wine doesn’t taste as strong as the bottle we got from the supermarket when Staff Nurse had her birthday…but I’m not used to drinking wine…’
Mr van Tecqx preserved an admirable calm. To anyone who compared the very expensive Chablis Grand Cru with something cheap probably chosen because of its pretty label, he would have been scathing in his opinion of such gross ignorance, but all he did was agree with her blandly, and when she added in her sensible way, ‘I’m afraid it made me talk too much,’ said politely,
‘Not at all, Emily—you don’t mind if I call you Emily?’
She shook her head. ‘Everyone does.’ She hesitated. ‘Why did you ask me to have dinner with you, Mr van Tecqx?’
‘I’m a stranger in a strange land, and you have a kind appearance, Emily.’
It seemed to her that he was quite at home in London; his English was only very faintly accented, he knew his way around the city and if Staff Nurse was to be believed, he delivered scholarly lectures at hospitals other than Pearson’s. She stared at him across the table. Because of the wine she had drunk his handsome features were slightly fuzzy round the edges, but even so, he was by far the most magnificent man she had ever met. She said now, ‘You must have a great many friends.’
‘Indeed, I have. Now, Emily, what was it you were going to tell me?’
‘Oh, I can’t remember…’
‘About your father?’ he prompted gently.
Her denial was instant, ‘No, no, it wasn’t anything…’
He had already discovered where she lived, now he observed, ‘You must miss village life—Pearson’s is situated in very drab surroundings. You look forward to your days off, I expect.’
Emily poured them more coffee. ‘Oh, yes—only I don’t go home each week.’ She stopped again, her wretched tongue tripping along ahead of her wits. She expected him to ask, ‘And why not?’ Only he didn’t, knowing that she wasn’t going to tell him anyway.
He said easily: ‘It is always a surprise to me that there is such charming country so close to London. Even in London itself—Hampstead and Richmond—one could almost be living in the country.’
She was on safe ground again; they did discuss London and its environs, until she said diffidently that she had to be in by eleven o’clock. ‘I haven’t an outdoor key, and Mrs Winter is very strict about us being in by then unless we make special arrangements.’
‘There are other people living there?’
‘Oh, yes, there are six rooms—she calls them flatlets and she’s fussy about the tenants.’
‘And you have a flatlet?’
There was no point in pretending. ‘Well, no. Just a room—it’s the attic really. But I’ve a sink and a little stove. It’s quite cosy.’ She uttered the lie cheerfully, relieved to see that he accepted it without comment, paid the bill and settled her in the car once more.
At her gate she said, ‘Please don’t get out—there’s no need.’
A waste of breath, for he went with her up the path and opened the street door, to be confronted by Mrs Winter standing at the top of the basement stairs. ‘There you are—I was jus’ wondering?’ She eyed Mr van Tecqx with belligerence. ‘Me tenants ‘as ter be in by eleven o’clock unless there’s an arrangement made.’
‘Very wise,’ said Mr van Tecqx. ‘I am relieved to hear it. One cannot be too careful.’ He looked down at Emily, standing silently beside him. ‘Thank you for a delightful evening, Emily.’
She was very conscious of Mrs Winter’s interested eyes. ‘Thank you for my dinner, Mr van Tecqx, I enjoyed the evening very much. Goodnight.’
He answered her unsmilingly, bade Mrs Winter goodnight and went away, shutting the door quietly behind him. Mrs Winter secured the bolts.
‘Wot did yer ’ave ter eat?’ she asked.
Podge was waiting impatiently when Emily reached her room. She gave him his warm milk, got ready for bed and made a pot of tea while she told him about her evening. He sat, tidying his whiskers, his round eyes on her face, and when she observed in a puzzled voice, ‘I can’t think why he asked me out; Podge, even if he was lonely. I’m quite sure he must know lots of pretty girls with the right clothes…’ he jumped on to her lap and butted her with his round head, offering a sympathy he felt was needed.
‘Although,’ went on Emily, thinking aloud, ‘I ought to feel over the moon, oughtn’t I?’
She got into bed, and with Podge curled up on her feet, went to sleep at once. In the morning, hurrying through the usual routine, the previous evening seemed like a distant dream.
That was how it was going to stay, she decided sensibly. She had let her tongue run away with her and told Mr van Tecqx far too much about herself, while he had remained reticent about himself. She blushed at the thought.
Even if she had wanted to, she was given no opportunity of saying so much as a ‘Good morning, sir,’ for the best part of the week. True, he appeared at his rounds, but she was not on duty for all of them, and when she was, she did no more than hand case sheets, hovering on the fringe of the group making its steady way from bed to bed, and once or twice when she had seen him as she hurried to the dispensary or the laundry at Sister’s command it had seemed to her that he had deliberately not seen her. She had plenty of good sense; she told herself that it was only to be expected. Just because he had taken her out—no doubt on a sudden whim—it didn’t mean to say that he had any interest in her. They didn’t move in the same circles, a fact brought home to him when he had accompanied her to her lodgings. With good sense Emily bundled all thought of him to the back of her head, and even though his image popped out again far too often for her peace of mind, she thrust it back where it belonged—with her vague daydreams of the future.
The ward was full and a number of patients needed careful and constant nursing. Two burly young men who had fallen from a scaffolding on a high-rise block of flats had fractured spines, both with a degree of paralysis; they were nursed on ripple beds and had to be turned every two hours; no easy task and a continuous drain on the nurses’ time, and, more than that, they had to be kept cheerful until such time as the paralysis should give way to the return of sensation. At the other end of the ward there was another young man recovering from the laminectomy which Mr van Tecqx had recently performed. A sprinkling of broken arms and legs and three fractured skulls made up the ward’s inhabitants, most of them recovering nicely, but it was heavy work, and several times Emily saw Sister Cook looking at her in a thoughtful way, measuring her small person against the immovable arms and legs and backs and doubtless wondering if Emily would hold out. Which made Emily work all the harder, but it was worth it. She was learning as she worked, and even though she hadn’t laughed all the way to the bank on pay-day, at least she smiled widely when she saw her nest-egg swell with the latest contribution.
What made it even more worth while was the discovery that one of the spinal fractures wiggled his toes as she was bed-bathing him. Even Sister Cook smiled at her and observed with slightly less acidity than usual that Emily had been most observant in her work. The Registrar was sent for and he in his turn requested the presence of Mr van Tecqx.
It was after he had finished his examination and expressed his opinion that his patient was on the mend, standing
