He was staring at her, looking, for the moment, not in the least absent-minded. ‘Yes, well… but I don’t think… that is, it’s all rather unusual.’ She closed her eyes for a second and opened them again. He was still there; she wasn’t dreaming. ‘If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to go back to Timothy’s.’
He drove her back, talking in a desultory manner about this and that, and never said another word about his astonishing proposal. She allowed herself to be helped out of the car, feeling bewildered, and stammered her awkward thanks before hurrying away to the nurses’ home. He hadn’t said a word about seeing her again, she thought as she tore off her clothes and jumped into bed. Probably, when they did meet again, he would have forgotten the whole episode. She began to go over the evening and fell asleep halfway through, telling herself that something would happen anyway.
CHAPTER TWO
NOTHING happened, at least nothing to do with Trixie and the professor. A week went by and a most unsatisfactory week it was: Staff Nurse Bennett’s dislike of her manifested itself in a dozen annoying ways; off duty changed at the last minute when Sister Snell had days off, going late to meals because of some errand which really had to be run, constant criticism of whatever she was doing on the ward. Trixie’s temper, usually good, had become badly frayed. It was fortunate that she had days off even though she was late going off duty that evening. She left the ward and started down the stone staircase to the floor below. She would have supper and go to bed early and decide what she was going to do with her precious two days. The parks, she thought; a good walk would improve her temper. November, it seemed, was to be a sunny crisp month, and she needed the exercise. She loitered along, happily engaged in her plans, when the professor’s voice from behind and above her startled her into missing her footing. He plucked her upright and fell into step beside her.
‘I could have broken a leg,’ said Trixie with asperity. ‘Creeping up behind me like that.’ She eventually remembered to whom she was speaking and then mumbled, ‘Sorry, sir, but you startled me.’
He didn’t appear to hear her. ‘You have days off, Beatrice?’
They had reached the floor below and she turned to look up at him. ‘Yes.’
He eyed her narrowly. ‘You are pale and I think rather cross. Has it been a bad week?’
‘Awful. I shall never be a good nurse, Staff Nurse Bennett says so.’
He smiled faintly. ‘She is quite right,’ and at her indignant gasp, ‘I shall explain…’
He was interrupted by one of the path lab assistants. ‘Sir, they are waiting for you. Dr Gillespie is quite ready…’
The professor waved a large hand. ‘Yes, yes, I am on my way. I will be with you in a moment.’ When the man went back up the stairs, he went on walking beside Trixie, who was bent on getting away from him at the earliest possible moment. Halfway across the vast landing she stopped.
‘You’re going the wrong way, Professor,’ she reminded him gently.
‘Yes, yes, I dare say I am, but I wish to talk to you.’
‘They’re waiting for you,’ she pointed out patiently. ‘I should think it’s urgent.’
He said at once, ‘Ah, yes! A most interesting case; a tumour of the medulla—I believe it to be a phaeochromocytoma. This will cause hypertension…’
Trixie, her eyes popping out of her head and quite out of her depth, put a hand on one large coat sleeve. If she didn’t stop him now he’d ramble on happily about the adrenal glands. ‘Sir—sir, you have to go back upstairs. Oh, do go to the path lab. Dr Gillespie is waiting for you.’
He wasn’t listening. ‘You see, the hypertension will give rise to irregular cardiac rhythm…’ He glanced down at her. ‘Why are you looking like that, Beatrice?’
She neither knew nor cared what she looked like. ‘The path lab,’ she urged him.
‘Ah, yes. I have an appointment there.’ He patted her arm in a kindly fashion and turned to go back up the staircase. ‘Be outside at nine o’clock tomorrow morning; we will have a day in the country.’
Trixie asked faintly, ‘Will we?’ but he had already gone, two steps at a time. She glimpsed his great back disappearing on the landing above.
She started on her way again to be brought to a halt by his voice, loud and clear enough for the whole hospital to hear. He was hanging over the balustrade with the path lab assistant hovering anxiously.
‘Wear something warm, Beatrice. I have a wish to breathe the sea air.’
He disappeared, leaving her to continue across the landing and down another flight of stairs and so to her room. She sat down on the bed to think. A day by the sea would be wonderful and the professor was a charming companion, if somewhat unmindful of his surroundings from time to time. From these reflections her thoughts progressed naturally enough to the important question as to what to wear. Not a winter coat, it wasn’t cold enough, and her old quilted jacket wouldn’t do in case they had a meal somewhere. It would have to be the elderly Jaeger suit, timeless in cut, its tweed of the best quality, but, to a discerning female eye, out of date. The professor probably hadn’t a discerning eye, indeed he had observed that she dressed sensibly, which, considering that he had only seen her in uniform and the brown velvet and blue crêpe, proved her point. It would have to be the tweed. This important decision having been made, she felt free to wonder why he wanted to spend a day with her. She refused to take seriously his remarks about her being a suitable wife. He must have friends here in London even if he was Dutch; he had seemed on very easy terms with Colonel Vosper and surely if he wanted a day out he would have chosen someone like Margaret, guaranteed to be an amusing companion besides having a pretty face and the right clothes.
She got out of her uniform slowly, and, no longer wishing for her supper, got into a dressing-gown and went along to the kitchenette to make a pot of tea and eat the rest of the rich tea biscuits left in the packet. Waiting for the kettle to boil, she put her name down for bread and butter and marmalade for her breakfast, which the nurses’ home maid would bring over and leave in the kitchenette. She was hunting round for milk when several of her friends came off duty after supper.
‘You’re not ill, are you?’ asked Lucy. ‘You never miss meals.’
‘I’m fine, I wasn’t hungry. I’ve got days off anyway.’
She wished she hadn’t said that, for Mary asked in her nosy way, ‘Going home, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Got a date?’
She didn’t need to think of an answer for someone said, gently teasing, ‘Of course she has. The Governor of the Bank of England; lunch off a gold plate at the Ritz and dinner and dancing with minor royalty…’
There was a chorus of laughter and Mary said huffily, ‘You all talk such nonsense.’ She thumped down her mug and went away, and presently the rest of them wandered away to wash their hair, do their nails and argue as to who should have the hairdrier first. Trixie nipped into one of the bathrooms before anyone else had laid claim to it, and soaked in the bath, wishing that she had said a firm ‘no’ to the professor’s invitation—not an invitation, really, more an order which he had taken for granted would be obeyed. She was pondering ways and means of letting him know that she wouldn’t be able to join him in the morning when repeated impatient thumps on the door forced her to get out of the bath.
‘You’ve been in there hours,’ said Mary. ‘You’re the colour of a lobster too. You’ll probably get a chill; a good thing you’ve got days off.’
Trixie took the pins out of her hair and let it fall in a soft brown curtain around her shoulders. ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ she agreed cheerfully, and went off to