Читать книгу When May Follows - Бетти Нилс - Страница 7

UNCLE BEN’S HOUSE was a Regency villa standing in its own immaculately kept garden, well back from the road. Aunt Lucy flung the door wide as they got out of the car and began to speak almost before they had got within earshot.

‘Katrina, how lovely—your supper’s waiting for you. Ben dear, how fortunate that it was something I was able to keep hot. Raf, you must be famished!’

She bustled them through the hall and into the sitting-room, furnished with easy chairs and sofas and a number of small tables, loaded down with knitting, books and newspapers. ‘Mary’s just dishing up—you’ll have time for a drink.’

Katrina had her coat whisked from her and was sat in a chair and a drink put into her hand. ‘Ben said on the phone that you’ve had a busy evening,’ went on Aunt Lucy, happily unaware of what the business entailed. ‘I was a bit put out when the men were called away just as we were about to sit down to table, but this makes up for it. How is your dear mother?’

The men had taken their drinks to the wide french window at the end of the room after responding suitably to Aunt Lucy’s greeting, and now she cast them an indulgent glance. ‘I suppose they’ll mull over whatever it was for the rest of the evening, which means that we can have a nice gossip.’

Aunt Lucy’s voice was soothing and the sherry gave Katrina an uplift she badly needed, and by some domestic magic conjured up by the cook, the meal which they sat down to presently was delicious. Katrina, thoroughly famished, fell to with a good appetite, avoiding the Professor’s eye and only addressing him directly when he spoke to her.

Which wasn’t often, and then with a casual politeness which she found annoying, despite the fact that she had decided that she really didn’t like him at all. She was taken completely off guard presently, when, dinner over and coffee drunk in the sitting room, she murmured to her aunt that she would have to go. The two men were standing together, discussing some case or other, but the Professor interrupted what he was saying to observe;

‘I’ll run you back, Katrina.’

‘There’s no need, thank you—I’ll get a taxi.’

‘I have to go back anyway to pick up some instruments.’ He spoke blandly, ignoring her reply, and Aunt Lucy at once backed him up.

‘Well, of course, if you’re really going that way—so much nicer than a taxi at this time of night, Kate—someone to talk to, as well,’ she added happily.

Katrina thought of that remark ten minutes later, sitting beside the Professor in the Bentley, trying hard to think of some topic of conversation. She scowled horribly when he observed placidly: ‘Considering that it will be April in a few days’ time, the evenings are surprisingly chilly.’

‘Why are you in England?’ asked Katrina, not bothering with the weather.

‘Interested? I’m flattered. Your uncle and I are old friends—he knew my father well. When I come to England I like to see him.’

Which hadn’t answered her question. ‘You’re a surgeon, too?’

‘Yes.’ He turned the car into the hospital yard and parked it. ‘No, stay there,’ he told her, and got out and opened the door for her. ‘Such a pleasant evening,’ he murmured. ‘Goodnight, Kate.’

She suspected that he was amused about something again. Her goodnight was civil but nothing more. Going slowly up the stairs of the nurses’ home to her room, she reflected that she wouldn’t see him again and was surprised at her glum feelings about that. She had hoped, with conventional politeness, that he would enjoy the rest of his stay in England, and all he had said was that he was quite sure that he would.

‘Oh, well,’ she said crossly as she opened her door, ‘who cares? I shan’t be seeing him again, anyway.’

She saw him the very next afternoon. It had been a simply beastly morning, with Mr Knowles doing a round of his six beds and spinning it out to a quite unnecessary length of time, so that dinners were late, nurses didn’t get off duty on time, and Katrina herself had had to be content with cheese sandwiches and a pot of tea in the office. And if that wasn’t enough, she had been waylaid by Jack Bentall, one of the house surgeons, and badgered into a reluctant promise to go out to dinner with him in a couple of days’ time. Despite the fact that she had never encouraged him, he waylaid her on every possible occasion, making no secret of his feelings, even allowing it to be bruited around that she was quite bowled over by him. Katrina had never lacked for invitations; she was a delightful companion and sufficiently lovely for men to like to be seen out with her, but she had never taken any of them seriously. For one thing, as she had pointed out so many times to her mother and sisters, she was so large…

But Jack Bentall didn’t seem to mind that; he was a rather short, thickset young mam, and conceited, and nothing Katrina could say would convince him that she didn’t care two straws for him. Usually she fobbed him off, but today she had been tired and put out and had lost some of her fire, and even though she regretted it bitterly already, she was far too honest to invent an excuse at the last minute. But it would be the last time, she promised herself, as she gobbled up the sandwiches and went back to the ward.

The nurses were tidying beds before the visitors were admitted and had prudently left Mr Crewe until the last. They had just reached him as Katrina opened the doors and her ears were assailed at once by his voice raised in anger. ‘A pint ain’t enough,’ he bellowed. ‘I wants me usual—’alf an alf an’ a couple more ter settle the first pint.’

‘You’ll be lucky,’ observed Katrina,’ and I thought you wanted to go home? Here you are lying in bed—if you’re not well enough to sit out in your chair, Mr Crewe, then you’re not well enough to have a pint of beer. You promised me…’

‘Pah,’ said Mr Crewe grumpily, ‘I want ter go ‘ome.’

‘Yes, I know that, Mr Crewe, and I promised you that you should go a day or two earlier if you kept your side of the bargain—which you’re not.’

Mr Crewe opened his mouth to say, ‘Pah,’ again and changed it to, ‘Oo’s that—I see’d ‘im yesterday…’

He was staring down the ward, for the moment forgetful of his beer. ‘Big chap,’ he added, and Katrina’s head, before she could stop it, shot round to take a look. Professor Baron van Tellerinck, no less, coming round to take a look down the ward with unhurried calm. He wished her good afternoon gravely, and just as gravely greeted Mr Crewe, who said rudely: “ullo—’oo are you?’

‘A colleague of Sir Benjamin,’ the Professor told him equably, ‘and as I have business with Sister I’m sure you will do as you are asked and sit in your chair and—er—keep quiet.’

And much to Katrina’s astonishment, Mr Crewe meekly threw back the bedclothes and got into the dressing gown one of the nurses was holding.

‘You wished to see a patient?’ asked Katrina, at her most professional.

‘Please. Sir Benjamin can’t get away from theatre at present, he asked me if I would check up on Mr Miles.’

She liked him for that; so many surgeons came on to the ward and asked: ‘Sister, I’d like to see that gastric ulcer you admitted,’ or: ‘How is that lacerated hand doing?’ for all the world as if the ward beds were occupied by various portions of anatomy and not people.

‘He’s coming along nicely,’ she observed, quite forgetting to be stiff. ‘His BPs down and he’s eating well. We’ve had him out of bed for a little while this morning.’

The Professor spent five minutes or so with the patient, expressed himself satisfied with his progress, wished him a polite good day, and started up the ward towards the office. ‘If I might just write up the notes?’ he enquired, and when she opened the door and then turned to go: ‘Please stay, Sister.’

So she stayed, waiting silently while he scrawled on the chart, added his initials and then got to his feet. ‘Doing anything this evening?’ he asked her.

‘Me?’ she was so surprised that she had no words for a moment. ‘I’m off at five o’clock,’ she added stupidly.

‘Yes, I know that,’ and when her eyes looked a question, ‘I looked in the off duty book on my way in,’ he explained blandly, and waited for her to answer.

‘Well…’ she paused. ‘It’s very kind of you, but I’m not sure…’

He interrupted her: ‘That’s why it would be a good idea if we got to know each other,’ he observed placidly. A remark which left her totally bewildered, and before she could answer: ‘There’s a rather nice place in Ebury Street we might go to—a bistro, perhaps you know of it?’

She shook her head, still trying to think of something to say.

‘La Poule au Pot, although you might prefer to go somewhere else?’

She found herself saying just as meekly as Mr Crewe had acted: ‘It sounds very nice. Is it a dressy place?’

He smiled, ‘No, I think not,’ and watched her, still smiling while one corner of her brain was turning over her wardrobe for a suitable dress. ‘I’m sure you’re thinking that you’ll have nothing to wear, women always do, don’t they? I’m equally sure that you have. Shall we say seven o’clock at the entrance.’

He smiled again as he left the office, leaving Katrina to wonder if she had actually said that she would go out with him. She didn’t think that she had, but it was a little too late for that now.

She got off duty late; it had been that sort of a day, and her nerves were jangling with a desire to allow her ill humour to have full rein, instead of having to present a calm good-tempered face to patients and nurses alike. But a leisurely bath did her a power of good, by the time she had found a dress to her liking—a sapphire blue silk jersey, very simply cut—done her hair in a low roll round her head in an Edwardian hair-style, and got into a pair of high-heeled black patent shoes, she felt quite herself again. She picked up a velvet jacket and took a last look at herself in the mirror. For some reason she wanted to look nice this evening; she had told herself that it was because she didn’t like the Professor, which to her at least made sense in a roundabout way, and at least, she told herself as she started downstairs, she could wear high-heeled shoes without being in danger of towering over her escort.

She was ten minutes late, but he was waiting for her with no sign of impatience, only smiled gently as he glanced at her from hooded eyes.

‘Ah, the wardrobe wasn’t quite empty, I see.’

Katrina found herself smiling too and uttered her thought out loud without thinking. ‘You have no idea how nice it is to go out with someone who’s taller than I—even in low heels I loom over most people.’

He glanced down at her elegant feet on their three-inch heels. ‘I have the same difficulty, only in reverse; I find it so tiresome to bend double each time I want to mutter sweet nothings into my companion’s ear.’

‘Well, you won’t need to worry about that,’ declared Katrina sharply.

‘Oh, I wasn’t,’ he told her silkily as he opened the car door. ‘I need only bend my head to you, Kate.’

She peeped at him to see if he was laughing, but he looked quite serious and she frowned; it was a remark which she found difficult to answer, so she said nothing, but got into the car, to be instantly lulled by its comfort as they edged into the evening traffic, and her feeling of pleasure increased as they went along; it was decidedly pleasant to be driven in a shining black Bentley towards a good meal. Moreover, the Professor was laying himself out to be pleasant, talking about nothing much in an amusing manner; she almost liked him.

She wondered later, as she got ready for bed, what exactly she had expected of their evening, but whatever it was, it hadn’t happened. Her host had been charming in a coolly friendly way and they had talked… She stopped to remember what they had talked about—everything under the sun, and yet she knew nothing about him, for he had taken care not to tell her anything and when she had asked from which part of Holland he came, he had said merely that his family came from the north—Friesland, but he lived within striking distance of Leiden. Whether he was married or no, she had no idea, and although it had been on the tip of her tongue to ask just that, she had stopped herself just in time. She had, she reflected as she brushed her hair, absolutely no reason for wishing to know.

The restaurant had been charming, cosy and warm, with blazing fires at either end of the quite small room and soft candlelight to eat their dinner by. And the food had been delicious; smoked salmon, noisettes d’agneau Beauharnais with artichoke hearts and pommes de terre Berny, followed by a purée of sweet chestnuts with whipped cream. Katrina smacked her lips at the thought of them and jumped into bed. They had sat over their meal and it was past midnight now, but the evening had flown and when she had said goodbye to him at the hospital entrance, she had felt regret that it couldn’t last longer. Perhaps, she mused sleepily, she rather liked him after all. ‘Such a pity,’ she muttered, ‘because I’ll never know now; he didn’t say he wanted to see me again. I expect he was being polite because he knows Uncle Ben.’

If the Professor was being polite then he was carrying it to excess. He accompanied Uncle Ben on his round the next day and when Katrina escorted them to the ward door and took a formal leavetaking of them, he asked her, with Uncle Ben looking on, if she would care to go to the theatre with him that evening.

Katrina’s mouth was forming ‘No,’ even as her heart sang ‘Yes,’ but she had no chance to utter, for Uncle Ben said at once: ‘What a splendid idea—just what you need, Kate, after a hard day’s grind.’ He asked the Professor: ‘What’s on?’

‘I’ve got tickets for The King and I.’ The hooded eyes were on Katrina’s face. ‘That is, if Kate would like to see it?’

A show she had wanted to see more than anything else, but how could he possibly know that?

‘Going all tarted up?’ enquired Uncle Ben with interest.

‘Er—I thought we might have supper and perhaps dance afterwards.’

My almost new organza, thought Katrina wildly, and those satin sandals. Aloud she said: ‘Well, I don’t know…’

‘Rubbish,’ said Uncle Ben stoutly. ‘You know you like dancing, Kate.’

The two of them stared at her without saying anything more, so that in sheer self-defence she said: ‘Well, it would be nice…thank you.’

‘Half past seven at the entrance,’ said the Professor briskly. ‘We’ll just have time for a drink and a bite to eat before the theatre.’

She asked meekly: ‘And am I to come all tarted up?’

‘Oh, definitely—that’s if you feel like it…’ He was laughing at her again, although his face was bland.

‘Well, that’s settled, then,’ declared Uncle Ben. ‘Raf, there’s that woman I want you to see—the accident that came in during the night…’

Katrina excused herself and left them deep in some surgical problem. She had problems of her own; it was so much simpler to either like or dislike someone, but with the Professor she was unable to make up her mind. Most of the time, she had to admit, she liked him very much, but every now and then he annoyed her excessively. She went back into the ward and found to her annoyance that Jack Bentall had come in through the balcony doors and was doing a round with Julie. He had, he explained carefully, one or two things to write up for Mr Knowles and could he use her office for a few minutes, and as Julie left them: ‘You haven’t forgotten that we’re going out tomorrow evening?’ he asked her, looking quite revoltingly smug. She had, but she was too kind-hearted to say so.

He was disposed to linger, hinting at the delights of their evening out so that she had to draw his attention to several jobs awaiting her. He had looked at her like a small spoilt boy and said grumpily: ‘Oh, well, don’t let me keep you…’

She wished with all her heart that she had refused his invitation in the first place. She had been a fool, but there was no help for it, she would go, but for the last time, she promised herself, and then forgot all about him, going from one patient to the next, adjusting drips, checking dressings, making sure that BPs had been taken on time.

She was a little absentminded at dinner time and her friends wanted to know why, and when she shook her head and denied it, Joan Cox from Women’s Surgical said vigorously: ‘I bet our Kate’s got herself a date with that super man who’s doing the rounds with Sir Benjamin,’ and the entire table gave a howl of laughter when Katrina went a delicate pink.

‘Didn’t I say so?’ cried Joan triumphantly, and then thoughtfully: ‘You went out yesterday evening too.’

‘Well, yes, I did—just to a bistro…’

‘And is it to be a bistro tonight?’ several voices chorused.

‘The King and I.’ Katrina poured tea from the large pot just put on the table.

‘And dinner afterwards, I expect, and a spot of dancing?’

‘Well, the Professor did say something about it…’

There was another howl of laughter. ‘Kate, you don’t call him Professor, do you? What’s his name—what do you talk about?’

‘The weather,’ said Katrina guilelessly.

The afternoon went quickly. She handed over to Julie at five o’clock, did a final round to wish the patients goodnight, and went off duty. She had plenty of time, time to lie for ages in the bath, make up her lovely face at her leisure and wind her hair into its intricate chignon before putting on the organza dress. It was a lovely thing, patterned in shades of amber and brown with a square yoke and a waist tied by long satin ribbons, its balloon sleeves ending in tight bands at her elbows. Her slippers were exactly right with it, as was the brown marabou stole she dug out from the back of the wardrobe.

He had said half past seven, and she took care to be on time this evening, even though she was held up for a few minutes by some of her friends who had come to inspect her outfit. Their cheerful teasing voices followed her down the stairs and then were abruptly shut off by the nurses’ home door. It was quiet as she went through the hospital corridors: it was visiting time again and nurses would be at first supper while the rest finished the tidying up for the day. The sudden lack of voices worried her. Supposing he wasn’t there? Supposing she had made a mistake in the evening—supposing he hadn’t meant it? All silly ideas, but all the same they loomed large. Just until she came in sight of the entrance, to see him standing there, enormous, reassuringly calm and very elegant indeed.

His hullo was friendly, as was his: ‘How charming you look, Katrina, and punctual too.’

She wondered fleetingly if he said that to all the girls he took out, for undoubtedly there must be girls… She said, ‘Thank you,’ in a guarded tone, and he laughed and said ruefully: ‘It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You see a hidden meaning in every word I utter.’

They were walking to the car, but now she stopped. ‘Look, we can’t possibly start the evening like this— I—didn’t mean…that is, I was only wondering if you said that to all the girls you take out.’

‘Would you mind if I said yes?’

She said haughtily: ‘Of course not,’ and spoilt it by asking: ‘Do you go out a great deal?’

They were in the car now, but he hadn’t started the engine. ‘Yes, quite a bit, but work comes first. What about you, Katrina?’

‘Well, I go out—I like my work too,’ she added with a bit of a rush.

‘We share a common interest, then.’ He started the car. ‘We have time for a drink if you would like one.’

He took her to the Savoy and gave her a glass of Madeira, and when she confessed that she had had no tea, a dish of salted nuts and another of potato crisps.

She crushed her way very nearly through the lot and then said apologetically: ‘I’m making a pig of myself. It was stew for lunch and I got there late.’

His winged nostrils flared. ‘Tepid and greasy, no doubt.’ He lifted a finger and when the waiter came, asked for sandwiches. She consumed them with the unselfconscious pleasure of a child—smoked salmon and pâté de foie gras and cucumber. But she refused a second glass of Madeira because, as she explained to her companion, she wanted to enjoy every moment of the play.

Which she did, sitting up straight in her seat, her eyes glued to the stage, and the Professor, sitting a little sideways so that he could watch her as well as the stage, allowed himself a faint smile at her obvious pleasure. They went back to the Savoy when it was over and had supper—caviar, poularde Impératrice, and for Katrina a bûche glacée, while the Professor contented himself with Welsh rarebit. And because, as he had gravely pointed out to her at the beginning of the meal, they had both had a tiring day, a bottle of champagne seemed the best thing to drink.

Katrina, her head still full of romantic music, would have happily drunk tap water; as it was, she drank two glasses of champagne and enjoyed them very much. There was a faint worry at the back of her head that she was liking her companion much more than she had intended. Perhaps it was the combination of romance and champagne which had dimmed her good sense, but certainly he seemed really rather nice. When he suggested that they might dance she got up at once. She might be a big girl, but she danced well and was as light as a feather, and the Professor was pretty neat on his feet too. They danced for a long time, going back to drink their coffee and then taking to the floor again. It was past one o’clock when Katrina asked him the time, and gave a small screech when he told her.

‘I’m on in the morning, and it’s Mr Knowles’ round and take-in.’

He didn’t try to persuade her to stay but drove her back to the hospital without fuss and saw her to the door, and when she thanked him for her lovely evening, observed placidly that he had enjoyed it too, then he wished her goodnight and opened the door for her.

Katrina went through feeling let down; not so much as a hint that he wanted to see her again, let alone the kiss which she had come to expect at the close of an evening out. The horrid thought that he had asked her out because Uncle Ben had suggested it crossed her mind; Uncle Ben knew how shy she was about going out with men who weren’t her size, and here was one who positively towered over her. He hadn’t said goodbye, she mused as she tumbled into bed; a clever girl would have known how to find out when and where he was going…and anyway, she asked herself pettishly, why was she worried? She didn’t like him, did she? Or did she? She was too sleepy to decide.

The morning began badly with two road accidents being admitted just after eight o’clock, and it got worse as the day wore on, so that when Jack Bentall rather fussily examined Mr Knowles’ patients during the afternoon, demanding unnecessary attention and calling for things he didn’t really need, she found her patience wearing thin. The urge to cry off the evening’s entertainment was very strong, but she was a kind-hearted girl and she had refused to go out with him on so many occasions she couldn’t avoid this one without hurting his feelings. Not that she minded about that over-much; he was a young man of unbounded conceit and she doubted if even the severest snub would affect him for more than a few minutes.

She dressed unwillingly and went just as unwillingly to the car park where Jack had asked her to meet him. He drove a souped-up Mini, very battered and uncomfortable and he tended to regard the road as his. She felt a pang of relief as he stopped with a teeth-jarring suddenness in front of a Chinese restaurant in the Tottenham Court Road. It was unfortunate that Katrina didn’t like Chinese food and that Jack hadn’t thought to ask her. Now if it had been the Professor, with all his faults, she added mentally, he would have made it his business to find out. And even if he hadn’t, she mused with surprise, she would have felt quite at liberty to have told him that she loathed sweet and sour pork and could have asked him if they could go somewhere else. But Jack would either laugh at her and tell her that she didn’t know good food when she saw it, or worse, sulk.

She ate her way through a great many dishes without once betraying her dislike of them, listening to Jack, carrying on about the other housemen and their inefficiencies, what Mr Knowles had said to him and he had said to Mr Knowles; he droned on and on and Katrina’s thoughts turned more and more to the previous evening. Professor van Tellerinck might annoy her, although she wasn’t sure why any more—but he didn’t bore her. She came out of a flurry of half-formed thoughts to hear Jack say:

‘Well, what about it? Everyone else does it these days and getting married seems a bit silly until I’ve reached the top, and you’re not all that keen on it, are you? You can’t be—you must have had plenty of chances, but after all, you are twenty-seven.’

She gave him a look of such astonishment that he added querulously: ‘Well, you don’t have to look like that—I thought we understood each other.’

As well as being astonished she was furiously angry, but she discovered at the same time that she simply couldn’t be bothered to explain to him just how wrong he was. She could of course have said: ‘I am a clergyman’s daughter and old-fashioned in my views about matrimony’; instead she heard herself saying in a reasonable voice: ‘I really should have told you sooner, Jack, but I didn’t realise…’ She left the sentence hanging delicately in mid-air. ‘I’ve resigned—I’m going abroad in a few weeks’ time.’ She paused, trying to think of a country as far away as possible: ‘The Gulf—a lovely job.’ Her imagination was working well by now. ‘One of those new hospitals, a fabulous salary and a flat of my own…’

He looked at her gobbling with rage. ‘Well, you could have told me before we came out to dinner!’ he said furiously. He put a hand up for the bill. ‘I don’t suppose you want coffee.’

They tore back to Benedict’s through the almost empty streets and as he came to a squealing halt in the forecourt: ‘I hope you get what you deserve!’ he hissed at her.

Just as though I’d led him on, thought Katrina as she went into the nurses’ home, and giggled. She stopped giggling almost at once, though. She would have to resign in the morning; she had done herself out of a job and banished herself to the Gulf to boot. Jack would tell everyone, he was a noted gossip, and really there was nothing she could do about it but leave; even if she explained to him why she had done it, he wouldn’t understand but would merely think that she had been playing hard to get and would pester her more than ever. She lay awake for a long time getting more and more worried, and fell asleep at last with her mind in a dither.