thinking, for his voice was as bland as his face and his eyes were almost covered by suddenly drooping lids.
‘Ah, yes—of course. A natural mistake, but a mistake. Shall we say half past five?’
The ward door was pushed open and allowed to close with a minimum of noise—Sister Crow. Victoria’s eyes met the Dutchman’s and Mr Bates said happily: ‘I ain’t ’eard a word, but ’ave a nice evening of it, the two of yer.’
‘Half past five,’ breathed Victoria, and began on Mr Bates all over again while she listened to the doctor, skilfully and with great charm, draw a variety of red herrings across the Old Crow’s path so that by the time she eventually reached Victoria she had quite forgotten why she had come into the ward.
Sister Crow had wanted an afternoon; Victoria, working through seemingly endless hours, prayed that she would come on duty as punctually as she usually did. She had been foolish, she decided as she prepared the medicine trolley for Sister’s use later on, to say half past five, for she would almost certainly be late, and supposing he didn’t wait? Supposing he were impatient? She contradicted herself; he wasn’t an impatient man, of that she was quite certain, although for the life of her she couldn’t guess how she knew that. She smiled with relief at the thought and Major Cooper, whom she was hauling back into bed after his afternoon exercises, stared at her.
‘What the devil have you got to smile about?’ he demanded irascibly. He was an ill-tempered old gentleman; that anybody would be otherwise was something he would not condone. Victoria had no intention of telling him, so instead she asked: ‘What do you think of the Government’s intention…’
It was a safe and sure red herring; he seized upon it and grumbled happily while she worked him out of his dressing gown and pulled on the woolly bedsocks he insisted upon wearing, and since she had heard it all before, it left her free to devote the greater part of her mind to the important question of what to wear that evening.
It was twenty minutes to six as she crossed the hospital entrance hall. The Old Crow had been punctual, but she had been chatty too, and it was all of a quarter past five by the time Victoria had got away. It was impossible to go to tea, and dinner, if that was the meal she hoped the doctor was inviting her to, was several hours off. She drank a glass of water from her toothmug and started tearing off her clothes. Luckily the bathrooms were empty and very few of her friends were about, and those who tried to engage her in conversation were told ‘No time’, and swept on one side. She was kneeling before the mirror in her room, because there were no stools before the dressing tables in the Home, putting her hair up very carefully, when the staff nurse on Children’s came in with a cup of tea. ‘Leave it if you haven’t time,’ she advised, ‘but I bet you didn’t get any—who’s the date?’
Victoria, her mouth pursed over hair-grips, made sounds indicative of not telling, but her friend disregarded them. ‘We think it’s the foreign doctor who went to Kitty’s ward.’
Victoria, having disposed of the grips, swallowed half a cup of tea.
‘Yes—well, we met while I was home—and don’t,’ she went on severely, ‘start any ideas. He’s only asked me out because he happened to meet me again—you know, being polite.’
She was wriggling into her dress—a very plain cinnamon-coloured wool—and her friend obligingly zipped her up the back before she spoke.
‘Why should he have to be polite?’ she asked forth-rightly. ‘I’ve never met a man yet who asked a girl out unless he wanted to.’
Victoria was head and shoulders inside the wardrobe and her voice was muffled. ‘Maybe he wants someone to listen to him while he talks,’ she suggested, and hoped not. She slid into the matching topcoat and dug her feet into brown patent shoes which had cost her a small fortune and flew to the door, snatching up her handbag as she went. ‘See you,’ she said briefly, and hurried downstairs.
He was leaning against the little window behind which Smith, the head porter, sat, enjoying a chat, but when he saw her he came to meet her across the linoleumed floor and without giving her a chance to say that she was sorry that she was late, swept her outside and across the forecourt to where a Mercedes-Benz 350SL coupé was standing. It had, Victoria’s sharp eyes noticed, a Dutch number-plate.
‘It is yours?’ she wanted to know as he opened the door for her to get in.
‘Yes.’ He shut her in with an almost silent snap of the handle and went round to his own seat.
‘You didn’t have it in Guernsey.’
‘No.’ He was sitting beside her now. ‘What a girl you are, always asking questions!’
‘I never—’ she began, and then remembered that she had asked him quite a lot and closed her pretty mouth firmly, thinking better of it.
‘Have you had tea?’ His voice was pleasantly friendly.
‘No—that is, I had some in a mug while I was changing.’
He nodded with the air of a man who was in the habit of drinking his own tea in such a manner. ‘I’ve brought a picnic basket with me, I thought we might run a little way out of town and have tea in the car and then go on somewhere for dinner.’ He glanced sideways at her and smiled. ‘Unless there’s something else you would rather do?’
There was nothing else that she would rather do; she said so.
‘Good—let’s go, then.’
It was the evening rush hour; she was relieved to find that not only did he drive very well indeed; he displayed none of the irritation or impatience she had come to expect from anyone negotiating London at such times; moreover he talked as he drove, an unhurried flow of smalltalk which put her at her ease. St Judd’s was in the East End, or almost so. He had left that part of the city far behind and was across the river, travelling in a south-western direction when she remarked: ‘You know London very well.’
‘You sound surprised.’ He didn’t give her any reason, though, but went on: ‘There’s a quiet pub at Abinger, we’ll go down through Leatherhead and turn off as soon as we can find a reasonably quiet spot for tea, and then go on to Abinger Hammer. I presume you don’t have to be in at ten o’clock or whenever you have your curfew.’
Victoria chuckled. ‘I’m exempt. Once we’re trained we’re allowed to stay out until a reasonable hour.’
He said ‘Good’ as he edged the car past a loaded van and then a string of slow-moving cars, and after a minute or two when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to say anything else for the time being, Victoria ventured: ‘Was it just…I mean, were you surprised to see me?’
‘I’m surprised each time I set eyes on you—you’re very lovely. You must get a little bored with being told that by all the men you meet.’
She remembered the last man to say that to her, Doctor Blake, and how she had hated it, yet now she was glowing with delight. She said with admirable calm: ‘It’s according to who says it, and if I were with my sisters no one would think of saying any such thing—they’re beautiful.’
He glanced at her. ‘Yes, they are.’ He turned the car off into a side road whose signpost said Walton-on-the-Hill, but after half a mile he turned it again, this time into a mere lane, saying: ‘Somewhere here, I should think, wouldn’t you? I’m not quite sure where we are, but we can look at the map presently.’
It was quiet and the late afternoon had brought a wintry nip with it. The doctor stretched behind him and produced a tea basket from the back of the car. ‘Do you want to stay in the car or shall we try outside?’ he enquired.
‘Outside,’ said Victoria promptly. ‘We can always get back in if it gets too cold, can’t we?’ She looked around her. ‘Look, there’s a little hollow there under the hedge, it shouldn’t be too bad.’ She looked up at him, laughing. ‘It’s fun, isn’t it, having a picnic tea at half past six in a dropping temperature?’
He