of a constantly busy Casualty, went happily off duty on the Friday evening. She had been to see Charlie and Mrs Stubbs and it seemed reasonable to suppose that they would still be there when she returned on Monday afternoon. They were making progress now, but as yet their futures were uncertain; a problem which somehow had come to be very important to her. She caught the train by the skin of her teeth and found it crowded and resigned herself to standing in the corridor until Guildford, where she got a seat, crushed between a stout elderly lady and a small boy who ate crisps for the rest of the journey. She was kept so busy brushing crumbs off her new skirt that she had no time or inclination to think of anything much and at Alresford she discovered that her father wasn’t waiting for her, something which happened from time to time, for he was a Professor of Physics and remarkably absentminded. She could telephone from the station, but on the other hand it would be as quick—quicker, to take a taxi.
Her home was in the centre of the little town, a small Georgian town house in a row of similar dwellings. It had no garden in the front, but tucked away at the back was a pleasant walled lawn with flower beds and vegetables, kept alive by Octavia’s care on her frequent but brief visits. She opened the front door now and went into the narrow hall just as Mrs Lovelace, the daily housekeeper, came from the kitchen, dressed to leave.
‘There you are, Miss Octavia,’ she remarked comfortably. ‘There’s supper for you keeping hot, your pa’s had his.’ She nodded her head in its severe felt hat in the direction of one of the doors. ‘Busy with something or other, he is—did he know you were coming? I did remind him, but he didn’t hear, I imagine.’
Octavia smiled. ‘He never does, Mrs Lovelace. Thanks for the supper.’ She put down her case and took off her gloves. ‘I’m starved!’
‘And I’ve no doubt of that,’ declared the housekeeper. ‘I doubt you get good wholesome food in those hospitals. Can you manage if I don’t come in tomorrow?’
‘Yes, of course—I’ll have to go back on Sunday evening, though. I’ll get Father’s supper before I go.’
Mrs Lovelace nodded. ‘Thank you, Miss Octavia. I’ll be here Monday as usual.’
Professor Lock greeted his daughter with an absentminded warmth which she took in good part; her father had always been absentminded, and now that he was elderly, he was worse than ever. She kissed his bald pate, begged him not to disturb himself—something she was well aware he had no intention of doing, anyway—and went along to the kitchen to see what was for her supper. It smelled delicious; she took her case upstairs to the comfortable bedroom she had had since she was a child, and without bothering to unpack it, went downstairs again to put Mrs Lovelace’s tasty steak and kidney pie on a tray and carry it along to her father’s study. She ate in silence until he had finished what he was writing and then listened with interest to the theories he had been expounding. She wasn’t in the least scientific herself, but she was intelligent enough to make sensible observations and was rewarded presently by his: ‘You haven’t my brain, my dear, but for a girl you don’t do so badly.’ He peered at her over his old-fashioned spectacles. ‘Are you here for a weekend?’
She nodded, her mouth full of pie.
‘You have been busy?’
‘Well, yes—people have accidents all the time, you know, Father.’
‘Indeed yes—I read only recently a most interesting article… Do you not wish to marry, Octavia? How old are you?’
‘Twenty-seven, Father.’
‘Your mother had been married five years… You have had the opportunity, I imagine?’
‘Oh, yes—several times. But I never seem to meet the right man.’ She got to her feet. ‘I’ll go and make some coffee, shall I?’
‘That would be nice. I should like you to be married, Octavia. I’ve never been very good with money, as you know, what little I have is getting used up rapidly.’ He frowned. ‘Books have become increasingly expensive… There won’t be much left for you, my dear.’
She smiled at him fondly. ‘Don’t worry, Father dear; I’ve got a good job, and I earn enough to keep myself—just you go on buying all the books you want. Anyway, you get fees for your articles, don’t you, and all that coaching you do.’
He brightened. ‘Ah, yes—I’d forgotten. What a comfort you are, Octavia. Your mother would have been proud of you.’
While she made the coffee she thought rather wistfully of her mother who had died ten years ago or more; a pretty, still young woman who had known how to manage her husband without him realising it; it was only since her death that he had become so withdrawn. A pity I haven’t got a brother thought Octavia. She and her father got on splendidly and were devoted to each other, but sometimes she reflected that he would have managed quite well without her. Her fault perhaps for working away from home, but she had a good job now, with a chance of stepping into Sister Moody’s shoes when that lady retired; the thought was somehow depressing. While she drank her coffee she reviewed the various men who had wanted to marry her; none of them were exactly what she was looking for. She wasn’t quite sure what that was, herself, but she supposed she would know when she met him. She sighed gently and went to the kitchen to wash the supper things and then to bid her father a quiet goodnight before going upstairs to bed.
It was over breakfast the next morning that Mr Lock wanted to know why she didn’t change her job. ‘I realise that you would have to remain in nursing, because you don’t know what else to do, do you? But why not strike out, my dear? Go abroad, travel, see something of the world.’
She stared at him, a little surprised, ‘Me? Father, where would I go? There are jobs enough in the Middle East, but I don’t want to live there, and it’s not all that easy to go to Australia or New Zealand now—work permits, and so on, you know. I’d love to travel, though.’ She wrinkled her forehead in thought. ‘I could get a job with some rich elderly type who wanted to travel, but I should be bored in no time. I think I’ll stay where I am.’
Her parent passed his cup to be refilled. ‘Until you marry,’ he commented.
Her father’s unexpected interest in her ruffled the serenity of her weekend just a little. She did the shopping in the little town without her usual interest and although she accepted an invitation to have coffee with a chance acquaintance, she had to make an effort to take an interest in the conversation. Perhaps, she reflected uneasily, she had been drifting along and getting into a rut and should make an effort to get out of it before she no longer wanted to. She pondered about it during Sunday too, sitting beside her father in church, looking attentively at the vicar while he preached his sermon and not hearing a word of it.
She went back to London in the early evening, leaving her father quite happily immersed in his books, although he paused in his reading long enough to wish her a good journey back and expressed the hope that she would be home again soon. He said that every time she went home and she smiled at him now and said that yes, she would be back again in two weeks provided Sister Moody didn’t want to change her weekend.
She reached the hospital just as most of her friends were coming off duty and because she was still feeling a little unsettled, she went along to the Sisters’ sitting room to share their after supper tea. It had been a busy weekend, Sister Moody told her gloomily, although that lady’s idea of business and her own didn’t quite agree. ‘I shan’t come on until one o’clock tomorrow,’ declared Sister Moody. ‘I could do with a morning in bed—you’ve an evening, haven’t you? So there’ll be two of us on until five o’clock, it usually quietens down by then.’
Octavia
