A Kiss for Julie

She thought that it would be unlikely for Professor van der Driesma to do that. Nor would he invite her to share his coffee-break while he told her about his grandchildren... He was too young for grandchildren, of course, but probably he had children. Pretty little girls, handsome little boys, a beautiful wife.

She became aware that he had stopped speaking and looked up. He was staring at her so coldly that she had a moment’s fright that she had missed something he had said. If she had, she would get it from Sister later. She shut her notebook with a snap and he said, ‘I’d like those notes as soon as you can get them typed, Miss Beckworth.’

‘Very well, sir,’ said Julie, and promised herself silently that she would have her coffee first.

Which she did, prudently not spending too much time doing so; somehow the professor struck her as a man not given to wasting time in Sister’s office chatting over coffee and a tin of biscuits. She was right; she was halfway through the first batch of notes when he returned.

‘I shall be in the path lab if I’m wanted,’ he told her, and went away again.

Julie applied herself to her work. It was all going to be quite different, she thought regretfully; life would never be the same again.

The professor stayed away for a long time; she finished her notes, placed them on his desk and took herself off to the canteen for her midday meal. She shared her table with two other secretaries and one of the receptionists, all of them agog to know about the new professor.

‘What’s he like?’ asked the receptionist, young and pretty and aware of it.

‘Well, I don’t really know, do I?’ said Julie reasonably. ‘I mean, I’ve only seen him for a few minutes this morning and on the ward round.’ She added cautiously, ‘He seems very nice.’

‘You’ll miss Professor Smythe,’ said one of the secretaries, middle-aged and placid. ‘He was an old dear...’

The receptionist laughed, ‘Well, this one certainly isn’t that. He’s got more than his fair share of good looks too. Hope he comes to my desk one day!’

Julie thought that unlikely, but she didn’t say so. She ate her cold meat, potatoes, lettuce leaf and half a tomato, followed this wholesome but dull fare with prunes and custard and went back to her little office. She would make herself tea; Professor Smythe had installed an electric kettle and she kept a teapot and mugs in the bottom drawer of one of the filing cabinets—sugar too, and tiny plastic pots of milk.

Professor van der Driesma was sitting at his desk. He looked up as she went in. ‘You have been to your lunch?’ he asked smoothly. ‘Perhaps you would let me know when you will be absent from the office.’

Julie glowered; never mind if he was a highly important member of the medical profession, there was such a thing as pleasant manners between colleagues. ‘If you had been here to tell, I would have told you,’ she pointed out in a chilly voice. ‘And it’s not lunch, it’s midday dinner.’

He sat back in his chair, watching her. Presently he said, coldly polite, ‘Miss Beckworth, shall we begin as we intend to go on? I am aware that I am a poor substitute for Professor Smythe; nevertheless, we have inherited each other whether we wish it or not. Shall we endeavour to make the best of things?

‘I must confess that you are not quite what I would have wished for and I believe that you hold the same opinion of me. If you find it difficult to work for me, then by all means ask for a transfer. Your work is highly regarded; there should be no difficulty in that. On the other hand, if you are prepared to put up with my lack of the social graces, I dare say we may rub along quite nicely.’

He smiled then, and she caught her breath, for he looked quite different—a man she would like to know, to be friends with. She said steadily, ‘I would prefer to stay if you will allow that. You see, you’re not a bit like Professor Smythe, but I’m sure once I’ve got used to you you’ll find me satisfactory.’ She added, ‘What don’t you like about me?’

‘Did I say that I disliked you? Indeed I did not; I meant that you were not quite the secretary I would have employed had I been given the choice.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re too young—and several other...’ He paused. ‘Shall we let it rest?’ He stood up and held out a hand. ‘Shall we shake on it?’

She shook hands and thought what a strange conversation they were having.

He was back behind his desk, turning over the papers before him.

‘This case of agranulocytosis—Mrs Briggs has had typhoid and has been treated with chloramphenicol, the cause of her condition. I should like to see any old notes if she has been a patient previously. From her present notes you have seen that she remembers being here on two occasions but she can’t remember when. Is that a hopeless task?’

‘Probably. I’ll let you have them as soon as possible. The path lab from the Royal Central phoned; they would like to speak to you when you are free.’

‘Ah, yes. There’s a patient there. Get hold of them and put them through to me, will you, Miss Beckworth?’

‘I’m going to hunt for those notes,’ she told him. ‘I shall be in the records office until I find them.’

‘Very well.’ He didn’t look up from his writing and she went to her own office, dialled the Royal Central and presently put the call through to his office. There was nothing on her desk that needed urgent attention, so she went through the hospital and down into the basement and, after a few words with the fussy woman in charge of the patients’ records, set to work.

It was a difficult task but not entirely hopeless. Mrs Briggs was forty years old; her recollections of her previous visits were vague but positive. Say, anything between five and ten years ago... It was tiresome work and dusty and the fussy woman or her assistant should have given her a hand, although in all fairness she had to admit that they were being kept busy enough.

She longed for a cup of tea, and a glance at her watch told her that her teabreak was long past. Was she supposed to stay until the notes were found or could she go home at half-past five? she wondered.

It was almost five o’clock when her luck turned and, looking rather less than her pristine self, she went back to the professor’s office.

He was on the telephone as she went in; she laid the folders down on his desk and, since he nodded without looking up, she went to her office and sat down at her own desk. While she had been away someone had tossed a variety of paperwork onto it. ‘No tea,’ muttered Julie, ‘and this lot to polish off before I go home, and much thanks shall I get for it—’

‘Ah, no, Miss Beckworth,’ said the professor from somewhere behind her. ‘Do not be so hard on me. You have found the notes, for which I thank you, and a dusty job it was too from the look of you.’

She turned round indignantly at that and he went on smoothly, ‘A pot of tea would help, wouldn’t it? And most of the stuff on your desk can wait until the morning.’

He leaned across her and picked up the phone. ‘The canteen number?’ he asked her, and when she gave it ordered with pleasant courtesy, and with a certainty that no one would object, a tray of tea for two and a plate of buttered toast.

She was very conscious of the vast size of him. She wondered, idiotically, if he had played rugger in his youth. Well, she conceded, he wasn’t all that old—thirty-five, at the most forty... He had straightened up, towering over her, his gaze intent, almost as though he had read her thoughts and was amused by them. She looked at the clock and said in a brisk voice, ‘I can get a good deal of this done this afternoon, sir. I’m quite willing to stay on for a while.’

‘I said that tomorrow morning would do.’ His voice was mild but dared her to argue. ‘We will have our tea and you will leave at your usual time.’

She said ‘Very well, sir’ in a meek voice, although she didn’t feel meek. Who did he think he was? Professor or no professor, she had no wish to be ordered about.

‘You’ll get used to me in time,’ he observed, just as though she had voiced the thought out loud. ‘Here is the tea.’

The canteen server put the tray down on his desk; none of the canteen staff was particularly friendly with those who took their meals there; indeed, at times one wondered if they grudged handing over the plates of food, and the girl who had come in was not one of Julie’s favourites—handing out, as she did, ill nature with meat and two veg. Now, miraculously, she was actually smiling. Not at Julie, of course, and when he thanked her politely she muttered, ‘No trouble, sir; any time. I can always pop along with something.’

The professor sat down behind his desk. ‘Come and pour out,’ he suggested, ‘and let us mull over tomorrow’s schedule.’ He handed her the toast and bit hugely into his. ‘What an obliging girl.’

‘Huh,’ said Julie. ‘She practically throws our dinners at us. But then, of course, you’re a man.’

‘Er—yes; presumably you think that makes a difference?’

‘Of course it does.’ Perhaps she wasn’t being quite polite; she added ‘sir’.

They had little to say to each other; indeed, he made a couple of phone calls while he polished off the toast, and when they had had second cups he said, ‘Off you go, Miss Beckworth; I’ll see you in the morning.’

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN Julie got home they were all waiting to hear how she had got on.

‘At least he didn’t keep you late,’ observed her mother. ‘Is he nice?’ By which she meant was he good-looking, young and liable to fall in love with Julie?

‘Abrupt, immersed in his work, likes things done at once, very nice with his patients—’

‘Old?’ Mrs Beckworth tried hard to sound casual.

‘Getting on for forty, perhaps thirty-five; it’s hard to tell.’ Julie took pity on her mother. ‘He’s very good-looking, very large, and I imagine the nurses are all agog.’

‘Not married?’ asked her mother hopefully.

‘I don’t know, Mother, and I doubt if I ever shall; he’s not chatty.’

‘Sounds OK to me,’ said Luscombe, ‘even if he’s foreign.’

Esme had joined the inquisition. ‘He’s Dutch; does he talk with a funny accent?’

‘No accent at all—well, yes, perhaps you can hear that he’s not English, but only because he speaks it so well, if you see what I mean.’

‘A gent?’ said Luscombe.

‘Well, yes, and frightfully clever, I believe. I dare say that once we’ve got used to each other we shall get on very well.’

‘What do you call him?’ asked Esme.

‘Professor or sir...’

‘What does he call you?’

‘Miss Beckworth.’

Esme hooted with laughter. ‘Julie, that makes you sound like an elderly spinster. I bet he wears glasses...’

‘As a matter of fact he does—for reading.’

‘He sounds pretty stuffy,’ said Esme. ‘Can we have tea now that Julie’s home?’

‘On the table in two ticks,’ said Luscombe, and went back to the kitchen to fetch the macaroni cheese—for tea for the Beckworths was that unfashionable meal, high tea—a mixture of supper and tea taken at the hour of half past six, starting with a cooked dish, going on to bread and butter and cheese or sandwiches, jam and scones, and accompanied by a large pot of tea.

Only on Sundays did they have afternoon tea, and supper at a later hour. And if there were guests—friends or members of the family—then a splendid dinner was conjured up by Luscombe; the silver was polished, the glasses sparkled and a splendid damask cloth that Mrs Beckworth cherished was brought out. They might be poor but no one needed to know that.

Now they sat around the table, enjoying Luscombe’s good food, gossiping cheerfully, and if they still missed the scholarly man who had died so suddenly they kept that hidden. Sometimes, Julie reflected, three years seemed a long time, but her father was as clear in her mind as if he were living, and she knew that her mother and Esme felt the same. She had no doubt that the faithful Luscombe felt the same way, too.

She had hoped that after the professor’s offer of tea and toast he would show a more friendly face, but she was to be disappointed. His ‘Good morning, Miss Beckworth’ returned her, figuratively speaking, to arm’s length once more. Of course, after Professor Smythe’s avuncular ‘Hello, Julie’ it was strange to be addressed as Miss Beckworth. Almost everyone in the hospital called her Julie; she hoped that he might realise that and follow suit.

He worked her hard, but since he worked just as hard, if not harder, himself she had no cause for complaint. Several days passed in uneasy politeness—cold on his part, puzzled on hers. She would get used to him, she told herself one afternoon, taking his rapid dictation, and glanced up to find him staring at her. ‘Rather as though I was something dangerous and ready to explode,’ she explained to her mother later.

‘Probably deep in thought and miles away,’ said Mrs Beckworth, and Julie had to agree.

There was no more tea and toast; he sent her home punctiliously at half past five each day and she supposed that he worked late at his desk clearing up the paperwork, for much of his day was spent on the wards or in consultation. He had a private practice too, and since he was absent during the early afternoons she supposed that he saw those patients then. A busy day, but hers was busy too.

Of course, she was cross-examined about him each time she went to the canteen, but she had nothing to tell—and even if she had had she was discreet and loyal and would not have told. Let the man keep his private life to himself, she thought.

Professor van der Driesma, half-aware of the interest in him at St Bravo’s, ignored it. He was a haematologist first and last, and other interests paled beside his deep interest in his work and his patients. He did have other interests, of course: a charming little mews cottage behind a quiet, tree-lined street and another cottage near Henley, its little back garden running down to the river, and, in Holland, other homes and his family home.

He had friends too, any number of them, as well as his own family. His life was full and he had pushed the idea of marriage aside for the time being. No one—no woman—had stirred his heart since he had fallen in love as a very young man to be rejected for an older one, already wealthy and high in his profession. He had got over the love years ago—indeed he couldn’t imagine now what he had seen in the girl—but her rejection had sown the seeds of a determination to excel at his work.

Now he had fulfilled that ambition, but in the meantime he had grown wary of the pretty girls whom his friends were forever introducing him to; he wanted more than a pretty girl—he wanted an intelligent companion, someone who knew how to run his home, someone who would fit in with his friends, know how to entertain them, would remove from him the petty burden of social life. She would need to be good-looking and elegant and dress well too, and bring up their children...

He paused there. There was no such woman, of course; he wanted perfection and there was, he decided cynically, no such thing in a woman; he would eventually have to make the best of it with the nearest to his ideal.

These thoughts, naturally enough, he kept to himself; no one meeting him at a dinner party or small social gathering would have guessed that behind his bland, handsome face he was hoping that he might meet the woman he wanted to marry. In the meantime there was always his work.

Which meant that there was work for Julie too; he kept her beautiful nose to the grindstone, but never thoughtlessly; she went home punctually each evening—something she had seldom done with Professor Smythe. He also saw to it that she had her coffee-break, her midday dinner and her cup of tea at three o’clock, but between these respites he worked her hard.

She didn’t mind; indeed, she found it very much to her taste as, unlike his predecessor, he was a man of excellent memory, as tidy as any medical man was ever likely to be, and not given to idle talk. It would be nice, she reflected, watching his enormous back going through the door, if he dropped the occasional word other than some diabolical medical term that she couldn’t spell. Still, they got on tolerably well, she supposed. Perhaps at a suitable occasion she might suggest that he stopped calling her Miss Beckworth... At Christmas, perhaps, when the entire hospital was swamped with the Christmas spirit.

It was during their second week of uneasy association that he told her that he would be going to Holland at the weekend. She wasn’t surprised at that, for he had international renown, but she was surprised to find a quick flash of regret that he was going away; she supposed that she had got used to the silent figure at his desk or his disappearing for hours on end to return wanting something impossible at the drop of a hat. She said inanely, ‘How nice—nice for you, sir.’

‘I shall be working,’ he told her austerely. ‘And do not suppose that you will have time to do more than work either.’

‘Why do you say that, Professor? Do you intend leaving me a desk piled high?’ Her delightful bosom swelled with annoyance. ‘I can assure you that I shall have plenty to do...’

‘You misunderstand me, Miss Beckworth; you will be going with me. I have a series of lectures to give and I have been asked to visit two hospitals and attend a seminar. You will take any notes I require and type them up.’

She goggled at him. ‘Will I?’ She added coldly, ‘And am I to arrange for our travel and where we are to stay and transport?’

He sat back at ease. ‘No, no. That will all be attended to; all you will need will be a portable computer and your notebook and pencil. You will be collected from your home at nine o’clock on Saturday morning. I trust you will be ready at that time.’

‘Oh, I’ll be ready,’ said Julie, and walked over to his desk to stand before it looking at him. ‘It would have been nice to have been asked,’ she observed with a snap. ‘I do have a life beyond these walls, you know.’

With which telling words she walked into her own office and shut the door. There was a pile of work on her desk; she ignored it. She had been silly to lose her temper; it might cost her her job. But she wasn’t going to apologise.

‘I will not be ordered about; I wouldn’t talk to Blotto in such a manner.’ She had spoken out loud and the professor’s answer took her by surprise.

‘My dear Miss Beckworth, I have hurt your feelings. I do apologise; I had no intention of ruffling your temper.’ A speech which did nothing to improve matters.

‘That’s all right,’ said Julie, still coldly.

She was formulating a nasty remark about slavedrivers when he asked, ‘Who or what is Blotto? Who, I presume, is treated with more courtesy than I show you.’

He had come round her desk and was sitting on its edge, upsetting the papers there. He was smiling at her too. She had great difficulty in not smiling back. ‘Blotto is the family dog,’ she told him, and looked away.

Professor van der Driesma was a kind man but he had so immersed himself in his work that he also wore an armour of indifference nicely mitigated by good manners. Now he set himself to restore Julie’s good humour.

‘I dare say that you travelled with Professor Smythe from time to time, so you will know what to take with you and the normal routine of such journeys...’

‘I have been to Bristol, Birmingham and Edinburgh with Professor Smythe,’ said Julie, still icily polite.

‘Amsterdam, Leiden and Groningen, where we shall be going, are really not much farther away from London. I have to cram a good deal of work into four or five days; I must depend upon your support, which I find quite admirable.’

‘I don’t need to be buttered up,’ said Julie, her temper as fiery as her hair. ‘It’s my job.’

‘My dear Miss Beckworth, I shall forget that remark. I merely give praise where praise is due.’ His voice was mild and he hid a smile. Julie really was a lovely girl but as prickly as a thorn-bush. Highly efficient too—everything that Professor Smythe had said of her; to have her ask for a transfer and leave him at the mercy of some chit of a girl... The idea was unthinkable. He observed casually, ‘I shall, of course, be occupied for most of my days, but there will be time for you to do some sightseeing.’

It was tempting bait; a few days in another country, being a foreigner in another land—even with the professor for company it would be a nice change. Besides, she reminded herself, she had no choice; she worked for him and was expected to do as she was bid. She had, she supposed, behaved badly. She looked up at him. ‘Of course I’ll be ready to go with you, sir. I’m—I’m sorry I was a little taken aback; it was unexpected.’

He got off the desk. ‘I am at times very forgetful,’ he told her gravely. ‘You had better bring a raincoat and an umbrella with you; it will probably rain. Let me have those notes as soon as possible, will you? I shall be up on the ward if I’m wanted.’

She would have to work like a maniac if she was to finish by half past five, she thought, but Julie sat for a few minutes, her head filled with the important problem of what clothes to take with her. Would she go out at all socially? She had few clothes, although those she had were elegant and timeless in style; blouses, she thought, the skirt she had on, the corduroy jacket that she’d bought only a few weeks ago, just in case it was needed, a dress... Her eyes lighted on the clock and she left her pleasant thoughts for some hard work.

She told her mother as soon as she got home and within minutes Esme and Luscombe had joined them to hear the news.

‘Clothes?’ said Mrs Beckworth at once. ‘You ought to have one of those severe suits with padded shoulders; the women on TV wear them all the time; they look like businessmen.’

‘I’m not a businessman, Mother, dear! And I’d hate to wear one. I’ve got that dark brown corduroy jacket and this skirt—a pleated green and brown check. I’ll take a dress and a blouse for each day...’

‘Take that smoky blue dress—the one you’ve had for years,’ said Esme at once. ‘It’s so old it’s fashionable again. Will you go out a lot—restaurants and dancing? Perhaps he’ll take you to a nightclub.’

‘The professor? I should imagine that wild horses wouldn’t drag him into one. And of course he won’t take me out. I’ll have piles of work to do and he says he will be fully occupied each day.’

‘You might meet a man,’ observed Esme. ‘You know—and he’ll be keen on you and take you out in the evenings. The professor can’t expect you to work all the time.’

‘I rather fancy that’s just what he does expect. But it’ll be fun and I’ll bring you all back something really Dutch. Blotto too.’

She had two days in which to get herself ready, which meant that each evening she was kept busy—washing her abundant hair, doing her nails, pressing the blouses, packing a case.

‘Put in a woolly,’ suggested her mother, peering over her shoulder. ‘Two—that nice leaf-brown cardigan you had for Christmas last year and the green sweater.’ She frowned. ‘You’re sure we can’t afford one of those suits?’

‘Positive. I’ll do very well with what I’ve got, and if Professor van der Driesma doesn’t approve that’s just too bad. Anyway, he won’t notice.’

In this she was mistaken; his polite, uninterested glance as she opened the door to him on Saturday morning took in every small detail. He had to concede that although she looked businesslike she also looked feminine; with a lovely face such as hers she should be able to find herself an eligible husband...

He gave her a ‘good morning,’ unsmiling, was charming to her mother when he was introduced, and smiled at Esme’s eager, ‘You’ll give Julie time to send some postcards, won’t you?’ He picked up Julie’s case and was brought to a halt by Esme. ‘Don’t you get tired of seeing all that blood? Isn’t it very messy?’

Mrs Beckworth’s shocked ‘Esme’ was ignored.

‘Well, I’m only asking,’ said Esme.

The professor put the case down. ‘There is almost no blood,’ he said apologetically. ‘Just small samples in small tubes and, more importantly, the condition of the patient—whether they’re pale or yellow or red in the face. How ill they feel, how they look.’