A Match for Sister Maggy by Betty Neels Read Free Book Online

or will you take my word for it that he was crude and disgusting? If we had been anywhere else but a hospital ward, I should have knocked him down.’
    She looked startled and contrite. ‘I didn’t understand him, you were kind to…to stop him. Thank you.’
    â€˜Why are you afraid of them?’
    â€˜Oh! How did you know—did they see…?’
    â€˜No, they did not. I don’t blame you for disliking them. I found them most repulsive.’ He smiled. ‘Am I forgiven?’
    â€˜Yes, of course, sir. I’m sorry I was rude.’ She looked at him anxiously. He was still smiling—she remembered that he had smiled on the day of the lecture and said quickly in a brisk fashion, ‘Now I’ll be helping Nurse with the teas. The visitors will be going…’ She got as far as the door.
    â€˜My mother complains bitterly that she has hardly seen you all day. Could not the green-eyed blonde help with teas while you come into Sep? She has proved a poor substitute for you, Sister.’
    She bristled. ‘Nurse Sibley is a very competent nurse.’
    Their eyes met; his were dancing with laughter.
    â€˜Indeed yes, Maggy. But that isn’t what I meant.’
    She found she had been ushered out of the office and across the landing into Sep and heard herself telling Nurse Sibley to go the ward and help with teas. She seemed to be doing exactly what the doctor wished her to do. She remembered Sir Charles’ words, and made a resolve to be very much firmer in the future.

CHAPTER THREE
    D R D OELSMA went back to Holland during Sunday night, and the ward seemed a very dull place without him. Maggy felt a thrill of excitement when Sir Charles mentioned in a casual manner that Paul would be visiting his mother at the end of the week. Nevertheless she felt constrained to change her off-duty so that she would be absent from the ward on that day. Staff Nurse Williams looked at her as if she was out of her mind.
    â€˜Sister! Dr Doelsma’s coming—he’ll get here about two o’clock and he’s going again in the evening. You’ll miss him.’
    â€˜Well, that can’t be helped,’ said Maggy reasonably. ‘I promised I would go and see this friend of my mother’s and it just so happens that she wants me to go on Friday.’ She smiled at Williams. ‘You can cope with anything that may crop up, and Mevrouw Doelsma is so much better now, I think she’ll do. Besides, Dr Doelsma thinks you’re a very pretty girl, and you know you’re delighted to be seeing him.’
    Williams giggled, ‘Well, Sister, he is marvellous!’
    So Maggy spent her day with elderly Miss MacIntyre, who hadn’t seen her for a number of years and treated her like a schoolgirl; they went for a walk in the park, and changed the library books and discussed knitting patterns,and she went back to the hospital in the evening, wondering if she would be like Miss MacIntyre in forty years’ time.
    Rather to her surprise, the next morning, Williams gave her the report without mentioning Dr Doelsma, but as Maggy closed the report book her staff nurse opened a cupboard and produced an opulent box of Kersenbonbons, and laid it on the desk.
    â€˜He brought these,’ she breathed. ‘I said you weren’t here, and he said how nice it was to see me again, and he gave me these and I told him I’d give them to you, and he said No, they’re for the nurses, Sister will get something next time I come—but we thought we’d save them for you all the same.’
    A small lump of hurt feelings settled in Maggy’s throat, but she swallowed it resolutely.
    â€˜That was sweet of you all, but you take them and divide them up amongst you—Dr Doelsma might feel hurt in his feelings if ye didna’ do as he asked.’ She got up from her chair. ‘Sit down now, Staff, and do it this minute.’ She smiled at the other girl.