Visiting Consultant. Бетти Нилс
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like a team.’
Her grandmother looked across at her. ‘I’m glad to hear it, Sophy. I was beginning to think you didn’t like Max.’ She took no notice of her granddaughter’s gasp. ‘We’ll have roast pork, I think, and follow it with a mince tart and cream, and Sinclair shall go to that funny little grocer’s shop where there are all those cheeses. Men always like cheese,’ she added. She took off her glasses, and looked ten years younger. ‘I think I’ll go to bed, I’m quite tired.’ She didn’t look in the least tired. She folded the newspaper carefully, so that the crossword was on top, ready for the morning, and got up. Sophy got up too, unwilling to be left alone with her thoughts. She wished Grandmother Greenslade a good night, and went upstairs to her room. Once there, she didn’t undress but stood in front of the big, old-fashioned mirror, gazing intently at her face. It seemed to her that however she looked at it, it was still a plain one.
The next morning, she offered a surprised and delighted Cooper Sunday off in her place—Staff was so wrapped in her good luck that she lent only half an ear to Sophy’s singularly thin reasons for wishing to make the change; which, thought Sophy, was just as well. Sophy said nothing at home until Saturday evening, and received the sympathetic remarks of her family with a quietness which they put down to her disappointment at missing Sunday luncheon. She was feeling horribly guilty, especially as Jonkheer van Oosterwelde had been so pleasant in theatre.
It was a fine morning as she walked to the hospital on Sunday. There was a blue sky and the sun shone, although there was no warmth in its rays, but Sophy’s spirits did not match the morning; for all she cared, it could have been blowing a force nine gale, with rain to match.
She spent the first part of the morning in theatre, teaching the two junior nurses who were on duty with her. The place was in a state of readiness and uncannily quiet—their voices sounded strange against the emptiness of the big tiled room. After a time, she set the girls to cleaning instruments and went off to Orthopaedic theatre to have coffee with Sister Skinner; a lovely blonde who looked like a film star and fell in and out of love so frequently that Sophy had long ago given up trying to remember who the men were; but she was always prepared to lend a sympathetic ear while Skinner discussed her latest conquest. Inevitably, she wanted to know about the new surgeon.
‘I must meet him,’ she exclaimed. ‘I saw him leaving the other day; he didn’t see me,’ she added, ‘or he might have stopped.’
Sophy chuckled. ‘Of course he’d have stopped…’
Skinner put down her coffee. ‘Sophy, ring me when you have a coffee break on Monday—you’ve got a list, haven’t you? We haven’t. I’ll pop over and borrow something, then you can introduce me.’ She looked at Sophy with a puzzled frown. ‘Is he as nice as he looks?’
Sophy nodded. ‘Oh, yes. He’s very good at his job, and he never loses his needle or throws swabs on the floor…’
‘Silly, I didn’t mean his work. Look, Sophy, he’s good-looking and distinguished and a marvellous surgeon—if I’d been in your shoes I’d have been out to dinner with him by now.’
Sophy laughed. ‘I know you would; but I’m not you, my dear. You’re so pretty men look at you and want to take you out—but if you were a man, would you look twice at me?’ She spoke without rancour as she got up to go. ‘I’ll ring you about eleven on Monday. Tom Carruthers will be assisting; I’ll get him out of the way, and leave you alone to exercise your charms.’
She called in on Casualty on her way back, but although it was full, there was nothing for the theatre. She sent the nurses to their dinner, and went into her office and started on her books, but after a few minutes she got up again, and stood by the window, watching the coming and going in the inner courtyard below. She was just turning away, when she caught sight of Bill Evans and Max van Oosterwelde strolling through the archway from X-Ray. They were deep in discussion, although Bill seemed to be doing most of the talking; he was a tall young man, but the Dutchman dwarfed him. Half way across the yard, they met Tom Carruthers, and stopped. She wondered what they could be talking about; nothing serious, for there was a good deal of laughter. Anyway, Jonkheer van Oosterwelde wasn’t on call; she supposed he’d come in to see someone. He looked up suddenly, and although he was too far away for her to be sure of his expression, she was sure that he frowned when he saw her. She backed away from the window—how awful to be caught peeping. She went into the theatre, and prowled around moving things that didn’t need moving, and after a few minutes went back to her office again, and peeped cautiously from the window. He had gone. She got out the instrument catalogue and started to make a list of replacements, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was contemplating an excellent illustration of Syme’s aneurism needle with little more than tepid interest, when she heard the faint squeak of the swing doors at the end of the corridor. It wouldn’t be the nurses; they had only been gone ten minutes or so; and the third year nurse wasn’t due on until one o’clock. She sat up straight—it was a man’s tread, and she knew whose tread it was. She quelled a strong urge to rearrange her cap and do something to her face, and waited, hands in lap, with her eyes to the door.
He came in without knocking, closed the door behind him, stood with his back to it, and said without preamble, ‘What have I done?’
Sophy’s lovely eyes opened wide, framed by the curling sweep of black lashes; her mouth was open too; she closed it with something of a snap, and blinked. ‘I don’t think I quite understand,’ she faltered.
Max van Oosterwelde left the door and settled himself in the chair opposite hers. He was wearing tweeds—unobtrusive, superbly cut, and she thought, wildly expensive. He stretched out a long arm and took the off-duty rota from the desk.
‘You had a day off today; you changed it, and don’t give me any nonsense about Staff Nurse wanting it—she told me about it on Friday.’
He grinned wickedly, and Sophy, choking on rage, didn’t mince her words.
‘You have no right to…to…’ She caught his eye.
‘To what?’ he enquired silkily.
‘The nurses’ off-duty is no concern of yours.’ She remembered who he was, and added, ‘Sir.’
‘No, it’s not, but we stray from the point, do we not? You took care to be away from home last Wednesday. I had dinner with the Carruthers, you know; you left there soon after five; you weren’t home when I left at nine. I thought maybe you were out with a boyfriend; and then I heard that you had changed your duty today, and it seemed more than coincidence and that you had done it deliberately. Do you dislike me so much, Sophy?’
Sophy dragged her gaze away from the waste paper basket, and gave him a level look. ‘I don’t dislike you.’ Her voice was quiet and faintly surprised.
‘Then I suggest you drop your guard, my girl. I’ve no intention of laying violent hands on you, nor,’ he went on deliberately, ‘am I interested in flirting with you.’ He watched her face flame with a detached air. ‘I see no reason why we shouldn’t be friends, do you? After all, we share a godfather—that is surely a sound enough motive for friendship?’
She met his eyes and saw that he was smiling. She ignored her heart bouncing against her ribs, and said in an even little voice, ‘I’m afraid I’ve become a real old maid in the last few years.’ She managed a very credible smile, and put a hand in the one he was holding out. His clasp was firm and comforting. She needed comfort, but he wouldn’t know that, of course.
‘No, never that—old maids don’t climb trees.’
He relinquished her hand, and picked up the telephone and asked for Matron.
Sophy listened to the conversation, and it was at once apparent to her that he was going to get his own way, although she doubted if Matron would realise it. He put down the receiver and got up.
‘Ten past one at the front door? You’ll have to keep your uniform on, I’m afraid, just in case they need you in a great hurry. Don’t be late—I promised Mrs Greenslade we would be there by a quarter past one.’