‘A quarter to the hour, then. That will give us time to talk.’ He moved a little and Phil came over to join them, and presently Gemma slipped away to the kitchen to see how the supper was coming along.
It was pouring with rain the next morning when she left the house, so that she had wrapped herself in a rather elderly mac and tied a scarf over her head, which was a pity, for her hair, although it didn’t curl like Mandy’s or Phil’s, was long and fine and a pretty brown. But now, with most of it tucked out of sight, her unremarkable features looked even more unassuming than usual, not that she was thinking about her appearance; she was still puzzling out a reason for the professor’s wish to speak to her—a reason important enough to get him out of his bed and go to all the trouble of driving her to the hospital. Well, she would know soon enough now. His car, an Aston Martin convertible, was outside the gate and he was at the wheel.
She wished him good morning in a cheerful voice, wholeheartedly admired the car and got in beside him and sat quietly; the drive would take five minutes, and presumably he would start talking at once.
He did. ‘I shall be going home in a week’s time,’ he told her without preamble. ‘I should like you to return with me and look after my sister for a week or so—they have confirmed that she has brucellosis and she is in a good deal of pain and her fever is high. My mother assures me that she can manage for the time being, but Rienieta is sometimes very difficult—she refuses to have a nurse, too, but I thought that if you would come with me and we—er—took her unawares, as it were, it might solve that problem. She’s a handful,’ he added judiciously.
‘Well!’ declared Gemma, her eyes round with surprise while she hurriedly adjusted her ideas. ‘I didn’t expect…that is, I had no idea…’ She perceived that she would get no further like that. ‘I can’t just leave Millbury House at a moment’s notice, you know,’ she pointed out at length.
‘I had a word with Doctor Gibbons,’ said her companion smoothly. ‘He seems to think that something might be arranged for a few weeks—unpaid leave is what he called it.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because you are the eldest of a large family, I suppose, and know just how to deal with the young.’
She felt like Methuselah’s wife and said with a touch of peevishness: ‘I’m twenty-five, Professor.’
The amused glint in his eyes belied his placid expression. ‘I beg your pardon, I wasn’t thinking of you in terms of age, only experience.’ He slowed down to turn the car into the hospital drive. ‘Of course, if you dislike the idea, we’ll say no more about it.’
She didn’t dislike it at all, in fact she felt a rising excitement. She held it in check, though. ‘It doesn’t seem fair on Cousin Maud.’
‘She hasn’t the least objection. Doctor Gibbons happened to mention it to her yesterday.’ He drew up outside the side door. ‘Think it over,’ he said with maddening placidity, ‘and let me know. We’re bound to see each other during the next day or so.’
His goodbye was so nonchalant that Gemma told herself crossly that nothing, absolutely nothing, would make her agree to his request even if it were possible to grant it, which seemed to her very unlikely. Moreover, she would keep out of his way, he really had a nerve…she shook off her ill humour as she walked on to the ward; it would never do to upset the old ladies. All the same, she was a little distrait, so that old Mrs Craddock, who had been there for ever and knew everyone and everything, exclaimed in the ringing tones of the deaf: ‘And what is wrong with our dear Sister today? If I didn’t know her for a sensible girl, I would say she’d been crossed in love—her mind isn’t on her work.’
It was a good thing that her companions were either deaf too or just not listening. Gemma laughed, told Mrs Craddock that she was a naughty old thing and went to see about dinners. Mrs Craddock liked her food; her mind was instantly diverted by the mention of it. Gemma gave her two helpings and the rest of the day passed without any more observations from the old lady.
It was towards the end of the afternoon that she remembered that she hadn’t got her bike with her and the professor had said nothing about fetching her home; the nagging thought was luckily dispelled by the appearance of Doctor Gibbons, who arrived to see a patient very shortly before she was due to go off duty and offered her a lift. ‘Ross told me he had brought you over here this morning, so I said that as I was coming this afternoon, I should bring you back—that’ll leave him free to go into Salisbury and pick up Mandy.’
Gemma smiled with false brightness. The professor might appear to be a placid, good-natured man without a devious thought in his head, but she was beginning to think otherwise; he had had it all nicely planned. Well, if he thought he could coax her to ramble over half Europe he was mistaken. Her sensible little head told her that she was grossly exaggerating, but she cast sense out. Holland or Hungary or Timbuktoo, they were all one and the same, and all he was doing was to make a convenience of her. Her charming bosom swelled with indignation while she attended to Doctor Gibbons’ simple wants with a severe professionalism which caused him to eye her with some astonishment.
Cousin Maud had tea waiting for her, which was nice. Everyone was out in the garden, picking the first gooseberries, and the professor was there too, although long before Gemma had finished her tea he had strolled away. To collect Mandy, Cousin Maud explained with a smile, so that Gemma, on the point of asking her advice about the professor’s request, thought better of it. She wasn’t really interested in going to Holland, she told herself, she wasn’t interested, for that matter, in seeing him again. She could not in fact care less. She looked so cross that her companion wanted to know if she had a headache.
Gemma was upstairs when the professor returned with Mandy. He didn’t stay long, though, and she didn’t go downstairs until she had seen him get back into his car and shoot out of their gate and into Doctor Gibbons’ drive. She could see him clearly from her bedroom window; indeed, she was hanging out of it, watching him saunter into the house next door, when he turned round suddenly and looked at her. She withdrew her head so smartly that she banged it on the low ceiling.
For the time being, she didn’t want to see him. Let him come again and ask her if he was so keen for her to nurse his sister, and it was really rather absurd that she should leave her old ladies just to satisfy his whim. She tidied her already tidy hair and sighed deeply. Probably she would be at Millbury House for ever and ever—well, not quite that, but certainly for years. She went slowly downstairs, the rest of the evening hers in which to do whatever she wished, and she was free until noon the next day, too. She wouldn’t see her old ladies until then.
She saw them a good deal sooner than that, though. Several hours later she was wakened by the insistent ringing of the telephone. She had been the last to go to bed and had only been asleep for a short time, and it was only a little after midnight. The house was quiet as she trod silently across the landing and down the stairs, not waiting to put on dressing gown or slippers. Doctor Gibbons’ voice sounded loud in her ear because of the stillness around her. ‘Gemma? Good. There’s a fire at Millbury House—they’ve just telephoned. Matron’s pretty frantic because the fire brigade’s out at another fire and they’ll have to come from further afield. Can you be ready in five minutes? Wait at your gate.’
He hung up before she could so much as draw breath.
She was at the gate, in slacks and a sweater pulled over her nightie and good stout shoes on her feet, with a minute to spare. The house behind her was quite still and the village street was dark with not a glimmer of light to be seen excepting in the doctor’s house, and that went out as she looked. Seconds later she heard the soft purr of the Aston Martin as it was backing out of the drive and halted by her. The professor was at the wheel; he didn’t speak at all but held the door open just long enough for her to get in before he shot away. It was left to Doctor