“You are the most stubborn girl!” Constantijn said forcefully.

“I had hoped this afternoon… But no, you are determined to make me into the villain of your imagination. I thought that you might change your mind when you got to know me a little, but I see that it is useless.” He sighed loudly, took a couple of strides across the little room, and caught her by the shoulders, not at all gently. He said, in quite a temper, “Well, my pretty—if you want a villain, how’s this for a start?”

No one had ever kissed her like that before. It took her breath and emptied her head of sense and set her heart thudding. When he let her go, she stood, with huge green eyes shining with the tears she had no intention of shedding—not in front of him anyway.

“I’m too angry to think of anything to say,” she said icily, “but when I do I shall say it.”

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.

Tulips for Augusta
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

MISS AUGUSTA BROWN climbed the old-fashioned staircase leading to the Private Patients’ Wing, planting her small feet, shod in regulation black lace-ups, with a deliberation which amounted to slow motion. She was seething with temper, disappointment, and a burning sense of injustice, for half an hour previously she had been sent for by Matron, to be told by that somewhat awe-inspiring little lady that she was to go to Private Wing for an unspecified period, until such time as Staff Nurse Bates returned from sick leave. Augusta disliked Bates anyway—a tiresome girl, making the most of a grumbling appendix—and she loathed Private Patients. She had told Matron so, her pleasant voice sharpened by determination; but it had been useless, of course. She had returned to Men’s Surgical, where she had been staffing most happily for the year since she had qualified, and told Sister and such of the nurses and patients who happened to be around. She told Archie Dukes too—he had been houseman on the ward for the last six months, and they had become good friends. Now she wouldn’t be able to see so much of him; junior house surgeons didn’t find their way to PP very often…they would have to rely upon the odd meeting in one of the hospital’s innumerable corridors, and trust to luck that they would occasionally be free at the same time; a not very likely chance, for she had often heard Bates grumbling about the number of split duties she had…it was the best way to get work done on PP, because most of the patients had visitors each afternoon, so that any treatment needed was set aside until after tea, when the staff nurse could cope with it when she returned at five o’clock. A fine state of affairs, thought Augusta resentfully, who had been in the habit of sharing alternate duties with Sister.

She reached the top of the stairs, pushed open the swing doors before her, and went, still slowly, into Sister’s office.

Sister Cutts was sitting at her desk—a tall, lean woman, who had reached middle age without making any effort to do something about it. Her greying hair was strained back into a scanty bun, her thin face, devoid of lipstick, bore traces of the wrong shade of powder. She had beautiful, dark, melancholy eyes and splendid teeth. Augusta, studying her as she reported for duty, thought for the hundredth time that it was a great pity that no one had taken Sister Cutts in hand…she was an excellent nurse, and treated her staff with an aloof fairness which they found distinctly daunting, and she had no close friends. She looked up as Augusta entered, smiled briefly and said:

‘Good morning, Staff Nurse Brown. Sit down, will you? I’ll be ready for you in a minute.’

She returned to whatever she was doing and became instantly absorbed in it, leaving Augusta to sit and stare out of the window. PP was on the fourth floor, well away from the noise and bustle of the courtyard below. She watched an ambulance slide rapidly up to the Accident Room entrance, reflecting at the same time, with an uplift of her spirits, that she would be going on holiday in three weeks’ time anyway, and probably by the time she got back, Bates would be on duty again. She interrupted her thoughts for a moment, to watch while the ambulance men threw open its door and carefully drew out a stretcher and bore it away out of sight. She wondered what it was—not an accident, for the flash wasn’t on; she mulled over the possibilities and then abandoned them for the more cheerful subject of holidays. She would go home for a day or so, to the small village in Dorset where her father was the local vet, and then she would go over to Holland; to Alkmaar, where her mother’s two elderly aunts lived. It would be quiet staying with them, but it made a change, and as her mother often reminded her, it was good for her Dutch.

She looked across the desk at Sister Cutts, but her head was still bowed over her writing. Augusta fought a desire to yawn and began some complicated mental arithmetic to discover if she would have enough money to buy some new clothes; even if the holiday was to be a quiet one, there was no need for her to look a dowd. But her arithmetic was poor, and presently she gave up her sums, and sat staring at her hands folded tidily upon her white apron. They were pretty hands, small and finely shaped, with pale pink nails—her only beauty, her brother Charles had generously conceded, pointing out with brutal frankness that with a turned-up nose like hers, and a mouth like a letterbox and carroty hair to boot, she was no picture. This unpleasing description of her person in no way distressed Augusta; for one thing, it was grossly exaggerated. Her hair was indeed a peculiar shade of pale copper, but it was soft and fine and her nose was nice enough, even if it did turn up the merest bit at the end, and as for her mouth, large it might be, but it was a good shape and curved sweetly at the corners. She was no beauty, but on the other hand, she wasn’t plain—and she had most satisfactory eyes…vividly green, fringed and browed silkily with a deep coppery brown. But she would have liked to have been taller and slimmer—as a child she had been plump, and although the plumpness had melted away, leaving curves in the right places and a slim waist, it was only in the last few years that she had weaned her family from the habit of addressing her as Roly—even now, they occasionally forgot.

Sister Cutts spoke. ‘Now, Staff Nurse, if we run through the Kardex together—twenty rooms, as you know—three empty at the moment, but there are two appendices coming in this afternoon under Mr James. I’ll start with Room One. There are several patients who are not seriously ill—you appreciate that, of course.’

Augusta made a small sound of agreement. PP always had its quota of patients with mild chest infections, or needing a check-up; for there were still those who could afford the fees to lie in comfort while various tests were carried out, instead of going to Out-Patients and waiting their turn; just as there were those who preferred to come into hospital while they had a course of antibiotics. They were quite entitled to their beds and they paid heavy fees; all the same Augusta felt vaguely sorry for them, for if only they weren’t so rich and had jobs, they wouldn’t have so much time to worry about themselves.

‘Marlene Jones,’ said Sister Cutts in a no-nonsense voice. ‘T’s and A’s.’

It took quite a time to go through the Kardex; Augusta listened carefully and then followed Sister out into the corridor which stretched on either side of the office; the patients’ rooms on one side of it; a long line of windows overlooking a wide vista of chimney pots, church spires and a distant view of St Paul’s, on the other. Augusta gazed out upon this urban scene and wondered for the hundredth time why she had ever come to London in the first place. She had a sudden longing to be home, in the paddock behind the house, with the dogs and Bottom, the old pet donkey, and a pleasant smell of baking coming from the kitchen. She wondered, fleetingly, if Sister Cutts was considerate about days off… She caught that lady’s eye, and hastily opened the door of Room One.

The occupant was rolling about in the bed, screaming—a small girl of six or thereabouts, very pretty and quite obviously spoiled. The child’s mother was standing by the bed, looking helpless, but when she saw them come in, she spoke at once and quite nastily.

‘Really, Sister, surely someone…darling Marlene has such a sore throat…I should have thought that a nurse…’

‘Did you ring, Mrs Jones?’ asked Sister Cutts briskly.

‘Well, no…all the same, the nurses should have heard her crying—or at least come and see Marlene every few minutes or so.’

Sister Cutts received this observation with faintly lifted eyebrows.

‘There is considerable noise in a hospital, Mrs Jones—the nurses go about their work, and only stop what they are doing when a bell is rung, unless the patient is too ill to ring it, in which case other arrangements are made. In any case, you, Marlene’s mother, are here.’

She went over to the bed without hurry. ‘Stop crying, Marlene, for that will make your throat more sore, you know, and then you won’t be able to go home—let me see—the day after tomorrow, isn’t it?’

Marlene snivelled grumpily, eyeing Sister Cutts with the malevolence of the angry young and a certain amount of respect.

‘Ice cream for tea,’ remarked Sister. ‘This is Staff Nurse Brown who will look after you when I’m not here.’

She turned away, leaving Augusta to go to the bed, where she was studied fixedly before Marlene said, in a voice thickened by tears and soreness, ‘You’ve got green eyes.’ And then, ‘Do you have ice cream for tea?’

‘No such luck,’ said Augusta cheerfully. ‘I shall come and see you eat yours instead.’ She smiled at the red, tear-stained face, smiled again, briefly, at Mrs Jones, and followed Sister Cutts out of the room.

The patient next door was an old man—very old, very ill, and, said Sister, as they closed the door upon him; very rich. His wife was still a young woman—too young, observed Sister, darkly.

The third patient was of more interest, though not from a medical point of view. Miss Dawn Dewey, a film starlet, was suffering from a feverish cold which she referred to, rather grandly, as Coryza; she also talked vaguely about threatened complications. But Augusta, standing primly beside Sister, thought that she looked remarkably healthy…indeed, she found the patient’s condition far less interesting than the ruffled and ribboned nightgown she was wearing. She went nearer the bed to greet the young woman in it, and decided that the lace was real…something to tell the girls when she went to dinner. But despite the gorgeous nightie and the quantities of flowers about the room, Miss Dewey looked discontented and a little vapid, although as Augusta reminded herself, the poor dear did have a very nasty cold.

She followed Sister in and out of four or five rooms, saying ‘How do you do?’ to their occupants and studying them with her bright green eyes. Some of the patients were ill, and her pleasant face softened with sympathy, for she was a soft-hearted girl who hated to see suffering and pain—which was why, of course, she was such a good nurse.

They retraced their steps presently to the other half of the corridor beyond Sister’s office, calling first upon a charming middle-aged woman with a pretty, weak face and a gushing manner—a chronic alcoholic, who came in regularly in vain attempts to cure her. Next to her was the Brigadier… Sister had warned Augusta about him, for he was peppery in the extreme, and prone to use Army language if annoyed, and that, it seemed, was often. Augusta rather liked him. But it was the next patient who caught her fancy: Lady Belway, a bad-tempered old lady in a lace nightcap and a marabou cape, who lay in bed with a fractured neck of femur, looking like a chained lioness. She lifted a lorgnette on a gold chain to stare at Augusta as Sister introduced her, and said in a commanding voice:

‘She’s only a child—far too young to look after me—or anyone else for that matter.’

Augusta, who had great-aunts of her own, allowed herself a faint smile and said nothing, leaving Sister to answer. ‘Staff Nurse is a most capable member of our staff, Lady Belway—highly thought of by the consultants.’

Augusta blinked at this generous testimonial, and the old lady grunted. ‘How old are you?’

Augusta blinked again with her sable lashes. ‘Twenty-three.’

Lady Belway stared rudely at her. ‘Extraordinary hair,’ she remarked. And before she could say anything more:

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ agreed Augusta coolly, ‘but it makes no difference to my nursing, Lady Belway.’ She smiled kindly, her eyes twinkling, and after a long second, the old lady smiled back.

‘I’ve a filthy temper,’ she observed with complacence, ‘but I suppose you’re trained to ignore it.’

Augusta considered this remark. ‘If you mean do we let that sort of thing upset us—no, we don’t, but that doesn’t mean we ignore the patients.’ She smiled again and followed Sister to the door, and the old lady called after them, ‘Come back and talk to me, Nurse Brown,’ which command Augusta acknowledged with another non-committal smile, and Sister with the acid remark that Lady Belway was mistaken; Nurse Brown was Staff Nurse Brown…

Back in the office, she said, ‘I understand that you are going on holiday in a week or so, Staff Nurse. Until then perhaps you will take over Staff Nurse Bates’ off-duty.’

Augusta said ‘Yes, Sister,’ because she fancied that it wouldn’t be of much use saying anything else, and as she took off her cuffs to prepare for work, she thought nostalgically of Men’s Surgical, where Sister, who wasn’t a great deal older than herself, had the pleasing habit of offering her a choice of days off, and lent an understanding ear when Augusta had a date with Archie.

She was about to go to her dinner, when Sister Cutts passed the remark that she would be taking a half day, and she was sure that Augusta would manage very well. One of the part-time staff nurses would take over for the afternoon, and Augusta would be good enough to come back on duty at five o’clock. Over dinner, Augusta unburdened herself to those particular staff nurses who were her friends, and then in company with two of them who had half days, took herself out for a little window-shopping, followed by a recklessly extravagant tea at Fortnum and Mason’s. She arrived back on duty with a bare minute to spare to take the report from the part-time staff nurse, a large placid girl with a husband and two small children to look after. Augusta, still a little breathless from her hurrying, envied her her unshakable calm.

The evening went better than she had expected—she had three nurses on with her, so that she was able to leave most of the treatments to the more senior of them, leaving her free to deal with doctor’s visits, Matron’s report and suppers. Suppers were tricky. The trays looked tempting, and Augusta, who was hungry, could have eaten the delicate little dishes of chicken or fish with relish; but several of the patients felt otherwise. She did the after-supper round, trying not to feel irritated at the petty complaints about the wrong kind of sauce and not enough salt. Only the ill patients, she noticed, thanked her without complaint.

Lady Belway, glaring at her from her high stacked pillows, delivered a pithy diatribe on hospital food and her own supper in particular, while Augusta stood patiently. Presently she paused for breath, and when Augusta still said nothing, asked, ‘Well, haven’t you anything to say?’

Augusta considered, in no way disconcerted by the old lady’s fierce tongue. ‘I think the least said the better, don’t you, Lady Belway?’ she asked at length. ‘And now, how about an egg-nog with a hint of brandy, since you didn’t enjoy your supper.’

Lady Belway gave a snort of laughter. ‘You’re no fool, gal—but of course, you wouldn’t be with those eyes. Yes, I’ll have your egg-nog—if it’s drinkable.’

It was an hour or so later, in that quiet, brief doldrum of time between the nurses going to supper and the night staff coming on duty, that Augusta, her report written, discovered that Lady Belway’s TPR hadn’t been recorded in the day book…she might as well do it now. She went unhurriedly along the corridor, tapped on the door and went in. Lady Belway had visitors—two of them: a girl, a gorgeous girl with dark hair and eyes, and wearing, Augusta noted with a sharp female eye, equally gorgeous clothes. The second visitor was a man, sitting on one of the flimsy cane chairs the hospital provided for its visitors’ comfort. It creaked horribly as he got up, which didn’t surprise her in the least, for he was well over six foot tall and a large man, with a massive chest and shoulders under his well tailored jacket. She would have liked to have had a good look at him, but she had come for a chart, not to stare at strange men. She said pleasantly, ‘I’m sorry, Lady Belway, I didn’t know that you had visitors. I need your chart.’

She had unhooked it from the end of the bed as she spoke, and was already making for the door, having cast an all-enveloping smile at its occupants. The man was there first; his large hand closed on the door handle just as she had extended hers…only he didn’t open the door. After an awkward moment, she glanced up to look into pale blue eyes that twinkled rather nicely. He was, she saw, good-looking, with straw-coloured hair brushed smoothly back from a wide forehead, a commanding nose and a well-shaped, firm mouth. The mouth was smiling now—a small half mocking smile. He said softly in a deep voice, ‘My godmother’s quite right; you don’t look old enough.’

Augusta’s mouth opened, showing little white teeth; for a moment she looked as though she was going to grind them. Instead she shut her mouth again while she gave him a long, cool glance before saying finally with dignity, ‘I’m glad your fears are groundless,’ and when he opened the door, swept through, her carroty head high. At least a satisfactory exit, she thought, ruffled, and found him beside her in the corridor.

She started to walk away from him, but he put out a hand and caught her lightly by the arm. She didn’t move; she had had enough schoolroom fights with her brother when they were children to know when it was to her advantage to keep still.

‘That’s better—I only want to know something about Lady Belway, and you were so intent on flouncing off before I had a chance to open my mouth.’

She went a little pink, because she hadn’t thought that at all, and he went on, as though he had read her thoughts, ‘Did you think that I was going to make a pass at you? My dear Staff Nurse, I don’t like carroty hair.’

At this outrageous remark the pink turned to scarlet. Goaded, she snapped, ‘I’m not such a desperate old maid that I welcome—or expect—a pass from a man like you!’ Which remark didn’t help in the least, as he laughed with genuine amusement, and then asked in quite a different voice—placid yet authoritative, ‘My godmother—she isn’t very happy here. Oh, I know that she has every attention and kindness, but I wondered if she could be got home soon, if we could find a nurse.’

Augusta fixed her eyes on the fine grey suiting of his jacket. She said stiffly, ‘I can’t tell you that. I’m temporary here and didn’t come until today; in any case, I think you should see Sister Cutts or Mr Weller-Pratt.’ She glanced up and wondered why he smiled as though he was amused at something. ‘He’s the orthopaedic surgeon in charge of Lady Belway’s case,’ she explained carefully. ‘If you care to telephone him or Sister— ’She stopped. The sound of quiet feet on the stairs meant the night staff. Before she could speak, he said easily, ‘Thanks. I won’t keep you—the night staff are coming and you will want to give the report. Goodnight.’

He went back into Lady Belway’s room again, leaving her to hurry to the office. The two night nurses were already there—a junior and a staff nurse, a close friend of Augusta’s who said at once:

‘Gussie, who was that? That handsome giant you were dallying with in the corridor? I hope he stays until I can get on the round.’

Augusta sat down and the other two drew up chairs—something they wouldn’t have dared to do if Sister had been on duty; however…

‘I don’t know who he is,’ said Augusta shortly, ‘and I don’t care.’ She was still smarting under his remark about her hair. ‘He’s visiting Lady Belway and there’s a girl with him—wearing a trouser suit.’ She described it at some length and rather enviously. Trouser suits looked marvellous on elegant beanpoles, which she was not. She sighed and said uselessly, ‘Oh, well!’ and flipped the Kardex open and began. ‘Marlene Jones, T’s and A’s—second day…’

During her complicated walk through the hospital to the Nurses’ Home she wondered briefly how it was that Lady Belway’s visitor had known about her giving the report to the night nurses. In general, visitors hadn’t a clue as to how the hospital kept its wheels turning…either he was a very observant man and had been a frequent visitor, or he knew something about hospitals. She considered this unlikely, his appearance had struck her forcibly as that of a member of the leisured class, and he had the assurance and easy manner of those born with the silver spoon. Her brows drew together in a heavy frown, so that when she joined her closer friends in the sitting room there was a general chorused question as to whether she had had a beastly day. Presently, soothed by strong tea and sympathy, she went away to have a bath, and came back, dressing-gowned and ready for bed, to join the others, similarly attired, in watching a spine-chilling film on TV. It was sufficiently horrific to allow her to forget all about the man who didn’t like carroty hair.

She remembered him the next morning, though, and over a brisk cup of coffee she was bidden to drink with Sister, mentioned him, hoping that she would hear who he was: her hopes were dashed. Sister observed:

‘I’ve never heard of him. If he wishes to see me he has only to come to the office when I am here, or if he prefers, he can make an appointment with Mr Weller-Pratt.’ She dismissed him, to Augusta’s disappointment, in favour of the day’s work. ‘I shall want you to go to Theatre with Miss Toms—she is highly strung and has a low threshold to pain.’

Augusta groaned inwardly. Miss Toms’ sensitive feelings would make even the management of a simple operation to remove her appendix a misery for herself as well as the nurses. Presently, obedient to Sister’s wishes, she escorted Miss Toms down to the anaesthetic room and held her frantic, restless hand in a reassuring grip and talked to her in a soft, gentle voice that slowly but surely doused poor Miss Toms’ terror. She was coming back through the theatre wing’s swing door, pinning her cap as she went when she met Lady Belway’s visitor again. His ‘Hullo’ was easy and wholly without surprise. She was trying to think of something to say when he fell into step beside her, remarking, ‘Busy, I see…somehow you don’t strike me as the type to enjoy Private Wing.’

She had started to say ‘I h…’ when she remembered that he was hardly someone in whom she could confide her true feelings regarding Private Wing. She closed her pretty mouth firmly and continued to walk sedately towards the stairs. It was at this moment that she saw Archie coming towards them, and was still deciding if she should stop and speak to him or walk on when he drew level with them and said, as though she were alone:

‘Hullo, Gussie. See you this evening—same place,’ and was on his way again.

Fortunately, they had reached the stairs—Augusta was going up, and she hoped devotedly that her companion was going down. He was, but before he went he said in what she considered to be a hatefully smooth voice:

‘What a relief!’ She had turned on her heel, but with a fatal curiosity, paused to ask why, to be told, ‘I was beginning to think that you didn’t like men. Of course it’s a blow to my ego that you don’t like me, but that is something which can be dealt with later.’

Augusta told herself that she hadn’t the least idea of what he was talking about. She stared at him, her eyes bright green saucers. She said primly, ‘Goodbye’ and flew upstairs two at a time in a whirl of starched skirts, ashamed that instead of thinking about her evening out with Archie she was wholly concerned with the tall stranger. Not, she told herself stoutly, that she found him in the least attractive—indeed, he was rude and arrogant. She told herself this twice, because it didn’t ring quite true. She wondered how he behaved towards someone he liked—that lovely dark girl, for instance. He had a delightful voice—she frowned a little, because now she came to think about it, he had an accent—a very faint accent which tugged, elusive as smoke, at the edge of her senses.

She slipped through the door to PP and forgot him instantly in the hurry and exactitude of her work, and when his image persisted in its invasion of her mind during the rest of the day, she very sensibly ignored it. But that evening, on the way home from the cinema with Archie, she was reminded of him once more by her companion, who wanted to know, without much interest, who he was and what she had been doing with him anyway. She explained, and when Archie remarked that he had got the impression that her companion had appeared a high-handed fellow, agreed with him cheerfully, adding the rider that probably he was married or engaged to the girl he had been with in Lady Belway’s room—or at any rate, very close friends. Strangely, she didn’t fancy the idea, until she remembered how he had said, very plainly indeed, that he didn’t like carroty hair. She said, apropos of nothing at all:

‘What colour would you call my hair, Archie?’

He gave her an astonished look. ‘Good lord, what on earth do you want to know for? I suppose it’s…’ he paused. ‘Coppery?’ he queried cautiously, and was relieved when she smiled.

‘I’m going on holiday in a couple of weeks,’ she remarked, as they waited for the bus to take them back to St Jude’s. ‘You’ll have to find yourself another girl to take out.’ And she was not altogether pleased when he said carelessly, ‘Oh, that’ll be easy enough.’ She wasn’t even faintly in love with him, but she had liked to think that he was at least a little in love with her, even if it was only temporary. Apparently not.

Later, in bed thinking about it, she had to admit that Archie was a dear, but if she were in his shoes, she’d take jolly good care not to fall in love with a nurse when there was still at least two years’ post-graduate course to get through. It was lucky she hadn’t fallen in love with him. She had, like any other girl of twenty-three, fancied herself in love several times, but never to touch her heart, and never for more than a few weeks at a time. To her annoyance, she found herself thinking about the stranger once more, which was stupid and pointless; she would probably never see him again. She went to sleep feeling a little sad because of it.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE SAW HIM the following morning. It was Sister’s day off, so Augusta was to go on duty at eleven and stay on until the night staff came on—a long day, but normal enough. She had rushed out to shop soon after breakfast and they had arrived together at the entrance to the hospital, she on her feet, he at the wheel of a dark grey Silver Shadow convertible. The big car purred past her and stopped without sound, and after one startled look she nodded coolly and flew up the steps and past the porter’s lodge, making for the back of the entrance hall. She wasn’t quite quick enough. She was only half way across the gleaming linoleum floor when he caught up with her.

He said silkily, ‘Are you running away, or—er—discouraging me?’

They had come to the passage running at right angles to the hall. Augusta took the right-hand fork, and found him still beside her.

‘Neither,’ she snapped a little breathlessly. ‘I’ve been out shopping and I’m due on duty in ten minutes.’

She heard him chuckle. ‘And first you must get your breath back,’ he remarked with mock sympathy. They had reached the end of the passage and he opened the door which gave on to the inner courtyard, across which loomed the austere lines of the Nurses’ Home. Augusta fled through it with a muttered ‘Goodbye’, not looking at him at all. She changed with the speed of long practice, and reflected, as she brushed her hair, that it had been a piece of luck that she had been wearing the new jersey dress which matched her eyes. She had bought it barely a week ago, and although being early April, it was possibly a little cool to have worn it, the sun had been shining. Then she had got out the black patent leather handbag her father had given her for her last birthday. It was to find shoes to match this treasured article which had her out so early. She had found its exact match at Raynes, and had had the elegant slingbacks on her feet when they met. The fact somehow compensated for the fact that he drove a Rolls-Royce.

She took the report from another part-time staff nurse, a girl she had known well before she had left to get married a year previously. They had a cup of coffee together once the Kardex was dealt with, and Augusta questioned cautiously, ‘Are there any visitors on the floor?’

‘Mother’s in One.’ This with an expressive lifting of eyebrows. ‘There’s a beautiful creature with Lady Belway—in a white dress, ducky, with one of those tapestry belts that cost the earth. T-strap lizard shoes and handbag to match…’ The two young women stared at each other, wanting the unobtainable for a few unguarded moments, then, ‘There’s someone with the Brig—a downtrodden-looking female of uncertain age.’

They giggled together, but not unkindly. ‘No one else?’ asked Augusta.

‘No one else. And a good thing too, you’ll be able to get the rest of the bits and pieces done before lunch, and then catch up on the paper work during the afternoon.’ Babs got to her feet. ‘Well, I’m off home to clear up and get a meal for James. Thank heaven it’s pay-day, I’ve gone through the housekeeping again.’ She turned to go. ‘How’s Archie?’ she asked over her shoulder. Augusta was aware, a little uncomfortably, that the hospital took Archie and her for granted. She said:

‘We went to the Regent last night, to see that new film…he’s fine.’

She was looked at intently from the door. ‘Love’s young dream wearing a bit thin?’

Augusta gave the bib of her apron a twitch. She said mildly, ‘Well, you know, Babs, it never was love’s young dream—we just get on well together.’ She smiled a little ruefully. ‘Look, if you were a struggling houseman with no money and his way to make, would you fall in love with me?’

‘No, I wouldn’t—but there again, I can quite see that someone might. You’re no beauty, Gussie, but you look different. ‘Bye.’

Left to herself, Augusta wasted a few minutes looking at her reflection in the tiny mirror which was all Sister Cutts allowed herself. Babs was right, she was no beauty. She sighed, and went to see what everyone was doing. The work was going smoothly, at least for the nurses, but the ward maid had a great deal to say about the orderly pinching her newest duster when she hadn’t been looking—a trivial matter which took a few minutes to unravel and smooth over by the simple expedient of getting another duster from the cupboard and awarding it to the maid. Augusta was aware that upon Sister’s return she would have to account for its absence from the neat pile so jealously guarded under lock and key. She had learned long ago that Ward Sisters tended to regard their stock of floor polish, Vim, scrubbing brushes, soap and the like as if they were priceless treasures to be kept in safe custody for ever and ever. She thought it possible that they suffered real pain when asked to part with a single one of these items. She shrugged aside the small matter of the duster; doubtless before Sister got back, she would have to raid the cupboard again. Then she began her round of the patients, but she had barely opened Marlene’s door when Matron arrived. She was a small woman, and pretty, with curly hair and blue eyes, and could have been any age between forty and fifty. She looked attractive in uniform and the frilly cap she affected—and at the hospital dances she was positively glamorous. She smiled now and said, ‘Ah, Staff Nurse,’ and Augusta, replying suitably, marvelled that anyone so soft and feminine could be so intimidating, and, when it was required of her, inflexible too—as she had been over the question of Augusta staffing on PP.

‘Just a quick round, Staff Nurse Brown—I’m sure you’re busy.’ And Augusta once more opened the door of Number One, hoping the while that the student nurses hadn’t popped into the sluice for a natter. Matron was wonderful; she cut through the grumbling and complaining about the wrong kind of tea and eggs that were too hard-boiled, and all the other small grievances uttered, with the precise skill of a sharp pair of scissors cutting silk; but to the slightest whim of the really ill she lent an attentive ear, listening with kindness and sympathy and suggesting remedies, conveying to the patient as she did so her complete confidence in Staff Nurse Brown to bring about any change for the good of those she was looking after. The Brigadier was very difficult. Augusta supposed that the depressing-looking female with him was his daughter—it seemed strange that such a vigorous, short-tempered man could be the father of someone so spiritless, but perhaps he had made her so. As they entered he was talking to her in a subdued roar, which changed to a jovial boom when he saw them.

‘Good morning, dear lady.’ This to Matron, and then as his eye fell upon Augusta, ‘And you too, young woman.’ He fixed Matron with a still alert and gallant eye. ‘Of all the nurses here, she’s the only one who knows how to carry on a conversation—understands cricket, too, and makes a good job of my damn foot.’

There was a tiny pause, for everyone in the room knew that on the following morning the Brigadier and his damn foot were to part company for ever in the operating theatre.

Augusta spoke quickly, almost stammering in her sympathy. The Brig was bad-tempered and irascible, but he had the courage of a lion in his eighty-year-old body. She asked inanely, ‘What do you think of the change in the Test team, Brigadier?’ and saw Matron’s glance; perhaps she was making a fool of herself, but could imagine how the old man felt under the façade of ill-humour. He clutched the lifeline of conversation she had offered, and they embarked on five minutes of cricket. Outside the door once more, Matron remarked, ‘Nursing is hard sometimes, is it not, Nurse Brown?’ and smiled rather nicely. Augusta knew what she meant; it wasn’t long hours and tired feet or hurried meals to which she referred, but the hardness of not being able to help.

Lady Belway still had a visitor. Augusta, under cover of Matron’s polite conversation, verified that the shoes really were lizard; she also looked to see if there was an engagement ring, to be thwarted by the fact that there was a ring on every finger.

Of the owner of the Rolls-Royce there was no sign. He must have been earlier and gone again. Augusta experienced a sense of disappointment out of all proportion to the occasion while she listened with half an ear to Lady Belway crossing swords with Matron over the vexed question of the lack of pepper in the cucumber sandwiches she had been offered for the previous day’s tea.

The day passed quickly, divided as it was into segments, each of which was stuffed to capacity with a variety of jobs to be done—and done properly whatever the setbacks and interruptions; and there were many. The girl, after spending most of the morning with Lady Belway, went away just before lunch, and Augusta, helping the old lady back to bed, hoped that she might talk about her visitors, but she was too occupied in complaining about the books which had arrived from Mudies.

Augusta took the Brigadier to Theatre the next morning, because she had promised him that she would. He was more peppery than ever, but she didn’t allow this to make any difference to the steady flow of conversation on her part. Usually patients going to Theatre, unless too ill to care, wanted to talk about trivialities—not so the Brig, who behaved much as though he was preparing for battle—as indeed he was. Even his pre-med did little to dull his sharp old wits, and he was still telling her about the drop in his steel shares as they started off in careful procession down the corridor. Only as they waited for the lift did he catch hold of her hand and ask tersely, ‘I wonder where I shall wake up?’

To which Augusta replied in a deliberately matter-of-fact manner:

‘In your bed, with my gimlet eye upon you.’

He gave a cackle of laughter. ‘Not gimlet—gorgeous!’

They laughed together, and sailed down in the lift, his hand still fast held in her small, comforting one.

Theatre block was on the floor below. They had almost reached its heavy swing doors, when they opened and the man who so occupied her unwilling thoughts came through them. She was surprised to see him there until she remembered that he had probably been to see Mr Weller-Pratt, though it was a strange place to see a consultant surgeon. Still, it was none of her business…but she did feel it was her business when he stopped by the trolley and said cheerfully, ‘Hullo, Brigadier—into the jaws of death, eh?’

She thought the remark in the worst possible taste, but apparently the Brig found it funny, for he chuckled and said hazily:

‘Hullo, my boy—it won’t be for the first time, either.’

Augusta said austerely, ‘The patient is under sedation—kindly leave him quiet.’

But the big man, looming beside her so disturbingly close, made no apology. Instead he said softly, ‘Ah, the guardian angel, of course.’ He grinned at the Brigadier, smiled with great charm into her outraged face, winked, and went on down the corridor, his steps very light for such a large man. And they went through the swing doors then, into the little world of sterile quiet, faintly redolent of anaesthetics; which was the operating theatre.

‘Decent young fellow,’ murmured the Brig as she took away his pillow and started to roll up the sleeve of his theatre gown, ready for the anaesthetist’s needle. She asked, casually, her heart beating a little faster, because she was going to know who the man was at last.

‘Who is he, Brigadier?’

He focused his old eyes upon her and began, in a woolly voice, ‘Godson of an old friend…’ He closed his eyes, and she heaved a resigned sigh as she turned away to get his chart for the theatre nurse. She wasn’t going to find out after all.

She was by the Brigadier’s bedside when he opened his eyes again, and before he had time to become confused, said at once:

‘Hullo there. You’re back in bed—everything’s fine; you can go to sleep.’ She smiled and nodded at him and gave him her hand and was satisfied at the strength of the squeeze he gave it. He had stood the operation very well. Presently she was relieved by another nurse and went along to the dining room for her dinner, but she was late and it had been kept hot for her and tasted of nothing at all. She went back to the ward and made tea, and then, revived, set about the afternoon’s work. The day seemed very long, perhaps because the sun was shining so brightly out of doors and she was imprisoned. She felt a little mean, thinking it; probably the patients felt just as she did, and with far more reason. But they could at least give vent to their discontent—and did. The worst of them was Lady Belway, who refused to be satisfied by anything at all, from the colour of her pills to the arrangement of the vast number of flowers in her room, and it was no use telling her that the staff had too much to do anyway… Augusta had just returned from the old lady’s room for at least the sixth time, and was making a tardy start on the report, when there was a knock on the door. Without looking round, she said in a resigned voice, ‘If that’s the Brig’s drip stopped again…’

She looked over her shoulder and met pale blue eyes. He stood just inside the door, as elegant and self-possessed as always, smiling.

‘What do you want?’ she wanted to know ungraciously, firmly ignoring the rush of excitement at the sight of him.

He came a little further into the room. He was holding the largest bunch of tulips she had ever seen in her life—on his way to visit Lady Belway, no doubt. She glowered at him because she was tired and hungry and her hair needed doing.

He said blandly, ‘You make me feel so welcome. There’s an old song; something about “There is a lady sweet and gentle”—or was it kind? I expect you are too, only I seem to be on the wrong wavelength.’

He laid the tulips in all their profusion on the desk, to blot out the Kardex and charts and laundry lists and forms. ‘These are for you—tulips for Miss Augusta Brown, because the sun has shone all day, and I doubt if she has encountered even one sunbeam.’

He turned on his heel and at the door said over one shoulder:

‘By the way, do your thumbs prick each time we meet? It seems to me that they should.’

He shut the door quietly, leaving her speechless.

The tulips caused a good deal of comment from the night nurses when they came on duty. She explained, with a heightened colour, that one of the patients’ visitors had left them for her, without mentioning who it was—and bore goodnaturedly with a little mild teasing before going off duty clasping their magnificence to her starched bosom.

She was halfway down the stairs when he caught up with her. She had known who it was, if not by the pricking of her thumbs, then by some sixth sense, but she didn’t turn round, indeed, she contemplated breaking into a run, only to discard the idea as being undignified, so he caught up with her easily enough, observing mildly, ‘What—too tired to run away?’

She smiled frostily and answered shortly, ‘No,’ and then remembered that he had, after all, been kind enough to give her the tulips.

‘The flowers are lovely,’ she said in a slightly less frigid voice. ‘It was kind of you.’

They had reached the bottom of the stairs; she added ‘I go this way.’ She smiled a little and turned away, to be instantly caught and held by the large hand on her shoulder and twiddled round to face him again.

‘Since we are saying goodnight—’ he said softly, and bent to kiss her.

She spent a wakeful night, rehearsing the cool manner in which she would greet him when they next met. It was a pity that her lack of sleep was wasted, for he didn’t come. After a week she was forced to admit to herself that the tulips had been in the nature of a farewell gesture, and that he was now probably building bridges or discovering oil wells in some far-flung spot of the globe. That he was no longer in London at least was obvious, because the dark-haired girl still came to visit Lady Belway, and Augusta had seen her leave the hospital, driving herself in a rakish little sports car. On the eighth day, she threw away the last of the tulips, designating, as it were, his memory to the dustbin of her mind. She had plenty of other things to fill it…the Brig, making good progress, was none the less very difficult, especially on the days when the cricketing news wasn’t good. Miss Dawn Dewey, recovered rather reluctantly from her cold, had gone, to be replaced by a minor statesman with tonsilitis…and there had been a fresh batch of T’s and A’s in. Lady Belway, organised at last with a nurse to take her home and stay, was due to go. Augusta had been invited—rather, commanded, to visit her and take tea; something she was loath to do, but perhaps the old lady was lonely, and it would be interesting to see where she lived—somewhere off Knightsbridge, in one of the squares.

She had been surprised one day when the girl had stopped her as she left Lady Belway’s room, and said, ‘It’s silly the way we see each other every day and don’t know each other’s names—at least, I know yours. I’m Susan Belsize—Lady Belway’s niece.’ She put out a hand, and Augusta shook it and said politely and a little absentmindedly, ‘How do you do?’ because she was thinking about Mrs Bewley the alcoholic, who had the first symptoms of pellagra; she was already having nicotine acid, but it obviously wasn’t sufficient…she would have to telephone Dr Watts. She smiled vaguely at Miss Belsize, who, it seemed, wasn’t in a hurry, for she went on, ‘You’ve been very kind to my aunt. I expect you know that she wanted you to go home with her—but Matron said you were indispensable.’ She added with a rather gushing sympathy, ‘You must get so tired, and I’m sure you don’t get much fun.’

Augusta thought she detected pity, and anyway what sort of fun did the girl mean? She said, a little extravagantly, that yes, she had quite a lot of fun, and edged towards the office door. But her companion, with time on her hands, seemed incapable of realising that there were those who worked. She observed archly:

‘Of course, this place is stuffed with doctors, isn’t it?’ She shot a playful look at Augusta. ‘We saw you out the other evening.’

Augusta blinked, trying to think of a mutual social background. Not a bus queue, surely, and certainly not the cheapest seats at the cinema, and the little café where Archie sometimes took her for coffee was hardly the kind of place Miss Belsize would be seen in. She said carefully, ‘Oh? I don’t think…’

‘You were with one of the doctors—I’m sure I’ve seen him around. We passed you both as we were leaving one evening, rather late, but you didn’t see us.’

‘Us,’ thought Augusta, ‘the man with straw-coloured hair.’ She murmured politely, her hand on the office door which she opened an inch or two, and her companion said with animation:

‘You meet so many people, don’t you? But I daresay you forget them…ships that pass in the night and all that stuff.’ She laughed. She had a pleasant laugh.

‘Oh, definitely,’ said Augusta, her mind still on Mrs Bewley. ‘I really must get on…you’ll forgive me if I…?’

Miss Belsize said at once with a genuine concern, ‘Oh, my poor dear, I’m keeping you from your work, aren’t I absolutely beastly?’ She giggled. ‘I expect I shall see you again.’

She floated away down the corridor, leaving a faint delicious whiff of Chanel Number 5 on the air. Augusta gave an appreciative sniff before going to the telephone, and then forgot all about her, for the time being at least.

It seemed quiet on PP after Lady Belway had gone home. Augusta missed the old lady’s caustic tongue and the autocratic voice demanding this, that and the other thing. She had been a trying patient, but an interesting person, and something Augusta didn’t quite admit to herself, while she had been in the hospital, there had always been the chance that she would have visitors—which visitors, Augusta took care not to define. She supposed that she could have found out from the Brig the name of the man who had given her the tulips, but each time she was on the point of asking, something had prevented her from doing so. She decided that she wasn’t meant to know anyway. He had been a ship that passed in the night, as Susan Belsize had so tritely put it. All the same, as she got off the bus outside Harrods a few days later, she hoped that Lady Belway might mention him.

Lady Belway lived in a Nash house; one of a terrace of houses making up one side of a quiet square within ten minutes’ walk of Harrods. She rang its old-fashioned door bell and stood back to admire the window boxes decorating the downstairs rooms. The house was in a beautiful state of preservation, as was the elderly butler who presently opened the door, and led her, at his own pace, across the narrow hall and up a handsome staircase to the drawing room—an apartment which took up a major part of the first floor, with windows both back and front and a vast chimneypiece the focal point of its further wall. Lady Belway was lying on a day bed, swathed in a variety of pastel-coloured wraps and stoles, which showed up her white, elegantly dressed hair to perfection. The butler announced Augusta in a sonorous voice, making what he could of her prosaic name, and her hostess said with a good deal of pleasure, ‘How nice to see you, Staff Nurse…no, I cannot possibly call you that—I shall call you Augusta. Come here and sit down beside me and tell me what you have been doing.’

Augusta, privately of the opinion that her activities would be both boring and distasteful to the old lady, took her seat on a Sheraton armchair near enough to her hostess to make conversation easy, and instead of answering her question, asked several of her own, which launched Lady Belway into a happy and somewhat rambling account of the delights of being in her own home once more.

Augusta had expected the nurse to be there, and perhaps Susan Belsize; but it soon transpired that the former was off duty for the afternoon, and the latter had flown over to Paris for a brief period.

‘The dear gal needed a change after dancing attendance on me all the while I was in hospital,’ explained Lady Belway. ‘If it hadn’t been for her and my godson, I should have been a lonely old woman.’

Augusta politely agreed, while she tried to remember a single day while Lady Belway had been in hospital when she had had no visitors at all. There were, she supposed, degrees of loneliness.

They spent an amicable afternoon together, taking tea in some state off Sèvres china and talking about a great many things; indeed, during a discussion on foreign politics, Lady Belway paused to comment that Augusta was a well-informed girl. She said this in some surprise, so that Augusta was moved to remind her that nurses were, on the whole, tolerably well educated and reasonably intelligent, which remark Lady Belway took in good part, saying graciously, ‘And what is your father, Augusta?’

She forbore from making the obvious answer; instead: ‘A veterinary surgeon,’ she added, to save her interrogator from asking the next question. ‘He has a large country practice.’

‘Where?’

‘On the Dorset-Somerset border.’

‘And do you not prefer London?’

Augusta was emphatic. ‘No, I don’t, Lady Belway. But to make a success of nursing I had to train at a first-class hospital and now I have to get all the experience I can.’

‘You wish to take a Sister’s post?’

Augusta hesitated. ‘Well, I suppose that’s what I’ll end up as.’

‘Do you not wish to marry?’

She said evasively, ‘Oh, yes,’ and then because she was becoming annoyed by so many questions, she said, ‘I’m afraid I must go…I’m on duty this evening.’

Lady Belway looked genuinely disappointed. ‘I had hoped that you could have spent a few hours—however, if you must return.’ She brightened. ‘Supposing I were to telephone your Sister Cutts?’

Augusta, suppressing a smile at the thought of Sister Cutts’ face if that were to happen, said seriously, ‘I’m afraid that would be no good. You see, Sister expects to go off duty when I get back.’

‘In that case,’ said her hostess graciously, ‘I must let you go. But I should like you to come again.’

Augusta said that yes, of course she would, and was completely taken aback when the old lady drew her down to kiss her cheek.

‘You’re a very nice gal,’ she stated, and then a little wistfully, ‘it’s good of you to spare time for an old woman.’

This remark struck Augusta as rather pathetic; she said with perfect truth, ‘But it’s not like that at all. I enjoyed coming, and I should like to come again. I’m going home on holiday tomorrow, but I shall be back in a fortnight.’

Lady Belway smiled. ‘I shall send you a note, and perhaps you will telephone me.’

They parted in mutual friendliness, and on the way downstairs, through the quiet house, Augusta reflected that quite possibly Lady Belway was lonely, despite her numerous acquaintances; probably her sharp tongue, and her distressing habit of saying exactly what she thought, precluded her from having many close friends.

The next day she got out of the train at Sherborne to find her mother waiting for her. They greeted each other with the warm casualness of deep affection, and went out to the car.

‘Throw your luggage in the back, Roly,’ her mother commanded, ‘and I’d much rather you drove…your father had to go over to Bagger’s Farm and Charles was just getting ready to fetch you when they sent a message for him to go to Windhayes—one of the Jersey herd, you know. So I went with him and brought the car on up here. He’ll give us a ring at home when he’s ready, and perhaps you’ll fetch him.’

While she was talking, Mrs Brown had settled herself beside her daughter. Augusta was fidgeting around with the ignition key and the starter; she hadn’t driven for almost three months; it was to get the feel of it again. The car was a Morris Traveller 1300, elderly and a little battered by reason of the fact that it was sometimes used for the transport of smaller animals. Augusta, as she got into gear, had a sudden vivid memory of the immaculate Rolls the man with the straw-coloured hair had been driving, and went faintly pink when her mother remarked observantly:

‘What were you remembering, darling? It must have been something nice.’ But she had taken care not to make it sound like a question, so that Augusta was able to say, ‘Oh, nothing really—it’s lovely to see you again. Tell me all the news.’

She eased the car neatly away from the vehicles around them, and drove through the little town, and presently, free of its compact and bustling heart, took the road through North Wooton and Bishops Caundle and then turned away to pass through Kingstag. She knew the way blindfold, but she didn’t hurry, preferring to trundle along the quiet road while her mother obediently gave her all the news.

Her home lay on one side of a small valley between the hills around them, midway between two small villages, and well back from the road. The house was of stone, with narrow latticed windows with stone lintels and a front door which still retained its Tudor arch. A long, long time ago, local history had it that it had been a small manor house, unimportant compared with some of the mighty houses in that part of Dorset, but nevertheless a gem of a building. Augusta drove through the gate, which was never closed for convenience’ sake, and stopped with nice precision before the door. ‘I’ll leave the car here,’ she said, as they got out. ‘It’ll save time when Charles telephones.’

They went indoors, and presently, after she had unpacked in her own pretty bedroom, she went down to the kitchen, and carried the tea tray through to the sitting room on the other side of the flagstoned hall. There were flowers everywhere, and the furniture shone with well cherished age—it was a warm afternoon, but there was a small wood fire burning in the stone fireplace. She sighed contentedly. It was nice to be home again.

After tea, she wandered outside with Stanley, the spaniel, walking sedately at her heels and the two Jack Russell terriers, Polly and Skipper, running in circles before her. She crossed the garden and went through the wicket gate at its end into a small paddock, used for convalescing horses and ponies, and permanently inhabited by Bottom, the family donkey. He wandered towards her now, nosed out the carrot she had thoughtfully brought with her, and allowed her to pull his rough furry ears and throw an affectionate arm about his neck. After a while, she wandered back again and in through the kitchen door, to sit down at the kitchen table and peel apples and talk to her mother, with Maudie the persian cat on her knee, and Fred, the battered old outcast tomcat who had latched himself on to them years ago, sitting beside her. They gossiped quietly until she bestirred herself to answer the telephone and fetch Charles.

She spent the evening getting her things ready to go to Holland, but only after helping her father with his evening visits. Quite a few calls had come in during the afternoon. She drove him from one farm to the other and then back to the small surgery near the house, enjoying the unhurried routine. They sat a long time over supper that evening, for there was a lot to talk about. She hadn’t been home for several months; there was a lot of local news to catch up on, and she had plenty to talk about too, and presently, when the talk turned to herself, her father asked, as he usually did when she went home:

‘Well, Augusta, think of getting married yet?’ Her mother said gently, ‘How’s Archie?’

Augusta bit into an apple with her excellent teeth. ‘Fine—but don’t get romantic about him, Mother. We like going out together, but he’s got years and years of work ahead of him and he’s ambitious, which means he’ll probably marry a girl with lots of money. I think I’m destined to be an old maid!’

Which remark called forth a good deal of amused comment from her brother, a quiet. ‘Yes, dear’ from her mother and a grunt from her father.

The next day went very quickly—too quickly, she thought, as she put the final touches to her packing in the evening. It was surprising how delightfully occupied it was possible to be, with no clock to watch and no reports to write, and feverish planning of off duty. She had, indeed, strolled down to the village stores and made a few purchases for her mother—an undertaking enlivened by a long chat over the counter with the grocer and any customers who had chanced to come into the shop—and in the afternoon she had got out the car and driven her mother down to the vicarage to join the committee organising the annual jumble sale. She had helped the vicar’s wife hand round the tea, and passed the time of day with the ladies present, most of whom had known her since she was a baby. And occasionally, much against her will, she had thought about the man who had sent her tulips because the sun had been shining.

She thought about him again as she was going to sleep that night; wondering where he was and what he was doing. She wished she knew if he and Miss Belsize were…she sought for the right expression, and decided that ’emotionally involved’ would do very well. It was difficult to tell with those sort of people. She didn’t go too deeply into what sort of people they were—the subject was unrewarding; she pulled the blankets over her ears to shut out his too well-remembered voice, and went to sleep.

Charles took her up to London the next day and put her on the Harwich train and rather unexpectedly kissed her goodbye. ‘Have fun,’ he said and they both laughed, for staying with the great-aunts, pleasant though it was, held few excitements. ‘Good for your Dutch,’ he added, as the train gave a preliminary shudder. ‘I’ll pick you up when you get back. ‘Bye.’

She settled back in her seat and picked up Vogue, which Charles had thoughtfully provided for her.

CHAPTER THREE

AUGUSTA, getting out of the train at Alkmaar, thought how nice it was to be in Holland again. She had forgotten how wide the sky could be, and how incredibly flat and peaceful the countryside was. And she was delighted too, that her Dutch, although a little rusty and slow, was still adequate. The station was a little way out of the centre of the small water-encircled town; she got herself a taxi, and spent the short ride rediscovering landmarks she had almost forgotten. Her great-aunts lived in a seventeenth-century house with a stepped gable in the heart of the bustling town; it was awkward by modern standards, with steep stairs, high ceilings and quantities of heavy furniture which needed constant polishing. But the bathroom and kitchen, though they might look old-world, were remarkably well equipped, and the house had the cosy air of having been built for comfort hundreds of years earlier, and having, through thick and thin, retained that comfort. Augusta loved it, and when, on occasion, she heard some sightseer or other remark upon its picturesque appearance, she was apt to swell with pride, even though her connections with it were extraneous.

Maartje opened the door—she had been cooking and cleaning and housekeeping for the aunts for as long as Augusta could remember, and excepting for her hair, which had faded from pale corn to silver, she hadn’t changed at all. They greeted each other like the old friends they were.

‘Your aunts are in the little sitting room,’ said Maartje, ‘go straight in, Augusta, and I will bring the coffee.’

Augusta made her way down the passage, narrow and panelled and hung with china plates and dim portraits; and knocked on the door at its end, and obedient to the quiet voice which bade her enter, went in. Her aunts were sitting as they always sat. At the round table in the middle of the room, both very upright in their straight, overstuffed chairs. The table had a finely woven rug thrown across it, upon which rested a Delft blue bowl filled with fruit. The windows, small and narrow, were hung with thick dark red curtains, and the wooden floor, worn and polished with its age, was partly covered with hand-pulled rugs. It looked exactly the same as when she had last seen it, three years ago…so did her great-aunts. Probably their clothes were different, for they were sufficiently well provided for to indulge in varied wardrobes, but as they invariably had their new dresses made exactly as those they were wearing, it was difficult to know this. They wore a great deal of black, the material being always of the finest and they each wore a quantity of gold jewellery, inherited from their mother, who had inherited it from her mother, and so on back over several generations, so that their rings and brooches and delicate dangling earrings were quite valuable. Both ladies were tall—a good deal taller than their great-niece, and they wore their hair in identical buns, perched high on their heads.

Augusta greeted them warmly, for she was fond of them both—and they, she knew, were fond of her. She stood patiently so that they might take a good look at her and comment on her looks and clothes, and she was pleased and not a little relieved when they approved of her new green coat and matching dress. Then, at their invitation, she took the coat off, and sat down between them as Maartje brought in the coffee and little biscuits called Alkmaarse Jongens. She sipped the delicious coffee and ate the Alkmaar boys, wondering, as she always did, why the Dutch had such picturesque names for their biscuits. She must remember to take some home with her…the thought put her in mind of all the messages she had been charged to deliver. She gave them now, stopping to search for a forgotten word from time to time, and occasionally muddling her verbs. When she had finished, Tante Marijna observed in a gentle voice that it was a good thing that she had come to pay them a visit, for, although her Dutch was fluent enough, her grammar was, at times, quite regrettable. Tante Emma, who was the younger of the two old ladies, echoed this in a voice even more gentle, adding the rider that her English accent was fortunately very slight.

‘You shall do the shopping, Augusta, while you are with us—there is no better way of improving your knowledge of our language—and we will have a few friends in, so that you will have an opportunity to converse.’

Augusta smiled and said with genuine pleasure that that would be nice, and how about her going up to her room so that she could unpack the presents which she had brought with her. The old ladies looked pleased and a little excited, and she left them happily engaged in guessing what the presents would be, while she went upstairs to the room in which she always slept when she paid them a visit.

It was two flights up, and overlooked the street below—a rather small room, plainly whitewashed and furnished simply in the Empire style. The curtains were a faded blue brocade and the coverlet was of patchwork, made by the great-aunts’ mother before she married. There were a variety of samplers upon the walls—Augusta knew them all by heart, as well as the histories of those who had stitched them. She walked slowly round the room, looking at each in turn—it was a little like meeting old friends again—then she unpacked quickly and took her armful of parcels downstairs; pale pastel woollen stoles for the old ladies, warm sheepskin slippers for Maartje, English chocolates and homemade marmalade and tins of chocolate biscuits, and some packets of their favourite tea from Jacksons in Piccadilly. By the time all these delights had been tried on and tasted and admired, it was lunch time. The old ladies had Koffietafel at noon each day—a meal of rolls and different sorts of bread, with cheese and sausage and cold meat and a salad arranged before each place upon a small silver dish—and of course, coffee. Augusta, who was hungry after her journey, ate with a healthy appetite which pleased the aunts, who were, as far as she could remember, the only members of her family who had not, at one time or another, made some reference to her delicate plumpness. She still remembered how, when she was a little girl, she had paid them a visit with her parents from time to time, and they had staunchly maintained that she was exactly as she should be, remarks which had endeared them for always to a small girl sensitive to the word fat, and possessed of a brother who teased.

The transient excitement of her arrival had died down by the evening, and when she got up the next morning, it was as though she had been integrated into the even tenor of their lives without any change in its placid routine. She went shopping after breakfast, and then, because there was no hurry, strolled down Houtil towards Laat, peering in shop windows until she fetched up in Vroom and Dreesman’s store, wandering happily from one counter to the next, pricing tights and undies and even trying on a few hats. But it was still early, and although the aunts had coffee soon after ten o’clock each morning, she could always get a cup from Maartje later. She turned her steps towards the Weigh House, because it was Friday and May and the cheese market would be in full swing. It was still a little early in the year for tourists, but there was a small crowd watching the cheese porters in their white shirts and trousers and coloured straw hats, going briskly to and fro in pairs, each pair carrying a large curved tray piled with cheeses between them. She had seen it all a dozen times before, but she stood and watched now with as much pleasure as though it was for the first time. The carillon was playing from the Weigh House tower too—she listened to Piet Hein and other Dutch folk songs she had half forgotten and then lingered just a little longer so that she could watch, as the clock struck the hour, the little figures of knights on horseback, high up on the tower, come charging through their doors, lances raised, while the clarion trumpeted over them. It made her a little late getting back, but the excuse that she hadn’t been able to leave the cheese market until the clock had struck was quite sufficient for her aunts. They were proud of their town and its traditions and found it quite proper that she should have wanted to renew acquaintance with one of her childhood’s pleasures.

The days resolved themselves into a slow, smooth pattern of doing nothing much. Friends came to tea or coffee, until one afternoon a car was hired and the aunts, incredibly elegant, drove, with her between them to Bergen, a large village on the edge of the sand dunes bordering the North Sea, to visit family friends. Augusta had been a little amused at their sharp-eyed scrutiny of her person before they went. She had put on another dress, the colour of caramel and simply cut, with an important chain belt encircling her slim waist, and offset by the jade earrings her father had given her because they matched her eyes. Apparently her appearance pleased them, for they smiled in unison and nodded their old heads before embarking on the tricky business of getting into the car.

The friends were elderly—a distant cousin and his wife. Augusta sipped sherry and made polite talk in her best Dutch and found herself wishing for a slightly younger companion. Her wish was to be granted, for presently the drawing room door was thrown open and a young man came in. She guessed he was a year or two older than herself, maybe twenty-five or six, and barely had time to wonder who he was before he had greeted everyone in the room and was standing beside her with their hostess. He was, it appeared, the son of another dear old friend. ‘Pieter van Leewijk,’ he murmured as they shook hands, ‘but call me Piet. I’ve heard about you, of course, and I daresay we may have met years ago when we were children.’

He smiled charmingly, first at her, then at his hostess, accepted a glass of sherry, and steered Augusta over to the window. They stood side by side looking out across the broad road to the island of grass and trees in its centre, inhabited by a few small, graceful deer.

‘Such a nice idea,’ she remarked, ‘deer living in the centre of the village.’ She smiled at the young man, who wasn’t looking at the deer but staring at her. He spoke in Dutch. ‘You are fluent in our language—someone said you were a nurse. I always thought nurses were dowdy, worthy girls.’

She raised sable brows. ‘Indeed? Perhaps you don’t get around a great deal.’

He laughed. ‘I was paying you a compliment.’

She decided that he was, but he sounded a little too sure of himself. She asked sweetly, ‘And you—what do you do?’

‘I’m a fashion photographer. You see, it was a compliment.’ He smiled again and took her glass. ‘More sherry?’

She shook her head. ‘Tell me about your work—it sounds interesting.’

It wasn’t. It took only a few minutes for her to realise that he wasn’t interested in anything else but beautiful models and how much money he could make, and how quickly he could make it. They went in to lunch, and inevitably, she found herself sitting beside him, with the older members of the party beaming at her, delighted with themselves that they had produced such a nice young man to entertain her. Only he didn’t; he wasn’t interested in anything she had to say—it was sufficient for her to say Yes and No and look suitably impressed. All the same, she tried her best to like him, for he was probably the only young man she would meet while she was in Alkmaar. He might even ask her out, and being a fair-minded girl, she was quite prepared to admit that she wasn’t quite as groovy as the models. Probably he found her dull—all the same, if he did ask her out, she thought she would go.

He said carelessly, ‘You shouldn’t wear these new long skirts—they’re for tall, slim girls—long legs and…’ His eyes swept over her. They were eating a rich ice pudding with a great deal of cream. Augusta checked a desire to throw her portion into his smiling face.

She said crisply in English, ‘Of all the insufferable, conceited bores that I’ve met, you’re easily the prize specimen! How dare you tell me what to wear, and—and criticize my legs? Keep your shallow-brained remarks for the bird-witted creatures you purport to photograph.’

She smiled at him, her eyes like green ice, and was pleased to see him getting slowly red. She had been rude, but then so had he…and she had enjoyed every word of what she had said.

‘Perhaps you don’t know that I have a very good knowledge of English?’ he queried stiffly.

‘Why, I counted on that,’ she said quietly. She flipped her eyelashes at him, smiled without warmth and said for the benefit of anyone who might have paused to listen to them, ‘How delicious this pudding is—how lucky I am not to have to diet.’

They went back to the drawing room soon afterwards and she allowed herself to be drawn into a conversation on the subject of cheeses with her host, and later, when she took her departure with her two great-aunts and everyone was shaking everyone else by the hand, she allowed hers to rest a bare second in Pieter van Leewijk’s, and under cover of the hum of farewells, murmured, ‘Goodbye, Piet. So interesting meeting you,’ and gave him a naughty smile before turning away.

On the way back to Alkmaar, the old ladies, on either side of her, discussed their outing. ‘Such a pleasant young man,’ remarked Tante Emma guilelessly, ‘perhaps he invited you out, liefje?’

‘No, Tante Emma, Pieter is a busy young man, you know…he’s going back to Utrecht this evening.’ She saw their old faces drop—they had always wanted her to marry a Dutchman. ‘I daresay he’ll be back,’ she added gently. ‘He told me a great deal about his work,’ and was rewarded by their pleased faces.

They were almost home when Tante Marijna complained of feeling a little sick. Augusta thought that the excitement of the day and the rather rich food they had eaten might be the cause; all the same, she asked a few pertinent questions—the aunts were nearly eighty and were of the generation which stoically concealed goodness knows what behind a well-bred reticence—but the old lady would admit to no pain or headache or tingling of the fingers. Nonetheless, she readily agreed to go to bed early, and when Augusta suggested that weak tea and a bischuit would suit a queasy stomach, agreed to that too, and when Augusta went to see her, last thing before she went to her own bed, she looked comfortable enough, and assured her niece that she would sleep all night.

It was in the small hours of the morning that Augusta was wakened by Tante Emma, wrapped untidily in a voluminous dressing gown and looking quite distraught. ‘Your dear aunt,’ she said, a little wildly. ‘She’s ill—dying, I believe.’

Augusta got out of bed. She said in an instinctively soothing voice:

‘All right, Tante Emma,’ her mind already busy. That sickness—but there hadn’t been any other symptoms unless Tante Marijna had been holding out on her. She flung her pale pink housecoat over its matching nightie, pushed her feet into heelless slippers, said a trifle breathlessly to her aunt, ‘Don’t hurry, darling—I’ll go down,’ and was off down the stairs, her bright hair flying, her feet making no sound on the thick carpet. Outside Tante Marijna’s door she stopped and then went in with deliberate, calm steps and no trace of worry upon her face.

The old lady lay against her pillows, very pale. Her blue eyes were resolutely open while the sweat trickled slowly down her drawn face. Augusta went to the bedside, possessed herself of her aunt’s hand and took her pulse, saying at the same time, ‘Hullo, Tante Marijna—is there a pain in your chest?’

The lids dropped over the anxious blue eyes, giving her the answer she had expected. She said gently, ‘Keep very still, darling—you’re going to be all right, but I have to fetch the doctor.’ She smiled reassuringly and turned to Tante Emma who had just come into the room.

‘Will you stay here while I telephone him—is the number in the book on the hall table?’

Tante Emma nodded and Augusta flew down another flight of stairs and picked up the receiver. Dr van Lindemann—she noted the name and dialled the number.

The voice that answered her sounded alert and calm and merely stated its name and didn’t interrupt at all while she gave her brief details, being careful to get the Dutch as correct as she could, although she fancied, thinking about it afterwards, that she might have muddled a few verbs. However, she must have made sense, for the voice said crisply that yes, he would be round in ten minutes.

She ran back upstairs and found Tante Marijna just the same and Tante Emma in quiet tears. She wiped the sweat from the former’s face and the tears from Tante Emma’s woebegone countenance, breathed a few words of reassurance once more, and took flight once again, this time to the top of the house, to Maartje’s room. Maartje was a little deaf; it took a minute or two to make her understand, but once she did, she was at once her sensible quick-witted self. She listened carefully to what Augusta had to tell her and was already throwing back the bed-clothes as Augusta left the room. She had barely reached her aunt’s room again when the front door bell pealed—just once and gently. The doctor. Once more she sped down the narrow staircase and flung open the door. He came into the hall, and the old-fashioned lamp, hanging from its high ceiling, shone on his straw-coloured hair, so that it appeared white. He stared at her from the pale blue eyes which had occupied her thoughts more often than she cared to think. He said, softly, ‘Hullo, Miss Augusta Brown,’ and she, speechless, led him upstairs, aware of a sudden delight despite her anxiety for her aunt.

It seemed he was no stranger to her aunts. Tante Emma greeted him tearfully. ‘Constantijn, I am so glad to see you—my sister…’

He smiled at her with great kindness. ‘Why not go back to your room with Maartje—I’ll come and see you presently.’

While he was talking he had been standing by the bed, looking at his patient, who stared back at him and presently smiled very faintly at him. He smiled back warmly, and gently pressed the hand he was holding. He said quietly and with great calmness, ‘I’m going to have a look at you—I believe I know what is wrong, but I must be sure, then you shall have something to take away the pain and allow you to sleep. When you wake up you will feel better.’

He set about his examination and Augusta helped him, because it was the natural thing to do, even without her cap and apron, and he seemed to expect it anyway. When he had finished, he opened his bag and took out a phial of morphia and presently slid a needle gently into Tante Marijna’s arm. The old lady’s eyes slid from his impassive face to Augusta’s and back again.

‘I absolutely refuse to go to hospital,’ she said in a clear thready voice.

‘I hadn’t thought of it,’ said Dr van Lindemann. ‘Why should you when you’ve a perfectly good nurse here?’

His glance flickered across the bed. ‘Stay here a moment, will you, while I talk to your aunt?’ He didn’t wait for her nod, but disappeared through the door, to reappear presently with Maartje.

‘Maartje will sit here for a short while…there are a few things… I’ve given Juffrouw van den Pol some trichloral; I think she’ll settle.’ He glanced at the bed. ‘Your aunt will be all right, I think. Maartje tells me there’s coffee in the kitchen—come down and have a cup while we decide what to do.’

Augusta followed him meekly, and found the coffee pot warm on top of the stove; there was milk in a double saucepan too, hot enough to have a creamy coat wrinkling its surface. The doctor strolled around the kitchen collecting cups and saucers and a sugar pot, talking as he did so.

‘Your aunt’s had an attack of angina—just as you thought—nasty enough, but she’ll recover. She’s as fit as a woman of half her age and has great determination. Five days’ complete bed rest and then gradual convalescence.’

Augusta nodded, the coffee pot in one hand, the milk in the other.

‘Do you like the skin?’ she inquired.

He looked as though he was going to laugh. ‘Yes—do you?’

She began to pour. ‘Yes. You’d better have it as you’re the guest.’

‘How nicely you put it,’ he said smoothly. ‘We’ll share.’

They sat down opposite each other on the rush-seated wooden chairs that any museum would have been glad to possess. ‘How long are you staying?’ He was the doctor again, deliberate and detached.

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