A Small Slice of Summer Page 15

  She went out with Karel too. On the first occasion she quickly discovered it was to receive a briefing for the next invitation, when Mary would be there too. She listened carefully while Karel regaled her with dinner at the Snooty Fox. ‘You see,’ he told her seriously, ‘you’re just the kind of girl to convince Mary.’

  Letitia spooned ice cream. ‘What of?’

  ‘Well, you know…you’re so…so…’ He paused, and she supplied: ‘Yes, I know—respectable,’ and he nodded.

  ‘You mean that if she meets me and I say I’m a friend of yours she’ll be convinced that you’re respectable too and not just fancying her?’

  He closed his eyes and looked pained. ‘Tishy, what a vulgar expression!’ and opened them again to add: ‘Yes, that’s exactly it.’

  ‘When’s the great day?’

  ‘Could you manage Wednesday evening? Do you think this place will do?’

  She looked around her. ‘Yes, it’s marvellous, and anyway, I don’t know anything about these super places. Only would it be a good idea to take her—us—to the sort of place where she might meet an uncle or a father or mother—do you know what I mean?’

  He picked up her hand lying idle on the table and kissed it. ‘Genius!’ he exclaimed. ‘Of course! The Connaught—Julius takes George there. What a clever girl you are, Tishy.’

  She grinned at him. ‘Oh, I know—only don’t go doing silly things like kissing my hand, will you? Mary might not like it.’

  She would have liked a new dress for the occasion, but if she were to go home for her next days off, she wouldn’t be able to afford one. She put on the green once more, quite sick and tired of it, and went downstairs to where the taxi Karel had sent for her was waiting.

  As she got into it, she thought how right she had been to refuse his offer to come and fetch her, deeming it wise for him to concentrate on his Mary.

  The evening began splendidly. Mary was a nice girl. She would, Letitia saw at a glance, be just right for Karel; she had a pleasant voice, a charming manner and was, moreover, quietly pretty, and as well as that, Letitia fancied that she had some rather old-fashioned ideas which Julius and George would approve of. They got on splendidly together, and Karel, a little over-anxious to start with, relaxed as dinner proceeded. When they had had their coffee Letitia, mindful of his suggestion, gave it as her opinion that she should go back to hospital.

  ‘I’m on duty at half past seven tomorrow,’ she explained, ‘and I know you won’t mind. It’s been a lovely evening, and I hope we shall see more of each other, Mary—it’s been so nice to meet an old friend again—’ she waved a hand in Karel’s direction. ‘You’re getting more and more like Julius, Karel, I expect you’ll end up just as well known and liked. Let me know how the thesis goes, won’t you?’

  Mary, who had heard of Julius, looked happy, and Karel beamed. ‘I’ll take you to a taxi,’ he offered as Letitia shook hands with Mary and started for the door. Half-way there she stopped so suddenly that Karel, right behind her, had to put out a hand to steady her. Jason was sitting at a table just ahead of them. There was an elderly gentleman with him, and they had been in deep conversation, but Jason had looked up and seen her. She walked on, her legs strangely wobbly, and nodded stiffly as she drew level with them, she was aware that Jason had stood up and that Karel had seen him too and expected to stop, but without looking back she crossed the foyer to get her coat, opened her purse to get its ticket and turned to hand it to Karel, struggling to think of some excuse for her strange behaviour.

  Only it wasn’t Karel, it was Jason. He didn’t say a word but took the ticket from her nerveless hand, fetched her coat and held it for her. She wondered why he looked so pleased with himself as she thanked him in a die-away voice.

  ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ she begged in a wooden voice, and was affronted when he said cheerfully:

  ‘Unfortunately, you can’t—I’m dining with someone who would hardly understand if I were to leave him between the soup and the fish.’

  She walked away from him, although it needed all her will power to do so. ‘I can’t think where Karel has got to,’ she said over her shoulder.

  He caught up with her in a couple of strides. ‘Gone back to his guest, I should imagine.’ His voice was bland. ‘I offered to see you to your taxi and he seemed only too pleased to get back to his table.’

  She hurried to the entrance. ‘How rude, how very rude!’ she breathed furiously. ‘I was his guest!’

  They were on the pavement now and the doorman had gone to the kerb to get a cab. ‘As chaperone, dear girl? I caught sight of you some time ago and I saw Karel’s face when he was talking to the girl with you.’ He grinned down at her. ‘One of the best moments of my life,’ he declared.

  The taxi was waiting. Letitia said icily: ‘How nice for you. I’ll say good-bye.’ She made to get into the taxi, but he put a large hand on its door. ‘Say what you like, Letitia. We shall meet again very soon.’

  ‘I don’t want to see you, ever again.’ She heard herself utter this whopping lie with utter dismay and wished at once to deny it, but she was in quite a nasty temper by now and no longer thinking very clearly.

  Jason allowed her to enter and closed the door after her, and only when he had given her address and paid the driver did he say cheerfully: ‘All the same, I’ll be along, little Tishy.’

  Letitia raged silently all the way to St Athel’s, undressed in a tearing hurry and flung herself into bed, where she lay awake for hours, very unhappy because she had said all the wrong things, and also because he might take her at her word and never come near her again.

  A needless worry, as it turned out; he was there the very next evening. Letitia had finished tidying the recovery room and was standing aimlessly in its centre when he came in, and although she had hoped, deep down inside her, that he would come, she hadn’t expected him quite as soon as this, and certainly not at that hour when she was barely off duty. His hullo was friendly and her answering greeting was nothing better than a croak. He looked wonderful, she thought foolishly, standing there against the door, elegant and cool and remarkably satisfied with himself, and he shouldn’t smile at her like that, it did something to her inside so that she couldn’t think straight.

  ‘I don’t give in easily, dear girl,’ he remarked mildly, ‘even though it may appear so.’

  She found her voice at that. ‘Well, there has to be a first time for everything,’ she told him shrilly, ‘and now please go away, I’m busy.’

  ‘You’re off duty.’ He was actually laughing at her. ‘And why are you so cross, my darling girl?’

  ‘I’m not, oh, Jason, I’m not!’ She stamped a foot and said loudly, quite contradicting herself: ‘I’m so furious—if only I knew how to gnash my teeth! I’m a mouse of a girl and you’re sorry for me, just like Karel said, and I will not be pitied and patronized…’

  He interrupted her quite ruthlessly: ‘What utter rubbish!’ He stared at her thoughtfully. ‘Ah, I believe we have the crux of the matter—what did Karel say, my adorable Letitia?’

  It all bubbled out in a breathless rush. ‘That you had a robber baron for an ancestor but you weren’t like him and that you could have married a dozen times, only you’d get c-caught by a mouse of a girl because you were sorry for her.’ She paused for breath and opened her mouth to begin another tirade, only she burst into tears instead.

  Jason’s arms were very comforting—a little tight perhaps, but what was the pain of a few crushed ribs compared with the pleasure of being within their circle?

  ‘Don’t cry, my love,’ he begged her. ‘I have never considered you a mouse—indeed, you have reminded me of a very small dragon on various occasions. A mouse would never have coped with a bunch of spotty gipsies or an inquisitive bull.’

  Letitia sniffed. There was something she had to know then and there. ‘You asked me to marry you and then you seemed quite pleased because I said no.’

  He let her go and put his hands in his pockets
. ‘Let us have a heart-to-heart talk,’ he invited, ‘and then I will ask you to marry me again.’

  She took a step towards him. ‘Oh…’ She got no further; the door behind Jason had opened and Sister Hollins came in. The Theatre Superintendent was a youthful forty with a charming manner which concealed an efficient, slightly domineering nature, which was probably why she hadn’t married. The younger, more flighty nurses had been heard to say that it wasn’t for lack of trying. She gave Letitia a brisk smile and said in a voice to match: ‘What, Staff, not gone yet? I’m sure everything is in perfect order. Run along now.’

  Letitia didn’t look at Jason. She said: ‘Yes, Miss Hollins,’ in a meek voice which covered a multitude of feelings, and slid away to change. As she went she wondered how Jason would get away—he was a splendid prize for Hollins and she had looked as though she was expecting a nice cosy chat. She tore off her mob cap and theatre dress and in hospital uniform once more, started for the Nurses’ Home. She would bath and change her clothes and wait for Jason. She laughed a little; he was going to ask her to marry him, wasn’t he? Suddenly the world had become a wonderful place.

  Letitia charged into the labyrinth of passages which would get her to the Home, and had almost reached the main corridor, half-way down which was the little door leading to a short cut, when she encountered Miss Page, and Office Sister and a martinet. Letitia skidded to a halt within inches of her, murmured an apology and made to slip past, but Miss Page had no intention of letting her go.

  ‘Staff Nurse,’ she observed awfully, ‘why are you running? Is there a fire? Is there haemorrhage? And your hair is a disgrace—hanging in wisps, a most regrettable sight. I’m sure I don’t know what girls are coming to!’

  Letitia murmured again in a subdued way, almost dancing with impatience, and forced herself to listen meekly to a stern lecture. Only when Miss Page paused for breath did she mutter something soothing and tear off once more, uncaring of her superior’s admonishing ‘Staff Nurse!’ as she turned into the short cut at last.

  It was a sharp right-angled corner. She took it at speed, straight into Jason’s arms. She felt them tighten round her with a strong sense of delight even as she said: ‘However did you get here? What did you do with Sister Hollins?’

  ‘Who is she?’ asked Jason, and bent his head to kiss her.

  ‘Jason—not here! Everyone goes this way—you can’t…’

  ‘Challenging me, my darling?’ He kissed her again, in such a manner that she forgot where she was, and even if she had remembered, it wouldn’t have mattered any more.

  ‘And now we will have our little talk, darling Letitia.’

  ‘Not here—Oh, Jason!’ Two porters, wheeling an empty trolley briskly towards the corridor, went past, their eyes starting from their heads; a nurse, wrapped in the arms of a large, elegant gentleman was an unusual sight. They looked the other way when they encountered Jason’s bland stare.

  ‘Your room?’ he suggested.

  ‘You must be joking!’

  ‘Then here. Now where were we, my darling dear?’

  Letitia didn’t care any more. She was possessed of a delicious sensation of not being responsible for her actions and not minding about it in the least. ‘I met Sister Page,’ she told him, slightly light-headed. ‘Do I look very untidy?’

  He was a man of monumental patience. ‘No, my darling. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, she said I did—she said my hair was a disgrace and I was a regrettable sight for a staff nurse.’

  ‘Your hair is beautiful, so long and thick and straight; you are, in my opinion, quite the most charming sight in the whole world, and there is no need for her to fuss about you being a staff nurse any more. You will be my wife, fully occupied in running our home and bossing everyone around, and I daresay a bunch of tiresome brats as well.’

  She was enchanted. ‘They’ll be the most wonderful children—only you haven’t asked me to marry you yet; only that afternoon on the balcony, and you didn’t say you loved me, so of course I couldn’t say yes, could I?’

  He said thoughtfully: ‘I have tried so hard to decide when it was I first found that I loved you, dear girl. Perhaps when I saw you in that deplorable pair of slacks and old shirt, coming through the wood to meet me and not so much as a hullo, but a stream of words in which dogs and horses and gipsies were all muddled together. But I don’t think I was sure, not then, and when I did know that you were the only girl in the whole world for me, Karel was there and I thought that it was he, and when you refused me in such a businesslike fashion, I felt sure it was. But I had to be quite sure, so I came over to see you, and there you were, a kind of invisible third at dinner with those two.’ He grinned down at her. ‘And your face when you saw me—oh, you contrived to make it severe, but you couldn’t do anything about your eyes, my love.’

  She stretched up and kissed him. ‘Jason, I do love you.’

  His eyes, very bright, smiled down at her. ‘Then I shall propose…’ he paused, ‘but not, I think, for a minute or two.’

  The purposeful feet they had both heard rounded the corner. Sister Page, primed for wrathful speech, fetched up in front of them, momentarily taken aback.

  ‘Ah, Sister,’ said Jason smoothly. ‘Good evening, and how delightful that you should be the first one to hear our good news.’

  She eyed him cautiously. ‘Good evening, doctor. I want a word with Staff Nurse.’

  ‘I see that you don’t quite understand,’ observed Jason, still smoothly. ‘Staff Nurse and I are going to be married.’

  For a moment Sister Page looked like the cat who had caught a mouse and had it taken away. She cast a reproachful look at Jason and a frustrated one at Letitia and rallied sufficiently to say: ‘Well, I’m sure I wish you both happy.’ She looked at them rather uncertainly. ‘Is it a secret?’ she asked.

  Jason answered: ‘No, please tell anyone you wish.’ He smiled at her and she smiled suddenly at them both before she rustled away, her back very straight.

  The passage was empty. ‘And now, dear heart, I am going to ask you to marry me, and if anyone interrupts me, I shall ignore them, and I hope you will do the same.’

  Letitia was firmly tucked into his arms again. She looked at him, smiling.

  ‘Yes, dear Jason, I’ll do whatever you say.’

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-3963-0

  A SMALL SLICE OF SUMMER

  Copyright © 1975 by Betty Neels.

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