A Suitable Match. Betty Neels

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ with them when they travelled. ‘Plenty of time,’ they had said. ‘A couple of years enjoying life before you marry or decide what you want to do,’ and she had had those two years, seeing quite a lot of the world, knowing only vaguely that her father was in some kind of big business which allowed them to live in comfort. It was when he and her mother had been killed in an air crash that she’d discovered that he was heavily in debt, that his business was bankrupt and that any money there was would have to go to creditors. It had been frightening to find herself without a penny and an urgent necessity to earn a living, and it had been then that her grandfather, someone she had seldom met for he’d lived in the north of England, had come to see her.

      ‘We have each other,’ he had told her kindly. ‘I cannot offer you a home, for my money was invested in your father’s business, but I have my pension and I believe I know someone who will help us to find something modest to live in in London.’

      He had been as good as his word; the ‘someone’ owned property in various parts of London and they had moved into the flat two years ago, and Eustacia had set about getting a job. Things hadn’t been too bad at first, but her typing and shorthand weren’t good enough to get a job in a office and her grandfather had developed a heart condition so that she had had to stay at home for some time to look after him. Now, she thought hopefully, perhaps their luck had changed and she would get this job, and Grandfather would get better, well enough for her to hire a car and take him to Kew or Richmond Park. He hated the little street where they lived and longed for the country, and so secretly did she, although she never complained. He had enough to bear, she considered, and felt nothing but gratitude for his kindness when she had needed it most.

      She made coffee for them both when she got in and told him about the job. ‘There were an awful lot of girls there,’ she said. ‘This man said he would let me know. I don’t expect that means much, but it’s better than being told that the job’s been taken—I mean, I can go on hoping until I hear.’

      She heard two days later—the letter was on the mat when she got up, and she took it to the kitchen and put on the kettle for their morning tea and opened it.

      The job was hers—she was to present herself for work on the following Monday at eight-thirty sharp. She would have half an hour for her lunch, fifteen minutes for her coffee-break and tea in the afternoon, and work until five o’clock. She would be free on Saturdays and Sundays but once a month she would be required to work on Saturday, when she would be allowed the following Monday free. Her wages, compared to Grandfather’s pension, seemed like a fortune.

      She took a cup of tea to her grandfather and told him the news.

      ‘I’m glad, my dear. It will certainly make life much easier for you—now you will be able to buy yourself some pretty clothes.’

      It wasn’t much good telling him that pretty clothes weren’t any use unless she had somewhere to go in them, but she agreed cheerfully, while she did sums in her head: the gas bill, always a formidable problem with her grandfather to keep warm by the gas fire in their sitting-room—duvets for their beds, some new saucepans… She mustn’t get too ambitious, she told herself cautiously, and went off to get herself dressed.

      She got up earlier than usual on Monday, tidied the flat, saw to her grandfather’s small wants, cautioned him to be careful while she was away, kissed him affectionately, and started off for the hospital.

      She was a little early, but that didn’t matter, as it gave her time to find her way around to the cubbyhole where she was to change into the overall she was to wear, and peep into rooms and discover where the canteen was. A number of people worked at the path lab and they could get a meal cheaply enough as well as coffee and tea. People began to arrive and presently she was told to report to an office on the ground floor where she was given a list of duties she was to do by a brisk lady who made no attempt to disguise her low opinion of Eustacia’s job.

      ‘You will wear rubber gloves at all times and a protective apron when you are emptying discarded specimens. I hope you are strong.’

      Eustacia hoped she was, too.

      By the end of the first day she concluded that a good deal of her work comprised washing-up—glass containers, dishes, little pots, glass tubes and slides. There was the emptying of buckets, too, the distribution of clean laundry and the collecting of used overalls for the porters to bag, and a good deal of toing and froing, taking sheaves of papers, specimens and the post to wherever it was wanted. She was tired as she went home; there were, she supposed, pleasanter ways of earning a living, but never mind that, she was already looking forward to her pay-packet at the end of the week.

      She had been there for three days when she came face to face with the man who had interviewed her. He stopped in front of her and asked, ‘Well, do you like your work?’

      She decided that despite his cross face he wasn’t ill-disposed towards her. ‘I’m glad to have work,’ she told him pleasantly, ‘you have no idea how glad. Not all my work is—well, nice, but of course you know that already.’

      He gave a rumble of laughter. ‘No one stays for long,’ he told her. ‘Plenty of applicants when the job falls vacant, but they don’t last…’

      ‘I have every intention of staying, provided my work is satisfactory.’ She smiled at him and he laughed again.

      ‘Do you know who I am?’

      ‘No. I don’t know anyone yet—only to say good morning and so on. I saw Miss Bennett when I came here—she told me what to do and so on—and I’ve really had no time to ask anyone.’

      ‘I’m in charge of this department, young lady; the name’s Professor Ladbroke. I’ll see that you get a list of those working here.’

      He nodded and walked away. Oh, dear, thought Eustacia, I should have called him ‘sir’ and not said all that.

      She lived in a state of near panic for the rest of the week, wondering if she would get the sack, but payday came and there was nothing in her envelope but money. She breathed a sigh of relief and vowed to mind her Ps and Qs in future.

      No one took much notice of her; she went in and out of rooms peopled by quiet, white-coated forms peering through microscopes or doing mysterious things with tweezers and pipettes. She suspected that they didn’t even see her, and the greater part of her day was concerned with the cleansing of endless bowls and dishes. It was, she discovered, a lonely life, but towards the end of the second week one or two people wished her good morning and an austere man with a beard asked her if she found the work hard.

      She told him no, adding cheerfully, ‘A bit off-putting sometimes, though!’ He looked surprised, and she wished that she hadn’t said anything at all.

      By the end of the third week she felt as though she had been there for years—she was even liking her work. There actually was a certain pleasure in keeping things clean and being useful, in however humble a capacity, to a department full of silent, dedicated people, all so hard at work with their microscopes and pipettes and little glass dishes.

      She was to work that Saturday; she walked home, shopping on her way, buying food which her grandfather could see to on his own, thankful that she didn’t have to look at every penny. In the morning she set out cheerfully for the hospital. There would be a skeleton staff in the path lab until midday, and after that she had been told to pass any urgent messages to whoever was on call that weekend. One of the porters would come on duty at six o’clock that evening and take over the phone when she went.

      The department was quiet; she went around, СКАЧАТЬ