Читать книгу The Awakened Heart - Betty Neels, Бетти Нилс - Страница 7

THE dull October afternoon was fast becoming a damp evening, its drizzling rain soaking those hurrying home from work. The pavements were crowded; the wholesale dress shops, the shabby second-hand-furniture emporiums, the small businesses carried on behind dirty shop windows were all closing for the day. There were still one or two street barrows doing a desultory trade, but the street, overshadowed by the great bulk of St Agnes’s hospital, in an hour or so’s time would be almost empty. Just at the moment it was alive with those intent on getting home, with the exception of one person: a tall girl, standing still, a look of deep concentration on her face, oblivious of the impatient jostling her splendid person was receiving from passers-by.

Unnoticed by those jostling her, she was none the less attracting the attention of a man standing at the window of the committee-room of the hospital overlooking the street. He watched her for several minutes, at first idly and then with a faint frown, and presently, since he had nothing better to do for the moment, he made his way out of the hospital across the forecourt and into the street.

The girl was on the opposite pavement and he crossed the road without haste, a giant of a man with wide shoulders, making light of the crowds around him. His ‘Can I be of help?’ was asked in a quiet, deep voice, and the girl looked at him with relief.

‘So silly,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘The heel of my shoe is wedged in a gutter and my hands are full. If you would be so kind as to hold these…’

She handed him two plastic shopping-bags. ‘They’re lace-ups,’ she explained. ‘I can’t get my foot out.’

The size of him had caused passers-by to make a little detour around them. He handed back the bags. ‘Allow me?’ he begged her and crouched down, unlaced her shoe, and when she had got her foot out of it carefully worked the heel free, held it while she put her foot back in, and tied the laces tidily.

She thanked him then, smiling up into his handsome face, to be taken aback by the frosty blue of his eyes and his air of cool detachment, rather as though he had been called upon to do something which he had found tiresome. Well, perhaps it had been tiresome, but surely he didn’t have to look at her like that? He was smiling now too, a small smile which just touched his firm mouth and gave her the nasty feeling that he knew just what she was thinking. She removed the smile, flashed him a look from beautiful dark eyes, wished him goodbye, and joined the hurrying crowd around her. He had ruffled her feelings, although she wasn’t sure why. She dismissed him from her mind and turned into a side-street lined with old-fashioned houses with basements guarded by iron railings badly in need of paint; the houses were slightly down at heel too and the variety of curtains at their windows bore testimony to the fact that subletting was the norm.

Halfway down the street she mounted the steps of a house rather better kept than its neighbours and unlocked the door. The hall was narrow and rather dark and redolent of several kinds of cooking. The girl wrinkled her beautiful nose and started up the stairs, to be stopped by a voice from a nearby room.

‘Is that you, Sister Blount? There was a phone call for you…’

A middle-aged face, crowned by a youthful blonde wig, appeared round the door. ‘Your dear mother, wishing to speak to you. I was so bold as to tell her that you would be home at six o’clock.’

The girl paused on the stairs. ‘Thank you, Miss Phipps. I’ll phone as soon as I’ve been to my room.’

Miss Phipps frowned and then decided to be playfully rebuking. ‘Your flatlet, Sister, dear. I flatter myself that my tenants are worthy of something better than bed-sitting-rooms.’

The girl murmured and smiled and went up two flights of stairs to the top floor and unlocked the only door on the small landing. It was an attic room with the advantage of a window overlooking the street as well as a smaller one which gave a depressing view of back yards and strings of washing, but there was a tree by it where sparrows sat, waiting for the crumbs on the window sill. It had a wash-basin in one corner and a small gas stove in an alcove by the blocked-up fireplace. There was a small gas fire too, and these, according to Miss Phipps, added up to mod cons and a flatlet. The bathroom was shared too by the two flat-lets on the floor below, but since she was on night duty and everyone else worked during the day that was no problem. She dumped her shopping on the small table under the window, took off her coat, kicked off her shoes, stuck her feet into slippers and bent to pick up the small tabby cat which had uncurled itself from the end of the divan bed against one wall.

‘Mabel, hello. I’ll be back in a moment to get your supper…’

The phone was in the hall and to hold a private conversation on it was impossible, for Miss Phipps rarely shut her door. She fed the machine some ten-pence pieces and dialled her home.

‘Sophie?’ her mother’s voice answered at once. ‘Darling, it isn’t anything important; I just wanted to know how you were and when you’re coming home for a day or two.’

‘I was coming at the end of the week, but Sister Symonds is ill again. She should be back by the end of next week, though, and I’ll take two lots of nights off at once—almost a week…’

‘Oh, good. Let us know which train and someone will pick you up at the station. You’re busy?’

‘Yes, off and on—not too bad.’ Sophie always said that. She was always busy; Casualty and the accident room took no account of time of day or night. She knew that her mother thought of her as sitting for a great part of the night at the tidy desk, giving advice and from time to time checking on a more serious case, and Sophie hadn’t enlightened her. On really busy nights she hardly saw her desk at all, but, sleeves rolled up and plastic apron tied around her slim waist, she worked wherever she was most needed.

‘Is that Miss Phipps listening?’

‘Of course…’

‘What would happen if you brought a man back for supper?’ Her mother chuckled.

‘When do I ever get the time?’ asked Sophie and allowed her thoughts to dwell just for a moment on the man with the cold blue eyes. The sight of her flatlet would trigger off the little smile; she had no doubt of that. Probably he had never seen anything like it in his life.

They didn’t talk for long; conversation wasn’t easy with Miss Phipps’s wig just visible in the crack of her door. Sophie hung up and went upstairs, fed Mabel and opened the window which gave on to a railed-off ledge so that the little beast could air herself, and put away her shopping. What with one thing and another, there was barely time for her to get a meal before she went on duty. She made a pot of tea, opened a tin of beans, poached an egg, and did her face and hair again. Her face, she reflected, staring at it in the old-fashioned looking-glass on the wall above the basin, looked tired. ‘I shall have wrinkles and lines before I know where I am,’ said Sophie to Mabel, watching her from the bed.

Nonsense, of course; she was blessed with a lovely face: wide dark eyes, a delightful nose above a gentle, generous mouth, and long, curling lashes as dark as her hair, long and thick and worn in a complicated arrangement which took quite a time to do but which stayed tidy however busy she was.

She stooped to drop a kiss on the cat’s head, picked up her roomy shoulder-bag, and let herself out of the room, a tall girl with a splendid figure and beautiful legs.

Her flatlet might lack the refinements of home, but it was only five minutes’ walk from the hospital. She crossed the courtyard with five minutes to spare, watched, if she did but know, by the man who had retrieved her shoe for her—in the committee-room again, exchanging a desultory conversation with those of his colleagues who were lingering after their meeting. Tomorrow would be a busy day, for he had come over to England especially to operate on a cerebral tumour; brain surgery was something on which he was an acknowledged expert, so that a good deal of his work was international. Already famous in his own country, he was fast attaining the highest rung of the ladder.

He stood now, looking from the window, studying Sophie’s splendid person as she crossed the forecourt.

‘Who is that?’ he asked Dr Wells, the anaesthetist who would be working with him in the morning and an old friend.

‘That’s our Sophie, Night Sister in Casualty and the accident room, worth her not inconsiderable weight in gold too. Pretty girl…’

They parted company presently and Professor Rijk van Taak ter Wijsma made his way without haste down to the entrance. He was stopped before he reached it by the surgical registrar who was to assist him in the morning, so that they were both deep in talk when the first of the ambulances flashed past on its way to the accident room entrance.

They were still discussing the morning’s work when the registrar’s bleep interrupted them.

He listened for a minute and said, ‘There’s a head injury in, Professor—contusion and laceration with evidence of coning. Mr Bellamy had planned a weekend off…’

His companion took his phone from him and dialled a number. ‘Hello, John? Rijk here. Peter Small is here with me; they want him in the accident room—there’s a head injury just in. As I’m here, shall I take a look? I know you’re not on call…’ He listened for a moment. ‘Good, we’ll go along and have a look.’

He gave the phone back. ‘You wouldn’t mind if I took a look? There might be something I could suggest…’

‘That’s very good of you, sir; you don’t mind?’

‘Not in the least.’

The accident room was busy, but then it almost always was. Sophie, with a practised glance at the patient, sent the junior sister to deal with the less urgent cases with the aid of two student nurses, taking the third nurse with her as the paramedics wheeled the patient into an empty cubicle. The casualty officer was already there; while he phoned the registrar they began connecting up the various monitoring tubes and checked the oxygen flow, working methodically and with the sure speed of long practice. All the same, she could see that the man on the stretcher was in a bad way.

She was trying to count an almost imperceptible pulse when she became conscious of someone standing just behind her and then edging her gently to one side while a large, well kept hand gently lifted the dressing on the battered head.

‘Tut, tut,’ said the professor. ‘What do we know, Sister?’

‘A fall from a sixth-floor window on to a concrete pavement. Thready pulse, irregular and slow, cerebro-spinal fluid from left ear, epistaxis…’

Her taxing training was standing her in good stead; she answered him promptly and with few words, while a small part of her mind registered the fact that the man beside her had tied her shoelaces for her not two hours since.

What a small world, she reflected, and allowed herself a second’s pleasure at seeing him again. But only a second; she was already busy adjusting tubes and knobs at the registrar’s low-voiced instructions.

The two men bent over the unconscious patient while she took a frighteningly high blood-pressure and the casualty officer looked for other injuries and broken bones.

Presently the professor straightened up. ‘Anterior fossa—depressed fracture. Let’s have an X-ray and get him up to Theatre.’ He took a look at Peter Small. ‘You agree? There’s a good chance…’ He glanced at Sophie. ‘If you would warn Theatre, Sister? Thank you.’

He gave her a brief look; he didn’t recognise her, thought Sophie, but then why should he? She was in uniform now, the old-fashioned dark blue dress and frilly cap which St Agnes’s management committee refused to exchange for nylon and paper.

The men went away, leaving her to organise the patient’s removal to the theatre block, warn Night Theatre Sister, Intensive Care and the men’s surgical ward, and, that done, there was the business of his identity, his address, his family… It was going to be a busy night, Sophie decided, writing and telephoning, dealing with everything and the police, and at the same time keeping an eye on the incoming patients. Nothing too serious from a medical point of view, although bad enough for the owners of sprained ankles, cut heads, fractured arms and legs, but they all needed attention—X-rays, cleaning and stitching and bandaging, and sometimes admitting to a ward.

It was two o’clock in the morning, and she had just wolfed down a sandwich and drunk a reviving mug of tea since there had been no chance of getting down to the canteen, when a girl was brought in, a small toddler screaming her head off in her mother’s arms, who thrust her at Sophie. ‘’Ere, take a look at ’er, will yer? Fell down the stairs, been bawling ’er ’ead off ever since.’

Sophie laid the grubby scrap gently on to one of the couches. ‘How long ago was this?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Dunno. Me neighbour told me when I got ’ome—nine o’clock, I suppose.’

Sophie was examining the little girl gently. ‘She had got out of her bed?’

‘Bed? She don’t go ter bed till I’m ’ome.’

Sophie sent a nurse to see if she could fetch the casualty officer and, when she found him and he arrived, left the nurse with him and ushered the mother into her office.

‘I shall want your name and address and the little girl’s name. How was she able to get to the stairs? Is it a high-rise block of flats?’ She glanced at the address again. ‘At the end of Montrose Street, isn’t it?’

‘S’right, fifth floor. I leave the door, see, so’s me neighbour can take a look at Tracey…’

‘She is left alone during the day?’

‘Well, off and on, you might say, and sometimes of an evening—just when I go to the pub evenings.’

‘Well, shall we see what the doctor says? Perhaps it may be necessary to keep Tracey in the hospital for a day or two.’

‘Suits me—driving me mad with that howling, she is.’

Tracey had stopped crying; only an occasional snivel betrayed her misery. Sophie said briskly, ‘You’d like her admitted for observation, Dr Wright?’ and at the same time bestowed a warning frown on him; Jeff Wright and she had been friends for ages, and he understood the frown.

‘Oh, definitely, Sister, if you would arrange it. This is the mother?’ He bent an earnest gaze upon the woman, who said at once,

‘It ain’t my fault. I’ve got ter ’ave a bit of fun, ’aven’t I? Me ’usband left me, see?’

Sophie thought that he might have good reason. The woman was dirty, and although she was wearing make-up and cheap fashionable clothes the child was in a smelly dress and vest and no nappy. ‘You may visit when you like,’ she told her. ‘Would you like to stay until she is settled in?’

‘No, thanks. I gotta get some sleep, haven’t I?’

She nodded to the child. ‘Bye for now, night all.’

‘Be an angel and right away get the children’s ward,’ said Sophie. ‘I’ll wrap this scrap up in a blanket and take her up—a pity we can’t clean her up first, but I can’t spare the nurses.’

All the same, she wiped the small grubby face and peeled off the outer layer of garments before cuddling Tracey into a blanket and picking her up carefully. There were no bones broken, luckily, but a great deal of bruising, and in the morning the paediatrician would go over the small body and make sure that no great harm had been done.

She took the lift and got out at the third floor and walked straight into the professor’s vast person. He was alone and still in his theatre gear.

‘Having a busy night, Sister?’ he asked, in a far too cheerful voice for the small hours.

Her ‘Yes, sir’ was terse, and he smiled.

‘Hardly the best of times in which to renew an acquaintance, is it?’ He stood on one side so that she might pass. ‘We must hope for a more fortunate meeting.’

Sophie hoisted the sleeping toddler a little higher against her shoulder. She was tired and wanted a cup of tea and a chance to sit down for ten minutes; she was certainly not in a mood for polite conversation.

‘Unlikely,’ she observed crossly. She had gone several steps when she paused and turned to look at him.

‘That man—you’ve operated?’

‘Yes; given a modicum of luck and some good nursing, he should recover.’

‘Oh, I’m so glad.’ She nodded and went on her way, her busy night somehow worth while at the news.

The senior sister, when she came on duty in the morning, was full of complaints. She was on the wrong side of forty and an habitual grumbler; Sophie, listening with inward impatience to peevish criticisms about the weather, breakfast, the rudeness of student nurses and the impossibility of finding the shoes she wanted, choked back a yawn and presently took herself thankfully off duty.

Breakfast was always a cheerful meal, despite the fact that they were all tired; Sophie poured herself a cup of tea, collected a substantial plateful of food, and sat down with the other night sisters. There was quite a tableful, and despite the fact that they were all weary the conversation was lively.

Theatre Sister held the attention of the whole table almost at once. ‘We scrubbed at nine o’clock and didn’t finish until after two in the morning. There was this super man operating—Professor something or other. He’s from Holland—a pal of Mr Bellamy’s—and over here to demonstrate some new technique. He made a marvellous job of this poor chap too.’

She beamed round the table, a small waif of a girl with big blue eyes and fair hair. ‘He’s a smasher—my dears, you should just see him. Enormous and very tall, blue eyes and very fair hair, nicely grey at the sides. He’s operating again at ten o’clock and when Sister Tucker heard about him she said she’d scrub…’

There was a ripple of laughter; Sister Tucker was getting on a bit and as theatre superintendent very seldom took a case. ‘Bet you wish you were on duty, Gill,’ said someone and then, ‘What about you, Sophie? Did you see this marvellous man?’

Sophie bit into her toast. ‘Yes, he came into the accident room with Peter Small—I believe he’s just arrived here.’ She took another bite and her companions asked impatiently,

‘Well, what’s he like? Did you take a good look…?’

‘Not really; he’s tall and large…’ She glanced round her. ‘There wasn’t much chance…’

‘Oh, hard luck, and you’re not likely to see him again—Gill’s the lucky one.’

‘Who’s got nights off?’ someone asked.

The lucky ones were quick to say, and someone said, ‘And you, Sophie? Aren’t you due this weekend?’

‘Yes, but Ida Symonds is ill again, so I’ll have to do her weekend. Never mind, I shall take a whole week when she comes back.’ She put up a shapely hand to cover a yawn. ‘I’m for bed.’

They left the table in twos and threes and went along to the changing-room and presently went their various ways. The professor, on the point of getting out of the silver-grey Bentley he had parked in the forecourt, watched Sophie come out of the entrance, reach the street and cross over before he got out of the car and made his unhurried way to the theatre, where Sister Tucker awaited him.

Sophie, in her flatlet, making a cup of tea and seeing to Mabel’s breakfast, found herself thinking about the professor; she was unwilling to admit it, but she would like to meet him again. Perhaps, she thought guiltily, she had been a bit rude when they had met on her way to the children’s ward. And why had he said that he hoped for a more fortunate meeting?

She wasn’t a conceited girl, but she knew that she was nice-looking—she was too big to be called pretty and, though she was, she had never thought of herself as beautiful. She never lacked invitations to go out with the house doctors, something she occasionally did, but she was heart-whole and content to stay as she was until the right man came along. Only just lately she had had one or two uneasy twinges about that; she had had several proposals and refused them in the nicest possible way, waiting for the vague and unknown dream man who would sweep her off her feet and leave no room for doubts…

Presently she went to bed with Mabel for company and slept at once, ignoring the good advice offered by her landlady, who considered that a brisk walk before bed was the correct thing to do for those who were on night duty. That she had never been on night duty in her life and had no idea what that entailed was beside the point. Besides, the East End of London was hardly conducive to a walk, especially when there was still a faint drizzle left over from the day before.

Sophie wakened refreshed, took a bath, attended to Mabel, and, still in her dressing-gown, made a pot of tea and sat down by the gas fire to enjoy it. She had taken the first delicious sip when someone knocked at the door.

Sophie put down her cup and muttered crossly at Mabel, who muttered back. Miss Phipps, a deeply suspicious person, collected her rent weekly, and it was Friday. Sophie picked up her purse and opened the door.

Only it wasn’t Miss Phipps; it was Professor van Taak ter Wijsma.

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?’ he asked her.

‘Yes,’ said Sophie, and added, ‘Thank you.’

‘Do you know this part of the world?’ His voice was quiet.

‘No, at least not the side-roads; it’s not as quick…’ She stopped just in time.

‘I suppose it’s quicker for you to turn off at Romford and go through Chipping Ongar?’

She turned to look at him, but he was gazing ahead, his profile calm.

‘How did you know where I live?’ She had been comfortably somnolent, but now she was wide awake.

‘I asked Peter Small; do you mind?’

‘Mind? I don’t know; I can’t think why you should want to know. Were you just being curious?’

‘No, no, I never give way to idle curiosity. Now if I’m right there’s a nice little pub in the next village—we might get coffee there.’

The pub was charming, clean and rather bare, with not a fruit machine in sight. There was a log fire smouldering in the vast stone fireplace, with an elderly dog stretched out before it, and the landlord, pleased to have custom before the noonday locals arrived, offered a plate of hot buttered toast to devour with the coffee.

Biting into her third slice, Sophie asked, ‘Why did you want to know?’ Mellowed by the toast and the coffee, she felt strangely friendly towards her companion.

‘I’m not sure if you would believe me if I told you. Shall I say that, despite a rather unsettled start, I feel that we might become friends?’

‘What would be the point? I mean, we don’t move in the same circles, do we? You live in Holland—don’t you?—and I live here. Besides, we don’t know anything about each other.’

‘Exactly. It behoves us to remedy that, does it not? You have nights off at the weekend? I’ll drive you home.’

‘Drive me home,’ repeated Sophie, parrot-fashion. ‘But what am I to say to Mother…?’

‘My dear girl, don’t tell me that you haven’t been taken home by any number of young men…’

‘Well, yes, but you’re different.’

‘Older?’ He smiled suddenly and she discovered that she liked him more than she had thought. ‘Confess that you feel better, Sophie; you need some male companionship—nothing serious, just a few pleasant hours from time to time. After all, as you said, I live in Holland.’

‘Are you married?’

He laughed gently. ‘No, Sophie—and you?’

She shook her head and smiled dazzlingly. ‘It would be nice to have a casual friend… I’m not sure how I feel. Do we know each other well enough for me to go to sleep on the way back?’