by Anne Durham
He flushed a dull red. ‘Why, you brat, you wouldn’t!’
‘I would! I’m not sure I won’t. Tilda cares for you very much, and I reckon it’s downright mean of you to even look at another girl!’
‘I’ll wring your neck if you talk about me and that wretched redhead! Catherine Allen is a pest at best, but to let her wreck this thing—’
‘Catherine Allen! So it was you on the fire stairs after all, that night!’ Gwenny exploded. ‘I thought it was, at the time, and then I couldn’t believe it, because of her connection with Dr. Bayfield—’ She closed her eyes. ‘Oh, Laurence, you’re such a fool! Isn’t this family in trouble enough over the R.M.O. without you sticking your neck out like that?’
‘Dear infant, that was what all the trouble was about in the beginning,’ said Laurence, grinning unrepentantly. ‘You’re not really up to date, are you? I didn’t really expect to get this job after he was so upset about his precious Catherine, only I couldn’t tell the old man that, could I?’
Gwenny took some time to take that in. At last she said ‘You mean to say you let Daddy think it was because of favouritism on the Board that you didn’t get this job, when all the time it was because you privately upset the R.M.O. doing such a dreadful thing? Didn’t you know about Catherine Allen’s connection with him at the time?’
‘Not at first, of course not. And then—well, she was willing to flirt with me and why not? But she really is a very boring girl after a bit, and then I couldn’t get rid of her. Anyway, between you and me, I’m not really good enough for this job, and though there was a row between your precious R.M.O. and me I doubt if he really held that against me, when it came to the crunch. It was Sir Giles on the Board, and he didn’t like the look of me from the first. Of course, he just might have known about me and Catherine ‘
‘But you can’t go through life like that! Suppose you can’t get a decent appointment anywhere? And you and Tilda can’t get married?’
‘You’re presuming that Tilda’s dear parents won’t object to me,’ he said sourly. ‘Well, I’ll just have to emigrate, won’t I? She’ll come with me. On the other hand, I might chuck medicine and try for a vet. The vets seem to do all right, from what I can see of it! I must have chosen the wrong career from the start, from what Tilda tells me. Her old man might even accept me if I was a vet, come to think of it!’
‘Oh, Laurence, ‘Gwenny sighed in despair.
He got up to go, then turned back. ‘I say, did you hear about some bloke buying that cottage for old Mrs. Yeedon? Funny thing that! Know anything about it?’
‘No, I don’t hear anything in here. Why should I?—no one tells me anything,’ Gwenny complained.
‘Well, I’ll tell you something! There’s something fishy about that sale. Who’d want to buy an old cottage that was on its last legs, anyway, and especially when the property companies wanted it so badly? You tell me that!’
‘Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about, said Gwenny. ‘I’m just glad for old Mrs. Yeedon’s sake!’
Laurence looked disappointed. ‘Well, I seem to be telling you things, don’t I? And what about Priscilla? Don’t tell me she’s suddenly taking life seriously—her and the Casualty Officer, of all people!’
‘What about the Casualty Officer?’
‘I’ve got eyes in my head and when I was brought into Casualty I must have looked pretty frightful, only it wasn’t my blood (it was the poor old chauffeur’s) and my dear sister, for the first time in her life that I remember looked concerned about me. In fact, Priscilla looked so concerned, she almost passed out! And what do you know, the Casualty Officer put out both arms in a truly tender gesture and supported her. Silly fellow, he held her as if she were a bit of precious china! No mistaking how he feels about her at the moment—but he’ll find out! I wish him joy of her. But there, I’m only her brother—perhaps she’s got hidden charms that the Casualty Officer’s discovered! What’s his name now—oh, yes, Milward.’
‘Ralph Milward, Priscilla said,’ Gwenny murmured, remembering.
‘She couldn’t resist mentioning his name, eh? Well, that shows you! Romance, with all the trimmings. Shall we like having him for a brother-in-law, do you suppose, kid?’
‘I don’t know. I hardly remember what he looks like, and I don’t know much about him, but if he keeps Priscilla happy, I suppose we all ought to be pleased.’
‘That reminds me—what about you and the rich bloke you’ve snaffled? When are we to know what his name is?’
‘You, too? You’ve heard about that?’ Gwenny gasped.
‘I believe you told Catherine—well, you might as well have gone on the roof and broadcast it. She’s shouted it around everywhere,’ Laurence said pleasantly.
‘Everywhere? She’s even told the R.M.O., I suppose?’ Gwenny whispered.
‘Oh, yes, I expect so. He’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know. Everyone’s tickled pink about it. You’re such a kid, you don’t look as if you’d ever had a serious love affair, and you’ve been so cagey about it—it’s just got everyone very interested, you see.’
Gwenny got angry then. So that was why he was frigid—she supposed he thought she ought to have told him first! Well, they could all go on thinking what they liked, she wasn’t going to tell them the truth about it. Only Priscilla knew that, and she wouldn’t be likely to talk. She was obviously too silly over her Casualty Officer to care about anyone else! And anyway, who had sent those marvellous flowers? There must be someone!
‘It’s my business,’ she said shortly to Laurence.
When he had gone, she lay thinking about everything, and wondering whether Mark Bayfield would tell her that her brother had almost spoiled his romance.
But while she was thinking that, the R.S.O. came in. ‘Hello! Don’t look at me as if you’re wondering by what right I’m in here. You didn’t mind when you were very ill, you know.’
‘Didn’t I?’ she said weakly. There must be some reason why he kept coming in, she thought, and sure enough Catherine Allen’s voice could be heard in the corridor.
He stood there chuckling softly. ‘Anyway, as you’re to be let loose soon, I thought I’d like to toddle along and say goodbye, wish you all the luck and all that, and of course to tell you how grateful I am that you lent me your room and were such a sport and didn’t tell!’
‘Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Gwenny protested.
Catherine came in then, dimpling at him, her whole face crinkling with that smile of hers that the men liked so much and which made Gwenny long to throw things at her.
‘She doesn’t know what I’m talking about,’ said Arthur Peake, with a funny upward shooting of his eyebrows.
‘Don’t believe her,’ Catherine cooed. ‘She’s a dark horse. She’s got a rich man of her own and she won’t let on who he is! How about that?’
‘Have you? Good for you!’ said Arthur Peake, but he looked puzzled. ‘The R.M.O. won’t like that, though, will he? Or doesn’t he know yet?’
‘I don’t see what it’s got to do with him,’ Gwenny said coldly. ‘What’s more to the point, he isn’t going to like this, is he?’
‘Now what does that mean?’ Arthur Peake asked, pained, as he slid an arm round Catherine’s waist. ‘My intentions are honourable. I’m going to marry the girl, if I can keep her interested in me until I get her to the registrar! He isn’t your guardian now, is he, love? You’re twenty-one, aren’t you?’ he asked, turning to Catherine with mock fierceness.
‘Will someone tell me what all this is about?’ Gwenny fumed, but her heart had started to hammer painfully. Could it be possible that she had been mistaken, and that Catherine wasn’t going to marry the R.M.O. after all?
‘Everyone is saying—I mean, if he’s her guardian, then he can’t be engaged to her!’
Arthur Peake didn’t know whether to be amused or shocked. ‘Oh, bless me, you have got in a muddle, my child. He’s big brother, you know. Well, not eve
n a real brother, only the half kind, and a very strict one, too. I had to work hard to get his permission to even consider me in the very far distant future as Catherine’s husband.’
‘And what did you mean about you using my room?’ Gwenny asked faintly, putting the thought of the R.M.O. to the back of her mind to consider at leisure later, when there were no people to watch her face and see how shaken she was at the thought of his being free.
‘Actually, we just came in here to pass a note or two, where no one would see us, and to say a few things in peace and privacy,’ Arthur Peake said gently. ‘You were usually out for the count, and it did seem the most quiet place. Hospitals are the very devil, you know, for allowing no one a scrap of privacy. There was only the flower room left, and that always had occupants—as a matter of fact—’ he went on confidingly, but Catherine interrupted him by clearing her throat and frowning.
Gwenny, eternally suspicious and thinking of no one but the R.M.O., jumped to the conclusion that it had been Mark Bayfield in the flower room with someone else. She couldn’t believe that he wasn’t engaged to someone. All the gossip seemed to point that way.
She turned the subject and asked about Tilda Sansom. She was the R.S.O.’s patient as well as Dr. Bayfield’s, and Arthur Peake was glad to talk about her. He liked Tilda.
Catherine drew a deep breath of relief that Gwenny had changed the subject. The last thing she had wanted was for Arthur Peake to get too much interested in who had been in the flower room—that had been her own private preserve in the days when Laurence had been slipping over to the hospital after seeing Tilda at the farm, and ostensibly to visit his sister Gwenny. Laurence had always fascinated her—Catherine liked a man with a hint of recklessness in him, but she hadn’t wanted to share him with Tilda Sansom. It had been fun while she thought there was a chance of her taking him away from Tilda, but when she found there wasn’t, she had lost interest. It had clinched the matter for her, the day that Laurence had admitted he had no money, after putting up a fair pretence to Catherine that he had inherited a lot from an old relative. Arthur Peake, with his wealthy grandfather, had seemed to Catherine a much better proposition.
She watched Gwenny covertly all the time Arthur Peake was talking to her about Tilda. Would this girl manage to become Mark’s wife? Passionately Catherine didn’t want that to happen. It was not that she had anything against Gwenny. She just didn’t want Mark to look like that about any other woman—she had seen that look in Mark’s face and hated it. Mark was already thinking of no one else in the wide world but Gwenny Kinglake, and Catherine felt a sharp sense of loss. Mark had always been hers to run to when she was in trouble or need of advice. He had always filled her need when she had merely wanted reassurance. Careful always in his manner to her because he wasn’t her proper brother, but just sharing one parent with her and being severely conscious of it, conscious too that she had no one else really close to her to look after her. Sir Giles and his wife had never had much patience with Catherine.
No, no one must be allowed to engage Mark’s attention like that, Catherine promised herself. Mark must stay hers, even after she had married Arthur Peake.
So when Mark met her later in the main hall, she said to him, ‘Just when are you letting the Kinglake child out of here, Mark darling?’
He became withdrawn at once. It was like that nowadays whenever Gwenny Kinglake’s name was mentioned.
‘I merely wondered, because I’m dying to know who the rich man-friend is. We shan’t know while she’s in hospital—she’s absolutely determined to keep him a secret! She said so.’
Gwenny left the hospital a week later, and the question of recuperation came up. Gwenny didn’t want to go away. She passionately wanted to stay in the district for so many reasons. There was old Mrs. Yeedon, for instance. She, too, was due to leave hospital soon, and who would look after her when she returned to that very isolated cottage of hers?
Then, too, there was Tilda Sansom. Tilda hadn’t responded to the treatment at first, but quite suddenly she took a turn for the better. Cosgrove remarked with humour, as she was helping Gwenny to pack her belongings into the suitcase that had been brought from home for her, that Tilda Sansom had heard that Catherine Allen was to marry the R.S.O. so there was no more need for her to fret over losing Gwenny’s handsome brother.
‘I can’t see what you see in him,’ Gwenny complained.
‘Our Laurence isn’t handsome!’
‘That’s because you’re so used to him,’ Cosgrove told her severely. ‘Or it could be that you don’t find him handsome compared with your secret beau! Is he glad you’re out of hospital? I suppose he was afraid to come near enough to take your germs! Some men are afraid of contagion.’
She cocked a hopeful eye in Gwenny’s direction, but Gwenny had nothing to say. She was filled with dismay that her silly story for Catherine’s benefit had recoiled so badly on her own head, but her inborn obstinacy wouldn’t let her tell anyone, so, at this stage, neither would her pride. They’d all have to go on thinking what they liked.
‘Where are you going to recuperate?’ Cosgrove wanted to know.
‘The sea. Relations of one of Daddy’s old patients,’ Gwenny said glumly. ‘Daddy hadn’t had a holiday for three years, so Mummy said it was a good chance to get away, especially as a locum materialized mysteriously out of the blue. He said someone told him we needed one. I can’t think who would know it, or who would have a locum so handy. He doesn’t seem at all bad, Mummy said, and she’s always ready to condemn the poor young men who come to our place to take over.’
‘How long are you going to be away?’ Cosgrove wanted to know. She was dying to ask the straight question: when will you be married, where and how? Weddings were top interest among the young nurses, especially if the husband was a rich man.
‘I expect I shall have to stay on after Daddy’s fortnight. That’s what he said, and when he says something in that tone of voice, it usually comes off.’
‘Don’t you want to go? I’d give the earth to get away to the sea for limitless weeks,’ Cosgrove confided.
‘I don’t want to leave the district. There’s so much I have to see to!’ Gwenny fumed.
‘Such as what?’ Cosgrove asked blankly, but Gwenny had said enough.
She went to say goodbye to a radiant Tilda, whose aunt was taking her to a sheltered place on the south coast until she was fit and well enough to embark on the hazardous future as Laurence Kinglake’s wife.
‘Are you really happy about marrying Laurence?’ Gwenny asked her curiously.
‘Delirious about it,’ said Tilda. ‘And I’m going to be able to keep the horses and everything, because Daddy says we’ve got to five on the farm with him for five years so he can keep an eye on us. We’re having the west wing made over into a self-contained flat. Laurence wasn’t sure he liked the idea at first, but he gave in. One does, with Daddy.’
Gwenny was faintly surprised at Laurence giving in. He really must be very much in love with Tilda.
‘And also,’ Tilda went on, ‘Daddy squashed Laurence’s idea of chucking medicine and trying to be a vet. Daddy said he didn’t care for changing horses in mid-stream and also he said a doctor in the family would be more useful to him than vets who were two a penny, locally. So your Laurence has just got to get moving, and work hard, poor darling!’ And Tilda laughed softly, the happy glowing half-amused laughter of the woman whose man has met his match, in the menfolk of her own family, to his ultimate benefit.
Gwenny then had a rather curious interview with old Mrs. Yeedon, who didn’t seem very pleased with her.
‘Darling Mrs. Yeedon, I don’t want to go away—they’re making me—so I just had to come and say goodbye. But I’ll be back as soon as I can, and you’ll be all right, won’t you?’
‘Aye, I’ll be all right,’ the old woman said hardily. ‘That good Dr. Bayfield is keeping an eye on me, he says, and he’s fixed it for his own housekeeper to come over every day to see I’m all ri
ght and settled for good food and firing and everything. Don’t you fret, I’ll be all right.’
She didn’t call Gwenny ‘my lamb ‘and ‘lovey ‘and all the old endearments, Gwenny noticed.
‘You’re cross with me! What for?’ Gwenny asked, with some of her old bluntness.
Mrs. Yeedon, sitting up in bed with a new bed jacket on, studied her. ‘You’ve changed,’ she said critically. ‘You’re not a child any longer.’
‘Well, I’m older and I’ve been ill and not very happy,’ Gwenny admitted, with reluctance.
‘And you’re going away for a long time with strangers, and the dear knows when you’ll be back or what you’re going to do then.’
‘I’ll be back just as soon as I can, and when I do come back, I’m coming to this hospital to train as a nurse,’ Gwenny said fiercely.
‘Oh, and what about the rich man as can’t wait to marry you—the one you never breathed a word to me about?’ Mrs. Yeedon said sourly.
Now Gwenny saw what was wrong! Light broke over her delicate young face, and she said, ‘Oh, that! I didn’t realize you’d hear about that too! You didn’t believe it, did you?’
‘Why shouldn’t I, seeing as it was all over the place—tales of the fine florists bunches and baskets he sent to you every day and all! Didn’t we get ‘em on the ward the day after, on account of him sending you more fresh ones, and there not being room for them in your private ward? Aye, and private wards don’t grow on trees, and I can’t see your father being able to afford it, even though they do say that doctors don’t have to pay so much as ordinary folk on account of being in the business, as you might say!’
Gwenny looked alarmed. ‘You mean some—some stranger was paying for all that?’
‘I might almost believe you know nothing about it,’ the old woman said slowly, ‘you’re that surprised, and you no actress, if I know anything about you! But no, r that won’t fool me. Your Dr. Bayfield himself said there was a rich man lurking, and right hurt he was that you didn’t even tell him! I’m sorry about that, my girl—he was a good friend to you. You might have taken him into your confidence even if you did want to keep your man to yourself as a secret from everyone else.’