had sulked and the babies didn’t seem happy. If only the longed-for letter from Mary would come! thought Emily, racing back to duty again. She would miss the twins, but the life they were leading now wasn’t good enough. They should have someone’s undivided attention. Luckily she would have a good deal of off duty and days off to come to her by the time Doctor Wright left, she would make it up to them then, and Louisa too. No wonder she had sulked, tied to the house and the shopping and washing and only the twins for company. Emily, carefully schooling her pleasant features into a look of relaxed ease, presented herself at her patient’s door, declaring cheerfully that in such weather it was better to be in than out.
She had just completed all the many chores attached to her care of Doctor Wright, ensconced his wife beside him and declared her intention of going to supper herself when the Professor joined them. His ‘Don’t go, Nurse Seymour’ left her standing, rather crossly, by the door while he sat himself down on the end of the bed for what she could see was to be a leisurely chat. If he wasn’t quick about it, her supper time would be over and done with and she without her meal—and she had agreed to stay on duty until ten o’clock that evening so that Mrs Crewe, the night nurse, could go to the cinema. The canteen would be closed by then; if she wanted to of course she could wait until the night nurses’ evening meal at midnight, but she knew she’d never stay awake.
The Professor rose presently and turned round and looked at her. ‘Ah, yes, Staff Nurse—I should like a word with you.’
She followed him out of the room and stood in the middle of the landing. It was quiet there. Sister, back from her own supper, was writing the report in her office and the two nurses left on duty were in the ward. She was totally surprised when the Professor said: ‘I have to thank you for your part in Doctor Wright’s recovery. You have worked very well, I am grateful to you as I am sure he and his wife are.’ He smiled and she thought suddenly that in other circumstances she might have liked him.
‘I must admit,’ he went on smoothly, ‘that when you were suggested to me I wasn’t quite sure…’
Emily broke in: ‘No, I know—I heard you; you didn’t like to be fobbed off with a prim miss.’ She paused and quoted: ‘A small plump creature who merges into the background from whatever angle one looks at her.’
The Professor was looking at her in astonishment. ‘Good God—yes, I said that; I’d forgotten. Do you want me to apologise?’ He neither looked nor sounded in the least put out.
Emily eyed him thoughtfully. ‘No,’ she said at length. ‘Words don’t mean a thing—you could say you were sorry and not mean it.’
He shrugged. ‘Just as you like, although I might point out that I’m not in the habit of apologising unless I mean it.’ He added outrageously: ‘You are small, you know, and a bit plump, too.’
Emily made a cross sound, but before she could say anything he went on in a quite different voice: ‘I shall change the drugs this evening—you are on duty until ten o’clock, I understand? Observe Doctor Wright carefully, will you, and ask the night nurse to do the same. We must start talking about speech therapy, too.’ He nodded his head carelessly. ‘I’ll see you later.’
He left her standing there. There were just five minutes left of her supper break; she’d barely reach the canteen in that time, let alone get a chance to eat anything. In a bad humour, she went back to her patient.
‘You were quick over your supper,’ remarked Mrs Wright. ‘Wasn’t it nice?’
‘Professor Jurres-Romeijn was talking to me—I didn’t get down to the canteen.’ And when Mrs Wright protested: ‘I’ll go later.’
It was a little after ten o’clock when the Professor came again. He didn’t speak to her although he gave her a close look as he came into the room. He altered the drugs, checked that his patient was in good shape for the night, said something quietly to him and went away, leaving Emily to give the report to Mrs Crewe, wish her patient goodnight and gather up her cloak and bag. She was very hungry, but it was really too late to go out to one of the small cafés which ringed the hospital. Besides, it was dark and cold and the streets weren’t quiet; the pubs would be shutting. She would have to go to bed hungry…
The Professor was standing on the landing, staring in front of him, doing nothing, but at her quiet step he turned round. ‘I had no idea that I made you miss your supper,’ he observed without preamble. ‘You should have told me.’
‘Why?’ asked Emily baldly.
He ignored that. ‘Allow me to take you out for a meal.’
‘No, thank you.’ It was annoying that as she spoke her insides gave a terrific rumble.
The Professor’s mouth twitched. ‘You’re hungry.’
Emily’s mouth watered at the thought of food—any food. ‘Not in the least,’ she told him haughtily. She wished him goodnight just as haughtily and left him standing there.
Half an hour later, coming from the bathroom on the top floor of the Nurses’ Home, where she had a temporary room on the night nurses’ corridor, she was met by the night cook. ‘There you are, Staff,’ said that lady comfortably. ‘I’ve put the tray in your room, Night Sister said you was ter ‘ave it pronto; special orders from Professor Jurres-Romeijn.’
Emily, her hair hanging damply down her back, her face red and shiny from too hot a bath, goggled at her. ‘Me? A tray?’ she asked.
‘That’s right, love. And be a dear and bring it down to the canteen at breakfast, will you?’
‘Yes—yes, of course—thanks a lot, Maggie.’ She sped down the passage and into her room where there indeed was a tray laden with a teapot, milk, sugar and a mug, soup in a covered bowl and a wedge of meat pie flanked by peas and chips. Emily put the tray on the bed and got in beside it and wolfed the lot. It was over her third cup of tea that she took time to think about the Professor. It had been generous of him to see that she had some supper, or perhaps it was gratitude because he hadn’t had to take her out? All her friends would think her out of her mind to have refused him anyway. But he must have taken the trouble to telephone Night Sister and speak to her about it, and considering he didn’t like her, that had been good-natured of him, to say the least. She would have to thank him in the morning.
But when she did just that after his visit to Doctor Wright, all he said was: ‘But my dear girl, you’re wasting your gratitude; I can’t afford to have you going off sick. I want you here for another four days.’
A remark which effectively nipped in the bud any warmer feelings she might have begun to cherish towards him.
The four days seemed unending. She went home every afternoon, just for an hour or so, and because it was obvious that Louisa was becoming more and more impatient and irritable, she spent the hours there catching up on the chores which her sister declared she had neither the time nor the inclination to do. And the twins looked peaky too. She suspected that Louisa wasn’t taking them out enough, but hesitated to say so, and she would be home for four days. Louisa could be free to do what she liked while she set her little house in order and took long walks with the babies. It would make a nice change too.
Doctor Wright was leaving the hospital the day before she herself was due for her days off; he was going home with Mrs Crewe in attendance and it wasn’t until he was writing his last note to Emily that she discovered that he had asked for her to go with him. When she had given him a questioning look he had taken the pad and scrawled: ‘Jurres-Romeijn wouldn’t allow
