A Promise Is for Keeping

by Felicity Hayle

  Poor little Wendy. Under the thin veneer of hardboiled sophistication she was-at heart just a normal little girl in need of affection.

  Fay resented Mark's assumption, however, that she should be the one to supply the affection. She would have preferred to sever all connection with any member of his family He must know that too, she thought. Or—the thought crossed her mind swiftly and she did not dwell on it—was he perhaps trying to make up to her for something she would never have for herself—something he had denied her?

  At any rate, whatever the state of affairs between herself and Mark, Wendy must not suffer, and Fay sat down in her first free time and wrote the little girl a long letter with just a little, but not too much, "blud" in it.

  When Mark came back after his brief leave he did not make any reference to the liberty he had taken in telling the children they might write to her. In fact since Toni's death they had had no personal conversation at all. Fay was glad he had realised that this was the way she wanted things, the only way they could continue working together. But even on those terms she was rather less restless and unhappy when he was about the hospital than when he was away from it.

  He was back, however, for a mere ten days or so before he was off again to complete his spell of leave. It was about

  this time that Matron sent for Fay. She wondered what was in the wind as she made her way along the corridors to Matron's office. She no longer felt the apprehension which younger nurses felt on receiving such a summons, but she did wonder if she was being transferred from theatres to some other appointment and was not sure whether to be glad or sorry at the prospect.

  "Good morning, Sister," Matron greeted her with a smile. "Sit down—though I'm not going to keep you long."

  "Thank you, Matron," Fay murmured, still wondering what was coming.

  "I have just realised, Sister, that you have been with us nearly eight months now and you have not had any leave. It is high time you took some—"

  "Oh, that's all right, Matron, I'm quite happy to go on working—"

  "Nonsense!" Matron cut in brusquely. "Of course you must have the leave which is due to you—and as a matter of fact you look as if you need it. I should have noticed before. I don't want any more of my Sisters going sick on me—they're too precious. Now I make it you are due for three weeks' leave—and I suggest you take it as from Monday while things are still comparatively slack in theatres."

  Fay knew better than to argue, though it was ridiculously short notice and she hadn't any idea about what to do with herself.

  Perhaps Matron read that thought as quickly as it went through Fay's mind. "Have you any arrangements?" she asked Fay. "Anyone with whom you could spend your leave? Mind you, I want you to get right away and not just waste it hanging about here."

  "No, I haven't any plans," Fay confessed. "I've very few friends over here, but I'll think of something, and I'm quite fond of my own company!" She smiled to give assurance to the words, not wanting Matron to suggest that she should team up with one or other of the staff who happened to be going on leave at the same time.

  Such however was not Matron's intention, and as she went on fluently Fay became convinced that she had had it all

  worked out beforehand. "Then now would seem to be the time to accept that invitation which your patient in Stanhope was always begging you to take up." She paused for a second while Fay blinked and tried to get her bearings. "Mr. Oliver and that villa of his on the Riviera."

  That eventually was what Fay did, unlikely as it had appeared at first sight.

  Mr. Oliver was still in the side ward of Stanhope, awaiting the second part of his colostomy. It was Fay's private opinion that they never would get him quite fit enough for that further operation, but of course she did not voice this opinion to anyone. Certainly when he heard that there was a possibility of her going to his beloved villa Mr. Oliver's health seemed to improve beyond all imagining.

  He soon had the telephone wires buzzing and in no time at all the whole thing was arranged, including her flight ticket to Nice.

  "You know, you're piling up such a debt of gratitude that I can never hope to repay you," Fay told the old man.

  "The boot's on the other foot," he said. "I can never tell you how happy it's made me to think of you going to Lamontella. You will tell me how it's looking, won't you? There should be pears and perhaps some late peaches, and Pietro has flowers at every season. I want to hear about the waterfall he was making last time I was there—I've never seen it since it was finished. You will write and tell me, won't you, and take some pictures, perhaps?"

  "I've got my camera loaded up with colour film," she told him.

  "I wish you'd let them open up the villa for you. Not that you won't be very comfortable in Pietro's bungalow, and not so lonely, as you're going alone. Rose Pietro is English, you know—a Lancashire lassie we took out one year as a maid, when my wife was alive. When it was time to come home Rose told us she was staying on. And it's been a godsend having her there. She'll take good care of you, my dear. I wish young Geoff could have gone with you, though—I don't like to think of you going off on your own—"

  "Mr. Oliver !" Fay cried, pretending to be shocked. "You naughty old man ? That wouldn't be at all proper!"

  The question of her going alone on holiday seemed to bother her colleagues a lot too. Half of them were openly sceptical that she really was going alone and insisted that she was holding out on them, and the other half seemed to think that there must be something odd about her if she could contemplate going by herself.

  Actually as the day for departure dawned Fay was getting more and more excited at the prospect of new surroundings and solitude—and more and more aware of how much she needed the latter.

  She had started and torn up at least a dozen letters to Geoff and she knew she must not delay much longer. She promised herself that the first thing she would do when she got to Lamontella would be to write to Geoff. She had already missed his boat at the last port of call, so he would not know of her holiday. She would tell him about that—and the other thing she had to tell him—at one and the same time.

  Her flight to Nice left Heathrow at noon, and even allowing for the time by car from there to the villa she would be there before nightfall. She had called a taxi just after nine, though, as instructed by the airline, as there were formalities to be gone through when she reached the airport. Fortunately there had been no passport difficulties as she already had a British one which was comprehensive. Nevertheless, getting herself packed up and leaving everything in apple pie order in the theatre had been something of a burden, and she felt a distinct sense of relief as she watched the hospital porter pile her bags into the waiting cab and offer his good wishes at the same time.

  "Running away, Sister?" A voice behind her startled her so much that in turning to confront the speaker she nearly fell off the bottom step on which she had been standing.

  For an instant Mark put his hand under her elbow to steady her, but he did not keep it there.

  No doubt she looked as frosty as she felt. Mark was supposed to be on leave. Why did he have to appear at this

  moment? And why did the labels on her luggage have to be so prominent?

  "Of course not," she replied coldly. "Just taking some leave which is due to me."

  "Good," he replied, undaunted. He was full of sunshine that morning. "Have a good time. Not going all alone, are you?"

  She deliberately ignored that question and turned to the porter. "Thanks a lot, Potter," she said, pressing a coin into his hand. But it was Mark who closed the cab door and had the final word.

  "I hope you enjoy yourself," he smiled. "You look as though you could do with a dose of sunshine," which told her that he had both read the labels and that her frostiness had not been lost on him.

  The cab had to circle the forecourt before it could get out on to the drive again, and as it did so Fay saw Mark walk across to his own car and start it up. His business at the hospital must ha
ve been very brief.

  "Bother him !" she thought. "Why did he have to turn up just now and spoil everything?" For the sight of him had indeed shattered the sense of getting away from everything which had begun to steal over her. It was a false illusion, she realised now, for whether she liked it or not Mark had profoundly influenced her life. She would not be able to get away from him—ever.

  Lamontella was all and more than Mr. Oliver had promised. It was not a holiday resort—the tiny bay was too strewn with jagged rocks to make it attractive for tourists, and there was only one passable road through the place—the coast road—and that did not really touch the village

  It looked as though at some time in the far forgotten past the land on that section of the coast had cascaded into the sea, and only little by little had the local inhabitants managed to subdue nature to their needs. There was no main village street, for the place was built in a succession of terraces with the newer villas on the higher terraces while the old cottages, each with its little plot of land, nestled on the lower ones. There were vineyards, small ones worked by families who made their own wines and sold them locally;

  fruit, vegetables and flowers were there in profusion, and goats and hens, but practically no cows, since grazing land was scarce.

  Mr. Oliver's villa—the Villa Inglesa as it was known locally—was on one of the higher terraces commanding a magnificent view over the rooftops and the vineyards to the sea. The Mediterranean was doing its best just then to live up to its reputation and was unbelievably blue by day and silver under the light of the moon.

  The terrace was lined with peach trees—as plane trees might border an English road, and Fay understood Mr. Oliver's raptures about Lamontella in the spring when the fruit trees would be a frothy mass of pink blossom. But even now at the end of the summer Lamontella provided all that Fay needed. Rest and quiet—she had not realised just how much she was in need of those things, nor how tired she had been. Tired not so much with physical work, though she had had plenty of that, but tired as a result of the emotional strain under which she had been living.

  Now that she was no longer under the necessity of spending days filled with activity, Fay found herself becoming positively indolent, and for the first few days she was content to do little more than sit on the spacious loggia of the Pietros' bungalow and watch the changing effects of sun and sea and sky.

  The bungalow, built in the gardens of the villa, was modern and comfortable, and as clean as a new pin. The wide loggias which surrounded it on all sides made it possible to sit out of doors at all times of the day, choosing the shade or the sun, whichever she preferred. The Pietros were kindness itself, delighted it seemed to have a visit from anyone who knew their dear "Patrone", and on Rose's part the added pleasure of being able to converse in her native tongue. In spite of her lack of Italian Fay had found no language difficulty—her own fairly fluent French and the fact that most of the villagers had at least a smattering of American English made the ordinary necessary intercourse of the everyday quite easy.

  Life was so pleasant away from St. Edith's and a new question began to creep into Fay's mind. Why should she

  ever return there? Would it not be better to cut right adrift from the hospital and the bitter-sweet torment it must hold for her all the time Mark was there? She could return at any time to the Commemoration Hospital, she knew without a shadow of doubt. But she felt a kind of moral obligation to Matron and St. Edith's. They had been good to her there, and although she had given no written undertaking she did feel some sense of obligation to give them a longer service.

  "I won't think about it now," she told herself. "I won't make up my mind yet. I must concentrate on that letter to Geoff."

  But somehow the idle days passed and the letter did not get written. It was with a shock that she looked at the calendar one day and discovered that the Wentworths would already have landed at Marseilles and have started their overland journey back to Dover.

  It became a matter of urgency then to get the letter written, and Fay sat late on the loggia trying desperately to write what had to be written without hurting Geoff too much. It was not easy, and long after Rose had switched on the lantern light over her head Fay sat with a blank sheet of paper before her. She forced herself to take up the pen and write something—anything. Perhaps it would be easier if she once made a start.

  "Dear Geoff," she wrote, "I expect you will be surprised to see from the address where I am. Matron insisted that I should take some leave which was due to me and as I had no time to make any other plans I decided to accept dear old Mr. Oliver's invitation to come to his villa—"

  It was easier to start with the commonplace, the trivial, but she must not delay too long—it would only hurt Geoff more.

  "...I am not staying in the villa itself but in the gardener's bungalow which is in the grounds. I can't tell you how beautiful it all is here—"

  For a while that beauty of the night, the warm air scented with the mingled perfume of a hundred different flowers acted like a narcotic, causing her fingers to fall idle and her

  heart to swell with sadness so that even breathing seemed an effort.

  Far below on the coast road she could hear the sound of an occasional car, and nearer the sound of a man's footsteps. Soon there would be more footsteps—the villagers returning from the inn. The realisation of the passing of time drove her back to her letter.

  "All this beauty," she wrote, "somehow makes what I have to tell you all the harder—"

  She was concentrating hard now, intent on her task, so that she had not realised that the footsteps had come right up to the loggia until a man's voice spoke almost at her elbow.

  "Hullo, Fay darling—"

  "Geoff !" she cried in utter amazement, scattering her papers as she jumped to her feet.

  He moved quickly, without sticks now, up on to the loggia, and had her in his arms kissing her as once she and Mark had kissed under the mistletoe at Beechcroft, only now the passion was all on one side.

  She broke away, knowing that she should not have let him kiss her like that, but afraid to end it too abruptly, because even now she had a great tenderness for him.

  "How on earth did you—"

  He anticipated the question and seemed eager to talk. "Mr. Oliver wired the ship and told me that you were here. He didn't actually tell me to come and find you, but I know he thought and hoped that I would. Oh, Fay, it's good to see you again! You don't know how long these last weeks have been. And even now I'm horribly pushed for time. The parents have made so many plans and I couldn't bear to upset them. But I managed to get away for tonight and half of tomorrow. Just long enough to come and bring you the final chapters. I had to come," he finished.

  "Tell me about your trip," she said breathlessly.

  But he brushed that suggestion aside. "I've told you plenty about that in my letters. I want to hear about you—and I want most of all to read you the last chapters. Is it too late? Are you tired? Can I read to you now?"

  "It is late," Fay tried to find some excuse. "Won't it do tomorrow?"

  "I would much rather tonight," he pleaded. "It's terribly hot—too hot for sleep, and they say there's going to be a storm. Can't I, please?"

  He was pleading like a small boy, and she could not deny him.

  He read well—and he had written well. His last chapters far excelled the beginning of his book, even. His understanding, almost uncanny at times, seemed to have grown as he lived with his characters. His treatment of the plight of his heroine, who cannot have the man she loves and who does not love her, but finds eventual fulfilment and happiness with another, lifted the story out of the hackneyed and into the realms of real life. The girl's pain was real pain—how real to Fay !—and the solution part of the common-sense acceptance of everyday life. It was not exaggerated, not idealised. It was real—all too real.

  When he had finished reading Geoff looked up—slowly and almost reluctantly.

  Fay knew what he wanted h
er to say, but she could not speak. The air seemed to have become unbearably hot, almost unbreatheable, and there was a rumble which was distant thunder above the heavy beating of her own heart.

  "You're crying, Fay !"

  She put a hand up to her cheek and found what he said was true.

  "Why?" he asked gently.

  She jumped up, not heeding her wet cheeks, trying to break free from some imprisonment which held her in a gigantic pressure. "It's all wrong, Geoff—it can't end like that ! I'm sorry—I'm sorry, but it can't !"

  Now she was sobbing, great choking sobs that she could not hold back. When at last she checked them the hot, heavy air on the loggia hung silent.

  She turned to Geoff and saw that he had picked up the sheet of notepaper which she had scattered when he first came.

  "What were you going to tell me, Fay?" he asked in a dull, flat voice.

  "This—" she said, her voice breaking. "This—that it can't be as you wish—that there isn't any happy ending for you and me."

  "But you said—you said I could hope—"

  "I know. I know, Geoff, and I was terribly wrong to let you think that. But I hoped it might come true—I hoped I could make you happy—but I can't," she finished in a whisper, and then out of her great pity she forced herself to go on. "I wouldn't have done this to you, Geoff—I didn't want to hurt you—and I know how much it hurts! I daren't ask you to forgive me now. But please believe me, Geoff, that it would have hurt you far more in the end if I hadn't told you now."

  "But why?" he asked, and his voice was tired and bleak. "Why? He's married."

  "I know," she agreed dully. "I know I can never have any part in his life—just as I know I shall belong to him for always—no, Geoff, not that," she said quickly as she saw the anger flash in his eyes, "but I made a promise once—a promise I can't keep but which won't let me ever belong to any other man. That promise did something to me ... how can I make you understand? Only a woman could feel what I felt for him—in my heart, in my mind—and in my body—I belong to him."