Saturday's Child

‘There is somebody you should meet—it seemed the best place.’

‘Oh, I see.’ She didn’t see at all and she was longing to ask him who it was and didn’t because he would be expecting it.

‘Very wise of you,’ he commented silkily, answering her unspoken thought. ‘I’ve no intention of telling you. How do you find Professor de Wit?’

She obligingly followed his lead. ‘Determined to get well as soon as possible.’

‘Yes—I have every hope that he will. The operation wasn’t quite straightforward.’ He launched into details and then said to surprise her:

‘He likes you, Nurse Trent. I hope that you will be prepared to go home with him for a few days?’

‘Certainly,’ said Abigail. There was nothing she would like better, for a variety of reasons, which for the moment at least, she didn’t intend to look into too deeply. She looked about her. They were travelling along the Herengracht, beautiful and picturesque with its old houses on either side of the tree-lined canal. Some way down its length the professor turned the car into a short arm of the canal—a little cul-de-sac, spanned by a narrow footbridge half way down its length. Houses lined the cobbled streets on either side of the water and across its far end, and trees, even in their winter bareness, crowded thickly along its banks.

The Rolls slid sedately along its length and came to a halt outside one of the houses at the end, facing the canal. It was a very old house, with double steps leading to a great door and another, smaller door tucked away under those same steps. The windows were high and narrow and climbed up the front of the house. The higher they climbed the smaller they became, until they terminated in one very large one, heavily shuttered under the steep gable of the house. There was a tremendous hook above it, because that was the only way to get anything in or out of the houses’ top floors.

It was peaceful in the small backwater, away from the traffic, with only the wind sighing around the steeple roofs. Abigail got out and looked around her while the professor opened his house door, and then at his bidding went inside.

It was all she had expected and hoped for, with its black and white tiled floor, its plasterwork ceiling and plain white walls, upon which were hung a host of paintings, and its carved staircase rising from one side.

The furnishings were in keeping—a heavy oak table along one wall, flanked by two carved oaken chairs which Abigail thought looked remarkably uncomfortable, while the other wall held an oak chest upon which reposed a great blue and white bowl, filled with spring flowers.

Abigail rotated slowly, trying to see everything at once. ‘How absolutely beautiful—it’s quite perfect,’ she said, and was instantly sorry she had spoken, because when she looked at her companion he was looking down his long nose at her as though she had been guilty of some offending vulgarity. She went a faint, angry pink, which turned even brighter when he remarked austerely:

‘I feel sure, from the ferocious expression upon your face, that you are on the point of bidding me not to be like that, or some such similar phrase, Miss Trent. May I beg you not to do so—I am easily irritated.’

‘So I’ve noticed,’ Abigail told him tartly. ‘The smallest thing … And now, Professor, if I might meet this person.’ Her eyes swept round the empty hall; the house was very quiet, she allowed her thoughtful gaze to rest upon the man beside her and was on the point of speaking when he interrupted her:

‘No, Miss Trent, I can assure you that there is nothing of sinister intent in my request to you to accompany me here.’ He smiled thinly. ‘You surely could not have seriously supposed that?’

It was annoying to have her thoughts read so accurately. Abigail said crossly, because that was exactly what she had been thinking, ‘No, of course not. I’m not such a fool—you have to be joking.’

He said nothing to this but opened a door and said: ‘Perhaps you would like to wait in here?’

She went past him into a small panelled room, warm and snug in the light of the fire burning in the steel grate. It was furnished in the utmost comfort with a number of easy chairs, leather-covered; a charmingly inlaid pier table against one wall, I small round table, inlaid with coloured mosaic work, conveniently close to the hearth, a revolving bookcase filled with books and a small Regency work-table. The professor pressed a switch and a number of table lamps bathed their surroundings in a delicate pink, highlighting the walls, which she could see were covered with red embossed paper, almost hidden along two sides of the room by the pictures hung upon it, and completely hidden on its third side by shelves of books. The room called for comment, but this time she held her tongue, walking to the centre of the room and standing quietly, waiting for him to speak first.

He didn’t speak at all, but went out of the room, shutting the door behind him, and Abigail for one split second fought an urge to rush to the door and try the handle. Instead, she turned her back on it and went to examine the paintings on the walls. Mostly portraits of bygone van Wijkelens, she decided, who had undoubtedly passed on their good looks with an almost monotonous regularity. She was peering at a despotic-looking old gentleman in a tie-wig, when the door opened behind her and she turned round to see who it was.

Bollinger stood there. She cried on a happy, startled breath: ‘Bolly—oh, Bolly!’ and burst into tears. He crossed the room and patted her on the shoulder and said: ‘There, there, Miss Abby—I gave you a shock, eh? Thought you’d be pleased and all.’

‘Oh, Bolly, I am! I’m so happy to see you, that’s why I’m crying—aren’t I a fool? But how did you get here?’ A sudden thought struck her. ‘In the professor’s house?’ She whisked the spotless handkerchief he always carried out of his pocket and blew her nose and wiped her eyes. ‘Does he know?’

‘Course he knows, love. It’s him as thought to do it. You see, he comes along one night and gives me your letter and the money, and I asks him to have a cuppa, seeing as it’s a cold night, and we gets talking and I tells him a bit about us, and he says to me, ‘’Well, Bollinger, seeing as how Miss Trent’s going to be in Amsterdam for a week or two yet, why don’t you get yourself a little job and be near her?’”

‘”Well,” I says, ‘’that’s easier said than done,” and he says: ‘’I’m looking for a gardener and odd job man for a week or two while my man has his bunions done—how about it?” So here I am, Miss Abby, came yesterday. He paid me fare and I’m to get my wages, so I’m in clover, as they say—no need for you to give me any more money.’

‘It’s fantastic,’ declared Abigail. ‘I simply can’t believe it—do you like him, Bolly?’

‘Yes, that I do, Miss Abby—a bit of a toff, you might say, but a gent all right.’

Abigail blew her nose again to prevent herself from bursting into another bout of tears. ‘Oh, Bolly, it’s like being home again. And of course I shall go on paying you your money—have you any idea how much it is we owe you? Don’t you see, Bolly, I must pay you back now that I know about it and can afford to do so?’

‘Well, if it makes you happy, Miss Abby. How long do you think you’ll be here?’

‘I’m not sure. Another two weeks, perhaps three. What have you done about your room?’

‘I give it up, it wasn’t all that hot. This professor, he says he knows someone in London lets rooms, very nice—a bit more than I got, but if I save me wages …’

‘And I pay you each week while you’re here, and by the time I get back to London and you’re running a bit low, I’ll be in another job and be able to send you something each week.’ She hugged him. ‘Oh, Bolly, it’s all so wonderful, I can’t believe it. Are you happy here? Where do you live?’

‘Here, of course, Miss Abby. I got a room at the top of the house—very snug and warm it is too.’

‘You don’t have to work too hard?’

‘Lord love you, no, Miss Abby—nice little bit of garden behind, and I does the odd job—and I’m to go to his other house in the country once a week and see to the garden there.’

Abigail stood silent, digesting this new aspect of Professor van Wijkelen. ‘Well …’ she began, and was interrupted by the door opening to admit a small round dumpling of a woman with a pleasant face. She shook Abigail by the hand and said in very tolerable English, ‘The housekeeper, Mevrouw Boot,’ and Abigail, mindful of her Dutch manners, replied: ‘Miss Abigail Trent.’

Mevrouw Boot eyed her with kindly curiosity as she spoke. ‘The professor begs that Miss will return to hospital when she must. There is a car at the door in five minutes. He excuses himself.’

She smiled again and went quietly out of the room, and Abigail looked at Bollinger and said with unconscious sadness, ‘He doesn’t like me, you know,’ and had this statement instantly repudiated by Bolly who exclaimed in a shocked voice:

‘That I can’t believe, begging your pardon, Miss Abby—a nice young lady like you …’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter in the least,’ said Abigail with such firmness that she almost believed what she was saying—but not quite, because it mattered out of all proportion to everything else. ‘I’d better go, I suppose it’s a taxi and I oughtn’t to keep it waiting. Come to the door with me, Bolly.’

They crossed the hall, lingering a little. ‘The professor says you’re to come whenever ye’re inclined,’ Bolly explained, ‘but not the days I go to the country.’

She nodded and stopped. ‘All right, Bolly, I’ll remember. I’m very grateful to him. Do you suppose I should write him a letter?’

He looked astonished. ‘You see him, don’t you, can’t you do it then?’

She shook her head. ‘I told you he doesn’t like me,’ and as if to underline her words one of the doors opened and Mevrouw Boot came into the hall and before she closed the door behind her, Abigail and Bollinger had an excellent view of the professor sitting at a desk facing it—the powerful reading lamp on it lighted his face clearly; he was staring at Abigail with no expression, giving her the peculiar feeling that she wasn’t there, and then lowered his handsome head to the papers before him. The door closed and when the housekeeper had gone, Abigail said softly:

‘You see, Bolly? He doesn’t even want to see me, let alone speak.’

She smiled a little wanly, wished him a warm goodbye and went outside. The Rolls was before the steps, an elderly man at the wheel. He got out of the car when he saw her and opened the door, smiling nicely as he did so although he didn’t speak, and she returned the smile, for he had a kind face, rugged and lined—like a Dutch Bolly, she thought as she settled herself beside him for the journey back to the hospital. During the short ride she tried her best to reconcile the professor’s dislike of her with his kindness to Bollinger. There had, after all, been no need to offer the old man a job, even a temporary one. She hoped that Bolly hadn’t told him too much, although she discounted as ridiculous the idea that he might have acted out of sympathy to herself as well as Bollinger. It was all a little mysterious and she gave up the puzzle and began to ask her companion some questions about Amsterdam, hoping that he could understand. It was an agreeable surprise to find that he could, and moreover, reply to them in English.

At the hospital, she thanked him for the ride, wondering who he was and not liking to ask for fear the professor would hear of it and consider her nosey. She went back to her patient with her curiosity unsatisfied, to find him feeling so much better after a refreshing nap that he wanted to know what she had been doing with her afternoon. She told him, skating over the more unexplainable bits, and rather to her surprise he made very little comment, and that was about herself and Bollinger. About the professor he had nothing to say at all.

The days slid quietly by, each one bringing more strength to Professor de Wit. He was to go home in a week’s time, said Professor van Wijkelen when he called one morning soon after Abigail had been to his house, and as he had said it, both he and his patient looked at her.

‘You’ll come with me, Abby?’ asked her patient, who considered himself on sufficiently good terms with her by now to address her so. The professor’s cool, ‘I hope you will find it convenient to go with Professor de Wit for another week, Nurse Trent,’ sounded all the more stilted. She said that yes, of course she would, hiding her delight at the idea of seeing the professor, even if he hated her, for another few days, and the lesser delight of knowing that she would be able to repay Bolly quite a lot of money. She went away to fetch the latest X-rays the professor decided to study, walking on air.

She told Bollinger about it the next day when they met, as they often did, for a cup of coffee and half an hour’s chat. Bollinger, she was glad to see, looked well, and he was happy with his gardening and the odd jobs he was doing around the house. He had been to the country too, but Abigail didn’t press him with questions about this; somehow she felt that the less she knew about the professor’s private life, the better it would be.