Two Weeks to Remember

She watched his magnificent nose flare. ‘Well, yes, I’ve just bought some for supper when I get home.’

‘Ah, yes, of course. Do go on with your lunch, Miss Graham. I come here to close my eyes for ten minutes—it’s quiet.’

A hint for her not to talk? She took another bite of her roll. His eyes were still shut when she had finished. She brushed the crumbs away and got soundlessly to her feet and he was there, beside her, wide awake, looming over her.

‘I would be glad if you would have a cup of coffee with me, Miss Graham. Reg, at the café by the grocer’s, makes a splendid cup.’

‘Yes, I go there sometimes—it’s a change from the canteen.’ She discovered to her surprise that she didn’t feel shy with him. ‘Thank you, I’ve just got the time before half past one.’

They were sitting at an orange, plastic-topped table, their coffee before them, before he asked, ‘What went wrong then?’

She was an honest girl; it didn’t occur to her to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. She said, ‘Oh, I’m still not sure.’ She was silent for so long that she heard him say comfortably, ‘I dare say it will sort itself out.’

And she had been on the point of telling him all about it. She must be mad, she thought crossly; she didn’t even know the man. They didn’t move in the same hospital circles and she felt pretty sure that their social backgrounds were as wide apart as the poles. He was being kind without making much of an effort, probably because he knew that it was he, more than any of the other consultants, who kept her nose to the grindstone.

She drank her coffee, glanced at her watch, thanked him and got up to go. He got up, too, but made no effort to accompany her. His goodbye was impersonal and casual. She went back to the hospital feeling peevish.

Miss Hudson, as always, glanced at the clock as she went in. They worked well together, but she let it be known by small signs such as this that she was in charge. ‘Dr Carruthers’—she bridled a little, for she fancied him—’ popped in with a couple of letters. There’s not much else besides Professor Wyllie-Lyon’s stuff, is there?’

Luckily not, thought Charity, hanging up her coat, for there was more than enough of it.

She was a little more than half-way through them when Miss Hudson fancied a cup of tea and while Charity was filling the kettle the phone rang. ‘That was to ask you to take the professor’s papers down to the consultants’ room should they not be ready by five o’clock.’

Miss Hudson inserted a fresh sheet of paper. ‘Will you be done by then?’

‘No,’ said Charity, ‘I had those biopsy reports to do, you know.’ She made the tea and carried the tray to Miss Hudson’s desk. ‘I’m about half-way. It’ll be six o’clock I should think.’

‘Poor you,’ said Miss Hudson, not meaning it. She sipped her tea in a genteel fashion. ‘I did hear a rumour that he was off shortly on some lecturing tour or other; that’ll make life much easier for us both.’

Which, seeing that she had long ago left Charity to deal with almost all of his work, wasn’t quite true.

The office seemed very quiet when Miss Hudson had gone. The afternoon was already darkening and there was a first splattering of rain against the uncurtained windows. Charity remembered the fish wedged on the windowsill and brought it inside, then settled down to work again. Another hour’s work, she reckoned, perhaps less since there would be no interruptions now. The administrative side of Augustine’s had packed up and gone home, leaving the nurses to their work; she could hear faint hospital sounds and from time to time the strident warning of an ambulance.

She finished before an hour was up, tidied her desk and put on her coat and picked up her work. There was no one in the passage; the day’s rush had died down for the moment, patients were being readied for their suppers; except for the non-stop flow of patients in the accident room, Augustine’s was, for a little while, tolerably quiet.

Charity hurried along, anxious to get home; Aunt Emily would be worrying about supper. She gained the entrance hall and turned down one of the corridors leading from it, wider than the rest, lined by magnificent mahogany doors. This was where the consultants, the management committee and the upper heirarchy of the hospital had their various rooms. The consultants’ was half-way down; she tapped at the door and went in. Professor Wyllie-Lyon was overflowing a chair with his feet on the table. He appeared to be sleeping, but as she hesitated he said, ‘Come on in. I’m much obliged to you, Miss Graham; I’ve curtailed your evening.’

He had taken his large feet in his handmade shoes off the table and was looming over her. ‘It was important that I should have these,’ he observed as he took the papers she handed him. ‘They need to be delivered this evening.’

Charity murmured a nothing, said good night and made for the door. He reached it first, which was surprising considering that he was such a large man and so far away from it.

‘I’ll drop you off,’ he said and when she said, ‘Oh, there’s no need of that,’ he interrupted her gently, ‘You live in St John’s Wood; I’m going in that direction. It’s the least I can do.’

‘But it’s my work,’ protested Charity.

He took no notice of that, but gathered up the papers and opened the door and ushered her through. Short of making a silly fuss there was nothing she could do but accompany him out of the hospital and into the dark blue Bentley parked in the forecourt.

The professor, beyond a word here and there, had little to say as he drove along the Finchley Road. Presently he asked, ‘Where do I turn off?’

‘Oh, this will do, thank you,’ said Charity. ‘I can walk down here—it’s quite close…’

‘In that case I’ll drive you there.’

He had the reputation of being quite mild at the hospital, but she had the feeling that that was a cover-up for a steely determination to get his own way. After all, how many dozens of times had she meekly agreed to type his letters, knowing that she had no hope of finishing them by five o’clock when she was supposed to go home? She gave him her address and sat silently until he stopped outside the gate. He leaned across and opened the door for her. ‘Forgive me if I don’t get out; time is of the essence.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that he could have saved himself a few minutes by dropping her off in the Finchley Road when she had suggested it, but all she said was a polite thank you and a rather brisk good night, uneasily aware that the cod might have left a faintly fishy atmosphere in his beautiful car. She was surprised that he didn’t drive away until she had gone through the gate and shut it behind her.

Aunt Emily came into the hall to meet her; she might be elderly but her hearing was excellent. ‘I heard a car,’ she began. ‘Have you and Sidney made it up, darling?’ And, before Charity could reply, ‘You bought the fish?’

‘Yes, Aunt Emily—it’s here. I’ll take it straight to the kitchen. And yes, you did hear a car, but it wasn’t Sidney and we haven’t made it up. It was one of the consultants at St Augustine’s—I stayed late to finish some work for him and he gave me a lift as he was coming this way.’

Upon reflection she wondered if that had been true. The papers had been urgent—reports on a case of leukaemia he had been consulted about, but the patient, if she remembered aright, had been in an East End hospital in exactly the opposite direction. He had said that he had needed the reports urgently, but if that was the case why had he wasted time bringing her home? Perhaps he had some other urgent business to attend to first.

She didn’t bother her head over it but went to say hallo to her father and then started on the fish.

In the oven with a bit of parsley, she decided; easy to prepare and not too long to cook. While it was cooking she sat down at the kitchen table with her aunt. As so often happened, that lady had used up the housekeeping money and shied away from asking her brother for more until it was due. ‘I do try to be economical, dear,’ she observed worriedly, ‘but somehow the money just goes…’

Charity, who had had her eye on a pair of expensive shoes for some weeks and had intended to buy them on pay-day, heaved an inward sigh. By the time she had enough money for them they wouldn’t be fashionable any more. She wasn’t extravagant and she didn’t buy many clothes, but what she had were good and suited her, for she bought with a careful eye. She said now, ‘Don’t worry, Aunty, I’ve a few pounds tucked away—you can pay me back later.’ They both knew that that wouldn’t happen but neither of them mentioned the fact.

At supper her father remarked, ‘You came home by car, Charity? I was at my window…’

She told him about the professor, but only briefly, for half-way through he interrupted with, ‘Ah, that reminds me, in the catalogue I had sent to me today there’s a book I think I must have: early medical practices in Europe; it should be most informative. This professor would doubtless be very interested.’

Very unlikely, thought Charity, murmuring agreement. Just for a moment, as she changed the plates, she wondered where he was and what he was doing at that moment. Wining and dining some exquisite young lady, or with his head buried in some dry-as-dust tome? Probably the latter, propped up against the cruet while he ate his solitary dinner. Charity, who had a very vivid imagination, felt rather sorry for him, allowing her imagination to run away with her common sense, as she so often did.

CHAPTER TWO

MISS HUDSON’S RUMOUR must have had some truth in it, for Charity saw nothing of Professor Wyllie-Lyon for the whole of the following week. It made her workload much lighter, of course, but she found herself missing him. She went home each evening to spend it in the company of her aunt and father and an occasional visitor, dropping in for a drink or after-supper coffee. True, she could have gone out on at least two occasions, once with the assistant dispenser, a short earnest young man with no sense of humour, and on the second occasion with the surgical registrar, who was married with a wife and family somewhere in the depths of rural Sussex. She had declined both invitations in her pleasant, rather shy manner and found herself wondering what she would have done if it had been Professor Wyllie-Lyon who had asked her out. Leapt at the chance, she had to admit, and then told herself sternly that she was being silly; for one thing he wasn’t there and for another he had never been known to date anyone at the hospital. Even at the annual ball, which she had attended on two occasions, he had circled the floor with grave dignity with the senior ladies present and then gone to play bridge in an adjoining room.

She did the shopping on Saturday morning, met an acquaintance unexpectedly and had coffee with her, and then walked unhurriedly back home, to come face to face with Sidney when she was half-way there. He had a girl with him, someone she knew slightly, and they both looked embarrassed, whereas she felt nothing but pleased relief that Sidney should have found a successor to herself so quickly. Once or twice she had felt guilty about him, but now she saw that there was no need for that. She beamed at them both, passed the time of day and went on her way with her groceries to give a hand with the lunch and then catch a bus to visit an old school friend who had married and gone to live in Putney.

Sunday held no excitement either; church in the morning and then an afternoon in the garden, encouraging the chrysanthemums and tidying up the flower beds for the winter. Charity, restless for no reason at all, was quite glad to go to work on Monday morning.

Miss Hudson was in a bad temper; she had missed her usual bus, lost her umbrella and started a cold. Charity hurried to put on the kettle and offer a soothing cup to cheer while she sorted through the pile of work waiting for them. There was quite a lot. She accepted the major portion of reports since, as she was quick to point out, Miss Hudson didn’t feel able to cope, and they settled down to a morning’s work.

They were interrupted after an hour or so by Symes’s elderly voice growling over the phone. Would Miss Graham take her notebook to Women’s Medical, as Professor Wyllie-Lyon wanted notes taken during his round.

Miss Hudson was indignant. ‘Leaving me alone here to get through all this pile of work. I shall have something to say about it, I can tell you! You’d better get along at once, Charity, and be sure you are back in time for me to go to the canteen. I feel very poorly and it is essential that I have a break.’

Charity gathered up her notebook and pencil. It would make a nice change from the typewriter; besides, she would see Professor Wyllie-Lyon again. She didn’t waste time in wondering why she was pleased about this but nipped smartly along the passage, into the entrance hall and up the stairs. She wasn’t supposed to use the main staircase but it would take all day to go round to either of the smaller staircases used by the nurses, and the lifts were out of the question. Anyway, she disliked lifts.

The round had started; Charity, peering cautiously round the ward doors, met Sister’s frowning gaze and then, obedient to her beckoning finger, and very aware of her size and bursting good health, walked just as cautiously down the ward between the beds occupied by a variety of limp-looking ladies with pale faces who gazed at her with a kind of disbelief that anyone could be as pretty and full of life. Miss Hudson would have been more suitable, thought Charity, gaining the group of solemn-looking people round a patient’s bed, and doing her best to hide herself behind the social worker.

‘Ah, good morning, Miss Graham,’ observed Professor Wyllie-Lyon, yards away from her and with eyes in the back of his head. ‘If you will be ready to take notes at the next patient’s bed, if you please.’

He hadn’t turned round as he spoke, so that she addressed his white-coated back with a polite, ‘Certainly, sir,’ while admiring what she could see of him—which wasn’t much, what with his registrar and housemen and a clutch of earnest medical students. Sister had the best place, of course, at his elbow, ready with X-Rays, forms and the proper answers to his questions. Charity wondered what it would be like to be clever enough to know what he was talking about and what to say in reply. She allowed her thoughts to wander. It was a pity that she was really too old to train as a nurse, although she wasn’t sure if she would be much good at it—the actual nursing that is; she enjoyed learning about the various conditions and ailments she typed about each day, but she wasn’t so sure about the practical side of them.

She became aware that there was a general movement towards the next bed and hastily held her pencil at the ready. A good thing, too, for Professor Wyllie-Lyon began at once. ‘Now, this is Mrs Elliott, whose case we might discuss, with her permission.’ He sat himself down on the side of the bed and spoke to the elderly lady lying in it. She smiled and nodded and he then turned to address the students round him.