Until she got used to the routine it would be a tough job, and that was all to the good. She would have no time for brooding, no time for anything but total application to her work. Nell assisted at two Caesarean sections that night and tumbled into bed at four a.m., her unpacking still to be done. There was some respite in the morning, for the ante-natal clinic didn't start until ten, and blessed relief, her half day fell on Tuesdays.
'Which of course you won't need,' her registrar remarked at lunch, 'since you've only just started.'
Nell gave him an uncertain look, because she couldn't decide if he was joking. It was important not to start off on the wrong foot with her new colleagues.
There was laughter round the table, and Mr Watkins joined in. 'She thought I meant it! Of course you're free, Miss Ramsay. Make the most of it.'
Her grandfather was delighted to have her home again so soon and told her they would be able to return to the Manor in ten days' time.
'And Philip?' When does he come back?' She had had to return to his house when she gave up the job with the MacFarlanes.
The Colonel couldn't tell her, and Nell wondered if Philip's prolonged stay in Stockholm was due to Ilse Petersen. After thirty-six hours on her feet, however, she was too tired to pine. Once she was in bed she went out like a light, and only awoke when her alarm sounded at seven the following morning.
That first Monday at Westhampton set the pattern for all the days to follow. The obstetric residents were some of the busiest in the hospital. Their hours were gruelling but their work was rewarding, for midwifery wards were happy places. There were few mortalities in this day and age. The registrar told Nell they hadn't had a death in labour for five years.
'And that one should never have happened. A girl with a bad heart, who was warned she shouldn't have a child.'
Yes, labour wards were unlike anywhere else in a hospital. There was an atmosphere of joyful expectation, making the pain bearable and soon forgotten. Nell enjoyed her work and admired the midwives, those dedicated women who could be bossy on occasion, but who were worth their weight in gold. Especially the superintendent midwife, who terrified the younger nurses and not a few of the junior doctors.
'She seems to like you, Nell,' another houseman commented one day. 'Perhaps it's because you're such a serious girl, mind always on your work.' The way he said it made her sound dull and unattractive, thought Nell, but perhaps that was how he saw her, for she had plunged into her new work with a fierce determination to make a success of it, to drive Philip out of her mind by absolute commitment to her work.
On Thursday next she arrived back at his house to find him returned and having a drink in the sitting-room with her grandfather. His greeting was pleasant though without warmth. He gave her a critical stare as he handed her a glass of sherry.
'You look flaked out. Anything wrong?'
She was too tired to react to his unexpected presence. 'Why should there be? I was up all night, that's all.'
The men continued with their conversation. Nell took a sip or two of her drink and put it down on a small table. She rested her head on the back of the chair, closed her eyes for a moment and drifted off to sleep.
When she opened them again her grandfather had gone and Philip lounged opposite her, relaxed in his deep chair, one foot idly swinging. Some document lay open on his lap, but he wasn't reading it. He was studying her and smiling faintly.
She straightened abruptly, flushing under his gaze. 'Don't star at me like that! I know I look a mess.' Her mirror had told her that this morning. There were deep shadows under her eyes and her hair needed washing.
'You never look a mess, Nell. You look a tired little girl, which isn't the same thing.' Unexpectedly he added, 'And you look very sweet when you're asleep. Ready to eat now?'
Nell glanced at the clock in dismay. 'You should have woken me. I must apologise to Mrs Reed.'
It was a more enjoyable meal than she had been prepared for. Elizabeth was out, rather surprisingly, since Philip had only just returned today and she had known when he was due back. Nell was still too weary to contribute much to the conversation, but it didn't matter because Philip told them of his experiences in Sweden, which he knew well. The Petersens' name came up several times and over coffee he produced a packet of photographs—several views of Stockholm, a lakeside chalet, 'The Petersens!', a motorboat with someone at the wheel. 'Ilse! She sails well too.' A barbecue by a lake, and Ilse still glamorous, even in a large blue and white apron, waving a frying pan in the air.
'Does she cook well too?' asked Nell with an edge to her voice, and immediately regretted it.
'Superbly.' Philip's tone was bland and he gave her a smiling glance. 'Jealous, little Nell?'
'Of course not! What a stupid question.' Her voice was shrill and she knew that she had flushed.
'Oh, I don't know,' Philip said judicially. 'Most women find Ilse a little hard to take. So beautiful and so good at everything she does.'
The Colonel seemed to miss die undercurrents. 'Splendid young woman,' he agreed. 'Absolutely splendid, but perhaps a little lacking in ...' He sought for the right word ... 'Warmth,' he decided, and Philip's eyes went to Nell.
'Sex appeal, the old man really means,' he said under his breath, a remark which the Colonel missed, for he was becoming increasingly deaf.
This little interchange gave a much-needed boost to Nell's morale. Was it possible that Philip admired Ilse, but was not in love with her? That there was no physical attraction between diem in spite of the girl's striking beauty? She longed with a painful intensity to be alone with him again, praying that her grandfather would go to bed before Elizabeth returned. All her good resolves were crumbling. She ached to feel Philip's arms around her. She no longer cared about what he thought of her, as long as he still desired her.
At nine o'clock the old man rose. Nell accompanied him upstairs, since Elizabeth was still out and he was not as steady on his feet as he had once been. When she returned to the sitting-room it was empty and Philip's study door was shut. Disappointment and depression swept over her and her eyes filled with tears. He had demonstrated very plainly that he didn't want her company. Common sense told her that he might well have work to catch up on, after his trip abroad. She blew her nose hard and tried to believe this, but there seemed no point in staying up, so she went to bed a few minutes later.
She had breakfast at seven-thirty and quite expected to be on her own, but Philip was down before her, eating bacon and eggs and reading a scientific journal, which was propped against the coffee pot. He put it aside when she came in.
'You look better for your early night. I was going to suggest a game of chess, but you were probably too sleepy to play.'
Nell's spirits rose at this information. With her eyes on her plate she observed demurely, 'Last time we played there was an unexpected ending!'
Philip leant across the table, put a thumb under her chin and tipped her face up. 'Unexpected, Nell? I should have said it was just what you expected.'
She flushed under his derisory glance, her happiness evaporating. How silly of her to make that remark, when she knew his opinion of her. She drained her coffee quickly and made to rise, but he put a hand on her arm.
'You've eaten nothing, you silly girl. You can't do a morning's work on an empty stomach.'
'I don't feel hungry.'
'Rubbish!' He poured her another cup of coffee, passed her the rolls, gave an unexpectedly charming smile. 1 didn't mean to offend you, but sometimes you're so touchy.'
Theirs would never be a smooth relationship, Nell thought, and gave a small unconscious sigh, head bent over her breakfast.
'What was that for?' Philip asked quietly. 'The sigh, my dear?'
She didn't look at him. 'I was thinking what a pity it is that we can't get on, since we have to see so much of each other.'
He had finished his meal. 'Cheer up,' he said briskly. 'You won't be here much longer,' and he walked out of the room.
'A
nd thank goodness for that!' she said loudly, and was immediately ashamed of her rudeness, for Philip had been kindness itself to her grandfather and her aunt. The little incident niggled away while she finished her breakfast. She collected her things for the journey and on a sudden impulse, knocked on the door of Philip's study.
'Come in,' called an impatient voice. 'Mrs Reed, you'll have to start cleaning somewhere else.' He was at his desk, hunched over a file, pen in hand. While she hesitated, he crossed a line out, scribbled something in the margin and adjusted his spectacles. She started to back out and without looking up he asked, 'Has Miss Ramsay gone yet?'
'Going,' Nell said under her breath, and closed the door softly.
Seconds later it was flung open and Philip stood there, a frown on his face. 'I didn't realise it was you. What do you want?'
Spectacles altered his face completely, made him look older, more forbidding. A stranger. She wished he would take them off. She wondered how she could ever have made that flippant remark at breakfast to him. 'Well?' he snapped. Nell made a helpless gesture and he whipped his glasses off with a scowl. 'I'm hellishly busy. If you've something to say, say it.'
He kept a hand on the door, ready to shut himself into his study again. Woodenly she made her apology and he gave an irritated laugh. 'Was that all?' And what a waste of my valuable time, his tone implied. 'I'm so used to snide remarks from you I hardly notice them.'
*
The great day came at last when the family could return to Lanmore Manor—plastered and painted, the old oak floorboards newly stained and varnished, the kitchen hardly recognisable as the favourite room of her childhood. Nell had mixed feelings about it all.
'I liked it better as it was,' she sighed, when she returned on Friday night for her weekend off duty.
'That's because you didn't have to work in it,' Blackie said tartly, running a loving hand over the pale blue work surfaces, that had replaced the old scrubbed wooden tops.
'Elizabeth likes it?'
'Your aunt would like anything that raises its market value. She's been at the old man ever since we came back to get an estate agent out, find out what it's worth.'
'And Grandpa?'
'I thought he'd have a stroke when she suggested it."Can't you wait till I'm gone?" he asked. He was in such a rage I thought he'd cancel the party.'
The party was to celebrate their return to the Manor and to show off its renewed glory to the neighbours. Standing in the drawing-room on Saturday evening, Elizabeth pointed out the beauty of the freshly painted ceiling moulding to her guests. 'Don't you think they've done it well? They've picked it out in gold and green to show it up more clearly.'
'Show up the dust as well,' muttered Blackie, who was circulating with a tray of savouries, and Elizabeth gave her a sour look.
'Blackie is definitely past it,' she announced, while the old woman was still in the room. 'We let her come back, but I doubt if she'll be up to it.'
'Aunt Elizabeth, hush!' Nell cast an anxious glance in Blackie's direction. Mrs Middleton-Massey was more forthright.
'You're a fool, Elizabeth, talking like that. You'll never get anyone else to run this great barn of a place.'
Elizabeth looked annoyed for a moment, then decided to agree. 'Exactly what I keep telling Father, but he's hopelessly pig-headed.'
It was a problem that Nell had met all too often as a doctor, old people clinging to unsuitable homes, knowing it would be sensible to move, but dreading the tearing up of roots that went deep into the past.
'Elizabeth, don't go on about it,' she said under her breath. 'It upsets Grandpa so. We'll manage somehow for as long as he's alive.'
'You mean I'll manage,' Elizabeth answered acidly, and Mrs Middleton-Massey clapped her on the shoulder.
'Don't make a martyr of yourself, my girl. Nell's home a great deal nowadays.'
'And spends most of it in bed!'
This was a marked exaggeration, though Nell had gone to bed at nine on Friday night, since she had had no sleep at all on the Thursday.
Determined to be agreeable, she said quietly that her obstetrics job would only last six months, and after that she would take something less demanding. She moved away to talk to the Middleton-Massey girls, who were chatting to Bobbie Fenton at the other end of the room. James and his young sister were staying with Philip again.
'Though much good it does me,' sighed Bobbie. 'They've spent most of the time working.'
Neil looked over to Philip, where he sat beside her grandfather near the fire.
'He's just about the most attractive man I've met,' enthused Bobbie. 'Don't you agree, Nell?'
Nell managed a creditable shrug. 'I suppose so, though I like your brother better,' and leaving Bobbie staring after her she walked over to James.
She was speaking the truth, for liking didn't come into her feelings for Philip, indeed half the time she felt she almost hated him—for the powerful hold he had on her, and for his assumption that she reacted to other men's lovemaking as she did to his. She had never responded to any other man so passionately, and now she wondered if she ever would.
She talked to James and gazed at Philip, when she thought she could do so unobserved. He looked tired. Once he hid a yawn behind his hand. Once he glanced her way and she quickly turned to James.
'I'm sorry. Say that again,' she apologised, and James gave a wry smile.
'You've only been giving me half your attention for the last ten minutes. I wonder why?'
He was too nice for such offhand treatment. Nell coloured and stammered an apology, then she couldn't resist adding, 'Isn't Philip well? He looks rather pale.'
James' grave gaze held hers. 'So that's the distraction! I thought it might be. He's all right, just tired. We've been working very hard all week.'
'And all weekend, if Bobbie's to be believed.'
'Poor Bobbie,' he murmured. 'I'm afraid she's been very bored.'
'You should have sent her over here. I'd have welcomed her company.'
'Thanks, my dear girl, but I doubt if she'd have come. As long as there's a chance of seeing Philip she hangs around him. Wasting her time, of course, when he's involved with someone else.'
Nell put out a hand and gripped the back of a chair. James' face swam in front of her. He was saying something and looking very concerned.
'I'm all right,' she managed. 'I—I felt dizzy for a moment. Sorry.' Then with an effort, 'You—you mean Philip's engaged or something?'
'Or something,' he agreed with a faint smile. 'You know.
we shouldn't really be discussing him like this. He wouldn't like it.'
He accompanied this gentle rebuke with a worried look, that made Nell feel she had exposed more than she had intended to him.
Nell returned to Westhampton on Monday, tired and depressed.
'What do you do at weekends?' asked her registrar, Steve Watkins, over lunch. 'You look absolutely knackered.'
She missed sleep on duty because of her work. Off duty she stayed awake because of a man, a difficult unkind man, who was involved with another woman. Not engaged, if she'd understood James correctly. She longed to ask him what he had meant, who it was. Ilse or some other girl she knew nothing about? Philip travelled widely, met a great many people. He was, as Bobbie had said, a very attractive man. He had an aura of success about him, and that, coupled with his physical appeal, was a very potent combination.
There was laughter round the table. Nell jerked herself back to the present, and the realisation that the laughter was at her expense.
'She hasn't heard a word we've said,' remarked one of the women residents, and they all exchanged smiling looks.
One rather plain girl didn't smile but said caustically, 'Nell's too grand to muck in with us. Any time now she'll be sitting at the consultants' table.'
'Shut up, Judy,' Steve Watkins said. 'That was quite uncalled-for.'
'Was it?' Judy asked carelessly. 'Sorry, Nell, but you do rather keep to yourself. We never see you off
duty.'
Nell had never had a reputation for being standoffish in the past and wasn't happy to have acquired one now. She tried to explain about her home commitments and they listened politely, but without much interest. Why should they be interested? she thought, relapsing into an unhappy silence. She was not the outgoing friendly girl of the Q.C.H. days. Unhappiness had made her withdrawn and aloof, quiet, dull probably, to this lively young bunch of doctors.
It wasn't a nice feeling being an outsider. She resolved to make more effort to mix with them, at least when she was on duty. On her next half day she thought she might as well stay in Westhampton, since her car was out of action and the train service was bad. On Monday night she telephoned home and spoke to her grandfather.
'I'll be home again on Thursday, Grandpa. You don't mind, do you?'
Her grandfather sounded disappointed. 'Elizabeth will be out. It would have been nice to see you.'
So Nell said she might come after all, but it would depend on the morning trains back. 'I have to be here by nine sharp. That's when my ward round starts.'
Half an hour later Philip telephoned. 'Your grandfather tells me you've no transport. As it happens I'll be in Westhampton tomorrow. You can come back with me.'
She agreed to meet him at three o'clock at the main hospital entrance. 'But are you sure you're not just coming on my account?'
'My dear Nell,' he said dryly, 'do you think I'd drive two hours there and back for the sake of your company? Would you for mine? No, of course I have business in Westhampton. See you tomorrow, then.'
After lunch next day Nell pottered about her room, washed a few underclothes, tidied her books and ended up in the common-room. She had half an hour to wait for Philip, so she might as well start to get on more friendly terms with the other residents. There were always a few young doctors around, either off duty or waiting to be called.
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