She opened her mouth, but before she could utter a squeak he laid a finger upon it.
‘Your good landlady,’ said the professor in a voice strong enough to be heard by that lady lurking at the bottom of the stairs, ‘has kindly allowed me to visit you on a matter of some importance.’ As he spoke he pushed her gently back into the room and closed the door behind them both…
‘Well,’ said Sophie with a good deal of heat, ‘what in heaven’s name are you doing here? Go away at once.’ She remembered that she was still in her dressing-gown, a rather fetching affair in quilted rose-pink satin. ‘I’m not dressed…’
‘I had noticed, but let me assure you that since I have five sisters girls in dressing-gowns hold no surprises for me.’ He added thoughtfully, ‘Although I must admit that this one becomes you very well.’
‘What’s so important?’ snapped Sophie. ‘I can’t imagine what it can be.’
‘No, no, how could you?’ He spoke soothingly. ‘I am going to Liverpool tomorrow and I shall be back on Wednesday. I thought that a drive into the country when you come off duty might do you good—fresh air, you know… I’ll have to have you back here by one o’clock and you can go straight to bed.’
He was strolling around the room, looking at everything. ‘Why do you live in this terrible room with that even more terrible woman who is your landlady?’
‘Because it’s close to the hospital and I can’t afford anything better.’ She added, ‘Oh, do go away. I can’t think why you came.’
‘Why, to tell you that I will pick you up on Wednesday morning—from here?—and take you for an airing. Your temper will be improved by a peaceful drive.’
She stood in front of him, trying to find the right words, so that she could tell him just what she thought of him, but she couldn’t think of them. He said gently, ‘I’ll be here at half-past nine.’ He had picked up Mabel, who had settled her small furry head against his shoulder, purring with pleasure.
Sophie had the outrageous thought that the shoulder would be very nice to lean against; she had the feeling that she was standing in a strong wind and being blown somewhere. She heard herself saying, ‘Oh, all right, but I can’t think why. And do go; I’m on duty in half an hour…’
‘I’ll be downstairs waiting for you; we can walk back together. Don’t be long, for I think that I shall find Miss Phipps a trying conversationalist.’
He let himself out, leaving her to dress rapidly, do her hair and face, and make suitable arrangements for Mabel’s comfort during the night, and while she did that she thought about the professor. An arrogant type, she told herself, used to having influence and his own way and doubtless having his every whim pandered to. Just because he had happened to be there when she’d needed help with that wretched shoe didn’t mean that he could scrape acquaintance with her. ‘I shall tell him that I have changed my mind,’ she told Mabel. ‘There is absolutely no reason why I should go out with him.’
She put the little cat in her basket, picked up her shoulder-bag, and went downstairs.
Miss Phipps, pink-cheeked and wig slightly askew, was talking animatedly to the professor, describing with a wealth of detail just how painful were her bunions. The professor, who had had nothing to do with bunions for years, listened courteously, and gravely advised a visit to her own doctor. Then he bade her an equally courteous goodnight and swept Sophie out into the damp darkness.
‘I dislike this road,’ he observed, taking her arm.
For some reason his arm worried her. She said, knowing that she was being rude, ‘Well, you don’t have to live in it, do you?’
His answer brought her up short. ‘My poor girl, you should be living in the country—open fields and hedgerows…’
‘Well, I do,’ she said waspishly. ‘My home is in the country.’
‘You do not wish to work near your home?’ The question was put so casually that she answered without thinking.
‘Well, that would be splendid, but it’s miles from anywhere. Besides, I can get there easily enough from here.’
He didn’t comment on her unconscious contradiction, and since they were already in the forecourt of St Agnes’s he made some remark about the hospital and, once inside its doors, bade her a civil goodnight and went away in the direction of the consultant’s room.
In the changing-room, full of night sisters getting into their uniforms, she heard Gill’s voice from the further end. ‘He’s been operating for most of the day,’ she was saying. ‘I dare say he’ll have a look at his patients this evening—men’s surgical. I shall make an excuse to go down there to borrow something. Kitty—’ Kitty was the night sister there ‘—give me a ring when he does. He’s going away tomorrow, did you know?’ She addressed her companions at large. ‘But he’ll be back.’
‘How do you know?’ someone asked.
‘Oh, I phoned Theatre Sister earlier this evening—had a little gossip…’
They all laughed, and although Sophie laughed too she felt a bit guilty, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to tell them about her unexpected visitor that evening, nor the conversation she had had with him. She didn’t think anyone would believe her anyway. She wasn’t sure if she believed it herself.
Several busy nights brought her to Wednesday morning and the realisation that since she hadn’t seen the professor she hadn’t been able to refuse to go out with him. ‘I shall do so if and when he comes,’ she told Mabel, who went on cleaning her whiskers, quite unconcerned.
Sophie had had far too busy a night and she pottered rather grumpily around her room, not sure whether to have her bath first or a soothing cup of tea. She had neither. Miss Phipps, possibly scenting romance, climbed the stairs to tell her that she was wanted on the phone. ‘That nice gentleman,’ she giggled, ‘said I was to get you out of the bath if necessary.’ She caught Sophie’s fulminating eye and added hastily, ‘Just his little joke; gentlemen do like their little jokes…’
Sophie choked back a rude answer and went downstairs, closely followed by her landlady, who, although she went into her room, took care to leave the door slightly open.
‘Hello,’ said Sophie in her haughtiest voice.
‘As cross as two sticks,’ answered the professor’s placid voice. ‘I shall be with you in exactly ten minutes.’
He hung up before she could utter a word. She put the receiver back and the phone rang again and when she picked it up he said, ‘If you aren’t at the door I shall come up for you. Don’t worry, I’ll bring Miss Phipps with me as a chaperon.’
Sophie thumped down the receiver once more, ignored Miss Phipps’s inquisitive face peering round her door, and took herself back to her room. ‘I don’t want to go out,’ she told Mabel. ‘It’s the very last thing I want to do.’
All the same, she did things to her face and hair and put on her coat, assured Mabel that she wouldn’t be away for long, and went downstairs again with a minute to spare.
The professor was already there, exchanging small talk with Miss Phipps, who gave Sophie an awfully sickening roguish look and said something rather muddled about pretty girls not needing beauty sleep if there was something better to do. Sophie cast her a look of outrage and bade the professor a frosty good morning, leaving him to make his polite goodbyes to her landlady, before she was swept out into the chilly morning and into the Bentley’s welcoming warmth.
It was disconcerting when he remained silent, driving the car out of London on the A12 and, once clear of the straggling suburbs, turning off on to a side-road into the Essex countryside, presently turning off again on to an even smaller road, apparently leading to nowhere.
‘Feeling better?’