Return to Lanmore

by Sheila Douglas

  'Not going home today?' asked one of the house physicians.

  'I'm waiting for a lift.' Nell was still chatting to him when there was a knock on the door and one of the porters looked in.

  'Thought you must be here, Dr Ramsay. There's a visitor for you. I tried to get on to you, but the line was engaged.'

  Her opposite number on the obstetric unit had been using the telephone for the last five minutes. Nell fished around for her shoes, which she had taken off when she curled up on the sofa. Philip must have come early. As she got to her feet he walked past the head porter.

  'Hallo, Nell. I finished earlier than I expected.'

  He stood in the doorway, smiling pleasantly, his glance flicking from her to the other residents, a big man, who created an impression as soon as he walked into a room. Nell could tell that her colleagues were burning with curiosity to know who he was.

  'Mr Trent, a neighbour of mine,' she introduced him, picked up her overnight case and moved towards the door.

  Philip seemed disposed to linger, looking around the shabby, untidy room with a smile, asking what the rest of their quarters were like.

  'Just as bad,' said a cheeky young resident. 'If you're thinking of donating something to charity, remember us!'

  Philip grinned. 'Who knows, when our factory in Westhampton is fully functioning, it might be good for our image! A new wing, with "Donated by Trent Electronics" on the foundation stone.'

  It was a joke, but Nell knew that he was genuinely interested in medicine. As they drove away from the hospital she asked him when the factory had opened.

  'Last week. Our policy is to expand in the Midlands,-and even our main office will be moving from London to Birmingham next year.'

  Nell digested this information with mixed feelings. It seemed that even at work she was to be reminded of his presence, for on their way out of town they skirted Westhampton's new industrial estate, and Philip pointed out the newly completed factory and the giant hoarding that said 'Built by Westhampton Construction Company for Trent Electronics.' She came this way herself. How could she have missed it?

  Philip drove fast and didn't seem disposed to talk, though he was pleasant enough. Pleasant but remote. Nell thought what a fool she had been, getting worked up beforehand about this trip, but the thought of even an hour alone with him had been something that she couldn't view with indifference.

  They were nearly home when he asked an unexpected and surprising question. 'Have you any idea what I've done to offend Elizabeth?' She stared at him and he went on impatiently, 'You must have noticed that she's been rather cool towards me lately. Any idea why?'

  Nell thought she knew but didn't care to tell him. All those recent occasions that her aunt had been out when Philip was around—they were Elizabeth's way of showing that she didn't care—about Ilse or Bobbie or any other woman, with whom he might be involved. Infatuated she might be, but Elizabeth had pride. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. Only the brittleness of her manner these days was an indication of how much she was paying inwardly for this show of independence.

  'Well, do you know?' Philip asked again, and Nell shook her head, for however she disliked her aunt she could scarcely humiliate her by disclosing her secret. 'Odd,' he mused, slanting a quick look at her. 'It reminds me of the way you used to avoid me.'

  'Really?' He was getting dangerously close to answering his own question, and Nell sought for some other topic of conversation.

  He brushed aside some trivial remark. 'Perhaps I offended her by standing up for you.'

  She gazed at him with surprise. 'I'm astounded to hear that you ever did. When was that, Philip?'

  He shrugged. 'Oh, some time when she was complaining about you taking this job at Westhampton. I only said that you deserved some life of your own. Probably that's what's wrong with her. She's touchy and intolerant because she leads such a narrow life.'

  'I thought you liked Elizabeth.'

  'I do, but I'm not blind to her faults,' he said evenly. 'I've known for a long time that she's partly responsible for the antagonism between the two of you. Six of one and half a dozen of the other, as they say.' He was silent for a minute or two and then came out with another remark. 'Pity she never married. Must have been a good-looking woman in her youth.'

  'Thirty-eight is not exactly old,' Nell returned, filled with a deep pity for her aunt.

  'As young as that?' He sounded surprised. 'I thought she was over forty.'

  'Poor, poor Elizabeth!' thought Nell. Those casual remarks of Philip's swept away a pile of misconceptions. He had never been interested in her aunt as a woman. He looked on her only as a friend, and would have been astounded to learn that Elizabeth had once had other ideas.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Nell had to put up with a good deal of teasing when she return to Westhampton.

  'Enjoy your night out?'

  'Thought you said you were going home?'

  'Some neighbour, you lucky girl!' That was one of the female house surgeons, who had witnessed Philip's arrival in the common-room.

  In just such a way they teased the unmarried men doctors about the nurses, so Nell felt she was wasting her time trying to explain. 'He is my neighbour. He's a friend of my grandfather's.'

  They jeered at that. 'And my aunt's,' she persisted. 'He is not my boy-friend.'

  'O.K., we believe you, but don't give up hope.' Steve Watkins, her registrar, patted her kindly on the shoulder. 'We'd better go and have another look at that case of protracted labour. Can't spend all day discussing your love life!'

  'Well, honestly!' Nell exclaimed indignantly, as she raced after him down the long corridor to the obstetric block. 'It wasn't me who brought it up in the first place.'

  He slowed down and gave her a friendly grin. 'I know, and they're a terrible bunch, but they don't mean any harm. Just curious about you, because you're such a mystery girl.'

  'In what way?'

  'In the way you behave. So aloof. So withdrawn. Judy thinks you're a snob.'

  Judy was his girl-friend. 'I hope you don't agree with her.'

  'Reserving judgment,' he said pleasantly. 'Now, about that young woman ...' and they turned from private affairs to the wider world of the patients.

  James Fenton called on Nell one evening, when she was on duty at Westhampton. 'I was in the hospital, so I thought I'd look you up.'

  'Visiting a patient?'

  'Meeting an old friend—Alex Mackenzie. You know him, of course?'

  Nell knew of him, but junior residents didn't have much to do with the consultants outside their own departments. When she said this James smiled and told her that Alex had married his house surgeon. 'A charming girl, and just right for him. He's much more human these days.' He went on to explain why he had called. Would she care to have dinner with him and the Mackenzies one evening? Make it a foursome? There was quite a decent hotel a mile or two outside town.

  Nell accepted with pleasure and they fixed it for next Friday, which was the beginning of her weekend off duty. She enjoyed this rare evening out, for James was an excellent host, and she liked his friends once she had overcome a slight awkwardness at dining out with a consultant, who was so far above her in the medical hierarchy. She guessed that the other residents would make an issue of this, and said as much to Jean Mackenzie when the two girls were doing their faces after dinner.

  Jean laughed. 'You don't have to tell me! I've been through it all myself. Half the hospital must have known about Alex and me, even before we announced it.'

  Looking at her pretty, smiling face and hearing the tenderness in her voice when she mentioned her husband's name, Nell felt a bitter pang of envy. How wonderful to be happily married, to have found someone to care for and to have that caring returned. Had Philip spoilt her for other men? Was she never going to get over him?

  On the drive back to the hospital she asked James the question that had been plaguing her for weeks. 'Is Ilse the girl that Philip cares about?' She blurted it ou
t without any warning and could have bitten out her tongue a moment later. Into an embarrassing silence she stammered an explanation. 'I—I know it's none of my business. I only wondered. You did say he was involved with someone.'

  James' lips were pursed, his expression very forbidding. 'That was most remiss of me. I'm surprised you remembered it.' And even more surprised that she had brought it up, his tone implied. He was being stuffy and rather prim. Or a loyal friend to Philip, depending how you looked at it.

  'I'm sorry I asked,' muttered Nell, hot now with embarrassment.

  When they reached the hospital car park she got out quickly. 'It was nice. Thank you.' That was all she could manage.

  James walked round the car to stand beside her. He gave her a long thoughtful look, and his severe expression softened. 'I'm sorry, Nell, I should have been more understanding. For what it's worth I don't think it's Ilse. And that's all I can tell you until Philip chooses to say more.'

  Until he announced his engagement, James meant, though perhaps Philip was a confirmed bachelor and chose affairs, rather than matrimony. Though if so, thought poor Nell, on the never-ending treadmill of alternating hope and despair, why then should he reject what she had to offer?

  He had talked of a flat, which he had recently taken in Westhampton, for the use of himself or his associates. She wondered if he had used it yet. It caused her a pang to realise that he might be staying in the same town as her, and she knew nothing about it.

  'Is Philip away?' Nell asked on her next Sunday at home, for they were to have lunch at the Manor.

  Her aunt nodded, face a tight mask. 'As usual these days.'

  They were in the kitchen together, Nell at the sink, arranging flowers. 'Can I ask Pamela round? She cheers things up.'

  Elizabeth paused in the act of putting away dishes. 'Do we need cheering up?'

  'Well, you seem a bit down ... and Pamela makes us laugh. Even Grandpa likes her, in spite of her weird clothes.'

  'I'm not in the mood for that silly girl,' Elizabeth snapped.

  Once Nell would have taken up the cudgels on behalf of her friend, tried to make Elizabeth alter her mind, started an argument that would have ended in a row. That their conversation developed into something worse than a row was due to quite other causes. She was worried about Elizabeth, whose manner was that of a person on the edge of a nervous breakdown. After a moment's hesitation she decided to risk a rebuff.

  'Elizabeth, I've been worried about you lately. You don't look very fit.'

  'I'm all right.' Elizabeth's face was averted and her hands twitched nervously.

  'You don't look it,' said Nell gently. 'Wouldn't it be a good idea if you saw Dr Mac?'

  'No!' Her aunt sank into a chair and now the twitch had spread to her face.

  'Please, Elizabeth. If you don't see someone you'll make yourself really ill, and then how would we cope?'

  'So that's why you're so concerned,' Elizabeth said bitterly. 'I might have guessed it.'

  Wishing she had chosen her words more carefully, Nell said quietly, 'Well, it would upset Grandpa, but that's not the only reason. You are my aunt and I don't like to see you so ... off colour. Please see Dr Mac.'

  'No!' Elizabeth banged her fist on the table in a quite uncharacteristic gesture. 'No, no, no! Sandy's the last person I'd go to. He'd only say "I told you so."' She burst into a storm of weeping. Her face streamed with tears, and between great shuddering sobs she talked incoherently. About Philip and how he had let her down, about the way be flaunted his girl-friends before her, a dozen wild accusations uttered with increasing hysteria. Nell stood by the sink, horrified by this outburst, while her aunt raved on and on. When she stopped at last Nell crossed to her side and laid a hand on her shoulder. 'I'm sorry Elizabeth. I'm sorry.' Inadequate words, but spoken from the heart.

  Elizabeth struck her hand away. 'You're sorry! Do you think I don't know that you're after him yourself? Much good it'll do you, though. He's quite plainly not the marrying kind,' and she started to sob again.

  'Elizabeth, please. You'll make yourself ill. Go and lie down—I'll get the lunch.'

  When she visited her aunt's room two hours later Elizabeth lay on the bed, her face still ravaged by weeping, her usually careful make-up grotesquely distorted. Frightened by her appearance, Nell telephoned Dr MacFarlane and when he came led him quickly upstairs. She knocked on the bedroom door, opened it and gave a gasp. Elizabeth was sitting on the edge of the bed now, shoulders hunched like an old woman, and in her hand was a bottle of sleeping pills.

  Dr MacFarlane sat down beside her and took the bottle from her hand. 'You've not taken any, my dear?'

  An infinitesimal shake of the head, then Elizabeth's lips started to tremble. 'Nell shouldn't have called you. I must look ... absolutely awful.'

  Dr MacFarlane put an arm round the shaking shoulders and drew her tenderly towards him. 'Not to me, Elizabeth. You could never look awful to me.' Over Elizabeth's head he saw Nell, transfixed in the doorway, and waved her away testily.

  Before Nell could shut the door on them she heard Elizabeth give a great sob, saw her press her head against the doctor's shoulder. 'Oh, Sandy, I've been such a fool! Such a fool!'

  Dr MacFarlane's words were cut off by the closing door. Astounded by the implications of this scene, Nell went slowly downstairs to reassure her grandfather that it was nothing serious. Her aunt had a bad migraine, and they would be having lunch on their own.

  When Dr MacFarlane appeared at last Nell walked to the car with him. 'I feel absolutely terrible,' she said unhappily. 'It was all my fault going on about her looking so unwell. If I'd kept my mouth shut ‑'

  'A good thing you didn't,' the doctor said briskly. He looked strained but happy. 'It was bottling it all up that was making her ill.'

  'All that talk about Philip. Was there ever any truth in it?'

  'Shouldn't think so for a moment, but women on the brink of middle age sometimes get strange ideas. Imagine themselves in love with younger men. She started an early menopause, you know.'

  'Should I stay at home tomorrow?'

  The doctor shook his head. 'Go back to work. Elizabeth will be all right now. I'm hoping to arrange a seaside holiday for her. My sister in Pembrokeshire has plenty of room, and if she can have us I'll run Elizabeth down, stay a few days myself. Andrew can manage with the new trainee.'

  'Dr Mac ...' Nell hesitated over the words. 'Elizabeth and you ...' She found she couldn't go on.

  The doctor clapped her briskly on the shoulder, face a shade redder than usual. 'None of your business, my girl.' He cleared his throat, opened the door of his car. 'Things have a way of sorting themselves out!' And on this platitude he departed.

  He called again that evening to see how Elizabeth was doing, and to tell her that he had fixed up the holiday with his sister. What her grandfather thought about it all Nell didn't know, though Blackie had plenty to say when she arrived back at ten o'clock, after her day out.

  'Seen it coming for years. She's lived on her nerves far too long. Don't you worry, Nell, I'll look after the Colonel while you're away.'

  So Nell left as usual the following morning, but felt obliged to see Elizabeth before she went. Her aunt was sitting up in bed, sipping tea, and looking at her calm composed face Nell found it difficult to believe that she had witnessed such disintegration yesterday. That the calmness was only skin deep she realised, when she saw the clenched hand lying on the silk coverlet.

  'Well... I'm off,' she said awkwardly. 'Have a good time on holiday. You've earned a rest if anyone has.'

  'Thank you, Nell. And ... thank you for calling Sandy yesterday ... even though I asked you not to.'

  They exchanged a long look. Elizabeth seemed on the brink of saying something more, to be undergoing some inward struggle that cost her dear. Nell waited uncertainly, then Elizabeth sighed, gave her head a little shake and went on with her tea.

  'Goodbye,' Nell said quietly. 'Dr Mac should be here in a couple of hours,' and she w
ithdrew.

  She had a hard day at work, but by seven-thirty there was a temporary lull on the obstetric unit. There were no deliveries impending and no new admissions to see.

  'Corned beef hash,' grumbled Steve Watkins. 'I can't face it tonight How about popping down the road to the White Lotus?'

  The White Lotus was a Chinese restaurant of good repute. The residents used it frequently when they were on duty, for the proprietor willingly accepted hospital calls. A party of them went out, and a few minutes later they were sitting in the bar, while they waited for their order, the people on duty limiting themselves to beer or cider or soft drinks.

  Nell was sipping a tomato juice, perched on a high stool between two young men doctors, when Philip walked into the restaurant. He was alone, and casually dressed in slacks and a thin sweater. He crossed to the counter and ordered take-away food for one.

  'Would you like a drink while you're waiting, sir?' the dainty Chinese girl asked, and he nodded and came to the bar.

  When he saw Nell his eyebrows went up. 'Well, hallo!' He looked at the two young doctors, taking in the arm one of them had flung round Nell's shoulders in a half teasing gesture. Nell wriggled uncomfortably, but the arm tightened.

  'Let the girl go,' reproved the other young man. 'You're embarrassing her, you idiot.'

  The house physician took his arm away with an exaggerated sigh. Philip watched this byplay with a sardonic expression, and Nell wondered why he had had to come in at just that moment. The house physician wasn't really interested in her. He had just been fooling, but Philip probably saw it as another example of her come-hither approach to men.

  'Off duty?' he asked down the length of the bar.

  'No, we just couldn't face the awful hospital food. If I was off duty I'd go home.'

  'Come and join me,' he suggested, so Nell carried her tomato juice along and took the vacant stool beside him. 'Don't you think you're overdoing it, going home every time you're free? Got a guilt complex about all those years you neglected them?'