when the doctor obligingly said the he would sit with Mary, went down to the vast kitchen to get supper for the rest of them.
She was up early the next morning making sandwiches for the two ambulance men and filling the thermos and then cooking as generous a breakfast as she dared for them. The food was getting a bit low by now, although she would be able to go on making bread for some time, and there were plenty of potatoes, but there was Mary to think of, for as soon as she had recovered from her broncho-pneumonia she would want to eat again. Julia had set aside as much as possible for her, which meant that she and the doctor and Hamish would have to make do with a restricted though ample enough diet.
The morning was a mere glimmer at the end of the long night when she went to the door to see the men off. They wrung her hand, took the letter she had written and trudged through the frozen snow towards the stable. The doctor followed them. He had hardly spoken during breakfast, but now he paused at the door. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said cheerfully, ‘but don’t worry if I don’t turn up until later in the day—we might get held up with the drifts and have to dig ourselves out. If I can get as far as the main road I’ll try and find out what’s happening about the telephone, or get a message into Hawick. The men will telephone there from Newcastle anyway, but I don’t think we should leave any stones unturned, do you?’
Julia asked, ‘Will you be able to telephone your family in Holland? Won’t they be worrying?’ and went faintly pink when he said coolly, ‘Time enough for that, Miss Pennyfeather—we have to get you settled first, don’t we?’
He grinned suddenly, turned on his heel and set out into the icy morning.
The house was very quiet when they had gone. She had listened to them starting up the ambulance and then the car and, minutes later, their horns blaring a goodbye to her as the noise of the engines became fainter and fainter and then ceased altogether, leaving her lonely.
But there wasn’t much time for loneliness; there was Mary to see to and the rooms to tidy and the food cupboard to be frowned over once more. Hamish had brought in some more eggs, but everything else was getting on the low side, though there was plenty if someone arrived that evening and brought food with them, but Julia had looked out of the window as soon as it was light and had been disquieted by the grey sky with its ominous yellow tinges streaking the horizon, and the wind was getting up again as well. She went back to Mary’s room and built up a magnificent fire as though by so doing she could ward off the bad weather she guessed was coming.
The wind began to whine in real earnest about three o’clock and the first snowflakes whirled down, slowly and daintily at first and then in real earnest. It didn’t look as though the nurse would arrive that day, nor the cook and the maid, nor, for that matter, thought Julia gloomily, Doctor van den Werff. He was probably stuck in some drift miles from anywhere; she was thankful that she had made him take some sandwiches and a thermos too.
She took Mary’s tea up presently, to find her awake and more cheerful, and she was still with her when she heard the car return. It was dark outside and the fast falling snow almost obliterated its headlights as it went past the house in the direction of the stables. Julia left Mary to finish her tea and went downstairs, her cape held close against the draughts, and reached the kitchen as the doctor came in from outside, bringing a rush of cold air in with him.
Julia went to the stove and opened one of the plates so that the singing kettle could boil. ‘I thought you’d never get here,’ she said, trying to make her voice light.
The doctor took off his coat and shook a quantity of snow from it on to the floor, then hung it on the back of a chair where it began to steam. Only then did he speak, and the extreme placidity of his voice annoyed her.
‘My dear Miss Pennyfeather,’ he remarked, ‘I told you that I should come,’ which calm and brief speech caused her to burst out, ‘Well, I know you did, but sitting here waiting for you isn’t the same…’
‘Waiting for me, were you? I’m flattered—at least I should have been in any other circumstances. Unfortunately the telephone wires are still down—I wasted a great deal of time. Still, the snow ploughs have been out on the main road.’ He sat down at the table and she realised that this meagre information was all she was going to get about his day. She poured him some tea from the pot she had just made and offered him bread and jam.
‘Is the weather very bad?’ she wanted to know.
‘Quite nasty, but I don’t fancy it’s going to last. Has everything been all right here?’ He glanced at Hamish, who nodded before Julia could answer. ‘Aye, the fires are lit, and there’s plenty of wood. I’ll kill a chicken tomorrow.’
The doctor nodded. ‘Good idea—otherwise I’ll have to go out with a gun.’
‘What,’ said Julia indignantly, ‘and shoot any small creature, half-starved and frozen?’
He didn’t laugh at her. ‘I shouldn’t enjoy it,’ he said gently, ‘but we have to eat. But don’t worry, if Hamish here lets us have a chicken we’ll do very well for a couple of days—Mary can have it too.’
Julia agreed, wondering the while what Mary’s mother would say when she arrived home and found no food in the cupboards and several beds in use. But of course they would all be gone by then and she herself would never know, she would be in Somerset and this strange adventure would be a dream—so would the doctor. She sighed and got up to refill the teapot.
She had tucked Mary up for the night and had gone to her room to sit by the fire before beginning the chilly business of undressing when there was a knock on the door and the doctor came in.
‘Mary?’ asked Julia as she started to her feet.
‘No—she’s asleep, I’ve just been to look. I want to talk to you and your room is warmer than mine—do you mind if I come in?’
Julia felt surprise, pleasure and finally a faint excitement which she firmly suppressed. She sat down again. ‘There’s a chair in that corner, it’s larger than the others,’ she said sensibly.
His lips twitched, but he went obediently and fetched it, sat down opposite her and began without preamble.
‘The reason I was going to London before returning to Holland was in order that I might engage a nurse to take back with me. There is a young lady staying with my family—an English girl who contracted polio just before I came over to Edinburgh. She went to hospital, of course, but now she is back with us, but I hear that she is very bored with only my sister to talk to, for she doesn’t care to learn Dutch. She’s convalescent and has made a splendid recovery which I feel could be hastened even more by having someone with her to whom she could talk freely.’
He paused and looked across at Julia, his eyebrows lifted in an unspoken question.
‘Me?’ asked Julia, and felt a pleasant tingle of excitement.
‘Yes—it would save me hunting around in London, and I think that you may suit admirably. You are very much of an age and capable with it. If you could see your way to coming for a few weeks? I know it is sudden, but I fancy you wouldn’t mind overmuch if you didn’t go to your brother’s. Am I right?’
‘Yes—I don’t want to go in the least,’ she said bluntly, ‘but I really should.’
‘Forgive me, but is your brother not able to afford a nurse for his wife, or help of some sort?’
She flushed. ‘Yes, of course he can, only I expect he feels it’s a waste of money to pay someone when there’s me.’
‘So you would have no feeling of—er—guilt if you were not to go?’
Julia was a little surprised to find that she didn’t feel in the least guilty. She said briefly, ‘No.’
‘Then, Miss Pennyfeather, will you come? I know this is a most irregular way of offering a job, but in the rather peculiar circumstances in which we find ourselves…you trust me?’
Julia looked startled.