The Fifth Day of Christmas Page 6

  She slept the deep sleep of the young and healthy and got up in time to cook breakfast for them both while Connie got ready to go to St Clare’s. She tidied the little flat after her friend had gone, washed up and got dressed herself and went out. First to the bank for some money, then to purchase a suitable number of white uniforms and caps and a number of articles she felt it necessary to take with her. She was on her way back when her eye was caught by a wool dress with a narrow, ankle-length skirt and full sleeves caught into long tight cuffs. It had a high neck and she knew that the deep rose of its colour would suit her. She bought it recklessly and without a pang for the hole its price had made in her savings. Savings at that moment didn’t matter in the least.

  She had a sketchy lunch and went round to St Clare’s to see Private Wing Sister, who listened to Julia’s somewhat expurgated account of her journey with Miss Mary MacGall, expressed pleasure that she had got another patient so quickly and wished her luck, adding,

  ‘So you won’t be going home yet, Nurse Pennyfeather?’

  Julia hedged. ‘Well, not for a short time—I don’t imagine that this job will last more than a week or two—probably I shall bring Miss Jason back to her home.’

  She hadn’t imagined anything of the sort until that moment, but it satisfied Sister, a stickler for having everything cut and dried long before it was done. ‘Splendid,’ she said now, ‘and remember, Nurse, when you feel free to leave your sister-in-law we shall be glad to have you back with us. Matron was only saying so this morning on her round.’

  Julia thanked her and got up to go; there was still George to telephone and the afternoon was advancing. She rang his office in Frome, where he had a flourishing solicitor’s practice, and told him, with the brevity he always required on the telephone, what she was about to do. He wasted no words on recriminations but plunged into a reproachful speech of such tenor that if she had been listening she would have felt a complete heel; but she heard hardly a word of it; she was thinking that in two hours she would see the doctor again. When George paused for breath, she said kindly, ‘I’m sure you can get a nurse from that agency in the High Street, George. I’ll write from Holland. Be good. ‘Bye!’

  She smiled as she hung up; George hated being told to be good.

  The doctor arrived punctually, but Julia was ready and waiting for him. She was wearing her Jaeger coat and skirt of a pleasing turquoise and brown check with its matching turquoise jersey and a fur bonnet on her black hair, and had completed this outfit with brown boots and gloves and a shoulder bag. She was aware that she looked rather nice; nevertheless it was gratifying when he said quietly,

  ‘How charming you look, Julia,’ and although that was all he gave her a look of admiration which warmed a mind chilled by thoughts of Miss Marcia Jason.

  They were in the car and already moving when he observed, ‘It’s early to dine in any of the restaurants, I thought we might go back to my hotel—there’s a grill room there.’

  Julia, thinking of her sandwich and cocoa lunch, felt relieved, for she was hungry. She murmured suitably and wondered which hotel it was. Something smallish, she decided, where he would be treated as a person and not a room number, because he was that sort of a man. He drove westward away from the city and presently turned into Dover Street and stopped outside Brown’s Hotel.

  ‘Is this it?’ inquired Julia, a little taken aback. She didn’t know much about London hotels, but she thought that this one was amongst the best of them in a quiet way. Certainly they were treated with an old-fashioned courtesy which she imagined no longer existed—probably, she reminded herself wryly, because she wasn’t in the habit of frequenting such places. When they were seated the doctor said,

  ‘I hope you’re hungry—I am. I’ve had so much to do all day I didn’t stop for a decent meal and I don’t suppose you did either. Shall we have some sherry while we decide what to eat?’

  They settled for Crabe à la Diable followed by baked gammon and peaches. It was while Julia was choosing a sweet that she looked up to ask apprehensively, ‘Will it be rough?—the crossing, I mean. Should I not have any more?’

  The doctor said on a laugh, ‘I should think it will be very rough, but don’t let that worry you now—I don’t fancy you’re the sort to be bowled over by a mere storm at sea,’ and when she still looked uncertain: ‘Try a water ice, that’s harmless enough.’

  She took his advice and as she was eating it asked, ‘Are you in a hurry to be gone?’

  He was sitting back in his chair, watching her. ‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘I’m in no hurry at all—we have all the time in the world.’

  Ordinary words enough, but somehow she had the impression that they had another meaning. She finished her ice, accepted his offer of coffee and sat back too.

  ‘May I know something about my patient?’ she asked in a businesslike voice.

  ‘Your duties?’ he queried smoothly. ‘Would you agree to looking after her in the mornings—she needs a good deal of help still and there are exercises and so on—after lunch perhaps you would take an hour or two off, and return to duty after five o’clock until bedtime. Would a half day when it could be arranged suit you and any other reasonable time off you may wish to have? I’m sorry if it sounds a little vague, but I am a little out of touch with Marcia’s progress. I’m sure no one will object to you arranging times to suit yourself.’

  Very vague, Julia agreed silently, no mention of days off, and half days when they could be arranged sounded ominous; it was surprising what one did when one was in love. If he had said no off duty at all she would still have gone.

  ‘We haven’t discussed your salary,’ he added, and mentioned a sum which made her raise her eyebrows. ‘That’s too much,’ she said sharply, ‘a great deal more than I could earn in England.’

  ‘You won’t be in England,’ he pointed out smoothly, ‘and remember you may have to alter your working hours to get up at night. My father agreed with me that it was a fair sum to offer you.’

  Julia looked at him thoughtfully. ‘If your father…!’ she began. ‘Very well, but if I don’t find I have enough to do to justify all that money, I shall say so.’

  He stretched a hand across the table and they solemnly shook hands. ‘Done,’ said the doctor, ‘and there’s another thing. I should much prefer you to call me Ivo—I feel distinctly elderly each time you address me so severely as Doctor.’

  ‘All right, Ivo,’ she answered, ‘you still have to tell me about my patient.’

  He frowned very slightly. ‘I’ll tell you all I know, but as I said, I haven’t seen Marcia for more than six months, although I have had frequent reports and in her letters she told me that she has been making progress.’ The frown deepened. ‘Slow progress, I’m afraid; she should have been walking…however…!’ He plunged into the details of the case and Julia, listening with eyes on his face, thought how lucky Miss Marcia Jason was, even if she had had polio.

  They started their journey soon after that and when they reached Harwich and were on board, Ivo said, ‘Go to bed, Julia, it will be a rough crossing. I’ll ask the stewardess to come to you presently with a bedtime drink. If you don’t feel like breakfast in the morning, have something in your cabin.’

  Julia, who had had ideas about staying up until the boat sailed, meekly agreed and went to her cabin. Probably Ivo didn’t want her company and anyway, she was tired and her cabin, although small, seemed the height of comfort. She was undressed and in her bunk when the stewardess came in with a little tray of tea and biscuits and the strong advice to ring for her immediately she was needed. ‘And I’ll bring you your tea just after six, miss, and if you wish you can order breakfast then.’ And when Julia thanked her and offered to pay for her tea, she was told that all that had been taken care of by the doctor. So she sipped her tea and ate a biscuit and presently, despite the uneasy movement of the boat, fell asleep. She wakened several times during the night, to feel the violent tossing of the boat and hear a multitude of creak
s and groans, but she went to sleep again and only awoke when the stewardess arrived with her morning tea, and when that good lady wanted to know if she would like her breakfast in her cabin, Julia replied that no, she felt marvellous and would breakfast with the doctor and could someone tell him.

  She found him waiting for her and as she sat down and wished him good morning he said, ‘I hear you slept well—I’m glad, for it was a rough night. You feel like breakfast?’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ stated Julia simply, and went on to eat everything he ordered with an appetite unimpaired by the boat’s sidlings. The doctor ate heartily too while they held a lively conversation upon a variety of topics until he suggested that she might like to go up on deck. The Hoek van Holland was very near now, its lights twinkling through the still dark morning, and on either side of it the dark outline of the flat coast melted away into the wild blackness. The wind was still blowing half a gale; it whipped a fine colour into her cheeks and put a sparkle into her dark eyes; she looked vividly alive and very attractive as they went below and the doctor stared at her with appreciation.

  They reached Tilburg by eleven o’clock, the doctor having driven most of the way without haste. True, he had raced along the highway to Rotterdam from the Hoek, where he had been caught up in the morning traffic of that thriving city, allowing Julia time to gaze out of the window and wonder how he could ever find his way out of the maze of the crowded streets.

  They ran out of the sprawling city at last, crossed a bridge over water again, and still on the autobaan, took the road south, past Dordrecht, over the Moeredijk bridge, towards Breda, but just as they were within sight of that city, Ivo had turned off the main road, and skirting Breda, had taken the road to Tilburg, a town, which when they reached it, Julia liked. It was surprisingly modern and looked prosperous too and was, explained Ivo as they drove through its heart, owing to its thriving woollen industry. It was also, he added, full of schools of every kind and there was a university as well.

  They had left Tilburg on a quiet country road which presently ran between green fields and increasingly large clumps of trees. Now, thought Julia, it began to look more like the Holland she had imagined; even in the bare greyness of a winter’s morning, the countryside had charm. But it was when Ivo turned the car into a long avenue of tall trees, their branches meeting overhead, that she exclaimed, ‘Oh, this is lovely! I didn’t expect it.’

  The trees edged wooded land on either side, dark and still frost-covered from the night’s cold, and presently she noticed that there were occasional gates barring narrow lanes leading from the road and winding away into the trees.

  When she glimpsed a house, well back from the road, she asked, ‘Are there people living in the woods? How quiet and peaceful it is, and how beautiful.’

  Ivo looked pleased. ‘You like it? My home is almost at the end of this road, close to Oisterwijk. It is quiet, but we like it like that, and even in the summer when the visitors come, we are quite undisturbed.’

  He turned off the road as he spoke, through an open wooden gate and along a short sanded lane between larch trees; the lane turned abruptly and the house came into view—a pleasant house of red brick, flat-faced with big windows and a front door which looked a little too large for it. It was fair sized and Julia, looking at its solid front, thought that it might be a lot larger than it appeared. It had a neat lawn, now heavily covered with frost, and a pleasant backing of trees. As they got out of the car, the front door was opened by an elderly woman who stood back to allow a much younger woman to run out to them. She was tall and well built and Julia would have recognised her as Ivo’s sister Jorina anywhere, for her features were a softer, feminine version of his and her eyes were of the same penetrating blue; only her hair, short and inclined to curl, was corn-coloured, whereas Ivo’s was straight and pale. The girl ran to the car and flung herself into the doctor’s arms, crying excitedly, ‘Ivo—how lovely to have you home again—how I’ve missed you!’

  She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, then drew away a little to say to Julia, ‘Forgive me—I’m so pleased to see my brother again.’ Her English was fluent, but with much more of an accent than Ivo, who introduced the two girls, and waiting only long enough for them to sake hands and smile at each other, said, ‘Let’s get indoors—it’s cold and I’m sure Julia would like to get settled in.’

  They all went into the house, where Ivo paused at the door to introduce Bep, the elderly woman who had opened the door in the first place, before sweeping the two girls through the hall and into a large front room, behind whose door Julia had heard a dog barking furiously. As they entered this pleasant room a large Old English sheepdog launched himself upon the doctor, who greeted him with every sign of pleasure if slightly more calmly. ‘This is Ben,’ he explained, ‘and you must forgive his boisterous manners, but he hasn’t seen me for six months.’ He fended off the dog goodnaturedly and went on, ‘Let me take your coat, Julia, and do go and sit by the fire.’

  Jorina said quickly, ‘Yes, do, you must be cold. Bep’s bringing the coffee.’ She took a chair near Julia and smiled at her with friendly eyes and then turned to look at her brother when he spoke.

  ‘I’ll go up and see Marcia—is she still in the same room?’

  ‘Yes—we wanted her to have a room downstairs now that she is at last beginning to get around a little, but she said that you would be coming home and could carry her up and down.’

  She had her face turned away from Julia as she spoke and there was something in her voice which made Julia long to see her face. She looked at the doctor instead and saw an expression she couldn’t make out cross his handsome features, but it had gone at once, too swiftly for her to guess at.

  ‘Will you take Nurse Pennyfeather with you?’ Jorina wanted to know, and he, without looking at Julia, said at once, ‘No—time enough for that when we’ve had our coffee and a little talk,’ and left the room.

  Julia stared at the fire, telling herself that it was a relief that he hadn’t wanted her to go with him, for to have had to stand by and watch their meeting after so long an absence would have been more than she could have borne. Her lively imagination was following him upstairs when it was halted by Jorina saying, ‘Ivo calls you Julia, would you mind very much if I do too? And perhaps you will call me Jorina.’

  She smiled again and looked so like her brother that Julia’s heart bounced, but she said quietly enough, ‘I’d like that very much, thank you,’ and broke off as Bep came in with a big silver tray loaded with coffee cups and a plate of little sugary biscuits. She set the tray down by Jorina, lit the little spirit stove under the silver coffee pot and went away again without a word, and Jorina said as she poured the coffee,

  ‘Old-fashioned, is it not? But my father likes it and so does Ivo, but when I marry I shall have a modern percolator which makes no work.’

  ‘You’re going to be married?’ asked Julia with interest.

  ‘Yes—in six months, perhaps sooner. My fiancé is a—how do you say—lawyer in Arnhem.’

  ‘So your father will have to get someone to run the house?’ interposed Julia, trying not to be curious but failing lamentably.

  ‘Well, yes—to work with Bep, you know. But if Ivo marries then there may be no need, but I do not know.’

  Julia bit into a biscuit because it was something to do and then had great difficulty in swallowing it, her throat was so dry. Even now Ivo was upstairs with Marcia, probably discussing the wedding date. She had been a fool to come. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, afraid that she might burst into tears, then opened them again as the door opened and Ivo came in.

  He looked at her sharply as he sat down opposite her and asked,

  ‘Do you feel all right? You look,’ he hesitated, ‘tired.’

  Julia guessed that wasn’t the word he had intended to say. She said steadily, ‘Perhaps I am, but only for a minute. I think I’m excited,’ and then wished she hadn’t said it because she was sure that was the la
st thing she looked.

  He must have agreed with her secret thought, for he raised an eyebrow and half smiled as he turned to Jorina. ‘Marcia has progressed very well, but I’m glad I brought Julia with me, for she needs a great deal of encouragement after being an invalid for so many months.’ He took the coffee cup he was offered and asked, ‘How’s Father?’

  ‘Very well, but working too hard; he talks of retiring now that you are back. If you took Theo as a partner later on, you could still do your work at the hospitals and keep the practice going. Is that possible?’

  ‘Of course—if Father will give me time to put my affairs in order first.’ They began to talk about Edinburgh and the course he had been following there and became so absorbed in their talk that Julia was surprised to hear the lovely old painted clock on the wall strike twelve, and so it seemed was Ivo, for he paused in what he was saying and exclaimed, ‘Julia, how thoughtless I am—you shall go to your room and then I’ll take you to meet Marcia.’

  Julia followed Jorina upstairs, stifling the idea that the last thing she wanted to do was to see Marcia. She would be with her for most of the day from now on and might not see Ivo at all, and even if she did, never alone. She sighed inwardly and crossed the landing behind Jorina and into a long passage leading to the back of the house. She had been right; the house had a sizeable wing behind as well as a floor above the one they were now on. Jorina opened the first door they came to.

  ‘Marcia’s room is in the front of the house—’ she waved an arm vaguely. ‘We’ve had a bell fixed so that if she should want you she can ring, but she’s so good I don’t expect she will ever use it.’

  Julia heard faint mockery behind the words and wondered about it, then forgot it in the pleasure of seeing her room. It was furnished most elegantly and with great comfort in the Adam period, with curtains and bedspread of pink striped silk, a pale echo of the deeper pink of the carpeted floor. There was a small buttonbacked chair too with a small table beside it and a writing desk in the window. There were even books piled on a dainty little wall table. Jorina asked, ‘You like it? The bathroom is across the passage and is for you alone. Now I leave you and presently Ivo will come.’ She went to the door. ‘I am glad that you are here,’ she said with a sincerity which was heartwarming.