It was the professor’s mother who clinched the matter. ‘Of course you can’t leave us now, my dear. Why not let Jake take you to the little sitting room for a while? It will be quiet there and when you feel rested you can come back and join us.’
Britannia hadn’t seen her join them, she had no idea how long the lady had been standing there but in any event, she didn’t seem to mind. She looked across the table and saw Madeleine’s face. If it had been unhappy she wouldn’t have agreed, but it wasn’t, it was furious, the lovely eyes narrowed, the mouth a thin line. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I think I should like to do that, if it’s not being a nuisance.’
So she was carried once more across the hall and through a small arched door on the other side of it, to a much smaller room, but still large by her own home standards. She guessed that it was in the older part of the house, for the windows were narrow and latticed and the fireplace was an open one with a great copper hood above it. The professor set her down on a narrow Regency sofa drawn up to the hearth, turned off the wall sconces leaving only a couple of rose-shaded table lamps burning, and sat down in a winged armchair opposite her. ‘We all love this room,’ he remarked pleasantly. ‘Mama used it a great deal when we were children, we used to come and talk to her here while she sat and sewed. When my father came home he would come straight here.’
‘Was he a surgeon too?’
‘Oh, yes, and his father before him. He died ten years ago, he was a good deal older than my mother.’
Britannia looked around her, more at ease now because the professor had apparently forgotten that he had called her his darling girl and kissed her into the bargain. The room was charming and she liked the furniture—applewood and walnut and a golden mahogany and some delicate pieces of marquetry, all welded into a charming whole by the deep red and blue patterned curtains and covers. ‘It’s delightful. You have a very beautiful house, Jake.’ She sighed without knowing it. ‘Sitting here and sewing…’
‘I shall do exactly the same as my father.’ She gave him an enquiring look, and he went on: ‘Come straight to you here when I get home each evening.’
Britannia went pink; he was joking and it hurt, but she said austerely: ‘If you brought me here to make jokes like that, then I’d like to go back to my room, please.’
‘I brought you here to ask you, in peace and quiet, to marry me, Britannia.’ He was still sitting back in his great chair, relaxed and calm and she jerked upright the better to stare at him. The sudden movement hurt her ankle and she winced, and he was at once beside her, rearranging the cushion.
‘You seem surprised,’ he observed mildly. ‘Surely you must have expected me to do just that.’
Britannia said indignantly: ‘Of course I’m surprised! If it hadn’t been for this silly ankle I should have been back in England and how could you have—have asked me to marry you then?’
‘Easily enough, although the journey would have been tiresome, my dear.’
‘Yes, but I explained—I mean, about Madeleine…you said…’
‘You said, darling Britannia—you had a good deal to say, I have never met such a girl for giving her opinion about this, that and the other.’
She kept doggedly to the point. ‘But she’s here, in your house, you—invited her.’
‘To be honest, I did not. You must understand that for a number of years Madeleine has been spending St Nikolaas with us, it has become a kind of habit, and one can hardly say: “Well, Madeleine, we don’t want you to come any more,” can one? She has, over the last year or so, taken it for granted just as, I’m afraid, it was taken for granted that sooner or later I should ask her to marry me.’
‘She still takes it for granted.’
‘Oh, I think not; I have never asked her to do so, you know, and she must surely realise by now that I have no intention of doing so.’
Britannia looked at him lovingly. Men were a bit foolish sometimes, even a man like Jake, self-assured and brilliantly clever and knowing what he wanted, casually taking it for granted that Madeleine would give way with good grace to a girl he hardly knew…’ You seem very certain of me,’ she remarked with faint tartness.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘But of course I am; you may preach at me and take me to task on every possible occasion, but you love me, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Britannia, baldly, and was instantly joined on her sofa by the professor, who put an arm around her and observed with satisfaction: ‘That’s better.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘Now let us be sensible and assess the situation.’ He paused: ‘Well, let us be sensible presently.’ He put the other arm around her and bent to kiss her, an exercise which took quite a time and which Britannia didn’t attempt to interrupt. After a little while he said: ‘How soon can you leave the hospital?’
Britannia lifted her head from his shoulder, the better to concentrate on her arithmetic. ‘Well, let me see, today’s the fifth of December, so a month away is the second of January, but I’ve got three weeks’ holiday owing, so I’d have a week to do plus sick leave to make up…’
‘Far too long—you’ll allow me to deal with it for you. I think it would be nice if we got married before Christmas.’
She lifted her head once more to look at him. ‘Jake—that’s three weeks away!’
‘Too long. Do you want to be married here or in England?’
She said instantly: ‘At home, please. Jake, you’re rushing me…’
His arm tightened. ‘Yes, I know I am, but I won’t if you don’t want me to.’
She leaned up to kiss his chin. ‘You’re really very nice when one gets to know you. I want time to get used to it all, Jake. Would you mind very much if we don’t make any plans for a few days—a week? Then I’ll do anything you say, I promise you. I’d like to tell my parents, you see they know about you, I—I told them how we met…’
‘Ah, so you knew, too.’
‘Oh, yes, but I didn’t think I’d see you again.’
The professor laughed gently. ‘You forget that I knew where you were, my darling. I had every intention of seeing you again.’
‘You said I had a sharp tongue.’
‘And so you have on occasion, my love, but it doesn’t worry me in the least, I quite enjoy it.’ There was a pleasant little interlude while he proved this statement, but presently Britannia said: ‘We ought to go back. I’d like to stay here with you for the rest of the evening, but it wouldn’t do.’
The professor looked as though he was going to laugh, although he agreed quite seriously to this. ‘But I shall carry you back to your room in half an hour or so. Emmie will help you get ready for bed. Is your ankle quite all right? We’ll have that strapping off tomorrow—I’ll come home after the morning list and see to it—you can try a little weight bearing once it’s off and the stocking is on. You’ll be walking quite soon provided you’re sensible about resting it.’
He picked her up and carried her back to the sitting room, and just as he had done earlier in the evening, bent to kiss her before he opened the door.
She was settled on the sofa by the fire once more and Jake went away again, to reappear presently with Marinus bearing a large tray with glasses, and Emmie behind him with a magnum of champagne in a silver bucket. Marinus put the tray down and went back again for a second bottle and Emmie reappeared with another tray loaded with small dishes of petits fours and canapés. A toast was drunk to St Nikolaas, someone went over to the grand piano at one end of the room and began to play and presently everyone was singing the traditional songs of the Feast of St Nikolaas, and Britannia, unable to understand any of them, nonetheless picked up the tunes and joined in, greatly helped by the champagne. Not even the sight of Madeleine crossing the room to sit beside Jake could shake her happiness. Poor Madeleine, imagining that she would marry him. Britannia, disliking the girl very much, all the same felt sorry for her.