by Sheila Burns
The door opened again, and she turned thinking that Lorna had been almost too quick, then saw that it was Michael. Instinctively she knew him though he wore an open-necked silk shirt and slacks. He was going down to the lake, with a book.
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know anybody was here,’ he said.
‘It’s all right. I’m a friend who lives nearby and Lorna has run up to see if Mrs. Liskeard can see me.’ She looked at him with appreciative eyes. He had a fine brow, in imagination her hands ran over it; he was well made, she liked the high cheek bones, she admired the strength and yet the sympathy of the very dark eyes.
‘You’re not an artist from St. Ives?’ he asked, he did not know why.
‘No, I’m a sculptress.’ She held out the bigly-made hands and the very strong fingers. Once it had been an immense joy to find strength wrestling with stone in those hands.
‘That’s a very big job, few women do it, surely?’
‘I don’t know. I realise that I get a lot of joy out of it.’ He was natural, he was kindly, he was the sort of man who had immediate appeal, and she knew it. Then her mind went back again to the great statue for the new cathedral. Adam, of course. The first man!
‘You have no children?’ Michael asked, and he asked it cautiously.
He knew!
Instinctively this man knew the things you did not have to put into words to tell him. Her head went back, and her cheeks paled. ‘No. I always wanted a child, and Lionel would adore a son, but I’m forty-three.’
‘It doesn’t make it impossible.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Many of us tabulate the barriers in life and it is a mistake. Never date possibility. Let life move along in its own sweet way and it won’t disappoint you. You’ve seen Hentiton?’
‘Hentiton? What a name!’
‘Next time you’re in London see him, and say I sent you. He is nice, he is clever, and most anxious to help people who really want children. He’s a good friend, and it is important for a doctor to be a good friend first. We trust our friends; not all of us trust our doctors!’
She laughed. ‘You’ve met Maudie?’
‘I have indeed!’
They went out on to the terrace, she speaking of the coming statue, for that, like a child, was about to be born. The thought of it already conceived began to grow and thrive within her. She spoke of Adam as though she already knew him, a big strong man, not beautiful, a primitive, of course, and with him primitive animals, flowers and trees, a surround of the world at its dawn, and almost unreal.
‘Oh, I’m talking too much,’ she said.
‘It’s delightful listening to you, because it shows me that you are going to make an immense success of this. The whole idea is at its beginning. I have seen children born, but never an idea which becomes a statue.’
‘You are seeing it now,’ and she laughed again.
Then Lorna came out to them. Lorna had changed into a little silk frock in pastel parma violet which went with her hair. ‘Mrs. Liskeard would love to see you,’ she said.
‘I’d better go before I say too much,’ and Enid turned. For a single moment she hesitated on the threshold of the morning room, and quavered for a moment. ‘The serpent,’ she said. ‘Is it there, or not? Is it to be Eden as it was, or as it is? A snake in the grass with the man, or just the man as God conceived him?’ then, half to herself, ‘I ‒ I don’t know yet.’
Then she had gone.
Chapter Ten
‘I suppose you wouldn’t like to come on the lake?’ Michael asked Lorna.
‘I’ve finished upstairs for now, but …’
‘You mustn’t be afraid of me, my dear. I am here for a whole week, and I have a lot to say to you. That woman ‒ what’s her name? Enid Strong? She is a very strong character.’
‘She is madly excited about the new commission, of course.’
‘And she wants a child.’
‘I know.’ Lorna suddenly turned serious. ‘She wants a child desperately. Enid has not had so much out of life so far, and Lionel is some years younger than she is. The funny thing is that I detested her when we first met, now I know that she is a dear.’
‘Come to the lake? The water will be very cool.’
‘I mustn’t be away too long.’ Yet Lorna knew that time did not really matter. Her heart wanted to be with Michael even if she suffered the humility of too many regrets later. Even if those regrets had the power to hurt her. She was standing, it seemed, on the very edge of romantic adventure, and although she knew that she could not rely on Michael ‒ no wonder they had called him the Heartbreak Surgeon! ‒ for the one sweetly summery moment, what did she care? The old punt was tied to the landing stage. Its flat green velvety cushions were inviting, and against them the red cotton cushions glowed.
‘Hop in,’ said Michael.
‘Why?’
‘Because I tell you to, Lorna. That’s why.’
They were coming very close again, dangerously so, yet she stepped into the punt and settled down at the far end of it. The lake was sparklingly clear, and every tree that stood beside it, showed yet another one drowned within it in every detail. The polyanthus roses clustering up the banks became a drowned verge of cerise in the water.
Michael picked up the pole and took the punt out into the centre of the lake, making for the heavy oak tree on the far side, with its agreeable shade.
‘Where did you learn to punt?’ she asked.
‘I happened to be at Cambridge. Queen’s.’
‘Isn’t that the second oldest college of them all?’
Obviously he approved of her knowledge, for he smiled. ‘It is indeed, and I always think quite the best. Anyway they did me pretty well. I happened to like boats, and put in a lot of time on the Backs.’ He came into the grateful shadow of the oak tree. ‘I thought this was a good place for a talk.’
‘I can’t see what we have got to talk about.’
‘I should have said quite a lot. Everything has gone a bit haywire with us, and now I’m going to tell you the truth.’
‘Michael, I’d much rather forget. I’m the nurse here, and you’re the consultant, and can’t you possibly remain just as that?’
‘Not on your life, my own sweet darling! I want to be something much closer to you, much nearer to you. I want to talk to you about the day I took you home and you met my father.’
‘I thought your father was rather a dear.’
He lit a cigarette very slowly; he had always been precise about this, and she, watching him, recognised that he was playing for time. ‘My father saw danger ahead in our friendship. I suppose he had always had Frances up his sleeve for me, and Frances connived. I have a certain appeal, let’s admit it, it isn’t flattering to me really, it just happens this way. Frances is worldly wise, she likes a good position (if you can call mine that), she enjoys all the social obligations, and she very much likes money.’
‘You have all these things?’
‘Not yet, but I shall have my share. When my father dies I get most of everything, but my father rather likes life, and he is not the sort of person to die soon. Frances does not understand that my existence means having to be nice to quite revolting patients, visiting hospitals, etc. Oh, those Christmas afternoons when we carve up this and that, and buzz round the Christmas trees in stifling costumes, or listen to the nurses singing carols!’
‘There’s no need to be personal! We realise that we are not much, but Matron commands and we meekly obey.’
‘Matron would sometimes do better to keep her mouth shut, but that’s always difficult for a matron. That’s all right, and I’ll say no more, because I can see that you and I feel the same way about matrons. Now about ourselves. I had a row with my father the next time I went down to see him, after the day we spent together there.’
‘He didn’t like me?’
‘He liked you, darling, because nobody could dislike you but he had this “thing” about Frances. Heaven only knows why. I walked out on him and the next thing
he did was to publish my engagement in the Times. The maddening thing was that I did not see it for a time because I had flown out to Belgrade and was operating there. When I did see it I fairly frothed. Gosh, I was furious!’
‘And then …?’
He had flushed a dark red, and his eyes were blazing. ‘I went straight home to see my father, and then everything went wrong. He had a stroke. It was the last thing I should have suspected of him, but there he was with a beauty. Frances was with him. I must say that she was being awfully good, and even before I arrived she had got the right man down, good nurses in residence, and was acting the part of the daughter of the house.’
Lorna nodded. Already she had begun to dislike Frances, and everything that she stood for in Michael’s life.
‘I must admit that when I arrived I was damned worried, for my father was really ill, and I hated seeing him like that.’
‘You loved him?’
‘Of course. Don’t we all love our parents?’
‘Not all. Some.’
‘I knew that for the moment his fate lay in the lap of the gods, and there was nothing anyone could do. I talked it over with Frances, she was as worried as I was, and I must say, she was awfully good about it.’
‘You didn’t think of writing to me?’
‘If you want the truth, I suppose I thought of nothing but my father. Everything was in such a whirl, and I could not lift a finger in any direction.’
‘It would have helped if I had known.’
‘You know now, and it doesn’t seem to be helping you an awful lot, I must say.’
‘Oh, shut up!’ Then the sound of the words amazed her, she thought of his power and his capacity in the hospital, and put a startled hand over her mouth. One was never rude to a great consultant! ‘Heavens!’ she gasped.
He saw the difficulty. ‘We are just a man and a woman, not doctor and nurse any more. We have nothing in common with that world for the time being. I happen to love you.’ He paused then, and as there was no response, added tenderly, ‘Very much.’
Lorna said nothing.
A blackbird raised his boxwood flute in the Japanese cherry tree which so recently had been a shower of candy pink blossom. How was she to know that any of this was true? How was she to adapt herself to the fact that she did not trust the man because she had already proved him to be untrustworthy? He clasped his arms round his knees, resting his heavy chin on the top of them, and watching her with those black eyes of his. He searched for the truth within her, and she knew that he was aware of her weakness. ‘You do love me you know, my darling.’
‘I want to live my life my own way.’
‘But Fate brought me here into your life again.’
‘Fate did nothing of the kind. I suggested that they got you down.’
‘Good for you, my sweet! And that also proves that you loved me and wanted me. You wanted me back in your life, however much you try to pretend that it wasn’t so.’
‘Don’t be so silly.’
‘Shall I get Frances to write to you and explain that what I am saying is the truth?’
‘I’m really not awfully interested in Frances.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘That isn’t true, anyway. Aren’t girls a bore when they get into this kind of a mood? What has happened to you, my dearest one? I believe that something happened after we parted, and before we met again.’
‘Quite a lot happened, thank you!’ Then as she said it, Lorna was almost afraid lest she had lifted the curtain and had disclosed her real self. He saw what she felt.
‘What bomb burst on you, my sweet?’ Then when she did not reply, ‘Something did happen, and it was something pretty big. A man, of course?’ Another pause, and then, ‘A lover?’
‘I don’t go in for lovers. I’m not that sort of a girl, even Matron said that.’
‘Damn Matron!’
He was looking resentfully at her, his eyes flashed, and she realised that when he became angry there was enormous power behind him. Like a thunder cloud coming up against the wind, and with a wild fury in its darkness. In the operating theatre he had never shown the least sign of temper; they had discussed him over the long trestle tables in the nurses’ dining-room; he had calmness, if at times he was bluntly rude, but never anger.
‘Tell me what happened?’ he insisted.
‘It was nothing, a lunatic, of course, well perhaps not actually mad, but certainly a mental case. I gave him a lift in my car, it was getting dark at the time, and he rammed a gun into my ribs, and threatened to kill me.’
‘The old trick.’
‘That was the idea. The old but quite horrible trick.’
He waited for a moment, his face working a little, his eyes sympathetic, and he said, ‘Who was he?’
‘I don’t know. I shall never know. You see I never actually saw his face.’
‘It hurts you to talk about it, I can see that. All right, don’t tell me. I suppose you had never had anything to do with the mentally afflicted before?’
‘I had. I worked for two months in a mental institution; it was part of my training.’
‘Then you knew what to do?’
She lost her head a little then, for she had not realised that it would hurt so much to tell him about it. ‘Does any girl ever know what to do, alone in the dark with a man of that kind? And a gun bruising her, almost as if it would act as a spear and go right through her? What can she do?’
‘You got away?’
‘Only because Lionel Strong came up in his car alongside, and asked the way to Oxford. I have never forgotten the keen joy of hearing his voice; the man was horrified and opened the door and slid out into the wood. In a single instant he had gone.’
‘I see.’ Michael paused, then in a gentle voice he said, ‘Darling, I’m terribly sorry to have distressed you so much. What a horrible thing it was to have happen!’
The sympathy unlocked some barrier in her own heart. ‘And that isn’t all,’ she began, and stopped dead. She had turned to him in a flurry of emotional agitation; should she tell him everything now? The complexity of fears, the horror which sometimes stayed in her heart, and the absurd doubts of Roger? Should she confess that coming here, she had instantly suspected Roger, and particularly now, after what she had read in the morning paper, and the cheek wound with a scratch across it? She almost admitted it, then jerked herself together again. None of it was true, of course it wasn’t true, she was imagining it in all probability and she must hold her tongue, in duty to the Liskeards, in duty to her own self-pride. ‘I can’t tell you,’ she said.
He did not press her. ‘What about ourselves, darling? What about our two selves?’
‘Nothing can happen about ourselves. That is a closed door,’ her voice was firm.
‘There is no door that love cannot open.’
‘Please?’ she said and turned her head away. She felt his eyes watching her, and knew that in this moment the best of her was for ever lost to him, because he had the power to make her care. There was nothing she could do to take away that power, nothing that could change it. When she spoke again, she was completely composed, and her voice was the voice of a nurse on duty. ‘Please Michael, let’s go back to the landing stage. I do want to go back.’
He realised that the moment had passed, and for now there was nothing else that he could do, and he shoved off. They crossed the lake through the bright sunshine of high summer, and landed at the landing stage together. He gave her a hand ashore.
In this short while she knew that she had lived through an eternity.
That night Roger became ill.
Lorna had felt disturbed and ridiculously apprehensive, for she had a presentiment that something alarming was at hand. Some catastrophe lay ahead that she could not avert, something that she did not understand.
It was one of those brilliant nights of summer, and Mrs. Liskeard, much recovered, had begged them to have dinner brought out on to the terrace. Brown, she told them, was so good at mak
ing such a meal enchanting, and she had special shields for the candles to be carried out there, to stop them guttering.
The day had been suffocatingly hot, and had tired Mrs. Liskeard, though she was still determined to come down for dinner, and she did. Michael and Roger had been touring some of the lesser known places in Cornwall by car: Cape Cornwall, Gurnard’s Head, Lamorna Cove. Henderson had dressed Mrs. Liskeard for dinner. Until now Lorna had not appreciated the very great beauty which once must have been Mrs. Liskeard’s, but tonight she looked radiant, and about her was a rare quality of girlishness which she seemed to have retained from the teens. Her hair was now no longer so silverish, but the dark blue of her dress made it ashen blonde. Her eyes were pure lapis lazuli. She should have been a queen, Lorna thought, surprised at the supreme majesty of the way in which she walked.
‘Oh, Lorna, what a treat it is to be up and about again!’
‘You must be careful that at all costs you don’t overdo it. The moment you tire, you must return. Risk nothing, for all our sakes,’ and in her heart she thanked heaven that Michael was here with them, and assured herself Nothing can go wrong. Nothing.
Enid and Lionel came over for a drink.
They would not tire the patient, Lorna knew, and whilst they were with her she herself went to change into a cool dress, white silk with dark green leaves on it. She brushed out the red hair. Was it growing slightly darker, or was this her imagination? Henderson, coming in, glanced at her.
‘Would you allow me to do it, Nurse?’
‘Could you?’
‘Sit down a moment,’ and Henderson smiled.
She brushed the hair, and this was the master hand on the brush. She made it softly pliable, parted it to one side, where a man parts his, and drew it without a single wave or curl close round her head like a cap. Suddenly it became a young boy’s head, a boy with all the boisterous exuberance of youthful joy!
‘You have such a beautifully shaped head,’ she murmured, ‘it’s a shame to hide it.’