âI have a suggestion to make which you might like to consider,â said Thimo.
âI have a private practice in Leiden. I employ two nurses, and one, Willi, is going to Australia to see her brother. She will be awayâ¦for a month or six weeks, and I wondered if you would care to take over her job for that time.â
âI canât speak Dutch,â claimed Esmeralda.
âI daresay Loveday will help you there. You wonât need more than a few routine phrases.â
Her impulse was to say yes at once, for it would be just the thing to fill her days usefully, but she was a practical girl and could see several snags.
âIâve no uniform. And where will I live?â
âWilli will let you borrow hers, and she has a very small house near my rooms.â
She said contritely, âIâm sorry, Dr. Bamstra. Youâve been so kind to me.â She looked down at her plastered leg with the cotton sock pulled over the toes to keep them clean.
âCall me Thimo.â
âThimo, then, though I donât think I should.â
âYou find me too elderly?â His voice was bland.
âDonât be silly. Of course not, but you are a senior consultant at the hospital and Iâm your patientâ¦.â
Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of BETTY NEELS in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Bettyâs first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit lives on in all her stories.
THE orthopaedic ward for children at Trentâs Hospital was in the throes of its usual periodical upheaval: Sister Richards, on the edge of retirement, and, after a lifetime of caring for the small, sick children, a trifle eccentric, was making the cot change, an exercise which entailed her little charges being moved up and down the ward as well as from side to side, until none of themâand that included the nursesâknew exactly where they were any more, so that the children were either screaming with delight at being at the other end of the ward, or roaring with rage at being moved at all, and the nurses, especially those who were new to the experience, were on the edge of hysterics. And this time she had been fortunate in enlisting the help of the two housemen who had unwittingly arrived to write up their notes, and instead now found themselves, under Sister Richardsâ inspired direction, shifting cots too. One of them, trundling a cot containing a very small and cross girl, asked furiously: âIs she out of her mind? Canât someone stop her? My notesâ¦â
The girl he had addressed was guiding him towards the far corner of the ward. âCertainly not,â she protested in a pleasant, cheerful voice, although it held a faintly admonishing note. âIt works splendidly, you knowâthe children are mostly here for weeks and they get bored; moving them round is good for themâthey never know where theyâll be next.â
âAnd nor do you, Iâll be bound, Staff.â
âWell, itâs a bit awkward at first, but we soon get sorted out.â
They pushed the cot into a corner, and he said: âI do believe you like the old thing.â
âYes, I doâand sheâs a wonderful nurse.â
He stood aside and watched her settle the small girl against her pillows, thinking that she seemed a nice little thing; not much to look at though; too small and thin, and all that mousey hair piled highâif it wasnât for her eyes she would be downright plain, but those green eyes, with their thick, dark lashes were really something. It was a pity about her foot, of courseâhe gave it a quick look and glanced away as she limped round the end of the cot. He was fairly new on the orthopaedic side and he had been warned about Staff Nurse Esmeralda Jones; she didnât take pitying glances easily, and anyone wanting to know, however tactfully, why it was that one small foot dragged so horribly behind its fellow would get a cold green stare and no answer at all. True, there was one person who could apparently say what he liked to herâthe orthopaedic Registrar, Leslie Chapman. The young houseman had heard him boasting about it in the common room one day, and hadnât much liked him for it.
âAnyone else to shift?â he wanted to know cheerfully.
Esmeralda beamed at him. âNo thanks, youâve been a Trojan. Sister will be having coffee in her office, I expect, and Iâm sure sheâll give you a cupâafter all this, youâll be in her good books.â