The Convenient Wife. Betty Neels
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you a lift?’
‘Well,’ said Venetia, ‘it’s very kind of you, sir, but I’m not sure…’
He hadn’t listened to a word. She was swept outside into the courtyard, and walked across to where a dark blue Bentley was parked. ‘Get in,’ he said, and, since it was obvious to her that he meant exactly what he said, she got in.
‘Where do you live?’
He had inched the car into the rush-hour traffic and had turned the nose to the west.
‘If you would drop me off in any part of Hampstead…’ began Venetia.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Where do you live?’
‘Do you talk to everyone in such a manner?’ asked Venetia, quite forgetting who he was. ‘Or perhaps,’ she went on thoughtfully, ‘you’re tired after a long day’s work.’
‘Think whatever you wish, Nurse. Where do you live?’
‘Percy Lane. It’s behind—’
‘I know where it is. Are you married or—er—having a lasting relationship with some young man?’
They were driving through Holborn, and then on towards Primrose Hill; they would be in Hampstead very soon now. ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘I’m not married, and I haven’t a boyfriend or anything like that. I live with my granny, at least for my days off and my holidays.’
‘No parents or brothers or sisters?’
‘No.’
He had nothing more to say, and she sat quietly, enjoying the comfort of the big, smooth car until he slowed and turned into Percy Lane. ‘Which house?’
‘Number fourteen, on the left half-way down.’
He slid to a halt, leaned across her and opened the door and undid her seat-belt, then got out himself and hauled her bag from the back of the car. ‘Enjoy your days off.’ He sounded as though he didn’t much care whether she did or not. ‘Goodnight, Nurse.’
‘Goodnight, and thank you, sir.’ She looked up into his face and smiled a little. He looked tired; perhaps that was why he looked austere and impatient whenever she had encountered him. She said kindly, ‘You must be glad to be going home; you look tired, sir.’
His mouth twisted into a sneer. ‘I am touched by your solicitude, Nurse. Quite wasted upon me, I’m afraid.’
He got back into the car and drove away, and she watched the car until it had turned back into the wide avenue at the end of the lane, and then beat a tattoo on the door of the little house behind her.
It was opened immediately. ‘Come in, child. How nice to see you. Who was that? A Bentley, too!’
Venetia kissed her grandmother, a small, elderly lady with the same nondescript features as her granddaughter, and with the same beautiful eyes. ‘Nice to be home, Granny. That was Professor ter Laan-Luitinga. He’s an honorary brain surgeon who comes to operate here from time to time. He met me at the door and offered me a lift.’
Her grandmother ushered her into the little sitting-room. ‘Nice of him, darling. Supper won’t be long. Leave everything in the hall, you can go to your room later.’
She cast a quick look at her granddaughter’s face. She was way behind with modern ways and habits, but in her elderly view it seemed strange that a member of the consultant staff should offer a lift to a student nurse he would probably know nothing of. Unless, of course, they had met already.
She took her usual high-backed chair in the pleasant room, remembering that she hadn’t heard from Venetia for some days, and there had been that bomb…
‘Did you see anything of that bomb outrage?’ she asked. ‘There must have been any number of casualties, and it was close to St Jude’s.’
‘Well, actually, I was in Woolworth’s when it went off, Granny. I was one of the lucky ones, though—just cut my arm a little. Professor ter Laan-Luitinga stitched it for me, and it’s perfectly all right.’
Her grandmother gave a small sigh of satisfaction. So that was why…
‘Let me see it, Venetia.’
The scar was examined, and pronounced a very neat piece of needlework. ‘Couldn’t have done it better myself,’ said her grandmother. ‘I thought you said he was a brain surgeon.’
‘Well, yes, he is. He just happened to go past while I was waiting in Casualty.’
‘How very fortunate, child.’ Her grandmother, a great knitter, began to turn the heel of a sock she was making. ‘Now tell me what you’ve been doing since I saw you last.’
Venetia’s two days off passed quickly. There was nothing exciting to do, but she didn’t mind—it was nice just to potter round the little house, go shopping with her grandmother, and sit round the fire in the evening listening to her reminiscing about Venetia’s mother and father. She had been very happy in those days, and remembering them made her sad, but, as her grandmother had said, life had to go on, and the sooner she was trained with the certainty of a secure job, the better. ‘I shan’t live forever,’ said her grandmother, ‘and there won’t be much for you, child. I’ve borrowed on this house, so there will be only a fraction of its worth to come to you. It’s not what I would have wished.’
Venetia had assured her that she had no need to worry; she already paid some of her salary towards household expenses, and in another year or two she would earn sufficient to look after the pair of them.
St Jude’s loomed inhospitably out of the evening mist when she went back the following day. The bus had been packed, and when she got out of it the sight of the narrow, shabby streets around her sent her usually cheerful heart plummeting down into her sensible shoes. Perhaps when she had trained she would be able to find a job away from London, somewhere from where she could still get to Hampstead to visit Granny, but where there were trees and fields and one could hear the birds singing.
The alternative, of course, was to find a millionaire and marry him. She laughed at the very idea, and Sedgwick, the head porter, looked up from his scrutiny of the evening paper.
‘Feeling ’appy, Nurse? On men’s surgical, aren’t you? ‘Ad three nasty cases in today—motorbikes—and there’s another just in, not ’alf an hour ago.’
Venetia poked her head through his little window. ‘What a welcome!’ she observed cheerfully. ‘For two pins I’d turn round and go home again.’
She went unhurriedly across the entrance hall and down the passage to the nurses’ home, where she spent a pleasant hour before bed drinking tea and catching up on the hospital gossip with various of her friends.
There was precious little time to gossip on the following day; the ward was full and, just as Sedgwick had said, the three cases which had been admitted were nasty ones, for not only were they badly injured, they were uncouth youths who raved and shouted and used language which Venetia, for one, didn’t always understand—which was perhaps a good thing. And the fourth case was developing symptoms of a hidden head injury as well as internal injuries. Sister Giles sent for Arthur Miles, who spent a long time examining the man and then disappeared into her office to telephone, and fifteen minutes later Professor ter Laan-Luitinga arrived.
Venetia, trotting briskly out of a dressing-room with a tray of dressings, managed to halt within a few inches of him, and even then she trod on the toe of his large, beautifully polished shoe.
‘Oops, so sorry, sir!’ She smiled widely at him, quite forgetting that when they had last met he had snubbed her quite nastily. He snubbed her now, not by saying anything—his nod was glacial, his dark eyes cold, dismissing her with a glance.
She went on her way, reflecting reasonably that there was no earthly reason why he should so much as smile at her. All the same, he had no need to look as though she weren’t there. She handed over the