the time Phoebe returned to St Gideon’s from her nights off, she and Sybil had their plans laid, the first step of which was for her to resign immediately. It would work out very well, they had discovered; she would be due nights off before she left, time to go home, explain to Aunt Martha that she had taken a job with this Dutch doctor and would be going to Holland, collect the uniform Sybil’s hospital were allowing her to keep until she returned to England, and make her way to the children’s hospital, where, according to Sybil, she was expected. The one important point to remember was that for the time being, she was Sybil and not Phoebe.
She went to the office to resign on the morning after her return, to the utter amazement of the Chief Nursing Officer. She was a nice woman, interested in her staff and anxious to know what Phoebe intended to do—something, of course, which Phoebe was unable to tell her, for most of the big hospitals knew each other’s business and probably the exchange scheme at St Elmer’s was already common property. Miss Bates would hear sooner or later via the hospital grapevine, that Sybil had left to get married, probably she already knew that she had been seconded for the scheme, she wasn’t above putting two and two together and making five.
‘I haven’t quite decided,’ Phoebe told her, playing safe. ‘I think I shall have a month or two’s holiday at home.’
If Miss Bates considered this a curious statement from a member of her staff whom she knew for a fact depended upon her job for her bread and butter, she forbore from saying so. She thought Phoebe a nice girl, clever and remarkably beautiful. She hoped that she would marry, because she deserved something better than living out her life between hospital walls. Miss Bates was aware, just as the rest of the hospital, that the Medical Registrar fancied Night Sister Brook, but she was an astute woman, she thought that the affair was lukewarm and Sister Brook, despite her calm disposition, was not a lukewarm person. She sighed to herself, assured Phoebe that she would always be glad to see her back on the staff should she change her mind, and hoped that she would enjoy her holiday.
Phoebe didn’t see Jack during her first night’s duty; he had gone on a few days’ leave and wouldn’t be back for two more days—something for which she was thankful, for it seemed a good idea to let the hospital know that she was leaving first. The news would filter through to him when he got back and he would have time to get used to the idea before they encountered each other, as they were bound to do.
They met over the bed of a young girl three nights later—an overdose and ill; there was no time to say anything to each other, for the patient took all their attention, and when he left, almost an hour later, he gave her some instructions to pass on to the nurses, and walked away. Ten minutes later Phoebe left the ward herself. She had done her first round, thank heaven, so she could spare ten minutes for a cup of coffee. She opened the door of her office at the same time as the junior nurse on the ward arrived with the tray and she took it from her with a word of thanks, noting with a sinking heart that there were two cups on it—presumably Jack intended to have a cup with her. She pushed the door open and found him inside, standing by the desk, glowering.
He said at once; ‘I’m told you’re leaving. Rather sudden, isn’t it?’
Phoebe sat down, poured coffee for them both and opened the biscuit tin before she answered him. ‘Yes, Jack. I—I made up my mind while I was on nights off. Sybil’s leaving too.’
He looked slightly mollified. ‘Oh—you’re off together somewhere, I suppose. For how long?’
‘No—I’ve decided to have a little holiday, staying with relatives.’ The idea had just that minute popped into her head and she hated lying to him, but after all, it wasn’t his business. ‘I feel unsettled.’
He stirred his coffee endlessly, looking at it intently. ‘Yes, well, I suppose if you feel you must—I shall miss you, Phoebe, but I daresay you’ll be ready to come back by the time I decide to marry. I shall ask you then.’ He glanced up briefly. ‘Everything has to be just as I want it first.’
That jarred. Was she not important enough to him—more important—than the set pattern he had laid out for them both, and without first finding out if she wanted it that way? She could see it all—the engagement when he was suitably qualified and had his feet on the first rung of the consultant’s ladder, the wedding, the suitable home, suitably furnished, all the things that any girl would want, so why did she feel so rebellious?
It was all too tepid, she decided. It would be nice to be swept off her feet, to be so madly loved that the more mundane things of life didn’t matter, to rush off to the nearest church without thought of the right sort of wedding. She passed him the sugar and sipped her coffee. If Nick could marry Sybil on his registrar’s pay and find it wonderful, why couldn’t Jack feel the same way? She began to understand a little of what Sybil had meant about loving someone, and she knew at that moment that she would never love Jack—like him, yes, even be fond of him, but that wasn’t at all the same thing.
She said quietly: ‘Jack, I can’t stop you doing that, but I don’t think it’s going to be any use.’ She stared at him over the rim of her mug, her lovely eyes troubled.
‘I’ll be the best judge of that,’ he told her a shade pompously, ‘and until then I prefer not to discuss it.’
He was as good as his word; they discussed the patient they had just left until, with a huffy good night, he went away.
She should mind, Phoebe told herself when she was alone. She had closed the door on a settled future, and just for a moment she was a little scared; she was twenty-seven, not very young any more, and although she could have married half a dozen times in the last few years, that was of no consolation to her now. She sighed and pulled the bed state towards her. It seemed likely that she was going to be an old maid.
A MONTH later, on her way to Magdalen Provost, St Gideon’s behind her, the doubtful future before her, Phoebe reflected that everything had gone very well—there had been no snags, no one had wanted to know anything, no awkward questions had been asked. Sybil had already left and was at home making plans for her wedding to Nick, whom Phoebe considered to be all that could be desired as a brother-in-law. Sybil was going to be happy; now that she had met him Phoebe had to admit that in Sybil’s place, she would have done exactly as she had done. Even Aunt Martha had accepted everything calmly—she had liked Nick too, had been generous in her offers of help to the bride, and was entering into the pleasurable excitement of a wedding in the family with a great deal more zest than Phoebe had supposed she would. And as for her own future, when she had told her aunt what she intended doing, without bringing Sybil’s part into it at all, the older lady had wholly endorsed her plans.
‘It’s high time you had a change,’ she stated approvingly, ‘it sounds a most interesting scheme and you’ll enjoy a change of scene. What did Jack have to say?’
Phoebe had told her rather worriedly and added: ‘I feel guilty, Aunt, but honestly, I didn’t let him think that I … I don’t think I encouraged him at all; we just sort of liked being together.’
‘Well, my dear,’ her aunt had said briskly, ‘there’s a good deal more to being in love than liking each other’s company, and I’m sure you know that. Have you been able to convince him, or does he still think you might change your mind?’
‘I told him I wouldn’t do that.’
She remembered the conversation now, sitting in the train, and wondered what would happen if she suddenly discovered that
