Her superior’s hopeful suggestion that she should take an hour off during visiting hour came to nothing, of course; there were fewer visitors than usual, which meant that the old ladies made a continuous demand on her and the nurses on duty. It didn’t seem worth going back to the hospital for tea; she had a tray in her office before getting on with the evening’s work, and when it was time to go to supper, she decided not to go to that either; she wasn’t hungry and she could make herself some toast later. The wards were quiet now, with all the patients back in bed, most of them already dozing lightly. Britannia sent her two nurses to supper, finished her report and then went softly round the wards, saying a quiet goodnight to each old lady. It was at the bottom of the second ward, when she was almost through, that she found Mrs Thorn out of bed.
‘Now don’t you be vexed,’ said Mrs Thorn in a cheerful whisper. ‘I just took a fancy to sit out for a bit longer and I got that nice little nurse to put me back in the chair for half an hour, and don’t go blaming her, because I told her you’d said that I could.’ She laughed gently. ‘I’ll go back now you’re here.’
Britannia hid a smile. Mrs Thorn was the oldest inhabitant in the Geriatric Unit and was consequently a little spoilt. She said without meaning it: ‘You’re a naughty old thing, aren’t you? But doing something different is fun sometimes, isn’t it?’
Mrs Thorn was small and fragile and very old, with birdlike bones knotted and twisted by arthritis. Britannia lifted her out of the chair and popped her gently into her bed. It took a little time to get the old lady’s dressing gown off, for Mrs Thorn liked things done just so and she enjoyed a chat too. Britannia was tucking in the patchwork quilt when she became aware that someone was walking down the ward, to stop at the foot of the bed. Jake, elegant and calm and self-assured as always. Mrs Thorn, with the childlike outspokenness of the old, broke a silence which for Britannia seemed to go on for ever and ever.
‘And who are you?’ she demanded in a piping voice. ‘A handsome, well-set-up man like you shouldn’t be here. You should be out with some pretty girl, or better still by your own fireside with a wife and children to share it.’ She smiled suddenly and caught at Britannia’s hand. ‘Perhaps you’ve come to fetch our dear Staff Nurse away? She’s a lovely young thing and she shouldn’t be here—we’re all so old…’
The professor was looking at her gravely, without even glancing at Britannia.
‘I hope that when Britannia here is your age, my dear, she will be as charming as you, and yes, I have come to fetch her; she’s my girl, you see, and although I haven’t a wife and children I hope she will soon fill that gap for me.’
He spoke loudly so that several of the old ladies in nearby beds popped up from beneath their blankets, nodding and smiling their approval.
‘Oh, hush,’ begged Britannia, quite forgetting unhappiness and misery and tiredness in the delight of seeing him again. ‘Everyone is listening.’
He looked at her then, his eyes very blue and bright. ‘And I am glad of it, my darling. The more who hear me say that I love you, the better. Perhaps if I repeat it a sufficient number of times and in a loud enough voice before as many people as possible, you will bring yourself to believe that I mean it.’
Britannia still held Mrs Thorn’s bony little claw in her own capable hand. ‘Oh, Jake…but you must explain—Madeleine told me…’
The professor sat himself down on the end of Mrs Thorn’s bed and stretched his long legs before him as though he intended to stay a long time. ‘Ah, yes,’ his voice was still much too loud and clear. ‘Well, dearest girl, if you will hold that delightful tongue of yours for ten minutes I will endeavour to do that.’
‘Not here, you don’t,’ declared Britannia, aware that old eyes and ears were tuned in all round them, ‘and not now. I’m on duty until eight o’clock and then I should go to supper—I haven’t been yet.’
She trembled as she said it in case he walked away in a temper because he wasn’t getting his own way, but she wasn’t going to give way easily. There was still Madeleine’s shadow between them; she would have to be explained.
The professor spoke with such extreme mildness that she cast him a suspicious look which he met with such tenderness that she had to look quickly away again in case she weakened.
‘I’ve had no supper myself, perhaps we might have it together.’
Britannia tucked Mrs Thorn in carefully. ‘Have you been here long?’ she asked. A silly question really, but she had to say something ordinary; her head might be in the clouds, but she had to keep her feet on the ground.
‘I landed at Dover three hours ago.’
She retied the ribbon at the end of Mrs Thorn’s wispy pigtail.
‘Oh?…’
‘I knew you were here,’ he supplied smoothly, ‘because I telephoned your mother and asked before I left home.’ He got up off the bed. ‘How long will you be, Britannia?’
‘Another ten minutes. But I have to go back to the Home and change…’
‘I’ll be outside.’ He wished Mrs Thorn and the other eagerly listening ladies a good night and went away. Britannia, watching him go, wondered as she saw the ward doors swing gently after him, if she had had a dream, an idea Mrs Thorn quickly scotched.
‘Now that’s what I call an ’andsome man, Staff Nurse. He’ll make you a fine husband.’
Oh, he would, agreed Britannia silently, but only if he made it very clear about Madeleine. She forced her mind to good sense, wished Mrs Thorn a good night, visited the remaining patients, answering a spate of excited questions as she did so, and went to give the report to the night nurses.
They were already in the office and the night staff nurse hardly waited for her to reach for the Kardex before she exclaimed: ‘I say, Britannia, there’s a Rolls at the door and the most super man in it.’ She stared hard at Britannia as she said it; she had heard rumours in the hospital. ‘Is he the boyfriend?’
Britannia said deliberately: ‘Mrs Tweedy, bed one… He’s the man I’m going to marry.’ She hadn’t really meant to say that, but as she did she knew without a doubt that was just what she intended doing, even if she never got to the bottom of the riddle of Madeleine. Before anyone could say a word, she went on: ‘A good day, Mist. Mag. Tri. given TDS. She’s to have physiotherapy by order of Doctor Payne. Mrs Scott, bed two…’
The report didn’t take very long. She handed over the keys, wished the nurses goodnight and went down to the entrance, her cloak over her arm, the bits and pieces she had found necessary to have with her during the day in a tote bag. She had quite forgotten to do anything to her face or her hair, but it didn’t matter. She was so happy that a shiny nose and hair all anyhow went unnoticed.
The professor was in the hall, a bleak dark brown place no one had had sufficient money to modernise. It had a centre light, a grim white glass globe which did nothing for the complexions for those beneath its cold rays. Britannia didn’t notice it; she came to a halt before Jake and said a little shyly, ‘I have to go to the main hospital and change.’
He took her bag from her and fastened the cloak carefully. ‘No, there’s no need. We’ll go to Ned’s Café, where we first met. I suspect, dear heart, that I have a romantic nature.’
‘It’ll be full…’
‘No matter, the more people there the better. If necessary I shall go down on my knees.’
Britannia choked on a laugh. ‘You can’t—you simply can’t…’
‘I simply can.’ He swooped suddenly and kissed her. ‘That’s better—let’s go.’
The Rolls looked a little out of place parked outside Ned’s place, and one or two people turned to stare at them as they went inside. There was an empty table in the middle of the room and the professor led the way to it, wishing those around him a courteous good evening as he went, and when Ned came over with a pleased: ‘Well, I never, Staff—I ’aven’t seen you for weeks, nor you neither, sir. What’s it to be?’ He ordered bacon sandwiches and toasted cheese and a pot of tea, and when Ned had gone again: ‘You’re pale, my darling, and there are shadows under your eyes…’