a little difficult—you could come?’
Jenny shook the sleep from her head. ‘Yes, of course. Is she worse?’
‘No—just unable to settle and not very operative. Here’s a dressing gown and slippers—you don’t mind? We can go through the passage.’
Jenny wrapped herself in the voluminous garment, several sizes too big for her, and thrust her feet into equally large slippers and allowed herself to be led through the covered way to the hospital. ‘What’s the time?’ she asked, half way there.
‘Not quite midday. If you could persuade your aunt to have an injection… We’ll bring you a light meal and you could go to sleep again. You must be worn out.’
‘I’m fine,’ declared Jenny sturdily, and stifled a yawn as she lifted dark, delicately arched brows at the sound of her aunt’s voice, raised in wrath.
And indeed she was in an ill humour; flushed as well, sitting up against her pillows, her blue eyes brilliant under her bandaged head. ‘There you are!’ she cried imperiously. ‘And where have you been, may I ask—leaving me to these silly girls? And where’s that foreigner? I thought he was here to look after me? Heaven knows I shall be expected to pay him a king’s ransom.’
Jenny perched beside the bed. ‘I was having a nap, Aunt Bess—I sat with you during the night and I was a bit sleepy. And Professor van Draak was here for most of the night too, he must have been tired after operating. What’s worrying you, Aunt?’
Miss Creed moved her head restlessly. ‘I want to go home,’ she stated. ‘I’m sick and tired of these people, all shouting at me to have an injection; I do not want to sleep.’
Jenny sighed soundlessly. ‘Look, dear, you’ve had an operation and of course you don’t feel quite the thing, and until you have a nice long sleep you won’t feel much better. We know you don’t feel sleepy, but the injection will send you off in no time…’
‘And what’s he doing here?’ interrupted Miss Creed, looking past Jenny’s shoulder.
The Professor had loomed up beside Jenny. He said now in his calm way: ‘I’ve come to give you your injection, Miss Creed—your niece has explained why you should have it.’ He nodded to Jenny to hold her Aunt’s arm firmly and slid the needle in without further ado.
‘I’m not accustomed to being treated in this manner,’ his patient began angrily. ‘I like my own way…’
‘And so do I,’ agreed the Professor pleasantly. ‘You will feel much more yourself when you wake up—tired and not inclined to do much, but much more comfortable in your head.’
‘Bah…’ began Aunt Bess, the lids falling over her tired eyes, ‘I don’t believe…’
Jenny heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Poor dear, she must be feeling ghastly,’ she said softly, and went on sitting where she was, overcome by tiredness once more. She yawned hugely, pushed up the sleeves of the ridiculous dressing gown and lifted her arms to sweep back her tide of hair, hanging all over the place. She would have gone to sleep then and there if the Professor hadn’t said in a cold voice, ‘Go back to your bed, Miss Wren. I see that you are still in need of sleep.’ His tone was so very icy that she opened her eyes to take a look at him. His face looked icy too, the brows drawn together in a frown.
‘Fallen down on the job, have I?’ she asked pertly, tiredness forgotten for the moment in a wish to annoy him. He had been up most of the night too, but he didn’t look as though he had; he was probably one of those iron-willed men who didn’t allow himself to feel tired or happy or sad or anything else… She opened her mouth to tell him so, but yawned instead and fell asleep, sitting upright, swaying a little.
The Professor looked more annoyed than ever. ‘Will you open the door, Nurse?’ he asked the student left to sit with Miss Creed, and swept Jenny up into his arms as though she were a tiresome child and carried her back down the covered passage, to put her gently on her bed and pull the blanket over her. Jenny, dead to the world, rolled over. If she had been awake to hear his: ‘Troublesome girl, to plague me so,’ uttered in a cold voice, she would most certainly have answered him with spirit. As it was she gave a delicate snore.
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