A Kiss for Julie

Only on Sundays did they have afternoon tea, and supper at a later hour. And if there were guests—friends or members of the family—then a splendid dinner was conjured up by Luscombe; the silver was polished, the glasses sparkled and a splendid damask cloth that Mrs Beckworth cherished was brought out. They might be poor but no one needed to know that.

Now they sat around the table, enjoying Luscombe’s good food, gossiping cheerfully, and if they still missed the scholarly man who had died so suddenly they kept that hidden. Sometimes, Julie reflected, three years seemed a long time, but her father was as clear in her mind as if he were living, and she knew that her mother and Esme felt the same. She had no doubt that the faithful Luscombe felt the same way, too.

She had hoped that after the professor’s offer of tea and toast he would show a more friendly face, but she was to be disappointed. His ‘Good morning, Miss Beckworth’ returned her, figuratively speaking, to arm’s length once more. Of course, after Professor Smythe’s avuncular ‘Hello, Julie’ it was strange to be addressed as Miss Beckworth. Almost everyone in the hospital called her Julie; she hoped that he might realise that and follow suit.

He worked her hard, but since he worked just as hard, if not harder, himself she had no cause for complaint. Several days passed in uneasy politeness—cold on his part, puzzled on hers. She would get used to him, she told herself one afternoon, taking his rapid dictation, and glanced up to find him staring at her. ‘Rather as though I was something dangerous and ready to explode,’ she explained to her mother later.

‘Probably deep in thought and miles away,’ said Mrs Beckworth, and Julie had to agree.

There was no more tea and toast; he sent her home punctiliously at half past five each day and she supposed that he worked late at his desk clearing up the paperwork, for much of his day was spent on the wards or in consultation. He had a private practice too, and since he was absent during the early afternoons she supposed that he saw those patients then. A busy day, but hers was busy too.

Of course, she was cross-examined about him each time she went to the canteen, but she had nothing to tell—and even if she had had she was discreet and loyal and would not have told. Let the man keep his private life to himself, she thought.

Professor van der Driesma, half-aware of the interest in him at St Bravo’s, ignored it. He was a haematologist first and last, and other interests paled beside his deep interest in his work and his patients. He did have other interests, of course: a charming little mews cottage behind a quiet, tree-lined street and another cottage near Henley, its little back garden running down to the river, and, in Holland, other homes and his family home.

He had friends too, any number of them, as well as his own family. His life was full and he had pushed the idea of marriage aside for the time being. No one—no woman—had stirred his heart since he had fallen in love as a very young man to be rejected for an older one, already wealthy and high in his profession. He had got over the love years ago—indeed he couldn’t imagine now what he had seen in the girl—but her rejection had sown the seeds of a determination to excel at his work.

Now he had fulfilled that ambition, but in the meantime he had grown wary of the pretty girls whom his friends were forever introducing him to; he wanted more than a pretty girl—he wanted an intelligent companion, someone who knew how to run his home, someone who would fit in with his friends, know how to entertain them, would remove from him the petty burden of social life. She would need to be good-looking and elegant and dress well too, and bring up their children...

He paused there. There was no such woman, of course; he wanted perfection and there was, he decided cynically, no such thing in a woman; he would eventually have to make the best of it with the nearest to his ideal.

These thoughts, naturally enough, he kept to himself; no one meeting him at a dinner party or small social gathering would have guessed that behind his bland, handsome face he was hoping that he might meet the woman he wanted to marry. In the meantime there was always his work.

Which meant that there was work for Julie too; he kept her beautiful nose to the grindstone, but never thoughtlessly; she went home punctually each evening—something she had seldom done with Professor Smythe. He also saw to it that she had her coffee-break, her midday dinner and her cup of tea at three o’clock, but between these respites he worked her hard.

She didn’t mind; indeed, she found it very much to her taste as, unlike his predecessor, he was a man of excellent memory, as tidy as any medical man was ever likely to be, and not given to idle talk. It would be nice, she reflected, watching his enormous back going through the door, if he dropped the occasional word other than some diabolical medical term that she couldn’t spell. Still, they got on tolerably well, she supposed. Perhaps at a suitable occasion she might suggest that he stopped calling her Miss Beckworth... At Christmas, perhaps, when the entire hospital was swamped with the Christmas spirit.

It was during their second week of uneasy association that he told her that he would be going to Holland at the weekend. She wasn’t surprised at that, for he had international renown, but she was surprised to find a quick flash of regret that he was going away; she supposed that she had got used to the silent figure at his desk or his disappearing for hours on end to return wanting something impossible at the drop of a hat. She said inanely, ‘How nice—nice for you, sir.’

‘I shall be working,’ he told her austerely. ‘And do not suppose that you will have time to do more than work either.’

‘Why do you say that, Professor? Do you intend leaving me a desk piled high?’ Her delightful bosom swelled with annoyance. ‘I can assure you that I shall have plenty to do...’

‘You misunderstand me, Miss Beckworth; you will be going with me. I have a series of lectures to give and I have been asked to visit two hospitals and attend a seminar. You will take any notes I require and type them up.’

She goggled at him. ‘Will I?’ She added coldly, ‘And am I to arrange for our travel and where we are to stay and transport?’

He sat back at ease. ‘No, no. That will all be attended to; all you will need will be a portable computer and your notebook and pencil. You will be collected from your home at nine o’clock on Saturday morning. I trust you will be ready at that time.’

‘Oh, I’ll be ready,’ said Julie, and walked over to his desk to stand before it looking at him. ‘It would have been nice to have been asked,’ she observed with a snap. ‘I do have a life beyond these walls, you know.’

With which telling words she walked into her own office and shut the door. There was a pile of work on her desk; she ignored it. She had been silly to lose her temper; it might cost her her job. But she wasn’t going to apologise.

‘I will not be ordered about; I wouldn’t talk to Blotto in such a manner.’ She had spoken out loud and the professor’s answer took her by surprise.

‘My dear Miss Beckworth, I have hurt your feelings. I do apologise; I had no intention of ruffling your temper.’ A speech which did nothing to improve matters.

‘That’s all right,’ said Julie, still coldly.

She was formulating a nasty remark about slavedrivers when he asked, ‘Who or what is Blotto? Who, I presume, is treated with more courtesy than I show you.’

He had come round her desk and was sitting on its edge, upsetting the papers there. He was smiling at her too. She had great difficulty in not smiling back. ‘Blotto is the family dog,’ she told him, and looked away.

Professor van der Driesma was a kind man but he had so immersed himself in his work that he also wore an armour of indifference nicely mitigated by good manners. Now he set himself to restore Julie’s good humour.

‘I dare say that you travelled with Professor Smythe from time to time, so you will know what to take with you and the normal routine of such journeys...’

‘I have been to Bristol, Birmingham and Edinburgh with Professor Smythe,’ said Julie, still icily polite.

‘Amsterdam, Leiden and Groningen, where we shall be going, are really not much farther away from London. I have to cram a good deal of work into four or five days; I must depend upon your support, which I find quite admirable.’

‘I don’t need to be buttered up,’ said Julie, her temper as fiery as her hair. ‘It’s my job.’

‘My dear Miss Beckworth, I shall forget that remark. I merely give praise where praise is due.’ His voice was mild and he hid a smile. Julie really was a lovely girl but as prickly as a thorn-bush. Highly efficient too—everything that Professor Smythe had said of her; to have her ask for a transfer and leave him at the mercy of some chit of a girl... The idea was unthinkable. He observed casually, ‘I shall, of course, be occupied for most of my days, but there will be time for you to do some sightseeing.’

It was tempting bait; a few days in another country, being a foreigner in another land—even with the professor for company it would be a nice change. Besides, she reminded herself, she had no choice; she worked for him and was expected to do as she was bid. She had, she supposed, behaved badly. She looked up at him. ‘Of course I’ll be ready to go with you, sir. I’m—I’m sorry I was a little taken aback; it was unexpected.’

He got off the desk. ‘I am at times very forgetful,’ he told her gravely. ‘You had better bring a raincoat and an umbrella with you; it will probably rain. Let me have those notes as soon as possible, will you? I shall be up on the ward if I’m wanted.’

She would have to work like a maniac if she was to finish by half past five, she thought, but Julie sat for a few minutes, her head filled with the important problem of what clothes to take with her. Would she go out at all socially? She had few clothes, although those she had were elegant and timeless in style; blouses, she thought, the skirt she had on, the corduroy jacket that she’d bought only a few weeks ago, just in case it was needed, a dress... Her eyes lighted on the clock and she left her pleasant thoughts for some hard work.

She told her mother as soon as she got home and within minutes Esme and Luscombe had joined them to hear the news.

‘Clothes?’ said Mrs Beckworth at once. ‘You ought to have one of those severe suits with padded shoulders; the women on TV wear them all the time; they look like businessmen.’

‘I’m not a businessman, Mother, dear! And I’d hate to wear one. I’ve got that dark brown corduroy jacket and this skirt—a pleated green and brown check. I’ll take a dress and a blouse for each day...’

‘Take that smoky blue dress—the one you’ve had for years,’ said Esme at once. ‘It’s so old it’s fashionable again. Will you go out a lot—restaurants and dancing? Perhaps he’ll take you to a nightclub.’

‘The professor? I should imagine that wild horses wouldn’t drag him into one. And of course he won’t take me out. I’ll have piles of work to do and he says he will be fully occupied each day.’

‘You might meet a man,’ observed Esme. ‘You know—and he’ll be keen on you and take you out in the evenings. The professor can’t expect you to work all the time.’

‘I rather fancy that’s just what he does expect. But it’ll be fun and I’ll bring you all back something really Dutch. Blotto too.’

She had two days in which to get herself ready, which meant that each evening she was kept busy—washing her abundant hair, doing her nails, pressing the blouses, packing a case.

‘Put in a woolly,’ suggested her mother, peering over her shoulder. ‘Two—that nice leaf-brown cardigan you had for Christmas last year and the green sweater.’ She frowned. ‘You’re sure we can’t afford one of those suits?’

‘Positive. I’ll do very well with what I’ve got, and if Professor van der Driesma doesn’t approve that’s just too bad. Anyway, he won’t notice.’

In this she was mistaken; his polite, uninterested glance as she opened the door to him on Saturday morning took in every small detail. He had to concede that although she looked businesslike she also looked feminine; with a lovely face such as hers she should be able to find herself an eligible husband...

He gave her a ‘good morning,’ unsmiling, was charming to her mother when he was introduced, and smiled at Esme’s eager, ‘You’ll give Julie time to send some postcards, won’t you?’ He picked up Julie’s case and was brought to a halt by Esme. ‘Don’t you get tired of seeing all that blood? Isn’t it very messy?’

Mrs Beckworth’s shocked ‘Esme’ was ignored.

‘Well, I’m only asking,’ said Esme.