by Sheila Burns
Dr. Morde glanced at Lorna. ‘Down in this place I suppose a chap becomes a bit of a has-been.’
‘I imagine that is fairly easy.’
‘Kinnie was my friend at college. A decent bloke, too. However, if this other fellow is better, then he’s the goods. Only the best for the patient is my motto.’
‘Quite!’ She paused. She glanced uneasily at Mrs. Liskeard, then back at the doctor. He stood blinking into the air, a little bemused, she thought, and curiously detached. ‘What is the treatment for the moment?’ she asked.
He went into a long explanation about the injection. He was instantly lost in a horde of blurred details, and Lorna realised that already he was in his cups, and she was now terrified that this nice old woman should be left to his mercies. They waited for a time, it could easily have been hours, and now he was moistening his lips, apparently he knew that he wanted another drink and brightened when he heard Roger returning along the corridor.
He entered the room.
‘I’ve fixed it. He will be arriving here tomorrow morning.’
‘Tomorrow?’ It was her own fault, she had hoped never to have seen Michael Bland again, and now had deliberately put her patient before everything. She could blame only herself for the fact that they would meet. ‘I’m so glad.’
‘His secretary was most charming.’
‘You will find that he himself is both charming and brilliant.’
Dr. Morde hurriedly put in his spoke. ‘Nurse knew him and has worked under him. She says he is a rising star.’
Roger swung round and looked challengingly at Lorna. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said, ‘I have worked under him, and he really is brilliant.’
‘That’s good.’
‘I shall sleep here on the sofa tonight,’ she explained. ‘Mrs. Liskeard ought not to be left alone, she needs someone to see after her all night.’
‘She is unconscious,’ the doctor reminded her.
‘I know that, but she might become suddenly conscious, and forget how to ring the bell and get me. I shall most certainly sleep here.’
She did sleep there.
She left Henderson in charge whilst she undressed and had her bath, then she went along. Henderson was deeply distressed, for this, she said, was the worst attack there had been yet. Naturally a despondent nature and devoted to her mistress, she wept.
Roger had been very anxious; Lorna had said goodnight to him in the small dining-room where he was having a whisky and soda. ‘Your aunt is going to be all right,’ she said.
‘But it is so worrying. The second attack is always much worse than the first one, Maudie says so.’
‘I think Maudie would do well to hold his tongue.’
For a moment Roger flickered, then spoke, staring down into his glass. ‘Yes, I know, but I did ask him to tell me the truth; then when I got it I didn’t like it.’
‘One is always over-worried for one’s own relatives, but nothing changes the circumstances; Mrs. Liskeard is nothing like as bad as she could be, and you’ll find that Michael Bland is a miracle worker.’
‘It was awfully good of you to suggest him.’
He would never know how good it had been of her! This meant meeting face to face the man who she felt had behaved quite vilely to her. She had not met him since she had known the worst, and although half of her was thrilled at the idea of seeing him again, the other half dreaded it, and recoiled from it.
She went up to bed.
Although she had told the others that she would sleep on the sofa, the thought of actual sleep had been far away. She took a book with her, and some sewing. She watched and waited. She had had a hunch that at some time during this night Mrs. Liskeard would recover consciousness, and so often had her hunches been right that she relied on them. Once again she was right.
It was very early in the morning when Mrs. Liskeard stirred, gave a slight moan, and then opened her eyes.
‘Lorna?’
Instantly she was up.
‘I’m here. Now, don’t move. Don’t try to do anything at all. You’re quite all right, and you’re doing splendidly. It was a slight attack. No, I don’t want you to talk, here is my hand,’ then very softly, ‘today the specialist I have the greatest faith in is coming down to see you.’
‘It’ll be no good.’
‘You silly girl! Of course it will be some good, and I know that he will help you. I can promise you that. A drink? A very tiny one. Then hold my hand and drowse off again.’
She gave Mrs. Liskeard the drink, then sat beside her holding her hand, until the dawn came into the room, and painted it with the wonder radiance which is greater than anything else in the world.
Later, when Mrs. Liskeard had spoken to her again, and the household was rising, she was able to leave the patient safely with Henderson, and went to have her bath, and to put on a clean dress and apron. Today Michael was coming down! Perhaps she knew that she had been longing for this moment ever since she had left St. Botolph’s. Perhaps she knew that although it would be a terrible strain, that was something she must tolerate, for anyway she would see his face once more, hear him speak, and in those two things there would be a certain satisfaction. An air of completion filled her, a new confidence, as she buttoned the belt.
The patient was considerably better, with both pulse and temperature showing that she was recovering. She was happy about that. She looked in the mirror and realised that the long night had not marked her. Her eyes were fresh and bright, her skin not tired, and there were no bags under her eyes. Excitement at the meeting was some sort of intoxicant, she supposed, something that egged her on. Yet this man had deliberately deceived her; he had flung her aside for Frances Ford, the girl he would not marry. He had said, ‘My marriage was planned when we were both in our cradles, almost as if we were a prince and princess who never get the chance to choose their loves,’ and she had listened to that paltry excuse, for excuse was all that it was. His kind old father had struck her as being a particularly nice man, who would never have done anything like that, she was sure.
Put that past behind you, she told herself.
Roger went off in the car to meet Michael’s train, and bring him back from the station. Mrs. Liskeard was sleeping, a normal natural sleep which would do her a great deal of good, and Lorna fluttered uncertainly about the room.
When she heard the car coming from the bridge across the lake to the front door, she woke the patient. There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and coming along the corridor. She felt herself turning still and rigid, almost as if she could not face it in any other way save that of a soldier on duty.
‘Is someone coming?’ Mrs. Liskeard asked her.
‘It’s the new specialist. I told you about him in the night.’
‘A friend of yours?’
‘Yes, a friend of mine.’
‘Then I know that he’ll be nice.’
The door opened, it made the noise of a gatling gun to her, for Lorna was so on edge at this particular moment. She saw Michael standing there with Dr. Morde and Roger behind him. Here were three men, three entirely different kinds of men, and all three of them took a prominent place in her personal life. Michael was handsome as ever, looking quickly about the room, and at this moment he would not notice her, for now he was very much on duty, and the job in hand was the one thing that mattered most to him.
Dr. Morde was flickering those shallow eyes of his; he was naturally uneasy and disturbed, pouting the bulbous lips, and agitated, for he was hopelessly out of his depth; Roger did not quite know what to do next. He was deeply concerned with the one anxiety, his aunt’s health.
Michael did not even look at her, for his eyes had gone past her to where Mrs. Liskeard lay, and Lorna knew that he had noted her colour, the way she breathed, and the fragile helplessness of those thin hands lying on the sheet. To him Lorna was just the nurse on duty, nothing more, and there were hundreds of girls who served this purpose only. She doubted if he even noticed he
r.
‘I want more light,’ he said.
Dr. Morde, still rather shaky, advanced to the curtain to draw it. He was obviously embarrassed, and he knocked over a lamp on the table which stood by the sill. The lamp lay smashed on the soft grey carpet, which Lorna had hoped would save it. It was a lovely piece of Chinese workmanship, and the bulbous lips pouted even more in dismay.
‘Oh, I say. I’m most awfully sorry,’ he gasped.
Michael took no notice. He had drawn a chair to the bedside, and he held out his hand.
‘Good morning, Mrs. Liskeard, I have come down from London to help you. You haven’t been at all well, have you? Think of me as a friend, that is why I have come down.’
Even as he spoke, those clever almost black eyes of his were drinking in every give-away movement, every detail, and every flicker of her eyelids. She gave him a tragically weak smile. Michael would never make a false move, and Lorna knew this. She wished that it did not hurt to watch him as he sat there, calmly still, the girl who did not matter in his life, and the tragedy was that he still mattered so much in hers.
Were his eyes even blacker than she had remembered them to be, and was his manner even more enchanting? He laid a cautious finger on Mrs. Liskeard’s pulse. Dr. Morde watched with even greater nervousness. He was trying to pull himself together to face the great man who would later discuss the case with him; he was trying to overcome this ill-at-ease stage and wished now that he had not flown to the hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-him, because that had not worked out too well.
Michael did not notice him.
It was already obvious to Lorna that Michael already disliked the general practitioner, and had decided to ignore him entirely as he continued with his examination. He never shot so much as a glance at Lorna.
‘Nurse,’ he would call, but always without a look.
She was the automaton, the one woman in this room who did not matter, just a girl on duty. He went on with his examination, and at last he spoke.
‘I am sure that there is a lot that I can do to help you, Mrs. Liskeard,’ he said, playing with his stethoscope in his slender hands. This was something that Lorna had noticed him doing before, it meant that he was worried, it meant that he was not sure. She waited. ‘First of all I want a word with Nurse,’ he said.
Instantly she came forward, disapprovingly watched by Dr. Morde who was standing uncomfortably at the end of the bed.
‘This way, sir,’ and Lorna indicated the charming little dressing-room beyond.
They went together out of the subdued light of the shadowy bedroom, for even if Maudie had pulled the curtain and in so doing had broken the lamp, the room was still ill-lit. They went into the pretty dressing-room, the sunshine falling brightly into it, and she shut the door behind them so that the others could not hear what was being said. A Pompadour-like dressing-table stood to one side, the crinoline freshly stiffened with rose pink, its top of glittering glass, with a litter of delicate accessories lying on it.
Absorbed by his own thoughts, Michael had walked to the big bay window, his hands dug deeply down into his trouser pockets as for a moment he stared out at the park, and the deer, and the distant hills. Then he turned quite sharply, seeing Lorna for the first time.
‘You?’ he gasped.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Whatever are you doing here?’
‘I am nurse-companion to Mrs. Liskeard. I came down here after I had thought that I didn’t really want to stay on at St. Botolph’s to become a Sister.’
‘I see.’ He had pulled himself together, and had started all over again. ‘You know that she is very ill?’
‘Yes, sir, I do. That is why I begged them to send for you.’
‘Where did she get that moth-eaten G.P. of hers?’
‘He appears to be a friend of the family. Her nephew is fond of him, the nephew who came to the station to meet you.’
‘Yes, he met me.’
Michael immediately changed the subject, and began to discuss the treatment; he wanted everything rearranged. He disapproved of Dr. Morde’s theories, and said that it was urgent that a quite different course was pursued. He was entirely the doctor on duty; never by a shade of tone, or a glance, did he seem anything else to her.
Listening carefully, Lorna knew that she was disappointed in some way. Michael had changed, or hadn’t he? Was it that her reactions towards him were the mood that had altered? Surely he was surprised to see her here, more than he had been with just those few remarks? She had hoped that he would say more, longed for more, and was ashamed of that longing. In truth she was dubious about herself; she did not know what she wanted, yet there was much she wished to ask him, and all the time his voice droned on giving her medical directions.
This was a handsome man standing there, thoughtfully, swinging a stethoscope in his hand, lightly as though it were of no real importance in his life, a mere nothing in his world, and behind him all the glamour and the glitter of the Pompadour dressing-table.
He went into every detail, coping with every change that could occur, and when he had done, she thanked him, and moved to the door to open it for him. Quickly he said, ‘No, Lorna, not yet.’
‘But I thought you had told me everything, sir.’
He came closer, thrusting the stethoscope into his jacket pocket, and he held out both his hands to her. ‘There are ourselves, you know. Everything that has happened has been a most dreadful mistake and should never have been. I was the sort who was used to flirting, and suddenly I found that it was too much for me. I was a fool.’
He waited for her to say something, but she said nothing at all.
‘I was a fool,’ he said a little bitterly, and now he was not looking her in the eyes. ‘One should never let other people take hold of one’s life, and control it. One should stand on one’s own two feet.’
‘All that is behind us,’ Lorna said, and was almost surprised at the coldness of her voice, but he had hurt her so very badly at the time, and although she had told herself that she could forgive him and become ashamed of the resentment still within her, that was not how she was feeling. She did not know how she could still love Michael, yet fail to forgive him for something which he insisted was not his own fault. Too many memories welled up within her, so that they were confusing. A man with a gun bruising her rib, the sound of Lionel Strong’s voice asking the way to Oxford, that happy day when she had gone down to visit Michael’s father, and the drive back up the avenue in the brilliant new green of that time of year. Then suddenly the horror!
He had let her hand go and was speaking very quietly. ‘I had no idea that my father was still so set upon Frances. The affair was dead, or so I thought. It all goes to show how we can deceive ourselves. I knew that Dad wanted that marriage, but not that he was quite as determined as that; not until I saw the announcement in the Times. Dad is a very deceptive personality; he strikes the outer world as being such a dear kind old man. He isn’t always both those things.’
‘Surely he didn’t do that?’
‘Most certainly he did!’ and Michael’s voice was hard, with a tang of bitterness in it. ‘Oh, Frances wanted it too, she always had done. There are girls in this world who get doctor-dotty. It may not be too unkind to say that perhaps the moment came when she saw her big chance.’
‘But that was a dreadful thing to do.’
‘Yes. We were engaged once; it was broken off, the most imperial row of my whole life.’
‘Whatever happened then is nothing to do with us now.’ Lorna was quite surprised at the firmness of her tone. ‘The people in the other room will be wondering what we are talking about.’ Again she felt for the door handle.
‘Lorna, you know it is all ended. I made them publish a denial.’
‘Yes, I know. I saw it.’ Then, and she did not know why, she hurried him. ‘You’ll miss your train back to London.’
‘I can catch another one.’
‘I’m afraid Cornwall isn’t like the home counties
, you know. It has very little choice of trains to London which you can catch,’ she reminded him casually.
‘I shall have to come down next week to see Mrs. Liskeard; that could be the answer,’ and Lorna realised that she had never seen him quite so disturbed before. He put out a hand and touched the little goffer-frilled cuff at her elbow. His hand was shaky, but the touch of the fingers was sympathetic and kind.
‘Please, we have got to have this out? The thing has driven me mad, and I had no idea how you would be feeling. I heard you were ill, I heard you’d left, and thought we should never meet again. Fate has played this into my hands.’
‘They’re waiting.’
‘You broke with the hospital, you broke with me, then in some strangely contradictory mood you ask these people to send for me. It meant that you still thought of me! Did it mean that you wanted to see me again? How could you have suggested me if you had never wanted to see me again?’
She rounded on him. ‘Because you were the best opinion on thrombosis that I knew, and I have already become extremely fond of Mrs. Liskeard. That’s why!’ He stood looking at her; almost as if he did not want to believe it, almost as if he could not take his eyes off her, and it was Lorna herself who pulled him up.
‘We must go now. Dr. Morde …?’
‘Who cares about Dr. Morde? By the by I don’t think too much of that nephew of Mrs. Liskeard’s. I would have said that there was something odd about him too. It’s altogether an odd set-up. I suppose Liskeard is all right?’
‘Yes, he is very kind to her.’
‘I shall come down again, Lorna, realise that?’
She said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and opened the door.
They went back together into the shadowy bedroom, he before her. The place had that faint distant scent of illness, of eau de Cologne, and of powder. In a sense it was sinister, being an alliance with danger, with apprehension and with doubt. Lorna always found it more difficult in private nursing. Here the scent came, the confused smell of danger which did not live contentedly with the happy everyday scent of the house. In hospital, disinfectants seemed to drench it out of being. In hospital, one never came quite so close to the things that could be so disturbing. Dr. Morde rose quickly from the best chair (he had a genius for arranging himself comfortably), and Mrs. Liskeard smiled wanly from the bed.