by Betty Neels
‘You’re very kind.’ Emma took a last look at her mother and went to the rest-room. There was no one else there and there were comfortable chairs and a table with magazines on it. As she hesitated at the door the sister from Casualty joined her.
‘There’s a washroom just across the passage. Try and sleep a little, won’t you?’
When she had hurried away Emma picked up the phone. Mr Dobbs was sympathetic and very helpful—of course he’d see to Queenie, and Emma wasn’t to worry about the car. ‘Come back when you feel you can, love,’ he told her. ‘And you’d better keep the car for a day or two so’s you can see your ma as often as possible.’
Mrs Smith-Darcy was an entirely different kettle of fish. ‘My luncheon party,’ she exclaimed. ‘You will have to come back tomorrow morning and see to it; I am not strong enough to cope with it—you know how delicate I am. It is most inconsiderate of you…’
‘My mother,’ said Emma, between her teeth, ‘in case you didn’t hear what I have told you, is dangerously ill. I shall stay here with her as long as necessary. And you are not in the least delicate, Mrs Smith-Darcy, only spoilt and lazy and very selfish!’
She hung up, her ear shattered by Mrs Smith-Darcy’s furious bellow. Well, she had burnt her boats, cooked her goose and would probably be had up for libel—or was it slander? She didn’t care. She had given voice to sentiments she had choked back for more than a year and she didn’t care.
She felt better after her outburst, even though she was now out of work. She drank some tea and ate sandwiches from the canteen, resisted a wish to go in search of someone and ask about her mother, washed her face and combed her hair, plaited it and settled in the easiest of the chairs. Underneath her calm front panic and fright bubbled away.
Her mother might have a relapse; she had looked so dreadfully ill. She would need to be looked after for weeks, which was something Emma would do with loving care, but they would be horribly short of money. There was no one around, so she was able to shed a few tears; she was lonely and scared and tired. She mumbled her prayers and fell asleep before she had finished them.
Sir Paul Wyatt, coming to check his patient’s condition at two o’clock in the morning and satisfied with it, took himself down to the rest-room. If Emma was awake he would be able to reassure her…
She was curled up in the chair, her knees drawn up under her chin, the half of her face he could see tearstained, her thick rope of hair hanging over one shoulder. She looked very young and entirely without glamour, and he knew that when she woke in the morning she would have a job uncoiling herself from the tight ball into which she had wound herself.
He went and fetched a blanket from Casualty and laid it carefully over her; she was going to be stiff in the morning—there was no need for her to be cold as well. He put his hand lightly on her hair, touched by the sight of her, and then smiled and frowned at the sentimental gesture and went away again.
Emma woke early, roused by a burst of activity in Casualty, and just as Sir Paul Wyatt had foreseen, discovered that she was stiff and cramped. She got up awkwardly, folding the blanket neatly, and wondered who had been kind during the night. Then she went to wash her face and comb her hair.
Even with powder and lipstick she still looked a mess—not that it mattered, since there was no one to see her. She rubbed her cheeks to get some colour into them and practised a smile in the looking-glass so that her mother would see how cheerful and unworried she was. She would have to drive back to Buckfastleigh after she had visited her and somehow she would come each day to see her, although at the moment she wasn’t sure how. Of one thing she was sure—Mrs Smith-Darcy would have dismissed her out-of-hand, so she would have her days free.
She drank tea and polished off some toast in the canteen, then went to find someone who would tell her when she might see her mother. She didn’t have far to go— coming towards her along the passage was Sir Paul Wyatt, immaculate in clerical grey and spotless linen, freshly shaved, his shoes brilliantly polished. She wished him a good morning and, without waiting for him to answer, asked, ‘Mother—is she all right? May I see her?’
‘She had a good night, and of course you may see her.’
He stood looking at her, and the relief at his words was somewhat mitigated by knowing that her scruffy appearance seemed even more scruffy in contrast to his elegance. She rushed into speech to cover her awkwardness. ‘They have been very kind to me here…’
He nodded with faint impatience—of course, he was a busy man and hadn’t any time to waste. ‘I’ll go to Mother now,’ she told him. ‘I’m truly grateful to you for saving Mother. She’s going to be quite well again, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, but you must allow time for her to regain her strength. I’ll take you up to the ward on my way.’
She went with him silently, through corridors and then in a lift and finally through swing-doors where he beckoned a nurse, spoke briefly, then turned on his heel with a quick nod, leaving her to follow the nurse into the ward beyond.
Her mother wasn’t in the ward but in a small room beyond, sitting up in bed. She looked pale and tired but she was smiling, and Emma had to fight her strong wish to burst into tears at the sight of her. She smiled instead. ‘Mother, dear, you look so much better. How do you feel? And how nice that you’re in a room by yourself…’
She bent and kissed her parent. ‘I’ve just seen Sir Paul Wyatt and he says everything is most satisfactory.’ She pulled up a chair and sat by the bed, taking her mother’s hand in hers. ‘What a coincidence that he should be here. Sister told me that he’s a professor of surgery.’
Her mother smiled. ‘Yes, love, and I’m fine. I really am. You’re to go home now and not worry.’
‘Yes, Mother. I’ll phone this evening and I’ll be back tomorrow. Do you want me to bring anything? I’ll pack nighties and slippers and so on and bring them with me.’
Her mother closed her eyes. ‘Yes, you know what to bring…’
Emma bent to kiss her again. ‘I’m going now; you’re tired. Have a nap, darling.’
It was still early; patients were being washed and tended before the breakfast trolley arrived. Emma was too early for the ward sister but the night staff nurse assured her that she would be told if anything unforeseen occurred. ‘But your mother is most satisfactory, Miss Trent. The professor’s been to see her already; he came in the night too. He’s away for most of the day but his registrar is a splendid man. Ring this evening, if you like. You’ll be coming tomorrow?’
Emma nodded. ‘Can I come any time?’
‘Afternoon or evening is best.’
Emma went down to the car and drove herself back to Buckfastleigh. As she went she planned her day. She would have to go and see Mrs Smith-Darcy and explain that she wouldn’t be able to work for her any more. That lady was going to be angry and she supposed that she would have to apologise…She was owed a week’s wages too, and she would need it.
Perhaps Mr Dobbs would let her hire the car each day just for the drive to and from the hospital; it would cost more than bus fares but it would be much quicker. She would have to go to the bank too; there wasn’t much money there but she was prepared to spend the lot if necessary. It was too early to think about anything but the immediate future.
She took the car back to the garage and was warmed by Mr Dobbs’s sympathy and his assurance that if she needed it urgently she had only to say so. ‘And no hurry to pay the bill,’ he promised her.
She went home then, and fed an anxious Queenie before making coffee. She was hungry, but it was past nine o’clock by now and Mrs Smith-Darcy would have to be faced before anything else. She had a shower, changed into her usual blouse, skirt and cardigan, did her face, brushed her hair into its usual smoothness and got on to her bike.
Alice opened the door to her. ‘Oh, miss, whatever’s happened? The mistress is in a fine state. Cook says come and have a cup of tea before you go up to her room; you’ll need all your strength.’
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sp; ‘How kind of Cook,’ said Emma. ‘I think I’d rather have it afterwards, if I may.’ She ran upstairs and tapped on Mrs Smith-Darcy’s door and went in.
Mrs Smith-Darcy wasted no time in expressing her opinion of Emma; she repeated it several times before she ran out of breath, which enabled Emma to say, ‘I’m sorry if I was rude to you on the phone, Mrs Smith-Darcy, but you didn’t seem to understand that my mother was seriously ill—still is. I shall have to go to the hospital each day until she is well enough to come home, when I shall have to look after her until she is quite recovered—and that will take a considerable time.’
‘My luncheon party,’ gabbled Mrs Smith-Darcy. ‘You wicked girl, leaving me like this. I’m incapable…’
Emma’s efforts to behave well melted away. ‘Yes, you are incapable,’ she agreed. ‘You’re incapable of sympathy or human kindness. I suggest that you get up, Mrs Smith-Darcy, and see to your luncheon party yourself. I apologised to you just now—that was a mistake. You’re everything I said and a lot more beside.’
She went out of the room and closed the door gently behind here. Then she opened it again. ‘Will you be good enough to send my wages to my home?’ She closed the door again on Mrs Smith-Darcy’s enraged gasp.
She was shaking so much that her teeth rattled against the mug of tea Cook offered her.
‘Now, don’t you mind what she says,’ said Cook. ‘Nasty old lady she is, too. You go on home and have a good sleep, for you’re fair worn out. I’ve put up a pasty and one or two snacks, like; you take them home and if you’ve no time to cook you just slip round here to the back door—there’s always a morsel of something in the fridge.’
The dear soul’s kindness was enough to make Emma weep; she sniffed instead, gave Cook a hug and then got on her bike and cycled home, where she did exactly what that lady had told her to do—undressed like lightning and got into bed. She was asleep within minutes.
She woke suddenly to the sound of the door-knocker being thumped.
‘Mother,’ said Emma, and scrambled out of bed, her heart thumping as loudly as the knocker. Not bothering with slippers, she tugged her dressing-gown on as she flew downstairs. It was already dusk; she had slept for hours—too long—she should have phoned the hospital. She turned the key in the lock and flung the door open.
Professor Sir Paul Wyatt was on the doorstep. He took the door from her and came in and shut it behind him. ‘It is most unwise to open your door without putting up the chain or making sure that you know who it is.’
She eyed him through a tangle of hair. ‘How can I know if I don’t look first, and there isn’t a chain?’ Her half-awake brain remembered then.
‘Mother—what’s happened? Why are you here?’ She caught at his sleeve. ‘She’s worse…’
His firm hand covered hers. ‘Your mother is doing splendidly; she’s an excellent patient. I’m sorry, I should have realised…You were asleep.’
She curled her cold toes on the hall carpet and nodded. ‘I didn’t mean to sleep for so long; it’s getting dark.’ She looked up at him. ‘Why are you here, then?’
‘I’m on my way home, but it has occurred to me that I shall be taking morning surgery here for the next week or two. I’ll drive you up to Exeter after my morning visits and bring you back in time for evening surgery here.’
‘Oh, would you? Would you really do that? How very kind of you, but won’t it be putting you out? Sister said that you were taking a sabbatical, and that means you’re on holiday, doesn’t it?’
‘Hardly a holiday, and I’m free to go in and out as I wish.’
‘But you live in Exeter?’
‘No, but not far from it; I shall not be in the least inconvenienced.’
She looked at him uncertainly, for he sounded casual and a little annoyed, but before she could speak he went on briskly, ‘You’d better go and put some clothes on. Have you food in the house?’
‘Yes, thank you. Cook gave me a pasty.’ She was suddenly hungry at the thought of it. ‘It was kind of you to come. I expect you want to go home—your days are long…’
He smiled. ‘I’ll make a pot of tea while you dress, and while we are drinking it I can explain exactly what I’ve done for your mother.’
She flew upstairs and flung on her clothes, washed her face and tied back her hair. Never mind how she looked—he wouldn’t notice and he must be wanting to go home, wherever that was.
She perceived that he was a handy man in the kitchen—the tea was made, Queenie had been fed, and he had found a tin of biscuits.
‘No milk, I’m afraid,’ he said, not looking up from pouring the tea into two mugs. And then, very much to her surprise he asked, ‘Have you sufficient money?’
‘Yes—yes, thank you, and Mrs Smith-Darcy owes me a week’s wages.’ Probably in the circumstances she wouldn’t get them, but he didn’t need to know that.
He nodded, handed her a mug and said, ‘Now, as to your mother…’
He explained simply in dry-as-dust words which were neither threatening nor casual. ‘Your mother will stay in hospital for a week—ten days, perhaps—then I propose to send her to a convalescent home—there is a good one at Moretonhampstead, not too far from here—just for a few weeks. When she returns home she should be more or less able to resume her normal way of living, although she will have to keep to some kind of a diet. Time enough for that, however. Will you stay here alone?’ He glanced at her. ‘Perhaps you have family or a friend who would come…?’
‘No family—at least, father had some cousins somewhere in London but they don’t—that is, since he died we haven’t heard from them. I’ve friends all over Buckfastleigh, though. If I asked one of them I know they’d come and stay but there’s no need. I’m not nervous; besides, I’ll try and find some temporary work until Mother comes home.’
‘Mrs Smith-Darcy has given you the sack?’
‘I’m sure of it. I was very rude to her this morning.’ Anxious not to invite his pity, she added, ‘There’s always part-time work here—the abbey shop or the otter sanctuary.’ True enough during the season—some months away!
He put down his mug. ‘Good. I’ll call for you some time after twelve o’clock tomorrow morning.’ His goodbye was brief.
Left alone, she put the pasty to warm in the oven, washed the mugs and laid out a tray. The house was cold—there had never been enough money for central heating, and it was too late to make a fire in the sitting-room. She ate her supper, had a shower and went to bed, reassured by her visitor’s calm manner and his certainty that her mother was going to be all right. He was nice, she thought sleepily, and not a bit pompous. She slept on the thought.
It was raining hard when she woke and there was a vicious wind driving off the moor. She had breakfast and hurried round to Dobbs’s garage to use his phone. Her mother had had a good night, she was told, and was looking forward to seeing her later—reassuring news, which sent her back to give the good news to Queenie and then do the housework while she planned all the things she would do before her mother came home.
She had a sandwich and a cup of coffee well before twelve o’clock, anxious not to keep the professor waiting, so that when he arrived a few minutes before that hour she was in her coat, the house secure, Queenie settled in her basket and the bag she had packed for her mother ready in the hall.
He wished her a friendly good morning, remarked upon the bad weather and swept her into the car and drove away without wasting a moment. Conversation, she soon discovered, wasn’t going to flourish in the face of his monosyllabic replies to her attempts to make small talk. She decided that he was tired or mulling over his patients and contented herself with watching the bleak landscape around them.
At the hospital he said, ‘Will half-past four suit you? Be at the main entrance, will you?’ He added kindly, ‘I’m sure you’ll be pleased with your mother’s progress.’ He got out of the car and opened her door, waited while she went in and then, contrary to her surmise, drove out of the foreco
urt and out of the city. Emma, unaware of this, expecting him to be about his own business in the hospital, made her way to her mother’s room and forgot him at once.
Her mother was indeed better—pale still, and hung around with various tubes, but her hair had been nicely brushed and when Emma had helped her into her pink bed-jacket she looked very nearly her old self.
‘It’s a miracle, isn’t it?’ said Emma, gently embracing her parent. ‘I mean, it’s only forty-eight or so hours and here you are sitting up in bed.’
Mrs Trent, nicely sedated still, agreed drowsily. ‘You brought my knitting? Thank you, dear. Is Queenie all right? And how are you managing to come? It can’t be easy—don’t come every day; it’s such a long way…’
‘Professor Wyatt is standing in for Dr Treble, so he brings me here after morning surgery and takes me back in time for his evening surgery.’
‘That’s nice.’ Mrs Trent gave Emma’s hand a little squeeze. ‘So I’ll see you each day; I’m so glad.’ She closed her eyes and dropped off and Emma sat holding her hand, making plans.
A job—that was the most important thing to consider; a job she would be able to give up when her mother returned home. She might not be trained for anything much but she could type well enough and she could do simple accounts and housekeep adequately enough; there was sure to be something…
Her mother woke presently and she talked cheerfully about everyday things, not mentioning Mrs Smith-Darcy and, indeed, she didn’t intend to do so unless her mother asked.
A nurse came and Emma, watching her skilful handling of tubes and the saline drip, so wished that she could be cool and calm and efficient and—an added bonus—pretty. Probably she worked for the professor— saw him every day, was able to understand him when he gave his orders in strange surgical terms, and received his thanks. He seemed to Emma to be a man of effortless good manners.
Her mother dozed again and didn’t rouse as the teatrolley was wheeled in, which was a good thing since a cup of tea was out of the question, but Emma was given one, with two Petit Beurre biscuits, and since her hurried lunch seemed a long time ago she was grateful.