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.’
Victoria smiled a little; she had felt wildly extravagant in Guernsey buying such a large bottle of Roger et Gallet’s Jeu d’Eau, and wished now that she had bought an even larger size. She wondered with pleasurable excitement what he was going to say next and was keenly disappointed when he asked: ‘You don’t mind if I smoke?’
‘Please do,’ she achieved the two words with a commendable sweetness and watched him go about the business of filling and lighting his pipe which he did with deliberation. It was only when he had got it going to his satisfaction that he spoke again.
‘I’ve been looking forward to this,’ he remarked, an observation which Victoria found difficult to answer although she longed to tell him that she had been longing to see him too. She was startled when he asked: ‘Have you?’
She opened her little brocade bag and closed it again before she said carefully: ‘Well, I couldn’t look forward to something I didn’t know was going to happen, could I?’
He gave her a long look. ‘You knew that I should come back.’
She opened her bag again, looked at its contents and closed it. ‘Yes, I think I did.’
‘You know you did.’
How persistent the man was! ‘All right, I knew,’ she reiterated, quite put out. Her fingers were on the bag again when his hand came down to cover hers. His voice was gentle. ‘Don’t be scared, dear girl.’
Victoria looked at him then, her eyes wide. ‘Scared? I’ve never been scared of anyone yet, least of all you.’
‘I’m glad, although that isn’t quite what I meant.’ He smiled, a wholly friendly smile, and took his hand away. ‘How’s the ward?’ he asked, and she switched back to the safe gossip of her daily life almost thankfully, then listened while he told her about his trip to Birmingham.
It was almost dark when he knocked out his pipe and said: ‘How about our meal? I’ve booked a table for eight o’clock.’ He started the car and she sat quietly beside him, thinking how like him it was not to mention anything about the unfortunate episode in the corridor. Briefly she wondered if Jeremy Blake was hurt and then forgot all about him, for they had stopped outside the Ritz Hotel and Alexander was helping her out and saying easily: ‘We can have a drink first, if you’d care to.’
She had never been to the Ritz before. She agreed to meet him in the bar and went away to repair the ravages of sitting in the car for a half hour or so. She re-did her face a little, inspected her person, tidied her hair and concluded, rightly, that the dress suited her and that her appearance was as immaculate as it was possible to be. She swept into the bar presently and was rewarded by the discreet stares of several gentlemen of whom she was only vaguely aware, because Alexander was coming to meet her.
They drank Pernod and talked about their childhood and Alexander, for the first time, told her a little about himself, she was so engrossed that it seemed an annoying interruption when the waiter came to tell that their table was ready. They had eaten their hors d’oeuvres when they decided to dance. Victoria, who danced very well, discovered that Alexander danced well too; as the evening wore on, what with the wine she had drunk with the sole which followed the hors d’oeuvres, and the fillet steak which came after that and the delightful surroundings, the band and above all, Alexander’s company, Victoria was very happy indeed. It was while they were dancing towards the end of the evening that he told her that he was going away the following day, and the happiness was swallowed by an aching lump in her throat which rendered her speechless. After a few moments she achieved: ‘Oh, are you?’ It was rather muffled because she had spoken into his shirt front—presently she would be able to look at him and smile, but not yet.
‘To Edinburgh,’ he continued. ‘I shall be gone for a week. I shall be staying the night in London on my way back to Holland. Could you get a week’s holiday?’
Victoria looked at him then. ‘A week’s holiday,’ she repeated, bemused.
‘Yes—I’m coming back to England in two weeks’ time—I have to go home for a week first. I thought we might go over to Guernsey—your people will be there?’
She managed to say ‘Yes’, and added doubtfully: ‘I don’t think I can get a week—it’s a bit soon, but I shall be due a weekend…’
‘Splendid.’ He looked his usual calm and placid self; his voice was placid too, but there was a gleam in his eyes which completely melted the lump; she smiled widely and he said rather quickly: ‘And now supposing we finish our dinner?’
They ate Pesche Ripiene—peaches stuffed with macaroons and almonds and candied orange peel, soaked in wine and baked and as a last delight, treated to a touch of Cointreau. Victoria hadn’t eaten it before; it seemed exactly right for her happy mood. She gobbled it up daintily and said: ‘Do let’s dance again,’ and when they were on the floor, ‘Where will you stay?’
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.
There had been flowers once more, their advent accounting for several hours of such high spirits on her part that the patients as well as her friends remarked upon them. Even the Major paused in his diatribe of the morning’s news to say: ‘And what’s happened to you, miss? You’ve had the face of an undertaker’s mute for the last two days and now you look like the cat that’s been at the cream!’
Victoria, her mind still full of the cellophane-wrapped spring flowers the porter had just delivered, beamed at him. ‘It’s such a lovely day.’
He put down The Times, took off his glasses and looked out of the window. ‘Raining,’ he declared. ‘You’re in love, young lady.’ He transferred his gaze to her face and to prevent herself from agreeing with him happily she said hastily: ‘Your pills, Major,’ and popped the spoon into his mouth, put a glass of water in his hands and sped on to the next patient who was far too ill to care a tinker’s cuss about her.
But Sister Crow noticed, remarking tartly that Victoria looked happy enough to be going to her own wedding; so did Jeremy Blake, who, on his way round the ward later in the morning with Sister Crow, paused to examine some X-rays Victoria had fetched for him. He held them up to the light and studied them with a rather pompous air, and without taking his eyes from them remarked to the Old Crow:
‘Our staff nurse is looking delighted with herself this morning, Sister. I fancy she must have good news.’ His pale eyes slid sideways to glance at Victoria. ‘Or perhaps flowers from the boy-friend.’
She returned his glance steadily, her pink cheeks very faintly pinker. He must have seen the flowers when the porter had brought them up to the ward or he might have been in the porter’s lodge when they were delivered. She thought it unlikely that he had seen where she had hidden them—in the linen cupboard, in an old-fashioned china jug Sister, for some reason best known to herself, insisted on keeping on the ward inventory.
She didn’t answer him and Sister Crow, who although stern and strict with her nurses, protected them like a mother hen with chicks from outside criticism, said:
‘That will do, Doctor Blake.’ She folded her arms across her trimly belted waist, the elbows aggressively cocked; she didn’t hold with chat on a ward round—only Sir Keith might indulge in conversation if he had a mind to. In her opinion, anyone else doing so was merely wasting precious time.
Doctor Blake shot her an annoyed look and said in quite a different voice:
‘I’ll examine this man. Get him ready, Sister.’
The elbows became a thought more aggressive. ‘If you wish to examine Mr Gibbs, Doctor, I will send a nurse to get him ready. There are none available at the moment—it is their coffee break, so you will have to wait.’ Her tone implied that as far as she was concerned, he could wait for ever. ‘In the meantime, perhaps you will write up Mr Bates for his Dactil—he’s still very uncomfortable.’
He really had no choice. Sister Crow, to give her her due, had had years of experience in managing house doctors—even RMOs…
Victoria took her flowers with her when she went to midday dinner, going first to her room to put them lovingly in her washbasin until she was free that evening to arrange them. After dinner she went as usual over to the Home for a quick cup of tea before going back on the ward. Kitty went too, and Bunny; they stopped in the doorway of her room, staring at the bouquet overflowing the basin, and then turned on Victoria.
‘Vicky, it’s Doctor van Schuylen again, isn’t it? He sent you the last lot—I do believe he fancies you.’ It was Bunny who spoke, following Victoria out of the room again to fill the kettle at the pantry sink and put it on the gas ring. ‘Is he coming back?’
Victoria turned the gas ring up high, opened the tiny fridge and got out the milk. ‘Yes, he’s coming back.’
‘And you’ve got a long weekend,’ persisted Bunny. ‘Are you going away together? Where to?’
Tilly had joined them. ‘Leave Vicky alone,’ she ordered. ‘She’ll tell us when she wants to, if she wants to.’
She turned off the gas and made the tea and they all walked back to Victoria’s room. It wasn’t until they were sitting with their shoes off on the bed that Victoria told them.
‘Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, and you’re not to blab—and it’s not a bit exciting really. I’m going home for the weekend and he’s got friends on Guernsey, so he’s offered me a lift there and back.’
‘Oh, Vicky,’ sighed Bunny, who was sentimental by nature, ‘how romantic! I expect you’ll go for long walks in the moonlight and he’ll propose.’
‘Stuff,’ said Victoria, who secretly hoped that he would do just that. ‘It’s just that we’re both going at the same time.’
Her two friends looked at her and forbore from comment. ‘Where is he now?’ Tilly wanted to know.
‘In Holland—he’s got a practice there.’
‘He gets around, doesn’t he? He’s something or other here too, isn’t he? and in great demand at these different seminars.’ She sighed. ‘I bet they have a lovely time, they meet in such interesting places.’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Victoria, ‘I haven’t asked him, I don’t know much about him.’
Tilly put the mugs tidily on the dressing table, ready to wash up later.
‘Time enough for that,’ she said comfortably. ‘What about the two o’clock medicine round in the meantime?’
It was during that night that Victoria had a dream, far too vivid, in which she knew, in some unexplained, dreamlike way, that Alexander had girl-friends all over the world and sent them flowers too. She woke convinced that this was true because the dream had seemed so real, and spent the day in such low spirits that Sister Crow advised her to get herself a tonic and her friends, sympathetic and carefully nonchalant as well as quite unaware of the cause of her long face, bore her off to the cinema, then crowded into her room afterwards eating the fish and chips someone had had the forethought to buy, and drinking vast quantities of tea. It was late by the time they had washed up the last mug and taken turns for the bathrooms and Victoria, when she got into bed, slept at once and all night so that when she wakened the next morning she wondered if perhaps the dream had only been a dream after all. She wasted so much time lying in bed thinking about it that she had to rush into her uniform and go down late to breakfast where, buttering bread thickly and gulping down tea, she forgot all about it in the early morning rush to get on duty in time.
She had another evening that day. It was when she was going off duty, a little late because the part-time staff nurse who covered the ward for Sister and her days off had been delayed. Not that it mattered; she had nothing much to do, there was no point in packing the few things she would need for at least two days. She was halfway down the stairs when Jeremy Blake caught up with her and slowed his pace to suit hers.
‘I owe you an apology,’ he started, and Victoria stared at him in astonishment. ‘I’m sorry for my rudeness—perhaps we could cry quits?’
She looked at him as they reached the landing leading to the surgical wards. He was half smiling, but his eyes were cold and she wondered why he should bother to apologise when it was so obvious that his heart wasn’t in it. All the same, it would be much easier on the ward if they maintained some semblance of friendship.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’ll accept your apology. It’s much easier to work with people if you’re on good terms with them, isn’t it?’
She gave him a little nod and ran down the stairs to the ground floor, and on the way over to the Home tried to decide why he had bothered to seek her out and why he wanted to get on good terms with her again. For no reason she could think of, and certainly no good reason. She shrugged the little incident off and went along to the sitting room to join her friends at a belated and ample tea, and was caught up at once in the never-ending shop talk. She usually disliked it, but now she welcomed it as a distraction from her own thoughts.
Victoria was off at eight o’clock the day before her weekend was to begin. She had spent her off-duty putting her night things into a case, washing her hair and doing her nails, although she didn’t even know at what time Alexander was to fetch her in the morning—come to that, she didn’t even know if he was back in England. She decided on an early night and went to bed rather cross; probably he had forgotten all about her. She remembered her dream and, a prey to a variety of wild thoughts, went immediately to sleep, to be awakened ten minutes later by Nurse Black.
‘There’s a call for you.’ Beauty was shaking her shoulder urgently and breathing heavily because she had had to run up two flights of stairs. ‘I was going through the hall and the telephone rang. I answered it and it’s for you, Staff.’
Victoria yawned hugely. ‘Oh, no—did they say who they were?’ She was bemused by her ten minutes’ oblivion and snuggled her head back on to the pillow again as she spoke, her eyes already shut.
Beauty sounded almost despairing, ‘Oh, Staff, do wake up! I don’t know who it is, only he said to tell you that if you keep him waiting too long he’ll miss the boat. I think,’ she essayed belatedly, ‘it’s that Dutch doctor.’
She jumped a little as Victoria surged out of bed, dragged on her dressing gown, thrust her feet into her slippers and in a state of great disarray, tore out of the room. Little Nurse Black, who liked Victoria very much, tidied her bed for her before she followed more sedately, shutting the door gently behind her.
‘Dear girl,’ said Alexander’s voice in Victoria’s now wide-awake ear, ‘were you fast asleep? A little early, surely?’
How disconcerting the man was, never saying Hullo or How are you, so that she might have time to shake her addled, happy wits together!
‘I didn’t know what time—I thought I’d better be ready. I was tired,’ she finished snappily.
‘But not cross. I’ll be outside the Home at nine o’clock. Snatch some breakfast before then, we want to get the one o’clock boat from Weymouth.’
She nodded, just as though he were there, beside her. ‘I’ll be ready.’
‘Now go back to bed and go to sleep. Goodnight, Victoria.’
She said softly, ‘Goodnight, Alexander,’ and listened while he hung up and the line went dead, then went slowly upstairs again to do exactly as he had bidden her; get into her bed and go to sleep.
Victoria was up, dressed, breakfasted and seething with impatience long before nine o’clock. She sat on the end of her bed watching the hands of her wrist watch crawl round its face, and when at last they were on the hour she forced herself to go on sitting for another two minutes in case he should find her too eager. She was wearing the cinnamon outfit again; she darted to the mirror just once more to peer at her reflection and then, stamping down a strong desire to do her hair just once more too, went down to the front door. The Mercedes was outside and Alexander was sitting behind the wheel, leaning back comfortably, smoking his pipe. He looked disappointingly placid, and if she had hoped that his expression would alter when he turned his head and saw her, she was doomed to disappointment. He got out of the car, looking pleased to see her and no more than that, said Hullo and put her case in the boot. But when she was in the car, sitting beside him, he turned to look at her with a face which was still placid, but his eyes made up for the vague, let-down feeling she had felt, and as though he had guessed her thoughts he said on a laugh: ‘We couldn’t have chosen a more public spot to meet, could we?’ He waved his hand, and following its sweep, Victoria was forced to agree with him. The theatre staff, idle for a few minutes before the day’s list started, were at a window, so was Home Sister from her little office in the Home, and through the open door leading into the hospital, a constant stream of nurses on their way to the first coffee break paused to stare. Victoria shuddered delicately; she could guess the conversation over the coffee cups, by the time she got back in three days’ time, they would have forgotten all about her going away with the Dutch doctor, but at the moment she provided a nice morsel of gossip to help along the usual stodge of ward news.
‘A pity,’ said her companion thoughtfully, ‘that we haven’t the time to give them value for their money.’
Victoria stopped fiddling with her seat belt in order to look at him. The gleam in his eyes which she had already so happily noticed had become more pronounced; she decided that it would be wiser not to ask him just what he meant; instead she told him meekly that she was ready when he was, and was rewarded by his laugh.
They talked the whole time on the journey to Weymouth, but never once about themselves. Over the coffee they stopped to drink, he spoke vaguely about his work and his family, discussed his dogs, described his elderly housekeeper and had so little to say about himself that Victoria was left with the feeling that she knew nothing about him, a state of affairs which she recognised as unsatisfactory, and all the more so because she was so besotted by him that it didn’t really matter in the least.
They made excellent time; there was still more than an hour before the boat sailed. They slid smoothly along the wide curve of Weymouth’s seafront, pleasantly empty so early in the year although the April sun was bright if not very warm. Halfway along it, Alexander turned off into the town, garaged the car, transferring Victoria and the cases into a taxi. On board he installed her in the half-empty ship and disappeared, to reappear five minutes later with the news that he had a table for lunch; news which pleased her very much, because she had breakfasted early and sketchily.
There were a few people in the restaurant; they lunched at leisure so that they were well out to sea by the time they had finished, and because the sun was still shining and the air smelled fresh after London, Victoria elected to fetch a scarf for her hair and they went up on deck, where they walked up and down and round and round, occasionally leaning over the side to watch the sea below. Mostly they talked and when, occasionally, they fell silent, Victoria, hanging over the side of the boat, her elbow touching his, was happy because although they weren’t saying a word, it was as though they were talking all the time…
She peered sideways at him and found him watching her, and her cheeks already pink from the wind, took on a more vivid colour. His eyebrows arched and his mouth curved in a smile and she looked away, only to turn to him again when he said gently:
‘For such a pretty girl, Victoria, you’re shy.’ He flung an arm round her shoulders. ‘Think of me as a friend, dear girl,’ he advised her. And then, lightly, ‘Tell me, how is our Doctor Blake?’
It was impossible advice he had given her, but it was a relief to have something else to talk about. She told him about the apology at some length. ‘It’s as though he wants to be friendly,’ she explained, ‘and that’s a good thing, because we have to see each other every day and it was a little difficult.’
‘Yes,’ Alexander turned to study her. ‘You’re such a nice person yourself, you don’t always see the nastiness in anyone else, do you? Let’s hope he means it.’
‘Why ever shouldn’t he?’ she wanted to know.
He didn’t answer her, but looked at his watch. ‘Time for tea,’ he suggested cheerfully.
They had barely finished the meal when the Casquettes lighthouse came into sight and then distant Alderney, and presently, ahead of them, Guernsey and the little islands wreathing its harbour. They made no haste to go ashore when the boat docked; it was as quick to go last as first, Alexander declared. Victoria, who disliked crowds, was content to lean over the rail and presently saw her parents and waved happily. ‘Is anyone coming to meet you?’ she asked.
‘Yes—they’re a little to the left of your people. I hope I’m to meet your three sisters.’
‘Of course. Let’s go now, there’s almost no one left.’
Her family fell upon her lovingly, as though it had been years instead of weeks since she had last seen them. She embraced and was embraced and finally said: ‘This is Doctor van Schuylen—Alexander, who was so kind as to bring me over.’
There was a round of handshaking before he said: ‘My friends are here too—may I introduce them?’
There was more handshaking and a good deal of friendly talk, for Jacques, his friend, was the son of an acquaintance of Mr Parsons, and his wife Prue remembered meeting Amabel on the tennis courts last summer. It was all very jolly and gay, and Victoria had a small stabbing doubt that perhaps now that Alexander was with his friends he might not want to spend his days with her—a doubt most agreeably squashed when he told her for everyone to hear who chose: ‘I’m coming for you tomorrow morning—is nine o’clock too early? We’ll have the whole day.’
He smiled nicely at her and her heart jumped absurdly. She pushed her hair out of her eyes impatiently and said softly: ‘That will be lovely,’ and watched the little sparks in his eyes as he looked at her.
‘Yes, it will be lovely,’ he said.