she got home her mother asked, ‘What kept you, love? You’ve been ages?’
‘I have had a proposal of marriage which I refused, and the Reverend Mr Watts told me something of his views about updating us.’
‘You were polite, I hope, dear. Oh, I’m sure you were but you do have a hot temper when you are taken unawares. The poor man.’
‘He’ll go back to his big city and marry someone who’ll put his feet in a mustard bath and agree with everything he says.’
She caught her mother’s eye. ‘I don’t mean to be unkind, Mother, he’s a very good man, I’m sure, but somehow I can’t take him seriously.’ She added, ‘I don’t think he minded too much—me refusing him—I dare say he thought it would be a chance for him to take over from Father later on. even though his heart isn’t in rural living.’
‘Well, your father is doing so well that he should be able to return to wherever it is he wants to go before very long.’ Mrs Spencer began to slice bread. ‘I wonder if that nice man found his way safely to Tom Riley’s place?’
It seemed that he had, for the next morning the postman delivered a large box addressed to Mrs Spencer. There were roses inside, not just a handful but a couple of dozen, with a note signed A.R. ter S. The note itself was written in such a scrawl that Mrs Spencer wondered if he had written it in Dutch by mistake. Eugenie, invited to decipher it, being used to the handwriting of the medical profession, said, ‘No, it’s English, Mother. “With grateful thanks for your kind hospitality”.’
‘How clever you are, love. How very beautiful they are, and so many …’
The fine weather held although there was a chill in the air. Eugenie wrote to offer a tentative return date to go back to the hospital and began to make plans for her future. Regrettably, she was told, her post as ward sister had been filled; she would spend her outstanding month in the operating theatres since the second sister there would be going on holiday. She would be given an excellent reference and without a doubt she would find a similar position to suit her.
She put the letter in her pocket and didn’t tell her parents of its contents, only that she would be going back to theatre work instead of her ward.
‘That will make a nice change, dear,’ observed her mother, whose ideas of hospitals were vague, ‘as long as it isn’t like that nasty Casualty we see on television.’
Eugenie left home during the first week of May, on a cloudless morning when the moor had never looked more beautiful, driving her own little car and hating to leave. She took the Buckfastleigh road since she wanted to stop in Holne to say goodbye to a friend of hers who helped out in the little coffee shop there during the summer months, and although it was still early in the morning the two of them spent half an hour pleasantly enough over coffee. Eugenie got up reluctantly presently. ‘I’d better go. I don’t want to get caught up in the early evening traffic in London.’
She promised to let her friend know if she got another job, and went back to the car. There was no one much about. The caretaker was still in the little school getting ready for the morning’s classes, and the pub on the corner showed no sign of life. In another month, she thought, it would be bustling with tourists, for it was on the very fringe of the moor.
She drove past the reservoir, going slowly because of the sheep, resisting an urge to get out and take one last look around her from one of the tors on either side of the road. Instead she drove on steadily through the narrow streets of Buckfastleigh and on to the A38 which would take her to Exeter and the road to London.
London looked its best in the afternoon sunshine but nothing could disguise the overbearing gloom of the hospital. She parked her car behind the building and presented herself at the porter’s lodge to be much cheered by the pleasure of Mullins, the head porter, at seeing her again.
‘Nice to see you back, Sister. You are to report at five o’clock.’ He glanced at the clock behind him. ‘Time enough for you to go to the nurses’ home and get the key to your room.’
The warden was new and looked grumpy, and the room to which she led Eugenie was at the back of the building overlooking chimney-pots and brick walls.
‘I understand you are leaving at the end of the month and your old room is occupied.’
She went away, and Eugenie reflected that the last warden would have offered her a cup of tea and stayed for a gossip. There was time to make a cup of tea for herself, though, so she went along to the pantry and found two of her friends there. They at least were pleased to see her and, much cheered by their gossip and several cups of tea, she made her way to the office.
She was welcomed with as much warmth by the principal nursing officer as that lady was capable of showing. An austere woman, handsome and cold in manner, in her presence Eugenie always felt too large and too full of life.
She was to start in Theatre in the morning. The sister she would replace would work with her for two days until she felt confident. ‘That should present no difficulty, Sister Spencer; you were Staff Nurse in Theatre and Acting Sister before you had your recent post, and you have from time to time returned there for holiday duties, have you not?’
Eugenie agreed politely. She regretted giving up her ward but she liked Theatre.
She spent the evening unpacking and catching up on the hospital news, telephoning her mother and then going to drink tea with those of her friends who were there, and finally going to her bed to sleep soundly until morning. She thought briefly and lovingly of Aderik Rijnma ter Salis before she slept, and her first thoughts were of him when she woke. He was the first person she saw as she went through the theatre block’s swing doors.
EUGENIE’S beautiful face glowed with delight. She looked up into his calm face. ‘I knew we would—meet again, you know. Didn’t you?’
He had shown no surprise at the sight of her, and now he said, ‘Yes, I knew.’ He stared down at her from his great height. ‘You are to work here as one of the theatre sisters?’
She nodded. ‘For a month. I thought you were a doctor …’
‘A surgeon.’
She nodded again. ‘Of course—Tom Riley had a pace-maker fitted—you were going to see him …’
‘Yes.’
She beamed at him, ‘I expect I shall see you again.’
He stood aside to let her pass. ‘Oh, undoubtedly.’ She thought that she had seen pleasure on his face when they had met, now he was coolly aloof—almost austere. Feeling deflated, she went along to Sister’s office and reported for duty.
That lady greeted her with relief. ‘Well, at least I’m to have some help,’ she grumbled, ‘and you do know your way around, don’t you? There have been several changes since you were last here—last year, wasn’t it? While Sister Thorpe was off sick. I haven’t changed, of course.’
Nothing would change Sister Cross. Elderly, bony and hawk-nosed, with small black eyes which missed nothing, she was a by-word among the student nurses who poked fun at her behind her back but were frankly
