by Betty Neels
‘Well, not really,’ said Victoria calmly, covering sudden feelings which weren’t calm at all. ‘Perhaps he mistook me for someone else.’ Even while she spoke she wondered how he had found out that she worked on Men’s Medical or if it had been coincidence. The latter, she decided, for was he not almost for certain a married man and had he at any time shown interest in her? Not to speak of. She grinned ruefully and Bunny Coles from Cas. asked:
‘Fed up, Vicky? I’m not surprised with the Old Crow always fussing around. When are you off?’
‘Five.’ Victoria put down her mug. ‘I must fly, you know what she is—all the beds to be tidy by the time she comes out of the office.’ She made a face. ‘So long, girls.’
There was no sign of anyone as she went back along the corridor and past Sister’s office, although there was a murmur of voices and a sudden burst of laughter. Sir Keith must have made a joke, for that was the only time Sister Crow laughed about anything. Victoria went into the ward, sent all but one nurse to their coffee and started to straighten the beds and to get out of bed all those patients who had been kept in them for the round. She had reached Mr Bates and had sent Nurse Black to fetch a cool drink for the still queasy old man when the ward door was swung open with a good deal of vigour and a firm footfall trod towards her. She knew who it was, of course, and turned to face him as he fetched up within a few inches of her. He said without preamble: ‘You’re off at five. I’ll be outside at five-thirty—no, five-forty-five, you’ll want to do that hair of yours. I should like to take you out.’
She stared at him speechlessly, delight and doubt warring with each other in her lovely face, and before she could reply Mr Bates answered for her in his dry old voice.
‘That’s right, you go, Staff. Have a bit of fun, yer must feel like it after the whole day here with the likes of us.’
‘No,’ said Victoria with a firmness denied by her eyes, ‘thank you.’
‘Why not?’
She glanced at Mr Bates, who said at once, ‘Cor, luv a duck, Staff, I’m stone deaf—can’t ’ear a word.’
She smiled at him. He’d been in number six bed for so long and he was really an old dear; all the same, she half turned away from him to say in a low voice: ‘You see, I don’t go out—with m-married men.’
‘Very laudable,’ commented Doctor van Schuylen approvingly. ‘Shall we make it five-thirty and never mind the hair?’
She raised enormous tawny eyes fringed with curling dark lashes and met his blue ones. There was a glint in them which made her blink and falter. ‘You are married?’
‘No,’ he answered coolly, ‘not yet.’ He said nothing further, only looked amused, and it was so obvious that he was awaiting an explanation that she began to explain. ‘Oh—well, you see you were dining with someone and she had a wedding ring, and the next day you had a little boy with you, and then I saw you with them…’
It was impossible to know what he was thinking, for his voice was as bland as his face and his eyes were almost covered by suddenly drooping lids.
‘Ah, yes—of course. A natural mistake, but a mistake. Shall we say half past five?’
The ward door was pushed open and allowed to close with a minimum of noise—Sister Crow. Victoria’s eyes met the Dutchman’s and Mr Bates said happily: ‘I ain’t ’eard a word, but ’ave a nice evening of it, the two of yer.’
‘Half past five,’ breathed Victoria, and began on Mr Bates all over again while she listened to the doctor, skilfully and with great charm, draw a variety of red herrings across the Old Crow’s path so that by the time she eventually reached Victoria she had quite forgotten why she had come into the ward.
Sister Crow had wanted an afternoon; Victoria, working through seemingly endless hours, prayed that she would come on duty as punctually as she usually did. She had been foolish, she decided as she prepared the medicine trolley for Sister’s use later on, to say half past five, for she would almost certainly be late, and supposing he didn’t wait? Supposing he were impatient? She contradicted herself; he wasn’t an impatient man, of that she was quite certain, although for the life of her she couldn’t guess how she knew that. She smiled with relief at the thought and Major Cooper, whom she was hauling back into bed after his afternoon exercises, stared at her.
‘What the devil have you got to smile about?’ he demanded irascibly. He was an ill-tempered old gentleman; that anybody would be otherwise was something he would not condone. Victoria had no intention of telling him, so instead she asked: ‘What do you think of the Government’s intention…’
It was a safe and sure red herring; he seized upon it and grumbled happily while she worked him out of his dressing gown and pulled on the woolly bedsocks he insisted upon wearing, and since she had heard it all before, it left her free to devote the greater part of her mind to the important question of what to wear that evening.
It was twenty minutes to six as she crossed the hospital entrance hall. The Old Crow had been punctual, but she had been chatty too, and it was all of a quarter past five by the time Victoria had got away. It was impossible to go to tea, and dinner, if that was the meal she hoped the doctor was inviting her to, was several hours off. She drank a glass of water from her toothmug and started tearing off her clothes. Luckily the bathrooms were empty and very few of her friends were about, and those who tried to engage her in conversation were told ‘No time’, and swept on one side. She was kneeling before the mirror in her room, because there were no stools before the dressing tables in the Home, putting her hair up very carefully, when the staff nurse on Children’s came in with a cup of tea. ‘Leave it if you haven’t time,’ she advised, ‘but I bet you didn’t get any—who’s the date?’
Victoria, her mouth pursed over hair-grips, made sounds indicative of not telling, but her friend disregarded them. ‘We think it’s the foreign doctor who went to Kitty’s ward.’
Victoria, having disposed of the grips, swallowed half a cup of tea.
‘Yes—well, we met while I was home—and don’t,’ she went on severely, ‘start any ideas. He’s only asked me out because he happened to meet me again—you know, being polite.’
She was wriggling into her dress—a very plain cinnamon-coloured wool—and her friend obligingly zipped her up the back before she spoke.
‘Why should he have to be polite?’ she asked forth-rightly. ‘I’ve never met a man yet who asked a girl out unless he wanted to.’
Victoria was head and shoulders inside the wardrobe and her voice was muffled. ‘Maybe he wants someone to listen to him while he talks,’ she suggested, and hoped not. She slid into the matching topcoat and dug her feet into brown patent shoes which had cost her a small fortune and flew to the door, snatching up her handbag as she went. ‘See you,’ she said briefly, and hurried downstairs.
He was leaning against the little window behind which Smith, the head porter, sat, enjoying a chat, but when he saw her he came to meet her across the linoleumed floor and without giving her a chance to say that she was sorry that she was late, swept her outside and across the forecourt to where a Mercedes-Benz 350SL coupé was standing. It had, Victoria’s sharp eyes noticed, a Dutch number-plate.
‘It is yours?’ she wanted to know as he opened the door for her to get in.
‘Yes.’ He shut her in with an almost silent snap of the handle and went round to his own seat.
‘You didn’t have it in Guernsey.’
‘No.’ He was sitting beside her now. ‘What a girl you are, always asking questions!’
‘I never—’ she began, and then remembered that she had asked him quite a lot and closed her pretty mouth firmly, thinking better of it.
‘Have you had tea?’ His voice was pleasantly friendly.
‘No—that is, I had some in a mug while I was changing.’
He nodded with the air of a man who was in the habit of drinking his own tea in such a manner. ‘I’ve brought a picnic basket with me, I thought we might run a little way out of town and have tea
in the car and then go on somewhere for dinner.’ He glanced sideways at her and smiled. ‘Unless there’s something else you would rather do?’
There was nothing else that she would rather do; she said so.
‘Good—let’s go, then.’
It was the evening rush hour; she was relieved to find that not only did he drive very well indeed; he displayed none of the irritation or impatience she had come to expect from anyone negotiating London at such times; moreover he talked as he drove, an unhurried flow of smalltalk which put her at her ease. St Judd’s was in the East End, or almost so. He had left that part of the city far behind and was across the river, travelling in a south-western direction when she remarked: ‘You know London very well.’
‘You sound surprised.’ He didn’t give her any reason, though, but went on: ‘There’s a quiet pub at Abinger, we’ll go down through Leatherhead and turn off as soon as we can find a reasonably quiet spot for tea, and then go on to Abinger Hammer. I presume you don’t have to be in at ten o’clock or whenever you have your curfew.’
Victoria chuckled. ‘I’m exempt. Once we’re trained we’re allowed to stay out until a reasonable hour.’
He said ‘Good’ as he edged the car past a loaded van and then a string of slow-moving cars, and after a minute or two when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to say anything else for the time being, Victoria ventured: ‘Was it just…I mean, were you surprised to see me?’
‘I’m surprised each time I set eyes on you—you’re very lovely. You must get a little bored with being told that by all the men you meet.’
She remembered the last man to say that to her, Doctor Blake, and how she had hated it, yet now she was glowing with delight. She said with admirable calm: ‘It’s according to who says it, and if I were with my sisters no one would think of saying any such thing—they’re beautiful.’
He glanced at her. ‘Yes, they are.’ He turned the car off into a side road whose signpost said Walton-on-the-Hill, but after half a mile he turned it again, this time into a mere lane, saying: ‘Somewhere here, I should think, wouldn’t you? I’m not quite sure where we are, but we can look at the map presently.’
It was quiet and the late afternoon had brought a wintry nip with it. The doctor stretched behind him and produced a tea basket from the back of the car. ‘Do you want to stay in the car or shall we try outside?’ he enquired.
‘Outside,’ said Victoria promptly. ‘We can always get back in if it gets too cold, can’t we?’ She looked around her. ‘Look, there’s a little hollow there under the hedge, it shouldn’t be too bad.’ She looked up at him, laughing. ‘It’s fun, isn’t it, having a picnic tea at half past six in a dropping temperature?’
He laughed too as he got out to open her door and help her out and picked up the basket. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘but I fancy anything with you would be fun, Victoria.’
They had reached the little hollow and she stood looking down at her shoes, conscious of her quickened heartbeats. She said rather shyly:
‘It was strange that we should meet again,’ and looked at him startled when he gave a great rumble of laughter.
‘No,’ he said, still laughing, ‘not strange at all. I had this meeting arranged with Sir Keith Plummer; I had seen you board the boat for Weymouth and I heard your mother telling you to be sure and have breakfast on the train. I gambled on it being the London train and I already knew that you were a nurse.’
‘Oh? How?’
‘My friends knew someone who knows your father. It was only a question of enquiring at the London hospitals.’
She gaped at him. ‘You mean you didn’t know I was at St Judd’s? But you asked Kitty if there was a copper-headed nurse…’
He stared back at her, his eyes glinting with amusement. ‘I had resigned myself to visiting each hospital in turn, but luck was on my side, wasn’t it? You were in the very first one, and one, moreover, in which I have every right to be.’ He spread a rug on the bank and put the basket beside it and observed placidly: ‘You must be dying for your tea. Sit down and we’ll have it now or we shan’t have an appetite for dinner.’
Victoria sat down with the speechless obedience of a little girl while she sorted out the muddled thoughts surging around her head.
‘Why did you do it?’ she enquired at length.
He opened the hamper and took out the flask of tea and two cups as well as a variety of tidily wrapped sandwiches. He undid them, poured the tea, added milk and sugar, handed her a cup and proffered one of the packets, with the remark that the sandwiches were cucumber. She took one mechanically, feeling a little breathless and at a complete loss, an experience she had until then not had. She took a bite and drank some tea. ‘I still don’t see why…’ she began.
‘No? Never mind, let’s enjoy ourselves and be glad that we have been fortunate enough to meet again. Tell me about your work.’
He sounded like a big brother or a kindly uncle; she tidied away her disturbing, exciting thoughts and told him while he plied her with delicate sandwiches and little cakes and tea, which even from a thermos tasted delicious. He didn’t eat much himself, but Victoria hardly noticed that, for she was telling him all about the hospital and why she had trained as a nurse and how much she loved her home, but presently she came to a stop, peered at him through the gloom and asked: ‘And you? What part of Holland do you come from, and are you going to be in England long?’
‘The Hague. I have a practice there, though my home is just outside—in Wassenaar. My parents live in Leiden, my father is a doctor but more or less retired—he does consulting work and sits on various committees, and when I am away, as I am from time to time, he helps out with my practice. I have two brothers and two sisters, all younger than I, and all married.’ He paused and she knew that he was smiling at her through the dusk. ‘There, have I not answered all your questions before you could ask them?’
‘No—well, that is, almost. Are you here to lecture or were you on holiday in Guernsey?’
‘I’m here for a few days before I go up to Birmingham and Edinburgh and then back home. I was on holiday in Guernsey—I have friends there.’
Victoria started to re-pack the hamper. ‘You must be very clever,’ she began, ‘to lecture, you know. Are you older than you look?’
She heard his rumble of laughter. ‘That’s a difficult question, for I have no idea how I look, have I?’ He leaned over and fastened the tea basket and put out a hand to help her to her feet. ‘I’m thirty-five, give or take a month or two—almost eleven years older than you.’
She stopped in her tracks. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Oh, a friend of a friend, you know.’ His voice sounded casual as he opened the car door for her and then went to put the tea things in the boot. In the car beside her again he looked at his watch. ‘I booked a table for eight o’clock—supposing we cut down behind Hindhead and circle back?’
‘That would be nice, Doctor…’
‘My name’s Alexander,’ he prompted her mildly. ‘You may have noticed that I call you Victoria, for I find myself quite unable to address you as Miss Parsons. What are your sisters’ names?’
Victoria told him; she told him how old they were too and what they did with their days and how clever Amabel was with her sketching and what a formidable couple Stephanie and Louise were on the tennis court. One thing led to another; by the time they arrived at the Abinger Hammer, she had told him a great deal without being aware of it; it was only afterwards she realised that he had told her only the barest facts about himself.
They had leisurely drinks in the bar of the peaceful old pub and dined off Chicken Savoyarde, followed by chocolate roulade washed down with white burgundy. They went back into the bar for their coffee, sitting at a little table in the now crowded room with so much to talk about that they hardly noticed the cheerful noise around them. It was only when the landlord called, ‘Time, gentlemen, please,’ that Victoria broke off in mid-sentence. ‘It can’t be as
late as that already,’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ve never been here as long as that?’
Doctor van Schuylen laughed. ‘Indeed we have. Are you in a hurry to get back?’
‘No—’ She paused. ‘That is, I mustn’t be too late because I’m on in the morning and I must make up a clean cap…’
He laughed again and she flashed at him: ‘That sounds like a silly excuse, but it isn’t.’
He stared at her across the table. The gleam in his eyes could have been amusement, she didn’t know, but perhaps it wasn’t after all, for he said gravely: ‘I know it isn’t, Victoria, I know you well enough for that.’ He smiled gently at her and her heart rocked against her ribs.
‘I shall take you straight back and you shall make up your cap and have your beauty sleep—not,’ he added softly, ‘that you need it.’
‘Oh, I do,’ she contradicted him, ‘it’s been quite a day on the ward.’
Just as though she hadn’t spoken, he added: ‘You’re beautiful enough as it is.’
She got into the car wordlessly. That was the second time he had called her beautiful and she was astonished at the delight she felt—just as though he were the first man ever to have said so. She considered the idea for a moment; he was the first man—none of the other men counted any more.
She was rather quiet on the trip back because she had a good deal to think about, but he didn’t seem to notice, rambling on in a placid fashion about topics which must have been of so little importance that she was unable to remember anything about them later, only the pleasant sound of his voice—a quiet, calm voice, and deep. She liked listening to it.
They arrived back at St Judd’s just before midnight and although she hastened to say: ‘Don’t get out—I’m going through the hospital to the Home,’ he ignored her and got out too and walked with her to the big front doors. When she thanked him for her evening he said: