The Other Linding Girl

by Mary Burchell

  “Unless he feels that he likes someone else more?” suggested the Frenchman shrewdly.

  “That’s just it!” Rachel exclaimed, on a note of sudden pain. “How passive should one be? How far should one try to come between a man and his work and conscience?”

  “You think his conscience is involved?” The great designer sounded skeptical.

  “He thinks—and some absolute inner instinct tells me he is right— that, given the chance to follow his line of research to the end, he can make a discovery that will help suffering humanity. This matters to him more than anything else in the world. And I think he is prepared

  to sacrifice everything else to it.”

  “Including you?”

  “He may not even see it that way; I have only just touched the edge of his consciousness. At least—” She thought of the way he had kissed her that evening, and was silent until, a few moments later, the taxi stopped outside her uncle’s house.

  “We’re here,” she exclaimed, almost regretfully. “And thank you so very much, Monsieur Florian, for being such a sympathetic listener. You won’t, of course, say a word to anyone—”

  “My dear, I have not come to my position by being indiscreet.” Florian replied drily. “But there is one question I should like you to ponder. We have been talking on rather a high plane, perhaps too high for such a worldly creature as I am.” He gave that pleasant, cynical smile which his few friends loved and his many enemies loathed. “Now let me ask you, on a very practical basis: How happy do you think Monsieur Nigel—or indeed any man—would be as the married dependant of Fiona McGrath?”

  Apparently it was not a question she was expected to answer, merely one to consider. For he handed her out of the taxi immediately and said,

  “I shall look forward to seeing you next month, or possibly earlier, if I have to come to London. Good-night, mademoiselle. It has been a signal pleasure to meet you.”

  It had been a great pleasure for Rachel too, and somehow exhilarating. And before she went to sleep that night, she thought a good deal about his final question—without, however, arriving at any satisfactory answer.

  The next day, when she explained to her uncle the suggested new arrangement of work, he was at first urbanely obstructive. Because, while quite willing to approve the scheme in principle, he cherished the illusion that he needed her constant attention and was only persuaded of the contrary with difficulty.

  However, he finally said, “Well, my dear, have it your own way,” with the air of a good-natured and generous man being persuaded to sacrifice himself, against all reason, for an unworthy cause. “But check first with Mayforth that he will not require you.”

  Rachel—who would, of course, have done this anyway— promised gravely to do so, and presently found the assistant surgeon a great deal more co-operative than her uncle.

  “No, I shan’t need you this afternoon,” said Oliver Mayforth, who believed in working his subordinates ruthlessly when they were on duty, but would never have dreamed of pretending he had work when he had not. “What’s afoot? Are you off to enjoy yourself?”

  “Only, in a manner of speaking. I’m going to work for Miss McGrath.” And she explained about the charity evening.

  To her surprise, he frowned and asked, “Did Nigel let you in for that?”

  “Oh, no! What made you think such a thing?”

  “Someone said he’s very thick with the McGraths just now.” Oliver Mayforth shrugged. “And I thought he might have pressed you into service. Don’t let them exploit you, Rachel. They’re a hard crowd. And you’re much too nice to be run through their mill.”

  “Oh, thank you for the compliment.” She laughed, a good deal surprised as well as touched. “I didn’t know you thought so well of me.”

  “You’d be surprised! One of these days I might tell you just how well I do think of you,” was the unexpected reply.

  And then Matron came in and said she would be very glad if Mr. Mayforth could give her a few minutes over the new patient in Eleven-C.

  For a moment Mr. Mayforth looked as though he thought the new patient—and possibly even Matron—a confounded nuisance. But then professional demands triumphed over personal, inclination, and he followed Matron out of the room, leaving Rachel speculating a little amusedly on just what he had meant by that last remark.

  Having telephoned to Fiona to say she would be coming—and received a faintly chill word of commendation—Rachel hurried through her morning’s work, lunched at a small restaurant near the Nursing Home, and presented herself at the McGrath house soon after two o’clock.

  She would not have been human if she had not experienced a slight tremor of apprehension as she was shown into Miss McGrath’s presence once more. But Fiona was polite, if not exactly cordial, showed Rachel what she wanted done, and left her to it for most of the afternoon. The awkward moment came when she called Rachel in to have tea with her, and the two faced each other on more informal

  terms than those they had managed to preserve in the office.

  She commented appreciatively on Sir Everard’s consideration in releasing Rachel, asked politely about Lady Linding’s progress, and then suddenly said, with an air of rather synthetic amusement,

  “So you and Nigel regard each other as cousins?”

  “Well—” Rachel found herself blushing, tried hard to stop herself, and merely succeeded in going a deeper shade of crimson—“we have a half-laughing agreement about it.”

  “I see. Was it a half-laughing matter that he was kissing you when I interrupted you yesterday evening?”

  With anyone else, of course, it would have been possible to suggest very pleasantly that she minded her own business. With Fiona—whose whole air stated her absolute conviction that she had a right to ask what she pleased—this was virtually impossible.

  Rachel took a deep breath and said, as naturally as she could, “We’d had a slight argument, as a matter of fact, and he thought I was cross. It—it was just his way of saying he was sorry. You mustn’t attach any importance to it. Miss McGrath.”

  “I attach no importance to it at all,” replied Fiona coldly, and her tone consigned Rachel and her inconsiderable activities to pitiable insignificance.

  Rachel bit her lip and tried to control her temper. But, before she had completely regained her composure, Fiona went on, meditatively,

  “It interests me to try to decide just what sort of a person Nigel is. You know him very well, I take it. Would you say he is rather irresponsible?”

  “Certainly not,” Rachel said eagerly. For, in spite of all the difficult cross-currents, she still clung to the fact that this was the woman Nigel hoped to impress with the idea that his work was worthy of support.

  “I’ve heard from people that he is,” replied Fiona coolly. “For one thing, wasn’t it his fault that Lady Linding was injured?”

  “Careful!” Rachel told herself. “This could be a trap.” But, because even now she could hardly bear to think of Nigel’s being blamed unfairly for that unhappy business, her tone was almost indignant as she said,

  “That was a complete accident! The sort of thing which might have happened to anyone.”

  “Accidents don’t happen to responsible people,” stated Fiona arbitrarily. “At least, not unless someone else is involved. There was no other car involved, was there?”

  “No,” admitted Rachel reluctantly.

  “As I understand it, he just took the entrance to the hotel too sharply and crashed into a stone pillar. Isn’t that right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “It doesn’t sound like responsible driving to me,” said Fiona disparagingly. “Either Nigel was driving too fast, or his judgment was poor. Hardly a good recommendation, I should have thought, for someone whose work must depend on accuracy and good judgment.”

  “Miss McGrath, I don’t think you can relate the two things!” (Why should she, of all people, be called on to defend Nigel to her rival?) “I have it from
people who should know—Mr. Mayforth and—and people like that— that Nigel is brilliant at his work.”

  Fiona gave her a long speculative stare which was extremely difficult to withstand. Then she said, just as Rachel was feeling she could not bear this any longer, “You have great faith in him, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I have,” stated Rachel resolutely.

  “Well, you know—” the older woman suddenly spoke almost confidentially—“you could help him a great deal, if you tried.”

  “I could?” Rachel looked puzzled. “In what way?”

  “In the way that is always the hardest for any woman,” replied Fiona smoothly. “By simply leaving him alone.” She made a slight pause, so that her words could make their full impact, then she went on, almost lightly,

  “It’s never a good idea to provide a man with too many distractions. If he has a great future, that is. And I think Nigel might have a great future—if he’s not sidetracked. You don’t mind my speaking to you so frankly, do you?” Her hard smile said plainly that she cared not at all whether Rachel minded or not. The warning had been given—and in the clearest possible terms.

  She did not even wait for Rachel to reply—if reply she had ready. Instead, she went on to talk knowledgeably about the advertising necessary for her charity evening. And Rachel—in what she wryly supposed Florian would have considered a very “English” way— somehow contrived to reply courteously and calmly, thus drawing a decent veil over the fearful gulf that had been torn open between them.

  At one point, she almost thought of telling Fiona she no longer wished to work for her. But one could not allow her the satisfaction of knowing that her wound had gone so deep. Besides, what reason could one give?

  There was only one possible course: to go on being polite and preserving a composed exterior until—at some unspecified future time—one could decide just how literally Fiona McGrath’s warning should be taken.

  The following week was not easy. Apart from the fact that there was really a great deal of work, Hester came home, and proved to be fractious and demanding, while Sir Everard fussed over her to a maddening degree. None of this would have mattered if Rachel had not been under a great strain because of her own affairs— and, even more, because she saw nothing of Nigel.

  Not since that scene with Fiona in the study had she had a word with him. And, although he came once to the house to see his sister and Paula, it so happened—or perhaps that was his intention—that he chose a time when Rachel was at the Nursing Home.

  If only she could have seen him for just ten minutes! At least she would have discovered if he meant to ignore that scene in the study—or attempt to explain it. As it was, she kept on going over the scene in her own mind, until the details were very slightly obscured—like a letter that has been re-read and handled until the outlines are faint and the meaning confused.

  At times she even found herself wondering if she had imagined the angry ardour of his kiss, and whether, in fact, he had intended it as no more than the casual caress she had tried so hard to make Fiona believe.

  Only if she saw him and spoke to him could she renew and clarify her impressions. And if he stayed away, how was she to do that?

  And then, from the most unexpected quarter, the opportunity came. It was Fiona of all people who provided it.

  She came into the study early one afternoon with a letter in her hand and said,

  “Rachel—” with an air of synthetic friendliness, she had now taken to using Rachel’s Christian name—“I wish you’d take this and deliver it by hand for me. There’s simply no one else to send at the

  moment, and it’s urgent.”

  “Why, of course, Miss McGrath.” The Christian name arrangement was one-sided only. “Where is it to go?”

  She got up and held out her hand for the letter.

  “It’s for Nigel.” (Was she watching specially closely as she said that?) “My brother wants him to have it today. Something to do with a proposition he has to make,” she added, with quite uncharacteristic vagueness. “If you go now, you will catch him. He is always at his laboratory at this time in the day.”

  Rachel took the envelope and looked down at the address.

  It was in one of the inner suburbs. Not at all a fashionable address, and not a district Rachel knew. But Fiona was explaining lightly— like one who had been there in person.

  “It’s quite a pokey sort of place, I’m afraid—poor Nigel! Attached to one of those out-of-date, dreary hospitals that one finds in the suburbs. You’d better take a taxi. I imagine it’s a dreadful journey by bus or tube.”

  So Rachel took a taxi. And sat with her hands clasped tightly together, wondering why Fiona had sent her on this errand—and just what Nigel would say when she got there.

  She was set down finally at the side entrance to a forbidding looking building in a long, featureless sort of road in North London. But the old man at the enquiry desk answered her query with cheerful good-humour.

  “Mr. Seton, miss? You’ll have to walk quite a way to find him. Let me show you. You go through the OutPatients and out of that far door and through the covered way. Then cross the yard and you’ll find a couple of huts, as you might say. That’s where Mr. Seton is working, bless him! ”

  “Why do you say that?” Rachel smiled.

  “Just a manner of speaking, miss. But he deserves it more than most. He’s the finest man in this hospital, believe me.”

  “Is he really?” She was fascinated by this view of Nigel, and could not resist lingering further. “Do you mean that he’s so clever?”

  “That too they do say—the ones that know, I mean. I wouldn’t know about that myself. But he’s a fine chap in other ways too. Always ready to help when anyone’s in trouble. And I don’t mean only putting his hand in his pocket. He gives his time and himself, and there aren't many that do that. Friend of yours, miss?”

  “Yes, I like to think so,” said Rachel, and smiled again. And she went on her way, strangely warmed by the old man’s words, and the fact that she had ventured to identify herself as a friend of Nigel’s.

  She found her way quite easily. But, as she crossed the damp paved yard, she could not help contrasting the depressing scene with the life of the gilded playboy which her uncle insisted on thinking Nigel lived.

  Finally she arrived at a white-painted door, with a notice which said, “Enquiries. Knock before-entering.” So she knocked and waited, and presently the door was opened by a bright-faced young man in a white coat who said,

  “You’ve been long enough, I must say!—Oh, sorry! I thought you were someone else. What can I do for you?”

  “Could I see Mr. Seton, please? My name is Miss Linding, and I have a message from Miss McGrath.”

  “Well, I don’t know. Come in and I’ll see.”

  He admitted Rachel first to a tiny ante-room—hardly more than a large porch—and then to a long, cold room, with a large sink at one end, tables along one side, and a rich assortment of bottles, jars, test-tubes and chemical apparatus occupying most of the rest of the space.

  Here another man and a young woman were working. “Sit down,” said the one who had admitted her, and he cleared a chair of a pile of files, by the simple expedient of putting them on the floor. “I’ll see if the Chief is available.” And, he went away, out of a further door

  which, so

  far as Rachel could see, led across more damp yard to another shed, While he was gone, she sat looking round. It was all very simple— almost primitive. Not at all the setting in which one would expect a world-shaking discovery to be made. Good work, she knew, of course, was not dependent on the profusion of up-to-date equipment. But this was so ordinary, somehow—so skimped. If one really imagined what a laboratory could look like—

  And then the young man came back. And with him came Nigel— strangely unfamiliar in his white coat.

  “Rachel—” whatever his inner thoughts might be, he was unfeignedly glad to see her—“what brings
you here?”

  She produced the letter, and explained, about Fiona’s having wished her to bring it personally. And, as he took it from her, she

  noticed that he narrowed his eyes slightly.

  “Why was there such a hurry?”

  “I understand—” Rachel chose her words carefully— “that it’s some form of proposition from Mr. McGrath.” He said no more, but put his thumb under the flap of the envelope. Then, as though almost deliberately postponing the reading of the letter, he said,

  “You’ve met Jerry Hallby, haven’t you?” He gestured in the direction of the young man who had first received Rachel. “He is my principal assistant. Would you like to show Miss Linding round, Jerry?”

  It seemed that Jerry would. Or else he knew that he was to interpret this as a sign to leave Nigel on his own for a few minutes.

  “Come and see our smarter lab,” the young man invited Rachel cordially. “This isn’t much of a place, I’m afraid.” And he conducted her through the door and across the yard to the other hut.

  Here, it was true, matters were a little better. There was no a small, not very comfortable office, with shelves of files stacked and labelled with impeccable orderliness. And there was a slightly newer, better equipped laboratory, with some elaborate-looking equipment, which Nigel’s assistant began to explain with almost loving enthusiasm.

  It was doubtful if Rachel would have followed much of the explanation in any circumstances. But, with her thoughts on Nigel and the letter she had brought, it was difficult to manage even “Yes” and “No”, “Really?” and “How interesting”, at the right moments.

  And suddenly she cut across the technical explanations with something much more personal “Nigel is very good at his work, isn’t he?” she said, almost abruptly.

  “Good at it? He’s the best man in the country, in his own particular line,” replied Jerry, with unblushing partisanship.

  “Then isn’t it very—very frustrating for him, and all of you, to be working in these cramped quarters?”

  “Well, yes, it is,” her companion agreed, ruffling up his already untidy hair in an absent-minded gesture. “Except that I’d rather work here with Seton than with anyone else in the best equipped place in the world. It isn’t equipment that inspires one.”