thank you. I didn’t have anything much to do, just keep Miranda happy and see that she ate her food. She was very good.’
‘She slept?’
‘Oh, quite a bit. I got up once or twice during the night, but she soon settled.’
‘Good. Dr Thurloe seemed to be pleased with the arrangement; it took a good deal of the work off the nurses’ shoulders. Miranda seems to need a lot of attention, but he thinks that she will improve fairly rapidly.’
‘That’s good. What will happen to her, Matron? I mean when she’s older and more—more normal?’
‘Well, as to that, we must wait and see. But she will always have a home here, you know. Now do go home, you must be tired.’
It was still early afternoon and only Alice was at home when Lucy let herself in. ‘A nice cup of tea and a sandwich or two,’ said Alice comfortably. ‘You look tired, love. Your mother and father are at the Victoria and Albert. Someone there wanted your pa to see some old rocks that someone had sent from Africa—or was it the Andes? One of those foreign places, anyway. They won’t be back until after tea. Imogen’s working late and Pauline’s going out to dinner with her fiancé.’ She sniffed. ‘You go and change and I’ll have a snack for you in ten minutes.’
So Lucy went to her room, unpacked her few things, had a shower, washed her hair and wandered downstairs with her head in a towel and wearing a dressing-gown. Her mother wouldn’t have approved, but since the house was empty except for herself and Alice she couldn’t see that it mattered. Alice had made a pot of tea and cut a plateful of sandwiches and Lucy sat down at the kitchen table to eat them. Somehow she had missed dinner at the hospital, what with feeding Miranda and getting her ready to go back to the orphanage, and the nurses on the ward being in short supply since they took it in turns to go to the canteen. She lifted the edge of a sandwich and saw with satisfaction that it was generously filled with chopped egg and cress. She wolfed it down delicately, poured tea and invited Alice to have a cup.
‘Not me, love,’ said Alice. “Ad me lunch not an hour back. You eat that lot and have a nice rest before your mother and father come home.’
Lucy polished off the egg and cress and started on the ham. The kitchen was pleasantly warm and cheerful. It was a semi-basement room, for the house had been built at the turn of the century, a late Victorian gentleman’s residence with ornate brickwork and large rooms. It had been Lucy’s home for as long as she could remember, and although her mother often expressed a wish for a house in the country nothing ever came of it, for the Chelsea house was convenient for her father’s headquarters; he still travelled widely, taking her mother with him, and when they were at home he worked for various museums and he lectured a good deal. Lucy, a sensible girl not given to wanting things she couldn’t have, accepted her life cheerfully, aware that she didn’t quite fit in with her family and that she was a source of mild disappointment, to her mother at least, even though she was loved. Until now she had been quite prepared to go on working at the orphanage with the hope at the back of her mind that one day she would meet a man who might want to marry her. So far she hadn’t met anyone whom she would want to marry—that was, until she’d met Dr Thurloe. An event which incited her to do something about it. She took another sandwich and bit into it. Clothes, she thought, new clothes—she had plenty, but a few more might help—and then she might try and discover mutual friends—the Walters, of course, for a start, and there must be others. Her parents knew any number of people, it would be a process of elimination. But first the new clothes, so that if and when they met again she would be able to compete with Fiona Seymour.
The front door bell, one of a row of old-fashioned bells along the kitchen wall, jangled and Alice put down the plates that she was stacking.
‘Postman?’ asked Lucy. ‘He’s late …’
‘I’d best go, I suppose,’ grumbled Alice, and went out of the kitchen, shutting the door after her as she went up the short flight of stairs to the hall.
Lucy sat back, a second cup of tea in her hand. There was one sandwich left; it was a pity to leave it. She took it off the plate and bit into it. The door behind her opened and she said, ‘Was it the postman?’ and turned round as she took another bite.
Alice had returned, but not alone. Dr Thurloe was with her, looking completely at home, elegant as always and smiling faintly.
‘Gracious heavens!’ Lucy spoke rather thickly because of the sandwich. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’ She put an agitated hand up to the towel. ‘I’ve just washed my hair …’
She frowned heavily, all her plans knocked edgeways; instead of sporting an elegant outfit and a tidy head of hair, here she was looking just about as awful as she possibly could. She turned the frown on Alice and the doctor spoke.
‘Don’t be annoyed with your housekeeper, I told her that you wouldn’t mind. You don’t, do you? After all, I’ve seen you in a dressing-gown at the hospital.’ He sounded kind and friendly and the smile held charm.
Lucy smiled back. ‘Is it something important? Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Indeed I would.’
Alice gave a small sound which might have been a chuckle and pulled out a chair. ‘The kettle’s on the boil,’ she informed him, ‘and I’ve as nice a bit of Madeira cake as you’ll taste anywhere, though I says it that oughtn’t, being me own baking.’
‘I’m partial to Madeira cake, and what a pleasant kitchen you have.’
He sat down opposite Lucy and eyed the towel. ‘Do you know, all the girls I know go to the hairdresser every few days; I can’t remember when I last saw a young woman washing her own hair.’ He studied Lucy thoughtfully. ‘Will it take long to dry?’
‘No. It’s almost dry now.’ She poured him a cup of tea from the fresh pot Alice had put on the table. ‘Is it something to do with Miranda? She’s not ill …?’
‘No, she’s doing nicely. I wondered if we might go somewhere this evening and have dinner; I’m sure you would like to know the details of her treatment, and there really was no time at the City Royal to say much.’
He ate some cake and watched her, amused at her hesitation.
‘Well,’ said Lucy, ‘Mother and Father—’ She was interrupted by the telephone’s ringing, and Alice answered it. She listened for a moment, said, ‘Yes, ma’am’ twice and then hung up. ‘Yer ma and pa,’ she told Lucy. ‘They’re going on to Professor Schinkel’s house for dinner.’ She added, ‘I expect your ma thought you weren’t home today.’
The look on Lucy’s face made the doctor say quickly, ‘Now isn’t that providential, you will be free to dine with me, then?’ That settled, he took another piece of cake and passed his cup for more tea. ‘Your sisters won’t mind?’
‘They’re both out too.’
‘Then may I call for you this evening? Half-past seven or thereabouts? Somewhere fairly quiet? Boulestin’s, perhaps?’
‘That sounds very nice,’ said Lucy, ‘but only if you can spare the time …’
He looked as though he was going to laugh, but said gravely, ‘As far as I know there will be no calls upon me until tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.’ He got to his feet. ‘Until half-past seven.
