‘Please – don’t, Gregory. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. I – all that I wanted to find out was about Tod – Davey. I –’
She didn’t want to listen to him, didn’t want him to strip himself before her like this. It was almost indecent, as though she was an evil minded creature, as though she were sitting watching a man suffer for her own pleasure. ‘Don’t tell me –’
‘I’m going to tell you!’ He whirled from the window, came to stand above her, staring at her angrily, his face harsh and ugly. ‘I’m going to tell you! You’ve done this yourself – you’ve made me grovel, and by God, you’re going to sit there and bloody well listen – and I hope you enjoy it!’
‘No –’ she said. ‘No –’
But he stood there, towering above her, making her look at him, fixing his eyes on hers.
‘I loved her – but I couldn’t love her as she wanted. Do you know what I mean? Do you? She wanted physical love – needed it as no woman ever needed anything – and I couldn’t satisfy her. She laughed at me – taunted me. I worshipped her – wanted to cherish her, but she threw my love back at me. I wasn’t a man, she said, wasn’t a man. I couldn’t satisfy her.’ He laughed suddenly, a bitter laugh. ‘Oh, don’t look so sick! It wasn’t a complete frost – I consummated our marriage, if that’s what you’re wondering. But I couldn’t – couldn’t – satisfy her. She was – voracious. She didn’t want my sort of love – gentle love. She wanted –’
Harriet, her hands shaking, dropped her head into them, tried to cover her ears, ‘I don’t want to know – don’t –’ but he pulled her hands away, made her listen, made her hear him.
‘And then she found other people who could satisfy her – not just one – others. And when – when I tried to make love to her, she told me about them, described them – can you understand that? What it was like? Can you?’
She was crying now, tears running down her face as she shook her head at him piteously, begging him with her eyes to stop, aching at the agony in his face.
But he was remorseless. ‘And then she got pregnant. And the man who gave her that baby was a friend of mine – a friend. And when I told her I would go on loving her, that she would have her baby, that I would care for it, she laughed again, and told me she was sick of me, that she didn’t intend to live a life with a man who couldn’t please her – and she went. Just went –’
And then he stopped, sat down suddenly beside her and stared at her bleakly. Trembling, she rubbed her wet face, and looked back at him, at the brooding eyes, the tight mouth. She wanted to run, to turn and run from him, from this room, run till she could run no further. But instead, she put her hand out tentatively, closed her hand on his, and said simply. ‘I love you, Gregory. I love you.’
It was as though a blow had come from nowhere and sent him reeling, as though an explosion had happened inside him. He seemed to crumple, to lose the bitterness that had filled his words, and his face blurred suddenly as though he would weep again.
‘I know, Harriet – I know. And I love you, my own Harriet – I love you, but what can I do? How can I – what can I do?’
‘Whatever happened in the past, Gregory – it doesn’t matter any more. Nothing matters any more. I – I’m not as – she was. And I love you –’
He slipped back into memory, his eyes going blank as he spoke.
‘I looked for her, you know, Harriet. Whatever she had done to me, she was my wife, and I looked for her. But I couldn’t find her. And Brooks went away, and didn’t even bother to tell me he was going. I never saw either of them again. And I looked for a long time –’
‘She – she’s dead, Gregory.’ Harriet said gently. ‘Dead.’
He looked at her then, and his face twisted suddenly into a sick grin. ‘Dead? Susan? Dead?’
‘Yes –’ and then he began to laugh, a horrible shrill laugh, so that she shook him, put her hands on his shoulders and shook him, forcing him to stop.
‘My God!’ he gasped. ‘My God – that’s funny – funny –’ and he shook his head as the laughter seemed to bubble up again. ‘Do you know why it’s funny? Shall I tell you? She left me five years ago – and in a year or so from now, it will be seven years. And do you know what that means? It means I’ll be free. That I can presume her dead – that I’ll be free – that I can think about you, you and me –’ and he threw back his head and laughed again, laughed till tears ran down his face, till the tears began to be sobs, till he was crying in earnest, his whole body shaking with the agony of his distress.
But this last burst of feeling seemed to wring him dry. Slowly, he relaxed, relaxed in the arms Harriet had put round him again, till he was almost himself again, only the red eyes and lined face showing any sign of the storm he had gone through.
It was a long time that they sat there, she holding him close, he just lying against her, seeming to absorb strength from her. Then he moved, and sat up, running his hands through his hair, rubbing his face with still slightly shaking hands.
He stood up, and went back to stand at the window.
‘Thank you, Harriet. I had no right to explode like that,’ he said at length, the words coming painfully.
‘It’s all right, my love,’ she said gently, and came to stand beside him. ‘It’s all right, you know. I love you. And I’m going to marry you. Do you know that?’
But he shook his head. ‘No, Harriet – no. Not now. I had thought – but not now. It’s – ruined. I would have told you about her when the seven years had gone – but I wouldn’t have told you why – why she left me. I thought – I thought I could marry again, marry you, but I can’t – not now. I couldn’t let it happen again –’
‘But it won’t happen again –’ Harriet cried. ‘It won’t! I’m not like she was – it won’t.’
‘But I’m the same man, Harriet. The same man who couldn’t make one woman happy. And I couldn’t – couldn’t make you happy either – it’s ruined now –’
‘No – no,’ she began, but he shook his head at her, touched her face gently.
‘I can’t my love. I can’t. Don’t ask me to – please. I can’t try again – not take a risk like that again. Don’t you see? I love you – and I can’t marry you. Not possibly. I can’t marry you.’
Chapter Thirteen
How she got back to her room, she never knew. She had stared at his face, at his reddened eyes, and then turned and run, unable to face things any longer. It had been too much for her.
Sally had been waiting for her in her room, and at the sight of her face, had said nothing, only helping her undress, making her drink hot milk, putting her to bed as though she were a child, giving her a sleeping pill so that she drifted off into an exhausted sleep.
She went on duty the next morning with a head heavy with reaction, her face bleak and somehow old in the morning light. Her nurses looked at her in surprise, but said nothing, only working through the morning’s routine with an efficiency that meant she could at least not worry about the ward, could leave things to them, and for this she was grateful. She could not have worked properly for the life of her.
The paper carrier bag with the photographs and the birth certificate was waiting on her desk for her, with a note from Gregory on top of it.
‘You’ll need this,’ he had written, in a scrawled uneven script, ‘They belong to Davey. I’m sorry, Harriet. I can’t say more than that. I’m sorry.’
She sat at her desk staring at the note for a long time. It was Dr Bennett’s step behind her that pulled her back from her painful thoughts, her agonising memory of the previous evening.
He looked sharply at her drawn face, and said, ‘You’re overdoing it, Sister. Not good. Not good.’
She ignored his concern, reaching into the paper bag for the birth certificate.
‘I’ve found out,’ she said baldly, and gave it to him, and he took it, and read it silently.
‘Well done, Sister! I must confess, I thought you’d set yourself an impossible tas
k – but well done –’
With a voice devoid of any emotion, she told him what had happened, what Mrs Ross had told her, and he listened with a grave face.
‘Poor little devil – poor little devil,’ he murmured, and looked through the glass partition down the ward at bed seven, where Davey was sitting a little hunched up, staring round him at the other children, at the bustling nurses, with a flat look on his face, but at least with some apparent understanding of what was going on.
‘Quite what we’ll do with him now, I’m not sure,’ he sighed heavily. ‘There’ll be no need to get him into a special home, not if he’s managed to make some contact with us. He’s more of a social problem now than a psychiatric one.’
‘What then? An orphanage?’ Harriet asked.
‘Perhaps – though it seems to me he needs a good foster home, really – loving people to take the place of his parents. I’ll see the almoner, and the Children’s Officer from the Council about him, and see what can do – but there’s a shocking shortage of foster homes in this district –’
With an effort, Harriet said, A foster home? Does it have to be in this district – 1 mean, suppose I could find a home for him – would the Children’s Officer be willing to consider it?’
‘You’ve done quite enough, Sister – quite enough. No need for you to worry about this. I’ll find an answer somehow,’ he said.
‘But I – I’ve got rather fond of him,’ she said. ‘And I feel – responsible.’ He mayn’t be Gregory’s child, she thought bleakly, but he was his wife’s child – and Davey has suffered enough. Someone’s got to love him.
‘No need –’ he began again, but she interrupted him.
‘I’ve got a sister,’ she said. A vicar’s wife. They live in Devonshire, in a huge old house, and they’ve got three children of their own – as well as foster children – and I think she’d be happy to have him –’
I must say it sounds eminently suitable –’ he said after a moment. ‘Have you already suggested this to her?’
‘No, but I could ’phone – and I know Sybil will be glad to have him. She loves children, and she’s the sort of girl who wouldn’t be able to let him go on unwanted like this –’
‘Well –’ He thought for a while, then he said briskly, I must say it would solve the problem very nicely. We’ve got to get him out of here soon. He’s physically fit, and we need the bed. Talk to your sister, then, and I’ll discuss the matter with the powers-that-be this morning –’ He turned to go, but Harriet put a hand out to stop him.
‘Please – Dr Bennett – someone will have to tell him, tell Davey – about his mother. That she’s dead. And –’ she drew a shuddering breath, ‘I don’t think I can do it. I can’t – I’m probably the best person to tell him, I know. I’ve spent more time with him than anyone else, but I can’t do it –’
He looked down at her unhappy face, at the pleading eyes, and smiled gently.
‘All right, Sister. I’ll tell him. It might be better, at that. I’m less emotionally involved than you are –’
She watched him as he went down the ward, his tall figure stooping slightly, saw him stop beside Davey, talk to him for a moment, saw Davey look up at him, saw his lips move as he spoke in answer.
Dr Bennett bent, and picked him up, carrying him out to the sunny balcony, empty yet of children, most of whom were still finishing their breakfasts. I hope he manages to help Davey understand, she thought bleakly. But it will be a long time before he really gets over this. Poor Davey. Poor baby.
She reached for the ’phone, and asked the switchboard operator to make a person to person call to Sybil, promising to come down later to sign for the cost of the call, and sat with the ’phone to her ear as she waited for the connection, listening to the clicks and the distant voices of operators as the long miles to Devonshire were covered.
Sybil’s voice sounded distant, but warm and friendly as always, and for a moment, Harriet could hardly speak in answer to her ‘Hello? Hello?’ so suddenly lonely did she feel, so suddenly yearning to be there with her, to see her plump happy face, hug her close.
‘Sybil?’ she managed at last. ‘Sybil darling? It’s Harriet –’
‘What’s the matter?’ She could hear the anxiety, the rush of fear that Sybil felt at the sound of her strained voice.
‘It’s all right – but I need your help. And you said to ask when I needed –’ As quickly as she could, Harriet told her about Davey, told her of his need for a foster home, and finished awkwardly, ‘He’s – he’s more than just a patient to me, Sybil. He – he’s connected to someone – someone I know. I can’t explain now, but I will.’
‘Of course we’ll have him, Hattie,’ Sybil’s voice came quickly. ‘Of course we will – as soon as you like. He can share Jeremy’s room – Jeremy’s the same age, and he loves company. As soon as you like –’
‘Bless you, Sybil. I – I’ll phone again as soon as I know what the arrangements are – we’ll have to get permission from the Children’s officer –’
‘It’ll be all right,’ Sybil said reassuringly. ‘We’ve fostered children before, remember – we’re registered foster parents. Tell them that – they can check with the Children’s Officer at Exeter – it’ll be all right –’
After that, things moved quickly. Dr Bennett came back to the office, after settling Davey in bed again, and writing up a mild tranquilliser for him. ‘It’ll help a little,’ he told Harriet as he signed the prescription sheet. ‘He took it well – too well. Too quietly. He’ll have a storm about it all some time, and this will help him when it happens –’
There was a great deal of telephoning, between the hospital and the Children’s officer, the police and the Court official who was responsible for Davey, the Children’s Officer in Exeter, and Sybil and Edward in their distant vicarage, but by lunch time, the whole thing was settled. Davey was to go to Devonshire two days later.
Dr Bennett came back to the ward in the early afternoon to see Harriet and tell her what had been finally arranged.
‘I’ve been talking to Matron,’ he told her, ‘and asked her if she can spare you to take the child to his new home yourself. You’re the best person, and the break won’t do you any harm. And she’s got a Sister to replace you for a few days, so it’s settled. And I’ve told her you’ve been overworking –’ he silenced Harriet’s protest with a raised hand, ‘and, she’s sending the replacement for this afternoon. You take the rest of today off, Sister – I insist.’
Harriet didn’t want to go off duty in the least. Without the ward to keep her mind occupied, she would have too much opportunity to think, to remember Gregory’s unhappiness, to think about a future without him, for it was obvious that he had meant what he said. That he couldn’t marry her, love her though he did. But she was too weary to argue, and she trailed off, leaving a cheerful junior Sister in charge, to make her way heavily across the crowded courtyard, weaving her way past ambulances and hurrying medical students, and outpatients searching for various departments where they had been sent for special tests, towards the Home.
But before she could reach the gate to the garden, hurrying footsteps behind her caught her up, and a hand on her shoulder pulled her back.
‘Harriet – what’s the matter? Are you ill? You look ghastly –’
She looked up at Paul, at his handsome face, at the eyes full of concern, and shook her head. ‘It’s nothing –’ she began. ‘Nothing –’ and then, to her horror, her eyes brimmed with tears, and her jaw shook so that she couldn’t speak, and with a shake of her head, she turned and tried to run away from him.
But he fell into step beside her, followed her through the gate into the garden, and made her stop and sit down on one of the benches under the trees.
He put an arm round her shoulder, and after a moment’s resistance, she relaxed, drooped against him, and let the tears run unheeded down her face. He said nothing, just held her, letting the tears fall, mopping gently at her face with
a big white handkerchief that smelled faintly of antiseptic and tobacco.
Gradually, she stopped crying, and managed to sit straight again, taking the handkerchief to blow her nose, setting her cap straight on her head.
‘What is it, Harriet? What’s happened? Tell me, love. This is Paul, remember?’
She looked up at him, at the crinkled eyes looking at her with so much affection, at the broad shoulders, the square jaw, and drew a shuddering breath.
‘Yes –’ she said, ‘I remember –’
I loved him once, she thought. Not as I love Gregory, but I loved him. He’s comfortable, and he’s fun, and he loves me.
Her voice came to her as a surprise, as though it were someone else’s.
‘Paul – do you still – care for me? A little?’
He looked down at her, and his mouth twisted a little wryly.
‘I may be pretty volatile, Harriet, but I’m not that volatile. Yes, I love you. Very much indeed. Does it matter?’
She managed a smile then. ‘It matters. I – need loving, just now. Need it a great deal –’
‘What’s happened, Harriet? Has – what has Weston done to you? Is – is it what I thought? Is he married?’
‘No,’ she shook her head. It’s not a lie, she told herself a little defensively. Not a lie. Susan is dead, and he isn’t married any more.
‘What then?’ Paul persisted.
‘It – circumstances,’ she shrugged a little. ‘Things can’t always be the way you want them to be. Circumstances – alter things. It – oh, it’s such a mess, Paul! Such a mess. And I’m lost – lost and miserable, and I need loving so much –’
His face went blank, and she felt his arm round her shoulder slacken.
‘I see,’ his voice was flat. ‘I see. You still love him, don’t you, Harriet? Circumstances haven’t changed that, have they? You love Weston?’
She sat very still for a long moment, then she said slowly. ‘Yes – I do – I do. It’s not like a – a tap. I can’t just turn it off because I want to. But I wish I could – my God, I wish I could!’ She looked up at him then, tried to smile. ‘But it will change, Paul. It must. I – I can’t go on like this –’
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