The Fifth Day of Christmas. Betty Neels

will mind if you change. I’m afraid we just took the first ones we saw when we arrived. There’s a fire going and I’ve put a hot water bottle in the bed. I wondered if you would like half an hour to yourself until supper? I’ll come and fetch you.’

      They went downstairs together a little later to find that the table had been laid in the dining room, a forbidding apartment with a great many hunting trophies on its walls and a quantity of heavy mahogany furniture arranged very stiffly beneath them. But there was a fire in the hearth and the supper was ample and well cooked. The three of them sat at one end of the large oval table and Nurse MacBonar told them at some length and a good deal of dry humour of her difficulties in reaching them.

      ‘But I hear from Doctor MacIntory that you had your ups and downs too,’ she remarked cheerfully. ‘I can imagine how you felt when you arrived,’ she looked at them in turn. ‘Did you get here to together?’

      It was the doctor who answered. ‘No, for I am on my way to London from Edinburgh—I got hopelessly lost, and how I got here I have no idea, but Miss Pennyfeather was kind enough to take me in…’

      ‘Weren’t you scared?’ inquired Miss MacBonar of Julia. ‘A strange man coming to the door like that?’

      Julia avoided the doctor’s eyes. ‘I was so cold and tired I didn’t think about it,’ she confessed, ‘otherwise I daresay I should have been frightened.’

      ‘Oh well,’ said Miss MacBonar comfortably, ‘it was only the doctor here, so there was no need.’

      This time Julia glanced up to find him watching her and although his face showed nothing of it, she knew that he was laughing silently. He said pleasantly, ‘You invest me with a character I fear I cannot lay claim to. Miss Pennyfeather, who has had to put up with me these last few days, could tell you how tiresome I can be at times.’

      Nurse MacBonar chuckled. ‘Aren’t all men tiresome at some time or another?’ she wanted to know. ‘Not that the world would be much of a place without them, and I should know—I’ve buried two husbands. Are either of you married?’

      Julia shook her head and the doctor murmured in a negative manner.

      ‘Ah, well, your turn will come. Do you plan to leave early?’

      Doctor van den Werff picked up his fork preparatory to demolishing the portion of bread and butter pudding Julia had just handed to him.

      ‘Eight o’clock—that will allow for any small hold-ups on the way.’ He looked at Julia with lifted brows. ‘That is if our Miss Pennyfeather is agreeable?’

      Julia, smouldering inwardly at being addressed as our Miss Pennyfeather, said coolly, ‘Yes, quite, thank you,’ and then addressed herself to Miss MacBonar. ‘I’ll call you before I go, shall I? Mary sleeps until eight or thereabouts, so you’ll have plenty of time to dress.’

      They separated to go their various ways after supper. Julia to get Mary into bed and settled for the night.

      She was a little silent as she went quiet-footed about the room putting everything to rights. Her patient lay watching her and then asked, ‘Aren’t you excited about tomorrow? Lucky you—all day with Ivo.’

      ‘Ivo?’ asked Julia.

      ‘Doctor van den Werff, silly. Isn’t it a nice name? I like him, don’t you?’

      Julia, looking for a clean nightie for her patient, agreed. ‘Oh, yes, and you have cause to be grateful to him too.’

      ‘Well, I am. I told him so. I’m grateful to you too. Have I been a good patient?’

      Julia looked across the room at her charge, a little wan still but pretty for all that. She said generously, ‘Yes, you have. It hasn’t been much fun for you, has it, but you’ve stuck to your diet like a brick and not fussed over your injections. Go on being good, won’t you? Nurse MacBonar is nice, don’t you think? We both like her very much and she’ll look after you splendidly, and if you keep to your diet and do as you’re told you’ll be able to lead the same life as any of your friends.’

      ‘Yes, Ivo told me that too. I’ll try. I like you, Nurse Pennyfeather—I like Ivo too. You’d make a handsome pair.’ She narrowed her blue eyes and stared at Julia, who stared back, mouth agape.

      ‘We’d what?’ Julia reiterated.

      ‘Make an awfully handsome pair. I can just see you coming down the aisle together, you with your eyes sparkling like they do when you’re pleased and happy and your cheeks all pink, and him, proud and smiling.’

      Julia contrived a laugh, a very natural one considering her heart leapt into her throat and was choking her. She said with admirable calm, ‘Go on with you, Mary, it’s your own wedding you should be thinking about, not anyone else’s. Now go to sleep, because I shall wake you early to say goodbye in the morning.’

      They wished each other goodnight and Julia, as it was still early, went along to Miss MacBonar’s room, trying to dismiss Mary’s words from her mind and failing utterly.

      Her colleague had finished unpacking and had arranged her small possessions around her so that the room looked almost cosy. She looked up as Julia knocked and went in and said, ‘There you are, dear. Should we go down and have a last word with the doctor? I think he expects it.’

      Julia ran a finger along the carved back of the rather uncomfortable chair she was leaning against. ‘He doesn’t expect me,’ she said positively, ‘but I’m sure he’d like to see you—last-minute things,’ she added vaguely. ‘Doctor MacIntory said he’d be along tomorrow if we’ve forgotten anything. The charts are in the table drawer in Mary’s room, and I’ve brought the insulin and syringe with me—I keep them in my room, here they are.’

      She handed them over and Nurse MacBonar nodded understandingly and got to her feet. ‘Then I’ll pop along then and see that nice doctor of yours.’ She beamed at Julia as they went out of the room together. ‘You won’t come too?’

      ‘No, I don’t think so. I’m tired,’ said Julia mendaciously. They wished each other goodnight and she went along to her room and started to undress slowly, oblivious of the room’s chill. She wasn’t tired at all. There was no reason at all why she shouldn’t have gone downstairs with Nurse MacBonar, at least no reason she was prepared to admit, even to herself.