by Sara Seale
“Oh!” Lucy cried with deep concern, and began to pick up the pieces. The glass was Georgian, one of a set that could never now be matched, and Bart’s especial pride.
“Never mind, Lucy, you might cut yourself,” he said dispassionately. “We had better go up and be the admiring audience Pierre is expecting at his bath time tonight, or he’ll think I’ve forgotten my promise. Goodnight, Paul.”
II
He had been particularly gentle with her for the rest of the evening, and sometimes she had caught him watching her with an expression that was oddly compassionate, as if he, like Paul, knew that she was fighting a losing battle with a ghost, and was sorry. She replied absently to his observations, for her mind was still full of Paul and the disquieting aspects of the self he had revealed to her. She could not, she thought, bear to see him each day and resume that light-hearted companionship, knowing what he was, yet she guessed from experience that if he wished to he could even now charm her back to a semblance of friendship and almost make her believe that she had exaggerated much of what had passed between them; and she desired, above all else to keep from Bart knowledge that would prove hurtful.
She went early to bed, drugged by her own weariness of spirit, but when she was between the sheets she could not sleep, but lay listening to the sound of the breakers and watching a patch of moonlight creep slowly across the ceiling. She heard Bart come up late and move about his room, but he did not knock on her door, thinking, no doubt, that she was asleep. Somewhere in the house a clock struck two with the light, silvery chimes that had now become as familiar as the sound of the sea, and Lucy experienced a terrible sense of desolation, as if the world, and even her Maker, had forgotten her, and she gave way to a sudden violent fit of weeping because only in tears could she find relief.
She did not hear the door from Bart’s room open, and it was the flickering light of his candle that told her he was standing by the bed.
“Lucy ... Lucy ... don’t cry, my dear...” he said and set the candlestick on a table and sat down beside her. But she could only continue to weep, the great tearing sobs that had aroused him, and presently he gathered her into his arms and held her against him without speaking any more.
She rested her head against his breast and peace flowed into her. He was, in that moment, the father she had never known, the friend she had never had, the man she would love, no matter that he had nothing to give in return.
“Better?” he said when she was quieter.
“Yes,” she said. “Don’t go.”
“I won’t go—not until you’re ready to sleep. Paul upset you, didn’t he?”
“Yes. He can be rather cruel.”
“It’s only the cruelty of youth hitting back at what it doesn’t understand,” he said, and she reached up to touch his face, feeling the roughness of his chin which would soon be needing a shave.
“Yes,” she said, and sighed, “Perhaps that’s all it is.” But she knew that to Bart Paul was only a boy with a chip on his shoulder, and she hoped he would never learn of the treachery with which his cousin had tried to repay his generosity.
“You won’t be bothered with him tomorrow. I sent Smithers into Merrynporth this evening with a note to tell him to stop away for a day or so,” he said. “We’ve had these upsets before, you know. Given time, the poor chap always forgets his grievances and comes back thankfully. He doesn’t know it, but I’m very conscious that, in a sense, I’ve helped to make Paul what he is. I should have let him stand on his own feet long ago., Now he’s become a liability.”
“Yes, I see,” she said, and wondered how he would deal with his liability when it became time for Paul to leave Polvane.
He was silent, and she knew there was something more he needed to say, but was finding it difficult.
“Lucy—” he spoke at last with a certain diffidence—“I couldn’t help overhearing, as you must have guessed. I want you to know, if it will make you feel happier, that I have never, at any time, compared you—with Marcelle. You told Paul that I couldn’t bear to be reminded of her, and that’s true, but he couldn’t know my reasons or the state of my feelings. He never knew her, you see.”
“Yes, I know that, but he—everyone knew of her. I think her beauty has become a legend,” she said, and he laid her gently back on her pillows.
“A legend, perhaps,” he answered in curious tones. “Let her remain that, my dear.”
“Can you—can you ever forget?” she asked, and could only do so because he himself had broken down the barrier of reticence.
He was silent for a long minute, then he answered with a certain harshness:
“There are some things in life one has no wish to forget, even if it were possible. One day, Lucy, I’ll tell you the story of Marcelle, and then perhaps you’ll understand me better.”
“Why not now?” she said, trying to cling to this moment of intimacy because tomorrow it might be gone, but he laughed with the familiar note of dismissal for trivial requests, and the moment had already passed.
“At three o’clock in the morning!” he exclaimed as the same silvery chimes announced the hour. “No my dear, you’ll be worn out in the morning as it is. Now, shall I give you a sedative, or will you sleep?”
“I think I shall sleep,” she said, and already her eyes felt drowsy.
“Well, I’ll leave the door open between us, so if you want me you have only to call. Goodnight, Lucy Baa-lamb—or rather, good morning.”
He bent over the bed to kiss her and brushed a finger along her wet lashes with a gesture that was oddly comforting. She watched the light of his candle dwindle and recede as he went back to his room, leaving the door open. For a while the glow remained as he settled himself in bed, and then it too was gone, as he snuffed the candle, and Lucy slept.
She hardly saw him during the next few days, for a sudden pressure of work kept him busy until late at night. In a sense she was glad, for she felt he might have regretted that brief letting down of the barriers between them. It was not his fault that she had come to love him, and she must, she thought, never embarrass him by making demands with which he had no wish to comply. She should have known when she married him, she told herself sadly, that she was making a foolhardy bargain, for it was, perhaps, inevitable that she should have fallen in love with him, the unknown hero of her adolescence and the only man she had ever known intimately.
Paul returned to Polvane after three days, and however he had spent the time away, he had clearly determined to ignore those recent passages between himself and Lucy. He was as she first remembered him, the amusing companion of her solitary hours, with the added suggestion that although she had hurt him he forgave her because, for him, she was someone rather rare and special. It was, thought Lucy, easier that way. She did not want her doubts and suspicions forced into the open again, neither was it her nature to believe ill of someone who, like herself, had done battle with a world which had no place for the weak and unskilled. As the days went on and Bart’s absences grew longer, and June continued with weeping skies and the promise of summer unfulfilled, she was grateful for Paul’s presence and the comforting admiration she read in his eyes.
The doctor’s wives began to call, and Lucy dutifully returned their visits. In this way she became further acquainted with the aspects of her husband’s first marriage. They had none of them particularly liked Marcelle, it seemed, for she had made it plain that they bored her, but her beauty was exceptional and her husband had been head over heels in love. It was quite a shock, they said, when dear Mr. Travers married again, for everyone had thought him inconsolable, shutting himself away with that odd little boy, and cutting himself off entirely from any sort of social life. They gushed over Lucy, patronized her a little, and went away satisfied that dear Mr. Travers had chosen such a gentle little nonentity as his second wife.
“They’ll like you because they can feel smug and superior,” Paul told her with a grin. “I imagine the lovely Marcelle rather had the medical f
raternity by the short hairs—certainly few of the women liked her. It’s said to be a great gift of success to be tolerated by your own sex, Lucy. Bart should be grateful to you.”
He won’t care one way or the other,” Lucy retorted. “I imagine the wife of Bartlemy Travers would be accepted automatically—in this district, at any rate.”
“How perspicacious of you, my sweet, and a trifle cynical, perhaps. Still, it must help to be liked for one’s own sake, as well as one’s husband’s.” His light glance flickered over her. How naive she was, he reflected a shade contemptuously, how sickeningly content to occupy what position Bart saw fit to thrust upon her.
Pressure of work made dinner engagements impossible at present, so Lucy attended dull tea parties, at some of which she met Mary Morgan. She had taken an unreasoning aversion to Matron, who had pushed Bart into marrying her, and even suggested and supervised the buying of her engagement ring. She felt uneasy under the older women’s shrewd, questioning eyes, and took interest and a genuine desire to help as interference.
“You know, my dear, you’re going the wrong way about things,” Mary said when on one occasion they were left together to wait at her bus stop.
“I don’t understand,” Lucy replied nervously. For her, Matron was still the person who could induce a feeling of guilt by a raised eyebrow and a certain intonation.
“I dare say not. You’re young and inexperienced and are married to a man quite outside your normal ken,” Mary said, aware, even as she spoke, that Bart would not thank her for interfering in his private affairs.
“You were largely responsible for that, Matron,” Lucy said with unusual boldness, and Mary smiled.
“So I was,” she agreed. “For that reason, I fancy I have a right to pry a little, as I’m sure you must think I’m doing.”
It was raining relentlessly. Lucy had an umbrella, but the queue for her bus was long and dispirited; the patient travellers looked as if they had been standing there for ages.
“Come back to the hospital with me,” Mary said. “At least you’ll be dry there, and Bart can give you a lift home. He’ll be in later—besides, I want to talk to you.”
Lucy could think of no reason for refusing without sounding rude, also it would be pleasanter to be driven home than join that wet and depressed section of humanity waiting for the bus. But once she had stepped into the hospital with its familiar smells and bustle, she seemed to shed the confidence bred of the past months. She was no longer Mrs. Bartlemy Travers, recognized politely by the hurrying nurses, but little Lucy Lamb doing voluntary work in the children’s ward on her afternoons off, and like the rest of the nursing staff standing in wholesome awe of the matron of the hospital.
“Now, Lucy,” Matron said, hanging up her mackintosh on the familiar hook behind the door of her office, “take of your wet things and sit down. Would you like some more tea? That China wish-wash that Mrs. Crosby dishes up never leaves one satisfied, does it?
Lucy did not want any more tea, but she was well acquainted with the hospital’s habit of serving up a strong black beverage on the least excuse, and could only agree politely.
Mary Morgan sat at her desk and wondered vaguely how she could bring the conversation to the point she wanted. It was time Bart put away his hankering for the past and made a fresh life; this child was malleable material and it was up to her to persuade her husband in the right direction, as any man who was not totally devoid of natural appetites could be persuaded. But there was something about Lucy Lamb, she thought uneasily, glancing at that polite, enquiring face, some quality under the gentle exterior that did not permit of familiarity.
“Lucy,” she said, when the tea had been brought, “I’m going to ask you an impertinent question. Do you and Bart live as husband and wife?”
Lucy flushed scarlet, not so much with embarrassment, but for the reason that she had always supposed Matron understood the terms of her marriage.
“I see you don’t,” Mary said, observing the flush. “I’m not trying to pry, my dear child, but these affairs that start off as marriages of convenience can often have a happy ending. Bart has grieved for that Frenchwoman long enough; it’s up to you, my dear, to put matters on a normal footing between you.”
“I don’t know how,” said Lucy, bludgeoned into an admission before she realized it.
Mary regarded her impatiently. Perhaps her own single state and the long-standing devotion to Bart which, though she would never have admitted it, embraced more than friendship, had made her insensitive to the feelings of others, but she disliked waste, and she still could not rid herself of the idea that the girl before her was just little Lucy Lamb, a bit of flotsam who had appealed to her more than others and who now only needed a push in the right direction.
“You’re young and healthy and not unattractive. You can give him other children, Lucy, and release him from this unnatural preoccupation with the dead,” she said, and when Lucy from sheer dumbfoundedness, did not speak, wanted to shake her.
“That young man, the so-called tutor—you’re not, by any chance, taken up with him, are you?” Mary suddenly asked, remembering Paul’s good looks and the proverbial foolishness of young girls, and mistook the second wave of colour that swept Lucy’s face for an admission of guilt.
“Well, I suppose Bart was asking for it,” she said a little grimly, “but blind or indifferent though he may be, his eyes can at least be opened. There’s talk enough as it is, and a man in your husband’s position can’t afford talk, much less scandal.”
“Matron, please—please don’t mention anything like that to Bart,” cried Lucy, aware for perhaps the first time of the lengths that a well-meaning woman’s misconceptions might lead her and the havoc she could wreak.
Matron’s eyes became as cold as marble.
“Are you admitting that you have lost your head, then?”
“No—no, of course not. You don’t understand!” cried Lucy, torn between tears and an hysterical desire to laugh, and at that moment Bart put his head round the door.
“Hullo!” he said in surprise at seeing Lucy, then observing her flushed face and distressed eyes and the uncompromising set of Mary Morgan’s mouth, he knew he must have interrupted at the wrong moment.
“Were you waiting for a lift home, Lucy?” he asked. “I won’t be free for a couple of hours or more, I’m afraid. Hire a car from the garage round the corner; it’s no evening to be standing about in bus queues.”
“Thank you,” she said, and fled precipitately, leaving the matron looking worried and nonplussed. Bart lifted his eyebrows enquiringly.
“Have you been tactless, Mary?” he asked.
“Probably. I’ve certainly been clumsy,” she answered shortly, and he shook his head at her. He had a fondness and respect for Mary Morgan, who was an excellent Matron, but her zeal could sometimes be her tongue’s undoing.
“I must get the child a car of her own and teach her to drive,” he observed absently.
“And make her independent of you?” Mary snapped, and he looked really surprised. She was being extraordinarily unlike herself this evening.
“What a very strange comment,” he remarked mildly, and added with a deliberate change to his professional manner, “I’m ready for the rounds, Matron, if you’ll be so good.”
“Very well, Mr. Travers,” she replied with an instant return to the formality which existed between them when they were both on duty. “Later, if you can spare the time, I’d like to have a word with you in here.”
She walked the wards with him, answering his questions automatically, but her mind was on what she intended to say to him later. That silly young girl was probably being starved of the romantic trimmings to marriage which any intelligent husband could supply without his own emotions being seriously troubled; who could blame her if, in the end, she turned elsewhere? Mary, most likely, knew more about that good-for-nothing young cousin of Bart’s than Bart did himself, and it would not surprise her in the least if the boy
was trying to upset the marriage for pure spite, if nothing else.
Matron, was a good woman with no nonsense about her and little imagination. She did .not at all realize that she considered Bart’s marriage to be of her making, or that her desire to interfere was, in part, a sublimation of her own lost chances. When the last ward had been visited and the last amendments or additions to treatments noted, she ushered him into her office and started, without preliminary diagnosis of his own case.
III
It became clear at once to Lucy that Matron must have carried out her intention of speaking to Bart, for his manner subtly altered. He was meticulously courteous to her at all times, but that very politeness seemed to point to a coldness he made no attempt to hide. She could not ask him for an explanation of behaviour which was, in itself, impeccable, and he did not hint, even indirectly, at what had passed between himself and Mary Morgan.
It did not seem possible that this could be the same man who, not so long ago, had taken Lucy in his arms and brought her peace and comfort and a flicker of hope for the future. The door between their bedrooms remained closed night after night, and she did not have the courage to open it herself and call to him. At the end of a day he did not enquire how she had spent her time, and he seldom mentioned his cousin except in relation to Pierre’s studies.
She knew that Paul was aware of their altered circumstances, although the two men were seldom in the house at the same time, and sometimes she surprised a look of satisfaction in the tutor’s blue eyes, as if he knew the cause without being told and drew pleasure from the conclusions he formed.
The wet days of June continued with depressing monotony. Lucy woke each morning to the sound of the rain on the windows and Smithers would lugubriously report on another bad day. They were confined a great deal to the house, and Pierre became restless and fractious, or perhaps, with the quickness of children, he sensed the unhappiness in Lucy and the fresh preoccupation of his father with matters in which he had no place.