His handsome face, with its straight nose and firm mouth, looked as good-humored and relaxed as it usually did.

Deborah spoke her thoughts aloud and quite involuntarily. “Oh, dear—I wasn’t expecting anyone and I simply…” She broke off because he was smiling nicely at her. “I must look quite awful,” she muttered, and when he laughed softly, she asked, “Is it another case?” He shook his head. “You want to borrow some instruments—half a minute while I find my shoes…”

He laughed again. “You won’t need your shoes and I don’t want any instruments.” He came a little farther into the room and stood looking at her. She looked back at him, bewildered, her mind noting that his Dutch accent seemed more pronounced than usual, although his English was faultless.

“How do you feel about marrying me?” he asked blandly.

She was so amazed that she couldn’t speak. Just for one blissful moment she savored the delightful idea that he had fallen in love with her, and then common sense took over.

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.

Stars Through the Mist
Betty Neels

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

THE OPERATING THEATRE was a hive of industry, its usual hush giving way to sudden utterances of annoyance or impatience as the nurses went briskly to and fro about their business. Sister Deborah Culpeper, arranging her instruments with efficient speed on the trolley before her, found time to listen to the plaintive wail of her most junior nurse, who was unable to find the Langenbeck retractors she had been sent to fetch, while at the same time keeping an eye on Bob, the theatre technician, who was trying out the electrical equipment needed for the various drills which would presently be needed. She calmed the nurse, nodded approval of Bob’s efforts, begged Staff Nurse Perkins to get the dressings laid out in their correct order and glanced at the clock.

One minute to nine o’clock, and as far as she could see, everything was ready. She swung the trolley round with an expert kick and then stood, relaxed and calm, behind it, knowing that in a few minutes the rest of the staff would follow suit; she never badgered them or urged them on, merely saw to it that each nurse had her fair share of the work and time enough in which to do it. She looked ahead of her now, apparently at the tiled wall opposite her, aware of every last move being made, nothing of her visible beneath the green gown which enveloped her, only her dark eyes showing above the mask. She looked the picture of calm self-assurance, and her nurses, aware of their own hurried breath and rapid pulses, envied her. A quite unwarranted feeling, as it happened, for despite her outward tranquillity, Deborah’s heart had quickened its pace to an alarming rate, and her breath, despite her efforts to keep it firmly under her control, had run mad. She gave her head a tiny, vexed shake, for it annoyed her very much that she should behave so stupidly whenever Mr van Doorninck was operating; she had tried every means in her power to remain uncaring of his presence and had mastered her feelings so well that she could present a placid front to him when they met and subdue those same feelings so sternly that she could scarcely be faulted as a perfect Theatre Sister; only on his operating days did her feelings get a little out of hand, something which she thanked heaven she could conceal behind her mask. She looked up now as the patient was wheeled in, arranged with nicety upon the operating table and covered with a blanket, to be followed immediately by the opening of the swing doors at the further end of the theatre and the appearance of two men.

Deborah’s lovely eyes swept over the shorter, younger man—the Registrar, Peter Jackson—and rested briefly upon Mr van Doorninck. He was a very tall man with broad shoulders shrouded, as was every one else, in green theatre garb. His eyes above the mask swept round the theatre now, missing nothing as he walked to the table. His good morning to Sister Culpeper was affable if somewhat reserved, and his glance from under heavy lids was brief. She returned his greeting in a quiet, detached voice and turned at once to her trolley, wondering for the hundredth time how it was possible for a sensible woman of twenty-seven to be so hopelessly and foolishly in love with a consultant surgeon who had never uttered more than a few brief conventional phrases to her. But in love she was, and during the two years in which she had worked for him, it had strengthened into a depth of feeling which had caused her to refuse two proposals of marriage. She sighed soundlessly and began the familiar ritual of arranging the sterile sheets and towels over the unconscious form on the table.

She worked with speed and care, knowing exactly how the silent man on the other side of the table liked them arranged; in two years she had got to know quite a lot about him—that he was even-tempered but never easy-going, that when the occasion warranted it, he could display a cold anger, that he was kind and considerate and reticent about himself—almost taciturn. But of his life outside the theatre she knew very little; he was yearned over by the student nurses to whom he gave lectures, sought after by the more senior female staff, and openly laid siege to by the prettier, younger nurses. No one knew where he lived or what he did with his spare time; from time to time he let drop the information that he was either going to Holland or had just returned. The one fact which emerged from the wealth of rumour which surrounded him was that he was not married—an interesting detail which had increased the efforts of the young women who rather fancied themselves as his wife. And once or twice he had mentioned to Deborah that he had parents in Holland, as well as brothers and a sister who had been to England to visit him. Deborah had longed to ask questions and had restrained herself, knowing that if she did he would probably never tell her anything again.

She finished the preliminaries, glanced at him, and at his ‘Ready, Sister?’ gave her usual placid ‘Yes, sir,’ and handed him the towel clips which he liked to arrange for himself. After that she kept her thoughts strictly upon her job—scalpel, artery forceps, retractors, and then as he reached the bone, the lion forceps, the Langenbeck retractors, the rugines, the bone levers—she handed each in turn a second or so before he put out his hand to receive them, admiring, as she always did, his smooth technique and the sureness of his work. Not for nothing had he won a place on the top rung of the orthopaedic surgeon’s ladder.

The patient was a young man with a malignant tumour of the femur; his only chance of recovery was extensive excision, a proceeding which Mr van Doorninck was undertaking now. Beyond a muttered word now and then to his registrar or a request for some special instrument, he spoke little; only when the operation was three parts completed and they were stitching up did he remark: ‘There’s a good chance of complete recovery here—as soon as he’s fit we’ll get him fitted with a leg—remind me to talk to Sister Prosser about him, Peter.’

He turned away from the table and took off his gloves to fling them into one of the bowls and walked out of the theatre, back into the scrubbing-up room, leaving Peter to supervise the removal of the patient and Deborah to organise the preparation of the theatre for the next case, reflecting as she did so that Sister Prosser, plain and plump and fifty if she was a day, was the most envied member of the nursing staff, because she saw Mr van Doorninck every day, and not only that, he took coffee with her frequently, and was known to have a great respect for her opinion of his patients’ conditions.

The morning wore on; a child next with a Ewing’s tumour over which the surgeon frowned and muttered to Peter, knowing that his careful surgery offered little hope of a permanent cure, then an old lady whose broken thigh was to be pinned and plated. It was like a carpenter’s shop, thought Deborah, expertly changing drills and listening to the high whine of the electric equipment Bob was obediently switching on and off; what with drills and saws and mallets, it was a noisy way to spend a morning, although after five years of it she should be used to it. She had always been interested in bones and when she had finished her training and had had an opportunity of taking the post of staff nurse in the orthopaedic theatre, she had jumped at the chance, and a year later, when the Theatre Sister had retired, she had taken over her job, content with her lot—there was time enough to think about getting married in a year or two, in the meantime she would make a success of her new post, something she had done in a very short time so that there still seemed no urgency to take the idea of marriage seriously.

She was twenty-five when Mr van Doorninck walked into the theatre unit one day, to be introduced as the new orthopaedic consultant, and from that moment she had felt no desire to marry anyone at all, only him. She had realised how hopeless her wish was within a short time, and being a girl with common sense, had told herself to stop being a fool, and had accepted numerous invitations from a number of the younger doctors in the hospital. She had taken trips in fast sports cars, attended classical concerts, and visited cinemas and theatres, according to her escorts’ tastes, but it hadn’t helped in the least; she was left with the feeling that she had wasted her time as well as that of all the young men who had taken her out, for Mr van Doorninck’s image remained clearly imprinted inside her head and refused to be budged.

She had come to realise over the last few months that there was only one way of escape from his unconscious toils; she would have to leave Clare’s and start all over again somewhere else. Indeed she had already put this plan into effect, searching the Nursing Times for a suitable post, preferably situated at the furthest possible point from London.

They had a break for coffee after the old lady’s fragile bones had been reinforced by Mr van Doorninck’s expert carpentry. The talk was of the patients, naturally enough, but with their second cups, the two men began a discussion on the merits of the Registrar’s new car and Deborah slipped away to scrub and relieve Staff for her own elevenses. They were still discussing cars when the theatre party reassembled around the table again to tackle a nasty shattered elbow, which Mr van Doorninck patiently fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle with Peter’s help, several lengths of wire, a screw or two, and the electric drill again. That done to his satisfaction, he turned his attention to the last case, added hastily to the list at the last minute, because the patient had only been admitted early that morning with a fractured pelvis after he had crashed on his motor bike. It took longer than Deborah had expected. Half way through the operation she signed to Staff and one of the nurses to go to lunch, which left her with Bob and a very junior nurse, who, though willing and eager to please, was inclined to blunder around. It was long past two o’clock when the case left the theatre, and Mr van Doorninck, with a politely worded apology for running so far over his usual time, went too. She wouldn’t see him again until Thursday; he operated three times a week and today was Monday.

The afternoon was spent doing the washdown in the theatre, and Deborah, on duty until Staff should relieve her at five o’clock, retired to her office to attend to the paper work. She had discarded her theatre gown and mask and donned her muslin cap in order to go to the dining room for her late dinner; now she spent a few moments repairing the ravages of a busy morning—not that they showed overmuch; her very slightly tiptilted nose shone just a little, her hair, which she wore drawn back above a wide forehead, still retained the smooth wings above each cheek and the heavy coil in her neck was still firmly skewered. She applied lipstick to her large, well-shaped mouth, passed a wetted fingertip across her dark brows, put her cap back on, and stared at the result.

She had been told times out of number that she was a very pretty girl, indeed, one or two of her more ardent admirers had gone so far as to say that she was beautiful. She herself, while not conceited, found her face passably good-looking but nothing out of the ordinary, but she, of course, was unaware of the delight of her smile, or the way her eyes crinkled so nicely at their corners when she laughed, and those same eyes were unusually dark, the colour of pansies, fringed with long curling lashes which were the envy of her friends. She pulled a face at her reflection and turned her back on it to sit at the desk and apply herself to the miscellany upon it, but after ten minutes or so she laid down her pen and picked up the latest copy of the Nursing Times; perhaps there would be a job in it which might suit her.

There was—miles away in Scotland. The hospital was small, it was true, but busy, and they wanted an energetic working Sister, able to organise and teach student nurses the secrets of orthopaedics. She marked it with a cross and went back to her writing, telling herself that it was just exactly what she had been looking for, but as she applied herself once more to the delicate task of giving days off to her staff without disrupting the even flow of work, several doubts crept into her mind; not only was the hospital a satisfying distance from Mr van Doorninck, it was also, unfortunately, an unsatisfying distance from her own home. Holidays, not to mention days off, would be an almost impossible undertaking. She went home to Somerset several times a year now, and once a month, when she had her long weekend, she drove herself down in the Fiat 500 she had bought cheap from one of the housemen. She frowned, trying to remember her geography, wondering if Somerset was further away from the northern coasts of Scotland than was London. She could always spend a night with her Aunt Mary who lived on the edge of a hamlet rejoicing in the incredible name of Twice Brewed, hard by Hadrian’s Wall, but even then she would have to spend another night on the road. And what was she going to tell her friends when they found out that she intended to leave? She had no good reason for doing so, she had never been anything but happy until Mr van Doorninck turned up and destroyed her peace of mind, and even now she was happy in a way because she was sure of seeing him three times a week at least. She frowned. Put like that, it sounded ridiculous—she would have to find some really sensible reason for giving in her notice. She picked up her pen once more; she would puzzle it out later, when she was off duty.

But there was no opportunity; she had forgotten that it was Jenny Reed’s birthday and that they were all going out together to the cinema, so she spent the rest of the evening with half a dozen of the younger Sisters and shelved her problems.

There wasn’t much time to think next day either, for the three victims of a car crash were admitted in the early hours of the morning and she was summoned early to go on duty and open up the theatre. Staff was already there when she arrived and so was the junior nurse, her eyes round with excitement as she began the humbler routine tasks which fell to her lot.

‘Oh, Sister,’ she breathed, ‘they’re in an awful bad way! Lottie Jones—she’s on nights in the Accident Room, she says they’ve broken every bone in their bodies.’

Deborah was putting out the sharps and needles and collecting the electrical equipment. ‘In which case we’re going to be here for a very long time,’ she remarked cheerfully. ‘Where’s Nurse Patterson?’

That young lady, only half awake, crept through the door as she put the question, wished her superior a sleepy good morning and went on to say: ‘They’re mincemeat, Sister, so rumour has it, and where’s the night staff? Couldn’t they have at least started…?’

‘It’s not only our three,’ Deborah pointed out crisply. ‘They’ve had a busy night, the general theatre has been on the go since midnight. Get the plaster room ready, will you, Nurse, and then see to the bowls.’

She was on the point of scrubbing up ready to start her trolleys when Mr van Doorninck walked in. She looked at him twice, because she was accustomed to seeing him either in his theatre gown and trousers, or a selection of sober, beautifully cut grey suits, and now he was in slacks and a rather elderly sweater. It made him look younger and much more approachable and it seemed to have the same effect on him as well, for he said cheerfully, ‘Hullo—sorry we had to get you up early, but I wanted you here. Do you suppose they could send up some coffee—I can tell you what I intend doing while we drink it.’ He glanced around him. ‘These three look as though they could do with a hot drink, too,’ a remark which sent Patterson scurrying to the telephone to order coffee in the consultant’s name, adding a gleeful rider that it was for five people and was to be sent up at once.

Deborah led the way to her office, offered Mr van Doorninck a chair, which he declined, and sat down herself behind her desk. She had taken off her cap and had her theatre cap and mask in her hand, but she put these down now and rather absent-mindedly began to thrust the pins more securely into the great bundle of hair she had twisted up in such a hurry. She did it with a lack of self-consciousness of which she was unaware and when she looked up and caught his eye, she said, ‘Sorry about this—there wasn’t much time, but I’m listening.’

‘Three cases,’ he began. ‘The first is a young man—a boy, I should say, fractured pelvis, left and right fractured femurs, I’m afraid, and a fractured patella—fragmented, I shall have to remove the whole thing. The other two aren’t quite so bad—fractured neck of femur, compound tib and fib and a few ribs; the third one has got off comparatively lightly with a comminuted fracture of left femur and a Potts’. I think if we work the first case off, stop for a quick breakfast, and get the other two done afterwards—have you a list for Mr Squires this morning? Doesn’t he usually start at eleven o’clock?’

Deborah nodded. ‘But it’s a short list and I’m sure he’ll agree to start half an hour later if he were asked.’

‘How are you placed for staff? Will you be able to cover both theatres? You’ll be running late.’

It was Staff’s half day before her days off, but he wouldn’t know about that. Deborah said positively: ‘I can manage very well; Bob will be on at eight o’clock and both part-time staff nurses come in.’

She made a show of consulting the off-duty book before her. She wouldn’t be able to go off duty herself, for she was to be relieved by one of the part-time staff nurses; she would have to telephone her now, and get her to come in at one o’clock instead.

‘When would you like to start?’ she wanted to know calmly.

He glanced at his watch. ‘Ten minutes, if you can.’

She got up from her chair. ‘We’ll be ready—you’ll want the Smith-Petersen nails, and shall I put out the McLaughlin pin-plate as well? And will you want to do a bone graft on the tib and fib?’

‘Very probably. Put out everything we’ve got, will you? I’ll pick what I want, we can’t really assess the damage until I can get the bone fragments away.’

He followed her out of the office and they walked together down the wide corridor to the scrubbing-up room, where Peter was already at one of the basins. Deborah wished him good morning and went to her own basin to scrub—ten minutes wasn’t long and she had quite a lot to do still.

The operation lasted for hours, and unlike other jobs, there was no question of hurrying it up; the broken bones had to be exposed, tidied up, blood vessels tied, tissue cut away and then the pieces brought together before they were joined by means of pins or wires, and only then after they had been X-rayed.

Mr van Doorninck worked steadily and with the absorption of a man doing a difficult jigsaw puzzle, oblivious of time or anything else. Deborah, with an eye on the clock, sent a nurse down to breakfast with the whispered warning to look sharp about it; Staff went next and when Bob came on at eight o’clock and with him the other two student nurses, she breathed more freely. She still had to telephone Mrs Rudge, the part-time staff nurse, but she lived close by and with any luck she would be able to change her duty hours; she would worry about that later. She nodded to Bob to be ready with the drill, checked swabs with the junior nurse, and tidied her trolleys.

The case was wheeled away at long last, and as the patient disappeared through one door, Mr van Doorninck and Peter started off in the opposite direction. ‘Twenty minutes?’ said Mr van Doorninck over his shoulder as he went, not waiting for her reply.

‘You must be joking,’ Deborah muttered crossly, and picked up a handful of instruments, to freeze into immobility as he stopped abruptly. ‘You’re right, of course—is half an hour better?’

She said ‘Yes, sir,’ in a small meek voice and plunged into the ordered maelstrom which was the theatre. Twenty minutes later she was in her office, her theatre cap pushed to the back of her head, drinking the tea Staff had whistled up for her and wolfing down buttered toast; heaven knew when she would get her next meal…

She certainly didn’t get it at dinnertime, for although the second case proved plain sailing, even if slow, the third presented every small complication under the sun; the femur was in fragments, anyone less sure of himself than Mr van Doorninck might have felt justified in amputating below the knee, but he, having made up his mind that he could save the limb, set to work to do so, and a long and tedious business it was, necessitating Deborah sending Mrs Rudge to the second theatre to take care of Mr Squires who had obligingly agreed to take his list there, and she had taken two of the nurses with her, a circumstance which had caused Staff Nurse Perkins to hesitate about taking her half day, but it was impossible to argue about it in theatre; she went, reluctantly.

The operation lasted another hour. Deborah had contrived to send the nurses to their dinners, but Bob she didn’t dare to send; he was far too useful and understood the electric drills and the diathermy machine even better than she did herself—besides, she was scrubbed, and at this stage of the operation there was no question of hampering Mr van Doorninck for a single second.

It was half past two when he finally straightened his back, thanked her politely for her services and walked away. She sent Bob to his belated dinner, and when Mrs Rudge arrived from the other theatre, went downstairs herself to cold beef and salad. There was certainly no hope of off-duty for her now. Mrs Rudge would go at four o’clock and that would leave herself and two student nurses when Bob went at five. She sighed, eating almost nothing, and presently went over to the Nurses’ Home and tidied herself in a perfunctory manner, a little horrified at the untidiness of her appearance—luckily it had all been hidden under her cap and mask.

It had just turned four o’clock when the Accident Room telephoned to say that there was a small child coming up within minutes with a nasty compound fracture of upper arm. Deborah raced round collecting instruments, scrubbing to lay the trolley while telling the nurses, a little fearful at having to get on with it without Staff to breathe reassuringly down their necks, what to do next. All the same, they did so well that she was behind her trolley, scrubbed and threading needles when the patient was wheeled in, followed by Mr van Doorninck and Peter.

‘Oh,’ said Deborah, taken delightfully by surprise, ‘I didn’t know that it would be you, sir.’

‘I was in the building, Sister,’ he informed her, and accepted the towel clip she was holding out. ‘You have been off duty?’

She passed him a scalpel. ‘No.’

‘You will be going this evening?’

She took the forceps off the Mayo table and held them ready for Peter to take. ‘No,’ then added hastily, in case he should think she was vexed about it, ‘It doesn’t matter in the least.’

He said ‘Um’ behind his mask and didn’t speak again during the operation, which went without a hitch. All the same, it was almost six o’clock when they were finished and it would be another hour before the theatre was restored to its pristine state. It was a great pity that Peter had to put a plaster on a Potts’ fracture—it was a simple one and he did it in the little plaster room, but he made a good deal of mess and Deborah, squeezing out plaster bandages in warm water for him to wind round the broken leg, found her temper wearing thin. It had been a long day, she was famished and tired and she must look a sight by now and there were still the books to write up. She glanced at the clock. In ten minutes the nurses were due off duty; she would have to stay and do her writing before she closed the theatre. She sighed and Peter cocked an eyebrow at her and asked: ‘Worn out, Deb?’

‘Not really, just hungry, and I haven’t had time to do my hair properly or see to my face all day. I feel a fright.’ She could hear her voice sounding cross, but he ignored it and agreed cheerfully:

‘You look pretty awful—luckily you’re so gorgeous, it doesn’t matter, though the hair is a trifle wild.’

She giggled and slapped a wet bandage into his outstretched hand.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter, there’s no one to see me. I shall eat an enormous supper and fall into bed.’

‘Lucky girl—I’m on until midnight.’

She was instantly sympathetic. ‘Oh, Peter, how awful, but there’s not much of a list for Mr Squires tomorrow afternoon and only a handful of replasters and walking irons—you might be able to get someone to give you a hand.’

He nodded. ‘We’re on call, aren’t we?’

That was true; Clare’s was on call until Thursday. ‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed,’ she promised him. ‘And now be off with you, I want to clear up.’

It was very quiet when the nurses had gone. Deborah tugged her cap off her dreadfully untidy hair, kicked off her shoes, and sat down at her desk. Another ten minutes or so and she would be free herself. She dragged her thoughts away from the tantalising prospect of supper and a hot bath and set to on the operation book. She was neatly penning in the last name when the unit doors swung open and her tired mind registered the disturbing fact that it was Mr van Doorninck’s large feet coming down the corridor, and she looking like something the sea had washed up. She was still frantically searching for her shoes when he came in the door. She rose to her stockinged feet, feeling even worse than she looked because he was, by contrast, quite immaculate—no one, looking at him now, would know that he had been bent over the operating table for the entire day. He didn’t look tired either; his handsome face, with its straight nose and firm mouth, looked as good-humoured and relaxed as it usually did.

Deborah spoke her thoughts aloud and quite involuntarily. ‘Oh, dear—I wasn’t expecting anyone and I simply…’ She broke off because he was smiling nicely at her. ‘I must look quite awful,’ she muttered, and when he laughed softly: ‘Is it another case?’ He shook his head. ‘You want to borrow some instruments—half a minute while I find my shoes…’

He laughed again. ‘You won’t need your shoes and I don’t want any instruments.’ He came a little further into the room and stood looking at her. She looked back at him, bewildered, her mind noting that his Dutch accent seemed more pronounced than usual although his English was faultless.

‘How do you feel about marrying me?’ he wanted to know blandly.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE WAS so amazed that she couldn’t speak. Just for one blissful moment she savoured the delightful idea that he had fallen in love with her, and then common sense took over. Men in love, however awkward about the business, weren’t likely to employ such a cool manner as his. He had sounded for all the world as though he wanted her to fit in an extra case on his next list or something equally prosaic. She found her voice at last and was surprised at its steadiness. ‘Why do you ask me?’ she wanted to know.

She watched his nod of approval. The light over the desk showed up the grey hair at his temples and served to highlight the extreme fairness of the rest. His voice was unhurried as he said pleasantly:

‘What a sensible girl you are—most women would have been demanding to know if I were joking. I have noticed your calm manner when we have worked together, and I am delighted to see that it isn’t only in the operating theatre that you are unflurried.’

He was silent for so long that Deborah, desperate for something, anything to do, sat down again and began to stack the various notebooks and papers neatly together. That there was no need to do this, and indeed it would merely give her more work in the morning sorting them all out again, escaped her notice. He might think her sensible and calm; inside, happily concealed by her dark blue uniform, she was bubbling like a cauldron on the boil.

Presently, in the same pleasant voice, he went on: ‘I will explain. I am returning to Holland to live very shortly; my father died recently and it is necessary for me to live there—there are various obligations—’ he dismissed them with a wave of his hand and she wondered what they might be. ‘I shall continue with my work, naturally, but we are a large family and I have a great many friends, so there will be entertaining and social occasions, you understand. I have neither the time nor the inclination to arrange such things, neither do I have the slightest idea how to run a household. I need a wife, someone who will do these things and welcome my friends.’

He paused, but she wasn’t looking at him. There were some retractors on the desk, put there for repair; she had picked them up and was polishing their handles vigorously with the cloth in which they were wrapped. He leaned across the desk and took them from her without a word and went on: ‘I should tell you that I have been married. My wife died eight years ago and I have had no wish to become deeply involved with any woman since; I do not want to become deeply involved with you, but I see very little likelihood of this; we have worked together now for two years and I believe that I understand you very well. I would wish for your companionship and friendship and nothing more. I am aware that women set great store by marrying for love and that they are frequently unhappy as a consequence. Perhaps you do not consider what I am offering enough, and yet it seems to me that we are ideally suited, for you have plenty of common sense, a delightful manner and, I think, similar tastes to my own. I can promise you that your life will be pleasant enough.’ His blue eyes stared down at her from under half-closed lids. ‘You’re twenty-seven,’ he told her, ‘and pretty enough to have had several chances of marrying and settling down with a husband and children, but you have not wanted this—am I right?’

She nodded wordlessly, squashing a fleeting, nonsensical dream of little flaxen-haired van Doornincks as soon as it had been born. Because she simply had to know, she asked: ‘Have you any children?’

‘No,’ his voice was so remote that she wished she hadn’t spoken, ‘I have two brothers and a sister, all married—there are children enough in the family.’

Deborah waited for him to ask her if she liked children, but he didn’t, so after a minute or two’s silence she said in a quiet little voice:

‘May I have some time to think about it? You see, I’ve always imagined that I would marry someone I…’ She stopped because she wasn’t sure of her voice any more.

‘Loved?’ he finished for her in a depressingly matter-of-fact tone. ‘I imagine most girls do, but I think that is not always the best way. A liking for each other, consideration for one’s partner, shared interests—these things make a good marriage.’

She stared at him, her lovely eyes round. She hadn’t supposed him to be a cold man, although he was talking like one now. Either he had been unhappy in his first marriage or he had loved his wife so dearly that the idea of loving any other woman was unthinkable to him. She found either possibility unsatisfactory. With a tremendous effort she made herself be as businesslike as he was. ‘So you don’t want children—or—or a wife?’

He smiled. ‘Shall we discuss that later? Perhaps I haven’t made myself quite plain; I admire and like you, but I’m not in love with you and I believe that we can be happy together. We are sensible, mature people and you are not, I believe, a romantic girl…’

She longed to tell him how wrong he was. Instead: ‘You don’t believe in falling in love, then?’

He smiled so charmingly that her outraged heart cracked a little.

‘And nor, I think, do you, Deborah, otherwise you would have been married long ago—you must be single from choice.’

So that was what he thought; that she cared nothing for marriage and children and a home of her own. She kept her angry eyes on the desk and said nothing at all.

Presently he said, ‘I have offended you. I’m sorry, but I find myself quite unable to be anything but honest with you.’

She looked up at that and encountered his blue stare. ‘I’ve had chances to marry,’ she told him, at the same time wondering what would happen if she told him just why she had given up those same chances. ‘Did you love your wife?’ The question had popped out before she had been able to stop it and she watched the bleak look on his face as it slowly chilled her.

He said with a bitter little sneer which hurt her, ‘All women are curious…’

‘Well, I’m not all women,’ she assured him sharply, ‘and I’m not in the least curious’—another lie—‘but it’s something I should have to know—you said you wanted to be honest.’

He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re quite right. One day we will talk about her. Will it suffice for the moment if I tell you that our marriage was a mistake?’ He became his usual slightly reserved self again. ‘Now that I have told you so much about myself, I do not see that you can do anything else but marry me.’

She answered his smile and was tempted to say yes at once, but common sense still had a firm place inside her lovely head; she would have to think about it. She told him so and he agreed unconcernedly. ‘I shall see you on Thursday,’ he observed as he went to the door. ‘I’ll leave you to finish your writing. Good night, Deborah.’

She achieved a calm ‘Good night, Mr van Doorninck,’ and he paused on the way out to say: ‘My name is Gerard, by the way, but perhaps I shouldn’t have told you that until Thursday.’

Deborah did no more writing; she waited until she heard the swing doors close after him and then shovelled the books and papers into a drawer, pell-mell. They could wait until tomorrow—she had far too much on her mind to be bothered with stupid matters like off-duty and laundry and instruments which needed repairing. She pinned on her cap anyhow, found her shoes at last, locked the theatre, hung the keys on the hook above the door, and went down to supper. Several of her friends were as late as she was; they greeted her with tired good nature and broke into a babble of talk to which she didn’t listen until the Accident Room Sister startled her by saying, ‘Deb, whatever is the matter? I’ve asked you at least three times what van Doorninck did with those three cases we sent up, and you just sit there in a world of your own.’

‘Sorry,’ said Deborah, ‘I was thinking,’ a remark which called forth a little ripple of weary laughter from everyone at the table. She smiled round at them all and plunged obligingly into the complexities of the three patients’ operations.

‘No off-duty?’ someone asked when she had finished.

Deborah shook her head. ‘No—I’ll make it up some time.’

‘He works you too hard,’ said a pretty dark girl from the other side of the table. ‘Cunning wretch, I suppose he turned on the charm and you fell for it.’

The Accident Room Sister said half-jokingly, ‘And what wouldn’t you give to have the chance of doing just that, my girl? The handsome Mr van Doorninck is a confirmed bachelor, to the sorrow of us all, and the only reason Deb has lasted so long in theatre is because she never shows the least interest in him, so he feels safe with her. Isn’t that right, Deb?’

Deborah blushed seldom; by a great effort of will she prevented herself from doing so now. She agreed airily, her fingers crossed on her lap, and started on the nourishing rice pudding which had been set before her. She wouldn’t have rice pudding, she promised herself. Perhaps the Dutch…she pulled her thoughts up sharply; she hadn’t decided yet, had she? It would be ridiculous to accept his offer, for it wouldn’t be the kind of marriage she would want in the first place, on the other hand there was the awful certainty that if she refused him she would never see him again, which meant that she would either remain single all her days or marry someone else without loving him. So wasn’t it better to marry Mr van Doorninck even if he didn’t love her? At least she would be with him for the rest of her life and he need never find out that she loved him; he hadn’t discovered it so far, so why should he later on?

She spooned the last of the despised pudding, and decided to marry him, and if she had regrets in the years to come she would only have herself to blame. It was a relief to have made up her mind, although perhaps it had been already made up from the very moment when he had startled her with his proposal, for hadn’t it been the fulfilment of her wildest dreams?

She retired to her room early on the plea of a hard day and the beginnings of a headache, determined to go to bed and think the whole preposterous idea over rationally. Instead of which she fell sound asleep within a few minutes of putting her head on the pillow, her thoughts an uncontrollable and delicious jumble.

She had time enough to think the next day, though. Wednesday was always a slack day in theatre even though they had to be prepared for emergencies. But there were no lists; Deborah spent the greater part of the day in the office, catching up on the administrative side, only sallying forth from time to time to make sure that the nurses knew what they were about. She went off duty at five o’clock, secretly disappointed that Mr van Doorninck hadn’t put in an appearance—true, he hadn’t said that he would, but surely he would feel some impatience? Upon reflection she decided that probably he wouldn’t, or if he did, he would take care not to let it show. She spent the evening washing her hair and doing her nails, with the vague idea that she needed to look her best when he arrived at ten o’clock the next morning.

Only he didn’t come at ten. She was in theatre, on her knees under the operating table because one of the nurses had reported a small fault in its mechanism. She had her back to the door and didn’t hear him enter; it was the sight of his large well-polished shoes which caused her to start up, knocking her cap crooked as she did so. He put out a hand and helped her to her feet without effort, rather as though she had been some small slip of a girl, and Deborah exclaimed involuntarily, ‘Oh—I’m quite heavy. I’m too tall, you must have noticed.’ Her eyes were on his tie as she babbled on: ‘I’m so big…!’

‘Which should make us a well-suited couple,’ he answered equably. ‘At least, I hope you will agree with me, Deborah.’

She put a hand up to her cap to straighten it, not quite sure what she should answer, and he caught her puzzled look. ‘Not quite romantic enough?’ he quizzed her gently. ‘Have dinner with me tonight and I’ll try and make amends.’

She was standing before him now, her lovely eyes on a level with his chin. ‘I don’t know—that is, I haven’t said…’

His heavy-lidded eyes searched hers. ‘Then say it now,’ he commanded her gently. It seemed absurd to accept a proposal of marriage in an operating theatre, but there seemed no help for it. She drew breath:

‘Yes, I’ll marry you, Mr van Doorninck.’ She uttered the absurd remark in a quiet, sensible voice and he laughed gently.

‘Gerard, don’t you think? Can you manage seven o’clock?’

Her eyes left his chin reluctantly and met his. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Good. I’ll fetch you—we’ll go to the Empress if you would like that.’

Somewhere very super, she remembered vaguely. ‘That will be nice.’ An inadequate answer, she knew, but he didn’t appear to find it amiss; he took her two hands lightly in his and said: ‘We’ll have a quiet talk together—it is essential that we should understand each other from the beginning, don’t you agree?’

It sounded very businesslike and cool to her; perhaps she was making a terrible mistake, but was there a worse mistake than letting him go away for ever? She thought not. For want of anything better to say, she repeated, ‘That will be nice,’ and added, ‘I must go and scrub, you have a list as long as your arm.’

It stretched longer than an arm, however, by the time they had finished. The second case held them up; the patient’s unexpected cardiac arrest was a surprise which, while to be coped with, flung a decided spanner in the works. Not that Mr van Doorninck allowed it to impede his activities—he continued unhurriedly about his urgent business and Deborah, after despatching Staff to the other end of the table to help the anaesthetist in any way he wished, concentrated upon supplying her future husband’s wants. The patient rallied, she heard Mr van Doorninck’s satisfied grunt and relaxed herself; for a patient to die on the table was something to be avoided at all costs. The operation was concluded and the patient, still unconscious and happily unaware of his frustrated attempts to die, was borne away and it was decided that a break for coffee would do everyone some good. Deborah, crowding into her office with the three men and sharing the contents of the coffee pot with them, was less lucky with the biscuit tin, for it was emptied with a rapidity she wouldn’t have prevented even if she could have done so; the sight of grown men munching Rich Tea biscuits as though they had eaten nothing for days touched her heart. She poured herself a second cup of coffee and made a mental note to wheedle the stores into letting her have an extra supply.

The rest of the morning went well, although they finished more than an hour late. Mr van Doorninck was meticulously drawing the muscle sheath together, oblivious of time. He lifted an eyebrow at Peter to remove the clamps and swab the wound ready for him to stitch and put out an outsize gloved hand for the needleholder which Deborah was holding ready. He took it without a glance and paused to straighten his back. ‘Anything for this afternoon, Sister?’ he enquired conversationally.

‘Not until three o’clock, sir.’ She glanced at Peter, who would be taking the cases. ‘A baby for a gallows frame and a couple of Colles.’

‘So you will be free for our evening together?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Hadn’t she already said so? she asked herself vexedly, and threaded another needle, aware of the pricked ears and held breaths around her and Peter’s swift, astonished look.

Mr van Doorninck held out his needleholder for her to insert the newly threaded needle. He said deliberately so that everyone could hear, ‘Sister Culpeper and I are engaged to be married, so we are—er—celebrating this evening.’

He put out a hand again and Deborah slapped the stitch scissors into it with a certain amount of force, her fine bosom swelling with annoyance—giving out the news like that without so much as a word to her beforehand! Just wait until we’re alone, she cautioned him silently, her smouldering look quite lost upon his downbent, intent head. And even if she had wanted to speak her mind, it would have been impossible in the little chorus of good wishes and congratulations. She made suitable murmurs in reply and scowled behind her mask.

But if she had hoped to have had a few words with him she was unlucky; the patient was no sooner stitched than he threw down his instruments, ripped off his gloves and made off with the long, leisurely stride which could only have been matched on her part by a frank run. She watched him go, fuming, and turned away to fob off the nurses’ excited questions.

Her temper had improved very little by the time she went off duty. The news had spread, as such news always did; she was telephoned, stopped in the corridors and besieged by the other Sisters when she went down to tea. That they were envious was obvious, but they were pleased too, for she was well liked at Clare’s, and each one of them marvelled at the way she had kept the exciting news such a close secret.

‘He’ll be a honey,’ sighed Women’s Surgical Sister. ‘Just imagine living with him!’ She stared at Deborah. ‘Is he very rich, Deb?’

‘I—I don’t really know.’ Deborah was by now quite peevish and struggling not to show it. It was a relief, on the pretext of dressing up for the evening, when she could escape. All the same, despite her ill-humour, she dressed with care in a pinafore dress of green ribbed silk, worn over a white lawn blouse with ballooning sleeves and a fetching choirboy frill under her chin, and she did her hair carefully too, its smooth wings on her cheeks and the complicated chignon at the back of her neck setting off the dress to its greatest advantage. Luckily it was late August and warm, for she had no suitable coat to cover this finery; she rummaged around in her cupboard and found a gossamer wool scarf which she flung over her arm—and if he didn’t like it, she told her reflection crossly, he could lump it.

Still buoyed up by indignation, she swept down the Home stairs, looking queenly and still slightly peevish, but she stopped in full sail in the hall because Mr van Doorninck was there, standing by the door, watching her. He crossed the polished floor and when he reached her said the wrong thing. ‘I had no idea,’ he commented, ‘that you were such a handsome young woman.’

His words conjured up an outsize, tightly corseted Titanic, when her heart’s wish was to be frail and small and clinging. She lifted pansy eyes to his and said tartly, ‘My theatre gowns are a good disguise…’ and stopped because she could see that he was laughing silently.

‘I beg your pardon, Deborah—you see how necessary it is for me to take a wife? I have become so inept at paying compliments. I like you exactly as you are and I hope that you will believe that. But tell me, why were you looking so put out as you came downstairs?’

She felt mollified and a little ashamed too. ‘I was annoyed because you told everyone in theatre that we were engaged—I didn’t know you were going to.’

He chose to misunderstand her. ‘I had no idea that you wished it to remain a secret.’ He smiled so nicely at her that her heart hurried its beat.

‘Well—of course I didn’t.’

‘Then why were you annoyed?’

An impossible question to answer. She smiled reluctantly and said:

‘Oh, I don’t know—perhaps I haven’t quite got used to the idea.’

His blue eyes searched hers calmly. ‘You have had second thoughts, perhaps?’

‘No—oh, no.’

He smiled again. ‘Good. Shall we go?’

They went through the Home door together, and she was very conscious of the unseen eyes peering at them from the net-covered windows, but she forgot all about them when she saw the car drawn up waiting for them. She had wondered from time to time what sort of car he drove, and here it was—a BMW 3 OCSL, a sleek, powerful coupé which looked as though it could do an enormous speed if it were allowed to. She paused by its door and asked: ‘Yours?’

‘Yes. I could use a larger car really, but once I’m in it it’s OK, and she goes like a bird. We’ll change her, though, if you prefer something roomier.’

Deborah had settled herself in her seat. ‘She’s super, you mustn’t dream of changing her.’ She turned to look at him as he got in beside her. ‘I always imagined that you would drive something stately.’

He laughed. ‘I’m flattered that you spared even such thoughts as those upon me. I’ve a Citroën at home, an SM, plenty of room but not so fast as this one. I take it that you drive?’

He had eased the car into the evening traffic and was travelling westward. ‘Well,’ said Deborah, ‘I drive, but I’m not what you would call a good driver, though I haven’t had much opportunity…’

‘Then we must find opportunity for you—you will need a car of your own.’

In Piccadilly, where the traffic was faster and thinner, he turned off into Berkeley Street and stopped outside the Empress Restaurant. A truly imposing place, she discovered, peeping discreetly about her as they went in—grandly Victorian with its red plush and its candelabra. When they were seated she said with disarming frankness: ‘It rather takes my breath away.’

His mouth twitched. ‘Worthy of the occasion, I hope.’ He opened his eyes wide and she was surprised, as she always was, by their intense blue. ‘For it is an occasion, is it not?’

She studied him; he was really extraordinarily handsome and very distinguished in his dinner jacket. After a moment he said softly:

‘I hope I pass muster?’

She blinked and smiled rather shyly. ‘I beg your pardon—I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just that—well, you never see a person properly in theatre, do you?’

He studied her in his turn. ‘No—and I made a mistake just now. I called you handsome, and you’re not, you’re beautiful.’

She flushed delicately under his gaze and he went on blandly: ‘But let us make no mistake, I’m not getting sentimental or falling in love with you, Deborah.’ His voice had a faint edge which she was quick to hear.

She forced her own voice to normality. ‘You explained about that, but supposing you should meet someone with whom you do fall in love? And you might, you’re not old, are you?’

‘I’m thirty-seven,’ he informed her, still bland, ‘and I have had a number of years in which to fall in and out of love since Sasja’s death.’ He saw her look and smiled slightly. ‘And by that I mean exactly what I said; I must confess I’ve been attracted to a number of women, but I didn’t like them—there is a difference. I like you, Deborah.’

She sipped the drink he had ordered and studied the menu card and tried not to mind too much that he was talking to her as though she were an old friend who had just applied for a job he had going. In a way she was. She put the idea out of her head and chose Suprême de Turbot Mogador and settled for caviare for starters, then applied herself to a lighthearted conversation which gave him no opportunity of turning the talk back to themselves. But that didn’t last long; with the coming of the Vacherin Glacéhe cut easily into her flow of small talk with:

‘As to our marriage—have you any objection if it takes place soon? I want to return to Holland as quickly as possible and I have arranged to leave Clare’s in ten days’ time. I thought we might get married then.’

Deborah sat with her fork poised midway between plate and mouth. ‘Ten days’ time?’ she uttered. ‘But that’s not possible! I have to give a month’s notice.’

‘Oh, don’t concern yourself with that. I can arrange something. Is that your only objection?’

‘You don’t know my family.’

‘You live in Somerset, don’t you? We might go down there and see them before we go to Holland—unless you wish to be married from your home?’

It was like being swept along a fast-moving river with not even a twig in sight. ‘I—I hadn’t thought about it.’

‘Then how would it be if we marry quietly here in London and then go to see your parents?’

‘You mean surprise them?’

‘I’ll be guided by you,’ he murmured.

She thought this rather unlikely; all the same it was a good idea.

‘Father’s an historian,’ she explained, ‘and rather wrapped up in his work, and Mother—Mother is never surprised about anything. They wouldn’t mind. I’d like a quiet wedding, but in church.’

He looked surprised. ‘Naturally. I am a Calvinist myself and you are presumably Church of England. If you care to choose your church I’ll see about the licence and make the arrangements. Do you want any guests?’

She shook her head; it didn’t seem quite right to invite people to a marriage which was, after all, a friendly arrangement between two people who were marrying for all the wrong reasons—although there was nothing wrong with her reason; surely loving someone was sufficiently strong grounds for marrying them? And as for Gerard, his reasons, though very different, held a strong element of practical common sense. Besides, he believed her to be in complete agreement with him over the suitability of a marriage between two persons who, presumably, had no intention of allowing their hearts to run away with their feelings. She wondered idly just what kind of a girl might steal his heart. Certainly not herself—had he not said that he liked her, and that, as far as she could see, was as far as it went.

She drank her coffee and agreed with every show of pleasure to his suggestion that they should go somewhere and dance.

He took her to the Savoy, where they danced for an hour or more between pleasant little interludes at the table he had secured well away from the dance floor. She was an excellent dancer and Gerard, she discovered, danced well too, if a trifle conservatively. Just for a space she forgot her problems and gave herself to the enjoyment of the evening, and presently, drinking champagne, her face prettily flushed, she found herself agreeing that a light supper would be delightful before he took her back to Clare’s. It was almost three o’clock when he stopped the car outside the Home. He got out of the car with her and opened the heavy door with the latch key she gave him and then stood idly swinging it in his hand.

‘Thank you for a delightful evening,’ said Deborah, and tried to remember that she was going to marry this large, quiet man standing beside her, and in ten days, too. She felt sudden panic swamp the tenuous happiness inspired by the champagne and the dancing, and raised her eyes to his face, her mouth already open to give utterance to a variety of thoughts which, largely because of that same champagne, no longer made sense.

The eyes which met hers were very kind. ‘Don’t worry, Deborah,’ he urged her in his deep, placid voice. ‘It’s only reaction; in the morning everything will be quite all right again. You must believe me.’

He bent and kissed her cheek, much as though he were comforting a child, and told her to go to bed. ‘And I’ll see you tomorrow before I go to Holland.’

And because she was bewildered and a little afraid and her head had begun to ache, she did as he bade her. With a whispered good night she went slowly up the stairs without looking back to see if he was watching her, undressed and got into bed, and fell at once into a dreamless sleep which was only ended by her alarm clock warning her to get up and dress, astonished to find that what Gerard had said was quite true; everything did seem all right. She went down to breakfast and in response to the urgent enquiries of her companions, gave a detailed account of her evening and then, fortified by several cups of strong tea, made her way to the theatre unit.

There wasn’t much doing. Mr Squires had a couple of Smith-Petersen pins to insert, a bone graft to do, and there was a Carpal Tunnel—an easy enough list, for he kept strictly to straightforward bone work, leaving the bone tumours to Gerard van Doorninck. They were finished by one o’clock and Deborah had time to go down to dinner before sending Staff off duty. The theatre would have to be washed down that afternoon and she wanted to go through the sharps; some of the chisels needed attention, as did the grooved awl and one or two of the rugines. She would go down to the surgical stores and see what could be done. She had them neatly wrapped and was on the point of making her way through the labyrinth of semi-underground passages to the stores, when Gerard walked in. ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Going somewhere?’

She explained about the sharps, and even as she was speaking he had taken them from her and put them on the desk. ‘Later. I have to go again in a few minutes. I just wanted to make sure…’ he paused and studied her with cool leisure. Apparently her calm demeanour pleased him, for he said: ‘I told you that everything would be all right, didn’t I?’ and when she nodded, longing to tell him that indeed nothing was right at all, he went on: ‘I’ve seen about the licence—there’s a small church round the corner, St Joram’s. Would you like to go and see it and tell me if you will marry me there?’

Her heart jumped because she still wasn’t used to the idea of marrying him, although her face remained tranquil enough. ‘I know St Joram’s very well, I go there sometimes. I should like to be married there.’

He gave a small satisfied sound, like a man who had had a finicky job to do and had succeeded with it sooner than he had expected.

‘I’ll be back on Monday—there’s a list at ten o’clock, isn’t there? I’ll see you before we start.’

He took her hand briefly, said goodbye even more briefly, and retraced his steps. Deborah stood in the empty corridor, listening to his unhurried stride melt into the distance and then merge into the multitude of hospital sounds. Presently she picked up the instruments and started on her way to the surgical stores.

CHAPTER THREE

THE WARMTH OF the early September morning had barely penetrated the dim cool of the little church. Deborah, standing in its porch, peered down its length; in a very few minutes she was going to walk down the aisle with Gerard beside her and become his wife. She wished suddenly that he hadn’t left her there while he returned to lock the car parked outside, because then she wouldn’t have time to think. Now her head seethed with the events of the last ten days; the interview with Miss Bright, the Principal Nursing Officer, and the astonishing ease with which she found herself free to leave exactly when Gerard had wanted her to; the delight and curiosity of her friends, who even at that very moment had no idea that she was getting married this very morning; she had allowed them to think that she and Gerard were going down to her parents in Somerset. She had even allowed them to discuss her wedding dress, with a good deal of friendly bickering as to which style and material would suit her best, and had quietly gone out and shopped around for a pale blue dress and jacket and a wisp of a hat which she had only put on in the car, in case someone in the hospital should have seen it and guessed what it might be, for it was that sort of a hat. But the hat was the only frivolous thing about her; she looked completely composed, and when she heard Gerard’s step behind her, she turned a tranquil face to greet him, very much at variance with her heart’s secret thudding.

He had flowers in his hand, a small spray of roses and orange blossom and green leaves. ‘For you,’ he said. ‘I know that you should have a bouquet, but it might have been difficult to hide from your friends.’ He spoke easily with no sign of discomposure and proceeded to fasten them on to her dress in a matter-of-fact manner. When he had done so, he stood back to look at her. ‘Very nice,’ was his verdict. ‘How lucky that we have such a glorious morning.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’re a few minutes early, shall we stroll round the church?’

They wandered off, examining the memorials on the walls and the gravestones at their feet, for all the world, thought Deborah, slightly light-headed, as though they were a pair of tourists. It was when they reached the pulpit that she noticed the flowers beautifully arranged around the chancel. She stopped before one particularly fine mass of blooms and remarked: ‘How beautiful these are, and so many of them. I shouldn’t have thought that the parish was rich enough to afford anything like this.’

She turned to look at her companion as she spoke and exclaimed:

‘Oh, you had them put here. How—how thoughtful!’

‘I’m glad you like them. I found the church a little bare when I came the other day—the vicar’s wife was only too glad to see to them for me.’

‘Thank you,’ said Deborah. She touched the flowers on her dress. ‘And for these too.’

They had reached the chancel at exactly the right moment; the vicar was waiting for them with two people—his wife, apparently, and someone who might have been the daily help, pressed into the more romantic role of witness.

The service was short. Deborah listened to every word of it and heard nothing, and even when the plain gold ring had been put upon her finger she felt as though it was someone else standing there, being married. She signed the register in a composed manner, received her husband’s kiss with the same calm, and shook hands with the vicar and the two ladies, then walked out of the little church with Gerard. He was holding her hand lightly, talking quietly as they went, and she said not a word, only noticed every small detail about him—his grey suit, the gold cuff links in his silk shirt, the perfection of his polished shoes—who polished them? she wondered stupidly—and his imperturbable face. He turned to smile at her as they reached the door and she smiled back while hope, reinforced by her love, flooded through her. She was young still and pretty, some said beautiful, men liked her, some enough to have wanted to marry her; surely there was a chance that Gerard might fall in love with her? She would be seeing much more of him now, take an interest in his life, make herself indispensable, wear pretty clothes…

‘My dear girl,’ said Gerard kindly, ‘how distraite you have become—quite lost in thought—happy ones, I hope?’

They were standing by the car and he had unlocked the door as he spoke and was holding it open for her, his glance as kind as his voice. She got in, strangely vexed by his kindness, and said too brightly: ‘It was a nice wedding. I—I was thinking about it.’

He nodded and swung the car into the street. ‘Yes, one hears the words during a simple ceremony—I have always thought that big social weddings are slightly unreal.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if his previous wedding had been just such a one, but it seemed hardly a fitting time to do so. She launched into a steady flow of small talk which lasted until they were clear of the centre of the city and heading west.

But presently she fell silent, staring out at the passing traffic as the car gathered speed, casting around in her mind for something to talk about. There was so much to say, and yet nothing. She was on the point of remarking—for the second time—about the weather when Gerard spoke. ‘I think we’ll lunch at Nately Scures—there’s a good pub there, the Baredown. I don’t know about you, Deborah, but getting married seems to have given me a good appetite.’

His manner was so completely at ease that she lost her awkwardness too. ‘I’m hungry too,’ she agreed, ‘and I didn’t realise that it was already one o’clock. We should be home by tea time.’

It was during lunch that one or two notions, not altogether pleasant, entered her head and quite unknown to her, reflected their disquiet in her face. They were sitting back at their ease, drinking their coffee in a companionable silence which Gerard broke. ‘What’s on your mind, Deborah?’

She put some more sugar into her cup although she didn’t want it, and stirred it because it gave her something to do. She began uncertainly: ‘I was just thinking—hoping that Mike, my elder brother, you know, will be home for a day or two with Helen—his wife.’

He smiled very faintly. ‘Why?’

‘Well, I was thinking about—about rooms. You see, the house is very old and there aren’t…’ She tried again. ‘There is Mother and Father’s room and a big guest room, all the other bedrooms are small. If Mike and Helen are there they’ll be in the guest room, which makes it easy for us, because then we shall have our own rooms and there won’t be any need for me to make an excuse—I mean for us not sharing a room.’ She gave him a determinedly matter-of-fact look which he returned with an urbane one of his own. ‘I don’t suppose you had thought about it?’

‘Indeed I had—I thought a migraine would fill the bill.’

‘Do you have migraine?’

‘Good God, girl, no! You.’

She said indignantly: ‘I’ve never had migraine in my life, I don’t even know what it feels like. I really don’t think…’

He gave her an amused glance. ‘Well, it seems the situation isn’t likely to arise, doesn’t it? We can hardly turn your brother and his wife out of their room just for one night.’ He had spoken casually, now he changed the subject abruptly, as they got up to go.

‘It was nice of you not to mind about going straight back to Holland. We’ll go away for a holiday as soon as I can get everything sorted out at the Grotehof.’

She nodded. ‘Oh, the hospital, yes. Have you many private patients too?’

He sent the car tearing past a lorry. ‘Yes, and shall have many more, I think. I’m looking forward to meeting your family.’

She stirred in her seat. ‘Father is a little absentminded; he doesn’t live in the present when he’s busy on a book, and Mother—Mother’s a darling. Neither of them notices much what’s going on around them, but Mother never questions anything I do. Then there’s Mike—and Helen, of course, and John and Billy, they’re fourteen and sixteen, and Maureen who’s eleven. There are great gaps between us, but it’s never seemed to matter.’

They were almost at Salisbury when she ventured to remark: ‘I don’t know anything about your family and I’m terrified of meeting them.’

He slowed the car down and stopped on the grass verge and turned to look at her. ‘My dear Deborah—you, terrified? Why? My mother is like any other mother, perhaps a little older than yours; she must be, let me see, almost sixty. My two brothers, Pieter and Willem, are younger than I, my sister Lia comes between us—she’s married to an architect and they live near Hilversum. Pieter is a pathologist in Utrecht, Willem is a lawyer—he lives in den Haag.’

‘And your mother, does she live with you?’

‘No, she didn’t wish to go on living in the house after my father died—I’m not sure of the reason. She has a flat close by. We see each other often.’

‘So you live alone?’

‘There is Wim, who sees to everything—I suppose you would call him a houseman, but he’s more than that; he’s been with us for so long, and there is Marijke who cooks and keeps house and Mevrouw Smit who comes in to clean. Mother took Leen, who has been with us ever since I can remember, with her when she moved to the flat.’

‘Is your house large?’

‘Large?’ he considered her question. ‘No—but it is old and full of passages and small staircases; delightful to live in but the very devil to keep clean.’ He gave her a quick, sidelong glance. ‘Marijke and Mevrouw Smit see to that, of course. You will be busy enough in other ways.’

‘What other ways?’ asked Deborah with vague suspicion.

‘I told you, did I not, that I need to entertain quite a lot—oh, not riotous parties night after night, but various colleagues who come to the hospital for one reason or the other—sometimes they bring their wives, sometimes they come on their own. And there is the occasional dinner party, and we shall be asked out ourselves.’

‘Oh. How did you manage before?’

He shrugged. ‘Marijke coped with the odd visitor well enough, my mother acted as hostess from time to time. Remember I have been away for two years; I spent only a short time in Amsterdam each month or so, but now I am going back to live I shall be expected to do my share of entertaining. You will be of the greatest help to me if you will deal with that side of our life.’

‘I’ll do my best, though it’s rather different from handing instruments…’

He laughed. ‘Very. But if you do it half as well you will be a great success and earn my undying gratitude.’

She didn’t want his gratitude; she wanted his love, but nothing seemed further from his thoughts. Dinner parties, though, would give her the opportunity to wear pretty clothes and make the most of herself—he might at least notice her as a person. She began to plan a suitable wardrobe…

The road was surprisingly empty after they had left Salisbury behind. At Warminster they turned off on to the Frome road and then, at Deborah’s direction, turned off again into the byroads, through the small village of Nunney and then the still smaller one of Chantry. Her home lay a mile beyond, a Somerset farmhouse, with its back tucked cosily into the hills behind it, and beautifully restored and tended by Mr Culpeper and his wife. It looked delightful now in the afternoon sun, its windows open as was its front door, its garden a mass of colour and nothing but the open country around it. Deborah gave a small sigh of pleasure as she saw it. ‘That’s it,’ she told Gerard.

‘Charming,’ he commented. ‘I hope your parents will ask us back for a visit. I can see that it is a most interesting house—those windows…’ he nodded towards the side of the house, ‘their pediments appear most interesting.’

He brought the car to a halt before the door and as he helped her out she said with something like relief: ‘Father will be delighted that you noticed them, they’re very unusual. Probably he’ll talk of nothing else and quite forget that we’re married.’ They were walking to the door. ‘Do you really know something of sixteenth-century building?’

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