Penny almost heard her knees knock as she walked across the floor to join Stephen. Such oceans of carpet there seemed, and she decided that never in the whole of her lifetime would she live in a house with a thick carpet. Stephen had his coat on, and his dark glasses, and the secretary fussed around him as she opened the door.
“Three steps, Mr. Blair. Only three to the pavement, and your chauffeur is waiting. Would you like me to tuck this rug round you?” She had Stephen in the car, sitting calmly in a corner of it, his gloved hand holding a cigarette, his dark face turned towards the street and the flow of traffic that passed along it.
Penny got in beside him, feeling her limbs relax on the silver-grey upholstery, but not her mind. The secretary beamed good-bye, the door closed, Waters started up the car, and they slid away from the house with the glittering name-plates beside the elegant front door.
Stephen said nothing as the car nosed its way out into the traffic, but as they turned into Cavendish Square he spoke.
“It would be nice to remain in town and have lunch, but I’m afraid you’d feel rather awkward cutting my food up for me.”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” Penny said. And then, in a thinner voice: “You haven’t told me yet—what Sir Robert thinks. Did he—did he ... hold out any hope?”
Stephen turned to her, and she felt him reaching for her hand. When he gained possession of it he held it strongly.
“I’m sorry, Penny, but I didn’t realize you didn’t know! Although, of course, how could you know...? Sir Robert is fairly certain there’s quite a lot of hope. I won’t bore you by going into a lot of medical details concerning which you know nothing, but there has been a marked improvement since he saw me last. Something he hoped for, but didn’t count on, has happened, and even I myself have been conscious of the improvement. There were moments when I could distinguish black from white, when I even thought I saw your face...”
“Oh!” Penny said, and in the dizziness of her relief she felt as if the car spun round her. “Oh, Stephen!” the name was a sob.
“Darling, I’m afraid you’re upset.” He had never called her “darling” before, and that alone was enough to stop the car spinning round her. She couldn’t believe her ears, but she wanted to. “These last few months have been a ghastly strain for you, but now perhaps the strain is coming to an end. You’ll just have to hang on to your courage a little longer, for I’ll have to leave you on your own for a week or so ... perhaps not much more than a week.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Sir Robert wants to operate, and he wants to do so almost immediately ... the day after tomorrow. That will give him time to see me through before he flies off to the Bahamas.”
Penny closed her eyes in the excess of her relief, but she also had a nasty cold feeling of dread.
“That’s very soon,” she said.
Stephen’s fingers tightened over hers.
“The sooner it’s over the sooner I’ll be back with you,” he said. “A whole man ... my own man again! If the operation is a success!” His fingers tightened still more. “And it’s got to be a success. I’ve a life to lead that I’m highly impatient to get started on!”
CHAPTER XV
The night before Stephen went into the nursing home where Sir Robert was to operate, Penny tried hard to think and behave normally. Veronica had telephoned during the day, and her Aunt Heloise had telephoned.
“Tell Stephen I’ll be at the nursing home tomorrow when he arrives,” Veronica had said. Her voice had sounded thin and strained, as if the news of the operation was a shock. “I wish I’d known this was going to happen and I wouldn’t have made any plans for today. I’d have spent every minute of it with him!” Penny could at least feel grateful that Veronica hadn’t known, and that her plans were not the type that could be cancelled, for she couldn’t have endured a day such as this with Veronica sifting glued to the chair beside Stephen’s, going out of her way to be lighthearted and encouraging but actually revealing more fear than Penny dared to admit to herself she felt.
Her Aunt Heloise was helpful, and said, “Of course you must come to us while Stephen’s in the nursing home.”
But Penny made up her mind that she would stay at Old Timbers, and she and Waters would stick it out together. Waters was so devoted to his master, in spite of the latter’s bursts of irritability and frequent abuse, that the next few days would be almost as hard to live through for him as they would for Penny. Together, in the same house, waiting for the same telephone to ring, they would have a kind of bond.
And a bond can be heartening.
But before she let him go into the nursing home there was something that Penny felt she had to say to Stephen. She had to make him understand, without sounding as if she were making a supreme sacrifice, that she understood perfectly the way he felt about Veronica. That she herself would never be an obstacle to their happiness, and as soon as he wanted it she would make an undramatic exit from their lives. Her marriage to Stephen was such a hollow affair that it should be the easiest thing in the world to terminate, and Stephen would know how to go about terminating it.
If the operation was a success, and his eyesight was restored to him, there should be nothing to prevent him leading the full, new, perfect life that he himself wanted to lead. For of course he was referring to Veronica when he said that he was highly impatient to get started on the life he wanted to lead!
He was fond of Penny, he might even be sorry to see her slip out of his life, but he was sensible enough to know that he couldn’t have Penny and Veronica, too. Penny had been useful, had tried to lighten his dark days ... but Veronica was the woman he loved!
And the difference between finding a woman useful, and loving a woman, was like the difference between the two poles. They were a whole world apart.
It was extraordinarily difficult, however, for Penny to say what she wanted to say to Stephen, that last night before he left her alone at Old Timbers. And she would feel very much alone when he had gone, in spite of the comforting presence of Waters.
They had dinner—rather a special dinner, which Waters had supervised, and which was intended to boost his master’s appetite—and then Waters carried the coffee tray into the library. Penny sat behind the little table and poured out, thinking of Veronica as she did so and recalling her remarks about the Minton china.
Stephen’s behaviour was not entirely normal. He had been silent during dinner, but now all at once he became loquacious—or displayed a tendency to become loquacious. He held out his hand to Penny and invited her to come nearer, and she curled up on the rug beside his chair.
His hand reached out gropingly to touch her hair.
“Do you know what I shall be thinking about this time tomorrow night?” he asked. “I shall be thinking about you and your yellow hair!”
Penny sat very still, her eyes on the fireglow, a cold hand round her heart. This time tomorrow she would be alone!
“What are you thinking about?” Stephen asked. His voice sounded curious. “Penny, I must know! You’re such a kind, eager, impulsive little creature, and yet sometimes you’re very silent. I wouldn’t mind in the least if I could see you and the way you look while you’re sitting silent, but when I can’t see you ... Penny,” he pleaded, “come a little nearer!”
She stole a few inches nearer, and his hand dropped to her shoulder. She felt it gripping her a little convulsively.
“Penny, there are one or two things I must say to you before I leave tomorrow. If anything should happen to me, you’ll be well provided for. Everything I have is yours ... or will be.”
“Stephen!” she gasped. And then, in a shattered voice: “Oh, Stephen!”
“I’m merely being practical,” Stephen assured her. “You’re my responsibility, and I don’t believe in leaving a lot of untidy ends lying about, when they can all be neatly tidied up. I have every intention of coming through this thing with all flags flying—it really isn’t a major operation,
so don’t try and pretend to yourself that it is. But I should feel I was neglectful if I didn’t—discuss it with you as if I were taking a trip abroad, and insuring against possible accidents.”
She closed her eyes. “Possible accidents” sounded ominous to her.
“There’s one other thing. When it’s all over, and I’m back home again—and we’ll assume the operation is going to be a success!—we shall have to have a fresh approach to things, you and I. We can’t go on as we’ve been going on for the past six months, you know!”
“I know.” The words came out with a rush. “Oh, Stephen, I do understand, and I promise you I won’t be awkward ... not the least bit awkward! I only want to see you absolutely fit again, and then ... then I’ll do anything you want me to do. I never imagined I could compete with Veronica, and you mustn’t think I did...”
“Veronica?”
“Yes. She’s so lovely, and she still loves you ... I mean, it was all a mistake that she gave you up as she did. She was probably suffering from nerves or something—afraid of doing the wrong thing, and anxious not to ruin your future as well as her own—when she gave you up as she did. If only someone could have talked to her at the time ... made her see sense!...”
“Someone like you, for instance?” Stephen said dryly, lighting himself a cigarette. “A young woman with yellow hair and wise brown eyes who could have preached words of wisdom and prevented that notice being inserted in The Times? And then you and I wouldn’t have got married, would we? And we wouldn’t have had the accident...”
“No,” she whispered.
He crushed out the newly-lighted cigarette as if it was tasteless in an ash-tray at his elbow, and then he spoke even more dryly, and a little strangely.
“So a man’s past must hang round his neck like a millstone for the rest of his days! Is that it? Well, I must confess Veronica is a most attractive millstone, and it never even occurred to me that she was merely suffering from nerves when she broke off our engagement! I’m deeply indebted to you, Penny, for pointing all this out to me, and I’m even more indebted for your willingness to get out of my life once my sight has been restored to me and Veronica is ready to fall into my arms. I always knew you were generous, but that, I would say, is the height—or rather, depth—of generosity!”
Penny swallowed.
“Stephen ... don’t misunderstand!...”
“I’m not misunderstanding,” he assured her. “I’ve merely had my eyes opened very wide ... in a purely figurative manner of speaking, of course!” He lit another cigarette rather jerkily. “And now I think I’ll go to bed, and we’ll resume this conversation when I’m back here again at Old Timbers. Do you mind ringing the bell for Waters?”
His voice sounded strained and hard, and she felt utterly at a loss. She also felt slightly appalled.
“Stephen, you’re not angry with me?” she pleaded, laying a hand on his arm. “Oh, Stephen, if I’ve said something I oughtn’t to have said ... if you can’t forgive Veronica...?”
“I forgave her long ago,” he replied with the utmost calmness. Then he stood up. “Please ring for Waters.” Almost timidly she pressed the bell.
When Waters came Stephen addressed him with a kind of deadly flatness.
“Get me upstairs to bed, Waters. Let’s hope I’ll be able to get myself to bed in a few weeks from now!”
Penny accompanied him to the nursing home the following day, and she found that Veronica had been before her and filled his room with flowers. But Veronica herself was nowhere to be seen. She had, however, left one of her famous notes, which Penny read aloud to her husband.
Darling, here’s wishing you a wonderful future, and I’ll be in to see you every day when the operation is over. You know that I shall be thinking of you all the time.
It was signed, simply, Veronica.
“You’d better disappear now,” Stephen said, making no comment whatsoever when she had finished reading the note. “They like patients to get promptly into bed, and I can’t undress while you’re here. But you can come back and see me when I’m settled if you like.” If she liked! She gazed at him with burning eyes—she felt as if the tears in her heart were pressing against the backs of her eyes, and might overflow at any moment if she wasn’t careful. She also felt bereft of words.
“I’ll come back,” she said quietly, and slipped out at the door.
When she returned Stephen was lying back comfortably against his pillows, and a very pretty nurse was taking his temperature as a matter of routine. She looked round smilingly at Penny when she entered.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Blair,” she said. “Your husband may be wearing bandages when you see him next, but when he walks out of this room he’ll do so without any assistance from you or anyone else!”
“Most heartening, Nurse,” Stephen remarked dryly. “Very good for the morale!”
Then he held out his hand to Penny, and she drew close to the bed. She put her fingers into his, and he gripped them strongly.
“You’ll be all right?” he asked quietly. “Waters will drive you home.”
“Yes.”
“And although they’re not wheeling me off to the theatre until the afternoon, don’t come in the morning. Too much emotion isn’t good for the patient,” with even greater dryness.
“I—I’ll telephone if you’d like me to do so,” Penny said. And then she added almost eagerly: “I’ll telephone tonight?”
But he shook his head.
“No, don’t telephone. And wait for news tomorrow. Don’t keep on ringing up here ... it will be tiresome for you.”
“Oh, Stephen!” she said, and then her voice broke on a sob. “Oh, Stephen!” she whispered.
He pulled her down to him.
“Give me a quick kiss, and then go,” he said.
She obeyed, her lips coming to rest on his with a feather’s touch. He felt very quiet and still to her. Unresponsive.
“Good-bye, Stephen,” she barely breathed, and then fled from the room.
The following afternoon she hadn’t the strength to lift the telephone receiver and call the nursing home. Her knees felt as if they would give way under her every time she rose from a chair.
Stephen had told her not to telephone, but at last, when no message came through from the nursing home, she rang for Waters and asked him to put through a call for her. He was on his way to the instrument when the bell shrilled loudly, and Penny felt as if every bone in her body turned to water. She managed to rise from her chair and stood clinging on to the arm while Waters—almost as white as she was, and with taut lines in his face—lifted the receiver and spoke into it.
Penny watched him and she thought that he was growing paler. It was a bad line, and he had to repeat himself several times. Penny began to feel that she couldn’t endure it much longer.
“What is it, Waters?” she whispered, when he turned to her at last. It might have been her imagination, but colour was seeping back into his face. “Is it—bad news?”
“Good news, madam.” Waters spoke very distinctly. “The operation was a success, and Mr. Blair is very comfortable.”
The room spun round Penny. Waters put down the telephone receiver and made a quick clutch at her. She heard him exclaiming in concern.
“I’ll get you a nip of brandy! You can do with it.” He put her gently into a chair. “Isn’t it wonderful, madam. It’s—good news!”
CHAPTER XVI
Every day during the next week Penny visited the nursing home, and more often than not Veronica was there ahead of her.
Stephen’s room was full of expensive hot-house flowers which were Veronica’s daily offering, and although Penny took him flowers too, they were from the garden of Old Timbers, and could not compete with the splendid blooms for which Veronica paid far more than Mrs. Wilmott could afford. In addition she took him baskets of fruit and magazines, which, since he could not read them himself, were an excellent excuse for prolonging her visits; and more than once when Penny
followed the nurse into the room a little diffidently her cousin was seated beside the bed and reading aloud in an attractively husky voice.
Usually she put the magazine down and made way for Penny at once, but Penny could never be certain that Stephen welcomed the interruption. On the contrary, she frequently received the impression that he was not entirely delighted when the pretty nurse announced:
“And here’s another visitor, Mr. Blair. Your wife this time!”
Veronica always looked so beautiful that Penny felt her heart ache when she saw her sitting there in such close proximity to Stephen’s piled up pillows. She had so little interest in her own appearance that she didn’t even wear her new clothes, and her expensive new range of cosmetics remained undisturbed on her dressing-table.
But the pretty nurse had a very attractive smile for her, and in her eyes there was something kindly and encouraging. Veronica always forced a smile when she was announced, and she hardly ever took her departure before Penny.
Stephen, who had recovered his spirits remarkably since his operation, would greet Penny as if she were a younger sister, or a young female acquaintance for whom he had developed an affection. Certainly no one would have guessed that she was his wife.
“I hope you let Waters drive you,” he said, more than once. “I don’t trust you behind the wheel of a car, Penny. Those brown eyes of yours may not actually look short-sighted, but I’m sure they are.”
“The blind leading the blind!” Veronica declared, with a soft little laugh. “Or that’s what it’s been like for the past six months. In the future,” laying her hand over Stephen’s, “it will be different, won’t it?”
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