sounded so reasonable that she found herself saying: ‘Well, I must admit that it was rather a full day, but I’ll have a holiday soon.’
‘You will go away?’
‘Me? No.’ He was asking a lot of questions. Gemma asked rather coldly: ‘Would you like some more sherry?’
He shook his head and she need not have tried to interrupt him. ‘You will stay here, fighting the washing machine, frying sausages and calling upon Mr Bates at intervals, I suppose?’
She smiled because put like that it sounded very dull. ‘Cousin Maud will be here—she’s marvellous…’
They both turned to look at that lady, deep in conversation with Doctor Gibbons. Perhaps, thought Gemma, it might be a good idea not to pursue this conversation. ‘When do you go home?’ she asked chattily.
‘Earlier than I had intended. Rienieta, my youngest sister, is ill and at the moment there’s no diagnosis, although it sounds to me like brucellosis—her fever is high and she is rather more than my mother can cope with.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s a beastly thing to have—I had several cases of it when I had a medical ward.’
‘So Doctor Gibbons was telling me. You must find the difference between an acute medical ward and your old ladies very great.’
‘Yes, I do—but they need nursing too.’ She added honestly, ‘Though it isn’t a branch of nursing I would choose. It’s convenient, you see, so near home…’
‘You are on duty in the morning?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, but wasn’t I lucky to be able to get a free day so that I could be home to welcome Cousin Maud?’
Her companion let this pass. ‘I’ll take you in the morning,’ he stated. ‘I have something I wish to say to you.’
Her eyes flew to his face, but it was devoid of any clue. ‘Oh—what about?’ She paused, remembering that he had taken Mandy in and out of Salisbury several times during the last few days, and besides that, she had come across them deep in conversation at least twice. Perhaps he had fallen in love with her? He was a lot older, of course, but age didn’t really matter; perhaps he just wanted to discover what she thought of it. She said matter-of-factly: ‘I leave at ten to eight on the bike.’
‘A quarter to the hour, then. That will give us time to talk.’ He moved a little and Phil came over to join them, and presently Gemma slipped away to the kitchen to see how the supper was coming along.
It was pouring with rain the next morning when she left the house, so that she had wrapped herself in a rather elderly mac and tied a scarf over her head, which was a pity, for her hair, although it didn’t curl like Mandy’s or Phil’s, was long and fine and a pretty brown. But now, with most of it tucked out of sight, her unremarkable features looked even more unassuming than usual, not that she was thinking about her appearance; she was still puzzling out a reason for the professor’s wish to speak to her—a reason important enough to get him out of his bed and go to all the trouble of driving her to the hospital. Well, she would know soon enough now. His car, an Aston Martin convertible, was outside the gate and he was at the wheel.
She wished him good morning in a cheerful voice, wholeheartedly admired the car and got in beside him and sat quietly; the drive would take five minutes, and presumably he would start talking at once.
He did. ‘I shall be going home in a week’s time,’ he told her without preamble. ‘I should like you to return with me and look after my sister for a week or so—they have confirmed that she has brucellosis and she is in a good deal of pain and her fever is high. My mother assures me that she can manage for the time being, but Rienieta is sometimes very difficult—she refuses to have a nurse, too, but I thought that if you would come with me and we—er—took her unawares, as it were, it might solve that problem. She’s a handful,’ he added judiciously.
‘Well!’ declared Gemma, her eyes round with surprise while she hurriedly adjusted her ideas. ‘I didn’t expect…that is, I had no idea…’ She perceived that she would get no further like that. ‘I can’t just leave Millbury House at a moment’s notice, you know,’ she pointed out at length.
‘I had a word with Doctor Gibbons,’ said her companion smoothly. ‘He seems to think that something might be arranged for a few weeks—unpaid leave is what he called it.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because you are the eldest of a large family, I suppose, and know just how to deal with the young.’
She felt like Methuselah’s wife and said with a touch of peevishness: ‘I’m twenty-five, Professor.’
The amused glint in his eyes belied his placid expression. ‘I beg your pardon, I wasn’t thinking of you in terms of age, only experience.’ He slowed down to turn the car into the hospital drive. ‘Of course, if you dislike the idea, we’ll say no more about it.’
She didn’t dislike it at all, in fact she felt a rising excitement. She held it in check, though. ‘It doesn’t seem fair on Cousin Maud.’
‘She hasn’t the least objection. Doctor Gibbons happened to mention it to her yesterday.’ He drew up outside the side door. ‘Think it over,’ he said with maddening placidity, ‘and let me know. We’re bound to see each other during the next day or so.’
His goodbye was so nonchalant that Gemma told herself crossly that nothing, absolutely nothing, would make her agree to his request even if it were possible to grant it, which seemed to her very unlikely. Moreover, she would keep out of his way, he really had a nerve…she shook off her ill humour as she walked on to the ward; it would never do to upset the old ladies. All the same, she was a little distrait, so that old Mrs Craddock, who had been there for ever and knew everyone and everything, exclaimed in the ringing tones of the deaf: ‘And what is wrong with our dear Sister today? If I didn’t know her for a sensible girl, I would say she’d been crossed in love—her mind isn’t on her work.’
It was a good thing that her companions were either deaf too or just not listening. Gemma laughed, told Mrs Craddock that she was a naughty old thing and went to see about dinners. Mrs Craddock liked her food; her mind was instantly diverted by the mention of it. Gemma gave her two helpings and the rest of the day passed without any more observations from the old lady.
It was towards the end of the afternoon that she remembered that she hadn’t got her bike with her and the professor had said nothing about fetching her home; the nagging thought was luckily dispelled by the appearance of Doctor Gibbons, who arrived to see a patient very shortly before she was due to go off duty and offered her a lift. ‘Ross told me he had brought you over here this morning, so I said that as I was coming this afternoon, I should bring you back—that’ll leave him free to go into Salisbury and pick up Mandy.’
Gemma smiled with false brightness. The professor might appear to be a placid, good-natured man without a devious thought in his head, but she was beginning to think otherwise; he had had it all nicely planned. Well, if he thought he could coax her to ramble over half Europe he was mistaken. Her sensible little head told her that she was grossly exaggerating, but she cast sense out. Holland or Hungary or Timbuktoo, they were all one and the same, and all he was doing was to make a convenience of her. Her charming bosom swelled with indignation while she attended to Doctor Gibbons’ simple wants with a severe professionalism which caused him to eye her with some astonishment.
