“She called me a jolie laide, which is so much nicer than being told that one is plain.”

Ross put his head on one side and took a long look at her. “There is a difference, you know.” His voice was very deliberate, his eyes on her face. “No looks, wasn’t it—too plump and far too good.”

She went a very bright pink. “There’s no need…” she began.

“Oh, yes, there is, even if it’s only to make you see that you mustn’t always believe what you hear. What you are, in actual fact, is jolie laide, just as Great-Aunt said, and although this may surprise you, men like plump girls—they like good girls, too, Gemma, and don’t you forget that.”

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.

A Gem of a Girl
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

GEMMA was at the top of the house making beds when she heard the ominous shattering of glass. The boys were in the garden, kicking a football around, and she wondered which window it was this time. She mitred a corner neatly; news, especially bad news, travelled fast, someone would be along to tell her quickly enough.

It was George, her youngest, ten-year-old brother, who climbed the three flights of stairs to break it to her that it was Doctor Gibbons’ kitchen window. ‘And I kicked it,’ he added with a mixture of pride at the length of the shot and apprehension as to what she would say.

‘A splendid kick, no doubt,’ declared his eldest sister robustly, and shook a pillow very much in the manner of a small terrier shaking a rat. ‘But you’ll all have to help pay for the damage, and you, my dear, will go round to Doctor Gibbons when he gets back from his rounds, and apologise. I’ll telephone Mr Bates in a minute and see if he’ll come round and measure up the glass right away—perhaps he might even get a new pane in before Doctor Gibbons gets back. But you’ll still have to apologise.’

‘For a girl,’ said George, ‘you’re not half bad.’ With which praise he stomped downstairs again. She heard him in the garden a few moments later, arguing with his brothers as to the sum of money required for the new window pane.

Gemma finished the bed and went, in her turn, downstairs. She was a smallish girl and a little plump, but nicely so. Her hair, hanging down her back in a brown tide loosely tied with a ribbon, was the same soft brown as her eyes and although she was on the plain side, when she smiled or became animated, the plainness was lost in its charm. She was almost twenty-five years old and looked a good deal younger.

She went straight to the telephone and besought Mr Bates to come as soon as he could, and then retired to the old-fashioned wash-house adjoining the kitchen, and started on the week’s wash; a fearsome pile, but she was used to that; with three boys in the family and two sisters younger than herself, there was naturally a vast amount.

She eyed it with a jaundiced expression; it was a pity that Mandy and Phil had gone to friends for the weekend—of course she could leave it until the next day when they would be back, but the Easter holidays ended within a day or so and it seemed mean to blight their last freedom with a lot of hard work. Besides, it was a lovely day, with just the right kind of wind. She battled with the elderly washing machine and then left it to thunder and rumble while she went to the kitchen to make coffee. It would be a relief when Cousin Maud got back from her visit to her brother in New Zealand—five weeks, reflected Gemma, of holding down a full-time job, running the old-fashioned house and keeping an eye on her brothers and sisters was just about her limit; thank heaven there was only another week to go—less than a week now, she remembered happily as she went to stop the machine. She hauled out the wash and shoved it into the rinser, set it going and then filled the tub up again. The two motors, working in unison, made the most fearful noise, but she was used to that, merely reiterating to herself the promise that one day she and Cousin Maud would get another washing machine, as she went back to the kitchen to drink her coffee.

She was back in the wash-house, hauling out the first batch in blissful silence, when a faint sound behind her caused her to say: ‘James? or is it William or James? take some money from the housekeeping jar and get some sausages from Mr Potter—and don’t waste time arguing about going if you want your dinner today.’

She was tugging at a damp sheet as she spoke, and when a strange voice, deep and leisurely, said: ‘I’m afraid I’m not the person you think—my name’s Ross,’ she dropped it to shoot a startled look over her shoulder.

She had never seen the man standing in the doorway; a tall, broad-shouldered individual, with pale hair which was probably silver as well, she wasn’t near enough to see, but she could see his eyes, blue and heavy-lidded below thick, pale brows. He had a high-bridged nose and a firm mouth and he was smiling. He was a very good-looking man and she stared for a moment. He bore her look with equanimity, laid a football which he had been carrying on a pile of sacks by the door and remarked: ‘Your brothers’, I believe,’ and waited for her to speak.

Gemma disentangled the sheet and heaved it into the basket at her feet. ‘You’re from Doctor Gibbons,’ she stated, and frowned a little, ‘but you can’t be the foreign professor who’s staying with him; the boys said he was short and fat and couldn’t speak English…’

Her visitor shrugged. ‘Boys,’ he remarked, ‘I’ve been one myself.’ He smiled again and Gemma wiped a wet hand down the front of her jersey and skipped across the floor between them.

‘I’m Gemma Prentice,’ she told him, and held out a hand, to have it engulfed in his.

‘Ross Dieperink van Berhuys.’

‘So you are the professor. Do you mind if I just call you that—your name’s rather a mouthful, isn’t it? For a foreigner, I mean,’ she added politely. ‘And thank you for bringing the football. I do hope it didn’t disturb you—the window being broken, I mean. They all go back to school tomorrow.’ She gave him an unaffected smile. ‘Would you like some coffee? If you wouldn’t mind waiting while I load this machine again…?’

His thank you was grave and his offer to hang out the clothes ready for the line was unexpected; she accepted it without arguing and he went into the large untidy garden with the basket while she switched on once more and went back into the kitchen to fetch another mug.

The coffee was freshly ground and carefully made; she and Cousin Maud cooked and baked between them and they both turned out what her older relation called good wholesome food; the coffee she poured now smelled delicious and tasted as good as it smelled. Her unexpected guest, sitting comfortably in an old Windsor chair, remarked upon the fact before asking gently: ‘And you, Miss Prentice?’

‘Me what?’ asked Gemma, all niceties of grammar lost; if the boys had disappeared—and heaven knew they always did when there was a chore to be done—she would have to leave the washing and fetch the sausages herself, which meant she wouldn’t get her work done before dinner. She frowned, and the professor persisted placidly, ‘The sausages bother you, perhaps?’

She gave him a surprised look. ‘How did you know?’ She refilled their mugs. ‘Well, actually, yes…’ She explained briefly, adding obscurely: ‘I expect you’re a psychiatrist—they always know things.’

Her companion turned a chuckle into a cough. ‘Er—I suppose they do, but you did mention sausages…I’m an endocrinologist, myself.’

He got to his feet, his head coming dangerously near the low ceiling. ‘I should be delighted to fetch these sausages for you while you finish your washing.’

He had gone before she could thank him, and was back again in a very short time, to put his parcel on the kitchen table and observe: ‘There is someone repairing the window.’

‘Oh, good—that’ll be Mr Bates. I asked him to come round as soon as he could—it’s so much nicer for Doctor Gibbons if he doesn’t see the damage.’

The professor’s lids drooped over amused eyes, but his voice, as he agreed with this praiseworthy sentiment, was as placid as ever.

‘I daresay you find it difficult to understand,’ she went on chattily, ‘but it’s impossible not to break a window now and then when there are three boys about the place.’

Her companion made himself comfortable on the edge of the kitchen table. ‘I don’t find it in the least difficult,’ he protested, ‘I’m the eldest of six, myself.’

Gemma flung the last of the washing into the basket. Somehow it was hard to imagine this not so very young man in his elegant casual clothes being the eldest of a large family—and they would surely all be grown-up.

Just as though she had spoken her thoughts out loud, her companion went on smoothly: ‘I’m thirty-seven, my youngest sister is not quite eighteen.’

‘Phil’s as old as that…the twins are thirteen and George is ten. Mandy’s twenty.’

‘And you are twenty-five,’ he finished for her. ‘Doctor Gibbons told me.’

‘Oh, did he? Would you like some more coffee?’

‘Thanks. I’ll hang this lot up while you get it, shall I?’

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ said Gemma doubtfully. ‘You’re a professor and all that; I dare say you don’t hang out the washing at home so I don’t see why you should here.’

His blue eyes twinkled. ‘No, I can’t say I make a habit of it, but then I’m working for most of my day when I’m home.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him about his home and if he was married, but moving very fast for such a sleepy-eyed person, he was already going down the garden path.

She didn’t see him for the rest of that day and she left the house at half past seven the next morning, cycling through the quiet country lanes to get to the hospital a couple of miles away.

Mandy and Phil had got back from their weekend late the previous evening; Gemma had called them before she left the house and they would get the boys down for breakfast and off to school and then get themselves away; Phil to her coaching classes before school started—she was in her last term and working for her A levels—and Mandy to the library in Salisbury where she was training to become a librarian. Gemma, pedalling down the road at great speed, was aware that it was a glorious May morning—a morning to be free in which to do exactly what one wished; she cast the thought aside and bent her mind to the more mundane subject of what to cook for supper that evening, the chances of getting the ironing done, whether the twins could go another week before she need buy the new shoes they wore out with terrifying frequency, and behind all these thoughts even though she kept nudging it aside, the wish to see more of the professor. He had been kind and easy to talk to, and Gemma, the plain one of the family and always conscious of that fact, had been aware that he hadn’t looked at her with the faintly amused surprise with which those who had already met the rest of the family—all of them possessing good looks—were wont to show.

She rounded the entrance to the hospital and slowed down to go up the neglected, grass-grown drive, casting, as she always did, an admiring glance at the building coming into view as she did so.

The hospital wasn’t really a hospital at all; many years ago it had been a rather grand country house with a fine Tudor front, which had been added to by succeeding generations, so that there was a Queen Anne wing to the left, a charming Regency wing to the right, and round the back, out of sight, and a good thing too, was a mid-Victorian extension, red brick, elaborate and very inconvenient. But with the death of the heir during World War Two and crippling death duties, the house had been sold to the local council and had been used as a geriatric hospital ever since. It was, of course, most unsuitable; the rooms were either too lofty and huge and full of draughts, or so small and awkwardly shaped that the getting of elderly ladies in and out of them, not to mention the making of their beds, was a constant nightmare for the nurses.

Gemma propped her bike against a convenient wall and went in through an open side door, into a narrow, dark passage and up a back staircase. There were two Day Sisters looking after the fifty-six patients; herself with twenty-eight old ladies in her care, and Sister Bell, who was housed with the remainder of them in the opposite wing.

Gemma went up the stairs two at a time, changed into uniform in five minutes flat, standing in a cupboard-like room on the landing, and then, very neat and tidy in her blue uniform and starched apron, an equally well-starched cap perched on her bun of brown hair, walked sedately across the landing into another cupboardlike apartment, which Authority allowed her to use as an office. Both the day and night nurses were there waiting for her to take the report, and she greeted them in her quiet voice, bidding them to sit down as she squeezed herself behind the table which served her as desk. The report hardly varied from day to day; Mrs Pegg and Miss Crisp fell out of their beds with monotonous regularity despite the nurses’ efforts to keep them safely in—they had both done so again during the night; there weren’t enough nurses for a start and old ladies could be very determined. Lovable too.

When Gemma had given up her post as Medical Ward Sister in a big London teaching hospital, she had done so with many private misgivings; it had been expediency, not choice, which had caused her to apply for the post at Millbury House. Cousin Maud, who had looked after all of them for some years by then, was beginning to show signs of wear and tear—and who wouldn’t? Gemma had spent all her holidays and days off at home so that she might help her, but it hadn’t been enough; once Mandy and Phil were off their hands, things would be easier, but until then, it had become a matter of urgency that someone should help. That was six months ago and although she missed the rush and bustle of the big hospital, Gemma had to admit that she didn’t dislike her work; besides, it had made it possible for Cousin Maud to go to New Zealand for the long-dreamed-of holiday with her brother. Gemma, heartily sick of doing two jobs at once, couldn’t wait for her to get back.

The night nurse safely on her way, Gemma and Sally Black, the day staff nurse, separated to start their day’s work. The main ward was a long room with windows down its length, overlooking the gardens at the side of the house; at one time it must have been a drawing room, for its fireplace, now no longer in use, was ornate, gilded and of marble, and the ceiling was picked out with gilt too. Gemma trod from one bed to the next, having a word with each of her patients in turn, handing out a woefully sparse post, listening to the old ladies’ small complaints, and occasionally, cheerful chatter. Almost all of them were being got up for the day; a ritual which they, for the most part, objected to most strongly, so that the two nursing aides who came in to help part-time were constantly hindered. Gemma finished her round, quite worn out with her efforts to persuade her patients that to get up and trundle along to the day room across the passage was quite the nicest way of spending their day, but she really had no time to feel tired. She took off her cuffs, rolled up her sleeves and sallied forth once more to tackle Mrs Pegg and Miss Crisp, who now that they might legitimately leave their beds were refusing, with a good deal of noise, to do so.

The day went quickly enough. Nothing dramatic happened; the old ladies were dressed, given their meals, their medicines, bathed, chatted to whenever there was time to spare, and then prepared for bed once more. It was visiting time after dinner, but only a handful of people came. After the eager rush of visitors who had invaded the ward Gemma had had in London, she felt sad, even after six months, that the very people who needed visitors seldom had them. True, some of the old ladies had no family at all, but there were plenty who had who could surely have come more often than they did. Millbury House was some miles from Salisbury, but there was a bus service of sorts, and anyway, most people had cars these days.

She made a point of walking round the wards while the visitors were there so that anyone who wanted to inquire about Granny or Auntie could do so, but they seldom did. When the last of them had gone she went to her office and started the Kardex so that Sally would only have the last few details to fill in later on, and it was while she was doing this that she was interrupted by the house doctor, a young man called Charlie Briggs. They discussed the patients one by one over a cup of tea, and because he didn’t like her overmuch, he disagreed with everything she had to say; he almost always did. When she had first arrived at the hospital he had heralded her appearance with delight. ‘Thank God,’ he had said, ‘someone under forty at last—now perhaps life will be fun!’ He had eyed her at such length that she had coloured faintly and then disliked him forever when he exclaimed: ‘Oh, lord—I do believe you’re good as well as plain.’

They had to meet, of course, but only during the course of their work. She had often thought wryly that it was just her luck to work with a man who didn’t like her at all—a young man, not married, he might have fallen for her, who knew? they might have married… She had laughed at herself for having the absurd notion, but the laughter had been wistful.

She was tired by the time she was ready to cycle home just before six o’clock. Phil would be home, so would the boys, but Mandy wouldn’t leave the library for another half an hour. She wheeled her bike round to the shed at the back of the house, called a hullo to the boys as she passed the sitting room where they were doing their homework, and went to the kitchen. Phil would be upstairs in her room, deep in her school books, but she had left a tray of tea ready on the kitchen table for Gemma. She drank it slowly, sitting in the Windsor chair with Giddy, the family cat purring on her lap, before starting on the supper. The boys had peeled the potatoes and seen to the vegetables and she had made a steak and kidney pie the evening before; she went and got it from the fridge now and put it into the oven before going to the cupboard to see what she could serve for a pudding. She had the off duty to puzzle out, too, she remembered; she had brought it home with her and could have a shot at it while the supper cooked. She fished the book out of her cardigan pocket and sat down at the table, conscious that she didn’t want to do it at all; she wanted to sit in a chair and do nothing—well, perhaps not quite nothing. It would be nice to have time to sit and think; she didn’t admit to herself that what she wanted to think about was the professor next door.

She wasn’t on duty until eleven o’clock the next morning; she saw everyone out of the house, raced through the housework and then pedalled through the bright sunshine to Millbury House, wishing with all her heart that she could stay out of doors. By the time she got off duty that evening it would be eight o’clock—dusk and chilly.

Her day was long and filled with little troubles. At the end of it she wheeled her bike through the open gate, stowed it for the night and went into the house through the kitchen door. There was a cold supper laid out for her on the kitchen table and coffee bubbling gently on the stove. She sniffed appreciatively and went on through the kitchen and down the passage to the sitting room where she found the boys bent so zealously over their books that she instantly suspected them of watching the TV until they had heard her come in. She grinned at them, said: ‘Don’t you dare until you’ve finished your lessons,’ and went across to the drawing room. Phil would be upstairs, working, but Mandy would be there. She was, looking cool and incredibly pretty, and lounging opposite her was Professor Dieperink van Berhuys.

They both turned to look at her as she went in, and the thought crossed her mind that they were a perfectly matched couple, Mandy with her gay little face and curly hair and he with his placid good looks.

Mandy came dancing to her, bubbling over with high spirits, full of the news that the professor had happened to be outside the library when she had left it and had driven her home. She cast him a laughing glance as she spoke, and he, standing with his magnificent head almost touching the ceiling, smiled back at her, murmuring that it had been a pleasure and that now he really should go, for Doctor Gibbons would be wondering what had become of him.

Gemma said all the right things and watched him walk out of the room with Mandy. They didn’t shut the door and she heard them talking in the hall and then go into the sitting room where there was an instant babble of talk and laughter. It made her feel suddenly lonely, which was absurd; how could she possibly be lonely with five brothers and sisters, besides the twenty-eight old ladies with whom she passed her days? Perhaps lonely wasn’t the right word. She went back to the kitchen and sat down to eat her solitary supper, and presently she was joined by everyone else, crowding round the table to tell her about their particular day, eating a packet of biscuits between them while they did so. She wasn’t all that much older, she thought, looking round at them all, but sometimes she felt just as though she was the mother of the family.

They went to bed one by one, leaving her and Mandy to wash the mugs and sweep up the crumbs and lay the breakfast for the morning, and all the while they were doing it, Mandy talked about the professor.

‘He’s almost forty,’ she told Gemma, ‘but he doesn’t look it, does he? He’s not married either, but his sister is—he’s got two, the youngest one is as old as Phil, then there’s a brother in his late twenties and another one who’s in medical school, he’s twenty-one.’ She added thoughtfully: ‘You’d think he’d be married, wouldn’t you?’

Gemma wiped out the sink and put the cloth tidily away. ‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘with so many brothers and sisters, perhaps he can’t afford to.’

‘His mother and father are still alive.’ Mandy perched on a corner of the table. ‘He’s got a simply super car…’

‘Perhaps he hired it.’

‘No, it’s his, it’s got a Dutch number plate.’ She smiled suddenly and brilliantly. ‘He said I was a very pretty girl.’

Gemma pushed back her hair with a weary little gesture. ‘And so you are, darling,’ she agreed. ‘We’re a smashing lot of good-lookers except for me.’

‘We all think you’re lovely,’ said her sister fervently, ‘and depend on it, someone will come along and think the same.’

Gemma ate a biscuit. ‘Then he’d better look sharp about it,’ she observed cheerfully. ‘All this waiting around doesn’t do my nerves any good.’

They giggled together as they went up to bed, but presently, in her own room, Gemma sat down on the old stool in front of her dressing table and took a long look at her reflection. It didn’t reassure her in the least.

She was persuading old Mrs Thomas to toddle across to the day room when she heard Doctor Gibbons arrive for his round the next day. He came regularly, for several of the patients had been his for years and he still came to see them. Gemma rotated her companion carefully and sat her down in a convenient chair and looked down the ward. Doctor Gibbons always had a chat with Mrs Thomas; she had no family left now and to her confused old mind he had taken the place of a long-dead son.

The doctor wasn’t alone, his Dutch guest was with him, strolling along between the beds, saying good morning as he passed the elderlies while at the same time listening politely to Matron, sailing along a pace or two behind Doctor Gibbons doing the honours. Matron was a nice old thing, with mild blue eyes, a ready chuckle and a cosy figure. Gemma could see that the professor had her eating out of his hand.

The party reached her, exchanged greetings and settled down to the confused questions and answers which took the place of conversation with Mrs Thomas, leaving Gemma free to do something else. She went reluctantly, wishing that someone in the party—the professor, perhaps—would ask her to remain. But he didn’t, only smiled his gentle smile and turned his attention to Matron, who was explaining about staff shortages, too many patients, the lack of amenities, the lack of visitors, the lack of transport…Gemma, at the other end of the ward, assembling her medicine trolley, could hear the murmur of their voices.

Presently they came down the ward again and Matron went away and Doctor Gibbons started his ward round. They were the high spot of any day and this one was even better than usual, for Professor Dieperink van Berhuys came with them, asking intelligent questions, murmuring in agreement with his colleagues’ more profound remarks, and now and again asking her, soft-voiced, her opinion of this or that. It gave her a real uplift when Charlie Briggs came importantly into the ward, to stop short at the sight of her in animated conversation with a man who put him, in every way, quite in the shade. He wasn’t near enough to hear that they were discussing the use of water beds for the aged and infirm. She greeted him with dignity and was glad to see that, for once, he was less than his usual cocksure self. Perhaps that was due to the professor’s impassive manner and Doctor Gibbons’ brisk way of talking to him. Indeed, she began to feel sorry for him after a while, for he was showing off far too much and she strongly suspected that the professor was secretly amused; besides, there was the strong possibility that Doctor Gibbons would lose his patience with him and tear him off a strip. She was casting round in her mind how to deal with the situation when it was saved by the reappearance of Matron with an urgent message for Doctor Gibbons, and she was able to show the whole party to the door. She had closed it behind them and was making for Mrs Thomas once more when the professor came back.

‘Er—may I offer you a lift home this evening? I take it you’re off at five o’clock?’

She stood looking up at him. He was being polite, of course, afraid that she had minded him giving Mandy a lift. He was really rather nice.

‘How kind,’ she said pleasantly, ‘but I’ve got my bike here and I shall need it in the morning—thanks all the same.’

She smiled at him warmly and his answering smile was ready enough. ‘Another time, perhaps?’ His voice was casual, he made no effort to change her mind for her. With feminine illogicality she was annoyed. Her ‘Goodbye, Professor,’ as he opened the door was decidedly cool.

CHAPTER TWO

COUSIN MAUD came home two days later, looking tanned and at least ten years younger—not that she was all that old; a woman in her forties was no age at all; Gemma had often heard Doctor Gibbons telling her cousin that, and had thought it to be a friendly platitude, but now, watching him greet her cousin, she wasn’t so sure. She busied herself with welcoming sherry and speculated about that. Doctor Gibbons wasn’t all that old himself—in his mid-fifties and as fit as a fiddle as far as she knew. True, he was a little thin on top and he wore glasses, but he must have been good-looking when he was younger—not, of course, as good-looking as his friend the professor. She nudged the errant thought on one side and concentrated on Cousin Maud and Doctor Gibbons. But even if they wanted to marry there were difficulties. He could hardly be expected to house the six of them as well as Maud. Somehow or other, mused Gemma as she passed the glasses around, they would have to manage on their own—after all, if it could be done for six weeks, it could be done for a lifetime. She shuddered strongly at the very idea and then consoled herself with the certainty that it wouldn’t be a lifetime. Mandy would surely marry, so, in a few years, would Phil. James and John were clever boys, they would get their A levels and go on to university, and that left little George. Quite carried away, she began to weigh the chances of taking paying guests—with only George at home there would be three or four bedrooms empty, or perhaps Doctor Gibbons would offer George a home and she could sell the house, find a job and live at the hospital. The prospect was even worse than the first one. She frowned heavily and the professor said in her ear, very softly: ‘What is it that worries you?’

She hadn’t noticed him cross the room. He loomed beside her, smiling his gentle smile, his pale brows slightly lifted.

‘Nothing,’ she said hastily. His vague ‘Ah’, left her with the impression that he didn’t believe her and she went on quickly before he persisted: ‘Doesn’t Cousin Maud look marvellous?’

He glanced across the room. ‘Indeed, yes. And now presumably you will take a holiday yourself—you have been doing two jobs for the last six weeks, have you not?’

‘Well—the others were marvellous, you know, and it wasn’t easy for them; Mandy’s away all day and so is Phil, and the boys did their bit.’

‘Does Mandy not have holidays?’

She turned a surprised face towards him. ‘Of course she does—four weeks each year, but no one could have expected her to stay home…’

‘Er—the thought did cross my mind—just a week or two, perhaps, so that she could have—er—shared the burden of housekeeping with you.’

‘It wasn’t a burden. I—I liked it.’

He had somehow edged between her and the rest of the room. ‘That is a palpable untruth,’ he observed mildly. ‘Don’t tell me that getting up with the birds in order to do the housework before spending the rest of your day looking after a great many demanding old ladies before coming home to cook the supper, help with the homework and generally play mother, was something you liked doing.’

He sounded so reasonable that she found herself saying: ‘Well, I must admit that it was rather a full day, but I’ll have a holiday soon.’

‘You will go away?’

‘Me? No.’ He was asking a lot of questions. Gemma asked rather coldly: ‘Would you like some more sherry?’

He shook his head and she need not have tried to interrupt him. ‘You will stay here, fighting the washing machine, frying sausages and calling upon Mr Bates at intervals, I suppose?’

She smiled because put like that it sounded very dull. ‘Cousin Maud will be here—she’s marvellous…’

They both turned to look at that lady, deep in conversation with Doctor Gibbons. Perhaps, thought Gemma, it might be a good idea not to pursue this conversation. ‘When do you go home?’ she asked chattily.

‘Earlier than I had intended. Rienieta, my youngest sister, is ill and at the moment there’s no diagnosis, although it sounds to me like brucellosis—her fever is high and she is rather more than my mother can cope with.’

‘I’m sorry, it’s a beastly thing to have—I had several cases of it when I had a medical ward.’

‘So Doctor Gibbons was telling me. You must find the difference between an acute medical ward and your old ladies very great.’

‘Yes, I do—but they need nursing too.’ She added honestly, ‘Though it isn’t a branch of nursing I would choose. It’s convenient, you see, so near home…’

‘You are on duty in the morning?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, but wasn’t I lucky to be able to get a free day so that I could be home to welcome Cousin Maud?’

Her companion let this pass. ‘I’ll take you in the morning,’ he stated. ‘I have something I wish to say to you.’

Her eyes flew to his face, but it was devoid of any clue. ‘Oh—what about?’ She paused, remembering that he had taken Mandy in and out of Salisbury several times during the last few days, and besides that, she had come across them deep in conversation at least twice. Perhaps he had fallen in love with her? He was a lot older, of course, but age didn’t really matter; perhaps he just wanted to discover what she thought of it. She said matter-of-factly: ‘I leave at ten to eight on the bike.’

‘A quarter to the hour, then. That will give us time to talk.’ He moved a little and Phil came over to join them, and presently Gemma slipped away to the kitchen to see how the supper was coming along.

It was pouring with rain the next morning when she left the house, so that she had wrapped herself in a rather elderly mac and tied a scarf over her head, which was a pity, for her hair, although it didn’t curl like Mandy’s or Phil’s, was long and fine and a pretty brown. But now, with most of it tucked out of sight, her unremarkable features looked even more unassuming than usual, not that she was thinking about her appearance; she was still puzzling out a reason for the professor’s wish to speak to her—a reason important enough to get him out of his bed and go to all the trouble of driving her to the hospital. Well, she would know soon enough now. His car, an Aston Martin convertible, was outside the gate and he was at the wheel.

She wished him good morning in a cheerful voice, wholeheartedly admired the car and got in beside him and sat quietly; the drive would take five minutes, and presumably he would start talking at once.

He did. ‘I shall be going home in a week’s time,’ he told her without preamble. ‘I should like you to return with me and look after my sister for a week or so—they have confirmed that she has brucellosis and she is in a good deal of pain and her fever is high. My mother assures me that she can manage for the time being, but Rienieta is sometimes very difficult—she refuses to have a nurse, too, but I thought that if you would come with me and we—er—took her unawares, as it were, it might solve that problem. She’s a handful,’ he added judiciously.

‘Well!’ declared Gemma, her eyes round with surprise while she hurriedly adjusted her ideas. ‘I didn’t expect…that is, I had no idea…’ She perceived that she would get no further like that. ‘I can’t just leave Millbury House at a moment’s notice, you know,’ she pointed out at length.

‘I had a word with Doctor Gibbons,’ said her companion smoothly. ‘He seems to think that something might be arranged for a few weeks—unpaid leave is what he called it.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you are the eldest of a large family, I suppose, and know just how to deal with the young.’

She felt like Methuselah’s wife and said with a touch of peevishness: ‘I’m twenty-five, Professor.’

The amused glint in his eyes belied his placid expression. ‘I beg your pardon, I wasn’t thinking of you in terms of age, only experience.’ He slowed down to turn the car into the hospital drive. ‘Of course, if you dislike the idea, we’ll say no more about it.’

She didn’t dislike it at all, in fact she felt a rising excitement. She held it in check, though. ‘It doesn’t seem fair on Cousin Maud.’

‘She hasn’t the least objection. Doctor Gibbons happened to mention it to her yesterday.’ He drew up outside the side door. ‘Think it over,’ he said with maddening placidity, ‘and let me know. We’re bound to see each other during the next day or so.’

His goodbye was so nonchalant that Gemma told herself crossly that nothing, absolutely nothing, would make her agree to his request even if it were possible to grant it, which seemed to her very unlikely. Moreover, she would keep out of his way, he really had a nerve…she shook off her ill humour as she walked on to the ward; it would never do to upset the old ladies. All the same, she was a little distrait, so that old Mrs Craddock, who had been there for ever and knew everyone and everything, exclaimed in the ringing tones of the deaf: ‘And what is wrong with our dear Sister today? If I didn’t know her for a sensible girl, I would say she’d been crossed in love—her mind isn’t on her work.’

It was a good thing that her companions were either deaf too or just not listening. Gemma laughed, told Mrs Craddock that she was a naughty old thing and went to see about dinners. Mrs Craddock liked her food; her mind was instantly diverted by the mention of it. Gemma gave her two helpings and the rest of the day passed without any more observations from the old lady.

It was towards the end of the afternoon that she remembered that she hadn’t got her bike with her and the professor had said nothing about fetching her home; the nagging thought was luckily dispelled by the appearance of Doctor Gibbons, who arrived to see a patient very shortly before she was due to go off duty and offered her a lift. ‘Ross told me he had brought you over here this morning, so I said that as I was coming this afternoon, I should bring you back—that’ll leave him free to go into Salisbury and pick up Mandy.’

Gemma smiled with false brightness. The professor might appear to be a placid, good-natured man without a devious thought in his head, but she was beginning to think otherwise; he had had it all nicely planned. Well, if he thought he could coax her to ramble over half Europe he was mistaken. Her sensible little head told her that she was grossly exaggerating, but she cast sense out. Holland or Hungary or Timbuktoo, they were all one and the same, and all he was doing was to make a convenience of her. Her charming bosom swelled with indignation while she attended to Doctor Gibbons’ simple wants with a severe professionalism which caused him to eye her with some astonishment.

Cousin Maud had tea waiting for her, which was nice. Everyone was out in the garden, picking the first gooseberries, and the professor was there too, although long before Gemma had finished her tea he had strolled away. To collect Mandy, Cousin Maud explained with a smile, so that Gemma, on the point of asking her advice about the professor’s request, thought better of it. She wasn’t really interested in going to Holland, she told herself, she wasn’t interested, for that matter, in seeing him again. She could not in fact care less. She looked so cross that her companion wanted to know if she had a headache.

Gemma was upstairs when the professor returned with Mandy. He didn’t stay long, though, and she didn’t go downstairs until she had seen him get back into his car and shoot out of their gate and into Doctor Gibbons’ drive. She could see him clearly from her bedroom window; indeed, she was hanging out of it, watching him saunter into the house next door, when he turned round suddenly and looked at her. She withdrew her head so smartly that she banged it on the low ceiling.

For the time being, she didn’t want to see him. Let him come again and ask her if he was so keen for her to nurse his sister, and it was really rather absurd that she should leave her old ladies just to satisfy his whim. She tidied her already tidy hair and sighed deeply. Probably she would be at Millbury House for ever and ever—well, not quite that, but certainly for years. She went slowly downstairs, the rest of the evening hers in which to do whatever she wished, and she was free until noon the next day, too. She wouldn’t see her old ladies until then.

She saw them a good deal sooner than that, though. Several hours later she was wakened by the insistent ringing of the telephone. She had been the last to go to bed and had only been asleep for a short time, and it was only a little after midnight. The house was quiet as she trod silently across the landing and down the stairs, not waiting to put on dressing gown or slippers. Doctor Gibbons’ voice sounded loud in her ear because of the stillness around her. ‘Gemma? Good. There’s a fire at Millbury House—they’ve just telephoned. Matron’s pretty frantic because the fire brigade’s out at another fire and they’ll have to come from further afield. Can you be ready in five minutes? Wait at your gate.’

He hung up before she could so much as draw breath.

She was at the gate, in slacks and a sweater pulled over her nightie and good stout shoes on her feet, with a minute to spare. The house behind her was quite still and the village street was dark with not a glimmer of light to be seen excepting in the doctor’s house, and that went out as she looked. Seconds later she heard the soft purr of the Aston Martin as it was backing out of the drive and halted by her. The professor was at the wheel; he didn’t speak at all but held the door open just long enough for her to get in before he shot away. It was left to Doctor Gibbons, sitting beside him, to tell her: ‘The fire’s in the main building, the first floor day room. It’ll be a question of getting everyone out before it spreads to one or either wing.’ He turned to look at her in the dark of the car. ‘The fire people will be along, of course, but if all the patients have to be got out…’ He paused significantly and Gemma said at once: ‘There’s Night Sister, and a staff nurse on each ward and three nursing aides between them—and Matron, of course, as well as the kitchen staff, but I don’t think they all sleep in.’ She drew a sharp breath and said: ‘Oh, lord, look at it!’

The night sky glowed ahead of them, faded a little and glowed again, and now, as the professor took the right-hand turn into the drive without decreasing his speed at all, they could hear the fire as well as see it and smell it. They could hear other sounds too, urgent voices and elderly cries.

The professor had barely stopped the car at a safe distance from the burning building than Gemma was out of it. ‘It’s my ward,’ she cried, ‘the wind’s blowing that way. Oh, my dear old ladies!’ She leapt forward and was brought up short by a large hand catching at the back of her sweater.

‘Before you rush in and get yourself fried to a crisp, tell me where the fire escape is?’

Gemma wriggled in a fury of impatience, but he merely gathered more sweater into his hand. As Doctor Gibbons joined them, she said urgently: ‘At the back, where my wing joins the extension behind—there’s a side door with a small staircase which leads to the landing outside my ward…’

‘The way we came the other day, from the centre door—that will be impossible now; the wind’s blowing strongly from the centre towards your wing… Is there a fire chute?’

‘Yes—I know where it’s kept.’

‘Good.’ He turned to Doctor Gibbons. ‘Shall we try the side door, get into the ward and get the chute going from a window at this end? The fire escape is a good way away, I doubt if they can move the old ladies fast enough—if the dividing wall should go…’

They were already running towards the house. In a moment they were inside, to find the staircase intact. ‘Get between us,’ said the professor shortly, and took the stairs two at a time, with Gemma hard on his heels and Doctor Gibbons keeping up gamely. The landing, when they reached it, was full of smoke, but although the fire could be heard crackling and roaring close by, the thick wall was still holding it back. The professor opened the ward door on to pandemonium; Gemma had a quick glimpse of the night staff nurse tearing down the ward propelling a wheelchair with old Mrs Draper wedged into it; it looked for all the world like a macabre parody of an Easter pram race. There wasn’t much smoke; just a few lazy puffs curling round the door frame.

Gemma didn’t wait to see more but turned and ran upstairs to the next floor where the escape chute was, stored in one of the poky, disused attics which in former days would have been used by some over-worked servant. The door was locked—she should have thought of that. She raced downstairs again, took the key from her office and tore back. The chute was heavy and cumbersome, but she managed to drag it out of the room and push and pull it along the passage to the head of the stairs where she gave it a shove strong enough to send it lumbering down to the landing below. But now she would need help; she ran to the ward door and opened it cautiously. The professor was quite near, lifting Mrs Thomas out of her bed and settling her in the wheelchair a nursing aide was holding steady. He glanced up, said something to the nurse, who sped away towards the distant fire escape, and came to the door.

‘I can’t manage the chute,’ said Gemma urgently. ‘It’s on the landing.’

He nodded, swept her on one side and went past her, shutting the door, leaving her in the ward. The beds, she noticed, had been pulled away from the inner wall and ranged close to the windows, and there were only six patients left. She sighed with relief as the professor came back with the chute and she went to give him a helping hand.

There was still only a little smoke in the ward, although the roar of the fire sounded frighteningly near. Gemma shut her mind to the sound and began the difficult task of getting Miss Bird, hopelessly crippled with arthritis, out of her bed, wrapped and tied into a blanket ready to go down the chute. The nursing aide had come back; she could hear the professor telling her to go down first so that she could catch the patients as they arrived at the bottom. The nurse gave him a scared look.

‘I’ve never done it before,’ she told him in a small scared voice.

The professor eyed her sturdy figure. ‘Then have a go,’ he said persuasively, and actually laughed. ‘I’ve thrown a mattress down. Don’t try to catch the ladies, just ease them out and get help, any help, if you can. And be quick, my dear, for the inner wall isn’t going to hold out much longer.’

Gemma glanced over her shoulder. He was right; the smoke was thickening with every moment and there was a nasty crackling sound. She left Miss Bird to be picked up by the professor and hurried to the next bed—Mrs Trump, fragile, heaven knew, but very clear in the head, which helped a lot. She saw Nurse Drew plunge down the chute out of the corner of her eye, and a minute later, Miss Bird, protesting vigorously, followed her. She was ready with Mrs Trump by now and wheeled her bed nearer the chute and then wasted a few precious seconds dragging empty beds out of the way so that they had more room.

The professor already had a patient in his arms and she was tackling the third old lady when the wall at the other end of the ward caved in with a loud rumble, an enormous amount of dust and smoke and great flames of fire. Gemma, tying her patient into her blanket, found that her hands were shaking so much that she could hardly tie the knots. The professor was going twice as fast now, getting the next old lady into her blanket; she finished what she was doing and went to the last occupied bed—Mrs Craddock, apparently unworried by the appalling situation, blissfully unable to hear the noise around her. As Gemma rolled her into the blanket she shouted cheerfully: ‘A nasty fire, Sister dear. I hope there’ll be a nice cup of tea when you’ve put it out!’

Gemma gabbled reassurances as she worried away at the knots. The flames were licking down the wall that was left at a great rate now, and she could have done with a nice cup of tea herself. She was so frightened that her mind had become a blank. All that registered was that Mrs Craddock must be got down the chute at all costs.

The professor, elbowing her on one side without ceremony tugged the webbing tight with an admirably steady hand and bent to take Mrs Craddock’s not inconsiderable weight. ‘Come along,’ he said almost roughly, adding unnecessarily: ‘Don’t hang around.’

Mrs Craddock was stoutly built as well as heavy, and it took the professor a few precious moments to get her safely into the chute and speed her on her way. They were unable to hear the reassuring shout from below when she got there because the rest of the wall caved in with a thunder of sound. It did so slowly, like slow motion, thought Gemma, stupidly gawping at it, incapable of movement. The professor shouted something at her, but his voice, powerful though it might be, had no chance against the din around them. She felt herself swung off her feet and hurled into the chute. She hit the mattress at the bottom with a thump and a dozen hands dragged her, just in time, out of the way of the professor, hard on her heels.

The next few hours were a nightmare, although it wasn’t until afterwards that Gemma thought about them, for there was too much to do; old ladies, scattered around in chairs, on mattresses, wrapped up warmly on garden seats—the fire brigade were there by now and a great many helpers who had seen the fire from the village and come helter-skelter on bikes and in cars; the butcher in his van, the milkman, Mr Bates and Mr Knott, the gentleman farmer who lived in the big house at the other end of the village. The only person Gemma didn’t see was Charlie Briggs, who really should have been there and wasn’t. She wondered about him briefly as she went round with Matron and Night Sister, carefully checking that each patient would be fit to be moved. Now and again she brushed against the professor, listened carefully when he bade her do something or other, and then lost sight of him again.

The beginnings of a May morning were showing in the sky by the time the last ambulance had been sped on its way, leaving a shambles of burnt-out wards, broken furniture and everything else in sight soaked with water. Those who had come to help began to go home again while Matron, looking quite different in slacks and a jumper, thanked each of them in turn. Presently they had all gone, leaving Gemma and Doctor Gibbons, Matron, the night staff and the professor standing in what had once been the imposing entrance, while firemen sorted over the bits and pieces, making sure that all was safe before they too left.

It was the professor who suggested that he should drive everyone to their homes; Matron had been offered temporary shelter with the rector, whose house could be seen through the trees half a mile away, the rest of them lived round and about, not too far away, excepting for one nursing aide who came from Salisbury. He sorted them out, taking those who lived close by before driving Matron down the road to the Rectory. That left Gemma and Doctor Gibbons and the girl from Salisbury; he squeezed all of them into the car, left Gemma and the doctor at the latter’s gate and drove on to the city. Gemma watched the car out of sight, yawned and started for her own garden gate.

‘They’ve slept through it all,’ said the doctor as he put out a restraining hand, ‘they’d sleep through Doomsday.’ He took her by the arm. ‘Come in with me and make me a cup of tea. It’s gone five o’clock; far too late—or too early—for bed now. Besides, there’s no hurry, you haven’t got a job to go to now.’

Gemma turned to look at him. ‘Nor have I.’ She waited while he opened the door and followed him inside; she knew the house as well as her own home; they had been friends for years now. She told him to go and sit down and went through to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

They had finished their tea and were sitting discussing the fire and its consequences when the professor got back. Gemma heard the car turn into the drive and went away to make more tea; probably he would be hungry too. She spooned tea into the largest pot she could find and sliced bread for toast. She didn’t hear him when he came into the kitchen, but she turned round at his quiet ‘hullo’.

‘Tea and toast?’ she invited, unaware how deplorable she looked; her slacks and sweater were filthy with smoke and stains, her face was dirty too and her hair, most of it loose from the plait by now, was sadly in need of attention.

The professor joined her at the stove, made the tea, turned the toast and then spread it lavishly with butter. He said to surprise her: ‘How nice you look.’

Gemma stared at him over the tray she was loading, her mouth a little open. ‘Me—?’ She frowned. ‘If that’s a joke, I just don’t feel equal to it.’

He took the tray from her and put it down on the table again. ‘It’s not a joke, I meant it.’ He bent and kissed the top of her tousled head and smiled at her; he didn’t look in the least tired. ‘You’re a jewel of a girl, Gemma—just like your name.’

He took the tray and led the way back to the sitting room and they drank the pot dry, saying very little. It was when they had finished and she was stacking the cups on the tray again that he said in a matter-of-fact voice: ‘And now there is no reason why you shouldn’t come back with me, is there?’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Unless you object on personal grounds?’

Gemma cast a glance at Doctor Gibbons, who had gone to sleep and would be of no help at all. She suddenly felt very sleepy herself so that her mumbled ‘No, of course I don’t’ was barely audible, but the professor heard all right and although his face remained placid there was a satisfied gleam in his eyes. His casual: ‘Oh, good,’ was uttered in tones as placid as the expression on his face, but he didn’t say more than that, merely offered to escort her to her own front door, and when they reached it, advised her to go to bed at once.

A superfluous piece of advice; Gemma tore off her clothes, washed her face in a most perfunctory manner and was asleep the moment her uncombed head touched the pillow.

CHAPTER THREE

GEMMA slept all through the sounds of a household getting up and preparing itself for the day, perhaps because everyone was so much quieter than usual, for the professor, keeping watch from his window until Cousin Maud opened the back door so that Giddy might go out, presented himself at it without loss of time, and over a cup of tea with her, recounted the night’s events. It was hard to believe, looking at him, that he had himself taken part in them, for he appeared the very epitome of casual elegance, freshly shaved and bathed, his blue eyes alert under their heavy lids. Only when she looked closely Maud could see the lines of fatigue in his face. A tough man, she decided as she went round the house cautioning her young relations to behave like mice so that Gemma might sleep on.

And sleep she did, until almost midday, to go downstairs much refreshed and eat an enormous meal while Cousin Maud plied her with hot coffee and questions. She ate the last of the wholesome cheese pudding before her, washed up, invited her cousin to come upstairs with her while she dressed, and signified her intention of cycling over to the ruins of Millbury House to see exactly what was to happen. ‘Perhaps it will close down for good,’ she wondered worriedly. ‘What do you think, Maud?’

The older woman sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Well, dear, I should think it very likely, wouldn’t you? There must have been an awful lot of damage done and it would cost a fortune to rebuild the place. Doctor Gibbons is coming in to tea if he can spare the time—perhaps he’ll know something. He telephoned this morning—he said you were marvellous. Ross said so too.’

Gemma piled her hair neatly on top of her head and started to pin it there. ‘Oh—did you see him, then?’

‘He was at the back door this morning when I went down, to tell me that you’d only just got to bed.’ She got up and strolled over to the window. ‘You know, Gemma, it might not be such a bad idea, to take that job Ross suggested. No, don’t look like that, dear—he didn’t talk about it; Doctor Gibbons told me—I imagine that he thought I already knew about it.’ There was faint reproach in her voice.

Gemma was making haste with her face. ‘I should have told you—I did mean to, but I wasn’t sure—I mean it was only to be for a week or two and although he said he could make it all right with Matron, I was a bit doubtful about her wanting me back. But now I suppose there’s nothing for me to go back to.’ She went and put an arm through her cousin’s. ‘I’ll go and find out now. Would you mind if I did go? There’s an awful lot to do here, you know.’

Cousin Maud, who had been doing it for years, agreed a little drily, ‘But it’s time Mandy and Phil helped out a little more, and you haven’t had a holiday for years—not that this job sounds much like a holiday, but at least it will be a change of scene.’

Gemma mulled over her cousin’s words as she cycled along the lanes and forgot them when she saw the charred ruins of the hospital. It really had been badly damaged; true, the Victorian extension at the back had escaped more or less intact, but it had never been used as wards for the patients; the rooms were poky and dark and there were any number of small staircases which the old ladies would never have managed. Gemma propped her bike against a tree and went round to the back and through a door which looked as though it belonged to a church but led instead to a narrow, damp passage leading to the back hall. It was here that Matron had her flat. Gemma knocked on the door and was relieved to hear Matron’s voice bidding her go in, for she remembered then, a little late in the day, that she had gone to the Rectory. But Matron was there, all right, in uniform too, looking calm and collected, just as though the hospital hadn’t been burned around her ears only a few hours earlier.

She looked up as Gemma went in and smiled at her. ‘Sister Prentice, I’m glad you’ve come. I’ve been hearing about this job you’ve been offered—at least one of my staff won’t be out of work.’

Gemma took the chair she had been waved to. ‘You mean the hospital can’t be rebuilt?’

Matron nodded. ‘I’m almost sure of it. There’s only been a preliminary survey, of course, but any idiot can see that it would need rebuilding completely—what a splendid chance for the Hospital Board, who have been wanting to close us down for months, but of course something will have to be done, the other hospitals can’t absorb our old ladies permanently. At the moment they’re distributed around the area, but a handful of them will be able to come to Vicar’s Place—a large empty house some miles away. I don’t know yet, for no one has said anything, but I hope that I shall be asked to go there as Matron until such time as larger premises can be found—probably years. I shall only need two nurses there, for it won’t take more than ten patients.’ She smiled at Gemma. ‘It will take a very long time to settle, Sister Prentice, and I doubt if I can offer you even the prospect of a job.’ She added bracingly: ‘You could get a post in London very easily, you know—your references are excellent.’

Gemma shook her head. ‘That wouldn’t do at all, Matron. This job was marvellous, it meant that I could live at home, you see—there are so many of us and it’s not fair that Cousin Maud should have to manage alone.’

Matron agreed: ‘Yes, of course. Well, shall we leave things as they are and you could come and see me when you get back.’

It was a little vague, but Gemma could see that there wasn’t much to be done at the moment. She agreed without demur and asked after her patients.

‘Scattered round half a dozen hospitals, but unharmed, I’m glad to say. Their resilience is remarkable, isn’t it? I wonder how many of them realized how near death they were—and several of them owe their lives to you and Professor Dieperink van Berhuys. We are all most grateful to you…’

Gemma went pink. ‘The professor was wonderful, but I didn’t do much, Matron.’ She got up. ‘I’m not sure if I shall go to Holland…’ She wished she hadn’t said that because Matron looked so surprised, so she added hastily: ‘I’ll let you know, shall I?’

It had been silly to say that, she admitted to herself as she went back home at her leisure, because of course she was sure; she was going. It would be a nice change from the old ladies, bless them. Besides, she was curious about the professor; she wanted to know exactly what work he did and where he lived and what his family was like. She wheeled her bike into the back garden and went indoors, frowning a little. She mustn’t get too curious; curiosity was one thing, getting too interested was another.

The professor called round that evening, giving her an affable nod as he seated himself, at the twins’ urgent request, at the kitchen table so that he might give them the benefit of his knowledge concerning the more complicated aspects of the algebra they were struggling with.

It wasn’t until he had solved the knottier of the problems that he looked up to say: ‘I’m returning to Holland in three days’ time, Gemma—will you be coming with me?’

She glanced round her. The entire family had found its way into the kitchen by now, each of them apparently absorbed in some task which simply had to be done there, although Cousin Maud was just sitting doing nothing at all, looking at her. All of them were listening so hard for her answer that she could almost hear them doing it. She said ‘yes’, and then, because it had sounded rather terse: ‘Thank you, Professor.’

‘Thank you, Gemma,’ he answered gravely, and then with an abrupt change of manner, added cheerfully: ‘How about all of us gathering round the table for this?’

They had all talked at once after that; they were a united family and each member of it considered that he or she had every right to add their say to the matter. It was the professor who made sense of and produced order out of the spate of suggestions, speculations and improbable advice which was offered. Over cups of cocoa and the total disintegration of the cake which Cousin Maud had only just taken out of the oven, it was decided that Gemma should go to Salisbury in the morning to get a visitor’s passport and replenish her wardrobe, but when she mentioned going to the bank to get some Dutch money, the professor pointed out that that would be quite unnecessary, for she would be paid a salary and he would advance any money she might need when they arrived in Holland.

‘How much are you going to pay her?’ George wanted to know, and was instantly shushed by his elders.

‘Exactly the same as she receives here,’ the professor told him. He looked across at Gemma. ‘That is if you find that an agreeable arrangement?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ She tried to sound as businesslike as he did, but instead her voice sounded a little ungracious, but he didn’t seem to notice, only smiled a little and presently got up to go.

As he sauntered to the door he turned to say carelessly over his shoulder: ‘I have business in Salisbury—I’ll give you a lift. Will nine o’clock suit you?’

As soon as he had gone, Mandy made a pot of tea and they all gathered round again. Gemma hadn’t been away for a holiday for a long time—true, this trip to Holland wasn’t exactly that, but it was abroad, and as such, an event. Her wardrobe was discussed at length by her sisters and cousin while the boys pored over an atlas, offering occasional unhelpful advice as to what she should take with her. Her sisters had more to say, though: Gemma had nice clothes, but not—they were emphatic about that—enough. Living in a small village with not much opportunity of going out, she tended to buy serviceable, even if nice, things and make them last far too long. She was quick to take Phil’s point that the professor’s family might live in the middle of a town and be most frightfully fashionable, in which case she would feel quite out of things. The matter was clinched by Mandy’s dreamy: ‘He wears the most super clothes himself, you know, and I bet they’re wildly expensive—you must have something new, Gemma darling.’

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