by Betty Neels
She bent to kiss his elderly cheek. ‘You have? That’s nice. There is a soufflé in the oven waiting to be eaten—will you come now?’
He followed her reluctantly, poured the wine, and sat down while she shared out the soufflé. There was a salad, too, and they sat eating it, not talking much for her father’s mind was on his books and Aunt Emily was still brooding over Sidney’s departure. Charity, sitting between them, kept up a cheerful flow of small talk; she loved them both dearly, her elderly aunt and her elderly father. She couldn’t remember them ever being young; her father had married in his late forties and her mother had been twenty years younger than he, killed in a road accident when Charity had been six years old. Aunt Emily had come then to look after them both and, since she was only a year or so younger than her brother, she had already been middle-aged; they had done their best with the small girl, trying to make up for the loss of her mother, and she had grown up into a rather quiet young woman. She had had few friends, for neither her father nor her aunt was sociable and the few young men she had brought home from time to time had been put off by her father’s bland disregard for their existence and her aunt’s insistence on making a third. It wasn’t until she met Sidney and had pointed out that she was getting on towards thirty and quite able to look after herself that they woke up to the fact that she was no longer a child. They had even accepted his presence as a rather vague future son-in-law. And now she had put paid to that in no uncertain manner and, presently, she supposed she might regret it.
She cleared the plates, put a bowl of fruit on the table and fetched the coffee. Just one adventure, she thought vividly, passing coffee cups; something really exciting before she resigned herself to the quiet years ahead. For they would be that. She was a pretty girl, she knew that without conceit, but living such a sheltered life for years had made her shy; she wished she knew how to attract men, but she had very little idea as to how to set about it. There had been no need with Sidney, he had taken it for granted that she was attracted to him and he had never expected to hear anything else. Her thoughts were interrupted by her aunt’s gentle voice.
‘I thought we might have fish tomorrow. Could you get some, dear? I expect you can pop out during the day…?’
Aunt Emily, never having had a job herself, had her own peculiar ideas about working hours.
Charity agreed at once. She had three-quarters of an hour for her lunch break, and there was a row of shops five minutes’ walk away from Augustine’s. Perhaps she would buy a sandwich and go and sit in the churchyard tucked away between the tatty streets. It was quiet there and, although the plane trees weren’t very exciting, the grass grew between the ancient tombstones and there were birds, too.
The office looked dreary when she got there the next morning; it was a gloomy day with wild clouds scudding across the sky and the threat of rain, so that they had to have the lights on. Miss Hudson, minus the offending tooth and conscious of the gap which showed when she smiled, was disposed to be peevish, a state of affairs not improved by the pile of notes and letters already waiting to be typed.
Charity whipped off her typewriter cover, took the lion’s share of work on to her desk, rolled paper and carbon into her machine and went to put the kettle on. ‘You’ll feel better after a cup of tea,’ she promised and got out their mugs and the milk and sugar.
Miss Hudson sniffed. ‘It’s all very well for you young ones,’ she grumbled, ‘you don’t have any worries.’
Charity didn’t answer. Miss Hudson was within shouting distance of fifty, thin to the point of boniness, with a sharp nose and a sharp tongue and a refined voice. At least I won’t be bony, thought Charity, looking down at her splendid curves and then worming her way into the cupboard to make the tea.
Refreshed, they worked without pause until Miss Hudson looked at her watch. ‘I’m off to the canteen,’ she announced. ‘You’ll be all right, Charity?’
She always asked that; Charity had once or twice been tempted to say that, no, she wouldn’t, and wondered what Miss Hudson would have to say to that. Left alone, she picked up one of Professor Wyllie-Lyon’s reports and began to decipher it. The writing was worse than usual and there was an awful lot of it. She sighed gently. ‘That anyone so clever could find it impossible to write so that anyone could read it!’ she exclaimed to the room around her. ‘And I wonder what that means—something something five times…’
‘Sthenic,’ said Professor Wyllie-Lyon in an apologetic voice.
She turned slowly to look at him standing in the doorway. He was holding another sheaf of papers, watching her and smiling at her a little. ‘It means strong or active. The trouble is,’ he went on, ‘I can read my own writing and tend to forget that no one else can.’
He laid the papers on her desk. ‘These are urgent, if you would be so kind?’
He was at the door again and she hadn’t uttered a word. He was shutting it behind him when he put his head round to ask, ‘I trust you had a pleasant evening, Miss Graham?’
‘No,’ said Charity and began to thump on her typewriter, stifling a sudden urge to tell him all about Sydney. She didn’t look up as the door closed softly behind him.
Miss Hudson came back from her dinner in a better frame of mind. ‘Run along,’ she told Charity. ‘Did anything else come in while I was away?’
‘Another lot from Professor Wyllie-Lyon—urgent.’
Miss Hudson cast her eyes up to the ceiling. ‘That man—nice though he is, and I’m sure I’ve never met anyone in this place with better manners—no wonder the nurses all fall for him. It’s a pity he has to work so hard. I must leave on time, too; the dentist’s going to take an impression…’
‘I’ll stay on if we are not finished,’ offered Charity and thought uneasily of the fish. If she got the fishmonger to put it in a stout plastic bag and she put it on the windowsill and cooked it the moment she got home… Anyway it was quite a chilly day. She got her coat and started off along the passage. Five minutes to the shops, five minutes there, and she would buy a ham roll and eat it in the churchyard; there was a convenient cluster of old tombstones in one corner out of the wind. There would still be time to have a cup of coffee at the café at the end of the row of shops. Reg, the proprietor, made excellent coffee and one could ignore the plastic surroundings.
There was a queue at the fishmongers; she bought cod fillets and because she was a pretty girl with a nice smile the fishmonger wrapped them carefully in a second bag. She stowed the fish into her shopping basket, bought a ham roll and crossed the road to the churchyard.
There was no one else there; there seldom was. Sometimes in the summer she had found a tramp sleeping peacefully on one of the stone slabs, and once or twice someone like herself, intent on peace and quiet for half an hour. She selected an eighteenth-century angel to lean against and began on her roll.
She had scarcely sunk her splendid teeth into it before someone came strolling towards her. Professor Wyllie-Lyon, hands in pockets and just for once no papers that needed typing immediately. She paused, the roll half-way to her open mouth; surely he hadn’t sought her out to do some urgent notes?
It seemed not. He came to a halt in front of her and remarked pleasantly, ‘We seem to share the same desire for peace and quiet, Miss Graham. May I sit for a moment?’
He arranged his great size against the scroll over which the angel was brooding. The family Wodecock: father, mother and a quiverful of children; there were so many of them that the scroll made an excellent support for such a large man. After a moment he said, ‘Fish?’
She watched his magnificent nose flare. ‘Well, yes, I’ve just bought some for supper when I get home.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. Do go on with your lunch, Miss Graham. I come here to close my eyes for ten minutes—it’s quiet.’
A hint for her not to talk? She took another bite of her roll. His eyes were still shut when she had finished. She brushed the crumbs away and got soundlessly to her feet and he was there, beside her
, wide awake, looming over her.
‘I would be glad if you would have a cup of coffee with me, Miss Graham. Reg, at the café by the grocer’s, makes a splendid cup.’
‘Yes, I go there sometimes—it’s a change from the canteen.’ She discovered to her surprise that she didn’t feel shy with him. ‘Thank you, I’ve just got the time before half past one.’
They were sitting at an orange, plastic-topped table, their coffee before them, before he asked, ‘What went wrong then?’
She was an honest girl; it didn’t occur to her to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. She said, ‘Oh, I’m still not sure.’ She was silent for so long that she heard him say comfortably, ‘I dare say it will sort itself out.’
And she had been on the point of telling him all about it. She must be mad, she thought crossly; she didn’t even know the man. They didn’t move in the same hospital circles and she felt pretty sure that their social backgrounds were as wide apart as the poles. He was being kind without making much of an effort, probably because he knew that it was he, more than any of the other consultants, who kept her nose to the grindstone.
She drank her coffee, glanced at her watch, thanked him and got up to go. He got up, too, but made no effort to accompany her. His goodbye was impersonal and casual. She went back to the hospital feeling peevish.
Miss Hudson, as always, glanced at the clock as she went in. They worked well together, but she let it be known by small signs such as this that she was in charge. ‘Dr Carruthers’—she bridled a little, for she fancied him—’ popped in with a couple of letters. There’s not much else besides Professor Wyllie-Lyon’s stuff, is there?’
Luckily not, thought Charity, hanging up her coat, for there was more than enough of it.
She was a little more than half-way through them when Miss Hudson fancied a cup of tea and while Charity was filling the kettle the phone rang. ‘That was to ask you to take the professor’s papers down to the consultants’ room should they not be ready by five o’clock.’
Miss Hudson inserted a fresh sheet of paper. ‘Will you be done by then?’
‘No,’ said Charity, ‘I had those biopsy reports to do, you know.’ She made the tea and carried the tray to Miss Hudson’s desk. ‘I’m about half-way. It’ll be six o’clock I should think.’
‘Poor you,’ said Miss Hudson, not meaning it. She sipped her tea in a genteel fashion. ‘I did hear a rumour that he was off shortly on some lecturing tour or other; that’ll make life much easier for us both.’
Which, seeing that she had long ago left Charity to deal with almost all of his work, wasn’t quite true.
The office seemed very quiet when Miss Hudson had gone. The afternoon was already darkening and there was a first splattering of rain against the uncurtained windows. Charity remembered the fish wedged on the windowsill and brought it inside, then settled down to work again. Another hour’s work, she reckoned, perhaps less since there would be no interruptions now. The administrative side of Augustine’s had packed up and gone home, leaving the nurses to their work; she could hear faint hospital sounds and from time to time the strident warning of an ambulance.
She finished before an hour was up, tidied her desk and put on her coat and picked up her work. There was no one in the passage; the day’s rush had died down for the moment, patients were being readied for their suppers; except for the non-stop flow of patients in the accident room, Augustine’s was, for a little while, tolerably quiet.
Charity hurried along, anxious to get home; Aunt Emily would be worrying about supper. She gained the entrance hall and turned down one of the corridors leading from it, wider than the rest, lined by magnificent mahogany doors. This was where the consultants, the management committee and the upper heirarchy of the hospital had their various rooms. The consultants’ was half-way down; she tapped at the door and went in. Professor Wyllie-Lyon was overflowing a chair with his feet on the table. He appeared to be sleeping, but as she hesitated he said, ‘Come on in. I’m much obliged to you, Miss Graham; I’ve curtailed your evening.’
He had taken his large feet in his handmade shoes off the table and was looming over her. ‘It was important that I should have these,’ he observed as he took the papers she handed him. ‘They need to be delivered this evening.’
Charity murmured a nothing, said good night and made for the door. He reached it first, which was surprising considering that he was such a large man and so far away from it.
‘I’ll drop you off,’ he said and when she said, ‘Oh, there’s no need of that,’ he interrupted her gently, ‘You live in St John’s Wood; I’m going in that direction. It’s the least I can do.’
‘But it’s my work,’ protested Charity.
He took no notice of that, but gathered up the papers and opened the door and ushered her through. Short of making a silly fuss there was nothing she could do but accompany him out of the hospital and into the dark blue Bentley parked in the forecourt.
The professor, beyond a word here and there, had little to say as he drove along the Finchley Road. Presently he asked, ‘Where do I turn off?’
‘Oh, this will do, thank you,’ said Charity. ‘I can walk down here—it’s quite close…’
‘In that case I’ll drive you there.’
He had the reputation of being quite mild at the hospital, but she had the feeling that that was a cover-up for a steely determination to get his own way. After all, how many dozens of times had she meekly agreed to type his letters, knowing that she had no hope of finishing them by five o’clock when she was supposed to go home? She gave him her address and sat silently until he stopped outside the gate. He leaned across and opened the door for her. ‘Forgive me if I don’t get out; time is of the essence.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that he could have saved himself a few minutes by dropping her off in the Finchley Road when she had suggested it, but all she said was a polite thank you and a rather brisk good night, uneasily aware that the cod might have left a faintly fishy atmosphere in his beautiful car. She was surprised that he didn’t drive away until she had gone through the gate and shut it behind her.
Aunt Emily came into the hall to meet her; she might be elderly but her hearing was excellent. ‘I heard a car,’ she began. ‘Have you and Sidney made it up, darling?’ And, before Charity could reply, ‘You bought the fish?’
‘Yes, Aunt Emily—it’s here. I’ll take it straight to the kitchen. And yes, you did hear a car, but it wasn’t Sidney and we haven’t made it up. It was one of the consultants at St Augustine’s—I stayed late to finish some work for him and he gave me a lift as he was coming this way.’
Upon reflection she wondered if that had been true. The papers had been urgent—reports on a case of leukaemia he had been consulted about, but the patient, if she remembered aright, had been in an East End hospital in exactly the opposite direction. He had said that he had needed the reports urgently, but if that was the case why had he wasted time bringing her home? Perhaps he had some other urgent business to attend to first.
She didn’t bother her head over it but went to say hallo to her father and then started on the fish.
In the oven with a bit of parsley, she decided; easy to prepare and not too long to cook. While it was cooking she sat down at the kitchen table with her aunt. As so often happened, that lady had used up the housekeeping money and shied away from asking her brother for more until it was due. ‘I do try to be economical, dear,’ she observed worriedly, ‘but somehow the money just goes…’
Charity, who had had her eye on a pair of expensive shoes for some weeks and had intended to buy them on pay-day, heaved an inward sigh. By the time she had enough money for them they wouldn’t be fashionable any more. She wasn’t extravagant and she didn’t buy many clothes, but what she had were good and suited her, for she bought with a careful eye. She said now, ‘Don’t worry, Aunty, I’ve a few pounds tucked away—you can pay me back later.’ They both knew that that wo
uldn’t happen but neither of them mentioned the fact.
At supper her father remarked, ‘You came home by car, Charity? I was at my window…’
She told him about the professor, but only briefly, for half-way through he interrupted with, ‘Ah, that reminds me, in the catalogue I had sent to me today there’s a book I think I must have: early medical practices in Europe; it should be most informative. This professor would doubtless be very interested.’
Very unlikely, thought Charity, murmuring agreement. Just for a moment, as she changed the plates, she wondered where he was and what he was doing at that moment. Wining and dining some exquisite young lady, or with his head buried in some dry-as-dust tome? Probably the latter, propped up against the cruet while he ate his solitary dinner. Charity, who had a very vivid imagination, felt rather sorry for him, allowing her imagination to run away with her common sense, as she so often did.
CHAPTER TWO
MISS HUDSON’S RUMOUR must have had some truth in it, for Charity saw nothing of Professor Wyllie-Lyon for the whole of the following week. It made her workload much lighter, of course, but she found herself missing him. She went home each evening to spend it in the company of her aunt and father and an occasional visitor, dropping in for a drink or after-supper coffee. True, she could have gone out on at least two occasions, once with the assistant dispenser, a short earnest young man with no sense of humour, and on the second occasion with the surgical registrar, who was married with a wife and family somewhere in the depths of rural Sussex. She had declined both invitations in her pleasant, rather shy manner and found herself wondering what she would have done if it had been Professor Wyllie-Lyon who had asked her out. Leapt at the chance, she had to admit, and then told herself sternly that she was being silly; for one thing he wasn’t there and for another he had never been known to date anyone at the hospital. Even at the annual ball, which she had attended on two occasions, he had circled the floor with grave dignity with the senior ladies present and then gone to play bridge in an adjoining room.