Philomena's Miracle. Betty Neels

Commander, à propos nothing at all.

      The morning was busy, but it had its moments; Philomena was bidden to the Principal Nursing Officer’s office, congratulated, informed that she was the Gold Medallist for her year and it was intimated by Miss Blake that when a vacancy for a Ward Sister occurred, she would be invited to apply for it. She went back to her ward telling herself that she was the luckiest girl alive and went on telling herself so while she worked her way through the dressings to be done before dinners. Only she wasn’t quite the luckiest, she admitted, allowing the thoughts she kept tucked away at the back of her head to air themselves for once; the luckiest girl would have a family to tell her how clever she was and how proud they were of her—moreover, she would have someone bearing a marked resemblance to the man in the lift waiting for her when she got off duty, eager to take her out and celebrate. She popped her thoughts back again where they belonged and turned an attentive ear to Mr Wilkinson’s cheery Cockney voice while she deftly removed the stitches from the complicated wound which Mr Dale, the consultant surgeon, had so meticulously stitched together.

      ‘Going out to celebrate, Staff?’ Mr Wilkinson wanted to know. ‘Live in Wareham, don’t you? Family coming up to make a night of it?’

      She snipped a particularly complicated piece of Mr Dale’s needlework. ‘It’s a bit too far.’ She made her voice cheerful. ‘And my stepmother hates driving long distances…’

      ‘No sisters or brothers?’ he asked sympathetically.

      ‘Oh, yes—two stepsisters.’ Both of them excellent drivers, both owning their own cars, neither of them caring twopence whether she passed her exams or not, not because they disliked her, it was just that they had nothing in common. Both they and her stepmother gave her a tolerant affection which stopped short at putting themselves out in any way for her. They had never put themselves out for anyone, although they had loved her father, not very deeply but with charming demonstration so that Philomena, who found it difficult to be deliberately charming, appeared reserved towards him, and yet, when he had died a year or two previously, her sorrow had been deep and genuine whereas they had quickly adjusted to life without him in the pleasant roomy old house on the outskirts of Wareham.

      They had been well provided for and neither they nor her stepmother had been able to understand why Philomena hadn’t left nursing at once and adopted the pleasant leisurely life they led. But she hadn’t wanted to do that; she loved her home, but she loved nursing too, so she had stayed at Faith’s, making a successful career for herself and happy too, for she was well liked and had a great number of friends. She went home, of course, and her stepmother and Miriam and Chloe welcomed her affectionately, but they never asked her about her work; hospitals smacked to them of the more unpleasant side of life. They arranged a party or two for her, took her with them when they went riding or driving to visit friends, and then after a day or two took it for granted that they had done their share of entertaining her and drifted off with their own particular friends again, leaving her quite happily to garden or drive herself around in the little Mini her father had given her when she had had her twenty-first birthday. And if she felt lonely she never admitted it, even to herself.

      She removed the last stitch, sprayed the scar, said ‘There, as good as new, Mr Wilkinson,’ collected up her instruments, and nipped down the ward, just in time to help Sister Brice with the dinners. The ward was full with not an empty bed in it, and that afternoon there would be several cases for theatre. Philomena, spooning potatoes on to the plates with the expertise of long practice, reflected that she would be lucky to get off at five o’clock. Not that it would matter, she wasn’t going anywhere.

      The afternoon was even busier than she had anticipated. The first case for theatre turned out to be a leaking abdominal aneurysm, which had presented symptoms very similar to an appendix and needed a good deal more surgery; the patient returned from the recovery room an hour later than she had expected, consequently the other three patients were all tardy too, and over and above that two beds had to be put up down the centre of the ward to accommodate street accidents. Five o’clock came and with it Sister Brice, but there was no hope of getting off duty; it was almost an hour later when she finally gave her report and started on her way to the changing room, and before she reached it, Potter, the Head Porter, stopped her to tell her that she was wanted in the front hall.

      For a moment she hoped that it was her stepmother or her sisters, a hope to be dismissed immediately as nonsense; they had never been near the hospital, and besides, they didn’t know that she had had her results that morning. It could be one of her friends from Wareham, in London for a visit and calling on the offchance of seeing her—taking her out, perhaps. She pushed her cap back a little impatiently on her still neat head and retraced her footsteps. Old Mrs Fox, perhaps, who had been a friend of her mother’s years ago, or Mary Burns, in town to shop, or that boring Tim Crooks… She whisked round the last corner and saw that it was none of these people, so she stopped and looked around her, for the only person there was the man she had met in the lift that morning, lounging against the window of the porter’s lodge, apparently asleep. But he wasn’t; he straightened up and came towards her, and when she said uncertainly: ‘Hullo—have you seen anyone…’

      ‘Not a soul,’ he assured her blandly, ‘I’m the only one here.’

      ‘Oh—I expect it was a mistake; Potter said that someone wanted to see me.’

      ‘Correct, I do.’

      She raised bewildered green eyes to his and asked simply: ‘Why?’

      He smiled very nicely. ‘I wondered if you would take pity on me and come out to dinner—unless you have other plans.’

      ‘No, I haven’t.’ She added cautiously: ‘I don’t know your name…’

      ‘Walle van der Tacx.’

      ‘Oh, Dutch, are you not?’ She held out a hand and he shook it gravely. ‘I stayed in Amsterdam for a few days with my father…’

      ‘I’m afraid I can’t claim to live there, my home is a mile or so from a small town called Ommen, twenty kilometres or so to the east of Zwolle and roughly a hundred and thirty from Amsterdam. I have a country practice there.’

      ‘Oh, you’re a doctor!’ The relief in her voice caused his firm mouth to twitch. ‘Well then, I’d like to come very much—but haven’t you anything better to do?’

      The twitch came and went, but his blue eyes were kind. ‘I can think of nothing better. I’m hungry and I hope you are too; dining alone can be extremely dull.’

      ‘Haven’t you any friends here?’

      ‘Several, but none of them free this evening.’ His voice was casual and she believed him. ‘Shall we meet here in half an hour? We might try one of those restaurants in Soho.’

      Philomena was halfway across the hall when she turned back. ‘Why me?’ she asked.

      ‘We did meet this morning,’ he reminded her. ‘Besides, you have a good reason to celebrate, haven’t you, and I hoped that would decide you to come.’

      Such a sensible answer that she agreed happily.

      The Nurses’ Home was noisy; a dozen or more of its inmates had passed their exams too and all of them were going out with boy-friends, fiancés or family. Philomena had her head in her cupboard, deciding what she would wear, when Jenny Pringle, one of her closer friends, drifted in with a mug of tea. Her hair was in rollers and her face heavily creamed in preparation for the evening’s festivities, but she put the mug down on the dressing table and sat herself down on the bed, prepared to gossip for a few minutes.

      ‘What are you doing, Philly?’ she asked cautiously, mindful of the fact that Philomena was probably not doing anything exciting like the rest of them.

      ‘Finding something to wear.’ Philomena’s muffled voice came from the depths of the cupboard, but she emerged a few moments later. ‘Tea,’ she exclaimed, ‘how nice. Do I look my poor best in this pink thing or the green?’

      ‘You’re going out!’ Jenny was genuinely