Never While the Grass Grows. Betty Neels
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Mrs Lovelace nodded. ‘Thank you, Miss Octavia. I’ll be here Monday as usual.’
Professor Lock greeted his daughter with an absentminded warmth which she took in good part; her father had always been absentminded, and now that he was elderly, he was worse than ever. She kissed his bald pate, begged him not to disturb himself—something she was well aware he had no intention of doing, anyway—and went along to the kitchen to see what was for her supper. It smelled delicious; she took her case upstairs to the comfortable bedroom she had had since she was a child, and without bothering to unpack it, went downstairs again to put Mrs Lovelace’s tasty steak and kidney pie on a tray and carry it along to her father’s study. She ate in silence until he had finished what he was writing and then listened with interest to the theories he had been expounding. She wasn’t in the least scientific herself, but she was intelligent enough to make sensible observations and was rewarded presently by his: ‘You haven’t my brain, my dear, but for a girl you don’t do so badly.’ He peered at her over his old-fashioned spectacles. ‘Are you here for a weekend?’
She nodded, her mouth full of pie.
‘You have been busy?’
‘Well, yes—people have accidents all the time, you know, Father.’
‘Indeed yes—I read only recently a most interesting article… Do you not wish to marry, Octavia? How old are you?’
‘Twenty-seven, Father.’
‘Your mother had been married five years… You have had the opportunity, I imagine?’
‘Oh, yes—several times. But I never seem to meet the right man.’ She got to her feet. ‘I’ll go and make some coffee, shall I?’
‘That would be nice. I should like you to be married, Octavia. I’ve never been very good with money, as you know, what little I have is getting used up rapidly.’ He frowned. ‘Books have become increasingly expensive… There won’t be much left for you, my dear.’
She smiled at him fondly. ‘Don’t worry, Father dear; I’ve got a good job, and I earn enough to keep myself—just you go on buying all the books you want. Anyway, you get fees for your articles, don’t you, and all that coaching you do.’
He brightened. ‘Ah, yes—I’d forgotten. What a comfort you are, Octavia. Your mother would have been proud of you.’
While she made the coffee she thought rather wistfully of her mother who had died ten years ago or more; a pretty, still young woman who had known how to manage her husband without him realising it; it was only since her death that he had become so withdrawn. A pity I haven’t got a brother thought Octavia. She and her father got on splendidly and were devoted to each other, but sometimes she reflected that he would have managed quite well without her. Her fault perhaps for working away from home, but she had a good job now, with a chance of stepping into Sister Moody’s shoes when that lady retired; the thought was somehow depressing. While she drank her coffee she reviewed the various men who had wanted to marry her; none of them were exactly what she was looking for. She wasn’t quite sure what that was, herself, but she supposed she would know when she met him. She sighed gently and went to the kitchen to wash the supper things and then to bid her father a quiet goodnight before going upstairs to bed.
It was over breakfast the next morning that Mr Lock wanted to know why she didn’t change her job. ‘I realise that you would have to remain in nursing, because you don’t know what else to do, do you? But why not strike out, my dear? Go abroad, travel, see something of the world.’
She stared at him, a little surprised, ‘Me? Father, where would I go? There are jobs enough in the Middle East, but I don’t want to live there, and it’s not all that easy to go to Australia or New Zealand now—work permits, and so on, you know. I’d love to travel, though.’ She wrinkled her forehead in thought. ‘I could get a job with some rich elderly type who wanted to travel, but I should be bored in no time. I think I’ll stay where I am.’
Her parent passed his cup to be refilled. ‘Until you marry,’ he commented.
Her father’s unexpected interest in her ruffled the serenity of her weekend just a little. She did the shopping in the little town without her usual interest and although she accepted an invitation to have coffee with a chance acquaintance, she had to make an effort to take an interest in the conversation. Perhaps, she reflected uneasily, she had been drifting along and getting into a rut and should make an effort to get out of it before she no longer wanted to. She pondered about it during Sunday too, sitting beside her father in church, looking attentively at the vicar while he preached his sermon and not hearing a word of it.
She went back to London in the early evening, leaving her father quite happily immersed in his books, although he paused in his reading long enough to wish her a good journey back and expressed the hope that she would be home again soon. He said that every time she went home and she smiled at him now and said that yes, she would be back again in two weeks provided Sister Moody didn’t want to change her weekend.
She reached the hospital just as most of her friends were coming off duty and because she was still feeling a little unsettled, she went along to the Sisters’ sitting room to share their after supper tea. It had been a busy weekend, Sister Moody told her gloomily, although that lady’s idea of business and her own didn’t quite agree. ‘I shan’t come on until one o’clock tomorrow,’ declared Sister Moody. ‘I could do with a morning in bed—you’ve an evening, haven’t you? So there’ll be two of us on until five o’clock, it usually quietens down by then.’
Octavia agreed pleasantly; she hadn’t found that Casualty ever quietened down, but she didn’t say so. Presently she went to sit with her own particular friends, to listen to the day’s gossip and talk the inevitable shop. It was as they were drinking the last dregs of their tea that Connie Wills, the junior Sister on Men’s Medical, remarked: ‘That nice old Charlie—you remember, Octavia? He’s going on Thursday.’
Octavia put down her cup. ‘He can’t be—he’s not fit—where’s he going?’
‘Well, it all turned out rather well. I know he’s not fit, but someone—some man or other has offered him a job, living in—caretaking and so on. It’s just up Charlie’s street, and he’s promised that Charlie shall be looked after and not allowed to work until he’s quite well. Marvellous, isn’t it?’
‘That’s funny,’ chimed in the Sister, on Women’s Surgical. ‘Remember that little lady you sent us the other evening—the one you’ve been visiting? Well, she’s got somewhere to go to, too. She’s not to be discharged yet, but when she is, she’s been offered this job helping the housekeeper in some house or other. All very vague, but quite OK, so John Waring tells me.’
‘That’s wonderful!’ Octavia forgot her own vague problems in the pleasure of knowing that the unfortunate pair were to have more cheerful futures, after all. ‘Tell Charlie I’ll come to say goodbye, will you? I’ll never get away in the morning—Monday…’ she wrinkled her pretty nose, ‘but I’ll pop up and see Mrs Stubbs in the evening.’
They all went to their rooms after that, stopping to chat as they went, reluctant to bring their brief leisure to an end until Sister Moody, passing Octavia and a handful of the younger sisters still chatting outside their rooms, remarked sourly: ‘Don’t forget it’s Monday tomorrow.’
They exchanged speaking glances and when she was safely in the bathroom with the taps running, Octavia observed: ‘Do you suppose we’ll be like her in twenty years’ time?’
‘Not if I can help it,’ declared Connie. ‘I votes we get married.’
‘Chance is a fine thing,’ said Octavia.
They all looked at her. ‘You’ve no reason to complain, Octavia, there’s always someone or other dangling after you. It’s us plain ones who worry.’
They all laughed as they broke up, but in her room, sitting on the side of her bed, Octavia mulled over that