remembered him the next morning, though, and over a brisk cup of coffee she was bidden to drink with Sister, mentioned him, hoping that she would hear who he was: her hopes were dashed. Sister observed:
‘I’ve never heard of him. If he wishes to see me he has only to come to the office when I am here, or if he prefers, he can make an appointment with Mr Weller-Pratt.’ She dismissed him, to Augusta’s disappointment, in favour of the day’s work. ‘I shall want you to go to Theatre with Miss Toms—she is highly strung and has a low threshold to pain.’
Augusta groaned inwardly. Miss Toms’ sensitive feelings would make even the management of a simple operation to remove her appendix a misery for herself as well as the nurses. Presently, obedient to Sister’s wishes, she escorted Miss Toms down to the anaesthetic room and held her frantic, restless hand in a reassuring grip and talked to her in a soft, gentle voice that slowly but surely doused poor Miss Toms’ terror. She was coming back through the theatre wing’s swing door, pinning her cap as she went when she met Lady Belway’s visitor again. His ‘Hullo’ was easy and wholly without surprise. She was trying to think of something to say when he fell into step beside her, remarking, ‘Busy, I see…somehow you don’t strike me as the type to enjoy Private Wing.’
She had started to say ‘I h…’ when she remembered that he was hardly someone in whom she could confide her true feelings regarding Private Wing. She closed her pretty mouth firmly and continued to walk sedately towards the stairs. It was at this moment that she saw Archie coming towards them, and was still deciding if she should stop and speak to him or walk on when he drew level with them and said, as though she were alone:
‘Hullo, Gussie. See you this evening—same place,’ and was on his way again.
Fortunately, they had reached the stairs—Augusta was going up, and she hoped devotedly that her companion was going down. He was, but before he went he said in what she considered to be a hatefully smooth voice:
‘What a relief!’ She had turned on her heel, but with a fatal curiosity, paused to ask why, to be told, ‘I was beginning to think that you didn’t like men. Of course it’s a blow to my ego that you don’t like me, but that is something which can be dealt with later.’
Augusta told herself that she hadn’t the least idea of what he was talking about. She stared at him, her eyes bright green saucers. She said primly, ‘Goodbye’ and flew upstairs two at a time in a whirl of starched skirts, ashamed that instead of thinking about her evening out with Archie she was wholly concerned with the tall stranger. Not, she told herself stoutly, that she found him in the least attractive—indeed, he was rude and arrogant. She told herself this twice, because it didn’t ring quite true. She wondered how he behaved towards someone he liked—that lovely dark girl, for instance. He had a delightful voice—she frowned a little, because now she came to think about it, he had an accent—a very faint accent which tugged, elusive as smoke, at the edge of her senses.
She slipped through the door to PP and forgot him instantly in the hurry and exactitude of her work, and when his image persisted in its invasion of her mind during the rest of the day, she very sensibly ignored it. But that evening, on the way home from the cinema with Archie, she was reminded of him once more by her companion, who wanted to know, without much interest, who he was and what she had been doing with him anyway. She explained, and when Archie remarked that he had got the impression that her companion had appeared a high-handed fellow, agreed with him cheerfully, adding the rider that probably he was married or engaged to the girl he had been with in Lady Belway’s room—or at any rate, very close friends. Strangely, she didn’t fancy the idea, until she remembered how he had said, very plainly indeed, that he didn’t like carroty hair. She said, apropos of nothing at all:
‘What colour would you call my hair, Archie?’
He gave her an astonished look. ‘Good lord, what on earth do you want to know for? I suppose it’s…’ he paused. ‘Coppery?’ he queried cautiously, and was relieved when she smiled.
‘I’m going on holiday in a couple of weeks,’ she remarked, as they waited for the bus to take them back to St Jude’s. ‘You’ll have to find yourself another girl to take out.’ And she was not altogether pleased when he said carelessly, ‘Oh, that’ll be easy enough.’ She wasn’t even faintly in love with him, but she had liked to think that he was at least a little in love with her, even if it was only temporary. Apparently not.
Later, in bed thinking about it, she had to admit that Archie was a dear, but if she were in his shoes, she’d take jolly good care not to fall in love with a nurse when there was still at least two years’ post-graduate course to get through. It was lucky she hadn’t fallen in love with him. She had, like any other girl of twenty-three, fancied herself in love several times, but never to touch her heart, and never for more than a few weeks at a time. To her annoyance, she found herself thinking about the stranger once more, which was stupid and pointless; she would probably never see him again. She went to sleep feeling a little sad because of it.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE SAW HIM the following morning. It was Sister’s day off, so Augusta was to go on duty at eleven and stay on until the night staff came on—a long day, but normal enough. She had rushed out to shop soon after breakfast and they had arrived together at the entrance to the hospital, she on her feet, he at the wheel of a dark grey Silver Shadow convertible. The big car purred past her and stopped without sound, and after one startled look she nodded coolly and flew up the steps and past the porter’s lodge, making for the back of the entrance hall. She wasn’t quite quick enough. She was only half way across the gleaming linoleum floor when he caught up with her.
He said silkily, ‘Are you running away, or—er—discouraging me?’
They had come to the passage running at right angles to the hall. Augusta took the right-hand fork, and found him still beside her.
‘Neither,’ she snapped a little breathlessly. ‘I’ve been out shopping and I’m due on duty in ten minutes.’
She heard him chuckle. ‘And first you must get your breath back,’ he remarked with mock sympathy. They had reached the end of the passage and he opened the door which gave on to the inner courtyard, across which loomed the austere lines of the Nurses’ Home. Augusta fled through it with a muttered ‘Goodbye’, not looking at him at all. She changed with the speed of long practice, and reflected, as she brushed her hair, that it had been a piece of luck that she had been wearing the new jersey dress which matched her eyes. She had bought it barely a week ago, and although being early April, it was possibly a little cool to have worn it, the sun had been shining. Then she had got out the black patent leather handbag her father had given her for her last birthday. It was to find shoes to match this treasured article which had her out so early. She had found its exact match at Raynes, and had had the elegant slingbacks on her feet when they met. The fact somehow compensated for the fact that he drove a Rolls-Royce.
She took the report from another part-time staff nurse, a girl she had known well before she had left to get married a year previously. They had a cup of coffee together once the Kardex was dealt with, and Augusta questioned cautiously, ‘Are there any visitors on the floor?’
‘Mother’s in One.’ This with an expressive lifting of eyebrows. ‘There’s a beautiful creature with Lady Belway—in a white dress, ducky, with one of those tapestry belts that cost the earth. T-strap lizard shoes and handbag to match…’ The two young women stared at each other, wanting the unobtainable for a few unguarded moments, then, ‘There’s someone with the Brig—a downtrodden-looking female of uncertain age.’
They giggled together, but
