by Betty Neels
Her mind was a numb thing for the first ten miles or so. She went steadily down the M1, not thinking at all, but presently the numbness wore off, leaving pain and bewilderment. Christian had said that he was thankful that he would never see her again, and yet he had kissed her like a man who wanted to see her again very much. Her head began to ache with all the might-have-beens, and even while she told herself it was useless to dwell on regrets, they crept back into her mind, popping out to plague her.
She was no distance from London now and there seemed no point in getting to St Anne’s too early in the afternoon. She turned off the motorway at St Albans and had lunch—a waste of money, as it turned out, for she had no appetite, but it had whiled away an hour, and since she still had time to spare she didn’t go back to the motorway, but took a secondary road into London, taking her time now so that it was five o’clock by the time she had put the car away, taken her case up to her room and had a cup of tea, and that finished she tidied herself without much interest and went down to the Office. Miss Smythe would want to see her, she supposed; besides, there was the question of days off. She had had none at all at Inverpolly, and she hadn’t bothered about them, but now there were eight days to come to her. She would go home, she decided as she made her way through the hospital, then come back and get down to work. It looked as though she was going to be a career girl after all.
She found Miss Smythe still on duty and looking as near agitated as such a dignified being could permit. She wasted very little time on returning Eliza’s polite greeting, but exclaimed: ‘How fortunate, Sister Proudfoot, that you should come at this very moment. I have just this minute received an urgent telephone call from Professor Wyllie’s house. He has been taken ill—heart, as you know, and a nasty turn of asthma. He asks that you should go there immediately and look after him until he has recovered.’ She looked at Eliza with a certain smugness. ‘He thinks very highly of you.’
Eliza stared at her, hardly believing her ears. ‘But, Miss Smythe, I’ve only just arrived—I’ve not unpacked…’
Miss Smythe didn’t seem to have heard her. ‘An hour?’ she enquired smoothly. ‘Is that long enough for you to get some things together, Sister? Someone called—er—Hub is coming to fetch you.’
‘But I don’t know where Professor Wyllie lives. Besides, I…’
She was ruthlessly cut short. ‘North Essex, or is it Suffolk, I’m not certain, but what does it matter?’ Miss Smythe dismissed the geographical details with a commanding wave of the hand.
‘I’ve eight days off due to me,’ Eliza stated, feeling as hopeless as a bridge player with no trumps.
Miss Smythe tutted. ‘Men,’ she observed succinctly, ‘so thoughtless—so unable to cope.’
Eliza remembered her unfortunate experience in the gale and the mist; Christian had coped very nicely then, as he had with Cat and the flooded cottage—even the rat-faced man.
‘Well, Sister?’ Miss Smythe’s voice was brisk and brought her back to the present with a rush.
‘Very well,’ Eliza said meekly, ‘though I can’t think why Professor Wyllie should want me there.’
‘You are a good nurse,’ her superior smiled with brief kindness. ‘You have the gift of never allowing your patients to doubt that they will recover. They like that.’
Eliza was ready by six o’clock; she had even had time to go along to Men’s Medical and talk to Mary Price, who managed to give her a potted resumé of the month’s happenings together with news of staff changes, a new houseman, and the added information that she was going steady with the Surgical Registrar. Eliza made appropriate replies, expressed delight at Mary’s matrimonial prospects, gave a brief report of her own life at Inverpolly, and raced back to her room to get her newly packed case.
Hub was waiting for her in the Range Rover, which somehow looked out of place in the heart of London, but she accorded it the briefest of attention. ‘I never expected to see you again, Hub,’ she exclaimed as she climbed in beside him. ‘You must tell me what’s happened.’ She turned to smile at him.
He smiled back at her and manoeuvred the car out of the forecourt into the busy street.
‘Professor Wyllie didn’t feel very well—you noticed, didn’t you, miss? He had a bad turn just after we got to his home. Luckily I had dropped the last of the others off at Cambridge and got back very soon after the two professors. I was sent at once to fetch you—if you would come.’
‘You mean Professor Wyllie sent for me?’
‘He asked for you, miss.’
So Christian had gone; presumably Hub would go back to Holland to wherever he lived as soon as he had delivered her safely.
He drove well, making light of the snarled-up city traffic, and once clear of it, driving fast. Christian drove fast, too, she remembered wistfully, and buried the thought. ‘You know the way,’ she commented after a while.
‘Yes, miss—I’ve been this way several times.’
He had avoided the busy Chelmsford road and had gone through Fyfield and Great Bardfield and turned off there for Sible Hedingham, to turn off once more into a narrow country lane, its low hedges picked out by the Range Rover’s powerful lights. There was nothing to see in the dark, and presently Eliza said: ‘A bit lonely isn’t it?’
‘Yes, miss—there’s the church and some houses round the next bend, Professor Wyllie’s house is just beyond them. Very nice it is too in the summer.’
She wanted to ask him how it was he knew so much about the old professor’s home, but didn’t like to; she wasn’t quite sure who he was to begin with and although he had always answered her questions he had never volunteered any information about himself. ‘You do live in Holland, don’t you?’ she ventured.
‘Oh, yes, miss. Here is the village.’
They swept round a small village green with the dim outlines of the houses surrounding it, and on past the church before turning in through an open white-painted gate, to pull up before the door through whose transom light was streaming.
The door was opened by Miss Trim, looking worried. She said: ‘How do you do, Miss Proudfoot. I hope you’re not too inconvenienced by this,’ because she was the sort of person who would consider it unthinkable not to observe the civilities of everyday life however trying the circumstances. And when Eliza murmured suitably: ‘I’m Miss Trim, Professor Wyllie’s secretary. I live in the village, but it seemed right that I should remain here until you arrived.’ Her eyes focused over Eliza’s shoulder. ‘Hub, would you be so kind as to take me home?’
He put Eliza’s case down in the lobby. ‘Of course, Miss Trim. Shall I just let someone know that Sister Proudfoot is here?’
‘I’ll do that and fetch my coat at the same time.’ She turned to Eliza. ‘If you would come with me? There’s a housekeeper here—she has prepared a room and has a meal ready. She’s a very competent woman.’
They crossed the square hall together and Eliza asked: ‘How is the professor?’
‘Rather poorly, I’m afraid. The doctor came a short time ago and consulted… In here.’
She opened the door at the back of the hall as she spoke and ushered Eliza inside. The room was pleasantly warm, large and well lighted. There was a large, untidy desk at one end of it and Christian was sitting at it. Eliza heard Miss Trim wish them both good night before she went away, closing the door quietly behind her.
Eliza found her breath and said the first thing to enter her whirling head. ‘Oh, hullo—how very awkward, meeting like this again. A—a kind of anticlimax.’
He had got up from his chair. ‘I don’t think I should call it that,’ he answered quietly. He seemed larger than ever, standing there. Perhaps he had grown since she had seen him last, she thought absurdly. She shut her eyes and opened them again because she felt peculiar, and found him beside her. ‘You’re tired and hungry,’ he stated in the kind, detached voice of his profession. ‘Sit down.’ He pushed her gently into a chair and went to a cupboard in the wall and came back with a glass in h
is hand.
‘Professor Wyllie wants to see you, otherwise I’d send you straight to bed. Drink this; it will get you up the stairs at least. Presently you shall have a meal.’
Eliza sipped and her head cleared a little. She got up carefully. ‘I’m quite all right now. Is Professor Wyllie very ill?’
They were walking to the door and she hardly noticed his hand under her elbow. ‘Yes, but he’ll pull through, especially if he has you to look after him.’
They went upstairs and into a large room filled with heavy furniture. The old man was sitting up in bed, propped against a great many pillows, his eyes closed. Eliza had never seen him look like that before, tired to death and not bothering any more, but as she looked at him he opened his eyes and winked at her.
‘Good girl,’ he managed. ‘Knew you’d come. Now I’ll do.’
She went over to the bed and took his hand. ‘Of course you’ll do,’ she told him hearteningly. ‘Now go to sleep, there’s a dear.’
They waited while he dropped off again and then went back downstairs where Christian handed her over to Mrs Moore, the housekeeper, a small, round woman who looked upset and excited as well. ‘You come with me, Sister,’ she breathed in a hushed voice, ‘I’ve a nice hot supper for you.’
Professor van Duyl turned away. ‘I’ll be in the study when you’re ready.’ He spoke carelessly, already crossing the hall, away from her.
Eliza ate her supper, too tired to know what she was eating, listening to Mrs Moore’s hushed voice recounting the dramatic events of the evening, and longing for her bed. But it was more than likely that she would be expected to sit with Professor Wyllie—someone would have to be there; Mrs Moore, though a nice woman, was obviously useless from a nursing point of view and there didn’t seem to be any one else around but Christian and Hub, and he had gone down to the village. Eliza drank the last of the coffee and went back to the study, to receive explicit details of the patient from his colleague and instructions to go to bed at once, so that she might get up at four o’clock the next morning and take over the care of the patient.
‘Yes, but who’s to look after him during the night?’ she wanted to know.
‘I shall. Before you go we will run over the treatment…’
She sat down beside him and went carefully through the notes on the desk; the treatment and the drugs and the possibilities of things going wrong. ‘A pity he can’t tolerate the cortisones,’ remarked the Professor. ‘His heart condition rules that out—neither dare we use atrophine. He’s on aminophyline injections at present— Doctor Trent, the local GP, agrees with me that they will be the most helpful in this case. Diuretics and a low salt diet, of course. I gave him morphine, as you see in the notes, very soon after the attack started. It should carry him through the greater part of the night and by the time you come on duty we can re-assess his condition.’
Eliza got to her feet, swallowed a yawn and in a voice which she strove to make unconcerned, asked: ‘Are you staying until Professor Wyllie is better?’
‘I had intended to return to Holland tonight; I shall stay for another twenty-four hours, longer if there is any need, but I have certain commitments…’ he paused. ‘Doctor Trent is a very good man.’ He got up too and came round the desk. ‘Rest assured, Eliza, that I shan’t go if I’m needed here—Professor Wyllie and I are very old friends.’ He opened the door for her. ‘Mrs Moore will show you your room—have you an alarm clock with you?’
‘Yes, thank you. Good night, sir.’
‘You called me Christian.’ His voice was faintly amused, and because she didn’t know what to answer she said nothing at all, but crossed the hall to where Mrs Moore, very much on the alert, was waiting for her.
Her room was pleasant enough, although rather over furnished with mid-Victorian furniture, but the bed was a splendid one and Mrs Moore had warmed it thoroughly. Eliza undressed rapidly, had a quick bath and curled up in its comfort.
It seemed a bare ten minutes before the alarm went off. She dressed in the dazed, disciplined way night nurses quickly learn, put up her hair into an uncaring bun, left her face without make-up, and crept along the landing to her patient’s room, looking, did she but know it, like a small girl dressed up in a nurse’s uniform. Perhaps the same idea crossed Professor van Duyl’s mind as she went in, for he got out of his chair with the hint of a smile. But there was nothing childlike about her manner. Eliza took his report with grave attention, asked a couple of pertinent questions, made sure that she knew where she could lay hands on the drugs and syringes should she need them urgently, checked the patient’s pulse as he lay sleeping, agreed to waken Christian should she deem it necessary, and prepared to take up her duty.
‘There’s tea in the thermos,’ said the Professor from the door. ‘I’ll be back to relieve you for breakfast.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said at once. ‘I can have some coffee or something when I get Professor Wyllie whatever he wants.’
‘I’m quite sure you can, nevertheless I shall be here to relieve you for breakfast. Good night.’
Her patient wakened two hours later, declaring himself to be quite recovered and promptly began to wheeze. ‘Now, now,’ said Eliza in a motherly voice, ‘that’s enough of that,’ and had him propped up and an injection given before he had a chance to argue, then waited quietly until the wheezing had died down before she began to ready her patient for the day. ‘Like a cup of tea?’ she asked as she charted his TPR.
‘What is the time, girl? Could we not have a cup together?’
‘Of course—I’ll go and get it, and don’t you dare move until I get back.’
He grinned tiredly at her, but he wasn’t looking so exhausted now; provided that he rested for a few days, he would be his own self again; not quite as fit as before, perhaps, but able to resume his usual life. He wasn’t a man to take kindly to invalidism and the fact that he would have to slow down a little because of his heart wouldn’t prevent him doing exactly what he wanted. He was a stubborn man, but Eliza rather liked him for that as well as admiring his courage; not many men of his age and in his condition would have risked going into the wilds of Scotland, miles from a hospital—though he’d had Christian, she conceded as she put on the kettle and assembled a tea tray; if she had been in like case and Christian had been there, however remote the spot, she would have felt quite safe too.
The Professor arrived at exactly half past eight, looking, as he had done once before, wide awake, well fed and immaculate. Eliza wondered how he did it and catching sight of her own reflection in the vast mirror of the dressing table, deplored her own rather hagged appearance. No make-up, she moaned silently, and hair in wisps, but her tired face, even without make-up, was still delightfully pretty, and hair in wisps, when it curled, didn’t matter at all. Christian gave her a long, keen look as he came in and she frowned back at him because it could only mean that he found her just as untidy as she felt, but she forgot that instantly because there was the brief report to give him before she went down to breakfast.
‘And after breakfast,’ he said, seeing her to the door, ‘you will go for a brisk walk, and be good enough to return here at eleven o’clock.’
She opened her mouth to argue this point, but he said swiftly: ‘No, don’t, it’s such a waste of time,’ and flashed her a sudden smile which transformed him from a severe-faced doctor into a delightful man whom she loved desperately.
She not only went for a brisk walk after a substantial breakfast, she had a bath, did her face with great care, her hair as well, and presented herself, as fresh as the proverbial daisy, at exactly eleven o’clock. Her patient was asleep.
‘We’ll leave him,’ counselled the Professor. ‘He needs a good rest. See that he has a light meal when he wakes and keep him as quiet as possible—he’s pulled round nicely. Given a week of taking things easy he should be almost as good as new.’
‘No need to keep him in bed?’
He shook his head. ‘Not after the ne
xt day or so, but you will have to be firm with him, he can be stubborn. I don’t imagine that he will have another attack, but use the oxygen if you need to and I’ve written up his drugs. Get him out of bed for half an hour if he feels like it.’ He strolled away. ‘I’ll be around if you want me and Doctor Trent will be calling this afternoon.’
Time crawled by. Professor Wyllie slept, opened his eyes to take stock of her, smiled, and slept again. Just after two o’clock he wakened properly, demanded to get out of bed, eat his lunch and put through a few telephone calls.
Eliza dealt with him firmly. ‘Lunch first,’ she told him, ‘then you may get up for half an hour exactly. The telephoning can wait until Doctor Trent has seen you.’
‘Monster!’ declared her patient. ‘No one would think, looking at you…’
‘It’s a great asset and the secret of my success,’ she told him lightly, and went downstairs to get his lunch tray.
Mrs Moore was in the kitchen and a tray was ready on the table with soup heating on the stove and an egg custard ready on its dish. She made haste to pour coffee for Eliza the moment she opened the kitchen door with a sympathetic: ‘You poor thing, you’ve not had a bite to eat.’
‘That’s OK, but the coffee’s lovely,’ said Eliza gratefully. ‘Oh, you’ve got Cat here.’
‘That’s right, Hub brought them here while he packs up, he and Professor van Duyl are going this afternoon. He thought the little creatures would be better here under my eye, no chance of getting scared or trying to run away.’
Eliza took the tray upstairs, her thoughts busy. Christian had mentioned that he might be leaving today, but she hadn’t really believed him because she hadn’t wanted to, but now it seemed likely that she wouldn’t see him again; there was no sign of him around the house; he had forgotten about her lunch—perhaps he had already gone. And Hub? He hadn’t gone yet. Were they travelling together? she wondered. She wasn’t sure about Hub; she supposed he was someone the professor knew well. Perhaps he worked in a hospital, so they would probably join forces for the journey? By plane? By boat? She had no idea, and no time to indulge in speculation.