Two Weeks to Remember
Miss Hudson came back from her dinner in a better frame of mind. ‘Run along,’ she told Charity. ‘Did anything else come in while I was away?’
‘Another lot from Professor Wyllie-Lyon—urgent.’
Miss Hudson cast her eyes up to the ceiling. ‘That man—nice though he is, and I’m sure I’ve never met anyone in this place with better manners—no wonder the nurses all fall for him. It’s a pity he has to work so hard. I must leave on time, too; the dentist’s going to take an impression…’
‘I’ll stay on if we are not finished,’ offered Charity and thought uneasily of the fish. If she got the fishmonger to put it in a stout plastic bag and she put it on the windowsill and cooked it the moment she got home… Anyway it was quite a chilly day. She got her coat and started off along the passage. Five minutes to the shops, five minutes there, and she would buy a ham roll and eat it in the churchyard; there was a convenient cluster of old tombstones in one corner out of the wind. There would still be time to have a cup of coffee at the café at the end of the row of shops. Reg, the proprietor, made excellent coffee and one could ignore the plastic surroundings.
There was a queue at the fishmongers; she bought cod fillets and because she was a pretty girl with a nice smile the fishmonger wrapped them carefully in a second bag. She stowed the fish into her shopping basket, bought a ham roll and crossed the road to the churchyard.
There was no one else there; there seldom was. Sometimes in the summer she had found a tramp sleeping peacefully on one of the stone slabs, and once or twice someone like herself, intent on peace and quiet for half an hour. She selected an eighteenth-century angel to lean against and began on her roll.
She had scarcely sunk her splendid teeth into it before someone came strolling towards her. Professor Wyllie-Lyon, hands in pockets and just for once no papers that needed typing immediately. She paused, the roll half-way to her open mouth; surely he hadn’t sought her out to do some urgent notes?
It seemed not. He came to a halt in front of her and remarked pleasantly, ‘We seem to share the same desire for peace and quiet, Miss Graham. May I sit for a moment?’
He arranged his great size against the scroll over which the angel was brooding. The family Wodecock: father, mother and a quiverful of children; there were so many of them that the scroll made an excellent support for such a large man. After a moment he said, ‘Fish?’
She watched his magnificent nose flare. ‘Well, yes, I’ve just bought some for supper when I get home.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. Do go on with your lunch, Miss Graham. I come here to close my eyes for ten minutes—it’s quiet.’
A hint for her not to talk? She took another bite of her roll. His eyes were still shut when she had finished. She brushed the crumbs away and got soundlessly to her feet and he was there, beside her, wide awake, looming over her.
‘I would be glad if you would have a cup of coffee with me, Miss Graham. Reg, at the café by the grocer’s, makes a splendid cup.’
‘Yes, I go there sometimes—it’s a change from the canteen.’ She discovered to her surprise that she didn’t feel shy with him. ‘Thank you, I’ve just got the time before half past one.’
They were sitting at an orange, plastic-topped table, their coffee before them, before he asked, ‘What went wrong then?’
She was an honest girl; it didn’t occur to her to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. She said, ‘Oh, I’m still not sure.’ She was silent for so long that she heard him say comfortably, ‘I dare say it will sort itself out.’
And she had been on the point of telling him all about it. She must be mad, she thought crossly; she didn’t even know the man. They didn’t move in the same hospital circles and she felt pretty sure that their social backgrounds were as wide apart as the poles. He was being kind without making much of an effort, probably because he knew that it was he, more than any of the other consultants, who kept her nose to the grindstone.
She drank her coffee, glanced at her watch, thanked him and got up to go. He got up, too, but made no effort to accompany her. His goodbye was impersonal and casual. She went back to the hospital feeling peevish.
Miss Hudson, as always, glanced at the clock as she went in. They worked well together, but she let it be known by small signs such as this that she was in charge. ‘Dr Carruthers’—she bridled a little, for she fancied him—’ popped in with a couple of letters. There’s not much else besides Professor Wyllie-Lyon’s stuff, is there?’
Luckily not, thought Charity, hanging up her coat, for there was more than enough of it.
She was a little more than half-way through them when Miss Hudson fancied a cup of tea and while Charity was filling the kettle the phone rang. ‘That was to ask you to take the professor’s papers down to the consultants’ room should they not be ready by five o’clock.’
Miss Hudson inserted a fresh sheet of paper. ‘Will you be done by then?’
‘No,’ said Charity, ‘I had those biopsy reports to do, you know.’ She made the tea and carried the tray to Miss Hudson’s desk. ‘I’m about half-way. It’ll be six o’clock I should think.’
‘Poor you,’ said Miss Hudson, not meaning it. She sipped her tea in a genteel fashion. ‘I did hear a rumour that he was off shortly on some lecturing tour or other; that’ll make life much easier for us both.’
Which, seeing that she had long ago left Charity to deal with almost all of his work, wasn’t quite true.
The office seemed very quiet when Miss Hudson had gone. The afternoon was already darkening and there was a first splattering of rain against the uncurtained windows. Charity remembered the fish wedged on the windowsill and brought it inside, then settled down to work again. Another hour’s work, she reckoned, perhaps less since there would be no interruptions now. The administrative side of Augustine’s had packed up and gone home, leaving the nurses to their work; she could hear faint hospital sounds and from time to time the strident warning of an ambulance.
She finished before an hour was up, tidied her desk and put on her coat and picked up her work. There was no one in the passage; the day’s rush had died down for the moment, patients were being readied for their suppers; except for the non-stop flow of patients in the accident room, Augustine’s was, for a little while, tolerably quiet.
Charity hurried along, anxious to get home; Aunt Emily would be worrying about supper. She gained the entrance hall and turned down one of the corridors leading from it, wider than the rest, lined by magnificent mahogany doors. This was where the consultants, the management committee and the upper heirarchy of the hospital had their various rooms. The consultants’ was half-way down; she tapped at the door and went in. Professor Wyllie-Lyon was overflowing a chair with his feet on the table. He appeared to be sleeping, but as she hesitated he said, ‘Come on in. I’m much obliged to you, Miss Graham; I’ve curtailed your evening.’
He had taken his large feet in his handmade shoes off the table and was looming over her. ‘It was important that I should have these,’ he observed as he took the papers she handed him. ‘They need to be delivered this evening.’
Charity murmured a nothing, said good night and made for the door. He reached it first, which was surprising considering that he was such a large man and so far away from it.
‘I’ll drop you off,’ he said and when she said, ‘Oh, there’s no need of that,’ he interrupted her gently, ‘You live in St John’s Wood; I’m going in that direction. It’s the least I can do.’
‘But it’s my work,’ protested Charity.
He took no notice of that, but gathered up the papers and opened the door and ushered her through. Short of making a silly fuss there was nothing she could do but accompany him out of the hospital and into the dark blue Bentley parked in the forecourt.
The professor, beyond a word here and there, had little to say as he drove along the Finchley Road. Presently he asked, ‘Where do I turn off?’
‘Oh, this will do, thank you,’ said Charity. ‘I can walk down here—it’s quite close…’
‘In that case I’ll drive you there.’
He had the reputation of being quite mild at the hospital, but she had the feeling that that was a cover-up for a steely determination to get his own way. After all, how many dozens of times had she meekly agreed to type his letters, knowing that she had no hope of finishing them by five o’clock when she was supposed to go home? She gave him her address and sat silently until he stopped outside the gate. He leaned across and opened the door for her. ‘Forgive me if I don’t get out; time is of the essence.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that he could have saved himself a few minutes by dropping her off in the Finchley Road when she had suggested it, but all she said was a polite thank you and a rather brisk good night, uneasily aware that the cod might have left a faintly fishy atmosphere in his beautiful car. She was surprised that he didn’t drive away until she had gone through the gate and shut it behind her.
Aunt Emily came into the hall to meet her; she might be elderly but her hearing was excellent. ‘I heard a car,’ she began. ‘Have you and Sidney made it up, darling?’ And, before Charity could reply, ‘You bought the fish?’
‘Yes, Aunt Emily—it’s here. I’ll take it straight to the kitchen. And yes, you did hear a car, but it wasn’t Sidney and we haven’t made it up. It was one of the consultants at St Augustine’s—I stayed late to finish some work for him and he gave me a lift as he was coming this way.’
Upon reflection she wondered if that had been true. The papers had been urgent—reports on a case of leukaemia he had been consulted about, but the patient, if she remembered aright, had been in an East End hospital in exactly the opposite direction. He had said that he had needed the reports urgently, but if that was the case why had he wasted time bringing her home? Perhaps he had some other urgent business to attend to first.
She didn’t bother her head over it but went to say hallo to her father and then started on the fish.
In the oven with a bit of parsley, she decided; easy to prepare and not too long to cook. While it was cooking she sat down at the kitchen table with her aunt. As so often happened, that lady had used up the housekeeping money and shied away from asking her brother for more until it was due. ‘I do try to be economical, dear,’ she observed worriedly, ‘but somehow the money just goes…’
Charity, who had had her eye on a pair of expensive shoes for some weeks and had intended to buy them on pay-day, heaved an inward sigh. By the time she had enough money for them they wouldn’t be fashionable any more. She wasn’t extravagant and she didn’t buy many clothes, but what she had were good and suited her, for she bought with a careful eye. She said now, ‘Don’t worry, Aunty, I’ve a few pounds tucked away—you can pay me back later.’ They both knew that that wouldn’t happen but neither of them mentioned the fact.
At supper her father remarked, ‘You came home by car, Charity? I was at my window…’
She told him about the professor, but only briefly, for half-way through he interrupted with, ‘Ah, that reminds me, in the catalogue I had sent to me today there’s a book I think I must have: early medical practices in Europe; it should be most informative. This professor would doubtless be very interested.’
Very unlikely, thought Charity, murmuring agreement. Just for a moment, as she changed the plates, she wondered where he was and what he was doing at that moment. Wining and dining some exquisite young lady, or with his head buried in some dry-as-dust tome? Probably the latter, propped up against the cruet while he ate his solitary dinner. Charity, who had a very vivid imagination, felt rather sorry for him, allowing her imagination to run away with her common sense, as she so often did.
CHAPTER TWO
MISS HUDSON’S RUMOUR must have had some truth in it, for Charity saw nothing of Professor Wyllie-Lyon for the whole of the following week. It made her workload much lighter, of course, but she found herself missing him. She went home each evening to spend it in the company of her aunt and father and an occasional visitor, dropping in for a drink or after-supper coffee. True, she could have gone out on at least two occasions, once with the assistant dispenser, a short earnest young man with no sense of humour, and on the second occasion with the surgical registrar, who was married with a wife and family somewhere in the depths of rural Sussex. She had declined both invitations in her pleasant, rather shy manner and found herself wondering what she would have done if it had been Professor Wyllie-Lyon who had asked her out. Leapt at the chance, she had to admit, and then told herself sternly that she was being silly; for one thing he wasn’t there and for another he had never been known to date anyone at the hospital. Even at the annual ball, which she had attended on two occasions, he had circled the floor with grave dignity with the senior ladies present and then gone to play bridge in an adjoining room.
She did the shopping on Saturday morning, met an acquaintance unexpectedly and had coffee with her, and then walked unhurriedly back home, to come face to face with Sidney when she was half-way there. He had a girl with him, someone she knew slightly, and they both looked embarrassed, whereas she felt nothing but pleased relief that Sidney should have found a successor to herself so quickly. Once or twice she had felt guilty about him, but now she saw that there was no need for that. She beamed at them both, passed the time of day and went on her way with her groceries to give a hand with the lunch and then catch a bus to visit an old school friend who had married and gone to live in Putney.
Sunday held no excitement either; church in the morning and then an afternoon in the garden, encouraging the chrysanthemums and tidying up the flower beds for the winter. Charity, restless for no reason at all, was quite glad to go to work on Monday morning.
Miss Hudson was in a bad temper; she had missed her usual bus, lost her umbrella and started a cold. Charity hurried to put on the kettle and offer a soothing cup to cheer while she sorted through the pile of work waiting for them. There was quite a lot. She accepted the major portion of reports since, as she was quick to point out, Miss Hudson didn’t feel able to cope, and they settled down to a morning’s work.
They were interrupted after an hour or so by Symes’s elderly voice growling over the phone. Would Miss Graham take her notebook to Women’s Medical, as Professor Wyllie-Lyon wanted notes taken during his round.
Miss Hudson was indignant. ‘Leaving me alone here to get through all this pile of work. I shall have something to say about it, I can tell you! You’d better get along at once, Charity, and be sure you are back in time for me to go to the canteen. I feel very poorly and it is essential that I have a break.’
Charity gathered up her notebook and pencil. It would make a nice change from the typewriter; besides, she would see Professor Wyllie-Lyon again. She didn’t waste time in wondering why she was pleased about this but nipped smartly along the passage, into the entrance hall and up the stairs. She wasn’t supposed to use the main staircase but it would take all day to go round to either of the smaller staircases used by the nurses, and the lifts were out of the question. Anyway, she disliked lifts.
The round had started; Charity, peering cautiously round the ward doors, met Sister’s frowning gaze and then, obedient to her beckoning finger, and very aware of her size and bursting good health, walked just as cautiously down the ward between the beds occupied by a variety of limp-looking ladies with pale faces who gazed at her with a kind of disbelief that anyone could be as pretty and full of life. Miss Hudson would have been more suitable, thought Charity, gaining the group of solemn-looking people round a patient’s bed, and doing her best to hide herself behind the social worker.
‘Ah, good morning, Miss Graham,’ observed Professor Wyllie-Lyon, yards away from her and with eyes in the back of his head. ‘If you will be ready to take notes at the next patient’s bed, if you please.’
He hadn’t turned round as he spoke, so that she addressed his white-coated back with a polite, ‘Certainly, sir,’ while admiring what she could see of him—which wasn’t much, what with his registrar and housemen and a clutch of earnest medical students. Sister had the best place, of course, at his elbow, ready with X-Rays, forms and the proper answers to his questions. Charity wondered what it would be like to be clever enough to know what he was talking about and what to say in reply. She allowed her thoughts to wander. It was a pity that she was really too old to train as a nurse, although she wasn’t sure if she would be much good at it—the actual nursing that is; she enjoyed learning about the various conditions and ailments she typed about each day, but she wasn’t so sure about the practical side of them.
She became aware that there was a general movement towards the next bed and hastily held her pencil at the ready. A good thing, too, for Professor Wyllie-Lyon began at once. ‘Now, this is Mrs Elliott, whose case we might discuss, with her permission.’ He sat himself down on the side of the bed and spoke to the elderly lady lying in it. She smiled and nodded and he then turned to address the students round him.
‘You are ready, Miss Graham? Now, this patient is suffering from a comparatively rare complaint…’
Charity, standing close by so that she wouldn’t miss anything, kept her mind on her work. And again, a good thing that she did; she was grateful when he paused to ask her if she had got Thrombocytopenic Purpura down correctly. A few more tongue twisters like that and she would throw her notebook at him and gallop out of the ward.
She hoped that she had got everything down correctly, as she hurried back to the office; Miss Hudson would be in a fine state, for she was missing part of her dinner time. Charity, short of breath from running down the passage, was greeted by her irate superior, even more irate by reason of the delightful picture Charity made: cheeks pink from her haste, her magnificent bosom heaving.
‘Ten minutes,’ snapped Miss Hudson. ‘I said to be back on time…’
‘Well,’ said Charity reasonably, ‘I couldn’t just walk away before Professor Wyllie-Lyon had finished, could I? I’ve run all the way back.’
Miss Hudson sniffed. ‘I shall take the ten minutes out of your dinner time. I don’t see why I should suffer. Really, you young women, you have no sense of responsibility.’ She flounced out, leaving Charity to make sense of this, and since she couldn’t she sat down at her desk, polished off the Path. Lab reports awaiting her attention and then turned to her shorthand notes. Professor Wyllie-Lyon hadn’t said that he wanted them at once but she had no doubt that he did.
Miss Hudson was as good as her word. She came back ten minutes late, viewed the fresh pile of work which the porter had just brought to the office with a jaundiced eye and asked, ‘Have you finished those notes, then? There’s more than enough to keep us busy until five o’clock.’
The phone rang and she answered it, then said crossly, ‘You’re to take Professor Wyllie-Lyon’s notes down to Women’s Medical as soon as they’re ready. I must say he’s got a nerve…’
‘He is the senior consultant,’ Charity pointed out in her reasonable way. ‘I expect he’s got the edge on everyone else. Anyway, I’ve almost finished; I’ll drop them in as I go to dinner.’
‘Toad-in-the-hole,’ said Miss Hudson, ‘and they’ve overcooked the cabbage again.’
Charity, who was famished, would have eaten it raw.
Women’s Medical was settling down for the afternoon. There was the discreet clash of bedpans, scurrying feet intent on getting done so that their owners could go off duty, and the faint cries of such ladies who required this, that or the other before they could settle for their hour’s rest period. Charity knocked on Sister’s office door and went in.
Sister was at her desk. She was a splendid nurse and a dedicated spinster with cold blue eyes and no sense of humour. Her ward was run beautifully and her nurses disliked her whole-heartedly.
Professor Wyllie-Lyon was sitting opposite her, perched precariously on a stool much too small to accommodate his vast person. He looked up as Charity went in, put down the notes he was reading and got to his feet. Sister gave him a surprised look.
‘What do you want, Miss Graham?’ she asked.
‘I was told to leave these notes, Sister.’
The professor took them from her. ‘Ah, yes. Splendid. Good girl. You never let me down, do you? But shouldn’t you be at your dinner?’
‘Oh, that’s all right, Professor. I’m on my way now…’
‘It is desirable for the smooth running of the hospital catering department that staff should be punctual at mealtimes,’ interrupted Sister severely.
‘In that case, Miss Graham, run and get your coat and we’ll go and find a sandwich somewhere. I’m even more unpunctual than you are.’
Sister’s disapproval was tangible. ‘That does not apply to you, Professor Wyllie-Lyon, although I’m sure that you are joking.’
He was at the door, waiting for a bemused Charity to go through it.
‘No, no. How could I joke about such an important matter? I must set a good example, must I not? I’ll be back during the afternoon, Sister, and thank you.’
On the landing Charity said, ‘That was very…’ And then she closed her mouth with a snap and blushed.
‘Go on,’ he encouraged.
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I forgot who you were; I can’t say things like that to senior consultants, I’d get the sack.’
He was propelling her gently away from the ward. ‘No, you won’t—I promise I won’t tell.’
She shook her head again, suddenly shy. ‘I must go—I’m late…’
He said patiently, ‘Well, we’ve already discussed that, haven’t we? Get your coat, there’s a good girl, I’m very hungry.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘I shall call you Charity, a pleasant name. Also I still haven’t been told what went wrong.’ He gave her a gentle shove and she went back to the office and fetched her coat, muttered about shopping to an inquisitive Miss Hudson, and found him waiting where she had left him.
She was quite sure that she was doing something absolutely outrageous in the eyes of such as Miss Hudson or the sister on Women’s Medical. Prudence urged her to make an excuse and go to the canteen, but for once she turned a deaf ear; it struck her with some force that life, as she lived it, was becoming increasingly dull and she was shocked to discover at the same time that Sidney had done nothing to enliven it. Looking at the large man standing beside her, it seemed likely that he might brighten it, even if only for half an hour. She smiled with sudden brilliance at him and he blinked.
‘No time for a decent meal,’ he observed pleasantly as they went down to the entrance and, under old Symes’s eye, crossed the hall. ‘There’s a tolerable pub round the corner where we might get a decent sandwich. You don’t mind a pub?’
Sidney had never taken her into one; ladies, he had said, never went into bars.
‘The Cat and Fiddle? Where all the students go? The nursing staff aren’t allowed…’ She beamed at him. ‘But I’m not a nurse…’
‘And I hope never will be.’ They were walking along the busy pavement and he took her arm to guide her down a side street.
She said worriedly, ‘Oh, would I be so bad at it? I wondered if I might train—I’m a bit old…’
She was annoyed when he answered placidly. ‘Far too old. But you’d like to change your job?’
‘Well, yes. The work is interesting but I never see anyone but Miss Hudson.’
‘And me.’ He opened the pub door and ushered her inside the saloon bar, empty but for a handful of sober types drinking Guinness and eating something in a basket.