by Betty Neels
She went off duty in a blur of tiredness, ate her breakfast without knowing what she was eating, and took herself off to her flatlet, and even Miss Phipps refrained from gossiping, but allowed her to mount the stairs in peace. Once there, it took no time at all to see to Mabel, have her bath and fall into bed.
That night set the pattern for her week. Usually there was a comparatively quiet night from time to time, but each night seemed busier than the last, and at the weekend, always worse than the weekdays, there was no respite, and even with the addition of a young male nurse to take over when one of the student nurses had nights off it was still back-breaking work. On Monday night, after a long session with a cardiac failure, Tim Bailey observed tiredly, `I don't know how you stick it, Sophie, night after night...'
`I do sometimes wonder myself. But I've nights off-only two, though, because Ida isn't well again.'
'You'll go home?'
She nodded tiredly. `It will be heaven, sleep and eat and then sleep and eat. What about you?"'Two more nights, a couple of days off and back to day duty.' He put down his mug. `And there's the ambulance again...'
Sophie ate her breakfast in a dream, but a happy one; she would go home just as soon as she could throw a few things into a bag and get Mabel into her basket. Lunch-eaten in the warmth of the kitchen-and then bed until suppertime and then bed again. She went out to the entrance in a happy daze, straight into the professor's waistcoat.
`You're still here?' she asked him owlishly. `I thought you'd gone.'
`No, no.' He urged her into the Bentley. `I'll drive you home, but first to your room.'
She was too tired to argue; ten minutes later she was in her flatlet, bundling things into her overnight bag, showering and dressing, not bothering with her face or hair, and then hurrying downn to the door again in case he had changed his mind and gone. Her beautiful, anxious face, bereft of make-up, had never looked lovelier. The professor schooled his handsome features into placid friendliness, stowed her into the car, settled Mabel on the back seat, and drove away, not forgetting to wave in a civil manner to Miss Phipps.
Sophie tossed her mane of hair, tied with a bit of ribbon, over her shoulder. `You're very kind,' she muttered. `I hope I'm not taking you out of your way.' She closed her eyes and slept peacefully for half an hour and woke refreshed to find that they were well on the way to her home.
She said belatedly, `I told Mother I'd be home about one o'clock.'
`I phoned. Don't fuss, Sophie.'
`Fuss? Fuss? I'm not-anyway, you come along and change all my plans without so much as a by your leave... I'm sorry, I'm truly sorry, I didn't mean a word of that; I'm tired and so I say silly things. I'm so grateful.'
When he didn't answer she said, `Really I am-don't be annoyed...'
`When you know me better, Sophie, you will know that I seldom get annoyed-angry, impatient... certainly, but I think never any of these with you.' He gave her a brief smile. `Why have you only two nights off after such a gruelling eight nights?'
`The other night sister-Ida Symonds-is ill again.'
`There is no one to take her place?"
'Not for the moment. The junior night sister on the surgical wards is taking over while I'm away.'
They were almost there when he said casually, 'I'm going back to Holland tomorrow.'
`Not for good?'
Her voice was sharp, and he asked lightly, `Will you miss me? I hope so.'
She stared out at the wintry countryside. `Yes.'
`We haven't had that lunch yet, have we? Perhaps we can arrange that when I come again.'
`Will you be back soon?"
'Oh, yes. I have to go to Birmingham and then Leeds and then on to Edinburgh.'
`But not here, in London?"
'Probably.' He sounded vague and she decided that he was just being civil again.
`I expect you'll be glad to be home again?"
'Yes.' He didn't add anything to that, and a few moments later they had reached her home and were greeted by her mother at the door before the car had even stopped, smiling a warm welcome. Not a very satisfactory conversation, reflected Sophie, in fact hardly a conversation at all. She swiftly returned her mother's hug and went indoors with the professor and Mabel's basket hard on her heels. He put the basket down, unbuttoned her coat, took it off, tossed it on to a chair and followed it with his own, and then gave her a gentle shove towards the warmth of the kitchen. Montgomery and Mercury had come to meet them and he let Mabel out of her basket to join them as Mrs Blount set the coffee on the table.
`Will you stay for lunch?' she asked hopefully.
`I would have liked that, but I've still some work to clear up before I return to Holland.'
`You'll be back?' He hid a smile at the look of disappointment on her face.
`Oh, yes, quite soon, I hope.' He glanced at Sophie. 'Sophie is tired out. I won't stay for long, for I'm sure she is longing for her bed.'
He was as good as his word, saying all the right things to his hostess, with the hope that he would see her again before very long, and then bidding Sophie goodbye with the advice that she should sleep the clock round if possible and then get out in the fresh air. `We are sure to meet when I get back to England,' he observed, and she murmured politely. He hadn't said how long that would be, she thought peevishly, and he need not think that she was at his beck and call every time he felt like her company. She was, of course, overlooking the fact that her company had been a poor thing that morning and if he had expected anything different he must have been very disappointed. All the same, she saw him go with regret.
The two days went in a flash, a comforting medley of eating, sleeping and pottering in the large, rather untidy garden, tying things up, digging things out of the ground before it became hard with frost, and cutting back the roses. By the time she had to return to the hospital she was her old self again, and her mother, looking at her lovely face, wished that the professor had been there to see her daughter. She comforted herself with the thought that he had said that he would be back and it seemed to her that he was a man whose word could be relied on. He and Sophie were only friends at the moment, but given time and opportunity... She sighed. She didn't want her Sophie to be hurt as she had been hurt all those years ago.
It was November now, casting a gloom over the shabby streets around the hospital. Even on a bright summer's day they weren't much to look at; now they were depressing, littered with empty cans of Coca Cola, fish and chip papers and the more lurid pages of the tabloid Press. Sophie, picking her way towards her own front door a few hours before she was due on duty again, thought of the street cleaners who so patiently swept and tidied only to have the same rubbish waiting for them next time they came around. Rather like us, I suppose, she reflected. We get rid of one lot of patients and there's the next lot waiting.
Miss Phipps was hovering as she started up the stairs. `Had a nice little holiday?' she wanted to know. `Came back by train, did you?'
Sophie said that yes, she had, and if she didn't hurry she would be late for work, which wasn't quite true, but got her safely up the rest of the stairs and to her room, where she released Mabel, fed her, made herself a cup of tea, and loaded her shoulder-bag with everything she might need during the night. She seldom had the chance to open it, but it was nice to think that everything was there.
The accident room was quiet when she went on duty, but Casualty was still teeming with patients. She took over from the day sister, ran her eye down the list of patients already seen, checked with her Staff and phoned for Tim Bailey to come as soon as possible and cast his eye over what she suspected was a Pott's fracture, and began on the task of applying dressings to the patients who needed them.
Tim arrived five minutes later. `I've seen this lot,' he said snappily. `They only need dressings and injections; surely you-?"
'Yes, I know and of course we'll see to those... This man's just come in-I think he's a Pott's, and if you say so I'll get him to X-Ray if you'd like to
sign the form.'
She gave him a charming smile and she had sounded almost motherly, so that he laughed. 'Sorry-I didn't mean to snap. Let's look at this chap.'
She had been right; he signed the form and told her, `Give me a ring and I'll put on a plaster, but give me time to eat my dinner, will you?"
'You'll have time for two dinners by the time I've got hold of X-Ray; it's Miss Short and she is always as cross as two sticks.'
The man with the Pott's fracture was followed by more broken bones, a stab wound and a crushed hand; a normal night, reflected Sophie, going sleepily to her bed, and so were the ensuing nights, including the usual Saturday night's spate of street fights and road accidents. The following week bid fair to be the same, so that by the time she was due for nights off again she was more than a little tired. All the same, she thought as she coaxed Mabel into her basket and started on her journey home, it would have been nice to find the professor waiting for her outside the door.
Wishful thinking; there was no sign of him.
CHAPTER THREE
HOME for Sophie was bliss after the cold greyness of the East End. The quiet countryside, bare now that it was almost winter, was a much needed change from the crowded streets around the hospital. She spent her days visiting the surrounding farms with her father and pottering around the house, and her nights in undisturbed sleep. She was happy-though perhaps not perfectly happy, for the professor had a bothersome way of intruding into her thoughts, and none of the sensible reasons for forgetting him seemed adequate. If she had been given an opportunity she would have talked about him to her mother, but that lady never mentioned him.
She went back to the hospital half hoping that she would see him-not that she wished to particularly, she reminded herself, but he had said that he would return...
There was no news of him, although there was plenty of gossip around the breakfast-table after her first night's duty, most of it wild guessing and Gill's half-serious plans as to what she would do and say when she next saw him. `For I'll be the lucky one, won't I?' She grinned round the table. `If he's operating I can always think up a good reason for being in Theatre during the day...' There was a burst of laughter at this and she added, `You may well laugh, but I'll be the first one to see him.'
As it turned out, she was wrong.
Sophie, bent on keeping a young man with terrible head injuries alive, working desperately at it, obeying Tim's quick instructions with all the skill she could muster, stood a little on one side to allow the surgical registrar to reach the patient, and at the same time realised that there was someone with him. She knew who it was even before she saw him, and although her heart gave a joyful little leap she didn't let it interfere with her work. He came from behind and bent his height to examine the poor crushed head, echoing Peter Small's cheerful `Hello, Sophie' with a staid `Good evening, Sister'.
She muttered a reply, intent on what she was doing, and for the next half an hour was far too busy to give him a thought, listening to the two men and doing as she was bid, taking blood for cross-matching, summoning X-ray and the portable machine, and warning Theatre that the professor would be operating within the hour. She heard Gill's delighted chuckle when she told her.
At breakfast Gill gave everyone a blow-by blow account of the professor's activities. He had done a marvellous bit of surgery, she assured them, and afterwards he had had a mug of tea in her office. `He was rather quiet,' she explained, `but he had only been here for a couple of hours, discussing some cases with Peter; he must have been tired...' She brightened. `There are sure to be some more cases during the night,' she added pensively. `I've got nights off in two days' time. He's on the theatre list to do two brain tumours tomorrow; probably he'll be free after that.'
She called across the table, `Hey, Sophie, didn't he go to the accident room? Did he say anything to you?"
'He said, "Good evening, Sister", and asked me where the man came from.'
Gill said happily, not meaning to be unkind, `I dare say he likes small, fragile-looking girls like me.'
They got up to go then and Sophie changed out of her uniform and made for the entrance. It was raining again, which was probably why she felt depressed.
The professor was lounging against a wall, studying the notice-board. He straightened up when he saw her and walked towards her. When he was near enough he said, `Hello, Sophie,' and smiled. It was a smile to warm her, and she smiled back from a tired unmade-up face.
'I'm glad you were there,' she said. `Will he do?"
'I believe so-it's early days yet, but he's got a chance.' He fell in beside her, walking to the door. `Are you glad because I was there to deal with the patient or were you glad to see me, Sophie?'
She stopped to look at him. `Both.'
He tucked a hand under her elbow. `Good, still friends? I'm not operating until this afternoon and we both need some fresh air. Come along.'
She was whizzed through the door, by no means willingly. `I have no wish for fresh air,' she told him, peevish after a long night's work. 'I'm going to bed.'
`Well, of course you are, but not just yet. We'll go to Epping Forest, have a brisk walk and a cup of coffee, and be back here by midday.'
`Mabel,' said Sophie feebly.
`We'll go there first. I shall come up with you, otherwise you might forget me and go to sleep.'
`No, no. You mustn't come up. I won't be more than five minutes or so.'
He stuffed her into the car and got in beside her and a few minutes later got out to open her door and usher her across the pavement and in through the shabby front door. `Five minutes,' he reminded her and turned to engage in conversation with Miss Phipps, who had darted out, her wig askew, intent on a chat.
Mabel's wants attended to, her face made up after a fashion and her hair tidied, Sophie went back downstairs and was forced to admire the way in which the professor drew his conversation with her landlady to its conclusion in such a way that the lady was under the impression that it was she who had brought it to a close.
`Anyone would think that you liked her,' said Sophie waspishly. She wished suddenly that she hadn't come; thinking about it, she couldn't remember saying that she would in the first place.
`No, no, nothing of the sort, but if she should take a dislike to me she might show me the door, and then we would have to meet in the street or a park-all very well in the summer, but this is no weather for dallying around the East End.'
Sophiee drew a deep breath. `What do you mean-"have to meet"? We don't have to do anything of the sort.'
`My dear girl, use your tired wits. How are we to get to know each other unless we spend time in each other's company?"
'Why do we have to get to know each other? You don't even live here.'
She realised what a silly remark that was as soon as it was uttered.
`A powerful argument for our frequent meetings when I am,' he told her placidly. `You have been home since I saw you last?'
His gentle conversation soothed her. She was tired but no longer edgy and by the time they reached the comparative quiet of the forest she was ready enough to walk its paths with him. Indeed, when presently he suggested that they should go in search of coffee she felt reluctant to leave, not sure whether it was the peace and quiet around them or his company which she was loath to give up.
They had been in the car five minutes or so when she pointed out that he had left the road back.
He reassured her. `I thought we might have our coffee at Ingatestone; there's rather a nice place on the Roman Road.'
The nice place was a fifteenth-century hotel, quite beautifully restored. It would be busy in the evenings, she judged, but now there were few people there. They sat in a lovely room by a pleasant fire and drank their coffee, but Sophie wasn't allowed to stay for long. `If we sit here much longer,' observed the professor, `you'll fall asleep and I shall be forced to carry you upstairs to that room of yours, and all my efforts to keep Miss Phipps sweet would be useless.'
Back once more, he saw her very correctly to the front door, bade her a brief goodbye, and drove away, leaving Sophie to fend off Miss Phipps's curiosity with the observation that she was almost too sleepy to get to her room...
She didn't see him during the next night. For once it was fairly quiet and all the night sisters were in the canteen at the same time for their midnight meal. It was Gill who mentioned him first. `He operated at one o'clock,' she grumbled. `I simply couldn't get up in the middle of the day, and besides, I couldn't think of a good excuse to turn up in Theatre. But