The Quiet Professor

‘Yes, he is, and he likes you. So does Melanie. You must have seen how shy she is with people she doesn’t know well but you got on with her splendidly.’

He didn’t answer, she supposed because of the sudden congestion of traffic.

At the hospital he said, ‘How about another weekend when I can get one?’

‘Lovely. I’ll be going again in two weeks but I don’t suppose you can manage one as soon as that.’

‘Afraid not, but I could try for the weekend after.’

‘Let me know in good time. I’ll have to alter the off duty but I know Jenny won’t mind. Ought you not to go home and see your parents?’

‘I’ll scrounge a half-day during the week.’

He didn’t ask her if she wanted to go with him. Perhaps he had noticed that she and his mother hadn’t taken to each other. That would take some time, she reflected as they said goodnight.

Monday morning was busy for there were admissions for operation on the following day, which meant all the usual tests, a visit from the anaesthetist, examinations by painstaking housemen and finally a brief visit from Mr Bright during the afternoon to bolster up his patients’ failing spirits and cast an eye over his houseman’s reports. The last patient of the four was a thin, tired-looking woman and he spent longer than usual talking to her, putting her at her ease before turning to the papers in his hand.

He paused at the path. lab. report and read it again. ‘You’ve seen this, Sister?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Most unusual. Be good enough to go to the path. lab. will you, and check with Professor van Belfeld? We shall need to get a supply…’

Megan nipped smartly through the hospital and opened the path. lab. department door. The professor wasn’t going to like having one of his decisions questioned.

He was at his desk. She wondered if he sat there all day, for he looked remarkably alert and not in the least tired. He looked up as she knocked and went in. His, ‘Yes, Sister?’ was politely questioning.

‘Mr Bright asked me to check with you—this blood-group report. He thought it was unusual.’

‘It is unusual; it is also correct. I checked it personally. You may tell Mr Bright that with my compliments.’ He picked up his pen. ‘Run along now, I’m rather busy.’

She turned on her heel and made for the door, choking back all the rude words on her tongue. Run along, indeed; who did he think he was?

‘Be good enough to close the door firmly as you go out, and tell Mr Bright that I have arranged for a suitable blood donor.’

Megan, a mild girl, was boiling over. Such rudeness… She opened the door and said unforgivably over one shapely shoulder, ‘Tell him yourself, sir,’ and flounced out haughtily, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Hurrying back to the ward, the enormity of what she had said hit her. She would get the sack; insubordination, she supposed it would be called. Oscar would be angry with her for losing her temper and behaving like a silly child; her parents would be unhappy; she would be given one of those references which damned with faint praise and would end up looking after a geriatric ward in some old-fashioned hospital in the Midlands. Her wild thoughts showed plainly on her face when she got back to the ward and Mr Bright asked, ‘Did Professor van Belfeld eat you alive?’ He laughed as he said it and she said quickly,

‘No, no, Mr Bright. He asked me to tell you that he agreed that it was a most unusual blood-group and that he had arranged for a blood donor.’

‘Good man. I don’t know what this hospital would do without him.’

Megan mumbled something; maybe the hospital couldn’t do without him but she for one could. She tidied the papers Mr Bright had scattered all over the bed and locker and went rigid when the professor’s quiet voice speaking its perfect faintly accented English came from behind her.

‘I’m sure that Sister Rodner gave you my message, suitably altered to agree with her standard of politeness,’ and when Mr Bright laughed he added, ‘I hope she will forgive me for my abruptness.’

Megan’s charming bosom heaved with pent-up feelings. She was still casting around for a suitable answer to this when he went on, ‘I thought it best if I came down to see you—there are a couple of elements in this case which need clarifying.’

Megan had moved away to arrange the bedclothes over her patient. It had been quite unnecessary for him to apologise to her like that and now he had put her in the wrong. She would have to apologise; not that she intended to do that until she knew if he was going to make a complaint about her conduct. The tiresome man. She worried about it for the rest of the afternoon, which was quite unnecessary; it was a pity she hadn’t seen the professor sitting back in his chair with a delighted grin on his face as she had flounced through his office door.

By the time she went off duty she had steeled herself to apologise to him but not until the following day. If he was going to make something of it she would be called to Matron’s office at nine o’clock. On her way through the hospital she began to compose a speech; it would have to be dignified and apologetic at the same time and she was finding it rather difficult. She was so engrossed that she failed to see the professor coming towards her until they were within a few feet of each other. His first words took her breath.

‘Ah, Sister Rodner, I have been expecting your apology.’ He sounded pleasantly enquiring and she thought crossly that it would be much easier seriously to dislike him if only he would raise his voice and shout a bit.

‘I haven’t had much time,’ she told him snappily. ‘I have every intention of doing so but not until tomorrow.’ He was standing before her, blocking a good deal of the passage. ‘I’m waiting to see if I have to go to Matron’s office.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, if you have complained about me she won’t waste much time before having me in for an interview.’ She eyed him wrathfully. ‘I shall probably be given the sack or lose my sister’s cap or something.’

‘My dear young lady, I have no intention of complaining about you. Indeed in your shoes I would have said and done exactly what you did. So you may forget the melodrama and come to work with an easy conscience in the morning.’

He smiled suddenly and just for a moment he didn’t look like the austere man she imagined he was. ‘It would give me pleasure to take you out to dinner as a token of good faith, but I hesitate to trespass on young Fielding’s preserves.’

She was surprised at the flash of regret which she felt. ‘It is kind of you to—to think that,’ she said carefully. ‘I’m sorry I was rude and thank you for being so nice about it.’

‘Nice, nice—an English word which means everything or nothing. I am not nice, as you very well know.’ He stood aside. ‘Goodnight, Sister Rodner.’

She went on her way faintly disturbed and not quite sure why.

Oscar was coming for supper that evening and she made haste home so that she could be ready for him. ‘Nine o’clock,’ he had said, which gave her time enough. She showered and changed into a grey jersey dress with a bright scarf at the throat, fed the cat, put on a pinny and got to work. A cheese soufflé, a winter salad, crusty french bread and a variety of cheeses. She had some sherry in the house now but she hadn’t bought any wine, although there was beer in the cupboard. The room looked cosy enough with the new lampshades casting a kindly pink glow over the cheap furniture and the table with its checked cloth and painted china. Oscar looked a little surprised as he came in. ‘I say, this place looks more like it although the furniture’s pretty grim. I’m famished…’

The soufflé was a dream of lightness and he ate most of it before starting on the bread and cheese and the bowl of apples. She made coffee and he sat back presently and began to tell her about his day. It wasn’t until he got up to go that he observed, ‘That was a good meal—I had no idea you could cook, Megan. Did Melanie teach you? I often think of those scones…’

She said evenly, ‘Yes, she makes marvellous scones. She’s a very good cook.’

He kissed her then, but not how she wanted to be kissed. She wanted to be held close and told that she was a splendid cook too and that he loved her more than anything in the world. Something was not right, she thought, but she didn’t know what it was and she made the mistake of asking him.

‘Something wrong? Whatever makes you say that? Of course there isn’t. I dare say you’re tired. Never mind—I’ve fixed up a weekend; did you change yours?’

‘As far as I know.’ She watched him walk away and closed the door, then washed her supper things and tidied the room before turning the divan into a bed, feeding Meredith and going to bed, to lie awake listening to his hoarse purr and worrying about her wretched day. Nothing had gone right and she would have enjoyed a good cry, only, as she told herself, she had nothing to cry about.

Take-in started again on Wednesday and since she had changed her weekend with Jenny, she was without that trusty right arm over this weekend, but, as she reminded herself at the end of each busy day, she and Oscar would be going home at the end of the following week. She saw little of him but, as she told the cat Meredith as she got ready to go to work on the last day of take-in, tomorrow they would be back to normal.

Only they weren’t. During the afternoon she was told by a sympathetic office sister that there was an outbreak of flu at St Patrick’s, who alternated with Regent’s, and her ward would have to take in for another week.

There was nothing to be done about it. When she got off duty she went to the porter’s lodge and asked if Oscar could see her for a moment and when he came into the entrance hall she told him the bad news at once.

‘What bad luck.’ He frowned. ‘I can’t do anything about my weekend; it would mean re-arranging the rota.’ His brow cleared. ‘I could go to your home on my own, if they’d have me?’

She stifled a feeling of disappointment, feeling mean that she should grudge him the weekend she should have shared with him. ‘Of course they will. They’ll love to have you. I’ll phone Mother.’

‘Splendid. I must go, darling. A pity about our weekend.’ He sounded cheerful. She watched him go, feeling unreasonably cross.

CHAPTER THREE

MEGAN phoned her mother after supper that evening, sounding more cheerful than she felt.