by Betty Neels
CHAPTER SIX
IT WAS A disappointment to Charity to find that when she returned to work after Christmas the professor had reverted to his calm aloofness. What was worse, he made no mention of the forthcoming trip to Norway, a mere fortnight away, in anticipation of which she had laid out more than she could afford on what she hoped was a suitable wardrobe for a cold climate. The cheque her father had given her for Christmas had swelled her purse sufficiently for her to buy a sheepskin jacket and now she was hard at work knitting a cap and scarf and gloves to go with it.
A fine thing if I’m not to go after all, she observed silently as she filed patients’ notes. The professor, passing through her office on his way home and, as usual, leaving more work on her desk, wished her goodnight with aggravating placidity.
She wished him a rather snappy good morning when he arrived the following day and regretted it instantly when he said, ‘Don’t make any appointments after next week, Charity, and you’d better leave two weeks clear before booking anyone. We are flying to Oslo on the fourteenth—an evening plane, so be prepared to work that day. We’ll go straight on from here.’
She would have to bring her case with her in the morning and be dressed for travel. Hardly what she would have chosen to do but she said meekly enough, ‘Very well, sir,’ and picked up her notebook and pencil and the small pile of notes, ready to start work.
He sat down at his desk and glanced through them. ‘Excited?’ he asked without looking up.
‘Well, naturally I’m looking forward to seeing something of Norway.’ She sounded prim and wished that she could be interesting and witty about it as Patty would have been.
‘You’ll see precious little but your typewriter for the first few days,’ he pointed out. ‘I hope you have got some warm clothes…’
‘Yes, I have. Shall I need Norwegian money with me?’
He said carelessly, ‘Oh, I’ll see to all that. Just pack a bag and bring plenty of notebooks with you. They’ll have a typewriter for you at whichever hospital we’re at.’
She longed to ask exactly where they were going; not, she guessed, all the time in Oslo, but he opened the first patient’s file and she took the hint.
She was kept hard at it for the next few days. The professor was seeing more patients than usual and there would be a formidable list to work off when he returned. And over and above that, Miss Hudson and her new assistant were still at odds so that Charity had a good deal of extra work to do. She didn’t complain. Not that it would have been of any use if she had; the professor, a man of patient good humour, viewed the inconvenience to himself with tolerance and simply passed on the work that Miss Hudson didn’t finish to Charity. He did it so nicely that she didn’t mind and on two occasions when she had had to stay late, he had driven her home. She had offered him coffee on both occasions in a diffident voice and he had refused with what sounded like real regret. But that could have been wishful thinking.
She spent a good deal of her free time during the week before they were to leave in selecting her clothes and packing them. One case, he had said, and she had no reason to believe that he hadn’t meant just that. She would travel in a silk blouse and the new tweed skirt she had bought and wear a sweater under the sheepskin jacket. No hat, she decided, although the wool cap and scarf and gloves would be packed. A dark brown velvet skirt and a couple of satin blouses in jewel colours, slacks, another sweater and a second pleated skirt, plain court shoes, undies, dressing-gown and slippers were as much as she could fit in. More than enough, she decided; she didn’t expect to have a social life and she had no idea what arrangements had been made for her. Perhaps other secretaries would be lodged together in some hotel handy for the hospital, wherever they were. It was a waste of time speculating; the professor hadn’t made it very clear as to his own commitments. It didn’t matter, she would see him each day.
Seen on her way by a vaguely loving parent and a fluttering aunt, she picked up her case, thankful that it was a clear day, even if cold, and went down the garden path on her way to the bus. Earlier than usual because of the case. But not so early that the professor wasn’t waiting for her on the pavement outside, walking up and down with his hands in his pockets.
His good morning was placid and if he saw the surprise on her face he didn’t comment upon it, but took her case and stowed it on the back seat and begged her to get in.
She hesitated as he opened the car door. ‘I was going by bus,’ she began inanely.
‘I happened to be passing,’ he told her smoothly and gave her an approving look. ‘Sensibly dressed, I’m glad to see.’
She had been rather pleased with the sheepskin jacket and especially the long leather boots; probably in his eyes they were just what he had said they were, sensible; not at all the kind of thing the horrible Brenda would wear. If she ever went to Norway, thought Charity peevishly, she would take care to be swathed in fur from head to toe and wear boots made of the finest soft leather with spiky heels. But she wouldn’t go anyway; she would wait in the professor’s charming house and welcome him in something satin…
‘I wonder what you are thinking?’ observed the professor, glancing at her cross profile. ‘Not regretting the trip, I hope?’
She hurried to reassure him. ‘My goodness, no, I’m looking forward to it.’
‘Good. Don’t forget that we’ve a heavy day’s work ahead of us before we leave.’
As though she needed reminding; twice as many patients as usual and he had a hospital round as well. She would miss lunch, she decided silently; Mrs Kemp could bring in a sandwich for her and she could make tea or coffee while he was at the hospital.
Beyond mentioning that Bones was turning into a normal, well-fed dog again, the professor had nothing more to say. Once at his consulting rooms he became immersed in his work, and she in hers.
She was tired by the time it was ready to tidy everything away. She rang her aunt, knowing that that lady would be on tenterhooks, made a cup of coffee and sat waiting for the professor to come back from the hospital. It was five o’clock and their flight left at half past six; she wasn’t sure how long it would take to get to Heathrow but she had no doubt that the professor would get there in time. When he came without haste she offered him coffee, which he refused, and when he observed that it was time they left, put on her jacket and professed herself ready to go.
They made good time to the airport; outwardly calm but inwardly all agog, Charity watched him hand over the car to a waiting man, and then accompanied him silently as they went through the business of dealing with luggage, tickets and customs. Their flight had already been called; they went on board, settled themselves into the almost empty first-class compartment, fastened their seatbelts and sat back, Charity in some trepidation, waiting for take off.
It was ridiculous to have to admit it, but she hadn’t flown before and since the professor hadn’t asked her, she hadn’t told him. Now she sat, her hands clasped tightly, starting in front of her, listening to the roar of the engines and not liking it very much.
‘First time?’ enquired the professor gently. ‘Noisy, but only for a minute or two. Once we are airborne we shall be kept busy with dinner and drinks and one thing and another.’
He was reassuringly matter-of-fact about it and quite right. Presently they were served dinner and a glass of wine and coffee and once the trays had been cleared away he gave her a map of Oslo to study.
‘We land at Fornebu, it’s about six miles from Oslo. There’ll be a car to take us to the hotel.’ And at her enquiring look, ‘The Holmenkollen Park Hotel; it’s a little way out of the city. There’s an electric train service but I’ll have a car. Everyone speaks English so don’t worry about making yourself understood.’
After that he buried his handsome nose in a sheaf of papers, leaving her to sit and think. Most of her thoughts were happy ones; ten days, perhaps two weeks, in his company, even though she would see nothing of him outside working hours. Just sitting beside him now
was happiness, a quiet content at having him near. She allowed herself a little daydreaming and then took herself firmly to task and spent the rest of the flight studying the map of Oslo. She might love him to distraction but she was his secretary, someone to make out timetables and tell him where he was expected and how he could get there. She bent her head over the map, committing a good deal of it to heart, unaware that her companion, with a Norwegian mother, was not in the least in need of her painstaking help.
Cautioned to fasten seatbelts, she ventured to look out of the window. There were lights below, rushing up to meet her at a great rate, and she looked away again. But now she was prepared; take-off had been an experience, landing couldn’t be all that different. It was, in fact, somewhat better, perhaps because the professor took one of her hands in his and held it reassuringly until they were on the ground.
There was a car waiting for them, a Volvo. Charity was ushered into it, thankful to get out of the cold night; thankful, too, for the sheepskin jacket.
It had been snowing, although the road was clear. The short drive to the hotel gave her little chance to look around her, but all the same the wooden villas and small houses standing among the birch trees on each side of the road delighted her. The city was below them, its lights twinkling, just as the stars above twinkled from the now clear sky. She was still gaping wordlessly when the professor turned the car into a short drive and stopped before the hotel.
It was a white building, lights streaming from its many windows, standing a little apart from the houses hugging the hillside around it. Charity got out and followed the professor inside, to be enveloped in a comfortable warmth and quiet luxury. They were expected, indeed the clerk behind the desk welcomed the professor as though he already knew him and, after giving her a civil good evening, addressed him in his own language. The professor, to her surprise, answered him in Norwegian and as they crossed the foyer to the lifts she asked diffidently, ‘Do you speak Norwegian? Isn’t it rather difficult?’
He smiled a little. ‘My mother is Norwegian, so for me it is easy.’
She stood beside him in the lift, reflecting that she knew nothing about him at all.
Their rooms were on the first floor but at opposite ends of the wide corridor. The bell boy opened her door and put her case down, and the professor said, ‘I’ll be along in ten minutes. We’ll have a sandwich and a drink before we turn in, shall we? We’ve an early start in the morning—breakfast at half-past seven and I’ll want you to accompany me to the Riks-hospitalet. You’ll need your notebook. You’ll lunch there and come back here to do the typing—there will be a typewriter in your room. I’ll show you the electric train terminal, it brings you within a short distance of the hotel. I’ll have to stay on until the evening but I’ll be back here for dinner.’
He nodded casually and went off with the bell boy, and she closed the door and went to sit down on the bed. The room was nice; large enough and most comfortably furnished, the window overlooking the lights of the city below, but just for the moment, suddenly apprehensive, she hardly noticed any of these things. Supposing she couldn’t keep up with the shorthand or the typing? Supposing she couldn’t find her way to this electric train he had mentioned? Supposing she got into a situation where no one could understand her? She was still sitting there when there was a knock on the door and the professor came in.
‘Ah, just as I thought,’ he observed calmly, ‘worrying your head into a tangle and making no attempt to do your face or to unpack.’ He crossed the room and sat down in a comfortable chair by the window. ‘Go and tidy yourself—the bathroom is that door in the corner—while I phone your aunt.’
He had picked up the phone on a sidetable and was already talking into it as she obediently did as he had told her. The bathroom was a splendid place, equipped with everything she could possibly need. She did her face and tidied her hair and went back into the room to find him still at his ease, talking to her father.
He held the phone out to her. ‘Your aunt is waiting to speak to you.’ He twinkled nicely at her. ‘She wants to make sure that you are safe and sound.’
Aunt Emily twittered for several minutes until Charity’s father took over, bade her good night and hung up. ‘It was rather a long call—my aunt…’ said Charity, ‘she’s—well, she’s…’
‘Aunts always are,’ he pointed out placidly. ‘Shall we have that sandwich?’
The food was delicious; open sandwiches and coffee, served in the grill room of the hotel. Charity, unexpectedly famished, ate every morsel, delicately drank two cups of coffee and, advised to go to bed by her companion, did so. She was asleep before her head had settled into the pillows.
Reviewing her day, twenty-four hours later, she was amazed at the amount of work she had crammed into a single day. She hadn’t expected the lecture hall to be quite so full nor the professor’s lecture to be so lengthy. Not only that, there had been a long session of questions and answers which had taxed her shorthand to its limits. Worse, after a short break for coffee, she had found herself taking more notes, this time while the professor conducted a teaching round.
She had lunched with three other girls, none of them English but all speaking it with enviable fluency, and then she had gone back for the afternoon session, to find the professor, having got his second wind, in splendid form.
She had spent a busy two hours until the session was over, and he, whom she had hardly seen all day, advised her briefly to get back to the hotel with the day’s notes. One of the girls had shown her the way and she had gone straight to her room and started typing. She was still at it when the professor returned, knocked on her door and suggested that they might have dinner in half an hour and would she meet him in the bar downstairs. So she had left her typewriter, showered, and changed into the velvet skirt and one of the blouses, and gone to meet him.
He had offered her a drink and spent the whole of dinner discussing the day’s happenings, asked her kindly if she had finished her typing and reminded her that it would be another busy day on the morrow. A remark which she took as a hint to get back to her typewriter.
She had finished at last and tumbled into bed and, now decidedly sleepy, thought that two weeks spent in a similar way would be just about as much as she could cope with. And hardly a chance to see Jake, let alone speak to him, she thought with regret as she closed her eyes.
But matters improved. After the first two or three days, some sort of pattern emerged; the afternoons, for an hour after lunch, were free and Charity found herself whisked away on a sight-seeing tour.
She had been urged into the car and driven to the ski jump, which she viewed with awe before enjoying the view of the city spread out below them, and the great spread of islands dotted in the fjord as far as the eye could see. It was a cold bright day, the snow crisp under their feet, and very still.
‘Like it?’ the professor wanted to know.
‘Oh, it’s super, and it doesn’t seem foreign—I could live here…’
She turned to look at him, and surprised a look on his face which she couldn’t read, only it disquieted her so that she added hastily, ‘Of course, it’s like home to you.’
‘Indeed yes. Although my home, or rather, my mother’s home, is some way away from here. Near a small town called Flam on the Sognefjord. We’re driving up there next weekend.’
And at her doubtful look, ‘You and I, Charity.’
She turned away to look at the incredible view. ‘That’s very kind of you to ask me, professor, but I’ll be quite all right here. I can look at the shops and there are some lovely walks around Holmenkollen.’
He said impatiently, ‘Time enough for you to do that; you need a break and so do I. Can you ski?’
‘Me, ski? Heavens no, I haven’t the faintest idea how to go on…’
‘We’ll teach you.’ His glance raked her. ‘You’re a well-built girl and not timid, you’ll soon pick it up.’
She wasn’t sure that she liked being well-built. She s
aid coldly, ‘It hardly seems worthwhile.’
‘Don’t be a silly girl! You’ll love it.’ He turned away. ‘Now, back to work.’
The following afternoon he took her to Vigeland Park where she viewed the sculptured figures with awe, led rather briskly from one to the other by her companion, although she refused to be hurried when they reached the Monolith, a fifty-foot-high block of stone carved into over a hundred figures. And when she had done studying this, she wandered round the groups of figures about it, depicting life from the cradle to the grave. Standing by the final group, an old man and woman, holding each other close, she said soberly. ‘That’s how it should be; loving each other however old and wrinkled and weak,’ and then quickly, in case he should consider her a prig, ‘They are quite wonderful, thank you for bringing me.’
The professor wasn’t free the following afternoon; he had a working lunch and, since she was well ahead with her work, she took a tram and went back to the Vigeland Park, where she wandered round in the snow at her leisure, staring wide-eyed at the statues, wishing that Jake was with her.
It was a cold day, the sky heavy with threatening snow, and presently she found her way to the tram again. There was some work waiting for her; she collected it and, since there was no message from the professor, took it back to the hotel and typed until their usual hour for dinner. There was still no sign of him, so she waited for a while and then went to the dining room where the waiter ushered her to a table, explaining that the professor had just phoned to say that he would be dining out.
She was a little shy of staying in the lounge after her meal, so she went back to her room and washed her hair and did her nails and wrote a long letter home.
They breakfasted together in the morning and since the professor made no mention of the evening, she held her tongue. It wasn’t her business, she reminded herself; he must have family and friends since he was half Norwegian and he was free to do as he liked when he wasn’t lecturing or in the conference hall. Looking back over the last few days she had to admit that he had had very little time to himself. And he had even less that day; so did she. She took shorthand notes until her hand was cramped and stiff, paused briefly for a sandwich and coffee and went doggedly on, spurred on by the splendid reception the professor’s lengthy lectures were getting. She went back with him at the end of the afternoon, longing for tea and a bath, thankful that it was Saturday in the morning; at least she would be able to catch up with her typing. When he said casually, ‘We are leaving for Flam early tomorrow morning. Shall we breakfast at eight o’clock and get away directly afterwards?’ She let out a surprised breath.