The Moon for Lavinia

CHAPTER TWO

THE HOSPITAL WAS on the fringe of the city’s centre; a large, old-fashioned building, patched here and there with modern additions which its three-hundred-year-old core had easily absorbed. It was tucked away behind the busy main streets, with narrow alleys, lined with tiny, slightly shabby houses, round three sides of it. On the fourth side there was a great covered gateway, left over from a bygone age, which was still wide enough to accommodate the comings and goings of ambulances and other motor traffic.

Lavinia paused to look about her as she got out of the taxi. The driver got out too and set her luggage on the pavement, said something she couldn’t understand, and then humped it up the steps of the hospital and left it in the vast porch. Only when he had done this did he tell her how much she needed to pay him. As she painstakingly sorted out the guldens he asked: ‘You are nurse?’ and when she nodded, refused the tip she offered him. London taxi drivers seldom took tips from a nurse either, sometimes they wouldn’t even accept a fare—perhaps it was a worldwide custom. She thanked him when he wished her good luck and waited until his broad friendly back had disappeared inside his cab before going through the big glass doors, feeling as though she had lost a friend.

But she need not have felt nervous; no sooner had she peered cautiously through the porter’s lodge window than he was there, asking her what she wanted, and when he discovered that she was the expected English nurse, he summoned another porter, gave him incomprehensible instructions, said, just as the taxi driver had said: ‘Good luck,’ and waved her into line behind her guide. She turned back at the last moment, remembering her luggage, and was reassured by his cheerful: ‘Baggage is OK.’

The porter was tall and thin and walked fast; Lavinia, almost trotting to keep up with him, had scant time in which to look around her. She had an impression of dark walls, a tiled floor and endless doors on either side of the passages they were traversing so rapidly. Presently they merged into a wider one which in its turn ended at a splendid arch-way opening on to a vestibule, full of doors. The porter knocked on one of these, opened it and stood on one side of it for her to enter.

The room was small, and seemed smaller because of the woman standing by the window, for she was very large—in her forties, perhaps, with a straight back, a billowing bosom and a long, strong-featured face. Her eyes were pale blue and her hair, drawn back severely from her face, was iron grey. When she smiled, Lavinia thought she was one of the nicest persons she had ever seen.

‘Miss Hawkins?’ Her voice was as nice as her smile. ‘We are glad to welcome you to St Jorus and we hope that you will be happy here.’ She nodded towards a small hard chair. ‘Will you sit, please?’

Lavinia sat, listening carefully while the Directrice outlined her duties, mentioned off-duty, touched lightly on uniforms, salary and the advisability of taking Dutch lessons and went on: ‘You will find that the medical staff speak English and also some of the nurses too—the domestic staff, they will not, but there will be someone to help you for a little while. You will soon pick up a few necessary words, I feel sure.’

She smiled confidently at Lavinia, who smiled back, not feeling confident at all. Certainly she would make a point of starting lessons as soon as possible; she hadn’t heard more than a few sentences of Dutch so far, but they had sounded like gibberish.

‘You wish to live out, I understand,’ went on the Directrice, ‘and that will be possible within a week or so, but first you must be quite certain that you want to remain with us, although we should not stand in your way if before then you should decide to return to England.’

‘I was thinking of staying for a year,’ ventured Lavinia, ‘but I’d rather not decide until I’ve been here a few days, but I do want to make a home for my young sister.’

Her companion looked curious but forbore from pressing for further information, instead she rang the bell on her desk and when a young woman in nurse’s uniform but without a cap answered it, she said kindly:

‘This is Juffrouw Fiske, my secretary. She will take you over to the Nurses’ Home and show you your room. You would like to unpack, and perhaps it would be as well if you went on duty directly after the midday meal. Theatre B, major surgery. There is a short list this afternoon and you will have a chance to find your feet.’

Lavinia thanked her and set off with Juffrouw Fiske through more passages and across a couple of small courtyards, enclosed by high grey walls until they finally came to a door set in one of the—the back door, she was told, to the Home. It gave directly on to a short passage with a door at its end opening on to a wide hall in which was a flight of stairs which they climbed.

‘There is a lift,’ explained her companion, ‘but you are on the first floor, therefore there is no need.’

She opened a door only a few yards from the head of the stairs and invited Lavinia to go in. It was a pleasant room, tolerably large and very well furnished, and what was more, her luggage was there as well as a pile of uniform on the bed.

‘We hope that everything fits,’ said Juffrouw Fiske. ‘You are small, are you not?’ She smiled widely. ‘We are quite often big girls. Someone will come and take you to your dinner at twelve o’clock, Miss Hawkins, and I hope that you will be happy with us.’

Nice people, decided Lavinia, busily unpacking. She had already decided that she was going to like the new job—she would like it even better when she had a home of her own and Peta with her. Of course, she still had to meet the people she was to work with, but if they were half as nice as those she had met already, she felt she need have no fears about getting on with them.

The uniform fitted very well. She perched the stiff little cap on top of her tidy topknot and sat down to wait for whoever was to fetch her.

It was a big, well-built girl, with ash blonde hair and a merry face. She shook hands with enthusiasm and said: ‘Neeltje Haagsma.’

For a moment Lavinia wondered if she was being asked how she did in Dutch, but the girl put her right at once. ‘My name—we shake hands and say our names when we meet—that is simple, is it not?’

Lavinia nodded. ‘Lavinia Hawkins. Do I call you juffrouw?’

Neeltje pealed with laughter. ‘No, no—you will call me Neeltje and I will call you Lavinia, only you must call the Hoofd Zuster, Zuster Smid.’

‘And the doctors?’ They were making for the stairs.

‘Doctor—easy, is it not? and chirurgen—surgeon, is it not?—you will call them Mister this or Mister that.’

Not so foreign after all, Lavinia concluded happily, and then was forced to change her mind when they entered an enormous room, packed with nurses sitting at large tables eating their dinner and all talking at the tops of their voices in Dutch.

But it wasn’t too bad after all. Neeltje sat her down, introduced her rapidly and left her to shake hands all round, while she went to get their meal; meat balls, a variety of vegetables and a great many potatoes. Lavinia, who was hungry, ate the lot, followed it with a bowl of custard, and then, over coffee, did her best to answer the questions being put to her. It was an agreeable surprise to find that most of her companions spoke such good English and were so friendly.

‘Are there any other English nurses here?’ she wanted to know.

Neeltje shook her head. ‘You are the first—there are to be more, but not for some weeks. And now we must go to our work.’

The hospital might be old, but the theatre block was magnificently modern. Lavinia, whisked along by her friendly companion, peered about her and wished that she could tell Peta all about it; she would have to write a letter as soon as possible. But soon, caught up in the familiar routine, she had no time to think about anything or anyone other than her work. It was, as the Directrice had told her, a short list, and the technique was almost exactly the same as it had been in her own hospital, although now and again she was reminded that it wasn’t quite the same—the murmur of voices, speaking a strange language, even though everyone there addressed her in English.

Before the list had started, Zuster Smid had introduced her to the surgeon who was taking the list, his registrar and his houseman, as well as the three nurses who were on duty. She had forgotten their names, which was awkward, but at least she knew what she was doing around theatre. Zuster Smid had watched her closely for quite a while and then had relaxed. Lavinia, while not much to look at, was competent at her job; it would take more than working in strange surroundings to make her less than that.

The afternoon came to an end, the theatre was readied once more for the morning’s work or any emergency which might be sent up during the night, and shepherded by the other girls, she went down to her supper and after that she was swept along to Neeltje’s room with half a dozen other girls, to drink coffee and gossip—she might have been back at Jerrold’s. She stifled a sudden pang of homesickness, telling herself that she was tired—as indeed she was, for no sooner had she put her head on her pillow than she was asleep.

It was on her third day, at the end of a busy morning’s list, that she was asked to go up to the next floor with a specimen for section. The Path. Lab. usually sent an assistant down to collect these, but this morning, for some reason, there was no one to send and Lavinia, not scrubbed, and nearest to take the receiver with the offending object to be investigated, slid out of the theatre with it, divested herself of her gown and over-shoes and made her way swiftly up the stairs outside the theatre unit.

The Path. Lab. was large—owing, she had been told, to the fact that Professor ter Bavinck, who was the head of it, was justly famed for his brilliant work. Other, smaller hospitals sent a constant stream of work and he was frequently invited to other countries in order to give his learned opinion on some pathological problem. Neeltje had related this in a reverent voice tinged with awe, and Lavinia had concluded that the professor was an object of veneration in the hospital; possibly he had a white beard.

She pushed open the heavy glass doors in front of her and found herself in a vast room, brightly lighted and full of equipment which she knew of, but never quite understood. There were a number of men sitting at their benches, far too busy to take any notice of her, so she walked past them to the end of the room where there was a door with the professor’s name on it; presumably this was where one went. But when she knocked, no one answered, so she turned her back on it and looked round the room.

One man drew her attention at once, and he was sitting with his back to her, looking through a microscope. It was the breadth of his shoulders which had caught her eye, and his pale as flax hair, heavily silvered. She wondered who he might be, but now wasn’t the time to indulge her interest.

She addressed the room in general in a quite loud voice. ‘Professor ter Bavinck? I’ve been sent from Theatre B with a specimen.’

The shoulders which had caught her eye gave an impatient shrug; without turning round a deep voice told her: ‘Put it down here, beside me, please, and then go away.’

Lavinia’s charming bosom swelled with indignation. What a way to talk, and who did he think he was, anyway? She advanced to his desk and laid the kidney dish silently at his elbow. ‘There you are, sir,’ she said with a decided snap, ‘and why on earth should you imagine I should want to stay?’

He lifted his head then to stare at her, and she found herself staring back at a remarkably handsome face; a high-bridged nose dominated it and the mouth beneath it was very firm, while the blue eyes studying her so intently were heavy-lidded and heavily browed. She was quite unprepared for his friendly smile and for the great size of him as he pushed back his chair and stood up, towering over her five feet four inches.

‘Ah, the English nurse—Miss Hawkins, is it not? In fact, I am sure,’ his smile was still friendly, ‘no nurse in the hospital would speak to me like that.’

Lavinia went a splendid pink and sought for something suitable to say to this. After a moment’s thought she decided that it was best to say nothing at all, so she closed her mouth firmly and met his eyes squarely. Perhaps she had been rude, but after all, he had asked for it. Her uneasy thoughts were interrupted by his voice, quite brisk now. ‘This specimen—a snap check, I presume—Mevrouw Vliet, the query mastectomy, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ll telephone down.’ He nodded at her in a kindly, uncle-ish way, said: ‘Run along,’ and turned away, the kidney dish on his hand. She heard him giving what she supposed to be instructions to one of his assistants as she went through the door.

She found herself thinking about him while they all waited for his report; the surgeon, his sterile gloved hands clasped before him, the rest of them ready to do exactly what he wanted when he said so. The message came very quickly. Lavinia wondered what the professor had thought when his sharp eyes had detected the cancer cells in the specimen, but possibly Mevrouw Vliet, lying unconscious on the table and happily unaware of what was happening, was just another case to him. He might not know—nor care—if she were young, old, pretty or plain, married or unmarried, and yet he had looked as though he might—given the right circumstances—be rather super.

It was much later, at supper time, that Neeltje wanted to know what she had thought of him.

‘Well,’ said Lavinia cautiously, ‘I hardly spoke to him—he just took the kidney dish and told me to go away.’

‘And that was all?’

‘He did remark that I was the English nurse. He’s…he’s rather large, isn’t he?’

‘From Friesland,’ explained Neeltje, who was from Friesland herself. ‘We are a big people. He is of course old.’

Lavinia paused in the conveyance of soup to her mouth. ‘Old?’ she frowned. ‘I didn’t think he looked old.’

‘He is past forty,’ said a small brown-haired girl from across the table. ‘Also he has been married; his daughter is fourteen.’

There were a dozen questions on Lavinia’s tongue, but it wasn’t really her business. All the same, she did want to know what had happened to his wife. The brown-haired girl must have read her thoughts, for she went on: ‘His wife died ten years ago, more than that perhaps, she was, how do you say? not a good wife. She was not liked, but the professor, now he is much liked, although he talks to no one, that is to say, he talks but he tells nothing, you understand? Perhaps he is unhappy, but he would not allow anyone to see that and never has he spoken of his wife.’ She shrugged. ‘Perhaps he loved her, who knows? His daughter is very nice, her name is Sibendina.’

‘That’s pretty,’ said Lavinia, still thinking about the professor. ‘Is that a Friesian name?’

‘Yes, although it is unusual.’ Neeltje swallowed the last of her coffee. ‘Let us go to the sitting-room and watch the televisie.’

Lavinia met the professor two days later. She had been to her first Dutch lesson in her off duty, arranged for her by someone on the administrative staff and whom probably she would never meet but who had nonetheless given her careful instruction as to her ten-minute walk to reach her teacher’s flat. This lady turned out to be a retired schoolmistress with stern features and a command of the English language which quite deflated Lavinia. However, at the end of an hour, Juffrouw de Waal was kind enough to say that her pupil, provided she applied herself to her work, should prove to be a satisfactory pupil, worthy of her teaching powers.

Lavinia wandered back in the warmth of the summer afternoon, and with time on her hands, turned off the main street she had been instructed to follow, to stroll down a narrow alley lined with charming little houses. It opened on to a square, lined with trees and old, thin houses leaning against each other for support. They were three or four stories high, with a variety of roofs, and here and there they had been crowded out by much larger double-fronted town mansions, with steps leading up to their imposing doors. She inspected them all, liking their unassuming façades and trying to guess what they would be like on the other side of their sober fronts. Probably quite splendid and magnificently furnished; the curtains, from what she could see from the pavement, were lavishly draped and of brocade or velvet. She had completed her walk around three sides of the square when she was addressed from behind.

‘I hardly expected to find you here, Miss Hawkins—not lost, I hope?’

She turned round to confront Professor ter Bavinck. ‘No—at least…’ She paused to look around her; she wasn’t exactly lost, but now she had no idea which lane she had come from. ‘I’ve been for an English lesson,’ she explained defensively, ‘and I had some time to spare, and it looked so delightful…’ She gave another quick look around her. ‘I only have to walk along that little lane,’ she assured him.

He laughed gently. ‘No, not that one—the people who live in this square have their garages there and it’s a cul-de-sac. I’m going to the hospital, you had better come along with me.’

‘Oh, no—that is, it’s quite all right.’ She had answered very fast, anxious not to be a nuisance and at the same time aware that this large quiet man had a strange effect upon her.

‘You don’t like me, Miss Hawkins?’

She gave him a shocked look, and it was on the tip of her tongue to assure him that she was quite sure, if she allowed herself to think about it, that she liked him very much, but all she said was: ‘I don’t know you, Professor, do I? But I’ve no reason not to like you. I only said that because you might not want my company.’

‘Don’t beg the question; we both have our work to do there this afternoon, and that is surely a good enough reason to bear each other company.’ He didn’t wait to hear her answer. ‘We go this way.’

He started to walk back the way she had come, past the tall houses squeezed even narrower and taller by the great house in their centre—it took up at least half of that side of the square, and moreover there was a handsome Bentley convertible standing before its door.

Lavinia slowed down to look at it. ‘A Bentley!’ she exclaimed, rather superfluously. ‘I thought everybody who could afford to do so drove Mercedes on the continent. I wonder whose it is—it must take a good deal of cunning to get through that lane I walked down.’

‘This one’s wider,’ her companion remarked carelessly, and turned into a short, quite broad street leading away from the square. It ran into another main street she didn’t recognize, crowded with traffic, but beyond advising her to keep her eyes and ears open the professor had no conversation. True, when they had to cross the street, he took her arm and saw her safely to the other side, but with very much the tolerant air of someone giving a helping hand to an old lady or a small child. It was quite a relief when he plunged down a narrow passage between high brick walls which ended unexpectedly at the very gates of the hospital.