The Little Dragon

The doctor looked surprised and then amused, but he answered carefully: ‘Oh, yes, a very good woman, her name’s Rietje. She’s not here this afternoon, though. I expect the children will get the tea; they’ll be here at any moment.’ He shut the massive door behind him. ‘Ah, here are Solly and Sheba and Prince. There’s a cat in the kitchen—the children, you know,’ he added vaguely.

Constantia nodded her understanding. ‘Of course, they have to have pets.’

She stood a little irresolutely, for her host appeared lost in thought—or was he listening for something? She decided that she was mistaken, for he spoke to the dogs and then said: ‘Do take your coat off,’ and took it from her and tossed it on to one of the carved chairs against one wall, then tossed his on top of it. ‘Shall we go into the sitting room?’

It was a grand room, grandly furnished with rich brocade curtains at its windows and more fine rugs on the polished wood floor, but somehow it was comfortable too, with great armchairs and sofas of an inviting softness, and delicate little tables. There were bookshelves too and a pile of children’s comics and a half-finished game of Monopoly. Constantia drew an admiring breath.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she exclaimed, ‘and so exquisitely furnished. Doesn’t the owner mind you being here?’ An expression she couldn’t read crossed her companion’s face and she hastened to add: ‘I didn’t mean you—I was thinking of the children. Three of them, you know, however good they are—I mean, breaking things and finger marks…’

The expression had gone, if ever she had seen it. He said easily, ‘He doesn’t object—he likes children, you see. Besides, he understands that they’re well behaved and wouldn’t break or spoil anything if they could help it. There’s a big room upstairs which they use as a playroom, and he doesn’t mind how much that gets battered.’

Her voice was warm. ‘He must be a nice man.’ She looked around her again. ‘You’d think that he would want to live here himself.’

‘He likes the country.’

‘Oh, yes, I suppose he would if he’s elderly. He must have a great deal of money if he has two houses. Is he married?’

She had crossed the room to look at a flower painting and had her back to the doctor, who had bent to tickle Prince’s ears. ‘No—he’s rather a lonely man.’

Her pretty face was full of sympathy as she turned to face him. ‘Oh, the poor dear—if only he had a wife and children—being lonely is terrible.’

Her companion echoed her. ‘Terrible, and if only he had…’

‘Anyway, he must be a perfect dear to allow you all to live here, though I expect he feels that this house was built for a family. Your…uncle?’ She paused and looked enquiringly at the doctor. ‘He is a relation?’

He nodded. ‘Oh, certainly of my blood.’

‘Yes, well—I daresay he loves this place very much and likes to know that there are children in it.’

‘I’m sure that he does—here they come now. They use the little door in the garden wall at the back.’

They surged in, all talking at once, laughing and calling to each other, running to greet the doctor and then Constantia, delighted to see her again. The doctor prised them loose, quite unperturbed by the din going on around him, and said firmly in English: ‘Wash your hands for tea, my dears—it’s in the kitchen.’

Pieter and Paul exchanged glances and looked mischievous, and Elisabeth burst into a torrent of Dutch. Constantia had no idea what the doctor said to them, only that they chorused, ‘Ja, Oom Jeroen,’ and flew from the room; she could hear them giggling together as they crossed the hall and the doctor said easily: ‘Don’t mind the mirth—speaking English always sends them into paroxysms.’

Constantia giggled too. ‘You’ve got your hands full, haven’t you? But they’re pretty super, aren’t they?’

In her room that evening, getting ready for bed, she allowed her thoughts to linger over the day while her eyes dwelt on the flowers arranged in the variety of vases and jars she had managed to collect around the house. It had been tremendous fun and much, much nicer than she had ever supposed it would be. The market had been great, but tea with the doctor and his small relatives had been marvellous. They had sat at the big scrubbed table in the centre of the enormous kitchen, with its windows overlooking the garden at the back of the house, and eaten the sort of tea she remembered from her own childhood. Bread and butter and jam and a large cake to cut at, and when she had remarked upon it the doctor had assured her that although it certainly wasn’t the rule in Holland, where a small cup of milkless tea and a biscuit or a chocolate were considered quite sufficient, he had found that the children, hungry from school, enjoyed a more substantial meal when they got home and then only needed a light supper at bedtime.

And after tea they had all washed up and gone back upstairs to play Monopoly until bedtime, when she had helped Elisabeth get ready for bed, and when she had gone downstairs again there had been her host with a coffee tray on the table before the great fireplace in the sitting room. There had been little chicken patties and sausage rolls too, and when she asked who did the cooking, it was to hear that Rietje did that too, and from time to time produced the dainties they were eating for their supper.

All the same, thought Constantia worriedly as she sat on the edge of her bed, giving her soft fine hair its regulation one hundred strokes, Doctor van der Giessen must have his work cut out. She got into bed, her mind busy—longing to know more about him.

Mrs Dowling had said that he was poor, and that didn’t matter at all to Constantia; she would have liked to know more about him as a person. Did he have a large practice, she wondered, and was his sister his only relation other than the children? And surely there must be a girl somewhere in his life? She curled up in bed, trying to imagine what she would be like—a very special girl; the doctor deserved that. He was just about the nicest man she had ever met. She wondered how old he was, too. Perhaps, if they saw each other fairly frequently while she was in Delft, she could ask him. She began to worry as to how much longer she would be there; Mrs Dowling wasn’t quite like her other cases, who, sooner or later, had got well enough for her to leave them. Mrs Dowling didn’t really need a nurse at all, and if she had been sensible she could have learned to give herself her insulin injections and cope with her own diet. Constantia found herself hoping that she would be needed for some time yet; true, it was boring with no actual nursing to do, and Mrs Dowling was just about the most tiresome patient she had ever encountered.

And as if to emphasise that opinion, Mrs Dowling was worse than ever the next morning. Her breakfast was uneatable; Constantia had hurt her when she had given her injection; an old friend who was a cornerstone of her bridge table had gone to England and left her with a choice of most inferior substitutes. And the wrong newspaper had been delivered.

Constantia, busy charting insulin doses and sugar levels, was told to leave what she was doing and fetch the correct one, ‘and at the same time you might as well go into that needlework shop in Gerritstraat and see if that embroidery silk I ordered has arrived.’ She added crossly: ‘And go now.’

Constantia went, glad to escape and glad to have the opportunity of telephoning Doctor Sperling to let him know that Mrs Dowling’s tests were all over the place again. Either she was hopelessly unstabilised, which in view of the doctor’s treatment was absurd, or she was eating something she shouldn’t be.

There was a telephone in the hotel close by, so she left a message with the doctor’s secretary and went on her way to the newsagent. She had collected the newspaper and the embroidery silk and was on her way back through the shopping precinct when Doctor van der Giessen came out of the same door as he had done before.

‘Playing truant?’ he wanted to know.

She laughed. ‘No; changing the newspaper and fetching something Mrs Dowling ordered.’

He fell into step beside her. ‘Why can’t she do these things for herself?’ he enquired mildly.

‘Well—I’m not sure…’ She hesitated. ‘Is it all right if I tell you something, or isn’t it ethical?’

He smiled down at her. ‘I don’t suppose it would matter—Doctor Sperling and I have known each other for quite some time. What seems to be the matter?’

‘I left a message with Doctor Sperling’s secretary. Mrs Dowling isn’t stabilising and she ought to be.’

‘Ah—the odd hunk of cheese or bar of chocolate?’ he commented placidly. ‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised—a few days in hospital would see to that. I expect Doctor Sperling will have that at the back of his mind.’ They were crossing the bridge and weren’t hurrying in the sunshine. ‘The children want to know when you’re coming to tea again.’

‘Oh, do they? How sweet of them.’

‘On your next half day, perhaps?’

‘I’d like that very much—about four o’clock? It will be Wednesday.’

‘I’ve a surgery until three-thirty, come then—if no one answers the door walk in and make yourself at home.’

‘I could get the tea if you wouldn’t mind me going to the kitchen,’ Constantia offered.

‘Splendid.’ They had come to a halt in front of the hotel again.

‘I must go,’ she said regretfully.

‘Tot ziens, then.’

She watched him disappear down a small street in the direction of Oude Delft and then went slowly on her way. Life was really rather pleasant, she decided as she waited for Nel to open the door.

It wasn’t quite as pleasant as she went into Mrs Dowling’s room.

‘There you are!’ Her patient’s harsh voice was pitched high with impatience; she scarcely glanced up from manicuring her nails. ‘You’ve been a long time.’

‘Not quite half an hour,’ said Constantia quietly. She put the newspaper and the silk on a table with the little pile of change, which Mrs Dowling leaned over and counted carefully before telling Constantia to give her her handbag. ‘Did you meet someone?’ she demanded.

‘Doctor van der Giessen.’

Mrs Dowling closed her handbag with a snap. ‘Him?’ Her lip curled in a sneer. ‘Sweet on him, are you? I told you that he was as poor as a church mouse—so rumour says—and likely to stay that way, with three children to look after. More fool he!’

Constantia was collecting the odds and ends Mrs Dowling had shed around the room. The remark ruffled her patience and her temper, but she had no intention of letting her patient see that. ‘Probably he prefers children to money,’ she commented lightly, ‘some people do.’

Mrs Dowling shot her a peevish look. ‘That’s ridiculous, and you’re being impertinent, Nurse.’