The Fortunes of Francesca. Бетти Нилс

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СКАЧАТЬ She stood on the edge of the pavement on a corner, waiting to cross the side street. She would have to take the Underground.

      There was a steady stream of cars filtering from the side street into the main street, and she waited patiently for a gap so that she could dart across, thinking longingly of her tea. Finn would be hungry, he always was, and Auntie wouldn’t have bothered to eat much during the day. She would make a cheese pudding, she decided, filling, tasting and economical…

      Professor van der Kettener saw her as he edged his car down the lane, away from the hospital. There she was, this very ordinary girl in her shabby mac, obviously intent on getting across the street. She looked remarkably cheerful, too. As he drew level with her, he leaned over and opened the car door.

      ‘Jump in quickly,’ he told her. ‘I can’t stop.’

      Franny did as she was told, settled in her seat, fastened her safety belt and turned to look at him. ‘How very kind. I was beginning to think that I would be there for ever. If you would put me down at the next bus stop? You don’t happen to know which bus goes to Waterloo, I suppose?’

      ‘I’m afraid not. Why do you want to go to Waterloo?’

      ‘Well, I live fairly near the station.’

      He drove smoothly past a bus stop. ‘Why are you here?’

      ‘Oh, I had to take some papers to Mr Augustus Ruskin, Lady Trumper’s solicitor. Such a dear old man; he ought to have retired years ago. There’s a bus stop.’

      The professor said impatiently, ‘I can’t pull up here. I’ll drive you home.’

      ‘No, I don’t think so, thank you. You sound cross. I expect you’ve had a busy day and you’re tired. The last thing you would want to do would be to drive miles out of your way. I’m quite able to get on a bus, you know.’ She sounded motherly. ‘Look, there’s a bus stop—if you’ll stop just for a minute.’

      ‘Certainly not. Kindly tell me where you live, Miss Bowen.’

      ‘Twenty-nine Fish Street, just off Waterloo Road. You have to turn off into Lower Marsh. You can go over Waterloo Bridge.’ She turned to smile at his severe profile. ‘You can call me Franny, if you like.’

      ‘Tell me, Miss Bowen, are you so free with your friendship with everyone you meet?’

      ‘Goodness me, no,’ said Franny chattily. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t dare be friendly with Barker.’

      ‘Ah, you don’t count butlers among your friends?’ observed the professor nastily.

      She refused to be put out. ‘I don’t know any, only him. At least…’

      ‘At least what?’ He was crossing Waterloo Bridge, and when she didn’t answer, he asked, ‘Well?’

      ‘Nothing,’ said Franny. ‘It’s the next turning on the right and then the third street on the right.’

      Fish Street, even with the evening dark masking its shabbiness, all the same looked depressing in the light from the street lamps.

      ‘Left or right?’ asked the professor.

      ‘The left, halfway down—here.’

      He drew up smoothly, got out and opened her door. She got out too, to stand looking up into his face. ‘It was very kind of you to bring me home,’ said Franny. ‘You need not have done it, you know, especially as you didn’t want to.’ She gave him a sunny smile. ‘Your good deed for the day!’ she told him. ‘Goodnight, Professor. Go home quickly and have a good dinner; it will make you feel better.’

      He towered over her. ‘I have never met anyone like you before,’ he said slowly. ‘I trust Lady Trumper doesn’t have to listen to your chatter?’

      ‘No. No, she doesn’t, I only speak when spoken to. I’m sorry if I bored you, only I thought—well, I thought you looked the kind of person one could chat with.’ She crossed the narrow pavement and took out her key.

      ‘Goodnight, Professor.’ The door closed softly behind her.

      The professor drove himself back over Westminster Bridge, along Whitehall, into Trafalgar Square and so into Pall Mall, going north until he reached Wimpole Street. He had a flat here, over his consulting room, for he spent a fair amount of time in London. He drove the car round to the mews behind the row of tall houses, walked back to his front door and let himself in.

      The hall was narrow with the waiting room and his consulting room on one side of it. An elegant staircase led to the floor above and he took these two at a time to his own front door, just as it was opened by a rotund little man with a thatch of grey hair and a round, merry face.

      He answered the professor’s greeting merrily. ‘A bit on the late side, aren’t you, sir? But dinner’s waiting for you when you want it. You’re going out later—I was to remind you…’

      The professor had thrown down his coat and was crossing the hall to one of the doors leading from it, his bag and a pile of letters in his hand.

      ‘Thanks, Crisp. Dinner in ten minutes.’

      His study was a comfortable room lined with bookshelves, with a fire burning in the small fireplace and a desk loaded with papers, a computer, telephone and reference books. He sat down behind it with a sigh of pleasure. This was where he would have liked to have spent his evening, writing learned articles for the medical journals, reading, going over his notes concerning his patients. If it hadn’t been for that girl he would have been home an hour earlier and would have had time to finish notes for a lecture he was to give later that week. He wondered briefly why he had stopped to give her a lift. She hadn’t been particularly grateful…

      He dined presently, changed and went out again, this time to an evening party given by one of his colleagues. He knew many of the guests there. All of them were pleasant people, leading pleasant lives—the men in one or other of the professions, the women well-dressed, amusing, able to carry on a witty conversation. He didn’t know any of them well and was unaware that he was liked. He got on well with the men and was charming to the women, but the charm hid a reserve none of them, so far, had been able to penetrate.

      He left early with the plea that he needed to go back to St Giles’ to check his latest patient—something which disappointed several of the women there who had made up their minds to beg him for a lift to their home.

      He thought about them as he drove back towards the City. They were all delightful companions, and a delight to the eye, so why were their elegant images dimmed by the tiresome Franny with her dowdy mac and damp, untidy hair? He supposed that he must feel sorry for her. He smiled to himself; she wouldn’t thank him for that. She needed no one’s pity; she was one of those tiresome people who bounced back…

      Auntie and Finn were in the sitting room, one with his head bowed over his books, the other silently knitting. They both looked up as she went in.

      ‘Did I hear a car?’ asked Auntie.

      ‘Yes. A Rolls-Royce. That doctor—he’s a professor—saw me as I came out of a solicitor’s office in the City and gave me a lift.’

      ‘Why were you there, dear?’

      Franny СКАЧАТЬ