Nurse Trudie is Engaged

by Marjorie Norrell

  “Must be a mellowing effect somewhere,” Trudie thought, still smiling, “or perhaps Philip was unusually insistent on the telephone this morning about the shock and what-have-you.”

  She lay back on her pillow, her hands clasped behind her head, thinking of Philip Malham and trying to see inside the man’s mind. They had made an arrangement. It may have the fancy name of “engagement,” but they both knew full well it was no such thing. Why then should he display such thoughtfulness and such solicitude on her behalf?

  “Maybe he thinks it will prevent his having to carry a half limping, badly shaken human being around with him all day.” She would not allow herself to indulge in sentiment. “Gustav’s good. Everyone says so, and I’m almost better already, thanks to Dad’s treatment last night.”

  She had no time for further introspection, for at that moment Mrs. Emma entered bearing a daintily arranged tray.

  “Sit up, dear,” she suggested, plumping the pillows up behind the girl. “Make the most of a bit of spoiling while you can. Knowing this family, I expect the lot of you will be setting yourselves out to spoil Mr. Garth’s wife once she gets here. But whatever she’s like she’ll not take the place of any of you as far as I’m concerned!”

  Trudie smiled and thanked Mrs. Emma for the tray, being careful to smooth over the housekeeper’s evident truculence over the anticipated arrival of the newcomer. During the past few months Mrs. Emma had not hidden the fact that she considered the girl Mr. Garth had married to be lacking in manners and in kindness. It was her opinion, openly expressed whenever Dr. Hislop was not around, that Veronica had been needlessly cruel in not keeping in regular touch with her in-laws and not letting them know her whereabouts. “She could have written to tell him more of Garth’s life over there,” she had expostulated on more than one occasion. “None of you know very much about him since he left home, except that he was working hard, had married, and that he had gone on that awful holiday.”

  “Let me know when you pour your second cup of tea, dear,” Mrs. Emma said finally, retreating to the door, “and I’ll run your bath. If this Mr. Gustav’s in such demand as it appears he is, it would be better not to keep him waiting.”

  And Mrs. Emma was right, Trudie reflected. Gustav would only have come all this way at such short notice for someone like Philip Malham and—her color rose suddenly—apparently for Philip Malham’s fiancée!

  “It will be all around St. Catherine’s by now,” she thought, well aware of the efficiency of the hospital grapevine. “I wonder if anyone has thought to telephone Ursula yet.”

  Ursula did no specific work, but she did quite a number of voluntary jobs for St. Catherine’s such as taking around the library trolley twice a week. She usually picked up more news and gossip than even the nurses managed to do.

  “I bet she’s mad at me,” Trudie reflected, telling Mrs. Emma that she would run the bath herself, “but if Philip could help Geoff meet her again...”

  She shook her mind free of dreams and schemes alike and hastened with her toilet. She had just finished as Mrs. Emma came to inform her that Mr. Gustav was waiting, and for the next three-quarters of an hour he worked hard, his gentle but firm hands working the pungent creams into the bruised surfaces. When he had finished and pronounced that he would come again in two or three days’ time, she felt no trace of ache or pain in the thigh and leg that had been so sore the previous evening.

  She was ready and waiting for Philip by 11 o’clock, but the minutes ticked by slowly and he did not arrive. Feeling on edge, Trudie went into the yard and began to cut sprays of white and purple lilac to decorate the house. As she was returning to the house, Philip caught his first sight of her that day. He stopped as he thought how sweet, how fresh and lovely she looked, with her arms full of the sprays of blooms and the morning sun shining upon her head, lighting up her golden hair to a halo.

  “Sorry I’m a few minutes late,” he apologized. “They’re doing a traffic census just down the road, something to do with the new motorway, and there was a line-up of cars a mile long.”

  “Well, you’re here now,” Trudie felt suddenly shy, “and we have plenty of time. Would you care for a drink, or some coffee, before we set out?”

  “I’d love some coffee, please,” Philip said readily, “if it isn’t too much trouble. Especially if it tastes as it did last night!” he added, smiling.

  “I know what you mean.” Trudie smiled back, something of the nervousness leaving her. “Mine is never reliable; sometimes it’s just right, other times it’s simply awful, but Mrs. Emma’s is always the same ... perfect. It’s quite a ritual with her, and she’ll be delighted to know her efforts are appreciated.”

  They went indoors together, Trudie hanging back to allow him to precede her as she would have done at St. Catherine’s, but he placed a gentle arm on her shoulder and propelled her forward.

  “After you, my dear,” he said in a low, gentle tone, and blushing, Trudie led the way into the lounge.

  Mrs. Emma was delighted that her coffee was appreciated. As she bustled away all beams and smiles, to make “a nice, fresh pot,” Trudie gestured to the wide, comfortable chair she thought Philip would prefer.

  “Make yourself comfortable, won’t you?” she suggested. “The papers are on this side table.” She half-turned, heading for the door. “Thank you for ... sending Mr. Gustav,” she said simply. “I feel fine now, not an ache anywhere.”

  “I’m glad.” Philip patted the sofa beside him where he had chosen to sit, ignoring the chair. “Come and sit with me and tell me what sort of a night you had,” he invited. “I’m quite sure Mrs. Emma can manage to make coffee without you. There’s one point I must bring up, Trudie, and I think now is as good a time as any to do it.”

  Trudie stared at him, fascinated. Without realizing quite why she did it she closed the door and went to sit beside him. “Now we are ... engaged”—there was just the slightest hesitation before the word—“people will expect us to behave like an engaged couple. You were surprised when I kissed you last night. Since I’d snatched you from under my wheels as it were and became engaged to you that very evening, your family would have been even more surprised had I not done so.” He smiled at her; the slow, charming smile made her heart turn over.

  “I think,” he observed seriously, “that Mrs. Emma, as well as your family, will not expect to see me sitting at one end of the room and yourself at the other so early on in our ... ‘engagement,’ do you?”

  “No,” I suppose not,” Trudie began doubtfully, then she smiled and relaxed. He was quite serious and quite right. Neither her family nor Mrs. Emma would expect them to behave as they behaved on duty. He had realized what she had totally ignored; the way to make tongues wag would be to behave differently from the truly engaged couples of their acquaintance.

  She thought of Monica Steadman, the woman who had been working for some months at St. Catherine’s. Monica had become engaged to a doctor doing missionary work and had gone around starry-eyed with excitement and dreams. She greeted him with obvious rapture whenever he came to see her which was as often as he could possibly manage, until she went away for the special training that would enable her to join him in the foreign missions. There had been no mistaking Monica’s delight in her Richard or his in Her and, looking at the matter objectively, Trudie knew this was just what Philip was implying.

  Even though they were not returning to St. Catherine’s to work, some of the extension staff would be familiar. In any event each hospital had its own grapevine, and if they continued to behave just as friends, word would soon get around and people would begin to wonder what lay behind it all.

  “Geoff would never notice,” she said aloud, “and Dad would think we were ... shy. Mrs. Emma would put it down to ‘the queer behavior of the present generation,’ as she does everything she doesn’t understand, but”—her smile vanished and she looked at him with such a serious expression that despite himself Philip smiled—“Malcolm would immediately
guess something was not quite as it ... seemed on the surface.”

  “Malcolm is a clever and shrewd young man,” Philip said firmly. “He will make an excellent lawyer; he only requires the experience, and I imagine that is rapidly coming his way. I know,” he grinned, “I would rather have him on my side than against me in a courtroom. In other words, we don’t want to arouse his suspicions! I see you have my meaning.” He looked at the door significantly as Mrs. Emma entered with their coffee. “Now let’s have this and be off... it will take hours to choose a ring, I’m sure, my dear.”

  They left The Cedars shortly before noon. Dr. Hislop had telephoned home and warned Mrs. Emma that he would be very late for luncheon; Geoff and Malcolm both had theirs out, so there was little point in waiting any longer. Sitting in Philip’s Bentley, beside him this time, Trudie could not repress a thrill. This engagement might be the pretense she knew it to be, but it had certain distinct advantages. To begin with, she scarcely felt any ache at all in her damaged leg, the result of the ministrations of Mr. Gustav earlier in the day, in addition to her father’s and Philip’s treatment of the previous evening.

  Now, instead of sitting around the house, or doing any of the thousand and one little things that normally occupied her days when she was at home off duty, she was sitting in luxurious comfort in a beautiful car, driving through the warm spring sunshine for a day in London. And at the end of the day there would be Veronica. She, of course, would have arrived whether their pretend engagement had been there or riot, but in Trudie’s mind so many good things were tied up together that she wanted to sing aloud.

  Philip looked down at her, sensing her mood. It was all a new experience for him too, and suddenly he laughed aloud as he began to tell hereof his own return home the previous evening and of his giving the news to Foster.

  “I don’t know whether he was glad or sorry,” he continued. “I think he had visions of an early wedding date and of being told to take his notice as the new mistress of the house would like to run things her own way. I couldn’t tell him there were no plans for you to become ‘the mistress’ as he kept referring to you, not after I’d just announced our engagement. Instead I said there would be no changes for some time as we both wanted to make an outstanding success of the new extension before we even considered our private affairs. Don’t you think that was very tactful of me?”

  “I certainly do,” Trudie agreed and laughed with him, but for some strange reason a chill seemed to have fallen over the day. She realized with a sharp pang the difficulty of pretending to the world that she and Philip were a normal engaged couple and pretending to him that her own feelings were as uninvolved as his.

  “We’ll lunch first,” Philip suggested as they reached London. “I know a decent little place. Chap there believes he owes his life to me. We met when he was on the operating table and he’s quite convinced he would have died had anyone else ministered to him. Has its advantages, as you’ll discover.”

  Philip was not boasting. The “chap,” Ian by name, could not do enough to please them. The restaurant itself was small but perfectly appointed, the food delicious, and the service excellent. By the time they had their coffee, Trudie, for the first time in her life, was feeling a little jealous of girls like Ursula who lived this kind of life all the time.

  “Ready?” Philip was smiling at her across the table, stubbing out his cigarette. “I suggest we look for a ring first, and then, unless you think it would be too cold, go for a trip down the river. I don’t think you should be walking about an awful lot as yet, however much Gustav’s work has helped your leg, but just as you wish, of course,” he ended considerately.

  “The river would be lovely,” Trudie agreed, “and we’re both adequately clothed for chilly breezes. I’m not keen on a shopping spree,” she admitted, but did not add that on her nurses’ pay she never had any excess for a really indulgent shopping bout without saving up for months first. “When I come here for the day I usually go to the zoo,” she said diffidently, wondering if he would think her childish, but instead he laughed.

  “I love the zoo, too,” he amazed her by saying, “but that’s out today, for the same reason as the shopping spree. We’ll come up again, when you’ve quite recovered. Once to shop and once or twice to the zoo. Right now the river is the easiest and the most pleasant way I can think of to spend the afternoon. But first things first.” He was piloting her from the restaurant after having paid his respects to Ian. Outside he hailed a taxi. He had parked the car and told Trudie he intended to use taxis until it was time to drive to the airport.

  She sat beside him in the taxi feeling acutely nervous. Now that they were going to choose a ring she was suddenly afraid of the course she had taken. There seemed something so final about this last step in deception.

  The taxi stopped outside a famous jeweler’s. Philip placed a firm hand under her elbow and guided her through the lovely, ornate doors. Inside a discreet salesman approached them, and Trudie stood silently by as Philip announced in a firm tone, “We would like to see some engagement rings, please ... to fit this young lady’s finger.” And as she made no move he gave her a gentle prod and said softly, “Hold out your hand, darling. Let him have some idea of the size.”

  The salesman smiled understandingly, and Trudie was annoyed to feel herself blush. How differently she would have felt and acted had this been a real engagement, had they been choosing together the ring they would guard for a lifetime.

  “When is your birthday?” Philip was saying beside her. “Do you know your birthstone?”

  “My birthday’s just over,” she whispered back. “April ... and the stone is a sapphire, but it really doesn’t matter.”

  The salesman was helpful and deferential. He brought out tray after tray of the most beautiful rings Trudie had ever seen, but each time Philip asked for something “just a little better.” She began to be alarmed. There was no necessity in paying all that money for something she would wear just for—how long?—as long as Philip deemed it necessary, a few months, perhaps. Then some of its value would perhaps depreciate and there would be nothing left but a memory and a part-cash return for Philip or for herself.

  “It isn’t necessary to spend all that much,” she whispered when the man had retreated to fetch yet another tray, but Philip grinned down at her and whispered back, “It’s necessary to have the best. What will the others think, Matron and your father, everybody, if you go around wearing the kind of ring you could buy at a chain store?”

  He was right again, she reflected sadly. And again he was looking at this matter with more foresight and intelligence than she had done. She swallowed her feelings and began to take a real interest in the rings displayed. She was pretending now for all she was worth that this was not just a game—that they were choosing a ring because they really loved each other—because he loved her as deeply and sincerely as she held her secret love for him. After that it was a great deal easier to give her opinion and, finally, to make her choice.

  They bought a very impressive ring, far more expensive than Trudie had ever dreamed of; a lovely sapphire as a centerpiece was surrounded by a cluster of beautiful diamonds. With an almost reverent air Philip placed the ring gently on her finger, and for one awful moment she thought he was about to kiss her again, right there in the store, but he drew back, smiling. The salesman smiled with him, bowing them out with obvious thoughts of the wedding ring to follow uppermost in his mind.

  “The river now,” Philip said masterfully, “and then a quiet cup of tea, then off to the airport. I consider we’ve planned this day out very well indeed.”

  It could not have been better, Trudie decided later as, the river excursion behind them, they sat together over tea. When he had first suggested accompanying her to town for the day and to meet Veronica, she had been very nervous: wondering what they would find to say to each other throughout a whole day, wondering just what sort of things one did find to say to someone like Philip Malham, hoping he would
not find her poor company. But she had been agreeably surprised. They had discussed a number of things; plays, music, books, and discovered mutual tastes. They had shared their knowledge of London—most of it on Trudie’s part culled from books or magazines—and discussed the stories they had heard or read of the city.

  They had discussed the new hospital extension and their hopes and fears concerning its future. To their shared delight they were in complete agreement in hoping that Dora Stacey would be allowed a block built onto the extension itself.

  Altogether it had been an exhilarating and exciting day, and for Trudie, not the least part of it all was the thought Philip had given to her welfare. From Gustav’s visit early in the day, to the suggested trip on the river he had cared for her well-being, and she felt strangely cosseted and protected. It was a good feeling; almost, she thought wistfully, as though their engagement was real and he had really been taking care of her because she was precious to him, not simply as a duty or because he thought it would now be expected of him.

  She stole a glance at his profile as he drove. He was watching the road ahead, his eyes absorbing every detail of the moving traffic, alert for any possible danger. All the same it seemed he had, in some way, sensed her scrutiny. For a moment he took his glance from the road to give a fleeting smile.

  “Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “We’re in plenty of time.”

  She could not tell him she had not even been thinking of Veronica, but after that she too looked ahead, anxious not to disconcert him or to give any false impressions.

  They reached the airport in plenty of time, only to be informed that the flight had been delayed for three-quarters of an hour, and at Philip’s suggestion they went into the lounge for coffee. Now that the time for meeting her new sister-in-law was drawing so near, Trudie felt herself becoming unaccountably nervous. When Philip proffered his cigarette case this time she accepted with alacrity, inhaling deeply. Philip watched her for a moment, smoking his own cigarette peacefully, completely relaxed.