you have to do is save them up and tell him you have to attend a wedding. Anyway, didn’t I read somewhere that the Dutch set great store on family gatherings? Of course you’ll be able to come.’
She sounded so worried that Phoebe said reassuringly: ‘Don’t you worry, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
They went indoors then, to Aunt Martha, busy in a kitchen which smelled deliciously of something roasting in the oven, and no one mentioned the Dutch doctor again.
Twenty-four hours never went so quickly. Phoebe, joining the queue at Waterloo station for a taxi, felt as though she hadn’t been home at all. She would miss going down to Magdalen Provost and she doubted very much if she would get another opportunity of a weekend before she left England. She had quite forgotten to ask Sybil the arrangements for her off-duty, but surely she would manage a day or two before she left the children’s hospital. She got out of the taxi, paid the man and rang the visitors bell of the Nurses’ Home. If anyone wanted to see her so late in the day, the warden would doubtless give her the message. But there was only a request that she should present herself at the Principal Officer’s office at nine o’clock the next morning, and when she stated simply that she was Nurse Brook, the warden hadn’t wanted to know any more than that, but took her up to a rather pleasant little room, offered her a warm drink and wished her good night. So far, so good, Phoebe told her reflection in the mirror, and went to bed and slept soundly.
The Principal Nursing Officer was brisk and busy. As Phoebe went into the room she said: ‘Ah, yes, Nurse Brook. Splendid. Will you go along to the Children’s Unit and they’ll put you in the picture —I’m sure it has already been made clear to you that this scheme is housed here temporarily, and it’s run quite separately from the hospital itself. Anything you want to know, there will be someone you can ask there.’
She smiled quite kindly in dismissal and pulled a pile of papers towards her, and Phoebe, murmuring suitably, got herself out of the office, sighing with relief that it had all been so easy, aware at the same time that she should be feeling guilty and failing to do so because she remembered Sybil’s happy face.
The Children’s Unit was across the yard. Supposedly there was another way to it under cover, but she couldn’t see it and it was a lovely sunny day and she welcomed the chance to be out of doors, if only for a minute or two. The door stood open on to the usual tiled, austere entrance, a staircase ascending from it on one side, a row of doors lining its other wall. On the one marked ‘Doctor van Someren’ she knocked, for it seemed good sense to get to the heart of the matter at once. No one answered, so she opened the door and went inside. It was a small room and rather dreary, with a large desk with its swivel chair, shelves full of books and papers and two more chairs, hard and uncomfortable, ranged against one wall. Phoebe, who had seen many such offices, wasn’t unduly depressed at this unwelcoming scene, however. Hospitals, she had learned over the years, were not run for the comfort of their staff. There was an inner door, too. She crossed the room and tapped on it and a woman’s voice said ‘Come in.’ It was an exact copy of the room she had just left, only smaller, and had the additions of a typewriter and a woman using it. She wasn’t young any more and rather plain, but she looked nice and when Phoebe said: ‘I’m Nurse Brook and I’m not at all sure where I’m supposed to be,’ she smiled in a friendly fashion.
‘Here,’ she answered cheerfully, ‘if you like to go back to the other room, I’ll see if Doctor van Someren is available. I expect you want to start work at once.’
She went back with Phoebe to the doctor’s room, waved a hand at one of the chairs and disappeared. Phoebe sat for perhaps ten seconds, but it was far too splendid a day not to go to the window and look out. It was too high for her to see much; obviously whoever had built the place had considered it unnecessary for the occupants to refresh themselves with a glimpse of the outside world. But by standing on tiptoe she was able to see quite a pretty garden, so unexpected that she opened the bottom sash in order to examine it with greater ease.
She didn’t hear the door open. When she turned round at last, she had no idea how long the man had been standing there. She frowned a little and went a faint pink because it was hardly the way she would want an interview to begin, with her leaning out of the window, showing a great deal more leg than she considered dignified for a Ward Sister but then she wasn’t a Ward Sister she really would have to remember … And he wasn’t in the least like the picture Sybil had painted of him. He was a big, broad-shouldered man and very tall, something her sister had forgotten to mention, and she, for that matter, had forgotten to ask. His hair was the colour of straw which she thought could be streaked with grey; it was impossible to tell until she got really close to him. And she was deeply astonished to find him good-looking in a beaky-nosed fashion, with a firm mouth which looked anything but dreamy, and there was nothing vague about the piercing blue gaze bent upon her at the moment.
‘Miss Brook,’ his voice was deep, ‘Miss Sybil Brook?’
She advanced from the window. ‘Yes, I’m Miss Brook,’ she informed him pleasantly, pleased that she didn’t have to tell a downright fib so soon in the conversation. There would be time enough for that; she only hoped that she wouldn’t get confused … ‘You’re Doctor van Someren, I expect. How do you do?’ She held out her small capable hand and had it gripped in a gentle vice. For one startled moment she wondered if he could be the same man whom Sybil had seen, and then knew that it was; his face had become placid, his eyelids drooping over eyes which seemed half asleep, his whole manner vague.
‘Er—yes, how do you do?’ He smiled at her. ‘I think it would be best if I were to take you to the ward—you can talk to Sister Jones, and later there will be some notes and so on which I should like you to study.’ He went over to the desk and picked up a small notebook and put it in his pocket, saying as he did so: ‘I’m sometimes a little absentminded … I shall be doing a ward round in an hour, I should like you to be there, please.’
He sat down at the desk and began to open a pile of letters stacked tidily before him, quite absorbed in the task, so that after a few minutes Phoebe ventured to ask: ‘Shall I go to the ward now, sir?’
He looked up and studied her carefully, just as though he had never set eyes on her before. ‘Ah—Miss Brook, Miss Sybil Brook,’ he reminded himself. ‘I really do apologise. We’ll go at once.’
Following him out of the room and up the stairs Phoebe could understand why Sybil had described him as vague—all to the good; she saw little reason for him to discover that she wasn’t Sybil; she doubted if he had really looked at her, not after that first disconcerting stare.
Sister Jones was expecting her, and to Phoebe’s relief turned out to be a girl of about her own age, with a cheerful grin and soft Welsh voice which had a tendency to stammer. She greeted the doctor with a friendly respect and Phoebe was a little surprised to hear him address her as Lottie. She hoped he wasn’t in the habit of addressing his nursing staff by their christian names, for not only would she find it difficult to answer to Sybil, she discovered at that moment that she had no wish to tell him a fib. He was too nice—an opinion presently endorsed when he did his ward round; he was kind too and his little patients adored him.
There were ten children in the ward, most of them up and about, full of life and filled, too, with a capacity for enjoyment which fibrocystics seemed to possess as a kind of bonus over and above a child’s normal capacity to enjoy itself. They were bright too, with an intelligence beyond their years, as though they were being allowed to crowd as much as possible into a life which would possibly be shortened. The small boy Doctor van Someren was examining at that moment was thin and pale, but he laughed a good deal at the doctor’s little jokes, discussed the cricket scores and wanted to know who Phoebe was. The doctor told him briefly and went on: ‘And now, how about that tipping and tapping, Peter?’
A question which called forth a good deal of sheepish glances and mutterings on Peter’s part. He didn’t like hanging over his bed, being thumped by a nurse at six o’clock in the morning, he said so now with considerable vigour, and everyone laughed, but instead of leaving it at that, Phoebe was glad to see the doctor sit down on the side of the bed once more and patiently explain just why