himself away.

      Emily finished her round and went back to Sister’s desk to con the day report and check that she had done everything necessary. Pearson’s was in the process of being modernised, but the Medical Wing was to be the last to be updated, so that instead of the nurses’ stations, smaller wards and day rooms with TV, and elaborate systems connecting patients with nurses, the ward she was on was long and narrow; ten beds on either side with a table in the centre and bathrooms and sluice room at the far end; in the early hours of the morning, when their energy was at its lowest ebb, leaving the desk to go to the sluice room seemed like a day’s journey. All the same, the ward was a cheerful place, mainly because the Sister in charge of it was young and cheerful herself.

      Emily