I couldn’t,’ her voice was matter-of-fact, ‘it took hours and I’d never have time in the morning.’
He stooped and picked up a pebble and threw it for Fred, so that they had to stand and wait while he shuffled after it. ‘Yes, I daresay, but surely after a little practice you would be quicker?’
She accepted Fred’s proffered pebble and gave him an affectionate pat before she replied: ‘I suppose I could try. But what’s the point?’
‘Why, to prove to yourself that you aren’t plain, of course.’
Tabitha felt temper well up inside her. ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ she cried, ‘and stop patronizing me just because you’re sorry for me. You’ve got Lilith…’
They were off the Cobb now, climbing the steep road to the footpath. She started to run, not looking back, and didn’t stop until she was almost at the end of the path, with Chidlake in sight across the fields.
She went back before tea, pleading an interview with Matron which couldn’t be avoided. That Matron would wish to interview any of her staff on a Sunday was highly improbable, but it was the only excuse Tabitha had been able to think of and in any case neither of her listeners were sufficiently interested to want to know more. She said her goodbyes thankfully and drove the Fiat out of the gate and up the hill, away from the village and the sea. At the top she stopped and looked back. It was a very clear day, Chidlake stood out sharply against its panoramic background. She could see every window and every chimney, even the roses at the front door. She saw something else too—the Bentley gliding up the hill below the house, then turning in at its gate to stop before the door. She didn’t wait to see Mr van Beek get out, but started the little car’s engine with a savagery quite alien to her nature and drove, a great deal faster than was her habit, back to her own little flat.
CHAPTER THREE
TABITHA had regained her usual calm by the time Mr van Beek arrived on the ward the next day. She wished him good morning in a stony voice and pretended not to see his swift glance at the fiercely screwed-up bun beneath her starched cap. She led him firmly round the ward, speaking when spoken to and not otherwise, and then only on matters connected with her patients’ broken limbs. George Steele and Tommy looked at her first with astonishment and then frankly puzzled, and when George enquired, sotto voce, if she was sickening for something and had his head bitten off for his pains, they exchanged a bewildered look, for this wasn’t their good-natured Tabby at all. Only Mr van Beek, going impassively about his business, appeared oblivious of anything amiss. At Mr Bow’s bedside he paused for a minute after examining the leg exposed for his inspection.
‘You’re doing well, Knotty,’ he offered. ‘We’ll have you in a boat before the summer’s out, even if we do have to carry you.’
The old man smiled. ‘You were always a man to get your own way, Marius, so I’ll not contradict you.’ He sighed. ‘I must say it sounds tempting.’
‘Leave it to me,’ said Mr van Beek. ‘I have everything planned, even Podger.’
They all moved away, Tabitha wondering what the plans for Podger might be. It seemed she wasn’t to be told until Mr van Beek saw fit, which annoyed her to the point of frowning, and Mr Raynard snapped: ‘What’s bitten you, Tabby? Where’s all the womanly charm? You look as though you’re encased in metal armour plating. Wasn’t the weekend a success?’
She was about to answer this when Mr van Beek answered for her.
‘Miss Tabitha Crawley danced the lot of us into the floor,’ he remarked, ‘and looked delightful doing it too. What is more, she was up with the sun the next morning. I know, because I was up too, exercising my host’s dog. We met.’
He smiled at Tabitha, who stared woodenly back and uttered a brief and equally wooden ‘Yes’. But if she had hoped to discourage him from recalling the happenings of the weekend, she failed lamentably, for he went on to describe it in detail in a lazy, good-natured manner, even remarking upon the extreme good looks of Lilith.
‘A bit young,’ remarked Mr Raynard obscurely. ‘I met her mother once—terrifying woman, always smiling.’ He coughed and added hastily: ‘Sorry, Tabby—quite forgot. I’m sure she’s very—er—competent,’ he finished inadequately.
What at? wondered Tabitha, unless it’s making me out to be a halfwit with a face that ought to be veiled and no taste in clothes. She frowned again and changed it quickly into a smile because the men were looking at her.
‘Shall I get someone to bring your coffee in here?’ she enquired, a little haughty because they had all been staring so. ‘Unless there’s anyone else Mr van Beek wants to see.’
They agreed, still puzzled, because it had become the custom for them all to crowd into Tabitha’s office after a ward round and drink their coffee there, wreathed in pipe smoke and eating their way steadily through her week’s supply of biscuits. So Nurse Betts, a little mystified, took a tray into Mr Raynard’s cubicle, and presently Tabitha, drinking her own Nescafé while she wrestled with the off duty, listened to the hum of cheerful talk coming from his bedside. Someone was being very amusing, judging from the bellows of laughter. She gave up the off duty after a few minutes and went along to the linen cupboard to see if there were enough sheets. They were on the top shelf and she had climbed on to the shelf below the better to count them, when the door opened behind her. She froze, because the nursing staff were supposed to use the steps, not climb around the cupboard like monkeys, and whoever it was, Matron, or worse, Fanny Adams, the Assistant Matron, would point this out to her in the tone of voice used by someone who had discovered wrong-doing and felt justified in censuring it. She took a firmer grip on the upright of the top shelf and looked down behind her. Mr van Beek was lounging in the doorway, his hands in his pockets, watching her with interest. She waited for him to make the obvious remark about the steps and when he didn’t, felt compelled to say: ‘This is so much easier than those little steps. I thought you were Matron.’
‘Heaven forbid!’ he murmured gravely. ‘Come down, I want to talk to you.’
Tabitha stayed where she was. ‘I’m busy, sir, counting sheets.’ A sudden thought struck her. ‘Unless it’s urgent?’
‘It’s urgent,’ he said instantly.
‘Then I’ll come down,’ said Tabitha, to find herself instantly clasped round her waist and lifted to the ground. The linen room was small, a mere cupboard, and they were forced to stand very close. She put a hand to her cap and said a trifle anxiously: ‘Not Mr Bow…he was fine.’
‘And still is. Why did you run away?’
A question Tabitha didn’t wish to answer. She said instead: ‘It was urgent.’
‘I consider it urgent, and I should like an answer.’
She saw that she would have to give him one or stay imprisoned with the sheets and pillowcases for an unlimited period. She drew a breath and began quietly: ‘I don’t want to be pitied. To be compared with Lilith and then pitied is more than I can stand—it makes me bad-tempered and envious and I try not to be, and then you come along and stir me up.’
‘Good,’ said Mr van Beek with lazy satisfaction.
Tabitha flashed him a cross look and found his eyes, very calm and clear, contemplating her. Her voice throbbed with the beginnings of temper. ‘It’s nothing of the sort. I’ve made a life for myself; I’ve a home and Meg and a job that I can keep for the rest of my life.’
‘God forbid!’ interposed Mr van Beek with deep sincerity, and when she gaped at him he added: ‘No, no—I don’t mean that you’re not a splendid nurse—you are, but there are other things. You seem to think you’re not entitled to any of them.’
She made a small sound, half snort, half sigh. ‘You’re not a girl.’
His lips twitched. ‘No—meaning that I am unable to understand?’
‘Yes,’