Surgeon of Distinction

by Mary Burchell

  “He didn’t commit himself.”

  It was the summing up of Jeremy in a nutshell. No sentence could convey him more completely, in spite of all his charm.

  “It isn’t quite like that,” Alma thought. “I’m being less than fair.” But she knew that, for the first time since he had spoken to her on the steps of the Chelsea house, she was viewing him dispassionately. Without the rosy spectacles of a dazzled, romantic girl.

  He was unstable. That was Jeremy’s trouble. He adored the day-to-day fun. He was an ideal companion for such a purpose. No one could be more amusing, beguiling, entertaining, compelling, for an hour or a week or even perhaps for some months. But when it came to committing himself to something permanent and real—Jeremy was not the man.

  In all the months she had known him, although he had made casual love to her constantly, he had never said, “Alma, I want to marry you.” Or even, “You know what all this means, don’t you?”

  Not at all. He had left her to draw her own conclusions. And when she drew conclusions which were justifiable, she had to learn they were wrong, and pick up the pieces as best she could.

  Even now—she felt it instinctively—his vague statement that she was “his girl” was dictated solely by the fact that he suddenly thought someone else had taken her away. She had been his. No one knew it better than Jeremy. But the sight of Max’s ring on her finger drove him to the inescapable—the insufferable—conclusion that someone else had supplanted him.

  If he only knew, so far as her feelings were concerned

  And there Alma stopped, and stared across at herself in the mirror. She looked pale and wide-eyed, like someone who had suffered a shock. In fact, a series of shocks. But that was not what arrested her now and held her, as it were, suspended between two tremendous truths.

  She had been Jeremy’s. That was the thought which had passed through her mind, and only now did she realize the emphasis she had unconsciously laid on the “had”.

  “I am still, in a way,” she tried to tell herself. But the pale, wide-eyed girl who stared back at her out of the mirror seemed to refuse to accept that.

  She had been Jeremy’s—and it was over. It was as simple as that.

  “But it couldn’t be as sudden as that. It couldn’t!” she thought.

  And the answer of those wide, half-scared eyes in the mirror was that perhaps it had not been so sudden as it seemed. Perhaps that momentous change had been coming for some time—quickened by the experience of knowing Max, someone so infinitely more worthy.

  “It was the discovery that was sudden,” Alma murmured. “Not the change itself. Just the discovery that I had changed. That’s how it must always be, I suppose. The—the terrific moment when something which has been all one’s world is suddenly of no importance at all any more.”

  She had loved Jeremy; and it was over. She had already even moved a little away from that one profound truth, and glimpsed the other truth which—half terrifying, half enthralling—followed upon it.

  There ought, if Jeremy had passed from her life and powers of loving, to be a tremendous blank; a feeling as though something irreplaceable had gone from her. She should feel stunned, out of balance, like someone who had had an amputation.

  But that was not how she felt at all. Alma passed her hands over her face, as though literally clearing her powers of vision. And when she looked again at herself in the mirror, she already knew what the second truth was.

  There was no great blank left by Jeremy’s loss, because his place had been taken by Maxwell Perring. Not as a substitute or a stop-gap. But simply, finally, significantly in his own right.

  “Max!” She said his name aloud, and it seemed to her that for the first time she was aware of him as he really was. Not only as the brilliant surgeon, the man she could admire and like and respect. But as the man who had, quietly and restlessly, taken first place in her life.

  “Who is the man in your life, darling?” Judith had asked laughingly, on the day of the centenary celebrations at All Souls. And she had pretended there was no one and hidden the thought of Jeremy in her anxious, aching heart.

  She had thought Jeremy was the man in her life.

  That man of straw! When all the time there was Maxwell Perring. Cool, handsome, humorous, authoritative—with hands that could work miracles in flesh and blood. And yet, withal, the man who could kiss her in that warm, half passionate, compelling way.

  “I must have been mad,” Alma thought. “Playing with the shadow, when the substance was before me daily. Oh, Max!—I must tell you—”

  She sprang to her feet, the color rushing into her cheeks, and the light sparkling in her eyes at the sudden, wonderful discovery. Then she paused, halfway to the door, the radiance dying out of her like an extinguished light.

  “Where can I even start to explain?” she asked herself distractedly. “He saw me kissing Jeremy, as he must have thought. How do I explain that away, before I begin on anything else?”

  But one thing was certain. Explanations could not be made if she remained up here in her bedroom. She must go down and see him—make him understand—find the words that would convince him, and somehow set right this horrible misunderstanding.

  A good deal scared, but completely determined, Alma went down to the first floor and sought out Sister Pollock.

  “Is Mr. Perring still in Mr. Truscott’s room?” she enquired with what composure she could manage. “No. He left about five minutes ago.”

  “He left? Was he visiting any other patients?”

  “Not so far as I know. Not on this floor, certainly. He went downstairs to the ground floor, now I come to think of it. Maybe he’s seeing Matron.”

  “Yes—maybe,” Alma agreed. But, as she turned and went downstairs, a fresh disquiet took hold of her.

  She could not go thrusting her way into Matron’s room, of course. And neither could she hang about in the hall. Possibly he had gone to the staff waiting room and sent up a message to her which she had just missed.

  Alma glanced into the waiting room. But there was no one there.

  Resolutely she went to the tiny office where Pendleton, the hall porter, transacted his many and varied duties.

  “Pendleton, when Mr. Perring comes through—”

  “He’s been through, Sister. Left about five minutes ago.”

  “He left? You mean he’s—gone?—from the nursing home?”

  “Yes, Sister. Ran down the steps, about five minutes ago it would be, jumped into his car and drove off as if he was in a hurry.”

  “I—see,” she said, on a note of such forlorn blankness that even the well-trained Pendleton looked at her curiously.

  That recalled Alma to the necessity of keeping up appearances and, forcing a smile, she said,

  “He must have been in a hurry about something, as you say. When he comes back—”

  “He didn’t say he’d be back, Sister. And it’s unusual for him to come in even once on Saturday, as you know.”

  “Yes, but”—somehow she simply could not face the cold, blank, horrible, thought of his not coming back—“if he comes back, will you say I was enquiring for him. He—he might not know I’m available. He thought I was going out. Tell him I’m—in my room.”

  “Very well, Sister,” Pendleton said, and turned back to his switchboard.

  She went slowly back upstairs. But no further than the first floor, where she stood, irresolute, lost in her own scared and anxious thoughts.

  So he had gone without even asking to speak to her. He didn’t want to hear her explanations. He didn’t want to ask why she was here in the Home, when she had told him she would not be free to go out to Windhurst. He didn’t want to know why she had been in Jeremy’s room. He didn’t even want to upbraid her and hear her defend herself, it seemed. He had just gone. Like that. With the same cold finality which—she remembered now, with a terrible shock—she had seen in his expression when he stood in the doorway and watched her and Jeremy.

 
What had he said, after she had gone? What had Jeremy said?

  She simply had to know. And, for the first time in her whole career, her own interests took precedence over the necessity of keeping a patient tranquil.

  Presenting herself for the third time at Sister Pollock’s office, she said, with a composure that surprised herself,

  “May I go in and see Mr. Truscott for a few minutes again, Sister? I had to come out when Mr. Perring looked in, and we were in the middle of our conversation.”

  “Well, all right. I don’t think visitors worry him now,” Sister Pollock conceded. “But don’t stay too long.”

  “No,” Alma said. What she had to ask should not take long, she supposed grimly. And there was still a touch of that same grimness in her expression when she went into Jeremy’s room once more.

  He was leaning back against the cushions of his chair, but this time with a pleased and satisfied expression on his face. She could not possibly have said why, but that expression increased her anxiety tenfold.

  “Hello.” He looked faintly surprised.

  “I had to come back.” She wasted no time in preliminaries. “What did you say to Max?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. I suppose he didn’t simply ignore the fact that he found you kissing his fiancée!”

  “No,” Jeremy agreed, calmly and with a sort of authority which had not been in his manner since the accident, until this moment. “He asked if I was aware that you were his fiancée.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “That I had only just found out the fact. Whereupon he asked, in that sarcastic and disagreeable way of his, if that was why I was kissing you. I said that, in point of fact, it was—”

  “Jeremy!”

  “—And that only the most complete misunderstanding would have made you become engaged to anyone but me—”

  “You had no right to say that!”

  “—And that I was sorry if the misunderstanding had led to his finding himself in a false position, but that, as he had seen for himself, there was simply no doubt about the way you and I regarded each other.”

  “But, Jeremy, how dared you say that! How dared you speak for me? You don’t know how I regard you.”

  “Of course I do, darling. All these confused weeks—and I mean before the accident too—we’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”

  “We have?” Alma looked at him coldly, almost with dislike. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, yes, you do. I guess it was mostly my fault,” Jeremy conceded lightly. “But we—sort of lost each other. And then the accident complicated things, of course. Though, in a way,” he added reflectively, “it also straightened things out again.”

  “For you?” enquired Alma with dangerous dryness, “or for me? Or, come to that, Geraldine? What about Geraldine, in all this?”

  He looked genuinely regretful for a moment. “I’m sorry about Geraldine.” There was real sincerity in his voice, and it passed through Alma’s mind that he had possibly once said he was sorry about her in just that tone of voice. “But these things can’t be helped, Alma. They’re stronger than we are. But I don’t think Geraldine took it all too seriously. For one thing, we hadn’t even known each other very long.”

  “And you hadn’t, of course, committed yourself in any way.” Alma spoke with an irony she would never have supposed she could use towards Jeremy. But he seemed unaware of it. Possibly because he too could not have imagined she would be ironical to him.

  “No,” he agreed. “I hadn’t committed myself.”

  “So you felt perfectly free to come back to me, and were angry and taken aback to find that I’d meanwhile become engaged to someone else.”

  “I was angry,” he admitted, with a grin. “But I knew it could only be a misunderstanding—something that had happened because you thought we’d lost each other,” he added earnestly.

  “How were you so sure of that, Jeremy?” Her tone was deceptively gentle.

  “Well, I knew" He smiled up at her. “How long have you and I loved each other?”

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “You see—you never committed yourself, did you?”

  “But, hang it all—” He looked faintly uneasy. “You knew, for heaven’s sake, didn’t you? I mean—”

  “I never committed myself, either,” she went on, in a cool, faintly remote voice. “Isn’t it fortunate? Neither of us was committed in the slightest degree. And therefore it wasn’t even your business when I became engaged to Max. You had no right whatever to tell him we were in love or that your kissing me in that—that violent, inconsiderate way represented our relationship.”

  “But, Alma—”

  “You didn’t know. You were speaking without knowledge. You shouldn’t assume things, Jeremy. You thought I was in love with you, just because you couldn’t imagine I’d be anything else. But you were wrong, you know. I hadn’t committed myself, so far as you were concerned. It was to Max I had committed myself.”

  “But—that’s ridiculous! You’re very angry with me, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m angry with you at last,” she agreed, but calmly.

  “Because I didn’t tell you sooner that I love you?”

  “Oh, no. Because you tried to make trouble between me and the man I really do love.”

  “You mean you—love Maxwell Perring?”

  The words excited and enchanted her, even said in Jeremy’s angrily incredulous tones.

  “Yes. I love Maxwell Perring,” she agreed slowly. And when she herself said the words, they sounded wonderful.

  “I don’t believe it! It’s just hero-worship. Half the nurses are always imagining themselves in love with one of the surgeons.”

  “Oh, no.” Alma shook her head and smiled slightly. “Oddly enough, I never hero-worshipped at Max’s shrine, even though I know he’s a marvellous surgeon. I just—came to love him.”

  “It wouldn’t have happened at all if you hadn’t been angry over my falling for Geraldine.”

  “I wasn’t angry about that. I didn’t even blame you very much for it. I accepted it.”

  “You mean you didn’t care?” He was palpably shaken.

  “No. I don’t mean that at all. I cared very much. I loved you then,” Alma said, without pretence. “It hurt a lot when I found that all the casual love-making and the rather airy references to a shared future meant nothing at all. But there was nothing I could do about it.”

  “Well, no—” He stirred uneasily, as though being forced to look at a disagreeable picture he had never examined before. “But that doesn’t quite explain Perring.”

  “Almost at the same time as I was sure about you and Geraldine, Max came back into my life. I suppose”—she smiled faintly as she recalled the long drive with him from All Souls. “I suppose that was when my—my cure began.”

  “You mean you fell in love with him then?”

  “No. But I began to realize there were other people in the world besides you. I gradually came to love him. It was only”—she bit back a confession of the exact moment—“it was only quite recently that I found how much I loved him. That’s why I am engaged to him.”

  “And—you stand by that?” Even now, Jeremy seemed almost unable to take in what her quiet air of decision meant.

  “Most certainly.”

  “You’re determined to marry him?”

  “Yes. I’m determined to marry him,” Alma said. And the emphasis was as much for herself as for Jeremy. For, at the back of her mind, there was still the cold, frightened realization that recent events would take a great deal of explaining to even the kindest and most forbearing of men.

  And Max had not looked either kind or forbearing when he had stared at her across Jeremy’s room and addressed her as “Sister”.

  For the first time, Jeremy’s gaze dropped, and, frowning, he absently traced a pattern on the rug which was over his knees.

  “Then—yo
u’re saying goodbye to me?”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I’m saying goodbye to you.” And she could hardly believe that it hurt not at all to say those words to him.

  “I’m sorry. I still think that if you’d let me explain properly—”

  “Jeremy dear, there is nothing left to explain.” She spoke quite gently, but very firmly. “You wanted me, then you didn’t want me, then you wanted me again, but meanwhile I’d found my happiness lay elsewhere. That’s all there is to it. These things,” she quoted back at him, though without rancor, “are stronger than we are. Let’s leave it at that.”

  He had the grace to smile ruefully, and he caught her hand in his at the actual moment of parting. She supposed she should feel some sort of regret—some nostalgic melancholy—for what had once been. But all she felt was anxiety because of what Max might be thinking.

  And so she found it quite easy to smile and bid Jeremy goodbye, in that light, almost casual way which has more finality than a sworn pact, when it concerns those who have once meant a great deal to each other.

  Then she found herself outside the door at last, in the long, shining corridor, with nothing to occupy her mind but thoughts of Max—and how she was to make him see things as they were, and not as they had seemed to be.

  It was useless to try to reach him by telephone until the evening. So she impatiently counted off the weary hours until seven o’clock. Then she rang up Windhurst, trembling with eagerness and anxiety. But it was Charity Perring who replied.

  “My dear, I’m so sorry. He isn’t here,” she explained, when she realized who the caller was. “He went up to London this afternoon, intending to stay overnight at his club or his flat. I thought he expected to bring you down here tomorrow. Failing that, he told me he’d probably stay on in town.”