Victory for Victoria. Betty Neels

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СКАЧАТЬ heard his rumble of laughter. ‘That’s a difficult question, for I have no idea how I look, have I?’ He leaned over and fastened the tea basket and put out a hand to help her to her feet. ‘I’m thirty-five, give or take a month or two—almost eleven years older than you.’

      She stopped in her tracks. ‘How did you know that?’

      ‘Oh, a friend of a friend, you know.’ His voice sounded casual as he opened the car door for her and then went to put the tea things in the boot. In the car beside her again he looked at his watch. ‘I booked a table for eight o’clock—supposing we cut down behind Hindhead and circle back?’

      ‘That would be nice, Doctor…’

      ‘My name’s Alexander,’ he prompted her mildly. ‘You may have noticed that I call you Victoria, for I find myself quite unable to address you as Miss Parsons. What are your sisters’ names?’

      Victoria told him; she told him how old they were too and what they did with their days and how clever Amabel was with her sketching and what a formidable couple Stephanie and Louise were on the tennis court. One thing led to another; by the time they arrived at the Abinger Hammer, she had told him a great deal without being aware of it; it was only afterwards she realised that he had told her only the barest facts about himself.

      They had leisurely drinks in the bar of the peaceful old pub and dined off Chicken Savoyarde, followed by chocolate roulade washed down with white burgundy. They went back into the bar for their coffee, sitting at a little table in the now crowded room with so much to talk about that they hardly noticed the cheerful noise around them. It was only when the landlord called, ‘Time, gentlemen, please,’ that Victoria broke off in mid-sentence. ‘It can’t be as late as that already,’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ve never been here as long as that?’

      Doctor van Schuylen laughed. ‘Indeed we have. Are you in a hurry to get back?’

      ‘No—’ She paused. ‘That is, I mustn’t be too late because I’m on in the morning and I must make up a clean cap…’

      He laughed again and she flashed at him: ‘That sounds like a silly excuse, but it isn’t.’

      He stared at her across the table. The gleam in his eyes could have been amusement, she didn’t know, but perhaps it wasn’t after all, for he said gravely: ‘I know it isn’t, Victoria, I know you well enough for that.’ He smiled gently at her and her heart rocked against her ribs.

      ‘I shall take you straight back and you shall make up your cap and have your beauty sleep—not,’ he added softly, ‘that you need it.’

      ‘Oh, I do,’ she contradicted him, ‘it’s been quite a day on the ward.’

      Just as though she hadn’t spoken, he added: ‘You’re beautiful enough as it is.’

      She got into the car wordlessly. That was the second time he had called her beautiful and she was astonished at the delight she felt—just as though he were the first man ever to have said so. She considered the idea for a moment; he was the first man—none of the other men counted any more.

      She was rather quiet on the trip back because she had a good deal to think about, but he didn’t seem to notice, rambling on in a placid fashion about topics which must have been of so little importance that she was unable to remember anything about them later, only the pleasant sound of his voice—a quiet, calm voice, and deep. She liked listening to it.

      They arrived back at St Judd’s just before midnight and although she hastened to say: ‘Don’t get out—I’m going through the hospital to the Home,’ he ignored her and got out too and walked with her to the big front doors. When she thanked him for her evening he said:

      ‘It was delightful—I shall remember it while I’m away.’

      ‘Oh yes.’ She felt bereft. ‘Birmingham and Edinburgh.’

      He nodded without speaking and after a moment she put out a hand.

      ‘Well, goodbye, Alexander. I hope you have a good trip. I don’t know Birmingham, but Edinburgh’s beautiful and there’s a lot to see.’

      ‘You know it? So do I—I’ve an Edinburgh degree.’

      He was still holding her hand and when she pulled on it gently he merely tightened his grip and said: ‘I shan’t have much time for sightseeing, I must get back to Holland as soon as possible.’

      ‘Yes, of course.’ She made her voice sound coolly friendly, for after all, what was theirs but a casual meeting? And this time he let her hand go. She said, maintaining the coolness with difficulty: ‘Well, goodbye, and thank you again,’ then whisked through the door and across the hall and out of sight of him.

      If Victoria wanted to forget him, she had no chance; her friends, during the next few days, saw to that, for they wanted to know every detail of her evening with him and then fell to discussing him at length and often, and when Tilly had exclaimed: ‘He turns me on,’ Victoria had felt a pang in her chest which was almost physical and no amount of reasonable thinking could dispel him entirely from her thoughts. After the first day or so she managed to convince herself that he had gone for good. There must be girls enough for him to choose from if he wanted an evening out; probably he had forgotten her already—a sensible thought which did nothing to dispel a sense of loss which bewildered her. She worked a little harder in order to get rid of it and when Doctor Blake invited her to go to the cinema with him, she accepted, although she wasn’t really keen on going.

      Jeremy Blake had behaved well, rather to her surprise, for he struck her as being a young man conceited enough to expect a quick conquest of any girl he cast his eyes upon, but beyond an attempt to hold her hand in the cinema which she parried without difficulty, he did nothing to which she could take exception, and when she was bidding him goodnight at the door of the Nurses’ Home with a rather brisk thank you, he had been equally casual. She had gone up to her room convinced that she had been mistaken about him after all—he was really not too bad and certainly not the wolf she had suspected.

      His behaviour bore out her opinion during the subsequent days—he was friendly in a casual way both on the ward and when they met outside it, and when Ellen, the night staff nurse and one of Victoria’s closest friends, remarked one morning after she had given the report that she didn’t fancy him at all, Victoria had felt impelled to defend him.

      ‘He’s quite nice,’ she remarked. ‘I didn’t think I was going to like him, but he’s quiet and just friendly.’

      Ellen sauntered towards the door. ‘As long as he stays that way,’ she said darkly.

      It was two days later that he asked Victoria to go out with him again and she refused. Afterwards she didn’t know why she had done so, for he had proved a pleasant enough companion when they had gone to the cinema. Perhaps it was because he had suggested that they should go to a little club he knew of in Chelsea and dance that she had refused so promptly. He had said nothing, only shrugged his shoulders and said carelessly: ‘Another time, perhaps,’ but his eyes had seemed paler than ever even though he was smiling.

      She hardly thought about him during the day; they were busy and although he came on to the ward several times, the only speech they had was to do with the patients.

      She met him on the way off duty that evening. Men’s Medical was on the top floor, reached by a bleak corridor of the narrow, dreary type so beloved by mid-Victorian architects of hospitals. СКАЧАТЬ