Ann set to work, respecting her patient’s desire for silence, her own thoughts chaotic. What on earth was she going to do about that dress?
In spite of all her efforts to be sensible, she was bubbling with excitement. That lovely, lovely dress, which from the first moment of trying on she had known was hers. It seemed as if she had been destined to see it once again.
All the time she was in Beverley’s room, she was expecting someone to come rushing in to say that a messenger had arrived to take the dress to its rightful owner. She took a quick look at the clock. If she didn’t begin to get ready soon, she wouldn’t be in time to go with the others to the dance.
All at once Beverley realized the same thing.
“Ann, you’ll have to hurry,” she said, wriggling from the couch. Now that her annoyance had subsided, Ann realized, the girl was in a state of suppressed excitement and tension which the massage had not relieved.
“Beverley,” Ann said warningly, “you must take things more calmly. You over-excited already.”
The other rushed to the mirror, towels thrown carelessly around her. “Yes, I suppose I am. Something wonderful has happened. Something ... Oh, for goodness’ sake, run along, girl, and get ready! I feel like a fairy godmother!”
Light dawned on Ann. So that was the explanation! Oh, how kind of Beverley. “Oh, so that’s the explanation. How marvellous,” she began.
Beverley was already scrambling into her underclothes. “Run along, Ann, and hurry ... hurry...”
Ann lingered. “But surely you want me to help you with your hair?”
“No, I’ll manage. Hurry, there’s a good girl.” She was all but pushing Ann out of the room.
Ann’s voice was faltering. “Oh, Beverley, my dress...”
“For goodness’ sake stop worrying about your dress, darling. It will look lovely, I’m sure. But I shan’t think you look lovely if you keep me waiting.”
She shut the door decisively, with Ann on the other side. Her tiredness forgotten and suddenly feeling crazily elated, Ann ran up to her own room. That dress had been meant for her, right from the beginning. With miraculous speed and deftness, her bath, make-up, and hair were accomplished. And now the dress. It fitted her as if it had been made for her. No imagination about that. It really did.
She slid her feet into the gold shoes and picked up the gloves. It would be nice if she’d had a fur wrap, but she hadn’t, so her coat would have to serve.
Was there time to go into the nursery? Mrs. Woods’ door hadn’t opened yet, and she had promised to go and see both Averil and the children. So she slipped along the corridor to the other wing and was rewarded with rapturous sighs from the governess amid her sneezes.
The children were sitting up in bed, waiting to see her. “You’re not really our Auntie Anne, but you’re much, much nicer and prettier, and that’s what I told Uncle Iain,” Emma remarked exuberantly.
Ann looked startled. “Emma darling!” she protested.
The little girl began to say something about the dress, but her voice was almost immediately drowned by Guy’s shrieks of: “She is Aunt Anne. She is, she is! She’s my Auntie Anne, Emma Derhart.”
That started a quarrel, and in the ensuing battle Ann slipped away. It was too bad leaving Averil to settle it, but she was sure Mrs. Woods would be ready by now.
She was, and fuming because Ann had not been in sight when she had finally emerged from her bedroom. Ann had already put her coat around her shoulders, and Mrs. Woods betrayed no interest in her dress or her appearance, though presumably she too had been a party to the substitution of the white dress for the one she had originally chosen.
Ann found that she was unable to get in a word of thanks amid the torrent of grumbles, but tonight neither Mrs. Woods’ lack of interest nor her complaints could quell Ann’s excitement and anticipation. Nothing mattered except that moment when she would take off her coat and walk into the ballroom in this lovely dress. Or would Iain wait to collect his party in the vestibule?
The car, it seemed, was waiting, and Beverley had already been collected. “I really need the whole back seat to spread out my dress,” she said. “We should have arranged for Burrows to drive you in, Mummy, and Ann.”
“I said you’d be better in front with me, Beverley,” the driver remarked now, and Ann saw that Robert Leedon was to be their escort. Well, she had not really expected to see Iain. Naturally, he would be taking his aunt and Doctor Lyntrope.
“Mrs. Woods’ figure tensed. “Oh, it’s you, Lee. I — well, somehow I didn’t think you’d be going tonight after — what has happened.”
He shrugged. “I scarcely knew my cousin or his family, you know. There’s no sense of personal loss, and my staying away from the Ball wouldn’t bring them back to life.” Ann’s mind immediately connected this remark with Miss Pollard’s reference to the tragic air disaster in America. In view of the fact that Beverley and Robert Leedon had once been married, it might be that Mrs. Woods had known the victims who appeared to be related to the Assistant Director of the Institute.
Beverley decided to go to the front of the car, and Mrs. Woods and Ann seated themselves at the back. As soon as they had started, the older woman said in a whisper: “Beverley is remarkably well, despite all the excitement, so you needn’t hang around her, Ann.”
Ann had been on the verge of making a little speech of thanks for the dress, but now her expression changed.
When there was no immediate reply, Mrs. Woods went on, “You know you were included in Mr. Sherrarde’s party only as a matter of courtesy to Beverley and myself. There’s not the slightest reason why you should stay with us, and indeed, Beverley and I would prefer you not to. Naturally, you’ll want to dance a good deal with— people of your own sort. I mean, especially that male nurse you’re so friendly with. I expect he will see you home, so we shan’t expect you to come back with us.”
Ann was sure that Mrs. Woods knew that Ralph Gateworth had been dismissed and had probably by now terminated his period of notice. It was merely that neither she nor Beverley wanted her among their friends. Yet they had given her this lovely dress!
There was a lump in her throat as she said in a small voice, “That man is not and never was my friend. I should certainly not dance with him or allow him to take me home.”
Mrs. Woods shrugged. “Oh, my mistake. I merely thought it would be more tactful for everybody concerned.”
After that, Ann couldn’t find words to say anything at all, and certainly not to make a gracious little speech about her dress.
When the car drew up outside the Imperial Hotel where the Ball was being held, Robert Leedon said, “I shall have to park somewhere else, so perhaps you three will go in. You know where we’re meeting Sherrarde, don’t you — the Goldfish cocktail lounge.”
Beverley and Mrs. Woods, who were both on the side of the steps, got out and walked into the hotel, neither of them showing any interest in Ann. She shrugged her coat away and left it in the car, and then, standing on the steps, she shook out the wide skirt of her dress. As she raised her head, she caught Lee’s look of surprised appreciation.
She smiled, and then followed Mrs. Woods and Beverley, her heart beating fast. The Matron’s Ball ... and again there came quick stabbing pinpricks of memory ... of another Matron’s Ball ... of another evening of eager anticipation ... And then the fleeting memories had gone, as if they had never been.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE dressing-room was crowded and Ann was quickly separated from tier two companions, who indeed had never given her a glance, eager as they were to seek mirrors, and the reassurance that the fifteen-minute journey had done nothing to mar the perfection of hair and complexion.
Ann gave herself a long look. It was heady and exciting to look like this — more beautiful than she had ever been in her life before. For she was sure she did. There had been other gala occasions in her life — those stabbing pinpricks of memory told her that — but never one like this.
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br /> She must have stood too long admiring herself, for when she moved back she could see no sign of Mrs. Woods nor of Beverley. They had gone on to the Goldfish cocktail lounge, perhaps assuming that she would not follow. Well, they were going to be surprised.
There was a recklessness about Ann tonight that made her big, lavender grey eyes glow and gave a tinge of color to her lovely skin.
Women in the dressing-room had given her side looks of calculated envy, but now she saw open appreciation of her beauty from many male eyes as she made her way across the vestibule in search of the rest of her party.
She came at last into the gaily decorated lounge and saw Mrs. Woods and Beverley talking to Robert Leedon. There were a lot of other people whom she did not know at all, or only by sight. Then she saw Iain Sherrarde’s aunt, in black, and beside her a slender figure in pale green, with her auburn hair piled high.
Someone must have seen her by the door and mentioned her name, for all at once it seemed as if everybody was turning to look at her. Ann caught, in a lightning flash, the stares of outrage and consternation on the faces of Beverley and Mrs. Woods, and knew in that moment that they were not responsible for her wearing this white dress. And then there was only Iain, as he separated himself from the crowd and came to meet her.
Iain, his light eyes glittering oddly in his dark face. As if in a dream, she remembered running away in the darkness of despair, and finding herself in this man’s arms. And after that, when she had seemed to be submerging in a twilight sea, he had come to her and called her back. He had claimed her as his own in those two encounters, whether he had known it or not. And now for a third time it seemed that his eyes asked a question, and demanded an answer.
She saw no one but him as she gave him her hand and her lovely smile. She did not speak, and he said only one word ... “Anne.”
Time had ceased to have any reality. It seemed to her as they stood looking into each other’s eyes that all eternity whirled and spun them into formless space.
Iain Sherrarde broke the silence at last, rather shakily. “We’re having drinks. What would you like?”
Ann supposed that she answered, for a few moments later she found she had a glass in her hand and Iain’s Aunt Mary was saying in a vaguely bewildered way: “I don’t think I’ve met you before. Surely you are neither a doctor nor a nurse?” And her eyes said, You’re much too pretty to be either.
“I’m a nurse,” Ann replied in a manner that was equally vague, and turned to meet Doctor Lyntrope’s hostile gaze.
“Auntie, surely you see who it is. Miss Woods, who is looking after Emma and Guy. What has happened to them tonight?” she questioned Ann now, her bright blue eyes like bits of splintered glass. “Surely you haven’t left them in charge of that incompetent young woman?”
“They were in bed when I left,” Ann replied, and turned with glowing face and a brilliant smile as Iain Sherrarde came to stand by her elbow.
They went into the ballroom as a group, Beverley and Robert Leedon, Mrs. Trederrick and Doctor Lyntrope and some men whose names Ann didn’t remember, though she had been introduced to them only a minute ago.
Iain Sherrarde’s hand was on her arm, and without speaking they began to dance. Once more the enchantment of another world was around her. It seemed that she danced on the magic sward of fairyland. There was wonder in every moment and a faint, faint remembrance that sooner or later midnight would strike and reality would come into its own.
Iain said thickly, in a voice that she scarcely recognized as his, “Anne, you’ve bewitched me. I’ve been fighting your enchantment from the moment I met you. I can’t bear the thought of your dancing with any other man, and yet all those people are my guests and I ought to see that they’re having a pleasant time. I haven’t yet paid my respects to Matron and...”
Ann smiled at him with eyes that had never looked so softly brilliant as now. “Darling, I — we can wait. I won’t dance with anyone else. I’ll stay by Beverley; that, after all, is why I came.”
“Is it?” he asked fiercely. “Is it?”
“Well, perhaps not. But I didn’t know. I didn’t realize that you...”
Ann did not notice the curious or interested glances back among the official party, and even Doctor Lyntrope’s vindictive stare was unobserved. She looked around for Beverley and found she was missing. Robert Leedon wasn’t there either, and Ann was fairly sure that that “watchdog,” as Beverley had referred to him, would not be far away from the lovely frail girl who had once been his wife.
Mrs. Woods, who had been dancing, came back still with her partner, and Ann said anxiously, “Mrs. Woods, where is Beverley? Is she all right?”
The other gave her a curious smile. “Oh, you’ve remembered her, have you, all at once?”
Ann thought: She is right to be so angry. After all, I did come to look after Beverley, and though they told me they didn’t want me to stay with Iain’s party, they didn’t anticipate that Iain would dance first with me.
Mrs. Woods caught her wrist and turned her slightly so that what she said could only be for Ann. “We’ve got to have a reckoning, young woman, you and I. But it can wait till tomorrow. In the meantime, leave Beverley alone. Lee will take care of her and you make yourself scarce. That boy friend of yours is here, I see, so there’s no excuse for you to hang around here.”
Mrs. Woods was very angry indeed, and Ann supposed it was because of Iain’s attention to herself, which had caused Beverley to go off in a pique with Robert Leedon. It had been abundantly clear that Mrs. Woods very much disliked her daughter’s continued friendship with her ex-husband.
But Ann’s spirits were not to be quelled tonight by Mrs. Woods’ annoyance, and not even the news that Ralph Gateworth was here could cast but the faintest of shadows.
And then Iain was by her side, whirling her into the dance again. For him, conventions had gone by the board. He had eyes for no one except herself.
He said at last, “There’s a garden here somewhere, and it isn’t really cold. Let’s go out and talk. There’s so much I want to say. What about a wrap?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ann replied, remembering that her coat was in Lee’s car.
“Look, there’s Lievers. He’s had his eyes on you all the evening and he’s coming in this direction. Let’s get out quickly.”
The garden beside the hotel was a place of shadows, and there in one of the arbors they stood together for a moment, and then almost wordlessly they were in each other’s arms.
“We’ll be married as soon as I can get a licence,” he said arrogantly, though he had not even proposed.
A fleeting instinct of self-preservation pricked into Ann’s consciousness. Tell him now, it urged. Tell him you aren’t Anne Woods, and you haven’t the faintest idea who you really are. But almost immediately all thought was submerged by the rising excitement of his close embrace.
It was inevitable at so large a gathering that they should be interrupted, and when the garden was all at once invaded by a crowd of nurses and their escorts, Iain whispered reluctantly, “We shall have to go back, darling.”
Ann nodded speechlessly, her eyes and thoughts far away. He kissed her again. “Ann, shall we keep this to ourselves for tonight? It seems too wonderful to bring out in front of everybody ... here...”
Again she gave her assent without words, resolving that when he returned again to his duty dances she would creep away somewhere on her own, hugging to herself the precious knowledge that he loved her.
They, went back to the ballroom, scarcely exchanging a word, yet in such close accord that it seemed they were still in each other’s arms.
It was just at the entrance to the ballroom that it happened. Ann caught sight of Ralph Gateworth, his eyes glittering, a triumphant smile on his face, and the shadow of disaster seemed to fall darkly across her.
And then she saw him ... and all that she had forgotten — all that she had wanted so desperately to forget — came rushing back to her.
Michael ... Michael Lenforth, whom she had believed she had loved, Michael whose ring she had worn, Michael who had let her down so badly...
She saw his face, eager, ardent, and heard him say, “Ann, so at last I’ve found you!”
And then above it, Gateworth’s voice in hateful mockery. “Doctor Lenforth, your other fiancée, is here with a party from Queen Frida’s, Anne. He has been looking all over the place for you.” He turned to Sherrarde and the mockery deepened. “An odd thing, isn’t it, Mr. Sherrarde, for a young woman to be engaged to two men at the same time and then to run out on them both in order to make the going with a third one. But our little Anne is nothing if she isn’t ambitious. Rather like a ladder we’ve been, for her. Me, just on the nursing staff, then a junior pathologist in hospital, and now ... the Director of the Sherrarde Institute. You’re a little tramp, Anne, but I have to hand it to you. You get away with it, sweetie!”
It was insolence at its most outrageous. Perhaps Ann’s and Iain’s faces had given too much away, perhaps whatever the situation, he would have made the same wounding remarks.
But for both of them the shock was too great — this public reference to their love in a gloating voice that heaped it also with shame.
“Ann, my darling, where have you been?” This was Michael, standing in front of her, speaking as if nothing had ever gone wrong between them. “Tell me that this fellow is lying when he says he’s also engaged to you. As for this man...”
Ann found herself wondering whether she was going to faint and hoping almost desperately that she might. But she knew she wasn’t going to find escape as easily as that.
Oh, if only she had obeyed that impulse and told Iain earlier that she was not Anne Woods — not the girl whom he loved despite her reputation as a man-chaser. Confronted with two other men, what was he going to think?
It was all too evident. He was standing quite still, his face hard, a fine white line around his tightly closed lips. Ann’s glance flickered over Gateworth. No need for any self-reproach there. She had never seen him before she went to Fountains. And then it came to Doctor Michael Lenforth, the man she had once been going to marry.
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