ROMANTIC ENCOUNTER
by
BETTY NEELS

MILLS <sl B 0 0 Nfl

CHAPTER ONE

florence, cleaning the upstairs windows of the vicarage, heard the car
coming up the lane and, when it slowed, poked her head over the top
sash to see whom it might be.  The elegant dark grey Rolls-Royce,
sliding to a halt before her father's front door, was unexpected enough
to cause her to lean her splendid person even further out of the window
so that she might see who was in it.  The passenger got out and she
recognised him at once.  Mr.  Wilkins, the consultant surgeon she had
worked for before she had left the hospital in order to look after her
mother and run the house until she was well again--a lengthy business
of almost a year.  Perhaps he had come to see if she was ready to
return to her ward; unlikely, though, for it had been made clear to her
that her post would be filled and she would have to take her chance at
getting whatever was offered if she wanted to go to work at Colbert's
again;

besides, a senior consultant wouldn't come traipsing after a ward
sister.  The driver of the car was getting out, a very tall, large man
with pepper and salt hair.  He stood for a moment, looking around him,
waiting for Mr.  Wilkins to join him, and then looked up at her.  His
air of amused surprise sent her back inside again, banging

6 ROMANTIC ENCOUNTER

her head as she went, but she was forced to lean out again when Mr.
Wilkins caught sight of her and called up to her to come down and let
them in.

There was no time to do more than wrench the clean duster off her fiery
hair.  She went down to the hall and opened the door.

Mr.  Wilkins greeted her jovially.

"How are you after all these months?"

he enquired; he eyed the apron bunched over an elderly skirt and
jumper.

"I do hope we haven't called at an inconvenient time?"

Florence's smile was frosty.

"Not at all, sir, we are spring-cleaning."

Mr.  Wilkins, who lived in a house with so many gadgets that it never
needed spring-cleaning, looked interested.

"Are you really?  But you'll spare us a moment to talk, I hope?  May I
introduce Mr.  Fitzgibbon?"  He turned to his companion.

"This is Florence Napier."

She offered a rather soapy hand and had it engulfed in his large one.

His, "How do you do?"  was spoken gravely, but she felt that he was
amused again, and no wonder she must look a fright.

Which, of course, she did, but a beautiful fright;

nothing could dim the glory of her copper hair, tied back carelessly
with a boot-lace, and nothing could detract from her lovely face and
big blue eyes with their golden lashes.  She gave him a cool look and
saw that his eyes were grey and intent, so she looked away quickly and
addressed herself to Mr.  Wilkins.

"Do come into the drawing-room.  Mother's in the

BETTY NE ELS 7

garden with the boys, and Father's writing his sermon.  Would you like
to have some coffee?  "

She ushered them into the big, rather shabby room, its windows open on
to the mild April morning.

"Do sit down," she begged them.

"I'll let Mother know that you're here and fetch in the coffee."

"It is you we have come to see, Florence," said Mr.  Wilkins.

Me?  Oh, well--all the same, I'm sure Mother will want to meet you. 
"

She opened the old-fashioned window wide and jumped neatly over the
sill with the un selfconsciousness of a child, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon's
firm mouth twitched at the corners.

"She's very professional on the ward," observed Mr.  Wilkins, 'and very
neat.  Of course, if she's cleaning the house I suppose she gets a
little untidy.  "

Mr.  Fitzgibbon agreed blandly and then stood up as Florence returned,
this time with her mother and using the door.  Mrs.  Napier was small
and slim and pretty, and still a little frail after her long illness.

Florence made the introductions, settled her mother in a chair and went
away to make the coffee.

"Oo's that, then?"  asked Mrs.  Buckett, who came up twice a week from
the village to do the rough, and after years of faithful service
considered herself one of the family.

"The surgeon I worked for at Colbert's--and he's brought a friend with
him."

"What for?"

"I've no idea.  Be a dear and put the kettle on while I lay a tray.

I'll let you know as soon as I can find out.  "

While the kettle boiled she took off her apron, tugged the jumper into
shape and poked at her hair.

"Not that it matters," she told Mrs.  Buckett.

"I looked an absolute frump when they arrived."

"Go on with yer, love--you couldn't look a frump if you tried.  Only
yer could wash yer 'ands."

Florence had almost decided that she didn't like Mr.  Fitzgibbon, but
she had to admit that his manners were nice.  He got up and took the
tray from her and didn't sit down again until she was sitting
herself.

His bedside manner would be impeccable.  They drank their coffee and
made small talk, but not for long.  Her mother put her cup down and got
to her feet.

"Mr.  Wilkins tells me that he wants to talk to you, Florence, and I
would like to go back to the garden and see what the boys are doing
with the cold frame."

She shook hands and went out of the room, and they all sat down
again.

"Your mother is well enough for you to return to work, Florence?"

"Yes.  Dr.  Collins saw her a few days ago.  I must find someone to
come in for an hour or two each day, but I must find a job first."  She
saw that Mr.  Wilkins couldn't see the sense of that, but Mr. 
Fitzgibbon had understood at once, although he didn't speak.

"Yes, yes, of course," said Mr.  Wilkins briskly.

"Well, I've nothing for you, I'm afraid, but Mr.  Fitzgibbon has."

"I shall need a nurse at my consulting-rooms in two weeks' time.  I
mentioned it to Mr.  Wilkins, and he remembered you and assures me that
you would suit me very well."

What about you suiting me?  reflected Florence, and went a little pink
because he was staring at her in that amused fashion again, reading her
thoughts.

"I don't know anything about that sort of nursing," she said, "I've
always worked in hospital; I'm not sure " Do not imagine that the job
is a sinecure.  I have a large practice and I operate in a number of
hospitals, special ising in chest surgery.

My present nurse accompanies me and scrubs for the cases, but perhaps
you don't feel up to that?  "

"I've done a good deal of Theatre work, Mr.  Fitzgibbon," said
Florence, nettled.

"In that case, I think that you might find the job interesting.  You
would be free at the weekends, al though I should warn you that I am
occasionally called away at such times and you would need to hold your
self in readiness to accompany me.  My rooms are in Wimpole Street, and
Sister Brice has lodgings close by.  I suppose you might take them over
if they suited you.  As to salary..."

He mentioned a sum which caused her pretty mouth to drop open.

"That's a great deal more " Of course it is; you would be doing a great
deal more work and your hours will have to fit in with mine.  "

"This nurse who is leaving," began Florence.

"To get married."  His voice was silky.

"She has been with me for five years."  He gave her a considered
look.

"Think it over and let me know.

I'll give you a ring tomorrow shall we say around three o'clock?  "

She had the strong feeling that if she demurred at that he would still
telephone then, and expect her to answer, too.

"Very well, Mr.  Fitzgibbon," she said in a non-committal voice, at the
same time doing rapid and rather inaccurate sums in her head; the money
would be a godsend there would be enough to pay for extra help at the
vicarage, they needed a new set of sauce pans, and the washing-machine
had broken down again.  She bade the two gentlemen goodbye, smiling
nicely at Mr.  Wilkins, whom she liked, and giving Mr.  Fitzgibbon a
candid look as she shook hands.

He was very good-looking, with a high-bridged nose and a determined
chin and an air of self-possession.  He didn't smile as he said
goodbye.

Not an easy man to get to know, she decided, watching the Rolls sweep
through the vicarage gate.

When she went back indoors her mother had come in from the garden.

"He looked rather nice," she observed, obviously following a train of
thought.

"Why did he come, Florence?"

"He wants a nurse for his practice a private one, I gather.  Mr.
Wilkins recommended me."

"How kind, darling.  Just at the right moment, too.  It will save you
hunting around the hospitals and places..."

"I haven't said I'd take it, Mother."

"Why not, love?  I'm very well able to take over the household again is
the pay very bad?"

"It's very generous.  I'd have to live in London, but I'd be free every
weekend unless I was wanted Mr.  Fitzgibbon seems to get around
everywhere rather a lot; he specialises in chest surgery."

"Did Mr.  Wilkins offer you your old job back, darling?"

"No.  There's nothing for me at Colbert's..."

"Then, Florence, you must take this job.  It will make a nice change
and you'll probably meet nice people."  It was one of Mrs.  Napier's
small worries that her beautiful daughter seldom met men young men,
looking for a wife after all, she was five and twenty and, although the
housemen at the hospital took her out, none of them, as far as she
could make out, was of the marrying kind too young and no money.  Now,
a nice older man, well established and able to give Florence all the
things she had had to do without.  Mrs.  Napier enjoyed a brief
daydream.

"Is he married?"  she asked.

"I have no idea.  Mother.  I should think he might be--I mean, he's not
a young man, is he?"  Florence, collecting coffee-cups, wasn't very
interested.

"I'll talk to Father.  It might be a good idea if I took the job for a
time until there's a vacancy at Colbert's or one of the top teaching
hospitals.  I don't want to get out of date."

"Go and talk to your father now, dear."  Mrs.  Napier glanced at the
clock.

"Either by now he's finished his sermon, or he's got stuck.

He'll be glad of the interruption.  "

Mr.  Napier, when appealed to, giving the matter grave thought, decided
that Florence would be wise to take the job.

"I do not know this Mr.  Fitzgibbon," he observed, 'but if he is known
to Mr.  Wilkins he must be a dependable sort of chap!  The salary is a
generous one too.  not that you should take that into consideration,
Florence, if you dislike the idea.  "

She didn't point out that the salary was indeed a consideration.  With
the boys at school and then university, the vicar's modest stipend had
been whittled down to its minimum so that there would be money enough
for their future.  The vicar, a kind, good man, ready to give the coat
off his back to anyone in need, was nevertheless blind to broken-down
washing 3 machines, worn-out sauce-pans and the fact that his wife
hadn't had a new hat for more than a year.

"I like the idea, Father," said Florence robustly, 'and I can come home
at the weekend too.  I'll go and see Miss Payne in the village and
arrange for her to come in for an hour or so each day to give Mother a
hand.  Mrs.  Buckett can't do everything.  I'll pay it is really a very
generous salary.  "

"Will you be able to keep yourself in comfort, Florence?"

She assured him that she could perfectly well do that.

"And the lodgings his present nurse has will be vacant if I'd like to
take them."

"It sounds most suitable," said her father, 'but you must, of course,
do what you wish, my dear.  "

She wasn't at all sure what she did wish but she had plenty of common
sense; she needed to get a job and start earning money again, and she
had, by some lucky chance, been offered one without any effort on her
part.

When Mr.  Fitzgibbon telephoned the following day, precisely at three
o'clock, and asked her in his cool voice if she had considered his
offer, she accepted in a voice as cool as his own.

He didn't say that he was pleased.

"Then perhaps you will come up to town very shortly and talk to Sister
Brice.  Would next Monday be convenient in the early afternoon?"

"There is a train from Sherbome just after ten o'clock--I could be at
your rooms about one o'clock."

"That will suit Sister Brice very well.  You have the address and the
telephone number."

"Yes, thanks."

His, "Very well, goodbye.  Miss Napier," was abrupt, even if uttered
politely.

The Reverend Napier, his sermon written and nothing but choir practice
to occupy him, drove Florence into Sherbome to catch the morning train.
Gussage Tollard was a mere four miles to that town as the crow flew,
but, taking into account the elderly Austin and the winding lanes,
turning and twisting every hundred yards or so, the distance by car was
considerably more.

"Be sure and have a good lunch," advised her father.

"One can always get a good meal at Lyons."

Florence said that she would; her father went to London so rarely that
he lived comfortably in the past as regarded cafes, bus queues and the
like, and she had no intention of disillusioning him.

She bade him goodbye at the station, assured him that she would be on
the afternoon train from Waterloo, and was borne away to London.

She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich at Waterloo Station and queued
for a bus, got off at Oxford Circus, and, since she had a little time
to spare, looked at a few shops along Oxford Street before turning off
towards Wimpole Street.  The houses were dignified Regency, gleaming
with pristine paintwork and shining brass plates.

Number eighty-seven would be halfway down, she decided, and wondered
where the lodgings were that she might take over.  It was comparatively
quiet here and the sun was shining; after the bustle and the noise of
Oxford Street it was peaceful--as peaceful as one could be in London,
she amended, thinking of Gussage Tollard, which hadn't caught up with
the modern world yet, and a good thing too.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon, standing at the window of his consulting-room, his
hands in his pockets, watched her coming along the pavement below.

With a view to the sobriety of the occasion, she had shrouded a good
deal of her brilliant hair under a velvet cap which matched the subdued
tones of her French navy jacket and skirt.  She was wearing her good
shoes too; they pinched a little, but that was in a good cause.  She
glanced up as she reached the address she had been given, to see Mr.
Fitzgibbon staring down at her, unsmiling.  He looked out of temper,
and she stared back before mounting the few steps to the front door and
ringing the bell.  The salary he had offered was good, she reflected,
but she had a nasty feeling that he would be a hard master.

The door was opened by an elderly porter, who told her civilly that Mr.
Fitzgibbon's consulting-rooms were on the first floor and would she go
up?  Once on the landing above there was another door with its highly
polished bell, this time opened by a cosily plump middle-aged lady who
said in a friendly voice, "Ah, here you are.  I'm Mr.  Fitzgibbon's
receptionist Mrs.  Keane.  You're to go straight in..."

"I was to see Sister Brice," began Florence.

"Yes, dear, and so you shall.  But Mr.  Fitzgibbon wants to see you
now."

She added in an almost reverent voice, "He should be going to his
lunch, but he decided to see you first."

Florence thought of several answers to this but uttered none of them;

she needed the job too badly.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon had left the window and was sitting behind his desk. 
He got up as Mrs.  Keane showed her in and wished her a cool, "Good
afternoon, Miss Napier," and begged her to take a seat.  Once she was
sitting he was in no haste to speak.

Finally he said, "Sister Brice is at lunch; she will show you exactly
what your duties will be.  I suggest that you come on a month's trial,
and after that period I would ask you to give three months' notice
should you wish to leave.  I dislike changing my staff."

"You may not wish me to stay after a month," Florence pointed out in a
matter-of-fact voice.

"There is that possibility.  That can be discussed at the end of the
month.  You are agreeable to your working conditions?  I must warn you
that this is not a nine- to-five job; your personal life is of no
interest to me, but on no account must it infringe upon your work here.
I depend upon the loyalty of my staff."

She was tempted to observe that at the salary she was being offered she
was unlikely to be disloyal.  She said forthrightly, "I'm free to do
what I like and work where I wish; I like to go to my home whenever I
can, but otherwise I have no other interests."

"No prospects of marriage?"

She opened her beautiful eyes wide.

"Since you ask, no."

"I'm surprised.  I should like you to start let me see; Sister Brice
leaves at the end of next week, a Saturday.  Perhaps you will get
settled in on the Sunday and start work here on the Monday morning."

"That will suit me very well."  She did hide a smile at his surprised
look; he was probably used to having things his own way.

"Will it be possible for me to see the rooms I am to have?"

He said impatiently, "Yes, yes, why not?  Sister Brice can take you
there.  Are you spending the night in town?"

"No, I intend to go back on the five o'clock train from Waterloo."

There was a knock on the door and he called 'come in', and Sister Brice
put her head round the door and said cheerfully, "Shall I take over,
sir?"  She came into the room and shook Florence's hand.

The phone rang and Mr.  Fitzgibbon lifted the receiver

"Yes, please.

There's no one until three o'clock, is there?  I shall want you here
then.  "

He glanced at Florence.

"Goodbye, Miss Napier; I expect to see you a week on Monday morning."

Sister Brice closed the door gently behind them.

"He's marvelous to work for; you mustn't take any notice of his
abruptness."

"I shan't," said Florence.

"Where do we start?"

The consulting-rooms took up the whole of the first floor.  Besides Mr.
Fitzgibbon's room and the waiting- room, there was a very small,
well-equipped dressing- room, an examination-room leading from the
consulting-room, a cloakroom and a tiny kitchen.

"He likes his coffee around ten o'clock, but if he has a lot of
patients he'll not stop.  We get ours when we can.  I get here about
eight o'clock the first patient doesn't get here before half-past nine,
but everything has to be quite ready.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon quite often goes
to the hospital first and takes a look at new patients there;

he goes back there around noon or one o'clock and we have our lunch and
tidy up and so on, he comes back here about four o'clock unless he's
operating, and he sees patients until half-past five.  You do Theatre,
don't you?  He always has the same theatre sister at Colbert's, but if
he's operating at another hospital, doesn't matter where, he'll take
you with him to scrub.  "

"Another hospital in London?"

"Could be; more often than not it's Birmingham or Edinburgh or Bristol
I've been to Brussels several times, the Middle East, and a couple of
times to Berlin."

"I can't speak German..."

Sister Brice laughed.

"You don't need to be does all the talking; you just carry on as though
you were at Colbert's.  He did mention that occasionally you have to
miss a weekend?  It's made up to you, though."

She opened a cupboard with a key from her pocket.

"I've been very happy here and I shall miss the work, but it's a
full-time job and there's not much time over from it, certainly not if
one is married."

She was pulling out drawers.

"There's everything he needs for operating he likes his own instruments
and it's your job to see that they're all there and ready.  They get
put in this bag."

She glanced at her watch.

"There's time to go over to my room; you can meet Mrs.  Twist and see
if it'll suit you.  She gets your breakfast and cooks high tea about
half-past six.  There's a washing-machine and a telephone you may use.
She doesn't encourage what she calls gentlemen friends..."

"I haven't got any..."

"You're pretty enough to have half a dozen, if you don't mind my saying
so."

"Thank you.  I think I must be hard to please."

Mrs.  Twist lived in one of the narrow streets behind Wimpole Street,
not five minutes' walk away.  The house was small, one of a row, but it
was very clean and neat, rather like Mrs.  Twist small, too, and bony
with pepper and salt hair and a printed cotton pinny.  She eyed
Florence shrewdly with small blue eyes and led her upstairs to a room
overlooking the street, nicely furnished.

"Miss Brice 'as her breakfast downstairs, quarter to eight sharp," she
observed, 'the bathroom's across the landing, there's a machine for yer
smalls and yer can 'ang them out in the back garden.  I'll cook a meal
at half-past six of an evening, something 'of; if I'm out it'll be in
the oven.  Me and Miss Brice 'as never 'ad a cross word and I 'opes
we'll get on as nicely.  "

"Well, I hope so too, Mrs.  Twist.  This is a very nice room and I'm
sure I shall appreciate a meal each evening.  You must let me know if
there's anything--' " Be sure I will, Miss Napier; I'm one for speaking
out, but Mr.  Fitzgibbon told me you was a sensible, quiet-spoken young
lady, and what 'e says I'll believe.  "

Sister Brice was waiting downstairs in the prim front room.

"There's time to go back for half an hour," she pointed out.

"I'm ready for the first patient; Mr.  Fitzgibbon won't be back until
just before three o'clock, and Mrs.  Keane will already have got the
notes out."

They bade Mrs.  Twist goodbye and walked back to Wimpole Street, where
Mrs.  Keane was putting on the kettle.  Over cups of tea she and Sister
Brice covered the bare bones of Mr.  Fitzgibbon's information with a
wealth of their own, so that by the time Florence left she had a sound
idea of what she might expect.  Nothing like having a ward in the
hospital, she reflected on her way to the station.  She would have to
make her own routine and keep to it as much as possible, allowing for
Mr.  Fitzgibbon's demands upon her time.  All the same, she thought
that she would like it;

she was answerable to no one but herself and him, of course her bed
sitter was a good deal better than she had expected it to be, and there
was the added bonus of going home each weekend.  She spent the return
journey doing sums on the back of an envelope, and alighted at Sherbome
knowing that the saucepans and washing-machine need no longer be
pipe-dreams.  At the end of the month they would be installed in the
vicarage kitchen.  What was more, she would be able to refurbish her
spring wardrobe.

"Mr.  Fitzgibbon seems to be an employer of the highest order,"
observed her father when she recounted the day's doings to him.

She agreed, but what sort of a man was he?  she wondered; she still
wasn't sure if she liked him or not.

She spent the next two weeks in a burst of activity;

the spring-cleaning had to be finished, a lengthy job in the rambling
vicarage, and someone had to be found who would come each day for an
hour or so.  Mrs.  Buckett was a splendid worker but, although Mrs.
Napier was very nearly herself once more, there were tiresome tasks the
ironing, the shopping and the cooking to be dealt with.  Miss Payne, in
the village, who had recently lost her very old mother, was only too
glad to fill the post for a modest sum.

Florence packed the clothes she decided she would need, added one or
two of her more precious books and a batch of family photos to grace
the little mantelpiece in her bed sitter and, after a good deal of
thought, a long skirt and top suitable for an evening out.  It was
unlikely that she would need them, but one never knew.  When she had
been at the hospital she had never lacked invitations from various
members of the medical staff--usually a cinema and coffee and
sandwiches on the way home, occasionally a dinner in some popular
restaurant--but she had been at home now for nearly a year and she had
lost touch.  She hadn't minded; she was country born and bred and she
hadn't lost her heart to anyone.  Occasionally she remembered that she
was twenty-five and there was no sign of the man Mrs.  Buckett coyly
described as Mr.  Right.  Florence had the strong suspicion that Mrs.
Buckett's Mr.  Right and her own idea of him were two quite different
people.

She left home on the Sunday evening and, when it came to the actual
moment of departure, with reluctance.  The boys had gone back to school
and she wouldn't see them again until half-term, but there was the
Sunday school class she had always taken for her father, choir
practice, the various small duties her mother had had to give up while
she had been ill, and there was Charlie Brown, the family cat, and
Higgins, the elderly Labrador dog; she had become fond of them during
her stay at home.

"I'll be home next weekend," she told her mother bracingly, 'and I'll
phone you this evening.  " All the same, the sight of her father's
elderly greying figure waving from the platform as the train left made
her feel childishly forlorn.

Mrs.  Twist's home dispelled some of her feelings of strangeness. 
There was a tray of tea waiting for her in her room and the offer of
help if she should need it.

"And there is a bite of supper at eight o'clock, it being Sunday," said
Mrs.  Twist, 'and just this once you can use the phone downstairs.
There's a phone box just across the road that Miss Brice used.  "

Florence unpacked, arranged the photos and her bits and pieces, phoned
her mother to assure her in a cheerful voice that she had settled in
nicely and everything was fine, and then went down to her supper.

"Miss Brice was away for most weekends," said the landlady, 'but
sometimes she 'ad ter work, so we had a bite together.  "

So Florence ate her supper in the kitchen with Mrs.  Twist and listened
to that lady's comments upon her neighbours, the cost of everything and
her bad back.

"Miss Brice told Mr.  Fitzgibbon about it," she confided, 'and he was
ever so kind sent me to the 'ospital with a special note to a friend of
'is.

"E's ever so nice;

you'll like working for him.  "

"Oh, I'm sure I will," said Florence, secretly not at all sure about
it.

She arrived at the consulting-rooms well before time in the morning.  A
taciturn elderly man opened the door to her, nodded when she told him
who she was, and went to unlock Mr.  Fitzgibbon's own door.  The place
had been hoovered and dusted and there were fresh flowers in the vase
on the coffee-table.  Presumably Mr.  Fitzgibbon had a fairy godmother
who waved her wand and summoned cleaning ladies at unearthly hours.

She went through to the cloakroom and found her white uniform laid out
for her; there was a frilled muslin cap too.  He didn't agree with the
modern version of a nurse's uniform, and she registered approval as she
changed.  She clasped her navy belt with its silver buckle round her
neat waist and began a cautious survey of the premises, peering in
cupboards and drawers, making sure where everything was; Mr. 
Fitzgibbon wasn't a man to suffer fools gladly, she was sure, and she
had no intention of being caught out.

Mrs.  Keane arrived next, begged Florence to put on the kettle and
sorted out the notes of the patients who were expected.

"Time for a cup of tea," she explained.

"We'll be lucky if we get time for coffee this morning--there's old
Lady Trump coming, and even if we allow her twice as long as anyone
else she always holds everything up.  There's the phone, dear; answer
it, will you?"

Mr.  Fitzgibbon's voice, un flurried sounded in her ear.

"I shall be about fifteen minutes late.  Is Sister Napier there yet?"

"Yes," said Florence, slightly tartly, 'she is; she came at eight
o'clock sharp.  "

"The time we agreed upon?"  he asked silkily.

"I should warn you that I frown upon un punctuality

"In that case, Mr.  Fitzgibbon," said Florence sweetly, 'why don't you
have one of those clocking-in machines installed?  "

"I frown on impertinence too," said Mr.  Fitzgibbon, and hung up.

Mrs.  Keane had been listening; she didn't say any thing but went and
made the tea and sat down opposite Florence in the tiny kitchen.

"I'll tell you about the patients coming this morning.  One new case a
Mr.  Willoughby.  He's a CA, left lobe, sent to us by his doctor. Lives
somewhere in the Midlands retired.  The other three are back for
check-ups Lady Trump first; allow half an hour for her, and she needs a
lot of help getting undressed and dressed and so on.  Then there is
little Miss Powell, who had a lobectomy two months ago, and the last
one is a child, Susie Castle seven years old a fibro cystic It's not
for me to say, but I think it's a losing battle.  Such a dear child,
too."

She glanced at the clock.

"He'll be here in about two minutes..."

She was right; Mr.  Fitzgibbon came in quietly, wished them good
morning and went to his consulting- room.

"Take Mr.  Willoughby in," hissed Mrs.  Keane, 'and stand on the right
side of the door.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon will nod when he wants you to show
the patient into the examination-room.  If it's a man you go back into
the consulting-room unless he asks you to stay.  "

Florence adjusted her cap just so and took herself off to the
waiting-room in time to receive Mr.  Willoughby, a small, meek man, who
gave the impression that he had resigned himself to his fate.  An
opinion not shared by Mr.  Fitzgibbon, however.  Florence, watching
from her corner, had to allow that his quiet assured air convinced his
patient that it was by no means hopeless.

"This is a fairly common operation," he said soothingly 'and there is
no reason why you shouldn't live a normal life for some years to come.
Now, Sister will show you the examination-room, and I'll take a look.
Your own doctor seems to agree with me, and I think that you should
give yourself a chance.  "

So Florence led away a more hopeful Mr.  Willoughby, informed Mr.
Fitzgibbon that his patient was ready for him, and retired discreetly
to the consulting-room.

Upon their return Mr.  Fitzgibbon said, "Ah, Sister, will you hand Mr.
Willoughby over to Mrs.  Keane, please?"  He shook hands with his
patient and Florence led him away, a much happier man than when he had
come in.

Lady Trump was quite a different matter.  A lady in her eighties, who,
at Mr.  Fitzgibbon's behest, had undergone successful surgery and had
taken on a new lease of life; moreover, she was proud of the fact and
took a good deal of pleasure in boring her family and friends with all
the details of her recovery.  "You're new," she observed, eyeing
Florence through old-fashioned gold-rimmed pincenez.

"Sister Brice is getting married."

"Hmm--I'm surprised you aren't married yourself."

Ushered into the consulting-room, where she shook hands with Mr.
Fitzgibbon, she informed him, "Well, you won't keep this gel long,
she's far too pretty."

His cold eyes gave Florence's person a cursory glance.  His, "Indeed,"
was uttered with complete uninterest.

"Well, Lady Trump, how have you been since I saw you last?"

Mrs.  Keane had been right: the old lady took twice as long as anyone
else.  Besides, she had got on all the wrong clothes; she must have
known that she would be examined, yet she was wearing a dress with
elaborate fastenings, tiny buttons running from her neck to her waist,
and under that a series of petticoats and camisoles, all of which had
to be removed to an accompaniment of warnings as to how it should be
done.  When at last Florence ushered her back to Mrs.  Keane's soothing
care, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Would you like your coffee, sir?"  she asked, hoping that he would say
yes so that she might swallow a mug herself.

"Miss Powell hasn't arrived yet."

"Yes," said Mr.  Fitzgibbon without lifting his hand some head from his
notes, 'and have one yourself.  "

Miss Powell was small and thin and mouse-like, and he treated her with
a gentle kindness Florence was surprised to see.  The little lady went
away presently, reassured as to her future, and Florence, at Mr.
Fitzgibbon's brisk bidding, ushered in little Susie Castle and her
mother.

Susie was small for her age and wore a look of elderly resignation,
which Florence found heart rending, but even if she looked resigned she
was full of life just as any healthy child, and it was obvious that she
and Mr.  Fitzgibbon were on the best of terms.  He teased her gently
and made no effort to stop her when she picked up his pen and began to
draw on the big notepad on his desk.

"How about a few days in hospital, Susie?"  he wanted to know.

"Then I'll have time to come and see you every day; we might even find
time for a game of draughts or dominoes."

"Why?"

"Well, it's so much easier for me to look after you there.  We'll go to
X-ray..."

"You'll be there with me?  It's always a bit dark."

"I'll be there.  Shall we have a date?"

Susie giggled.

"All right."  She put out a small hand, and Florence, who was nearest,
took it in hers.  The child studied her face for a moment.

"You're very pretty.  Haven't you met Prince Charming yet?"

"Not yet, but I expect I shall one day soon."  Florence squeezed the
small hand.

"Will you be my bridesmaid?"

"Yes, of course; who do you want to marry?  Mr.  Fitzgibbon?"

Her mother made a small sound an apology but Florence laughed.

"My goodness, no... Now, supposing we get you dressed again so that you
can go home."

It was later that day, after the afternoon patients had gone and she
was clearing up the examination-room and putting everything ready for
the next day, that Mr.  Fitzgibbon, on his way home, paused beside
her.

"You are happy with your work, Miss Napier?"

"Yes, thank you, sir.  I like meeting people..."

"Let us hope that you meet your Prince Charming soon," he observed
blandly, and shut the door quietly behind him.

Leaving her wondering if he was already looking forward to the day when
she would want to leave.

CHAPTER TWO

the days passed quickly; Mr.  Fitzgibbon allowed few idle moments in
his day, and Florence quickly discovered that he didn't expect her to
have any either.  By the end of the week she had fallen into a routine
of sorts, but a very flexible one, for on two evenings she had returned
to the consulting-rooms to attend those patients who were unable or who
didn't wish to come during the day, and on one afternoon she had been
whisked at a moment's notice to a large nursing home to scrub for the
biopsy he wished to perform on one of his patients there.  The theatre
there had been adequate, but only just, and she had acquitted herself
well enough.  On the way back to his rooms she had asked if he
performed major surgery there.

"Good lord, no; biopsies, anything minor, but otherwise they come into
Colbert's or one of the big private hospitals."

They had already established a satisfactory working relationship by the
end of the week, but she was no nearer to knowing anything about him
than on the first occasion of their meeting.  He came and went, leaving
telephone numbers for her in case he should be needed, but never
mentioning where he was going.  His home, for all she knew, might be
the moon.  As for him, he made no attempt to get to know her either. 
He had enquired if she was comfortable at Mrs.  Twist's house, and if
she found the work within her scope a question which ruffled her calm
considerably and told her at the end of the week that she was free to
go home for the weekend if she wished.  But not, she discovered, on the
Friday evening.  The last patient didn't leave until six o'clock; she
had missed her train and the next one too, and the one after that would
get her to Sherbome too late, and she had no intention of keeping her
father out of his bed in order to meet the train.

She bade Mr.  Fitzgibbon goodnight, and when he asked, "You're going
home, Miss Napier?"  she answered rather tartly that yes, but in the
morning by an early train.  To which he answered nothing, only gave her
a thoughtful look.  She had reached the door when he said, "You will be
back on Sunday evening all right?  We shall need to be ready on Monday
morning soon after nine o'clock."  With which she had to be content.

It was lovely to be home again.  In the kitchen, drinking coffee while
her mother sat at the kitchen table, scraping carrots, and Mrs. 
Buckett hovered, anxious not to miss a word, Florence gave a faithful
ac count of her week.

"Do you like working for Mr.  Fitzgibbon?"  asked her mother.

"Oh, yes, he has a very large practice and beds at Colbert's, and he
seems to be much in demand for consultations..."

"Is he married?"  asked Mrs.  Napier artlessly.

"I haven't the slightest idea.  Mother; in fact, I don't know a thing
about him, and he's not the kind of per son you would ask."

"Of course, darling I just wondered if his receptionist or someone who
works for him had mentioned something..."

"The people who work for him never mention him unless it's something to
do with work.  Probably they're not told or are sworn to secrecy..."

"How very interesting," observed her mother.

The weekend went too swiftly; Florence dug the garden, walked Higgins
and sang in the choir on Sunday, made a batch of cakes for the Mothers'
Union tea party to be held during the following week, and visited as
many of her friends as she had time for.  Sunday evening came much too
soon, and she got into the train with reluctance.  Once she was back in
Mrs.  Twist's house, eating the supper that good lady had ready for
her, she found herself looking forward to the week ahead.  Her work was
by no means dull, and she enjoyed the challenge of not knowing what
each day might offer.

Monday offered nothing special.  She was disconcerted to find Mr.
Fitzgibbon at his desk when shear arrived in the morning.  He wished
her good morning civilly enough and picked up his pen again with a
dismissive nod.

"You've been up half the night," said Florence matter-of-factly, taking
in his tired unshaven face, elderly trousers and high-necked sweater.

"I'll make you some coffee."

She swept out of the room, closing the door gently as she went, put on
the kettle and ladled instant coffee into a mug, milked and sugared it
lavishly and, with a tin of Rich Tea biscuits, which she and Mrs. 
Keane kept for their elevenses, bore the tray back to the
consulting-room.

"There," she said hearteningly, 'drink that up.  The first patient
isn't due until half-past nine; you go home and get tidied up.  It's a
check-up, isn't it?  I dare say she'll be late--a name like
WitheringtonPugh.  "

Mr.  Fitzgibbon gave a crack of laughter.

"I don't quite see the connection, but yes, she is always
unpunctual."

"There you are, then," said Florence comfortably.

"Now drink up and go home.  You might even have time for a quick
nap."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon drank his coffee meekly, trying to remember when last
anyone had ordered him to drink his coffee and get off home.  His
childhood probably, he thought sleepily with suddenly vivid memories of
Nanny standing over him while he swallowed hot milk.

Rather to his own surprise, he did as he was told, and when Florence
went back to the consulting-room with the first batch of notes he had
gone.  He was back at half-past nine, elegant in a dark grey suit and
richly sombre tie, betraying no hint of an almost sleepless night.
Indeed, he looked ten years younger, and Florence, eyeing him covertly,
wondered how old he was.

Mrs.  Witherington-Pugh, who had had open chest surgery for an
irretractable hernia some years previously, had come for her annual
check-up and was as tiresome as Florence had felt in her bones she
would be.  She was slender to the point of scragginess and swathed in
vague, floating garments that took a long time to remove and even
longer to put back on.  She kept up what Florence privately thought of
as a 'poor little me' conversation, and fluttered her artificial
eyelashes at Mr.  Fitzgibbon, who remained unmoved.  He pronounced her
well, advised her to take more exercise, eat plenty and take up some
interest.

"But I dare not eat more than a few mouthfuls," declared the lady.

"I'm not one of your strapping young women who needs three meals a
day."  Her eyes strayed to Florence's Junoesque person.

"If one is well built, of course..."

Florence composed her beautiful features into a calm she didn't feel
and avoided Mr.  Fitzgibbon's eye.

"None the less," he observed blandly, 'you should eat sensibly; the
slenderness of youth gives way to the thinness of middle age, you know.
"

Mrs.  Witherington-Pugh simpered.

"Well, I don't need to worry too much about that for some years yet,"
she told him.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon merely smiled pleasantly and shook her hand.

Florence tidied up and he sat and watched her.

"Bring in Sir Percival Watts," he said finally.  He glanced at his
watch.

"We're running late.

I shan't need you for ten minutes--go and have your coffee.  I'll have
mine before the next patient--' he glanced at the pile of notes before
him '--Mr.  Simpson.  His tests are back; he'll need surgery.  " He
didn't look up as she went out of the room.

Sir Percival was on the point of going when she returned, and she
ushered in Mr.  Simpson; at a nod from Mr.  Fitzgibbon she busied
herself in the examination-room while he talked to his patient.  She
could hear the murmur of their voices and then silence, and she turned
to find Mr. Fitzgibbon leaning against the door-frame, watching her.

"I'll be at Colbert's if I'm wanted; I'll be back here about two
o'clock.  You should be able to leave on time this evening.  I expect
you go out in the evenings when you're free?"

Me?  No, I've nowhere to go--not on my own, that is.  Most of my
friends at Colbert's have left or got married; besides, by the time
I've had supper there's not much of the evening left.  "

"I told you the hours were erratic.  Take the after R noon off
tomorrow, will you?  I shall be operating at Colbert's, and Sister will
scrub for me.  I shall want you here at six o'clock in the
evening--there's a new patient coming to see me."

He wandered away, and Florence muttered, "And not one single "
please"..."

Save for necessary talk concerning patients that afternoon, he had
nothing to say to her, and his goodnight was curt.  He must be tired,
Florence reflected, watching from the window as he crossed the pavement
to his car.  She hoped that his wife would be waiting for him with a
well-cooked dinner.  She glanced at her watch: it was early for dinner,
so perhaps he would have high tea; he was such a very large man that he
would need plenty of good, nourishing food.  She began to arrange a
menu in her mind--soup, a roast with plenty of baked potatoes and fresh
vegetables, and a fruit pie for afters.  Rhubarb, she mused; they had
had rhubarb pie at home at the weekend with plenty of cream.  Probably
his wife didn't do the cooking--he must have a sizeable income from his
practice as well as the work he did at the hospital, so there would be
a cook and someone to do the housework.

Her nimble fingers arranged everything ready for the morning while she
added an au pair or a nanny for his children.  Two boys and a girl. 
Mrs. Keane's voice aroused her from her musings.

"Are you ready to leave, Florence?  It's been a nice easy day, hasn't
it?  There's someone booked for to morrow evening..."

Florence went to change out of her uniform.

"Yes, Mr.  Fitzgibbon's given me the afternoon off, but I have to come
back at six o'clock."

"Ah, yes did he tell you who it was?  No?  Forgot, I expect.  A very
well-known person in the theatre world.  Using her married name, of
course."  Mrs.  Keane was going around, checking shut windows and
doors.

"Very highly strung," she commented, for still, despite her years of
working for Mr.  Fitzgibbon, she adhered to the picturesque and
sometimes inaccurate medical terms of her youth.

Florence, racing out of her uniform and into a skirt and sweater,
envisaged a beautiful not-so-young ac tress who smoked too much and had
developed a nasty cough.  The next day brought its quota of patients in
the morning and, since the last of them went around noon, she cleared
up and then was free to go.

"Mind you're here at six o'clock," were Mr.  Fitzgibbon's parting
words.

She agreed to that happily; she was free for almost six hours and she
knew exactly what she was going to go and do.  She couldn't expect
lunch at Mrs.  Twist's; she would go and change and have lunch out,
take a look at the shops along the Brompton Road and peek into Harrods,
take a brisk walk in the park, have tea and get back in good time.

All of which she did, and, much refreshed, presented herself at the
consulting-rooms with ten minutes to spare.  All the same, he was there
before her.

He bade her good evening with his usual cool courtesy and added, "You
will remain with the patient at all times.  Miss Napier," before
returning to his writing.

Mrs.  Keane wasn't there; Florence waited in the reception-room until
the bell rang, and opened the door.  She wasn't a theatre-goer herself
and she had little time for TV; all the same, she recognised the woman
who came in.  No longer young, but still striking- looking and expertly
made-up, exquisitely dressed, delicately perfumed.  She pushed past
Florence with a nod.

"I hope I'm not to be kept waiting," she said sharply.

"You'd better let Mr.  Fitzgibbon know that I'm here."

Florence looked down her delicate nose.

"I believe that Mr.  Fitzgibbon is ready for you.  If you will sit down
for a moment I will let him know that you're here."

She tapped on the consulting-room door and went in, closing it behind
her.

"Your patient is here, sir."

"Good, bring her in and stay."

The next half-hour was a difficult one.  No one liked to be told that
they probably had cancer of a lung, but, with few exceptions, they
accepted the news with at least a show of courage.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon,
after a lengthy examination, offered his news in the kindest possible
way and was answered by a storm of abuse, floods of tears and
melodramatic threats of suicide.

Florence kept busy with cups of tea, tissues and soothing words, and
cringed at the whining voice going on and on about the patient's
public, her ruined health and career, her spoilt looks.

When she at length paused for breath Mr.  Fitzgibbon said suavely, "My
dear lady, your public need know nothing unless you choose to tell
them, and I imagine that you are sufficiently well known for a couple
of months away from the stage to do no harm.  There is no need to
tamper with your looks; your continuing er appearance is entirely up to
you.  Fretting and worrying will do more harm than a dozen
operations."

He waited while Florence soothed a fresh outburst of tears and
near-hysterics.

"I suggest that you choose which hospital you prefer as soon as
possible and I will operate within the next three weeks.  No later than
that."

"You're sure you can cure me?"

"If it is within my powers to do so, yes."

"I won't be maimed?"

He looked coldly astonished.

"I do not maim my patients; this is an operation which is undertaken
very frequently and gives excellent results."

"I shall need the greatest care and nursing I am a very sensitive
person..."

"Any of the private hospitals in London will guarantee that.  Please
let me know when you have made your decision and I will make the
necessary arrangements

Mr.  Fitzgibbon got to his feet and bade his patient a polite goodbye,
and Florence showed her out.

When she got back he was still sitting at his desk.  He took a look at
her face and observed, "I did tell you that it was hard work.  At
Colbert's I see as many as a dozen a week with the same condition and
not one of them utters so much as a whimper."

"Well," said Florence, trying to be fair, 'she is famous.  "

"Mothers of families are famous too in their own homes, and they face a
hazardous future, and what about the middle-aged ladies supporting aged
parents, or the women bringing up children on their own?"

Florence so far forgot herself as to sit down on the other side of his
desk.

"Well, I didn't know that you were like that..."

"Like what?"

"Minding about people.  Oh, doctors and surgeons must mind, I know
that, but you..."  She paused, at a loss for getting the right words,
getting slowly red in the face at the amused mockery on his.

"How fortunate it is.  Miss Napier," he observed gently, 'that my
life's happiness does not depend on your good opinion of me.  "

She got off the chair.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why I had to say that."  She added
ingenuously, "I often say things without thinking first Father is
always telling me..."

He said carelessly, "Oh, I shouldn't let it worry you, I don't suppose
you ever say anything profound enough to shatter your hearer's finer
feelings."

Florence opened her mouth to answer that back, thought better of it at
the last minute, and asked in a wooden voice, "Do you expect any more
patients, sir, or may I tidy up?"

She might not have spoken.

"Do you intend to leave at the end of the month?"  he asked idly.

"Leave?  Here?  No..."  She took a sharp breath.

"Do you want me to?  I dare say I annoy you.  Not everyone can get on
with everyone else," she explained in a reasonable voice, 'you know, a
kind of mutual antipathy.  "

He remained grave, but his eyes gleamed with amusement.

"I have no wish for you to leave.  Miss Napier; you suit me very well:
you are quick and sensible and the patients appear to like you, and any
grumbling you may do about awkward hours you keep to yourself.  We must
contrive to rub along together, must we not?"  He stood up.

"Now do whatever it is you have to do and we will go somewhere and have
a meal."

Florence eyed him in astonishment.

"You and I?  But Mrs.  Twist will have something keeping warm in the
oven for me..."

He reached for the telephone.

"In that case I will ask her to take it out before it becomes
inedible."  He waved a large hand at her.

"Fifteen minutes I've some notes to write up.  Come back here when
you're ready."

There seemed no point in arguing with him;

Florence sped away to the examination-room and began to put it to
rights.  Fifteen minutes wasn't long enough, of course; she would have
to see to most of the instruments he had used in the morning she could
come early and do that.  She worked fast and efficiently so that under
her capable hands the room was pristine once more.  The waiting-room
needed little done in it;

true, on her way out the patient had given vent to her feelings by
tossing a few cushions around, but Florence shook them up smartly and
repaired to the cloakroom, where she did her face and hair with the
speed of light, got out of the uniform and into the jersey dress and
matching jacket, thrust her feet into low-heeled pumps, caught up her
handbag and went back to the consulting-room.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon was standing at the window, looking out into the street
below, his hands in his pockets.  He looked over his shoulder as she
went in.

"Do you like living in London?"  he wanted to know.

"Well, I don't really live here, do I?  I work here, but when I'm free
I go home, so I don't really know what living here is like.  At
Colbert's I went out a good deal when I was off duty, but I never felt
as though I belonged."

"You prefer the country?"

"Oh, yes.  Although I should think that if I lived here in surroundings
such as these--' she waved an arm towards the street outside '--London
might be quite pleasant."

He opened the door for her and locked it behind him.

"Do you live in London?"  she asked.

"Er--for a good deal of the time, yes."  There was a frosty edge to his
voice which warned her not to ask questions.  She followed him out to
the car and was ushered in in silence.

She hadn't travelled in a Rolls-Royce before and she was impressed by
its size; it and Mr.  Fitzgibbon, she reflected, shared the same vast,
dignified appearance.  She uttered the thought out loud.

"Of course, this is exactly the right car for you, isn't it?"

He was driving smoothly through quiet streets.

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing the size is right, isn't it?"  She paused to
think.

"And, of course, it has great dignity."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon smiled very slightly.

"I am reassured to think that your opinion of me is improving."

She couldn't think of the right answer to that; instead she asked,
"Where are we going?"

"Woobum Common, about half an hour from here.  You know the Chequers
Inn?  I've booked a table."

"Oh--it's in the country?"

"Yes.  I felt that it was the least I could do in the face of your
preference for rural parts."

"Well, that's awfully kind of you to take so much trouble.  I mean,
there are dozens of little cafes around Wimpole Street well, not
actually very near, but down some of the side-streets."

"I must bear that in mind.  Which reminds me, Mrs.  Twist asks that you
should make sure that the cat doesn't get out as you go in."

"Oh, Buster.  She's devoted to him he's a splendid tabby; not as fine
as our Charlie Brown, though.  Do you like cats?"

"Yes, we have one; she keeps my own dog company

"We have a Labrador Higgins.  He's elderly."  She fell silent, mulling
over the way he had said 'we have one', and Mr.  Fitzgibbon waited
patiently for the next question, knowing what it was going to be.

"Are you married?"  asked Florence.

"No why do you ask?"

"Well, if you were I don't think we should be going out like this
without your wife... I expect you think I'm silly."

"No, but do I strike you as the kind of man who would take a girl out
while his wife actually sat at home waiting for him?"

Florence looked sideways at his calm profile.

"No."

"That, from someone who is still not sure if she likes me or not, is
praise indeed."

They drove on in silence for a few minutes until she said in a small
resolute voice, "I'm sorry if I annoyed you, Mr.  Fitzgibbon."

"Contrary to your rather severe opinion of me, I don't annoy easily.

Ah--here we are.  I hope you're hungry?  "

The Chequers Inn was charming.  Florence, ushered from the car and
gently propelled towards it, stopped a minute to take a deep breath of
rural air.  It wasn't as good as Dorset, but it compared very
favourably with Wimpole Street.  The restaurant was just as charming,
with a table in a window and a friendly waiter who addressed Mr. 
Fitzgibbon by name and suggested in a quiet voice that the duck, served
with a port wine and pink peppercorn sauce, was excellent and might
please him and the young lady.

Florence, when consulted, agreed that it sounded delicious, and agreed
again when Mr.  Fitzgibbon suggested that a lobster mousse with
cucumber might be pleasant to start their meal.

She knew very little about wine, so she took his word for it that the
one poured for her was a pleasant drink, as indeed it was, compared
with the occasional bottle of table wine which graced the vicarage
table.  She remarked upon this in the unselfconscious manner that Mr.
Fitzgibbon was beginning to enjoy, adding, "But I dare say there are a
great many wines--if one had the interest in them--to choose from."

He agreed gravely, merely remarking that the vin R tage wine he
offered her was thought to be very agree able.

The mousse and duck having been eaten with relish, Florence settled
upon glazed fruit tart and cream, and presently poured coffee for them
both, making conversation with the well-tried experience of a vicar's
daughter, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon, unexpectedly enjoying himself hugely,
encouraged her.  It was Florence, glancing at the clock, who exclaimed,
"My goodness, look at the time!"  She added guiltily, "I hope you
didn't have any plans for your evening it's almost ten o'clock."  She
went on apologetically, "It was nice to have someone to talk to."

"One should, whenever possible, relax after a day's work," observed Mr.
Fitzgibbon smoothly.

The nearby church clocks were striking eleven o'clock when he stopped
before Mrs.  Twist's little house.  Florence, unfastening her seatbelt,
began her thank-you speech, which he ignored while he helped her out,
took the key from her, unlocked the door and then stood looming over
her.

"I find it quite unnecessary to address you as Miss Napier," he
remarked in the mildest of voices.

"I should like to call you Florence."

"Well, of course you can."  She smiled widely at him, so carried away
by his friendly voice that she was about to ask him what his name
was.

She caught his steely eye just in time, coughed instead, thanked him
once again and took back her key.

He opened the door for her.

"Mind Buster," he're minded her, and shut the door smartly behind her.
She stood leaning against it, listening to the silky purr of the car as
he drove away.  Buster, thwarted in his at tempt to spend the night
out, waited until she had started up the narrow stairs and then sidled
up behind her, to curl up presently on her bed.  Strictly forbidden,
but Florence never gave him away.

If she had expected a change in Mr.  Fitzgibbon's remote manner towards
her, Florence was to be disappointed.  Despite the fact that he
addressed her as Florence, it might just as well have been Miss Napier.
She wasn't sure what she had expected, but she felt a vague
disappointment, which she dismissed as non sense in her normal
matter-of-fact manner, and made a point of addressing him as 'sir' at
every opportunity.  Something which Mr.  Fitzgibbon noted with hidden
amusement.

It was very nearly the weekend again, and there were no unexpected
hold-ups to prevent her catching the evening train.  It was almost the
middle of May, and the vicarage, as her father brought the car to a
halt before its half-open door, looked welcoming in the twilight.

Florence nipped inside and down the wide hall to the kitchen, where her
mother was taking some thing from the Aga.

"Macaroni cheese," cried Florence happily, twitching her beautiful
nose.

"Hello, Mother."  She embraced her parent and then stood her back to
look at her.

"You're not doing too much?  Is Miss Payne being a help?"

"Yes, dear, she's splendid, and I've never felt better.  But how are
you?"

"Nicely settled in the work's quite interesting too, and Mrs.  Twist is
very kind."

"And Mr.  Fitzgibbon?"

"Oh, he's a very busy man.  Mother.  He has a large practice besides
the various hospitals he goes to..."

"Do you like him, dear?"  Mrs.  Napier sounded off hand.

"He's a very considerate employer," said Florence airily.

"Shall I fetch Father?  He went round to the ga rage."

"Please, love."  Mrs.  Napier watched Florence as she went, wondering
why she hadn't answered her question

Sunday evening came round again far too soon, but as Florence got into
the train at Sherbome she found, rather to her surprise, that she was
quite looking for ward to the week ahead.  Hanging out of the window,
saying a last goodbye to her father, she told him this, adding, "It's
so interesting.  Father I see so many people."

A remark which in due course he relayed to his wife.

"Now, isn't that nice?"  observed Mrs.  Napier.  Perhaps by next
weekend Florence might have more to say about Mr.  Fitzgibbon.  Her
motherly nose had smelt a rat concerning that gentleman, and Florence
had barely mentioned him.  Florence, rather unwillingly, had found
herself thinking about him.

Probably because she still wasn't sure if she liked him, even though he
had given her a splendid dinner.  She walked round to the consulting
rooms in the sunshine of a glorious May morning, and even London that
part of London, at least looked delightful.  Mrs.  Keane hadn't arrived
yet; Florence got the examination-room ready, opened the windows, put
everything out for coffee, filled the kettle for the cup of tea she and
Mrs.  Keane had when there was time, and went to look at the
appointment book.

The first patient was to come at nine o'clock a new patient, she noted,
so the appointment would be a long one.  The two following were short:
old patients for check-ups; she could read up their notes presently.
She frowned over the next entry, written in Mrs.  Keane's hand, for it
was merely an address that of a famous stately home open to the public
and when that lady arrived she asked about it.

Mrs.  Keane came to peer over her shoulder.

"Oh, yes, dear.  A patient Mr.  Fitzgibbon visits not able to come
here.  He'll go straight to Colbert's from there.  Let's see, he'll be
there all the afternoon, I should think often goes back there in the
evening on a Monday, to check on the operation cases, you know.  So
there's only Lady Hempdon in the afternoon, and she's not until
half-past four."  She hung up her jacket and smoothed her neat
old-fashioned hairstyle.

"We've time for tea."

The first patient arrived punctually, which was un fortunate because
there was no sign of Mr.  Fitzgibbon.  Mrs.  Keane was exchanging
good-momings and're marks about the weather, when the phone rang.

Florence went into the consulting-room to answer it.

"Mrs.  Peake there?"  It was to be one of those days;

no time lost on small courtesies.

"Yes, just arrived, sir."

"I shall be ten minutes.  Do the usual, will you?  And take your
time."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon hung up while she was uttering the "Yes, sir'.

Mrs.  Peake was thin and flustered and, under her nice manner,
scared.

Florence led her to the examination-room, explaining that before Mr.
Fitzgibbon saw new patients he liked them to be weighed, have their
blood-pressure taken and so on.  She went on talking in her pleasant
voice, pausing to make remarks about this and that as she noted down
particulars.  More than ten minutes had gone by by the time she had
finished, and she was relieved to see the small red light over the door
leading to the consulting- room flicker.

"If you will come this way, Mrs.  Peake I think I have all the details
Mr.  Fitzgibbon needs from me."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon rose from his chair as they went in, giving a distinct
impression that he had been sitting there for half an hour or more.

His, "Good morning, Mrs.  Peake," was uttered in just the right kind of
voice cheerfully confident and he received Florence's notes with a
courteous, "Thank you.  Sister;

be good enough to wait.  "

As Florence led Mrs.  Peake away later she had to admit that Mr.
Fitzgibbon had a number of sides to him which she had been absolutely
unaware of; he had treated his patient with the same cheerfulness,
nicely tempered by sympathetic patience, while he wormed, word by word,
her symptoms from her.  Finally when he had finished he told her very
simply what was to be done.

"It's quite simple," he had reassured her.

"I have studied the X-rays which your doctor sent to me; I can remove a
small piece of your lung and you will be quite yourself in a very short
time indeed, you will feel a new woman."  He had gone on to talk about
hospitals and convenient dates and escorted her to the door, smiling
very kindly at her as he had shaken hands.

Mrs.  Peake had left, actually smiling.  At the door she had pressed
Florence's hand.

"What a dear man, my dear, and I trust him utterly."

There was time to take in his coffee before the next patient arrived.

Florence, feeling very well disposed towards him, saw at once that it
would be a waste of time.  He didn't look up.

"Thank you.  Show Mr.  Cranwell in when he comes; I shan't need you,
Sister."

She wasn't needed for the third patient either, and since after a
cautious peep she found the examinadonroom empty, she set it silently
to rights.  If Mr.  Fitzgibbon was in one of his lofty moods then it
was a good thing he was leaving after his patient had gone.

She ushered the elderly man out and skipped back smartly to the
consulting-room in answer to Mr.  Fitzgibbon's raised voice.

"I shall want you with me.  Five minutes to tidy yourself.  I'll be
outside in the car."

She flew to the cloakroom, wondering what she had done, and, while she
did her face, set her cap at a more becoming angle and made sure her
uniform was spot less, she worried.  Had she annoyed a patient or for
gotten something?  Perhaps he had been crossed in love, unable to take
his girlfriend out that evening.  They might have quarrelled.  She
would have added to these speculations, only Mrs.  Keane poked her head
round the door.

"He's in the car..."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon leaned across and opened the door as she reached the
car, and she got in without speaking settled herself without looking at
him and stared ahead as he drove away.

He negotiated a tangle of traffic in an un flurried manner before he
spoke.

"I can hear your thoughts, Florence."

So she was Florence now, was she?

"In that case," she said crisply, 'there is no need for me to ask where
we are going, sir.  "

Mr.  Fitzgibbon allowed his lip to twitch very slightly.

"No--of course, you will have read about it for yourself.

You know the place?  "

"I've been there with my brothers."

"The curator has apartments there; his wife is a patient of mine,
recently out of hospital.  She is a lady of seventy-two and was
unfortunate enough to swallow a sliver of glass during a meal, which
perforated her oesophagus.  I found it necessary to perform a
thoracotomy, from which she is recovering.  This should be my final
visit, although she will come to the consulting-room later on for
regular checkups."

"Thank you," said Florence in a businesslike manner.

"Is there anything else that I need to know?"

"No, other than that she is a nervous little lady, which is why I have
to take you with me."

Florence bit back a remark that she had hardly supposed that it was for
the pleasure of her company, and neither of them spoke again until they
reached their destination.

This, thought Florence, following Mr.  Fitzgibbon through a relatively
small side-door and up an elegant staircase to the private apartments,
was something to tell the boys when she wrote to them.  The elderly
stooping man who had admitted them stood aside for them to go in, and
she stopped looking around her and concentrated on the patient.

A dear little lady, sitting in a chair with her husband beside her.

Florence led her to a small bedroom presently, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon
examined her without haste before pronouncing her fit and well, and
when Florence led her patient back to the sitting-room he was standing
at one of the big windows with the curator, discussing the view.

"You will take some refreshment?"  suggested the curator, and Florence
hoped that Mr.  Fitzgibbon would say yes; the curator looked a nice,
dignified old man who would tell her more about the house.  Mr.
Fitzgibbon declined with grave courtesy.

"I must get back to Colbert's," he explained, 'and Sister must return
to the consulting-rooms as soon as possible.  "

They made their farewells and went back to the car, and as Mr.
Fitzgibbon opened the door for her he said, "I'm already late.  I'll
take you straight back and drop you off at the door.  Lady Hempdon has
an appointment for half-past four, has she not?"

She got in, and he got in beside her and drove off.

"Perhaps you would like to drop me off so that I can catch a bus?"
asked Florence sweetly.

"How thoughtful of you, Florence, but I think not.  We should be back
without any delay!"

Mr.  Fitzgibbon, so often right, was for once wrong.

CHAPTER THREE

mr fitz gibbon ignored the main road back to the heart of the city.

Florence, who wasn't familiar with that part of the metropolis, became
quite bewildered by the narrow streets lined with warehouses, most of
them derelict, shabby, small brick houses and shops, and here and there
newly built blocks of high-rise flats.  There was, however, little
traffic, and his short cuts would bring him very close to Tower Bridge
where, presumably, he intended to cross the river.

She stared out at the derelict wharfs and warehouses they were passing
with windows boarded up and walls held upright by wooden props; they
looked unsafe and it was a good thing that the terrace of houses on the
other side of the street was in a like state.  There was nothing on the
street save a heavily laden truck ahead of them, loaded with what
appeared to be scrap iron.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon had slowed, since it wasn't
possible to pass, so that he was able to stop instantly when the truck
suddenly veered across the street and hit the wall of a half-ruined
warehouse, bringing it down in a shower of bricks.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon reached behind for his bag and opened the door.

"Phone the police--this is Rosemary Lane--lock the car, and join me."
He had gone striding up the road towards the still tumbling bricks and
metal.  There was no sign of the truck.

Florence dialled 999, gave a succinct description of the accident and
its whereabouts, and added that at the moment the only people there
were herself and a doctor and would they please hurry since whoever had
been in the truck was buried under the debris.  It took no time at all
to take the keys, lock the car and run up the street to where she could
see Mr.  Fitzgibbon, his jacket hanging on a convenient iron railing,
clearing away bricks and sheets of metal, iron pipes and the like.

"They're coming," said Florence, not wasting words.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon grunted.

"Stand there I'll pass back to you and you toss it behind you, never
mind where.  The cabin will be just about here if I could just get a
sight of it..."

He shifted an iron sheet very gently and sent a shower of bricks
sliding away so that he was able to pull out a miscellany of bricks and
rubble.  He passed these back piece by piece to Florence, stopping
every now and then to listen.

There was a great deal of dust and they were soon covered in it.  A
sudden thought made Florence say urgently, "Oh, do be careful of your
hands..."  She wished she hadn't said it the moment she had spoken it
had been a silly thing to say.  What were cuts and bruises when a man's
life was possibly at stake?  Only the hands belonged to a skilled
surgeon.  Seconds later Mr.  Fitzgibbon stopped suddenly, and Florence,
clasping a nasty piece of concrete with wires sticking out of it,
stood, hardly breathing, her ears stretched.  Somewhere inside the heap
of debris a voice was calling feebly.

"Oi," it said.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon passed a couple of bricks to Florence.

"Hello, there!"

He sounded cheerful.

"Hang on, we're almost there."

It took several more minutes before he pulled an other lump of concrete
clear, exposing part of a man's face, coated with dust, just as an
ambulance came to a halt beside them, and hard on its heels a police
car and a fire engine.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon withdrew his head cautiously.

"There's a sheet of metal holding most of the stuff we need the bricks
and rubble out of the way so that we can get at him."

The newcomers were experts; they widened the gap, shored up the metal
above the man's head and brought up their equipment for Mr.
Fitzgibbon's use.  He was head and shoulders inside now; Florence could
hear him talking to the man, but he emerged very shortly.

"I need access to his legs.  Can you clear the rubble from that end? As
far as I can see, he's lying in a tunnel.  It seems safe enough above
his head, but I need to look at his legs.  I believe he's pinned
down."

He looked over his shoulder.

"Florence, my bag I want a syringe and a morphia ampoule."

He checked the drug and told her to draw it up, and slid into the gap
again.  The men were already busy, carefully shifting rubble from one
end over the man's foot, and presently a boot came into view, and then
the other foot, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon went to have a look.

"I'll have my bag," he said to Florence.

"Tell the medics I want the amputation kit, then cram yourself through
the gap and be ready to do what I tell you."  He spoke to the two men
who had come to help him, and she slid carefully towards the man,
already drowsy from the morphia.

"Cor, lumme," he whispered, 'getting the V.

I.

P treatment ain't I?  And what's a pretty girl like you doin' 'ere? 
"

The space was small around the man, and Florence found Mr. 
Fitzgibbon's face within inches of her own.  He was applying a
tourniquet above the man's knee.  He said easily, "Oh, Florence is my
right hand.  Pretty as a picture, isn't she?  You ought to see her when
her face is clean.

Now, old chap, I'm afraid I shall have to take off part of your leg;

you won't know anything about it, and I'll promise you'll be as good as
new by the time I've finished with you in hospital.  Just below the
knee, Florence; let go when I say, and keep an eye open for everything
else.  "

He stretched behind him.

"I'll have that drip hang on to your end, will you, while I get the
needle in?"

He was busy for a few moments, talking quietly to the man as he worked,
and when Florence moved a little and something tore he said, "I hope
that's nothing vital, Florence," and the man chuckled sleepily.

"Old me 'and," he told Florence, 'and keep an eye on old sawbones.  "

Florence gave the grimy fist a squeeze.

"That's a promise."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon shifted his bulk very slightly, and another face
appeared.  A young cheerful face, which winked at Florence.

"Going to put you off to sleep, old chap."

He had the portable anaesthetic with him, and she said in a comfortable
voice, "And while he's doing it you can tell me about yourself.  Are
you married?  Yes?  And children, I expect... Three?  I always think
that three is a nice number..."  She rambled on for a few more moments
until the man was unconscious, then she took her hand from his and
leaned forward as far as she could, ready to do whatever Mr. 
Fitzgibbon wanted done.

He was working very fast, his gloved hands, despite their size,
performing their task with gentleness, cut ting and tying and snipping
until he said, "Let go slowly, Florence."

She loosened the tourniquet very slightly, and then gradually slackened
it.  Everything held.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon put his hand behind him for the
dressings, and his helper had them ready.

"How's his pulse?"

"Strong, fast, regular.  You'll take him out from your end?"

"Yes, support his head as far as you can reach."

He disappeared from her view, but presently he and one of the medics
crawled in again and began to shift the man while the third steadied
the leg.  It took some time; to Florence, her shoulders and arms aching
from keeping the man's head and shoulders steady, it seemed like hours.
At last he was free, loaded on to a stretcher and taken to the
ambulance.  She began to wriggle out backwards, and halfway there was
caught round the waist and swung on to her feet by Mr.  Fitzgibbon.

"Stay there," he told her and went back to talk to the ambulance men
and she stayed, having no wish to move another step.  She ached all
over, she was filthy dirty, her mouth was full of dust and she wanted a
cup of tea and a hot bath at that very minute; she also wanted to have
a good cry, just by way of relieving her feelings.

Her wishes, however, were not to be granted, at least for the moment.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon came back, took her by the arm and walked her to his
car.

"In you get;

I want to get to Colbert's at the same time as that ambulance.  "

He waved to the police car and the fire engine as he came abreast of
them, and the police car went ahead, its lights flashing and its siren
wailing, and the fire engine brought up the rear.

They went very fast and the traffic parted for them rather like the
waters of the Red Sea; at any other time Florence would have enjoyed it
immensely.

"Has he got a chance?"  she asked.

"Yes.  I don't think there's much else damaged, but we can't be sure
until he's X-rayed.  I want to get at that leg, though I'll need
Fortesque!  Ring Colbert's, will you, and see if you can get him?"

Mr.  Fortesque, the orthopaedic consultant, was found, and yes, he
would make himself available, and yes, he'd get Theatre Sister on to it
right away.  Florence relayed the information as Mr.  Fitzgibbon drove,
and was about to hang up when he said, "Tell them I want a taxi at the
hospital to take you home to Mrs.  Twist.  You're not hurt or cut?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Make sure of that.  Go to Casualty if you have any doubts."  He gave
her a brief grin.

"Good, we're here.  I'll see you later."  He got out and opened her
door.

"Get hold of Mrs.  Keane.  I'll phone later."

He had gone, but not before giving her an urgent shove towards the taxi
waiting for her.

The driver got out and helped her into the cab.

"Been in an accident, love?"  he wanted to know.

"Not hurt, are you?"

"No, I'm fine, just very dirty.  We stopped to help a man trapped in
his truck."  She gave him a shaky smile.

"If you'd take me to my rooms, then I can go back on duty..."

"Right away, love... where to?"

He got out and helped her from the cab, and she said, "Can you wait a
minute?  I've not got any money with me but I can get some from my
room..."

"All taken care of, love.  Head porter at Colbert's told me to call
back for it.  Just you go in and have a nice cup pa and a lay down."

He went to the door with her and thumped the knocker and, when Mrs.
Twist came, handed her over in a fatherly manner.

"Ad an accident," he told her erroneously.

"I'll leave 'er to your loving 'ands."

Florence thanked him.

"I'm sure Mrs.  Twist will give you a cup of tea."

"Ta, love, but I'd best get back.  Take care."

Mrs.  Twist shut the door.

"Whatever's happened?"  she wanted to know.

"Are you hurt?  You're covered in dirt..."

Florence said, "Not an accident.  If you would let me have an old sheet
or something I could take these things off here; otherwise the house
will get dirty."

"That's a bit of sense."  Mrs.  Twist bustled away, arranged an old
tablecloth on the spotless lino in the hall, and begged Florence to
stand on it.  She peeled off everything, with Mrs.  Twist helping.

"And this dress is ruined," declared that lady.

"There's a great piece torn out of the back; lucky there wasn't anyone
to see your knickers."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon must have had a splendid view when he had lifted her
out of the truck.

"If I could have a bath and wash my hair, Mrs.  Twist?"

"That you may, love, and a nice hot cup of tea first.  And how about a
nice nap in bed?"

"I haven't the time.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon has a patient at half-past four;
I must get back to get ready for her."

"You've not had your dinner?"

"No."

"I'll have a sandwich or two for you when you've had your bath.  Now
off you go,."

Later, her head swathed in a towel, comfortable in a dressing-gown and
slippers, Florence sat in Mrs.  Twist's kitchen, gobbling sandwiches
and drinking endless cups of tea while she told her landlady all about
it.

Halfway through she remembered that she had to phone Mrs.  Keane and,
since it was an emergency and Mrs.  Twist found the whole thing
exciting, she was allowed to use the phone.  Mrs.  Keane reacted with
calm.

"You come over when you're ready," she told Florence.

"We'll have a cup of tea, and by then I could ring Colbert's and see if
Mr.  Fitzgibbon has any instructions for us.  You're sure you're all
right?"

"I'm fine."  Florence put down the phone and, urged by Mrs.  Twist,
went on with her account of the morning's events.

There was more tea waiting for her when she got to the
consulting-rooms, and Mrs.  Keane, despite her discreet manner, was
avid to hear the details.

"What I don't understand," said Florence, 'is why Mr.  Fitzgibbon was
going to operate on the patient he's a chest man.  "

"Yes, dear; he specialises in chest surgery, but he can turn his hand
to anything, and this Mr.  Fortesque is an old friend and colleague.
Mr.  Fitzgibbon is a man who, once having started something, likes to
see it through to the end."  She passed the biscuit tin.

"And you, dear, were you hurt at all?"

"No, but my uniform is ruined and I caught the back of the skirt on a
nail or something and tore a great rent in it.  Mrs.  Twist said she
could see my knickers, which means everyone else saw them too."

"Knickers?"  asked Mrs.  Keane.

"I didn't think girls wore them any more--only those brief things with
lace."

"Well, yes, but I didn't tell Mrs.  Twist that--she was horrified
enough."

"Probably no one noticed."

"Mr.  Fitzgibbon lifted me down from the truck; I was coming out
backwards."

"Mr.  Fitzgibbon is a gentleman," declared her companion.

"Have another cup of tea!  We have twenty minutes or so still."

Florence was arranging the surgical impedimenta Mr.  Fitzgibbon might
need when he came into the consulting-room and thrust wide the
half-open door connecting the examination-room.  If Florence had hoped
for a slightly warmer relationship after their morning's experience she
saw at once that she was going to be disappointed.  He looked exactly
as he al 5 ways did, immaculate, his linen spotless, not a hair out of
place, his manner coolly impersonal.

"Ah, Sister, none the worse for your experience, I hope?  You feel able
to finish the day's work?"

"Yes.  What about that poor man?  Did he have any other injuries?"

"Fractured ribs, a perforated lung and a fractured humerus.  We've
patched him up and he should do.  He had plenty of pluck."

"His wife...?"

"She's with him.  She'll stay in the hospital for tonight at least."

"The children?"  Florence went on doggedly.

"With Granny."

"Oh, good.  Someone must have organised everything splendidly."

"Indeed, yes," agreed Mr.  Fitzgibbon, who had done the organising,
getting this and that done, throwing his weight around rather, and no
one daring to gainsay him.  Not that he had been other than his usual
cool, courteous self.

"Be good enough to give Mrs.  Keane details of your ruined uniform so
that you can be reimbursed, and-- er--for any other garment which may
have suffered."

Florence blushed.

No further reference was made to the morning's happenings, and she went
off to her room feeling slightly ill done by.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon could
have thanked her, or at least expressed concern as to her feelings--did
he consider her to be made of stone?  Florence, very much a
warm-hearted girl, reflected that there must be something wrong with
his life, something which made him uncaring of those people around him.
But that wasn't true, she had to remind herself; he had been marvelous
with the man in the truck--indeed, he had sounded quite different
talking to him.  Getting ready for bed, she decided that she was sorry
for him; he needed someone or something to shake his unshakeable calm. 
Underneath that he was probably quite nice to know.  Her eyes closed on
the praiseworthy resolve to treat him with understanding, not to answer
back and to show sympathy if he ever showed signs of needing it.

Full of good resolutions, she went to work the next morning, but there
was little opportunity of carrying any of them out.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon
was decidedly abrupt in his manner towards her, and in the face of that
it was hard to remain meek and sympathetic.  Nevertheless, she fetched
his coffee and bade him drink it in a motherly fashion, pointed out
that it was a lovely morning and suggested that a weekend in the
country would do him a world of good, adding that he probably didn't
take enough exercise.

He raked her with cold eyes.

"Your solicitude for my health flatters me, Florence, but pray confine
your concern to the patients."

So much for her good intentions.

It was towards the end of the week as she was tidying up after a
patient that Mrs.  Keane came in.

"There's Miss Paton here, Mr.  Fitzgibbon, wants to see you."  She
hesitated.

"I did say that you were about to leave for the hospital."

He looked up from his desk.

"Ask her to come in, will you, Mrs.  Keane?"

He looked across to the half- open door of the examination-room, where
Florence was putting away instruments.

"I shan't need you, Florence;

if you haven't finished there perhaps you will come back presently? 
"

He spoke pleasantly but without warmth.  She closed the door and
crossed the consulting-room, and reached the door just as it was opened
from the other side.  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mr. 
Fitzgibbon get to his feet as a girl came in.  Not a girl, she
corrected herself, taking in the details with a swift feminine eye, but
a woman of thirty, good-looking, delicately made- up, dressed with
expensive simplicity. She went past Florence with barely a glance.

"Darling, I simply have to see you.  Naughty me, coming to your rooms,
but you weren't at the party and I have so much..."

Florence reluctantly closed the door on the rather high-pitched voice,
but not before she had heard Mr.  Fitzgibbon's, "My dear Eleanor, this
is delightful..."

"Who's she?"  asked Florence, and Mrs.  Keane for once looked put
out.

"Well, I can't say for certain, dear.  She seems to be very friendly
with Mr.  Fitzgibbon--she's always phoning him, you know, and sometimes
he rings her.  She's a widow; married an old man.  He died a year or so
ago.  Very smart, she is--goes everywhere."

"And does she... does he...?  Are they going to get married?"

"If she gets her way they will, but you can't tell with him, dear.

Never shows his feelings.  Very popular he is, lots of friends, could
go anywhere he chooses, but you never know what he's thinking, if you
know what I mean.  "

Florence thought she knew.

"But she's all wrong for him," she said urgently.

Mrs.  Keane nodded, "Yes, dear, he needs someone who doesn't butter him
up--someone like you."

Me?  " Florence said and laughed.

"Are you going home?  I'll have to stay and finish the examination room
I hope they won't be too long.  I said I'd be at Colbert's at seven
o'clock."

"Of course, you've got friends there, I expect.  I'll be off.  The
first patient is at nine o'clock tomorrow-- a new one, too."

After Mrs.  Keane had gone Florence went and sat in the kitchen, and it
was another ten minutes before Mr.  Fitzgibbon and his visitor came
out.

She came out to meet him and asked if she should lock up, and then bade
them goodnight.

"Who's that girl?"  she heard Eleanor ask as they left the
waiting-room.  She wondered what he had replied, then shrugged her
shoulders, finished her work and went home in her turn.

She had her supper on a tray in her room, changed quickly and went to
catch a bus to Colbert's.  The man who had been in the truck was out of
Intensive Care and, since she had been on the hospital staff, she had
no difficulty in obtaining permission to visit him.

She found him propped up in bed, looking very much the worse for wear
but cheerfully determined to get better.  His wife was with him; a
small, thin woman whose nondescript appearance Florence guessed held as
determined a nature as his.  She didn't stay long;

she arranged the flowers she had brought with her in a vase, expressed
her delight at seeing him already on the road to recovery, and prepared
to leave.

"Owes 'is life to you and that nice doctor," said his wife as Florence
prepared to say goodbye.

"Bless yer both for saving 'im.  And that doctor.

"E's a gent if ever there was one.

"Having me fetched like 'e did, and all fixed up to stay as long as I
want, and the kids seen to.

Not to mention the money.  A loan, of course;

as soon as we can we'll pay 'im back, but there's no denying the
cash'll come in handy.  "

Going back to her bed sit Florence reflected that Mr.  Fitzgibbon was a
closed book as far as she was concerned.  And likely to remain so.

The next day was Friday and she would be going home in the evening.

The day was much as any other;

Mr.  Fitzgibbon never lacked for patients--his appoint R ments book
was filled weeks ahead and a good deal of each day was spent at the
hospital.  Florence cleared up after the last patient that afternoon,
glad to be going home.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon had been his usual terse self,
and she felt the strong need for the carefree atmosphere of the
vicarage.

She tidied away the last dressing towels, wiped the glass top of the
small table to a brilliant shine and opened the door into the
waiting-room.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon was sitting on the corner of Mrs. 
Keane's desk talking to her, but he turned to look at Florence and got
to his feet.

"I have just agreed to see a patient this evening, Florence.  He is
unable to come at any other time so we must alter our plans.  You were
going home this evening?"

She wouldn't have minded so much if she had thought he had sounded even
slightly sympathetic.

"Yes, but there are plenty of morning trains--I can go tomorrow.  At
what time this evening do you want me here, sir?"

"Half-past six.  Telephone your home now, if you wish."

He nodded and smiled at Mrs.  Keane, and then went away.

"Hard luck, dear," said Mrs.  Keane.

"Is there a later train you could catch?"

"It takes two hours to get to Sherbome and it would be too late for
anyone to fetch me.  No, it's all right, I'll go on the early train in
the morning."

"Is Mrs.  Twist home?  What about your supper?"

"She's going out, but that's all right, I can open a tin of beans or
something.  I told her I'd be going home, you see."

"It's spoilt Mr.  Fitzgibbon's evening too he was to have taken someone
out to dinner.  I dare say it's that woman who came here that
Eleanor..."

"Well, it's nice to know that his evening is spoilt too," said Florence
waspishly.  She smiled suddenly.

"And hers."

Mrs.  Keane laughed.

"I'll be off; you're coming?"

They went out together, and Mrs.  Keane said cheerfully, "See you
Monday.  He's operating at eight o'clock, so we'll have the morning to
ourselves."

Mrs.  Twist was put out.

"If I'd known I'd have got you a bit of ham for your supper..."

Florence hastened to placate her.

"If I may open a tin of beans?  I'll do some toast.  I've no idea how
long it's going to take; Mr.  Fitzgibbon didn't say.  I'll catch the
early train tomorrow morning..."

"Well, if that's all right with you," said Mrs.  Twist reluctantly.

"Just this once.  Seeing it's for Mr.  Fitzgibbon."

Borence let that pass.  She doubted if he would need to open a tin of
beans for his supper.  She had her tea, tidied her already tidy person,
took a quick look at Mrs.  Twist's Daily Mirror and went back to the
consulting-room.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon was already there, brooding over some X-rays.

"Ah, there you are," he observed, for all the world as though she were
late instead of being five minutes early.  He went back to his
contemplation of the films and she took herself off to the
waiting-room, ready to admit the patient.

He arrived fifteen minutes late, and Florence opened the door to him,
recognising the famous features so often pictured on the front pages of
the daily Press and the evening news on TV.  She hoped that her face
betrayed no surprise as she wished him good evening and begged him to
take a seat.

"Mr.  Fitzgibbon is here," she said, 'if you'll wait a moment.  "

It struck her much later that one didn't ask men like that to wait a
moment, but Mr.  Fitzgibbon had at that moment thrust open his door and
come to shake hands with his patient.  He nodded to Florence and she
followed them into the consulting-room to hear him as sure the man that
she was utterly reliable and discreet.

"Sister will prepare the examination-room while I check the details
your doctor has given me," suggested Mr.  Fitzgibbon smoothly, and
Florence, taking the hint, slid away and closed the door.

It seemed a long time before the two men came to the examination-room,
and an even lengthier time be fore Mr.  Fitzgibbon was finished with
his examination.  The pair of them went back into the consulting-room,
leaving Florence to clear up.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon appeared to have used
almost everything usable there--an hour's work at least, she thought,
and it was already almost eight o'clock.

She was half finished when he came in.  His patient had gone and there
was only the reading-lamp on his desk to light the consulting-room.

He said pleasantly, "I'm sorry that your evening has been spoilt."  He
picked up a hand towel from the pile she had just arranged.

"Mrs.  Twist has supper waiting for you?"

"Oh, yes," said Florence airily, 'something special.  " She said, "
She's a good cook, and I expect we shall have it together.  "

Mr.  Fitzgibbon replaced the towel carefully.

"In that case, there's no point in suggesting that we might have had a
meal somewhere together."

"Was your evening spoilt too?"  asked Florence, aware that it had been,
but hoping for a few details.

"Spoilt?  Hardly.  Shall I say that it necessitated a change of
plans?"

The too," agreed Florence with a cheerful lack of grammar.

"Never mind, you have the whole weekend."

"Indeed I have.  Be outside Mrs.  Twist's at half-past eight tomorrow
morning, Florence: I will drive you home."

She arranged everything just so, put the hand towels out of his reach
and finally said, "That is most kind of you, sir, but there is a train
I can catch... It only takes two hours;

I can be home well before lunchtime.  "

"Two hours?  I can do it in an hour and a half in the car.  I need a
breath of country air too."

"Won't it spoil your day?"  asked Florence feebly.

"My dear Florence, if it were going to spoil my day I should not have
suggested it in the first place."

She looked extremely pretty standing there, the last of the sun turning
her hair to burnished copper, her face a little tired, for it had been
a long day.  She gave him a clear look, making sure that he had meant
what he had said.

"Then I'd like that very much," she told him quietly.

"Go home now, Florence.  I have some writing to do, so I'll lock up."

He turned back to his desk.

"Goodnight."

She wished him a good night and made her way to Mrs.  Twist's, where
she kicked off her shoes, opened a tin of baked beans, took the pins
out of her hair and sat on the kitchen table, eating her supper.  Of
course, supper with Mr.  Fitzgibbon would have been quite a different
matter--a well-chosen meal at the end of the day would have been very
acceptable, but not acting as a substitute for the glamorous Eleanor.

She fed Buster, had a bath and presently went to bed.

It was a glorious morning; it was almost June and a lovely time of the
year.  She swapped the dress she had been going to wear for a much
prettier one, telling herself it was because it was more suited to the
bright sunshine outside, and she skipped downstairs to make a cup of
tea.  Mrs.  Twist took things easy on Saturdays and there would be no
breakfast, although Florence knew she was free to help herself.  The
note she had left on the kitchen table for her landlady had gone, and
in its place Mrs.  Twist had left one of her own.

"Don't let Buster out.  Have a nice trip, you lucky girl."

Florence drank her tea, gave Buster his breakfast, picked up her
weekend bag and let herself out of the house.  She was closing the door
gently behind her when the Rolls came to quite a quiet halt and Mr.
Fitzgibbon got out to open her door.

She wished him good morning and thought how nice he looked in casual
clothes; he looked younger too, and his 'good morning' was uttered in a
friendly voice.  Emboldened, she remarked upon the beauty of the
morning, but beyond a brief reply he had nothing to say and she
supposed that he wasn't in the mood for conversation.  She let out a
small surprised yelp when a warm tongue gently licked the back of her
neck.  She turned her head and found herself looking into a pair of
gentle brown eyes in a whiskered face, heavily shrouded in eyebrows and
a great deal of light brown hair.

"Ah, I should have mentioned," said Mr.  Fitzgibbon casually, "Monty
likes the country too.  You don't mind?"

"Mind?  No, of course not.  She has a beautiful face.  What is she?"

"We have often wondered... We settled for a mixed parentage."

"Did you get her from a breeder or a pet shop?"

"Neither from a doorway in a street full of boarded-up houses.  It took
some time for her to achieve the physical perfection she now enjoys,
but, even now, it is difficult to decide what her parents might be."

Florence exchanged another look with the brown eyes behind her.

"She's awfully sweet.  Higgins will love her.  I'm not sure about
Charlie Brown, though he's our cat."

"Monty likes cats.  Our cat had kittens a couple of weeks ago and she
broods over the whole basketful whenever Melisande goes walking."

"Melisande the cat?"

"Yes.  Does your mother know that we're coming?"

"Yes.  My brothers are home again for half-term."

They lapsed into silence again, broken only by Monty's gentle sighs and
mutterings.  They were on the A303 by now and the road was fairly
clear, for it was still early.  Florence, sitting back in the comfort
able seat with the dog's warm breath on her neck, felt happy and, since
there seemed to be no need to talk, she took time to wonder why.

Of course, being driven in a Rolls-Royce was enough to make anyone
happy, but it was more than that: she was enjoying Mr.  Fitzgibbon's
company, even though he was doing nothing at all to entertain her.  She
felt quite at ease with him, and the thought surprised her, for until
that moment she had got used to the idea that she didn't much like him,
only, she had to admit, sometimes.

Presently she ventured to remark that he could turn off at Sparkford,
and then added, "Oh, sorry, you came with Mr.  Wilkins."  Then, because
he didn't answer, "Do you like this part of England?"

"Very much; an easy drive from town and, once one is away from the main
road, charmingly rural."  He turned off the A303 and took a minor road
towards Sherborne, and presently left it for a narrow country road, its
hedges burgeoning with the foliage of oncoming summer.

Gussage Tollard lay in a hollow; they could see the house-tops as they
went down the hill, and Florence gave a contented sigh.

"Oh, it is nice to be home," she said.

"You regret taking the job?"  Mr.  Fitzgibbon wanted to know sharply.

"You do not like working for me?"

"Of course I like working for you, it's a super job.  Only I wish I
knew you better..."  She stopped, very red in the face.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what made me say that."

"Well, if you ever find out, let me know."  He didn't look at her, for
which she was thankful.

"The vicarage is past the church and along the lane, isn't it?"  He
sounded so casual that she hoped he might not have heard what she had
said, but he must have done be cause he had told her to tell him.  It
had been a silly remark and easily forgotten.

She said cheerfully, "Here we are."  She glanced at her watch.

"It took an hour and twenty-five minutes.  You were right."

"Of course I was."  He spoke without conceit as he got out, opened her
door and then let Monty out, giving her the chance to run into the
house first.

CHAPTER FOUR

florence hadn't reached the door before her mother came to meet her,
and hard on her heels were her two brothers, with Higgins shoving his
way past them to jump up at her, barking his pleasure.

Florence said breathlessly, "Hello, Mother-boys... here's Mr.  He had
followed more slowly, and stood quietly with Monty beside him as they
all surged towards him.

"You've met each other," said Florence to her mother, and added, 'these
are my brothers--Tom and Nicky.  Oh, and this is Higgins.  "

Higgins had sat down deliberately in front of Monty, and presently bent
his elderly head to breathe gently over the little dog.

"Oh, good, they're going to be friends," said Mrs.  Napier.

"Come in--the coffee is ready.  Did you have a decent drive from
London?"

She led the way indoors, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon, at his most urbane, gave
all the right answers and, when asked, declared that there was nothing
he enjoyed more than coffee in the kitchen.

"You see, I'm getting lunch and we can all talk there while I'm
cooking."  Mrs.  Napier gave him a sweet smile.

"Sit here," she told him, offering a Windsor chair by the big scrubbed
table.

"I'm afraid we use the kitchen a great deal, especially in the winter.
This is a nice old house but it is all open fireplaces there's no
heating otherwise, and we spend hours lugging in coals just to keep the
sitting-room fire glowing.

Thank heaven for an Aga.  " She beamed at him.

"Have you one in your home?"

Mr.  Fitzgibbon hesitated for a moment.

"Er yes, I believe we have."

"Well, I'm sure you must need it, leading the kind of life you do... at
everybody's beck and call, I dare say."

She was pouring coffee as she spoke, and Florence picked up a jug of
hot milk.

"Black or white?"  she asked him.  She had been listening to her mother
rambling on in her gentle way and not minding in the least; if he
didn't like it it was just too bad.

Apparently he didn't mind; he accepted milk and sugar and a large slice
of the cake on the table, and entered into a spirited conversation with
her brothers concerning cars, although he interlarded this with small
talk with her mother, and presently, when she remarked that the vicar
had gone to Whitehorse Farm a mile the other side of the village, he
suggested he might take the car and give him a lift back.  An idea
which appealed to the boys and which Mrs.  Napier instantly accepted.

"Do leave your little dog here if you like;

she seems happy enough with Higgins.  "

They all went out to the car again, and when Mr.  Fitzgibbon opened the
car doors both dogs got in as well.  Florence stood with her mother,
watching the car turn smoothly out of the gate, and her mother said, "I
do hope he doesn't mind taking the boys and Higgins;

he seems such a nice man charming manners too.  Very considerate to
work for, I've no doubt, love.  "

"I suppose so.  Mother.  Nothing is allowed to stand in the way of his
work, though, and he's very reserved.  He doesn't talk much, only to
tell me what he wants done..."

"But, darling, you're not working all the time; you had a two hours'
drive from London you must have talked...?"

Florence cast thoughts back to the morning's journey

"Well, no, only this and that, you know."

"I'm surprised that he isn't married," observed Mrs.  Napier
chattily.

They were in the kitchen, clearing up the coffee- cups.

"I honestly don't think he's had the time to fall in love, although he
must know any number of suitable women..."

"Suitable?"

"Well, you know what I mean.  Mother.  His kind of female, beautifully
dressed and made-up and entertaining and witty and not needing to
work..."

Mrs.  Napier gave a mug an extra polish.

"What makes you think that is his kind of female?"

"A girl no, a woman came to the consulting- rooms, Eleanor something or
other, and he seemed awfully pleased to see her.  She had one of those
voices you actually hear from yards away even though they're not
speaking loudly you know what I mean?"

"I don't know Mr.  Fitzgibbon well, but he strikes me as a man who is
unlikely to succumb to such a woman.  Do you suppose he might stay for
lunch?"

"I doubt it," said Florence.

"Here they are now."

Her father was the only one to come into the kitchen; the others were
outside, and Florence could see two youthful heads on either side of a
grizzled one, peering into the Rolls's engine.

Her father kissed her and patted her on the shoulder in a paternal
fashion.

"My dear, what a very pleasant man your doctor is..."

"He's a surgeon.  Father, and he's not mine..."

"No, no, my dear, I speak lightly.  So kind of him to drive over to
fetch me, and he's so patient with the boys."  He looked at his wife.

"Might he not be invited to lunch?"

"Of course, it's Saturday he must be free.  I'll ask him."

Presently, back in the kitchen, he refused.

"There is nothing I would have enjoyed more," he assured Mrs.  Napier,
'but I have a date this afternoon, added to which I must get back to
town.  "

"Well, of course you must," declared Mrs.  Napier comfortably.

"I don't suppose you have much time in which to enjoy yourself.  It was
very kind of you to drive Florence here.  It's not like her to miss the
train."

"Ah, but that's why I brought her she didn't miss the train, she had to
stay on Friday evening to attend a patient; I sometimes have
consultations at awkward hours."

Mrs.  Napier, who had been nurturing the beginnings of a possible
romance between this nice man and her daughter, was disappointed.

They went to the door to see him off, and Mrs.  Napier said wistfully,
"A pity you couldn't stay; I would so enjoy hearing about your work I
really am quite vague as to what exactly Florence does..."

He was getting into the car.

"Works very hard, Mrs.  Napier; she is also clear-headed and brave, and
doesn't make a fuss when her clothes get torn and she gets covered in
dust."  He turned to grin at Florence's annoyed face.

"Do ask her about it."

He waved a hand, and drove away with the mini mum of fuss.

"What exactly did he mean?"  asked Mrs.  Napier.

"Come indoors, love, and tell us about it.  Have you been in an
accident?"

"No," said Florence crossly, 'and I wasn't going to say anything about
it.  How tiresome he is.  "

"Yes, dear.  Now sit down and tell us what happened

There was nothing for it but to do as her mother asked.

"Really, I didn't do anything; I mean, only what anyone else would have
done.  It was Mr.  Fitzgibbon who rescued the man and amputated his
leg.  He did it on his hands and knees and it must have been very
uncomfortable for him as he's so very large.  He went straight to
Colbert's and there was further surgery to do.  He sent me back to my
bed sit in a taxi."

"How very kind."

"Yes?  He expected me to be on duty at the consulting-rooms later that
afternoon."  Florence gave an indignant snort.

"He doesn't spare himself, and he doesn't spare anyone else either."

"He did bring you home in that Rolls," Tom pointed out.

"I think he's absolutely super..."

"So do I," said Nicky.

"He knows a lot about cars too."

"Pooh," said Florence, 'who wants to know about cars anyway?  " And she
flounced out of the room and up to her bedroom, where she hung out of
the window and brooded, although she wasn't sure what she was brooding
about.

It was impossible to brood for long.  The garden below her window was
bursting with a mixture of early-summer flowers: roses, entangled with
soldiers and sailors, wallflowers, forget-me-nots, pansies, lilies of
the valley and buttercups rioted all over the rather neglected
flowerbeds of the vicarage garden.  Florence took herself off
downstairs, firmly resolved to bring a little order to the colourful
chaos.

The weekend was over far too quickly; she left the half-weeded garden
with reluctance, aware that the hard work she had put into it had done
much to assuage the feeling of restlessness.

Sitting in the train on the way back to London, she reflected that a
week's hard work would get her back to her normal acceptance of life
once more.

Her room looked cramped and dreary after the comfortable shabbiness of
the vicarage; she arranged the flowers she had brought back with her,
unpacked her overnight bag and took a bunch of roses down to the
kitchen for Mrs.  Twist, who was so delighted with them that she opened
a tin of soup to add to their supper of corned beef, lettuce and
tomatoes.

She walked to work the next morning, the early sun shine already
warm.

It was going to be a lovely day, and her thoughts turned longingly to
the garden at home and all those roses needing her attention.  Once at
the consulting-rooms and in Mrs.  Keane's company, she became her usual
self.  With Mr.  Fitzgibbon at the hospital, there was the opportunity
to give the examination-room a good clean, check the instruments, see
that the cupboards and the drawers were stocked, and have a leisurely
cup of coffee with Mrs.  Keane.

"You got home, then?"  asked that lady as they drank it.

"Mr.  Fitzgibbon gave me a lift on Saturday morning."

"Well, I never did how very kind of him.  Was he spending the weekend
in your part of the world, I wonder

"Oh, no.  He only stayed for a cup of coffee; he said he had a
date..."

"That Eleanor woman, I have no doubt.  There were two calls from her on
the answering machine.  Well, he's not likely to take her out this
evening he won't get away from Colbert's much before one o'clock, and
there are five appointments starting at two o'clock."

Mrs.  Keane took another biscuit.

"He'll be a bit terse, I dare say.

Monday morning and all that.  " She asked abruptly, " Are you going to
stay?  I do hope so.  "

"Heavens, the month is almost up, isn't it?  Yes, I hope he'll decide
to keep me on.  The work's interesting isn't it?  And it's nice being
able to go home each weekend.  And the money, of course..."

"Well, I don't expect you'll get home every week end.  There's an
appointment for Wednesday a query.  In the Midlands.  You'll probably
have to go with him, perhaps stay overnight; it could easily have been
the weekend, even though it isn't this time."

"Well, that's all right."

"Good.  Do you mind if I go out for half an hour?  I must get something
for supper tonight and we'll prob ably be too late for the shops this
afternoon."

Left to herself, Florence did some more turning out of cupboards and
drawers, and she answered the phone several times and then turned on
the answering machine and listened to Eleanor's voice.  She sounded
snappy; Mr.  Fitzgibbon hadn't turned up to take her to the theatre,
nor had he bothered to let her know why.  The second message was even
snappier.  Florence, while conceding that Mr.  Fitzgibbon wasn't a man
who needed sympathy, being well able to look after himself, felt quite
sorry for him.

Mrs.  Keane was back, and they had eaten their lunch when he came in.

His 'good afternoon' was austere, and he looked tired, which wasn't
surprising, since he had been operating since eight o'clock, but as
Florence ushered in the first of the patients she saw that he had
somehow shed his weariness, presenting to his patients a sympathetic
calm and a complete concentration.

The last one went just before five o'clock, and she took in a cup of
tea Mrs.  Keane had ready for him.

He glanced up as she went in.

"I'm going back to Colbert's," he told her.

"My first appointment is for nine o'clock tomorrow morning, isn't it?
If I'm late say all the usual, will you?  I'll hope to get here, but I
can't be certain."

She murmured and went to the door, to be halted by his, "By the way, I
have to go to Lichfield on Wednesday--a little girl with cystic
fibrosis.  She's been a patient of mine for some time, but her parents
insisted on taking her home... She's a difficult child and I shall want
you with me.  It is possible that we shall have to spend the night, so
bring a bag with you.  We shall leave around midday after the morning
ap R pointments.  I've engaged to meet her local doctor at half-past
two."

"Uniform, sir?"

"Oh, decidedly, and your starchiest manner.  The poor child is spoilt
by her parents and an old nanny, but she responds quite well to calm
authority."

Florence said, "Yes, sir," and took herself out of the room.  A couple
of days away from the consulting- rooms would be a nice change, but it
sounded as though she was going to have her work cut out.  She found
Mrs.  Keane in the kitchen, drinking tea, and she poured herself a
cup.

"I'm to go to Lichfield," she explained, 'and prob ably stay the night
there, as you thought.  "

"Oh, Phoebe Villiers Sister Brice dreaded that visit; the child's very
difficult and the parents absolutely refuse to let her have further
treatment in hospital.  They had a house somewhere in Hampstead, and
that's how Mr.  Fitzgibbon took her on as a patient; got her into
Colbert's and there really was an improvement but the parents moved to
their other house at Lichfield and discharged her.  He could have
refused to go on treating her as a patient, but he would never do that,
not while there was a chance of keeping the child as fit as
possible."

"So he goes all the way up there to see her?"

"Yes, every three months she's a private patient, of course, but even
if she weren't I believe that he would still go.  He doesn't give up
easily."

The next day went smoothly enough; it was just as Mr.  Fitzgibbon was
leaving in the evening after a long afternoon that Florence asked, "Do
I have time to go back to Mrs.  Twist's tomorrow and fetch my overnight
bag?"

"I think not.  I want to get away in good time.  We shall have to stop
for a meal of sorts on the way; you can do whatever you do to your face
and hair then."

Florence muttered a reply.  The man needed a wife so that he might have
some insight into female ways.  She wondered if he treated Eleanor in
such an arbitrary fashion, and how she responded if he did.  Of course,
the occasion would never arise; Eleanor had all the time in the world
to make herself ready for any social outing, and this, Florence
reminded herself briskly, was by no means to be a social visit--not one
of them was likely to notice if her hair was all anyhow and her nose
shining.

All the same, she washed her hair that evening, attended to her nicely
kept hands and packed an extra uniform.  She had dealt with difficult
children in hospital and knew how prone they were to throw things.  It
wanted ten minutes to noon as Mr.  Fitzgibbon eased the Rolls away from
the kerb.  Florence, sitting silently beside him, thought of the small
tasks she hadn't had time to do, made a mental inventory of the
contents of her overnight bag, and tried not to think about lunch.  Her
breakfast had been a sketchy one that morning and there had been no
time for coffee.  She hoped her insides wouldn't rumble.  Anyone else,
she reflected, and she wouldn't have hesitated to say that she was
hungry, but a quick peep at her companion's severe profile made it
obvious that he wasn't concerned about food.  Getting out of London was
upper most in his mind.

Not knowing that part of the city well, she became quite bewildered
with the short cuts and the ins and outs of nondescript streets, and
once or twice she wondered if he had got lost, but suddenly they were
on the Ml, going north, and his well-shod foot went down on the
accelerator.

"You're a girl after my own heart," he said, 'you know when to hold
your tongue.  " After which astonishing remark he lapsed into silence
once more, leaving her to wonder whether he had meant that as a
compliment or merely an expression of relief; either way it seemed a
good idea to stay silent.

The miles flew by, and they had passed the outskirts of Luton when he
slowed the car and turned into Toddington Service Station.

"Twenty minutes and not a minute more.  Out you get."

She got out and followed him into the vast and busy cafeteria.

"Coffee and sandwiches?"  he asked as he sat her down at a table.

"Any preference?"

"Cheese, and tea, not coffee."  She added after his retreating back,
"Please."

The place wasn't too full; he was back quickly with his tray:

sandwiches for both of them, coffee for him and a little pot of tea for
her she liked him for that.

They didn't waste time talking, but she liked him even better when he
said, "This is hardly the kind of place to which I would take you,
Florence, but we are rather pressed for time.  You must allow me to
give you dinner one evening as recompense."

She paused before taking another bite.

"That's all right, sir.  These sandwiches are very good, and the tea is
heavenly."

She swallowed a second cup and stood up when he asked her if she was
ready.

"I'll meet you at the car I'll be very quick."  She had whisked herself
away, not seeing his quick smile at the unselfconscious remark.  The
image of Eleanor crossed his mind; in like circumstances she would have
talked prettily about powdering her nose and kept him waiting for ten
minutes.  Of course, she would never allow herself to be in
surroundings such as these in the first place.

He was back in the car by now and watched Florence emerge from the
Ladies' and make a swift beeline towards him.

He opened the door, shut her in once more and got in beside her.  The
motorway wasn't busy, since it was the lunch-hour, and the Rolls, kept
at a steady pace of seventy miles an hour, made light of the
distance.

Florence, busy with pleasant plans as to the laying out of her first
pay cheque, due the next day, was surprised to see the sign to
Lichfield ahead of them.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon turned off the motorway.

"Around twelve miles," he remarked.  He glanced at his watch.

"You will probably have five minutes or so before you meet Phoebe."  He
glanced at her.

"You look remarkably neat and tidy."

"I should hope so," said Florence tartly.

"You wouldn't employ me for long if I weren't."

"True.  Which reminds me you intend to stay on?"

"Well, yes, if you're quite satisfied with me, sir."

"Given time, I see no reason why we shouldn't deal excellently with
each other."

The kind of quelling remark which was enough to tempt a girl to give in
her notice then and there.

The Villiers lived a few miles from the town, and Florence glanced
around as they drove through the double gates and along a driveway as
smooth as silk, running through gardens so well laid out that it might
have been painted instead of planted.  A far cry from the vicarage
garden, always in need of a good weed and the pruning shears, and twice
as beautiful.  The house matched the garden: with its pristine white
walls, sparkling windows and glossy paint, it seemed rather like a
stage setting.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon, apparently oblivious to his
surroundings, got out, opened her door and walked with her to the wide
porch.

Florence, still feeling as though she were on a film set, was ushered
into the hall by a maid, very correctly dressed, even to a cap on her
head, and stood quietly waiting for whatever would happen next.

"Mr.  Fitzgibbon and Sister Napier--we are expected," said Mr.
Fitzgibbon, and she walked beside him as they were shown into a large
room with a lofty ceiling and french windows opening on to the garden,
and furnished with modern chairs, deep couches and glass-topped tables.
Florence, brought up among well- polished oak and mahogany pieces,
winced.

The man and woman who came to meet them matched the room.

Well-dressed, the woman beautifully made-up and coiffeured, they were
as modern as their surroundings.

Mrs.  Villiers spoke first.

"Mr.  Fitzgibbon--so good of you to come.  Dr.  Gibbs will be joining
us shortly."  Her eyes swept over Florence.

"A

new nurse?  What happened to the other one?  "

"Sister Brice left me to get married--may I introduce Sister Napier,
Mrs.  Villiers?"

Mrs.  Villiers nodded in Florence's direction without looking at her.

"Well, do sit down and have a drink... Nurse can go to her room for a
moment or two."

"I should prefer her to meet Phoebe before we examine her."  Mr.
Fitzgibbon's courteous manner was very cool.

"Oh, if she must.  The child's with Nanny.  I'll get someone to take
her up."

"I think it might be better if I go too.  Perhaps I might be told when
Dr.  Gibbs arrives?"

Mrs.  Villiers laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

"You must do what you think best, I suppose."  She glanced at her
silent husband.

"Archie, ring the bell, will you?"

They were led upstairs by the maid, and then through a closed door and
down a passage, which led to the nursery, a room that overlooked the
grounds at the back of the house, comfortably furnished with rather a
shabby lot of furniture, and much too warm.  No wonder, thought
Florence; there were no windows open, and there was a quite unnecessary
fire in the old-fashioned grate too.

Phoebe was sitting at the table, a painting book and a paintbox before
her, and opposite her was an elderly woman with a round, pasty face and
beady eyes.  She got up as they went in, wished Mr.  Fitzgibbon a good
afternoon and stared at Florence.

He brought his considerable charm to bear upon her, so after a moment
she relaxed, nodded a greeting to Florence and told Phoebe to say 'how
do you do?  " like a little lady.

"Hello," said Phoebe, and went back to her painting.  She would have
been a pretty child but her illness had given her the look of an
under-nourished waif, with eyes too big for her face and no colour in
her cheeks.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon wasted no time.

"And how is the tip ping and tapping going?"

"Well, sir, we don't bother with it Phoebe doesn't like it, poor little
lamb; she's happy to stay in this nice warm room with her old nanny,
aren't you, love?"

Phoebe didn't answer her, but after a moment looked sideways at
Florence.

"Who's she?"

"I've come to look at you and Sister Napier is here to help me.  Dr.
Gibbs will be here directly."

"I shan't," said Phoebe.

Florence pulled out an armchair and sat down be side her.

"Why not?"

she asked cheerfully.

"Do tell."

"Just because..."

"We've come a long way," said Florence, 'and Mr.  Fitzgibbon is a very
busy man.  Still, if you won't there's nothing for us to do but get
into the car and drive all the way back to London.  " She had picked up
a paintbrush and was colouring an elephant bright red.

"Elephants aren't red!"  said the child scornfully.

"No.  But it's nice to do things wrong sometimes, isn't it?  Roses are
red... do you go into the garden each day and smell them?"

"I'm too ill."

"That's why Mr.  Fitzgibbon has come to see you;

he'll examine you, and perhaps he'll tell you that you're not so ill
any more, and then you can go into the garden.  "

Florence finished the elephant and started to paint a zebra with purple
stripes.

"I'm very highly strung," said Phoebe, 'did you know?  "

"I've often wondered what that meant--do you suppose you swing from the
ceiling?"

Phoebe chuckled.

"I like you.  I didn't like the other nurse--I bit her."

"Ah, but you won't need to bite anyone today because you're getting
better."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon had been talking to Nanny, but he turned to look at
Florence now.  He asked, "Aren't you afraid to get bitten, Florence?"

The, sir?  Not in the least; in any case, I always bite back.  "

He laughed, but Nanny frowned, and it was just as well that the door
opened then and Dr.  Gibbs came in.  He was elderly with a nice kind
face, and he greeted Mr.  Fitzgibbon warmly.

"This is Sister Napier, who has replaced Sister Brice, and, since we're
all here, shall we have an examination and then discuss the situation
later?  We are to spend the night.  Sister Napier will carry out the
tipping and tapping in the morning and let me know what progress has
been made.  I understand that it has been discontinued."

"Yes, well, I'll tell you about that."  Dr.  Gibbs shook Florence's
hand.

"If Nanny will allow us we can go into Phoebe's room..."

Phoebe was by no means an easy little patient; the examination took
twice as long as it needed to, while Florence used all her patience and
ingenuity to keep the child reasonably calm and still.  The two men
went away presently, leaving her to pacify Phoebe as she dressed her
again and then handed her back to a suspicious Nanny.

Florence explained that she would have to rouse Phoebe in the morning
and bore meekly the other woman's resentment.

"I'm sorry," said Florence, 'but Mr.  Fitzgibbon has told me to do
this, and he is in charge of the child.  I'm sure you want the best
possible treatment for her.  "

She bade the still complaining child goodbye for the moment and found
her way downstairs.  Poor little Phoebe was an ill child and she need
not have been-given a longer period in hospital and the proper
treatment, she would have had a chance to live longer.  Florence
thought that once they had gone again Nanny would do exactly what she
wanted, and any treatment Mr.  Fitzgibbon had ordered would be
ignored.

She wasn't sure where she should go or what she should do--there was no
sign of anyone.  The two men would be discussing their findings or
having tea with the Villierses, which reminded her that a cup of tea
would be welcome.  As there was no one in sight, she walked through the
hall and out of the front door, and strolled along the carefully tended
paths; they looked as though no one ever walked along them.  Mr.
Fitzgibbon, standing at the drawing-room window, listening to Mrs.
Villiers's peevish voice assuring him that she was far too sensitive to
see that the treatment he had ordered was properly carried out and add
Ring a list of her own ailments, allowed his eyes to stray to Florence,
strolling along in the afternoon sunshine.  Her copper hair glowed
under the neat cap, and he thought that even in her severe uniform she
looked exactly right in a rose garden.

He heard Mrs.  Villiers say fretfully, "Well, I suppose we had better
have a cup of tea.  Do sit down, Mr.  Fitzgibbon, and you, Dr.  Gibbs.
I suppose your nurse will want tea?"

"I am sure that Sister Napier would like that.  I see that she is
walking in the garden."

"Archie, go and fetch her, will you?"

Conversation over tea was constrained, and Phoebe wasn't mentioned, but
when the teacups had been carried away Mr.  Fitzgibbon observed, at his
most bland, "If I may I shall take Sister Napier into the garden and
brief her as to tomorrow morning, and then perhaps we may have a talk
about Phoebe."

They were well away from the house when he asked, "Well?"

"Well what, sir?  If we're talking about Phoebe I think it's a crying
shame that her treatment has been so neglected.  If it had been carried
out properly and she could have gone back into hospital... Can't you
make them?"  she asked fiercely.

"My dear girl, short of living here and sharing Phoebe's nursery, I see
no way of altering things.  I have suggested that they employ a nurse
to care for the child.  Mrs.  Villiers tells me, however, that Nanny
wouldn't agree to that and she categorically refuses to discuss it. Dr.
Gibbs does what he can but, as you know, one cannot insist on
treatment against the patient wishes or, in the case of Phoebe, her
parents'."

"Nanny is angry that I must disturb Phoebe tomorrow morning."

"I thought she might be.  Would you like me to come along too?"

"At six o'clock in the morning?"  She turned to look up at him.

"That wouldn't do at all."

"I want to be away by nine o'clock.  Dr.  Gibbs will be here at
half-past eight you will be ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you suppose," asked Mr.  Fitzgibbon smoothly, 'that when there is
no one around you might stop calling me sir with every other breath? 
"

Florence considered this.

"No, it wouldn't do at all."

"It makes me feel elderly."

"Nonsense, you're not in the least elderly.  Do you suppose I'm to dine
with you this evening, or have something on a tray?"

He stopped to look down at her with an air of cold surprise which quite
shook her.

"Do you imagine that I would allow that?  I am surprised at you even
suggesting such an idea."

"Well, I dare say you are, but Mrs.  Villiers wouldn't be..."

"Let us not waste time talking about her."  They turned to walk back
towards the house.

"I'm operating tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock.  Theatre Sister is on
holiday, so I shall want you to scrub."

"You tell me now!"  exclaimed Florence.

"Really, you are " Yes?  " asked Mr.  Fitzgibbon softly.

"Never mind, sir.  What are you going to do?"

"A lobectomy you can manage that?"

"I shall do my best, sir."  She spoke sweetly, but her blue eyes
flashed and the colour came into her cheeks.

"You are quite startlingly beautiful when you're cross," said Mr.
Fitzgibbon, and opened the doors into the drawing-room so that she
might go ahead of him.

She had been given a room near the nursery.  It was pleasant enough,
given that it was furnished with the impersonal style of a hotel
bedroom.  There was a bath room next door, and she whiled away the hour
before dinner lying in a very hot bath, thinking about Mr.
Fitzgibbon.

The thoughts were wispy odds and ends of conversations, the manner in
which he could change from a pleasant companion to a reserved
consultant, the expert way in which he handled his car, the way he had
tackled what had appeared to be the hopeless task of freeing the man in
the truck.

"I shall end up liking him if I go on like this," said Florence,
peering at her lobster-red person in the bathroom mirror.

Later, in bed and half asleep, she went over the evening.  Dinner had
been very formal, and the sight of Mrs.  Villiers in black chiffon and
sequins had made her very aware of her uniform, even though it was the
pristine one she had packed.  The conversation had been stilted, with
Mrs.  Villiers talking about her delicate constitution, her husband
making very little effort to take part in the conversation, and Mr.
Fitzgibbon, with his beautiful manners, saying the right things at the
right time.  As for herself, she had answered when spoken to, listened
to Mrs.  Villiers's grumbles with what she privately called her
listening face, and allowed her thoughts to wander.  They wandered all
over the place and ended up at Mr.  Fitzgibbon as she fell asleep.

They left at nine o'clock the next morning, and Florence heaved a sigh
of relief as Mr.  Fitzgibbon turned the car on to the road.  The
morning so far had been horrendous.  Phoebe had been a handful, and
Nanny had made her worse.  Florence had longed to tell her that her
cosseting of the child was doing more harm than good, but she guessed
that Mr. Fitzgibbon had already made that plain.  She had eaten a
solitary breakfast while he and Dr.  Gibbs had talked to the
Villierses.  She stole a look at his stern profile, and decided not to
speak until spoken to.

They were more than halfway to the motorway before he said anything.

"We could have done a great deal for that child.  Dr.  Gibbs will
continue to urge them to let her go into hospital, but I'm afraid that
by the time he does it may be too late to be of much help."

Florence, despite her kicked shins, agreed with him.

"Poor scrap," she said.

"You did very well, Florence, and I'm sorry that you weren't treated
with better manners."

"That didn't matter."

He gave her a quick glance.

"You're a kind girl and you haven't uttered a single grumble.  We'll
stop at Milton Keynes and have a pot of coffee."

They joined the Ml presently, travelling for the most part in
silence.

Florence was quite glad of that:

it gave her a chance to check up on her theatre technique

They stopped at the Post House in Milton Keynes and had their coffee
and a plate of buns, not hurrying, and talking in a desultory fashion,
and, although they didn't say much for the rest of the journey,
Florence found the silence comfortable.  Perhaps their relation ship
was getting on to a more friendly footing.  She was surprised to
realise that she very much hoped so.

CHAPTER FIVE

mr fitz gibbon left his consulting-rooms within minutes of arriving,
staying only long enough to check Mrs.  Keane's carefully written
messages and go through his post, leaving Florence with the advice that
she should be at Colbert's not later than a quarter-past one.

"I

have my own instruments there," he went on, 'but it would be as well
for you to check everything before we start."

Well, of course it would, she agreed silently, and what about her
lunch?  He had gone without another word.

She said rather worriedly to Mrs.  Keane, "Do you suppose I dare pop
over to Mrs.  Twist's and ask her for a sandwich?  She doesn't like me
going there during the day..."

"I thought of that, dear."  Mrs.  Keane's cosy voice sounded pleased
with itself.

"I bought some sausage rolls for you as I came in this morning.  I
remembered how poor Sister Brice would come back from somewhere or
other, quite famished.  I've got the kettle on;

we'll have a cup of tea, and I'll eat my sandwiches at the same time
and you can tell me all about it.  "

Before she went to catch the bus to Colbert's Florence took a look at
the appointments book.  There were two patients for later that
afternoon.  She reckoned that Mr.  Fitzgibbon would have finished
before four o'clock, but there were still his instruments to check
before they went down to be sterilised and're packed.  The first
patient was booked for five o'clock;

with luck she would be back at the consulting-rooms by then.  She
joined the queue for the bus and wondered just how quickly she would be
able to change back into uniform.

Although she had worked as Staff Nurse in Theatre for some months, she
felt uncertain about her reception, but she need not have worried.

The staff nurse on duty was newly qualified and nervous.

"I'm glad it's you," she confided as Florence got into her theatre kit,
'he scares me stiff, and he looks at you.  "

"Well, yes," agreed Florence, and thought that his eyes were rather
nice; they could, of course, look like grey steel, but on the other
hand they could look warm and amused.

"Now I'd better lay up my trolley."

The anaesthetist remembered her as she walked in with the trolley, and
he nodded to her in a friendly fashion.

"Hello, Florence, how nice to see you back.  No chance of you staying
with us?"

He checked his patient and settled down on his stool, and when she
shook her head observed, "Working for Fitzgibbon, aren't you?  He's a
lucky chap!"

Florence's lovely eyes crinkled in a smile behind her mask; a pity Mr.
Fitzgibbon wasn't there to hear that.  He came a moment later, towering
over everyone in his green gown.  He wished everyone an affable good
afternoon, and got down to work.  He had his registrar with him and a
houseman, rather timidly assisting, very much in awe of his chief.  He
had no need to be; Mr.  Fitzgibbon shed the light of his good humour
over everyone there, so that the houseman became quite efficient and
the little staff nurse, who was good at her job, forgot to be nervous
of him.  He worked unhurriedly and with the ease of long practice, and
Florence, all the well-remembered routine taking over, handed
instruments seconds before he held out a hand for them.  All the while
he carried on a casual conversation with the other men, so that the
atmosphere, which had been rather fraught when he had first come in,
became decidedly relaxed.  In all, reflected Florence, getting out of
the gown, a pleasant afternoon.  She was carefully checking his
instruments, which one of the nurses was washing before sending them to
be sterilised, and she was still in her green theatre smock, when he
came back into Theatre.

"How long will you be?"  he asked.

Me?  Oh, fifteen minutes, sir.  I'll be back in time for the first
patient.  "

"Make sure it is fifteen minutes--I'll be outside in the forecourt."

"There's no..."  She caught his eye, grey steel.

"Very well, sir," she said, outwardly meek.

"He's never going to take you back with him?"  said the little staff
nurse.

"Well, I have to be at his consulting-rooms for the first patient, and
I might get held up catching a bus," said Florence practically.

She finished what she was doing calmly, got back into her dress and
went down to the forecourt.

He was there, leaning on the car's bonnet, reading the first edition of
the evening paper.  He folded it away tidily and opened her door.

Sitting beside her before starting the engine, he observed, "You did
very well, Florence."

Her, "Thank you, sir," was uttered with just the right amount of
meekness.

There was still a little time before the patient would arrive; she was
pleased to see that Mrs.  Keane had the tea-tray ready and surprised
when that lady said blithely, "Tea is made, Mr.  Fitzgibbon, and I
popped out for some of those biscuits you like.  How handy the
telephone is, to be sure, otherwise I wouldn't have known when you were
coming back.  I'll bring you a cup..."

"Thank you, Mrs.  Keane.  The second patient has an appointment for
half-past five, hasn't he?  When you've shown him in, go home. Florence
can do what ever else is necessary."

"Well, if she doesn't mind..."

"Of course I don't mind; there'll be little enough to do anyway."  She
eyed the biscuits hungrily.

"I'll get changed before I have my tea..."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon paused at the door.

"Did you have lunch?"  he wanted to know.

"Mrs.  Keane was kind enough to get some sausage rolls for me this
morning."

"Sausage rolls?"  He eyed her shapely person thoughtfully.

"An insufficient diet for one of your build, Florence."

If he heard her indignant gasp as he turned away he gave no sign.

She had time for three cups of tea and almost all of the biscuits
before the patient arrived, a youngish woman with her husband.  She was
a little frightened, and it was fearfully difficult to get clear
answers to Mr.  Fitzgibbon's gently put questions.  Florence, in
attendance reflected that he must be a kind man under his reserved
manner.  She mulled over the surprising information Mrs.  Keane had
given her over their tea;

he didn't only have a large out-patients clinic at Colbert's and
operate there twice a week, but he also had another clinic in Bethnal
Green, which dealt with the sad regiments of the homeless, sent to him
from various charities.  So many of them refused to go to a hospital,
but the clinic was a different matter.  He had willing helpers too
retired nurses, local doctors, social workers.

"Don't you ever mention it," warned Mrs.  Keane.

"He never talks about it to anyone.  He has to tell me, of course,
because I keep his notes and do the bills and the rent and so forth for
him.  He's helped a good many there, I can tell you; gives them money,
finds them jobs, and sometimes helps get them some where to live.  I
don't know how he finds the time, and him with a busy social life
too."

Florence showed the patient and her husband out, saw Mrs.  Keane on her
way and, observant of Mr.  Fitzgibbon's bell, showed in the last
patient.

An elderly, rather shabby man, but very neat; his manners were nice
too.  He wished her a polite good afternoon, volunteered his name Mr.
Clarke and sat down with the air of one expecting to wait.

"There's Mr.  Clarke, sir," said Florence, sliding into the
consulting-room.

"Ah, yes.  Show him in, Florence, will you?  I shan't be needing you
for the moment.  You could start tidying up."

She gave him a cross look.  Tidying up was none of his business she was
well aware of what had to be done and when.  He was writing something,
and with out looking up he murmured, "You wished to say something?"

"Yes, but I won't," said Florence, and swept back into the waiting-room
to usher Mr.  Clarke in.

As she closed the door she heard Mr.  Fitzgibbon's voice, friendly and
calm.

"Mr.  Clarke, I'm so glad that you could come..."

She went and looked out of the window for a few moments, and then began
her clearing up.  There wasn't much to do.  She put things ready for
the morning and went to look at the appointments book.  There was a
slip of paper tucked into it and she looked at it idly.  It was a note
in Mr. Fitzgibbon's scrawling hand writing, addressed to Mrs.  Keane,
telling her to make an appointment for Mr.  Clarke, who should by
rights have attended his out-patients clinic at Colbert's, but, owing
to family circumstances, was unable to do so.

"No fees," it ended.

Florence put it back where she had found it.  It was getting very hard
to dislike Mr.  Fitzgibbon.

She was roused from her thoughts by his voice on Mrs.  Keane's
intercom, bidding her return.  Mr.  Clarke had to be weighed, his
blood-pressure taken, his pulse recorded and his respirations noted,
and while she did these things she could see that the nice little man
was upset and quite determined not to show it.  Her small chores done,
she went away again and presently showed him out before going into the
examination room to replace towels and the couch cover, clean up
generally and stow everything that had been used in the laundry bag. 
She didn't hurry over this; the evening stretched before her and,
although it was a lovely summer one, she was tired, mentally as well as
physically.  She would eat whatever supper Mrs.  Twist put before her
and go to bed with a book.  The appointment book was crammed for the
next day and she felt reasonably sure that she wouldn't be able to get
the evening train home.  That couldn't be helped; she would go on
Saturday morning, and in the afternoon she would take her mother into
Sherbome and they would buy the washing-machine.  Florence fingered the
pay envelope in the pocket of her uniform and decided that, uncertain
hours or not, it was worth it.

There was no sign of Mr.  Fitzgibbon and, since she was quite finished,
she tapped on his door and went in.

"Is there anything more you would like done, sir?"  she asked.

He closed the folder in which he had been writing.

"Nothing I think we've crammed as much into today as we can, don't you?
We've earned ourselves a meal.  I've some work to finish here and I
must go home.

I'll call for you at Mrs.  Twist's house in an hour's time.  "

"Are you inviting me out to dinner, Mr.  Fitzgibbon?"  Her voice was
tart.

He looked up briefly.

"Well, of course I am; had I not made myself plain?"

She hesitated: the invitation had sounded more like an order; on the
other hand, the dinner he was offering would surely be more appetising
than Mrs.  Twist's're liable but uninspired cooking.

"Thank you, sir, I should like to come."

"Good, and for God's sake stop calling me sir."

"Very well, Mr.  Fitzgibbon," and then a little shyly, "Do I need to
dress up?"

His fine mouth twitched.

"No, no, there's a nice little place just off Wigmore Street, five
minutes' walk from here."  He looked up and smiled at her, a slow,
comforting smile.

"You must be tired."

"I'll be ready in an hour, Mr.  Fitzgibbon."  She whisked away, very
quickly got out of uniform and sped back to Mrs.  Twist, ready with
apologies for not eating the supper which that good lady would have
prepared for her, but she had no need of them: Mr.  Fitzgibbon had
telephoned, and her landlady met her with a simpering smile and the
opinion that Mr.  Fitzgibbon was a gentleman right enough, and was
Florence likely to be late back?

"Most unlikely," said Florence in a matter-of-fact manner.

"We're both tired and tomorrow is booked solid.  I may have to stay
Friday night and catch an early train home on Saturday morning."

"Perhaps he'll drive you home again?"  suggested Mrs.  Twist, a woman
with a romantic turn of mind.

"Most unlikely, Mrs.  Twist.  Would you mind if I had my bath now
instead of this evening?"

"You go ahead, and make the best of yourself," advised Mrs.  Twist.

Advice which Florence intended to take.  Nicely refreshed from her
bath, she examined her wardrobe, searching for something suitable to
wear to a nice little place within five minutes' walk.  It was a pity,
she reflected, that she had no idea what a nice little place consisted
of in Mr.  Fitzgibbon's mind.  She decided on a leaf-green crepe dress
with a square neckline and a little matching jacket, piled her copper
hair into a chi R gnon, thrust her feet into white sandals, found the
little white handbag and put all that she might need into it, and took
a last look at herself in the old-fashioned wardrobe mirror.  Not being
a conceited girl, she decided that she looked all right, thanking
heaven that it was a fine evening and that she wouldn't need to take a
coat. She hadn't got a suitable one anyway.  She would get one on
Saturday, she promised herself, and went downstairs, a few minutes
early.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon was in Mrs.  Twist's front parlour, making himself
agreeable to that lady.  He had changed into a lighter suit and his tie
was slightly less sombre than usual, and gold cuff-links gleamed
discreetly from snow-white cuffs.  He looked, thought Borence,
extremely handsome; no wonder that Eleanor woman was after him.  He
stood up as she went in.

"Ah, Florence, punctual as always."  He studied her person without
appearing to do so, bade Mrs.  Twist farewell and ushered her
outside.

"You don't mind a very short walk?  The car is outside the consulting
rooms if you would prefer to drive?"

"I'd like a walk.  We don't have much time to take walks, do we?"

"Very little.  Do you walk a lot at home?"

"Oh, yes.  Miles I sometimes cycle, though.  Father has two villages in
the parish as well as Gussage Tollard; when I'm at home I often have to
help out with the Mothers' Union and choir practice, and then the bike
comes in handy."

"Do you like country life?"

"I was born and brought up in the vicarage--I went away to
boarding-school, but only to Sherbome.  I hated London when I came to
Colbert's to train."

"It is hardly a good part in which to live."

They were walking through the quiet, dignified streets, and she looked
round her.

"Well, no, but this is quite different; one could live in any of these
streets and be quite content.  Though I'd miss the country..."

"A weekend cottage in the country would settle that question, wouldn't
it?"

Florence laughed.

"Very nicely.  I must look round for a wealthy man with a house round
about here and another one in some pretty village."

He said dreamily, "There are plenty of wealthy men living in and around
this area..."

"I'm sure that there are, only I don't have the chance to meet any of
them."

She looked up at him and laughed.

"Isn't it nice to talk nonsense sometimes?"  They were in a narrow
side-street, and a moment later he ushered her down some steps into a
quite small restaurant, its tables covered in snowy linen and set with
gleaming cutlery and lighted by candles.  It was fairly full, and
Florence was relieved to see that her dress would pass muster.  She sat
down and glanced around her unselfconsciously with frank pleasure.  It
was an attractive place with white walls, upon which hung some rather
nice flower paintings, and the seats were comfortable, the tables not
too close together and the waiter, when he came, most attentive.

The menu was impressive and there were no prices upon it, a fact which
left her in some doubt as to what to order.  Small it might be, but she
had a suspicion that it was expensive.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon, watching her from under drooping lids, smiled to
himself.

"I don't know about you," he observed, 'but I'm hungry.  How about crab
mousse to start with, noisettes of lamb they do a splendid sauce with
them and we can choose a sweet later?  "

Much relieved, she agreed at once, and agreed again when he suggested a
dry sherry while they waited.

"This is a delightful place why, you wouldn't even know it was here,
would you?"

He understood her.

"Nicely hidden away and quiet."

For something to say she asked, "I expect you've been here before?"

"Several times."  He smiled at her across the table;

she really looked charming sitting there opposite him, the candlelight
turning her hair to burnished gold.  The dress, he decided, was by no
means new or in the forefront of fashion, and she had no jewellery,
only a plain gold chain and her watch.  He found himself comparing her
with Eleanor, who had phoned that evening and demanded that he should
take her to some party or other.  He had drifted into a casual
friendship with her over the years, and although he wasn't in love with
her he had found himself wondering if he might marry her.  He wanted a
wife, a home life and children, but not with Eleanor; the certainty of
that had been in his mind for several weeks, although he had ignored
it.  Now, watching Florence, he acknowledged it.

He began a trivial conversation, touching on a variety of subjects.

Over the lamb he asked casually, "You like reading?"

She popped some delicious garden peas into her mouth.

"Oh, yes.

Anything I can lay hands on.  "

"Poetry?"

"Well, yes, I like John Donne and the Brownings oh, and Herrick; I'd
rather read a book, though."

"Jane EyreT he asked with a twinkle.

"Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, anything by what is her name?
M M Kaye?"

Florence speared a baby carrot.

"However did you know?  Yes, I read all those.  I like gentle books, if
you see what I mean."

"Yes, I see.  You're a gentle girl, Florence.  Because you're a
parson's daughter?"

She took the remark seriously.

"Yes, probably, but I do have a very nasty temper."

"So do I, Florence, although I natter myself that I can control it
unless I'm severely provoked."

"Well, I don't suppose that happens very often," said Florence
comfortably.

"People always seem to do what you want straight away, but, of course,
you're important, aren't you?"

She looked up, smiling, and met a steely grey stare.

"Are you buttering me up, Florence?"

She refused to be intimidated.

"Good heavens, no.  Why should I do that?  Anyway, it's true, and I'm
sorry if you're mad at me.  Father is always telling me to think before
I speak."

"It is I who should apologise, Florence.  Feel free to say what you
want without thinking first."

"Excepting when I'm at work, of course."

"Having settled the matter, let us turn our attention to a sweet.

Biscuit glace, perhaps, with strawberries?  Or a creme briilee?  "

"I'd like the biscuit glace, please; I can make a creme briilee at
home..."

He ordered, and asked for the cheese board for him self.

"You can cook?"

"Well, of course I can, and I had plenty of opportunity to try out
recipes while I was looking after Mother.  I suppose all women can
cook; it comes naturally, like making beds and ironing shirts."  She
was matter-of-fact.

He reflected that he had never had the opportunity of knowing if
Eleanor could do any of those things, but it seemed unlikely.  He must
remember to ask her next time they met.  The thought that he was
enjoying himself engendered a wish to repeat the occasion.

They had their coffee and walked back presently, and at Mrs.  Twist's
door he took the key from her.

"Do we have to look out for Buster?"

"No, he'll be with Mrs.  Twist upstairs."  She took back the key.

"Thank you for my dinner, Mr.  Fitzgibbon; it was a lovely evening."

"It was a pleasure, Florence."

He opened the door and she went inside.

"Good night, and thank you again."

His "Goodnight, Florence," was quietly said as she closed the door.

She wasn't quite sure what she expected when she got to work the next
morning, but it certainly wasn't Mr.  Fitzgibbon's cold stare and
equally cold "Good morning."  He was seated at his desk looking so
unlike the pleasant companion of the previous evening that the smile
faded from her pretty face, and at the first opportunity she sought out
Mrs.  Keane to ask her if she had done or not done something.

"Don't worry, dear," soothed Mrs.  Keane, "I know he's very pleased
with your work.  Something's on his mind or someone; that Eleanor, I
suppose..."

"Are they engaged or or anything?"

"No, nor likely to be: he's no more in love with her than I am.  He's
thirty-six now, and if you ask me he's never been in love not enough to
want to marry.  For one thing he's too busy, and for another she'd have
to be a girl who could get past that austere manner."

"He's not always austere," said Florence, remembering the previous
evening.

Mrs.  Keane gave her a quick look.

"No, dear, but only a few people know that."  She put on the kettle.

"There's time for a cup of tea now if we're quick, before the first
patient comes; we can have coffee later.  I'll see to the percolator
and have the coffee ready, and you can take him a cup then."

The first patient arrived and Florence turned into an impersonal
automaton, doing what was required of her and then melting into the
background until she was needed again, carefully not looking higher
than Mr.  Fitzgibbon's firm chin, and when the patient had gone she
fetched his coffee and set the cup and saucer down on his desk gently,
suppressing a sudden and surprising wish to throw the lot at him.  She
wasn't at all sure why, but it might have relieved her feelings.

The last patient for the morning had gone when he was called away to
the hospital, and half an hour later he rang to say that the afternoon
patients would have to be notified that he would be delayed.

"Postpone the first appointment for half an hour," he told Mrs.  Keane,
'and the rest for the same time.  "

"There goes my chance to get the evening train," said Florence
crossly.

"That's two weekends running.  Do you mind if I use the phone to let
Mother know?"

"Perhaps that nice Mr.  Fitzgibbon will drive you down again, love,"
said her mother in a pleased voice.

Florence snorted.

"It's the last thing he'll do," she said snappily, 'and he's not all
that nice.  "

She was instantly sorry.

"I didn't mean that.  Mother.  I'm to stay, and I've got my pay packet
we'll go into Sherbome tomorrow afternoon and buy a washing machine

"Oh, darling, how lovely, but I think you should spend your money on
some new clothes."

"Next month.  Mother.  I must go see you tomorrow.  Let Father know,
won't you?"

There were four appointments in the afternoon, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon took
his time over each one of them.  Since one patient telephoned to say
that she would be unable to come until later in the afternoon, there
was a half-hour's wait.  Mrs.  Keane made tea and Florence got as far
as she could with the clearing up, but since there were still two
patients to come it seemed a waste of time.  She took him a cup of tea,
outwardly serene and inwardly seething with impatience.

"You will be unable to go home this evening're marked Mr. Fitzgibbon.

"A pity, but it cannot be helped.  Our friend from the truck had a
secondary haemorrhage, and it was necessary to take him back to
Theatre."

"Oh, how awful.  Will he be all right?  Was it his stump?"

"No, the chest wound.  I've had another look and found the trouble.  He
should do now."  He bent his head over the papers on his desk and she
went away, feeling that she would have liked to tell him how mean she
felt, moaning because she had had to miss her train while all the while
he had been dealing with an emergency.  She told Mrs.  Keane while they
drank their tea and was comforted by her sensible observation that,
since she hadn't known about it, she had no need to feel guilty.

The delayed patient had come for a check-up and took up a mere twenty
minutes of Mr.  Fitzgibbon's time, but the last patient, a middle-aged
and timid lady, accompanied by her husband, took up twice that time,
partly because before any examination could be done she needed to be
soothed and encouraged.  Afterwards, when Florence was helping her to
dress again, she felt faint, which delayed her departure for even
longer.  Florence tucked her up on the examination couch and put a
comforting arm around her shoulders while she had a little weep.

"Why does it have to be me?"  she demanded tearfully.

"I don't even smoke cigarettes.  Do you suppose that Mr.  Fitzgibbon
can're ally cure me?"

"Certainly he can if he said so," said Florence stoutly, 'and you don't
have to worry about the operation you really won't know anything about
it, and you'll be well again within weeks you heard him say so.  Now
I'm going to tell him that you're ready, and you'll go back into the
consulting-room and he'll ex plain everything to you.

You can ask him any questions that you want to; he's a kind man and
very clever.  "

"You are a dear, sweet girl, putting up with an old woman's
nonsense."

She patted Florence's arm.

"Shall I see you again?"

"Oh, yes, in a few weeks' time when you come for a check-up after
surgery.  I shall look forward to seeing you then."

There was quite a lot to do once the elderly pair had left.  Florence
took herself off to the examination- room and began to set it to
rights, and then put her head round the door to ask if Mr.  Fitzgibbon
would like a cup of coffee.

He refused, still working at his desk and as she withdrew her head the
phone rang.

"Answer that, will you," he asked her, 'and see who it is?  "

Eleanor, thought Florence, and she was right.  The piercing voice
sounded petulant and demanding, and asked to speak to Mr. 
Fitzgibbon.

"Miss Paton wishes to speak to you, sir."

He growled something softly and took the phone from her.  As Florence
went out of the room, closing the door very, very slowly, she heard him
say, "Eleanor, I am extremely busy..."  She held the door handle so
that there was still a crack before she closed it, and nodded her head
with satisfaction at his, "No, quite impossible, I shall be
working...!"

Mr.  Fitzgibbon, watching the door-handle soundlessly turning, smiled,
paying not the slightest attention to Eleanor's petulant voice.

When Florence went back presently to say that everything was attended
to and did he wish her to remain any longer?  he lifted his head from
his writing to tell her baldly that he needed nothing more and she had
no need to stay.  He wished her a good night in a voice which suggested
that he had no wish to enter into conversation of any kind, and picked
up his pen again.

Florence's "Goodnight," was crisp.  He might at least have expressed
regret at her having to miss her evening train.  I hope she pesters him
to take her out and makes him spend a lot of money at some glitzy
restaurant thought Florence, going back to one of Mrs.  Twist's
wholesome suppers.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon went home to the charming little Georgian house not ten
minutes' drive from his rooms, changed into elderly, beautifully
tailored tweeds, told Crib, the elderly man who ran his home with the
help of his wife, that he would be back on Sunday night, whistled to
Monty, that dog of no known breed, and got back into his car.

Once out of London, he took the A30 and just over two hours later
slowed the car as he reached the first grey stone thatched cottages of
Mens.  It was a small village with a lovely church, a manor-house and a
cluster of these same cottages in a charming group dominated by the
church and the village inn.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon drove through the centre
of the village, and half a mile along a narrow lane turned the car
through an open gate and stopped before a low, rambling house built of
the same grey and yellow stone as the cottages, but with a red-tiled
roof.  The front door stood open and he was met on the doorstep by a
short, stout woman with a round rosy face and grey hair screwed up into
a fierce bun.

"There you are, Mr.  Alexander, right on time, too.  Good thing you
phoned when you did I had time to get Mr.  Letts to come up with the
nicest piece of steak for your supper."  She paused and he bent to hug
her.

"Just what I need.  Nanny, and how nice to see you."  He let Monty out
of the car and they all went indoors, through the stone-flagged hall to
a low-ceilinged room with a great inglenook and lattice windows.

Doors opened on to the garden behind the house, a lovely place, a riot
of roses and summer flowers, with a wide lawn leading down to a narrow
stream.

"You're on your own?"  asked Nanny unnecessarily.

"Yes, Nanny..."

"Doesn't like the country, does she, that Miss Paton?"

He said evenly, "No, I'm afraid it isn't quite the life for her."  He
had sat down in a great chair and Monty had flopped at his feet.

Presently he went on, "You were quite right.  Nanny..."

"Of course I was, Mr.  Alexander.  You just wait until the right girl
comes along."

"She has, but she doesn't know it yet."

Nanny sat down on a small chair opposite him.  She didn't say a word,
only waited.

"She's a parson's daughter, a nurse, and she works for me."

"She likes you?"

"I think so, but not at first, and even now I catch her looking at me
as though she wasn't sure of that.  On the other hand..."

"Give her time, Mr.  Alexander."  Nanny got up.

"I'll get your supper;

you must be famished, and that nice dog of yours.  "

He was up early the next morning and, with Monty beside him, inspected
the garden before breakfast.  The thought that he was barely an hour's
drive away from Florence's home was persistent in his mind but he re
fused to listen to it.  After breakfast he went into the village, where
he met the rector and returned with him to have coffee at the
rectory.

The rector was a keen gardener and the hours passed pleasantly.  After
lunch he stretched out on the lawn and slept until Nanny called him in
to tea.  Then he and Monty took them selves off for a long walk before
spending a convivial hour in the Talbot Arms.  In the evening, after
the splendid dinner Nanny put before him, he sat in the lovely
drawing-room, thinking about Horence.  At length he got up to go to
bed, saw Monty into his basket in the kitchen, locked up and turned off
the lights before going up the oak staircase to his room.  The night
was clear and there was a waning moon.  He stood by the open window,
wondering if Florence was looking at the same moon, and then laughed
wryly.

"I'm behaving like a lovesick boy," he muttered, 'and more than likely
she doesn't give a second thought to Florence wasn't looking at the
moon, she was in bed and asleep, but she had from time to time during
the day thought about him.  She had taken herself to task over this.

"We haven't anything in common except our work," she told Charlie
Brown, snoozing on her bed.

"He lives in London, though I don't know where--in some hideously
expensive modern flat, I suppose--and he likes expensive restaurants
and big cars, and he hardly ever laughs.  And he never looks at
me..."

She was wrong, of course, about that.

It was at Sunday lunch that her mother asked, "I suppose that nice Mr.
Fitzgibbon has to work at the weekend?"

"I've no idea," said Florence, 'but I shouldn't think so--he must have
a private life.  "

"A great many firm friends if he's not married, I expect," suggested
Mrs.  Napier.

"Handsome single men are always in great demand."

Florence was filled with a sudden fierce dislike of that.  She said, "I
dare say; I really don't know anything about him, Mother."  As she
spoke she wished that she did.  Where did he go when he left the
consulting- rooms, for instance?  Did he have parents and live with
them, or brothers and sisters?  And his friends--surely there must be
others than the horrid Eleanor?  She could think of no way of finding
out, and suddenly she wanted to know quite badly.  She reminded herself
once again that she was getting too interested in him, and spent the
rest of the day gardening with unnecessary energy, and, although she
hated leaving home that evening, there was a spark of excitement deep
down inside her at the idea of seeing him again.

She went to work a little earlier than usual, a habit she had formed on
a Monday morning, to make sure that everything was just so.  She was
rearranging flowers in a bowl kept filled throughout the year in the
waiting-room when Mr.  Fitzgibbon came in.

A small wave of pleasure at the sight of him left her feeling
surprised; there was no particular reason why she should be glad to see
him he hadn't been over-friendly on Friday evening.  She bade him good
morning and was relieved when he answered her with brisk cheerfulness
and a quick smile.  He didn't stop to talk; he went straight to his
consulting-room and began on his post, so that when Mrs.  Keane arrived
he called her in at once to take his letters.  He saw two patients and
then took himself off to Colbert's, leaving Florence and Mrs.  Keane to
get ready for the busy afternoon ahead of them.

Mrs.  Keane, her hands poised over her typewriter, waited until his
footsteps had ceased in the house be fore observing, "I wonder what is
making him so thoughtful?  And absent-minded he usually rattles off his
letters, but this morning he kept going off into a world of his own.

There's something on his mind.  "

"That Eleanor she phoned on Friday evening said Florence, tucking a
clean sheet on the couch and raising her voice through the open door.

"But he said he couldn't take her out.  Do you suppose he's met some
one he likes better?"

Mrs.  Keane bent over her notebook.

"I've no doubt of it," she said with quiet satisfaction.

CHAPTER SIX

the day's work went smoothly; Mr.  Fitzgibbon returned directly after
lunch and the whole afternoon was taken up with his patients.  Usually
Mrs.  Keane booked appointments so that there was a brief lull halfway
through the afternoon, enabling them to have a cup of tea, but today
there was no let-up, and by five o'clock Borence was tired and a little
cross beneath her seemingly composed appearance, and the prospect of
the evening spent alone in her room was uninviting.  Mrs.  Twist would
be out, spending the evening with friends, and there would only be
Buster for company.  Showing the last patient out with smiling
friendliness, she decided to go out for the evening herself.  She had
money--not a great deal, but quite enough to take her to some quiet
little restaurant where she could get a modest meal.  She would have to
get a bus to Oxford Street, where there was bound to be somewhere to
suit her taste.  She bustled around, drank her tea thankfully, took a
cup to an unsmiling Mr.  Fitzgibbon, and, everything being in apple-pie
order, asked if there was anything else he wished her to do.

He looked up briefly.

"No, thank you, Florence; enjoy your evening.

Are you going out?  "

She beamed at him.

"Yes--for a meal.  Goodnight, sir."

He bade her goodnight in a cool voice and sat looking at the closed
door after she had gone.  It was, he argued to himself, most irritating
that the girl treated him in such a manner; he had no idea what she
really thought of him.  At times he thought that she liked him, and
then she withdrew, becoming a cross between tolerant youth making
allowances for middle age and a waspish young woman ready to answer
back.  He sighed, admitting at last to himself that he wanted Florence
for his wife but that persuading her to be of like mind would probably
be a delicate undertaking.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon sat back and considered how
best to set about the matter, unaware that kindly providence was about
to lend him a hand.

Florence let herself into Mrs.  Twist's house, fed Buster, inspected
the comed-beef salad in the fridge for her supper, put it back and went
to her room to change.  It was well past six o'clock but she took the
opportunity to have a bath, since Mrs.  Twist was prone to remind her
that hot water cost money so that she felt compelled to have a shower
when that lady was home.  Now she luxuriated at some length in an
extravagant amount of hot water, dressed unhurriedly, coiled her hair
in a smooth chignon, made sure that she had her key and enough money,
and left the house.  Outside on the pavement, she remembered that Mr.
Fitzgibbon had still been in his rooms when she had left and, for all
she knew, he might still be there.  She had no wish to encounter him
and, remembering Mrs.  Twist telling her that there was a short cut
which would bring her out almost by Cavendish Square, well past the
consulting- rooms, she decided to take it.

It was a narrow street with small, neat houses on either side; there
were cars parked on one side of it, but otherwise it was empty.  It was
later than she had intended, for she had dawdled over her dressing and
spent ten minutes sitting on the stairs with Buster, who had been
feeling lonely, but the June evening was still light and would be for
some time to come.  She walked on, hardly noticing that the houses were
becoming shabby, for she was allowing her imagination full rein;

Mr.  Fitzgibbon would be spending his evening with Eleanor, no doubt;

she didn't think that he was very in love with her, though, but
Florence guessed that she was too clever to give him a chance to know
that.  Men, she thought, might be very clever and all that, but they
could be singularly blind at times.  She looked around her then and saw
how the street had changed from neatness to a neglected, rubbish-strewn
thorough fare with paint peeling off the front doors and grubby
curtains at the windows.  She must have mistaken Mrs.  Twist's
directions, and she was relieved to see a main street ahead of her,
busy with cars.  She stepped out more briskly and at the same time
became aware that she was being followed.

She didn't turn round, nor did she increase her pace, although it was
the one thing she would have liked to do.  Common sense told her that
she was near enough to the end of the street to scream for help if she
needed to, and to show unease might spur on whoever it was behind her.
Getting closer, too.  She hadn't realised how close: a large, heavy
hand caught her by the shoulder and forced her to stop.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon, on the way home and the last in the queue at the
traffic-lights, looked round him idly, marvelling for the hundredth
time how it was possible for such neglected, down-at-heel streets to be
cheek by jowl with the elegance around them.  It was then that
providence, metaphorically speaking, tapped him on one massive shoulder
so that his glance strayed into the street alongside the car.

He saw that copper head of hair immediately; he also saw that its owner
was in difficulties.  He was out of the car and into the street,
oblivious of anything other than the need to get to Florence as fast as
possible.  For a man of his size, he was a quick mover.  He was very
nearly there when he saw her kick hard backwards with sufficiently good
result to make the man yelp.  He was on him then, removing him with a
great arm, shaking him like a terrier shook a rat.

"I advise you not to do that again, my man," said Mr.  Fitzgibbon
without heat, 'or it will be the worse for you.  " He let him go and
watched him run back down the street before he turned to Florence.

"And what the hell were you doing, strolling down this back street,
asking for trouble a great girl like you...?"

Florence gulped.  Being called a great girl in that coldly furious
voice was upsetting; worse, it sparked off the temper her parents had
been at pains to teach her to control from an early age.  She was a bit
shaken and a trifle pale, and her voice wobbled just a little, but more
with temper than fright.  She said with great dignity, "I am not a
great girl..."

"We'll argue about that in the car I'll be had up for obstruction..."

He took her by the arm and marched her along willy-nilly.

"I don't wish she began, but he stowed her into the car without a word,
got in himself and drove on.

"A miracle that there is no traffic or police around," he observed
grimly.  It wasn't a miracle but providence, of course.

He took the car round Cavendish Square and into Regent Street, turning
off into side-streets before he reached Piccadilly and coming out at
the lower end of Park Lane and so into Knightsbridge.

Florence, who had sat silently fuming, said, "This is Knightsbridge;

why are you bringing me here?  "

He didn't answer but turned into a quiet side-street lined with rather
grand houses, and presently turned again under an archway into a narrow
tree-lined street.  The houses were smaller here but very elegant,
painted white, their front doors gleaming with black paint.  He stopped
before the end house, got out, opened her door and invited her to get
out.

"No," said Florence, and then, catching the look in his eye, she got
out, but once on the pavement she didn't budge.

"Why have you brought me here?  And where is it anyway?  I'm obliged to
you for your your help just now, but..."  she paused, pink in the face,
her blue eyes flashing '. a great girl like me can look after herself.
" She frowned because she suspected that she had got the grammar wrong
somewhere.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon smiled, not very nicely, took her by the arm in a
gentle but firm grasp, and marched her to his front door.  Crib opened
it, and if he was surprised he showed no sign of it, but bade his
master a good evening and added a respectful good evening to
Florence.

"Ah, Crib, this is Miss Napier, my practice nurse;

she has had an unfortunate encounter in the street.  Will you ask Mrs.
Crib to show her where she can tidy herself?  " And, when Crib bustled
off down the narrow hall and through a baize door at its end, Mr.
Fitzgibbon observed in an aloof way, " You will be better when you have
had a drink and a meal.  "

"I feel perfectly all right," snapped Florence, but she couldn't go on
because a tall thin woman in a severe grey dress had come through the
door and was advancing towards them.

"Good evening, sir," she smiled at Florence, 'and good evening to you
too, miss.  If you will come with me?  "

She led Florence, speechless and cross, up the graceful little
staircase to one side of the hall.

"I hear you've had some kind of accident, miss," she remarked as they
reached the landing.

"There is a cloakroom in the hall, but I dare say you might like a few
minutes' peace and quiet if you have been upset."

She opened a door and ushered Florence into a charming bedroom; its
windows overlooked the back of the house and gave a view of a small
pretty garden.  It was furnished in maple-wood, carpeted in white and
curtained in apricot silk.  The bedspread on the small bed was of the
same material and so were the lamp shades, and the walls were a pale
tint of the same colour.

"Oh, what a darling room," said Florence, quite forgetting that she was
annoyed.

"One of the guest rooms, miss.  The bathroom is through the door there,
and if you fancy a nice lie down the chaise-longue is very
comfortable."

The housekeeper gave her a kindly smile and went away, and, left to
herself, Florence inspected her surroundings more thoroughly.  The room
was indeed delightful and so was the bathroom, stocked with towels,
soap and everything a guest could wish for.  Perhaps it had been left
ready for a visitor; it seemed a shame to use the soap and one of the
fluffy towels so enticingly laid out on one of the glass shelves.
However, she had to wash; the man's hand had been dirty, and she could
still feel its grimy, sweaty fingers as she had instinctively tried to
drag it from her shoulder.  She took a look at herself in the wide
mirror.  There was a dirty mark on her dress and her hair was a mess.

She went downstairs again some ten minutes later, once more nicely
made-up, her fiery head of hair brushed smooth.  Her dress had been
creased but she couldn't do anything about that, although she had got
rid of most of the dirty mark.

There was no one in the hall and she stood, irresolute, at the bottom
of the staircase, but only for a moment.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon flung open a
door opposite her.

"Come in, come in."  He sounded impatient.

"That's a comfortable chair by the window.  What would you like to
drink?"

She stood by the door.

"Nothing, thank you, sir.  You've been very kind, but I won't trespass
upon your time any more."  When he didn't speak she added, "I'm most
grateful..."

He crossed the room, took her by the arm and sat her down in the chair
he had indicated.

"A glass of sherry," he observed, and handed it to her.

"There's nothing like it for restoring ill-humour."

"I am not ill-humoured," began Florence, determined to make it clear,
which, seeing that she was boiling with rage, hardly made sense.

"You are as cross as two sticks," said Mr.  Fitzgibbon genially.

"You are also foolish and most regrettably untruthful."

Florence had taken a sip of sherry and choked on it, but before she
could summon breath to utter he had sat down opposite her, a glass in
his hand, the picture of good-natured ease.

"When you have your breath back," he suggested, "I should like to know
why you were in that disreputable street and why, having told me that
you were going out for a meal, you had done no such thing.  Did he
stand you up?"

"Stand me up?  Who?"

"You were intending to dine out alone?"

"Well, what's so funny about that?  And I wasn't going to dine.  How
can you be so silly?

On my salary?  I was going to Oxford Street to McDonald's or some where
like that.  " She added to make things clearer, " Mrs.  Twist's out
this evening and it was corned beef and tomatoes.  "

Mr.  Fitzgibbon hid a smile.

"Did you need to fib about it?  I am afraid I can't quite see..."  He
watched the lovely pink creep into her face and saw.

"You were afraid that I might think you were fishing for another
meal..."

"What a simply horrid thing to say," she burst out.

"It's the truth," he pointed out blandly.

"Well, even if it is, you don't have to say it I mean, you can think it
if you want to but you don't have to put it into words."

She tossed off the sherry in a defiant way, and he got up and refilled
her glass.

"Now I want to know why you were wandering around, asking to be mugged.
If you intend to go to Oxford Street you could have kept to Wimpole
Street until you came to the bus-stop."

She managed not to blush this time, but she looked so guilty that Mr.
Fitzgibbon, watching her from beneath his lids, knew that she was about
to tell him some more fibs.

"Well," began Florence, "Mrs.  Twist told me about this short-cut, and
it was such a nice evening and the street really looked quite
respectable when I started.  I thought it would make a nice change."

It sounded a bit thin, and she could see that Mr.  Fitzgibbon thought
it was too, for his rather stern mouth was turned down at the
corners.

All the same, what he said was, "Oh, indeed?"  and then, "I do hope you
will give me the pleasure of your company at dinner.  I'll drive you
back presently."  When she hesitated he added, "Oxford Street will be
packed out with people wanting a meal after the cinema."

A statement made at random but which reassured her.

"Oh, will it?  I hadn't thought of that.  We used to go to the local
cinema when I was at Colbert's.  Are you sure that Mrs.  Crib won't
mind?  I mean, will she have cooked enough for two?"

He assured her gravely that Mrs.  Crib always allowed for the
unexpected guest, and began to talk gently about nothing much, putting
her at her ease, and when Monty came prancing in from the garden and
offered her head for a scratch, looking up at her with melting eyes,
she felt all at once quite at home.

"This is a beautiful room," she told her host.

"You must enjoy coming home to it each evening."

It was a lovely room, comfortably large, and furnished with a nice
mixture of Regency pieces and large chairs and sofas, the kind of sofas
where one might put one's feet up or curl into a corner.  The curtains
at the windows were brocade in what she imagined one would call
mulberry-red, and the thin silk carpets scattered on the polished wood
floor held the same colour mixed with dull blues and greens.  The walls
were panelled and for the most part covered by paintings, and there was
a bow-fronted cabinet along one wall, filled with fine china and
silver.  The fireplace was at one end of the room--Adam, she
guessed-and in the winter it would hold an open fire.  She gave a small
sigh, not of envy but of contentment, just because she was enjoying all
these things, even if only for an hour or so.

Crib came in to tell them that dinner was served, and they crossed the
hall to a smaller room with crimson wallpaper and a rectangular
mahogany dining room table, large enough to seat eight people and set
with lace table-mats, sparkling glass and silver.  There was a bowl of
roses on the table, and Florence asked, "Are they from your garden?"

and, when he nodded, "The yellow one--isn't that Summer Sunshine?
Father plans to get one for next year.  I don't suppose you have much
time for gardening?"

Crib put a plate of soup before her, and her lovely nose twitched at
its delicious aroma.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon studied the nose at some length
without appearing to do so.

"No, I should like more time for it.  I do potter at intervals,
though."

Florence addressed herself to the soup.  Lettuce and cucumber, and not
out of a tin either.  She had quite forgotten how annoyed she had been
at Mr.  Fitzgibbon's high-handed treatment; indeed, she hadn't felt so
happy for a long time, although she didn't trouble to wonder why.  The
soup plates were removed, and cold chicken, salad and a snowy mound of
creamed potatoes were offered.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon poured white wine,
passed the pepper and salt and made conversation in an easy manner
while he watched Florence enjoying the meal with unselfconscious
pleasure, comparing her in his mind with other dinner companions who
had shuddered at the idea of a second helping and shunned the potatoes.
He frowned a little; he was allowing himself to get too interested in
the girl.  wanting her for his wife had been a flight of fancy.

Florence saw the frown and some of her happiness ebbed away.  After
their rather unfortunate encounter that evening--well, fortunate for
her, she conceded-even though they hadn't seen eye to eye to begin
with, the last half-hour had been delightful, but now he looked
forbidding and any moment she would find herself addressing him as
'sir'.  She declined more potatoes politely and refused more wine.  As
soon as she decently could she would think of some excuse to get her
out of the house, and the sooner the better.

First there was apple pie and cream to be eaten and polite small talk
to be maintained.  The small talk be came so stilted that he looked at
her in surprise.  Now what was the matter with the tiresome girl? 
Still polite and beautifully mannered, but stiff as a poker.  She
responded willingly to his remarks, but the pleasant feeling that they
were old friends, even though they knew very little about each other,
had vanished.

They went back to the drawing-room for their coffee, and after half an
hour of what Florence privately called polite conversation she said
that she should be getting back.

"Mrs.  Twist might be worried..."  she suggested, to which Mr.
Fitzgibbon made no reply, merely lifted the receiver and phoned that
lady, who, it seemed, wasn't in the least worried.

"But, of course," he said smoothly, 'you would like a good night's
sleep we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.  "

A gentle reminder that she worked for him and it behoved her to be on
duty at the right time.  Or so it seemed to her.

She thanked him once again on Mrs.  Twist's door step, and later,
getting ready for bed, reflected on her evening.  There had been no
need for Mr.  Fitzgibbon to take her to his home and ask her to dinner,
so why had he done it?  And why had he become remote, evincing no wish
to hinder her from going back to her room at Mrs.  Twist's?  She had
thought once or twice just lately that they were on the verge of a
cautious friendship.  There was no understanding the man, she thought,
punching her rather hard pillows into a semblance of softness.

In the morning everything was as usual; he arrived punctually, reminded
her that his first patient was deaf, commented upon the delightful
morning and made no mention of the previous evening.  There was, of
course, no reason why he should all the same, she was un reasonably put
out.

The deaf patient took up a good deal of time and made everyone else
late, but Mr.  Fitzgibbon went placidly on as though the morning had
ten hours to it in stead of five, so that their usual lunch-break was
cut short about ten minutes.  She and Mrs.  Keane ate their sandwiches
and drank a pot of tea between them, thankful that Mr.  Fitzgibbon had
taken himself off, leaving them free to get the place straight for the
after noon patients.

"Quite a busy day," said Mrs.  Keane placidly, arranging the patients'
notes in a neat pile on his desk while Florence restored the
examination-room to a pristine state.  He returned five minutes before
his first appointment and spent them on the phone to Colbert's, and
after that there was no let-up until after five o'clock.  Mr. 
Fitzgibbon was at his desk writing and being interrupted by the
telephone, Mrs. Keane had just made a pot of tea, and Florence was
carrying a cup to him, when the waiting-room door was thrust open and
Eleanor Paton came in on a wave of exquisite scent and looking
ravishing in a wild-silk outfit which Florence, in a few seconds'
glance, instantly coveted.

Eleanor went past her without speaking, taking the cup and saucer from
her as she went, opening the consulting-room door without knocking and
going in side.

"Who was that?"  asked Mrs.  Keane, poking her nose round the kitchen
door.

"Miss Paton," said Florence quietly while she damped down rage.

"She just walked in, took his tea and went inside..."

"I'd like to be a fly on the wall," said Mrs.  Keane.

"Come and have your tea, dear.  Do you suppose we should take in
another cup for her?"

"I don't think she would like tea-bags."

They drank their tea and Florence, who had excel lent hearing, listened
to Eleanor's high-pitched voice and the occasional rumble of Mr.
Fitzgibbon's.  There was no laughter it sounded more like an argument,
as Eleanor's tones became shrill and his became briefer.

Presently they heard the door open, and the pair of them crossed the
waiting-room and out of the door, the signal for Florence to nip to the
window.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon's car was outside but he wasn't getting into
it, and in a moment she saw Eleanor walking away down the street.  And
she didn't look round.

Florence withdrew her head cautiously and stepped back; she didn't want
Mr.  Fitzgibbon to see her peering from his window.  Her fears were
ungrounded, how ever; he hadn't got into his car indeed, he was
standing so close to her that she felt his waistcoat sticking into the
small of her back.

"Snooping?"  he asked gently.

She didn't turn round but edged away from him.

"Certainly not," she said with dignity, fingers crossed because she was
telling a fib.

"I

thought that you might have gone and forgotten to let us know.  "

Being a parson's daughter was a terrible drawback sometimes.  She
turned to face him.

"No, that was a silly excuse.  I looked out of the window to watch you
drive Miss Paton away."

"However, I didn't, and does that please you?"

She met his cold grey eyes steadily.

"It's none of my business, sir.

I'm sorry I was was nosy.  "

"You are a very unsettling girl, Florence."  He went into his
consulting-room and closed the door quietly, leaving her prey to the
thought of getting a month's notice; it seemed like a strong hint that
he had changed his mind about taking her on permanently.  Perhaps
Eleanor had persuaded him that she had been unsuitable, and she had
played right into the girl's hands, hadn't she?

She went back into the examination-room, made sure that it was quite
ready for the next day and then washed the cups and saucers and tidied
everything away while Mrs.  Keane did the last of her filing.  Ten
minutes later Mr.  Fitzgibbon reappeared, bade them both a civil good
evening, and went away, so that they were free to leave.

After she had eaten her supper Florence sat in Mrs.  Twist's small back
garden; she had no heart for a walk and, since her landlady was going
to spend her evening with a neighbour and had no objection to Florence
sitting there if she wished, it offered a few hours of fresh air while
she got on with a sweater she was knitting for her father's birthday.
Not that the air was all that fresh; Mrs.  Twist had a neat garden, the
tiny grass patch in its centre clipped to within an inch of its life,
the flowers planted in rows against the low fence which separated it
from the neighbours.  Florence, used to a rather untidy garden with not
a neighbour in sight, found the next-door children, who hung on the
fence on one side, and the garrulous old man on the other side a bit
distracting.  However, she answered the children's questions readily
enough, and when they were sent to bed entered into conversation with
the old man, leaning on the top of the fence, smoking a pipe.  She
wondered what tobacco he used;

it smelled like dried tea-leaves and charred paper and caused him to
cough alarmingly.  However, he was a nice person, prepared to reminisce
by the hour about his youth.  She gave him her full attention until he
went indoors for his supper.

Daylight was fading and she let her knitting fall into her lap, finally
allowing her thoughts to turn to what was uppermost in her head: the
likelihood of being sacked at the end of the month.  It seemed to her
that it was what she could expect; looking back over the last few
weeks, she reflected that she and Mr.  Fitzgibbon had an uneasy
relationship.  It had been her fault; she should never have had dinner
with him in the first place it had allowed her to glimpse him in quite
a different light from the impersonal courtesy and rather austere
manner he habitually wore.  She went to her room and got ready for bed,
and then sat up against the pillows with a pen and paper, reckoning
what she should do with her salary.  Even if he asked her to leave, she
would have to wait until he had a replacement and they had agreed on a
month's notice on either side, so she could count on six weeks' pay.

Thank heaven she had got the washing-machine.  She went to work the
next morning resigned to her future.  It surprised her a little that
she should feel so very sad, and she came to the conclusion that it was
because she would be unable to buy all the things she had planned to
get.  Since she had felt secure in her job, the list was a long one,
and now she would only be able to get a very few of the things.

The porter admitted her, wished her a good morning and volunteered the
information that Mrs.  Keane had not yet arrived.  Florence let herself
into the waiting- room, changed into her uniform, adjusted her cap just
so on her bright head, and went to put on the kettle.  The first
patient wouldn't arrive for another hour, and everything was as ready
as it could be.  She was in the tiny kitchen when she heard the door
open.

"The kettle is on," she called.

"Were you held up by the buses?"

She turned to see Mr.  Fitzgibbon, in a thin sweater and flannels,
leaning against the door.

"Good morning, Florence; I've been held back by a stove-in chest."  He
looked very tired and he needed a shave, and Florence, looking at him,
knew why she was feeling sad: it was because if she left she would
never see him again, and her heart would break because of that.  Why
she should have fallen in love with him she had no idea; he had given
her no encouragement to do so, and why should he when he had the lovely
Eleanor waiting to drop into his arms?

She asked gently, "If you will go and sit down, will I bring you a cup
of tea, sir?  I'm sorry you've had a busy night."  He went away and she
busied herself with a tray, thinking that she had done this once
before, only then she hadn't felt as she did now.  She muttered to
herself, "Now, Florence, no nonsense," and bore the tea and biscuits
into the consulting-room and found him writing.

"Must you do that?"  she cried.

"Can't it wait until you've had a short sleep and a good hot
breakfast?"

He put down his pen.

"You sound like a wife.

Unfortunately this can't wait, but when it's done I'll go home and have
breakfast and change.  Does that satisfy you?  "

"Oh, that isn't what I meant, sir.  I didn't mean to be bossy, only you
do look so tired."  She poured a cup of tea and put it beside him.

"There's Mrs.  Keane."

She left him sitting there, staring at the notes he had been writing.

She had made him feel every year of his age.  He drank his tea,
reflecting that she had never looked so young and beautiful.  He had no
doubt that there were other men who thought the same.

An hour later he was back at his desk having every appearance of a man
who had had a good night's sleep, ample time in which to eat a good
breakfast and nothing on his brilliant mind other than his patients.
Florence, ushering in the first patient, had time to take a good look
at him, back at his desk immaculately dressed as usual, getting up to
shake hands with his patient, a loud-voiced young woman with an
aggressive manner which, she suspected, hid nervousness.  Mr. 
Fitzgibbon ignored the aggression, examined her with impersonal
kindness and finally broke the news to her that she would need to have
a bronchoscopy, adding, in his most soothing manner, that if, as he
suspected, she might need surgery, he would be pre pared to do it.  He
then waited with patience while Florence dealt with his patient, who
had burst into tears, followed by some wild talking.  A cup of tea, a
handful of tissues and gentle murmurs from Florence worked wonders, so
that presently she was able to listen to Mr.  Fitzgibbon's plans.
Showing her out into Mrs.  Keane's hands, Florence reflected that
underneath her aggression she was really quite a nice person.

The next patient was a different kettle of fish: a thin, scholarly man
of middle age, who listened quietly to what Mr.  Fitzgibbon had to tell
him, made arrangements to go into hospital without demur and shook
hands as he left, expressing his thanks for what could only be
described as bad news.

The last two appointments were with children, both with
bronchiolitis.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon dealt with them very gently, making them laugh,
allowing them to try out his stethoscope, making jokes.  Like a nice
uncle, thought Florence, stealing a loving glance at his bowed pepper
and salt head bending over one small boy.

He had a teaching round that afternoon and there were no patients until
four o'clock.  She and Mrs.  Keane ate their lunch together, and then
went about their various chores until Mr.  Fitzgibbon returned just
before four o'clock.

"Tea?"  he enquired as he went into his room, but before closing the
door he turned to say, "This first appointment the patient is a frail
lady, Florence; be ready with tea and sympathy they help a lot when
it's unpleasant news."

The little old lady who came ten minutes later looked as though a puff
of wind might blow her away, but she had bright blue wide-open eyes and
a serene face.  Florence settled her in a chair on the other side of
the desk and melted into a corner of the room until she would be
needed, realising that the two already knew each other, and after a few
minutes' chatting Mr.  Fitzgibbon said, "Florence, Miss Mac Finn was
Theatre Sister at Colbert's when I was a very junior houseman--I was
terrified of her!"

"Now I should be terrified of you--or at least of what you're going to
tell me."  She looked across at Florence and smiled.

"Are you terrified of him, my dear?"

Me?  Heavens, no.  Miss Mac Finn and I'm sure you don't need to be,
although I know you're not.  "

"Well, bad news is never nice, is it?  I suppose you want to take a
look, Alexander?"

"Indeed I do; will you go with Florence?"

So his name is Alexander, reflected Florence, busy with buttons and
hooks and eyes; a very nice name and suitable.  Her thoughts seemed to
dwell lovingly on Mr.  Fitzgibbon while she carried on a cheerful
conversation calculated to soothe; knowing his name made her feel that
she knew something about him at last.

Miss Mac Finn was philosophical about having an operation.

"Of course, if you say so, Alexander, but is it sensible at my age?"

"Certainly it is and don't cast doubts on my surgery--I'll wager a
hundred pounds that you'll be trot R ting around on your ninetieth
birthday!  Will you bet on that?"

Miss Mac Finn thought for a moment.

"No, I just might lose my money.

You can send me a very large bouquet of flowers instead.  " She looked
at him straight in the eye.

"Either way!"  she added.

"I'll bring them myself."  He got up, smiling, and took her hand.

"You'll go into the private wing as my special patient and no argument.
I'll do it myself..."

"Good."  She looked at Florence, standing quietly by.

"It would be nice if this pretty creature would be there too..."

"I'll certainly arrange that."

The next patient had been waiting for ten minutes or so; Florence
showed him in and felt free to clear up the examination-room and get it
ready once again, and after him there was only one more appointment and
that was for a patient of some months, recovered from surgery and due
for a checkup.

It was six o'clock before he had gone, and they began to clear up for
the last time.  Florence, on her way to the examination-room, was
halted by Mr.  Fitzgibbon.

"I shall be obliged if you will make yourself available when I operate
upon Miss Mac Finn I'll choose a day when Theatre Sister is off
duty--you can scrub..."

When she didn't answer he added, "Miss Mac Finn liked you; we think she
will need all the help she can get even a whim satisfied."

Florence said, "Very well, sir," and made for the examination-room once
more, only to be stopped again.

"Get Miss Paton on the phone, will you?"  He was writing now and didn't
look up.  Eleanor's voice spoke sharply in her ear.

"Yes?"  When Florence said, "Mr.  Fitzgibbon wants to speak to you.
Miss Paton," she said even more sharply, "Well, put him on, then, and
don't waste my time."  Florence handed him the receiver, her eyes
sparkling with rage.  She said unforgivably, "And don't ever ask me to
do that again, sir."  She swept away, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon, the receiver
in his hand, unheeding of the voice issuing from it, grinned.

He waited until the voice paused for breath and then said quite mildly,
"I'm afraid I'll not be able to take you to the theatre, Eleanor.  I'm
still at my rooms and shall be for some time, and then I must go back
to Colbert's."

He listened patiently to the peevish voice and then said, "There are
any number of men only too anxious to take my place," and with that he
added, 'and I must hang up, Eleanor, or I shall be here all night.  "

He was still at his desk when Florence and Mrs.  Keane wished him
goodnight and left.  They parted company on the pavement, and Florence
walked slowly back to Mrs.  Twist's, a prey to worried thoughts.  She
had allowed her tongue to run away with itself again, and Mr. 
Fitzgibbon would be justified in reprimanding her, and, if it happened
that he was feeling bad-tempered, he might even give her the sack.  She
frowned as she opened Mrs.  Twist's gate, wondering why she spoke to
him like that; she wouldn't have dreamed of addressing any of the
patients or the consultants at Colbert's in such a fashion.  She went
soberly indoors, and presently sat down to sausages and mash and a pot
of tea and, since Mrs.  Twist considered that she looked rather pea ky
and needed an hour or two in the air, she went obediently into the
little garden and sat there, her knitting in her lap and Buster on the
knitting.  It was pleasant to sit there doing nothing, but a pity that
her thoughts were so un settling.

"I've cooked my goose," she murmured to Buster, 'not that it matters,
for now I have to decide whether I can bear to go on seeing him every
day or whether it would be wiser to leave and never see him again.  I
think I'd better leave I can say that Mother isn't so well.  No, that
won't do because he'll probably suggest arranging for her to be
re-admitted or some such.

I'll just say that she wants me at home.  "

Buster rearranged the knitting to his liking and went to sleep, and
Florence, closing her eyes, the better to solve her problem, went to
sleep too.

CHAPTER SEVEN

florence went to work in a fine muddle the next morning; uppermost in
her head was the thought that she would spend the day, or most of it,
in Mr.  Fitzgibbon's company, but this delightful prospect was
overshadowed by the memory of her flash of temper on the previous
day.

"One day, my dear girl," she muttered, 'you'll go too far and get the
sack, and have to go home and never see him again.  " It was really
very upsetting and she dawdled along, making up conversations in her
head, all of which had a satisfactory conclusion as such conversations
always did.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon, standing at his window, staring out into the quiet
street, rattling the loose change in his pocket, watched her mooning
along and wondered what she might be thinking.  Nothing cheerful--that
was evident.  He smiled to himself, studying her neat fiery head and
pretty face.  She was wearing a cotton dress, one of thousands off the
peg, but it was a restful pale green and suited her splendid shape, and
she wore it elegantly.  He turned away from the window a few moments
before Florence instinctively raised her eyes to it as she always did
just before she crossed the street.  A minute later, when she arrived
he was sitting at his desk reading his post.

Mrs.  Keane, coming in on Florence's heels, wished them both good
morning and wanted to know with some asperity why Mr.  Fitzgibbon
couldn't have waited for her to deal with his letters.

"For I'm sure I'm able to deal with them far more quickly--and
tidily."

Florence went away to get into her uniform, listening wistfully to the
cheerful talk between Mrs.  Keane and her employer--she could hear him
laughing now.  He hadn't even smiled at her when she had wished him
good morning.  Perhaps she was going to get the sack.  However, the
busy day came to an end without any mention of it, and at the end of
the week she went home again, reluctantly because she wouldn't see Mr.
Fitzgibbon until Monday morning, but happy to have a day or two in the
gentle peacefulness of Gussage Tollard.

The weekend went too fast, and every hour of it had been filled.  There
were gooseberries and strawberries to pick, currants and some early
raspberries all growing higgledy-piggledy in the untidy kitchen garden,
and flowers to cut for the church.  Mrs.  Napier, almost her old self
once more, was none the less glad to take her ease while Florence took
over the cooking, dealt with a load of washing and ironing and went to
the village to see how Miss Payne, who had been poorly, was feeling.
Well enough to give Mrs.  Napier a helping hand once more, Florence was
assured, to her relief.

Now that she had a job she had enough money to pay Miss Payne's modest
wage, and the small but necessary chores she did for her mother were
worth every penny of it.

In the train, going back to London, Florence mulled over her brief
stay.  She had enjoyed every minute of it, excepting perhaps the
conversation she had had with her mother that afternoon, sitting in the
garden after lunch.

"You're not quite happy, are you, darling?"  her mother had remarked.

"Is this job too much for you?  Is the bed sitter too awful?"

She had denied both vigorously, and Mrs.  Napier had persisted
gently;

"Then it's Mr.  Fitzgibbon isn't he kind to you, Florence?  Does he
work you too hard?"

"No, no," Florence had said, 'he's very nice to work for.  Mother, and
it's such an interesting job.  " She had been at some pains to give
chapter and verse on this, and her mother had uttered a small sigh and
said no more, but Florence felt uneasy.  If her mother had noticed that
something was troubling her, would Mr.  Fitzgibbon notice it too?  It
seemed unlikely.

An assumption borne out by his impersonal 'good morning' when he
arrived the next day.  He left again as soon as he had seen his post,
to go out to his out patients clinic, for he had no appointments until
the afternoon, but before he went he put his head round the
examination-room door, where Florence was tidying away the week's
linen.

"I shall want you in Theatre tomorrow morning.  I'll pick you up here
at eight o'clock sharp.  I shall operate upon Miss Mac Finn if you
remember, she wanted to see you again and, as Theatre Sister is on
holiday, it will be most convenient."

He had gone before she could open her mouth.

"That'll make a nice change for you, dear," said Mrs.  Keane.

They separated and spent a quiet morning, doing small chores, then
sitting over their coffee and finally having their sandwich lunch, so
that they were ready for him when Mr.  Fitzgibbon returned.  There were
several appointments and two of them stretched into twice their usual
length; by five o'clock Florence was wishing the day were over.

Outside the warm day was dwindling into what was going to be a lovely
evening, but, despite the open windows, the consulting-rooms were
close.  She envied Mr.  Fitzgibbon, sitting back in his chair, giving
his full attention to his patients and looking cool and at ease.  So he
should, she reflected grumpily, when I'm the one who's doing all the
running around.  When the last patient finally went she carried in his
tea and made for the door.

"Not so fast, Florence.  Before you go I'll sort out the instruments I
shall want with me tomorrow morning.  Take them with you and get them
sterilised at Colbert's, will you?"  He eyed her quiet face over his
teacup.

"A

pleasant evening ahead of you, I trust?  "

"Very," said Florence; there would be shepherd's pie for supper because
it was Monday, and then she would wash her hair and sit in the tiny
garden and knit.  Even if anyone, and by that she meant Mr. 
Fitzgibbon, were to ask her out that evening, she wouldn't go; she was
tired and cross and rather unhappy too.  Not that it mattered, of
course, for he wouldn't do anything of the sort.

He didn't; he reached for the phone and presently, through the
half-open door, she heard him asking Eleanor if they could meet that
evening.

She left with Mrs.  Keane after exchanging polite good evenings.  It
hadn't been a good day.

It was another lovely morning.  She walked round to the
consulting-rooms and found the Rolls outside, with Mr.  Fitzgibbon
standing in the doorway, talking to the porter.  His 'good morning' was
affable, but he wasted no time in small talk.  At the hospital he
handed her his instruments case and told her to go on up to the theatre
block.

"I'll join you in half an hour," he told her, and walked away towards
the consultant's room.

Theatre was ready; the same little staff nurse was on duty and she knew
the technician and the two other nurses.  She got into her theatre
smock and dealt with the instruments, checked that everything was as it
should be and went to the anaesthetic-room.  Miss Mac Finn was there,
lying on the trolley, having a drowsy conversation with Dr.  Sim, the
anaesthetist, but when she saw Florence she smiled.

"Alexander promised you'd be here.  Such a treat for sore eyes you are,
my dear.  I've just been talking to him."

She closed her eyes and Florence gave her hand a squeeze.

"I'll see you later," she promised, and went to scrub up.

Everything was quite ready as Mr.  Fitzgibbon came into the theatre. 
He cast a swift eye around him, waiting while his registrar and a
houseman positioned themselves on the other side of the table, asked,
"Ready, Sister?"  and bent to his work.

The morning was far advanced by the time he straightened his back for
the last time, pronounced himself satisfied and, leaving his registrar
to apply the dressing and oversee Miss Mac Finn transfer to the
recovery-room, stripped off his gloves, allowed a nurse to help him out
of his gown and went away.

Miss Mac Finn in safe hands, Florence took off her gown and began to
gather up the instruments.  She didn't get very far; the theatre maid
put a cautious head round the door.

"Sister, you're to go down to the office and have your coffee.  Mr.
Fitzgibbon says so."

The office was crowded, with the four men perched where they could,
waiting for her to pour out.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon gravely offered her
Sister's chair, behind the desk and went to lean his bulk against one
wall.  She sat down composedly, gave them their mugs in turn, handed
round the biscuit tin and sipped her own drink, listening to the men
talking about the case.  It was rather nice to be back in the hospital,
she mused;

on the other hand, if she were here permanently, she would see very
little of Mr.  Fitzgibbon.  She brooded over this, unaware that they
had stopped talking for the moment and were looking at her.

"Hey, Florence, daydreaming?  How unkind, when there are four handsome
men standing around--wanting more coffee..."

She went a delicate pink.

"Sorry, I was just thinking that it was nice to see you all again."

She began filling mugs once more, and the registrar observed, "Which
encourages me to invite you out for a meal one evening--I've no money,
of course, but we can go to that poky little Chinese place..."

"I remember--they kept looking at us through those bead curtains.  I'd
like that, Clan."  She smiled at him;

they had been out together once or twice in a friendly way; she knew
that he was engaged to a girl--a children's nanny, living with a family
in Switzerland--and that they planned to get married at the end of the
year.  Doubtless he wanted to talk about her, and Florence was a very
good listener and always had been.

"Oh, good.  I'll give you a ring."  He looked across to Mr. 
Fitzgibbon, still lounging against the wall, looking thoughtful and
faintly amused.

"Shall I check up on Miss Mac Finn sir?"

"No, I'll go myself, Clan.  I'll take Florence back presently and come
back here, do the ward-round and cast an eye on Miss Mac Finn before I
go, right?"

To Florence he said briskly, "Be ready to leave here in half an
hour."

He went away and the other three men with him, leaving her to sit among
the coffee-mugs and biscuit crumbs.  She hadn't time to sit about,
though; she went back to Theatre, saw to the instruments, checked that
the theatre was ready for whatever might be coming to it next, and went
away to change.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon has said half an hour, and he wouldn't
like to be kept waiting.

She got to the entrance hall a few minutes before he did, which pleased
her mightily, for it seemed to her that she was always the one to be
last.  They got into the car without speaking, and he dropped her off
at his rooms, bade her a brief goodbye and drove away.

"Home for lunch," said Florence, sprinting up the stairs, intent on her
sandwiches and tea.

There was one appointment at two o'clock and he was back at his desk
five minutes before that.  The patient was a middle-aged woman, quiet
and composed.  She did everything asked of her without demur, answered
the questions put to her concisely, listened while Mr.  Fitzgibbon
explained just why it would be necessary to have an operation, agreed
to have it when arrangements could be made, thanked him nicely and went
away.

Florence, putting a cup of coffee on his desk're 1 marked, "What a
brave woman; I do hope she has a nice husband or children to comfort
her when she gets home."

"Indeed, yes.  I am going back to Colbert's, Florence; I should like
you to come with me so that Miss Mac Finn can see you.  Don't bother to
get out of your uniform.  If I'm not back by half-past five you and
Mrs.  Keane go home."  He glanced up at her.

"Go and drink your tea--I'm leaving in ten minutes.  You can tidy up
when you get back."

"How?"  asked Florence.

"How do I get back?"

"I'll bring you."

She drank her tea in a few gulps, powdered her nose and tucked away a
few strands of hair, and then joined him in the waiting-room, just in
time to hear him telling Mrs.  Keane that he wouldn't be back until
five or later and would she let anyone who phoned know this?

Eleanor, thought Florence, nipping smartly down the stairs ahead of
him.

Miss Mac Finn had come round from the anaesthetic and was doing
nicely.

She was enjoying a refreshing nap when Florence and Mr.  Fitzgibbon
reached her room in the private wing, but within five minutes she had
opened her eyes, taken a moment or two to focus them and then murmured
in a thread of a voice, "Admirably suited," smiled faintly, and closed
her eyes once more.

Florence, quite at a loss, glanced at Mr.  Fitzgibbon and saw that he
was smiling, but within a few mo R ments he had become the dignified
consultant once again, giving low-voiced instructions to his registrar
and then to Sister.  That done, he turned to Florence.

"Most satisfactory," he murmured.

"I'll take you back."

So he drove her back to Wimpole Street and, be yond observing that Miss
Mac Finn had every chance of a good recovery, he had nothing else to
say during the journey.

Mrs.  Keane, appraised of the brevity of the visit and Miss Mac Finn
remark, looked thoughtful.  It was strange, she reflected, that Mr.
Fitzgibbon treated Florence with nothing more than courteous reserve,
but none the less sought her company.  As pretty as a picture too, and
a fine, big girl, just right for his own massive proportions, not in
the least like that awful Miss Paton.  The telephone interrupted her
interesting thoughts and, since she was sitting at her desk and
Florence was standing by the phone, she said, "Answer that, dear, will
you?  It'll be that man you rang about sharpening the surgical
scissors; he said he'd ring back..."

It wasn't, it was Eleanor Paton, demanding to speak to Mr.
Fitzgibbon.

"He won't be back this afternoon," said Florence politely.

"Would you like to leave a message?"

"Who's that speaking?  Are you the woman with the red hair?"

Florence forgot that she was a vicar's daughter and ought to know
better.

"Red hair?  Brown curls, black eyes, five feet three inches tall, and
slim."

"You're new?  She got the sack?  Good.  No, I won't leave a
message..."

Miss Paton hung up, and Florence replaced the receiver and looked
defiantly at Mrs.  Keane.

"I didn't tell a fib," she pointed out.

"If she liked to make what she wanted of it that's her business."

Mrs.  Keane began to laugh.

"I'd love to see her face if ever she comes here," she chortled.

"I wonder why she wants to see him?  She sounded very cross; he
arranged to see her yesterday evening I got her on the phone for him.

Do you suppose they quarrelled?  "

"It must be hard to quarrel with him," said Mrs.  Keane, 'it would be
like butting one's head against a feather bed wrapped round a block of
concrete.  "

"Did he get on with Sister Brice?"

"Professionally, yes but she wasn't his type."

Florence couldn't stop herself from asking what his type might be.

"I don't think it's Eleanor we'll have to wait and see."

Perhaps, thought Florence, he had no idea himself, in which case he
might remain single for the rest of his life and she would be able to
go on working for him.  It would be better than nothing, better than
never seeing him again.

At five o'clock Mrs.  Keane tidied her desk.

"I should think we might go I've got my in-laws coming to supper; I
thought I'd do coq au vin ... V " Then do go, Mrs.  Keane.  I'm not in
a hurry; I'll get ready to go and wait until half-past and lock up.  It
doesn't look as though he's coming back here.  "

Mrs.  Keane went and Florence mooned around for another fifteen
minutes.

She was on the point of changing out of her uniform when the doorbell
was rung.  It wouldn't be Mr.  Fitzgibbon; he had his keys in his
pocket he'd been rattling them when they had been standing by Miss Mac
Finn bedside.  She opened the door: Eleanor was standing there, beating
a tattoo with an impatient foot.  She gave a gasp when she saw
Florence.

"Why, you're still here that other girl..."  she pushed past Florence
'where is she?  "

She turned to glare at Florence, standing by the still open door,
saying nothing.

"It was you there isn't another nurse."

"I didn't say that there was," Florence pointed out.

"I'm just locking up, and I'm afraid I must ask you to leave."

Eleanor sat firmly down on the nearest chair.

"I in tend to remain.  I insist on remaining."

They both had their backs to the door and Mr.  Fitzgibbon's quiet voice
made them both start.  He said, at his most bland, "Go home,
Florence;

I'll lock up.  " And when she went without a word to change, closing
the door very quietly behind her, he said, " Come into the
consulting-room, Eleanor.  I don't know why you've come; I think we
have said all there is to say, don't you?  And I'm a busy man.  "

He opened the door of his consulting-room and he ushered her inside.

"That girl," spat Eleanor.

"I phoned this afternoon; she said, well, she led me to believe that
she had left she said she was dark-haired, small and slim..."

Florence, going silently to the waiting-room door, paused when she
heard his bellow of laughter.  They must have made it up, she thought
unhappily.

She ate her supper and, feeling restless, got on a bus and got herself
taken to Colbert's.  The truck driver was still in hospital and she
hadn't visited him for a week or more.

He was glad to see her.  His wife had just gone home and he was sitting
in a chair by his bed, doing the football pools.  She pulled up another
chair, offered the packet of chocolate biscuits she had brought with
her, and sat for half an hour, listening with her full attention to his
plans for the future.  No good being a truck driver, was it?  he
reminded her cheerfully.  He'd got a bit of compensation coming to him
and he was going to open a greengrocer's shop.

"And yer know wot, miss?  Mr.  Fitzgibbon 'ad a nice little place in
the Mile End Road, side-entrance and all to a real classy flat over.
Said 'e was glad ter 'ave it taken off 'is 'ands, too.  No rent for a
year, 'e says.

"Ome in a couple of days, though I'll 'ave ter come for physio and 'ave
me think we might go I've got my in-laws coming to supper; I thought
I'd do coq au vin.-.V " Then do go, Mrs.  Keane.  I'm not in a hurry;
I'll get ready to go and wait until half-past and lock up.  It doesn't
look as though he's coming back here.  "

Mrs.  Keane went and Florence mooned around for another fifteen
minutes.

She was on the point of changing out of her uniform when the doorbell
was rung.  It wouldn't be Mr.  Fitzgibbon; he had his keys in his
pocket he'd been rattling them when they had been standing by Miss Mac
Finn bedside.  She opened the door: Eleanor was standing there, beating
a tattoo with an impatient foot.  She gave a gasp when she saw
Florence.

"Why, you're still here that other girl..."  she pushed past Florence
'where is she?  "

She turned to glare at Florence, standing by the still open door,
saying nothing.

"It was you there isn't another nurse."

"I didn't say that there was," Florence pointed out.

"I'm just locking up, and I'm afraid I must ask you to leave."

Eleanor sat firmly down on the nearest chair.

"I in tend to remain.  I insist on remaining."

They both had their backs to the door and Mr.  Fitzgibbon's quiet voice
made them both start.  He said, at his most bland, "Go home,
Florence;

I'll lock up.  " And when she went without a word to change, closing
the door very quietly behind her, he said, " Come into the
consulting-room, Eleanor.  I don't know why you've come; I think we
have said all there is to say, don't you?  And I'm a busy man.  "

He opened the door of his consulting-room and he ushered her inside.

"That girl," spat Eleanor.

"I phoned this afternoon; she said, well, she led me to believe that
she had left she said she was dark-haired, small and slim..."

Florence, going silently to the waiting-room door, paused when she
heard his bellow of laughter.  They must have made it up, she thought
unhappily.

She ate her supper and, feeling restless, got on a bus and got herself
taken to Colbert's.  The truck driver was still in hospital and she
hadn't visited him for a week or more.

He was glad to see her.  His wife had just gone home and he was sitting
in a chair by his bed, doing the football pools.  She pulled up another
chair, offered the packet of chocolate biscuits she had brought with
her, and sat for half an hour, listening with her full attention to his
plans for the future.  No good being a truck driver, was it?  he
reminded her cheerfully.  He'd got a bit of compensation coming to him
and he was going to open a greengrocer's shop.

"And yer know wot, miss?  Mr.  Fitzgibbon 'ad a nice little place in
the Mile End Road, side-entrance and all to a real classy flat over.
Said 'e was glad ter 'ave it taken off 'is 'ands, too.  No rent for a
year, 'e says.

"Ome in a couple of days, though I'll 'ave ter come for physio and 'ave
me leg fitted."  He grinned widely at her.

"Reckon 'm lucky.  The missus isn't 'arf pleased."

"Oh, I'm so very glad," said Florence.

"I know you'll make a success of it.  Give me the address, will you?
I'll come and see you."

She took the scrap of paper he handed her and got up.

"I must go.  Do take care, won't you?  And I will come and see you and
your wife."

He went to the ward door with her, proud of his prowess with his
crutches, and she turned and waved goodbye before she turned the corner
at the end of the corridor.

She was walking along an endless corridor on her way out when Clan came
through a ward door.

"Hey there, I say, I've had some splendid news--Lucy's coming back. The
family she's with is coming to London; a diplomatic posting--we'll be
able to see quite a lot of each other.  I have missed her..."

"What wonderful news, Clan; I'm so glad.  Give her my love and tell her
to give me a ring, if you can spare her--we could have a good
gossip."

She smiled widely at Clan and he beamed back at her, a hand on her arm.
It was unfortunate for Mr.  Fitzgibbon's peace of mind that he should
be coming towards them; from where he was, they looked absorbed in each
other.

He was very near when they became aware of him, and Clan said, "Oh,
hello, sir.  Have you come in about that crushed chest, or did you want
to see Miss Mac Finn

"Both," said Mr.  Fitzgibbon, "Miss Mac Finn first, I think."  He
slowed his pace, waiting for Clan to join him and, when he did so,
nodded to Florence, smiling blandly, his eyes cold.

"Sorry to interrupt," he said pleasantly.

"Good evening, Florence."

The two men went away and Florence loitered along the corridor,
wondering what she had done now to make him look like that--coldly
angry, and with her.  After all, since she'd been a member of the
nursing staff at the hospital, no one objected to her coming and going
at odd hours, but he had looked at her as though she had no right to be
there.

She went off back to Mrs.  Twist's, highly incensed at his manner.

Two days went by, Mr.  Fitzgibbon came and went, saw his patients,
dictated his letters, and addressed Florence when necessary and not
otherwise in an impersonal manner which chilled her to the very
marrow.

By the time Friday came she was looking forward to going home;

perhaps, away from the scene of her problems, she would be able to
solve them.  It was halfway through the afternoon when Mrs.  Keane was
struck by a violent migraine.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon was at Colbert's and
there were no more patients for that day;

they were getting ready to go home.  Mrs.  Keane had been lying down on
the examination-room couch, but she had got up to lock her desk before
she left, and the phone rang at that moment.  Florence, giving the
kitchen a final scrutiny, heard Mrs.  Keane's voice.

"I'll be there at seven o'clock, sir," she was saying, and, "I'll bring
it with me."

She put down the receiver and sat down limply.

"Mr.  Fitzgibbon wants me to go his East End clinic with some vital
notes he's left here..."

"Well, you can't," said Florence very firmly.

"Tell me where to find them and where to go and I'll take them.  And
I'm getting a taxi for you this very minute.  You're not fit to be on
your feet."

"Oh, but I must," said Mrs.  Keane feebly.

"Pooh," said Florence, 'there's no must about it.  Where is this
folder? "

"You'll miss your train."

"I'm not going until the morning," said Florence, thinking it was quite
all right and very easy to tell fibs once you got into the bad habit of
it.

"You really mean that?  The folder is in the left-hand drawer of his
desk.  It's in a blue cover and it's marked " Confidential".  You
really don't mind going?  I don't know what he'll say..."

Florence wasn't sure either, but all she said was, "Well, he probably
won't notice.  Where is it exactly?"

Mrs.  Keane told Her.

"Not a nice district, dear.  When I've been I have always had a taxi
there and back.  On expenses, of course."

Florence found the folder, locked everything up and put an arm round
Mrs.  Keane, who had her eyes shut and was looking very pale.

"I'd better come with you," she suggested, but Mrs.  Keane declared
that she would be all right; all the same, when the taxi came Florence
begged the driver to keep an eye on his passenger and give her an arm
to her front door.  The cabbie was elderly and delighted to see such a
pretty, charming face at the end of a day of passengers who didn't
bother to look at him, only snapped directions as they got in and paid
him without a glance.

"Course I will, ducks; got a bad 'cad, 'as she?  My old lady gets 'em
too."

Florence said that she was sorry to hear that, and if it hadn't been
for a faint moan from Mrs.  Keane she might have enquired further.  She
gave him a last smile and waved as the taxi drew away from the kerb.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon had said seven o'clock, and it would take quite a time
to cross London, for the traffic would still be heavy.  She explained
to Mrs.  Twist, who gave her a cup of tea and a bun and promised that
there would be something in the fridge when she got back, and went to
her room to change.  Something severe and inconspicuous, she decided,
going through her few dresses.  The cotton jersey, she supposed, and
got into it, subdued her hair into a tidy chignon, thrust her tired
feet into sandals, picked up a small handbag she could safeguard if
necessary and, with the folder safely in a plastic carrier-bag, went in
search of a taxi.

It was a long drive through the City, its blocks of offices silent now,
the streets quiet, and then into the lighted streets of the East End,
the wholesale dress shops, take-away food shops, amusement arcades,
boarded-up houses and here and there high-rise flats alien to their
surroundings.

The cabbie turned round once to ask if she was sure she had the right
address, "For this ain't no place for a pretty girl like you, miss."

She assured him that she had it right.

"It's all right, it's a clinic, and I know the people who work
there."

Anything less like a clinic would be hard to find, she reflected as she
got out at last, paid the cabbie, assured him that she was quite safe
and crossed the pavement to the half-open door.  It was a corner house,
its brickwork grimed, two of its three windows boarded up, the third
covered with wire netting.  She turned to smile reassuringly at the
cabbie and pushed open the door.  The hall was dark and smelled damp,
and from one of several doors there was a subdued volume of sound and a
crack of light around its ill- fitting door.  Florence opened it and
went in.

The room wasn't large, but it was empty of furniture, save for benches
against its walls and rows of decrepit chairs taking up every inch of
space.  It was full of people, though, and those who hadn't got seats
were standing against the walls.  The babble of talk died down while
everyone looked at her; only the noise of the continuous coughing from
some of them continued.

"Lost yer way, love?"  asked a cheerful stout woman with a small boy on
her lap.

"Come ter see Doc?"  And, when Florence nodded, "Well, yer'll 'ave ter
take yer turn, ducks, same as the rest of us."

"I'm not here to see him," said Florence matter-of factly "I'm a nurse,
and I've brought some papers he wants urgently."

Several voices told her to go through the door at the end of the room,
and a man lounging beside it opened it for her.  She thanked him nicely
and went through the door on a wave of onions and beer.  The atmosphere
on the other side of the door was quite a different matter.  What fresh
air there was in the Mile End Road was pouring in through a window high
up in one wall, and the walls were distempered a cheerful pale yellow.
The furniture was simple: a desk a chair behind it and another before
it, an examination couch, a cabinet housing the surgery equipment, and
a large sink with a pile of towels beside it.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon was
bending over a small boy on the couch, Clan was standing opposite, and
beside him was the child's mother, a pretty girl with greasy hair, a
grubby T-shirt and torn denim trousers.  The child was screaming and
kicking, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon had a gentle hand on the small stomach,
waiting patiently until he quietened.  It was a pity that the girl
broke into loud sobs, and when Clan put a soothing hand on her arm
flung it off and added her own screams to the child's.

Florence put the folder on the desk and joined the group round the
couch.

"Now, now," she said soothingly, and put an arm boarded-up houses and
here and there high-rise flats alien to their surroundings.

The cabbie turned round once to ask if she was sure she had the right
address, "For this ain't no place for a pretty girl like you, miss."

She assured him that she had it right.

"It's all right, it's a clinic, and I know the people who work
there."

Anything less like a clinic would be hard to find, she reflected as she
got out at last, paid the cabbie, assured him that she was quite safe
and crossed the pavement to the half-open door.  It was a corner house,
its brickwork grimed, two of its three windows boarded up, the third
covered with wire netting.  She turned to smile reassuringly at the
cabbie and pushed open the door.  The hall was dark and smelled damp,
and from one of several doors there was a subdued volume of sound and a
crack of light around its ill- fitting door.  Florence opened it and
went in.

The room wasn't large, but it was empty of furniture, save for benches
against its walls and rows of decrepit chairs taking up every inch of
space.  It was full of people, though, and those who hadn't got seats
were standing against the walls.  The babble of talk died down while
everyone looked at her; only the noise of the continuous coughing from
some of them continued.

"Lost yer way, love?"  asked a cheerful stout woman with a small boy on
her lap.

"Come ter see Doc?"  And, when Florence nodded, "Well, yer'll 'ave ter
take yer turn, ducks, same as the rest of us."

"I'm not here to see him," said Florence matter-of factly "I'm a nurse,
and I've brought some papers he wants urgently."

Several voices told her to go through the door at the end of the room,
and a man lounging beside it opened it for her.  She thanked him nicely
and went through the door on a wave of onions and beer.  The atmosphere
on the other side of the door was quite a different matter.  What fresh
air there was in the Mile End Road was pouring in through a window high
up in one wall, and the walls were distempered a cheerful pale yellow.
The furniture was simple: a desk a chair behind it and another before
it, an examination couch, a cabinet housing the surgery equipment, and
a large sink with a pile of towels beside it.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon was
bending over a small boy on the couch, Clan was standing opposite, and
beside him was the child's mother, a pretty girl with greasy hair, a
grubby T-shirt and torn denim trousers.  The child was screaming and
kicking, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon had a gentle hand on the small stomach,
waiting patiently until he quietened.  It was a pity that the girl
broke into loud sobs, and when Clan put a soothing hand on her arm
flung it off and added her own screams to the child's.

Florence put the folder on the desk and joined the group round the
couch.

"Now, now," she said soothingly, and put an arm round the girl's
shoulders.

"Come and sit down here so that the doctors can take a look at your
little boy.  You can tell me all about it..."

She hardly noticed Dan's surprised stare but she couldn't fail to hear
Mr.  Fitzgibbon's terse, "What the devil?"

"I'll tell you later," she announced, and met eyes like cold steel with
her own calm blue ones.

"I'll look after Mum," she added kindly, 'while you get on with what
you want to do.  "

She led the girl to a chair by a desk in a corner of the room, ignoring
his tight-lipped anger.  He was probably thinking some very bad
language, and most certainly he would have a great deal to say to her
later on.  But now there was the little matter of getting the girl to
stop crying.  Florence produced a clean handkerchief, begged her to mop
her face, gave her a drink of water from the sink tap and enquired
sympathetically as to what was wrong with the child.

The girl was vague; he'd been off colour, wouldn't eat, kept being sick
and said his chest hurt him.

"So I brought him here," she explained, 'seeing as how the doctor here
seems to know his stuff.  "

She sniffed forlornly, and Borence said, "Oh, you're right there; he's
a very clever man."

"You his girlfriend?"

"No, no, I'm a nurse--I work for him."

The girl eyed her with interest, her worries forgotten for the
moment.

"Got a bit of a temper, hasn't he?

Doesn't show, but you can tell.  " She darted a glance at the little
group by the couch; the little boy was quiet now, and it was Mr.
Fitzgibbon talking, making the child chuckle.

He turned his head presently.

"Since you are here, Sister, perhaps you will dress this little chap
while I talk to his mother."  His manner was pleasant, but his voice
was cold.

It seemed wise not to speak; Florence began to clothe the child in an
assortment of garments, listening as best she could to Mr.  Fitzgibbon
at his most soothing, persuading the girl to let him take the child
into hospital.  He explained cystic fibrosis very simply, enquired as
to her circumstances and suggested that she should see the lady at the
desk in the room adjoining, who would help her to sort things out.

"I'll get an ambulance," he told her.

"You can go with Jimmy and then stay the night at the hospital if you
wish to; if you want to come back home ask the lady for your fare. Have
you any money?"

He sounded so kind that Florence felt the tears crowding her throat,
and when Clan came over to see how she was getting on the smile she
gave him was so lop-sided that he took a second look at her, but all he
said was, "I'll phone for an ambulance."

Mother and child were borne away presently, and Clan said, "I'll get in
the next patient, shall I?"

Mr.  Fitzgibbon was at his desk finishing a conversation with Colbert's
about the child he had admitted.

He put the receiver down and said, "Not for a moment.  Florence, I
should like to know why you are here.  I spoke to Mrs.  Keane on the
phone..."

She sat down on the chair opposite him.

"Well, it's like this--she had the most awful migraine, so I put her in
a taxi and sent her home and came instead of her."  She added in a
motherly voice, "And now I'm here I might as well stay and give a hand.
You're bursting with rage, aren't you?  But with all these people
outside there isn't really time to give vent to it, is there?"

Clan gave a muffled laugh, which he turned into a prolonged cough, but
Mr.  Fitzgibbon didn't smile.  He was in a towering rage, all the worse
for its being battened down with iron determination.  He glanced at his
watch.

"You came by taxi?"

She nodded.

"Is it waiting?"

"Heavens, no, that would cost a small fortune, and I was told to put it
down to expenses."

"In that case you had better stay and make yourself useful."  He got
up.

"Let's have the next one, Clan."

He ignored her for the rest of the long evening, but she had little
time to worry about that.  Wrapped around by a white pinny she found
hanging behind the door, she dressed and undressed, applied plasters,
redid bandages and cleared up after each patient.  The majority of them
were old patients who had come for a regular check-up, but nevertheless
it was past ten o'clock by the time the last one went away.  Florence,
helped by the quiet little lady who had been doing the paperwork and
attending to the patients' problems, tidied up the place, took off the
pinny and followed her to the door, nodding to Clan as she went.

"Not so fast," said Mr.  Fitzgibbon, still writing at his desk.

"Clan, go on ahead, will you, and write that child up for something,
and make sure his mum's being looked after?  I'll be along later."

Clan hesitated.

"Shall I take Florence with me, sir?"

"I'll take her back to her lodgings."

Florence advanced a step into the room.

"I shall catch a bus," she said clearly.

"No, you won't."  He didn't look up.

"Off you go, Clan; I'll see Florence safely back."

His registrar went with a sidelong smile for Florence and, since Mr.
Fitzgibbon showed no sign of being ready to leave, she sat down
composedly on one of the few chairs in the room.

Presently he closed the folder he was writing in and put away his
pen.

"You haven't had your supper?"

"No; Mrs.  Twist will have left something for me."

He got up and crossed the room to stand in front of her, making her
feel at a disadvantage, since she had to look up a long way to see his
face.  He put out a hand and hauled her gently to her feet and didn't
let her hand go.

"I have been most unkind--will you forgive me?"

He sounded so kind that she had the greatest wish to throw herself on
to his chest and have a good cry;

instead she looked him in the eye.

"Yes, of course I will.  I must have given you a surprise.  Do you like
to keep all this--' she waved her free hand around '--a secret?"

"As far as I can, yes.  Clan knows, of course, and so do several of the
local doctors who take it in turns to work here.  I've never considered
it suitable for women, though."

"Oh, pooh," said Florence.

"What about that nice little lady who was here?"

"Ah, yes, well, she's the local school-teacher, and perfectly safe."

She gave her hand a tug, but he held it fast.

"Well, now I know about it, may I come and work here too?  I should
very much like to."

"Why, Florence?"

She had no intention of telling him why; instead she said
matter-of-factly, "It's worthwhile, isn't it?  And I've every
evening..."

He lifted his eyebrows.

"Every evening?  What about those evenings out with Clan?"  He smiled
faintly.

"A "

poky little Chinese place"."

"That was years ago.  I'm glad his fiancee is coming back so soon;

she's a dear.  "

She glanced at him and was surprised to see what amounted to amused
satisfaction on his face.

"If you want to work here I see no reason why you shouldn't, but on the
definite condition that I bring you and take you back, and that you
stay here in the building.  I won't have you roaming the streets..."

She said coldly, "I'm not in the habit of roaming..."  and remembered
the unfortunate episode when she had looked for a short-cut to the
bus.

"Oh, very well.  How often do you come here?"

"Once a week."  He let her hand go, picked up his bag and opened the
door.

"It's getting late."

He stowed her into the car, parked in a scruffy yard behind the
house.

"I'm surprised that it's still here," observed Florence, and then
added, 'no, I'm not; they depend on you, don't they?  "

"To a certain extent most of them either need to go into hospital or
have just been discharged from it."

The streets were quiet, and the homeward journey seemed much shorter
than her taxi ride.

"Mrs.  Twist will be in bed?"  asked Mr.  Fitzgibbon.

"Oh, yes, but I have a key."

"In that case there is no need to disturb her.  Mrs.  Crib will have a
meal ready."

Florence thought longingly of food.

"Well, that's all right for you, isn't it?  If you'd just drop me off
at the end of this street I can " Don't be silly, Florence, you will
eat your supper with me and I'll bring you back afterwards.  "

"I don't think !"

"Good."  He had turned into his street and stopped before his door.

He got out, went round the car and opened her door, and said, "Out you
get," and, when she didn't budge, scooped her up and set her on her
feet on the pavement He held her for a moment and then bent and kissed
her, took her by the arm, opened his street door and urged her
inside.

Since she had no means of getting back to Mrs.  Twist's and there was a
delicious aroma coming from the half-open baize door at the back of the
hall, Florence, sternly suppressing delighted thoughts about the kiss,
decided sensibly to stay for supper.

CHAPTER EIGHT

mr fitz gibbon gave Florence a gentle push from behind.

"Straight through to the kitchen.  The Cribs will be in bed, but
everything will be ready."

The kitchen was roomy, with an old-fashioned dresser laden with china
dishes and plates, a scrubbed wooden table in the centre of the tiled
floor, and an Aga stove taking up almost all of one wall.  It was
flanked by two Windsor armchairs with bright cushions, and between them
was Monty, roused from sleep and pleased to see them, weaving round
them, uttering whispered barks.  Sharing her basket was a cat, stout
and matronly, who yawned widely at them and then went to sleep again.

The table had been laid for one person and with the same niceness which
would have graced an elegant dining-room.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon opened a
drawer and collected spoon and forks and knives, and carried them over
to the table and set them tidily beside his own place.  He fetched a
glass from the dresser, too, and more plates.

"Sit down," he invited.

"I have my supper here when I go to the clinic, otherwise the Cribs
would wait up.  You don't mind?"

She shook her head, feeling shy because Mr.  Fitzgibbon was exhibiting
yet another aspect of him179

self.  Quite handy in the kitchen, she reflected, watching him ladle
soup into two bowls and set them on the table.  Excellent soup too,
nothing out of a tin home made watercress soup with a blob of cream
a-top and fresh brown crusty bread to go with it.  After that there
were chicken tart lets kept warm in the oven, with jacket potatoes
smothered in butter and a salad from the fridge.  Florence forgot to be
shy, ate her supper with a splendid appetite and made suitable small
talk, all the while conscious of his kiss but trying not to think of
it.  They had their coffee presently, still sitting at the table, and
he asked, "You're going home for the weekend, Florence?"

"Yes, I promised Mother I would we're going to make jam."  She glanced
at the clock, a large old fashioned one, hanging above the door.

"If it's convenient I'd like to go back to Mrs.  Twist's," and then, by
way of making conversation, she added, "Are you going away for the
weekend too?"

"Yes like you, I'm going into the country."  He got up when she did and
said, "No, leave everything; I'll see to it when I get back."

He drove her to her room and got out of the car and went with her to
Mrs.  Twist's front door, took her key from her and unlocked it, gave
her back her key and asked, "Do we have to be careful of Buster?"

"No, he'll be upstairs with Mrs.  Twist.  Thank you for a lovely
supper, Mr.  Fitzgibbon, and... and... thank you for letting me come to
your clinic each week."

She hesitated.

"But please don't think that I shall expect you to give me supper
afterwards."

"No, no, of course not, but this evening was exceptional, was it
not?"

He opened the door and wished her goodnight with a casual friendliness,
which for some reason annoyed her.  She said "Goodnight' quickly and
went past him, but before he closed the door behind her he said, " I do
believe that we are making progress.  " He shut the door before she
could ask him what he meant.

Yes, there was a great deal to think about, she reflected as she got
ready for bed, taking care to make no sound at all for fear of waking
Mrs.  Twist.  She got into bed and started to marshal her thoughts into
sense, and went to sleep within minutes.  In the morning the last
evening's happenings were somehow put into their proper perspective:

Mr.  Fitzgibbon had had every right to be surprised and annoyed at her
arrival at the clinic, and common decency and good manners had forced
him to take her back to his home for a meal.  It was all quite
explicable in the light of early morning, all except his kiss, which
didn't quite fit in.  She decided not to think about it any more.

She caught her train with a minute or so to spare, and sat quietly all
the way to Sherbome, daydreaming;

if it hadn't been for a child in the carriage excitedly pointing out
the castle as they neared the little town she might have been carried
on to Yeovil and beyond.

She had phoned her mother from the telephone box opposite Mrs.  Twist's
house, and her father was on the platform waiting for her.

She drove the car back to Gussage Tollard, listening to her father's
comments on the week and answering very circumspectly his queries as to
her own week, and when they got home her mother, waiting with coffee
and seed cake, asked the same questions, but rather more searchingly.
Florence answered them all, leaving out as much as possible anything to
do with Mr.  Fitzgibbon, something which her mother was quick to
notice.

It was nice to be home; Florence pottered about the house, inspected
the garden and then strolled down to the village to purchase one or two
groceries her mother had forgotten.

There were several people in the shop, enjoying a gossip while they
waited to be served.  Florence knew them all and, after enquiring after
their respective children, aged parents and whether the jam had set
well, answered various enquiries as to her life in London.

"Nasty, smoky place," observed one lady in house slippers and a printed
pinny; she nodded her head wisely so that the row of curlers across her
forehead nodded with it.

"No place for kids, I always say.

There's Mrs.  Burge's youngest, went to live with his auntie and now
he's in the hospital, having things done to his chest.  " She beamed at
Florence.

"Same as you worked in.  Miss Florence Colbert's; being looked after by
a clever man, too... got a funny name Fitz something, great big chap,
she says, and ever so kind.  He's got a house in Mens too; goes there
at weekends..."

It was Florence's turn at the counter and she was glad of it; Mr.
Fitzgibbon's name, uttered so unexpectedly, had sent the colour into
her cheeks and she was thankful to bend over the list in her hand.

Mrs.  Hoskins, serving, put a jar of Bovril on the counter and asked
with a kindly curiosity, "You'll know him, no doubt.  Miss Florence?

That's the smallest size Bovril I've got, tell your mother.  "

"About a pound of Cheddar cheese," said Florence and, since the village
probably knew already that she worked for him but were far too nicely
mannered to say so, she said, "Well, yes, I work for him, you know.
He's a very clever surgeon and marvelous with the children."

There was a satisfied murmur from those around her, and the lady in the
printed pinny looked pleased with herself.

"There, didn't I say so?"  she wanted to know.

"And him living less than an hour away from here, too."

Half an hour or so, reflected Florence silently, in that Rolls of his,
and she asked for a bottle of cider vinegar, and, since he lived near
by, he could quite easily give her a lift if he wanted to.  Only he
didn't want to.

She frowned so fiercely at the vinegar that Mrs.  Hoskins said hastily,
"That's the best make.  Miss Florence; Mrs.  Napier won't have any of
that nasty cheap stuff, and I won't sell it neither."

Florence apologised quickly, adding that she had been trying to
remember something or other she hadn't put on the list.  Which wasn't
true, but it made a good excuse.  She took her purchases home presently
and then went into the garden, where she attacked the weeds with such
ferocity that her mother, watching from the open drawing-room window,
remarked to the Reverend Mr.  Napier, sitting beside her, that
something had upset Florence.

"I wonder what it can be?"  she mused.

"Of course, it's a great help getting the weeding done."

Her husband, without lifting his eyes from his news paper, agreed with
her.

One of the Sunday-school teachers was on holiday and Florence had
volunteered to take her place with the toddlers' class, but first she
intended going off for a walk with Higgins.  She was up early on Sunday
morning and, with Higgins panting happily at her heels, accompanied her
father as far as the church, where he was to take the early service,
and then went through the lych-gate, down the narrow lane that led to
Mott's Farm, and turned off over the stile into the bridle-path, which
would eventually bring her out on the other side of the village.  It
was a glorious morning and full of the country sounds she missed in
London:

there were birds singing, sheep bleating, a farm tractor starting up,
prepared to make its ponderous way across a field lying fallow, and
then the church clock striking the hour of eight.  There was plenty of
time; her father wouldn't be back until almost nine o'clock, and matins
would be at eleven o'clock.  She sat down on a fallen log and watched
Higgins gallop clumsily from one clump of trees to the other hopeful of
finding rabbits, thinking inevitably of Mr.  Fitzgibbon.

He was at that very moment sitting in her mother's kitchen, drinking
tea, looking very much at his ease with Monty at his feet.

Mrs.  Napier, assembling eggs and bacon and mush rooms for breakfast,
had greeted him with no surprise and a great deal of inward
satisfaction; it was nice to know that her maternal instincts hadn't
been at fault.  Here, then, was the reason for her daughter's arduous
gardening, her wish to go for long walks with Higgins, her animated
conversations about her week at work without any mention of Mr.
Fitzgibbon.  She offered him tea, remarked on the beauty of the morning
and volunteered the information that Florence had taken Higgins for a
walk.

"Her usual early-morning round when she is at home," she explained
casually, 'down the lane to Mott's Farm, only she goes over the stile
and down the bridle-path.  It brings her out at the other end of the
village in nice time for breakfast.  "

She smiled across the kitchen at her visitor.

"Have you come far?  Not from London, surely?"

"No, I have a house at Mens do you know it?  It's not so very far from
here."

"A pretty village.  Of course, you'll stay and have some breakfast,
won't you?"

"That would be delightful.  Mr.  Napier is in church?"

"Yes.  He will be back just before nine o'clock.  There's matins at
eleven, and Florence is taking one of the Sunday-school classes."

A smile touched the corners of his mouth.  He put his mug down.

"Perhaps I could overtake Florence," he suggested blandly.

"Easily--she doesn't hurry; Higgins likes to hunt for rabbits--he never
finds any, but it makes him happy."

After he had gone Mrs.  Napier stood for a few minutes, her hands idle
over the mushrooms she was peeling, allowing herself a few moments of
pleasant daydreaming.  A splendid man, she reflected, but possibly
proud and reserved and liking his own way, but, on the other hand,
utterly dependable and sure of himself and what he wanted.  She hoped
fervently that he wanted Florence.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon had no difficulty in finding Florence;

she was still sitting on the log, her thoughts miles away, and in any
case Monty had seen Higgins and rushed to meet him so noisily that she
looked round to see what was happening.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon, walking slowly towards her, had time to admire the sun
glinting on her bronze hair and the faint freckles across the bridge of
her nose; he admired the colour creeping up into her cheeks when she
saw him too.  Her rather faded blue cotton dress and old sandals on her
bare feet seemed to him to be exactly right; she was as pretty as a
picture; he would have thought the same if she had been wearing a
potato sack, although he had at times had the violent urge to hang her
around with pearls and jewels and drape her in the very latest of
fashions.  He controlled his thoughts with an iron will and walked
towards her and wished her a casual good morning.

"Such a splendid morning," he continued blandly, 'and Monty needed a
walk.  "

Florence eyed him warily.

"All the way from Mens?"  and, at his lifted eyebrows, "Mrs.  Surge's
youngest; they were talking about him in the village shop yesterday and
someone said that you lived there."

He sat down beside her.

"Ah, yes Billy Burge, a delightful small boy with the heart of a lion
he's a fibro cystic He went on smoothly into a detailed ac count of the
child's illness.

"He's almost well enough to go to a convalescent home it will have to
be some where round about here so that his family can visit easily." 
He glanced at his watch.

"May I join you?  Your mother said nine o'clock breakfast " You've been
home?  "

"I had the urge to explore," he answered smoothly, 'and I remembered
that you lived here.  " It seemed that was all the explanation he had
to offer.

She got to her feet, and Higgins and Monty bustled up, anxious to be on
the move again.

"There's time for us to follow the path round the village; it comes out
at the other end of the village by the school.  It's not far."

"I dare say I can manage it," said Mr.  Fitzgibbon.  He sounded so meek
that she gave him a suspicious look, but he was looking away from her,
his face de void of what she had suspected was sarcasm.  So they walked
on, slipping presently into a comfortable conversation about the
country around them, the village and its inhabitants, and the pleasures
of the rural life.  By the time they reached the vicarage Florence was
feeling happier than she had been for some time, al though she had no
idea why that should be.  She only knew, in her mind at least, that she
thought of Mr.  Fitzgibbon as Alexander.  They ate their breakfast in
the kitchen, sitting round the solid table with its white starched
cloth and blue and white china, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon made a splendid
meal and, very much to Florence's surprise, helped with the washing-up
afterwards.

She wasn't sure if she was pleased or not when her father wanted to
know if their guest would like to at tend morning church.

"Oh, do," said Mrs.  Napier, 'and come with us and have lunch here, or
if you would rather you can lie about in the garden.  "

He agreed very readily to go to church, and accepted his invitation to
stay for lunch.

"Oh, good," said Mrs.  Napier.

"When do you have to go back to London?"

"This evening perhaps Florence would like to come back with me?"

He looked across the table at her, faintly smiling.

"It will save you the tiresome trip across town to Mrs.  Twist's,
Florence."

She said slowly, "Well, yes, thank you.  But don't you want to go to
your home I mean...?"  She went a little pink.

"I didn't mean to be rude, but I don't want to spoil your day."

"Oh, I don't think you'll do that.  We can go there on our way back if
you don't mind leaving a little earlier than usual."

Even if she had wanted to refuse it would have been hard with her
mother beaming at them both and her father observing that Sunday trains
were always late and he had never liked her arriving in London late on
Sunday evening.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon agreed quietly with him, and added blandly, "That's
settled, then.  What do we do with the dogs will they be all right
while we are in church?"

"We leave Higgins in the conservatory; he's always quite happy.  Monty
will probably settle there too."  Mr.  Napier glanced at his watch.

"Florence, if you're going to take Sunday school you'd better get
dressed, my dear."

Florence went upstairs, feeling rather as though someone had taken the
day away from her, rearranged it, and handed it back again.  She took
off the blue cotton and got into a short-sleeved crepe dress in pale
green, coiled her hair and did her face, found suitable shoes and
stockings and went back downstairs, to find Mr.  Fitzgibbon in a tie
and a beautifully tailored blazer.  She frowned thoughtfully; she was
sure that when he had joined her on the bridle-path he had been wearing
an open-necked shirt and no tie.  She caught his eye and found him
smiling at her.  It was a mocking smile, and it made her aware that he
knew exactly what she had been thinking.

"I'll be off," she told the room at large, and whisked herself away
with a heightened colour.

Her class was large.  Her father's congregation was large too, and
there were a great many children in the village.  She sat in the small
village hall beside the church, telling them Bible stories and drawing
on the blackboard to illustrate them, and at the appointed time she
marshalled them into a straggling line and marched them into church to
take part in the last few minutes of the service.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon watched her without appearing to do so, gently
chivvying her restless brood into suitable quietness with an
unselfconscious air which delighted him, and Mrs.  Napier, beside him,
peeping up from under her Sunday hat, heaved a happy, hopeful sigh.

Back at the vicarage, Florence found a dozen reasons why she was unable
to spend any time in Mr.  Fitzgibbon's company.  There was the table to
lay in the dining-room, the joint of beef, roasting in the oven, to
inspect, its accompanying trimmings to deal with and the strawberry
tart to arrange on a dish.  She did all these things slowly, reluctant
to join her parents and Mr.  Fitzgibbon, sipping sherry in the drawing
room bewildered by the way in which he had become, as it were, a friend
of the family.

"Colossal cheek," she muttered to Charlie Brown, curled up on a kitchen
chair.  He flicked a lazy tail by way of answer.

She had to go to the drawing-room eventually, where she drank her
sherry rather faster than she should have done and then urged her
father to come and carve the joint, aware that she was not being her
usual calm self and unable to do anything about it.  Once they were
sitting at the table, she regained some of her usual serenity and
indeed she began to enjoy herself.  There was no doubt about it: Mr.
Fitzgibbon was a pleasant companion--his manners were beautiful, his
conversation interesting, and his ability to listen to other people
talking and not to interrupt was unequalled.  The meal progressed in a
delightful manner, and it wasn't until her mother was serving her
mouth-watering fruit tart that Florence looked across the table at Mr.
Fitzgibbon and knew in a blinding instant that she really was in love
with him.  The knowledge left her with a slightly open mouth, pale
cheeks, a tremendous bubbling excitement and a feel Ring of relief
that now she knew why she had been feeling so cross and vaguely
unhappy.

She also realised within seconds of this discovery that on no account
must anyone know about it, so that she passed plates, offered cream and
remarked on the flavour of the tart in a wooden voice so unlike her
usual pretty one that her mother looked sharply at her and Mr.
Fitzgibbon lowered his lids to hide the gleam in his eyes, watching her
face as her thoughts chased themselves across her mind.

Florence removed the plates and fetched the coffee, her feet not quite
touching the ground, her head a jumble of thoughts, none of which made
sense.  An hour on her own would be nice, she thought, but in no way
was she to get it; her father declared that he would wash up, and Mr.
Fitzgibbon offered to help, with the almost careless air of one who
always washed up on a Sunday anyway, so she and her mother repaired to
the garden to sit in the elderly deck-chairs with the dogs lolling
beside them.

"Such a handy man," observed Mrs.  Napier, 'but I dare say he does
quite a lot for himself at home.  "

"He has a butler and a cook.  Mother that's in his London house; I
don't know about Mens.  If it's a small cottage I dare say he has to
look after himself."

"Well, do let me know, my darling you're going there first on the way
back, aren't you?"  She closed her eyes.

"We'll have that Victoria sponge for tea I wonder what time he wants to
go?"

"I have no idea," said Florence snappily.

"I think perhaps I'll change my mind and stay here and go up on the
train..."

"Just as you like, love," said her mother soothingly, "I'm sure he'll
understand."  Florence sat up.

"Mother, what do you mean?"

"Why, nothing, darling just an idle remark."  The two men went for a
stroll when they had done their chores, taking the dogs with them, and
Florence watched them go with mixed feelings.  She felt shy of Mr.
Fitzgibbon and anxious to present her usual matter- of-fact manner
towards him; on the other hand she wanted to spend as much time as
possible in his company Sitting there, with her mother dozing beside
her, she tried to decide what she should do.  It would be hard to
maintain that manner towards him; on the other hand if it was too hard
she would have to leave her job and go somewhere where she would never
see him again.  She was still worrying away at the problem when they
came back, and she went indoors to get the tea.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon
followed her in presently to carry the tea-tray out into the garden,
casually friendly and seemingly un noticing of her hot cheeks and
stilted're plies to his undemanding remarks, so that presently she
pulled herself together.  After all, she reflected, she was the only
one who would be affected by her feelings no one else knew, nor would
they ever know.

Presently, when they had finished tea, he suggested that they might be
going; she agreed with her usual calm manner and went upstairs to get
her overnight bag, bade her mother and father goodbye, hugged Charlie
Brown and Higgins and got into the car, to hang out of the window at
the last minute to call that she would be home again the following
weekend.  Mindful of her companion, she added, "I hope."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon was at his most urbane as he drove back to Mens;

Florence, filled with a mixture of un easiness and excitement, found
herself being soothed into her usual good sense by his reassuring if
rambling remarks, none of them touching on anything personal.  By the
time they reached Mens she had got control of herself and told herself
not to behave like a silly girl;

it was a situation, she was sure, which occurred over and over again,
and she would cope with it.

The first sight of the house took her breath.

"Oh, how can you bear to live in London?"  she demanded.

"Just look at those roses..."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon said mildly, "Yes, I'm very fond of it, although I like
the house in Knightsbridge too.  I have the best of both worlds, have I
not?"

"Well, you have really worked hard for them," said Florence, skipping
out of the car, closely observed, did she but know it, by Nanny,
peering out of the funny little latticed window by the front door.

Nanny went to open the door.  This one was the one, then, she reflected
with satisfaction, and a nice girl too beautiful and the proper
shape.

Nanny had no time for young women like blades of grass.  A nice
wedding, she thought cosily, and children tumbling about the old house.
 She opened the door, looking pleased.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon saw the look and grinned to himself, but he introduced
Florence with perfect gravity.

"I've some papers I need to pick up, Nanny--we've had a splendid tea,
but perhaps you could find us some supper before we go?"

He watched Florence's face out of the corner of his eye and saw
delight, uncertainty and annoyance chase each other across it.

"It's only a couple of hours' drive--less--and I'm sure you would like
to see the garden while you're here."

"You leave it to me, Mr.  Alexander," said Nanny briskly.

"A nice little chicken salad and one of my chocolate custards.  In half
an hour?"

"Splendid, Nanny--we ought to leave by nine o'clock at the latest."

He turned to Florence, standing between them, feeling rather as though
someone had put skates on her feet and given her a push.

"Well..."  she began.

"Oh, good.  Come along, then; there are some splendid roses at the side
of the house, tea-roses, and some spectacular lilies--Casablanca; I put
them in last year behind some Peruvian lilies."

He led the way round the side of the house to where the garden
stretched away to a magnificent redbrick wall, almost covered with wist
aria clematis and passion flower, a lawn of green velvet was edged by
paths and wide herbaceous borders, bursting with summer flowers, and at
the very end there was a circular bed of roses.  Monty, trotting to and
fro in great contentment came and nuzzled her hand as she wandered
along, very content, to admire the lilies and bend to smell the
roses.

"Of course, you have a gardener?"  she said presently

"Oh, yes, but I potter around at the weekends and whenever I have an
hour or so to spare."

"Couldn't you commute?"

"I think it would be possible, but not just yet.  Later, when I have a
wife and family, perhaps."

"Eleanor Miss Paton is very pretty and wears lovely clothes..."

She had hardly been aware that she had spoken her thoughts out loud.

"Oh, quite charming," agreed Mr.  Fitzgibbon placidly.

"You like clothes?"

"Well, yes, I do, but I don't have the time," said Florence crossly
and, remembering to whom she was talking, 'and of course, I don't lead
that kind of life.  "

"You would like to do so?"

His voice was so casual that she answered without thinking.

"Certainly not.  I'd be bored stiff."  She paused to examine a rose.

"That's a lovely Super Star.  Do you prune in the autumn or in
February?"

They strolled round the lovely garden, Monty at their heels, talking
comfortably.  I'm not just in love with him, thought Florence, I like
him too.

Nanny called them in presently to a supper of cold chicken a salad, and
not just a few lettuce leaves and a tomato, but apples and nuts and
grapes, mixed in with chicory and chopped-up mint.  There were tiny new
potatoes too and a home-made dressing.  They drank iced lemonade, since
Mr.  Fitzgibbon would be driving, and finished the meal with the
chocolate custards Nanny had promised them.

T should like to thank your nanny for such a lovely supper," said
Florence, 'but I don't know her name."

"Nanny."

"Yes, I know that, but I'm a stranger it would be very ill-mannered to
be so familiar with her."

"Miss Betts.  Run along to the kitchen while I see to Monty.  We must
go in ten minutes or so."  He opened the door for her.

"It's through that arched doorway by the stairs."

Florence trod across the hall, wishing very much that she could have
seen the rest of the house; the drawing-room was perfect, so was the
dining-room, but there were three more doors leading from the hall.

She opened the arched door and went down a few steps to another door
and, since it was shut, she knocked.

Nanny's comfortable voice bade whoever it was to go in, so she lifted
the old-fashioned latch.  The kitchen was at the back of the house, a
large low-ceilinged room, delightfully old-fashioned but, she
suspected, having every labour-saving device that could be wished for.
Nanny was standing at the table, picking over a bowl of red currants
but she looked up and smiled as Florence went in.

"I wanted to thank you for a lovely supper, Miss Belts," said
Florence.

"And I hope it didn't make a lot of extra work for you."

"Lor, bless you, Miss Napier, not a bit of it, and it's a treat to see
the food eaten.  Times I could have cried seeing it being pecked over
by Mr.  Alexander's guests.  Here he is now, come for the currants;
Mrs.  Crib likes to make a nice fruit tart and there's nothing like
your own fruit."

Florence, aware of Mr.  Fitzgibbon standing behind her, agreed with her
and turned to go.

"And there's no call to say Miss Betts, Miss Napier you call me Nanny,
the way Mr.  Alexander does."  She smiled widely.

"I dare say we'll meet again."

To which remark Florence murmured in a non committal way, not wishing
Mr.  Fitzgibbon to think that she was expecting to be asked to visit
his house again.

They drove away presently with Monty on the back seat, leaning forward
from time to time to breathe gently into the backs of their necks.

"I expect Monty likes being in the country," observed Florence, intent
on making small talk, and, when her companion made some brief reply,
enlarged upon the subject at some length, anxious for some reason for
there to be no silence.

When she paused for breath, however, Mr.  Fitzgibbon said gently,
"Don't try so hard, Florence;

your silent company is contentment enough.  And could you call me
Alexander when we aren't working?  I begin to dislike my own name, I
hear it so frequently.  "

Florence stared ahead of her.  Of all the rude men.  She drew a calming
breath to damp down her feelings;

if he wanted her silent then that was what he would get.  She said
stonily, "Just as you like."  Nothing was going to make her say
"Alexander' after his remarks.  Let him just wait until they were back
at the consulting-rooms; if he didn't like being called Mr.  Fitzgibbon
then she would address him as 'sir'.

"Don't sulk," said Mr.  Fitzgibbon quietly.

"You have, as usual, got the wrong end of the stick."  He glanced at
her cross profile.

"I fancy, however, it would be of no use putting matters right at the
moment."

They travelled some distance in silence until he said, "I should like
you to come to the hospital to see Miss Mac Finn tomorrow morning. I've
a round at nine o'clock; can you be ready by half-past eight or a
little before that at the consulting-rooms?  I only intend to look in
on her for a few minutes she has asked to see you again."

"Very well," said Florence.

"You have a patient at half-past eleven."

"Yes, I'll see that you get back as soon as Miss Mac Finn has had a
word."  He stayed silent for a while and then said, "I shan't see Mrs.
Keane before we go to Colbert's; will you ask her to change my
appointments on Tuesday morning?  I need to be free until one o'clock.
Tell her to fit them in in the afternoon and early evening.  We shall
have to work late."

"Very well," said Florence again and looked out of the window.  They
didn't speak again until they reached Mrs.  Twist's front door, when
she began a thank-you speech, uttered in a high voice quite unlike her
usual quiet tones.

He cut her short.

"Oh, don't bother with that," he begged her, 'you're as cross as two
sticks, and I haven't the time to talk to you now.  "

He had got out of the car as he spoke and opened her door.  Florence
got out haughtily, tripped up on the pavement and was set back on her
feet with a, "Tut, tut, pride goes before a fall," as he took her arm
and marched her to the door, unlocked it and, when she would have
opened it, put a great hand over hers.

"I should like to think that I know the reason for your peevishness,"
he observed blandly, 'but uncertainty forbids me from doing anything
about it for the moment; you are like a weathercock being blown to
every point of the compass.  " He bent suddenly and kissed her
quickly.

"Goodnight, Florence."

He opened the door and shoved her gently into the little hallway
beyond, and just as gently shut it behind her.

Florence stood very still and tried to make sense of being called a
weathercock, but she had to give up almost at once, for Mrs.  Twist
came out of her front parlour with Buster under one arm.

"I thought I heard a car," she observed.

"Did you get a lift back?  I'm just going to make a cup of tea;

have one with me I could do with a bit of company.  "

So Florence stuffed Mr.  Fitzgibbon and his remarks to the back of her
head and sat down on the sofa of Mrs.  Twist's three-piece, very
uncomfortable and covered in cut moquette, and gave her an expunged
version of her weekend, excusing herself at length with the plea that
she had to be extra early at work in the morning.

"And I dare say you're nicely tired," said Mrs.  Twist.

"You'll sleep like a log."

A remark unfortunately not borne out by Florence, who spent an almost
sleepless night, her muddled thoughts going round and round in her
head, so that by the time she got up she had a dreadful headache and
was no nearer to enlightenment as to Mr.  Fitzgibbon's remarks on the
previous evening and, still more important, why he had kissed her.

CHAPTER NINE

florence lay awake for a long time and woke from a heavy sleep with no
wish to get up and go to work.  She had a sketchy breakfast and with an
eye on the clock hurried to the consulting-rooms.  She reached them at
the same time as the Rolls whispered to a stop, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon
thrust open a door, bade her good morning and begged that she should
get in, at the same time remarking that she looked washed out.

"You're not sickening for something?"  he wanted to know with what she
considered to be heartless cheerfulness.

"Certainly not.  I never felt better, Mr.  Fitzgibbon."

"Alexander."

"No..."

He was weaving in and out of the morning traffic.

"No?  Ah, well, it will take time, I suppose, and you're still as cross
as two sticks, aren't you?  Is it due to lack of sleep?  It's a good
thing that we have a busy day ahead of us."

There really wasn't an answer to this, and she sat silently until they
reached Colbert's and there accompanied him to the lifts, very
conscious of him standing beside her as they went up to the top
floor.

Miss Mac Finn was sitting in a well-cushioned chair by her bed, dwarfed
by the necessary paraphernalia vital to her recovery.  She greeted them
with pleasure and bade them sit on the bed.

"Forbidden, I know," she chuckled, 'but no one will dare say anything
to you, Alexander.  I hope this is a social visit?  "

She smiled at Florence.

"So nice to see you again, my dear;

you're beautiful, you know, and it acts like a tonic.  "

Florence blushed and looked at her feet, and heard Mr.  Fitzgibbon's
casual, "Yes, she is, isn't she?  And a splendid worker too.  So often
beauty is accompanied by a bird-brain."  He got up.

"I must just have a word with Sister; I'll be back presently and run an
eye over you before I take Florence back."

He sauntered away, and Miss Mac Finn said, "Does Alexander work you
hard, my dear?"

"No oh, no, the hours are sometimes irregular, but compared with
running a ward it isn't hard at all."

"He works too hard himself.  I'm relieved to know that he intends to
marry.  It's time he settled down and raised a family."

Florence, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, agreed quietly, "I'm
sure a wife would be a great asset to him; he's very well-known, isn't
he?  And I dare say he has any number of friends and a full social
life."

Miss Mac Finn coughed.

"Well, dear, I'm not sure about that; he has many friends, but if by
social life you mean dinner parties and dances and so on I think you
may be mistaken, although I'm sure that, provided he had the right
companion, he would enjoy these things."

"Well, yes, I expect so."

"Tell me, have you had a pleasant weekend?  You live near Sherbome,
don't you?  A lovely part of the country.  I had friends there..."

Mr.  Fitzgibbon came back presently and, when Florence would have got
up, said, "No, don't go, I shall only be a moment or two."  He sat down
on the bed again.

"You're doing well," he told his patient.

"I'm going to keep you here a little longer than usual, and then you
can go to your sister's.  I'll listen to your chest if I may... Very
satisfactory.  We must be off now; I'll be in to see you some time
tomorrow."

"Thank you, Alexander, and thank you, Florence, for coming too.  Come
and see me again, won't you?"

Florence said that she would.

"In the evening she suggested, 'if that's not too late?"

She bent and kissed the elderly cheek, and Miss Mac Finn remarked, "It
really is most suitable," which puzzled Florence and brought a
reluctant smile to Mr.  Fitzgibbon's handsome visage.

The traffic was heavy now.  He didn't speak as they drove back, only
when they reached the consulting- rooms he reminded her to give Mrs.
Keane his message about his appointments for the following day.

He had gone to open the door for her and she got out carefully, not
wishing to stumble again.  She said quietly, "Very well, sir."

Then she gasped at his sudden, "Oh, goodness, now it's sir, is it?

Back to square one.  "

She paused before she crossed the pavement.

"I don't know what you mean."

"No?  Then think about it, will you?  And just as soon as I have the
time we'll have a talk.  There's a limit to my patience."

She gave him a startled look the blandness of his face matched the
blandness of his voice, but his eyes were a hard grey from which she
flinched.  All the same, she might as well give as good as she was get
ting.

"In that case, Mr.  Fitzgibbon, let us hope that you will have a few
minutes to spare at the earliest opportunity

She sailed ahead of him, her coppery head held high, ignoring whatever
it was he rumbled in reply.  Something rude, she had no doubt.

There were appointments booked until one o'clock and throughout the
morning he treated her with a teeth-gritting civility that she did her
best to return with a highly professional manner, which, while
impressive, she found quite tiring.  By the end of the morning she had
made up her mind.  She was not a particularly impulsive girl, but
suddenly the prospect of working for him, seeing him each day and
knowing that he didn't care two straws for her, wasn't to be borne.

When he got back at two o'clock she gave him five minutes to get
settled in his chair, and with an eye on the clock, since his first
appointment was barely ten minutes away, she knocked on the door and
walked in.

He was writing, but he looked up when she went in.

"Yes?"  He glanced at his watch and Florence, who had weakened at the
sight of him, bristled.

"I'll not take a moment, Mr.  Fitzgibbon.  I should like to leave.
After a month, of course, as we agreed."

He put down his pen and sat back in his chair.  Surprise gave way to a
thoughtful look from under his lids, and his smile was full of charm,
so that her heart thumped against her ribs and before she could stop
herself she had taken a step towards him, brought to a halt, however,
by his sudden laugh.

"Splendid; nothing could be better, Florence, and you have no need to
stay for a month I'll let you off that.  Go at the end of the week -we
will waive our agreement."

It was the last thing she had expected to hear.

"But you won't have a nurse."

"I have been interviewing several likely applicants.  Mrs.  Bates, a
widow lady, is ready to start work when ever I say so."

He sat watching her.  No doubt expecting me to burst into tears,
thought Florence.  Well, I won't.  She said in a voice that wobbled
only very slightly, "Oh, good.  In that case, there's no more to be
said, is there?"

"No, not at the moment."  He smiled again.

"Ask Mrs.  Keane to come in, will you?"

In the waiting-room Mrs.  Keane looked up from her typewriter.

"Florence, whatever is the matter?  You're as white as a ghost.  Are
you all right?"

"Yes, thank you.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon would like you to go in, Mrs.
Keane."

The door was barely closed behind that lady when the first patient
arrived, which was a good thing, for Florence was at once caught up in
her normal routine.  As the afternoon wore on it became apparent that
Mrs.  Keane knew nothing of her departure; Florence had expected Mr.
Fitzgibbon to tell her, since she was privy to his professional life.

She waited until the last patient had been seen and he had left to go
to Colbert's, and over a cup of tea broke her news.

"Whatever for?"  asked Mrs.  Keane.

"I thought you were happy here..."

"Well, I like the work very much that isn't why I'm leaving.  In fact,
I think Mr.  Fitzgibbon is glad that I am going; he didn't actually say
so, but he knows of a nurse who will start on Monday."

She looked at Mrs.  Keane with such sad blue eyes that Mrs.  Keane,
normally the most unsentimental of women, felt a lump in her throat.

"I'm very sorry," she said slowly, 'and surprised.  I thought well,
never mind that now.  Have another cup of tea and tell me if you have
any plans.  "

Florence shook her head.

"Not at the moment, but I'll get another job as soon as I can not in
London, though.  I'd quite like to go abroad..."

Mrs.  Keane, who wasn't so old that she couldn't recognise unrequited
love when she saw it, suggested New Zealand in an encouraging voice.

"And the world is so small these days that distance doesn't matter any
more."

She poured more tea.  She was going to miss her usual bus home, but she
wasn't going to leave Florence, usually such a calm, sensible girl, to
mope.

"I heard a bit of gossip this morning.  Those two women Mrs.  Gregg and
Lady Wells, one came early and the other didn't hurry away they were
talking about Eleanor Paton remember her?  She's about to marry the
owner of several factories in the Midlands rich, they said.  All I can
say is thank heaven she didn't get her claws into Mr.  Fitzgibbon.

She tried hard enough, heaven knows, but of course he was never in love
with her.  She was fun to take around, I suppose, and he must get
lonely.  "

"I'm sure that he has no need to be," said Florence with a snap.

"The world's his oyster, isn't it?"

Florence had got back some of her pretty colour and, judging by her
last remark, was feeling belligerent.  Mrs.  Keane, satisfied, got
ready to go home.  Tomorrow was another day and heaven only knew what
it might bring forth.

As for Florence, she went back to Mrs.  Twist's, ate her supper after a
fashion, told that good lady that she was leaving and counteracted a
volley of questions by saying simply that she was needed at home.

"Since it's such short notice, Mrs.  Twist, I'll pay whatever you think
is fair, since you'll hardly have time to let my room before I go."

"As to that," said Mrs.  Twist, "I was thinking of having a bit of a
holiday at my sister's.  She lives in Margate and I can take Buster
with me."  She pressed a second helping on Florence.

"In any case, you have been a good lodger and a nice young lady.  I
shall miss you."

Which, from Mrs.  Twist, was high praise indeed.

She had another bad night and went most unwillingly to work in the
morning, unnecessarily so, since Mr.  Fitzgibbon's manner was exactly
as it always was:

remote courtesy, a few remarks about the weather and a reminder that
she was expected at the East End clinic that evening.  She muddled
through her day, gobbled the tea Mrs.  Twist had ready for her and took
a taxi to the Mile End Road, to find Clan already there, a room packed
with patients and a lady in a severe hat taking the place of the gentle
soul who usually sat at the desk.

"He's on his way," Clan told her.

"I say, what's all this about you leaving?"

"Who told you?"

He looked vague.

"Bless me if I can remember-you know how these things get around."  He
gave her a friendly smile; it didn't surprise him in the least that Mr.
Fitzgibbon intended to marry her; he had never said so, of course, but
he had taken his devoted registrar aside and warned him that he
intended taking a week's holiday and that he, Clan, would have to take
over his hospital work while he was away.

Clan knew better than to ask questions, but he had remarked that he and
his fiancee had hoped that Mr.  Fitzgibbon would come to the small
party they were planning before they married.

"I shall ask Florence too," he had added, 'she's an old friend of both
of us.  "

Mr.  Fitzgibbon had fixed him with a cold grey stare.

"Florence is leaving at the weekend," he had said in a voice which had
forbidden any further remarks.  Clan, however, had eyes in his head and
he had seen the way his chief looked at Florence.  It was to be hoped
that a week's holiday would settle the matter.

Mr.  Fitzgibbon came in then, greeted everyone much as usual, and they
got down to work.  It was a long evening and the lady in the hat lacked
the smooth handling of the patients so that the clinic lasted longer
than usual.  When the last patient had gone Mr.  Fitzgibbon, sitting at
his desk writing, suggested that Clan should take Florence back.

"I

shall be some time," he pointed out, 'and there is no need for her to
wait."

He bade them a pleasant goodnight and returned to his writing.

It was on Friday evening, her packing done, everything left exactly as
it should be at the consulting- rooms, that Florence got on a bus and
took herself off to Colbert's.  She had said that she would visit Miss
Mac Finn and this was her last chance.

Miss Mac Finn was looking almost as good as new again.  She greeted
Florence with pleasure and the news that she would be going to her
sister's within the next day or so, adding that she would never be
sufficiently grateful to Alexander for her recovery.

"The dear man," she said warmly, "I'm not surprised that he's so
popular with his patients.

He's such a good friend too, but I expect you've discovered that for
yourself.  "

"Yes, oh, yes; I've enjoyed working for him, but I'm leaving
tomorrow.

I I'm needed at home.  "

Miss Mac Finn who knew all about it anyway, said sympathetically, "Your
mother has been ill, hasn't she?  And one's first duty is to one's
parents.  You will miss your work, though, won't you?"

Florence said steadily, "Yes, very much.  It's most fortunate that Mr.
Fitzgibbon has found someone to replace me.  I I've enjoyed the
work."

"Well, I'm sure Alexander is going to miss you."  Miss Mac Finn smiled
at the determinedly smiling face.

"And I dare say you will miss him, my dear."

"It was a most interesting job," said Florence, intent on giving
nothing away.

She had already said goodbye to Mrs.  Keane and, although she had
steeled herself to bid Mr.  Fitzgibbon a formal goodbye, he had
forestalled her by leaving unexpectedly early for Colbert's, bidding
her a cheerful farewell as he went.

"I'll give you a good reference if you need one," he had paused at the
doorway to tell her.

"I'm sure you'll find an excellent job to suit you."

He hadn't even shaken hands, she remembered indignantly

Mrs.  Keane, a silent spectator, had added her own rather more
leisurely goodbyes.  Being a loyal receptionist and a discreet woman,
she had forbom from telling Florence that Mr.  Fitzgibbon had, with her
help, rearranged his appointments so that he would be free for the
whole of the next week.  He hadn't said why, or where he was going but,
as she pointed out to her husband, she hadn't been born yesterday.

"We shall certainly be asked to the wedding," she told him happily.

"I

shall need a new outfit.  "

Florence went home on the early morning train, bidden farewell by a
surprisingly tearful Mrs.  Twist, and if she had hoped against hope to
see Mr.  Fitzgibbon before she went she was doomed to disappointment.

She sat and stared out of the window at the countryside, seeing nothing
of it, reviewing her future.  She had brought the situation upon
herself, and now she had no job and would never get Alexander
Fitzgibbon out of her head or see him again.  It didn't bear thinking
about.  She began resolutely to consider her assets:

a month's pay in her pocket, a row of shining new saucepans in the
kitchen at home and the washing- machine, and since she was to be home
for the time being there would be no need of Miss Payne's services.

She thought with longing of the elegant Italian sandals she had
intended to buy, and then dismissed them and concentrated on what she
should tell her parents.  Perhaps she should have telephoned them, but
explaining would have taken some time, and anyway what had she to
explain?  She got out at Sherbome and saw her father waiting for her.

He saw her case at once.

"Holidays, my dear?  How delightful."

"I've left my job, Father."  She had spoken matter- of-factly but when
he looked at her face he made no comment other than a remark that her
mother would be delighted.

"It's such a splendid time of year to be at home," he went on gently as
he stowed the case into the car and waited patiently while Higgins
greeted her.

There was plenty to talk about as they drove home village gossip,
christenings, weddings and urgent repairs to the vicarage roof.  She
went into the house and found her mother in the kitchen, sitting at the
table, shucking peas.

"There you are, darling," said Mrs.  Napier.

"You didn't phone, so we knew you'd be home."  She darted a look at her
daughter's pale face.

"You look tired, dear; perhaps you should ask for a holiday."

"I didn't need to do that.  Mother I've left my job," said Florence
bleakly.

Mrs.  Napier emptied a pod before she spoke.

"If you weren't happy that was the right thing to do, Florence.  It
will be lovely to have you at home again."

Florence sat down opposite her mother.

"Just until I find something else.  I think I'd rather like to go right
away, but I haven't had time to think about it properly

"Well, it's nice and quiet here," observed her mother un worriedly

"You can take your time deciding, and a few days' doing nothing won't
do you any harm."  She smiled suddenly.

"It will be so nice to have you about the place, darling."

Florence went round the table and kissed her mother's cheek.

"One day I'll tell you about it," she promised, 'but not just yet.  "

Presently she went up to her room and unpacked her case, arranged the
photos and ornaments she had taken with her to London in their original
places and got into a cotton dress.  An afternoon's gardening would
clear her head.  To keep busy was vital, because she wouldn't have the
chance to think about Alexander, and if she kept busy for long enough
perhaps in time she would forget him altogether.  She took the pins out
of her hair and tied it back carelessly, and went downstairs again to
help her mother get the lunch, a meal for which she had no appetite,
although she pretended to enjoy it while she talked rather too brightly
about the more amusing aspects of her work in Wimpole Street.  When the
dishes had been washed and she had settled her mother in a garden chair
for a snooze, and seen her father off to the church to see one of the
church wardens about something or other, she whistled to Higgins; a
quick walk before getting down to the gardening seemed a good idea.

When she got back, half an hour later, Mr.  Fitzgibbon's Rolls-Royce
was in the front drive and he was sitting on the grass by her mother's
chair.

Higgins pranced forward, delighted to see Monty lolling by her master,
but Florence stood stock-still as he got slowly to his feet and walked
towards her.

"Go away," said Florence, wishing with all her treacherous heart that
he would stay, and then, to make things clearer, she added, "I don't
want to speak to you and, if you want me to go back and work for you, I
won't."

"My dear girl, there is nothing further from my mind."  He looked
amused.

"And certainly I am going away, but first I must bid your mother
goodbye."

Which he did, before whistling to Monty, who had gone to have her ears
rubbed by Florence, getting into his car and driving away with a casual
wave of the hand.

"Well," said Florence, bursting with rage and love and choked by a
great lump of sadness, 'well, why did he come?  "

"So kind," said her mother presently.

"He hadn't for gotten that I had been ill and called to see if I had
quite recovered."

"Very civil of him," agreed Florence in a colourless voice.  She would
telephone all the agencies she knew of on Monday and see if there were
any jobs going a long way away.  The other side of the world
preferably.

With summer holidays in full swing and churchgoers sparse, Florence
found herself committed to taking the Sunday school the next morning.

She was glad to do it anything to fill the long, empty hours ahead of
her.  The class was a small one but unruly; she was kept fully occupied
keeping law and order, marshal ling the children into church for the
last hymn and getting them sorted out at the end of the service.
Several of them would have to be escorted to their homes in the
village, and at the tail-end of the congregation she collected them
ready for the short walk across the churchyard and down the village
street.

Waiting for the six-year-old Kirk Pike to tie his shoe-lace, she
glanced idly around her.  The church yard was peaceful, surrounded by
trees and not in the least gloomy.  Her father was walking along the
path which would lead to the gate to the vicarage, and with him was Mr.
There was no mistaking that enormous frame.  She watched until the two
men disappeared from sight and then led the three small children that
were in her care in the opposite direction, answering their questions
with only part of her mind while she puzzled as to why he was there,
talking to her father.  Was he bent on getting her back to work in the
consulting-rooms, and hoping to enlist her father's support?

"I'll never go back, never," said Florence in a sudden loud voice that
brought her small companions to a standstill.

She handed them over presently and walked back to the vicarage, going
cautiously in case she should encounter Mr.  Fitzgibbon.

However, he wasn't there; there was no sign of him or his car, and she
wondered if she had imagined the whole thing.  But her mind was put at
rest once they sat down for dinner.

"I had an unexpected visitor after matins," observed her father, "Mr.
Fitzgibbon, on his way to a luncheon party.  We had a most interesting
talk.  He is a man of wide interests and he's interested in medieval
architecture.  I was telling him about the squint hole and the par vise
He tells me that there is a splendid par vise in Mens church, with a
stairs in excellent preservation.  He kindly invited me to visit him
when he is spending a few days at his home there so that I may see it
for myself."

"How nice," said Florence rather inadequately.

Her mother sent her to Sherbome in the morning with a list of groceries
that the village shop didn't stock, and Florence was glad to go.  She
would need notepaper and envelopes and any number of stamps if she was
going to write to all the agencies listed in the Nursing Times.  It was
a glorious day; she put on the crepe dress, thrust her feet into
sandals and got out the car.

However leisurely she was, the shopping didn't take more than an hour
or so.  She had coffee in a pleasant cafe close to the abbey, and went
back to the car.  Another long walk in the afternoon, she decided,
driving home through the narrow winding lanes, and after that she would
start her letters.  New Zealand would do, she had decided, or, failing
that, Canada.  They were both a long way from Mr.  Fitzgibbon.

She took her shopping into the house, to be met by her mother bearing a
large cake, covered in foil on a plate.

"Oh, good, darling.  Be an angel and run down to the village hall with
this, will you?  It's for the Mothers' Union tea and I promised a
cake.

I'd take it myself presently, but old Mrs.  Symes always likes to cut
the cakes before we begin.  I don't know why, I'm sure, but one must
humour old age, I suppose.  "

Florence put the shopping on the kitchen table and took the cake.

"It's a snack lunch," said Mrs.  Napier.

"I'll have it ready by the time you get back."

Carrying the cake in both hands, Florence went down the hall and out of
the front door.  Mr.  Fitzgibbon was sitting on the old wooden
wheelbarrow no one had bothered to move from the colourful wilderness
on the other side of the drive.  He had a dog on either side of him,
and all three got up and came towards her as she came to a halt.  The
dogs barked, but Mr.  Fitzgibbon didn't say a word.

"Why are you here?"  asked Florence fiercely.  Her heart was thundering
away at a fine pace and her hands were shaking so much that the cake
wobbled dangerously

He took the cake from her.

"I'll tell you as we go," said Mr.  Fitzgibbon in a gentle voice
calculated to soothe the most agitated of hearts.

"I don't want !"  began Florence weakly.

"Now, now, let us have no more of this.  I have a week's holiday, taken
at great inconvenience to myself and my patients; I have wasted two
days already, and I have no intention of wasting any more."

They were walking towards the village street; al ready they had passed
the first of the small houses at its end, and the village hall was in
sight.

"Give me that cake," said Florence wildly.

"My dear soul, you're not fit to carry anything you're shaking like a
leaf, and I hope that it's at the sight of me."

Florence stood still, quite forgetting that she was in full view of
anyone who might be in the village shop, let alone those idle enough to
be sitting at their windows looking out.  She said slowly, "Of course
it's at the sight of you, Alexander; it would be silly to deny it,
wouldn't it?  Only now I've told you will you please go away?"

"Certainly not.  Why do you suppose I've taken this holiday?  Somehow
the idea of proposing to you in my consulting-room didn't appeal, and
on the infrequent occasions when we have been together somehow the
right moment didn't occur."  He balanced the cake on one hand and took
one of hers in the other.

"Will you marry me, Florence?"

She stared up at him and took a deep, glorious breath, but before she
could utter they were hailed from a doorway.

"Miss Florence is that your mother's cake?  Let me have it here.  I'm
going to the hall now it will save you a few steps."

Florence wasn't listening, but Mr.  Fitzgibbon let her hand go and
walked across the street and handed over the cake, and even spent a few
moments in polite conversation before he went back to where she was
still standing.  He took her hand again and drew it under his arm.

"There's a little green bit between the school and the churchyard,"
said Florence helpfully, and they walked there unhurriedly, watched by
several ladies who had been peeping from the village shop and now
crowded to the door to see what would happen next.

It was only a small green patch, but it was quiet.  They stopped
halfway along it, and Mr.  Fitzgibbon took her in his arms.

"I asked you to marry me, my darling, but before I ask you again I must
tell you that I love you; I've been in love with you for some time now.
Indeed, thinking about it and I have been giving the matter a great
deal of thought during the last few weeks I believe that I loved you
the moment I saw you hanging out of the window with a duster on your
head."

"But you never never even hinted..."

"I have been so afraid that you might not love me;

it wasn't until you came storming in declaring that you were going to
leave that I thought that you might be a little in love with me.  If
you won't have me, my dearest heart, I think that I shall go into a
monastery or emigrate to some far-flung spot.  "

"Don't do that don't ever go away," said Florence urgently.

"I

couldn't bear it.  It took me quite a while to discover that I loved
you, but I do and I shan't change.  "

Mr.  Fitzgibbon swept her into his arms.

"I'll see that you don't."  He kissed her then, taking his time about
it, and then he kissed her again.

The small green patch was no longer quiet; the village school had let
its pupils out for their dinners, and a row of interested faces was
watching them over the wall.

"E's kissing and cuddling our Miss Florence," said a voice.  Then there
came a shrill, "Hey, mister, will you get married?"

Mr.  Fitzgibbon lifted his head.

"That is our intention.  Why not go home and tell everybody?"

Florence lifted her head from his shoulder.

"Alexander..."

"Say that again."

"What?  Alexander?  Why?"

"It sounds nice..."  '. She smiled.

"Alexander, darling," said Florence, and kissed him.

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