by Betty Neels
He went fast as he was wont to do, but she was used to that now and there were only four letters and a couple of reports. She closed her notebook and started for the door.
‘I’ll wait and sign them,’ he told her. ‘I’ve some work to do…’
The phone rang as she began to type and the same haughty voice demanded to speak to him. Charity switched on the intercom and switched the call through to his office. She longed to eavesdrop; it was a long phone call.
She offered to make him coffee when she had finished and taken the letters through for him to sign, but he refused in an absent-minded manner which betrayed the fact that his mind was elsewhere so she bade him good night and went to get her coat. He was waiting for her in her office and at her look of surprise he said, ‘I’ve kept you very late; the most I can do is to see you home.’
‘There’s no need, there’s a bus…’
‘I am aware of that; I shall take you home.’ His tone was pleasant, remote and final; all the same she had another try.
‘When I took this job, professor, you told me that I would sometimes work late and I accepted that. You can’t keep taking me home like this.’
He opened the door. ‘You talk too much,’ he told her gently.
Outside her door she hesitated. He had got out and had opened the car door and she stood on the pavement, trying to make up her mind.
‘If you are wondering whether to ask me in for a cup of coffee, I shall be delighted to do so,’ he said blandly and then chuckled at her startled look.
It hadn’t been just coffee, reflected Charity, presently curled up in bed. It had been sandwiches and a plate of mince pies her aunt had made that afternoon and whisky with her father in the study afterwards while they had continued an absorbing discussion on Thomas Carlyle’s works. Charity, sitting with Aunt Emily, listening with half an ear to an account of that lady’s shopping expedition in search of a pair of stout shoes, could hear the occasional rumble of laughter and murmur of voices. She went to bed presently, saying rather huffily that she had to go to work in the morning.
‘A delightful evening,’ her father commented at breakfast. ‘He’s an Oxford man, of course—went to Magdalen—years after my time, of course. Looked him up—brilliant man—rugger player, too—past it now.’
‘He’s not old, Father.’ Charity spoke rather more fiercely than she had meant to.
‘Old? Of course not, my dear. Five-and-thirty—but his work doesn’t allow him to turn out for a regular game.’ Mr Graham, not an observant man, cast an enquiring eye towards his daughter and then went on with his breakfast.
Professor Wyllie-Lyon was going to Augustine’s first in the morning; the patients were not booked until eleven o’clock. Charity had the place to herself until Mrs Kemp arrived at around ten o’clock and they had their coffee together before going about their separate jobs. Exactly on the hour she heard the waiting room door open and a moment later her own door was opened. The professor came in, but not alone. The man with him was younger than he; dark curly hair, light blue eyes, of middle height and with a pleasant, good-natured face.
The professor said good morning and went on, ‘This is Dr Kemble, from New Zealand—over here to pick up some ideas about leukaemia. He is seconded to Augustine’s for a short time. There are some old case histories he would like to borrow. Turn them up for me, will you, Charity? They’ll be filed in that end cabinet.’ He added a short list of names. ‘Let me know if you can’t find them.’
He nodded briefly and closed the door behind him, leaving Charity and Dr Kemble together.
‘Sit down,’ she invited. ‘It may take a minute or two, I’m fairly new here.’
He looked around him. ‘Plenty to do, I dare say? Professor Wyllie-Lyon’s a busy man, so I’m told. Top of the tree, isn’t he?’
She wasn’t sure if one doctor should talk of another in that fashion; perhaps they had different ideas in New Zealand. She said cautiously. ‘He’s well known…’
He was quick. ‘Ah, shouldn’t say things like that to his secretary, I dare say. Don’t hold it against me. I’m a great admirer of his work; hope I’ll be half as good.’
She rather liked him. ‘I’m sure you will, Dr Kemble. Here are the case histories; are you going to take them with you?’
‘Please. You want me to sign for them?’ He lingered on his way to the door. ‘Am I going too fast if I ask you to have dinner with me this evening?’
‘Much too fast, Dr Kemble.’ But she smiled at him as she said it. He would ask her again, she was sure of that, and then she would say yes. At the same time there was a half-hidden regret that it couldn’t be Professor Wyllie-Lyon who wanted to take her out. But of course there was the beauty whose photo had pride of place on his desk; he would have no eyes for other women.
She got on with her morning’s work, the epitome of the perfect secretary: making appointments, finding notes, producing coffee for a patient who had mild hysterics when the professor told her, in the most guarded terms, that she had a heart murmur. His manner towards the lady was faultless, but Charity sensed his impatience at her goings-on; after all, he dealt with outpatients by the dozen in his out-patient department at St Augustine’s, most of them stoically prepared to make the best of it under his guidance, and equally determined to carry on with whatever job they were doing. Mrs Kemp bore the lady away finally and the professor, without saying a word over and above his instructions as to treatment, dismissed Charity with a nod and rang the bell for his next patient.
By the end of the day she had decided that something was on his mind; behind the façade of placid calm he was worried. No, she corrected herself, not worried; occupied with a problem. ‘Not that it’s any business of mine,’ she told the empty rooms as she prepared to go home, the last to leave. And hard on that thought, the astonishing one that it was her business, her own private business; the professor’s happiness was something quite vital to her. She wanted him to be happy above all things for she loved him more than anything or anyone else in the world. ‘And of all the silly things to do,’ she exclaimed crossly, ‘that’s just about the silliest.’
She paused in her tidying of her desk and sat down to think about it. She was in love; it was exciting and delightful and utterly hopeless. Even if there hadn’t been the beauty on his desk, he was hardly likely to look at her with anything more than appreciation of her capabilities.
She got up and fetched her coat, locked the doors and left. But instead of going to the bus stop, her feet, obeying her unconscious wish, bore her out of Wigmore Street and into the quiet backwater where he lived. The houses here were terraced, tall elegant residences built during the Regency, skilfully modernised and expensively maintained. There were no front gardens, only elegant iron railings and discreetly curtained windows and front doors with elaborate pediments. The professor’s house was the last in the short terrace, with an arched entrance beside it leading, she supposed, to mews garages at the back. There were lights in the downstairs windows and shining through the fanlight over the front door, and she crossed the narrow street to observe it more clearly from the opposite side.
As well she did and that she was standing in the shadow, away from the lamp posts, for the street door opened and he came out, leaving the door open behind him, turning under the arch, no doubt to fetch his car. There wouldn’t be time to get to the end of the street before the car lights picked her out; she opened the wrought iron gate leading to the area of the house behind her, and stepped silently half-way down its steps.
She was mad, she told herself, standing there in the cold of a December evening, and nothing like this was ever going to happen again. She went down a couple of steps as the Bentley slid from under the archway and its lights picked up everything in their beam, but since the car had stopped outside his house, she felt emboldened to peep through the railings. The door was still open and coming through it was the woman in the photograph; even at that distance Charity could see that she was handsome, wrapp
ed in a fur coat, fair hair shining in the lights from the house. She could hear her voice, too, high and impatient, complaining about something. The professor had got out of the car and was waiting by its open door, and if he spoke it was so softly that she couldn’t hear him as he helped his companion in and got in himself and presently drove away.
‘So now you know,’ muttered Charity to herself, hurrying to catch her bus. She spent a miserable night; she had had no idea that being in love could be so unsettling. She had imagined herself in love half a dozen times, and there had been Sidney, of course, but with hindsight she knew now that none of these tepid affairs had been more than skin deep, and she knew just as surely that, however hard she tried, she would never be able to summon up anything more than tepid feelings for any other man.
‘You’re a fool,’ she told herself, her head buried in the pillows, and wept herself to sleep.
Neither her aunt nor her father were particularly observant; her aunt remarked that she looked as though she might be starting a cold and her father, without looking up from his newspaper, advised her to dose herself with something. But their remarks were in passing; her aunt was far too busy making a list of the extra groceries she would need for Christmas to do more than agree vaguely. ‘It’s still some time to Christmas,’ she murmured, ‘but you know what the shops are—barely a month and I haven’t yet made the pudding.’
Puddings held no interest for Charity; she crumbled toast, drank her coffee and said that she had to get to work earlier than usual, which brought forth her aunt’s remark that that nice man worked her too hard, and when was he coming to see them again? Charity couldn’t think of a safe reply to this, so she kissed her companions and five minutes later left the house.
She couldn’t get to Wigmore Street fast enough; just to see him again would make her day. It wasn’t until she was putting the key in the door that she paused to wonder how she would feel when she did see him. Pray heaven she wouldn’t blush or make a fool of herself. She was his efficient secretary, nothing more, and she must remember that from now on. It struck her then that that wasn’t going to be so easy; she would have to be on her guard.
She stood before the looking-glass in the cloakroom and studied her face; it looked all right, a bit red round the eyes, but he wouldn’t notice that. It was her manner towards him—she would have to be very careful.
She was so careful that when Professor Wyllie-Lyon arrived he asked her after a few minutes if she felt unwell. ‘Or swallowed the poker,’ he added. ‘Have I done something to vex you?’
‘No,’ said Charity hurriedly, ‘of course not. I—I have a headache.’ She gave him a beseeching look, although she was unaware of that, begging him to believe her, and he turned away, apparently satisfied. ‘Make yourself some tea,’ he advised kindly, ‘and you’d better take a couple of Panadol.’
He enquired about the headache when she went to fetch the first patient’s notes, not looking at her, his head bent over his desk, and she told him that it had gone. She hadn’t had one in the first place, anyway, but it had been the first excuse that she could think of.
There were no patients in the afternoon. She cleared up the outstanding work, made tea for Mrs Kemp, who was giving the examination room its weekly turn out, and herself, and left promptly.
After a day or two she found that she could cope very nicely. She hadn’t known that loving someone could hurt so much, nor had she known that it was possible to hide the hurt behind a calm face. She had spent a sleepless night wondering if it would be better to leave her job, go away and never see him again, but she knew that she could never do that—half a loaf was better than no bread.
It was the following morning that Dr Kemble came again, ostensibly to return the case papers but actually to ask her to have dinner with him. This time she agreed. She had decided, after realising she loved the professor, to refuse if he should ever ask her again, but the sight of the professor sitting at his desk starring down at the lovely face smiling at him from its expensive frame had been a bad beginning to her day. Dr Kemble was pleasant and friendly and perhaps he would help her to rid her mind of the professor. She declined that evening, though; for one thing there were several patients coming during the afternoon and she might have to stay later than usual. There were only two booked for the day after and, before she went to ask the professor if he wanted to see Dr Kemble, they agreed that he should call for her the following evening.
‘He might as well wait if he has nothing better to do and I’ll give him a lift to Augustine’s—he is doing outpatients with me this morning. Give him a cup of coffee, Charity.’
He had given her a quick smile, his glance impersonal.
Dinner with Guy Kemble turned out to be surprisingly pleasant. He was a good talker, never very serious, making her laugh a great deal. He took her to Nick’s Diner because, he explained ingenuously, someone back home had told him it was a good place to go. Over their shrimp cocktails, steak tartare and crêpe Suzette, he told her something of his life in New Zealand. He was going back there, of course; there was a job waiting for him—senior registrar at the big Auckland Hospital, and hopefully a consultant’s post at the end of it.
‘That’s why I’m here,’ he explained, ‘picking Professor Wyllie-Lyon’s brains and learning all I can—specialising.’ He added awkwardly, ‘I want to make the grade—there’s a girl…’
‘She must be proud of you,’ said Charity promptly, ‘Don’t you miss her?’
He nodded. ‘I wrote and told her about you and said I was going to ask you to go out with me. I—I like to talk about her, of course, and I thought you’d listen; I mean, you look as though you might.’
‘Of course I’ll listen. Tell me all about her.’
It took the rest of their meal and he was still talking as they waited on the pavement for a taxi. Neither of them saw the professor driving past alone in the Bentley. He saw them, but he didn’t stop.
He was at his desk when Charity got to work in the morning, wished her good morning, asked her to make coffee and bent his head over his work again. It was when she took the coffee tray in that he looked up and asked, ‘You had a pleasant evening with Guy?’
She was so surprised she almost dropped the tray. ‘However did you know?’ she began, and then, ‘Yes, I enjoyed myself, thank you, sir.’
‘Dare say you have a good deal in common.’ He took the cup she offered him and sugared it.
‘Well—I don’t know about that.’ She stood uncertainly, the tray in her hand, wondering if he wanted to talk. Apparently he did, for he said, ‘Get a cup and come in here and drink it, Charity. There’s no rush this morning.’
But he had nothing to say for a few minutes and she sat quietly, studying his face covertly. It was calm, as always, but the calm was a cover for something else; tiredness, or worry, or anger. She had no idea which was uppermost. She longed to say, ‘Look, tell me what’s wrong?’ and knew that that was an impossibility.
He looked up and caught her eyes on him. ‘I’m tired,’ he said, just as though he were answering her unspoken question. ‘Too many late nights. It’s a good thing I’m off lecturing next week.’
‘It’s rather close to Christmas…’
‘Just Brussels, and only for two days. There’ll be a good deal of work for you when I get back.’ He put down his cup and settled back in his chair. ‘I’m going to Norway in the new year—ten days or so of lecturing; I’d like you to come along to share some of the workload, Charity.’
Her heart gave a great jump and rocked her ribs. ‘Me?’ she squeaked. ‘Go with you?’
‘Unless you have any real objection.’ He was looking at her thoughtfully. ‘It’s quite usual, you know.’
She went pink. ‘Oh, it’s not that. It’s such a heavenly surprise and I don’t mind how hard I work. Do you go somewhere each day?’
‘Not quite.’ He was smiling at her enthusiasm. ‘Travelling will take up quite some time at this time of the year. We shall fly a g
ood deal, of course. I’ll let you have the itinerary after Christmas.’
He picked up his pen and opened a folder. ‘And now we had better get on with our work.’
She was at the door when he said, ‘Oh, by the way, if Guy Kemble wants to take you out any time, let me know and we’ll fix an early evening for you.’
There was a lot she could have said to that. ‘That’s very kind of you, sir,’ was all she did say.
‘You’re only young once,’ said the professor. ‘He must be lonely when he is not working.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him about the girl waiting for Guy, that he spent a good deal of his leisure time contentedly writing long letters to her, but it was hardly her business. She murmured something or other and went back to her office, feeling peevish. What she did in her free time was her own business and that didn’t include Guy Kemble. And why was the professor taking an interest anyway?
She sighed as she settled down to work. Of course, if he had taken an interest in her—but that was wishful thinking with a vengeance; she mustn’t allow her feelings to get the upper hand. She went to fetch the first patient’s notes presently, her pretty face ironed into such wooden composure that his quick glance became a stare.
‘You’re feeling all right?’ he wanted to know.
‘Yes, thank you, sir.’ Her voice was as wooden as her stare.
They had an uneasy relationship for the rest of the day. True, the professor’s manner hadn’t altered one jot; he was as pleasant and placid as he always was but he had, as it were, retired to a distance, and the distance was lengthening rapidly. If they went on like this much longer, thought Charity, they would be reduced to a cold civility. Something would have to be done, but she didn’t know what. In the event, she worried unnecessarily; fate, in the shape of a large, gaunt dog, was at her elbow.