Magic In Vienna Part 6

He swept Cordelia before him and she found herself sitting in a small chair by the window while the doctor wandered around the room with his hands in his pockets. He said suddenly,

"I shall be glad to get home--I find this apartment oppressive, although it's convenient for the hospital."

"Will you be here much longer?"

"No, I return within a few days of Eileen parents arriving here.

They will go on almost immediately to Scotland, presumably you will go with them."

"I have no idea."

"You have other plans? Another job to go to?"

"No--no, I haven't, but I expect I can get one easily enough once I'm

back in London."

"You can, of course, return to your family." It was a statement more

than a question, and since she didn't want him to ask any more questions, she said, "Of course," and turned with relief to Thompson, bearing a ma.s.sive tray

with coffee and sandwiches.

The doctor sat down after she had given him his coffee and sandwiches.He ate most of them and she asked,"You had no dinner this evening?""Dinner? No--there was a difficult case--there was no time.. .""I'll get some more sandwiches, you must be hungry."She went to the door with the empty plate. "b.u.t.tered toast with just a touch of Gentlemen's Relish and more ham sandwiches?"

She was on her way to the kitchen before he could answer.

Mrs Thompson was sitting at the table drinking tea while Thompson

cleaned shoes, in the corner of the kitchen.

"The doctor's had no dinner," said Cordelia urgently, 'and he's eaten all the sandwiches. I wondered if some toast. . and some more sandwiches?"

Mrs Thompson beamed at her.

"You go back, Miss, my husband shall bring them along in a minute or two."

The doctor ate everything that Thompson brought presently, but then, as

Cordelia reminded herself he was a big man and there was a lot of him to nourish. She drank a second cup of coffee, listening with a sympathetic ear to some highly technical talk on the doctor's part.

Finally, with the coffee pot empty and all the food eaten, he sat back at his ease.

"I must apologise for boring you. Miss Gibson.""I wasn't bored. I found it all very interesting, I had no idea thatanaesthetics could be so complicated." She put the cups and saucerstidily on the tray and got up.

"It was kind of you to invite me to coffee, thank-you, Dr Tres...o...b...

I'll say good night."

She got up and he got up with her.

"It is I who should thank you.

Miss Gibson." He held the door for her and as she went past him: "Eileen calls you Cordelia, may I do the same?"

She paused to look up at him.

"Of course you can, Dr Tres...o...b..," she smiled widely.

"Miss Gibson is so unsuitable, isn't it?"

"Unsuitable?"

"Well, yes. The Gibson girls were noted for their beauty, weren't

they?" She slipped away, up the stairs and whisked along the corridor to her room. Probably he had forgotten that he had called her a nonent.i.ty with no looks to speak of, but if he had happened to remember, then she had given him something to think about.

CHAPTER FOUR.

in the morning there was nothing in the doctor's face to show whether he had remembered any of his conversation with his mother on that first day. He was, as usual engrossed in his post and his good morning was uttered with the briefest of glances. Only as he got up to go did he pause long enough to say, "There is a Strauss Concert next Sat.u.r.day evening, I will get tickets for it."

"In the same hall in which the New Year concert is given?" asked Cordelia.

"Why, yes. You like music. Miss Cordelia?""Yes, I do, and so does Eileen. We shall look forward to it Doctor.""He called you Cordelia," declared Eileen when they were alone."Why?""I daresay he finds it most sensible since you call me that. I think it will be delightful to go to a concert, don't you?"

Eileen shrugged.

"I shall wear the dress Granny brought me. What will you wear,

Cordelia?"

Cordelia drank the last other coffee.

"Well, I think we'd better go to the shops and see what I can find."

She had almost all of three week's salary in her purse, surely there

would be something she could afford.

"No expensive boutiques, mind you, it'll have to be a dress I can wear for quite a while without it looking too out-of-date."

"Oh, Cordelia," Eileen sounded exasperated.

"You'd look smas.h.i.+ng in one of those bright prints with a V neck line that goes all the way down and a tight skirt. .."

Cordelia said gravely: "I don't think I'd feel very happy in something

like that, love."

"Why not? You are nice and curvy, only you can't see that in the dresses you wear."

"It's nice of you to say so, but I don't think it would be quite me.

We'll see if we can find something we both like, shall we?"

They decided on Thursday afternoon for their shopping expedition and filled the days before with cla.s.ses, German lessons with the rather fierce lady who came three times a week, and with visits to the Museum of Natural History, the Historical Museum and the Imperial Palace Chapel. After that lot, Cordelia decided silently, they both of them deserved a little light diversion.

Of the doctor they saw very little; he joined them at meals, made polite enquiries as to their day's activities, listened patiently to Eileen's chatter and had so little to say to Cordelia that she wondered if he could see her. Not that it mattered, she told herself robustly; she hadn't the slightest interest in him either, a statement which, while quite untrue, stiffened her pride.

Thursday was fine and warm, Eileen, by no means a painstaking scholar, applied herself to her German lesson so earnestly that she was let off ten minutes early and she and Cordelia took a tram to Kamtner Ring and began their round of the shops without delay. They had about two hours before lunch not nearly long enough, declared Eileen, accustomed to stroll round the boutiques with her grandmother and try on anything she fancied. But Cordelia knew very well what she wished to buy and refused to be side tracked by her companion's more sophisticated ideas.

She walked briskly past the smart boutiques and began to comb the big stores. In the third one she found what she wanted; a finely pleated crepe skirt in a pleasing shade of plum with a matching top, very simply cut with a round neck and full sleeves gathered into tight cuffs. By no means high fas.h.i.+on but guaranteed to pa.s.s muster for the next year or so. Besides, it seemed to her to be highly suitable for a companion or governess, and she couldn't see herself doing anything else in the foreseeable future.

Eileen, of course, voted the whole outfit stuffy; a jump suit in bright pink, she suggested, or a patterned garment in violent colours that looked as though someone had been slas.h.i.+ng a pair of curtains in the hope of turning them into something wearable. Cordelia, refused to be tempted; she liked the plum two-piece, the price was right and it fitted her person exactly as it should. She bought it and solaced her companion with coffee and cream cakes before they went back to the apartment.

She washed her hair on Friday and did her nails with the new nail varnish she had bought and since on Sat.u.r.day the doctor bore his niece away after breakfast to meet the children of a married colleague, she was free to experiment with her hair. It took her an hour of painstaking pinning and brus.h.i.+ng to decide that it would be best not to change her hair style. The doctor went out for lunch and afterwards, since it was a splendid day she took Eileen to Belvedere Palace gardens, where they roamed happily for a couple of hours. They went by tram, a form of transport Cordelia enjoyed enormously and which she considered good for Eileen, a child very much in the habit of getting into a car and being driven without the small problems of getting tickets and paying fares. As it was, she was beginning to enjoy her tram rides, buying the tickets at any tobacconist's shop and getting them stamped. They still had to sample the Underground but as Cordelia sensibly pointed out, trams or buses were much more interesting in fine weather.

The doctor was still not home when they got back, nor did he come in for tea. They were to dine early before the concert and they went to dress in good time--a good thing, for Eileen almost dressed in one outfit, decided that she wasn't going to wear it after all, and spent a frenzied ten minutes making up her mind what she would wear instead. She finally decided on a blue dress and declared herself ready.

"Not before you've picked up the clothes strewn around the room,"

declared Cordelia briskly, 'hung them in the cupboard and shut the doors and drawers."

"Someone else can do it," Eileen darted a wicked look at her.

"You can."

Cordelia sat down on the bed.

"Why?" she asked equably.

"Well you're my governess. . ."

"So I am, but I can stop being that whenever I want to." She glanced at her watch.

"Dinner's in ten minutes, I can go downstairs and see your uncle and tell him I don't want to look after you any longer and really you know there's nothing much you can do about that."

Eileen flew across the room and caught her by the arm.

"You won't Cordelia, you won't go away? I was only teasing. I'll pick up every single thing. Honest I will. You don't really want to go?"