A Christmas Romance

A Christmas Romance

Betty Neels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

THEODOSIA CHAPMAN, climbing the first of the four flights which led to her bed-sitter—or, as her landlady called it, her studio flat—reviewed her day with a jaundiced eye. Miss Prescott, the senior dietician at St Alwyn’s hospital, an acidulated spinster of an uncertain age, had found fault with everyone and everything. As Theodosia, working in a temporary capacity as her personal assistant, had been with her for most of the day, she’d had more than her share of grumbles. And it was only Monday; there was a whole week before Saturday and Sunday …

She reached the narrow landing at the top of the house, unlocked her door and closed it behind her with a sigh of contentment. The room was quite large with a sloping ceiling and a small window opening onto the flat roof of the room below hers. There was a small gas stove in one corner with shelves and a cupboard and a gas fire against the wall opposite the window.

The table and chairs were shabby but there were bright cushions, plants in pots and some pleasant pictures on the walls. There was a divan along the end wall, with a bright cover, and a small bedside table close by with a pretty lamp. Sitting upright in the centre of the divan was a large and handsome ginger cat. He got down as Theodosia went in, trotted to meet her and she picked him up to perch him on her shoulder.

‘I’ve had a beastly day, Gustavus. We must make up for it—we’ll have supper early. You go for a breath of air while I open a tin.’

She took him to the window and he slipped out onto the roof to prowl among the tubs and pots she had arranged there. She watched him pottering for a moment. It was dark and cold, only to be expected since it was a mere five weeks to Christmas, but the lamplight was cheerful. As soon as he came in she would close the window and the curtains and light the gas fire.

She took off her coat and hung it on the hook behind the curtain where she kept her clothes and peered at her face in the small square mirror over the chest of drawers. Her reflection stared back at her—not pretty, perhaps, but almost so, for she had large, long-lashed eyes, which were grey and not at all to her taste, but they went well with her ginger hair, which was straight and long and worn in a neat topknot. Her mouth was too large but its corners turned up and her nose was just a nose, although it had a tilt at its tip.

She turned away, a girl of middle height with a pretty figure and nice legs and a lack of conceit about her person. Moreover, she was possessed of a practical nature which allowed her to accept her rather dull life at least with tolerance, interlarded with a strong desire to change it if she saw the opportunity to do so. And that for the moment didn’t seem very likely.

She had no special qualifications; she could type and take shorthand, cope adequately with a word processor and a computer and could be relied upon, but none of these added up to much. Really, it was just as well that Miss Prescott used her for most of the day to run errands, answer the phone and act as go-between for that lady and any member of the medical or nursing staff who dared to query her decisions about a diet.

Once Mrs Taylor returned from sick leave then Theodosia supposed that she would return to the typing pool. She didn’t like that very much either but, as she reminded herself with her usual good sense, beggars couldn’t be choosers. She managed on her salary although the last few days of the month were always dicey and there was very little chance to save.

Her mother and father had died within a few weeks of each other, victims of flu, several years ago. She had been nineteen, on the point of starting to train as a physiotherapist, but there hadn’t been enough money to see her through the training. She had taken a business course and their doctor had heard of a job in the typing pool at St Alwyn’s. It had been a lifeline, but unless she could acquire more skills she knew that she had little chance of leaving the job. She would be twenty-five on her next birthday …

She had friends, girls like herself, and from time to time she had been out with one or other of the young doctors, but she encountered them so seldom that friendships died for lack of meetings. She had family, too—two great-aunts, her father’s aunts—who lived in a comfortable red-brick cottage at Finchingfield. She spent her Christmases with them, and an occasional weekend, but although they were kind to her she sensed that she interfered with their lives and was only asked to stay from a sense of duty.

She would be going there for Christmas, she had received their invitation that morning, written in the fine spiky writing of their youth.

Gustavus came in then and she shut the window and drew the curtains against the dark outside and set about getting their suppers. That done and eaten, the pair of them curled up in the largest of the two shabby chairs by the gas fire and while Gustavus dozed Theodosia read her library book. The music on the radio was soothing and the room with its pink lampshades looked cosy. She glanced round her.

‘At least we have a very nice home,’ she told Gustavus, who twitched a sleepy whisker in reply.

Perhaps Miss Prescott would be in a more cheerful mood, thought Theodosia, trotting along the wet pavements to work in the morning. At least she didn’t have to catch a bus; her bed-sitter might not be fashionable but it was handy …

The hospital loomed large before her, red-brick with a great many Victorian embellishments. It had a grand entrance, rows and rows of windows and a modern section built onto one side where the Emergency and Casualty departments were housed.

Miss Prescott had her office on the top floor, a large room lined with shelves piled high with reference books, diet sheets and files. She sat at an important-looking desk, with a computer, two telephones and a large open notebook filled with the lore of her profession, and she looked as important as her desk. She was a big woman with commanding features and a formidable bosom—a combination of attributes which aided her to triumph over any person daring to have a difference of opinion with her.

Theodosia had a much smaller desk in a kind of cubby-hole with its door open so that Miss Prescott could demand her services at a moment’s notice. Which one must admit were very frequent. Theodosia might not do anything important—like making out diet sheets for several hundreds of people, many of them different—but she did her share, typing endless lists, menus, diet sheets, and rude letters to ward sisters if they complained. In a word, Miss Prescott held the hospital’s stomach in the hollow of her hand.

She was at her desk as Theodosia reached her office.

‘You’re late.’

‘Two minutes, Miss Prescott,’ said Theodosia cheerfully. ‘The lift’s not working and I had five flights of stairs to climb.’

‘At your age that should be an easy matter. Get the post opened, if you please.’ Miss Prescott drew a deep indignant breath which made her corsets creak. ‘I am having trouble with the Women’s Medical ward sister. She has the impertinence to disagree with the diet I have formulated for that patient with diabetes and kidney failure. I have spoken to her on the telephone and when I have rewritten the diet sheet you will take it down to her. She is to keep to my instructions on it. You may tell her that.’

Theodosia began to open the post, viewing without relish the prospect of being the bearer of unwelcome news. Miss Prescott, she had quickly learned, seldom confronted any of those who had the temerity to disagree with her. Accordingly, some half an hour later she took the diet sheet and began her journey to Women’s Medical on the other side of the hospital and two floors down.

Sister was in her office, a tall, slender, good-looking woman in her early thirties. She looked up and smiled as Theodosia knocked.

‘Don’t tell me, that woman’s sent you down with another diet sheet. We had words …!’

‘Yes, she mentioned that, Sister. Shall I wait should you want to write a reply?’

‘Did she give you a message as well?’

‘Well, yes, but I don’t think I need to give it to you. I mean, I think she’s already said it all …’

Sister laughed. ‘Let’s see what she says this time …’

She was reading it when the door opened and she glanced up and got to her feet. ‘Oh, sir, you’re early …’

The man who entered was very large and very tall so that Sister’s office became half its size. His hair was a pale brown, greying at the temples, and he was handsome, with heavy-lidded eyes and a high-bridged nose upon which was perched a pair of half glasses. All of which Theodosia noticed with an interested eye. She would have taken a longer look only she caught his eye—blue and rather cold—and looked the other way.

He wished Sister good morning and raised one eyebrow at Theodosia. ‘I’m interrupting something?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘No, no, sir. Miss Prescott and I are at odds about Mrs Bennett’s diet. They sent Theodosia down with the diet sheet she insists is the right one …’

He held out a hand and took the paper from her and read it.

‘You do right to query it, Sister. I think that I had better have a word with Miss Prescott. I will do so now and return here in a short while.’

He looked at Theodosia and opened the door. ‘Miss—er—Theodosia shall return with me and see fair play.’

She went with him since it was expected of her, though she wasn’t sure about the fair play; Miss Prescott usually made mincemeat of anyone disagreeing with her, but she fancied that this man, whoever he was, might not take kindly to such treatment.

Theodosia, skipping along beside him to keep up, glanced up at his impassive face. ‘You work here too?’ she asked, wanting only to be friendly. ‘This is such a big place I hardly ever meet the same person twice, if you see what I mean. I expect you’re a doctor—well, a senior doctor, I suppose. I expect you’ve met Miss Prescott before?’

There were climbing the stairs at a great rate. ‘You’ll have to slow down,’ said Theodosia, ‘if you want me to be there at the same time as you.’

He paused to look down at her. ‘My apologies, young lady, but I have no time to waste loitering on a staircase.’

Which she considered was a rather unkind remark. She said tartly, ‘Well, I haven’t any time to waste either.’

They reached Miss Prescott’s office in silence and he opened the door for her. Miss Prescott didn’t look up.

‘You took your time. I shall be glad when Mrs Taylor returns. What had Sister to say this time?’

She looked up then and went slowly red. ‘Oh—you need my advice, sir?’

He walked up to her desk, tore the diet sheet he held into several pieces and laid them on the blotter before her. He said quietly, ‘Miss Prescott, I have no time to waste with people who go against my orders. The diet is to be exactly as I have asked for. You are a dietician, but you have no powers to overrule the medical staff’s requests for a special diet. Be so good as to remember that.’

He went quietly out of the room, leaving Miss Prescott gobbling with silent rage. Theodosia studied her alarmingly puce complexion. ‘Shall I make a cup of tea?’

‘No—yes. I’m upset. That man …’

‘I thought he was rather nice,’ said Theodosia, ‘and he was very polite.’

Miss Prescott ground her teeth. ‘Do you know who he is?’

Theodosia, putting teabags into the teapot, said that no, she didn’t.

‘Professor Bendinck. He’s senior consultant on the medical side, is on the board of governers, has an enormous private practice and is an authority on most medical conditions.’

‘Quite a lad!’ said Theodosia cheerfully. ‘Don’t you like him?’

Miss Prescott snorted. ‘Like him? Why should I like him? He could get me the sack today if he wanted to.’ She snapped her mouth shut; she had said too much already.

‘I shouldn’t worry,’ said Theodosia quietly. She didn’t like Miss Prescott, but it was obvious that she had had a nasty shock. ‘I’m sure he’s not mean enough to do that.’

‘You don’t know anything about him,’ snapped Miss Prescott, and took the proffered cup of tea without saying thank you. Theodosia, pouring herself a cup, reflected that she would rather like to know more about him …

The day was rather worse than Monday had been, and, letting herself into her bed-sitter that evening, she heaved a sigh of relief. A quiet evening with Gustavus for company …

There was another letter from her aunts. She was invited to spend the following weekend with them. They had read in their newspaper that the air in London had become very polluted—a day or two in the country air would be good for her. She was expected for lunch on Saturday. It was more of a command than an invitation and Theodosia, although she didn’t particulary want to go, knew that she would, for the aunts were all the family she had now.

The week, which had begun badly, showed no signs of improving; Miss Prescott, taking a jaundiced view of life, made sure that everyone around her should feel the same. As the weekend approached Theodosia wished that she could have spent it quietly getting up late and eating when she felt like it, lolling around with the papers. A weekend with the great-aunts was hardly restful. Gustavus hated it—the indignity of the basket, the tiresome journey by bus and train and then another bus; and, when they did arrive, he was only too aware that he wasn’t really welcome, only Theodosia had made it plain that if she spent her weekends with her great-aunts then he must go too …

It was Friday morning when, racing round the hospital collecting diet sheets from the wards, Theodosia ran full tilt into the professor, or rather his waistcoat. He fielded her neatly, collected the shower of diet sheets and handed them back to her.

‘So sorry,’ said Theodosia. ‘Wasn’t looking where I was going, was I?’

Her ginger head caught fire from a stray shaft of winter sunshine and the professor admired it silently. She was like a spring morning in the middle of winter, he reflected, and frowned at the nonsensical thought.

‘Such a rush,’ said Theodosia chattily. ‘It’s always the same on a Friday.’

The professor adjusted the spectacles on his nose and asked, ‘Why is that?’

‘Oh, the weekend, you know, patients going home and Sister’s weekend, too, on a lot of the wards.’

‘Oh, yes, I see.’ The professor didn’t see at all, but he had a wish to stay talking to this friendly girl who treated him like a human being and not like the important man he was. He asked casually, ‘And you, miss … er … Do you also go home for the weekend?’

‘Well, not exactly. What I mean is, I do have the weekend off, but I haven’t got a home with a family, if that’s what you mean. I’ve got quite a nice bed-sitter.’

‘No family?’

‘Two great-aunts; they have me for weekends sometimes. I’m going there tomorrow.’

‘And where is “there”?’ He had a quiet, rather deliberate voice, the kind of voice one felt compelled to answer.

‘Finchingfield. That’s in Essex.’

‘You drive yourself there?’

Theodosia laughed. ‘Me? Drive? Though I can ride a bike, I haven’t a car. But it’s quite easy—bus to the station, train to Braintree and then the local bus. I quite enjoy it, only Gustavus hates it.’

‘Gustavus?’

‘My cat. He dislikes buses and trains. Well, of course, he would, wouldn’t he?’

The professor agreed gravely. He said slowly, ‘It so happens that I am going to Braintree tomorrow. I’d be glad to give you and Gustavus a lift.’

‘You are? Well, what a coincidence; that would be …’ She stopped and blushed vividly. ‘I didn’t mean to cadge a lift off you. You’re very kind to offer but I think I’d better not.’

‘I’m quite safe,’ said the professor mildly, ‘and since you didn’t know that I would be going to Braintree in the morning you could hardly be accused of cadging.’

‘Well, if you don’t mind—I would be grateful …’

‘Good.’ He smiled then and walked away and she, remembering the rest of the diet sheets, raced off to the men’s ward … It was only as she handed over the rest of the diet sheets to Miss Prescott that she remembered that he hadn’t asked her where she lived nor had he said at what time he would pick her up. So that’s that, reflected Theodosia, scarcely listening to Miss Prescott’s cross voice.

If she had hoped for a message from him during the day she was to be disappointed. Five o’clock came and half an hour later—for, of course, Miss Prescott always found something else for her to do just as she was leaving—Theodosia raced through the hospital, intent on getting home, and was brought up short by the head porter hailing her from his lodge in the entrance hall.

‘Message for you, miss. You’re to be ready by ten o’clock. You’ll be fetched from where you live.’

He peered at her over his spectacles. ‘That’s what Professor Bendinck said.’

Theodosia had slithered to a halt. ‘Oh, thank you, Bowden,’ she said, and added, ‘He’s giving me a lift.’

The head porter liked her. She was always cheerful and friendly. ‘And very nice too, miss,’ he said. ‘Better than them trains and buses.’

Theodosia, explaining to Gustavus that they would be travelling in comfort instead of by the public transport he so disliked, wondered what kind of car the professor would have. Something rather staid, suitable for his dignified calling, she supposed. She packed her overnight bag, washed her hair and polished her shoes. Her winter coat was by no means new but it had been good when she had bought it and she consoled herself with the thought that winter coats didn’t change their style too much. It would have to be the green jersey dress …

At ten o’clock the next morning she went down to the front door with Gustavus in his basket and her overnight bag over her shoulder. She would give him ten minutes, she had decided, and if he didn’t turn up she would get a bus to Liverpool Street Station.

He was on the doorstep, talking to Mrs Towzer, who had a head crammed with pink plastic curlers and a feather duster in one hand. When she saw Theodosia she said, ‘There you are, ducks; I was just telling your gentleman friend here that you was a good tenant. A real lady—don’t leave the landing lights on all night and leaves the bath clean …’

Theodosia tried to think of something clever to say. She would have been grateful if the floor had opened and swallowed her. She said, ‘Good morning, Mrs Towzer—Professor.’

‘Professor, are you?’ asked the irrepressible Mrs Towzer. ‘Well, I never …’

Theodosia had to admire the way he handled Mrs Towzer with a grave courtesy which left that lady preening herself and allowed him to stuff Theodosia into the car, put her bag in the boot, settle Gustavus on the back seat with a speed which took her breath and then drive off with a wave of the hand to her landlady.

Theodosia said tartly, ‘It would have been much better if I had gone to the hospital and met you there.’

He said gently, ‘You are ashamed of your landlady?’

‘Heavens, no! She’s kind-hearted and good-natured, only there really wasn’t any need to tell you about turning off the lights …’

‘And cleaning the bath!’ To his credit the professor adopted a matter-of-fact manner. ‘I believe she was paying you a compliment.’

Theodosia laughed, then said, ‘Perhaps you are right. This is a very comfortable car.’

It was a Bentley, dark grey, with its leather upholstery a shade lighter.

‘I expect you need a comfortable car,’ she went on chattily. ‘I mean, you can’t have much time to catch buses and things.’

‘A car is a necessity for my job. You’re warm enough? I thought we might stop for coffee presently. At what time do your great-aunts expect you?’

‘If I don’t miss the bus at Braintree I’m there in time for lunch. But I’ll catch it today; I don’t expect it takes long to drive there.’

He was driving north-east out of the city. ‘If you will direct me I will take you to Finchingfield; it is only a few miles out of my way.’

She looked at his calm profile uncertainly; without his specs he was really very handsome … ‘You’re very kind but I’m putting you out.’

‘If that were the case I would not have suggested it,’ he told her. A remark which she felt had put her in her place. She said meekly, ‘Thank you,’ and didn’t see him smile.

Clear out of the city at last, he drove to Bishop’s Stortford and turned off for Great Dunmow, and stopped there for coffee. They had made good time and Theodosia, enjoying his company, wished that their journey were not almost at an end. Finchingfield was only a few miles away and all too soon he stopped in front of the great-aunts’ house.

It stood a little way from the centre of the village, in a narrow lane with no other houses nearby; it was a red-brick house, too large to be called a cottage, with a plain face and a narrow brick path leading from the gate to its front door. The professor got out, opened Theodosia’s door, collected her bag and Gustavus in his basket and opened the gate and followed her up the path. He put the bag and the basket down. ‘I’ll call for you at about half past six tomorrow, if that isn’t too early for you?’

‘You’ll drive me back? You’re sure it’s not disturbing your weekend?’

‘Quite sure. I hope you enjoy your visit, Theodosia.’

He went back to the car and got in, and sat waiting until she had banged the door knocker and the door was opened. And then he had gone.

Mrs Trickey, the aunt’s daily housekeeper, opened the door. She was a tall, thin woman, middle-aged, with a weather-beaten face, wearing an old-fashioned pinny and a battered hat.

‘You’re early.’ She craned her neck around Theodosia and watched the tail-end of the car disappear down the lane. “Oo’s that, then?’

Mrs Trickey had been looking after the aunts for as long as Theodosia could remember and considered herself one of the household. Theodosia said cheerfully, ‘Hello, Mrs Trickey; how nice to see you. I was given a lift by someone from the hospital.’

The housekeeper stood aside to let her enter and then went ahead of her down the narrow, rather dark hall. She opened a door at its end, saying, ‘Go on in; your aunts are expecting you.’

The room was quite large, with a big window overlooking the garden at the back of the house. It was lofty-ceilinged, with a rather hideous wallpaper, and the furniture was mostly heavy and dark, mid-Victorian, and there was far too much of it. Rather surprisingly, here and there, were delicate Regency pieces, very beautiful and quite out of place.

The two old ladies got up from their places as Theodosia went in. They were tall and thin with ramrod backs and white-haired, but there the resemblance ended.

Great-Aunt Jessica was the elder, a once handsome woman with a sweet smile, her hair arranged in what looked like a bird’s nest and wearing a high-necked blouse under a cardigan and a skirt which would have been fashionable at the turn of the century. It was of good material and well made and Theodosia couldn’t imagine her aunt wearing anything else.

Great-Aunt Mary bore little resemblance to her elder sister; her hair was drawn back from her face into a neat coil on top of her head and although she must have been pretty when she was young her narrow face, with its thin nose and thin mouth, held little warmth.

Theodosia kissed their proffered cheeks, explained that she had been driven from London by an acquaintance at the hospital and would be called for on the following evening, and then enquired about the old ladies’ health.