The Fifth Day of Christmas

He laughed. ‘Just over a hundred and thirty miles an hour, but we’ll be lucky if we manage fifty in this weather.’

Julia withdrew her head from the interior of the car and turned to look at him. She said politely, ‘Look, I’m sure you’re anxious to be gone. Would you like to go now? There’s nothing to keep you, you’ve seen the doctor and done more than you need…the nurse might not come…I can go back by train.’

She got no further, for the doctor had her by the shoulders and was shaking her gently. ‘I have no patience with you,’ he said a trifle testily. ‘Of course I’m anxious to get home, but you don’t really think that I would go just like that and leave you here? Besides, I like company on a long journey and I should have to wait for you in London.’ His hands tightened on her shoulders as he bent his head to kiss her. ‘Have you forgotten, Julia, that I’ve engaged you to look after Marcia?’

Being kissed like that had made her forget everything, but it didn’t seem very wise to say so. She withdrew a little from him and said in a commendably sensible voice, ‘No, of course I hadn’t.’ A very large image of the beautiful Miss Jason floated before her eyes. She said firmly, ‘I think I must go and see how Mary…’ then paused, frowning. ‘I can hear…there’s a cat here,’ she said quickly. ‘Oh, the poor thing!’

The doctor went past her to a corner of the stable. ‘Yes, there is,’ he said casually. ‘At least, there are five—mother and kittens—look!’

Julia peered down into the apple box filled with straw which he indicated, and the mother cat, with the kittens crawling around her, peered back. Julia said in a voice soft with pity, ‘Oh, please can’t we take them inside and feed them?’

‘She’s the stable cat and won’t stay in the house. I found the box for her before the kittens arrived and I’ve fed her regularly. She’s fine. I’ll tell Jane or Madge to keep an eye on them when we go.’

Julia stooped and put out a finger, and the cat licked it politely and then turned to the more urgent business of washing her kittens. Julia stood up and looked at her companion. ‘You’re very kind. A lot of men wouldn’t have bothered,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I could have fed her.’

‘You had enough to do. You’re a practical young woman, aren’t you, Julia?’

Part of her mind registered the pleasing fact that he had called her Julia twice within a few minutes while she replied, ‘I don’t know—I suppose being in hospital makes one practical.’ She started walking towards the door. ‘Do you think the nurse will come today? It’s already five o’clock and very dark.’

The doctor opened the stable door before he replied. The wind was slight but icy cold and Julia shivered and wrapped her voluminous cape more closely round her as they made their way back to the house.

‘I should think the trains are running,’ said the doctor. ‘She’s coming straight from Edinburgh to Hawick and if the doctor could get through so can a taxi.’

It seemed his words were to be ratified. Barely an hour later a car rolled to a halt at the front door. Julia heard it from Mary’s room where she was doing the evening chores, and hurried downstairs to welcome the arrival, but Doctor van den Werff had heard the taxi too and was already there, talking to a small woman, who could have been any age from forty to fifty, and whose pleasant face lighted up with a smile when she saw Julia. The doctor performed the introductions smoothly, giving them barely time to utter the most commonplace civilities before suggesting that the kitchen might be a warmer place than the draughty hall.

‘Oh, how thoughtless of me,’ cried Julia, ‘you and the driver must be frozen!’ She led the way to the kitchen. ‘I’m sure Jane won’t mind if I make you some tea.’ She arranged Miss MacBonar on one side of the stove and the driver on the other and went to where Jane was making pastry at the table.

‘You don’t mind,’ she begged that lady, ‘if they sit here get warm, and would you mind very much if I made them some tea? I’m afraid we’ve used the kitchen to live in while you’ve been away.’

Jane smiled. ‘Aye, it’s a cold house, Nurse—it’s been none too easy for you, I daresay. And don’t worry about the tea. Madge made it when she heard the taxi. Should I keep the driver here for his supper, do you think? It’ll be easier going on the way home if he’s got something hot inside him.’

‘What a good idea. I’m going back to Miss Mary now and then I’ll come back and take Miss MacBonar up to meet her. I expect you know that the doctor and I are leaving tomorrow?’

Madge gave her a quick glance. ‘Aye, he told me. A kind gentleman he is, ye’ll have a safe journey with him.’

Julia said a little shyly, ‘Yes, I’m sure I shall,’ and made her way through the icy hall and up the stairs to Mary, who was sitting up in her chair by the fire, demanding to know exactly what the new nurse was like.

‘Nice,’ said Julia promptly. ‘If I were ill I should like her to nurse me—I’m going to fetch her in a few minutes and then I’ll get your supper and take her down to have supper with us.’ She picked up the insulin syringe. ‘Now roll up your sleeve, Mary—it’s time for your injection.’

Nurse MacBonar and Mary took to each other on sight; Julia left them together while she went down for Mary’s tray and having settled that young lady to her satisfaction, took her colleague along to her own room to give her the details of her patient. ‘And your room’s next door,’ she explained, ‘and I’m sure if you don’t like it no one will mind if you change. I’m afraid we just took the first ones we saw when we arrived. There’s a fire going and I’ve put a hot water bottle in the bed. I wondered if you would like half an hour to yourself until supper? I’ll come and fetch you.’

They went downstairs together a little later to find that the table had been laid in the dining room, a forbidding apartment with a great many hunting trophies on its walls and a quantity of heavy mahogany furniture arranged very stiffly beneath them. But there was a fire in the hearth and the supper was ample and well cooked. The three of them sat at one end of the large oval table and Nurse MacBonar told them at some length and a good deal of dry humour of her difficulties in reaching them.

‘But I hear from Doctor MacIntory that you had your ups and downs too,’ she remarked cheerfully. ‘I can imagine how you felt when you arrived,’ she looked at them in turn. ‘Did you get here to together?’

It was the doctor who answered. ‘No, for I am on my way to London from Edinburgh—I got hopelessly lost, and how I got here I have no idea, but Miss Pennyfeather was kind enough to take me in…’

‘Weren’t you scared?’ inquired Miss MacBonar of Julia. ‘A strange man coming to the door like that?’

Julia avoided the doctor’s eyes. ‘I was so cold and tired I didn’t think about it,’ she confessed, ‘otherwise I daresay I should have been frightened.’

‘Oh well,’ said Miss MacBonar comfortably, ‘it was only the doctor here, so there was no need.’

This time Julia glanced up to find him watching her and although his face showed nothing of it, she knew that he was laughing silently. He said pleasantly, ‘You invest me with a character I fear I cannot lay claim to. Miss Pennyfeather, who has had to put up with me these last few days, could tell you how tiresome I can be at times.’

Nurse MacBonar chuckled. ‘Aren’t all men tiresome at some time or another?’ she wanted to know. ‘Not that the world would be much of a place without them, and I should know—I’ve buried two husbands. Are either of you married?’

Julia shook her head and the doctor murmured in a negative manner.

‘Ah, well, your turn will come. Do you plan to leave early?’

Doctor van den Werff picked up his fork preparatory to demolishing the portion of bread and butter pudding Julia had just handed to him.

‘Eight o’clock—that will allow for any small hold-ups on the way.’ He looked at Julia with lifted brows. ‘That is if our Miss Pennyfeather is agreeable?’

Julia, smouldering inwardly at being addressed as our Miss Pennyfeather, said coolly, ‘Yes, quite, thank you,’ and then addressed herself to Miss MacBonar. ‘I’ll call you before I go, shall I? Mary sleeps until eight or thereabouts, so you’ll have plenty of time to dress.’

They separated to go their various ways after supper. Julia to get Mary into bed and settled for the night.

She was a little silent as she went quiet-footed about the room putting everything to rights. Her patient lay watching her and then asked, ‘Aren’t you excited about tomorrow? Lucky you—all day with Ivo.’

‘Ivo?’ asked Julia.

‘Doctor van den Werff, silly. Isn’t it a nice name? I like him, don’t you?’

Julia, looking for a clean nightie for her patient, agreed. ‘Oh, yes, and you have cause to be grateful to him too.’

‘Well, I am. I told him so. I’m grateful to you too. Have I been a good patient?’

Julia looked across the room at her charge, a little wan still but pretty for all that. She said generously, ‘Yes, you have. It hasn’t been much fun for you, has it, but you’ve stuck to your diet like a brick and not fussed over your injections. Go on being good, won’t you? Nurse MacBonar is nice, don’t you think? We both like her very much and she’ll look after you splendidly, and if you keep to your diet and do as you’re told you’ll be able to lead the same life as any of your friends.’

‘Yes, Ivo told me that too. I’ll try. I like you, Nurse Pennyfeather—I like Ivo too. You’d make a handsome pair.’ She narrowed her blue eyes and stared at Julia, who stared back, mouth agape.

‘We’d what?’ Julia reiterated.

‘Make an awfully handsome pair. I can just see you coming down the aisle together, you with your eyes sparkling like they do when you’re pleased and happy and your cheeks all pink, and him, proud and smiling.’

Julia contrived a laugh, a very natural one considering her heart leapt into her throat and was choking her. She said with admirable calm, ‘Go on with you, Mary, it’s your own wedding you should be thinking about, not anyone else’s. Now go to sleep, because I shall wake you early to say goodbye in the morning.’

They wished each other goodnight and Julia, as it was still early, went along to Miss MacBonar’s room, trying to dismiss Mary’s words from her mind and failing utterly.

Her colleague had finished unpacking and had arranged her small possessions around her so that the room looked almost cosy. She looked up as Julia knocked and went in and said, ‘There you are, dear. Should we go down and have a last word with the doctor? I think he expects it.’

Julia ran a finger along the carved back of the rather uncomfortable chair she was leaning against. ‘He doesn’t expect me,’ she said positively, ‘but I’m sure he’d like to see you—last-minute things,’ she added vaguely. ‘Doctor MacIntory said he’d be along tomorrow if we’ve forgotten anything. The charts are in the table drawer in Mary’s room, and I’ve brought the insulin and syringe with me—I keep them in my room, here they are.’

She handed them over and Nurse MacBonar nodded understandingly and got to her feet. ‘Then I’ll pop along then and see that nice doctor of yours.’ She beamed at Julia as they went out of the room together. ‘You won’t come too?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I’m tired,’ said Julia mendaciously. They wished each other goodnight and she went along to her room and started to undress slowly, oblivious of the room’s chill. She wasn’t tired at all. There was no reason at all why she shouldn’t have gone downstairs with Nurse MacBonar, at least no reason she was prepared to admit, even to herself.