Surgeon of Distinction

by Mary Burchell

  During the afternoon she went in to see Jeremy, whose gay manner and sparkling eyes suggested that he had indeed been the source of any stories which had circulated. But he was faintly flushed too, and Alma was very quiet and grave during the few minutes that she stayed.

  “Jeremy dear, it’s absolutely essential that you keep calm and rested at this stage,” she told him. “I’m worried to see you so excited. Please try to take things quietly—and don’t try to talk to everyone who comes near you.”

  “All right, Sister.” He grinned up at her, and she was hard put to it not to bend down and kiss him then and there.

  “Is there anything you want?”

  “Yes. I wish you’d call in at the flat—my keys are somewhere in that drawer, I suppose, along with whatever else was in my pockets—and see what letters and messages there have been.”

  “All right. Though I don’t promise to let you start examining your mail,” she warned him. “I’ll go as soon as I’m off duty this evening. Now try to rest and let’s have no more excitement.”

  “Very well,” he said, with deceptive meekness. And this time she did bend down and touch his cheek with her lips before she left him.

  Geraldine had still not returned when Alma set out early that evening to visit Jeremy’s flat, and Alma hoped uneasily that she would not do so until a good deal later. Explanations of some sort would have to be made, and the less Geraldine heard of rumors and reports beforehand, the better.

  It was not going to be at all an easy interview when it did come. But Alma could not see that there was anyone but herself to tackle it. Jeremy was certainly in no state to do so. Already he had the maximum of excitement desirable, over what he did remember. To have, in addition, a great deal of agitation over something he did not remember would be definitely injurious.

  Spurred on by these thoughts, Alma hurried to the flat by taxi, let herself into the deserted, curiously melancholy-seeming place, and collected the letters which had accumulated there. She did not even pause to visit her own flat, but, as she came downstairs again, the caretaker’s wife emerged from the basement and asked gloomily,

  “Oh, Miss Miles, what’s the news of poor Mr. Truscott?”

  “He’s making an excellent recovery.” Alma hoped she was not sounding too professionally bright, but it secretly irritated her to hear Jeremy thus described.

  “Well, I am glad to hear that,” said the woman sadly, “and I hope he won’t have a relapse, poor gentleman. There’s a registered parcel here for him, Miss Miles. Will you be seeing him?”

  “Yes, indeed. I'm going straight back to the nursing home now.”

  “Then perhaps you’d take it with you. If you wait a minute, I’ll fetch it.”

  The woman returned into the basement once more, but presently re-emerged, holding a small, sealed parcel, which she handed to Alma. The label on it was a printed one, and bore the name of a well-known jeweller.

  “Oh—thank you!” With difficulty Alma resisted a crazy impulse to embrace the caretaker’s wife. “Thank you so much. I’ll see he gets it right away.”

  “Thank you, Miss Miles. And give him our good wishes, poor soul. I never like it when there are head injuries. People sometimes go funny after anything like that.”

  Without waiting to discuss Jeremy’s chances of “going funny”, Alma bade the woman a hasty goodbye and returned to her waiting taxi.

  “I’m sorry! I’ve been rather a long time, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s all right.” The taxi driver folded up one of the more sensational of the Sunday newspapers, which he had been reading. “You look as though you’ve had good news, anyway.”

  “O-oh, do I?” She laughed and blushed and got back into the taxi. And all the time she was overwhelmingly conscious of that registered parcel from the jeweller’s which now reposed in her handbag.

  She felt she could hardly wait to restore it to Jeremy, and have him open the parcel and give her her ring. But she knew it might not even be desirable that she should see him again that evening. Nothing must be allowed to jeopardize his smooth recovery, and she must naturally be guided by the sister-in-charge, who would be—she glanced at her watch—Sister Evans again, by now.

  A good deal depended on how quiet they had managed to keep Jeremy during the afternoon and early evening. If Sister Evans were of opinion that he had already had quite enough excitement for one day, then she must possess her soul in patience until the following evening. For there would be no opportunity for personal visits or discussion, once tomorrow’s day in the theatre had started.

  Trembling with eagerness, though outwardly quite calm, Alma re-entered the nursing home and discovered, on casual enquiry at the desk, that Geraldine had still not returned. This meant that, provided she were able to see Jeremy, the situation would at least be entirely clear by the time she did come to her unpleasant interview with the other girl.

  “In spite of all she had said, I can’t help being truly sorry for her,” Alma thought. “But my sympathy is about the last she’ll want—naturally. If only I didn’t have to do the explaining.—If only I knew Matron better—”

  But the idea of trying to explain the details of one’s most intimate affairs to a virtual stranger was unthinkable. If only there were someone else.

  And then suddenly she remembered Mr. Perring—and wondered how on earth she could have forgotten him in any case.

  “If he were here, he would do it,” she thought. “With his cool, objective, unemotional way of handling things, he would be absolutely ideal. And he knows poor Geraldine so well. Oh, I wonder—”

  She knew his telephone number, for he had given it to her in case of necessity when he had arranged her visit to Windhurst. And, without giving herself time to blench at her own boldness, she went to the telephone on the top floor and put through a call to his home.

  Fortunately, it was he himself who replied. If it had been Geraldine, Alma was not sure what she would have done. As it was, she was able to say, “Mr. Perring, this is Sister Miles speaking—on a personal matter.”

  “Yes, Sister?”

  “I think I should tell you that a good deal has happened in the—the matter which concerns both Nurse Grayce and myself. It will mean a certain amount of explanation to her which will make her very unhappy. At the moment, I’m the only one who could make the explanations, and I think it’s unfair to any girl that she should have to hear such things from someone she must regard as a—as a rival.—Are you still there?” she enquired in sudden anxiety, aware of complete silence the other end. “Yes, certainly. Please go on.”

  “If she hasn’t left yet—”

  “She hasn’t left yet.”

  “I wondered if you could possibly come with her. I could—put you in possession of the facts then, and you could explain to her. I’m sure you would be the best person to do it.”

  There was a moment’s pause. Then he said, “You can’t tell me what is necessary on the telephone?”

  “It’s complicated and difficult, and it isn’t absolutely clear yet. If you could come, it would be much better.”

  “Very well. I shall be driving her up to town anyway tonight. Instead of dropping her off at the nursing home and going on to my flat, I will come in and see you.”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  “Not at all,” Maxwell Perring’s voice said, a trifle coolly. And, as she rang off, she wondered if he felt he were being much too personally involved in the private affairs of the nursing home staff.

  After that, it was somewhat chastening to find that Jeremy was asleep and must not be disturbed. There was nothing to do but to wait, and to hope that he would awake sufficiently early and sufficiently refreshed for a short visit to be possible.

  Supper was a boring and an agitating meal to Alma that evening. But at last she was rewarded by a message from Sister Evans to the effect that Jeremy was awake and asking for her.

  “You mustn’t stay long,” Sister Evans told her, when she presented he
rself in that lady’s room, clutching Jeremy’s letters and the small parcel from the jeweller. “And you mustn’t say anything that will upset him or make him unlikely to sleep again.”

  “I’ll be very careful,” Alma promised. And she gratefully made her way to Jeremy’s room, determined that his letters, at least, should wait until the following day.

  He greeted her with a smile, obviously considerably rested and refreshed, and his first enquiry was whether or not she had been able to visit his flat.

  “Yes, of course.” She smiled down at him in return. “I’ve brought your letters. But I think those should wait until tomorrow. I’ve also brought a registered parcel which had been sent on to you from a jeweller’s.”

  She put that down to the bed beside his hand, and watched him finger it, doubtfully though smilingly.

  “Isn’t it odd? I can’t recall any of the detailed circumstances. When I look at you, I remember all the happy times together, even if they run into each other rather, in a sort of composite picture. Then there comes a blank and confusion—except for the fact that I know there was a ring. Well—it looks as though this were it. Open it, darling.”

  With slightly trembling fingers, Alma took up the little parcel and ripped off the outer wrapping. Inside was a cardboard box, and inside that a most exquisitely tooled little leather case which evidently contained a ring.

  There was gold lettering on the case, and, as she bent to examine it, she thought, “Sister Evans was right. He left it behind to have an inscription put on it. But on the case—not the ring.”

  And then suddenly she gave a tiny choked gasp, and she felt as though someone had put an icy hand round her heart. For the inscription became clear as she tilted the case towards the light.

  “To Geraldine,” she read, “with love from Jeremy.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  With a swift movement—partly of terror and partly born of an instinctive desire to protect her patient from shock, even in this moment—Alma clapped her hand over the jewel case, with its incriminating inscription.

  There was no knowing what harm those words, and their implication, might do him if he saw them and had to deal with them in his weakened and confused condition. She must save him from that at all costs.

  But it was impossible to gain more than a few seconds’ respite. Already he was urging her—

  “Go on, Alma. Open it.”

  “Give me—a moment,” she stammered, her mind a horrible useless blank.

  “Why, what’s the matter?” He looked astonished. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. It’s just—a rather emotional occasion. I’m being silly, I know, but—”

  “Give it to me.” He laughed and held out his hand.

  It was the last possible moment in which to make a decision. And suddenly—unable to tell whence the impulse came—she knew what she must do. Opening the case, she kept it cupped in her hand and held it out to him.

  Inevitably, he took the ring, leaving the case with her.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it?” He looked at his ring with a good deal of satisfaction. “Give me your hand, Alma.”

  Helplessly, she extended her left hand towards him and, with a smile, he slipped the ring on her finger.

  “Now we’re properly engaged at last.” He looked almost boyishly pleased. “I may be in a queer muddle about some things, but that at least is clear.—Do you have to look quite so grave, my sweet?”

  With a tremendous effort, she forced a smile. “It’s rather a grave moment,” she said defensively. “And—I hate to say it, Jeremy, but I have the strictest orders not to stay more than a few minutes with you.”

  “It’s a very special occasion,” he objected.

  “I know, dear. But Sister Evans says you’ve had just about all the excitement you can stand today, and I’m sure she’s right. We—we’ll have plenty of opportunity to—talk everything over tomorrow or the next day.”

  “Very well.” Unexpectedly, he gave in, making her realize that it was probably indeed true that he had had all the excitement he could bear. “Just kiss me, and tell me you’re happy,” he said.

  And so she managed even that, in her determination that he should not have his recovery jeopardized by the faintest hint of the situation. She bent over him and softly touched his lips with hers. But, as she did so, she had the curious, almost superstitious feeling that she should not be doing this—that, in fact, it was the last time she must allow herself such an indulgence.

  Then she somehow produced another reassuring smile, bade him goodnight, and walked steadily out of the room, even though she felt as though her legs must buckle under her.

  Once outside, and without waiting to say anything further to Sister Evans, she fled upstairs to her own room, closed the door behind her and flung herself on her bed.

  “What shall I do? What shall I do?”’ she kept repeating in a frantic whisper. “That ring was meant for Geraldine when it was bought. Nothing can alter that. It’s only because he’s confused and ill that he associates it with me. Oh, dear heaven, it’s so dreadful to have to lose him all over again! But it’s almost worse to be trapped like this. I can’t keep up this deception, even if I would—and yet I don’t know how to resolve it.”

  Round and round her distracted thoughts raced, in the desperate, and always unsuccessful, attempt to find some solution to the problem. The very sight of the ring, which should have crowned her happiness, now drove her frantic. And presently, unable to bear either to look at it or to feel it on her hand, she took it off and put it back in its unfortunate case.

  As she did so, there was a knock on her door and someone called out,

  “Sister Miles, you’re wanted downstairs in the staff waiting room. Mr. Perring would like to speak to you.”

  “Mr. Perring?—Oh!" Alma sprang to her feet, her hand pressed to her mouth in horror at the recollection of her telephone conversation with the surgeon. What on earth was she to say to Maxwell Perring—now?

  “Are you there, Sister? Shall I say you’re coming?”

  “Yes, yes—I’m coming,” she called distractedly. And because the response to discipline was automatic, even in that moment, she went to the mirror, smoothed her hair, rubbed a little color into her pale cheeks, and tried to compose her features into a calm expression.

  For a second longer she stood there, her hands pressed over her eyes, while she tried to formulate just one opening sentence. But her mind remained an obstinate blank. And so, despairingly telling herself that she would have to rely on the inspiration of the moment, she went downstairs to the staff waiting room.

  Maxwell Perring was standing by the window when she came in, but he turned at the sound of her footstep. He did not, however, cross the room towards her, which left on her the onus of approach, both literally and figuratively.

  “It—it was kind of you to come, sir.” She came forward until she was beside the centre table, and could lean her hand upon it for momentary support.

  “You represented the situation as rather urgent and complex,” he reminded her, civilly but without marked friendliness.

  “Yes. It’s become even more complex now.” She ran a nervous hand over her bright hair. “I hardly know where to begin.”

  “At the beginning,” he suggested a little drily. “And shall we sit down?”

  “Yes—yes, of course.” She sank into a chair, and watched him take the one opposite, with a sort of negligent grace which suggested that whoever else might be agitated, he was perfectly at ease.

  “I telephoned to you,” she began in a low voice, “because, when I got back here last night, I learned that Jeremy had been asking for me and—and that he had described me as his fiancée. I went to see him and found he was under the impression that we were officially engaged and that he had even given me a ring.”

  “Which was not the case at any time, I take it?”

  “Oh, no, sir. Certainly not. He remembered buying the ring, it seemed. And, although he couldn�
�t actually remember giving it to me, he supposed that was simply one of the things which had happened during the recent blank weeks. I couldn’t exactly argue with him. It was obviously not a moment to go into emotional explanations—”

  “No, indeed,” agreed Maxwell Perring, looking very much the strict surgeon.

  “I just explained that I had not in fact ever had his ring, but that no doubt it would turn up. I thought perhaps it might have been left with the jeweller, for alteration or some inscription.”

  “And he was satisfied with this?”

  “Tolerably so. At least he agreed to leave the question for the moment, and he went to sleep. I—I hardly knew what to think. But the next day—today, in fact—I found he was speaking to other people of our engagement. There was a—a certain amount of comment and gossip, naturally. And then, when I went to see him, he gave me his keys and asked me to call at his flat and collect any mail there.”

  “He’s in no condition to study his correspondence yet,” exclaimed the surgeon sharply.

  “No. I knew that. I didn’t intend him to have the letters. But, to pacify him, I did go to fetch them. Among the things waiting for him was a small registered parcel from a jeweller. It was obviously the—the missing ring.”

  “I see.” Maxwell Perring smiled faintly, apparently half amused, half intrigued by the situation.