The Mistletoe Kiss

“Thank you for my scarf,” Emmy said to the professor. “I’ve never had anything cashmere before.”

Ruerd didn’t say anything, but wrapped his great arms around her and kissed her.

She was so taken by surprise that she didn’t do anything for a moment. She had no breath anyway. The kiss hadn’t been a social peck; it had lingered far too long. And besides, she had the odd feeling that something was alight inside her, giving her the pleasant feeling that she could float in the air if she wished. If that was what a kiss did to one, she thought hazily, then one must avoid being kissed again.

She disentangled herself. “You shouldn’t…” she began. “What I mean is, you mustn’t kiss me. Anneliese wouldn’t like it….”

He was staring down at her, an odd look on his face. “But you did, Emmy?”

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

IT WAS a blustery October evening, and the mean little wind was blowing old newspapers, tin cans and empty wrapping papers to and fro along the narrow, shabby streets of London’s East End. It had blown these through the wide entrance to the massive old hospital towering over the rows of houses and shops around it, but its doors were shut against them, and inside the building it was quiet, very clean and tidy. In place of the wind there was warm air, carrying with it a whiff of disinfectant tinged with floor polish and the patients’ suppers, something not experienced by those attending the splendid new hospitals now replacing the old ones. There they were welcomed by flowers, a café, signposts even the most foolish could read and follow…

St Luke’s had none of these—two hundred years old and condemned to be closed, there was no point in wasting money. Besides, the people who frequented its dim corridors weren’t there to look at flowers, they followed the painted pointed finger on its walls telling them to go to Casualty, X-Ray, the wards or Out Patients, and, when they got there, settled onto the wooden benches in the waiting rooms and had a good gossip with whoever was next to them. It was their hospital, they felt at home in it; its lengthy corridors held no worries for them, nor did the elderly lifts and endless staircases.

They held no worries for Ermentrude Foster, skimming up to the top floor of the hospital, intent on delivering the message which had been entrusted to her as quickly as possible before joining the throng of people queuing for buses on their way home. The message had nothing to do with her, actually; Professor ter Mennolt’s secretary had come out of her office as Ermentrude had been getting into her outdoor things, her hours of duty at the hospital telephone switchboard finished for the day, and had asked her to run up to his office with some papers he needed.

‘I’m late,’ said the secretary urgently. ‘And my boyfriend’s waiting for me. We’re going to see that new film…’

Ermentrude, with no prospect of a boyfriend or a film, obliged.

Professor ter Mennolt, spectacles perched on his magnificent nose, was immersed in the papers before him on his desk. A neurologist of some renown, he was at St Luke’s by invitation, reading a paper on muscular dystrophies, lecturing students, lending his knowledge on the treatment of those patients suffering from diseases of the nervous system. Deep in the study of a case of myasthenia gravis, his, ‘Come,’ was absent-minded in answer to a knock on the door, and he didn’t look up for a few moments.

Ermentrude, uncertain whether to go in or not, had poked her head round the door, and he studied it for a moment. A pleasant enough face, not pretty, but the nose was slightly tip-tilted, the eyes large and the wide mouth was smiling.

Ermentrude bore his scrutiny with composure, opened the door and crossed the room to his desk.

‘Miss Crowther asked me to bring you this,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘She had a date and wanted to get home…’

The professor eyed her small, slightly plump person and looked again at her face, wondering what colour her hair was; a scarf covered the whole of it, and since she was wearing a plastic mac he deduced that it was raining.

‘And you, Miss…?’ He paused, his eyebrows raised.

‘Foster, Ermentrude Foster.’ She smiled at him. ‘Almost as bad as yours, isn’t it?’ Undeterred by the cold blue eyes staring at her, she explained, ‘Our names,’ just in case he hadn’t understood. ‘Awkward, aren’t they?’

He had put down his pen. ‘You work here in the hospital?’

‘Me? Yes, I’m a telephonist. Are you going to be here for a long time?’

‘I can hardly see why the length of my stay should interest you, Miss Foster.’

‘Well, no, it doesn’t, really.’ She gave him a kind smile. ‘I thought you might be a bit lonely up here all by yourself. Besides I rather wanted to see you— I’d heard about you, of course.’