When May Follows. Бетти Нилс

at her.

      Just as though I’d led him on, thought Katrina as she went into the nurses’ home, and giggled. She stopped giggling almost at once, though. She would have to resign in the morning; she had done herself out of a job and banished herself to the Gulf to boot. Jack would tell everyone, he was a noted gossip, and really there was nothing she could do about it but leave; even if she explained to him why she had done it, he wouldn’t understand but would merely think that she had been playing hard to get and would pester her more than ever. She lay awake for a long time getting more and more worried, and fell asleep at last with her mind in a dither.

      CHAPTER THREE

      SHE WAS STILL dithering when she got reluctantly out of bed a few hours later, but by the time she had dressed she knew for a certainty that she would go to the office directly after breakfast and tender her resignation to Miss Bowles. She stopped doing her hair and sat down on the edge of the bed to write out her resignation, then finished dressing in a rush so as to be in time for breakfast. As it was, she was late, which was a blessing for no one had time to ask her any questions.

      Miss Bowles asked questions, though. She was a small peppery lady well into her fifties, who ruled the hospital with a rod of iron whatever the National Health Service said. There wasn’t much that she approved of, and certainly not Katrina going off to the Gulf. She demanded all the details of the mythical post, too, and Katrina was forced to say firmly that she was still waiting for all the details.

      ‘Well, Sister,’ said Miss Bowles, in an ill humour now because one of the best ward Sisters was leaving, ‘I hope you know what you’re about. You have a good post here and prospects of promotion in the future. I only hope you’re not throwing security away for some pipe dream in the desert.’

      Katrina longed to tell her that it was a pipe dream, but the repercussions if she did weren’t to be contemplated. She would go home for a holiday and then set about getting another job, well away from London. Abroad, perhaps? There was surely no reason why she should think of Holland?

      She didn’t tell any of her friends straight away; for one thing, she had no opportunity, it was that evening when she went off duty that she told them as they sat around in their sitting-room, mulling over the day among themselves.

      ‘But you can’t!’ they chorused. ‘Kate, why? There must be some reason…’

      ‘I need a change,’ she told them, ‘I’m going to have a holiday at home and then go abroad. The Gulf,’ she added vaguely, mindful of the hospital grapevine and Jack, not to mention Miss Bowles, who in her own dignified manner would allow the news to seep through the upper strata of admin staff.

      She had a few days’ holiday due to her, which meant that she could leave in just about three weeks’ time. She would go home on her next days off and explain to her mother, and until then she would go on with her work in a normal manner. Easier said than done; she worried a good deal about her future, trying to make up her mind just where she wanted to go and she still had to tell Uncle Ben, not a real uncle at all, but he had been her father’s closest friend and had kept an eye on them ever since her father’s death.

      But not just yet, it seemed. Uncle Ben had a severe cold and couldn’t operate or do his rounds; his registrar coped in his absence until a nasty traffic accident, full of complications, made it needful for him to call in a consultant.

      Katrina supposed she wasn’t surprised to see Professor van Tellerinck with the registrar at his heels, come down the ward. She had imagined him back home in his own country, but she had no means of knowing where he was; probably he’d been close at hand all the time. She greeted him civilly, led him to the patient and waited quietly while he went over the man’s severe injuries. The leg could be saved, he thought, given a few hours’ repair work in theatre, but he wasn’t sure about the arm. He arranged for the man to go to theatre that afternoon, and made his way to the door, the registrar beside him, Katrina, one pace behind, ready to bid him good-day at the ward door.