скачать книгу бесплатно
‘I never—’ she began, and then remembered that she had asked him quite a lot and closed her pretty mouth firmly, thinking better of it.
‘Have you had tea?’ His voice was pleasantly friendly.
‘No—that is, I had some in a mug while I was changing.’
He nodded with the air of a man who was in the habit of drinking his own tea in such a manner. ‘I’ve brought a picnic basket with me, I thought we might run a little way out of town and have tea in the car and then go on somewhere for dinner.’ He glanced sideways at her and smiled. ‘Unless there’s something else you would rather do?’
There was nothing else that she would rather do; she said so.
‘Good—let’s go, then.’
It was the evening rush hour; she was relieved to find that not only did he drive very well indeed; he displayed none of the irritation or impatience she had come to expect from anyone negotiating London at such times; moreover he talked as he drove, an unhurried flow of smalltalk which put her at her ease. St Judd’s was in the East End, or almost so. He had left that part of the city far behind and was across the river, travelling in a south-western direction when she remarked: ‘You know London very well.’
‘You sound surprised.’ He didn’t give her any reason, though, but went on: ‘There’s a quiet pub at Abinger, we’ll go down through Leatherhead and turn off as soon as we can find a reasonably quiet spot for tea, and then go on to Abinger Hammer. I presume you don’t have to be in at ten o’clock or whenever you have your curfew.’
Victoria chuckled. ‘I’m exempt. Once we’re trained we’re allowed to stay out until a reasonable hour.’
He said ‘Good’ as he edged the car past a loaded van and then a string of slow-moving cars, and after a minute or two when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to say anything else for the time being, Victoria ventured: ‘Was it just…I mean, were you surprised to see me?’
‘I’m surprised each time I set eyes on you—you’re very lovely. You must get a little bored with being told that by all the men you meet.’
She remembered the last man to say that to her, Doctor Blake, and how she had hated it, yet now she was glowing with delight. She said with admirable calm: ‘It’s according to who says it, and if I were with my sisters no one would think of saying any such thing—they’re beautiful.’
He glanced at her. ‘Yes, they are.’ He turned the car off into a side road whose signpost said Walton-on-the-Hill, but after half a mile he turned it again, this time into a mere lane, saying: ‘Somewhere here, I should think, wouldn’t you? I’m not quite sure where we are, but we can look at the map presently.’
It was quiet and the late afternoon had brought a wintry nip with it. The doctor stretched behind him and produced a tea basket from the back of the car. ‘Do you want to stay in the car or shall we try outside?’ he enquired.
‘Outside,’ said Victoria promptly. ‘We can always get back in if it gets too cold, can’t we?’ She looked around her. ‘Look, there’s a little hollow there under the hedge, it shouldn’t be too bad.’ She looked up at him, laughing. ‘It’s fun, isn’t it, having a picnic tea at half past six in a dropping temperature?’
He laughed too as he got out to open her door and help her out and picked up the basket. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘but I fancy anything with you would be fun, Victoria.’
They had reached the little hollow and she stood looking down at her shoes, conscious of her quickened heartbeats. She said rather shyly:
‘It was strange that we should meet again,’ and looked at him startled when he gave a great rumble of laughter.
‘No,’ he said, still laughing, ‘not strange at all. I had this meeting arranged with Sir Keith Plummer; I had seen you board the boat for Weymouth and I heard your mother telling you to be sure and have breakfast on the train. I gambled on it being the London train and I already knew that you were a nurse.’
‘Oh? How?’
‘My friends knew someone who knows your father. It was only a question of enquiring at the London hospitals.’
She gaped at him. ‘You mean you didn’t know I was at St Judd’s? But you asked Kitty if there was a copper-headed nurse…’
He stared back at her, his eyes glinting with amusement. ‘I had resigned myself to visiting each hospital in turn, but luck was on my side, wasn’t it? You were in the very first one, and one, moreover, in which I have every right to be.’ He spread a rug on the bank and put the basket beside it and observed placidly: ‘You must be dying for your tea. Sit down and we’ll have it now or we shan’t have an appetite for dinner.’
Victoria sat down with the speechless obedience of a little girl while she sorted out the muddled thoughts surging around her head.
‘Why did you do it?’ she enquired at length.
He opened the hamper and took out the flask of tea and two cups as well as a variety of tidily wrapped sandwiches. He undid them, poured the tea, added milk and sugar, handed her a cup and proffered one of the packets, with the remark that the sandwiches were cucumber. She took one mechanically, feeling a little breathless and at a complete loss, an experience she had until then not had. She took a bite and drank some tea. ‘I still don’t see why…’ she began.
‘No? Never mind, let’s enjoy ourselves and be glad that we have been fortunate enough to meet again. Tell me about your work.’
He sounded like a big brother or a kindly uncle; she tidied away her disturbing, exciting thoughts and told him while he plied her with delicate sandwiches and little cakes and tea, which even from a thermos tasted delicious. He didn’t eat much himself, but Victoria hardly noticed that, for she was telling him all about the hospital and why she had trained as a nurse and how much she loved her home, but presently she came to a stop, peered at him through the gloom and asked: ‘And you? What part of Holland do you come from, and are you going to be in England long?’
‘The Hague. I have a practice there, though my home is just outside—in Wassenaar. My parents live in Leiden, my father is a doctor but more or less retired—he does consulting work and sits on various committees, and when I am away, as I am from time to time, he helps out with my practice. I have two brothers and two sisters, all younger than I, and all married.’ He paused and she knew that he was smiling at her through the dusk. ‘There, have I not answered all your questions before you could ask them?’
‘No—well, that is, almost. Are you here to lecture or were you on holiday in Guernsey?’
‘I’m here for a few days before I go up to Birmingham and Edinburgh and then back home. I was on holiday in Guernsey—I have friends there.’
Victoria started to re-pack the hamper. ‘You must be very clever,’ she began, ‘to lecture, you know. Are you older than you look?’
She heard his rumble of laughter. ‘That’s a difficult question, for I have no idea how I look, have I?’ He leaned over and fastened the tea basket and put out a hand to help her to her feet. ‘I’m thirty-five, give or take a month or two—almost eleven years older than you.’
She stopped in her tracks. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Oh, a friend of a friend, you know.’ His voice sounded casual as he opened the car door for her and then went to put the tea things in the boot. In the car beside her again he looked at his watch. ‘I booked a table for eight o’clock—supposing we cut down behind Hindhead and circle back?’
‘That would be nice, Doctor…’
‘My name’s Alexander,’ he prompted her mildly. ‘You may have noticed that I call you Victoria, for I find myself quite unable to address you as Miss Parsons. What are your sisters’ names?’
Victoria told him; she told him how old they were too and what they did with their days and how clever Amabel was with her sketching and what a formidable couple Stephanie and Louise were on the tennis court. One thing led to another; by the time they arrived at the Abinger Hammer, she had told him a great deal without being aware of it; it was only afterwards she realised that he had told her only the barest facts about himself.
They had leisurely drinks in the bar of the peaceful old pub and dined off Chicken Savoyarde, followed by chocolate roulade washed down with white burgundy. They went back into the bar for their coffee, sitting at a little table in the now crowded room with so much to talk about that they hardly noticed the cheerful noise around them. It was only when the landlord called, ‘Time, gentlemen, please,’ that Victoria broke off in mid-sentence. ‘It can’t be as late as that already,’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ve never been here as long as that?’
Doctor van Schuylen laughed. ‘Indeed we have. Are you in a hurry to get back?’
‘No—’ She paused. ‘That is, I mustn’t be too late because I’m on in the morning and I must make up a clean cap…’
He laughed again and she flashed at him: ‘That sounds like a silly excuse, but it isn’t.’
He stared at her across the table. The gleam in his eyes could have been amusement, she didn’t know, but perhaps it wasn’t after all, for he said gravely: ‘I know it isn’t, Victoria, I know you well enough for that.’ He smiled gently at her and her heart rocked against her ribs.
‘I shall take you straight back and you shall make up your cap and have your beauty sleep—not,’ he added softly, ‘that you need it.’
‘Oh, I do,’ she contradicted him, ‘it’s been quite a day on the ward.’
Just as though she hadn’t spoken, he added: ‘You’re beautiful enough as it is.’
She got into the car wordlessly. That was the second time he had called her beautiful and she was astonished at the delight she felt—just as though he were the first man ever to have said so. She considered the idea for a moment; he was the first man—none of the other men counted any more.
She was rather quiet on the trip back because she had a good deal to think about, but he didn’t seem to notice, rambling on in a placid fashion about topics which must have been of so little importance that she was unable to remember anything about them later, only the pleasant sound of his voice—a quiet, calm voice, and deep. She liked listening to it.
They arrived back at St Judd’s just before midnight and although she hastened to say: ‘Don’t get out—I’m going through the hospital to the Home,’ he ignored her and got out too and walked with her to the big front doors. When she thanked him for her evening he said:
‘It was delightful—I shall remember it while I’m away.’
‘Oh yes.’ She felt bereft. ‘Birmingham and Edinburgh.’
He nodded without speaking and after a moment she put out a hand.
‘Well, goodbye, Alexander. I hope you have a good trip. I don’t know Birmingham, but Edinburgh’s beautiful and there’s a lot to see.’
‘You know it? So do I—I’ve an Edinburgh degree.’
He was still holding her hand and when she pulled on it gently he merely tightened his grip and said: ‘I shan’t have much time for sightseeing, I must get back to Holland as soon as possible.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She made her voice sound coolly friendly, for after all, what was theirs but a casual meeting? And this time he let her hand go. She said, maintaining the coolness with difficulty: ‘Well, goodbye, and thank you again,’ then whisked through the door and across the hall and out of sight of him.
If Victoria wanted to forget him, she had no chance; her friends, during the next few days, saw to that, for they wanted to know every detail of her evening with him and then fell to discussing him at length and often, and when Tilly had exclaimed: ‘He turns me on,’ Victoria had felt a pang in her chest which was almost physical and no amount of reasonable thinking could dispel him entirely from her thoughts. After the first day or so she managed to convince herself that he had gone for good. There must be girls enough for him to choose from if he wanted an evening out; probably he had forgotten her already—a sensible thought which did nothing to dispel a sense of loss which bewildered her. She worked a little harder in order to get rid of it and when Doctor Blake invited her to go to the cinema with him, she accepted, although she wasn’t really keen on going.
Jeremy Blake had behaved well, rather to her surprise, for he struck her as being a young man conceited enough to expect a quick conquest of any girl he cast his eyes upon, but beyond an attempt to hold her hand in the cinema which she parried without difficulty, he did nothing to which she could take exception, and when she was bidding him goodnight at the door of the Nurses’ Home with a rather brisk thank you, he had been equally casual. She had gone up to her room convinced that she had been mistaken about him after all—he was really not too bad and certainly not the wolf she had suspected.
His behaviour bore out her opinion during the subsequent days—he was friendly in a casual way both on the ward and when they met outside it, and when Ellen, the night staff nurse and one of Victoria’s closest friends, remarked one morning after she had given the report that she didn’t fancy him at all, Victoria had felt impelled to defend him.
‘He’s quite nice,’ she remarked. ‘I didn’t think I was going to like him, but he’s quiet and just friendly.’
Ellen sauntered towards the door. ‘As long as he stays that way,’ she said darkly.
It was two days later that he asked Victoria to go out with him again and she refused. Afterwards she didn’t know why she had done so, for he had proved a pleasant enough companion when they had gone to the cinema. Perhaps it was because he had suggested that they should go to a little club he knew of in Chelsea and dance that she had refused so promptly. He had said nothing, only shrugged his shoulders and said carelessly: ‘Another time, perhaps,’ but his eyes had seemed paler than ever even though he was smiling.
She hardly thought about him during the day; they were busy and although he came on to the ward several times, the only speech they had was to do with the patients.
She met him on the way off duty that evening. Men’s Medical was on the top floor, reached by a bleak corridor of the narrow, dreary type so beloved by mid-Victorian architects of hospitals. It ran through most of the wing and then turned at right angles to continue on its way to an equally bleak staircase. It was depressing, with margarine-coloured walls and mud-coloured linoleum, polished to within an inch of its life. Victoria was perhaps halfway down this miserable passage when Jeremy Blake appeared around the corner ahead of her. He was walking very fast and she supposed him to be on his way to the ward, but when he drew level with her he stopped suddenly and caught her round the waist.
‘And what do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded in a voice chilled with angry surprise.
‘Oh, come off it, Vicky, you don’t have to play the little lady with me.’
He laughed at her and for answer she attempted to remove his hands, but he only went on laughing and pulled her closer. ‘We could have fun together.’
‘I can think of nothing less likely,’ she retorted indignantly. His face was only inches from hers and although he smiled his eyes glittered and his mouth looked mean. ‘Let go!’ she ordered him furiously. ‘I don’t want to go out with you, I said so and I meant it, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go out with you again or have anything more to do with you!’
She lifted a capable hand, doubled into a fist, and pummelled his chest.
‘Playing hard to get?’ he wanted to know. ‘Shall I tell you something, girlie? I always get a bird if I want her, and here’s something on account.’
His face was very close. Victoria lifted a foot, neatly shod in its hospital regulation lace-up, and kicked his shin, and he loosened his hold. In a flash she was away, making for the bend in the passage. Once round it the stairs would be in sight and there might be someone about…
He caught up with her a couple of feet from the corner and clamped his hand on to her shoulders and forced her to a halt, turning her around to face him, but not without difficulty because she was a strong girl, then putting a hand under her chin to force her face up to his. ‘You spitfire,’ his voice was soft and unpleasant, ‘now you’ve fooled about enough!’
She couldn’t move her head, his hand was too strong. ‘I’ll scream!’ She spoke with spirit and stopped at his smile.
‘And a lot of good that will do you—you see, I shall say that I found you hysterical on my way to the ward, and you won’t stand a chance, my dear. I’ve done it before and it always works…’ He broke off, his smile frozen.
‘Er—so sorry to interrupt,’ said Doctor van Schuylen gently from somewhere behind her left ear, ‘but I think you’ve got it wrong, my dear fellow.’
Victoria felt his hand, gentle and strong, on her waist and the next moment she had been whisked to one side, allowing the doctor just enough room to knock Doctor Blake down, having done which he dusted his hands off carefully, turned his back on the prostrate form and said with an air of calm, ‘Hullo’. The smile he gave her was so kind that she would have liked to have burst into tears, but before she could do so he went on: ‘I wondered if we might go out to dinner—somewhere gay where we can dance.’ He was walking her round the corner and down the stairs as he spoke, and at the bottom Victoria stopped and put out a hand to touch his well-tailored sleeve almost timidly.
‘I must explain,’ she began, but was stopped by his quiet voice.
‘Not a word, Victoria, or I might be tempted to go back and knock the fellow down again.’
She was very sure he meant it. ‘Are you angry? He’ll be all right, won’t he?’
She felt it was a foolish question, but he stopped then, right outside Women’s Surgical where one of the Office Sisters was taking the report from Sister Kennedy. He said simply: ‘Yes, I’m angry, but don’t worry, I have an excellent control over my temper and he’s not much hurt, I believe.’ He smiled at her and she found herself smiling back. ‘I’ll be very quick,’ she assured him. ‘What time will you come for me?’
He looked at his watch. ‘Seven sharp—I must go back to the hotel and put on a black tie.’ He took her hand and held it for a moment in his and didn’t let it go when the Office Sister walked towards them. She wished them a civil good evening, looking at them with purposeful vagueness which Victoria found rather touching. She liked Office Sister, who was a widow with grown-up children, so that she treated the nurses rather in the same manner as she would have used towards her own children, and was loved for it.
When she had gone, Alexander gave her back her hand. ‘I’ll come with you as far as the Home,’ he stated calmly. ‘Do you mind where we go this evening?’
Victoria shook her head. She would have been quite happy sitting in a Wimpy Bar with him for the whole evening. At the Home door she tried to thank him again and he said: ‘No, Victoria, there’s no need to say any more— I’m only sorry I wasn’t there a few minutes sooner.’
She had her hand on the door handle. ‘I kicked him on the shin,’ she observed with belated satisfaction.
She was looking at him as she spoke and he smiled: ‘That’s my girl!’
Victoria went on staring at him. That was exactly what she was and she had only just discovered it. His girl—for ever and ever and nothing could change that. She had often wondered what it would feel like to fall in love—really in love—and now she had, suddenly. It left her bewildered and uncertain and wildly happy. She gave him a dazzling smile, repeated ‘Seven o’clock’, and went through the door.
CHAPTER THREE
VICTORIA wasted ten minutes just sitting on the edge of her bed. For part of that time she didn’t even think, only allowed her head to fill with delightful fairy stories with happy endings, but these gradually faded before common sense. That she was in love with Doctor van Schuylen she didn’t dispute, but whether he felt the same about her was another matter. She was a pretty girl, but there were other girls just as pretty—moreover, he had two countries to choose from—there might be someone in Holland. And although he had come to her aid just at the right moment that evening, he would probably have done just the same for the Old Crow. She was momentarily diverted by the picture of Sister Crow repulsing Jeremy Blake, then felt mean, because the poor Old Crow must have been rather pretty when she was young—and then allowed her thoughts to return to her own problems. She would find out during the course of the evening if he was staying in London—she did a little arithmetic on her fingers; he had been gone for six days, surely time enough to go to Edinburgh as well as Birmingham, but perhaps he was on his way to Holland. It was a depressing thought, but there was nothing much she could do about it. She went to run a bath, dismissed her gloomy speculations and allowed herself to dwell on the coming delights of the evening.
She wore the prettiest dress she had—peacock blue silk with a wide skirt and great leg o’ mutton sleeves gathered into long narrow cuffs fastened with pearl buttons; its small bodice had little pearl buttons marching down its front too, and its scooped-out neckline was exactly right for the pearl necklace her parents had given her for her twenty-first birthday. Victoria fastened it with care, got into her slippers, caught up her velvet evening cape and handbag and hurried downstairs. It was exactly seven o’clock. She slowed down in the hall. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been quite so punctual, it made her look so eager, and now she felt shy as well. She put a hand up to her hair to make sure it was securely pinned and went to the door. Alexander was waiting there and she was glad of the dim light in the hall because the sight of him, elegant and very much at ease in a dinner jacket, made her feel almost giddy.
He helped her into the car and got in beside her. ‘I’m glad you’re on time,’ his voice was casually friendly. ‘I thought it would be nice to go through the parks—there won’t be much traffic about.’
‘Yes,’ she was annoyingly breathless, ‘that would be pleasant.’ She watched the large hands on the wheel as he started the car. ‘When did you get back?’ she asked, ‘and was it successful?’
‘This afternoon about half past four, and yes, I believe it was tolerably successful—a pooling of ideas, you understand—it’s amazing what we can learn from each other.’
They were travelling slowly through the muddled East End traffic and when he pulled up to allow a transport wagon to come out of a side street she said: ‘Alexander, I went out with Jeremy Blake last week—to the cinema.’ Even as she said it, it sounded silly in her ears. Why should she tell him she had been out with Jeremy? After all, she was free to go out with whom she pleased.
She caught his quick smile. ‘I went out too—with one of the secretaries, a nice girl.’
‘Was she pretty?’
He inched the car forward. ‘I don’t remember,’ he spoke quietly and she knew that he meant it. ‘I was lonely; I wanted to telephone you, write to you, even get into the car and come back and see you.’
She glowed. ‘Oh, I was lonely too, that’s why I went out with Jeremy. I thought it might pass the time.’
His voice was gentle. ‘Why are you telling me this, Victoria?’
She had no idea, she was appalled when she thought about it; being in love with him had gone to her head and she was behaving like an idiot. She said in a stiff little voice: ‘It—it just came into my head. It’s a change from talking about the weather, isn’t it?’ And heard his chuckle even though he most annoyingly didn’t answer her.
They didn’t speak again until he turned the car into Hyde Park, to draw up presently and switch off the engine. He turned to look at her then and she saw the approval in his eyes and the admiration. ‘Delightful,’ he told her in his pleasant voice, ‘and you smell like a flower garden.’
