A Christmas Romance (3 page)

She filled their hot-water bottles, too, and popped them into their beds. Neither of them approved of what they called the soft modern way of living—indeed, they seemed to enjoy their spartan way of living—but Theodosia’s warm heart wished them to be warm at least.

The professor arrived at exactly half past six and Theodosia, admitting him, asked rather shyly if he would care to meet her aunts, and led the way to the drawing room.

Great-Aunt Jessica greeted him graciously and Great-Aunt Mary less so; there was no beard, though she could find no fault with his beautiful manners. He was offered refreshment, which he declined with the right amount of regret, then he assured the old ladies that he
would drive carefully, expressed pleasure at having met them, picked up Gustavus’s basket and Theodosia’s bag and took his leave, sweeping her effortlessly before him.

The aunts, in total approval of him, accompanied them to the door with the wish, given in Great-Aunt Jessica’s rather commanding voice, that he might visit them again. ‘You will be most welcome when you come again with Theodosia,’ she told him.

Theodosia wished herself anywhere but where she was, sitting beside him in his car again. After a silence which lasted too long she said, ‘My aunts are getting old. I did explain that I had accepted a lift from you, that I didn’t actually know you, but that you are at the hospital …’

The professor had left the village behind, making for the main road. He said impassively, ‘It is only natural that they should wish to know who I am. And who knows? I might have the occasion to come this way again.’

Which somehow made everything all right again. In any case she had discovered it was hard to feel shy or awkward with him. ‘Did you enjoy your weekend?’ she wanted to know.

‘Very much. And you? A couple of quiet days away from the hospital can be just what one needs from time to time.’

Perhaps not quite as quiet as two days with the great-aunts, reflected Theodosia, and felt ashamed for thinking it for they must find her visits tiresome, upsetting their quiet lives.

‘Shall we stop for a meal?’ asked the professor. ‘Unless you’re anxious to get back? There is a good place at Great Dunmow. I’ll have to go straight to the hospital and won’t have time to eat.’

‘You don’t have to work on a Sunday evening?’ asked Theodosia, quite shocked.

‘No, no, but I want to check on a patient—Mrs Bennett. It will probably be late by the time I get home.’

‘Well, of course we must stop,’ said
Theodosia. ‘You can’t go without your meals, especially when you work all hours.’ She added honestly, ‘I’m quite hungry, too.’

‘Splendid. I could hardly eat a steak while you nibbled at a lettuce leaf.’

He stopped in the market place at Great Dunmow and ushered her into the Starr restaurant. It was a pleasing place, warm and very welcoming, and the food was splendid. While the professor ate his steak, Theodosia enjoyed a grilled sole, and they both agreed that the bread and butter pudding which followed was perfection. They lingered over coffee until Theodosia said, ‘We really ought to go or you’ll never get to bed tonight, not if you are going to see your patient when we get back. It’s after nine o’clock …’

The professor ignored the time for he was enjoying himself; Theodosia was good company. She was outspoken, which amused him, and, unlike other girls in his acquaintance, she was content with her lot and happy.
And she made him laugh. It was a pity that once they got back to London he would probably not see her again; their paths were unlikely to cross.

The rest of their journey went too swiftly; he listened to Theodosia’s cheerful voice giving her opinion on this, that and the other, and reflected that she hadn’t once talked about herself. When they reached Mrs Towzer’s house, he got out, opened her car door, collected Gustavus in his basket and her bag and followed her up the stairs to her attic. He didn’t go in—she hadn’t invited him anyway—but she offered a hand and thanked him for her supper and the journey. ‘I enjoyed every minute of it,’ she assured him, looking up at him with her gentle grey eyes. ‘And I do hope you won’t be too late going to bed. You need your rest.’

He smiled then, bade her a quiet goodnight, and went away, back down the stairs.

M
ONDAY
morning again, and a cold one. Theodosia, going shivering to the bathroom on the floor below, envied Gustavus, curled up cosily on the divan. And there was a cold sleet falling as she went to work. A cheerful girl by nature, Theodosia was hard put to view the day ahead with any equanimity. But there was something to look forward to, she reminded herself; the hospital ball was to be held on Saturday and she was going with several of the clerical staff of the hospital.

She hadn’t expected that she would be asked to go with any of the student doctors or the young men who worked in the wages department. She was on good terms with them all but there were any number of pretty girls from
whom they could choose partners. All the same, when she had gone to earlier years’ balls, she had had partners enough for she danced well.

She would need a new dress; she had worn the only one she had on three successive years. She pondered the problem during the day. She couldn’t afford a new dress—that was quite out of the question—but someone had told her that the Oxfam shops in the more fashionable shopping streets quite often yielded treasures …

On Tuesday, she skipped her midday dinner, begged an extra hour of Miss Prescott and took a bus to Oxford Street.

The professor, caught in a traffic jam and inured to delays, passed the time glancing idly around him. There was plenty to catch his eye; shoppers thronged the pavement and the shop windows were brilliantly lighted. It was the sight of a gleaming ginger head of hair which
caught his attention. There surely weren’t two girls with hair that colour …?

The Oxfam lights were of the no-nonsense variety; the shopper could see what he or she was buying. Theodosia, plucking a dove-grey dress off the rails, took it to the window to inspect it better and he watched her as she examined it carefully—the label, the price tag, the seams … It was a pity that the traffic moved at last and he drove on, aware of an unexpected concern that she should be forced to buy someone else’s dress.

Theodosia, happily unaware that she had been seen, took the dress home that evening, tried it on and nipped down to the bathroom where there was a full-length mirror. It would do; she would have to take it in here and there and the neck was too low. She brought out her work basket, found a needle and thread and set to. She was handy with her needle but it took a couple of evenings’ work till she was satisfied that it would pass muster.

It wasn’t as though she was going with a partner, she reminded herself. There would be a great many people there; no one would notice her. Miss Prescott would be going, of course, but any mention of the ball during working hours was sternly rebuked and when Theodosia had asked her what she would be wearing she’d been told not to be impertinent. Theodosia, who had meant it kindly, felt hurt.

She dressed carefully on Saturday evening. The grey dress, viewed in the bathroom looking-glass by the low-wattage bulb, looked all right. A pity she couldn’t have afforded a pair of those strappy sandals. Her slippers were silver kid and out of date but at least they were comfortable. She gave Gustavus his supper, made sure that he was warm and comfortable on the divan, and walked to the hospital wrapped in her winter coat and, since it was drizzling, sheltered under her umbrella.

The hospital courtyard was packed with cars for this was an evening when the hospital Board of Governers and their wives, the local Mayor and his wife and those dignitaries who were in some way connected to St Alwyn’s came to grace the occasion. Theodosia slipped in through a side door, found her friends, left her coat with theirs in a small room the cleaners used to store their buckets and brooms and went with them to the Assembly Hall where the ball was already under way.

It looked very festive, with paper chains and a Christmas tree in a corner of the stage where the orchestra was. There were balloons and holly and coloured lights and already there were a great many people dancing. Once there, one by one her friends were claimed and she herself was swept onto the dance floor by one of the technicians from the path lab. She didn’t know him well and he was a shocking dancer but it was better than hovering on the fringe of the dancers, looking
as though dancing was the last thing one wanted to do.

When the band stopped, one of the students with whom she had passed the time of day occasionally claimed her. It was a slow foxtrot and he had time to tell her about the postmortem he had attended that morning. She listened carefully, feeling slightly sick, but aware that he was longing to talk about it to someone. There were several encores, so that it was possible for him to relate the very last of the horrid details. When the band stopped finally and he offered to fetch her a drink she accepted thankfully.

She had seen the professor at once, dancing with an elegantly dressed woman, and then again with the sister from Women’s Medical and for a third time with the Mayor’s wife.

And he had seen her, for there was no mistaking that gingery head of hair. When he had danced with all the ladies he was expected to dance with, he made his way round the dancers
until he came upon her, eating an ice in the company of the hospital engineer.

He greeted them both pleasantly, and after a few moments of talk with the engineer swept her onto the dance floor.

‘You should ask me first,’ said Theodosia.

‘You might have refused! Are you enjoying yourself?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ And she was, for he danced well and they were slow foxtrotting again. The hospital dignitaries wouldn’t allow any modern dancing; there was no dignity in prancing around waving arms and flinging oneself about … but foxtrotting with a woman you liked was very satisfying, he reflected.

The professor, his eye trained to see details at a glance, had recognised the grey dress. It was pretty in a demure way but it wasn’t her size. He could see the tucks she had taken on the shoulders to make a better fit and the neat seams she had taken in at the waist. It would be a pleasure to take her to a good dress shop and buy her
clothes which fitted her person and which were new. He smiled at the absurd thought and asked her with impersonal kindness if she was looking forward to Christmas.

‘Oh, yes, and it will be three days this year because of Sunday coming in between.’ She sounded more enthusiastic than she felt; three days with the aunts wasn’t a very thrilling prospect, but she reminded herself that that was ungrateful. She added, by way of apology for thinking unkindly of them, ‘The great-aunts enjoy an old-fashioned Christmas.’

He could make what he liked of that; it conjured up pictures of a lighted Christmas tree, masses of food and lots of presents; with a party on Boxing Day …

She underestimated the professor’s good sense; he had a very shrewd idea what her Christmas would be like. He glanced down at the ginger topknot. It would be a mistake to pity her; she had no need of that. He had never met anyone so content with life and so willing
to be happy as she, but he found himself wishing that her Christmas might be different.

He resisted the urge to dance with her for the rest of the evening, handed her back to the engineer and spent the next few moments in cheerful talk before leaving her there.

It was at the end of the evening that he went looking for her amongst the milling crowd making their way out of the hospital. She was on her way out of the entrance when he found her. He touched her arm lightly.

‘Come along; the car’s close by.’

‘There’s no need … It’s only a short walk … I really don’t …’ She could have saved her breath; she was propelled gently along away from the crowded forecourt, stuffed tidily into the car and told to fasten her seat belt. It was only as he turned out of the forecourt into the street that she tried again. ‘This is quite …’

‘You’re wasting your breath, Theodosia.’ And he had nothing more to say until they reached Mrs Towzer’s house. No lights were
on, of course, and the rather shabby street looked a bit scary in the dark; walking back on her own wouldn’t have been very nice …

He got out, opened her door and took the key she had ready in her hand from her, opened the door silently and switched on the dim light in the hall.

Theodosia held out a hand for the key and whispered, ‘Thank you for the lift. Goodnight.’ And took off her shoes.

The professor closed the door without a sound, picked up her shoes and trod silently behind her as she went upstairs. She was afraid that he might make a noise but he didn’t and she had to confess that it was comforting to have him there. Mrs Towzer, with an eye to economy, had installed landing lights which switched off unless one was nippy between landings.

At her own door he took her key, opened the door and switched on the light, gave her back her key and stood aside for her to pass him.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Theodosia, still
whispering. ‘Do be careful going downstairs or you’ll be left in the dark, and you will shut the street door?’

The professor assured her in a voice as quiet as her own that he would be careful, and bade her goodnight, pushed her gently into the room and closed the door. Back in his car he wondered why he hadn’t kissed her; he had very much wanted to.

As for Theodosia, tumbling into bed presently, hugging a tolerant Gustavus, her sleepy head was full of a jumble of delightful thoughts, all of them concerning the professor.

Going for a brisk walk in Victoria Park the following afternoon, she told herself that he had just happened to be there and that common politeness had forced him to give her a lift back. She went home and had a good tea then went to evensong, to pray there for a happy week ahead!

She wasn’t sure if it was an answer to her prayers when she received a letter from
Great-Aunt Jessica in the morning. She was asked to go to Fortnum & Mason and purchase the items on the enclosed list. ‘And you may bring them down next weekend,’ wrote her aunt.

Theodosia studied the list: ham on the bone, Gentleman’s Relish, smoked salmon, brandy butter, a Stilton cheese, Bath Oliver biscuits,
marrons glacés
, Earl Grey tea, coffee beans, peaches in brandy … Her week’s wages would barely pay for them, not that she could afford to do that. She peered into the envelope in the forlorn hope of finding a cheque or at least a few bank notes but it was empty. She would have to go to the bank and draw out the small amount of money she had so painstakingly saved. If she skipped her midday dinner she would have time to go to the bank. Great-Aunt Jessica would pay her at the weekend and she could put it back into her account.

It wasn’t until Wednesday that she had the opportunity to miss her dinner. There was no
time to spare, so she hurtled down to the entrance, intent on getting a bus.

The professor, on his way to his car, saw her almost running across the forecourt and cut her off neatly before she could reach the street. She stopped in full flight, unable to get past his massive person.

Theodosia said, ‘Hello, Professor,’ and then added, ‘I can’t stop …’

A futile remark with his hand holding her firmly. ‘If you’re in a hurry, I’ll drive you. You can’t run to wherever you’re going like that.’

‘Yes, I can …’

‘Where to?’

She had no need to answer his question yet she did. ‘The bank and then Fortnum & Mason.’

He turned her round and walked her over to his car. Once inside he said, ‘Now tell me why you are in such a hurry to do this.’

He probably used that gentle, compelling voice on his patients, and Theodosia felt compelled once more to answer him. She did so in
a rather disjointed manner. ‘So, you see, if you don’t mind I must catch a bus …’

‘I do mind. What exactly do you have to buy?’

She gave him the list. ‘You see, everything on it is rather expensive and, of course, Great-Aunt Jessica doesn’t bother much about money. She’ll pay me at the weekend. That’s why I have to go to the bank.’

‘That will take up too much time,’ said the professor smoothly. ‘We will go straight to Fortnum & Mason; I’ll pay for these and your aunt can pay me. It just so happens,’ he went on in a voice to convince a High Court judge, ‘that I am going to Braintree again on Saturday. I’ll give you a lift and deliver these things at the same time.’

Theodosia opened her mouth to speak, shut it again and then said, ‘But isn’t this your lunch hour?’

‘Most fortunately, yes; now, let us get this shopping down.’

‘Well, if you think it is all right?’

‘Perfectly all right and sensible.’

Once there he ushered her in, handed her list over to a polite young man with the request to have the items packed up and ready within the next half an hour or so, and steered her to the restaurant.

‘The food department will see to it all,’ he told her. ‘So much quicker and in the meantime we can have something to eat.’

Theodosia found her tongue. ‘But ought I not to choose everything?’

‘No, no. Leave everything to the experts; that’s what they are here for. Now, what would you like? We have about half an hour. An omelette with French fries and a salad and a glass of white wine?’

It was a delicious meal and all the more delicious because it was unexpected. Theodosia, still breathless from the speed with which the professor had organised everything, and not sure if she hadn’t been reckless in allowing him to take over in such a high-handed
manner, decided to enjoy herself. This was a treat, something which seldom came her way.

So she ate her lunch, drank the wine and a cup of coffee and followed him back to the food hall, to find a box neatly packed and borne out to the car by the doorman. She was ushered into the car, too, and told to wait while the professor went back to pay the bill and tip the doorman.

‘How much was it?’ asked Theodosia anxiously as he got in beside her.

‘Would it be a good idea,’ suggested the professor carefully, ‘if I kept this food at my house? There’s not any need to unpack it; everything on the list is there and I have the receipted bill.’

‘But why should you do that? It may be a great nuisance for you or your wife …’

‘I’m not married, and my housekeeper will stow it safely away until Saturday.’