The Doubtful Marriage
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.“I shall not insult your intelligence by saying that I love you!” When Rauwerd van Kempler proposed to Tilly, he made it clear their marriage would be a convenient arrangement, one which brought him a wife who would run his home and partner him on social occasions.And Tilly would have the security of a roof over her head and a man who could be depended upon not to make passionate love to her. But suddenly Tilly wasn’t so sure that was all she wanted from him…
He smiled down at her and then bent and kissed her cheek.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, my dear. Supposing we drive right around the island? We can take our swimming things and stop somewhere quiet for lunch.”
They danced again after dinner. Such a pity, grieved Matilda silently, that when they got back to Leiden she would spend her evenings endlessly alone or entertaining his friends—Nicky… She shuddered at the very thought.
His arm tightened around her. “You’re cold? You feel all right?”
She assured him that she had never felt better, speaking into the crisp whiteness of his shirtfront, afraid to meet his eyes.
It was remarkable, she reflected as she got ready for bed, how well she had taken herself in hand. No one would ever guess that she was besotted over her husband, least of all her husband. She derived a wry satisfaction from the thoughts and then burst into tears.
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.
The Doubtful Marriage
Betty Neels
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER ONE
THE waiting-room was full and smelled of wet raincoats and old Mr Stokes’s eucalyptus cough lozenges; he had chronic bronchitis and treated himself with a variety of cures from the chemist until he finally gave in and went to the doctor. He sat glowering at the people around him, his eyes on the green light over the surgery door; he was next in.
But when the light changed it flickered on and off, a signal for the girl sitting behind the desk in the corner to go into the surgery. She got up without haste to obey the summons, aware that Uncle Thomas wanted her to see to Mrs Spinks’s varicose ulcer. She smiled at him as she went in; smiled, too, at his patient and urged that lady to the curtained-off cubicle behind his desk. Mrs Spinks eased her stout person on to the chair and extended her leg on to the stool provided for her.
‘Busy this morning,’ she commented. ‘We keep you on the go, don’t we, love?’
The girl was bending over her leg, dealing with it with kind, gentle hands. She was a very pretty young woman, with chestnut hair piled on top of her head, large brown eyes, a straight nose and a generous mouth. She was wearing a white overall with a blue belt buckled in silver and when she stood up it was apparent that she was tall and splendidly shaped.
She said in a pleasant voice, ‘Oh, I think the doctor and I wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. When are you to come back, Mrs Spinks?’
She helped her to her feet and ushered her out through the door behind them, tidied the cubicle and went back into the surgery where her uncle was dealing with Mr Stokes. There was nothing for her there; Mr Stokes was barely half-way through his testy list of grievances while her uncle listened patiently, as he always did.
In the waiting-room a dozen pair of eyes watched her as she crossed to the desk again. The doctor’s niece had been living in the village since she was a little girl; they all knew her well. A nice young lady she had grown into, they considered, and one of them as it were, despite her years at the London hospital where she had gone for her training. High time she was married; she and the squire’s only son had been courting for the last year or two, and even though he was away from home a good deal that was time enough for them to get to know each other. At least, that was what the ladies of the village said. They held old-fashioned views about such matters—a year or so to get acquainted, another year’s engagement and then a proper wedding in church with the banns called and bridesmaids. Anything less wasn’t seemly.
Matilda smiled impartially upon them all, sifted through the patients’ cards and counted heads. If Mr Stokes didn’t finish his grumbling pretty smartly, morning surgery was going to be very behindhand, and that meant that her uncle’s morning round would be even later, which would lead inevitably to gobbled sandwiches and a cup of coffee before afternoon surgery. That did him no good at all; he worked too hard and long hours, and just lately she had begun to worry about him. He wasn’t a young man and was all she had in the world; he had been father and mother to her since the day she had gone to live with him after her parents had been killed in a car accident.
Mr Stokes came out, still muttering, and she ushered the next patient in.
Finally the waiting-room was empty and she poked her head round the surgery door. ‘Coffee in the sitting-room, Uncle. I’ll clear up while you’re on your round.’
He was sitting at his desk not doing anything, a tired, elderly man, short and stout and almost bald, with a cheerful, chubby face and bright blue eyes.
‘A busy morning, Tilly.’ He got up slowly. ‘Another couple of months and it will be spring and we’ll have nothing to do.’
‘That’ll be the day! But it will ease off soon— January and February are always busy, aren’t they?’ She urged him gently to the door. ‘Let’s have that coffee before it gets cold. Would you like me to drive? I can clear up in ten minutes.’
‘Certainly not—almost all the visits are in the village anyway. You’ve got the list? There may be a call from Mrs Jenkins—the baby is due.’
They sat down on either side of the log fire and Tilly poured the coffee. The room was comfortable, albeit shabby, but the silver on the old-fashioned sideboard shone and the furniture was well polished. As she put down the coffee-pot, an elderly grey-haired woman came in.
‘I’m off to the butchers,’ she observed. ‘A couple of lamb chops, Miss Matilda, and a nice steak and kidney pudding for tomorrow?’
‘Sounds splendid, Emma. I’ll give you a hand as soon as I’ve tidied the surgery.’ As Emma trotted off, she added, ‘I don’t know how we’d manage without Emma, Uncle. I can’t imagine life without her.’ Which wasn’t surprising, for Emma had been housekeeping for her uncle when she had gone to live with him.
She filled his coffee cup again and sat back, her feet tucked under her, planning what she would do in the garden once the weather had warmed up a little.
‘How would it be…’ she began, to be interrupted by her uncle.
‘I forgot to tell you, I’ve had a letter from someone who was at St Judd’s when I was there—oh, it must be ten years ago. He was my houseman for a time—a splendid fellow and very clever. We’ve kept up a casual friendship since then but we haven’t met—he’s a Dutchman and has a practice in Holland, I believe, though he comes over to England fairly frequently. He’s in London now and wanted to know if he might call and see me. I phoned him last night and asked him for the weekend.’
It was her uncle’s free weekend and Matilda had cherished one or two ideas as to what they would do with it. Now they were to be burdened by some elderly foreigner who would expect a continental breakfast and want coffee instead of tea. Matilda, who in all her twenty-six years had never set foot outside Great Britain, tended to think of Europeans as all being cast in the same mould.
She said hastily, ‘That’ll be nice for you, Uncle. I’ll get a room ready. When do you expect him?’
‘Tomorrow, after lunch. Friday’s clinic shouldn’t be too full—there’s not much booked so far, is there?—and I’ll be free after that. You can entertain him if I get tied up.’ He added a shade anxiously, ‘He’s a nice chap.’
‘I’ll make some scones,’ said Matilda. The steak and kidney pudding would never do; on the other hand she could slip down to the butchers and get more steak… Calabrese and carrots, mused Matilda silently, and creamed potatoes; there was enough rhubarb forced under the old bucket at the end of the garden to make a pie. They could have beef on Saturday instead of Sunday; perhaps he would go on Sunday morning. ‘Does he know this part of the country, Uncle?’
‘I don’t believe so. It’ll make a nice change from London.’
She was left on her own presently to get one of the bedrooms in the roomy old house ready for the guest and go to the kitchen and tell Emma.
‘Dutch?’ questioned Emma, and sniffed. ‘A foreign gentleman; probably have faddy ways with him.’
‘Well, he oughtn’t to be too bad,’ mused Tilly, ‘if he comes over to London fairly often, and Uncle said he does. I’ll go and pull some leeks, shall I?’ She pulled on an old jacket hanging behind the kitchen door. ‘I’ll get a few apples in at the same time—we might have an apple crumble…’
When she got back she saw to the waiting-room and the surgery, made sure that the room was ready for her uncle’s guest and went down to the kitchen to help with lunch.
It was after morning surgery on the following day that the phone rang. It was Mr Jenkins, sounding agitated.
‘It’s the missus, started the baby and getting a bit worked up.’
It was Mrs Jenkins’s fourth; Uncle Thomas wouldn’t be back for half an hour at least and the Jenkins’s farm was outside the village. Moreover, it seemed to Tilly that Mr Jenkins sounded as worked up as his wife.
‘The doctor’s out,’ she said soothingly. ‘I’ll jump on my bike and come and have a look, shall I? I’ll leave a message for Uncle; he shouldn’t be long.’ She heard Mr Jenkins’s heavy sigh of relief as she hung up.
She warned Emma to let her uncle know as soon as he came in, fetched her midwifery bag, put on the elderly coat once more and cycled through the village to the farm.
A far cry from the clinically clean delivery rooms of the hospital, she thought, going into the cluttered warm kitchen. Mr Jenkins was hovering over a boiling kettle on the stove, under the impression that, since this was the common practice on the films in similar circumstances, it was the correct thing to do.
‘Hello,’ said Tilly cheerfully. ‘Upstairs in bed, is she?’
He nodded. ‘Carrying on, too. Good thing the kids have gone over to Granny’s.’
‘I’ll go up, shall I?’ Tilly went up the wooden staircase at the end of the passage and knocked on the half-open door at the top. Mrs Jenkins was sitting on the bed, looking apprehensive.
She looked more cheerful when she saw Tilly, who put her bag down and sat down beside her, put a comforting arm round her and asked pertinent questions in a calm voice.
Presently she said, ‘Well, I don’t suppose it’ll be long—shall I have a look? And how about getting into bed?’
The bouncing baby boy bawling his head off with satisfying vigour arrived with commendable speed. The doctor, arriving some ten minutes later, pronounced him to be in splendid health, declared his satisfaction as to Mrs Jenkins’s well-being, observed that he might leave Tilly to make her patient comfortable, and left again to see the last of his patients.
It was almost one o’clock by the time Tilly had seen to Mrs Jenkins, bathed the baby, shared a pot of tea with the proud parents and got back on her bike. Mrs Jenkins’s sister would be arriving very shortly and she would be in good hands.
‘See you this evening,’ called Tilly, and shot off down the lane.
She was a bit dishevelled by the time she reached home; there was a fierce wind blowing, and a fine, cold rain falling, and she had had to cycle into it. She propped the bike against the wall outside the kitchen door and hurried into the house, kicking off her shoes as she went and unbuttoning her coat. There was no one in the kitchen; she went through to the hall and opened her uncle’s study door, still struggling with the coat. Her uncle was standing by his desk, and sitting in the big leather chair by the fire was a man. He got to his feet as she went in, an extremely tall man, broad-shouldered and heavily built. Somewhere in the thirties, she guessed fleetingly, and handsome, with lint fair hair and heavy-lidded blue eyes. Surely not their visitor?
But he was.
‘Ah, Matilda, there you are.’ Her uncle beamed at her, oblivious of her untidy person. ‘Here is our guest, as you see, Rauwerd van Kempler.’
She said, ‘How do you do,’ in her quiet voice and had her hand engulfed in his large firm grasp. He greeted her pleasantly and she thought peevishly that he might have come at a more convenient time.
The peevishness sparked into temper at his bland, ‘I’m afraid I have arrived at an awkward time.’ His glance took in her shoeless feet and her damp face and her hair all over the place.
‘Not at all,’ said Tilly coolly. ‘I got tied up with the Jenkins’s baby.’ She looked at her uncle. ‘I hope you haven’t been waiting for me to have lunch?’
‘Well, dear, we had a good deal to talk about, you know, over a drink.’ Her uncle studied her carefully. ‘I expect you’d like to tidy yourself—I’ll pour you a glass of sherry while you’re doing it.’
Tilly, aware that the Dutchman was studying her as carefully as Uncle Thomas, took herself out of the room.
Very deliberately she did her hair and her face and changed into a skirt and sweater. On the way to the study she went to the kitchen to see if Emma needed any help. She didn’t, so Tilly joined the two men, accepted the sherry and made polite conversation about the weather. Her uncle looked at her once or twice, puzzled by her aloofness; she was puzzled by it herself.
Dr van Kempler had an easy way which made conversation simple, and he had good manners; it was obvious that he and her uncle had a lot in common and plenty to talk about, but he was careful to keep the talk general and when Uncle Thomas began to reminisce, headed him off with unobtrusive ease.
The two of them went off to the study when they had had their coffee, leaving her to clear the table and help Emma with the washing up. She agreed that their visitor seemed a nice enough man. Nice wasn’t the right word, she mused silently; a milk-and-water word which had no bearing upon his good looks and vast proportions. She would like to get to know him better, a wish instantly suppressed as disloyal to Leslie, who would be home for the weekend and expect her up at the Manor, ready for one of their lengthy walks in which he delighted whenever he was home. He was a rising young barrister, working hard in London, and they didn’t see much of each other. They had known each other for years now and she couldn’t remember when the idea of marrying him first entered her head. She supposed it was his mother who had planted it there—a rather intimidating matron who saw in Tilly a girl who could be moulded into the kind of wife she wanted to have for her son. Not quite the same background, she pointed out to her husband, but Dr Groves had a good solid country practice and a delightful house, set in grounds of an acre or two, most conveniently running alongside one of the boundaries of the Manor grounds. Nothing could be more suitable. She was proud of Leslie’s work as a barrister; at the same time she was terrified that he would meet some quite unsuitable girl in London and marry her out of hand. Tilly, known to her since childhood, was eminently preferable.
Tilly had more or less accepted the situation. She liked Leslie, was fond of him without loving him; if she regretted giving up her hospital career in order to help her uncle she had never said so. She owed him a lot and he hadn’t been well for some time; she was able to take some of his work on to her own shoulders and, although she didn’t think about it very often, she supposed that she would continue to do so until he retired and she married Leslie. She was a fortunate girl, she knew that, but at the same time there was the disturbing thought, buried deep, that something was missing from her life: romance; and being a normal pretty girl, she wanted that. It was something she wouldn’t get from Leslie; he would be a good husband and once they had settled down she would forget the romantic world she dreamed of. She was old enough to know better, she chided herself briskly, and, indeed, she wasn’t quite sure what she wished for.
She went down to the village presently; supper would need to be augmented by a few extras. It was still raining and very windy as she went round the side of the house to the front drive. The doctor’s car was standing there: a Rolls-Royce in a discreet dark blue, and she stopped to admire it. Undoubtedly a successful man, their guest.
The doctor, watching her admire his car from the study window, admired her.
Mrs Binns, in the village shop, already knew as much about Dr Groves’s guest as Tilly. The village was very small but there were scattered farms all around it and, although many of the villagers went into nearby Haddenham to shop, Mrs Binns was still the acknowledged source of local gossip.
‘So ’e’s ’ere, Miss Matilda, and an ’andsome gent from what I hear.’ She sliced bacon briskly. ‘Nice bit of company for the doctor. Speaks English, does ’e?’
‘Very well, Mrs Binns. I’d better have some cheese…’
‘Mr Leslie coming this weekend?’
‘Yes. I hope it will stop raining.’
People were more interesting than the weather from Mrs Binns’s point of view. ‘He’ll be glad to get ’ome, I’ll be bound. Named the day yet, ’ave you, Miss Matilda?’
‘Well, no.’ Matilda sought for something harmless to say which Mrs Binns wouldn’t be able to construe into something quite different. ‘We’re both so busy,’ she said finally.
Which was true enough, but, when all was said and done, no reason for not getting engaged.
She started back up the lane and met Dr van Kempler. He said cheerfully, ‘Hello, I’ve come to carry your basket. Is there a longer way back or do you mind the rain?’
‘Not a bit. We can go down Penny Lane and round Rush Bottom. It’ll be muddy…’ She glanced down at her companion’s highly polished shoes.
‘They’ll clean,’ he assured her laconically. ‘What do you do in your spare time, Matilda?’
‘Walk, garden, play tennis in the summer. Go to Thame or Oxford to shop.’
‘Never to London to go to a play or have an evening out?’ He glanced at her from under heavy lids. ‘Your uncle mentioned your…fiancé, is he?’
‘Not yet. He is a barrister and he’d rather spend his weekends here than in London.’ She got over the stile to Rush Bottom. It was her turn to ask questions. ‘Are you married, Dr van Kempler?’
‘No, though I hope to be within the next months. Life is easier for a doctor if he has a wife.’
She was tempted to ask him if that was his reason for marrying, but she didn’t know him well enough and, although she thought he was friendly, she sensed that he could be quite the reverse if he were annoyed. He didn’t want to talk about himself; he began to talk about her work as practice nurse with her uncle. That lasted until they got back to the house.
She was in his company only briefly after that; there was the evening visit to Mrs Jenkins before she phoned the district nurse in Haddenham who would take over for the weekend. When she got back, Emma, normally so unflappable, was fussing over the supper. ‘Such a nice young man,’ she enthused. ‘I must do me best.’
‘You always do, Emma,’ Tilly assured her, and then, ‘He’s not all that young, you know.’ She paused over the egg custard she was beating gently over the pan of hot water. ‘All of thirty-five—older than that…’
‘In ’is prime,’ declared Emma.
Her uncle had no surgery in the morning. After breakfast he and his guest disappeared into his study, leaving Tilly free to clear the table, make the beds and tidy the house, having done which she got into her newest tweed skirt and quilted jacket, tied a scarf over her dark locks and walked through the village to the Manor.
Leslie always drove himself down late on Friday evening, too late to see her; besides, as he had pointed out so reasonably, he needed a good night’s sleep after his busy week in town. He would be waiting for her and they would decide where they would walk, and afterwards he would go with her to her uncle’s house, spend five minutes talking to him and then go home to his lunch. It was a routine which never varied and she had accepted it, just as she had accepted Sunday’s habitual visit to morning church and then drinks at the Manor afterwards. Sometimes she wished for a day driving with Leslie, just the two of them, but he had pointed out that his mother had come to depend on his weekly visits, so she had said nothing more.
He was in the sitting-room, glancing through the papers, when she reached the Manor and for some reason his, ‘Hello, old girl,’ annoyed her very much. Normally she was an even-tempered girl and sensible; better a sincere greeting shorn of glamour than a romantic one meaning nothing.
She paid a dutiful visit to his mother and they had their walk, he talking about his week and she listening. He was still explaining a particularly interesting case when they reached her uncle’s house, to find him and the Dutch doctor sitting in the drawing-room, deep in discussion. They got to their feet as Tilly and Leslie went in and the doctor introduced Leslie to his guest and offered him a drink. It irked Tilly considerably that Leslie should refuse and, worse, give her a careless pat on the shoulder and a ‘’Bye, old girl,’ as he took his leave. With a heightened colour she gave the Dutchman a defiant look and met a bland face which gave nothing away; all the same she was sure that he was amused.
She wouldn’t be seeing Leslie until the next morning; he was taking his mother over to Henley to see old friends and would stay there to dine, something which she had to explain to her uncle at lunch.
‘Pity you couldn’t go, too. Better still, have a day out together…’
Tilly, serving the custard, said calmly, ‘I dare say we shall when the weather’s better.’
‘Well, if you’ve nothing else to do, you can go with Rauwerd to Oxford. He has a mind to renew his acquaintance with the colleges.’
Dr van Kempler came to her rescue very nicely. ‘I’d be delighted if you would,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mention it because I supposed that you would be spending the day with—er—Leslie, but I should enjoy it much more if I had a companion.’
‘Oh, well, then I’ll come.’ Tilly smiled at him. ‘Were you there?’
‘Yes, years ago. There was a splendid tea-room in the High Street…’
‘It’s still there.’
‘Then perhaps we might have tea there?’
The afternoon was a success. The rain didn’t bother the doctor. They walked down High Street to Magdalen Bridge and looked at the river, stopped to stare at Tom Tower, peered around Magdalen College, studied Radcliffe Camera, the Sheldonian Theatre and the Rotunda and then had their tea in a tea-room which the doctor swore hadn’t altered so much as by a teaspoon since he was there. They walked back presently to where he had parked the car and drove home. He was nicer than she had at first thought, mused Tilly, sitting back in the comfort of the Rolls, and it had been pleasant to spend an afternoon well away from the village. A pity that she and Leslie couldn’t take time to do that sometimes… She dismissed the thought as disloyal.
The doctor wasn’t going until after tea on Sunday; Tilly got up early, made a trifle for lunch so that Emma would be free to see to the main course, whisked together a sponge cake as light as air, helped to get breakfast and went to church, Uncle Thomas on one side, Dr van Kempler on the other. Their pew was on the opposite side of the aisle to the Manor pew; she caught Leslie’s eye and gave him a warm smile, and when the service was over joined him in the porch.
Mrs Waring, waiting with him, had to be introduced and said at once in her slightly overbearing manner, ‘You must come up for a drink. You, too, Thomas—you are so seldom free.’
There was a path through the churchyard which led to the Manor grounds, and Mrs Waring led the way with the two doctors, leaving Tilly and Leslie to follow.
For some reason which Tilly couldn’t quite understand she didn’t enjoy herself; everything was exactly as it always was on a Sunday morning, with Mrs Waring dominating the conversation while they sat around in the rather grand drawing-room sipping the rather dry sherry Tilly had never really enjoyed. Dr van Kempler had behaved with the ease and unselfconscious poise of someone to whom good manners are as natural as breathing, yet behind that bland face she was sure that he was laughing, not at them, she conceded, but at some private joke of his own.
The talk followed a well-worn routine: Mrs Waring’s opinion on world affairs, a severe criticism of the week’s work done or mismanaged by the government and a detailed résumé of the village life since the previous Sunday. When she paused for breath her husband muttered, ‘Quite so, my dear,’ and everyone murmured, for there was no chance to speak. It surprised Tilly when, having come to the end of her diatribe, Mrs Waring began to question Dr van Kempler. Was he married? Where did he live? Exactly what work did he do?
She had met her match. The Dutchman answered her politely and told her nothing at all. Tilly, who had her ears stretched to hear his replies, was disappointed. Mrs Waring tapped him playfully on an exquisitely tailored sleeve. ‘You naughty man,’ she declared, ‘you’re not telling us anything.’
‘I have nothing to tell,’ he assured her with grave courtesy, ‘and I much prefer to hear of your English village life.’
‘Well, yes, I flatter myself that I take an active part in it. What do you think of our two young people? I cannot wait for Matilda to become my daughter.’
‘You will indeed be most fortunate.’ His voice was as bland as his face.
Tilly blushed and looked at her shoes. It was a relief when Uncle Thomas declared that they must be off home otherwise Emma would have their lunch spoilt.
After lunch she saw little of the doctor. He spent the afternoon with her uncle and after tea got into his splendid car and drove away. His goodbyes had been brief but warm to her uncle and equally brief but considerably cooler towards herself.
She watched the car disappear down the lane with mixed feelings: regret that she couldn’t get to know him better, and relief that she never would. He wasn’t only the handsomest man that she had ever set eyes on; she was sure he was someone she instinctively trusted, even though she was still not sure if she liked him.
The house seemed empty once he had gone. She listened to her uncle contentedly reflecting on his weekend, but when she asked where the doctor lived and what exactly he did, he was vague.
‘You should have asked him,’ he pointed out. ‘I dare say we’ll be seeing more of him; he’s often in England these days and we still have a great deal to say to each other. He has become successful—modest about it, too.’ He chuckled. ‘Didn’t give much away to Mrs Waring, did he?’
For that matter, mused Tilly, getting ready for bed later that evening, he hadn’t given much away to her, either. He was as much a stranger as when she had encountered him. Yet not a stranger; it puzzled her that she felt as though she had known him for a lifetime.
‘What nonsense,’ said Tilly loudly and jumped into bed.
There was precious little time to think about him during the next few days. Mrs Jenkins and the infant Jenkins, both flourishing, still needed visiting, there were several bed-ridden patients who required attention once if not twice daily, and morning and evening surgeries were overflowing by reason of the particularly nasty virus ’flu which had reached the village. The days went fast and by the end of the week she and her uncle were tired out.
The weekend was a succession of anxious phone calls from people who had stubbornly gone on working through the week and then decided to call in the doctor on Friday evening, and morning surgery on Saturday was no better. There was no question of Sunday church; Tilly drove her uncle from one patient to the next through rain and sleet and hail and high winds. They had a brief respite until the early evening, when Tilly went to visit a couple of elderly patients in the village and her uncle was called out to a farm some miles away.
She was back before him, helping Emma with supper, ready with a hot drink for him when he got in.
He sat down in his chair by the fire and she thought how ill he looked.
‘Coffee with a spot of whisky in it. You look all in, Uncle.’
She sped away. When she got back she took one look at him motionless in his chair. She put the tray down on the table and felt for a pulse which was no longer there. He had always told her that he hoped to die in harness, and he had.
Everyone who could walk, and quite a few who couldn’t but had cajoled friends and family to push wheelchairs, came to the funeral. Tilly, stunned by the suddenness of it all, found that their concern for her uncle’s death almost shattered the calm she had forced upon herself. Everyone had been so kind and Leslie had come from London to attend the funeral. Mrs Waring had begged her to go and stay at the Manor house but this she refused to do; for one thing she couldn’t leave Emma on her own and for another, Mrs Waring, though full of good intentions, was overpowering.
‘Of course, you and Leslie can marry now,’ she pointed out with brisk kindness. ‘You can live in your uncle’s house and Leslie can commute each day; nothing could be more convenient.’ A remark which, well-meaning though it was, set Tilly’s teeth on edge.
She was aware of disappointment that there had been no letter or message from Dr van Kempler. There had been a notice in The Times and the Telegraph as well as a short item in the Lancet. Once or twice she caught herself wishing that she had him there; she needed someone to talk to and somehow, when Leslie came, it was impossible to talk to him. She wanted to talk about Uncle Thomas and she sensed that he was avoiding that.
He had spoken of their marriage, echoing his mother’s suggestions, and Tilly, who above all wanted to be loved and cherished and allowed to cry on his shoulder, felt lost. To his rather colourless suggestion that they should marry quietly within the next month or so she returned a vague answer. It was too soon to think of marrying; she had to get used to being without Uncle Thomas and she didn’t mind living alone in his house for the time being. She had said that defiantly to Leslie and his mother, sitting on each side of her giving her sound advice. When she said it she had no idea that she wasn’t going to have the chance to do that anyway.
Uncle Thomas’s sister came to the funeral and with her came her son and his wife. Tilly had only a fleeting acquaintance with her aunt and almost none with her cousin and his wife. They uttered all the very conventional phrases, behaved exactly as they should and were a little too effusive towards the Warings, and, when the last of the doctor’s friends and patients had gone, followed Tilly and the family solicitor into the doctor’s study.
Half an hour later they led the way out again. Her aunt had the smug look of someone who had found a ten pound note in an empty purse and her cousin Herbert had an air of self-righteous satisfaction which he made no effort to conceal now the funeral was over. He moved pompously across the hall and into the sitting-room where he sat down in his uncle’s chair.
Tilly eyed him with sternly held-back feelings. He wasn’t in the least like her dear Uncle Thomas: of only average height, with a waistline already going to seed despite his thirty or so years; portly was the word which crossed her mind, and overbearingly conceited. He smoothed his thinning dark hair back from his forehead and gave her a superior smile.
‘Well, well, that’s been a surprise to you, I dare say, Matilda.’ He glanced at his wife, Jane, a rather timid colourless young woman. ‘We shall have to make room for our cousin, won’t we, my dear? I would be the last person to disregard the wishes of Uncle Thomas.’
He looked around him complacently. ‘This is a comfortably sized house. There is no reason why you shouldn’t stay here, Matilda, even keep your room until you marry Leslie Waring.’ He added, ‘I could do with a cup of tea—such a very busy day…’
Tilly said tonelessly, ‘I’ll get it,’ and went out of the room to the kitchen where she found Emma crying over a plate of cakes. ‘Oh, Miss Tilly, whatever came over your uncle? The dear man couldn’t have thought…’
Tilly put the kettle on. ‘Well, yes, he did, and I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing. He hasn’t seen Herbert for years; he wasn’t to know what he’s like.’ She shuddered. ‘I’m to stay here until I marry and when I do, Emma, you’re coming with me.’
‘Of course I will, Miss Tilly. Me stay ’ere with that nasty man? You and Mr Waring find a nice ’ouse and I’ll look after it for you.’
She wiped her nice elderly face and put the cakes on the tea tray. ‘I dare say it won’t take too long.’
‘Well, no. I’d told Mrs Waring that I didn’t want to get married for a month or two, but now things are altered…’
Her aunt and Herbert and Jane were driving back to Cheltenham that evening. He had work to do, Herbert had told her pompously, but he would write and tell her their plans within the next few days. He owned a small factory on the outskirts of the town which he supposed he could run just as well from the house he had inherited as his own smaller, modern one in Cheltenham. ‘If that isn’t satisfactory I can sell this place—it should fetch a good price.’
Tilly didn’t say anything—what would be the good? Uncle Thomas had so obviously meant it to stay in the family and for Herbert to provide a home for her for as long as she would need one. She bade them a polite goodbye and went thankfully to help clear away the tea things and then phone Leslie.
To her disappointment he had already gone back to London. ‘He won’t be back until the weekend, my dear,’ his mother told her. ‘Why not give him a ring? I expect you want to tell him about the will—so very satisfactory that you can settle on a date for the wedding now.’
Tilly held her tongue; everyone would know sooner or later but she wanted Leslie to be the first. She would phone him in the morning; better still, she would drive up to town and see him.
She dressed carefully in the morning, taking pains with her face and hair and wearing a suit Leslie had said that he liked. It was still early when she left and she was at his rooms soon after ten o’clock. His clerk was reluctant to accept her wish to see Mr Waring without delay.
‘It’s most important,’ said Tilly and smiled at him with charm, so that he picked up the receiver to announce her.
Leslie looked different—she supposed it was his sober suit and manner to go with it—but he greeted her warmly enough. ‘Sit down, Tilly—I’ve fifteen minutes or so before I go to court. Have you decided to marry me after all? I thought you would once you heard your uncle’s will.’
There was no sense in beating about the bush. She said quickly, not mincing matters, ‘He left the house to my cousin Herbert, with the wish that I make it my home until I marry.’
The sudden frown on Leslie’s face frightened her a little. ‘You mean to say that your uncle has left you nothing?’
‘Five hundred pounds. He made the request that Herbert would pay me a fitting allowance…’
‘Can the will be overset? I’ll see your solicitor. Why, you’re penniless.’
Tilly stared at him. ‘That makes a difference to our plans?’ she asked, and knew without a doubt that it did.
CHAPTER TWO
LESLIE looked at his wristwatch. ‘I must go. This is something which we must discuss quietly. I’ll come home as usual tomorrow and we can talk everything over with my mother and father.’
‘I haven’t told them as I didn’t think there was any need to. After all, they have been urging us to get married now that Uncle is dead.’ Tilly’s voice was calm but inside she shook and trembled with uncertainty. She had expected Leslie to reassure her, tell her that she had no need to worry, that he would take care of her future. Now she wasn’t sure of that.
Leslie looked uncomfortable. ‘Look, old girl, we’ll sort things out tomorrow.’ He got up and came round his desk and kissed her cheek. ‘Not to worry.’
But of course she worried, all the way back home and for the rest of the day. The house seemed so empty, the surgery and the waiting-room empty, too, waiting until Monday when the medical centre in Haddenham were to send over one of their members to take morning surgery until such time as a new doctor came to the village or things were reorganised and a small surgery was set up and run by the Haddenham doctors. In any case, thought Tilly, she would never be needed any more. Not that that would matter if she married Leslie. For the first time she put her nebulous thoughts into words. ‘Leslie might not want to marry me now.’
She had a phone call from Mrs Waring the next morning; would she go over for dinner that evening? Leslie hoped to be home rather earlier than usual, and they had a lot to discuss. There was a letter from Herbert, too; he and Jane and her aunt would be coming down and would go over the house and make any changes needed at the beginning of the week. Jane and his mother would move in very shortly, he wrote, and he would commute until such time as the sale of his own house was dealt with. The letter ended with the observation that she was probably looking for a nursing post.
She put the letter tidily back into its envelope. It wasn’t something she could ignore; it was only too clear that that was what she was expected to do. Unless Leslie married her out of hand…
Something it was only too obvious he didn’t intend to do.
His, ‘Hello, old girl,’ was as friendly as it always had been and his parents greeted her just as they had always done for years, yet there was an air of uneasiness hanging over the dinner-table and a deliberate avoidance of personal topics. It was only when they were drinking their coffee in the drawing-room that the uneasiness became distinctly evident.
‘I hear,’ said Mrs Waring, at her most majestic, ‘that your uncle’s will was unexpected. Leslie tells me that there is no way of contesting it.’
Tilly glanced at Leslie. So he had spoken about it with his parents, had he? He didn’t look at her, which was just as well, for her gaze was fierce.
‘It has always been our dearest wish,’ went on Mrs Waring in a false voice, ‘that you and dear Leslie should marry—your uncle’s property matched with ours, the house was ideal for a young couple to set up home; besides, we have known you for so many years. You would have been most suitable.’ She sighed so deeply that her corsets creaked. ‘It grieves us very much that this cannot be. You must see for yourself, my dear, that our plans are no longer practical. We are not wealthy; Leslie needs to marry someone with money of her own, someone who can—er—share the expenses of married life while he makes a career for himself. Luckily there is no official engagement.’
Tilly put down her coffee cup, carefully, because her hands were shaking. ‘You have put it very clearly, Mrs Waring. Now I should like to hear what Leslie has to say. After all, it’s his life you are talking about, isn’t it?’ She paused. ‘And mine.’
She looked at Leslie, who gave her a weak smile and looked away. ‘Well, old girl, you can see for yourself… Where would we live? I can’t afford a decent place in town. Besides, I’d need money—you can’t get to the top of the ladder without it…meeting the right people and entertaining…’ He met Tilly’s eye and stopped.
‘I can see very well,’ said Tilly in an icy little voice, ‘and I am so thankful that the engagement isn’t official. If it were I would break it here and now. A pity I have no ring, for I would fling it in your face, Leslie.’
She got to her feet and whisked herself out of the room, snatched her coat from the hall and ran out of the house.
She couldn’t get home fast enough; she half ran, tears streaming down her cheeks, rage bubbling and boiling inside her. It was fortunate that it was a dark evening and there was no one around in the village to see her racing along like a virago.
Emma took one look at her face, fetched the sherry from the dining-room cupboard, stood over her while she drank it, and then listened patiently.
‘Well, love, I’d say you’re well rid of him. If a man can’t stand up against ’is ma, he’ll make a poor husband. As to what you’re going ter do, get a job, Miss Tilly. I’m all right ’ere—yer uncle saw ter that, bless ’is dear ’eart. But don’t you go staying ’ere with that cousin of yours—no good will come of it, mark my words.’
Tilly went to church on the Sunday morning, her chin well up, sang the hymns loudly and defiantly, wished the occupants of the Manor pew a chilling good morning and went home to compose a letter to the principal nursing officer of her training school. She hadn’t worked in a hospital for some years now, but she had been in the running for a sister’s post when she left; she could hardly expect that, but there might possibly be a staff nurse’s job going.
Two days later Herbert, Jane and her aunt arrived without warning. Herbert sat back in her uncle’s chair, looking smug. ‘It seemed a good idea if Mother and Jane should get used to the idea of living here. I’ll come at weekends, of course. The house in Cheltenham is up for sale with most of the furniture—I’ll get the stuff we shall want to have here sent down when I have time to arrange it. I’m a busy man.’
Tilly said tartly, ‘Too busy to let us know that you were coming? And even if you were, surely Jane could have telephoned?’
‘I deal with all the domestic arrangements.’ He smoothed his hair back and half closed his eyes. ‘Jane isn’t strong.’
Jane, thought Tilly, was as strong as the next girl, only her strength was being syphoned off her by her great bully of a husband.
Herbert waved a hand, presumably in dismissal. Tilly stayed right where she was sitting. ‘So who does the housekeeping?’ she asked sweetly.
‘Oh, Mother, I suppose, though you might carry on for a day or two until she’s found her way around.’
‘I might and then I might not,’ said Tilly. ‘You have been at great pains to remind me that this is no longer my home—I’m here on sufferance, aren’t I? You haven’t considered me at all; why should I consider you? I’m sure Aunt Nora will manage beautifully.’
She took herself off to the kitchen, shutting the door on Herbert’s outraged face. There was a lot of coming and going—Aunt Nora and Jane finding their way around, thought Tilly waspishly. She went to find Emma crying into the potatoes which she was peeling.
Over a cup of tea they faced the future. Tilly would have liked a good cry but she couldn’t; Emma had to be comforted and given some kind of hope.
‘Has the postman been? There may be a letter from the hospital—I wrote for a job. As soon as I’m settled Emma, I’ll find a flat and we’ll set up house. Just hang on here, Emma dear, and I promise everything will be all right. There’s the postman now.’
There was a letter. Tilly read it quickly and then a second time. There was no job for her; regretfully, there was the full quota of nurses and no way of adding to it, but had Tilly thought of applying for a job at one of the geriatric hospitals? They were frequently understaffed; there was no doubt that she would find a post at one of them.
It was a disappointment, but it was good advice, too. Tilly got the Nursing Times from her room and sat down there and then and applied to three of the most likely hospitals wanting nursing staff. Then, while Emma was seeing to lunch, she went down to the post office and posted them. She met Mrs Waring on the way back and wished her a polite good day and that lady made as if to stop and talk.
‘I’m in a great hurry,’ said Tilly brightly. ‘My cousin and his wife have arrived unexpectedly.’
‘Moving in already?’ asked Mrs Waring in a shocked voice. ‘Tilly, what are you going to do? Leslie’s so upset.’
Tilly went a little pale. ‘Is he? Goodbye, Mrs Waring.’
She smiled in Mrs Waring’s general direction and raced off home. If Leslie was upset, he knew what to do…
Only he didn’t do it. He neither telephoned her nor wrote, which made life with Jane and her aunt just that much harder to bear. So that when there was a letter from a north London hospital asking her if she would attend an interview with a view to a staff nurse’s post in a female geriatric ward, she replied promptly and two days later presented herself at the grim portals of a huge Victorian edifice, very ornate on the outside and distressingly bare within.
She followed the porter along a corridor painted in margarine-yellow and spinach-green, waited while he tapped at its end on a door and then went in. She hadn’t much liked the look of the place so far; now she felt the same way about the woman sitting behind the desk, a thin, acidulated face topping a bony body encased in stern navy blue.
‘Miss Groves?’ The voice was as thin as its owner.
‘Yes,’ said Tilly, determinedly cheerful. ‘How do you do?’
‘I am the Principal Nursing Officer.’ The lady had beady eyes and no make-up. ‘I see from your letter that you are seeking work as a staff nurse. A pity that you have not worked in a hospital for a while. However, your references are quite in order and we are willing to give you a trial. The ward to which you will be assigned has forty patients. I hope you don’t mind hard work.’
‘No. Would I be the only staff nurse?’
The beady eyes snapped at her. ‘There are part-time staff, Miss Groves. We take a quota of student nurses for a short period of geriatric nursing—they come from various general hospitals—and we also have nursing auxiliaries.’ She paused, but Tilly didn’t speak, so she went on, ‘You will do day duty, with the usual four hours off duty and two days free in the week. It may be necessary from time to time to rearrange your days off. You will be paid the salary laid down by the NHS, monthly in arrears, and your contract may be terminated at the end of the month by either of us. After that you will sign a contract for one year.’
‘I should like to see the ward,’ suggested Tilly, and smiled.
She got no smile in return, only a look of faint surprise.
‘Yes, well, that can be arranged.’
In answer to a phone call, a dumpy little woman in a checked uniform joined them. ‘Sister Down,’ said the Principal Nursing Officer, ‘my deputy.’ She turned the pages of some report or other on the desk and picked up her pen. ‘Be good enough to let me know at your earliest convenience if you are accepting the post, Miss Groves.’ She nodded a severe dismissal.
The hospital was left over from Victorian days and as far as Tilly could see no one had done much about it since then. She followed the dumpy sister along a number of depressing corridors, up a wide flight of stone stairs and into a long narrow ward. It was no good, decided Tilly, gazing at the long rows of beds down each side of it, each with its locker on one side and on the other side its occupant sitting in a chair. Like a recurring nightmare, she thought as they traversed the highly polished floor between the beds to the open door at the end. It led to the ward sister’s office, and that lady was sitting at her desk, filling in charts.
She greeted Tilly unsmilingly. ‘The new staff nurse? I could do with some help. How soon can you come?’
She looked worn to the bone, thought Tilly, not surprising when one considered the forty old ladies sitting like statues. There were two nursing auxiliaries making a bed at the far end of the ward and a ward orderly pushing a trolley of empty mugs towards another door. Tilly didn’t know what made her change her mind; perhaps an urge to change the dreary scene around her. Music, she mused, and the old ladies grouped together so that they could talk to each other, and a TV…
‘As soon as you want me,’ she said briskly.
She didn’t tell her aunt or Jane, but confided in Emma, who had mixed feelings about it.
‘Supposing you don’t like it?’ she wanted to know. ‘It sounds a nasty ol’ place ter me.’
‘Well, it’s not ideal,’ agreed Tilly, ‘but it’s a start, Emma, and I can’t stay here.’ Her lovely eyes took fire. ‘Aunt has changed all the furniture round in the drawing-room and she says an open fire is wasteful there, so there is a horrid little electric fire in there instead. And she says Herbert wants all the books out of Uncle’s study because he is going to use it as an office. So you see, Emma, the quicker I settle in to a job the better. I’ve a little money,’ she didn’t say how little, ‘and I’ll go flat hunting as soon as possible. It’s not the best part of London but there’ll be something.’
She spoke hopefully, because Emma looked glum. ‘You do realise that it will be in a street and probably no garden? You’ll miss the village, Emma.’
‘I’ll miss you more, Miss Tilly.’
Leslie came to see her on the following evening, and without thinking she invited him into the drawing-room. She had nothing to say to him, but good manners prevailed. She was brought up short by her aunt, sitting there with Jane.
She wished Leslie a stiff good evening and raised her eyebrows at Tilly.
‘Will you take Mr Waring somewhere else, Matilda? Jane and I were discussing a family matter.’ She smiled in a wintry fashion. ‘I’m sure it is hard for you to get used to the idea that you can’t have the run of the house any more, so we’ll say no more about it.’
Tilly clamped her teeth tight on the explosive retort she longed to utter, ushered Leslie out into the hall and said in a voice shaking with rage. ‘Come into the kitchen, Leslie. I can’t think why you’ve come, but since you’re here we can at least sit down there.’
‘That woman,’ began Leslie. ‘She’s… She was rude, to me as well as you.’
Not quite the happiest of remarks to make, but Tilly let it pass.
She sat down at the kitchen table and Emma gathered up a tray and went to set the table in the dining-room. No one spoke. Tilly had nothing to say and presumably Leslie didn’t know how to begin.
‘You can’t stay here,’ he said at length. ‘You’re going to be treated like an interloper—it’s your home.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Well, your uncle meant it to be; surely your cousin knows that?’
‘Herbert is under no legal obligation,’ Tilly observed.
Leslie stirred uncomfortably. ‘I feel…’ he began, and tried again. ‘If circumstances had been different… Tilly, I do regret that I am unable to marry you.’
She got up. ‘Well, don’t.’ She kept her voice cheerful. ‘I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth, Leslie. Besides, I’ve got a job in London; I shall be leaving in a few days.’
She watched the relief on his face. ‘Oh, that is good news. May I tell Mother? She will be so relieved.’
He went awkwardly to the door. ‘No hard feelings, Tilly?’
She opened the door and stood looking at him. ‘If you ask a silly question you’ll get a silly answer,’ she told him.
When he had gone she sat down again and had a good cry; she was a sensible girl, but just at that moment life had got on top of her.
Herbert arrived the next day, stalking pompously through the house, ordering this to be done and that to be done and very annoyed when neither Tilly nor Emma took any notice of his commands.
‘I expect co-operation,’ he told her loftily when he asked her to move a chair from one room to another.
‘If you wish any of the heavy furniture to be moved, then I suggest you do it yourself, Herbert. After all, you are a man, aren’t you?’ Tilly said it in a placid voice which stopped him doing more than gobble like a turkey cock. It was an opportunity to tell him that she would be leaving; she had had a letter from the hospital asking her to report for duty in two days’ time—a Monday. It didn’t give her much time to pack up but, if she didn’t manage it all, Emma could finish it for her and send the rest on.
When it came to actually leaving, it was a wrench. The nice old house had been her home for almost all of her life and she had been very happy there. Besides, there was Emma. She promised to write each week and to set about finding somewhere to live just as soon as possible.
The nurses’ home at the hospital was as gloomy as its surroundings. Tilly was shown to a room on the top floor with a view of chimney pots and one or two plane trees struggling to stay alive. At least they would provide some green later on to relieve the predominant red brick. The room was of a good size, furnished with a spartan bed, a built-in dressing-table and a wardrobe with a small handbasin in one corner. There was no colour scheme but the quilt on the bed was a much washed pale blue. There was a uniform laid out on it, blue and white checks, short-sleeved and skimpily cut. With it was a paper cap for her to make up. She stood looking at it, remembering the delicately goffered muslin trifle she had worn when she had qualified, and the neat blue cotton dress and starched apron.
She was to go to the office as soon as she had unpacked and changed into her uniform. The Principal Nursing Officer was there to bid her a severe good afternoon and speed her on her way to the ward. ‘Sister Evans is waiting for you, Staff Nurse.’
It was barely three o’clock but the monumental task of getting forty old ladies back into their beds had already begun. As far as she could see, Tilly could count only four nurses on the ward, and one of those was Sister, who, when she saw her, left the elderly lady she was dealing with and came to meet her.
She nodded in greeting and wasted no time. ‘I’m off duty at five o’clock, Staff Nurse. I’ll take you through the Kardex and show you where the medicines are kept. You do a round after supper at seven o’clock. Supper is at six o’clock; ten patients have to be fed. You’ll have Mrs Dougall on with you—she’s very reliable and knows where everything is kept. There’s a BP round directly after tea. The trolley’s due now, but you’ll get a few calls before the night staff come on at eight.’ Sister Evans smiled suddenly and Tilly saw that she was tired and doing her best to be friendly.
‘You’ll be able to manage? I’m having days off— I’ve not had any for two weeks. The student nurses aren’t due to come for another two weeks and one of the part-time nurses has left. There’ll be one in tomorrow after dinner, so that you can have the afternoon off.’ She was sitting at the desk, pulling the Kardex towards her. ‘I’m very sorry you’re being thrown in at the deep end.’
Tilly stifled a desire to turn and run. ‘That’s all right, Sister, I’ll manage. This Mrs Dougall, is she trained?’
‘No, but she’s been here for five years, longer than any of us, and she’s good with the old ladies.’ She nodded towards a chair. ‘We’ll go through the Kardex…’
The rest of the day and the two which followed it were like a nightmare. Mrs Dougall was a tower of strength, making beds, changing them, heaving old ladies in and out of their chairs, a mine of information. When she wasn’t on duty Tilly had to manage with the three other nursing auxiliaries, whose easy-going ways tried Tilly’s temper very much. They were kind enough, but they had been there long enough to regard the patients as puppets to be got up, fed and put back to bed. Which wasn’t the case at all. At least half of them could have been at home if there had been someone to look after them; the patient despair in their eyes almost broke Tilly’s soft heart. It was always the same tale—daughter or son or niece didn’t want them, because that would mean that they would have to stay at home to look after them. Tilly was of the opinion that a good number of the old ladies were perfectly capable of looking after themselves with a little assistance, but the enforced idleness and the hours of sitting in a chair staring at the patients opposite had dulled their energy and blunted their hopes. However strongly she felt about it, there wasn’t very much that she could do. She suspected that a new principal nursing officer might alter things; it was lack of staff and the adhering to the treatment used several decades earlier which were the stumbling blocks. The geriatric wards in her own training school had been light and airy, decorated in pastel shades, and the patients had been encouraged to take an interest in life.
Sister Evans looked ten years younger when she came back on duty.
‘You coped?’ she asked, and added, ‘I see that you did. We’ll be able to have days off each week now, thank heaven.’
At Tilly’s look of enquiry she said, ‘No staff, you see. They won’t stay because Miss Watts won’t allow us to change the treatment. She ought to retire—she’s not well—but she won’t. I’d have left months ago but my fiancé is in Canada and I’m going out to him as soon as he is settled.’ She looked at Tilly. ‘You’re not engaged or anything like that?’
‘No, Sister.’
‘Well you ought to be, you’re pretty enough. If you get the chance,’ went on Sister Evans, ‘don’t let a sense of duty stop you from leaving. As soon as Miss Watts retires all the things you need doing will be done.’ She opened the Kardex. ‘Now we’d better go through this…’
The week crawled its slow way to Sunday and on Monday Tilly had her days off. She wanted very much to go to her uncle’s house but that wouldn’t be possible; she wouldn’t be welcome. She had written to Emma in the week and mentioned that she would have two days off a week and explained why she wouldn’t be returning to her old home. To her delight Emma had written back; why didn’t Miss Tilly go to Emma’s sister who lived at Southend-on-Sea and did bed and breakfast? The fresh air would do her good.
Tilly had never been to Southend-on-Sea and certainly not in early March, but it would be somewhere to go and she longed to get away from the hospital and its sombre surroundings. She phoned Mrs Spencer, and found her way to Liverpool Street Station early on Monday morning. It was an hour’s journey and the scenery didn’t look very promising, but the air was cold and fresh as she left the station and asked the way to Southchurch Avenue. Mrs Spencer lived in one of the streets off it, not ten minutes from the Marine Parade.
The house was narrow and on three floors, in a row of similar houses, each with a bay window framing a table set for a meal and a sign offering ‘Bed and Breakfast’. In the summer it would be teeming with life, but now there was no one to be seen, only a milk float and a boy on a bicycle.
Tilly knocked on the front door and it was flung open by a slightly younger version of Emma.
‘Come in, my dear,’ invited Mrs Spencer, ‘and glad I am to see you. Emma wrote and I’m sure I’ll make you comfy whenever you like to come. Come and see yer room, love.’
It was at the top of the house, clean and neat, and, provided she stood on tiptoe, it gave her a view of the estuary.
‘Now, bed and breakfast, Emma said, but it’s no trouble to do yer an evening meal. There’s not much open at this time of the year and the ’otels is expensive. There’s a sitting-room and the telly downstairs and yer can come and go as yer please.’
The kind creature bustled round the room, twitching the bedspread to perfection, closing a window. ‘Me ’usband works at the ’ospital—’e’s a porter there.’ She retreated to the door. ‘I dare say you could do with a cuppa. I got a map downstairs so that you can see where to go for the shops, or there’s a good walk along the cliffs to Westcliff if you want a breath of fresh air.’
Half an hour later Tilly set out, warmed by her welcome and the tea and armed with detailed instructions as to the best way to get around the town. It was a grey morning but dry; she walked briskly into the wind with the estuary on one side of her and the well-laid-out gardens with the houses beyond on the other. By the time she reached Westcliff she was glowing and hungry. There were no cafés open along the cliff road so she turned away from the sea and found her way to Hamlet Court Road where she found a coffee bar and she had coffee and sandwiches. Then, since Mrs Spencer had warned her that it was nothing but main roads and shops when away from the cliffs, she walked back the way she had come, found a small café in the High Street and had a leisurely tea, bought herself a paperback and went back to Mrs Spencer’s.
Supper was at half-past six when Mr Spencer got back home; sausages and mash and winter greens and apple pie with cups of tea to follow. It was a pleasant meal with plenty to talk about, what with Mr Spencer retailing his day’s work and Mrs Spencer’s careful probing into Tilly’s circumstances. ‘Emma didn’t tell me nothing,’ she assured Tilly, ‘only of course we knew that you worked for your uncle…’ She smiled at Tilly so kindly that she found herself telling her all about it, even Leslie. But she made light of it and, when she could, edged the talk back to Emma.
It was a fine clear morning when she woke and after breakfast she helped with the washing-up, made her bed and went out. This time she walked to Shoeburyness, in the other direction, found a small café for her coffee and sandwiches and started to walk back again. She hadn’t realised that it was so far—all of five miles—and half-way back she caught a bus which took her to the High Street. Since she had time on her hands she looked at the shops before going back to Mrs Spencer’s. It was poached egg on haddock for supper, treacle tart and more tea. She ate everything with a good appetite and went to bed early. She was on duty at one o’clock the next day and she would have to catch a train about ten o’clock.
It had been a lovely break, she reflected on the train as it bore her to London, and Mrs Spencer had been so kind. She was to go whenever she wanted to, ‘though in the summer it’s a bit crowded—you might not like it overmuch, love. Kids about and all them teenagers with their radios, but it’ll stay quiet like this until Easter, so you come when you want to.’
She would, but not for the next week; she would spend her two days going to the local house agents and looking over flats.
Going back on duty was awful but the awfulness was mitigated by Sister Evans’s real pleasure at seeing her again. They had been busy, she said, but she had felt a bit under the weather and would have her days off on Saturday and Sunday and have a good rest.
Tilly, once Sister had gone off duty for the afternoon, went round the beds, stopping to chat while she tidied up, fetched and carried, and coaxed various old ladies to drink their tea. Some of them wanted to talk and to hear what she had been doing with her free days and she lingered to tell them; contact with the outside world for some of them was seldom and most of them knew Southend-on-Sea.
The later part of the afternoon was taken up with the Senior Registrar’s visit. He was pleasant towards the patients but a little bored, too, and not to be wondered at since he had been looking after several of them for months, if not years.
‘There are one or two temps,’ Tilly pointed out, ‘And a number of headaches.’
‘’Flu? Let me know if they persist. Settling down, are you?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
He nodded. ‘This isn’t quite your scene, is it?’
She had no answer to that so it was just as well that he went away.
By the end of the week a number of old ladies were feeling poorly.
‘I said it was ’flu.’ The registrar was writing up antibiotics. ‘You’ll need more staff if it gets much worse.’
Two extra nurses were sent, resentful of having to work on a geriatric ward instead of the more interesting surgical wing, but it meant that Sister Evans could have her weekend off. She had been looking progressively paler and more exhausted and Tilly went on duty earlier on the Friday evening so that she could go off duty promptly.
‘I’ll do the same for you, Staff,’ said Sister gratefully. ‘You’ve got days off on Tuesday and Wednesday.’
However, Sister Evans wasn’t on duty when Tilly got on to the ward on Monday morning. Instead there was a message to say that she was ill and Staff Nurse Groves would have to manage. The Principal Nursing Officer’s cold voice over the phone reminded her that she had two extra nurses.
‘We are all working under a great strain,’ added that lady. ‘You must adapt yourself, Staff Nurse.’
Which meant, in fact, being on duty for most of the day, for various of the old ladies added their symptoms to those already being nursed in their beds, so that the work was doubled, the medicine round became a major chore and the report, usually a quickly written mixture of ‘no change’, or ‘good day’, now needed to be written at length.
By the end of the week Tilly was looking very much the worse for wear; hurried meals, brief spells of off duty, and the effort of keeping a cheerful comforting face on things were taking their toll. The last straw was the Principal Nursing Officer informing her that Sister Evans was to have a further week’s sick leave and that Tilly could not have her days off until she was back.
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