Healing in the Hills

by Ruth Clemence

  ‘Earlier than we first thought. In about six or seven weeks,’ Mrs. Carroll replied, ‘although I’m not even certain about that either,’ and she laughed but without real mirth in her tones as she put the last plate on the draining board and turned to face Ismay. ‘Honestly, Ismay, it’s a pretty kettle of fish. I’m not exaggerating. When this girl turned up last week I just couldn’t believe it for a while. I couldn’t believe that Peter would ever have behaved like that.’

  Ismay slowly dried the dish and laid it with the others on the kitchen table. ‘Can we ever know what goes on in the mind of another person, Mother?’ she asked slowly, and hung up the drying up cloth. ‘He wasn’t himself, you know, when he came back from the States. If I’d had any sense at all I’d have realized this and never agreed to go on with the wedding. What would we have done if Jo-Anne had turned up after Peter and I were married?’

  ‘It doesn’t bear thinking of.’ Mrs. Carroll put an affectionate arm round Ismay’s shoulder and dropped a light kiss on the cheek nearest to her. ‘If it’s any consolation to you, my dear, you’ve had a lucky escape.’

  ‘Oh, Mother!’ Ismay’s voice was shaky. ‘I never needed consolation. That was my whole trouble. Some time before Peter was killed I’d discovered I wasn’t “in love” any more and that all I felt was the warm affection one had for any lifelong friend. I was eaten up with guilt and remorse.’

  ‘And you intended to carry on with the wedding knowing your feelings had changed?’

  ‘What could I do?’ Ismay’s voice held a note of pleading, for her mother had sounded genuinely shocked. ‘You, Dad, the McNeils were all so set on it. I couldn’t pluck up the courage to say I wanted to back out. I couldn’t let you face the sort of gossip it would have caused either, Looking back, it all seems senseless to me now, but at the time it appeared the only thing to do—go through with it; keep my word to Peter.’

  ‘My poor child!’ Mrs. Carroll’s arms completely enfolded Ismay. ‘And to think I never noticed, never guessed. How could I have been so blind?’

  ‘You had other things to think about. Remember all those lists?’ Ismay laughed shakily.

  Mrs. Carroll’s arms fell, she too smiled. The lists she made to go shopping at Christmas and before the annual holiday were a family joke. For Ismay’s wedding there had been dozens of them. She turned away and began to stack the crockery into the kitchen cabinet.

  ‘Well, at the time I considered Peter’s death a tragedy. Now I’m wondering if perhaps it wasn’t a blessing in disguise. Of course you’d never get his mother to agree, but then she can’t look at it from your viewpoint—or mine, come to that. I’d never have forgiven Peter if he’d married you and not told you about his association with this girl and the condition she was in.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t know,’ Ismay said as she reached the kitchen door.

  ‘Well, he’d been living with her,’ Mrs. Carroll’s voice was disapproving, ‘and that’s sufficient for me,’ and glancing at her mother’s face, Ismay knew that it was no good continuing the argument. No matter what she said, she would never be able to convince her mother there might possibly have been extenuating circumstances.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The days went by and there was no word from Hepthorpethwaite apart from a short letter from Mrs. Kynoch saying how much they missed her, that Alec, Felicity and the girls had arrived safely in Antibes and that Lewis had returned accompanied by Dr. Naylor. Ismay looked at the postmark. Lewis must have read her letter days ago and yet he had not phoned or written. Busy though she was, attending Jo-Anne, helping her mother and nursing Mrs. McNeil who was back in her own home, the thought persistently nagged that Lewis had by now had plenty of time to get in touch with her if he wanted.

  As the days went by her hopes of hearing from him gradually died. Somehow, during the time he had been away from home he must have changed his mind, either that or possibly the company of Dr. Naylor had changed it for him. Or perhaps she had completely misunderstood his intentions when he said that on his return they must have a serious talk.

  Ismay, head over heels in love, had thought Lewis to be the same, but perhaps that wasn’t what he had in mind at all. He had once suggested she go out to Africa as part of his team. Perhaps he had merely wanted to offer her a job, to suggest that she take a specialized course and study eye treatments. On learning she had gone home to Cambridge he had no doubt decided that the whole idea was a nonstarter. He had probably had it in mind to recommend that she enrolled at one of the hospitals up north, possibly the County Hospital where he operated so she could train under his eye.

  Ismay felt so mixed up that she could hardly assemble her thoughts logically, and having to keep Jo-Anne cheerful did not help. The American girl was doing her best to adjust to her strange environment, but the sight of her was, to Ismay, one more reminder of all she had suffered during these past weeks.

  But fate is strange, she mused as she dusted the living-room for her mother one morning. If I hadn’t let Peter try and rush me into marriage, I should never have given in my notice at St. Ninian’s in May and been available when Miss Fellows was on the look-out for someone to look after Anne in Hepthorpethwaite; and if Matron hadn’t known of my situation and recommended me for the job, I’d never have met Lewis in the first place.

  And thereby saved yourself a lot of heartache, an inner voice reminded her. But heartache or no, Ismay thought as she carefully dusted one of her mother’s Doulton china figures, she had little regret. At least, after years of marking time with Peter, she had experienced real love, felt the vital spark which she had missed in her association with him. Three times another man’s lips had made her feel as if she was riding on Cloud Seven, and if Lewis never kissed her again at least she had that to remember.

  In a way Ismay had been right when she had suggested to her mother that perhaps the thought of the coming baby might bring a change in Mrs. McNeil’s mental attitude. At first when she returned from the nursing home she would not listen to any word about Jo-Anne’s existence, but she had been confined to the house and found the days dragged. Quickly discovering that she liked to be read to, and recalling that years ago Peter as a small boy had often read to his mother when she had sat doing her tapestry work, Ismay now recommenced this practice. When she had a spare hour in the afternoon she would go in and read a couple of chapters of Mrs. McNeil’s current novel while she sat resting on her bed, either propped up gazing through the window as if hardly aware of Ismay’s voice, or idly doing a bit of her wool embroidery.

  One day Ismay had gone next door immediately after lunch to tell Mrs. McNeil that unfortunately she would be unable to come in that afternoon for her usual visit. After a second she suggested as if on impulse, ‘But Jo-Anne could come in and read to you instead if you like.’

  There was a moment’s complete silence when Ismay held her breath and wondered how her words were going to be accepted. Then Mrs. McNeil looked across the room with a glint of emotion for a second in her lack-lustre eyes, before she shrugged and said, ‘All right. If the girl cares to come, let her.’

  There was little to give encouragement in the languid agreement, but at least it was a start, Ismay thought as she went back to her own home. But she still had the problem of getting Jo-Anne to consent. The girl had been bewildered enough when she discovered the animosity which Mrs. McNeil felt towards her; now to be-told she was expected to go in and entertain her was going to take a good deal of tact.

  After a word with her mother, Ismay and Mrs. Carroll tackled the problem together and between them managed to get Jo-Anne to agree to Ismay’s plan. Shortly after two o’clock Ismay took her round to the house next door and upstairs to Mrs. McNeil’s bedroom. If Jo-Anne was not received with open arms, at least there were no open signs of hostility. Having given Jo-Anne the novel she had been reading, Ismay made her escape, praying as she ran down the staircase again that nothing would happen to spoil the apparent harmony between the two women who had loved Peter best.


  Rather to her surprise, when she went in to give Mr. McNeil his breakfast the following day and take a tray to Mrs. McNeil she was greeted with a faint smile and a ‘Good morning, Ismay dear.’ It was the first sign of real encouragement that she had had. Usually Mrs. McNeil lay there saying nothing and acquiescing meekly to Ismay’s ministrations, but this morning, if not her old cheerful self, at least she seemed to be making an effort.

  ‘There’s no real need for you to come in this afternoon if you have jobs to do for your mother. I don’t mind if that girl comes again and reads to me,’ Mrs. McNeil said as Ismay tidied the room. ‘She’s got quite a pleasant voice. For an American, that is,’ she said as a parting shot.

  Ismay had difficulty in hiding a smile as she turned and went out of the room; trust Mrs. McNeil to give a left-handed compliment! It was going to take a long time to get her to the point where she would admit that for all the shock caused by Jo-Anne she was really a likeable girl, a misguided girl perhaps, but not a wicked one.

  If things were beginning to look a little brighter for Jo-Anne Hadley’s future there was certainly no soothing balm being poured on Ismay’s sore heart. It was now over a fortnight since Lewis had returned from Africa and once or twice she had been tempted to ring up Hepthorpethwaite on some pretext in the hope that perhaps he would answer the telephone. Each time Ismay had determinedly resisted the impulse and had confined herself simply to answering Mrs. Kynoch’s letter, carefully making no mention of Lewis himself.

  One afternoon she left the house early to go down to the Central Library in Cambridge and change not only her mother’s library books, but the two which Mrs. McNeil had borrowed. It was a beautiful afternoon and very hot in the town centre. As soon as she had made her choice Ismay walked through to King’s Parade and her steps took her without conscious thought in the direction of King’s College Chapel.

  It was too early for Evensong, and when she went in to the quiet of the famous chapel peace began to steal through her. There had been few sightseers in the ante-chapel, but here, near the choir stalls, one or two people were walking quietly round, talking in hushed voices to one another as they gazed with admiration at the wonderful stained-glass windows, the Rubens behind the altar and the magnificent fan vaulting of the roof.

  Ismay walked slowly forward and took a seat in one of the pews beside the choir stalls. It was so restful here, a place to come when the perplexities of the outside world became too confusing. She thought of the many winter afternoons when she had come here with Robin and her mother and father to attend Evensong. In her teenage years there had been no electricity in the chapel, only the light from the many candles flickering on the faces of the famous choirboys, and the Carrolls had sat entranced to listen to their singing. The whole place reeked of history as well as peace, and Ismay wondered to herself how many happy times, how many sorrows these walls had witnessed. If only the ancient stones could speak. As she saw a party of foreign visitors being ushered in by a guide Ismay got quietly to her feet and slipped through the archway of the rood screen into the ante-chapel and so out into the bright sunshine. She hesitated for a moment outside the south door, and then turning right, walked down the long gravel path as far as the river.

  Here, under the high wall which divided King’s College from Clare College, was a row of old iron forms, and as she reached them a family got up from the one nearest the river and began to walk away. Ismay slipped into the end seat and sat watching the river, her eyes moving from the people stretched on the bank to the punts poling slowly towards King’s Bridge. It was warm and sunny and the high wall made the corner into a sun-trap.

  She leaned back on the unyielding iron bench and closed her eyes, listening to the voices of the passing visitors and the scrunch of the gravel under their feet. She half smiled to herself as she remembered a Swiss acquaintance of her father’s being amazed at the way in which the British public never walked on the enormous square of beautifully-mown lawn which lay before her. ‘No one would take any notice on the Continent,’ he had said as her father had shown him the ‘Keep off the grass’ notices. ‘In my country everyone would walk over the grass.’ Her father she remembered had laughed and made some passing remark about the ‘law-abiding British’.

  There seemed to be a lot of people passing and Ismay opened her eyes and glanced about. As she turned her head to look in the direction of the chapel, she saw a man standing at the corner of the building. For a second he reminded her of Lewis, and she turned quickly away and closed her eyes, leaning back with a shudder. Surely she was not going to start seeing things, imagining every tall, well-set-up man was Lewis. If so, her life was going to be unbelievably complicated, for that would be behaving like one of the stupidest heroines of fiction.

  Ismay kept her eyes firmly closed and was giving herself a lecture on self-control when the bench on which she was sitting rocked heavily as somebody sat down. She did not bother to open her eyes. People were constantly coming and going; this was a favourite spot for almost every visitor to Cambridge, and some were not too considerate of others using the college facilities. She remained as she was, her head against the hard back of the form for two or three minutes until some inner warning made her open her eyes and sit up.

  About six inches away Lewis sprawled on the bench, and Ismay stared at him in silence for several moments, her eyes wide with amazement, before she spoke. When she did finally find words she blurted out, ‘What on earth are you doing in Cambridge?’

  Lewis did not answer at once. He simply turned his head and gazed solemnly into her eyes. She had time to notice how very tanned he was, and to realize for the first time that there were tiny flicks of green in the hazel of the eyes looking so steadily into her own. Suddenly it occurred to Ismay that while she had been studying him Lewis had been scrutinizing her own face just as closely. Eventually he said slowly in answer to her question, ‘I flew down here this morning with Jack Wetherby. We’re booked in at the Trust House and I had an hour to spare before I go to the hospital, so I thought I’d look you up. I felt it would be only polite to do so.’

  Ismay winced inwardly, but she was careful not to let any expression show on her face or in her eyes. ‘So you’ve come down from Hepthorpethwaite to visit our hospital?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lewis looked away and taking out his cigarette case, slowly lit a cigarette. ‘You’ve got a very clever chap on the eye unit here, and he’s going to do a particularly tricky job this afternoon. I got myself invited along as an observer.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ismay could think of nothing to say. So Lewis had not come to Cambridge in order to see her, nor did he seem to be in an exactly friendly state of mind. She had expected him to be indifferent, but not pugnacious, but this was undoubtedly his mood at the moment.

  ‘I thought I might have heard from you,’ Ismay said at last, courageously, and turned directly to face him. ‘Did you get my letter?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ there was now no doubt about the belligerence in Lewis’s voice, ‘I got your letter all right. It was waiting for me when I got home—as you well know,’ and he took an envelope out of the inside pocket of his jacket and laid it upon his knee. ‘Did you really think after receiving that little gem that I was going to get in touch with you again to lay myself open to more rebuffs?’

  Ismay looked bewildered as Lewis took the letter out of the envelope and slapped it down in front of her. ‘If you can’t remember precisely what you wrote, perhaps you’d like to refresh your memory.’

  Ismay looked down at the sheet of notepaper. The writing was like and yet unlike her own and she picked the letter up to examine it more closely. ‘Dear Lewis,’ it said, ‘Your mother will have explained the reason for my sudden departure. Perhaps it’s for the best. During your absence I’ve had time to think things over and I know now I can never forget Peter. Don’t try and get in touch with me. It would only be an embarrassment to us both. Yours, Ismay.’

  She let the letter drop and turned to gaze into Lewis’
s eyes. ‘But this isn’t my letter, this isn’t what I wrote. It isn’t even my handwriting, though it is...’ she stopped for a moment and gazed down once more at where the letter lay, ‘It is very similar.’

  Lewis picked it up and turned to gaze for a moment intently into Ismay’s eyes. Reading the mixture of puzzlement and sincerity, he silently folded the letter and put it back in the envelope, tapping it against one finger. ‘If this isn’t the letter you wrote, where is your letter, and what happened to it? Who knew you’d left a message for me?’

  ‘No one,’ Ismay answered him swiftly. ‘I wrote the letter and took it down the night before I left and put it into the middle of that pile of correspondence which was waiting for your return. No one could possibly have known there was a letter there from me, unless...’ and then she stopped as a vision rose before her of Felicity Kynoch standing in the hall with a look of hatred on her beautiful face as Ismay left her to go up to bed.

  ‘Unless what?’ Lewis asked abruptly, breaking into her thoughts.

  ‘As I was leaving the hall I met Felicity.’

  ‘Ah!’ it was a long-drawn-out exclamation and Lewis said no more as he tucked the letter back into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘All is explained now. You need say no more.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t ... She couldn’t have...’ Ismay stopped, stammering over the last few words.

  ‘She not only could, but she did,’ Lewis replied firmly. ‘Now perhaps you’ll tell me what was in the real letter you left for me.’

  It took only a few minutes for Ismay to tell the story of why she had returned to Cambridge, the unexpected arrival of Jo-Anne Hadley and the complications which her arrival had caused. ‘We’re only just getting Peter’s mother to come round,’ she explained as she finished.

  ‘Yes, Peter,’ Lewis mused. ‘That was the only thing in the letter which struck a wrong note.’