by Susan Barrie
The shrewd eyes were partly screened by the thick, dark eyelashes.
“I don’t know. It could be a good thing....”
“But, on the other hand, it would all depend upon the type of stepmother?” Dr. Wern suggested. “A stepmother for whom she could feel affection would almost certainly be the best thing that could happen for that lonely child. But one for whom she could not feel affection—even supposing she was quite well again—might prove a disaster in her life. You are inclined to agree with me there, I believe?”
Lucy barely nodded her head, for it was a subject on which she felt very strongly, and in any case, she was a little uneasy under his watchful eyes and she wished she knew precisely what was passing in his mind. He smiled at her suddenly.
“But for the time being the best we can do for Miranda is to get her to walk again, and when she can walk and take her place among her fellows, as she once did, then, no doubt, other things of perhaps lesser importance will work out right for her as well.”
He stood up and helped her on with her warm tweed traveling coat—a purchase she had made before leaving England—and then they left the restaurant and went out to his car. Just after he deposited her on the steps of the Wern Clinic he gave her one of his quick, bright smiles, told her that he hoped to see her the following day, and then let in his clutch and proceeded back down the driveway.
That night his aunt invited Lucy to dine with her in her own apartment at the clinic, and afterward the girl went early to bed as she had done the night before, for there seemed little point in doing anything else once Miranda was settled for the night.
But before she undressed and took her bath she wrote a brief note to Sir John—she had promised to write him daily while Miranda was in the clinic—and then sat reading it through and trying to picture his face when he received it. He would probably cast it aside quite quickly once he had absorbed its contents, she thought. Or would he—would he, perhaps, spare a few minutes to try to picture her in her strange new surroundings—her and his only real kith and kin, Miranda—and wonder how they were really feeling cut off from everything that was familiar?
Before she climbed into her supremely comfortable bed, with its deliciously fat eiderdown to keep her warm, she remembered how he had held her hands closely in Kathleen’s flat, and how he had said to her, “If you want me I will come at once!”
Would he have said that if he had had the least idea that her need of him was ever present, and that it was difficult to control? It was like something that consumed her, and if it consumed her altogether she could do nothing about it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next few days passed so quickly that Lucy herself was surprised, for it seemed to her that she did nothing to justify her existence save spend a great deal of time sitting with Miranda, either reading to her or listening to her talking enthusiastically about the kindness and attentiveness of her new nurses.
Miranda responded so quickly to kindness, and to anyone who took a genuine interest in her, that it was amazing to see how she almost glowed under these new conditions, and how little her journey from England had affected her. If anything, her spirits were higher than they had been for months.
Lucy was firmly prevented from taking any active part in the life around her, although to have been permitted to do so would have been much more to her taste than being forced to enact the role of an onlooker. And she had lunch once more with Rupprecht Wern. He was a very busy man, who had arrived at the pinnacle of his profession as a result of sheer skill and devotion to the task he had set himself, but he managed to convey to her nevertheless the impression that if he had had the time to spare it would have given him a certain amount of personal pleasure to introduce her to all the sights of Vienna.
He was musical, she gathered, and apparently Vienna still had more than any other capital in Europe to offer in the way of musical entertainment to those who were enthralled by it, as Lucy herself was. The beautiful State Opera House was burned out in 1945, but its spirit and tradition are carried on in the Volksoper and the Theater-an-der-Wein, and numerous smaller theaters and concert halls. Then, too, there were the museums and the public galleries devoted to various cultural collections, and the palaces and churches, all so very worthy of a visit.
“Perhaps someday I will have time to show them to you,” Dr. Wern said to Lucy when they had lunch together that second time. She felt a little embarrassed sometimes by the way in which he looked at her, and that he appeared to find some satisfaction in doing so. His eyes had a warm, nearly golden light in them, and sometimes their expression was almost caressing. “When Miranda is better....” She noticed that on the occasions when he referred directly to Miranda he did not say “if Miranda gets better,” and she told herself that that might be a hopeful sign. “When Miranda is recovered sufficiently, and the spring is here, it might be a good plan for her to convalesce at a little place I know of up in the mountains. And then you will see something of the grandeur of this country.”
Lucy said nothing. She was afraid to look so far ahead, and she also wondered sometimes—if Miranda made that wonderful recovery they all hoped for—how long the two of them would have to remain away from Ketterings and their own country. And when she thought of Ketterings she always automatically thought of Sir John.
It was actually closer to a fortnight than a week before Dr. Wern decided to perform his operation on Miranda. He and Miranda had become great friends by that time. It was a part of his policy to establish a link with a patient of her years that overcame any sensations of awe and nervousness she might otherwise have felt when he paid her his professional visits, and the nurse in Lucy marveled at and admired the humanity he brought to his chosen profession, and the quality of the psychology behind it.
The night before the day selected for Miranda’s operation Lucy had dinner with the matron in her pleasingly furnished little sitting room, and afterward, while Fraulein Wern attended to some correspondence, she sat beside the stove and looked at a pile of magazines. The stove was surrounded by gleaming tiles the color of blue delft china; the carpet was blue, and on an occasional table there was a large blue bowl filled with some exotic hothouse flowers that gave off a delicate aroma. Fraulein Wern, still clad in her immaculate uniform with her severe starched cap on her pale hair, sat at her writing desk. Outside, snow was falling in earnest tonight, and a tremendous hush lay over the garden that surrounded the clinic. If there were any footfalls they were completely muffled by the snow, and inside the sitting room the hush was just as noticeable. Lucy, a little drowsy from the heat of the stove, was yet mentally alert—how could she be otherwise with Miranda on the eve of something so momentous—and although she turned the pages of the magazines, her mind was a queer jumble of disconnected thoughts, and her eyes saw nothing of what was in the printed columns.
Tomorrow at this time...! How would she be feeling tomorrow at this time? How would Miranda...?
She gave herself a little shake, and realized vaguely that she was staring at an advertisement. But another thought intruded at once—what was Sir John doing at this moment? Surely he was not spending the evening with Lynette Harling...? Although, if he really was going to marry her it was only natural that he would want her company. But with his only daughter about to undergo such a serious operation...?
He must have some feeling for Miranda—he had, she felt
sure. But most fathers in his position, with his wealth and nothing to prevent them, would be here at this moment in the clinic—not waiting to receive news when it was sent.
And what would his reaction be if the news was not good news?
The telephone purred softly in the little room and Fraulein Wern picked up the receiver. It was the house telephone. She spoke softly into the mouthpiece.
“Very well,” she said, “I will be down in one moment.”
She looked across at Lucy and smiled. Lucy, gazed back at her somewhat vaguely.
“I am wanted in my offic
e,” Fraulein Wern told her. “If there is anything you require, just ring the bell.”
“I will,” Lucy answered, but she knew there was nothing she was likely to require. She was treated rather like a hotel guest in this superbly run clinic, and her every need was anticipated. But it was a lonely position being a guest in such a place when she longed to be doing something active. And tonight she was not even allowed to sit with Miranda. Miranda had been given over into the charge of these new and extremely competent nurses, and Lucy felt like an outsider—save that she knew Miranda was happy to know that she was near.
Lucy, once the door closed behind the matron, and the silence of the room was intensified with the snow falling soundlessly outside, felt an urgent longing to be back among faces she knew—the familiar faces of Abbott, and Fiske, and even Purvis, if she could choose—and the knowledge that Sir John, even if he was not at Ketterings, was not really far away from her.
Restlessly she got up and started to pace around the room. Sir John should be here—she felt almost angry with him because he was not here. It was a disappointment now that he had not even insisted on accompanying them to the airport that last morning in London. At the time she had not really wanted him to do so, but now—now she felt aggrieved because he had let them go away alone, with no one to wave them farewell.
It hadn’t been fair to Miranda—Miranda who might never see him again!
Lucy put her hands over her eyes and felt as if she was being engulfed by waves of homesickness and panic and dread. And then the door opened silently and Fraulein Wern stood there.
“Nurse Nolan,” she said, in her soft, precise and quite beautiful English, “there is someone who would like to speak to you in my office at this moment. Will you go down?”
Lucy couldn’t even think who it could be when she pushed open the door of the office. It might be Dr. Wern, she decided—but then it was odd that his aunt hadn’t mentioned him by name. She had simply said, “Someone who would like to speak to you....”
The office, like the sitting room upstairs, had one or two bowls and vases of exotic flowers in it, and the perfume caught at Lucy’s nostrils. It was a perfume she remembered long afterward, and she also remembered the sight of the room—the quick impression she had of it as she entered, with its light walls and filing cabinets and unstained oak chairs and desk. Normally, it was a room in which a brisk, businesslike atmosphere prevailed, but tonight the atmosphere was charged with tension, for the man who was waiting there had his eyes firmly fixed on the door. And when the door opened and Lucy stood staring at him unbelievingly he moved forward at once.
“Lucy!” he exclaimed.
Afterward she recalled with a breathless sensation of excitement that it had not been “Nurse Nolan,” or even “Miss Nolan.” He had called her Lucy, and before she had recovered from her astonishment at seeing him there at all he had taken both her hands.
“I felt that I had to come “ he told her simply.
Lucy could not find her voice for several moments, and when she did it was a trifle shaky. She smiled at him, and it was rather a shaky smile, too.
“Oh, Sir John,” she told him, “I am so very glad you decided to be here!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After that here was no question of feeling cut off from familiar faces, and yearning to be back in England, as far as Lucy was concerned. With the arrival of Sir John most of her agitation and her uneasiness left her. Even her anxiety for Miranda was lessened because it was now being borne by Sir John as well as herself, and she no longer felt any awe of his society, or suspected him of being incapable of feeling deeply about any single thing.
He had felt strongly enough about Miranda to decide at the last moment to be near her when her operation was taking place, and the sight of him in Fraulein Wern’s office, with the scent of Fraulein Wern’s flowers doing things to her heartstrings, had been enough to lift Lucy out of a slough of despond and gloom into a sudden wonderful cloud of hope and reassurance.
Dr. Wern was not able to see Sir John that night, but he saw him early the following morning, and the two of them were closeted together for half an hour. Then Sir John, acting upon instructions from Dr. Wern, took Lucy right away out of the clinic to his own hotel. Lucy was at first loath to agree to this, but Sir John was firm, and her pleas to be allowed to remain near Miranda were dismissed. It was pointed out to her that she could do little good by remaining, and she had sense enough to acknowledge this. Miranda, when she had said good-night to her the night before, had been serene and unruffled. It would never do to allow her to detect any anxiety near to her in the shape of a taut and nervous Lucy, on whom she had come to rely. She was not even told that her father had arrived. It was thought best, in order to preserve her state of emotionless calm, that she should not be told.
But Sir John, it was quite clear to Lucy, was feeling a certain amount of strain. He had a very slightly haggard appearance that went to Lucy’s heart, and his gray eyes were far less inscrutable than she had known them. When they reached his hotel he ordered coffee for them in the lounge and they sat watching the people who came and went, while outside a feeble sun struggled through a break in the leaden clouds and made a brilliance of the snow. In the afternoon they sat in the sitting room of his suite. As the hours dragged by they found it more and more difficult to talk, and Sir John stood before the heavily draped window and looked out at the passersby and watched the light fade and night steal down over Vienna.
Lucy felt—and she was sure that Sir John agreed with her—that there was no subject of sufficient interest to either of them that they could possibly make any attempt to discuss just then, and it was only when he ordered tea and the curtains were drawn across the windows that he looked at her almost apologetically.
“Dr. Wern’s instructions were that I should provide you with some distraction that would take your mind off Miranda,” he said. “But I’m afraid,” he said with a faintly wistful smile, “that I haven’t really provided you with any distraction at all.”
“Oh, yes, you have,” she assured him. “If you hadn’t been here I would have had to spend today alone, waiting for news, and that might have been really unbearable.”
“Then you are glad I came?” he asked, watching her as she sat forcing herself to drink a second cup of tea. “It occurred to me that it was hardly fair to expect you to endure this sort of thing alone—knowing how you feel about Miranda—and that’s partly why I made up my mind at almost the last moment to fly over and join you.”
Lucy, recalling how she had clung to his hands the night before when he arrived so unexpectedly, and how much her eyes when she first looked at him must have given her away, felt a sudden hot glow rise up in her cheeks and dissipate their pallor, under his thoughtful gaze.
“I was very glad to see you last night,” was all she could tell him, simply. “And I am doubly glad to have you with me today.”
“What would you have done if I hadn’t come, I wonder?” he asked, rather musingly, lighting a cigarette and then absentmindedly grinding it out in an ashtray. “Would you have sat alone at the clinic?”
“I expect so,” she answered.
“And the hours would have seemed interminable.”
“They would,” she agreed.
As if by common consent, the eyes of both went to the ornamental clock on the mantelpiece, and the same thought flashed through both their minds at precisely the same instant. By this time everything must be over, but the telephone they had dreaded to hear earlier in the day had not so far rung. Sir John turned and stared at it, and then started to pace up and down the room.
“If ... if all goes well with Miranda,” he remarked suddenly, quietly, “there will be the question of her convalescence to face up to. It will be a prolonged period of convalescence. Will you be able to continue to devote your time to her?”
“I wouldn’t wish to devote my time to anyone else,” Lucy answered, a trifle unevenly, for since Sir John had turned to
stare at the telephone she had begun to feel a chill in the depths of her innermost being, and her hands were clasping and unclasping themselves nervously.
Sir John surveyed her intently.
“You really are very fond of Miranda, aren’t you?” he asked.
Lucy lifted her violet blue eyes and met his gaze, and he saw that they were fear-haunted eyes.
“I don’t know why it is,” she told him truthfully, “but if Miranda was my own child I couldn’t feel any more affection for her. She....” She made a little gesture with her hands, as if words suddenly failed her. “I suppose it’s because she is ... well, Miranda!” And inwardly she added to herself, “And your daughter...!”
Sir John’s eyes were very grave as he continued to hold her gaze.
“In that case I feel that both Miranda and I owe you a debt. You have done so much for her these past few months, and without you her life would not have been as pleasant as it has been. In fact—” he paused “—if what you once said to me was true, I might have a great deal to reproach myself with if—”
“Don’t!” Lucy interrupted him sharply. “Please don’t use that word ‘if.’”
He went across to her and drew her out of her chair, holding her by her slim shoulders in front of him.
“As a matter of fact,” he said to her in almost soothing tones, “I have a feeling—an extraordinary feeling, amounting almost to certainty—that we have no need to make use of the word ‘if’...”
The telephone shrilled sharply in its corner of the room and Lucy started so violently that for an instant his hold on her tightened, and then he let her go slowly. He crossed to the instrument and picked up the receiver, and Lucy took a few panic-stricken steps in the direction of the window, as if she