“May I take it that we are now good, firm friends, Sophie?”

She had had a sleep and a delicious lunch and the quiet trees around her were soothing. She smiled up at him; he was safe and solid and a good companion. “Oh, yes.”

“Then perhaps you know what I am going to say next. Will you marry me, Sophie?”

Her smile melted into a look of utter surprise. “Marry you? Why? Whatever for?”

He smiled at that. “We are good friends. Have we not just agreed about that? We enjoy doing the same things, laughing at the same things…. I wanted someone to share my life, Sophie, a companion, someone to make my house a home, someone to be friends with my friends.”

She met his intent look honestly, although her cheeks were pink. “But we don’t—that is, shouldn’t there be love, as well?”

About the Author

Romance readers around the world will be 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, yet 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 will live on in all her stories, including those yet to be published.

The Awakened Heart
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 dull October afternoon was fast becoming a damp evening, its drizzling rain soaking those hurrying home from work. The pavements were crowded; the wholesale dress shops, the shabby second-hand-furniture emporiums, the small businesses carried on behind dirty shop windows were all closing for the day. There were still one or two street barrows doing a desultory trade, but the street, overshadowed by the great bulk of St Agnes’s hospital, in an hour or so’s time would be almost empty. Just at the moment it was alive with those intent on getting home, with the exception of one person: a tall girl, standing still, a look of deep concentration on her face, oblivious of the impatient jostling her splendid person was receiving from passers-by.

Unnoticed by those jostling her, she was none the less attracting the attention of a man standing at the window of the committee-room of the hospital overlooking the street. He watched her for several minutes, at first idly and then with a faint frown, and presently, since he had nothing better to do for the moment, he made his way out of the hospital across the forecourt and into the street.

The girl was on the opposite pavement and he crossed the road without haste, a giant of a man with wide shoulders, making light of the crowds around him. His ‘Can I be of help?’ was asked in a quiet, deep voice, and the girl looked at him with relief.

‘So silly,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘The heel of my shoe is wedged in a gutter and my hands are full. If you would be so kind as to hold these…’

She handed him two plastic shopping-bags. ‘They’re lace-ups,’ she explained. ‘I can’t get my foot out.’

The size of him had caused passers-by to make a little detour around them. He handed back the bags. ‘Allow me?’ he begged her and crouched down, unlaced her shoe, and when she had got her foot out of it carefully worked the heel free, held it while she put her foot back in, and tied the laces tidily.

She thanked him then, smiling up into his handsome face, to be taken aback by the frosty blue of his eyes and his air of cool detachment, rather as though he had been called upon to do something which he had found tiresome. Well, perhaps it had been tiresome, but surely he didn’t have to look at her like that? He was smiling now too, a small smile which just touched his firm mouth and gave her the nasty feeling that he knew just what she was thinking. She removed the smile, flashed him a look from beautiful dark eyes, wished him goodbye, and joined the hurrying crowd around her. He had ruffled her feelings, although she wasn’t sure why. She dismissed him from her mind and turned into a side-street lined with old-fashioned houses with basements guarded by iron railings badly in need of paint; the houses were slightly down at heel too and the variety of curtains at their windows bore testimony to the fact that subletting was the norm.

Halfway down the street she mounted the steps of a house rather better kept than its neighbours and unlocked the door. The hall was narrow and rather dark and redolent of several kinds of cooking. The girl wrinkled her beautiful nose and started up the stairs, to be stopped by a voice from a nearby room.

‘Is that you, Sister Blount? There was a phone call for you…’

A middle-aged face, crowned by a youthful blonde wig, appeared round the door. ‘Your dear mother, wishing to speak to you. I was so bold as to tell her that you would be home at six o’clock.’

The girl paused on the stairs. ‘Thank you, Miss Phipps. I’ll phone as soon as I’ve been to my room.’

Miss Phipps frowned and then decided to be playfully rebuking. ‘Your flatlet, Sister, dear. I flatter myself that my tenants are worthy of something better than bed-sitting-rooms.’

The girl murmured and smiled and went up two flights of stairs to the top floor and unlocked the only door on the small landing. It was an attic room with the advantage of a window overlooking the street as well as a smaller one which gave a depressing view of back yards and strings of washing, but there was a tree by it where sparrows sat, waiting for the crumbs on the window sill. It had a wash-basin in one corner and a small gas stove in an alcove by the blocked-up fireplace. There was a small gas fire too, and these, according to Miss Phipps, added up to mod cons and a flatlet. The bathroom was shared too by the two flat-lets on the floor below, but since she was on night duty and everyone else worked during the day that was no problem. She dumped her shopping on the small table under the window, took off her coat, kicked off her shoes, stuck her feet into slippers and bent to pick up the small tabby cat which had uncurled itself from the end of the divan bed against one wall.

‘Mabel, hello. I’ll be back in a moment to get your supper…’

The phone was in the hall and to hold a private conversation on it was impossible, for Miss Phipps rarely shut her door. She fed the machine some ten-pence pieces and dialled her home.

‘Sophie?’ her mother’s voice answered at once. ‘Darling, it isn’t anything important; I just wanted to know how you were and when you’re coming home for a day or two.’

‘I was coming at the end of the week, but Sister Symonds is ill again. She should be back by the end of next week, though, and I’ll take two lots of nights off at once—almost a week…’

‘Oh, good. Let us know which train and someone will pick you up at the station. You’re busy?’

‘Yes, off and on—not too bad.’ Sophie always said that. She was always busy; Casualty and the accident room took no account of time of day or night. She knew that her mother thought of her as sitting for a great part of the night at the tidy desk, giving advice and from time to time checking on a more serious case, and Sophie hadn’t enlightened her. On really busy nights she hardly saw her desk at all, but, sleeves rolled up and plastic apron tied around her slim waist, she worked wherever she was most needed.

‘Is that Miss Phipps listening?’

‘Of course…’

‘What would happen if you brought a man back for supper?’ Her mother chuckled.

‘When do I ever get the time?’ asked Sophie and allowed her thoughts to dwell just for a moment on the man with the cold blue eyes. The sight of her flatlet would trigger off the little smile; she had no doubt of that. Probably he had never seen anything like it in his life.

They didn’t talk for long; conversation wasn’t easy with Miss Phipps’s wig just visible in the crack of her door. Sophie hung up and went upstairs, fed Mabel and opened the window which gave on to a railed-off ledge so that the little beast could air herself, and put away her shopping. What with one thing and another, there was barely time for her to get a meal before she went on duty. She made a pot of tea, opened a tin of beans, poached an egg, and did her face and hair again. Her face, she reflected, staring at it in the old-fashioned looking-glass on the wall above the basin, looked tired. ‘I shall have wrinkles and lines before I know where I am,’ said Sophie to Mabel, watching her from the bed.

Nonsense, of course; she was blessed with a lovely face: wide dark eyes, a delightful nose above a gentle, generous mouth, and long, curling lashes as dark as her hair, long and thick and worn in a complicated arrangement which took quite a time to do but which stayed tidy however busy she was.

She stooped to drop a kiss on the cat’s head, picked up her roomy shoulder-bag, and let herself out of the room, a tall girl with a splendid figure and beautiful legs.

Her flatlet might lack the refinements of home, but it was only five minutes’ walk from the hospital. She crossed the courtyard with five minutes to spare, watched, if she did but know, by the man who had retrieved her shoe for her—in the committee-room again, exchanging a desultory conversation with those of his colleagues who were lingering after their meeting. Tomorrow would be a busy day, for he had come over to England especially to operate on a cerebral tumour; brain surgery was something on which he was an acknowledged expert, so that a good deal of his work was international. Already famous in his own country, he was fast attaining the highest rung of the ladder.

He stood now, looking from the window, studying Sophie’s splendid person as she crossed the forecourt.

‘Who is that?’ he asked Dr Wells, the anaesthetist who would be working with him in the morning and an old friend.

‘That’s our Sophie, Night Sister in Casualty and the accident room, worth her not inconsiderable weight in gold too. Pretty girl…’

They parted company presently and Professor Rijk van Taak ter Wijsma made his way without haste down to the entrance. He was stopped before he reached it by the surgical registrar who was to assist him in the morning, so that they were both deep in talk when the first of the ambulances flashed past on its way to the accident room entrance.

They were still discussing the morning’s work when the registrar’s bleep interrupted them.

He listened for a minute and said, ‘There’s a head injury in, Professor—contusion and laceration with evidence of coning. Mr Bellamy had planned a weekend off…’

His companion took his phone from him and dialled a number. ‘Hello, John? Rijk here. Peter Small is here with me; they want him in the accident room—there’s a head injury just in. As I’m here, shall I take a look? I know you’re not on call…’ He listened for a moment. ‘Good, we’ll go along and have a look.’

He gave the phone back. ‘You wouldn’t mind if I took a look? There might be something I could suggest…’

‘That’s very good of you, sir; you don’t mind?’

‘Not in the least.’

The accident room was busy, but then it almost always was. Sophie, with a practised glance at the patient, sent the junior sister to deal with the less urgent cases with the aid of two student nurses, taking the third nurse with her as the paramedics wheeled the patient into an empty cubicle. The casualty officer was already there; while he phoned the registrar they began connecting up the various monitoring tubes and checked the oxygen flow, working methodically and with the sure speed of long practice. All the same, she could see that the man on the stretcher was in a bad way.

She was trying to count an almost imperceptible pulse when she became conscious of someone standing just behind her and then edging her gently to one side while a large, well kept hand gently lifted the dressing on the battered head.

‘Tut, tut,’ said the professor. ‘What do we know, Sister?’

‘A fall from a sixth-floor window on to a concrete pavement. Thready pulse, irregular and slow, cerebro-spinal fluid from left ear, epistaxis…’

Her taxing training was standing her in good stead; she answered him promptly and with few words, while a small part of her mind registered the fact that the man beside her had tied her shoelaces for her not two hours since.

What a small world, she reflected, and allowed herself a second’s pleasure at seeing him again. But only a second; she was already busy adjusting tubes and knobs at the registrar’s low-voiced instructions.

The two men bent over the unconscious patient while she took a frighteningly high blood-pressure and the casualty officer looked for other injuries and broken bones.

Presently the professor straightened up. ‘Anterior fossa—depressed fracture. Let’s have an X-ray and get him up to Theatre.’ He took a look at Peter Small. ‘You agree? There’s a good chance…’ He glanced at Sophie. ‘If you would warn Theatre, Sister? Thank you.’

He gave her a brief look; he didn’t recognise her, thought Sophie, but then why should he? She was in uniform now, the old-fashioned dark blue dress and frilly cap which St Agnes’s management committee refused to exchange for nylon and paper.

The men went away, leaving her to organise the patient’s removal to the theatre block, warn Night Theatre Sister, Intensive Care and the men’s surgical ward, and, that done, there was the business of his identity, his address, his family… It was going to be a busy night, Sophie decided, writing and telephoning, dealing with everything and the police, and at the same time keeping an eye on the incoming patients. Nothing too serious from a medical point of view, although bad enough for the owners of sprained ankles, cut heads, fractured arms and legs, but they all needed attention—X-rays, cleaning and stitching and bandaging, and sometimes admitting to a ward.

It was two o’clock in the morning, and she had just wolfed down a sandwich and drunk a reviving mug of tea since there had been no chance of getting down to the canteen, when a girl was brought in, a small toddler screaming her head off in her mother’s arms, who thrust her at Sophie. ‘’Ere, take a look at ’er, will yer? Fell down the stairs, been bawling ’er ’ead off ever since.’

Sophie laid the grubby scrap gently on to one of the couches. ‘How long ago was this?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Dunno. Me neighbour told me when I got ’ome—nine o’clock, I suppose.’

Sophie was examining the little girl gently. ‘She had got out of her bed?’

‘Bed? She don’t go ter bed till I’m ’ome.’

Sophie sent a nurse to see if she could fetch the casualty officer and, when she found him and he arrived, left the nurse with him and ushered the mother into her office.

‘I shall want your name and address and the little girl’s name. How was she able to get to the stairs? Is it a high-rise block of flats?’ She glanced at the address again. ‘At the end of Montrose Street, isn’t it?’

‘S’right, fifth floor. I leave the door, see, so’s me neighbour can take a look at Tracey…’

‘She is left alone during the day?’

‘Well, off and on, you might say, and sometimes of an evening—just when I go to the pub evenings.’

‘Well, shall we see what the doctor says? Perhaps it may be necessary to keep Tracey in the hospital for a day or two.’

‘Suits me—driving me mad with that howling, she is.’

Tracey had stopped crying; only an occasional snivel betrayed her misery. Sophie said briskly, ‘You’d like her admitted for observation, Dr Wright?’ and at the same time bestowed a warning frown on him; Jeff Wright and she had been friends for ages, and he understood the frown.

‘Oh, definitely, Sister, if you would arrange it. This is the mother?’ He bent an earnest gaze upon the woman, who said at once,

‘It ain’t my fault. I’ve got ter ’ave a bit of fun, ’aven’t I? Me ’usband left me, see?’

Sophie thought that he might have good reason. The woman was dirty, and although she was wearing make-up and cheap fashionable clothes the child was in a smelly dress and vest and no nappy. ‘You may visit when you like,’ she told her. ‘Would you like to stay until she is settled in?’

‘No, thanks. I gotta get some sleep, haven’t I?’

She nodded to the child. ‘Bye for now, night all.’

‘Be an angel and right away get the children’s ward,’ said Sophie. ‘I’ll wrap this scrap up in a blanket and take her up—a pity we can’t clean her up first, but I can’t spare the nurses.’

All the same, she wiped the small grubby face and peeled off the outer layer of garments before cuddling Tracey into a blanket and picking her up carefully. There were no bones broken, luckily, but a great deal of bruising, and in the morning the paediatrician would go over the small body and make sure that no great harm had been done.

She took the lift and got out at the third floor and walked straight into the professor’s vast person. He was alone and still in his theatre gear.

‘Having a busy night, Sister?’ he asked, in a far too cheerful voice for the small hours.

Her ‘Yes, sir’ was terse, and he smiled.

‘Hardly the best of times in which to renew an acquaintance, is it?’ He stood on one side so that she might pass. ‘We must hope for a more fortunate meeting.’

Sophie hoisted the sleeping toddler a little higher against her shoulder. She was tired and wanted a cup of tea and a chance to sit down for ten minutes; she was certainly not in a mood for polite conversation.

‘Unlikely,’ she observed crossly. She had gone several steps when she paused and turned to look at him.

‘That man—you’ve operated?’

‘Yes; given a modicum of luck and some good nursing, he should recover.’

‘Oh, I’m so glad.’ She nodded and went on her way, her busy night somehow worth while at the news.

The senior sister, when she came on duty in the morning, was full of complaints. She was on the wrong side of forty and an habitual grumbler; Sophie, listening with inward impatience to peevish criticisms about the weather, breakfast, the rudeness of student nurses and the impossibility of finding the shoes she wanted, choked back a yawn and presently took herself thankfully off duty.

Breakfast was always a cheerful meal, despite the fact that they were all tired; Sophie poured herself a cup of tea, collected a substantial plateful of food, and sat down with the other night sisters. There was quite a tableful, and despite the fact that they were all weary the conversation was lively.

Theatre Sister held the attention of the whole table almost at once. ‘We scrubbed at nine o’clock and didn’t finish until after two in the morning. There was this super man operating—Professor something or other. He’s from Holland—a pal of Mr Bellamy’s—and over here to demonstrate some new technique. He made a marvellous job of this poor chap too.’

She beamed round the table, a small waif of a girl with big blue eyes and fair hair. ‘He’s a smasher—my dears, you should just see him. Enormous and very tall, blue eyes and very fair hair, nicely grey at the sides. He’s operating again at ten o’clock and when Sister Tucker heard about him she said she’d scrub…’

There was a ripple of laughter; Sister Tucker was getting on a bit and as theatre superintendent very seldom took a case. ‘Bet you wish you were on duty, Gill,’ said someone and then, ‘What about you, Sophie? Did you see this marvellous man?’

Sophie bit into her toast. ‘Yes, he came into the accident room with Peter Small—I believe he’s just arrived here.’ She took another bite and her companions asked impatiently,

‘Well, what’s he like? Did you take a good look…?’

‘Not really; he’s tall and large…’ She glanced round her. ‘There wasn’t much chance…’

‘Oh, hard luck, and you’re not likely to see him again—Gill’s the lucky one.’

‘Who’s got nights off?’ someone asked.

The lucky ones were quick to say, and someone said, ‘And you, Sophie? Aren’t you due this weekend?’

‘Yes, but Ida Symonds is ill again, so I’ll have to do her weekend. Never mind, I shall take a whole week when she comes back.’ She put up a shapely hand to cover a yawn. ‘I’m for bed.’

They left the table in twos and threes and went along to the changing-room and presently went their various ways. The professor, on the point of getting out of the silver-grey Bentley he had parked in the forecourt, watched Sophie come out of the entrance, reach the street and cross over before he got out of the car and made his unhurried way to the theatre, where Sister Tucker awaited him.

Sophie, in her flatlet, making a cup of tea and seeing to Mabel’s breakfast, found herself thinking about the professor; she was unwilling to admit it, but she would like to meet him again. Perhaps, she thought guiltily, she had been a bit rude when they had met on her way to the children’s ward. And why had he said that he hoped for a more fortunate meeting?

She wasn’t a conceited girl, but she knew that she was nice-looking—she was too big to be called pretty and, though she was, she had never thought of herself as beautiful. She never lacked invitations to go out with the house doctors, something she occasionally did, but she was heart-whole and content to stay as she was until the right man came along. Only just lately she had had one or two uneasy twinges about that; she had had several proposals and refused them in the nicest possible way, waiting for the vague and unknown dream man who would sweep her off her feet and leave no room for doubts…

Presently she went to bed with Mabel for company and slept at once, ignoring the good advice offered by her landlady, who considered that a brisk walk before bed was the correct thing to do for those who were on night duty. That she had never been on night duty in her life and had no idea what that entailed was beside the point. Besides, the East End of London was hardly conducive to a walk, especially when there was still a faint drizzle left over from the day before.

Sophie wakened refreshed, took a bath, attended to Mabel, and, still in her dressing-gown, made a pot of tea and sat down by the gas fire to enjoy it. She had taken the first delicious sip when someone knocked at the door.

Sophie put down her cup and muttered crossly at Mabel, who muttered back. Miss Phipps, a deeply suspicious person, collected her rent weekly, and it was Friday. Sophie picked up her purse and opened the door.

Only it wasn’t Miss Phipps; it was Professor van Taak ter Wijsma.

She opened her mouth, but before she could utter a squeak he laid a finger upon it.

‘Your good landlady,’ said the professor in a voice strong enough to be heard by that lady lurking at the bottom of the stairs, ‘has kindly allowed me to visit you on a matter of some importance.’ As he spoke he pushed her gently back into the room and closed the door behind them both…

‘Well,’ said Sophie with a good deal of heat, ‘what in heaven’s name are you doing here? Go away at once.’ She remembered that she was still in her dressing-gown, a rather fetching affair in quilted rose-pink satin. ‘I’m not dressed…’

‘I had noticed, but let me assure you that since I have five sisters girls in dressing-gowns hold no surprises for me.’ He added thoughtfully, ‘Although I must admit that this one becomes you very well.’

‘What’s so important?’ snapped Sophie. ‘I can’t imagine what it can be.’

‘No, no, how could you?’ He spoke soothingly. ‘I am going to Liverpool tomorrow and I shall be back on Wednesday. I thought that a drive into the country when you come off duty might do you good—fresh air, you know… I’ll have to have you back here by one o’clock and you can go straight to bed.’

He was strolling around the room, looking at everything. ‘Why do you live in this terrible room with that even more terrible woman who is your landlady?’

‘Because it’s close to the hospital and I can’t afford anything better.’ She added, ‘Oh, do go away. I can’t think why you came.’

‘Why, to tell you that I will pick you up on Wednesday morning—from here?—and take you for an airing. Your temper will be improved by a peaceful drive.’

She stood in front of him, trying to find the right words, so that she could tell him just what she thought of him, but she couldn’t think of them. He said gently, ‘I’ll be here at half-past nine.’ He had picked up Mabel, who had settled her small furry head against his shoulder, purring with pleasure.

Sophie had the outrageous thought that the shoulder would be very nice to lean against; she had the feeling that she was standing in a strong wind and being blown somewhere. She heard herself saying, ‘Oh, all right, but I can’t think why. And do go; I’m on duty in half an hour…’

‘I’ll be downstairs waiting for you; we can walk back together. Don’t be long, for I think that I shall find Miss Phipps a trying conversationalist.’

He let himself out, leaving her to dress rapidly, do her hair and face, and make suitable arrangements for Mabel’s comfort during the night, and while she did that she thought about the professor. An arrogant type, she told herself, used to having influence and his own way and doubtless having his every whim pandered to. Just because he had happened to be there when she’d needed help with that wretched shoe didn’t mean that he could scrape acquaintance with her. ‘I shall tell him that I have changed my mind,’ she told Mabel. ‘There is absolutely no reason why I should go out with him.’

She put the little cat in her basket, picked up her shoulder-bag, and went downstairs.

Miss Phipps, pink-cheeked and wig slightly askew, was talking animatedly to the professor, describing with a wealth of detail just how painful were her bunions. The professor, who had had nothing to do with bunions for years, listened courteously, and gravely advised a visit to her own doctor. Then he bade her an equally courteous goodnight and swept Sophie out into the damp darkness.

‘I dislike this road,’ he observed, taking her arm.

For some reason his arm worried her. She said, knowing that she was being rude, ‘Well, you don’t have to live in it, do you?’

His answer brought her up short. ‘My poor girl, you should be living in the country—open fields and hedgerows…’

‘Well, I do,’ she said waspishly. ‘My home is in the country.’

‘You do not wish to work near your home?’ The question was put so casually that she answered without thinking.

‘Well, that would be splendid, but it’s miles from anywhere. Besides, I can get there easily enough from here.’

He didn’t comment on her unconscious contradiction, and since they were already in the forecourt of St Agnes’s he made some remark about the hospital and, once inside its doors, bade her a civil goodnight and went away in the direction of the consultant’s room.

In the changing-room, full of night sisters getting into their uniforms, she heard Gill’s voice from the further end. ‘He’s been operating for most of the day,’ she was saying. ‘I dare say he’ll have a look at his patients this evening—men’s surgical. I shall make an excuse to go down there to borrow something. Kitty—’ Kitty was the night sister there ‘—give me a ring when he does. He’s going away tomorrow, did you know?’ She addressed her companions at large. ‘But he’ll be back.’

‘How do you know?’ someone asked.

‘Oh, I phoned Theatre Sister earlier this evening—had a little gossip…’

They all laughed, and although Sophie laughed too she felt a bit guilty, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to tell them about her unexpected visitor that evening, nor the conversation she had had with him. She didn’t think anyone would believe her anyway. She wasn’t sure if she believed it herself.

Several busy nights brought her to Wednesday morning and the realisation that since she hadn’t seen the professor she hadn’t been able to refuse to go out with him. ‘I shall do so if and when he comes,’ she told Mabel, who went on cleaning her whiskers, quite unconcerned.

Sophie had had far too busy a night and she pottered rather grumpily around her room, not sure whether to have her bath first or a soothing cup of tea. She had neither. Miss Phipps, possibly scenting romance, climbed the stairs to tell her that she was wanted on the phone. ‘That nice gentleman,’ she giggled, ‘said I was to get you out of the bath if necessary.’ She caught Sophie’s fulminating eye and added hastily, ‘Just his little joke; gentlemen do like their little jokes…’

Sophie choked back a rude answer and went downstairs, closely followed by her landlady, who, although she went into her room, took care to leave the door slightly open.

‘Hello,’ said Sophie in her haughtiest voice.

‘As cross as two sticks,’ answered the professor’s placid voice. ‘I shall be with you in exactly ten minutes.’

He hung up before she could utter a word. She put the receiver back and the phone rang again and when she picked it up he said, ‘If you aren’t at the door I shall come up for you. Don’t worry, I’ll bring Miss Phipps with me as a chaperon.’

Sophie thumped down the receiver once more, ignored Miss Phipps’s inquisitive face peering round her door, and took herself back to her room. ‘I don’t want to go out,’ she told Mabel. ‘It’s the very last thing I want to do.’

All the same, she did things to her face and hair and put on her coat, assured Mabel that she wouldn’t be away for long, and went downstairs again with a minute to spare.

The professor was already there, exchanging small talk with Miss Phipps, who gave Sophie an awfully sickening roguish look and said something rather muddled about pretty girls not needing beauty sleep if there was something better to do. Sophie cast her a look of outrage and bade the professor a frosty good morning, leaving him to make his polite goodbyes to her landlady, before she was swept out into the chilly morning and into the Bentley’s welcoming warmth.

It was disconcerting when he remained silent, driving the car out of London on the A12 and, once clear of the straggling suburbs, turning off on to a side-road into the Essex countryside, presently turning off again on to an even smaller road, apparently leading to nowhere.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked her.

‘Yes,’ said Sophie, and added, ‘Thank you.’

‘Do you know this part of the world?’ His voice was quiet.

‘No, at least not the side-roads; it’s not as quick…’ She stopped just in time.

‘I suppose it’s quicker for you to turn off at Romford and go through Chipping Ongar?’

She turned to look at him, but he was gazing ahead, his profile calm.

‘How did you know where I live?’ She had been comfortably somnolent, but now she was wide awake.

‘I asked Peter Small; do you mind?’

‘Mind? I don’t know; I can’t think why you should want to know. Were you just being curious?’

‘No, no, I never give way to idle curiosity. Now if I’m right there’s a nice little pub in the next village—we might get coffee there.’

The pub was charming, clean and rather bare, with not a fruit machine in sight. There was a log fire smouldering in the vast stone fireplace, with an elderly dog stretched out before it, and the landlord, pleased to have custom before the noonday locals arrived, offered a plate of hot buttered toast to devour with the coffee.

Biting into her third slice, Sophie asked, ‘Why did you want to know?’ Mellowed by the toast and the coffee, she felt strangely friendly towards her companion.

‘I’m not sure if you would believe me if I told you. Shall I say that, despite a rather unsettled start, I feel that we might become friends?’

‘What would be the point? I mean, we don’t move in the same circles, do we? You live in Holland—don’t you?—and I live here. Besides, we don’t know anything about each other.’

‘Exactly. It behoves us to remedy that, does it not? You have nights off at the weekend? I’ll drive you home.’

‘Drive me home,’ repeated Sophie, parrot-fashion. ‘But what am I to say to Mother…?’

‘My dear girl, don’t tell me that you haven’t been taken home by any number of young men…’

‘Well, yes, but you’re different.’

‘Older?’ He smiled suddenly and she discovered that she liked him more than she had thought. ‘Confess that you feel better, Sophie; you need some male companionship—nothing serious, just a few pleasant hours from time to time. After all, as you said, I live in Holland.’

‘Are you married?’

He laughed gently. ‘No, Sophie—and you?’

She shook her head and smiled dazzlingly. ‘It would be nice to have a casual friend… I’m not sure how I feel. Do we know each other well enough for me to go to sleep on the way back?’

CHAPTER TWO

SO SOPHIE slept, her mouth slightly open, her head lolling on the professor’s shoulder, to be gently roused at Miss Phipps’s door, eased out of the car, still not wholly awake, and ushered into the house.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Sophie. ‘That was a very nice ride.’ She stared up at him, her eyes huge in her tired face.

‘Is ten o’clock too early for you on Saturday?’

‘No. Mabel has to come too…’

‘Of course. Sleep well, Sophie.’

He propelled her gently to the stairs and watched her climb them and was in turn watched by Miss Phipps through her half-open door. When he heard Sophie’s door shut he wished a slightly flustered Miss Phipps good morning and took himself off.

Sophie told herself that it was a change of scene which had made her feel so pleased with life. She woke up with the pleasant feeling that something nice had happened. True, the professor had made some rather strange remarks, and perhaps she had said rather more than she had intended, but her memory was a little hazy, for she had been very tired, and there was no use worrying about that now. It would be delightful to be driven home on Saturday…

Casualty was busy when she went on duty that evening, but there was nothing very serious and nothing at all in the accident room; she went to her midnight meal so punctually that various of her friends commented upon it.

‘What’s happened to you, Sophie?’ asked Gill. ‘You look as though you’ve won the pools.’

‘Or fallen in love,’ said someone from the other side of the table. ‘Who is it, Sophie?’

‘Neither—I had a good sleep, and it’s a quiet night, thank heaven.’

‘If you say so,’ said Gill. ‘I haven’t won the pools—something much more exciting. That lovely man is operating at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. I have offered to lay up for Sister Tucker—’ there was a burst of laughter ‘—just so that everything would be ready for him, and I shan’t mind if I’m a few minutes late off duty.’ She smiled widely. ‘Especially if I should happen to bump into him.’

Joan Middleton, in charge of men’s medical, the only one of them who was married and therefore not particularly interested, observed in her matter-of-fact way, ‘Probably he’s married with half a dozen children—he’s not all that young, is he?’

‘He’s not even middle-aged,’ said Gill sharply. ‘Sophie, you’ve seen him. He’s still quite young—in his thirties, wouldn’t you think?’

Sophie looked vague. ‘Probably.’ She took another piece of toast and reached for the marmalade.

Gill said happily, ‘Well, I dare say he falls for little wistful women, like me…’ And although Sophie laughed with the rest of them, she didn’t feel too sure about that. No, that wouldn’t do at all, she reflected. Just because he had taken her for a drive didn’t mean that he had any interest in her; indeed, it might be a cunning way of covering his real interest in Gill, who, after all, was exactly the type of girl a man would fall for. Never mind that she was the soul of efficiency in Theatre; once out of uniform, she became helpless, wistful and someone to be cherished. Helplessness and wistfulness didn’t sit happily on Sophie.

Sophie saw nothing of the professor for the few nights left before she was due for nights off. She heard a good deal about him, though, for Gill had contrived to waylay him in Theatre before she went off duty and was full of his good looks and charm; moreover, when she went on duty the following night there had been an emergency operation and he was still in Theatre, giving her yet another chance to exchange a few words with him.

‘I wonder where he goes for his weekends?’ said Gill, looking round the breakfast-table.

Sophie, who could have told her, remained silent; instead she observed that she was off home just as soon as she could get changed, bade everyone goodbye, and took herself off.

She showered and changed into a rather nice multi-check jacket in a dark red with its matching skirt, tucked a cream silk scarf in the neck, stuck her feet into low-heeled black shoes, and, with her face carefully made-up and her hair in its complicated coil, took herself to the long mirror inside the old-fashioned wardrobe and had an appraising look.

‘Not too bad,’ she remarked to Mabel as she popped her into her travel basket, slung her simple weekend bag over her shoulder, and went down to the front door. It was ten o’clock, and she didn’t allow herself to think what she would do if he wasn’t there…

He was, sitting in his magnificent car, reading a newspaper. He got out as she opened the door, rather hampered by Miss Phipps, who was quite unnecessarily holding it open for her, bade her good morning, took Mabel, who was grumbling to herself in her basket, wished Miss Phipps good day, and stowed both Sophie and Mabel into his car without further ado. He achieved this with a courteous speed which rather took Sophie’s breath, but as he drove away she said severely, ‘Good morning, Professor.’

‘I suspect that you are put out at my businesslike greeting. That can be improved upon later. I felt it necessary to get away quickly before that tiresome woman began a conversation; I find her exhausting.’

An honest girl, Sophie said at once, ‘I’m not put out; at least, I wasn’t quite sure that you would be here. As for Miss Phipps, I expect she’s lonely.’

‘That I find hard to believe; what I find even harder to believe is that you doubted my word.’ He glanced sideways at her. ‘I told you that I would be outside your lodgings at ten o’clock.’

‘I don’t think I doubted you,’ she said slowly. ‘I think I wasn’t quite sure why you were giving me a lift—I mean it’s out of your way, isn’t it?’

‘I make a point of seeing as much of the English countryside as possible when I am over here.’

She wasn’t sure whether that was a gentle snub or not; in any case she wasn’t sure how to answer it, so she made a remark about the weather and he replied suitably and they lapsed into a silence broken only by Mabel’s gentle grumbling from the back seat.

Sophie, left to her thoughts, wondered what would be the best thing to do when they arrived at her home. Should she ask him in for coffee or merely thank him for the lift and allow him to go to wherever he was going? She had phoned her mother on the previous evening and told her that she was getting a lift home, but she hadn’t said much else…

‘Would you like to stop for coffee or do you suppose your mother would be kind enough to have it ready for us?’

It was as though he had known just what she had been thinking. ‘I’m sure she will expect us in time for coffee—that is, if you would like to stop…’

‘I should like to meet your parents.’ He sounded friendly, and she was emboldened to ask, ‘How long will you be in England?’

‘I shall go back to Holland in a couple of weeks.’

A remark which left her feeling strangely forlorn.

They were clear of the eastern suburbs by now and he turned off on to the road to Chipping Ongar. The countryside was surprisingly rural once they left the main road and when he took a small side-road before they reached that town she said in surprise, ‘Oh, you know this part of the country?’

‘Only from my map. I find it delightful that one can leave the main roads so easily and get comfortably lost in country lanes.’

‘Can’t you do that in Holland?’

‘Not easily. The country is flat, so that there is always a town or a village on the horizon.’ He added to surprise her, ‘What do you intend to do with your life, Sophie?’

‘Me?’ The question was so unexpected that she hadn’t a ready answer. ‘Well, I’ve a good job at St Agnes’s…’

‘No boyfriend, no thought of marriage?’

‘No.’

‘And it’s none of my business…’ he laughed. ‘Tell me, is it quicker to go through Cooksmill Green or take the road on the left at the next crossroads?’

‘If you were on your own it would be best to go through Cooksmill Green, but since I’m here to show you the way go left; there aren’t any villages until we get to Shellow Roding.’

It really was rural now, with wide fields on either side of the road bordered by trees and thick hedges, and presently the spire of the village church came into view and the first of the cottages, their ochre or white walls crowned by thatch, thickening into clusters on either side of the green with the church at one side of it, the village pub opposite and a row of small neat shops.

‘Charming,’ observed the professor and, obedient to Sophie’s instruction, turned the car down a narrow lane beside the church.

Her home was a few hundred yards beyond. The house was old and bore the mark of several periods, its colour-washed walls pierced by a variety of windows. A stone wall, crumbling in places, surrounded the garden, and an open gate to the short drive led them to the front door.

The professor brought the car to a silent halt, and got out to open Sophie’s door and reach on to the back seat for Mabel’s basket, and at the same time the door opened and Sophie’s mother came out to meet them. She was a tall woman, as splendidly built as her daughter, her dark hair streaked with grey, her face still beautiful. Two dogs followed her, a Jack Russell and a whippet, both barking and cruising round Sophie.

‘Darling,’ said Mrs Blount, ‘how lovely to see you.’ She gave Sophie a kiss and turned to the professor, smiling.

‘Mother, this is Professor van Taak ter Wijsma, who has kindly given me a lift. My mother, Professor.’

‘A professor,’ observed Mrs Blount. ‘I dare say you’re frightfully clever?’ She smiled at him, liking what she saw. Really, thought Sophie, he had only to smile like that and everyone fell for him. But not me, she added, silently careless of grammar; we’re just friends…

Mrs Blount led the way indoors. ‘A pity the boys aren’t at home; they’d have loved your big motor car.’

‘Perhaps another time,’ murmured the professor. He somehow conveyed the impression that he knew the entire family well—was an old friend, in fact. Sophie let Mabel out of her basket, feeling put out, although she had no idea why. There was no time to dwell on that, however. The dogs, Montgomery and Mercury, recognising Mabel as a well established visitor, were intent on a game, and by the time Sophie had quietened them down everyone had settled down in the kitchen, a large, cosy room, warm from the Aga, the vast dresser loaded with a variety of dishes and plates, the large table in its centre ringed by old-fashioned wooden chairs. There was a bowl of apples on it and a plate of scones, and a coffee-pot, equally old-fashioned, sat on the Aga.

‘So much warmer in the kitchen,’ observed Mrs Blount breezily, ‘though if I had known who you were I would have had the best china out in the drawing-room.’

‘Professors are ten a penny,’ he assured her, ‘and this is a delightful room.’

Sophie had taken off her coat and come to sit at the table. ‘Do you work together at St Agnes’s?’ asked her mother.

‘Our paths cross from time to time, do they not, Sophie?’

‘I’m on night duty,’ said Sophie quite unnecessarily. She passed him the scones, and since they were both looking at her she added, ‘If there’s a case—Professor van Taak ter Wijsma is a brain surgeon.’

‘You don’t live here, do you?’ asked Mrs Blount as she refilled his coffee-mug.

‘No, no, my home is normally in Holland, but I travel around a good deal.’

‘A pity your father isn’t at home, Sophie; he would have enjoyed meeting Professor van Taak…’ She paused. ‘I’ve forgotten the rest of it; I am sorry.’

‘Please call me Rijk; it is so much easier. Perhaps I shall have the pleasure of meeting your husband at some time, Mrs Blount.’

‘Oh, I do hope so. He’s a vet, you know; he has a surgery here in the village and is senior partner at the veterinary centre in Chipping Ongar. He’s always busy…’

Sophie drank her coffee, not saying much. The professor had wormed his way into her family with ease, she reflected crossly. It was all very well, all his talk about being friends, but she wasn’t going to be rushed into anything, not even the casual friendship he had spoken of.

He got up to go presently, shook Mrs Blount’s hand, dropped a casual kiss on Sophie’s cheek with the remark that he would call for her on Sunday next week about eight o’clock, and got into his car and drove away. He left Sophie red in the face and speechless and her mother thoughtful.

‘What a nice young man,’ she remarked artlessly.

‘He’s not all that young, Mother…’

‘Young for a professor, surely. Don’t you like him, darling?’

‘I hardly know him; he offered me a lift. I believe he’s a very good surgeon in his own field.’

Mrs Blount studied her daughter’s heightened colour. ‘Tom will be home for half-term in a couple of weeks’ time; I suppose you won’t be able to come while he’s here. George and Paul will be here too.’

‘I’ll do my best—Ida’s just back from sick leave; she might not mind doing my weekend if I do hers on the following week. I’ll see what she says and phone you.’

It was lovely being home; she helped her father with the small animals, drove him around to farms needing his help, and helped her mother around the house, catching up on the village gossip with Mrs Broom, who came twice a week to oblige. She was a small round woman who knew everyone’s business and passed it on to anyone who would listen, but, since she wasn’t malicious, no one minded. It didn’t surprise Sophie in the least to hear that the professor had been seen, looked at closely and approved, although she had to squash Mrs Broom’s assumption that she and he had a romantic attachment.

‘Oh, well,’ said Mrs Broom, ‘it’s early days—you never know.’ She added severely, ‘Time you was married, Miss Sophie.’

The week passed quickly; the days weren’t long enough and now that the evenings were closing in there were delightful hours to spend round the drawing-room fire, reading and talking and just sitting doing nothing at all. She missed the professor, not only his company but the fact that he was close by even though she might not see him for days on end. His suggestion of friendship, which she hadn’t taken seriously, became something to be considered. But perhaps he hadn’t been serious—hadn’t he said ‘Nothing serious’? She would, she decided, be a little cool when next they met.

He came just before eight o’clock on Sunday evening and all her plans to be cool were instantly wrecked. He got out of the car and when she opened the door and went to meet him, he flung a great arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek, and that in full view of her mother and father. She had no chance to express her feelings about that, for his cheerful greeting overrode the indignant words she would have uttered. He was behaving like a family friend of long standing and at the same time combining it with beautiful manners; she could see that her parents were delighted with him.

This is the last time, reflected Sophie, going indoors again. All that nonsense about casual friends and needing male companionship; he’s no better than a steam-roller.

Anything less like that cumbersome machine would have been hard to imagine. The professor’s manners were impeccable and after his unexpected embrace of her person he became the man she imagined him to be: rather quiet, making no attempt to draw attention to himself, and presently, over the coffee Mrs Blount offered, becoming engrossed in a conversation concerning the rearing of farm animals with his host. Sophie drank her coffee too hot and burnt her tongue and pretended to herself that she wasn’t listening to his voice, deep and unhurried and somehow soothing. She didn’t want to be soothed; she was annoyed.

It was the best part of an hour before the professor asked her if she was ready to leave; she bit back the tart reply that she had been ready ever since he had arrived and, with a murmur about putting Mabel into her basket, took herself out of the room. Five minutes later she reappeared, the imprisoned Mabel in one hand, her shoulder-bag swinging, kissed her parents, and, accompanied by the professor, now bearing the cat basket, went out to the car.

The professor wasn’t a man to prolong goodbyes; she had time to wave to her mother and father standing in the porch before the Bentley slipped out of the drive and into the lane.

‘Do I detect a coolness? What have I done? I could feel you seething for the last hour.’

‘Kissing me like that,’ said Sophie peevishly. ‘Whatever next?’ Before she could elaborate he said smoothly,

‘But we are friends, are we not, Sophie? Besides, you looked pleased to see me.’

A truthful girl, she had to admit to that.

‘There you are, then,’ said the professor and eased a large well shod foot down so that the Bentley sped through the lanes and presently on to the main road.

‘When do you have nights off?’ he wanted to know.

‘Oh, not until Tuesday and Wednesday of next week…’

‘I’ll take you out some time.’

‘That would be very nice,’ said Sophie cautiously, ‘but don’t you have to go back to Holland?’

‘Not until the middle of next week. Let us make hay while the sun shines.’

‘Your English is very good.’

‘So it should be. I had—we all had—an English dragon for a nanny.’

‘You have brothers and sisters?’

‘Two brothers, five sisters.’ He sent the Bentley smoothly round a slow-moving Ford driven by a man in a cloth cap. ‘I am the eldest.’

‘Like me,’ said Sophie. ‘What I mean is, like I.’

‘We have much in common,’ observed the professor. ‘What a pity that I have to operate in the morning; we might have had lunch together.’

Sophie felt regret but she said nothing. The professor, she felt, was taking over far too rapidly; they hardly knew each other. She almost jumped out of her seat when he said placidly, ‘We have got to get to know each other as quickly as possible.’

She said faintly, ‘Oh, do we? Why?’

He didn’t answer that but made some trivial remark about their surroundings. He was sometimes a tiresome man, reflected Sophie.

When they arrived at her lodgings he carried Mabel’s basket up to her room under the interested eye of Miss Phipps, but he didn’t go into it. His goodbye was casually friendly and he said nothing about seeing her again. She worried about that as she got ready for bed, but in the chilly light of morning common sense prevailed. He was just being polite, uttering one of those meaningless remarks which weren’t supposed to be taken seriously.

She spent the morning cleaning her room, washing her smalls and buying her household necessities from the corner shop at the end of the street. In the afternoon she washed her hair and did her nails, turned up the gas fire until the room was really warm, made a pot of tea, and sat with Mabel on her lap, reading a novel one of her friends had lent her; but after the first few pages she decided that it was boring her and turned to her own thoughts instead. They didn’t bore her at all, for they were of the professor, only brought to an end when she dozed off for a while. Then it was time to get ready to go on duty, give Mabel a final hug and walk the short distance to St Agnes’s. It was a horrid evening, damp, dark and chilly, and she hoped as she entered the hospital doors that it would be a quiet night.

It was a busy one; the day sister handed over thankfully, leaving two patients to be admitted and a short line of damp and depressed people with septic fingers, sprained ankles and minor cuts to be dealt with. Sophie saw with satisfaction that she had Staff Nurse Pitt to support her and three students, two of them quite senior, the third a rather timid-looking girl. She’ll faint if we get anything really nasty in, thought Sophie, and handed her over to the care of Jean Pitt, who was a motherly soul with a vast patience. She did a swift round of the patients then, making sure that there was nothing that the casualty officer couldn’t handle without the need of X-rays or further help. And, the row of small injuries dealt with and Tim Bailey, on duty for the first time, soothed with coffee and left in the office to write up his notes, she sent the nurses in turn to the little kitchen beside the office to have their own coffee. It was early yet and for the moment the place was empty.

Not for long, though; the real work of the night began then with the first of the ambulances; a street accident, a car crash, a small child fallen from an open window—they followed each other in quick succession. It was after two o’clock in the morning when Sophie paused long enough to gobble a sandwich and swallow a mug of coffee. Going to the midnight meal had been out of the question; she had been right about the most junior of the students, who had fainted as they cut the clothes off an elderly woman who had been mugged; she had been beaten and kicked and slashed with a knife, and Sophie, even though she saw such sights frequently, was full of sympathy for the girl; she had been put in one of the empty cubicles with a mug of tea and told to stay there until she felt better, but it had made one pair of hands less…

She went off duty in a blur of tiredness, ate her breakfast without knowing what she was eating, and took herself off to her flatlet, and even Miss Phipps refrained from gossiping, but allowed her to mount the stairs in peace. Once there, it took no time at all to see to Mabel, have her bath and fall into bed.

That night set the pattern for her week. Usually there was a comparatively quiet night from time to time, but each night seemed busier than the last, and at the weekend, always worse than the weekdays, there was no respite, and even with the addition of a young male nurse to take over when one of the student nurses had nights off it was still back-breaking work. On Monday night, after a long session with a cardiac failure, Tim Bailey observed tiredly, ‘I don’t know how you stick it, Sophie, night after night…’

‘I do sometimes wonder myself. But I’ve nights off—only two, though, because Ida isn’t well again.’

‘You’ll go home?’

She nodded tiredly. ‘It will be heaven, sleep and eat and then sleep and eat. What about you?’

‘Two more nights, a couple of days off and back to day duty.’ He put down his mug. ‘And there’s the ambulance again…’

Sophie ate her breakfast in a dream, but a happy one; she would go home just as soon as she could throw a few things into a bag and get Mabel into her basket. Lunch—eaten in the warmth of the kitchen—and then bed until suppertime and then bed again. She went out to the entrance in a happy daze, straight into the professor’s waistcoat.

‘You’re still here?’ she asked him owlishly. ‘I thought you’d gone.’

‘No, no.’ He urged her into the Bentley. ‘I’ll drive you home, but first to your room.’

She was too tired to argue; ten minutes later she was in her flatlet, bundling things into her overnight bag, showering and dressing, not bothering with her face or hair, and then hurrying down to the door again in case he had changed his mind and gone. Her beautiful, anxious face, bereft of make-up, had never looked lovelier. The professor schooled his handsome features into placid friendliness, stowed her into the car, settled Mabel on the back seat, and drove away, not forgetting to wave in a civil manner to Miss Phipps.

Sophie tossed her mane of hair, tied with a bit of ribbon, over her shoulder. ‘You’re very kind,’ she muttered. ‘I hope I’m not taking you out of your way.’ She closed her eyes and slept peacefully for half an hour and woke refreshed to find that they were well on the way to her home.

She said belatedly, ‘I told Mother I’d be home about one o’clock.’

‘I phoned. Don’t fuss, Sophie.’

‘Fuss? Fuss? I’m not—anyway, you come along and change all my plans without so much as a by your leave… I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry, I didn’t mean a word of that; I’m tired and so I say silly things. I’m so grateful.’

When he didn’t answer she said, ‘Really I am—don’t be annoyed…’

‘When you know me better, Sophie, you will know that I seldom get annoyed—angry, impatient…certainly, but I think never any of these with you.’ He gave her a brief smile. ‘Why have you only two nights off after such a gruelling eight nights?’

‘The other night sister—Ida Symonds—is ill again.’

‘There is no one to take her place?’

‘Not for the moment. The junior night sister on the surgical wards is taking over while I’m away.’

They were almost there when he said casually, ‘I’m going back to Holland tomorrow.’

‘Not for good?’

Her voice was sharp, and he asked lightly, ‘Will you miss me? I hope so.’

She stared out at the wintry countryside. ‘Yes.’

‘We haven’t had that lunch yet, have we? Perhaps we can arrange that when I come again.’

‘Will you be back soon?’

‘Oh, yes. I have to go to Birmingham and then Leeds and then on to Edinburgh.’

‘But not here, in London?’

‘Probably.’ He sounded vague and she decided that he was just being civil again.

‘I expect you’ll be glad to be home again?’

‘Yes.’ He didn’t add anything to that, and a few moments later they had reached her home and were greeted by her mother at the door before the car had even stopped, smiling a warm welcome. Not a very satisfactory conversation, reflected Sophie, in fact hardly a conversation at all. She swiftly returned her mother’s hug and went indoors with the professor and Mabel’s basket hard on her heels. He put the basket down, unbuttoned her coat, took it off, tossed it on to a chair and followed it with his own, and then gave her a gentle shove towards the warmth of the kitchen. Montgomery and Mercury had come to meet them and he let Mabel out of her basket to join them as Mrs Blount set the coffee on the table.

‘Will you stay for lunch?’ she asked hopefully.

‘I would have liked that, but I’ve still some work to clear up before I return to Holland.’

‘You’ll be back?’ He hid a smile at the look of disappointment on her face.

‘Oh, yes, quite soon, I hope.’ He glanced at Sophie. ‘Sophie is tired out. I won’t stay for long, for I’m sure she is longing for her bed.’

He was as good as his word, saying all the right things to his hostess, with the hope that he would see her again before very long, and then bidding Sophie goodbye with the advice that she should sleep the clock round if possible and then get out in the fresh air. ‘We are sure to meet when I get back to England,’ he observed, and she murmured politely. He hadn’t said how long that would be, she thought peevishly, and he need not think that she was at his beck and call every time he felt like her company. She was, of course, overlooking the fact that her company had been a poor thing that morning and if he had expected anything different he must have been very disappointed. All the same, she saw him go with regret.

The two days went in a flash, a comforting medley of eating, sleeping and pottering in the large, rather untidy garden, tying things up, digging things out of the ground before it became hard with frost, and cutting back the roses. By the time she had to return to the hospital she was her old self again, and her mother, looking at her lovely face, wished that the professor had been there to see her daughter. She comforted herself with the thought that he had said that he would be back and it seemed to her that he was a man whose word could be relied on. He and Sophie were only friends at the moment, but given time and opportunity… She sighed. She didn’t want her Sophie to be hurt as she had been hurt all those years ago.

It was November now, casting a gloom over the shabby streets around the hospital. Even on a bright summer’s day they weren’t much to look at; now they were depressing, littered with empty cans of Coca Cola, fish and chip papers and the more lurid pages of the tabloid Press. Sophie, picking her way towards her own front door a few hours before she was due on duty again, thought of the street cleaners who so patiently swept and tidied only to have the same rubbish waiting for them next time they came around. Rather like us, I suppose, she reflected. We get rid of one lot of patients and there’s the next lot waiting.

Miss Phipps was hovering as she started up the stairs. ‘Had a nice little holiday?’ she wanted to know. ‘Came back by train, did you?’

Sophie said that yes, she had, and if she didn’t hurry she would be late for work, which wasn’t quite true, but got her safely up the rest of the stairs and to her room, where she released Mabel, fed her, made herself a cup of tea, and loaded her shoulder-bag with everything she might need during the night. She seldom had the chance to open it, but it was nice to think that everything was there.

The accident room was quiet when she went on duty, but Casualty was still teeming with patients. She took over from the day sister, ran her eye down the list of patients already seen, checked with her Staff and phoned for Tim Bailey to come as soon as possible and cast his eye over what she suspected was a Pott’s fracture, and began on the task of applying dressings to the patients who needed them.

Tim arrived five minutes later. ‘I’ve seen this lot,’ he said snappily. ‘They only need dressings and injections; surely you—?’

‘Yes, I know and of course we’ll see to those… This man’s just come in—I think he’s a Pott’s, and if you say so I’ll get him to X-Ray if you’d like to sign the form.’

She gave him a charming smile and she had sounded almost motherly, so that he laughed. ‘Sorry— I didn’t mean to snap. Let’s look at this chap.’

She had been right; he signed the form and told her, ‘Give me a ring and I’ll put on a plaster, but give me time to eat my dinner, will you?’

‘You’ll have time for two dinners by the time I’ve got hold of X-Ray; it’s Miss Short and she is always as cross as two sticks.’

The man with the Pott’s fracture was followed by more broken bones, a stab wound and a crushed hand; a normal night, reflected Sophie, going sleepily to her bed, and so were the ensuing nights, including the usual Saturday night’s spate of street fights and road accidents. The following week bid fair to be the same, so that by the time she was due for nights off again she was more than a little tired. All the same, she thought as she coaxed Mabel into her basket and started on her journey home, it would have been nice to find the professor waiting for her outside the door.

Wishful thinking; there was no sign of him.

CHAPTER THREE

HOME for Sophie was bliss after the cold greyness of the East End. The quiet countryside, bare now that it was almost winter, was a much needed change from the crowded streets around the hospital. She spent her days visiting the surrounding farms with her father and pottering around the house, and her nights in undisturbed sleep. She was happy—though perhaps not perfectly happy, for the professor had a bothersome way of intruding into her thoughts, and none of the sensible reasons for forgetting him seemed adequate. If she had been given an opportunity she would have talked about him to her mother, but that lady never mentioned him.

She went back to the hospital half hoping that she would see him—not that she wished to particularly, she reminded herself, but he had said that he would return…

There was no news of him, although there was plenty of gossip around the breakfast-table after her first night’s duty, most of it wild guessing and Gill’s half-serious plans as to what she would do and say when she next saw him. ‘For I’ll be the lucky one, won’t I?’ She grinned round the table. ‘If he’s operating I can always think up a good reason for being in Theatre during the day…’ There was a burst of laughter at this and she added, ‘You may well laugh, but I’ll be the first one to see him.’

As it turned out, she was wrong.

Sophie, bent on keeping a young man with terrible head injuries alive, working desperately at it, obeying Tim’s quick instructions with all the skill she could muster, stood a little on one side to allow the surgical registrar to reach the patient, and at the same time realised that there was someone with him. She knew who it was even before she saw him, and although her heart gave a joyful little leap she didn’t let it interfere with her work. He came from behind and bent his height to examine the poor crushed head, echoing Peter Small’s cheerful ‘Hello, Sophie’ with a staid ‘Good evening, Sister’.

She muttered a reply, intent on what she was doing, and for the next half an hour was far too busy to give him a thought, listening to the two men and doing as she was bid, taking blood for cross-matching, summoning X-ray and the portable machine, and warning Theatre that the professor would be operating within the hour. She heard Gill’s delighted chuckle when she told her.

At breakfast Gill gave everyone a blow-by-blow account of the professor’s activities. He had done a marvellous bit of surgery, she assured them, and afterwards he had had a mug of tea in her office. ‘He was rather quiet,’ she explained, ‘but he had only been here for a couple of hours, discussing some cases with Peter; he must have been tired…’ She brightened. ‘There are sure to be some more cases during the night,’ she added pensively. ‘I’ve got nights off in two days’ time. He’s on the theatre list to do two brain tumours tomorrow; probably he’ll be free after that.’

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