by Betty Neels
‘I think I can cope, Professor Wyllie-Lyon.’ She waved a well-shaped, capable hand. ‘The office alone is enough to spur me on, after this…’
He laughed and the door opened and Miss Hudson came in. She hadn’t enjoyed her dinner—mince and carrots, and she disliked both—and the sight of two people laughing so easily together caused her to look sourly at Charity, even while she wished the professor a grudging good afternoon.
‘Women’s Surgical wants that report on Mrs Evans before two o’clock,’ she said and turned back to the professor. ‘We’re kept busy, sir, as you can see; I sometimes wonder how I keep going and now I hear that Charity is to work for you, so that I must miss what little help I get from her…’
He said smoothly, ‘Perhaps you have no need of assistance, Miss Hudson? The administration are always looking for ways and means of cutting down the runnings costs. I’m sure that they would be only too glad…’
Miss Hudson’s tongue tripped over itself in her haste to deny this. ‘No, no, sir. There is a great deal of routine work which I haven’t the time for. I’m sure that I shall miss Charity.’
The professor wandered to the door. ‘Your loss is my gain, Miss Hudson.’
A remark which buoyed Charity up for the remainder of the month.
She spent the last day showing the new girl the ropes. There was already something of an atmosphere between her and Miss Hudson; Charity wondered how long it would be before they fell out and then remembered happily that it didn’t concern her any more.
She arrived early at her new job, with Patty hard on her heels. The phone rang as they went into the office: the professor, to say that he had been at the hospital during the night and had only just got home.
‘I’ll be half an hour,’ he told Patty. ‘Do the apologising, will you, and have the coffee on the boil.’
She relayed this to Charity, adding casually, ‘This happens from time to time. We soothe any patients waiting and hand out magazines and small talk. He said half an hour, so it will be just that. Be an angel and put on the kettle while I do my hair, then we’ll go into the waiting room. Mrs Kemp will be here soon and she’ll take over while we get the notes ready.’
There were five patients with appointments. ‘Half an hour each,’ said Patty, ‘give or take five minutes; that gives him time to have coffee before he goes to Augustine’s—he is due there at midday. There are three patients for the afternoon, starting at three o’clock, but he’ll be back before then, dictating or whatever. You’ll get most of it typed by five o’clock but sometimes there is the odd patient in the evening.’ She grinned at Charity. ‘Play it by ear, love.’
But it wasn’t as bad as it sounded; Professor Wyllie-Lyon sat himself down behind his desk exactly on time, bade them both good morning, expressed the wish that Charity would be happy in her work and asked if he might have a cup of coffee when he had seen his first patient.
He handed over his post to be dealt with, studied the notes before him and pressed the buzzer on his desk as the two of them went back to the office, where they sorted the post, put the bills on one side, consigned the advertisements to the waste-paper basket and saw to the coffee.
Charity took it in, ‘For you might as well start as you mean to go on,’ said Patty. ‘Bring out the notes of the first patient—he’ll have scribbled instructions on them.’
He was sitting back with his eyes shut as she went in. He looked tired to the bone, but only for a moment. He sat up at once, looking as he always did, calm and unworried and even-tempered. He looked immaculate, too, just as though he’d had a long night’s sleep and all the time in the world in which to dress and eat his breakfast.
He nodded his thanks, handed her the notes and pulled the next folder towards him and she went back to Patty, waiting with two mugs of coffee.
‘Mrs Kemp has hers when he is finished; she’d rather. What’s he written?’
Appointments for X-Ray and the Path Lab; the patient to be seen again in two weeks; letter to her own doctor. Charity was left to deal with these and the succeeding four and when the last patient had gone she went in with her notebook and took down letters. She was glad that her shorthand was good, for he went fast and he didn’t hesitate.
‘I’d like those after lunch,’ he said. ‘You two girls arrange your lunchtime between you; I’ll be back at two o’clock.’
He had spoken pleasantly but briskly so that she didn’t feel encouraged to say anything at all beyond a polite, ‘Yes, sir,’ as he went away.
She took her notebook back and began on the letters, while Patty got out the afternoon’s notes and decided to go out to lunch. ‘You’ll be just about ready by the time I get back. It’s a chance for you to see if you can get that little lot done for him.’
She was back in less than an hour, and Charity, surveying the neat pile waiting for signature, asked, ‘Where do I go? Is there somewhere close by?’
‘There is a little coffee shop five minutes walk away. Turn left and then left again. You can eat here if you want to. I do when the weather is bad. When you are on your own you will have to arrange it with Mrs Kemp—she’s no trouble though—she’ll go to lunch first or last; it’s according to how many patients there are and how much work you have got.’ She added encouragingly, ‘It’s a nice quiet day, today.’
‘Well, let’s hope that there isn’t a busy one until I’ve got dug in,’ said Charity and went off in search of a sandwich and coffee.
She took more dictation until three o’clock and found a small pile of letters on her desk, as well, with cryptic notes scrawled on them. Mostly invitations with ‘refuse’ written over them. Not very sociably minded, Charity decided, tapping away as though her life depended on it.
She missed Patty when she left, two days later, but by then she was fairly confident that she could manage the work. She liked Mrs Kemp; the two of them got on well together. She also liked the work, so much more interesting than it had been at Augustine’s; besides, there was no Miss Hudson…
Patty had been gone a week when what Mrs Kemp called, ‘A day to get your teeth into, dear,’ occurred. Charity was putting the cover on her machine as the clock struck six, glad that the day was over, when the professor came into the office. That he was annoyed she could see at once, for his face was expressionless. He handed her a fistful of reports, with the request that he might have them within half an hour.
‘Miss Hudson and the new girl have fallen out,’ he observed, ‘so that each of them do as little work as they possibly can. There was no hope of getting these done at Augustine’s and I need them first thing in the morning.’
Charity took the cover off her typewriter again and got forms from the drawer in her desk. There weren’t many, six or seven, but she was already late. She had started on the first one when he said: ‘I’m sorry—you’re late already. Leave them and go home.’
‘Half an hour’s work,’ she assured him, and started on the second.
She was prevented from going on with it by his hand coming down on hers. ‘No, go home, Charity. You can do them in the morning as soon as you get here.’ He took his hand away and crossed the room to his own door.
‘Good night.’
The tone of his voice didn’t allow for dispute. She tidied up once more, put on her outdoor things, called a good night and went to the front door. It was dark and raining and she paused, considering which was the quickest way to the bus stop. She was about to close the door behind her when she heard a hesitant tapping. She listened for the next few moments and then closed the door again and went back to the professor’s door. The light was out in the waiting room, but the door to her office was half open. He was sitting at her desk, looking quite out of place, his large person bent over her typewriter, quite absorbed, thumping away with two fingers.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHARITY CAST OFF her coat and flung her gloves and handbag after it. ‘Now, now!’ she said chidingly. ‘This won’t do! You don’t keep a dog and bark yourself!
’ She had quite forgotten who he was for the moment.
She remembered when he glanced up at her. ‘I told you to go home, Charity.’
‘Oh, dear, I didn’t mean to be rude; I’m sorry; but that’s my work, sir. I expected to work late sometimes you know—Patty did tell me that; so did you. If, however, you wouldn’t mind getting up…?’
He had been looking at her with an expressionless face; now suddenly he smiled. ‘Very well, Charity, on one condition—that I drive you home. I’ve some phone calls to make; probably you will be finished by then?’
She was covering her typewriter again when he came out of his room and closed the door. He signed the forms, put them into his case and waited while she switched off the lights and locked the doors. Charity, being helped into her coat, thought what nice manners he had, and when she saw the rain teeming down, felt relief that he had offered to drive her home.
He didn’t talk much during the short drive and she was content to sit beside him in an unspoken friendliness which she had begun to think had been lost between them. At her door she asked him diffidently if he would like to go in.
‘Yes I would,’ he told her, ‘but unfortunately I’ve a dinner engagement.’
‘Well, thank you for giving me a lift, sir.’ He had got out with her and was holding the gate open. ‘Good night.’
She went into the house without looking round and stood listening to the gentle purr of the car as he drove away. He would be spending the evening with the girl he was going to marry, no doubt. Very beautiful, Mrs Kemp had said; very haughty, too. A most unsuitable wife for the professor, she had said. She had glanced at Charity as she had said it. ‘There’s plenty of girls just as lovely and far more suitable.’
The professor was going away at the end of the week: a lecturing tour in Canada. He would be gone for a week and, although she would be going to his consulting rooms each day, there wouldn’t be much to do. His letters she was to deal with as she thought fit, and he had told her when she might make appointments. He had also left her an article which he had written for the Lancet; she was to check it for punctuation and type it for him.
Mrs Kemp was having a week’s holiday and Charity found it a little lonely, even though she enjoyed working as she pleased. Half-way through the week the professor telephoned, his voice very clear from all those miles away. She had been so pleased to hear him that she hadn’t said a word until he asked her if anything was the matter.
‘No, oh, no!’ said Charity. ‘It’s just such a nice surprise. There are some letters I don’t know how to answer.’
‘Read them.’
Which she duly did, making hasty notes on each.
‘Nothing else? Good. Charity, take the keys for my desk and unlock the centre drawer; there are two tapes there. Type them for me, please. I shall be back this weekend and will see you on Monday morning.’ He said goodbye and hung up.
She answered the letters first and then went and got the tapes. They were a long involved series of lecture notes which kept her busy for the rest of that day and a good deal of the next, too.
She was glad when the weekend was over, she felt impatient of the gentle routine at home. The weather had turned cold and wet and there was little to do in the garden. She cooked the meals, made an attractive audience while her father enthused over an eighteenth-century grammar he had discovered in a dusty bookshop in some forgotten alley behind Fleet Street, and went to church, all the while aware that it wasn’t enough to content her any more. She was uncertain as to why this was but it certainly got her up early on Monday morning, and she was half an hour early at Wigmore Street.
Mrs Kemp wasn’t due for another thirty minutes and the first patients wouldn’t arrive until mid-morning. Charity picked up the milk bottle from the doorstep, unlocked the front door and went along to Professor Wyllie-Lyon’s door, unlocked that and went in. The waiting room was dim and rather chilly; she pulled the curtains back as she went, and opened her office door. The door between it and the professor’s room was open and she stopped short at the sight of him sitting at his desk, writing.
He glanced up and smiled. ‘Good morning, Charity. Make some coffee will you? I’ve dealt with the stuff you left for me; there’ll be plenty more for you to type presently.’
‘Good morning, sir. When did you get in? Oughtn’t you to have breakfast?’ She managed to keep her voice matter-of-fact.
‘I had that on board—we got in at six o’clock—it seemed pointless to go to bed. I’ll go home and shower and shave and get back here in time for the first patient. Mrs Caldwell, isn’t it?’
She had put on the kettle, and milk in a saucepan to heat. ‘Yes, at ten-thirty. She rang to make sure you’d be here.’
She took the cover off her typewriter and readied her desk for the morning’s work, feeling happy. ‘She sounded worried.’
‘She has lymphadenoma—do you know what that is?’
‘I looked it up in the medical directory. It’s terminal, isn’t it?’
He had left his desk and was leaning in the doorway between the two rooms, watching her as she made the coffee. ‘Yes, but with care we’ll be able to keep her alive for some time yet, and when it gets beyond my powers I’ll pass her on to the surgeons.’
‘Do you ever give up?’ asked Charity.
‘No, never.’ He came to take his mug from her. ‘And that doesn’t apply only to medicine.’ He sat astride the other chair by her desk. ‘No worries during the week?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you. I’ve made a lot of appointments for you: they are in your diary on the desk.’
‘I’ve seen them, thank you. You don’t miss Augustine’s?’
‘Heavens, no. I’m very happy here and I like the work. You’re quite satisfied with me, sir?’ She hadn’t meant to ask, but she had to know.
‘Quite satisfied, Charity. You’re coping very well, just as I expected you to. A good thing, for I have a number of meetings and a lecture or two during the next few weeks…’ He was interrupted by the telephone ringing and Charity answered it.
A woman’s voice, high and imperious. ‘Is Professor Wyllie-Lyon there yet? If he is, tell him it’s Brenda. I want to speak to him, it’s urgent.’
Charity handed him the receiver. ‘A lady called Brenda; she says it’s urgent.’
She went into the cloakroom and shut the door, trying not to hear the murmur of his voice. It was a lengthy conversation and, judging by the frown on his face when he had finished and she had gone back to her office, an unsatisfactory one. He had gone back to his own room but presently he returned with a folder of papers for her to deal with.
‘Will you stay on this evening?’ he wanted to know. ‘I’ll dictate as much as I can before the afternoon patients, but there is an appointment I must keep at six o’clock. I should be back here by seven o’clock and that will mean another hour or so’s work for you. I’m sorry, Charity, it’s something I promised…’
She answered calmly, ‘That’s quite all right, sir, I’m not doing anything this evening, anyway.’
He turned away. ‘Well, you should be. You should be out dancing every night with a string of young men after you.’
She was too surprised to answer that. She watched him close the door quietly behind him and then, since there was nothing to be learned from its smooth mahogany surface, she applied herself to the task of assembling the notes of the morning patients.
He went away presently, leaving her to brood over the telephone call. It had annoyed him and yet he had agreed to whatever the caller had wanted, even though it meant disrupting his evening—hers, too, although of course she was paid for that. This perhaps was the girl he was going to marry. She gathered up the notes and took them through to his desk, where she arranged them just so, making sure that everything was just as he liked it. There was something on it which hadn’t been there before: a large framed photo of a girl—Charity looked closer—no, a woman, very attractive, well dressed, smiling at the camera f
rom an exquisitely made-up face. ‘Every day of thirty,’ said Charity, studying the face carefully. Handsome, she conceded, and nothing soft about its owner; the kind of woman who would be a splendid hostess, run her house without effort and take no interest in her children; sticky fingers and eggy mouths just wouldn’t be in her line of country. Charity went back to her desk and got on with her work; Mrs Kemp would be arriving at any moment now and she would want a little gossip after her week’s holiday. Charity got up again and put on the kettle.
She had several letters ready for the professor to sign by the time he returned and she finished the rest between furnishing him with the patients’ notes and collecting those that he’d finished with, so that her desk, and his, were clear by the time he left for the hospital. She left Mrs Kemp to tidy her examination room and went along to the coffee shop for her lunch, taking the precaution of buying herself a packet of sandwiches at the same time; the day was going to be a long one. It reminded her that she must ring her aunt and tell her that she would be home late.
There were several jobs to be done when she got back. Mrs Kemp went for her own lunch, and Charity did some filing, opened the second post and sharpened her pencil.
It was half past four before the last patient was ushered out. Charity had prudently made tea and had her own before she took a cup in to the professor. He took it absent-mindedly, merely saying, ‘Bring your notebook in, Charity.’ He looked tired now, and remote.
She sat down quietly while he dictated his letters and requests for X-Rays, barium meals and the like, and then took herself off to her own room and started work on them. There was enough to keep her busy for more than an hour and there was more to come, he had said. He opened her door presently. ‘I’ll be back by seven o’clock.’ He smiled briefly as he went.
She had eaten her sandwich and had a cup of tea, finished her typing and was tidying a cupboard when he came back, exactly when he had said he would. He had changed into another suit and it was richly sombre. He looked handsome, assured and most beautifully turned out, but he also looked tired and, judging by the blandness of his face, was hiding annoyance; but he asked her if she had had something to eat before he sat down to dictate.
