Britannia All at Sea
‘There will be a special on at nine o’clock, sir,’ said Britannia, and thought longingly of that hour, still some time ahead—tea, and her shoes off and her feet up…
It was disconcerting to her when the professor asked: ‘You have been off duty?’ because unless he was blind and deaf, which he wasn’t, he would have seen her and heard her during the course of the afternoon; indeed, he had stared at her in theatre so intently that she had felt twelve feet tall and outsize to boot.
She handed Mr Hyde her pen so that he could add something to his notes and said composedly: ‘No. I can make it up later in the week.’
‘No tea?’ And when she shook her head: ‘A paragon among nurses, Miss Britannia Smith. Let us hope that you will get your just reward.’ His voice was bland and the smile she didn’t like was back again. She wondered what his real smile was like and wished lovingly that he wasn’t quite so difficult. She said a little severely: ‘You have no need to turn me into a martyr, Professor. I shall do very well.’
The two surgeons went presently; the professor’s casual nod seemed positively churlish compared with Mr Hyde’s courteous thanks and genial good evening. Britannia, fiddling expertly with tubes, mused sadly on her day. Surely when one met the man of one’s dreams, it should be the happiest day of one’s life? If that were so, then hers had fallen sadly short of that.
Sister went to supper at seven o’clock, leaving a student nurse in charge of the ward with the remark that Staff Nurse Smith was there and able to cope with anything which might turn up; she was still bad-tempered at the loss of her off-duty, and the fact that Britannia couldn’t leave her patient didn’t seem to have struck her, nor did it strike her that Britannia might like her supper too, for when she returned from her meal she finished the report, gave it to the night staff when they came on, and pausing only long enough to tell Britannia that she was worn out with her day’s work, hurried off duty. The special wasn’t coming on duty for another hour; Britannia, dealing with the dozens of necessary chores for her patient, hardly noticed where that hour went. Fred had been down earlier, he came again now, expressed his satisfaction as to the patient’s condition, told Britannia with the casual concern of an old friend that her hair was coming down, and went away.
She still had no time to have done anything to her hair when she at last got off duty. Men’s Surgical was on the first floor and she wandered down the staircase to the front hall, listening vaguely to the subdued sounds around her; the faint tinkle of china as the junior night nurses collected up bedtime drinks, the sudden distant wail of some small creature up on the children’s unit above her, the creak of trolleys and the muffled to-ing and fro-ing of the night staff. She yawned hugely, gained the last stair and turned, her eyes on the ground, to go down the narrow passage which would take her to the Nurses’ Home. She was brought up short by something large and solid—Professor Luitingh van Thien.
‘Put on that cloak,’ he advised her in a no-nonsense voice. ‘We are going out.’
Britannia, aware of the intense pleasure of seeing him again, opened her mouth, closed it and then opened it again to say: ‘I can’t—my hair!’
He gave her a considered look. ‘A mess. Why do women always worry about their hair? No one is going to look at you.’
She was forced to agree silently and with regret; not that she minded about that but because he didn’t consider her worth looking at.
He had taken her hospital cape from her arm and flung it around her shoulders.
‘And you have no need to look like that; you are a handsome creature who can manage very well without elaborate hairstyles or other such nonsense.’
She was torn between pleasure at being called a handsome creature—even though it put her strongly in mind of some outsized horse—and annoyance at his casual dismissal of her appearance. ‘I don’t think I want to go out,’ she told him calmly.
‘Tea? Hot buttered toast? Sandwiches? Are you not famished?’
Her mouth watered, but: ‘I can make myself a pot of tea…’
She could have saved her breath; she was swept across the hall and out into the cold November night and walked briskly down a back lane or two and into Ned’s Café, a small, brightly lit place much frequented by the hospital staff in need of a hasty snack or cup of coffee.
Britannia, seated willy-nilly at a small plastic table in the middle of the crowded place, put up a hand to tuck in her hair. ‘How did you know about this place?’ she enquired, and thought how like a man to choose to sit where everyone could see them, and her with her hair streaming around her head like a witch.
‘The Surgical Registrar was kind enough to tell me.’
‘Oh—haven’t you had your supper either?’
His fine mouth twitched at its corners. ‘Er—no.’ He lifted a finger and Ned came over, his cheerful, round face beaming.
‘’Ullo, Staff—’ad a bad day? and I bet they didn’t give yer time to eat. What’s it ter be? A nice bacon sandwich or a nice bit o’ cheese on toast? And a pot of tea?’
Britannia’s nose twitched with anticipation. ‘Oh, Ned, I’d love a bacon sandwich—and tea, please.’
They both glanced at the professor, who said at once: ‘A generous supply of bacon sandwiches, please, and the cheese on toast sounds nice—we’ll have that too—and the tea, of course.’
The tea was hot and strong, the bacon sandwiches delicious. Britannia sank her splendid teeth into one of them before asking: ‘Why are you buying me my supper, Professor? It’s very kind of you, of course, you have no idea how hungry I am—but I’m surprised. You see, I sent you all the way back to the ward this morning, didn’t I, and I haven’t apologised for it yet. I’m sorry, really I am—if you had said who you were…’ She eyed him thoughtfully. ‘I expect people mostly know who you are…’
Her companion smiled faintly. ‘Mostly.’ He watched her with interest as she daintily wolfed her sandwich. ‘When did you last eat, Miss Smith?’
She licked a finger. ‘Well, I should have gone to second dinner, but Sister was a little late and we had this emergency in… I had coffee on the ward, though, and some rice pudding left over from the patients’ dinner.’
The professor looked revolted. ‘No wonder you are hungry!’ He pushed the plate towards her. ‘It is nice to see a girl with such a splendid appetite.’
Britannia flushed faintly; she wasn’t plump, but she was a tall girl and magnificently built. Despite the flush, she gave him a clear, unselfconscious look. ‘There’s a lot of me,’ she pointed out.
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.