Pineapple Girl. Betty Neels

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СКАЧАТЬ loving amusement. ‘Yes, well…’ She finished her tea and went along to the sitting room where the basket was displayed on the table. It was indeed a splendid sight, Eloise walked all round it, eyeing its contents. ‘I can’t thank him,’ she observed at length. ‘I haven’t a clue who he is, have I? I could ask, I suppose, but I don’t think I want to—I mean if—if he’d wanted to see me again he would have put an address or said so.’ She glanced at her mother and said seriously: ‘He was a very handsome man, he’d hardly lower his sights to me, you know. I expect he just felt sorry.’

      She sighed; usually she didn’t waste time pining for a beautiful face, but just for a moment she wanted most desperately to be absolutely eye-catching. ‘Oh, well,’ she said at length, and then: ‘We’ve got enough fruit to open a shop, isn’t it marvellous?’

      It seemed only fair to take Mrs White’s gift back on duty that evening, to be shared among her friends at their midnight dinner; it made a nice change from the creamed rice and jellied fruit which were on the menu night after night. But Eloise didn’t get any herself; she got down late to her meal because Mrs Fellows had made the early part of the night hideous with her loud moans and complaints. She had been sedated early because the day staff had been hindered in their evening’s work by her constant demands for this, that and the other thing, but that had worn off by ten o’clock, and although Eloise got the house surgeon on duty to come and look at her and write her up for further sedation, he had told her to wait until midnight before giving it.

      ‘She’s not in pain,’ he declared, ‘just determined to make life hell for everyone else—let’s see, supposing we give her…’ He wrote busily. ‘That should keep her quiet until morning and you can repeat it at six o’clock if she’s still rampaging.’ He thrust the chart at Eloise. ‘It was only an EUA, after all…not even surgery.’

      Cycling home in the morning, Eloise reflected that the night had been awful—thank heaven there was only one more to go before her nights off.

      And that night was so madly busy that she had no time for her own thoughts at all; with operation cases to settle, two severe accident cases to admit, an emergency case for the theatre at two o’clock in the morning, and Mrs Fellows, due home in the morning, but still complaining loudly, adding her quota to the night’s bedlam. Eloise, too tired to know whether she was coming or going, ate her breakfast in a trance, got herself home and fell into her bed after a quick cup of tea and a hot bath.

      She had six nights off due to her and it was on the third of these that Mrs Bennett’s visitors came. Her sister-in-law arrived first; a tall, commanding woman with a penetrating voice and cold good looks, she pecked at their cheeks, told them that they both looked tired, chose a chair with deliberation and loosened the expensive furs she was wearing. Watching her aunt, Eloise found herself wondering how she had come to marry her father’s elder brother in the first place, although perhaps it wasn’t so strange, as he had been successful; making money as easily as a good cook makes pastry, quite unlike her own father, content to work in his book shop, specializing in rare books and engravings. That he had loved herself and her mother she had no doubt, but books were his real love and he had lived largely in a world of his own far removed from the more mundane life around him. Which had probably accounted for the fact that when he died very suddenly from a coronary, it was discovered that his insurances had lapsed for a number of years and that he had mortgaged the shop and house in order to find the money to buy the rare books he had coveted. As a consequence he had left his wife and daughter very ill provided for and although neither of them had blamed him in the slightest for this, his sister-in-law had never ceased, on every possible occasion, to mention his improvidence.

      The lady made just such a remark now, once she had settled herself, and went on in her bossy way: ‘You need a change, both of you, and I have the solution.’

      She held up a beringed hand to stop any questioning, although neither of her listeners had had any intention of speaking; they had long ago decided that the only way to treat their overbearing relation was to give every appearance of attention and then go their own way, but the lady went on, just as though she had received a gratifying murmur of admiration: ‘But I shall say no more until Deborah Pringle arrives.’ She frowned and glanced at her watch. ‘She should be here now.’

      As though Mrs Pringle had been given her cue, the doorbell rang and Eloise went to answer it. She had met Mrs Pringle a number of times and liked her; she was a small bustling creature with a kindly nature which never sought to boss others around and Eloise had often wondered how she had come to be a friend of her aunt’s. She came in now, exclaiming cheerfully, ‘I’m a little late, but the taxi couldn’t find you and I’m hopeless at telling people how to get to places.’ She gave Eloise a kiss and added warmly: ‘Your lovely hair—how I do envy you, my dear. How’s your mother?’

      Eloise said dryly: ‘Aunt says she needs a holiday…’

      ‘And I daresay she does but she’s not one to waste time pining for something—not if I know her, and I should do after all these years.’ She smiled widely and whispered: ‘What’s the betting that I’m wearing the wrong kind of hat?’

      She was greeted with pleasure by Mrs Bennett and more austerely by that lady’s sister-in-law, who, sure enough, told her at once: ‘That’s not the hat for you, Deborah—far too young…’

      ‘But I feel young.’ Mrs Pringle sat down between her two friends and looked at them in turn, rather like a referee might look at two boxers before a fight. She said cheerfully: ‘Well, Mary, it’s delightful to see you again—a pity I don’t come to England more often and when I do, it’s almost impossible to get away; Cor likes me to be with him all the time.’

      ‘He’s not with you this time?’ asked Mrs Bennett.

      ‘He went back last week—simply had to…’ And when her friend cast her an inquiring look: ‘I wasn’t allowed to travel; I came over here for an operation, nothing vital, but I have to stay for a check-up before I go home.’ She changed the conversation then, and it wasn’t until Eloise had fetched the tea and they had finished the sandwiches and home made cake that she reverted to herself.

      ‘I’ve a favour to ask,’ she began a shade diffidently. ‘You see, I met Maggie a short while ago,’ she paused to smile at that forbidding lady, ‘and I mentioned that I was going back home in a short time and wanted to take a nurse with me, just for a little while, you know, and so she telephoned you, Mary, meaning to ask if Eloise was free, and you told her that she had a holiday in a couple of weeks. Now that would be simply splendid if only she would agree to come with me.’ She flashed a smile at Eloise. ‘Nothing much to do, just a small dressing and my temperature and so on, and I promise her that she shall have plenty of time to do what she likes.’

      Eloise found her astonished voice. ‘How kind of you to think of me,’ she exclaimed, ‘but you see I can’t leave Mother alone…’

      ‘Ah,’ Mrs Pringle beamed in mild triumph, ‘it just so happens in the most extraordinary way imaginable that I met Mrs Plunkett last week—remember her at Eddlescombe? Well, she was asking about you, Mary, and said how much she would like to see you again and if only you were on your own she would love to have you to stay—you know she has only that dear little cottage with two bedrooms?’ She paused and looked around her. Mrs Bennett was staring at her with rapt attention, Eloise’s nice, ordinary face betrayed her suspicion that the whole thing was a put up job and her aunt looked vaguely irritated as she always did when someone else was doing the talking.

      ‘I know it sounds too good to be true,’ declared Mrs Pringle with a glance at Eloise, ‘but that’s exactly what happened, and I thought how marvellous it would be if Eloise were to come with me and you, Mary, could go and stay with Beryl Plunkett. What do СКАЧАТЬ