The Lorimer Line

by Anne Melville

  ‘Miss L? Medical student. Acting as clinical clerk to Dr Ferguson. I must find her and thank her. What we’d have done without her today, God only knows. Miss L! Miss L, where are you?’

  Margaret tried to call in reply, but was too weak to utter a word. She was discovered only when Matron tripped over her.

  ‘Miss L, are you all right? You saved their lives, you know. I shall tell Dr Ferguson. Are you hurt?’

  Still sitting on the high kerb of the pavement, Margaret found to her shame that she was crying. She buried her head in her hands, for there was simply no strength left in her to lift it. She could see Matron’s blue skirt, dirty and tattered now, close to her own feet - and a pair of boots which came to stand beside it.

  ‘There’s some shock here, I think,’ said the surgeon. ‘I’ll get her home. Cabbie! Cabbie!’

  The cab-driver had led his horse well away from the flames which would have terrified it, so several calls were necessary before an answering shout was heard. Matron took the opportunity to praise Margaret and thank her over and over again. Margaret did her best to respond, but was relieved to feel herself being helped into the cab.

  ‘Where do you live?’ asked the surgeon.

  ‘Bart’s first for you,’ muttered Margaret. ‘More important.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ His tone was solicitous, but she could tell from it that he agreed with her order of priority. ‘St Bartholomew’s Hospital,’ he said to the cabbie. ‘And quickly!’

  ‘On a night like this, guv’nor?’ The driver moved off at a pace which might be sensible in the thick fog, but which seemed unbearably slow to his passengers.

  As the tension of mind and body relaxed, Margaret found herself trembling and shivering with cold. She was conscious of an arm round her waist, pulling her close against her companion’s side: she felt her head topple sideways, like a broken puppet’s, to rest on his shoulders. On the verge of fainting, she had ceased to be capable of any further effort or even thought.

  As they neared St Bartholomew’s the plodding steps of the cabhorse became even more hesitant. The hospital was next to the meat market at Smithfield, and already the cobbled streets around were rumbling with huge drays and wagons, bringing in from the country the carcasses which would be sold in the early hours of the morning. Margaret, her head steadier now, felt the surgeon fidgeting with impatience.

  ‘I could make better speed on foot,’ he muttered to himself.

  ‘Then please don’t delay on my account,’ Margaret urged. ‘If you prefer to walk from here, the cab can take me home and return to the hospital for you.’

  ‘Are you sure? Do you promise me you are not hurt at all? Will there be someone to look after you when you arrive?’

  ‘I shall be treated like an invalid and put straight into a warm bed, although there is nothing wrong with me at all,’ she assured him. ‘Whom should the driver ask for when he returns to Bart’s?’

  ‘There is no reason for him to come back. I have no further use for him. Earlier in the evening I was in a hurry to call on my young patient on my way to a theatre, but by now I have missed my evening’s entertainment. If you are quite sure, then …’ He knocked on the glass to bring the cab to a halt. After dismounting, he leaned inside and held out his hand. His firm grip as she took it restored some of her spirits.

  ‘You will allow me, I hope, to express my profound admiration for your efforts this evening,’ he said. ‘A great number of those children must owe their lives to you.’

  ‘They are still in need of help,’ Margaret reminded him. ‘Should I come with you?’

  ‘No, no,’ he replied. ‘I forbid it absolutely. You are in no state to do more.’

  His expression was troubled, reflecting the responsibility which he still faced, but he smiled at her as he released her hand. Then the puzzled look that she had noticed once before returned briefly to his face. He drew in a breath as though to ask her something, but must have realized that his business at the hospital was more urgent. The question became the more necessary one of asking the address to which the cab should take her. He repeated it to the driver, and Margaret heard the chink of money changing hands. Then she was jolted off again over the slippery cobbles of the market area, the horse clattering and wheezing between the shafts.

  Lydia hurried down from their first-floor apartments to meet Margaret as soon as the cab came to a halt in front of the house. She had been so worried, she exclaimed, and then her eyes opened in astonishment at the sight of her friend’s appearance. In the hallway, Margaret glanced at herself in the glass which hung at the end of the passage. She could not suppress a burst of hysterical laughter.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Lydia, more worried than ever. ‘Are you all right? What has happened to you?’

  Margaret stifled her laughter, but continued to stare for a moment at her torn and charred skirt, the untidy red hair which had long ago escaped from its tight bun to fall in smoky tresses over her shoulders, and her face, smeared with black where she had wiped away the sweat of the last hot, terrifying half hour inside the hospital and later the tears of relief.

  ‘It has been a terrible evening,’ she said. The very memory of it made her shudder again. ‘It is curious, isn’t it, that when something horrible occurs, one seems to grasp at even the most frivolous excuse for shutting the scene out of one’s mind. I was thinking - today I met a gentleman whom I found interesting. I couldn’t help hoping that he in turn might be interested in me. Now suddenly I see what a peculiarly unattractive appearance I presented to him. But really I feel more like crying than laughing.’

  Lydia helped her upstairs to sit by the fire. Betty - who had willingly abandoned her training as a lady’s maid after the bank crash to become instead a maid of all work for Lydia and Margaret - was sent bustling on a series of errands: to fill the copper warming pan for Margaret’s bed, to ask in the kitchen that water should be heated for a bath, to bring up the meal which had been kept warm. Only then did Lydia allow Margaret to tell her what had happened.

  In bed that night, Margaret was awakened more than once by a nightmare. She saw the young surgeon turn and hurry away from her. Sometimes he was walking down the long ward: sometimes it was an unfamiliar room that he was leaving. But always his errand was urgent, making him break into a run. Margaret knew that he was hurrying into danger, even when she could not tell what the danger was. She tried each time to call him back, but could not do it because she did not know his name.

  That was always the moment when she woke up. Her mouth was open ready to warn him, but she had no word to shout. Once awake, she reminded herself each time that the danger was over, but the nightmare recurred as soon as she closed her eyes again. In the end, she had to force herself to stay awake for long enough to consider honestly what was troubling her. The fire, which had done so much harm, could do no more now. Gould the uneasiness which disturbed her sleep be caused by the simple fact that a man she would like to meet again did not know her name, nor she his? What was so frightening about that? She knew where he worked. He knew where she lived. If he wanted to see her again he would have no trouble in finding her. He might not wish to do so, but that was another matter. If he felt any interest in her at all, he would come.

  She remembered the way in which his arm had tightened round her waist, the look in his eyes as he said goodbye, and felt no real doubt in the matter. She would see him again. Little by little her tired body relaxed in the warm bed and she fell into a dreamless sleep.

  3

  Flowers may speak the language of love, but what use are their messages if they bear no signature? On the day after the fire, Margaret returned wearily to her lodgings in the evening. Her broken night had been followed by an exhausting series of visits to all the dispersed children, to see how much they had been harmed by their experience. The sight of the out-of-season roses which had arrived by messenger during the afternoon cheered her at once. She tore open the tiny envelope which accompanied them and studied the card
inside with eagerness.

  ‘Who is your admirer?’ asked Lydia, who had finished her own duty earlier.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Margaret began to laugh, and showed the card to her friend. ‘“To Miss Ell, in admiration. C. S.” He must think that’s my real name, and he takes it for granted that I know what his name is.’

  ‘But you know who sent the flowers?’

  ‘Oh yes. There are not so many possibilities from which to choose.’ The first glance which the surgeon had given her might have been a puzzled one, but by the end of the day his attitude had changed to something quite different. Margaret could not describe it to Lydia without being immodest, so instead she puzzled over the initials.

  ‘C.S.’ she repeated. ‘Christopher, do you think? Christopher would be a suitable name for someone who carried children to safety. Or Charles. He looks like a Charles.’

  ‘What do Charleses look like?’ asked Lydia, teasing.

  ‘Oh; strong, and kind, and dependable.’ Margaret remembered how he had kept his promise to return to the hospital in the slums even when he was looking forward to an evening at the theatre. ‘Solid, somehow.’

  ‘You had better see if you can arrange to do your surgical dressing training at St Bartholomew’s. Then you may meet this solid Charles or Christopher again.’

  As it happened, Margaret had called at the London School of Medicine on her way home that evening and had arranged to do precisely what Lydia suggested. She buried her face in the roses so that Lydia should not notice her blushes - but then looked up again, startled, as she heard the doorbell ring below. ‘Has he come so soon? I am not fit to receive a call.’

  ‘Do you believe you are the only person in this house likely to be called upon?’

  Lydia might continue to tease, but Margaret hurried to her bedroom to wash her face and tidy her hair. There was no time, she supposed, to change from her plain skirt and over-blouse into something more becoming. In fact, she was still struggling with hairpins when Betty knocked on the door.

  ‘If you please, Miss, it’s Mr Ralph Lorimer to see you.’

  Margaret was severe with her quick flash of disappointment, but she abandoned the attempt to make herself look her best. Tidy hair was of no great importance in greeting a brother, and she hurried into the sitting room. Lydia and Ralph were talking together in an animated manner and for a moment, pausing in the doorway, Margaret looked at her brother as Lydia might be seeing him.

  In the years which had passed since he left school, Ralph had grown steadily more good-looking. His expression had lost the sulky pout with which he had so often reacted to the reprimands of his father or the sermons of Clifton’s overpowering headmaster, Dr Percival. Gone, too, was the guilty strain and anxiety which had shown on his face when Claudine’s condition was revealed. It was as though he had managed to conquer his consciousness of personal guilt by changing it into a feeling of shame for the more general sins of his slave-trading ancestors. Now, having taken the decision to make what amends he could for these, he could once again face the world with a resolute and untroubled expression.

  Lydia made no attempt to hide her admiration of his upright bearing and handsome face.

  ‘You are to be a missionary, I hear, Mr Lorimer,’ she said. ‘When do you leave for Jamaica?’

  ‘In two days’ time. My visit here is to say goodbye. I shall not be in England again for three years. But to make the farewell a cheerful one, I have brought tickets for the new Savoy opera. Since it is only the second night, I felt reasonably sure that you would not have seen it. I hope that you have no other arrangements for the evening.’

  Margaret had intended to go early to bed, but the invitation was irresistible.

  ‘I shall be delighted,’ she declared. Ralph turned to Lydia.

  ‘And you also, Miss Morton, I hope.’

  ‘You mean you have a ticket for me as well?’ Margaret was interested to see that Lydia’s sallow cheeks were flushing. Remembering her own blushes earlier that evening, she was careful to make no comment.

  ‘I came early so that you might have time to prepare yourselves,’ Ralph said. ‘If the plan is an agreeable one, I will leave you now and come back in an hour’s time.’

  He left two excited young women behind him. Margaret had brought from Bristol some of the gowns which she had acquired during her father’s period of generosity shortly before his death. Although styles had changed in the past four years, she had bought no new fashionable clothes during that period, so one of these would have to do. But the dresses had been thought smart at the time, and she chose one which would serve well enough.

  Margaret and Lydia were delighted to discover that their evening’s entertainment was to be Iolanthe, the new light opera by Mr Gilbert and Mr Sullivan. Their lives as medical students left them without either the energy or the money to arrange such diversions for themselves. They were pleased, in addition, to be escorted by such a handsome young man as Ralph. During the intervals they strolled up and down beneath the chandeliers, one on each side of him.

  In the course of the last of these promenades, Margaret came to a sudden standstill. Her hand fell from Ralph’s arm - but he, deep in conversation with Lydia, strolled on without noticing.

  ‘Miss Ell.’ The young surgeon bowed over her hand. ‘We meet in very different circumstances.’

  ‘This is surely an extraordinary coincidence, Dr …’ Margaret found that she was stammering in her surprise, and had started a sentence she could not finish. ‘I mean, not to have met before, and then twice within so short a time.’

  ‘Perhaps we have been passing each other at intervals all through our lives, but only now noticing it.’

  ‘I have to thank you for the flowers,’ said Margaret. ‘They gave me great pleasure. I should have written, of course, but I don’t know your name.’

  He laughed, and bowed for a second time.

  ‘Charles Scott at your service. I would have called in person, but I expected you to be spending the day in bed, recovering from your exertions. Indeed, I think you ought to be resting.’

  ‘I had intended to do so, at least this evening. But my brother is about to leave England for three years. When he arrived unexpectedly with the tickets for this performance, I could not refuse.’ She was aware even as she spoke that Charles, who was so suitably Charles in reality as well as in imagination, did not need the details. It was she who was anxious to make it clear that her good-looking companion was a brother - and the point was noted, for Charles smiled again.

  ‘Then I may hope to be received if I call?’

  ‘Of course. Although you will be aware that I am not a lady of leisure, with nothing to do in the afternoons but wait for the doorbell to ring. It’s only at weekends that I am likely to be found at home.’ Margaret wondered whether she was being too forward in making it clear how much she would like to see him. She and Lydia had so much lost the habit of entertaining young gentlemen that she did not know what was encouraged or frowned upon by London rules of etiquette. But she could not bear to think of him coming when she was at a lecture or in a hospital, and perhaps not bothering to call again. It would have been best to invite him for a definite time, but before she could decide whether this would be proper, Ralph and Lydia returned to her side.

  ‘Oh, Lydia, may I present Dr Charles Scott to you,’ said Margaret. She did her best not to seem flustered and frowned slightly at the smile on her friend’s lips. Lydia must have guessed at once who Charles was. ‘Dr Scott, my friend Miss Morton. And my brother, Mr Ralph Lorimer.’

  ‘Your servant.’ There was a general shaking of hands, but Charles was frowning. He seemed to be not so much surprised as disconcerted.

  ‘Lorimer, did you say? I thought Matron told me that your name was …’

  ‘Miss L is only a nickname,’ Margaret explained. ‘Miss Morton is called Miss M in the same way by our fellow-students and the people we work with in the hospitals. Margaret Lorimer is my full name.’

 
He bowed yet again as their introduction was at last formally completed. The warning bells for the next act were ringing and it was time for them to part and return to their seats. Margaret smiled to herself as she turned away. Last night he had seen her dirty, shabby and tearful. Tonight she was dressed expensively and her face and hair were shining with cleanliness. She must surely have made a good impression; and he had asked if he might call! It could hardly have been better arranged if she had done it deliberately.

  The parting from Ralph later that evening was an affecting one. He was excited by the adventure which lay ahead, and Margaret was careful to conceal her fears about the unhealthy climate in which he would be living. After he had gone she continued to worry for a while; but little by little the happiness of her evening broke through. She found herself humming the catchy tunes that Mr Sullivan had written for Iolanthe. But Lydia’s silence was provoking.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded at last.

  ‘Well what?’ It took Lydia a moment to understand what she was being asked to say, but then the distracted expression left her face and she smiled mischievously. ‘Oh yes, I congratulate you. He looks a most promising acquaintance. I could see how much he admires you.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Margaret allowed herself to be elated by the observation. ‘Do you think it very fickle of me to feel interest in another gentleman after being so sure that I could never love anyone but David?’ she asked.

  ‘Three years is a great time,’ said Lydia. ‘A man who is silent for so long cannot expect fidelity.’

  ‘He could not have expected it in any case,’ said Margaret. ‘The engagement was broken before he left.’

  ‘Then you have no reason to feel guilt. Once upon a time I felt as strongly as you that it would be faithless to love for a second time. Now I sometimes wonder whether the dead would wish for our loyalty. Do you think they would wish us to be lonely when we could be happy?’