Текст книги "Britannia All at Sea"

Автор книги: Betty Neels

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Her companion drank his tea with the air of a man who was doing his duty and helped himself to one of the fast disappearing sandwiches. ‘You are engaged to be married?’ he asked coolly.

‘Me? Whatever gave you that idea? No, I’m not.’

‘You surprise me. In love, perhaps?’

She flicked a crumb away with the tip of her tongue. For someone who had known her for a very short time, his question struck her as inquisitive to say the least. All the same, it didn’t enter her head to tell him anything but the truth. ‘Yes,’ she said briefly, and wondered just what he would say if she told him it was himself.

The toasted cheese had arrived. She poured more tea for them both and sampled the cheese, then paused with her fork half way to her mouth because the professor was looking so very severe. ‘It is, of course, only to be expected,’ he observed in a nasty smooth voice. ‘I suppose I am expected to say what a lucky man he is.’

Britannia munched her cheese; love him she might, but he really was quite disagreeable. ‘You aren’t expected to say anything,’ she pointed out kindly, ‘why should you? We hardly know each other and shan’t see each other again, so I can’t see that it could possibly matter to you. Have another piece of toast before I eat it all.’

The professor curled his lip. ‘Thank you, no.’ He sat back with his arms folded against his great chest. ‘And as to seeing each other again, the unlikelihood of that is something for which I am deeply thankful. I find you far too ready with that sharp tongue of yours.’

Britannia choked on a piece of toast. It was mortifying that the professor should have to get out of his chair and pat her on the back while she spluttered and whooped, but on the other hand it concealed her feelings very satisfactorily. As soon as she could speak she said in a reasonable voice: ‘But it is entirely your own fault that you brought me here, you know, unless it was that you wanted to convince yourself of my—my sharp voice.’

She got up suddenly, pulled her cloak around her, thanked him for her supper and made for the door. She was quick on her feet and through it before the professor had a chance to do anything about it—besides, he had to pay the bill. There were several short cuts to the hospital, down small dark alleys which normally she wouldn’t have chosen to walk down after dark, but she didn’t think about that. She gained the hospital and her room in record time, got ready for bed and then sat down to think. She very much doubted if she would see the professor again, and if she did it would be on the ward where their conversation, if any, would be of the patients. And he had presumably only come for that one case. The thing to do would be to erase him from her mind, something she was loath to do. One didn’t meet a man one wanted to marry every day of the week and when one did, the last thing one wanted to do was to forget him. He could have been tired of course, but more probably just a bad-tempered man, given to odd whims. She couldn’t for the life of her recall any consultants who had taken staff nurses out for tea and sandwiches at nine o’clock at night, but he looked the kind of man who was accustomed to do as he pleased without anyone attempting to stop him. She got into bed, punched up her pillows and continued to muse, this time on the probability of him being engaged; he wasn’t a young man, and surely he would have an attachment of some sort. But if he hadn’t… She lay down and closed her eyes; somehow or other she intended to meet him again and some time in the future, marry him. She slept soundly on her resolution.

CHAPTER TWO

THE PROFESSOR came to the ward twice the next day; during the morning when Britannia was scrubbed and doing a lengthy dressing behind screens, so that all she could hear was his deep voice at the other end of the ward. And in the afternoon when he came again, she was at tea.

Sister Mack, giving her the report before she went off duty in the evening, mentioned that he would be leaving for Edinburgh the following day and then returning to Holland. ‘A charming man,’ she observed, ‘although he never quite explained how it was he knew about those tests…’ She shot a look at Britannia as she spoke, and Britannia looked placidly back and said nothing at all.

She went about her evening duties rather morosely. She had had no plans concerning the professor, except that she had hoped that if and when they met again something would happen; she had no idea what, but she was a romantic girl as well as a determined one, and without being vain she was aware that she was worth looking at. Of course, it would have been easier if she had been small and blonde and helpless; men, so her brothers frequently told her, liked their women fragile. She looked down at her own splendid person and wished she could be something like Alice and become miraculously fairylike. And David Ross hadn’t helped; he had grumbled about his spoilt evening without once showing any sympathy for her own disappointment. They had met as she was on her way to dinner and he had spoken quite sharply, just as though she had done it deliberately, and when she had pointed out reasonably enough that if he wanted to grumble at someone it should have been Mr Hyde, he had shrugged his shoulders and bade her a cool goodbye.

She had had no deep feelings about David, but before the professor had loomed so largely over her world, she had begun to think that given time she might have got around to the idea of marrying him later on. But she was sure that she would never want to do that—indeed, she didn’t want to marry anyone else but Professor Luitingh van Thien. She stopped writing the Kardex for a moment and wrote Britannia Luitingh van Thien on the blotting paper; it looked, to say the least, very imposing.

She went home for her days off at the end of the week; she managed to travel down to Dorset at least once a month and although the month wasn’t quite up, she felt the urge to talk to her parents. Accordingly she telephoned her mother, packed an overnight bag and caught the evening train, sleeping peacefully until the train came to a brief halt at Moreton station, a small, isolated place, some way from the village of that name and several miles from Dorchester and Wareham. It was cold and dark and Britannia was the only passenger to alight on to the ill-lit platform, but her father was there, passing the time of day with Mr Tims, porter, stationmaster and ticket collector rolled into one. They both greeted her with pleasure and after an animated discussion about Mrs Tims’ nasty back and Mr Tims’ bunions, they parted, Mr Tims to return to his stuffy little cubbyhole and await the next train and Britannia and Mr Smith to the car outside; an elderly Morris Oxford decidedly vintage and Mr Smith’s pride and joy. They accomplished the short journey home without haste, because the country road was winding and very dark and the Oxford couldn’t be expected to hurry anyway, and their conversation was casual and undemanding. But once through the front door of the small Georgian cottage which was Britannia’s home, they were pounced upon by her mother, a tall older replica of herself who rattled off a succession of questions without waiting for any of them to be answered. Britannia, quite used to this, kissed her parent with deep affection, told her that she looked smashing and remarked on the delicious aroma coming from the kitchen.

‘You’re famished,’ said Mrs Smith immediately. ‘I was only saying to your father this evening that you never get proper meals in that hospital.’ She started kitchenwards. ‘Take off your coat, darling, supper’s ready.’ She added to no one in particular: ‘It will be a blessing when you marry, Britannia.’

Which could mean anything or nothing, thought her daughter as she went upstairs to the small room which had been hers since she was a very small girl. When her brothers had left home her mother had suggested that she might like to move into either of the two bigger rooms they had occupied, but she had chosen to remain in the little room over the porch. She flung her coat down on to the bed now, then went downstairs again without bothering to look in the looking glass; supper for the moment was far more important than her appearance. It was after that satisfying meal, eaten in the cheerful rather shabby dining room opposite the sitting room, when her parents were seated on each side of the fire and she was kneeling before it giving it a good poke, that she paused to look over her shoulder and say: ‘I’ve met the man I want to marry, my dears.’

Her father lifted his eyes from the seed catalogue he was studying and gave her a searching look and her mother cast down her knitting and said encouragingly: ‘Yes, dear? Do we know him?’

‘No.’

‘He’s asked you to marry him?’

‘No.’ Britannia sounded matter-of-fact. ‘Nor is he likely to. He’s a professor of surgery, one of the best—very good-looking, ill-tempered, arrogant and rich. He didn’t like me overmuch. We—we don’t come from the same background.’

Her father, longing to get back to his seeds, said vaguely: ‘Not at all suitable, I gather.’

It was her mother who asked: ‘How old is he, darling? And is he short or tall, fat or thin?’

‘It doesn’t matter what he looks like if he’s unsuitable,’ her father pointed out sensibly.

‘Quite unsuitable,’ agreed Britannia. ‘He’s in his late thirties, I understand, and he’s very large indeed. He’s Dutch and he went back to Holland a few days ago.’

‘Do we know anyone in Holland?’ queried her mother.

Britannia threw her parent a grateful look for taking her seriously. ‘No—at least, one of the staff nurses—Joan Stevens, remember her, you met her at the prize-giving—she has a Dutch godmother and she’s going over there to stay with her for a couple of weeks very soon. It’s a small country,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘Very. Joan’s a good friend of yours?’ Her father had left his catalogue to join in the conversation again.

‘Oh, yes, Father. We were in the same set, you know, we’ve known each other for years. She did suggest that I might like to go with her this time.’

‘And of course you said yes.’

Britannia nodded and laid the poker down. ‘Am I being silly? You see, it was like a sign, if you see what I mean…’

Her parents nodded in complete understanding. ‘You’ve always known what you have wanted,’ observed her father, and, ‘Have you plenty of pretty clothes?’ asked her mother.

She said that yes, she had, and added earnestly: ‘I had to do something about it. I’m not sure what, but Joan asking me to go with her seemed like a sign…’

‘He’ll be a lucky man,’ remarked her father, ‘if he gets you—though I should have put that the other way round, shouldn’t I?’ He added: ‘It’s a pity he’s rich—it tends to spoil people.’

His daughter considered this. ‘Not him, I think– I fancy he takes it for granted.’

‘How did you meet?’ her mother wanted to know.

‘I sent him packing out of the sluice on Men’s Surgical. I didn’t know who he was, but he shouldn’t have been there, anyway.’

‘Hardly a romantic background.’ Mr Smith’s voice was dry.

‘No—well…’ Britannia sounded uncertain, for only a moment. ‘Don’t say a word to Ted or Nick, will you?’

‘Of course not, dear,’ promised her mother comfortably. ‘Anyway, they’re neither of them coming home for weeks. Such dear boys,’ she continued, ‘and good brothers to you, too, even though they tease.’ She picked up her knitting again. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Professor Luitingh van Thien. He’s not married, but I daresay he’s engaged or got a girlfriend.’

‘Quite suitable,’ commented her mother, and shot her husband a smug look. ‘And one doesn’t know, probably he’s a misogynist.’

Her husband and daughter surveyed her with deep affection. ‘In that case,’ declared Mr Smith, ‘he won’t be suitable at all.’

The first thing Britannia did when she got back to St Jude’s was to go in search of her friend. She found her in the pantry, making tea after her day’s work, and said without preamble: ‘Joan, you asked me if I’d like to go to Holland with you—well, I would, very much.’

Joan warmed the pot carefully. ‘Super! The Veskes are dears but a trifle elderly, if you know what I mean. I’m a bit active for them, that’s why they suggested that I should bring someone with me. Could you manage two weeks?’

Britannia nodded. ‘Mack will be furious, but I haven’t had leave for ages—she asked me to change with her, so she owes me a favour. When do you plan to go?’

‘Ten days.’ They had gone back to Joan’s room and were sipping their tea. ‘Can you manage that?’ And when Britannia nodded again: ‘Can you ride?’

‘Yes—nothing too mettlesome, though.’

‘And cycle? Good. I daresay the weather will be foul, but who cares? We can borrow the car if we want, too. Hoenderloo is fairly central and we could travel round a bit.’

Holland was small, thought Britannia, they would be able to visit a great many places, there was always the chance that she might meet the professor… ‘Won’t your godmother mind? I mean if we go off all day?’

‘Not a bit of it, as long as we’re home for dinner in the evening—they like to play cards in the evening—besides, we can always take her with us. She’s pretty hot on a bike too.’

‘Thick clothes?’ asked Britannia.

‘And a mac. Not much chance of dressing up, ducky, though I always pop in something pretty just in case Prince Charming should rear his handsome head.’ Joan poured more tea. ‘And talking of him, what happened to that splendid type who came to operate on that liver case of yours? I saw him in theatre for a minute or two and he quite turned me on.’

‘He went back to Holland.’ Britannia made her voice nicely vague. ‘He made a good job of that liver, too.’

Her friend gave her a considered look. ‘Britannia, are you up to something?’

‘Me? What could I be up to?’

‘Well, you haven’t been out with Ross lately, and you were seen wining and dining in Ned’s Café.’

‘Cheese on toast and a pot of tea,’ said Britannia in a very ordinary voice. ‘Neither of us had had any food for ages and we happened to meet—he was very rude,’ she added.

‘So much for Prince Charming,’ declared Joan comfortably. ‘Oh, well, let’s hope he turns up for both of us before we’re too long in the tooth.’

It wasn’t easy to persuade Sister Mack that she could manage very nicely without her staff nurse for a fortnight, but Britannia’s mind had been made up; she was going to Holland, childishly certain that she would meet the professor again. What she would say to him when she did, she had no idea—that could be thought about later. Once having wrung her superior’s reluctant consent, she clinched the matter at the office, telephoned her parents and began on the important task of overhauling her wardrobe.

Joan had said something warm and sensible; she had a Scottish tweed suit she had providentially bought only a few weeks previously, a rich brown, the colour of peat, into which had been woven all the autumn colours of the Scottish Highlands. She bought a handful of sweaters to go with it, decided that her last year’s brown tweed coat would have to do, added a small stitched velvet hat which could be pulled on at any angle and still look smart, and then a modicum of slacks and thick pullovers before concentrating on the important question of something pretty. For of course when she and the professor did meet, she would be wearing something eye-catching and chic… To be on the safe side, she bought two new dresses, one long, with a sweeping skirt and a plainly cut bodice. It had long sleeves demurely cuffed and its soft pink, she felt sure, would enchant even the cold eye of the professor. The other dress was short; a dark green wool, elegant and simple and in its way, equally eye-catching.

The two girls left for their holiday on a cold grey day which threatened drizzle, and indeed when they arrived at Schiphol it was raining, a cold, freezing rain which made them glad that they had worn raincoats and tied scarves over their heads. Mijnheer Veske was waiting for them, a tall, quiet man whose English was excellent and whose welcome was sincere. He stowed them into his Citroën and throughout the sixty-mile journey kept up a running commentary on the country they were passing through, but as he travelled fast and the greater part of the journey was a motorway, Britannia at least got a little muddled, but just before Apeldoorn he left the motorway, to take a quiet country road winding through the Veluwe to Hoenderloo, a small town composed largely of charming little villas surrounded by gardens, which even in the winter were a pleasure to the eye. But they didn’t stop here, but took a narrow country road lined with tall trees and well wooded on either side, their density broken here and there by gated lanes or imposing pillars guarding well-kept drives.

Presently Mijnheer Veske turned the car into one of the lanes, its gate invitingly opened on to a short gravelled drive leading to a fair-sized house. It was elaborately built, with a great many little turrets and tiled eyebrows over its upstairs windows, and small iron balconies dotted here and there. But it looked welcoming, and indeed when the front door was flung open, their welcome was everything they could have wished for; Mevrouw Veske was waiting for them in the hall, a short, stout lady with carefully coiffured hair, a massive bosom and a round cheerful face. She embraced them in turn, declared herself to be enchanted to entertain her goddaughter’s friend, outlined a few of the activities arranged for their entertainment and swept them into a large and cosily furnished sitting room, barely giving them time to shed their outdoor things. The room was warm and a tea tray stood ready; very soon they were all sitting round talking away on the very best of terms.

Presently the two girls were taken upstairs to their rooms, pleasant apartments overlooking the now bare garden at the back and the woods beyond, and left to unpack. Britannia, happily arranging her clothes in a vast, old-fashioned wardrobe, decided that she was going to enjoy herself. It would of course be marvellous if she were to meet the professor, but during their drive from Schiphol she had come to the conclusion that she had been a little mad to imagine that she might find him again. Holland might be small, but not as small as all that. She changed into the new green dress, piled her hair into a great bun above her neck, did her face and went along to see if Joan was ready to go down.

The evening had been very pleasant, she decided, lying in her warm bed some hours later. Dinner had been a substantial meal, taken in a rather sombre dining room and served by a hefty young girl who looked at them rather as though they had arrived from outer space and giggled a good deal. Berthe, explained Mevrouw Veske, was learning to be a general help in the house and doing her best. There was an older woman, it seemed, with the astonishing name of Juffrouw Naakdgeboren, who was away at a family wedding. ‘Very important they are, too,’ explained their kindly hostess, ‘in the country at least it’s a very gay affair.’ She smiled at them both. ‘That’s something you have to look forward to, isn’t it?’

Britannia had smiled back, agreeing fervently if silently, though whether the professor would fit into a gay affair was something she very much doubted. And really, she reminded herself crossly, she must stop behaving as though she were going to marry him; it was one thing to make plans and hope, quite another to take it for granted. She had the feeling that the professor wouldn’t take kindly to being taken for granted.

It was raining when they got up the next morning, but since they were on holiday they had no intention of letting the weather spoil their days. They put on raincoats again, muffled themselves in scarves, thick gloves and high boots and accompanied Mijnheer Veske to the garage, where there was quite a selection of bicycles. Britannia, mounting her rather elderly machine dubiously, almost fell off again because she hadn’t realised that its brakes were operated by putting the pedals into reverse, but after a rather hilarious start they pedalled off, down the drive and out into the lane, to take the cycle path running beside the road. Hoenderloo was their destination, and once there they intended to have coffee, buy stamps and have a look round its shops before going back for lunch. Their surroundings, even on a bleak November morning, were pleasant; the bare trees lining the lane formed an arch over their heads, and the woods behind them held every sort of tree.

‘Estates,’ explained Joan. ‘Some of them are quite small, some of them are vast. There are some lovely places tucked away behind these trees, I can tell you, but we shan’t get much chance to see many of them—Mevrouw Veske visits here and there, but only the smaller villas. There’s a gateway along here, look—something or other rampant on brick pillars and the drive curving away so that we can’t see anything at all. It’s a castle or moated house or some such thing, I asked Mevrouw Veske last time I was here.’

Britannia was balancing precariously with an eye to the brakes. ‘Does anyone live there?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes, but I haven’t a clue who it is.’

They spent a happy hour or so in Hoenderloo, pottering in and out of its small shops, managing, on the whole, to make themselves understood very well, before having coffee and apple cake and cycling back again. They went with Mevrouw Veske to Apeldoorn in the afternoon, their hostess driving a small Fiat with a good deal of dash and verve and a splendid disregard of speed limits. She took them on a tour of the city’s streets, wide and tree-lined and, she assured them, in the summer a mass of colour, and then bustled them back to the town’s centre to give them tea and rich cream cakes and drive them home again. They played cards after dinner and went quite late to bed, and on the following day the same pleasant pattern was followed, only this time the girls cycled to the Kroller-Mullermuseum to stare at the van Gogh paintings there, and after lunch Mevrouw Veske took them by car again to Loenen so that they might see the Castle ter Horst, and in the evening they played lighthearted bridge. Britannia, who didn’t much care for cards, was glad that neither her host nor her hostess took the game seriously.

It was raining the next morning and Mevrouw Veske was regretfully forced to postpone her plan to take them to Arnhem for the day, so they settled down to writing postcards and then tossed to see who should go to Hoenderloo and post them. Britannia lost and ten minutes later, rather glad of the little outing, she wheeled her bike out of the garage and set off in the wind and the pouring rain. She had reached the gate and was about to turn on to the cycle path when she saw something in the road, small and black and fluttering. A bird, and hurt. She cast the bike down and ran across to pick it up, the wind tearing the scarf from her head so that her hair, tied back loosely, was instantly wet, flapping round her face and getting in her eyes. It was because of that that she didn’t hear or see the approaching car, a magnificent Rolls-Royce Camargue, its sober grey coachwork gleaming in the downpour. It stopped within a foot of Britannia and she looked over her shoulder to see Professor Luitingh van Thien get out. She had the bird in her hand and said without preamble: ‘I think its wing is broken—what shall I do?’

‘Fool,’ said the professor with icy forcefulness, ‘darting into the road in that thoughtless fashion. I might have squashed you flat, or worse, gone into a skid and damaged the car.’ He held out a hand. ‘Give me that bird.’

She handed it over, for once unable to think of anything to say. So dreams did come true, after all, but he hardly seemed in the mood to share her pleasure in the fact. She stood, the rain washing over her in a relentless curtain, while he examined the small creature with gentle hands. ‘I’ll take it with me,’ he said finally, and nodded briefly before getting back into his car. Britannia, made of stuff worthy of her name, followed him.

‘Do you live near here?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ He gave her a cold look which froze the words hovering on her tongue, and drove away.

She stood in the road and watched him go. ‘I must be mad,’ she cried to the sodden landscape around her. ‘He’s the nastiest man I’ve ever set eyes on!’ She went back to collect her bike and got on to it and rode off towards Hoenderloo. ‘But he took the bird,’ she reminded herself, ‘and he could have wrung its neck.’

She was almost there and the rain had miraculously ceased when he passed her again, going the other way, and a few moments later had turned and slid to a halt beside her so that she felt bound to get off her bicycle.

‘The bird’s wing has been set; it will be cared for until it is fit to fly again.’ He spoke unsmilingly, but she didn’t notice that, she looked at him with delight.

‘Isn’t it incredible?’ she declared. ‘I mean, meeting like this after the sluice at St Jude’s and now you here, almost next door, as it were.’

He looked down his splendid nose. ‘I can see nothing incredible about it,’ he said repressively. ‘It is a coincidence, Britannia, they occur from time to time.’

He could call it that if he liked. She thought secretly of good fairies and kindly Fate and smiled widely. ‘Well, you don’t need to be so cross about it. I’ve never met such a prickly man. Have you been crossed in love or something?’

The ferocious expression which passed over the professor’s handsome features might have daunted anyone of lesser spirit than hers. ‘You abominable girl!’ he ground out savagely. ‘I have never met anyone like you…’

Britannia lifted a hand to tuck back a wet strand of hair. ‘What you need,’ she told him kindly, ‘is a wife and a family.’

His mouth quivered momentarily. ‘Why?’

She answered him seriously. ‘Well, you would have them to look after and care for and love, and they’d love you and bring you your slippers in the evening, and…’

His voice was a well-controlled explosion. ‘For God’s sake, girl,’ he roared, ‘be quiet! Of all the sickly sentimental ideas…!’

Two tears welled up in Britannia’s fine eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks. The professor muttered strongly in his own language, and with the air of a man goaded beyond endurance, got out of his car.

‘Why are you crying? I suppose that you will tell me that it’s my fault.’

Britannia gave a sniff, wiped her eyes on a delicate scrap of white lawn and then blew her nose. ‘No, of course it’s not your fault, because you can’t help it, can you? It’s just very sad that you should think of a wife and children as being nothing more than s-sickly s-sentiment.’ Two more tears spilled over and she wiped them away impatiently as a child would, with the back of her hand.

The professor was standing very close to her. When he spoke it was with surprising gentleness. ‘I didn’t mean that. I was angry.’

She said in a woeful voice, ‘But you’re always losing your temper—every time we meet you rage and roar at me.’

‘I neither rage nor roar, Britannia. Possibly I am a little ill-tempered at times.’ The gentleness had a decidedly chilly edge to it now.

‘Oh, yes, you do,’ she answered him with spirit. ‘You terrify me.’ She peeped at him, to see him frowning.

‘I cannot believe that you are terrified of anyone or anything, certainly not of me. Try that on some other man, my dear girl, I’m not a fool.’

She sighed. ‘Well, no—I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me.’

He looked at her with cold interest. ‘And were the tears a try-out too?’

She shook her head slowly; she might have met him again, just as she had dreamed that she might, but it hadn’t done much good. She said quietly: ‘Thank you very much for taking care of the bird,’ and got on to her bike and wobbled off at a great rate, leaving him standing there.

She tried very hard not to think of him during the rest of the day, but lying in bed was a different matter; she went over their meetings, not forgetting a word or a look, and came to the conclusion that he still didn’t like her. She was on the point of sleep when she remembered with real regret that she had hardly looked her best; surely, if she had been wearing the new pink dress, he would have behaved differently? Men, her mother had always said, were susceptible to pink. Britannia sighed and slept.