"Have I got a reputation for bullying?" he countered, and then went on : "You could help at the.. children's clinic too if you want to—they're always glad of a hand. But I suggest that you wait a bit before you decide anything. Have a holiday. Didn't you promise Adela to have some shopping orgies? She'll hold you to that !"
And so they came home to Adam Square, and it was not until Phil drew the car up outside that Ronnie remembered all too vividly the last time she had been in it. `Daddy—' she thought.
With his usual uncanny sensitiveness to her thoughts Phil put a hand lightly on her knee for a moment. "Don't worry," he said quietly. "If your father's ghost is here it will be a very happy ghost—he wanted things to be like this, you know."
Ronnie blinked away incipient tears. "He was fond of you, Phil—and you were very good to him."
They found the house full of flowers and presents to greet them, and a beaming Withers in control of everything—including Jaker, the Cairn which Adela had insisted should be part of her wedding present.
In spite of the warmth and friendliness of homecoming, however, it seemed strange not to be going straight up to the flat, strange to convince herself that her father would not be there waiting for her, a little
irritable perhaps because she had been too long gone, but needing her all the same. As if he sensed that thought too Phil said : "I've told Withers to leave everything upstairs just as it was—your domain whenever you want to be free of me."
She said, "Thank you, Phil," in a little strangled voice. She went upstairs to take off her things. In the bedroom a little chill went through her. It had been
old room. Now it was all too obviously hers—and
hers alone. Phil had evidently telegraphed detailed instructions to Withers. But when she lay for a while face downwards on her bed she was not crying for the past so much as for the future.
Ronnie soon discovered the wisdom of Phil's advice not to tie herself down to any sort of a job during the next few weeks, for the whole time was taken up with shopping, visits to and from friends, and the writing of `thank you' letters. It seemed that Phil had a much larger circle of acquaintances than she had known of, and every one of them wanted to meet his bride, so that there was hardly an evening when they were not invited out to dinner, or cocktails, or a theatre party.
It was all great fun, but enough was as good as a feast, and at last Ronnie sighed : "I wish we could have a quiet evening at home sometimes." Miraculously, the invitations lessened, and the only 'must' was their weekend visit to Stoneacres. They were happy times, those weekends, and Adela and Stupid were so obviously glad to have them there that it would have been difficult not to respond to their cheery welcoming.
But Adela had sharp eyes and not for long was she deceived by outward appearances. Where her beloved godson was concerned she seemed to have a sixth sense.
"What's the matter with Phil?" she asked Ronnie one evening when the two men had retired to play billiards.
The question cropped up apropos of nothing in the middle of quite a trivial conversation, and it started Ronnie.
"Why, he's quite well as far as I know," she stalled. "Oh yes, he's well enough. But he's not as happy as he ought to be. Why?"
Adela's directness was a bit disconcerting, but Ronnie was able to deflect it for the moment. "The House is sitting again, you know, and I think he's expecting to hear almost any day now about his hospital scheme."
Adela nodded. "That could be it—he takes his work very seriously, and I know this scheme means a lot to him. But you mean more, and don't you forget it, Ronnie."
On the drive back to town that Sunday evening she tackled Phil on the subject. "Adela says you look worried, Phil—is it the hospital scheme?"
He gave a short laugh, but did not take his eyes off the road. "Right now I'm more worried about a certain little Mrs. Dawkins."
"Who's she?"
"A patient of mine from Bethnal Green who comes to the clinic. She was passed over to me some years ago by the local hospital. She desperately wants a baby, and all she has achieved so far are six miscarriages."
"How dreadful !" Ronnie ejaculated. "And she's still trying after that?"
Phil nodded. "Any day now—and if it doesn't come off this time I shall never be able to look her in the face again."
"Do you take all your patients' troubles to heart, Phil?"
"I always feel badly when a woman who wants a child can't have one," he said.
They were talking like strangers, she thought—far more like strangers than in the very first days of their
acquaintance, and a little stab of fear tugged at her heart. Perhaps their marriage hadn't been the right thing after all ... what could she do?
She could not get close to him, so she went back to the first subject. "When do you expect to hear from Stanhope ?" she asked.
"Within the next week or so," he told her laconically, and so obviously did not want to pursue the subject that she let it drop and they drove the rest of the way in silence.
When they got into the house, though, as he took off his coat under the hall lamp as she was turning to go upstairs she saw a look in his eyes which made her say to herself, 'He knows what I want—what I'm trying to tell him. But why doesn't he help ?'
But she misread that look. Philip Conway was feeling, for almost the first time in his life, completely unsure of himself.
Five stairs up she turned. Phil was standing under the hanging lantern in the hall looking up at her. Suddenly Ronnie's heart seemed much too big for her. She wanted him desperately—wanted his love—wanted to explain that their honeymoon flight had been a genuine mistake ...
"Are you coming up soon?" was all she managed to say for the suffocating thumping of her heart—but it was something she had never said before.
She was not quite sure whether there was an expression of surprise on his face or whether it was a trick of the light, but his voice was even as he answered : "I've just got to look through my list for tomorrow—shan't be long, though."
As she undressed, Ronnie kept going over in her mind how she should begin. It was strange, she thought, how much more difficult it was to talk to Phil since she had married him.
Perhaps it was that she had hurried in her agitation, but Phil seemed a very long time coming, and her prepared words had time to grow cold and die many times before he came.
When he did at last come up it seemed at last as though he were going to meet her half way, for he came and sat on the side of her bed, smiled and looked at her for a moment. Her heart started to pound again as he said softly : "Did you want to say something?"
Before she could answer the telephone bell shrilled, and Phil stretched out his hand to the bedside instrument with a slight frown of annoyance on his face.
After announcing his identity he listened in silence for quite a few minutes and his expression was grave. Then Ronnie's heart fell as she heard him say : "Very good, Sister. Thank you for ringing. I'll be right over."
"Was that the hospital?" she asked unnecessarily.
"Yes," he got up abruptly. "Mrs. Dawkins. Hope I shan't be long—but it may be an all-night sitting." He stooped and lightly brushed her cheek with his lips. "Sleep tight."
It was a long time before she did sleep, though. The anticlimax of all her good intentions was almost more than she could bear, and she nearly called after him. He wouldn't have stayed, of course—and she wouldn't have wanted him to, in truth, but she could not help muttering audibly her exasperation : "Why couldn't you let Purcell do the job—he's the obstetrician !"
But Phil was already out of earshot, as she very well knew.
She did not wake until Withers brought her a cup of tea at eight o'clock. "Mr. Philip rang at about six, madam," he told her. "But he said not to disturb you."
"Hasn't he been back, then?" She rubbed her eyes sleepily, trying to get things into focus.
"No, miss," Withers lapsed back into the old form of
address, as
he often did. "Things are still touch and go, he said, and he's staying on now and having a nap at the hospital. He starts operating at ten, he said."
Ronnie sat up, fully awake now. "Oh dear !" she cried. "And he said he'd got a heavy list too. He'll be too tired without any proper rest.
"One thing you can be sure of, miss, he won't operate unless he's feeling up to it. He can go a longish time without sleep, can Mr. Philip—and then when he's done all he's set himself to do he just goes out like a light, miss, and sleeps the clock round more likely than not."
Ronnie remembered something else. "Wasn't it this evening they were having the special Governors' meeting with the Ministry of Health people?"
Withers nodded gloomily. "It is, miss. I doubt if we'll see Mr. Philip before ten o'clock tonight."
"Oh dear," Ronnie sighed. Philip would be very tired at the end of a day like that. She would have to bear her frustration a bit longer.
"I'm lunching with Nurse Flourish," she told Withers. "So if you want to take some time off you can easily fit it in."
"Thank you, miss—but I don't think there's anything special I want to do unless I was to run over to Ealing and see my niece."
"Well, you know you can if you want to, and if you hear that Mr. Conway isn't going to be in for dinner don't cook anything for me. I eat too much—and I'm not getting enough exercise !"
She whiled away the morning writing some letters until it was time to meet Flossie. She looked forward to their meetings—Flossie was as good as a tonic any day.
"Hullo, Forbsie—why so down in the mouth?" was her greeting when they met in the restaurant of the big stores where they proposed to do some shopping after their meal.
Ronnie ignored the question, but realised that she had to be on her guard. Flossie was too noticing by half, as her next question bore out.
"How's His Nibs?" she asked with the lack of reverence that Ronnie's marriage had not altered.
"He was at the hospital all night," Ronnie told her. "A Mrs. Dawkins having a baby, I think."
"Oh yes," Flossie remembered. "That's the woman who's always having miscarriages. It wasn't the baby last night, though—there was a crisis because they thought she was going to thrombose."
"Is she all right now?" Ronnie determined to glean what information she could.
"Oh yes—after having half the hospital in a flat spin," Flossie exaggerated with a grin. "But look here, Forbsie, this is my half day, I'd have you know, so stop talking hospital, will you? D'you think I could wear red? I saw a cute little wool suit the other day—"
They spent a pleasant afternoon shopping in the various departments and did not emerge until nearly four o'clock. When they did so, talking busily as they pushed their way through the swing doors, Ronnie found that she had pushed herself slap into the backs of a man and woman, who both turned as she cannoned into them.
"Ronnie Forbes? I do declare !"
Ronnie would have known that voice anywhere and found that it was none other than Blanche Cartwright, whom she had seen only once since they had returned together on the Talisman Castle, and her escort was Charles Cunningham.
When she had got over surprise and greetings and introduced Flossie, Blanche said : "This dear boy was just taking me to get some tea. Can't you come too, Ronnie, and we can catch up on all the news—and your friend too, of course."
But Flossie excused herself—she had a hair appointment and had to be back at the hospital by six, so Ronnie found herself being carried off to an exclusive tea shop for a tete-a-tete with Blanche, while Charles tactfully vanished, saying he would call back for them later.
"Now, Ronnie my girl, I want to know why there was such a hole-and-corner business about your wedding ! Why weren't any of your friends invited? And who is this man Conway you've married?"
"He's a very brilliant surgeon." Ronnie's hackles rose, and before very long she had Mrs. Cartwright quite impressed.
After that they got to talking of old times in Lemumba and Toby in his prime in the days of the Protectorate, until Ronnie felt the tears pricking behind her eyes. Inevitably Ronnie had to tell Blanche about Phil's plans for the health scheme for Bazualiland, 'and from that stemmed the acknowledgment of the fact that he too had been aboard the Talisman Castle on their homeward journey.
"Oh, yes !" Blanche Cartwright exclaimed. "I remember him now quite well ! Your father took a great dislike to him, and so did you if I remember rightly. But then he was about the only man on board that ship who didn't try to make a pass at you !"
"Really !" Ronnie tried to sound outraged—but it was true. Phil hadn't been free in those days, she remembered.
Charles came back at that juncture. "Time to be going for your train, Blanche old dear," he said with a lack of ceremony that the older woman would have tolerated from no one else.
They saw Blanche off on her train, and it was still barely six o'clock. There was still another three hours to kill before Philip was likely to be back from the hospital.
As if he read her thoughts Charles gripped her elbow. "Doing anything, Ronnie?" he asked with a grin.
"Not with you," she told him firmly, trying to disengage her elbow.
"You are hard on a fellow !" Charles complained. "Are you still holding that wretched dance at the hospital over my head? And it wasn't even my fault— some of your jokers did the damage, putting some poison or other in a chap's drink jolly dangerous, if you ask me. And it wasn't my fault you took the wrong car either. No, I reckon you owe me an apology really—but we'll call it quits if you'll come to the Academy with me. There's a snappy little French film there—starts showing about now too. Come on—there's a taxi."
Before she knew where she was Ronnie was in the cab and bowling along at a good pace towards Charles's `snappy little French film.'
"I must be home before nine," she told him.
"Easy," he smiled. "I say, this is like the old days, Ronnie. Remember the time we drove about four hundred miles to see a film in Kalaga and then found it was an old one we'd both seen before?"
Ronnie smiled back at him. "Mm—and I seem to remember that we arrived home at about three in the morning—"
"In spite of you driving like the devil and raising such a dust that the whole neighbourhood thought it was elephants stampeding !"
The film was light and amusing, and as she ran up the steps at home Ronnie had to admit that it had been a pleasant day on the whole.
The house was quiet, but as soon as she closed the door behind her Withers' head appeared coming up the stairs from the kitchen.
oh, there you are, madam. I was getting quite anxious."
"I thought you might be out, so I didn't ring up to tell you I shouldn't be home—I had said not to prepare any dinner for me, hadn't I?"
"Yes, madam, but it was a good thing I didn't go out, as it happened, because Mr. Philip came home about six o'clock."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WITHERS' statement was a simple enough one, but Ronnie's heart suddenly went cold. "Why, was he ill or something?" she cried. Phil never opted out of an engagement, even the dullest one—and the Ministry of Health meeting had been important.
"No, madam," Withers shook his head as though he too were a bit mystified. "Tired, he was—but that's only to be expected. I had the idea, madam—though maybe I was wrong—that he was expecting to find you here. But then he rang Nurse Flourish at the hospital, and after that he went to bed."
Ronnie's mouth was dry and her knees were a bit shaky—quite ridiculously so, because there was nothing to hide or to be ashamed of. All the same, she wondered just what Flossie had told him.
"Shall I get you something, madam?" Withers asked. "A hot drink and a sandwich, perhaps?"
"Yes, please," she said—to get rid of him, and not because she really wanted anything. "Some coffee, please —but nothing to eat."
She drank her coffee standing before a blazing log fire but shivering a little and trying to persuade herself that Phil had really come home
just because he was tired —he would be, of course. Suddenly she felt very tired too.
When she had finished the coffee she went upstairs. There was no light under Phil's door and no sound either as she stood listening. She remembered what
Withers had said that morning just goes out like a light.' Phil would not thank her for disturbing him— certainly he wouldn't want to listen to a lot of jumbled explanations.
With a chill in her heart as well as in her limbs Ronnie trailed up the next flight of stairs to the flat and switched on all the lights and heat she could get, but even when she curled up under the electric blanket she still felt cold and miserable—so miserable that soon she found that she was crying without quite knowing what for. She thought perhaps it was because of the memories which Blanche Cartwright had revived, but that did not account for the fact that several times during the night she woke to find herself saying : "I'm sorry—I'm so sorry," though she could not remember the dream that made her say it.
She did not wait for Withers to bring her tea in the morning, but even so Phil was downstairs before she went for her bath, and by the time she got down he had already started breakfast.
He was also apparently engrossed in his correspondence, for he merely waved a hand to acknowledge her entrance.
"Are you feeling better this morning?" she asked, pouring coffee.
"Better?" he echoed blankly, looking up from his reading.
The direct regard of those penetrating eyes of his still had power to embarrass her. "I thought you couldn't be feeling very well as you cut that meeting last night."
"Oh, that," he waved it airily away. "I just thought it was time I came home."
"I'm sorry I was out," she said, eyeing him covertly. "I thought you wouldn't be in till past nine, so I was sort of killing time till then." She wished to goodness she didn't sound as though she were making lame excuses.
"I hope you managed to kill it pleasantly?" he said politely, with his eyes and at least half his mind still on his letters. -
Nurse Ronnie's Vocation Page 16