Esmeralda. Betty Neels

how am I to get leave to go?’

      Her mother smiled. ‘I think perhaps he has all that sorted out.’ She turned back to her mirror. ‘Your father would have liked him.’ She added on an afterthought: ‘He comes from Friesland, I suppose that’s why he’s so very outsize.’

      She gave a final pat to her hair, mousey hair like her daughter’s and only lightly streaked with grey. ‘And now let’s go downstairs and give that young man of yours a drink.’

      The evening passed pleasantly and Leslie was so charming and such an entertaining companion that Esmeralda relaxed completely; her mother must surely see now just how super he was. She went to bed presently, feeling quite content with her world. Everything was going to come right after all; she wouldn’t be a cripple any more, and Leslie would go on falling in love with her and they’d get married. She floated off to sleep on a dream, which, while quite impractical, was nevertheless most satisfying.

      And nothing happened on Sunday to mar her satisfaction. They went to church in the morning, taking it for granted that Leslie would go with them, and when they got back Esmeralda went to the kitchen to help Nanny to get the lunch, just as she had always done, for Dora, Nanny’s niece, had the day off on Sundays, and Mrs Pike, the daily help, never came at the weekends.

      ‘He’ll have to put up with cold,’ said Nanny as soon as Esmeralda put her face round the door. ‘There’s soup and a raised pie I made yesterday, and one of my trifles.’ Nanny, over the years, had turned out to be as good a cook as she had been a nanny. She thumped the pie down on the large scrubbed table in the middle of the kitchen and said rather crossly: ‘You can make a potato salad, Miss Esmeralda, if you’d be so good.’ She stirred her soup. ‘Do you see much of this young man at the hospital?’

      ‘Well, yes, Nanny—he’s the registrar on the ward where I work, you know. I see him most days.’

      ‘And after work too, I’ll be bound.’ Nanny’s voice was sharp.

      ‘Sometimes. Don’t you like him, Nanny?’ Esmeralda’s voice was wistful although she didn’t know it.

      ‘Now, love, if he’s the man for you and you want to marry him and he’ll make you happy for the rest of your life, then I’ll dote on him.’ She bustled to the sink and turned on the taps with a great deal of vigour. ‘I hear from your mother that you’re going away to have that foot of yours seen to. I always knew that there was someone in the world who could put it right for you. It’ll be a treat to see you dance—I only hope I live to see the day.’

      Esmeralda put down the potato cutter she was busy with and went over to the sink. ‘Nanny, what a thing to say! Why, you’ve always vowed that you’ll be nanny to my babies even if you have to live to be a hundred.’

      Nanny thumped a saucepan down hard. ‘And it’ll have to be a good deal sooner than that if I have my wish, and I will. You mark my words—Nanny’s always right.’

      And having uttered this familiar phrase, so often repeated during Esmeralda’s childhood, she nodded her head, picked up her pie and told her erstwhile nursling to make haste with what she was doing.

      Lunch was a gay meal and afterwards they sat in the garden, doing nothing much until Esmeralda went to get the tea, because on Sunday afternoons Nanny went into Burley to have tea with a friend and then go to church with her—and then it was time for them to drive back to London. When their goodbyes were said, Esmeralda was quick to notice that her mother didn’t suggest that Leslie should come again, although she said in her sweet, rather vague way: ‘I expect we shall see each other again, Leslie,’ and added the motherly rider: ‘And do be careful driving, won’t you. You know what the Sunday evening traffic is at this time of year.’

      He had carried their cases out to the car then, and Esmeralda had hugged her mother and seized the opportunity to say: ‘I’m very happy—I really am. I’ll be down again just as soon as I know what’s happening next.’

      ‘Do, darling. I had thought of doing a little shopping soon. We might manage an hour or two together while I’m in town. I’ll only come up for the day, though— London’s awful at this time of year.’

      They smiled at each other with deep affection and Esmeralda got into the car. Leslie was already in it; he leaned across her and shut the door and waved a careless hand, but she waved until her mother was a speck on the porch before the door.

      They stopped for dinner at Alton, and because the traffic had been thick on the road and there were still another fifty miles to go, Leslie was a little impatient. Esmeralda, who was hungry and had been looking forward to a leisurely meal at the Swan or Alton House, found herself eating a leathery omelette and refusing a pudding so that they could get on to the road again as soon as possible. But she was happy enough not to mind too much, and when they at length reached the hospital and Leslie dropped her off at the Nurses’ Home and kissed her rather perfunctorily, she was more than content; she hadn’t been kissed so many times that she was aware of its lack of warmth. She went up to her room, made a pot of tea, had a bath and got into bed, to fall asleep at once.