A Betty Neels Christmas: A Christmas ProposalWinter Wedding Page 11

  The Professor rose presently and turned round and looked at her. ‘Ah, yes, Staff Nurse—I should like a word with you.’

  She followed him out of the room and stood in the middle of the landing. It was quiet there. Sister, back from her own supper, was writing the report in her office and the two nurses left on duty were in the ward. She was totally surprised when the Professor said: ‘I have to thank you for your part in Doctor Wright’s recovery. You have worked very well, I am grateful to you as I am sure he and his wife are.’ He smiled and she thought suddenly that in other circumstances she might have liked him.

  ‘I must admit,’ he went on smoothly, ‘that when you were suggested to me I wasn’t quite sure…’

  Emily broke in: ‘No, I know—I heard you; you didn’t like to be fobbed off with a prim miss.’ She paused and quoted: ‘A small plump creature who merges into the background from whatever angle one looks at her.’

  The Professor was looking at her in astonishment. ‘Good God—yes, I said that; I’d forgotten. Do you want me to apologise?’ He neither looked nor sounded in the least put out.

  Emily eyed him thoughtfully. ‘No,’ she said at length. ‘Words don’t mean a thing—you could say you were sorry and not mean it.’

  He shrugged. ‘Just as you like, although I might point out that I’m not in the habit of apologising unless I mean it.’ He added outrageously: ‘You are small, you know, and a bit plump, too.’

  Emily made a cross sound, but before she could say anything he went on in a quite different voice: ‘I shall change the drugs this evening—you are on duty until ten o’clock, I understand? Observe Doctor Wright carefully, will you, and ask the night nurse to do the same. We must start talking about speech therapy, too.’ He nodded his head carelessly. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  He left her standing there. There were just five minutes left of her supper break; she’d barely reach the canteen in that time, let alone get a chance to eat anything. In a bad humour, she went back to her patient.

  ‘You were quick over your supper,’ remarked Mrs Wright. ‘Wasn’t it nice?’

  ‘Professor Jurres-Romeijn was talking to me—I didn’t get down to the canteen.’ And when Mrs Wright protested: ‘I’ll go later.’

  It was a little after ten o’clock when the Professor came again. He didn’t speak to her although he gave her a close look as he came into the room. He altered the drugs, checked that his patient was in good shape for the night, said something quietly to him and went away, leaving Emily to give the report to Mrs Crewe, wish her patient goodnight and gather up her cloak and bag. She was very hungry, but it was really too late to go out to one of the small cafés which ringed the hospital. Besides, it was dark and cold and the streets weren’t quiet; the pubs would be shutting. She would have to go to bed hungry…

  The Professor was standing on the landing, staring in front of him, doing nothing, but at her quiet step he turned round. ‘I had no idea that I made you miss your supper,’ he observed without preamble. ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Emily baldly.

  He ignored that. ‘Allow me to take you out for a meal.’

  ‘No, thank you.’ It was annoying that as she spoke her insides gave a terrific rumble.

  The Professor’s mouth twitched. ‘You’re hungry.’

  Emily’s mouth watered at the thought of food—any food. ‘Not in the least,’ she told him haughtily. She wished him goodnight just as haughtily and left him standing there.

  Half an hour later, coming from the bathroom on the top floor of the Nurses’ Home, where she had a temporary room on the night nurses’ corridor, she was met by the night cook. ‘There you are, Staff,’ said that lady comfortably. ‘I’ve put the tray in your room, Night Sister said you was ter ’ave it pronto; special orders from Professor Jurres-Romeijn.’

  Emily, her hair hanging damply down her back, her face red and shiny from too hot a bath, goggled at her. ‘Me? A tray?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s right, love. And be a dear and bring it down to the canteen at breakfast, will you?’

  ‘Yes—yes, of course—thanks a lot, Maggie.’ She sped down the passage and into her room where there indeed was a tray laden with a teapot, milk, sugar and a mug, soup in a covered bowl and a wedge of meat pie flanked by peas and chips. Emily put the tray on the bed and got in beside it and wolfed the lot. It was over her third cup of tea that she took time to think about the Professor. It had been generous of him to see that she had some supper, or perhaps it was gratitude because he hadn’t had to take her out? All her friends would think her out of her mind to have refused him anyway. But he must have taken the trouble to telephone Night Sister and speak to her about it, and considering he didn’t like her, that had been good-natured of him, to say the least. She would have to thank him in the morning.

  But when she did just that after his visit to Doctor Wright, all he said was: ‘But my dear girl, you’re wasting your gratitude; I can’t afford to have you going off sick. I want you here for another four days.’

  A remark which effectively nipped in the bud any warmer feelings she might have begun to cherish towards him.

  The four days seemed unending. She went home every afternoon, just for an hour or so, and because it was obvious that Louisa was becoming more and more impatient and irritable, she spent the hours there catching up on the chores which her sister declared she had neither the time nor the inclination to do. And the twins looked peaky too. She suspected that Louisa wasn’t taking them out enough, but hesitated to say so, and she would be home for four days. Louisa could be free to do what she liked while she set her little house in order and took long walks with the babies. It would make a nice change too.

  Doctor Wright was leaving the hospital the day before she herself was due for her days off; he was going home with Mrs Crewe in attendance and it wasn’t until he was writing his last note to Emily that she discovered that he had asked for her to go with him. When she had given him a questioning look he had taken the pad and scrawled: ‘Jurres-Romeijn wouldn’t allow it; said you were in need of a rest—made him promise that if anything went wrong you’d come and nurse me.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Emily instantly, thrusting the question of what to do with the twins on one side. ‘I’ll come like a shot, but you’re going to be fine. Do press on with the oesophageal speech, won’t you?’

  ‘You’re as bad as Renier, badgering me back to living again.’ But he smiled at her as he wrote, and his goodbye had been warm with gratitude. So had Mrs Wright’s, accompanied by a large box wrapped in gay paper and tied with ribbon. Before Emily set about clearing the room of its complicated equipment and readying it for whoever was to occupy it next, she opened it. Elizabeth Arden, and lashings of it; lotions and powder and perfume, soap and several jars of face creams and a large bottle of bath essence. Emily drew in an excited breath; surely her mediocre looks would improve with such a galaxy of beauty aids? She wrapped everything up again and when she had finally finished her work bore it carefully home.

  Louisa, looking it over that evening, agreed that it was a lovely present. ‘Though personally I don’t go for her,’ she observed. ‘I mean, everyone, just everyone, uses Fifth Avenue.’

  But Emily refused to be put out. ‘I shall use the lot,’ she declared. ‘It’s bound to do something for me.’

  Her young sister looked at her with affection tinged with irritation. Emily was a dear and she had always been able to twist her round her little finger, but she was a bit wet; it would take more than Elizabeth Arden to change her ordinary features into anything glamorous. ‘It’s worth a try,’ she agreed. ‘I say, now you’re back for a day or two, I can go up to London, can’t I? I simply must have some undies…’

  There was really no need to go up to town. The shops were adequate enough for Louisa’s modest wants; Emily recognised it as an excuse and agreed without demur. Louisa had earned some fun. It didn’t occur to her that she had earned some fun too, bu
t she was happy enough in the ugly little house, cleaning and washing and taking the twins out for the long walks she had promised. The weather had cheered up a little too, so she took them down the road and then pushed the pram along the bridle path, rutted and muddy, but the woods and fields on either side, although not quite country, were pleasant. She marched along briskly, thinking about Doctor Wright and the Professor. She had heard from various friends at the hospital that he wouldn’t be there much longer and she felt a strange regret, which considering she didn’t like him, seemed strange.

  Louisa, happy now that she had no need to be tied to the house all day, was disposed to be generous on Emily’s last day. ‘I’ll take the twins,’ she offered, ‘so you can go to the shops if you want to.’

  There were one or two things Emily wanted, she accepted at once and then at the last minute had to alter her plans because William, cutting a tooth, became fretful and feverish. ‘He’ll have to stay indoors,’ she said, hiding disappointment. ‘If you don’t mind staying with him, I’ll take Claire out this afternoon.’

  ‘What about your shopping?’

  ‘I’ll do that on the way home tomorrow.’

  It was a cold day and grey as was to be expected in November, but there was no wind and Emily, pushing Claire briskly in her pram, was quickly glowing. She had taken the bridle path again, away from the streets of small prim houses because although she never said so, she hated them. One day if she was lucky, she would have a small cottage in the country with a garden. There was plenty of time, she was only twenty-three and if she got a Sister’s post soon she would start to save money. It didn’t need to be full of mod cons, she could improve it over the years, and sometimes one could buy up a small place fairly cheaply if it hadn’t been modernised.

  There was no point in dwelling on the fact that she would probably not marry. She only met the young doctors she worked with in hospital and none of them had shown any interest in her to date. It would be nice if she did, of course…her mind wandered off into a vague dream so that she didn’t at first hear the horse’s hooves ahead of her, and when she did she merely turned the pram towards the hedge so that there was room for the beast to pass. She was leaning over the pram handle, encouraging Claire to take a look at the animal, when it trotted round the bend which had been hiding it. It was a very large horse, which was a good thing, for its rider was large too—the Professor, sitting at his ease and looking, as always, elegant. Emily, taken by surprise, gaped. The Professor’s handsome features, however, remained calm. He reined in his horse, got down and said civilly: ‘Good afternoon, Nurse Seymour.’

  She muttered a greeting, rather red in the face, and bent to inspect Claire. ‘I didn’t know that you were married.’ He turned to smile at Emily, and the red deepened.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Emily.

  His expression didn’t alter, only his heavy lids drooped over his eyes so that she had no idea what he was thinking. ‘She is very like you,’ he observed. ‘What is her name?’

  ‘Claire.’

  ‘Charming. You live close by?’

  She jerked her head sideways. ‘Yes, in one of those houses over there—the last in a row, so it’s not too bad.’ She added earnestly: ‘I was lucky to get it.’ She went on, to make it clear: ‘It’s not so easy to get a house, you know—not if you’re not married.’

  ‘Er—probably not. I’m lost in admiration that you can work full time and run a house and a baby as well.’

  ‘Well, Louisa—she’s my sister, is staying with me until she can go to school for modelling—she’s waiting for a place.’

  His eyes flickered over her sensible coat, wellingtons and woolly cap pulled well down. ‘She must be a pretty girl.’

  ‘Oh, she is,’ said Emily enthusiastically, ‘and she’s only just eighteen.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘And you, Emily? how old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-three, almost twenty-four.’

  ‘And Claire?’

  ‘Eight months.’

  ‘You moved here because of her, of course,’ he suggested smoothly.

  Emily had her mouth open to explain and then thought better of it. He couldn’t possibly be interested. She frowned a little and said ‘Yes’ and nothing more. And then, because he just stood there, saying nothing, she said: ‘I must be getting on; it’s cold for Claire if I stand still.’

  ‘Of course.’ He got on his horse, raised his crop in salute and rode on, leaving her to continue her walk while she discussed the meeting with Claire, who chuckled and crowed and didn’t answer back, which was nice. She was almost home again when the thought crossed her mind that the Professor might have thought Claire to be her baby. She stopped in the middle of the pavement, so that people hurrying past had to push against her.

  ‘But that’s absurd,’ said Emily, out loud. ‘I’m not married.’

  The elderly woman squeezing past her, running over her wellingtons with one of those beastly little carriers on wheels, paused to say: ‘Then you ought to be, my girl!’

  Emily delivered a telling kick at the carrier; better than nothing, for she could think of nothing to answer back.

  She went back on duty the next morning, on day duty now, but still on ENT. The wards were as busy as ever and Mr Spencer cheered her up by the warmth of his welcome. Of the Professor there was no sign; she went back home that evening wondering what had happened to him. She hadn’t liked to ask and she had gone late to her dinner, so that she hadn’t had a chance to talk to any of her friends.

  He was there on the following morning, though, doing a round with Mr Spencer and his house surgeon, Sister and the speech therapist, a young woman whom Emily envied, for she was tall and slim and always said the right thing so that even the Professor listened to her when she had something to say, and smiled too. He didn’t smile at Emily, only wished her a chilly good morning and requested a patient’s notes. On her way home later, pedalling briskly through the crowded streets, she saw him again, driving a beautiful Jaguar XJ Spider. It was a silver-grey, Italian designed and probably worth a very great deal of money. He lifted a nonchalant hand in greeting as he slid past her which she had to ignore; there was so much traffic about that if she had lifted a hand from the handlebar she would certainly have fallen off.

  Louisa wanted to go to the cinema, so Emily stayed home, contentedly enough because she had had a hard day. The little sitting room, rather bare of furniture, yet looked cosy enough in the firelight; she sat by it and sewed for the twins by the light of the lamp at her elbow.

  There was a good programme on Radio Three and she allowed her thoughts to idle along with Brahms and Grieg and Delius. They returned over and over again to the Professor—too much so, she told herself severely; it was pointless to get even the faintest bit interested in him when he could hardly bear the sight of her. Besides, with a car like that, he obviously came from an entirely different background from her own. She folded her needlework carefully, left everything ready for Louisa to make herself a hot drink when she came in, and went to bed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  EMILY SAW saw almost nothing of Professor Jurres-Romeijn during the next few days; beyond stopping one morning to tell her that Doctor Wright was progressing just as he should, he had nothing to say to her other than a good morning or a good evening when he came to the ward. For some reason she felt vaguely discontented and miserable, perhaps because William had caught Claire’s cold. She was worried about Mary too; she had had a guarded letter saying that they hoped to come home before very long, but it really held no news. She confided her worries to Louisa, who treated the matter more lightly. ‘Well, they must be safe enough,’ she pointed out, ‘otherwise Mary wouldn’t write, would she? I expect there’s some sort of delay—you know what it is—some form not filled in properly…’

  Emily told herself that she was fussing unnecessarily and resolved not to worry about it. Instead she worried about money. They lived on a tight budget, getting tighter every day, and sooner or later
she would have to face up to what she was going to do when Louisa left home. She had suggested tentatively that Louisa might postpone the modelling school for a month or two, to be met with such a shower of reproaches that she hadn’t said any more about it. She had a few savings, she would have to use them, every penny, to pay for a babyminder—if she could find one she could trust. Mary would pay her back when they came back to England, but it would leave her with the nasty feeling that there was nothing to fall back on if an emergency cropped up.

  When she got home that evening Louisa met her with scarcely concealed excitement. ‘I say,’ she began before Emily could get her coat off, ‘I was out with Tracey’—Tracey was the girl across the road with whom she sometimes went out—‘well, we were just going to cross the road when this fab car pulled up to let us go over—a huge silver thing, Emily, you never saw anything like it—well, there was this terrific man sitting at the wheel…’ She broke off to exclaim: ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Emily?’ And not waiting for an answer: ‘And Tracey said that he was the visiting professor at the hospital and when I asked her where, she said Ear, Nose and Throat Wards—you never said a word…’

  ‘Well, why should I?’ asked Emily reasonably. ‘You’re not a bit interested in hospitals or nursing. Besides, he’s twice your age.’

  Louisa stared at her, her great blue eyes narrowed. ‘I like older men—to think that I’m going away and all this time he was here!’ She pouted prettily. ‘Darling Emily, couldn’t you arrange for me to meet him? After all, you work for him.’