by Neels, Betty
Katherine left just before eight o’clock in the morning; it was one of her long days of duty, and she saw no one as she left the house. Mrs Potts, she suspected, was still in bed, nursing her cold.
The ward was busy, for it was take-in week again. Katherine trotted to and fro about her mundane tasks, thinking about Jason, wondering if he had enjoyed his evening with Dodie, and whether she had coaxed him at last into asking her to marry him. Katherine was very afraid that she might. He was far too good for her and inclined to laugh tolerantly at her tantrums. Perhaps they had known each other for such a long time that he no longer noticed them. But would Dodie make him happy? Tantrums in a pretty girl one took out to dinner and allowed the freedom of your home might not be so amusing in a wife. She frowned so heavily at the thought that the patient whose water jug she was filling asked her if she felt ill.
She was a little late going off duty, and the house, when she reached it, seemed very quiet. No one home, she decided, and stood in the hall, reading a hand-delivered letter from Edward on the eve of going back to London and, according to him, reluctant to go. He bade her a regretful goodbye, with the promise that he would be down to see her again as soon as he could get a weekend. ‘Jason always puts me up,’ he had told her. ‘My people live in Cumbria, too far for a few days’ leave.’ She would miss him once he had gone back up to London, and it was nice of him to write. He missed her already, he wrote, and went on at some length to describe the nurse who had taken his fancy. Katherine laughed as she went upstairs, eager to get to her room and make a pot of tea.
She was on the first landing when she heard a noise which made her pause. A small wheezing sound, and then a dry, difficult cough. It was coming from Mrs Potts’ room. Katherine was aware that her landlady didn’t encourage any intrusion into her private life; she looked after her lodgers very well, presided over her table in a friendly fashion, but no one, according to Miss Kendall, had ever been invited to have a chat in her room. Miss Kendall was still away, but surely Mrs Dunster or Miss Fish had noticed that their landlady wasn’t in the kitchen or sitting-room downstairs? There was no point in hesitating. Katherine knocked and went in.
It was dark already, but the curtains hadn’t been drawn and there was no light. She advanced a few steps into the room and said softly, ‘Mrs Potts? I’m sorry to intrude. I heard you coughing and I wondered if you were ill? Perhaps there is something I can do? A hot drink?’
Mrs Potts’ voice—a croak, unlike her usual, brisk tones—came from the bed. ‘The lamp on the table— by my bed.’
Katherine went cautiously forward to where the darker outline of a bed was visible. She found the lamp, switched it on and looked at Mrs Potts, lying there with a flushed face, wheezing and coughing her little dry cough.
‘I feel ill,’ she whispered unnecessarily.
Katherine felt for her pulse and put a hand on her hot forehead. ‘Has anyone been in to see you? Have you had a drink?’
‘No, love. Mrs Dunster and Miss Fish went downstairs a while ago, but I don’t think they heard me call. They came back up to their rooms.’
‘Look, if you don’t mind, I’ll get your doctor—I think you may have ‘flu. But first I’ll shake up your pillows and get you a drink.’
She sat Mrs Potts up and found another pillow, wiped her face with a wet cloth and combed back her hair, and then hurried down to the kitchen.
While the kettle boiled, she found a bottle of orange squash and made a jugful, then made tea and carried the tray upstairs. ‘Drink this first,’ she advised, proffering the cold drink. ‘I’m going to telephone the doctor and then I’ll come back and pour your tea. I’ll leave the door open.’
Half-way to the door she paused. ‘Who is your doctor, Mrs Potts?’
‘Why, Dr Fitzroy, my dear.’
She had to look up his number, and it was Coker who answered. She explained in her quiet voice, and added, ‘I think Mrs Potts is quite ill.’
‘I’ll fetch the doctor, miss,’ said Coker, and a moment later Jason’s voice, unhurried and calm, sounded in her ear.
He listened while she gave him the few details she had. ‘I’ll be round in about five minutes.’ He rang off and she went back upstairs, meeting Miss Fish on the way.
‘Why is no one in the kitchen getting our supper?’ She gave Katherine an accusing stare.
‘Mrs Potts isn’t well—she’s in bed. She’s been there all day. Didn’t you notice she wasn’t around the house, Miss Fish?’
‘It isn’t my business to wonder about my landlady’s absence.’
‘Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to get your own suppers this evening.’
Katherine turned and ran downstairs again as the doorbell rang.
Dr Fitzroy came in, dwarfing his surroundings, exuding confidence and a soothing calm. ‘In her room?’ he asked and went upstairs, wishing Miss Fish a civil good evening as he passed her.
He took off his car coat and gave it to Katherine, and walked over to the bed. Mrs Potts peered up at him, coughed and said in a wheezy voice, ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Doctor—it’s only a cold, but I do feel poorly.’
He sat down beside the bed, took her pulse and asked a few questions in his calm way. And then he said, ‘If Katherine will help you, I should like to examine your chest, Mrs Potts.’
He got up and walked to the window when he had finished, and stood looking out into the street below until Katherine had Mrs Potts tidily arranged against her pillows once more. ‘I should like you to come into hospital for a few days, Mrs Potts. You have ‘flu and a touch of pneumonia. We can have you back on your feet again in no time at all with antibiotics, but you will have to stay in bed and be nursed, so that’s the best place for you.’
‘Who is to look after the house and my lodgers?’ whispered Mrs Potts. ‘I can’t leave them...’
‘I shall ask Mrs Spooner to come and stay—we can manage without her for a few days. Now, Katherine will wrap you up warm, and I’ll take you back with me and then fetch Mrs Spooner...’
‘They’ll be wanting their supper...’
‘I’ll see to that, Mrs Potts,’ said Katherine, her head in the wardrobe, looking for woollies and a dressing-gown, ‘and I’m not on duty until noon tomorrow, so I can cast an eye over the house in the morning.’
It took time and patience to get Mrs Potts swathed in a variety of woollies and blankets; the doctor carried her downstairs and Katherine went ahead to open the door and then the car door. ‘Can you manage?’ she wanted to know. ‘Shall I telephone the hospital and let them know you’re coming?’
He had the car phone in his hand. ‘I’ll do that now. Get inside before you catch your death of cold. I’ll bring Mrs Spooner along as soon as I can.’
‘No need to hurry. I’ll get supper and make up Mrs Potts’ bed ready for her.’ She poked her head into the back of the car. ‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow. Be good, Mrs Potts, and don’t worry about a thing—just get well.’
‘Miss Fish, Mrs Dun—’ began Mrs Potts.
‘I’ll keep an eye on them.’ She bent and kissed Mrs Potts’ hot forehead, because she looked so ill and forlorn, and then closed the door and found the doctor right behind her. He said impatiently, ‘I said, go indoors.’
She went without a backward glance, feeling put out. He could have said thank you, instead he had sounded annoyed. Perhaps he had planned to spend the evening with Dodie.
She went straight to the kitchen and opened a can of soup, inspected the fridge and decided on omelettes and tinned peas, and the remains of a treacle tart. While she was laying the table, her fellow lodgers joined her.
‘Supper is late,’ complained Mrs Dunster, and sat down at the table, presumably expecting it to be set before her.
Katherine explained, and was met by a disapproving sniff. ‘How very inconvenient,’ observed Mrs Dunster. When Miss Fish joined her, she relayed the news with a few embellishments of her own. The two ladies grumbled genteelly together while Katherine got t
heir supper and, having eaten it, rose from the table and went up to their rooms, leaving the remains of their meal for her to clear away. But first she would have to get a room ready for Mrs Spooner. Finding clean bedlinen took a few minutes, but she had become quite expert at making up beds since she had been at the hospital. She had the room to rights in no time at all, and sped to her room to hang up her things. It was icy-cold there, and she was tempted to light the gas fire, but there was still the best part of an hour’s work in the kitchen. She nipped downstairs once more and contemplated the mess there.
The front door bell went just as she had tied herself into one of Mrs Potts’ aprons; it was Mrs Spooner, with the doctor looming behind her.
Katherine bade them come in, and Mrs Spooner gave her a worried smile. ‘Poor Emily,’ she said, ‘alone all day. Well, as good as alone, with those two old women not even noticing that she wasn’t there.’
She sniffed, and Katherine made haste to say, ‘Well, I think they spend a lot of time in their rooms, but it must have been most unpleasant for Mrs Potts.’
They had all gone into the kitchen, and Mrs Spooner eyed the mess in a severe way, so that Katherine felt constrained to tell her that she had been on the point of washing up and tidying everything away. ‘But we’ve had supper,’ she added quickly. ‘Not quite what Mrs Potts would have given us...’
‘Bless you, miss, and you with a day’s work behind you. I’ll have Emily’s room, shall I? I’ll just make up the bed.’
‘I’ve done that—that’s why the kitchen’s untidy.’ Katherine sounded apologetic, and the doctor, standing silently, allowed a small sound to escape his lips.
‘Perhaps if you’d like to go upstairs with Mrs Spooner, I might make a start on this?’
Both ladies looked at him with horror. Mrs Spooner’s outraged ‘sir’ was a fraction ahead of Katherine’s, ‘You can’t wash up, you don’t know how!’
He was taking off his coat. ‘I never could resist a challenge,’ he told her blandly. ‘Off you go and count the sheets or whatever you need to do, and we’ll have a pot of tea when you come down.’
In Mrs Potts’ bedroom, her sister sat down on the basket-work chair by the window, and Katherine perched on the bed. Mrs Spooner had everything nicely planned; for the greater part of the day she would be there, and when Katherine got back from work perhaps she wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on things while she went back to the doctor’s house and made sure that Coker and the girls were managing. Her tone implied that they would make a mess of things without her. ‘And then I could pop in and see Emily on the way back.’
Katherine explained her off-duty hours. ‘And of course I’ll do all I can to help. I hope it won’t be for too long. It must be awkward for you.’
‘She’d do the same for me,’ observed Mrs Spooner, ‘and I must say you are very kind, miss. We’d better go down and see how the doctor’s getting on.’
He was getting on very nicely; in his shirtsleeves now, with a pipe in his mouth. Miss Fish and Mrs Dunster would smell smoke in the morning and complain, but that didn’t matter.
Mrs Spooner took the tea towel from him and said firmly, ‘Now, sir, sit down, do. We’ve got everything nicely fixed up, and you must be wanting to go home...’
‘Not before a cup of tea.’
They drank it sitting round the kitchen table, and presently he got up and put on his jacket and coat, then went to the door. ‘Come and lock up behind me, Katherine.’ His voice was mild enough, but she found herself following him into the hall.
They stood together, of necessity rather squashed in the narrow space. ‘Not quite the evening I had planned, but most satisfactory.’ He opened the door with one hand, and caught her close with his other arm and kissed her hard. ‘Thank you, Katie. Our paths cross so often, they are bound to converge one day.’
Chapter 8
Katherine floated back into the kitchen on a cloud of enchanted rapture, to come back to earth with a terrific thump when Mrs Spooner observed, ‘He’ll be late for their evening out, and Miss Dodie does hate to be kept waiting—she’ll have gone off in a huff, more like.’ Mrs Spooner’s sniff expressed her opinion better than any words. ‘Never one to shirk his duty is the doctor—loves his work and hasn’t much time for parties and so on—of course, he’s a lot older than Miss Dodie—I dare say she’ll settle down once she’s married.’ She glanced at Katherine. ‘You look tired, miss—you go off to bed or you won’t be fit for work tomorrow. On in the afternoon, the doctor said.’
‘Yes, that’s right, Mrs Spooner. Would you like to go and see Mrs Potts before lunch? I don’t leave here until just before noon. I could do any shopping you want when I go out in the morning—you’d have time to go to the doctor’s house, too.’
‘Well, that’s a nice idea:—you wouldn’t mind?’
‘Not a bit, only I do have to go before lunch, but I expect you’ve got a key? If you would make a list of shopping, I’ll leave it on the table here.’
‘That would suit me. And since you’re being so kind you’ll take your breakfast here—that way you’ll get a bit of a lie-in.’
‘Oh, but won’t that be extra work for you?’
‘Bless you, no, miss. You come down around eight o’clock and I’ll have it ready for you.’ She nodded in a satisfied way. ‘It’s a good thing that the doctor and Mr Edward are going up to London tomorrow evening—they’ll go to the doctor’s flat. He won’t be back for a day or two. All the same, I’d like to pop in each day...’
‘Yes, of course. You’ll let me know if there is anything I can do to help?’
She wished Mrs Spooner goodnight, and went to her room to make a pot of tea and allow common sense to take over from the romantic dreams of her heart. The doctor had meant nothing by his kiss, and his remark about their paths made no sense at all. She got into bed and lay thinking about it and presently went to sleep—for, however deeply in love she might be, she was dog-tired.
A week went busily by; the ward was still full, and winter colds and ‘flu were taking their toll of staff. Besides, there was Mrs Spooner to give a helping hand to, and Mrs Potts to visit each day—something Katherine looked forward to in the hope that she would see Jason. He was away for two days but he still did his usual mid-week round because Andy, who knew everyone and got all the news, had told her so. But Katherine never managed to be on the ward when he was there, nor did she see him around the hospital, despite the fact that she took long and devious ways in which to come and go. On her days off, too, she was unlucky, and on the last day of the week Mrs Potts was to return home.
Mrs Spooner and Katherine, making up the bed ready for her and putting flowers in a vase, discussed the next week or two’s plans. Mrs Spooner was to return to the doctor’s house that evening and one of the young women who came each day to help in his house would come to Mrs Potts instead. And, as soon as she was well enough, she was to have a short holiday. The doctor has a cottage at Bucklers Hard, a nice, quiet place at this time of year, and as cosy a little house as you could wish for. Just the thing for a few days’ rest,’ explained Mrs Spooner.
Katherine agreed, wishing for an impossible miracle which would make it possible for her to go there too, as Mrs Potts’ companion. On the other hand, it would mean that she would have no chance of seeing the doctor at all, whereas now, each day brought the possibility of seeing him.
She was on duty when Mrs Potts returned, to be told on her return that Dr Fitzroy had driven her back himself with one of his daily maids; he had stayed and had a cup of tea, Shirley Kendall told her when she got back from the hospital, and then gone up to Mrs Potts’ room to make sure that she was all right.
‘I could go for him in a big way,’ declared Shirley. ‘Ever so polite, he is; makes you feel you’re important, if you know what I mean.’ She gave Katherine an envious glance. ‘I expect you see a lot of him at the hospital.’
‘Almost never. I’m on the surgical side and Dr Fitzroy’s a consultant on the medical
wards. Consultants don’t hobnob with nursing auxiliaries.’
‘Bit of a snob, is he?’
‘Heavens, no! We just don’t meet. Did you have a nice holiday?’
‘You bet—there was this man...’ Shirley embarked on a long and involved account of someone’s cousin who had turned up unexpectedly. ‘He’s coming to take me out next weekend...he’s got a Ford Escort...’
Katherine was to have days off on the following weekend. She had put in a good deal of overtime since Christmas, filling gaps where the staff had been ill and, very much to her surprise, Sister had told her that she might have what amounted to a long weekend: Friday from one o’clock until Monday noon.
Katherine spent the week trying to decide what to do with this unexpected treat; she had a little money by now, and she might employ Saturday browsing round the sales, for her wardrobe was still woefully scanty. She might have a meal out and perhaps go to the theatre. It was a pity that Shirley had a date with the man she had met at Christmas, and that Andy would be on duty over the weekend. She would certainly go to the library and get something to read, and there was the cathedral on Sunday—she occupied herself in filling her days; weekends didn’t often come her way.
It was on Friday morning that she received a summons to go to Sister’s office; she had been making beds with one of the student nurses, now she muttered an apology and hurried down the ward—one didn’t keep Sister waiting—wondering what she had done wrong. Or perhaps her weekend off had been quashed...
Sister was looking severe, sitting with a poker-straight back behind her desk, and lounging against the radiator was Dr Fitzroy.
He stood up as Katherine went in, and Sister said, ‘Katherine, Dr Fitzroy has a favour to ask of you.’
Miracles weren’t always impossible, she thought bemusedly, listening to him suggesting in a cool, impersonal manner that he would be vastly obliged if she would accompany Mrs Potts down to Bucklers Hard. ‘Just to see her safely in. Someone will go down on Monday morning to stay with her, but it would oblige me if you could see your way to staying until then. I understand that it is your weekend off, but perhaps you have other plans?’