Secretary Wife

by Rachel Lindsay

  'Not in so many words,' he agreed. 'But the mean­ing was obvious.' His eyes grew dark with remem­bered pain and for the first time he showed evidence of feeling. 'I never want to see a woman cry like that again. She desperately wanted to do the right thing, but it was impossible for her. She can't bear sick­ness. Some people can't, you know. It isn't any­thing they can help; it just happens. Rosemary hadn't realised she was one of them until I… until now.'

  Laura listened, unable to credit that Carl Ander­son should be making excuses for a girl who had let him down so disastrously. Or did he love her so deeply that he did not see her for the selfish person she was?

  'You're very forgiving, Mr Anderson,' she mur­mured.

  'If one loves someone, one tries to understand them.' He looked up, his eyes bleak. 'Love doesn't die that quickly, Laura.'

  'Miss Carlton's did.'

  'Don't say that! Rosemary's young and she'd been cosseted all her life. She—'

  'That's no excuse for her to run away when you need her! You may delude yourself, Mr Anderson, but I can't.' Laura put the documents in her brief­case. The look on his face told her he was angry, but she had no intention of retracting what she had said. She was glad she had spoken honestly and would have said more had she not been afraid that he had reached the end of his emotional tether.

  'I don't know how long you intend to remain in my employ.' He spoke so quietly that she had to strain to hear him. 'But however long you stay with me, you are never to talk of Rosemary in that way again. Do you understand?'

  'Yes, Mr Anderson.' She turned the handle and opened the door.

  'Laura!'

  His voice stopped her, but she refused to turn in case he saw her tears. 'What do you want?' she asked huskily.

  'Don't be angry with me. Try to understand how I feel.'

  The entreaty in his plea was her undoing, and with a gasp she turned and ran back to his bed, clutching at his hand and dampening it with her tears.

  'I don't know how she could bear to leave you,' Laura sobbed, kneeling beside-him. 'I couldn't.'

  His free hand came out and patted her shoulder. 'Does that mean you've changed your mind about seeing the world?'

  The question checked her tears and her whole body tensed. She longed to tell him that he was her world and that without him in it she would be dead too. But she knew this was the last thing he wanted to hear from her. He needed her as a secretary, as someone to whom he could talk as a friend; never anything more. On a sigh she lifted her head and looked at him, closer to him physically than she had ever been before. How silvery grey his eyes were, and how pale his hair.

  'I'll stay with you as long as you need me, Mr Anderson.'

  His hand stilled its movement on her shoulder. 'Then you have a job for life, Laura.'

  Laura was afraid that Rosemary's departure would affect Carl Anderson's progress. But she had reckoned without his resilience of character. Physi­cally battered he might be, but the will to live was still strong within him, though there were times when she noticed the effort it cost him to conquer his depression.

  Respecting his injunction never to be derogatory about Rosemary, she made no mention of her, though coming in to see him unexpectedly one afternoon, she found him staring longingly at the girl's photograph. He made no attempt to hide what he was doing and went on looking at it for several seconds. It was as if he had no pride. He loved Rosemary and he did not care who knew it. It was an honesty Laura admired even as she wished he had the honesty to look clearly at Rosemary's be­haviour. If he could admit she was callous and un­loving he would be taking the first step towards forgetting her.

  Three months after entering hospital, Carl An­derson left it for his home in Hampstead; the home he had lovingly prepared for a wife and in which he would now live alone, apart from his staff.

  Several of his fellow directors had tried to per­suade him to sell the house and remain in his flat, arguing that for a man in a wheelchair it was a far better solution. But he obstinately refused to con­sider it, saying it was a beautiful house and that he intended to enjoy it.

  Only to Laura was he more expansive, giving practical reasons for his action. 'From now on, my world will be bounded by the four walls where I live, and if my home has a garden and a view I won't feel so restricted. To be confined to a flat would be like living in a coffin. And I'm not dead yet,' he added grimly. 'Not by a long way.'

  It was a grey November day when he took up residence at Holly Grove. Laura had visited the house the day before to make sure everything was ready and to personally arrange the masses of flowers that had been sent to him. She also made sure there were the latest magazines and business journals in the library, a plentiful supply of fresh cigars in the humidor and drinks in the cabinet.

  Carl Anderson had refused to have a bedroom made for him downstairs and instead had installed an electric lift. Going up in it herself, she was over­come by the knowledge that for the rest of his life he would have to depend on mechanical means for transport: wheelchairs, lifts, cars. Never again would he be able to use his own legs.

  The lift stopped and she went along the corridor to the main bedroom. On her own initiative, though not without a great deal of trepidation, she had asked Mrs Foster to change its decor.

  'Mr Anderson will be sleeping in it alone, and it will be better for him if he has something less feminine.'

  'What do you have in mind?' Mrs Foster had asked.

  'I'll leave it to you.'

  Coming into the room today, she knew there was no danger of his being reminded of his erstwhile fiancée. The olive green carpet and the sharp lime and orange curtains were a far cry from the original powder blue and filmy pink silk.

  Sensitive to his feelings, Laura did not accompany him from the hospital to Holly Grove, but left him to arrive with Mary—who had agreed to become his private nurse—and his valet. She had toyed with the idea of not seeing him at all that first day, but had decided that too much diplomacy would annoy him and, after giving him a reasonable time to get settled, she went to the house at four o'clock.

  The windows glowed with golden light and the warmth of the hall enveloped her as she entered it.

  'Mr Anderson is upstairs,' the manservant said. 'He wanted to come down, but Nurse Roberts wouldn't let him.'

  'That must have pleased him!'

  'He went into one of his quiet tempers.' The valet smiled. He had worked for Carl Anderson for five years and was one of the few people allowed to answer him back. 'He was also expecting you to be here when he arrived.'

  Without replying to this, Laura ran upstairs. Her employer was not in bed, as she had expected, but sitting in his wheelchair by the window, staring out at the garden and the swimming pool, glimmering faintly in the gathering dusk. He turned his head as Laura came in, but he did not speak, and she went to stand beside his chair. As she did so, the lights around the pool sprang on, turning it into an aquamarine oasis.

  'The surgeon said swimming is good for me,' the soft voice spoke behind Laura, but she deliberately remained staring through the window. 'I'm not sure if I didn't make a mistake in coming here to live,' he continued. 'It might have been better if I'd stayed in the flat.'

  At this she swung round. 'You did the right thing! This is a beautiful house. You just need to move through the rooms to know it's been happy and well loved. If you—' She stopped, aware of the odd way he was looking at her. 'I'm sorry, Mr Anderson, you must think me very fanciful.'

  'Not fanciful, Laura. I just hadn't realised the house meant so much to you.'

  Why shouldn't it mean something to me? she wanted to cry. I found it; I decorated it. It's far more my home than Rosemary's. But the habit of years kept her silent and she turned back to the window and stared out with unseeing eyes.

  'Don't be embarrassed because you're senti­mental,' he said with mild amusement. 'It's a facet I hadn't expected to find in your character.'

  'You only know my office personality.'

 
; 'Now you're really putting me in my place!' He put his hand lightly on her arm. 'I've come to know you much more since I've been in hospital. I used to look forward to your visit each day.'

  'Because I brought you all the office gossip.'

  'It was more than that.' He sighed. 'You're the only person whose head I haven't felt inclined to bite off.'

  'If it makes you feel better,' she said whimsically, 'you can bite it any time you like!'

  He chuckled and, pressing a button on his wheel­chair, sent it gliding back into the centre of the room. As always it gave her a pang to see him con­fined in it and, as always, she found it impossible to believe he would never leap from it and walk. How strong and vital he looked! Enforced rest had given him a healthier colour despite the pallor of his skin—and his eyes were fresh and so clear that they looked like summer clouds. Lack of sunshine had darkened his hair to a more subdued beige, but his mouth was as firm, his jawline as determined and his shoulders as broad as they had always been. The turn of his head as he surveyed the room was equally incisive.

  'It wasn't like this before,' he muttered.

  'Yes, it was.'

  'Don't lie to me, Laura.' His voice was as gentle as a snowflake's touch. 'You furnished every single room except the library—to suit Rosemary's taste, and she would never have wanted a bedroom like this.'

  'I—er—Mrs Foster didn't feel that powder blue and pink were quite your colours!'

  'In that case you should have told her to use black. It would have fitted my mood!'

  She refused to rise to this and turned back to the window to draw the curtains.

  'Leave them,' he commanded. 'When I wake up in the morning I like to see the sun.' He propelled his chair to the wall and rang the bell. 'Now you're here, maybe I can persuade that damned nurse to let me go downstairs for dinner. She mumbled something about my having it in bed.'

  'Mary doesn't mumble,' Laura said drily. 'If I know her, she ordered you to stay in bed.'

  'Nobody orders me around in my own home,' he replied. The sooner Nurse Roberts realises it the better.'

  'She's concerned with your health.'

  'So am I. And I know what's best for me. My legs may be useless, but my brain still works, and I won't be treated like an imbecile!'

  His voice was louder than she had ever heard it. It showed that the control he always kept upon himself was at last beginning to crack. Many times she had wished it would do so, and watching him argue with some of his colleagues, had longed for him to thump the bed or give some other display of temper instead of becoming quieter and more withdrawn.

  'Why are you standing there smirking?' he de­manded.

  'I was smiling, not smirking,' she corrected. 'Your choice of verbs isn't very complimentary.'

  'I've never been complimentary to you. Some times I wonder why you stay with me.'

  'You pay well,' she said lightly, and watched as he glided towards her. Carl stopped the chair a few feet away and rested his head against the back. The different angle threw his cheekbones into relief and made her realise that though he had regained his spirit, he had not regained the weight he had lost.

  There's something I've been meaning to ask you,' he said quietly. 'After my accident you told me you no longer wished to go abroad. At the time I was delighted to accept your change of mind, but now I don't think I should.'

  Laura stared at him, unable to believe he was sending her away. 'D-don't you w-want me to go on working for you?' she stammered.

  'Of course I do! But I don't want you sacrificing your life on my account. You said you wanted to travel, and I don't believe you've changed your mind for any reason other than your morbid desire to please me.''

  It was a difficult accusation to deny and, even if she did, he was too intelligent to believe her. Yet she had to satisfy him, otherwise he was quite capable of insisting she leave.

  'I meant what I said to you that day in the hos­pital, and I'm not sacrificing myself.'

  'Aren't you?'

  'No. I genuinely changed my mind. However, I'm willing to promise that if I get another attack of wanderlust, I'll let you know.'

  'If I could believe that' he said slowly, 'I wouldn't feel guilty about letting you stay.'

  'I give you my word that I'll never stay with you out of sympathy.' Only from love, her heart cried, but this thought did not show on her face.

  'Very well,' he said. 'But I hold you to your promise.'

  To Laura's relief, Mary chose that moment to come in. She was not in uniform, having obeyed Carl Anderson's wish not to be reminded of her medical training.

  'I enjoy having a pretty woman around,' he had said with some of his old humour, 'but it's bad for my libido if she crackles with starch every time she bends over me.'

  Mary now looked at Laura and smiled. 'I suppose Mr Anderson has been complaining because he has to stay in his room tonight?'

  'He hasn't said a word about it,' Laura said promptly. 'He's being a model of obedience.'

  'How women kid themselves!' he interrupted.

  'So do men,' Mary Roberts said, and Laura, look­ing at him, saw a shadow darken his eyes. Was he finally beginning to realise the sort of person Rose­mary was? If only he were, how much happier he would eventually be.

  'You'll stay for dinner, won't you, Laura?' he questioned.

  'If you wish.'

  His head tilted. 'Always at my service, Laura. I don't know what I would do without you.'

  CHAPTER SIX

  WITHIN a few weeks Laura settled down into a routine far different from the one she had pre­viously had. Each morning she went to the office, collected her employer's mail and took it to Holly Grove where she spent the morning taking dicta­tion and getting the various calls around the world which the correspondence frequently necessitated.

  At noon Carl took an hour off for his physio­therapy, and though to begin with she counted this time as her lunch hour, he soon asked her to have lunch with him instead. At two o'clock he sent his wheelchair gliding up the ramp fixed to the back of the new shooting brake he had bought himself. He had brusquely refused to be carried into the back of his Rolls-Royce, saying he felt more of a man if he could do things for himself instead of being shifted around like a parcel. He seemed oblivious of the curious stares from passers-by as he and Laura drove down to the office, and if any of them showed more than average curiosity by peering in, he would cheerfully wave to them, which sent them scuttling off in embarrassment.

  He remained at the office for the rest of the day and it was here that most of the people came to see him. Laura knew he found it frustrating to have all the information he required come to him second­hand. He was a man who had always done things for himself, yet now he was having to depend on others.

  His decision to change this particular aspect of his life came without warning, reminding her—lest she had forgotten—that he was not a man one could ever profess to know completely. It happened on a bitterly cold December afternoon when, instead of the chauffeur taking them from the house to the office, Carl ordered the man to go to the Lambeth building site.

  Laura caught her breath at his casual tone. No one would ever guess he was going to the site where he had had the accident which had ruined his life.

  'The work hasn't fallen behind schedule,' she said quickly. 'Mr Durban was there yesterday. There's no reason for you to go.'

  He did not answer, but the look he slanted in her direction made her lapse into silence. They both remained quiet for the rest of the journey, though when the car reached the Lambeth site she saw the fine film of sweat on his forehead. He slid his chair down the ramp, then waited for the fore­man—whom he had obviously warned ahead of time—to come forward and propel his chair along the uneven ground.

  'Come with me, Laura,' he called impatiently. 'I want you to take some notes.'

  For the next hour he was trundled from one part of the site to the other. To begin with many of the workmen stopped and watched him, but he ap­peared
oblivious of their interest, though the shine on his forehead did not disappear and a flush de­veloped on his cheekbones.

  It was Laura who finally insisted they return to the office by pretending to feel terribly cold, though as they went up in the lift and she undid her coat, he chided her for being a poor liar.

  'You don't look cold at all. Your cheeks are glow­ing like a robin redbreast.'

  'My feet are frozen,' she asserted.

  'You're a bit like a robin in other ways too,' he continued, giving her an appraising look. 'It's that brown hair of yours and those warm brown eyes.'

  'Robins aren't brown.'

  'In my imagination they are.' He half smiled. There's something cheery and comforting about a robin.' He gave her another longer look. 'On second thoughts you aren't like a bird. You're far too calm and you move much more gracefully. I remember my mother once reading me a story about a robin redbreast. Perhaps that's why the simile came to mind.' The lift doors opened and he glided out. 'You have the same colouring as my mother. I never noticed it before.'

  'You rarely talk about her,' she said.

  'I think of her a great deal, though,' he said abruptly. 'Particularly since my accident.'

  It was from Mary Roberts that Laura first heard her employer was having a series of tests at a lead­ing neurological hospital. He had merely told her he Would not be free to see anyone for two days and had led her to believe he was having additional physiotherapy which might help him to move around on crutches in the foreseeable future. It was a shock to learn this was untrue and that the exer­cises were, in fact, intensive physical tests to try and discover why he was suddenly having acute pain in his legs.

  Laura had grown so used to seeing him in a wheel­chair that even when she dreamed about him—as she frequently did—it was always to see him in this position, and she had taken it for granted that because he could not use his legs, he had no feeling in them.

  'He must be having intense pain if he's willing to take tests to find out what's causing it,' she said.

  'I took it for granted you knew. Otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it.' Mary looked per­turbed. 'He usually tells you everything.'