everything’s turned out so well for you and I hope you’ll love your job—whoever gets you is jolly lucky.’
And that was true, she thought, as she made her way to the Nurses’ Home. Nowadays, nice cosy little women like Mrs Stubbs were few and far between, and she would be handy to have about the house, mending and ironing and doing a little plain cooking and baby-sitting on the side. Octavia wondered fleetingly if the family she was going to was a large one. She had forgotten to ask, not that Mrs Stubbs seemed to know much about it—nor had Charlie for that matter. It seemed strange, but then if Mr Yates and Doctor Toms vouched for them… She opened the sitting room door and went in to cries of: ‘There you are—where have you been? It’s half past nine… We saved some tea… Have you done your packing?’
She had decided to go home on Thursday afternoon and shop before she went; it seemed strange to hear everyone trooping off to breakfast the next morning and know that she was free to lie in bed if she wanted to. Not that she had the time for that; she bathed and dressed and got herself a sketchy meal in the little pantry at the end of the corridor and hurried out. Fenwick’s, she had decided, or perhaps Wallis’s, or even Dickins and Jones.
She spent a busy morning and an even busier afternoon; the shops were full of autumn clothes and cotton dresses were hard to find. The departments selling cruise clothes had plenty but at prices which hardly seemed justifiable for the brief hours she expected to spend off duty. She found two finally; not quite what she wanted, but she was clever with her needle and there would be time to alter them to suit herself. The evening dress was a good deal easier to find, indeed, the choice was so wide that she found it difficult to choose. She settled finally for a pastel patterned organza, very plainly cut and costing a good deal more than she had intended to pay, so that by way of righting this, she purchased a pair of gold sandals, flimsy things with high heels; it was only when she got back with them that she found herself wondering if they weren’t quite practical for on board ship. ‘But who wants to be practical?’ she asked herself out loud. Probably she would spend most of her day in sensible lace-ups and a uniform.
She tried on the new outfits that evening before an audience of most of her friends, and everyone agreed that the sandals had been an absolute must with the new dress; such an expensive garment would have been ruined with anything less—besides, one might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. Octavia went to bed pleased with her day and tomorrow she would go home and tell her father about her temporary job. Probably he would forget all about it the moment she left the house, but she would send him a card from the first port of call just to remind him.
There was a letter for her in the morning, though she had no time to read it until she was in the train on the way to Alresford, and indeed she had quite forgotten it until the passenger opposite her in the carriage began to read a letter of his own. She opened the bulky envelope to discover that she was to report for duty at Southampton Docks at six o’clock on Friday evening. It went on to detail her duties, her free time and her salary; it also informed her of the itinerary—Malta, Athens, Rhodes, Alexandria, Sicily…it sounded marvellous provided she had a chance to go on shore, but that, it seemed, was left to the discretion of the senior ship’s doctor. She folded the missive and put it back tidily in its envelope, hoping that that gentleman would be easy to work for and that there would be no dire emergency while she was on board. She was highly trained, skilled in theatre work, midwifery and children’s ailments, as well as capable of dealing with the nastiest casualties, but there was always something… She shook off her apprehension, telling herself that she was twenty-seven years old and perfectly able to deal with anything which might come her way. ‘And let’s hope that the other nurses are friendly,’ she told herself silently, ‘as I suppose we see rather a lot of each other.’ She reassured herself with the thought that it was only for a fortnight, anyway.
She had telephoned her father on the previous evening, but there was no one at the station. She took a taxi home and opened the front door calling: ‘It’s me, Father,’ and Mrs Lovelace stuck her head round the kitchen door to say: ‘Miss Octavia, what a surprise! I didn’t know…will you be here for lunch? I was just going to dish up.’
Octavia put down her case. ‘I telephoned Father yesterday—I expect he forgot to tell you, Mrs Lovelace. I’m just here until tomorrow afternoon, and don’t worry about lunch, I’ll have something cold.’
Mrs Lovelace looked shocked. ‘Indeed you will not! I made a nice little steak and kidney pie for your father, there’ll be enough for the two of you if I do some more veg. Just you go and see him while I see to it.’
Professor Lock was deeply engrossed in a book when she went in. He looked up briefly and murmured: ‘Octavia—how very nice to see you,’ and returned to his reading until she leaned over and took the book from him.
‘Hullo, Father—I telephoned you yesterday evening, but I expect it slipped your mind. I’m going again tomorrow.’
‘Your weekends seem to get shorter and shorter, my dear.’
‘This isn’t a weekend, my dear. It’s only Thursday, but I thought I’d better let you know that I shall be away for a couple of weeks. I’m taking a temporary job as ship’s nurse because they want someone in a hurry.’
He took the spectacles off his nose and looked at her. ‘My dear child, I had no idea that you had lost your job at St Maud’s!’
‘I haven’t, Father,’ she smiled at him in a motherly fashion. ‘Mr Yates, the Senior Consultant Surgeon, asked me if I would fill in for the nurse who’s been taken ill. I’m to go to Southampton tomorrow and join the SS Socrates there. It’s a Mediterranean cruise—I hope I’ll see something of the places we’ll visit.’
Her father brightened. ‘Athens? Delightful, Octavia, quite delightful, there are several places which you must visit.’
‘If I get shore leave,’ she reminded him gently.
He waved an airy hand. ‘Surely that will be granted if you particularly wish to see something…let me see…I must write a list of the more interesting monuments.’
‘Yes, dear, and I’ll do my best to look at every one of them.’ Privately she thought it very unlikely that she would have the chance to see more than a modicum of them, but it was nice to see her absentminded parent so interested. She left him happily embarked on his list and went off to her room to get ready for lunch.
She told Mrs Lovelace all about it while she helped her dish up and then wrote down directions as to how she might be reached in an emergency, and Mrs Lovelace, while expressing her doubts about telephoning a ship in the middle of the sea, miles from anywhere, promised to carry them out if occasion should arise. ‘Though Doctor Dodds was here only last week,’ she observed comfortably, ‘having dinner with your pa, and he told me that he was in fine shape, Miss Octavia. But don’t you worry, I’ll look after him.’
Octavia spent the rest of the day re-packing her case, listening patiently to her parent’s instructions as to what she should and should not see, deeming it a waste of time to point out to him that probably she would have no chance to see any one of them. They had their tea together in his study and presently she went along to the kitchen to cook their supper which Mrs Lovelace had so carefully prepared.
She spent the next morning visiting some of her numerous friends and after lunch bade her father goodbye, took a taxi to the station and began her journey to Southampton; not a long one, but it meant changing at Winchester and getting a taxi from the station to the docks.
She sat back in the cab as it made its way through the crowded streets feeling excited and faintly worried that she might not like the job, or worse, the people she was to work with
