Judith Read online

  ‘I don’t go out a great deal—at least not to dinner parties. I found this one very pleasant.’ Judith ordered her coffee and changed the subject. ‘What a lovely morning.’

  Eileen sipped coffee. ‘Yes. I expect you go out a good deal with the doctors in the hospital, don’t you?’

  ‘Occasionally,’ said Judith coolly.

  ‘How romantic,’ said Eileen, and flicked a quick glance at Judith. ‘I daresay you’ll marry one of them.’

  Judith thought very briefly of Nigel. Her mother had forwarded two letters from him and she hadn’t answered either of them; she went faintly pink with guilt and Eileen smiled. ‘Wouldn’t it be thrilling if he came all this way just to see you?’

  ‘Very thrilling,’ said Judith, refusing to be drawn. She finished her coffee. ‘I must go—I hadn’t intended coming out this morning and I’ve a mass of things to do.’ She smiled a polite goodbye, got to her feet and turned round, straight into Professor Cresswell. He sidestepped to avoid her and with a quick good morning, she went past him and out of the café. So much for those learned hours at his desk, brooding over the twelfth century! It rankled that he had found her visit to the house so disturbing—squawking like a hen, she remembered with fury—and yet he could spend the morning with that giggling idiot of an Eileen. Well, he’d got what he deserved, she told herself as she drove back to Hawkshead, and it was no business of hers, anyway. And in three days’ time she would be going home.

  On her last day, with Mrs Lockyer safely back in the kitchen, Judith took herself off to Coniston. She had promised herself that she would climb the Old Man of Coniston, and although it was well past lunchtime by the time she got there there were several paths which would take her to the top without the need to hurry too much. She parked the car in the village and started off. She enjoyed walking, even uphill, and she was quite her old self again by now, making an easy job of the climb, and once at the top, perched on a giant boulder to admire the enormous view. It was warm now and presently she curled up and closed her eyes. It would be nice to be at home again, she thought sleepily, and there was still a week before going back to hospital—which reminded her of Nigel. She dozed off, frowning.

  She slept for half an hour or more and woke with the sun warm on her face. She didn’t open her eyes at once, but lay there, frowning again. Nigel was bad enough when she was awake, but to dream of him too was more than enough. She sighed and opened her eyes slowly, and looked straight at Charles Cresswell, sitting on another boulder a foot or two away.

  ‘Why were you frowning?’ he wanted to know.

  Judith sat up. Denim slacks and a T-shirt did nothing to detract from her beauty, nor did her tousled hair and her shiny face, warm from the sun still. She said crossly: ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘I walked.’ He whistled softly and the Border terrier and the labrador appeared silently to sit beside him. ‘The dogs like it here.’

  Judith tugged at her T-shirt with a disarming unselfconsciousness. ‘I must be getting back.’ She got to her feet. ‘Goodbye, Professor Cresswell.’

  ‘Retreat, Judith?’ His voice was smooth.

  ‘Certainly not—I said I’d be back to give a hand at evening surgery.’

  ‘You leave tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’ She started to walk past him and he put out a hand and caught her gently by the arm.

  ‘There’s plenty of time. I should like to know what you think of Hawkshead—of Cumbria—what you’ve seen of it?’

  She tried to free her arm and was quite unable to do so. ‘It’s very beautiful. This is my third visit here, you know—I’m not a complete stranger to the Lakes…’

  ‘You wouldn’t like to live here?’

  Just for a moment she forgot that she didn’t like him overmuch. ‘Oh, but I would,’ and then sharply: ‘Why do you ask?’

  She was annoyed when he didn’t answer, instead he observed in a silky voice which annoyed her very much: ‘You would find it very tame after London.’

  Eileen Hunt had said something very like that too; perhaps they had been discussing her. Judith said sharply: ‘No, I wouldn’t. And now if you’ll let go of my arm, I should like to go.’ She added stiffly: ‘I shan’t see you again, Professor Cresswell; I hope your book will be a success. It’s been nice meeting you.’ She uttered the lie so unconvincingly that he laughed out loud.

  ‘Of course the book will be a success—my books always are. And meeting you hasn’t been nice at all, Judith Golightly.’

  She patted the dogs’ heads swiftly and went down the path without another word. She would have liked to have run, but that would have looked like retreat. She wasn’t doing that, she told herself stoutly; she was getting away as quickly as possible from someone she couldn’t stand the sight of.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JUDITH LEFT Hawkshead with regret, aware that once she was away from it it would become a dream which would fade before the rush and bustle of hospital life; another world which wouldn’t be quite real again until she went back once more. And if she ever did, of course, it would be London which wouldn’t be real. Driving back towards the motorway and the south after bidding Uncle Tom a warm goodbye, she thought with irritation of London and her work, suddenly filled with longing to turn the Fiat and go straight back to Hawkshead and its peace and quiet. Even Charles Cresswell, mellowed by distance, seemed bearable. She found herself wondering what he was doing; sitting at his desk, she supposed, miles away in the twelfth century.

  She was tooling along, well past Lancaster, when a Ferrari Dino 308 passed her on the fast lane. Charles Cresswell was driving it—he lifted a hand in greeting as he flashed past, leaving her gawping at its fast disappearing elegance. What was he doing on the M6, going south, she wondered, and in such a car? A rich man’s car too—even in these days one could buy a modest house for its price. And not at all the right transport for a professor of Ancient History—it should be something staid; a well polished Rover, perhaps, or one of the bigger Fords. She overtook an enormous bulk carrier with some caution and urged the little Fiat to do its best. There was no point in thinking any more about it, though. She wasn’t going to see him again; she dismissed him firmly from her mind and concentrated on getting home.

  It was after five o’clock as she drove slowly through Lacock’s main street and then turned into the narrow road and pulled up before her parents’ house. She got out with a great sigh of relief which changed into a yelp of startled disbelief when she saw the Ferrari parked a few yards ahead of her. It could belong to someone else, of course, but she had the horrid feeling that it didn’t, and she was quite right. Her mother had opened the door and Judith, hugging and kissing her quickly, asked sharply: ‘Whose car is that? The Ferrari—don’t tell me that awful man’s here…’

  They were already in the little hall and the sitting room door was slightly open. The look on her mother’s face was answer enough; there really was no need for Professor Cresswell to show his bland face round the door. He said smoothly: ‘Don’t worry, Judith, I’m on the point of leaving,’ and before she could utter a word, he had taken a warmly polite leave of her mother, given her a brief expressionless nod, and gone. She watched him get into his car and drive away and it was her mother who broke the silence. ‘Professor Cresswell kindly came out of his way to deliver a book your Uncle Tom forgot to give you for your father.’ She sounded put out and puzzled, and Judith flung an arm round her shoulders.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother dear, but I was surprised. I had no idea that Professor Cresswell was leaving Hawkshead. I—I don’t get on very well with him and it was such a relief to get away from him—and then I get out of the car and there he is!’

  ‘You were rude,’ observed Mrs Golightly. ‘I thought he was charming.’

  ‘Oh, pooh—if he wants to be, he can be much ruder than I was; we disliked each other on sight.’ She frowned a little as she spoke because her words didn’t ring quite true in her own ears, but the frown disappeared as Curtis came lumberin
g out of the sitting room to make much of her.

  ‘Professor Cresswell liked Curtis,’ observed Mrs Golightly. ‘He has two dogs of his own…’

  ‘Yes, I know—a Border terrier and a labrador. I’ve met them.’

  ‘So you’ve been to his house?’ Mrs Golightly’s question was uttered with deceptive casualness.

  ‘Only because I had to. Where’s Father?’

  ‘Playing bowls—he’ll be sorry to have missed Professor Cresswell.’

  ‘Well, he’s got Uncle Tom’s book. I’ll get my case…’

  ‘Tea’s in the sitting room—I made a cup for the Professor…’

  ‘Cresswell,’ finished Judith snappishly, and then allowed her tongue to betray her. ‘Where was he going, anyway?’

  Her mother gave her a guileless look. ‘I didn’t ask,’ she said, which was true but misleading.

  There was a lot to talk about and it all had to be repeated when her father got home. It was surprising how often Charles Cresswell’s name kept cropping up; Judith decided that her dislike of him had been so intense that it would take some time to get rid of his image. ‘Hateful man!’ she muttered as she unpacked. ‘Thank heaven I’ll never see him again!’

  It was nice to be home; to take up the quiet round of unhurried chores, stop and chat in the village with her parents’ friends, play tennis at the vicarage and take Curtis for the long ambling walks he loved. The week went too quickly and she found herself packing once more. The prospect of getting back into uniform held no pleasure, indeed she wondered if she really wanted to go back to Beck’s. Somehow she felt vaguely dissatisfied with life, and Nigel would be waiting for her, he had told her that in the several letters he had written to her. He hadn’t taken her refusal to marry him seriously; it seemed she would have to start all over again, trying to make him understand… Perhaps that was why she was feeling so downcast. She finished her packing and since it was their last evening together, took her parents down to the Red Lion for dinner.

  She left at the last possible moment the next day. She would go on duty at eight o’clock the next morning, but a couple of hours would be time enough in which to put her room to rights and get her uniform ready, so that it was already early evening when she drove the Fiat through the wide entrance of the hospital and parked it in the inner courtyard. It was broodingly warm still with the threat of a storm, and as she locked the car and picked up her case she tried not to think of the peace and quiet of Lacock. For some reason she did not allow herself to think about Hawkshead at all.

  Beck’s loomed all around her, an old hospital being modernised as fast as funds allowed, although nothing could eradicate its Victorian origins. The side door Judith went through still squeaked abominably and the serviceable brown lino on the passage floor was as shiny and slippery as it always was. Her charming nose wrinkled as it met the familiar smells, faint but unmistakable, of disinfectant, supper from the floor above her and the merest whiff of fragrance from the bowl of sweet peas the Warden of the nurses’ home, a keen arranger of flowers, had set on a table at the end of the passage, by the door to the home. Judith had never minded the hospital atmosphere before, now suddenly she was assailed by such a longing to be in Charles Cresswell’s garden, with its roses trailing over the house walls, scenting the air, that she could easily have burst into tears. She shook her head vigorously, told herself not to be a fool, and went through the door into the hall and began to climb the stairs to her room.

  She hadn’t finished her unpacking before the first of her friends joined her. Jenny Thorpe was the Accident Room Sister, younger than Judith, small and dainty and fair-haired. She made herself comfortable on Judith’s bed and declared: ‘How nice to have you back—you’ll be on in the morning, I suppose, just to get the hang of things, and then go on duty in the evening? Well, it’s busy, ducky. Miles and Reed have managed more or less, but no one replaced you, they made do with an extra staff nurse. Now tell me all about your holiday—you’re looking terrific…’

  She was interrupted by another girl with a round cheerful face and no looks to speak of. ‘You’re back,’ she observed unnecessarily. ‘They want you in the office right away, Judith, and I’ll bet my month’s salary that Sister Reed’s gone off sick; I hear she was complaining all night about her feet.’

  She was right. Judith was greeted by the Senior Nursing Officer with the brisk request that she should go on duty that very night. ‘I don’t know which way to turn,’ declared that lady with an emotion she seldom displayed. ‘Here’s Sister Reed off sick and no one to relieve her and the surgical side so very busy. You will, of course, have an extra night off duty,’ she added the ominous words, ‘when it’s convenient.’

  Judith said: ‘Yes, Miss Parkes,’ in her calm way, well aware that no night was ever convenient. If ever there was a night when she could sit down and put her feet up for an hour, she would eat her very attractive frilled muslin cap!

  There was just time to have a cup of tea before changing into uniform, finishing her unpacking and joining the rest of the night staff for breakfast. That she had had one breakfast already that day didn’t deter her from eating scrambled eggs and toast and marmalade. She had been on the night staff for some time now and topsy-turvy meals when on duty seemed natural enough.

  Ann Miles, the junior Sister, was already at the table when Judith got to the canteen, and uttered a sincere, ‘Thank God!’ when she saw her. ‘I saw one of the surgical nurses as I came here,’ she exclaimed. ‘There’s been an RTA, four injured so far and more in the Accident Room.’ She added as an after-thought, ‘Did you have a good leave?’

  Lacock and Hawkshead seemed a long way away—a different world. ‘Very nice, thank you,’ said Judith. ‘Tell me a bit more about this RTA.’

  By midnight she was tired, but there was little chance to sit down even for ten minutes. The injured were all in need of skilled attention and as usual, she hadn’t quite enough nurses on duty; she went from one bed to the other and then leaving Ann to cope, went off on her midnight round. She had seen Nigel, of course, but there had been no time to talk, and even if there had been, she was in no mood for personal matters.

  She finished her rounds, went back to her office and sat down at last. There was a tray on the desk with a pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches, and she started on her scratch meal as she began on the paper work to be done before morning. Despite her tiredness she wrote quickly and accurately in her neat hand and she was almost finished, a sandwich half eaten, held poised, when the door opened and Nigel came in.

  Judith looked up briefly. ‘I’m busy,’ she said, her mouth full, ‘is it about a patient? That man with the shoulder wound…’

  ‘They’re all OK until Mr David sees them in the morning. I wanted to talk to you. You didn’t answer any of my letters…’

  Judith swallowed the last of her sandwiches. ‘Not now, Nigel—I’m up to my eyes. I didn’t expect to come on duty tonight and I’m tired.’

  ‘Me too,’ he yawned. ‘What a life! If you married me, of course, you could work a day shift or even do part-time.’

  ‘Or stay at home and be a housewife,’ murmured Judith, and drank her tea.

  ‘Well, that would be silly. You’re a good nurse and as strong as a horse, and the extra money would be useful. Once I could get a consultant’s post you’d have to stop, of course, it would never do to have you working.’

  She choked over her tea. ‘Nigel, will you go away? I’m busy—I’ve said that once, and I’m not going to marry you—I’ve said that several times, and I mean it.’

  Suddenly she couldn’t bear him sitting there, looking smug and self-satisfied and not minding a bit about her tiredness. He’d be that kind of a husband, she guessed, always expecting her to be at his beck and call, ready to do what he wanted and never mind about her. She didn’t hold with Women’s Lib, but just at the moment she had a good deal of sympathy for the movement. She got to her feet. ‘I’m going to relieve Ann,’ she told him, and thought l
ongingly of the tea still in the pot. ‘Are you on call for the rest of the night or is Mr Wright?’

  Nigel was still sitting looking sulky. ‘Oh, Wright’s on call if you should need anyone. What are you doing tomorrow?’

  ‘Sleeping,’ said Judith, and sailed away.

  He hardly spoke to her for the next three nights and then luckily it was nights off for her. Tired though she was after a night which had stretched endlessly, she threw some clothes into an overnight bag, got into the Fiat, and drove down to Lacock. It took a long time because the summer holidays were in full spate, but to get home to a loving welcome, a hot bath, a delicious meal and finally her own bed was well worth it. She slept dreamlessly with Curtis spread over her feet and was up and dressed and making early morning tea well before eight o’clock.

  Her mother, looking at her restored beauty, sighed, ‘Darling, would it be a good idea to get a post on day duty somewhere? You looked so weary when you got home…’

  Judith bit into toast. ‘Well, I was. We’ve had a trying four nights, I daresay it’ll be much easier when I get back—besides, Carole should be back, we’ve been working one short.’

  ‘It would be nice if you got married,’ said Mrs Golightly vaguely.

  ‘First catch your man,’ her father chuckled, and Judith laughed with him.

  ‘I will when I find him,’ she said.

  It was wonderful what two days at home did for her. She went back to Beck’s feeling capable of dealing with any number of patients, even coping with Nigel. ‘I’ll not be home next week,’ she told her mother as she said goodbye. ‘I thought I’d go and see Granny—she’ll put me up for the night. I’m not sure which nights I can take off, so I’ll have to telephone in a day or two.’ She kissed her mother. ‘I’d rather come home, but I daresay Granny wants a bit of a gossip.’

  And as it turned out the next few nights held no dramatic upheavals. There were the usual admissions, of course, emergency cases in theatre, youths from rival gangs with broken bottle wounds, broken noses, fractured cheekbones, and besides these tiresome patients, some poor old soul beaten up for the sake of the few shillings they had. A sorry story, thought Judith, filling in her Night Casualty Book each morning, and not just once in a while, either. She was glad to be free at last and pack her bag again and get out the Fiat and make her way to St John’s Wood where her grandmother lived in a pleasant little house with Molly, her housekeeper.