Pineapple Girl. Betty Neels

on duty in two days, aren’t you? Could you manage to meet me one morning before you come home?’

      There was no time to ask questions. Eloise said yes and named a day and time and wondered what she was going to be told, for obviously Mrs Pringle was going to tell her something; something which she didn’t care to discuss with everyone; something to do with her op. Eloise reviewed her surgery and decided that it was probably a good deal more serious than Mrs Pringle had implied.

      It was; sitting in the visitors’ room in the Nurses’ Home after breakfast a few mornings later, her visit disclosed quite simply that she had inoperable cancer; that there was little more to be done and that she and her husband had decided that she should return to Groningen and live out the rest of her life among her friends and in the home she loved. ‘I have a simply splendid doctor,’ she told Eloise cheerfully. ‘It was he who sent me to Sir Arthur Newman in the first place—you’ve worked for him, haven’t you, dear? I was in a nursing home, of course, though I should have been just as happy in hospital, but Cor insisted, bless him…’ She smiled. ‘So now you know—or did you guess?’

      ‘Almost—I thought it might be more serious than you wanted us to think, and when you mentioned a dressing…’

      ‘And you really don’t mind coming? It’s silly of me, I know, but I have to get used to the idea and I thought if I had someone I knew with me, just for a little while, then I can face it. They tell me I can expect six months, perhaps a little longer.’

      Eloise got out of her chair and went to kneel by her visitor. ‘You’re brave, Mrs Pringle, and I’ll do all I can to help you. Your husband must be very upset.’

      ‘Poor dear, he is. Do you believe in miracles, Eloise?’

      ‘Yes, and I think most nurses and doctors do; you see, now and then there is a miracle, and who knows, it might be yours.’

      Her visitor smiled crookedly. ‘Bless you for saying that! I believe we’re going to get on very well together.’ She got to her feet. ‘Not a word to your mother, mind—no one knows, only you and Cor and Sir Arthur, and of course my own doctor.’

      ‘Dutch?’ asked Eloise.

      ‘From Groningen.’ Mrs Pringle looked vaguely speculative for a moment. ‘I expect you’ll get on well with each other; he’s a mild sort of man. Now I’m going for you have to go home and go to bed. Will you tell your mother that I’ll write to her within the next day or so? And I’ll let you know at what time I’ll call for you.’ She leaned up and kissed Eloise’s cheek. ‘You’re a dear girl.’

      Eloise cycled home thoughtfully, only half her mind on the traffic. Mrs Pringle was indeed a brave woman, and the idea of leaving her alone again after a couple of weeks went against the grain. She frowned over the problem until she was brought back to the present by a bus driver alongside her, waiting at the traffic lights, asking her from his cab if she had taken root. He said it nicely, for she was in uniform, but it recalled her to her whereabouts. She made haste home after that and spent the next hour or so listening to her mother’s delighted comments on her forthcoming holiday. ‘I am looking forward to it,’ declared Mrs Bennett for the hundredth time, ‘and I only hope you’ll enjoy yourself too, darling.’

      Eloise gave her mother a hug. ‘I shall enjoy every minute of it,’ she assured her, reflecting that to do anything else wouldn’t help Mrs Pringle at all. ‘And now I’m off to bed, darling—I had a beastly night.’