Sunshine Yellow

by Mary Whistler

  “Your pardon, Madame, I forgot that you are a married lady.” He withdrew to some inner room, and Aunt Heloise came out, looking as if she had spent the night in unfamiliar surroundings, and had had to make do with substitutes instead of her own personal belongings. She was tall and angular, addicted to trying colours like various shades of mauve, and normally her complexion was rather florid. But this morning her eyes looked heavy, and there was very little colour in her cheeks.

  Penny didn’t need to be told that she was being determinedly bright as she sat down beside the bed.

  “The doctor says you’ve had a remarkable escape,” she disclosed, as she started to fidget with the counterpane, and made restless passes over the somewhat coarse linen pillow-cases. “I wish I had you at Grangewood, you could be so comfortable in your own little room. But never mind, darling, I’ll soon take you home—”

  Penny’s eyes were on her face, and her lips moved.

  “Stephen?’ she asked.

  Aunt Heloise made a clumsy movement and rose to her feet. She poured a glass of barley water and was so awkward over returning the jug to the table that she upset some of it and had to mop it up with her handkerchief.

  “So clumsy,” she murmured, and then sat down again beside her niece. She took Penny’s hand and held it. “Darling,” she said quietly, “you mustn’t worry about Stephen, because the doctors say he’ll be perfectly all right, but at the moment he’s not as good as you are. He’s just a bit more hurt.”

  Penny’s eyes contracted.

  “How badly hurt?”

  Mrs. Wilmott made a slight gesture with her free hand.

  “He wasn’t conscious last night, but I believe he has come round this morning. But in any case, he won’t be allowed to stay here, because this is only a very tiny hospital—run by nuns, you understand—and the doctors think that in Paris he will receive much more expert treatment. He is being taken there by ambulance ... Perhaps not today, but tomorrow.”

  Penny made as if she would lift herself up in bed, but Aunt Heloise had received her instructions, and she skilfully prevented her.

  “No, no, darling, you must be patient! It won’t help Stephen at all if you refuse to co-operate with the doctors and do silly things. Besides, your head hurts, doesn’t it?”

  That was an understatement, but Penny wasn’t greatly concerned with her own head. In all the years that she had lived with her aunt she had never known her to call her darling so frequently in such a short space of time, and the fact that she seemed likely to go on doing so aroused a deep feeling of dread inside her. “Can I see him?” she asked, her lips very dry.

  Mrs. Wilmott shook her head.

  “Not—not now, darling. Perhaps tomorrow, before he leaves.”

  “You mean they’ll take me to him?”

  “We’ll see.”

  But when the next day’s sunshine filled the little room, Stephen had left the Convent of the Sacred Sisters of the Holy Cross, and although Penny asked after him repeatedly she was merely told that the convent was in touch with the hospital by telephone, and she would be kept informed of her husband’s condition. Aunt Heloise tried to boost her morale by assuring her that Stephen would be magnificently looked after—that the hospital was wonderfully equipped, and they had everything to hand—but the one thing she did not tell her was that Stephen had asked after her.

  Two days later, however, she was able to report—quite truthfully, Penny believed—that Stephen was improving, and two days after that it was considered wise to let her know that the improvement was being maintained. After a week of being confined to the little room, when she was allowed up for the first time, Penny was further heartened by the news that her husband was making progress, and the next day she learned that he was being flown to London to his own hospital.

  “They’re bound to look after him there,” Mrs. Wilmott, still rather fulsome, assured her, “so you have absolutely nothing to worry about, darling!”

  But Penny was so consumed with worry that it impeded her own progress, and by the time she was considered fit to be discharged and travel home to England she had been a full fortnight with the Sisters.

  Aunt Heloise accompanied her back to England, and put up with her at the small hotel in Kensington which she herself had patronized for years. When she suggested that they go straight home to Grangewood Penny would not consider the suggestion for a moment, and to calm her Mrs. Wilmott agreed that perhaps it would be better to be near Stephen. Penny had the feeling that everyone was seeking to prevent her seeing for herself just how badly Stephen was injured, and as soon as she arrived in London she insisted on taking a taxi to the hospital, with Aunt Heloise still at her side.

  Stephen was in a private wing at the hospital, and it was the matron herself who conducted them to his room. Penny looked to her quite unlike a bride of a couple of weeks, and she was so pale, and so consumed with anxiety, that she spoke to her very gently when she opened the door.

  “Your husband has been looking forward to seeing you, Mrs. Blair.” Vaguely it struck Penny as odd that she should be addressed as Mrs. Blair. On the Continent she had been simply Madame. “We told him this morning that you were arriving back in London today.”

  Aunt Heloise gripped her niece’s arm as the matron stepped towards the bed—which seemed to Penny very high, and very narrow, although the room was quite pleasant, with cool green walls and a lot of immaculate white paintwork—and announced their presence. From the bed came a low murmur.

  “Hello, Sunshine! Where are you?”

  In response to a signal from the matron Aunt Heloise allowed Penny to stand alone, and then she withdrew into the background. Penny heard a soft whisper:

  “Ten minutes, Mrs. Blair!”

  Stephen’s hand was groping for Penny, and after a few seconds in which she felt as if her heart would burst, she moved forward impulsively to the side of the bed, and caught at that wasted hand. It seemed to her that Stephen was simply enveloped in bandages, but most of them were concealing his head and face. His eyes were entirely covered, and she realized that he couldn’t possibly see her.

  “Oh, Stephen!” she gulped, and then her legs gave way under her and she was glad of the chair someone thrust beneath her.

  Stephen’s voice had a whimsical note in it when he spoke again.

  “I believe you’re upset. Don’t be, Penny Wise! I’m doing nicely—or so they tell me—and although these bandages probably make me look as if I’m deserving of a vast amount of sympathy, I’m not as badly damaged beneath them as you might think!” His hand was still grasping hers tightly—more tightly than he had ever grasped it before—and his voice altered when he inquired how she herself was doing. “My poor little bride of such a few hours! I’m afraid I let you in for rather a bitter experience!”

  “I’m all right now,” Penny assured him, a tear rolling down her cheek ... although, of course, he couldn’t see it. “I was never very badly hurt, anyway, but ... I was worried about you!”

  “And do you think I haven’t been worried about you?” His voice was intensely grave, a little weaker than before because he was obviously overcome by quite a wave of emotion. “I’ve thought about you more or less continuously since I regained consciousness. You’ve come between me and these bandages so many times that I feel I’ve got you off by heart.” He laughed shakily. “That absurd golden fringe of yours ... the way your hair attracts the sunshine! Have you still got golden hair, or have I turned it grey?”

  “Of course not,” she replied, trying to laugh with him. “But at the moment I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess, because I haven’t been near a hairdresser since ...” she was about to say “the accident”, but amended it in favour of—“since we were married.”

  “Just the same, I wish I could see you,” he said, with a wistfulness that caught at her heart. “Where are you staying, Penny, and who is looking after you?”

  She told him, “Aunt Heloise. We’re staying at the Grantchester in Kensin
gton in order to be near you.” He sighed.

  “I never thought I’d live to be grateful to your Aunt Heloise. But if she’s taken charge of you then I am grateful.”

  “She came all the way from the South of France as soon as the authorities notified her that I was at the convent. She’s been wonderful,” she added, because it was no more than the truth. She expected him to ask, “And Veronica?” But he did nothing of the kind. Instead, he reached for her hand again, and when she slid it into his he gripped it convulsively.

  “You’ll come and see me every day until they let me out of here?”

  “Of course. If they’ll allow me.”

  “Allow you?” His voice had a touch of the old arrogance. “Of course they’ll allow you. You’re my wife, aren’t you?”

  Her heart expanded, and for the first time for many days and nights she felt warm and comforted inside. She was his wife, and he wanted her to visit him! He had thought of her a lot while he was lying there!

  A sister whispered at her elbow that her time was up, and she stood up and bent over Stephen.

  “I’ll have to go.”

  “But you’ll be back tomorrow?” He seemed to be tugging her towards him, and she bent and pressed her lips to the back of his hand. Unfortunately she left a warm tear behind.

  Stephen said good-bye huskily, and added:

  “Bless you, Sunshine!”

  CHAPTER VI

  For the next three weeks Penny was a constant visitor at the hospital. Stephen’s room became transformed into a bower of flowers, which she carried up to him herself in her arms. She arranged them skilfully in vases while she talked to him, and because he couldn’t see them she carried the vases over to him and allowed him to smell them.

  “H’m, quite nice,” he commented once, “but I prefer that lavender-waterish fragrance which seems to cling to you, Penny.” He listened to her footsteps moving about the room, and when she had set the vases of brilliant blooms down on his bedside table he reached forth his hand and tried to catch at her. “Come here!” he commanded. “You must remember that I can’t see, and therefore I like to feel! And you have such soft hands, and they smell lavender-waterish too!”

  Once he carried one of them up to his lips and kissed each of the fingers gently. By this time the bandages had been removed from the lower part of his face, and she could see his mouth and jaw, and the deep hollows in his cheeks below the bandages that still concealed his eyes.

  Only a few weeks ago he had had a light coating of tan, but now his face was so wan that it made her heart turn over every time she looked at him. He held her hand against his cheek and spoke musingly into her fingers.

  “Have they told you I’m to have these things off my eyes any day now? Sir Robert Bolton is coming to give me the once-over when I’ve got them off.”

  “You mean ... make certain your eyes are all right?” Despite herself her voice quavered. “But they will be, won’t they? I mean—”

  “Of course they’ll be all right ... I hope!” He spoke lightly, releasing her hand. “And then the next thing will be to get out of here. I lie here making plans for the moment I’m released. We’ll go down to Old Timbers, the house I bought when I was expecting to marry your beautiful cousin”—she almost gasped at the lack of bitterness in his voice—“and I’ll have a few weeks’ convalescence before getting back into harness. If you only knew how deadly bored I’ve been, just lying here.”

  “You’ve been very patient,” Penny told him quietly, realizing that, for such a man, he had indeed been very patient.

  Stephen sighed suddenly.

  “It’s easy to be patient when you know that you were entirely to blame for a disaster that might have killed someone else.” He turned his face towards her. “You did realize that I was in a very black mood that night, didn’t you, Penny? So black that I felt as if there were a couple of demons sitting on my shoulders!”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He made that groping movement with his hand, and she felt his fingers close about her arm.

  “But when I think that I might have killed you! I break out in a cold perspiration all over!”

  “Then don’t think about it,” she begged him. “You didn’t kill me, and you didn’t kill yourself, and soon you’re going to be completely fit again.”

  “I hope so,” he said fervently. She felt his fingers digging deep into the soft flesh of her arm. “I couldn’t stand being an inactive man, Penny, and I long to be back on the job. Every time one of these chaps here comes to have a chat with me—every time Matron stands beside my bed and tells me what to do instead of listening to the words of wisdom that fall from my lips!—I feel a surge of desperation because I’m no longer one of them, but a patient who can’t answer back! I’m on the wrong side of the fence lying here, and I feel that so acutely at times that it makes me feel physically much worse than I’ve any right to feel at this stage.”

  Penny felt as if something plucked uneasily at the very strings of her heart, but he didn’t know it, and instead of grasping her arm he slipped his own arm round her.

  “Penny,” he said huskily, “you’re so sweet, and we’ll make a good life of our own. We’ll be happy. Why shouldn’t we be happy?”

  This time Penny felt as if her heart knocked, and as he put up a hand to draw her face down to his own, her pulses raced so that she could hardly breathe.

  “Penny, you’re my wife,” he said, softly. “Don’t you think you could bring yourself to give me a wifely kiss?”

  There was a moment when Penny wanted to withdraw from him, when she experienced such a strong revulsion of feeling—a sensation almost of panic—that she wanted to tear herself out of the grasp of his arm and keep her lips safely removed from the touch of his lips, when she knew very well that he didn’t love her. When all he was feeling was a kind of need—a sort of desperation—because he was secretly afraid, and she was very near and tempting and feminine—and his wife!

  “What’s the matter, Penny?” he asked, a half laugh in his voice. “Haven’t you begun to think of me as a husband?”

  She let herself sink slightly against him, and instantly his arm tightened. His lips felt warm and dry under hers, and then the dryness vanished and their mouths were clinging together. Penny sat up with a gasp.

  “I—I’d better go,” she managed.

  Stephen was silent for a moment, and then he smiled strangely.

  “Yes, perhaps you had,” he agreed. “Otherwise when sister comes to take my temperature, she’ll decide that wives are not very good for patients!”

  Two days later Penny had an interview with the matron in her own private sanctum, and because she had been warned by telephone that the matron wished to speak to her before she saw her husband, she felt very taut and anxious when she arrived at the hospital.

  She had become used, by this time, to the inscrutable, smiling mask that was the matron’s face, but she had never before seen the inside of her sitting-room. It was full of chintzes and vases of flowers, and the watercolours on the walls were all of a lighthearted type to banish sensations such as those that were partly paralysing Penny’s limbs.

  A probationer brought in a tray of tea, and Penny was induced to drink a cup before anything in the nature of serious discussion was entered into. This, she realized afterwards, but not at the time, was a bad sign, and although it relieved her tension and calmed her nerves it did not prepare her for the sympathetic words that were spoken only a short time later, when such subjects as the weather and her own recovery from the accident had been exhausted.

  “Mrs. Blair,” the matron’s voice began diffidently, “I’m not at all sure that I ought to tell you this when Sir Robert Bolton himself is not entirely convinced that your husband’s case is hopeless. I am referring, of course, to the condition of his eyes.”

  Penny sat bolt upright, and her tea cup wobbled perilously.

  “What do you mean, Matron?” she asked.

  The straight figu
re behind the walnut desk, so impeccable in her starched blue and whiteness, with eyes that were no longer inscrutable but warm and human, pushed a box of cigarettes towards her visitor.

  “Do smoke, Mrs. Blair, if it will help you,” she invited. “Those are Virginian on the right, and on the left—”

  “I don’t smoke,” Penny whispered.

  The matron closed the silver lid.

  “Then I’d better tell you what Sir Robert fears, hadn’t I?” she suggested. “Incidentally, he will be very happy to have a little talk with you when you feel up to it ... Perhaps he can explain better than I can precisely what we are up against.”

  “What are you up against. Matron?” Penny asked, as if she was bracing herself to hear the worst.

  “The result of the accident, of course,” Matron said quietly. “Your husband was very badly injured, Mrs. Blair—especially about the head—and that was one reason why he was flown from Paris to London, because Sir Robert is well known to be an authority on eye injuries. It was difficult to tell, at first, just what would be the outcome, and Sir Robert hoped ... we all hoped...”

  Penny’s lips barely moved.

  “Yes?”

  “That when the bandages were removed, and the healing process was over, your husband’s sight would be spared to him. Naturally, for a man in his position—a famous surgeon, young enough to have many worlds left to conquer—it was—is—highly important.”

  “Go on,” Penny whispered, stiff-lipped.

  “Are you quite sure you won’t have another cup of tea? There’s plenty left in the pot.” Matron peered into it as if this was simply a social function. Then she exclaimed quickly, as Penny didn’t even shake her head, “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Blair, but I find this extraordinarily difficult. Not only is Mr. Blair one of our own surgeons—he walked the wards here, you know, when he first qualified—but you yourself are so young, and you have only just been married. Your honeymoon was turned into a tragedy on the very night that you became Mrs. Blair, and for that reason alone—”