by Betty Neels
To Victoria’s surprise, he drove straight to the Ritz Hotel. ‘I thought we might walk from here,’ her companion suggested. ‘I can leave the car and we could come back here for tea.’
She nodded and as they got out of the car asked curiously: ‘Do you always stay at this kind of hotel—big ones, I mean?’
‘When I’m travelling, yes, but don’t imagine that I can’t make my own bed and cook a meal and sleep rough—but those things take time, and that’s something I haven’t much of, especially when I come over for a few hours.’
They crossed the road and walked, not too fast, towards Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. It was a lovely day and as far as Victoria was concerned, there wasn’t a cloud in her sky, nor would there ever be again. They talked—she had no idea about what, her sensible self pointed scorn at her blissful state; she ignored it and went up the steps of the National Gallery beside her companion in a lovely haze of feelings which, later on, would need sorting out, but which, at present, she was perfectly content to allow full freedom.
They wandered slowly from one room to the next, pausing when they saw something they liked; hurrying past everything else. They were studying a Gainsborough in a contemplative silence, lulled by the complete emptiness of the room they were in and its almost cathedral-like atmosphere. ‘It’s nice,’ Victoria decided, her head on one side. ‘Do you suppose they had been married long when it was painted?’
‘Probably not—why do you ask?’
‘Well, I know they’re not looking at each other, but you can see that they’re—serene; sure of themselves—quite happy.’
She glanced at him as she spoke and found herself unable to take her eyes from his. After a long moment he took her by the arm and turned her round, away from the portrait, to face him.
‘I doubt if I shall ever be sure of myself as far as you’re concerned,’ he remarked quietly, ‘and serenity is the last feeling I have when I’m with you. Rather, you stir me up…but of this I am sure, I am completely happy.’
Victoria drew a breath. ‘So am I.’ She spoke simply; the words had tumbled out without her even thinking about them, but it didn’t matter.
He pulled her close. ‘Oh, my dear delight,’ he said softly, and kissed her and kissed her again because they were still alone and there was, just for a brief space, all the time in the world.
Presently he loosed her just a little. ‘I want you to come to Holland, Vicky, and meet my parents. I should like to take you back tonight, but that’s impossible isn’t it? But will you go to Matron and resign this evening? Tomorrow morning I suppose it will be. When you leave I’ll come and fetch you and take you home—your future home in Holland.’
‘But,’ said Victoria, ‘that won’t do. I shan’t have a job…’
‘You won’t need one, darling, you’ll be my wife.’
She blinked at him, smiling a little. ‘But you haven’t asked me,’ she reminded him. There was still no one else there but themselves in the vast room so that Alexander was able to take his time about it in a manner which satisfied Victoria completely. Presently he said:
‘I’ll write to your father—you’ll want to marry from your home, won’t you? We can arrange that later.’ He kissed her swiftly and let her go as a steady tramp of feet heralded the approach of sightseers—they had time to turn round again and study the Gainsborough before a large party of school-children poured into the room. Victoria, giving a startled look at them over her shoulder, responded to Alexander’s touch on her shoulder and was led rapidly away to another even larger room, round which they strolled, happily unaware of the treasures around them, while they discussed, as sensibly as possible, how they should order their immediate future.
‘I’m rather booked up with work for the next few weeks,’ explained Alexander. ‘I’ll be able to manage an odd day here and there, but no more than that. We’ll have to wait for a month before we can be together, Vicky, and even then although we shall see each other every day, I shall be tied by the practice. But you will be staying with my mother and father and you will get to know them, and as soon as we can arrange things we will go over to Guernsey for the wedding. Will you like that, dearest?’
Victoria liked it very much, although she didn’t care where they married. She supposed that her mother would prefer her to have a big wedding. She frowned a little, trying to imagine herself going down the aisle of the Town Church in St Peter Port, completely dwarfed by her three tall and striking sisters. A very quiet wedding might be much nicer.
‘You’re frowning,’ said Alexander. ‘Why?’
She shook her head and smiled instantly. ‘Nothing. It won’t be quite a month, you know. I can get two days off in the last week and there’ll be a few days’ holiday due to me. It’ll be nearer three weeks.’
There was no one about. He kissed her once more. ‘Three weeks too long. Let’s walk in the park.’
They spent the remainder of the afternoon strolling up one path and down the next. There seemed such a lot to say and only a very limited time in which to say it. They were both surprised when Alexander looked at his watch and discovered that it was getting on for five o’clock, so that they quickened their steps and went back to the hotel and had a rather hurried tea under the eyes of a waiter who served them with an understanding smile which neither of them noticed.
Back outside the house in Pimlico Victoria asked: ‘Shall I tell them?’ She was getting out of the car and Alexander caught her hand and held it. ‘Or do you want to keep it a secret?’ she added, rather breathless under his look.
‘Why should I want to keep it a secret? I’m in the mood to stand in the middle of the road and proclaim my happy state to anyone who would listen.’
‘Don’t you dare do any such thing,’ said Victoria severely. ‘Come inside.’
Mrs Johnson, when they told her, was delighted but not surprised, nor for that matter was Martha, who embraced them both with happy abandon and said wisely: ‘Well, anyone could see with an eye in their head which way the cat was jumping. Made for each other, you are.’ She beamed at them and then at a signal from Mrs Johnson went to fetch the glasses while Mrs Johnson retired to some secret place of her own, to return with a bottle of champagne. ‘Just a drop,’ she urged Alexander. ‘I’m sure it won’t affect your driving,’ and handed him the bottle to deal with. They drank their toast in the sitting room and then the two older ladies retired to the kitchen on what they described as pressing business, leaving Victoria and Alexander together.
‘They’re dears, aren’t they?’ asked Victoria. She was standing at the open window, looking out on to the garden, feeling very happy and at the same time very sad because in a very few minutes Alexander would have to go and she didn’t know how she was going to be able to bear not seeing him. ‘When will you come?’ she wanted to know forlornly, and was swung round and held so tightly that her ribs ached.
‘I’m not sure—you see, as well as the practice I have beds in two hospitals and several in nursing homes. Besides, I’ve two short trips—to Germany and France—but they’re only for a day or two. All the same I’m not going to give you any dates, my darling, in case I get held up, but I promise you I’ll come as soon as I can.’
She nodded into his shirt front, being a reasonable girl and knowing moreover that members of the medical profession couldn’t always call their time their own. ‘Flying visits?’ she murmured wistfully.
‘Flying visits. I’m going now, Vicky.’ He kissed her hard and then gently and with a tenderness to make her heart turn over. Before she could as much as say goodbye, he had gone. She heard the car start up, but she didn’t go to the window overlooking the street because she knew that he didn’t want her to.
She went back to the hospital herself an hour or two later, having eaten supper with Mrs Johnson and resisted a strong temptation to telephone her mother and tell her all about it, but Alexander had said that he would write and it seemed to her right to wait until he had done so. He was, s
he guessed, a man who was a little old-fashioned in many ways and conventional as well, especially over important things, like getting married. She smiled as she thought it, for in a great many ways he wasn’t conventional at all; being married to him was going to be quite wonderful. She dreamed her way back to St Judd’s in the taxi which her kind hostess had insisted on calling for her, and into the Home and her room, on the way to which she met several of her friends who looked at her happy face and exchanged speaking glances with each other. They came and drank their bedtime tea in her room later, but managed, with commendable self-control, not to ask her any questions.
The ward was busy the next morning when she went on duty, moreover it was Sir Keith’s round, and several of the newer patients, not long enough on the ward to know about Sister Crow’s wishes on this all-important event, untidied their beds after they had been made immaculate and one of them had even smoked a forbidden cigarette under the bedclothes, half suffocating himself in the consequence, which necessitated a great deal of last-minute activity on the part of the already harassed nurses. Poor Mr Bates was feeling sick again, too. Victoria, ironing out the wrinkles in the morning’s work, had little time to think about herself or Alexander, although every now and then a glow of pure happiness swept over her. Despite the morning’s rush she had managed to get down to Matron’s office earlier and when she offered her resignation, Matron had smiled quite nicely and said:
‘Well, Staff Nurse, we shall be losing a good member of our staff, but I daresay you will make Doctor van Schuylen an excellent wife.’
Which had surprised Victoria very much, for she hadn’t realised that anyone had noticed. She looked enquiringly at Matron, who went on: ‘Doctor van Schuylen telephoned me just before you asked for an appointment to see me, Staff Nurse.’ She nodded dismissal. ‘I’ll get the office to let you know when your leaving date falls due. Give them the details as you go out, will you?’
Victoria had done so gleefully, thinking as she did it that when she had time she would sit down and think out a few details for herself too. Should she go home first, for instance, or should she get one of her friends to store most of her luggage until she could fetch it? It all rather depended on what Alexander and she could arrange between them, and that would have to wait, probably until she was in Holland. She went through the hospital, back to the ward, her head full of delightful, half-formed plans, to be instantly discarded as she was met by the Old Crow, as usual in a state of pre-round nerves and full of commands and contradictions. Victoria hurried up and down the ward, urging the nurses to do their best; cajoling patients to keep tidy, get back into bed, refrain from starting on their bowls of fruit until after the round, and refrain too from the loud cheerful exchange of news and views they were wont to pass up and down the ward. When finally she had the situation more or less to Sister Crow’s liking there were the mislaid forms and notes to find—these had a most extraordinary habit of disappearing on round days. Johnny and Jeremy Blake both had a bad habit of taking them off the ward for some reason or other and a certain number slipped down behind beds, got pushed behind anything handy in Sister’s office, or, very rarely, were actually screwed up and flung into the waste-paper basket. It was most peculiar, thought Victoria, running a practised, exploratory hand behind the filing cabinet in the office, how doctors could write reams of notes and then carelessly lose them. She retrieved the last missing sheet, added it tidily to the pile of notes standing ready for Sir Keith’s perusal should he so wish, and retired to the linen cupboard to tidy her hair and powder her nose, to appear, very neat as to person, on the ward a few minutes before the familiar routine between the consultant and the Old Crow was due to begin.
The round passed off without incident and the rest of the day went smoothly, as did the ensuing days. Victoria, buoyed up by the short but entirely satisfactory notes which Alexander dashed off in his untidy handwriting, answered them at length; made plans, which, as they were largely surmise, were both impractical and highly imaginative, and had long talks with her family over the telephone almost every evening. They had taken the news of her impending marriage with excitement but a complete lack of surprise; her mother made sensible suggestions about luggage and her passport and the right clothes to take and her father contented himself with saying that as long as she was happy, he was happy too and that Alexander had struck him as being a very sound fellow. Her three sisters, who had taken it for granted that she was going to have an enormous wedding in the Town Church and brushed aside any suggestions to the contrary, clamoured to know what they were to wear.
It was after a particularly lively session on the subject of bridesmaids that Victoria recollected that she and Alexander weren’t even officially engaged. This thought brought another in its train. Supposing his parents didn’t like her—even hated her, and tried to persuade him that she wasn’t suitable? That he wouldn’t be persuaded she was sure, but they could show their disapproval in a dozen different ways. She brooded about it for the rest of the evening and was still full of unexpected doubts when she went to bed, and finally to sleep.
The doubts were dispelled the following morning by a letter from Alexander’s mother, who wrote charmingly to invite her to stay with them in Leiden. The letter, although vague as to dates and lacking all mention of marriage between her and Alexander, was sincere and friendly. Victoria heaved a sigh of relief and wrote a careful reply before she went back on duty. There had been no letter from Alexander for two days now, but probably he was away, and there was always the evening post to look forward to. She went to the office and took the report and watched Sister Crow go off duty for the half day, then went to start the medicine round.
She had done the final evening round, written the report and was filling in the last of the charts when Jeremy Blake came into the office and asked her with cool civility if he might write up a new patient’s notes.
‘Of course,’ said Victoria readily. ‘Is it Mr Hill? His chart’s here.’ She handed it over as she spoke and went on with her own work in a silence broken presently by the telephone. It was the head porter, a nice old man on the point of retirement. He wheezed chestily into her ear. ‘Staff? When you come off duty you’re to come down to the front hall—there’s someone here…’
Alexander’s voice, very calm, almost careless, took over.
‘Dear girl, come straight here. Are you busy?’
‘No, not really, just waiting for the night nurses.’ She tried to make her voice as calm as his and failed utterly.
‘Alone?’
‘No.’ She heard his chuckle.
‘Shall I give three guesses?’
‘No. I’ll come down as soon as I can.’
She replaced the receiver, very conscious of Doctor Blake’s sharp eyes, and returned to her charts.
‘Ah, the boy-friend,’ he observed smoothly. ‘He’s been gone a long time, hasn’t he? A week—ten days? A busy man, it seems.’ Victoria took no notice. ‘Perhaps not as busy as he makes out,’ went on Doctor Blake nastily. ‘It’s none of my business, but these foreigners, however charming, aren’t always to be trusted.’
Victoria’s fine eyes flashed and sparkled with temper, but her voice was commendably cool. ‘As you say, it’s none of your business, and I should look out if I were you or you’ll find yourself being sued for libel,’ she paused, ‘or is it defamation of character? Anyway, it’s something quite severe which wouldn’t do you or your career any good, and,’ she added severely, ‘I should hardly describe you as someone to be trusted.’ She nodded her beautiful head at him with a severity which matched her tone, finished the last chart and turned to greet the night nurses.
The desire to spend a few minutes on her face and hair before going downstairs to Alexander was strong, but not nearly as strong as her wish to see him as soon as she possibly could. She raced down the corridor and the stairs, and arrived, a little breathless, in the front hall. Only Alexander was there, and the head porter in his little box had his back to th
em. She flew into Alexander’s arms to be kissed in such a manner as to make nonsense of tidy hair and fresh lipstick.
‘How long?’ she asked.
‘My dear girl, here I am, just this minute arrived and you’re asking with every sign of eagerness when I’m going again!’
She chuckled. ‘Don’t be tiresome. You know exactly what I mean.’
He kissed her again by way of answer. ‘Tomorrow evening,’ he told her. ‘Go and put on something and we’ll go and eat.’
They went to the restaurant in Fleet Street again, and ate steak and kidney pie and chocolate mousse, then sat over their coffee for a very long time while Victoria told him about his mother’s letter and then, rather shyly, about her sisters’ excitement about the wedding.
He listened to her with a half smile on his face and when she had finished, said: ‘They’ll have to wait a week or two until we can arrange the date. When you’re in Holland, dear love, we’ll go through my commitments together and fix on a day. I shall be able to manage a couple of weeks’ holiday, I think. I’ve told my secretary to cram as much into the next week or so as she can.’
Victoria poured them both more coffee. ‘I had my leaving date from the office this morning.’ She mentioned a day just over two weeks distant. ‘I don’t think I’ll go home first, one of the girls has said she’ll take my heavy luggage and keep it for me. Will that be all right? I mean if I come over to Holland right away?’
‘I’ll fetch you—you leave on a Friday, don’t you? I can’t get over until the Saturday, so could you spend another night in hospital or go to Mrs Johnson, do you suppose?’
‘I’ll go to Mrs Johnson. But wouldn’t it save you a lot of trouble if I went over to Holland and you met me there? I can quite well…’
‘I’m sure you can, Vicky, but I’ve no intention of letting you do so. I’ll fetch you as I said, on the Saturday.’ He put down his cup. ‘And now we’ll drive round for a little while, shall we? Unless you’re tired and want to go back to the Home?’
