by Betty Neels
It seemed he knew what she was talking about. ‘With my friends—you saw me with them, but I shall come for you each day as early as you can manage to get up. You’ll do that?’
She nodded.
‘And go to bed late?’
She nodded again and felt his hold on her tighten, although when he spoke his voice was mild. ‘Let’s go back to our table and get the dates fixed, shall we? And then I am going to take you back to the Home.’
The church clock close to St Judd’s struck once as Alexander brought the Mercedes to a quiet halt. Victoria said: ‘Don’t get out, there’s no need,’ but might just as well have held her tongue. They walked together through the empty entrance hall, saying goodnight to the porter peering at them from his little window, and continued their way through the various corridors which would lead them to the quadrangle. It was quiet as they walked, so that the distant feet of hurrying nurses and the coughs and night noises from the wards seemed unnaturally loud. At the door they paused while the doctor threw it open on to the chilly spring night. The hospital loomed on three sides of them. The noises which had seemed loud before seemed even louder, coming from all around them, and on the top floor, where the theatre was, there were brightly lighted windows and they could hear the hiss of steam and the clatter of bowls. Victoria, snug in her own happy little world, spared a thought for whoever was on duty there as well as for the patient. Anxious to prolong the moment, she murmured: ‘They’re busy. When do you leave for Scotland?’ and was taken aback by his answer. ‘As soon as I’ve changed my clothes.’
‘You mean now—right away?’
He smiled down at her. ‘Why not? I have to be in Edinburgh by two o’clock. If I start within the next hour or so that will give me time to go to my hotel and have a meal.’
‘But you should have gone earlier—you’ll have no sleep. It’s hundreds of miles. Why didn’t you tell me?’
She was stopped by his quiet: ‘Don’t fuss, dear girl. What is a night’s sleep or a few hundred miles? I’ll be back in a week.’
‘Yes. Thank you for a lovely evening, Alexander.’ Her voice sounded stiff in her own ears, and she wondered how it sounded to him, but for the life of her she couldn’t think of anything else to say, but it didn’t seem to matter, for he caught her close and kissed her on her mouth.
‘Our lovely evening,’ he corrected her, and pushed her gently through the doorway where he stood watching her until she reached the Home on the other side of the quadrangle. She turned and waved before she went inside and he lifted a hand in salute.
The week seemed a year, although she was unendingly busy. There had been a mini ’flu epidemic; easy enough to weather if one was young and healthy but hard on the older ones. The ward filled fast with elderly gentlemen who protested their fitness between bouts of coughing. Victoria, sprinting up and down the ward with her syringes of antibiotics and the inhalations Sir Keith believed in, had little time to pine, let alone think, for the incoming patients brought their germs with them so that some of the patients who had been in the ward for some time became infected too. Just the same, she managed to find time to ask Sister if she could have her long weekend, much to that lady’s annoyance.
‘You’ve only just come back,’ protested the Old Crow. ‘You modern girls, you’re all so restless, flitting from here to there…’
‘I’m only going home for three days,’ Victoria pointed out reasonably, ‘and you’ll be glad of it presently, because I’ll have had it, and you did say you wanted yours in three weeks’ time…’
Sister Crow took no notice of this. ‘I shall have that staff nurse again, I suppose—just as we were getting back into our old ways.’
She looked so harassed that Victoria found herself apologising for being so inconsiderate, and Sister Crow, never one to give up easily, pounced quickly with: ‘Perhaps you will change your mind, Staff Nurse, now that you see how inconvenient it will be.’
Any nurse going on holiday or days off on Sister Crow’s ward was inconvenient. Victoria said now: ‘I’m sorry, Sister, but I should like my weekend. I’ll go to the office about it after lunch.’
Sister Crow didn’t speak to her for the rest of the day, which made it a little lonely, for Jeremy Blake, naturally enough, hadn’t spoken to her either, save to issue orders to her about the patients. They were polite to each other on the ward, and once or twice when they met in the corridors he had been on the point of speaking to her, but Victoria had sailed past him with her lovely head in the air, noting as she did so that he still had a nasty bruise on the jaw where Alexander had hit him. He had spread the fiction that he had been knocked down by a swing door when the bruise first appeared, and as it was almost laughably unlikely that a doctor should knock another of his colleagues down in a hospital corridor, no one had remarked upon it, although few if any of the staff had expressed sympathy; she wasn’t the only one who didn’t much care for him; he had an unpleasant manner with the student nurses, especially the junior ones, who didn’t like being condescended to and still less to be shouted at if they hadn’t been quite quick enough to do his bidding. Victoria found herself in the unhappy position of mediator on several occasions, a fact which did nothing to improve relations between herself and Jeremy Blake. If her mind had not been so full of Alexander van Schuylen she might have been worried by it, but as it was she accepted the unpleasantness which she encountered from time to time and made the best of it.
She crossed the days off on the calendar hanging in her room, like a child impatient for Christmas, and days before Alexander was due back she washed her hair, gave herself a manicure and experimented with a new lipstick. He hadn’t told her at what time he would arrive; she had an evening anyway and she would be free at five o’clock. It was halfway through the morning, while she was having coffee with Sister Crow, when that lady mentioned that an aunt was paying an unexpected visit to London. ‘So I must ask you to change your off duty with mine, Staff Nurse,’ she decided. ‘My aunt seldom comes to town and she has booked seats at the theatre for us both. I’m looking forward to a delightful evening.’
It was on the tip of Victoria’s tongue to say that she had been looking forward to a delightful evening too, but what was the use? The poor Old Crow didn’t have much fun, and in any case it was obvious that she intended to have her own way whatever Victoria said. It was a bitter blow after a whole long week of waiting, but Alexander might not get back until the evening. She hadn’t heard from him, but then she hadn’t expected to, nor had she expected the extravagant bouquet of flowers which had arrived halfway through the week. The card with it had merely borne his initials, but she had read it a dozen times or more, and had arranged the flowers around her room to the intense curiosity of her friends and her own great satisfaction.
Victoria didn’t see Alexander’s actual arrival; she was wholly occupied in persuading the irascible Major that an inhalation would be of the greatest benefit to him. A student nurse had already been routed in her efforts to get him snugly under a towel with the inhaler; she had gone in search of Victoria, snorting her indignation at the names he had called her, and had thankfully handed the task over to her. She stood beside him now, the offending inhaler in one hand, the towel in the other, calmly letting his rage wear itself out on her imperturbable front.
When he had at last rumbled to a halt, she said: ‘It’s no use, Major. Sir Keith ordered it and it’s for your own good—besides, half the ward are having them, otherwise none of you would get a wink of sleep because of the coughing.’
He mumbled crossly: ‘You’re a damn bossy young woman!’
‘Yes, aren’t I? Now be a good boy,’ she wheedled. ‘I’m getting all behind with my work and it’s almost eight o’clock, the night people will be on in a minute.’
She smiled at his cross old face and very reluctantly he smiled back and allowed himself to be enwrapped in the towel. ‘And mind you breathe properly,’ she admonished him.
His rheumy eye peered out from
the folds of the towel. It winked.
‘Your boy-friend’s here.’ His hoarse chuckle turned into a bellowing cough so that she was obliged to pat him on the back and urge him to take deep breaths while all the time she was longing to look round and see if it really was Alexander. When she finally looked behind her, it was to see Jeremy Blake coming up the ward.
She sighed and looked pointedly at the clock over the door. Most of the medical staff obeyed the unwritten rule not to come into a ward—unless it was urgent—during the changeover from day duty to night, and night duty to day. Either Doctor Blake hadn’t heard of this sensible understanding, or he didn’t agree with it. She went to meet him in her usual calm manner, wished him a good evening and enquired:
‘An admission? We’ve only one bed…’
He shook his head. ‘No. I thought I’d take some blood from Mr Cox. Let me have the things, would you—and a nurse.’
‘The Path Lab’s closed,’ she pointed out reasonably, ‘and unless it’s really urgent it won’t be done tonight. They’re on call, but only for cross-matching and so on. Besides, Mr Cox has had a wretched day and he’s tired.’
‘I’ll decide what I wish to do on the ward, Staff Nurse. I’m not busy at the moment and it suits me to do it now.’
‘In that case,’ she told him without any heat, ‘I must ask you to get whatever you need for yourself, and as to a nurse—they’re just going off duty, as you well know, so there’s no one available. I have the report to give.’
She swept down the ward and into the office, and the night staff nurse, a girl with whom she had trained and therefore a close friend, observed:
‘Whew, what’s put your back up, Vicky? You look dangerous!’
Victoria took her seat at the desk and pulled the Kardex towards her. No sooner had she done so than Doctor Blake, without knocking on the door, flung it open and said nastily: ‘Since I can get no co-operation from the nursing staff, I shall return tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. In the meantime I shall report you to the appropriate authorities.’
Victoria opened her mouth to make a spirited retort to this highflown speech, but remained silent, her mouth still open, for Doctor van Schuylen had appeared silently in the doorway behind the irate RMO.
‘You know, I shouldn’t do that, if I were you,’ he advised him, his smile cold as Doctor Blake turned to face him, every bit as surprised as Victoria. ‘Perhaps you don’t know of the unwritten rule about upsetting the nurses’ routine when they’re changing duties—unless it’s urgent, when I’m sure you would find them most co-operative.’
He waited placidly while the other man recovered himself. ‘What infernal…it’s no business of yours…’
‘Er—well, yes, in a sense it is. As an honorary consultant I imagine I should do my best to uphold the rules, written and otherwise, of the hospital.’ He stood aside invitingly. ‘If you care to come down to the Board Room I can give you irrefutable evidence of my appointment.’ He waved an arm. ‘That will allow the nurses to take the report, will it not?’
Doctor Blake went with him because there didn’t seem much else he could do. He wished Victoria and the night staff nurses a glacial goodnight as he went, but Doctor van Schuylen only smiled.
As their footsteps disappeared down the corridor, Victoria’s companion gasped. ‘Good grief,’ said her friend, ‘wasn’t he masterly? Serve Blake right, always coming the high and mighty on the ward. What did he want?’
Victoria told her at some length, so that by the time she had given the report it was almost half past eight. She said goodnight quickly and sped down the corridor. Where would Alexander be waiting, if he were waiting at all? He hadn’t said a word to her—perhaps he had gone again. She raced round the corner straight into him and would have fallen down if he hadn’t put his arms around her.
‘You’re in a hurry,’ he commented mildly. ‘Don’t tell me that fellow Blake’s chasing you again?’
His arms felt nice, but she didn’t care for his flippant tone. ‘No, he’s not,’ she snapped. ‘I’m—I’m very late…’
He kissed her, so swiftly that he had no time to appreciate it.
‘Twenty minutes,’ he said, ‘should be ample time for you to change. I’ll be waiting outside. It’s too late to go dancing, but we’ll go somewhere quiet and have a meal, shall we? I’ve some calls to make. Could I use your telephone, do you suppose?’
She was still recovering from the kiss. ‘Yes, yes, of course. Will it be all right if I wear a suit or something? I mean you’re not going to wear a black tie?’
He shook his head. ‘Dear girl, we only have an hour or so. Come as you are if you like.’
She laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’ll be quick.’
Luckily none of her friends were up from supper yet and those that were off duty were out; Victoria had the corridor to herself so that she could bathe and change without hindrance. She was exactly fifteen minutes doing it and at the end of that time went downstairs, looking eye-catching in a green dress and coat which made her hair even brighter than it was, and smelling delicately of Dioressence.
Alexander was on the steps talking to Sir Keith Plummer, who, when she came through the door, smiled and said: ‘Good evening, Staff Nurse—well, I won’t keep you two from your evening. Enjoy yourselves.’ He went into the hospital with a gentle wink at Victoria.
As they got into the car Alexander remarked: ‘I suppose I shall have to get used to men winking at you, however nicely.’
Victoria settled herself into her seat. ‘I never wink back,’ she told him demurely.
‘I’ll wring your pretty neck for you if you do,’ he replied cheerfully as he took the car through the hospital gates.
They went to Kettners and ate steak and kidney pie after a glass of sherry—a noble dish which they washed down with Châteauneuf du Pape, and while the doctor contented himself with cheese, Victoria did full justice to a Crême Brûlée, and while they ate they talked trivialities because Victoria felt too shy to do otherwise and her companion didn’t appear to be interested in anything more personal. But presently when they were sitting over their coffee, she said, still shy: ‘Thank you for the flowers, they were lovely.’
He smiled. ‘Victoria, I’m catching the midnight ferry from Dover.’ And when her eyes flew to her watch: ‘No, dear girl, there’s plenty of time yet. I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want to spoil our evening.’ He smiled suddenly at her and her heart warmed. ‘There’s such a lot to say, isn’t there, and it’s so hard to know where to start. Have you got your weekend?’
She told him yes, and she told him too a little of Sister Crow’s annoyance about it.
‘Your family know you’re coming?’
‘Yes, I telephoned.’
‘And did you tell them about me?’
She shook her head and coloured faintly. ‘Well, no—I didn’t know quite what to say.’
He smiled and asked flippantly: ‘What am I going to be introduced as? An old friend or a hospital colleague—or someone who met you on the cliff path?’
She was a little bewildered by his manner. ‘I—I don’t know. I shall introduce you as—as…I shall just introduce you.’
He smiled again, teasing her. ‘I expect your family are used to you bringing men home.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so, and my sisters too—you see there are four of us.’
‘And you’re all very beautiful.’ He looked at her with faint mockery and although he was still smiling, there wasn’t a smile in his eyes. Her heart sank. The evening wasn’t turning out to be nearly as wonderful as she had hoped. She spent a few seconds trying to recall if she had said anything which could have annoyed him and could think of nothing. She asked, suddenly desperate: ‘Have I said something? You look,’ she paused and studied his face, ‘as though you’ve gone a long way away.’
He sat back in his chair, staring at her. ‘And would you mind if I went a long way away, Victoria?’
Her heart
answered before her head could reason. ‘Yes, I would mind. I—I don’t think I could…’ She changed in mid-sentence. ‘I should miss you very much.’
‘You see, Vicky, I’m not being quite fair to you, am I? I’ve rushed you into taking a holiday you may already be regretting—there’s still time to change your mind.’
‘Do you want to change yours?’ she asked miserably, and was relieved to see the look on his face.
‘No, never that, dear girl.’ He smiled at her and this time his eyes smiled too. ‘How gloomy we have become! I hadn’t meant to be, but this evening, when I saw you again, it struck me that perhaps I had monopolised you more than I should have done.’
‘How could you? You’ve been away. Are we going by train to Weymouth or will you drive?’
He followed her mood readily enough. ‘Oh, drive, I think. We can leave the car at Weymouth, I suppose—I can use my friend’s while we’re in Guernsey. If we leave the hospital early enough we could catch the midday boat, or would you prefer to fly?’
Victoria shook her head. ‘I don’t like planes.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Shouldn’t we be going? If you’re going to catch your boat…’
She smiled at him brightly and after a moment’s hesitation he agreed placidly and they went out to the car together, not talking much. At the hospital Alexander got out with her and walked as he had done before to the door leading to the quadrangle, but when she put her hand out to open the door he put a great hand over hers and at her questioning glance, said: ‘You’ll have time to think while I’m away, Victoria.’
He bent his head and kissed her gently, then opened the door for her to go through. She whispered: ‘Thank you for the dinner, and have a good trip,’ and slipped away without looking back. It was dark in the quadrangle and there wasn’t any chance of him seeing the tears in her eyes; all the same, she didn’t look back.
The days seemed endless, and Victoria, her moods alternating between the lighthearted and dreamy and the frankly despondent, found herself a prey to a variety of doubts, all of which kept her awake at night, only to evaporate with the morning, because the morning meant that she was one day nearer seeing Alexander again.
