“I wasn’t sure where to go…”

Reilof raised his eyebrows. “Anywhere you wish, Laura. I usually work in my study for an hour before dinner and again afterwards. I’m afraid I keep late hours, but that shouldn’t bother you.” He added surprisingly, “You’ve put your hair up.”

Laura decided to ignore that. “It won’t bother me in the least,” she assured him cheerfully as she accepted a glass of sherry. “At what time do you have breakfast?”

“Half past seven. If that is too early for you, one of the maids will bring it to your room, or you can come down later.”

She felt like an unwelcome guest treated with the minimum of good manners. “I shouldn’t dream of putting anyone to the trouble, Reilof, breakfast at half past seven suits me very well. You won’t need to talk to me, you know.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so ill-humored. I suppose I’m not used to being married again.”

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.

The Hasty Marriage
Betty Neels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

LAURA heard the car draw up outside the house while she was still in the kitchen cutting bread and butter for tea, but she didn’t stop what she was doing. Her father and Joyce would be in the sitting room waiting for their visitors, and there would be a small delay while they were greeted and ushered indoors; she would be able to slip in at the last minute.

She started to arrange the slices on a plate, reflecting that it would be pleasant to see her godfather again; he had always come to England at least twice a year, but now, since his illness, he lived semi-retired from his medical practice and no longer drove a car. It was fortunate that there had been this old friend who had been coming to England anyway and had suggested that they might travel together. She laid the last slice in its place, washed her hands and went from the nice old-fashioned kitchen, down the back hall and into the sitting room. Old Doctor van Doorn de Pette was there, sitting in one of the large, rather shabby armchairs by the window, talking to her father, and she went straight to him and gave him an affectionate hug.

‘Lovely to see you, Godfather,’ she exclaimed in her pretty voice. ‘You must be tired—tea’s all ready.’

He studied her, smiling. ‘Dear Laura—not changed, and glad I am of it. Tea will be delightful, but first you must meet my friend, Reilof van Meerum.’

She had been aware of him, of course, talking to Joyce at the other end of the long, low-ceilinged room, but she hadn’t looked at him. And now, crossing the polished floor to shake his hand, she hardly heard her godfather saying: ‘My goddaughter, Reilof—Laura,’ for she was fighting bewilderment and delight and surprise all rolled into one, because at last here was the man she had been waiting for—standing in front of her, all six feet three inches of him, rather heavily built and no longer young—but then she was twenty-nine herself, wasn’t she?—and so incredibly good-looking, with his dark hair silvered at the temples and dark eyes under heavy brows. With the greatest effort in the world she composed her ordinary features into a conventional smile of greeting, said ‘How do you do?’ with a calm she didn’t feel and made some remark about his journey. He answered her politely, and when Joyce chimed in, turned back to her with every sign of interest—and not to be wondered at, conceded Laura, as she went back to her father to tell him that she would be bringing in the tea tray in a few minutes, Joyce was worth anyone’s interest; pretty—very pretty and fair, with large baby blue eyes, and nine years her junior to boot.

She thought it without envy; from the moment that Joyce had been born, she had been the focal point of the household, and later, of their circle of friends, and although she had been spoilt by her parents, very few had ever discovered the fact. As for Laura, she had quickly come to take it for granted, for when her sister was born she had been a disappointingly gawky child of nine, with light brown hair, straight and fine and worn, for convenience’s sake, in two pigtails, and her small face, its childish chubbiness lost, was already settling into its unexciting mould. Only her hazel eyes were fine, large and richly lashed, but even they stood no chance against Joyce’s gorgeous blue ones.

It was natural enough that her mother and father should have been delighted to have such a pretty little girl, and she herself had been overjoyed to have a small sister; Laura had spoilt her too, and after their mother had died she had done her best to take her place, but somehow, by the time Joyce was twelve years old, she was already making it plain that she no longer needed Laura for a companion, and it had been a relief to them both when Laura went away to London to train as a nurse. Now, although she came home fairly frequently, she had grown used to Joyce’s casual treatment and her assumption that when Laura was home she would take over the burden of the household so that Joyce might be free to go where and when she wanted.

She went back to the kitchen and picked up the loaded tray, and was faintly surprised when Doctor van Meerum crossed the room to take it from her, and caught Joyce’s quick frown as he did so—so silly of her to be annoyed, thought Laura, when he was only being polite; surely his quick, impersonal smile made that clear.

The conversation became general during tea, but that didn’t disguise the fact that Joyce had captivated their visitor, and indeed she was behaving charmingly. Laura, watching her, thought how nice it must be to attract people—men, she amended honestly—without any effort at all. She took very little part in the talk, but occupied herself with filling the teacups and passing plates of cake and sandwiches, replying to any remarks made to her in her unassuming way, and when tea was finished, sitting quietly beside her godfather, listening to him discussing the finer points of an article he had just had published.

While she listened she glanced from time to time at Joyce and Doctor van Meerum, sitting a little apart, deep in a talk of their own. They made a striking pair; Joyce, her cheeks faintly pink with excitement, her eyes wide, had the big, rather silent man beside her already ensnared. Laura told herself that if they were mutually attracted, there was nothing to do about it; he might be the man she had dreamed about for so long, but that didn’t mean that she could expect him to fall for her; in any case, while Joyce was around that was so unlikely as to be laughable.

She started to put the tea things back on the tray very quietly, so as not to disturb the conversation, wondering if it might not have been better never to have met Reilof van Meerum than to have found him now only to see him bowled over by Joyce’s lovely little face. She went into the kitchen again and washed up, fed Mittens the cat and started to get the supper ready. Presumably the doctor would stay, and anyway one more would make no difference. She put the soup she had made that morning on to heat, for the April evening was chilly, and started on a cheese soufflé. She had made a trifle that afternoon and there was plenty of cheese, and now she poked round in the old-fashioned larder for ingredients with which to make a salad; apples and a tomato or two, a lettuce and a providential head of celery—she mixed a dressing for it, put the soufflé into the oven and went to lay the table.

The dining room looked cosy, for she had had the forethought to light a small fire there; its rather shabby old-fashioned furniture looked pleasant in the light of the shaded lamp over the big mahogany table, the silver shone in it too, and when she had finished she looked at it with satisfaction and then ran upstairs to her room to tidy herself before putting out the drinks. Her room was at the back of the house, square and airy and furnished with the white-painted furniture of her childhood. She sat down before her dressing-table glass, making no attempt to do her face or hair, but staring at her reflection with a critical eye. She wasn’t exactly plain, but she wasn’t pretty either. Her mouse-brown hair was fine and silky and very long, but as she usually wore it piled on top of her head, its beauty was scarcely seen, and although her eyes were nice they weren’t in the least spectacular. Her nose and mouth were just ordinary, and although her figure was pretty she was barely of middle height, and as she tended to dress in an unassuming manner it was seldom that anyone took a second glance at her.

But her mouselike appearance was deceptive; she was a clever girl and a splendid nurse, holding a Ward Sister’s post at St Anne’s hospital in London, highly prized by the people she worked with and for. Besides, she was a good housewife and cook, got on well with animals and children and was liked by everyone. But she also had a fine temper when roused to anger, which wasn’t often, and could be, on occasion, extremely pig-headed. She had long ago come to terms with herself and accepted life as it came, and if it wasn’t quite what she had hoped it would be, no one heard her say so. She spoke to her reflection now:

‘It’s a good thing that you’re going back to St Anne’s in the morning, my girl, before you start getting silly ideas into your head—out of sight, out of mind, and don’t you forget it.’ She nodded sternly at herself, smoothed her hair, powdered her undistinguished nose and went back downstairs, where she was greeted with the news that Doctor van Meerum had accepted Joyce’s invitation to stay the night and go on to London in the morning. It vexed her very much to hear her sister declare: ‘You can give Laura a lift,’ with the certainty of one accustomed to having her every wish granted; she wasn’t in the least deceived by his polite agreement to do this—he wanted to please Joyce…

Laura had plenty of opportunity to observe Doctor van Meerum during supper. His manners were nice and he had undoubted charm; he maintained a steady flow of small talk without monopolising the conversation, said very little about himself, gave his full attention to any remarks addressed to him and showed a sense of humour which delighted her. All the same he was unable to prevent his dark eyes dwelling upon Joyce whenever the opportunity occurred, and his smile, when their eyes met, would have set any girl’s heart beating faster. It annoyed Laura that she had no control over that organ and was forced to suffer its thumping and jumping. It almost stopped altogether when they had finished their meal at last and she began to clear the table as the company dispersed to the sitting room, for he turned round at the door to look at her and then walked back into the room, saying, ‘You must let me help you…’

She had no chance to say yes or no, for Joyce had turned round too and cried with careless affection, ‘Darling, I’ll wash up, you’ve had all the chores to do—Reilof will help me.’ She turned a laughing face to his. ‘You will, won’t you? Although I don’t think you do it at home.’

He laughed with her. ‘No, I can’t say I do, but I see no reason why I shouldn’t try my hand at it.’ He added, with a quick kindly glance at Laura: ‘You must be wanting a chance to talk to your godfather.’

She pinned a cheerful, pleased expression on to her features and agreed untruthfully that there was nothing she wanted more, and slipped away to run upstairs and make up the bed in one of the spare rooms.

The house, although not large, rambled a good deal, with several rather poky passages, unnecessary steps and a variety of windows. The room she went into had a square bay overlooking the flat Essex countryside, flooded in moonlight, and she stood for a minute or two to admire it before she pulled the curtains and began to make the bed. That done, and the room ready for their unexpected guest, she went along to her own room once more to pack her overnight bag; she had had a long weekend and it was a pity that her godfather had arrived only a few hours before she would have to leave. Still, she would be able to come home again at the end of the week, she had Friday evening and a free day on Saturday and it was only thirty or so miles from London. Perhaps Joyce would be free to drive in to Chelmsford and meet her train; if not she could always get old Bates, who ran a taxi service in Rodwell, to fetch her.

She went downstairs again and found the two older gentlemen happily deep in medical matters and no sign of the other two. She fetched the petit-point she was stitching and settled down at a small work table, a lamp at her shoulder, and began to work on it. It was almost two hours later when Joyce and the doctor came in and her sister explained, ‘It was such a heavenly moonlit evening, we went for a walk—I hope you didn’t miss us?’

Her father paused momentarily to look at her fondly. ‘I can’t say that we have, my dear, and Laura has been so engrossed in that embroidery of hers that I don’t suppose she has either.’

Laura looked up and smiled in the general direction of everyone. ‘Such a nice peaceful occupation,’ she murmured.

‘Oh, Laura,’ Joyce laughed, ‘you sound just like an old maid, and you’re not—at least, not just yet.’

There was general laughter at her joke and Laura joined in, although it wasn’t a joke really—Doctor van Meerum would know, if he hadn’t realised it already, that she was getting a little long in the tooth. But it wasn’t that which hurt, it was knowing that her sister considered her past the age to attract a man’s interest and found it amusing.

They set out after breakfast the following morning, she and Doctor van Meerum, in his Aston Martin, and although she had spent a more or less sleepless night, she perked up at the sight of the elegant car—she hadn’t seen it the previous evening and she had imagined that he would drive something far more staid; he hadn’t struck her as being the type of man to like fast cars.

She couldn’t have been more mistaken; he was a superb driver, fast and careful and relaxed. She sat back and enjoyed it all, keeping quiet because she sensed that he didn’t want to talk much. They were halfway there and hadn’t exchanged more than a few words when he asked suddenly: ‘Joyce—she tells me that she has just left her job. Does she intend to become a nurse too?’

Joyce had left several jobs if the truth were to be told; she became bored easily, or the office was too small, the people she worked with not to her liking or she wasn’t paid enough… But Laura was a loyal sister.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ she told him carefully, ‘it upsets her to see people who are ill—she’s young and it’s difficult to decide what one wants to do sometimes. I expect she’ll stay at home…’

‘You didn’t, you decided,’ he persisted.

‘Yes, but nursing was something I wanted to do.’ She didn’t tell him that she had wanted to be a doctor, but somehow it had all fallen through because Joyce had to be educated at the best schools. It had taken her a long time to get over the disappointment. But that had been ten years ago and in that time she had become content enough, but always cherishing the hope that she would meet the man she would want to marry and who would want to marry her—and now she had, and a lot of good it had done her. She roused herself from her thoughts to hear her companion say, ‘Joyce is a very lovely girl, she must have any number of men friends.’

‘Oh, rather, but not one special one.’

‘And you?’ he asked, to surprise her.

She told him no rather shortly and briskly changed the conversation. ‘Are you going to be in England long?’

They were driving more slowly now, with London’s outskirts creeping upon them from all sides. ‘A week or so—I have to go to Birmingham in a few days and then to Edinburgh. I hope I may have the opportunity of seeing you again before I go back.’

‘But you’ll be driving Godfather home, won’t you?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Oh, you mean to come and see us before then,’ she stated forthrightly. ‘I’m sure Father and Joyce will love to see you—don’t wait to be invited…’

‘Joyce has asked me to stay the night on my way to Birmingham if I could arrange it—perhaps I could give you a lift home? Let me see, it would be on a Friday or Saturday—next weekend.’

‘What a pity,’ said Laura instantly, longing to accept and perversely determined to do no such thing, ‘I’ve already promised my staff nurse the weekend and I couldn’t possibly disappoint her, but thank you for asking.’ She would have to remember to give Pat Emery, her right hand on the ward, a long weekend and invent some excuse for not taking her own usual weekend. ‘If you would drop me off somewhere along Stratford Broadway, I can pick up a bus. I’ve heaps of time.’

‘I’m going to St Anne’s—I have to meet Mr Burnett there.’

She would be seeing Mr Burnett herself in a few hours’ time; he was the senior consulting surgeon on Men’s Surgical. She said: ‘Oh,’ rather blankly and added, ‘Do you know the way?’

‘Yes, thanks.’ He demonstrated his knowledge by taking a short cut through the rather dingy streets around them. ‘Do you go to Holland to visit your godfather?’

‘No, but I’d like to. He’s always come to us, you see. He and Father are such old friends—they talk and talk…’ She broke off as there was a sudden commotion in front of them; a squealing of brakes, shouting and a dog’s yelp. The car in front of them turned off the road, giving them a view of a group of people standing to stare at a little dog lying in the road. It tried to crawl away, yelped again, and lay still.

‘Stop!’ commanded Laura, and without waiting to see if her companion would do so, undid her seat belt and put an urgent hand on the door. Doctor van Meerum drew up smoothly, put out a restraining hand to stop her and said calmly, ‘Stay where you are—I’ll go and look.’

‘Don’t you dare leave him there!’ she urged him fiercely. ‘They drove on, the brutes—and look at all those miserable people, staring…’

He didn’t answer her, but got out of the car and crossed the street to where the dog lay, squatting on his heels to examine it and then picking it up carefully and carrying it back to the car, quite unheeding of the warning voices telling him that he would get bitten for his pains. The unhappy creature he held didn’t look capable of biting anything or anyone; Laura whisked the scarf from her neck and spread it on her knees, and opened the door to receive the stricken creature on to her lap.

‘Hind legs broken,’ said the doctor. ‘Do you suppose there’s a chance of patching him up in Casualty?’

Laura gave him a grateful look. ‘Yes—the Sister in charge is a great friend of mine, she could hide us away somewhere…could we hurry?’ She put a gentle hand on the whimpering little creature. ‘He must be in frightful pain. If only I’d seen who ran him down.’ Her voice was wobbly with her rage and the doctor gave her a long look, although he said nothing as he got back into the car and drove with what speed he could to the hospital, where he drove round to Casualty entrance, told Laura to sit still and went inside, to return almost immediately with Sylvia Matthews. She greeted Laura with a cheerful: ‘Hi there, ducky, what’s all this about a casualty?’ She cast an eye over the bedraggled little beast and grinned at the doctor beside her. ‘A hushed-up job, I gather? Do you want to do it, sir, or shall I get the CO?’

‘Oh, I’ll do it, I think, Sister, then if there’s any trouble I can deal with it. But we shall need someone to give the dope. Are you busy?’

‘Not at the moment. There’s an end cubicle you can have; whoever does the round hardly ever goes there, and if they do…’

‘I’ll take the blame,’ said the doctor easily, and opened the car door. ‘Laura, it would be less painful for that little beast if you could manage to get out and hold him at the same time.’

She nodded and slid carefully out of the car and into Casualty, where, obedient to the doctor’s advice, she sat down carefully again in the poky little cubicle at the end of the passage while one of the anaesthetists was fetched. He stared rather when he saw the patient and began an indignant: ‘I say, Laura old girl, I can’t…’ before he caught sight of Doctor van Meerum and stopped. ‘Sorry, sir—you’re the old man’s—I should say, Mr Burnett’s Dutch colleague, aren’t you? We were told that you would be here.’

‘Splendid,’ murmured the doctor, and stripped off his jacket. ‘If I could have an apron, and if you could knock this little chap out for long enough for us to set him to rights, I should be greatly obliged.’ He smiled with great charm. ‘I don’t know your name…’

‘Clark, sir, Jeremy Clark. I’m with Mr Burnett for six months. I’ll get the dope.’

To save the dog more pain, he rather gingerly put him under with Laura still holding him on her lap, but the moment the small creature had been transferred to the table she stood up, rolled up her sleeves and professed herself ready to help. ‘I’m not on duty until eleven o’clock,’ she explained, ‘and if anyone comes, you can head them off, Sylvia.’

Her friend nodded. ‘And there’ll be coffee when you’re through—in my office.’ She whisked away with a wave of the hand and a conspirator’s wink.

The dog’s legs were miraculously clean breaks. Doctor van Meerum set them, put them into plaster and set about checking for other injuries. When finally he straightened his massive frame, he remarked: ‘Nothing else, bar some bad bruising. What are we going to do with him?’

Jeremy spoke first. ‘What about a dogs’ home?’

‘Certainly not!’ exploded Laura. ‘And he must surely belong to someone—ought we to advertise or tell the police, and I’ll keep him in my room until…’

The doctor interrupted her. ‘I doubt if he belongs to anyone,’ he observed, ‘he’s half starved and he hasn’t a collar. I think, if you would agree, Laura, that he should come with me.’

The relief flooded over her face like a burst of sunshine. ‘Oh, could he? But where will you keep him?’ She frowned uncertainly. ‘You can’t have him with you, he’d be dreadfully in the way.’

‘I’m staying with someone who I have no doubt will be gla d to keep an eye on him if I have to leave him, and he should be well enough to travel to Birmingham with me.’

‘Yes, but what will happen to him when you return to Holland?’

The doctor was washing his hands at the sink. ‘I’ll take him with me. I have an elderly sheepdog who will be delighted to have company.’

Laura heaved a sigh. ‘Oh, won’t that be nice for him,’ she declared. ‘But would you like me to have him now? He won’t come round for a little while, will he?’

‘Quite soon, I should think. Would it not be better if someone were to find me a box or basket, and I’ll keep him with me.’

‘Aren’t you addressing a post-graduate class, sir?’ asked Jeremy doubtfully.

‘Certainly I am, but I hardly think that this animal will disturb us.’ He had put on his jacket and was standing placidly, waiting for someone to do as he had suggested. It was Laura who found a suitable box, lined it with old papers and a layer of tow and watched while the dog was laid gently into it. They had coffee then, although she didn’t stay more than a few minutes, excusing herself on the grounds of getting into uniform after thanking the doctor for her lift and Sylvia for the coffee. She made no mention of seeing him again as she wished him goodbye and nor did he suggest it, but as she stooped to stroke the animal’s matted head she said earnestly, ‘Thank you for stopping and making him well again.’

He eyed her gravely. ‘If I remember rightly, you ordered me to stop in no uncertain terms, although I can promise you that I would have done so even if you hadn’t said a word.’

She smiled at him; she had a sweet smile, which just for a moment made her fleetingly pretty, although she was unaware of that. ‘I shall hear how he goes on from Joyce,’ she told him guilelessly.

Someone had brought her case in from the car and she picked it up as she went through Casualty, already filling up with minor cuts and burns, occasional fractures and dislocations; all the day-to-day cases. She glanced round her as she went; she wasn’t likely to get anything sent up to the ward as far as she could see, although probably the Accident Room would keep her busy. She hoped so, for there was nothing like work for blotting out one’s own thoughts and worries, and her head was full of both.

She climbed the stairs to her room in the Nurses’ Home feeling alone and sad and sorry for herself, and cross too that she had allowed herself to give way to self-pity. As she unlocked the door and went into the pleasant little room she had made home for some years now, she bade herself stop behaving like a fool; she wasn’t likely to see the doctor again and she would start, as from that very moment, to forget him.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE saw him exactly two hours later, for he accompanied Mr Burnett on his bi-weekly round, towering head and shoulders over everyone else. He wished her good morning with cool affability, remarked that they seemed to be seeing a good deal of each other that morning and added, ‘The little dog is doing very nicely.’

‘Oh, good.’ Laura spoke warmly and then became a well-trained Sister again, leading the way to the first bed, very neat in her blue uniform with the quaint muslin cap perched on top of her neat head.

She handed Mr Burnett the first set of notes and advised him in her clear, pleasant voice: ‘Mr Arthur True, facial injuries, concussion and severe lacerations of the upper right arm—admitted at eleven o’clock last night.’

Mr Burnett rumbled and mumbled to himself as he always did, cleared his throat and said, ‘Ah, yes,’ and turned to his registrar. ‘You saw him, George? Anything out of the way?’

George White was earnest, painstaking and thoroughly reliable, both as a person and as a surgeon, and he was quite unexciting too. He gave his report with maddening slowness despite Mr Burnett’s obvious desire for him to get on with it, so that Laura, aware of her chief’s irritation, wasted no time in getting the patient ready for examination; no easy matter, for he was still semi-conscious and belligerent with it. But she coped with him quietly with a student nurse to help, and presently, when Mr Burnett had had a good look and muttered to Doctor van Meerum, his registrar and Laura, they moved on.

‘Mr Alfred Trim,’ Laura enlightened her audience, ‘double inguinal hernia, stitches out yesterday.’ She lifted the bedclothes and Mr Burnett stood studying his handiwork, apparently lost in admiration of it until he said finally: ‘Well, we’ll think about getting him home, Sister, shall we?’ and swept on his way.

The next bed’s occupant looked ill. ‘Penetrating wound of chest,’ stated Laura. ‘I took the drain out an hour ago…’ She added a few concise and rather bloodthirsty details and Mr Burnett frowned and said, ‘Is that so?—we’ll have a look.’ He invited Doctor van Meerum to have a look too and they poked and prodded gently and murmured together with George agreeing earnestly with everything they said until Mr Burnett announced, ‘We’ll have him in theatre, Sister—five o’clock this afternoon.’

His gaze swept those around him, gathering agreement.

Five o’clock was a wretched time to send a case to theatre; Laura exchanged a speaking glance with her right hand. She was due off duty at that hour herself, and now it would be a good deal later than that, for Pat wouldn’t be back from her afternoon until then and there would be a lengthy report to give. She checked a sigh and looking up, found Doctor van Meerum’s dark eyes on her. He looked so severe that she felt guilty although she had no reason to be, and this made her frown quite fiercely, and when he smiled faintly, just as though he had know exactly what she had been thinking, she frowned even harder.

A tiresome man, she told herself strongly, walking into her life and turning it topsy-turvy, and whoever had made that silly remark about it being better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all needed his head examined. She had been jogging along, not quite content, it was true, but at least resigned, and now she felt as though she had been hit by a hurricane which was blowing her somewhere she didn’t want to go…

She swept past the next bed, empty for the moment, and raised an eyebrow at the hovering nurse to draw the curtains around the next one in line. Old Mr Tyler, who had had a laparotomy two days previously—Mr Burnett had found what he had expected and worse besides, and Mr Tyler wasn’t going to do. Laura looked at the tired old face with compassion and hoped, as she always did in like cases, that he would die in his sleep, and waited quietly while the surgeon chatted quietly with a convincing but quite false optimism. He drew Doctor van Meerum into the conversation too, and she listened to the big man saying just the right thing in his faultless English and liked him for it. She supposed she would have loved him whatever he was or did, but liking him was an extra bonus.

The next three patients were quickly dealt with; young men with appendices which had needed prompt removal and who, the moment they were fully conscious, set up a game of poker. Laura had obliged them with playing cards, extracted a promise from them not to gamble with anything more valuable than matches and propped them up in their chairs the moment they were pronounced fit to leave their beds. And here they sat for the greater part of their day, a little wan, but nicely diverted from worrying about their insides.

They greeted Mr Burnett in a cheerful chorus, assured him that they had never felt better, that Sister was an angel, and that they couldn’t wait for the pleasure of having her remove their stitches. All of which remarks Laura took with motherly good nature, merely begging them to refrain from tiring themselves out before steering her party forward to the neighbouring bed. Its occupant, Mr Blake, was thin and middle-aged, and although his operation had been a minor one, a continuous string of complaints passed his lips all day and far into the night.

Mr Burnett, his entourage ranged behind him, stood by the bed and listened with an impassive face to details of uneatable porridge for breakfast, the callous behaviour of the house doctors and nurses, and Sister’s cruelty in insisting that he should actually get up and walk to the bathroom. He shot her a look of great dislike as he spoke and Mr Burnett said quite sharply that since he was making such excellent progress he would do better to convalesce at home, where he would doubtless find nothing to grumble about. ‘Though I doubt if you will find a better nurse or kinder person than Sister Standish,’ he concluded severely.

He stalked away, muttering to himself, and Laura hastened to soothe him by pointing out the excellent progress the next patient was making.

‘I don’t know how you put up with it, Laura,’ said Mr Burnett, half an hour later, when they were all squashed into her office drinking their coffee. ‘For heaven’s sake get married, girl, before you lose your wits. That Blake—I’ll have him home tomorrow; he’s fit enough, and besides taking up a bed he must be driving you all mad.’

‘Well, that would be nice,’ conceded Laura mildly, ‘for he does wear one down, you know. But they’re not all like that, you know, sir.’

He passed his cup for more coffee and snorted: ‘If I wasn’t a married man and old enough to be your father, I’d marry you myself just to get you out of this ward,’ he assured her, and they all laughed, because Laura was considered to be one of the Sisters in the hospital whom no one could ever imagine leaving. Young but settled, the principal nursing officer had once described her, and Laura, who had heard of it through the hospital grapevine, had considered that it amounted to an insult.

They all got up to go presently, and Doctor van Meerum, who had said very little anyway, merely murmured vague thanks in her general direction as he went through the door. She went and sat at her desk again when they had gone, doing absolutely nothing until Pat came to remind her that she had expressed a wish to inspect the previous day’s operation cases.

She managed to forget the Dutch doctor more or less during the next few days; she had plenty of friends, she was popular in a quiet way and there was no reason for her to be lonely. And yet she was, and the loneliness was made worse when Joyce telephoned at the weekend and told her gleefully that Reilof van Meerum was spending it with them. ‘We’re going out to dinner,’ she bubbled over the wire. ‘I shall wear that blue dress—and on Sunday we’re going out for the day in that super car of his. Laura, do you think he’s rich?’

‘I really don’t know. Did he say anything about a dog?’

‘Yes—rather a bind, really; he has to bring the creature with him, he says, because it’s broken its legs. Still, I daresay we can dump it on someone.’

Laura didn’t answer. Somehow the doctor hadn’t struck her as being a man to opt out of something he had undertaken to do, and he had promised her… She said mistakenly, ‘It’s only a very little dog.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Joyce after a tiny pause, and Laura, sighing for her unguarded tongue, told her, ‘It was knocked down by a car just as we reached the hospital—we took it into Cas…’

‘Have you seen Reilof?’

‘He did a round earlier in the week with Mr Burnett. I didn’t talk to him at all—or rather, he didn’t talk to me.’

She knew exactly what her young sister was thinking; that no man, no young, attractive man at any rate, would bother very much about a young woman who was looking thirty in the face. Thirty, to Joyce, was the absolute end.

Laura went home again at the end of the following week without having seen the doctor again, although she had found a note on her desk one morning to tell her that he had gone back to Holland, and that he had the little dog, now in excellent health albeit hating his plasters, with him. He was hers, RvM. She put the note away carefully and told herself once again to forget him.

Easier said than done, as it turned out, for when she did get home he was Joyce’s main topic of conversation; they had had a super weekend and he was coming again just as soon as he could manage it. ‘I’ve got him hooked,’ declared Joyce happily. ‘He’s a bit old, but he’s very distinguished, isn’t he? and Uncle Wim says he’s carved himself an excellent career—he’s got a big practice somewhere near Hilversum. I imagine that the people who live round there are mostly well-off.’ She added dreamily, ‘I expect he’s rich.’ She smiled beguilingly at Laura. ‘Look, be a darling—I don’t dare to ask Uncle Wim any more questions, but you could, he dotes on you, and I do want to know.’

Laura shook her head; her godfather might dote on her, but he was the last person in the world to gossip about anyone. ‘Why do you want to know so badly?’ she asked.

Joyce grinned wickedly. ‘I wouldn’t mind being a doctor’s wife, as long as he was very successful and had masses of money and I wouldn’t have to do the housework or answer the door, like Doctor Wall’s wife does in the village.’

Laura kept her voice matter-of-fact; Joyce fell in and out of love every few weeks, maybe her feeling for Doctor van Meerum was genuine, but on the other hand someone else might come along. ‘Chance is a fine thing,’ she remarked lightly, and wished with all her heart that she might have that chance.

‘Like to bet on it?’ Joyce looked like a charming kitten who’d got at the cream. ‘I’ve bowled him over, you know; he’s thirty-eight and he had a wife years ago, only she died, and now he’s met me and discovered what he’s been missing.’

Laura had been sitting in the window, perched on the open window sill, but she got up now, shivering a little; it was still a little chilly in the April sun, but that wasn’t why she shivered. ‘I must go and get tea,’ she said. ‘Are Father and Uncle Wim still playing chess?’

Joyce shrugged and yawned. ‘How should I know? Why don’t you go and see for yourself?’

In a way it was a relief to be back at work again, although Laura loved being at home, but on the ward there was little time to bother with her own affairs. It was take-in week and the empty beds were filling fast, so that there was more than enough to do. She went her calm, sensible way, checking drips, seeing that the cases went on time to theatre and when they returned, were dealt with with all the skill available; and all the while being disturbed times out of number by housemen, George at his slowest, the Path Lab people, the lady social worker, and Mr Burnett, never at his sunniest during take-in week.

Moreover when she did escape to her office to catch up on her paper work, it was to be interrupted again by nurses wanting their days off changed, evenings when they had mornings, mornings when they had afternoons free…she did her best to accommodate them, for she could remember her own student days and the agonising uncertainty of days off not fitting in with one’s own private life. Staff was going to have a long weekend, which meant that Laura would be on call for a good deal of that period, something which she didn’t mind about, for to go home and listen to Joyce eulogising about Reilof van Meerum was more than she could bear. It would be better, she reflected, when he had either gone for good or he and Joyce…she tried not to think any more about that, but Joyce could be ruthless when she wanted something or someone.

It was a pity that her father had told her that she need not look for another job, she could stay home and do the housekeeping; he engaged a daily housekeeper at the same time, for as he was at pains to tell Laura, Joyce wouldn’t be strong enough to cope with running the house on her own. And that meant that she would idle away her days, cooking up schemes with which to ensnare the doctor yet more deeply.

Laura went home the following weekend, and although her father had told her on the telephone that either he or Joyce would bring the car in to Chelmsford to meet her train, there was no one waiting, for her when she arrived. She waited for a little while and then telephoned home. Mrs Whittaker, the new housekeeper, answered. She sounded a dear soul but a little deaf and not at her best with the instrument, for she wasted a good deal of time saying ‘Hullo’, until Laura, getting in a word edgeways at last, asked for her father or Joyce. She had to repeat her question and when Mrs Whittaker finally grasped what she was saying, it was disappointing to be told that there was no one home.

Well, it had happened before. Laura left a message to say that she would get old Mr Bates to fetch her in his taxi from the village, and rang off. It took her a little while to get hold of him, and then she had had to wait half an hour for him to reach her, and she was tired and peevish by the time she opened the house door and went inside.

The hall was cool and dim, but the sitting room had a great many windows, allowing the spring sunshine to pour into the room. There was no one there, though; she went through the house then, and found the kitchen empty too, with a note on the table ‘Soup in saucepan’, presumably meant for her. She went upstairs to her room next, unpacked her overnight bag, got into a rather elderly tweed skirt and a thin sweater and went downstairs again.

It was almost one o’clock by now and there was no sign of lunch or anyone to eat it; possibly her father and godfather had gone off on some expedition of their own and forgotten all about her arrival, but Joyce knew that she was coming. Laura hunted round the sitting room once more, looking for a note, and found none. She wandered into the kitchen, served herself some of the soup and sat down on the kitchen table, supping it from a bowl while she decided what she should do with her afternoon, for it looked as though she would have nothing but her own company for the next few hours.

But in this she was wrong; she had finished her soup and was sitting doing absolutely nothing, her head full of Reilof van Meerum, when the front door opened and she heard Joyce’s voice, high and gay. She heard her father’s voice too and then his rumbling laugh, and a moment later the kitchen door opened and her sister and the Dutch doctor came in.

Laura didn’t get up, indeed she was too surprised to do so—Joyce hadn’t mentioned that he would be there and just for a moment she could think of nothing at all to say. It was Joyce who spoke.

‘Laura—oh, darling, I quite forgot that you were coming home.’ She bit her lip and went on quickly: ‘Daddy and Uncle Wim wanted to go to some fusty old bookshop and Reilof turned up—wasn’t it lucky?—and took them in the car, and then we went for a drive—we’ve just had lunch at the Wise Man…’ Her eyes fell on the empty bowl and she gave a charming little laugh. ‘Oh, poor you—I told Mrs Whittaker not to bother because you’d probably not come…’

The man beside her gave her a thoughtful glance and Laura saw it and said at once: ‘My fault, I usually telephone, don’t I—I changed my mind at the last minute and got Bates to fetch me from the station.’ She smiled at her sister. ‘I wasn’t hungry, anyway.’ She turned the smile on the doctor. ‘Hullo—how’s the little dog?’

He answered her gravely: ‘He’s fine. I had to leave him at home, of course, but my housekeeper is his slave and will take good care of him.’ He paused for a moment. ‘If I had known that you were coming home this weekend I would have given you a lift.’

Very civil, thought Laura, even though he was dying to get Joyce to himself; he could hardly keep his eyes off her, and indeed her sister looked delightful in a new suit and those frightfully expensive shoes she had wheedled out of her father. ‘And my new Gucci scarf,’ thought Laura indignantly, suddenly aware that her own clothes did nothing to enhance her appearance.

She got down from the table then, saying in a bright voice: ‘I’m going along to see Father and Uncle Wim—what happened to Mrs Whittaker?’

Joyce’s blue eyes were like a child’s, wide and innocent. ‘I told her to take the rest of the day off. Laura darling, I do feel awful…’ and Laura thought without anger: ‘If she weren’t my sister, I would believe her, too.’

‘You see,’ Joyce went on, ‘Daddy and Uncle Wim are going to Doctor Wall’s for dinner—his wife will be at the WI meeting and Reilof is taking me to that gorgeous place at Great Waltham…’

‘And we shall be delighted if you would join us,’ the doctor interrupted her gently.

He was kind, thought Laura; he might have dozens of faults, but lack of kindness wasn’t one of them. ‘That’s sweet of you,’ she replied hastily, allowing her voice to show just sufficient regret, ‘but actually I’ve reams of things to do and I was looking forward to an evening on my own.’ For good measure she added, ‘We’ve had a pretty hectic time on the ward.’

‘Poor old Laura,’ Joyce spoke with facile sympathy, ‘but if that’s what you want to do…’

Laura considered for one wild moment telling Joyce what she really wanted to do, and then looking up she found the doctor’s dark, questioning gaze upon her, so that she hastily rearranged her features into a vague smile and said enthusiastically, ‘Oh, rather. There’s nothing like a quiet evening, you know.’ She prolonged the smile until she reached the door, said ‘’bye’ to no one in particular and left them together.

The house was very quiet when everyone had gone out that evening; her father had pressed her to go with them to the doctor’s, but if she had done so the three old friends would have felt bound to exert themselves to entertain her, whereas she knew well enough that they wanted nothing better than to mull over the latest medical matters. So she repeated her intention of staying at home, saw the two elder gentlemen out of the front door and a few minutes later did the same for her sister and Doctor van Meerum. Joyce looked radiant and the doctor looked like a man who had just won the pools. She went back indoors, shutting the door firmly behind her, and wandered into the kitchen to get herself some supper. Scrambled eggs, rather watery because she cried all over them.

But no one would have known that a few hours later; she sat, composed and restful, in the sitting room, her newly washed hair hanging in a shining mousy cloud down her back, the coffee tray and sandwiches set ready, the local paper on her lap. The older gentlemen got back first, as was to be expected; they had drunk most of the coffee and made great inroads upon the sandwiches before they were joined by Joyce and Reilof van Meerum. Joyce glowed, looking quite breathtakingly lovely—enough to turn any man’s head, and it was obvious that that was what had happened to the doctor—he wasn’t a man to show his feelings, but some feelings couldn’t be concealed. Laura went away to get more coffee and when she returned he took the tray from her, asked her kindly if she had enjoyed her evening, and expressed the hope that she would be free to join them on the following day.

Laura, aware of Joyce’s anxious wordless appeal to say no, said with genuine regret and a complete absence of truth that she had promised to go back early as she was spending the afternoon with friends. The doctor’s polite regret sounded genuine enough but hardly heartfelt, and later, when they had parted for the night, she wasn’t surprised when Joyce came to her room.

‘Thank heaven I caught your eye,’ she observed. ‘Heavens, suppose you’d said yes!’ She smiled sunnily. ‘He was only being polite, you know. We’re going out for the day—to Cambridge—he was there, simply ages ago.’ She settled herself on the end of the bed. ‘Laura, isn’t it super—I’m sure he’s going to ask me to marry him.’

Laura was plaiting her hair at the dressing table and didn’t turn round; although she had been expecting Joyce to tell her just that, now that she heard the actual words she didn’t want to believe them. She finished the plait with fingers which trembled and said carefully: ‘Is he? However do you know?’

Joyce laughed, ‘Silly—of course I do,’ and she added with unconscious cruelty: ‘But you wouldn’t know…’

Laura smiled ruefully. ‘No, I wouldn’t. And are you going to say yes?’

‘Of course—lord, Laura, I’d be a fool if I didn’t—he’s very good-looking and he adores me and I’m sure he’s got plenty of money although he hasn’t exactly said so—but he’s got that marvellous car and his clothes are right.’

Laura stared unseeingly at her reflection in the looking-glass. Her face, she was thankful to see, looked just the same, although inside she was shaking with indignation and rage and a hopeless grief. ‘Do you love him?’ she asked.

Joyce got off the bed and strolled to the door. ‘Darling, I’m prepared to love anyone who can give me all the pretty things I want.’ She paused before she closed the door behind her. ‘I suppose he turns me on, if that’ll satisfy you.’

Laura got up early the next morning. She had slept badly and the urge to get out of the house before anyone else got downstairs was strong. She got into slacks and a blouse and went, quiet as a mouse, downstairs. Breakfast was already laid in the dining room, but she went straight to the kitchen, made tea, cut a slice of bread and butter to go with it and fetched a jacket from behind the kitchen door. It was a splendid morning as only an early May morning can be and she went through the village and then turned off down the narrow lane which was the back way to the neighbouring village. It had high banks on either side of it and the birds were already there, singing. There were catkins and lambs-tails too, and the hedges were thick with bread and cheese, green and fresh, and tucked away here and there were clumps of primroses and patches of violets.

The lane wound a good deal, so that it took twice as long as it needed to to reach Masham, but she had time and to spare; Joyce and Reilof van Meerum weren’t likely to leave the house much before ten o’clock, and Laura had just heard the church bells, still quite a way away, ringing for eight o’clock service. She reached the first few cottages as a handful of people came out of the church with the rector on their heels. He saw her at once and greeted her with pleasure, for they had known each other all her life.

‘Laura—you’ve strayed into the wrong parish, but how nice. It’s early, though.’ He gave her a questioning look.

‘I’ve got a weekend,’ she told him, ‘and it’s such a lovely morning, I simply couldn’t waste it in bed. I love the walk through the lane.’

He nodded. ‘Peaceful and quiet, designed for thinking one’s own thoughts.’ He gave her a quick glance, taking in the pallor of a sleepless night and her unhappy eyes. ‘Come and have breakfast with Martha and me,’ he begged her, ‘the house is so quiet now that Guy’s up at Cambridge.’

He led the way down the village street and across to the white house at the end of it. A charming house, built in the days when the village parson had half a dozen children and needed the rooms. Now, as Laura knew, it was almost empty and a well-loved millstone round the rector’s neck. They went in through the kitchen door and found Mrs Lamb frying bacon at the old-fashioned stove, and presently they all sat down to a leisurely meal before Mr Lamb got on to his bicycle and went off to a hamlet nearby to take morning service, leaving Laura to help with the washing up, peel the potatoes for lunch and set the table.

It was almost eleven o’clock by the time she got home, and time to get a meal for her father and godfather. She found them walking in the garden, deep in some conversation or other. They greeted her absentmindedly, asked vaguely if she was going to make them some coffee, and resumed their perambulations, leaving her to go to her room, change into a suit, do her hair and return to the kitchen. She gave them their coffee presently and then set about getting lunch, and it was over this meal that her father mentioned that Joyce and the doctor had left directly after breakfast and didn’t expect to get back until after tea. ‘They seem to be greatly interested in each other,’ he observed, ‘although I think myself that Reilof is too old for my little Joyce—still, if the child wants him, I’ll not say no—he’s obviously greatly taken with her.’ He glanced at Laura across the table. ‘I daresay you’ve noticed, my dear?’

She said yes, she had, her voice placid, and went on to remind him that she would be going back on the three o’clock train, whereupon he offered to drive her to the station. ‘It will be a nice little run for your godfather, too,’ he said with satisfaction, and added a little anxiously: ‘How about our tea, my dear—and supper?’

‘Tea’s all ready on a tray on the kitchen table, Father, you only have to boil a kettle. It’s cold supper, on the top shelf of the fridge, but I should think Joyce would be back by then. I’ll lay up another tray after I’ve washed up, though, just in case she isn’t.’

The matter being settled, she got on with the chores, repacking her bag once more before going in search of her father to remind him that he was taking her into Chelmsford. She sat with her godfather on the back seat because he complained mildly that he had seen almost nothing of her, and presently she wished she had insisted on him sitting with her father, because the questions he put to her were a little disconcerting and far too searching. Was she happy at the hospital? Had she any plans for the future, had she a young man?—an old-fashioned term which hardly fitted the circumstances, she considered, half amused. And what did she think of Reilof van Meerum?

She hedged round the last question. She didn’t know him well—he seemed very nice, but how could she know…?

‘You don’t need to know anything about anybody,’ stated her godfather, ‘either you like them or you don’t.’ He gave her a sidelong glance. ‘You do, Laura?’

‘Well, yes, Uncle Wim.’ She hastened to give the conversation another turn. ‘You’ll be here when I come home again—I’m not sure when…?’

‘I’ll be here—I shall go back with Reilof, but he comes so frequently I have no plans at present but shall fit in with him.’

‘Then I shall see you again.’ She checked, just in time, a sigh of relief as her father came to a halt before the station entrance, then she bent to kiss her companion and bade him stay where he was as she got out. She retrieved her bag, kissed her father too, and hurried away to catch her train. She spent the journey wondering what Joyce and Reilof were doing; Joyce had been very sure of him—any time now, thought Laura unhappily, I shall get a message to say that they’re going to get married. She gazed out of the window, seeing nothing of the rather dreary fringe of London and wishing she could be miles away, so that she couldn’t be telephoned, then she would never know—no, that would be far worse. The sooner she knew the better. Then she could start to forget Reilof as the man she had fallen in love with, and think of him as a future brother-in-law. The idea appalled her.

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