Книга - Enchanting Samantha

Enchanting Samantha
Betty Neels


Mills & Boon presents the complete Betty Neels collection. Timeless tales of heart-warming romance by one of the world’s best-loved romance authors.Wasn’t he…soon to be wed?Staff nurse Samantha Fielding had one golden rule: never get involved. The attractive Giles ter Ossel made it difficult to keep. Samantha was determined not to let her feelings for Giles affect the way she treated the girl she thought was his fiancée.So, she agreed to return to Holland to nurse Antonia through her recover. Samantha’s calm and professional exterior hid a breaking heart. Meanwhile, Giles was determined to be happily married – to the right girl.









“I’d ask you in for coffee,” said Samantha, “only Mr. Cockburn doesn’t really like visitors after eleven o’clock.”


Giles took no notice at all of this remark but got out of the car and went round to open Samantha’s door. Halfway up the steps, his hand tucked under her elbow, he stopped to raise an arm in greeting to the house owner, Mr. Cockburn, who was still at his window, at such a late hour. “Does he count you as you come in?” Giles asked with interest.

Samantha, nicely aglow from the excellent claret they had had with their dinner, chuckled. “Don’t be absurd, he’s only keeping a fatherly eye on us. Anyway, he’s interested in the comings and goings. Nothing very exciting happens to him, you see.”

Giles turned her round to face him and put out a large hand to cup her firm little chin. “Well,” he said slowly, “this is hardly exciting, but at least it may brighten his dreams tonight.”

He bent and kissed her, taking his time about it. Giving common sense and wisdom a metaphorical kick, Samantha kissed him back before wishing him a slightly flurried good-night and dashing up the rest of the steps at a fine rate.

She arrived at the apartment door out of breath for more reasons than one.




About the Author


Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of BETTY NEELS in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.




Enchanting Samantha

Betty Neels











www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE




CHAPTER ONE


IT WAS half past five on a cold February morning, and Clement’s Hospital, behind its elaborate red brick Victorian façade, was already stirring, and this despite the edict from someone at the summit of the nursing profession that no patient should be aroused before six o’clock. An edict which the night nurses had, for a very long time, decided was a laughable impossibility, probably thought up, declared the younger and more frivolous of their number, by some dear old soul who still thought of nurses as ministering angels, gliding from bed to bed, turning pillows and smoothing brows while a vast number of underlings did the work, while in fact they were a band of understaffed, highly skilled young women who knew all about intensive care and cardiac arrest and electrolytes. True, the ward lights always went on at the precise hour allowed, shining out on to the grimy streets of one of the less fashionable quarters of London, but long before that on this particular morning, stealthy movement had been going on for an hour or more in Women’s Surgical, for it was operation day, which meant the preparation of those ladies who were on Sir Joshua White’s list, and as most of them had wakened early despite their sleeping pills the night before, the very early morning cup of tea they were allowed was immediately offered before the business of cleansing the patients, clothing them in theatre gowns and long woollen stockings, and in the case of the first patient due in theatre at half past eight sharp, removing anything from her person to which the anaesthetist might take exception.

And now the last of them had been attended to and those who were able were left to sit in a cosy circle, enjoying a bloodcurdling and quite inaccurate chat about their various insides. They spoke in whispers, of course, because most of the other patients were still asleep, but Staff Nurse Samantha Fielding, carefully plaiting her patient’s pepper-and-salt hair behind the nearest cubicle curtains, caught a word here and there, just as her ear, tuned in to the various noises, however slight, which she might expect to hear on the ward, caught the stealthy tread of her junior nurse, Dora Brown, who was creeping from locker to locker, laying down washing bowls with the stealth of hard-earned experience, putting soap and flannel and towel within reach of the sleeping patients. Samantha glanced at the clock at the far end of the ward. There was still twenty minutes to go before the lights could go on. She would have time to write the report for Sister before that lady came to do her final round, as well as start the wash-out on the second theatre case. The medicine round could be quickly done, and that only left the Kardex to be written up and then the hundred and one jobs listed in her head.

She smiled down at the elderly face on the pillow—a wrinkled face, still grey from shock, almost ugly. Indeed it seemed unlikely that the patient had ever been pretty, but it was a good face all the same and Staff Nurse Fielding liked it. The poor woman had been admitted just before midnight with badly burned hands, and although she had been sedated she had had a bad night despite all that could be done for her. But now she had been gently bathed and tidied up and her hands in their sterile plastic envelopes disposed side by side on the bed-cover. Second degree burns, the Registrar had said, which they had cleaned up in theatre before starting the Bunyan-Stannard treatment. Samantha had been irrigating them at intervals during the night; she did it once more now, deploring the fact that the patient could neither speak nor understand English. She had been brought to Clement’s for the simple reason that when she had been found, lying before the exploded gas oven, all she had been able to say was the name of the hospital, and the police and ambulance men, struggling to make themselves understood, had brought her in, hopeful that there would be someone at Clement’s who knew her. But no one did, nor had anyone succeeded in understanding the few muttered words the old lady uttered from time to time.

She had been alone in the house when the accident happened; the police had been called by the housemaid next door, who, curious to know who had come to live in a house which had stood empty for some time, had been standing on the area steps and had heard the bang.

Samantha smiled once again and nodded encouragingly as she popped a thermometer under her patient’s tongue and took her pulse, both up, she noted; probably the poor old thing was wondering what would happen to her. She patted an arm and sped down the ward to the kitchen, fetched a feeder of tea and gave it to her with the gentle expertise of long practice.

She had finished the report with seconds to spare before Night Sister made her brief appearance on the ward and was taking down a drip when Brown appeared at her elbow to whisper: ‘There’s a man outside, Staff.’

‘Good luck to him,’ said Samantha absently, taking out the cannula with careful fingers and covering the tiny puncture with a strip of plaster.

Brown giggled. ‘He wants to see the old lady—the one with the burns.’

Samantha laid the drip paraphernalia on the trolley and prepared to wheel it away. ‘Tell him to wait, will you? He can’t come in until you’ve finished the BP round and I simply must repack Mrs Wheeler’s dressing.’ Her eye fell on the clock. ‘Oh, lord—just as we were getting on so nicely…’

She was packing Mrs Wheeler’s leaking dressing when Brown appeared again. ‘He says he’ll be glad if you could be as quick as possible,’ she added. ‘He’s ever so romantic-looking, Staff.’

Samantha muttered rudely under her breath and picked up her dressing tray. ‘No one,’ she stated repressively, ‘is romantic-looking at this hour of the morning. He’ll have to wait while I wash my hands. Have you finished the round?’

Brown nodded.

‘Then pull any curtains that are necessary, will you?’ she sighed. ‘I suppose he’ll have to come in, but it couldn’t be a more awkward time.’

She disposed of the tray, washed her hands and marched briskly down the ward, a small, pleasantly plump figure, her cap perched very precisely on the top of her neatly piled brown hair, a frown marring a face, which, while by no means pretty, was pleasant enough, with hazel eyes fringed with short thick lashes, a nose turned up at its end and a mouth which though a little too large, could smile delightfully.

There was no sign of a smile now, though, as she charged silently through the swing doors and came to an abrupt halt by the man sitting on the radiator under the landing window—a large man, she saw, as he rose to his feet, towering over her. He was wearing a bulky car coat and she could see leather gloves stuffed anyhow into its pockets, she could also see that he was dark-haired, craggy-faced and handsome with it, and had grey eyes of a peculiar intensity. All these things she saw within a few seconds, having been trained to observe quickly, accurately and without comment. Before he could speak Samantha said: ‘Good morning—I’m glad you’ve come; you know the patient, I take it? We don’t know anything about her and we haven’t been able to talk to her at all—she must feel terrible about it, poor soul. You’ve come at a very awkward time, but at least you’re here now. If you would come into the office now and let me have her particulars, you could go and see her for a few minutes afterwards—the ward’s closed, but just for once…Are you her son?’

His straight black brows rose an inch. ‘My dear good girl, how you do chat—were you learning all that off by heart while I waited?’ He had followed her to the office door and held it open for her to go inside. ‘No, I’m not her son, just a very old friend.’ His voice was deep and faintly amused and Samantha, still smarting from his first remark, sat down at the desk and waved him to a chair, explained with commendable brevity the nature of the patient’s injuries and asked:

‘Could you tell me if she lives at the address where she was found? 26, Minterne Square, SW8.’

The chair, not built for comfortable sitting in by heavy-weights, creaked alarmingly as he crossed his very long legs. ‘Yes, temporarily.’

Samantha wrote. ‘Has she an occupation?’

‘Er—housekeeper.’

She eyed him without favour. ‘Could you help a little more, do you think? I’m very busy. Her name and has she relations or any friends to whom we can apply? And does she live alone and how old is she?’

He smiled lazily. ‘She is sixty-nine, I think. How old are you?’

‘That’s my business,’ she snapped tartly, ‘and will you please…’

‘Ah, yes. Her name is Klara Boot,’ he stopped to spell it. ‘She is a Dutchwoman, here for a short period to act as housekeeper at the house where she was found. She arrived only yesterday evening, and through an unfortunate chance I was delayed from meeting her. She speaks no English.’

Samantha looked up from her form, pen poised. ‘Oh, I see, she lets rooms or something of that sort?’

He smiled faintly. ‘Something of that sort,’ he agreed. ‘She has no relations to the best of my knowledge, so if there is anything needed for her, perhaps I could be told.’ He stood up. ‘And now if I might see her for a few minutes.’

Samantha felt inclined to take umbrage at his tone, but perhaps he had been up all night like she had and wasn’t feeling very amiable. She got up and led the way to the ward, saying at the door: ‘You’ll come again? Day Sister will want to see you—have you a telephone number?’

He grinned. ‘Now we are making strides—we might even arrange a date.’

She lost her breath and caught it again with an angry snort. ‘Well, really—’ she began, and then, at a loss for words, walked ahead of him down the ward, past the highly interested patients, to where the old lady lay. As she pulled the cubicle curtains back he put two hands on her waist, lifted her effortlessly on one side and strode past her to bend over the bed and greet the patient in the gentlest of voices in some language she couldn’t make head or tail of. Samantha watched the elderly face light up, break into a smile and then dissolve into tears, but when she stepped forward, the man stopped her by saying:

‘Thank you, dear girl, don’t let me stop you from finishing your work.’

She contented herself with a cold: ‘Ten minutes, if you please, and not a minute more,’ before she stalked away. A rude and arrogant man, she fumed, even though his voice had held unmistakable authority. Too late she remembered that she had no idea who he was. He had mentioned being an old friend—possibly a lodger of some years’ standing with the old lady. Perhaps she had moved house and he with her—in that case surely there would have been other lodgers? She started on the medicine round, still cross because he had called her ‘dear girl’ with an off-hand patronage which she found quite insulting. On an impulse she went to the desk and telephoned the Surgical Night Sister; let him try and patronize that formidable lady if he could—it was unfortunate that she wasn’t to be found, and as it turned out it would have been pointless, for when Samantha, after exactly ten minutes, went to remind the visitor that he should go, he was nowhere to be found; he must have gone, very silently indeed, while her back was turned.

She explained it all to Sister Grieves when that lady came on duty at eight o’clock, and then sped away to the dining room for her breakfast, a meal which didn’t take very long to eat, for it was the end of the month and she hadn’t much money left. Tea and toast and butter—but as her companions at table were eating the same rather dull fare it didn’t seem so bad. Besides, she lived out, in a flat shared with three other nurses, all at the moment on day duty, and they had become astonishingly clever at stretching the housekeeping money; there would be a nourishing stew that evening when Samantha got up, and before she went to bed she would make coffee, and there were plenty of biscuits. She thought longingly of her nights off, still three days away, when she could, since it was pay day, go home to her grandparents and eat all she wanted.

‘You’re quiet, Sam,’ observed Pat Donovan from Men’s Medical. ‘Did you have a grotty night?’

Samantha spread the last slice of toast. ‘Not too bad…’ Before she could enlarge on this statement Dorothy Sellars from the Accident Room chipped in: ‘Did you find out anything about that dear old duck we sent up with the burned hands?’

Samantha nodded and said with a mouth full of toast: ‘She had a visitor at six o’clock—a man. She’s Dutch, some sort of housekeeper—comes from one of those uppercrust squares in Knightsbridge.’

‘Was the man upper-crust too?’ asked Pat flippantly.

Samantha considered. ‘Yes, he was rude too. He said he was an old friend—I daresay he lodges with her or something of the sort, he was a bit vague.’ She pushed back her chair. ‘I’m off, see you all tonight.’

The flat she shared was a bare five minutes’ walk from Clement’s; the top floor of what must have been at one time a large family house, complete with subterranean kitchens and several roomy attics. It was let out in furnished flats now, and besides Samantha and her friends, who lived under the roof, there were seven other occupants, not counting old Mr Cockburn who owned the place and lived in the transformed basement kitchens, with their windows giving a sideways view of everyone who went in or came out. He was a nice old man, born and bred in the district and with a soft spot for the four young nurses living in his attics, a soft spot partly engendered by his theory that if he treated them right, if and when he needed to go to hospital—which the Lord forbid—they would treat him right too. A form of insurance, as it were.

Samantha waved to him as she climbed the steps. She was tired and it was a cold, grey morning. She had no fancy for a brisk walk, nor for the lengthy bus ride which would take her from this plebeian area of the city to its more fashionable shopping streets. She yawned widely as she toiled up the last of the stairs and unlocked their flat door.

It was unexpectedly pleasant inside—small and shabbily furnished, it was true, but they had three bedrooms between them as well as a sitting room, a minute kitchen and a bathroom with what Mr Cockburn optimistically and erroneously called ‘constant ‘ot’.

She went along to the small room she had to herself because she was on night duty and flung off her coat and gloves. The other three were on duty until five o’clock that afternoon, which meant she would be able to sleep undisturbed all day if she wished. She donned the communal apron hanging behind the kitchen door, switched on the radio and began to tidy the flat, whistling cheerfully in time with the music while she got out the carpet sweeper and found a duster. They were fair about sharing the chores of their little home; whoever was on night duty tidied up in the morning, washed the breakfast things and laid the table for supper, and whoever was off duty during the day prepared the evening meal and did the ironing. The shopping they shared.

Today the other three could share the chores between them. Samantha, having done her quota, undressed and wandered along to the bathroom, where she found, most satisfyingly, enough hot water to fill the bath almost full. She lay in it, almost asleep, wondering about the stranger who had visited the old lady that morning. A sudden memory of his large, firm hands on her waist as he had shifted her out of his path disturbed her so much that she got out of the bath long before the water had cooled and set about getting to bed in the shortest space of time. She was really very tired, she told herself, refusing to admit that she found her thoughts of the man disquieting. ‘Probably because I dislike him so much,’ she mumbled as she pulled the blankets over her head and allowed sleep to take over.

She was awakened by Sue Blane bearing a mug of tea and the news that supper would be ready in half an hour, and although her first involuntary thought was of the man who had come to the ward that morning, she swept it aside impatiently, gulped down her tea, dressed, pinned up her hair, added a modicum of make-up because it was a waste on night duty, anyway, and joined her fellow tenants round the supper table. Sue worked on Women’s Medical, the other two, Joan and Pam, slaved away their lives, as they informed everyone, in the Children’s Unit under a martinet of a Sister who had the manner and visage of an updated Miss Betsy Trotwood, only instead of disliking donkeys, she disliked young nurses. Samantha ate her stew and laughed at her friends’ latest backslidings, and forgot all about her early morning visitor.

And there was no time to think of anything else but work when she reached the ward—there were the operation cases to settle after she had taken the report from Sister, they needed comforting and reassurance and lifting gently into the right position in which to sleep, and calm brief explanations—already given several times during the day—as to why they weren’t quite themselves. It was amazing, Samantha thought, as she explained a drip to a peevish elderly lady who had taken exception to it, how dreamlike life appeared to the various ladies who had visited the operating theatre that day; a merciful state of affairs which she took care to prolong with the almost unnoticed jab in each patient’s arm as they were settled for the night, so that they relaxed and slept.

Juffrouw Klara Boot needed a good deal of attention too, although her hands were doing as well as could be expected. Samantha irrigated them, made her as comfortable as possible and while Brown gave the old lady a drink, went away to prepare an injection for her too, for her kind eyes had noticed the drawn look on her patient’s face, although it had lighted up with a cheerful smile when Samantha expressed admiration for the flowers on the bedtable and the pretty shawl round Juffrouw Boot’s shoulders.

It was a pity that neither could understand what the other was saying, a fact which didn’t stop Samantha chatting away as she worked, for surely the dear soul would feel less lonely if someone talked to her, even in a foreign tongue. She popped in her needle and shot the contents of the syringe expertly into Juffrouw Boot’s arm, patted her shoulder in a motherly fashion, and slid away to help Brown with old Mrs Stone, who was deaf, ninety and not surprisingly, crotchety to boot, and all the while she was helping her companion to settle Mrs Stone, she was remembering the way Sister Grieves had bridled with pleasure as she recounted how Juffrouw Boot’s visitor had been to see her—that he hadn’t been rude to her was very apparent from her smiles—on the contrary, if Sister’s expression was to be believed. Samantha, who had almost burst with curiosity, had managed not to ask any questions about him, and Sister, while full of his charm, told her nothing which she didn’t already know—and that was very little.

She had been to her own midnight meal and Brown had only been gone to hers for ten minutes or so when she sat down at Sister’s desk and pulled the Drugs Book towards her and began to make her neat entries, her ordinary little face absorbed. She was disturbed almost immediately, however, by the opening of the ward door to admit Sir Joshua White, accompanied by her early morning visitor of the day before. Both gentlemen were in the full glory of white tie and tails and Samantha, getting to her feet, eyed them uncertainly. They had been to some function or other, she had no doubt, but what wind of fortune had brought them to the ward at this time of night? and why was this man with the senior consultant surgeon of Clement’s? There was nothing amiss with Juffrouw Boot—the obvious common denominator with both men—for Jack Mitchell, the Registrar, had told her so when he had done his late evening round. And this wretched man was staring at her now with a look of amusement on his face which annoyed her out of all proportion to the circumstances.

Sir Joshua had reached her by now, nodded a cheerful greeting and said, his usually booming voice suitable muffled out of deference to the snores around them: ‘Juffrouw Boot—is she asleep, Staff Nurse?’

‘I hope so, sir.’ Samantha’s voice was polite, but her look dared him to wake the poor old thing.

He ignored the look. ‘We’ll be very quiet,’ he promised her, and when she looked enquiringly at his companion: ‘Ah, yes—this is Doctor ter Ossel. Our patient is his housekeeper.’

So that solved that little mystery. She gave the Dutch doctor a cold glance, said ‘How do you do?’ just as though they hadn’t already met, and led the way up the ward to the patient’s bed. Its occupant was asleep. At a sign from Sir Joshua, Samantha shone her torch on the envelopes enshrouding the burnt hands and the two men bent to examine them, and because she hadn’t got the torch’s beam exactly where he wanted it, Doctor ter Ossel put out a large hand to correct it. There was really no need for him to keep his firm grip over her own hand and it disturbed her very much that she should find such pleasure at his touch.

Presently they all went back down the ward once more, to Sister’s desk, where Sir Joshua silently put out a hand for Juffrouw Boot’s chart. Samantha waited patiently while the two men muttered and murmured together, until at last the older man wrote his fresh instructions and handed them back to her. They didn’t stay after that; Sir Joshua wished her a civil good night and Doctor ter Ossel offered her a mocking one. She watched their disappearing backs—the Dutchman’s so very broad—as they crossed the landing to the stairs, and decided that she disliked him very much.

The night was busy; Samantha escaped to breakfast thankfully, gobbled it in company with such of her friends as shared her table and set off for the flat. One more night’s duty and she would be free for four days, the delightful thought quickened her steps and made her hazel eyes shine—even a note left by her flatmates asking her to do the shopping before she went to bed couldn’t sour her pleasure.

She skipped round the flat, tidying up before rather perfunctorily doing something to her washed-out face. It was raining, a faint drizzle—she could wear her raincoat with its hood up and not bother with her hair. She brushed it out rather carelessly, tied it back and bundled it away anyhow, then caught up the shopping basket, raided the housekeeping kitty on the mantelpiece, snatched up the shopping list thoughtfully made out for her and dashed down the three flights of stairs and through the house door, waving automatically to Mr Cockburn, whose face she could see, peering sideways through his window.

There wasn’t much shopping to do, as a matter of fact; bread, a cauliflower to make a cauliflower cheese for their suppers, four tubs of yoghourt to follow it, some tea and butter and more biscuits because they were quite cheap and filled one up, and a tin of milk in case an unexpected visitor should call for coffee. Having purchased these mundane articles she paused for a long moment outside a flower shop and looked longingly at the daffodils and tulips in its window; several bunches would make the flat look quite beautiful. She opened her purse and counted the money inside and then closed it quickly, but she still went on looking. She was standing there when Doctor ter Ossel spoke.

‘Good morning, Miss Fielding, do you intend to buy some flowers?’

She had whizzed round with the speed of a top. ‘No,’ she told him breathlessly, ‘no. They—they die so quickly, it wouldn’t be worth it.’

‘Worth what?’ he asked in such a gentle voice that she forgot for the moment that she didn’t like him and was intent only on hiding from him the fact that she couldn’t afford them.

‘I like to see them growing,’ she said after a pause.

‘Let me take your basket.’ And he had it before she could think of a good reason why he shouldn’t. Too late she said, ‘Oh, no—it doesn’t matter—I mean, I’m only going back to the flat, it’s no distance…’

‘In that case, I’ll give you a lift,’ he told her.

She looked round her. There were several cars pulled into the curb of the slightly shabby little shopping centre. Samantha looked at them each in turn and then at him. ‘It’s very kind of you, but I’d rather walk.’

She was sorry she had said that, for he said instantly: ‘Ah, the brush-off,’ and his voice wasn’t gentle any more and he was smiling with faint mockery. ‘Just the same, I should like a few minutes with you—about Klara.’

The mockery wasn’t faint now, it was very real; she went red under the gleam in his grey eyes and said stiffly: ‘Very well,’ and found herself walking beside him. When he stopped by a dark blue Rolls-Royce Merlin she did her best not to look surprised, but her ingenuous face wore such an eloquent look of enquiry that her companion said carelessly: ‘I travel a good deal,’ and as though he considered that sufficient, opened the door and bade her get in and make herself comfortable.

Samantha allowed her tired young bones to relax against the soft leather of the seat. How could one help but be comfortable? If it had been anyone else beside her but Doctor ter Ossel, she would have said so; as it was she gave him directions in a polite and wooden voice, and as he pulled away from the curb asked: ‘What was it you want to know about Juffrouw Boot?’

She saw the thick eyebrows lift. ‘My dear young woman, am I to be expected to tell you at this very moment? I think that I should be allowed a few minutes’ quiet in which to do that, don’t you? Your flat, perhaps?’

She cast him a suspicious glance. ‘How did you know that I live out?’

He looked vague. ‘Ah—do you know, I really cannot remember. Is this the street?’

‘Yes.’ There was no point in saying more; Morecombe Street was such that the less said about it the better; it was respectable, but it had seen more prosperous days. The doctor drew up outside the house and got out without haste and opened Samantha’s door, collected her basket and then trod, without being asked, up the steps to the shabby front door. He even had the temerity to lift a hand in greeting to old Mr Cockburn, watching them with great interest from his window.

With key poised at her own front door, Samantha hesitated. ‘Oh, yes,’ he told her blandly before she could frame the polite request that he should say what he wanted to and be gone, ‘I’ll come in now I’m here.’

She led the way through the minute hall and into the sitting room, where he put the basket down and looked around him with leisurely interest.

‘We like living out of the hospital,’ she stated defensively, just as though he had made some derogatory remark about his surroundings. And instantly wished she hadn’t spoken, because the eyebrows flew up once more although he said nothing, just stood there, dwarfing his surroundings and looking at her.

The rules of hospitality were too strong for her. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ she asked him, and added dampeningly: ‘It’s Nescafé.’

He smiled at her and her heart flipped against her ribs because it was the smile he had given the old lady when he had visited her; kind and reassuring. ‘That will be nice, but don’t you go to bed?’

‘Yes, but I always have coffee first.’ She waved a small, sensible hand at the only real armchair the room contained. ‘Do sit down.’

They were half way through their coffee when he said abruptly: ‘I have to return to Holland for a day or so very shortly. I should be grateful if you would buy fruit and so on for Klara—and anything else she might fancy. I’ll see that she has a list of likely things on her locker with appropriate translations; she can point out what she wants.’

He smiled again with a charm which caused her to smile back at him.

‘She likes you, you know, she says you have a beautiful face.’

Her smile faded although she didn’t look away from him. ‘That’s not true,’ she told him, and was deeply mortified when he agreed: ‘No, I know it’s not, but I know exactly what Klara means.’ He got up. ‘I’ll not keep you out of your bed any longer, and thanks for the coffee.’ He stuffed a hand into his pocket and drew out some notes and put them on the table. ‘I hope this will be enough.’

Samantha eyed the money. ‘It’s far too much,’ she told him roundly. ‘Half of that…’

He smiled. ‘Spend what you need,’ was all he said. ‘I’ll see myself out. Sleep well.’

For a large man he moved with a good deal of speed. She heard the front door close while she was still framing a suitable goodbye sentence.

Although she was so tired, she didn’t sleep very well, being disturbed by dreams which she dismissed as absurd. It was, she told herself as she rose long before her usual time to make herself a cup of tea, because Doctor ter Ossel had been the last person she had seen before she went to bed that she had dreamed so persistently of him. She wandered into the sitting room, trying to shake the memory of him out of her still sleepy head, and found a bowl crowded with daffodils and tulips on the table and a note from Sue, who had been off duty during the afternoon.

It read simply. ‘These came for you. Who’s the boyfriend?’




CHAPTER TWO


THE NINE-THIRTY TRAIN from Waterloo to Weymouth was half empty. Samantha found a carriage in the front of the train and sank into a corner seat with a sigh of relief. It had been a rush to get to the station, but it was well worth it, she told herself. There were four days ahead of her and she intended to enjoy every minute of them. The last night of her duty had been busy and she had spent some of her precious free time shopping for Juffrouw Boot, who, just as the doctor had promised, had a list on her locker. It had been merely a question of pointing to which items she wanted in her own incomprehensible language while Samantha read them in the English written neatly beside them. She had taken upon herself to buy a few extra things too—more flowers, sweets, a bottle of perfumed eau-de-cologne, even a Dutch newspaper which she had discovered one morning and taken on duty that night. She and Brown had rigged up the table so that Juffrouw Boot could see to read it; it meant taking her glasses on and off, of course, and turning the pages for her, but it had been well worth the trouble to see the pleasure on her face.

Samantha leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She had been paid; that meant that she had some money to give her grandmother, an undertaking of some delicacy because that lady had a good deal of old-fashioned pride, but once that was done, she might even, once she had paid her share of the flat’s rent and the housekeeping and put some money aside to pay for her meals in the hospital, have sufficient over to buy one of those short jackets from Fenwick’s—a brown one, she mused sleepily. She could wear it with her brown slacks and the tweed skirt she was so heartily sick of. She was trying to work out if there would be enough over to buy a thin sweater when she fell asleep. She slept until the train stopped at Southampton and woke to the suspicious stare of the woman seated opposite her; the woman didn’t approve of her, that was evident; perhaps she felt that a girl should be wide awake at that hour of the morning after a sound night’s rest. Samantha closed her eyes again, but this time she didn’t sleep; Doctor ter Ossel’s arrogant features superimposed themselves upon her eyelids and refused to go away. A bad-tempered man, she had no doubt, and far too outspoken; she was thankful that she had kept meticulous account of the money she had spent on his behalf, and left the change, together with a stiff little note, in Juffrouw Boot’s locker. He hadn’t said how long he was going to be away; almost certainly he would be gone again by the time she returned to duty. She felt a vague, unreasonable regret about this as she drifted off to sleep again.

The train filled itself at Bournemouth; she forced herself to wake up and look out of the window at the familiar scenery, so that she was quite alert by the time the train stopped, finally, at Weymouth.

Her grandfather was waiting for her, sitting in the driver’s seat of the elderly Morris. He was an old man now and driving, because of his arthritis, was becoming increasingly difficult, but he always insisted on meeting her when she went home. She swung into the seat beside him, cast her case on to the back seat and embraced him with affection. He and her grandmother had looked after her since she had lost her parents at the age of twelve. They had given her a loving home, educated her well, although it had meant digging deep into their capital, and never grudged her a thing. Not that Samantha had ever asked for much; she had realized soon enough that there wasn’t much money and what there was was being spent on her. That was why, now that she was earning her own living, she insisted on helping them each month; they didn’t like it, but she suspected that they had very little besides their pension, although they were far too proud to tell her that.

‘Lovely to see you, Grandpa,’ she told the spare old gentleman as he drove through the town and out on to the Portisham road, and she went on to entertain him with some of the lighter aspects of hospital life until they reached the turning to Langton Herring, a narrow lane which meandered through fields and pleasant little copses before it arrived at the village; a mere cluster of houses about the church and almost at the end of the lane which wandered, its surface getting rougher at every yard, uphill and then down again until it ended at Chesil Beach and the coastguards’ cottages.

Mr Fielding drove round the church, past the big open gate leading to the Manor, and stopped neatly before a small grey stone house with a very small garden before it. Its door stood open. Samantha flung out of the car and ran into its narrow passage, straight into the arms of her grandmother. Mrs Fielding was a little shorter than her granddaughter and a good deal plumper; they shared the same ordinary face and the same pretty twinkling eyes, but whereas her grandmother’s hair was short and white and curly, Samantha’s long brown hair was skewered rather severely above her slender neck.

They hugged each other, both talking at once, until Mr Fielding came in with her case and they all moved into the sitting room, where Samantha was regaled with several cups of strong tea and the cream of the local gossip was skimmed off until her grandmother looked at the clock and declared that it was high time that they had their dinner, and went off to the kitchen to dish up.

They all helped with the washing up in the small, pleasant kitchen and then, with her grandparents ensconced by the sitting room fire for their afternoon nap, Samantha went upstairs to her room. It was a small apartment, its window built out over the porch so that if she had a mind to, she could see anyone coming up the lane. But she didn’t look out now. She unpacked the few things she had brought with her and put them tidily away and did her hair again, this time in a ponytail, and sat on the narrow bed, looking around her at the rather elderly furniture, the rosebud wallpaper and the little shelf of her favourite books by the bed. It was nice to be home again. She heaved a sigh of content and went quietly downstairs, laid her gifts of tobacco and chocolates on the kitchen table, took down an old tweed coat hanging behind the door, and went out. She walked past the church, stopped to say a word or two to the vicar when she met him, and then went briskly down the lane towards the sea, meeting no one else on the way. It was a dull afternoon and the water, when she reached it, looked dark and cold and the mean little wind blowing in over Chesil Beach made everything look very uninviting. Samantha turned and walked back, her hands in the pockets of her deplorable coat, frowning to herself, because for no reason at all, she was thinking about Doctor ter Ossel again.

It was the next morning, over breakfast, that Mrs Fielding mentioned casually that they had all been bidden to dinner that evening at the Manor.

‘But, Granny,’ said Samantha, astonished, ‘we only go at Christmas and New Year and once or twice in the summer.’

Her grandmother looked vaguely puzzled. ‘Yes, dear, I know, but I met Mrs Humphries-Potter a few days ago and she told me that she was on the way to visit us in order to invite us all for tonight. She was most particular about it—I can’t imagine why, excepting she said that she hadn’t seen you for a long time.’

‘Christmas! I’ve nothing to wear!’

‘Oh, I’m sure you have, darling—it’s not a party, just us, I believe. That was a pretty dress you had on yesterday.’

Samantha eyed her grandmother with tolerant affection. A Marks & Spencer jersey dress, and she had had it for more than a year. But she could dress it up a bit, she supposed, there was that lovely belt someone had given her for Christmas and she had a decent pair of shoes somewhere. ‘OK,’ she agreed cheerfully, ‘I’ll wear that.’

They got out the car to go to the Manor, for although it was a very short drive, her grandfather wasn’t much of a walker these days. This time Samantha drove, first packing the elderly pair into the back of the car and then, at her grandmother’s agitated request, went back into the house to make sure that Stubbs, the cat, was safely indoors. They had had Stubbs for a long time now, he was part of the family, his every whim pandered to, and much thought given to his comfort. Samantha got into the driving seat at last, assured her companions that Stubbs was cosily asleep, and drove off up the lane, round the corner, through the open gate and up the winding drive, to park the car on one side of the sweep before the house.

The Squire, an elderly man, become rather stout with advancing years, came to meet them as Mrs Mabb, who did for the Humphries-Potters, opened the door. He was followed by his wife, a commanding lady of majestic aspect and possessing one of the kindest hearts in the district. She pecked Mrs Fielding’s cheek in greeting and then did the same for Samantha, commenting as she did so that the dear child looked far too pale. The Squire kissed her too, rather more robustly, and slapped her in avuncular fashion as well, for they had known her since she was a small girl. Carried along on a burst of cheerful conversation, they crossed the hall and arranged themselves in a circle round the fire to drink their sherries and gin and tonics. Samantha was listening to Mrs Humphries-Potter’s plans for the church bazaar, when that lady’s rigidly coiffed head bent to a listening angle. ‘There is the car,’ she pronounced, and even as Samantha framed the question: ‘Whose car?’ Mrs Mabb threw open the door with something of a flourish and Doctor ter Ossel walked in.

Under Samantha’s startled gaze he greeted his host and hostess, was introduced to Mr and Mrs Fielding, and finally, to herself. The look he gave her was bland as they shook hands, faintly amused and tinged with an innocent surprise which she suspected wasn’t innocent at all.

‘We have already met,’ he informed Mrs Humphries-Potter suavely, ‘at Clement’s, you know.’

His hostess smiled graciously. ‘Of course—dear Sir Joshua.’ She tapped the doctor playfully on his well tailored sleeve. ‘If it hadn’t been for him we should never have made your acquaintance or had the pleasure of your company here.’

‘A mutual pleasure, Mrs Humphries-Potter.’ His eyes rested briefly on Samantha, standing between them and wishing she wasn’t. ‘And what a strange coincidence that—er—Samantha should be here too.’

Samantha felt Mrs Humphries-Potter’s hand on her shoulder. ‘The dear child,’ she said with real affection. ‘We have known her for a good many years, for the Fieldings are neighbours of ours…’ She broke off as the Squire came over with a drink for the newcomer and Samantha, with a wordless murmur, slipped away to join her grandmother. Presently the three gentlemen struck up a conversation, and Samantha, sitting between the two older ladies, listening with half an ear to their gentle criticisms of the latest books, the newest fashions and the terrible price of everything, had ample opportunity of studying Doctor ter Ossel. Apart from the fact that she disliked him, he was rather nice; a handsome man, tall and commanding and very sure of himself, and, she decided in a rather muddled fashion, very likeable, if one happened to like him—which she didn’t, she apostrophized herself sharply, and just as well as it turned out, for she was quite sure that he didn’t like her all that much, either.

But as the evening wore on she was bound to admit that he was allowing none of his true feelings towards her to show; indeed he was friendly in a cool kind of way, although he made no effort to single her out. He spent a good deal of time talking to Mrs Fielding, whose cosy chuckles and tinkling laugh bore tribute to the pleasure she was having in his company. Her granddaughter, listening to the Squire boring on about winter grazing and the price of animal foodstuffs, wished, quite unfairly, that her grandmother wasn’t enjoying herself quite so much; it was ridiculous of her, old enough to know better, to succumb to the man’s charm so easily.

‘You’re frowning, Sam,’ the Squire interrupted himself to say. ‘Perhaps you don’t agree with me about this question of silage.’

Samantha’s wits were quick enough behind her placid face. ‘The Common Market countries—’ she began, apropos of nothing at all and hoping that it might mean something to her companion.

It did. ‘Clever girl,’ he praised her, ‘you’re thinking of the price of beef…’ He launched himself happily into a further explanation which only necessitated her saying: ‘You don’t say,’ or ‘Yes, I see,’ or ‘Well, I never,’ at intervals. She had turned her shoulder to her grandmother and the doctor, but she could still hear her grandmother’s delighted chuckles.

They left soon after ten o’clock, and Samantha, who was driving again, was deeply mortified when she clashed the gears and put the Morris into reverse by mistake, in full view of the Squire and the doctor, who had come out to see them off. It was dark except for the powerful lights from the house; she had no doubt that if she could have seen Doctor ter Ossel clearly he would have been both amused and mocking.

That her grandparents had enjoyed themselves was evident from their conversation during the short drive home, and over their bedtime cocoa Mrs Fielding remarked: ‘I liked that Doctor what’s-his-name—Giles. Such a nice young man, don’t you think, Sam?’

Samantha was filling hot water bottles at the sink. ‘I don’t know, Granny,’ her voice was prim. ‘I suppose he’s all right.’

Her grandmother spooned the sugar from the bottom of her cup and gave her a bright glance which she then turned upon her husband, ending it with a wink. He lowered a wrinkled eyelid himself and rumbled obligingly:

‘Yes, yes—a very good sort of chap, I thought. Humphries-Potter tells me that he’s considered very promising as a physician, too—does quite a bit of consulting work, I gather, and comes over here from time to time. Quite young, too.’

A bait to which Samantha rose. ‘How young?’ she wanted to know.

‘Thirty-five,’ declared her grandfather in an offhand manner. ‘He has a practice in Haarlem, I’m told. Got his M. D. Cantab. too, as well as a fistful of Dutch degrees. Clever fellow.’

Samantha, washing cups and saucers, was thinking up a few careless questions to follow this interesting information, but her grandfather was a little too quick for her. He stood up and walked to the door.

‘Well, I shall turn in,’ he observed, and after kissing her, stumped upstairs, leaving her with her curiosity sufficiently aroused to prevent her from falling asleep for quite a long time.

She was up early, all the same, taking up tea to the old people, attending to Stubbs’ wants, pottering round the little house, tidying up and getting breakfast, so that it was after that meal was finished and the remainder of the chores done that she was up in her room again, doing something to her face. The beds were made, the coffee hot on the side of the stove; there was little left to do. Samantha sat before the old-fashioned dressing table, not seeing her own reflection but Doctor ter Ossel’s strong features. She closed her eyes upon it, brushed her hair into a shining brown curtain and tied it back with a ribbon. She was pulling at its loops when there was a knock on the front door and she poked her head out of the window to see who it was before going downstairs.

There were two people; Mrs Humphries-Potter and Doctor ter Ossel, and as that lady was already looking up at the window Samantha had opened, it was impossible to withdraw her head and pretend she wasn’t there.

She called down politely: ‘Good morning, I’m just coming,’ and heard her grandfather going to open the door as she spoke.

In the kitchen she added two more cups and saucers to the coffee tray and carried it in the sitting room, where Doctor ter Ossel politely took it from her while Mrs Humphries-Potter exclaimed: ‘Giles is so anxious to see the Beach, and I’m such a bad walker, as you know, so I hit on this perfectly splendid idea of Samantha acting as guide in my place. She knows this district so well and can answer any questions Giles might ask.’

She turned her head, crowned with a mud-coloured Henry Heath hat, and smiled at Samantha, who didn’t smile back. ‘I’ve a great deal to do,’ she started to say. ‘There’s lunch to get ready and I was going to make some cakes…’

Her grandmother wasn’t on her side, though. ‘Nonsense, Sam,’ she said quickly, ‘you’ve done everything, I saw you with my own eyes, and the cakes can be made after lunch. You run along and enjoy yourself, dear.’

‘I could always go alone,’ interposed the doctor in a voice which somehow conveyed bravely concealed resignation at the prospect. ‘I daresay there are plenty of books I can read to discover what I should want to know.’ He turned his eyes upon Samantha and they were dancing with mirth. ‘I shouldn’t like to impose…’

She all but ground her teeth at him. ‘I’ll go and put a coat on,’ she told him ungraciously, and fled upstairs, to fling on the old tweed coat, bundle her hair under its hood, snatch up some woolly mitts, and run downstairs again, her face a little pink with temper and some other feeling she refused to acknowledge.

It wasn’t much of a morning; they walked briskly down the lane which led seawards under a sky covered with high grey cloud, while a fitful wind blew in their faces. The doctor, hatless and wearing a Burberry which emphasized the width of his shoulders as well as being gloved expensively in pigskin, didn’t appear to notice the weather, however. He carried on a cheerful conversation about nothing in particular, to which Samantha contributed but little, answering with a determined politeness and a faint coolness of manner, for she had no intention of succumbing to his charm. She had no doubt, she told herself crossly, that if there had been another girl boasting the good looks she didn’t have, he wouldn’t have come near her that morning.

They had walked right down to the coastguards’ houses facing Chesil Beach itself, and she began to explain with meticulous thoroughness, as though she were a guide making something clear to a foreigner, that the Beach was seventeen miles long, that the stones at one end were much larger than those at the other, that if he chose to search, he might find Wolf’s rock from Cornwall, Devon granite, quartz rock and banded rhyolite, that if he were interested there was no reason why he should not take one of the larger pieces home with him—people used them for paperweights. ‘The Beach changes from day to day,’ she went on, a little prosily. ‘The tides…’

‘Why do you dislike me?’ He cut her off in full spate and left her openmouthed. ‘Or rather, why will you not let yourself like me?’

She remembered to close her mouth while she sought for words. ‘I—’ she began, and then burst out with: ‘What difference could it possibly make?’ Her hazel eyes were bright with sudden rage. ‘I don’t know anything about you; I shan’t ever see you again…’

He smiled faintly. ‘But you don’t enjoy my company? Come, let us be honest.’

She said wildly: ‘But I’ve not been in your company—I don’t…’

‘Know me? Don’t repeat yourself, Samantha. Perhaps given the opportunity, you might get to know me better.’ He sounded so very sure of himself that she said instantly, not meaning a word of it: ‘I have no wish to know you better—no wish at all. We’d better go back or you’ll be late for your lunch.’

He appeared not in the least put out by this display of rudeness; they climbed the rough road again and began the walk back to the village, the doctor whiling away their journey with a discourse on igneous rock, lapilli, tuff and schist, and as she had never heard of any of these, she was forced to remain silent. At her grandparents’ gate they came to a halt and she said awkwardly: ‘Well, goodbye, Doctor ter Ossel.’

His cheerful goodbye in reply was vexing in the extreme; still more vexing was his remark: ‘I’m going back to London tomorrow morning—such a pity I am unable to give you a lift—you don’t return for another day, do you, but in any case, there is no point in mentioning it, is there, for I am sure that you would not have come with me, would you?’ He went on blandly: ‘One should never waste one’s leisure in the company of someone one doesn’t like.’

He had gone, walking unhurriedly up the lane, leaving her a prey to a variety of feelings, all muddled and none of them nice.

She spent the rest of the day indoors with the excuse that her grandmother’s cushion-covers in the sitting room needed to be washed and ironed and it was just the day in which to do them. Her grandparents forbore from pointing out that a light drizzle was now falling and enquired discreetly as to her walk with the doctor. Samantha replied calmly that it had been nice, cold on the beach, though, and that Doctor ter Ossel was interested in a variety of stones, and before either of her listeners could ask, volunteered the information that he was returning to London the following morning.

She was upstairs making the beds when he called the next morning; she had peered out to see who it was at the door and had almost fallen over in her haste to get her head back inside again in case he should look up. Which he didn’t, Samantha stood behind the curtain to see. She took a long time over the beds, telling herself that she didn’t want to see him again, and was inordinately peeved when he left without anyone so much as calling up the stairs to tell her he was there, and when she went down after a suitable interval, Mrs Fielding mentioned placidly that she hadn’t bothered her because he had only come in for a moment to say goodbye and had told them that he had already bidden her farewell after their walk the day before. ‘Just fancy,’ breathed her grandmother to no one in particular, ‘he’s going back to Holland tonight, although he’s going to see his poor housekeeper in Clement’s first.’

And that, said Samantha silently, is that, adding for good measure: and a good thing too. It was probably the relief of knowing that she wouldn’t meet him again which gave her such a curious sensation of emptiness; rather as though she had lost something.

But she hadn’t lost anything; when she got back on duty two nights later, he was there on the ward, chatting up Sister Grieves, so that lady, usually so severe, was all smiles and pinkened cheeks. Samantha gave him an austere good evening and waited neatly by the desk, very clean and starched in her uniform, not a brown hair out of place, her eyes on Sister’s animated face. They flew to Doctor ter Ossel’s handsome countenance, though, when he said: ‘Well, Samantha, I hope you left your grandparents well?’

She bristled; calling her Samantha in front of Sister, indeed! ‘Perfectly well, thank you,’ she assured him indignantly, and he gave the smallest of smiles as he turned back to Sister Grieves.

‘Well, I won’t keep you from your work, Sister. Good night, and many thanks, you have been more than kind.’ He smiled at her. He turned to Samantha then and allowed the smile to become mocking. ‘And good night to you Staff Nurse.’

It was Sister Grieves who answered him as he went away. Samantha had no words to say at all.

‘I had no idea that you were on friendly terms with Doctor ter Ossel,’ Sister Grieves remarked almost accusingly. It was the sort of question it was hard to answer without being down-right rude; Samantha murmured something about his visits to Juffrouw Boot and didn’t explain about her grandparents at all, so that Sister Grieves positively sizzled with curiosity as she gave the report.

The ward was full; Samantha nipped round, greeting the patients she knew and getting to know the new inmates of beds which had stood so briefly empty. It had not, thank heaven, been operating day, and although there were several ill patients there was nothing really dire. Night Sister did her round and Samantha gave out pills, medicines and where necessary, injections. By eleven o’clock the ward was quiet, more or less. Brown went to the kitchen to make coffee and Samantha went noiselessly to the desk and sat down to con the Kardex once more; she was a good nurse and careful; besides, when Brown came back with their drinks they would go over it together once more, so that the junior nurse, who was expected to plunge straight into work when she came on duty, knew as much as possible about the patients.

She was half way through the Kardex, conning Juffrouw Boot’s notes, and paused to think about that lady; a nice old thing, she decided—she had become quite fond of her—with a good deal of courage and very grateful for anything which was done for her. She had learned a few words of English too; she could say yes and no and pain and bedpan, and it was remarkable what interesting conversations the nurses had with her when there was the time. She had taught Samantha a few Dutch words too while her hands were being treated during the night and had chuckled at her efforts. Samantha was glad to know that her hands were healing nicely. She flipped over the card and heard the door behind her open.

‘Thank heaven,’ she whispered. ‘I thought you were never coming.’

‘Now that is quite the nicest thing you have said to me.’ Doctor ter Ossel’s whisper was in her ear; he had bent down over her chair and she turned sharply to find his grey eyes within an inch or so of her own. A little short of breath, she managed: ‘Grandmother told me that you had gone to Holland.’

‘Quite right. Now I’m back—to see someone.’

Samantha got up with as much dignity as space permitted, for he hadn’t moved an inch. ‘If you’ve come to see Juffrouw Boot, it’s rather late, she’ll be asleep.’

‘I saw Klara this evening.’

‘Then who?’

‘Ah—the someone. I’ve seen her. I popped in while passing merely.’

‘Oh.’ Considering how much she disliked him, the feelings engendered by this remark made no sense. Samantha stared up at him, wishing she knew who the someone was—there were pretty girls galore in the hospital, and several young and attractive doctors besides. She was wondering how she could find out when Brown came creeping in through the door with two mugs of coffee. She stopped when she saw the doctor, spilled some of the coffee down her apron and whispered: ‘Oh—do you want some coffee too?’

He took the mugs from her and set them down on the desk, his smile earning him an answering one from her round young face. ‘No, thanks, my dear, I’m just going. Keep an eye on this staff nurse of yours, will you? I don’t believe she’s ever heard that one about all work and no play…’ He nodded briskly to the pair of them and slid his bulk soundlessly through the door.

Brown let out a noisy breath. ‘Well, whatever did he mean, Staff?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Samantha tartly.

‘He’s foreign, remember; I daresay he’s got his metaphors mixed.’ She wasn’t sure if that was the right expression, she had a sneaking doubt that it hadn’t been a metaphor at all, but it sounded most convincing and Brown, who was a good girl but not very bright, didn’t appear to question it. They drank their coffee and conned the report and in the welter of questions and answers, forgot all about their visitor—or almost. As they got to their feet to do a ward round, Brown whispered: ‘He’s nice, isn’t he, Staff—so romantic—he turns me on.’

Samantha picked up her torch, suddenly and surprisingly aware that to speak truth, he turned her on too, although she had no intention of admitting it. ‘He’s quite nice,’ she agreed quenchingly, and was conscious of her companion’s pitying glance; probably the girl considered her an old maid at twenty-four; she was, in all fairness, right.



It was during the following week that the ancillary staff of the hospital decided to go on strike, not all of them willingly. But as Betsy, the elderly ward maid, pointed out to Samantha when she came on duty to find the supper dishes still unwashed: ‘It’s not that I likes the idea, Staff—it’s the money, they says it ain’t enough.’ She jerked a grubby thumb over her shoulder. ‘Them poor cows in the ward, I’ates ter leave them.’

Samantha knew what she meant, even though her description of the ladies lying in the ward beds was hardly one she would have used herself, but old Betsy’s heart was in the right place even if her mode of speech was a thought rough; she had been told not to work, but that didn’t prevent her from stating her opinion of the situation. ‘I’m not supposed to be ’ere, neither,’ she confided. ‘I just popped up to see ’ow yer was managing.’ She made for the door. ‘Well, ta-ta, ducks, be seeing yer.’

It wasn’t too bad for the first couple of days; the nursing staff shared the extra work; the day nurses staying on later and going on duty earlier and the night staff doing the same, apportioning the washing up, the sweeping and dusting between them. It was when Sir Joshua White, doing his round a little early on the third morning and finding Samantha in the kitchen long after she should have been off duty, washing the endless cups and saucers while Sister Grieves vacuumed the ward floor, spoke his mind.

‘You are two hours late off duty,’ he pointed out to Samantha, quite unnecessarily. ‘It is impossible for you to carry out your nursing duties and be a maid of all work at the same time—the patients are liable to suffer.’

‘No, they aren’t,’ said Samantha, careless of her manners because she was half asleep and wanted her breakfast.

He studied her tired face through his gold-rimmed spectacles. ‘No—I shouldn’t have said that, I apologize, but you’re going to be worn out, young lady. I shall have to think of something.’

He stalked away and she could hear him in the ward, surrounded by scurrying nurses trying to get the ward straight, addressing Sister in outraged tones, raising his voice a little because she still had the Hoover on.

That evening, when Samantha went on early so as to give a hand with the supper dishes, she went straight to the kitchen as usual, for Sister Grieves would be writing the report, and although the ward wasn’t taking any fresh cases because there was no linen for the theatre, there was more than enough to do. She flung open the door to find Doctor ter Ossel at the sink while Sir Joshua, wielding a tea towel with the same assurance as he did his scalpel, dried up. Both gentlemen were in their shirtsleeves and both were smoking their pipes, so that the atmosphere, already damp and redolent of burnt toast, baked beans and the peculiar odour of washing up done on the grand scale, was enriched by volumes of smoke from one of the more expensive tobaccos.

‘I told you that I would think of something,’ Sir Joshua greeted her. ‘Did you get any breakfast?’

‘Well—I have a meal when I get to the flat. I sleep out, sir.’

He eyed her narrowly, made a rumbling noise in his throat and applied himself to the spoons and forks. It was Doctor ter Ossel who put his pipe down on the shelf above the sink and turned to ask: ‘What sort of meal?’

Samantha was stacking the trolley ready for the evening drinks. ‘Oh, tea and toast and marmalade, of course.’

He picked up his pipe again. ‘Not enough—you’ll lose weight.’ He grinned at her and she felt her cheeks go red; her slight plumpness was something she was sensitive about—perhaps he thought of her as fat.

‘And what about our little Nurse Brown?’ he wanted to know. ‘Does she live out too?’

Samantha shook her head. ‘She’s only eighteen.’ She sounded almost motherly. ‘She lives quite close by, so she goes home for breakfast and supper.’

She went to the shelves and picked up the Ovaltine, the Bengers, the Nescafé and the Horlicks and arranged them in an orderly row on the trolley. ‘Shall I take over now?’ she asked.

‘Certainly not,’ said Sir Joshua. ‘As a married man, I have acquired the knack of wiping dishes of an evening, and as for Giles here, being still a bachelor, it’s a splendid opportunity for him to learn a few of the more practical arts of marriage.’

He flung his damp tea towel into a corner of the kitchen and took the clean one Samantha thoughtfully handed him. ‘We shall be here in the morning, Staff. I’ve arranged everything with Sister Grieves.’

She murmured her appreciation and went into the ward to give the hard-pressed day staff a hand, and presently, when Brown arrived, joined Sister at the desk.

It should have been a fairly easy night; no operation cases and six empty beds, but there were the tea towels to wash out and boil and the kitchen to clean up, because the day staff would have more than enough to do in the morning. She hadn’t quite believed Sir Joshua when he had said that they would be there in the morning, but when she went into the kitchen to help Brown with the early teas, the two men were already there; the trolleys were ready, the kettles boiling, the tea in the pot and Doctor ter Ossel buttering bread with a casual speed which earned Samantha’s instant admiration. She and Brown were able to go back to the ward and make beds for the first time in several days; they were even ready to go off duty on time and what was more, had done a sizeable amount of work for the day nurses. Samantha sent Brown on ahead and stopped to poke her head round the kitchen door. The men had gone, the day staff were already stacking the breakfast things which Sir Joshua’s registrar had promised to wash presently. She yawned and pattered downstairs to the cloakroom, found her coat, tied a scarf over her untidy head without bothering to look in a mirror and left the hospital. She was tired, and what was more, very hungry. She would buy some bacon on the way to the flat and have a really good meal before washing out her uniform dress and ironing one for that evening—there were aprons too. She yawned again and almost choked on it; Doctor ter Ossel was standing on the pavement waiting for her.

‘Breakfast,’ he said crisply, and popped her into the Rolls at the curb, got in beside her and was driving away before she had the breath to say: ‘You’re mad—I mean, I’m going back to the flat, but I must buy some bacon…’

‘You’re too tired to cook,’ he observed, ‘and I like my bacon just so. We’ll have breakfast somewhere and then you can go home to bed.’

‘I can’t—go out, I mean. Look at me, I’m still in my uniform under this coat and I haven’t done my face or my hair, and I’ve a pile of washing to do.’

‘Breakfast first,’ he reiterated in the reasonable voice of a grown-up making a point with a refractory child. ‘We’ll discuss the washing later.’ He turned to look at her. ‘You look all right to me.’

He had turned into Kingsway and presently Aldwych and stopped now outside the impressive front of the Waldorf. It took Samantha a few seconds to grasp the fact that this was actually where he intended they should eat their breakfast. ‘I can’t go in there,’ she expostulated strongly. ‘You must be quite mad!’

He shook his head. ‘Hungry, and so, I imagine, are you. They know we’re coming and of course you can go inside.’ He smiled suddenly and very kindly. ‘You may dislike me, Samantha, but even so you can trust me, I hope. I promise you you need not feel uncomfortable.’

He got out and walked round the car and opened the door for her, tucked a hand under her elbow and walked her into the hotel.

And he was quite right, she discovered. She was whisked away to the powder room where, with the help of the sympathetic attendant, she improved her appearance considerably and, heartened by the result, joined the doctor in the foyer. They breakfasted alone in a small coffee room, waited upon by a fatherly personage, who pressed a substantial meal upon them without appearing to do so, and contrary to her expectations, Samantha wasn’t aware of her appearance at all. Indeed, Doctor ter Ossel somehow managed to convey the impression—without saying a word—that she looked rather nice. She ate her way happily through porridge, bacon and eggs and toast and marmalade, while the doctor, keeping pace with her, contrived to entertain her with small talk which required the minimum of answers.





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