The Quiet Professor

by Betty Neels

  ‘Really, this is becoming a habit,’ she observed to Meredith, sitting in the easy-chair and washing his whiskers, ‘and am I supposed to cook this supper he is bringing?’

  Meredith paused long enough to gaze at her thoughtfully and then resumed his washing, taking no notice when a minute or two later the knocker was thumped.

  Professor van Belfeld came in. His, ‘Hello,’ was cheerful as he put a plastic bag down on the table. ‘Leave the door, will you?’ he asked her. ‘I’ll fetch the rest.’

  He came back with a cardboard box and put it beside the bag, closed the door with his foot and carried the box through to the kitchen.

  ‘With an eye to the neighbours, I put the bottles in that bag. Could they go in the fridge?’ He straightened up, taking up a great deal of room, and took the lid off the box.

  ‘All cold,’ he observed. ‘I asked Mrs Thrumble to pack up an easy meal.’

  Megan stood in the doorway since there was barely room for them both in the kitchen. ‘How kind,’ she said, not quite sure who was being kind, he for ordering the food or his housekeeper for packing it up. ‘If you’d like to sit down I’ll unpack it.’

  He reached past her and put the wine in the fridge and went and sat down with the cat on his knee as she took the lid off the box.

  ‘Heavens this is a cornu…’ She tried again. ‘A corn…’

  ‘Cornucopia, the horn of plenty. Good, I told Mrs Thrumble that we were sure to be hungry.’

  There was cold vichyssoise soup in a container, a raised pork pie, jellied chicken, hard-boiled eggs, potato salad, straw potatoes and a salad of tomatoes and apples with a garlic and walnut dressing, each in covered containers, and wrapped in a white napkin an apple pie with a pot of cream beside it. There were little crusty rolls too and a small crock of butter. Megan unpacked everything and laid the food out on plates and dishes.

  ‘When do you want to have supper?’ she asked, her mouth watering.

  ‘As soon as it’s on the table. Shall we have a drink first?’

  He came into the kitchen and took a bottle from the fridge. ‘It’s probably not cold enough, though Thrumble chilled it well.’

  ‘Champagne,’ exclaimed Megan, ‘that’s for birthdays.’

  ‘Celebrations, too.’ He smiled at her. ‘Fetch two glasses, there’s a dear girl.’

  She had no champagne glasses, only the all-purpose wine glasses she had brought from Woolworth’s. ‘Celebrations?’

  ‘A new job, a new start in a new country—there’s every reason to drink to that.’ He eased out the cork, filled their glasses and handed her one.

  Megan touched his glass and sipped. ‘I don’t know much about wines but this one tastes lovely.’

  He agreed blandly; Bollinger 1985 was an excellent vintage champagne but he had no intention of telling her that. It was enough that she enjoyed it. He refilled their glasses and put them on the table and she fetched the soup.

  It wasn’t until they had started on the pie and chicken that he asked, ‘Matron was helpful?’

  ‘Yes, she couldn’t have been kinder. She said that because of the circumstances I could leave in a week’s time. What did you say to her?’

  ‘Very little. I asked her if you might be released as soon as possible since it would be convenient for you to travel over to Holland with me.’

  He poured some more champagne. ‘Now, let us get the details clear, shall we?’

  They finished their supper and Megan made coffee and took it to the table. As far as she could tell there was nothing left for her to do but pack a bag, find her passport and say goodbye to everyone. ‘It is all so easy,’ she observed. ‘I thought leaving Regent’s would be much more complicated.’

  The professor agreed casually. He had spent time and thought and pulled a great number of strings to achieve the easiness.

  He got up to go presently, packing the basket once more with the now empty containers, drying the coffee-cups as she washed them, and, that done, bidding her a quiet goodnight before driving himself home. The room seemed empty when he had gone, but, as she pointed out to Meredith, he was such a large man that he took up more space than anyone of a normal size.

  She had wanted to ask him if she would see him once she got to Holland but he had a way of ignoring questions he had no wish to answer; he was too well mannered to offer a snub but it amounted to the same thing. She got ready for bed thinking about him. From an uncertain beginning they had become cautiously friendly, at least she had, and she found now that she didn’t want to lose that friendship.

  She wasn’t on duty until ten o’clock the next morning, which gave her time to telephone her mother. ‘That’s settled,’ said Mrs Rodner and Megan could hear relief in her mother’s voice; it struck her then that if she went away for a time it might make things easier for Melanie and Oscar—perhaps they still felt guilty. ‘The professor must be glad to be going home,’ went on Mrs Rodner. ‘However absorbing his work is here, he must miss his family.’

  Megan agreed, and, after a few minutes gossiping, put down the phone. Until that moment she had come to regard the professor as someone who had a habit of turning up when most needed while at the same time remaining impersonally friendly, but now there was a danger of him becoming something more and her mother had reminded her of that. She was aware that she was interested in him and wanted to know more about him; what was more, she felt quite at ease with him, and that wouldn’t do at all. She made up her mind to avoid him as much as possible and once she was in Holland she would thank him for his help and kindness and not see him again. The thought depressed her.

  She told Jenny that she was leaving while they were snatching a cup of tea after their dinner-hour. Visitors were in the ward, and the operation cases were screened off in the side-cubicles with a student nurse checking them constantly and one of the part-time nurses keeping an eye on the other patients. Megan would go into the ward presently and walk round slowly so that anyone wanting to know anything could ask her; it was a system which worked very well for there was time to talk then whereas if relations waited until the ward closed before wanting to see her she was hard put to it to answer all their questions.

  She got up now and went along to check on the operation cases, leaving Jenny to digest her news. All three of the ladies were sleeping. She took pulses, made sure that the drips were functioning correctly and inspected their dressings and then made her way round the ward, stopping whenever someone had a question to ask. It was twenty minutes or more before she got back to the office and Jenny had made a fresh pot of tea.

  Megan sat down at her desk and Jenny asked, ‘Who is taking over, Sister?’

  ‘I’ve recommended you, Jenny. You’ve been here for two years now and you can run the ward as well as I can. Mrs Jeffs—one of the part-time staff nurses—has asked if she could do full-time; her son’s going to boarding-school and her husband’s been made redundant. You like her, don’t you? And you get on well together. I’ve an appointment about it this afternoon but I’ve told you now so that if you don’t want to take on the job you can warn me.’

  Jenny wanted the job, although she said, ‘Must you really leave, Sister? I know Regent’s is a beastly neighbourhood but it doesn’t take long to get to the shops and the theatres; won’t you miss all that as well as the ward?’

  ‘Well, I shall miss my friends and the ward, after all I’ve been here quite some time, but I do look forward to something quite different.’

 
; ‘I wonder why Professor van Belfeld picked on you, Sister? He must know any number of nurses in Holland, he…’ She stopped and went red. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I think I understand.’

  ‘I want to get away from Oscar and my sister, Jenny, not because I mind them being engaged but because I think if I go away for a while they’ll feel better about everything.’ She spoke quietly. ‘Besides, it is time I had a change.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Time for the visitors to go; will you ring the bell, please? And I’ll do another walk round.’

  The busy days followed each other in the rigid pattern of hospital life and Megan saw nothing of the professor. He had told her to leave everything to him and she did. She went home on her day off, driving herself in her little car, and spending the day packing clothes to take to Holland. Spring was well on the way to summer and it bid fair to be warm weather; all the same she packed woollies and a long full jersey skirt and a handful of blouses.

  ‘Someone told me that it rains a lot in Holland,’ cautioned her mother, so she packed a rain jacket as well and a pair of sensible shoes. Melanie helped her to pack or at least sat on the bed and talked while Megan, a neat and tidy girl, folded dresses between layers of tissue paper.

  ‘You’ll be back for Christmas, won’t you, Meg?’ she asked.

  ‘I should think so—probably in another job by then.’ Megan surveyed a voile dress in pale green and peach. ‘Do you suppose that I shall get a chance to wear this?’

  ‘Why not? You’re bound to make friends and go out with them. You will write and tell us about everything, won’t you? Oscar says you’re still apprehensive, but you’re sure to meet lots of people. Do you suppose you’ll see the professor often?’

  ‘Probably not at all. I don’t know where he lives in Holland; besides he’ll have his wife and family.’

  Melanie frowned. ‘He still doesn’t seem like a married man.’

  Megan frowned too. Her heart had lurched at her sister’s words and that really would not do. She didn’t answer that but wondered out loud what would be the best way of getting Meredith home before she left. ‘I think I’d better drive down on the evening before,’ she said, ‘and I can say goodbye then—we aren’t going until an afternoon hovercraft.’

  The last few days flashed by, her friends gave her a party in the nurses’ home and she went back to the flat with an armful of presents and on the last day of all the nurses on her ward presented her with a little travelling clock. She went round the ward, wishing the patients goodbye and last of all said goodbye to Jenny, who wept a little. ‘I shall miss you, Sister. I only hope I’ll be as good at the job as you were and that you’ll be very happy. Come and see us when you get back, won’t you?’

  ‘Dear Jenny, you’ll be splendid in the job, and of course I’ll look you up when I get back. I’ll send you a card, too…’

  She was leaving the ward when the phone rang and she was asked to go to the path. lab. before she left the hospital.

  She went at once, thinking gloomy thoughts about everything being cancelled at the last minute, the professor deciding not to go after all, and the orphanage not requiring her services. Her pretty face betrayed her doubts as she knocked at his office door and went in.

  He was sitting at his desk writing, but he got up as she went in.

  ‘Forgive me for getting you all the way up here but there are some reports which have to be finished this evening and I’m very pressed for time. I’ll drive you and Meredith down tomorrow before we leave. Can you be ready at eight o’clock? You’re sure you would rather take him to your home?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s no need—’ began Megan.

  ‘Be good enough not to waste my time, Megan.’ He sounded testy. ‘Just do as I ask. Perhaps your mother would be so kind as to give us coffee and sandwiches and then we shall have no need to stop on the way.’

  ‘Very well, sir. I’ll be ready in the morning. I’m sure Mother will be delighted to give us something.’ She opened the door very quietly. ‘Goodnight, sir.’

  He had turned back to his desk. ‘Goodnight, Megan.’

  There was no reason why he should be friendly, she told herself as she went back to the flat; he had given her a much needed helping hand and seen her safely into a new job but there was no need to do more than that. She got supper, phoned her mother to explain that she wouldn’t be going home until the morning and it would be the professor who would be driving her, and opened a can of sardines for Meredith as a special treat. She was going to miss him, but he would be happy at her home and when she was back in England and settled in another job and hopefully living out she would have him back.

  She had packed up her small possessions already, seen the landlord and paid up her rent; it remained only for her to leave the key with the neighbours next door before she left in the morning. She set her alarm clock for six o’clock and went to bed, and Meredith, as usual, and probably under the impression that she didn’t know he was there, crept close to her. She slept quickly, lulled by his contented purr.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MEGAN was ready, wearing the little grey jacket and the patterned skirt, her case and overnight bag and Meredith in his basket beside her, when the Rolls-Royce came to a quiet halt before the open door. The professor got out, wished her good morning and stowed the luggage while she took the key next door, lifted the cat basket on to the back seat and opened the door for her to get in. He did everything without apparent haste but all the same they were away in less than five minutes.

  The professor drove in silence, only broken by Meredith’s grumbling voice from the back of the car.

  ‘I hope Meredith is going to be happy,’ said Megan. ‘He’s always enjoyed being at home.’

  ‘If he isn’t and can’t settle down, I’ll bring him back to Mrs Thrumble.’

  ‘You’re coming back here?’ She felt a pang of dismay. ‘I thought you were going to stay in Holland.’

  ‘I divide my time between here and there,’ he told her blandly. ‘I shall be in Holland for a time, examining and lecturing.’

  It was still early enough for the traffic to be fairly light and he was driving steadily without much hindrance. ‘We don’t need to come this way to get to Dover, do we?’ asked Megan.

  ‘No. We can get on to the M25 and then the motorway to Dover. No problem.’

  He began to talk about nothing in particular so that her last-minute doubts were soothed and the jumble of a hundred and one questions she had meant to ask were never uttered.

  The whole family were there when they reached her home; Colin had been given leave to spend the day and her father hadn’t gone to his office; they all came to the door as the professor stopped the car before it and bore them indoors, all talking at once. There wasn’t a great deal of time; they had coffee, sitting round the kitchen table, eating the sandwiches Mrs Rodner and Melanie had made while Megan gave careful instructions about Meredith, who, to her relief, had got out of his basket and settled down with the air of a permanent resident beside a contented Janus. ‘If he can’t settle here, Professor van Belfeld says he’ll have him; his housekeeper likes cats.’

  The professor was at the other end of the table talking to her father, sitting casually as though he had all day in which to do nothing. Presently he caught her eye. ‘If we leave in fifteen minutes?’ he suggested.

  He turned to Mr Rodner. ‘Perhaps you would take a look at the engine? There are several things about it…’

  The two of them went outsid
e and Colin went with them and Melanie said softly, ‘He’s quite something, your professor, Meg. Well, all right, he’s not yours, all the same, he is a dear—and that gorgeous car. Aren’t you excited?’

  ‘Yes, I think I am. It will be fun to try my hand at something different and I’ll have time to decide what I want to do next.’ Megan spoke brightly—a little too brightly, her mother thought.

  ‘Is the professor staying in Holland?’ she asked.

  ‘I think so. He has some work to do there but I don’t know where. I don’t expect I shall see him again.’ Megan sounded matter-of-fact. ‘He’s been very kind and helpful.’

  Her mother agreed quietly. ‘Indeed he has.’ Quite unnecessarily so, she thought. It must have required quite an amount of thought and effort to have arranged for Megan to go to this job. After all, she could just as easily have found another post somewhere in England. She didn’t believe that he was married and if he had led Megan to suppose that it was for his own good reasons. She felt in her bones that he was in love with Meg but Meg had given no sign of having any interest in him. She said now, ‘Well, love, you had better get ready to leave. Telephone when you can and write long letters if you have the time. We’ll take good care of your cat. Take care, Meg, and be happy.’

  Saying goodbye was difficult; they weren’t a very demonstrative family but they were close. Megan hugged everyone, including Janus and Meredith, and got into the car. It was foolish to feel childishly close to tears; she was a grown woman and past such things. She waved to the bunch of people on the doorstep, suddenly cheered by the professor’s, ‘We’ll be back…’ He didn’t really mean that, of course, but it was nice of him to say something comforting.