by Betty Neels
So Celine nipped up to her room, crammed a few odds and ends into her overnight bag and raced downstairs again, to find Peter Trent waiting at the wheel of his little Triumph sports car. She had found time to change into the Italian knitted dress, and he eyed her with open admiration and a touch of wonder as to why a girl who dressed as she did and tossed a Gucci bag into the back of the car as though it were something from Woolworth’s should earn her living slaving in a surgery in Bethnal Green. After all, she wasn’t even a nurse, and some of the work she had to do was pretty grisly.
‘I thought we might stop on the way and have a bite to eat at a pub,’ he told her as he shot off down the street. Oliver watched them go.
It was a pleasant trip. Peter might have admired her openly, but that was all. They were soon chatting like old friends, and when eventually they arrived at her home, he came in with her, met her parents and Aunt Chloe, and stayed for an early tea.
‘There’s a nice boy,’ observed Mrs Baylis approvingly. ‘A bit young…’ She threw a quick glance at Celine’s face. ‘He is going to drive you back, dear?’ And when Celine said that yes, he was, her mother went on: ‘How kind! I was so sorry to hear from Oliver that he couldn’t bring you down himself. He came down to see us—oh, a few days ago—no, longer than that,’ she mused vaguely, ‘and he told us that he’d be driving you down and would stay the weekend here. I wonder what changed his plans?’
Celine heard the query in her mother’s innocent voice. ‘He’s a very busy man,’ she said stonily.
Her mother appeared not to notice the stoniness. ‘Well, he is an important person, I suppose, in his own field—lots of consulting work—it must take him everywhere. He said how hard you worked.’ Her mother hesitated. ‘Has it helped, darling?’
Celine took her mother’s arm. ‘Yes, Mother, it has. Nicky doesn’t mean anything any more—did Oliver tell you that I’d met him by accident? Well, at first I thought how marvellous to see him again, but of course it wasn’t, and I met his wife—she’s nice. Did you know he had a little girl?’
‘Dear me, how very odd that he never mentioned that, but now you’ve got over him, Celine, I must admit that neither your father nor I really took to him.’ She added guilelessly, ‘This Peter is much nicer.’
‘He’s very young, Mother.’
‘Two years older than you, darling.’
Celine laughed a little. ‘You know, I feel at least ten years older than I really am, it must be all the hard work. Now tell me how things are going here—are you really doing well, and is Aunt Chloe quite happy? I can always come home…’
‘No need,’ Mrs Baylis spoke hastily. ‘We’re really doing very well. I had no idea there were so many people wanting bed and breakfast, and people are beginning to recommend us, too. Aunt Chloe is in her element, too…no, love, there’s no need for you to come home just yet. London must be quite fun, and you need a change from the country.’
Celine didn’t disillusion her. She thought it likely that her mother hadn’t the least idea what her work entailed or where exactly the surgery was. She enlarged on the lighter aspects of her job, described in detail Oliver’s house and the pleasant day they had had together, and forbore from mentioning Mrs Hawkins and Linda and how often the small patients were sick all over the place and who it was who cleared up the mess. Thinking about it, she was surprised to discover that she no longer minded doing that, it was all part and parcel of the day’s job, and if Oliver could mop up an ailing child without turning a hair, then she could too.
The weekend went swiftly and she enjoyed every minute of it. The house was full, and she helped when and where she could and spent as much time as she could in the garden. Barney and Angela and old Bennett had welcomed her back with delight, and Dusty had gone mad in an elderly sort of way. She got up early in the morning and took him for a walk, wishing, without going too deeply into it, that Oliver had been there too. And when Sunday evening came all too soon, she said goodbye with regret, at the same time aware that she was looking forward to seeing Oliver again.
Peter was full of his own weekend and anxious to talk about it. There was, he told her cautiously in case she laughed, a girl—the daughter of a neighbouring farmer who lived just outside Bath—she was eighteen and pretty: ‘Though not half as pretty as you,’ he added with youthful candour.
‘I daresay she’s prettier,’ declared Celine kindly, ‘only different to look at. Is she dark or fair?’
The time passed very pleasantly, and as they began the slow drive through the city, she found the excitement inside her mounting. ‘It’ll be nice to get back to work,’ she said happily, aware that that wasn’t quite what she meant.
The surgery looked dreary in the dreary street, but once inside, that was all changed. Mrs Thatch had left a light on in the hall and there was a big pot of red geraniums on the table. Celine had said goodbye to Peter and gone inside quickly. It was getting on for ten o’clock and a cup of tea and bed were indicated. But in the hall she paused. There was a message on the pad by the telephone with her name printed above it. Would she ring Nicky when she came in, never mind how late, and below that message Oliver had written in his large forceful hand: ‘Don’t telephone, wait until you see me in the morning.’
Celine tore the sheet off the pad and ignoring the message read his words again. It was exactly the kind of thing he would do, she thought; and really she was old enough to do as she pleased. But underneath this thought a small voice reminded her that she didn’t want to see Nicky again or hear from him—indeed, he was beginning to make her uneasy with his persistence. Was he hoping to convince her that he loved her?
She went slowly upstairs and found Mrs Thatch waiting for her with a tray of tea and a plate of sandwiches, and a very natural desire to know what sort of a weekend she’d had. It was half an hour or more before Celine gained her own room, and by then she was too tired to telephone anyone, even if she’d wanted to.
Monday morning’s clinic was always a busy one. She was dealing with the first of the patients when Oliver came in, wished her good morning in passing and then apparently forgot about her. True, she fetched and carried for him and David, but with no time to say a word, and Sister Griffiths, although pleased to see her, wasn’t one to allow slacking. Oliver went towards the end of the morning, leaving his partner to finish, and Celine and Sister Griffiths gobbled their lunch and got ready for the afternoon session, mercifully a short one.
Oliver returned towards its close and as Celine was handing the last baby to its mother he came into the waiting-room.
‘We’ll have our little talk now,’ he told her unsmilingly, and she followed him meekly into the office and sat down in the chair he offered her.
‘A pleasant weekend?’ he asked in the distantly pleasant voice she didn’t like very much.
‘Yes, thank you. Mother said…she said you’d intended spending the weekend there.’
‘In the light of past circumstances, hardly a good idea.’ His voice was smooth and he didn’t smile. Celine sat still and waited, but he didn’t say anything, and after a few moments she realised he was actually waiting for her to speak. And now that the opportunity had come, she couldn’t remember a single word of her prepared speeches. Instead she blurted out: ‘I’m so ashamed—I’ve been beastly to you and so rude, and the silly thing is, I don’t—didn’t mean a word of it. You’ve been so kind, I don’t quite know what I should have done without your friendship—something foolish, I daresay. I hope you’ll forgive me.’ She looked at him then and saw that he was still unsmiling, and she got a little frightened. ‘I do mean that,’ she told him urgently. ‘I said I never wanted to see you again, but it was a silly lie. I—I was quite glad to come back…’
‘To work?’ His voice was very quiet.
‘No, to see you. You’re the nicest friend I’ve ever had.’
‘Thank you, Celine.’ He got up and came to stand in front of her. ‘Shall we shake hands on that?’ And then: ‘Now this matte
r of Nicky. I’m afraid he’s not going to leave you alone, you know. He’s conceited, you see, and finds it difficult to realise that not everyone falls in love with him and stays that way.’ He watched the colour stream into Celine’s cheeks. ‘There have been other girls,’ he observed gently. ‘Does he bother you?’
‘Yes—I’m scared of meeting him again. Isn’t that silly? Not because I’m afraid of him, just—well, I feel silly and ashamed.’
‘You have no need to feel either. We’ve all fallen in and out of love at some time or another. There is a way by which he could be discouraged, probably for good…’ He broke off as Sister Griffiths came in.
‘There’s a child coming in shortly—a small boy, lives in the next street. A neighbour just called in—he’s that diabetic we couldn’t stabilise. His mum wouldn’t wait for anyone to go round.’
‘Thomas Cribb,’ said Oliver instantly. ‘He’ll have to be admitted again, but we’d better work on him here first.’
He got up to follow Sister Griffiths out of the room and Celine got up too. ‘Be ready to make tea for his mum, Celine, and you’ll probably have to ring for the ambulance and warn the hospital—I’ll let you know.’
He paused at the door. ‘A propos, Nicky—we could get engaged.’
Celine goggled at his retreating back, looking like a very beautiful stranded fish, not sure that she had heard him aright, and then, quite sure that she had, only the commotion as the little boy was brought in penetrated her utter amazement and sent her scuttling to put on the kettle.
CHAPTER SEVEN
FOR THE NEXT HOUR Celine was kept busy doing the odd jobs no one else had the time to do, while Oliver and Maggie used their combined skills on small Thomas.
One of her most difficult tasks had been to find out from his mother exactly what had happened. She had told Oliver that Thomas had eaten sweeties and on the strength of that he had set to work on the semi-conscious child, telling Celine to get as many details as quickly as possible. But Mum was rendered more or less speechless by fright and tears, and it had taken a strong cup of tea and all Celine’s patience to extract information. Barley sugar, she managed finally; his granny had thought it such a shame that the other children could have the sweeties she had brought them, and poor little Thomas wasn’t allowed them. He had had just one, and because he had liked it so much, she had given him another and then another. Celine relayed this to Oliver, who listened with an impassive face and no hint of censure.
‘We’ll do our best,’ he told her kindly. ‘Thomas will have to go into hospital and stay for some time until he’s stabilised again.’
And when finally Thomas was fit to be moved and the ambulance was on the way, his mother burst into tears once more and declared herself quite incapable of accompanying him, so that Celine found herself in the ambulance too, terrified that Thomas would do something sudden and utterly incomprehensible to her; she felt a bit better when the second ambulance man got in with them; a pleasant middle-aged man who didn’t seem to be in the least worried. She clutched the papers Oliver had given her with instructions to hand them over to the Ward Sister and no one else, and was thankful that the journey was a short one.
The hospital was large, modernised here and there and full of bewildering passages. Celine followed the trolley up to the children’s ward, handed over the papers to Sister, answered a few questions as well as she could and prepared to leave. Thomas, still only half awake, clung to her hand and looked scared, but he was easily persuaded to transfer his attention to a motherly nurse who called him ducky and promised him an orange if he was a good boy. Celine couldn’t find Sister, she had disappeared, and the nurses she met all looked far too busy to tell her how to get out of the place. There were little signs on the walls here and there, though, and by dint of following these she found herself at the front entrance.
Her sigh of relief turned to a gasp when she realised that she had no money with her. There were plenty of buses she could have taken too—it would have to be a taxi, and she could pay when they got back to the surgery. Only there were no taxis to be seen; she waited for five minutes and then decided that she would have to walk. She wasn’t at all sure of the way, but she had a tongue in her head. She stepped off the pavement and a car skidded to a halt beside her.
‘Get in,’ said Oliver as he got out. ‘I’ll be about ten minutes.’ He had gone before she could say a word.
He was a little more than that, but Celine didn’t mind; she was tired with all the excitement and closed her eyes, oblivious of the rush and noise of the traffic. But she woke up when Oliver got in beside her; there was so much of him that he took up all his own seat and crowded her out as well.
‘He’ll do,’ he said briefly, and turned the car into the traffic.
Celine, very conscious of their last conversation, racked her brains for an impersonal topic, but Oliver, beyond those two brief words, seemed to have forgotten that she was there, so she sat silent, wondering if she had dreamed it all, and then when they arrived back at the surgery and he said matter-of-factly: ‘Maggie will have tea waiting—get a cup and give her a hand, will you?’ she was sure she had.
In any case, there was no time to bother about it. The clinic wasn’t a large one but full of little annoyances and setbacks. By the end of it, Celine was finding it difficult to keep her temper, and she could tell by Maggie’s pursed-up mouth that she was feeling fed up too. But finally the waiting-room was empty and they began clearing up. They had almost finished when Maggie’s husband arrived.
‘Thought I’d give you a treat and drive you home,’ he explained cheerfully, and when Maggie demurred because there were still one or two jobs to do Celine bustled her off. ‘I’ve got all the evening,’ she declared, ‘and I’m not going out.’
She was ready in another ten minutes and switched off the lights and started for the stairs. There was no sign of Oliver, but he must have left while she was in the first aid room at the back. Just as well, she thought, after that astonishing remark. A joke, she finally decided.
‘We’ll go out for a meal,’ said Oliver from the foot of the stairs. ‘Can you be ready in fifteen minutes? I’ve a couple of phone calls to make.’ He was staring up at her rather intently, but his voice was as placid as ever.
‘Me?’ asked Celine stupidly, suddenly shy of being with him. ‘I was going to have supper…’
‘So was I—we might just as well have it together. Besides, we must finish our talk.’ He turned away. ‘Fifteen minutes, then.’
‘I shall be at least twenty minutes,’ said Celine haughtily, and was instantly terrified that he wouldn’t take her out after all.
She heard him chuckle as she opened her door.
It would have to be the Italian dress again. She would really have to bring back some more clothes next time she went home. She showered and did her face and hair and dressed, and still having five minutes to spare, sat down and tried to bring some order to her thoughts, but five minutes wasn’t enough, and she was just as muddled as she went down the stairs, to find Oliver sitting on the bottom step reading the evening paper.
She would never know until the day she died what made her so sure and so suddenly aware that she was in love with him. Perhaps it was the sight of his broad back, bowed over the paper, or the way he had put it down and got to his feet and smiled at her. It didn’t really matter anyway, because it was inevitable, she knew that in her very bones; had known it for weeks and not recognised it. Now she glowed with delight, so chock-a-block with love that Oliver’s impassive face, showing no more than a friendly smile, made it impossible for the moment to accept the obvious fact that whatever her own feelings, he didn’t share them.
She didn’t trust herself to speak, but he didn’t appear to notice. ‘There’s a nice place I thought we might go to, I’ve booked a table. I’ll have to take a quick look at Thomas on the way, but that shouldn’t take too long. I hope you’re famished—I am.’
Celine had had time to pull hersel
f together. ‘I’m always starving—there’s quite a lot of me to keep going.’
He opened the door for her. ‘And all of it very nice,’ she heard him observe.
It seemed better to ignore that. ‘It’s been quite a busy day,’ she said in what she hoped sounded a casual voice.
They didn’t talk much. Oliver left her for five minutes while he went into the hospital, and when he returned it was Thomas who supplied the matter for conversation. Almost recovered, declared Oliver with satisfaction, but it had been touch and go. ‘I’ll go round and see his Mum tomorrow,’ he said. ‘There should be time, Peter and David will be at the surgery.’ He took her by surprise by changing the subject rapidly. ‘Did you have a good weekend? Peter’s a nice lad?’
‘Delightful, thank you, and yes, Peter is nice, but very young.’
‘Older than you, Celine.’ That was what her mother had said.
The restaurant was charming and they had a table in a corner so that they could talk undisturbed. Not that Celine wanted that. Now that the opportunity had occurred, she wanted to put it off; her head was full of excited thoughts, continuously damped down by his casual friendly manner. But first there was the important question of what they should eat.
‘Smoked salmon?’ suggested Oliver, ‘and what about Boeuf Stroganoff to follow? Or perhaps you’d prefer fish?’
Celine settled for the beef, accepted a glass of sherry and hoped silently that Oliver had forgotten that he was going to finish their little talk. And it seemed that he had; she had polished off the salmon and was making inroads into the beef when he suddenly switched from desultory talk. ‘Ah yes, Celine—we have to discuss this question of getting engaged.’ He uttered this remark in the most prosaic of tones, and she paled a little. To have a proposal from a man she was madly in love with and to know that he didn’t mean a word of it was tearing her apart. But on no account must he know that. She said in a calm little voice,