Sandflower

by Jane Arbor

  Liz bridled. “I haven’t been rude to him!”

  “I agree you haven’t. But you’ve only stopped just this side of rudeness once or twice lately. So I thought I’d remind you that it’s rather young—in not the best sense—to show your intolerance of anyone quite so plainly. Of course, I don’t forget that you are young—and in quite the nicest sense, my Liz! But by the time you have more poise you’ll have learned that you don’t need to be insincere in order to be ordinarily polite to people you don’t particularly care for. Meanwhile, what is it you don’t like about Roger Yate?”

  Thank goodness the framing of the question allowed for an evasive answer! Liz answered with perfect truth, “He—he manages to make me feel awfully small on occasion. Besides, even when Beth Carlyon isn’t with him, she’s always—well, in his background. And I just don’t like Beth, dada—at all!”

  “You don’t like Beth? Why there’s nothing unlikeable about the child! She’s naive and inoffensive—”

  “Yes—and ‘the gentlest little thing.’ I know!” put in Liz darkly, quoting a memory. “But I haven’t found her any of the things you said, dada, and we simply don’t hit it off.”

  “But you like Janine Carlyon, don’t you?”

  “Very much. But because I do, I don’t have to like Beth, as well.”

  “I don’t know. It would be quite as reasonable as your holding it against Yate that you don’t like Beth. A logical point, eh, Liz?”

  “Y-yes, I suppose so.”

  Andrew smiled at her. “All right. I won’t press it. I’ll just ask you to remember that Yate is my very good friend and that in a circle as small as ours it makes for goodwill all around to try to like as many people as you can.”

  Needless to say, that exchange did not put Liz more at ease, but rather less. If dada had noticed her lack of poise in Roger’s company, she could guess only too well what Beth’s sly criticism could make of it for Roger’s benefit. Beth and her “three wise monkeys” indeed! Why, she couldn’t be charitably blind, deaf or dumb if she tried, and that she would never try for her sake, Liz was quite sure. Why, oh, why had she let Beth guess her secret when no one else had an inkling of it? She would still be on the losing side, but at least Beth couldn’t gloat. And she would not have to go in constant fear that one day Roger would hear Beth say in her most honeyed tone, “Do you know, Liz is in love with you herself? Isn’t it terribly sad?”

  Liz found herself longing desperately for a confidant. But who was there? Dada wouldn’t be wholly on her side; Chris, in love with her himself, wouldn’t understand even if she could hurt him so much, and how could she possibly turn to Janine, who loved Beth as if she were really her mother? There was no one else and Liz, was perilously near to self-pity before something happened that dwarfed her own troubles completely.

  She was on telephone duty at the hospital one morning and had just answered an incoming call with her formal “L’Hopital Pere Foucauld—” when she recognized Andrew’s voice.

  “Oh—it’s you, dada? What a relief! My French is a lot better than it was, but I always rather dread taking ‘Admissions’ in case I can’t follow what’s being said. They all speak so—”

  “Yes, yes, Liz. But listen—this is urgent,” Andrew cut it. “I’m speaking from the site. There’s been an accident involving two men. Just how bad it is we can’t tell, but they’ve been given first aid and they are being driven to the hospital. They’re on their way now. And Liz—don’t worry too much, but one of them is—Chris Soper.”

  “Chris! Oh, dada, what’s happened?”

  “It seems one of the charges they use for their seismic soundings exploded as he was holding it, with the other chap looking on. They were both thrown flat, but the other one—name of Miller—is only shocked and singed, we think. Chris is burned about the hands and arms and—his eyes—”

  “Not—not blinded?”

  “We must pray not. I’d hoped that you wouldn’t be on switchboard this morning, so that some better news about him might have been confirmed before you heard anything. On the other hand, I’m not sorry the task of telling you fell to me, and it may not be too bad after all. Anyhow, put the thing in train now, will you? You’ll want some details for the record—”

  “Yes, give them to me, will you?” In a daze of worry for Chris, Liz switched over to the house telephone and gave the news of the accident and of the men’s imminent arrival to the casualty ward. After that it was out of her hands, and she had to remain at her post for the rest of the morning, sending and receiving messages, some of them doubtless with poignant meaning for somebody. But for her, while Chris might be in danger, they were no more than so many mechanical, dutiful words.

  She was doubtful of the etiquette of putting through an inquiry of her own to the casualty ward while still on duty. So she had heard nothing when she handed over to the lay sister who took her place. And then, as she hurried across the courtyard to the casualty ward, to her surprise she was intercepted by Janine Carlyon.

  Janine stretched a hand to her through the window of her car. “Liz dear, I came to find you. Have you heard about Chris Soper—or not?”

  By rights Janine should still be with her school classes, so how did she know about the accident? Liz said, “Yes, dada called from the site while I was on the switchboard. Just the bare news that Chris was hurt, that was all. I’ve heard nothing since, and I’m on my way to Casualty to ask. But how did you hear about it, Mrs. Carlyon?”

  “From Roger.”

  “Oh! Did he—I mean, has he seen Chris?”

  “Only very briefly, I think. Chris will be a surgery case, you know. No, Roger was doing a school visit this morning and told me. He said he knew you were on duty somewhere in the building, but might not hear. So he asked me to come up and break it to you, and to drive you home, if your father isn’t coming for you.”

  “But you—why aren’t you still at school?” puzzled Liz.

  “That was Roger again! He asked Sister School Superior if I could leave an hour early, so that I could catch you as you came off duty. Of course, he wouldn’t know that you had heard already, and he seemed very anxious for you, Liz.”

  “Why specially for me?”

  A little smile curved Janine’s lips. “Cherie—it can’t have escaped him—any more than the rest of us—the good friends you and Chris Soper are! So it was only natural that he should worry lest you specially were upset, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, perhaps. It was—kind.” Later Liz was to see the irony of a gratuitous kindness that, in relation to Chris, she did not deserve, yet which brought down at a stroke all her careful defenses against Roger. It was always his switch from critical scorn to unexpected gentleness that destroyed her!

  But for the moment her concern for Chris kept the thought unexplored as she asked Janine, “How is Chris? When he saw you, did Roger know?”

  Janine nodded. “As much as Dr. Fremyet’s first examination showed.” She gestured to the seat beside her. “Get in, Liz, and I’ll tell you. Chris is very badly shocked, of course, and he is burned on his hands, his forearms, his neck, his face—wherever his clothes didn’t afford him some protection, you see. And his eyes—”

  “Yes?” breathed Liz.

  “Dr. Fremyet wouldn’t commit himself, Roger said. Of course no surgeon could at this stage, Liz. But he has lost his sight temporarily and of course he is badly frightened about it, which isn’t helping his condition. Meanwhile he has been put in a private room and he may need a blood transfusion later in the day!”

  “It—it doesn’t sound very reassuring,” sighed Liz. “May one see him, do you think?”

  “Not yet, I should say. But Roger will let us know.”

  “Yes. What about the other man?” Liz remembered to ask.

  “Nothing serious. Slight shock, but he isn’t being detained. By the way, he is married with two children, if that’s any consolation for what you must be feeling about Chris.”

  “It ought to be, I
suppose. And if I know Chris, he wouldn’t want it the other way around. He is so very—generous.”

  “You are more than a little fond of him, Liz?”

  “Yes. But we’re only friends. He had a broken love affair in England, and I’ve never been sure that he has quite forgotten the girl. But as you know, I’d had one, too, and it has made a kind of bond between us.”

  Janine nodded. “That is as I thought, though Roger claimed you were more deeply committed. Meanwhile, you enjoy each other’s company—dance, swim and laugh a great deal together—isn’t that so?”

  “Yes. He’s always ready for anything that promises to be gay and good fun—” But at the chilling thought that for a long time gaiety for Chris might be a thing of the past, Liz stopped and bit her lip.

  Janine threw her a compassionate glance. “You know, I should not have told you the worst about Chris if I hadn’t judged you had the courage to hear it. So now you are going to be brave—yes? When you are able to see him, you won’t add your despair to his, making it harder for him?”

  “No, of course not. But you mean there is real cause for despair?”

  Janine said gravely, “I don’t know. I’ve told you, even Roger didn’t. But I think he wanted you—warned.”

  That was the beginning of a long doubt about the saving of Chris’s sight.

  His general condition was not critical after the first twenty-four hours, and the extent of his burns was less serious than had at first appeared. But at the end of three weeks Dr. Fremyet, the French surgeon attending him, was still reluctant to promise full success for his treatment.

  At best Chris might, in time, recover the full sight of one eye and the partial sight of the other, so that he could return to his world scarcely handicapped. At worst, the better eye would give him some service, but the other one might never function again. It was a matter of time and, ultimately, Dr. Fremyet argued, of higher skills than his. And since Pan-Sahara Oil took full responsibility for the accident, there was no reason why, as soon as Chris was adjudged fit to go in search of it, the best advice in the optical world should not be available for his case.

  “They want me to go to England—to Moorfields, the eye place,” he told Liz. “But I’ve said—Paris, Berlin, anywhere else they like to suggest. But just not England.”

  “Oh, Chris, why—if it’s really the best place?”

  “There are other places, other eye specialists.” His tone was stubborn. “No, emphatically. I’m not going back to England—like this. And if I’ve got to face it that I’m written off out here, I’m not going back to settle down there, either.”

  “It’s still your own country, Chris!” Liz hesitated, then added, “Why are you—afraid to go back?”

  “I’m not afraid! It’s simply that it has no associations for me now, and I’m not giving it a chance to renew any.”

  “Doesn’t that amount to being afraid that it could?”

  “Well, it can’t. And you, if anyone, should know why. Liz—” he held put his hand and she took it quickly in hers before it needed to grope—‘it wouldn’t be fair of me to ask you now if anything had changed yet for you and me. But if it did, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

  “You know I would!”

  “You couldn’t make that ‘will’ instead of ‘would’? No, all right,” he answered his own question. “It’s good and dear of you to care as much as I know you do. Especially—” his smile, lacking the added warmth of his eyes, was oddly bitter “—when I won’t even meet you halfway by agreeing to go to England. But I won’t—that’s flat!”

  And neither of them knew then that, before twenty-four hours had passed, Liz herself would bring him news that would play havoc with that decision.

  Her duties as an orderly included distributing the sorted mail to the various wards, and she had an arrangement with Chris that she kept his and went to read it to him before going off duty. His letters were usually local ones, from his friends on the site or from people in the town, but that morning there was one originally postmarked from England, forwarded from the Tasghala Pan-Sahara Oil office.

  It was the only one for him, and Liz scrutinized it curiously before putting it in her apron pocket. So far, English mail for Chris had consisted of a couple of letters from his grandfather, and this was not addressed in the same writing. The postmark was different, too. And though, of course, Chris must have other English contacts, she found it odd that the letter had not been addressed to him at the oil site or at the hospital. Someone had not known where a letter would find him; had had to rely on a forwarding address—

  At that thought Liz breathed the single word “Jenny,” and stared at the envelope afresh. What had Chris said of Jenny’s defection of more than two years ago? “ ... I told myself she would find a way of writing, if she cared ... She must have known she could reach me through Pan-Sahara Oil ...” So supposing—and supposing? But if Jenny could find him easily enough now, why not then? And if this were indeed Jenny’s long-overdue letter, what was Chris going to say to it?

  When the time came to hand it to him, she thought he must almost hear her heart beating. There was so much cold reason against its being from Jenny, and yet so much warm intuition that it was!

  “Just one this morning, Chris,” she said, watching him slit the envelope and spread open the sheets before passing them back to her to read.

  He wrinkled his nose in a grimace. “Only one? I must be slipping down the popularity poll! Who’s it from, anyway?”

  Liz had already glanced at the signature. “It came in the English mail, Chris. It’s from—Jenny.”

  She saw him blanch beneath his tan. “Jenny? It can’t be! Give it here—”

  But there was nothing he could do with it except ruffle the paper in an agony of frustration. “How do you know it’s from Jenny? Is it signed that way? Or Jenny Adrian?”

  “Just Jenny.”

  “How did it come? How did it find me?”

  “Through the P.S.O. office here.”

  “So she got around to it at last.” His tone was bitter. “All right, Liz. Let’s hear what she has to say for herself. I suppose I should be kowtowing in gratitude that it’s at least a letter, not a silver-printed invitation to her wedding!”

  So he does still care for her. I knew it. As if he could see the gesture,. Liz warded off his second offer of the letter. “Not if you would rather I didn’t read it, Chris. Someone else—”

  “Rot. I’d rather share it with you than with anyone. That is, if you don’t mind? And you needn’t, Liz. What a laugh—Jenny reappearing in the picture now!”

  Was he thinking of his own plight, or that Jenny was too late to mean anything to him? Liz quickly scanned the pages, crossings-out, expressive dashes and all. “It’s—it’s a love letter, you know. Do you still want me to read it?”

  “I suppose it has to be read? A—what? How do you know?”

  “Oh, Chris—I’ve been glancing through it. It’s just the sort of letter I think I’d write to someone I’d loved for a very longtime.”

  “When you admit you’re in love, I’ve always believed it would be ‘for a very long time.’ For always, in fact. That Robin affair of yours didn’t count. He let you down. But it’s not the same with Jenny, is it?”

  “But I think it is. Anyway, don’t judge her finally yet, Chris. Listen—”

  Five minutes or so later there was silence. Then Chris said wonderingly, “They let her think I’d agreed we shouldn’t meet or write until she was of age! That was her mother, of course. Her father’s a good sort. Or was—When does she say he died?”

  “Last year!”

  “And then her mother put on this ‘You can’t possibly want to leave me now’ act! Liz, why do parents want to own children forever?”

  “They don’t all. I think the best of them just like to keep a hand on our reins, and we resent even that. I know dada—”

  Chris was not listening. “How could she imagine I’d go off like that, wi
thout a word? Why, I was waiting for one from her. And all the while, they got the same promise from her that she thought I’d made—not to get in touch until she was twenty-one. But I wasn’t even given the choice, Liz! I was simply choked off. And when she came of age—that would have been a month or two back—I suppose the poor kid just waited—”

  “And then wrote herself, because she couldn’t bear not to,” put in Liz gently.

  “Yes. Liz—” Chris paused and adjusted his dark spectacles irritably. “Dam these things—if only I could see your face! I mean, what does all this do to you? To us? Where do we go from here?”

  “Were we going anywhere together, Chris? Really together, in the way I think you and Jenny both were?”

  “But we were! I was. But why the past tense? If I haven’t loved you, Liz, I just don’t know what the word means. And then Jenny comes back, and I don’t know where loving her ended and loving you began! Oh, help—I don’t know anything. Especially not how much I’d be hurting either of you, whatever I do.” His head went despairingly into his hands.

  “You wouldn’t hurt me, Chris, because I think I’ve known from the beginning that you were loving Jenny in me. Oh dear, how can I explain? I think you loved me for my likenesses to her, not my differences. For just so far as you could keep your memory of her fresh through loving me—”

  He raised his head. “Sounds pretty grimly caddish of me.”

  “No. I think it must always happen a bit. They say one’s first real love dies hard. And I believe yours for Jenny never had died, however much you wanted to think it had. Meeting me and loving me was comforting and easier for your pride than remembering her hopelessly, as you thought you must. I was a kind of—of understudy to Jenny. I never really took her place.”