Britannia All at Sea

Britannia, seated willy-nilly at a small plastic table in the middle of the crowded place, put up a hand to tuck in her hair. ‘How did you know about this place?’ she enquired, and thought how like a man to choose to sit where everyone could see them, and her with her hair streaming around her head like a witch.

‘The Surgical Registrar was kind enough to tell me.’

‘Oh—haven’t you had your supper either?’

His fine mouth twitched at its corners. ‘Er—no.’ He lifted a finger and Ned came over, his cheerful, round face beaming.

‘’Ullo, Staff—’ad a bad day? and I bet they didn’t give yer time to eat. What’s it ter be? A nice bacon sandwich or a nice bit o’ cheese on toast? And a pot of tea?’

Britannia’s nose twitched with anticipation. ‘Oh, Ned, I’d love a bacon sandwich—and tea, please.’

They both glanced at the professor, who said at once: ‘A generous supply of bacon sandwiches, please, and the cheese on toast sounds nice—we’ll have that too—and the tea, of course.’

The tea was hot and strong, the bacon sandwiches delicious. Britannia sank her splendid teeth into one of them before asking: ‘Why are you buying me my supper, Professor? It’s very kind of you, of course, you have no idea how hungry I am—but I’m surprised. You see, I sent you all the way back to the ward this morning, didn’t I, and I haven’t apologised for it yet. I’m sorry, really I am—if you had said who you were…’ She eyed him thoughtfully. ‘I expect people mostly know who you are…’

Her companion smiled faintly. ‘Mostly.’ He watched her with interest as she daintily wolfed her sandwich. ‘When did you last eat, Miss Smith?’

She licked a finger. ‘Well, I should have gone to second dinner, but Sister was a little late and we had this emergency in… I had coffee on the ward, though, and some rice pudding left over from the patients’ dinner.’

The professor looked revolted. ‘No wonder you are hungry!’ He pushed the plate towards her. ‘It is nice to see a girl with such a splendid appetite.’

Britannia flushed faintly; she wasn’t plump, but she was a tall girl and magnificently built. Despite the flush, she gave him a clear, unselfconscious look. ‘There’s a lot of me,’ she pointed out.

Her companion drank his tea with the air of a man who was doing his duty and helped himself to one of the fast disappearing sandwiches. ‘You are engaged to be married?’ he asked coolly.

‘Me? Whatever gave you that idea? No, I’m not.’

‘You surprise me. In love, perhaps?’

She flicked a crumb away with the tip of her tongue. For someone who had known her for a very short time, his question struck her as inquisitive to say the least. All the same, it didn’t enter her head to tell him anything but the truth. ‘Yes,’ she said briefly, and wondered just what he would say if she told him it was himself.

The toasted cheese had arrived. She poured more tea for them both and sampled the cheese, then paused with her fork half way to her mouth because the professor was looking so very severe. ‘It is, of course, only to be expected,’ he observed in a nasty smooth voice. ‘I suppose I am expected to say what a lucky man he is.’

Britannia munched her cheese; love him she might, but he really was quite disagreeable. ‘You aren’t expected to say anything,’ she pointed out kindly, ‘why should you? We hardly know each other and shan’t see each other again, so I can’t see that it could possibly matter to you. Have another piece of toast before I eat it all.’

The professor curled his lip. ‘Thank you, no.’ He sat back with his arms folded against his great chest. ‘And as to seeing each other again, the unlikelihood of that is something for which I am deeply thankful. I find you far too ready with that sharp tongue of yours.’

Britannia choked on a piece of toast. It was mortifying that the professor should have to get out of his chair and pat her on the back while she spluttered and whooped, but on the other hand it concealed her feelings very satisfactorily. As soon as she could speak she said in a reasonable voice: ‘But it is entirely your own fault that you brought me here, you know, unless it was that you wanted to convince yourself of my—my sharp voice.’

She got up suddenly, pulled her cloak around her, thanked him for her supper and made for the door. She was quick on her feet and through it before the professor had a chance to do anything about it—besides, he had to pay the bill. There were several short cuts to the hospital, down small dark alleys which normally she wouldn’t have chosen to walk down after dark, but she didn’t think about that. She gained the hospital and her room in record time, got ready for bed and then sat down to think. She very much doubted if she would see the professor again, and if she did it would be on the ward where their conversation, if any, would be of the patients. And he had presumably only come for that one case. The thing to do would be to erase him from her mind, something she was loath to do. One didn’t meet a man one wanted to marry every day of the week and when one did, the last thing one wanted to do was to forget him. He could have been tired of course, but more probably just a bad-tempered man, given to odd whims. She couldn’t for the life of her recall any consultants who had taken staff nurses out for tea and sandwiches at nine o’clock at night, but he looked the kind of man who was accustomed to do as he pleased without anyone attempting to stop him. She got into bed, punched up her pillows and continued to muse, this time on the probability of him being engaged; he wasn’t a young man, and surely he would have an attachment of some sort. But if he hadn’t… She lay down and closed her eyes; somehow or other she intended to meet him again and some time in the future, marry him. She slept soundly on her resolution.

CHAPTER TWO

THE PROFESSOR came to the ward twice the next day; during the morning when Britannia was scrubbed and doing a lengthy dressing behind screens, so that all she could hear was his deep voice at the other end of the ward. And in the afternoon when he came again, she was at tea.

Sister Mack, giving her the report before she went off duty in the evening, mentioned that he would be leaving for Edinburgh the following day and then returning to Holland. ‘A charming man,’ she observed, ‘although he never quite explained how it was he knew about those tests…’ She shot a look at Britannia as she spoke, and Britannia looked placidly back and said nothing at all.

She went about her evening duties rather morosely. She had had no plans concerning the professor, except that she had hoped that if and when they met again something would happen; she had no idea what, but she was a romantic girl as well as a determined one, and without being vain she was aware that she was worth looking at. Of course, it would have been easier if she had been small and blonde and helpless; men, so her brothers frequently told her, liked their women fragile. She looked down at her own splendid person and wished she could be something like Alice and become miraculously fairylike. And David Ross hadn’t helped; he had grumbled about his spoilt evening without once showing any sympathy for her own disappointment. They had met as she was on her way to dinner and he had spoken quite sharply, just as though she had done it deliberately, and when she had pointed out reasonably enough that if he wanted to grumble at someone it should have been Mr Hyde, he had shrugged his shoulders and bade her a cool goodbye.

She had had no deep feelings about David, but before the professor had loomed so largely over her world, she had begun to think that given time she might have got around to the idea of marrying him later on. But she was sure that she would never want to do that—indeed, she didn’t want to marry anyone else but Professor Luitingh van Thien. She stopped writing the Kardex for a moment and wrote Britannia Luitingh van Thien on the blotting paper; it looked, to say the least, very imposing.

She went home for her days off at the end of the week; she managed to travel down to Dorset at least once a month and although the month wasn’t quite up, she felt the urge to talk to her parents. Accordingly she telephoned her mother, packed an overnight bag and caught the evening train, sleeping peacefully until the train came to a brief halt at Moreton station, a small, isolated place, some way from the village of that name and several miles from Dorchester and Wareham. It was cold and dark and Britannia was the only passenger to alight on to the ill-lit platform, but her father was there, passing the time of day with Mr Tims, porter, stationmaster and ticket collector rolled into one. They both greeted her with pleasure and after an animated discussion about Mrs Tims’ nasty back and Mr Tims’ bunions, they parted, Mr Tims to return to his stuffy little cubbyhole and await the next train and Britannia and Mr Smith to the car outside; an elderly Morris Oxford decidedly vintage and Mr Smith’s pride and joy. They accomplished the short journey home without haste, because the country road was winding and very dark and the Oxford couldn’t be expected to hurry anyway, and their conversation was casual and undemanding. But once through the front door of the small Georgian cottage which was Britannia’s home, they were pounced upon by her mother, a tall older replica of herself who rattled off a succession of questions without waiting for any of them to be answered. Britannia, quite used to this, kissed her parent with deep affection, told her that she looked smashing and remarked on the delicious aroma coming from the kitchen.

‘You’re famished,’ said Mrs Smith immediately. ‘I was only saying to your father this evening that you never get proper meals in that hospital.’ She started kitchenwards. ‘Take off your coat, darling, supper’s ready.’ She added to no one in particular: ‘It will be a blessing when you marry, Britannia.’

Which could mean anything or nothing, thought her daughter as she went upstairs to the small room which had been hers since she was a very small girl. When her brothers had left home her mother had suggested that she might like to move into either of the two bigger rooms they had occupied, but she had chosen to remain in the little room over the porch. She flung her coat down on to the bed now, then went downstairs again without bothering to look in the looking glass; supper for the moment was far more important than her appearance. It was after that satisfying meal, eaten in the cheerful rather shabby dining room opposite the sitting room, when her parents were seated on each side of the fire and she was kneeling before it giving it a good poke, that she paused to look over her shoulder and say: ‘I’ve met the man I want to marry, my dears.’

Her father lifted his eyes from the seed catalogue he was studying and gave her a searching look and her mother cast down her knitting and said encouragingly: ‘Yes, dear? Do we know him?’

‘No.’

‘He’s asked you to marry him?’

‘No.’ Britannia sounded matter-of-fact. ‘Nor is he likely to. He’s a professor of surgery, one of the best—very good-looking, ill-tempered, arrogant and rich. He didn’t like me overmuch. We—we don’t come from the same background.’

Her father, longing to get back to his seeds, said vaguely: ‘Not at all suitable, I gather.’

It was her mother who asked: ‘How old is he, darling? And is he short or tall, fat or thin?’

‘It doesn’t matter what he looks like if he’s unsuitable,’ her father pointed out sensibly.

‘Quite unsuitable,’ agreed Britannia. ‘He’s in his late thirties, I understand, and he’s very large indeed. He’s Dutch and he went back to Holland a few days ago.’

‘Do we know anyone in Holland?’ queried her mother.

Britannia threw her parent a grateful look for taking her seriously. ‘No—at least, one of the staff nurses—Joan Stevens, remember her, you met her at the prize-giving—she has a Dutch godmother and she’s going over there to stay with her for a couple of weeks very soon. It’s a small country,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘Very. Joan’s a good friend of yours?’ Her father had left his catalogue to join in the conversation again.

‘Oh, yes, Father. We were in the same set, you know, we’ve known each other for years. She did suggest that I might like to go with her this time.’

‘And of course you said yes.’

Britannia nodded and laid the poker down. ‘Am I being silly? You see, it was like a sign, if you see what I mean…’

Her parents nodded in complete understanding. ‘You’ve always known what you have wanted,’ observed her father, and, ‘Have you plenty of pretty clothes?’ asked her mother.

She said that yes, she had, and added earnestly: ‘I had to do something about it. I’m not sure what, but Joan asking me to go with her seemed like a sign…’

‘He’ll be a lucky man,’ remarked her father, ‘if he gets you—though I should have put that the other way round, shouldn’t I?’ He added: ‘It’s a pity he’s rich—it tends to spoil people.’

His daughter considered this. ‘Not him, I think— I fancy he takes it for granted.’

‘How did you meet?’ her mother wanted to know.

‘I sent him packing out of the sluice on Men’s Surgical. I didn’t know who he was, but he shouldn’t have been there, anyway.’

‘Hardly a romantic background.’ Mr Smith’s voice was dry.