“I see.” Elizabeth’s tone was almost dry. “Well, he owes you that, at any rate.”
Moira looked up, surprised.
“Grant, I mean,” Elizabeth said with slow deliberation. “This operation means a great deal to him and we simply must get results.”
Moira’s heart began to beat in slow, sledge-hammer blows.
“Will it be—on Monday?” she asked.
“I expect so. Grant will be able to tell you when you see him.” Elizabeth stood irresolute for a moment. “Look,” she said, “why not come over to my flat for a meal? You can phone the Priory and tell Serena you won’t be in till round about eleven and that will give you time to come back here and say good night to Phil into the bargain. He won’t be allowed any other visitors this evening.”
Moira grasped at the invitation.
When they both came off duty at seven o’clock she got into Elizabeth’s car and drove with her to the other side of the town. Serena’s reaction to her telephone call had been instantaneous and half-expected. Serena was frankly relieved. She was having company to dinner, she informed Moira stiffly.
Elizabeth’s flat was as gay and cheerful as her consulting-room, with flowers everywhere and deep, comfortable chairs drawn around the fire, and Elizabeth put a match under the logs as soon as they went in.
She whirled into the kitchen and out again, a charming dynamic creature in her own home who could shed her professional veneer and become a housewife in an instant of revealing transformation which put her guest immediately at her ease.
“Can I do anything to help?” Moira asked.
“It’s all ready,” Elizabeth called from the direction of the bathroom. “I have a most efficient daily who knows everything there is to know about slow cooking. Everything will be in the oven and ready to serve by eight o’clock! If you’re interested in old snapshots, by the way,” she added, “there’s an album full of them under the radiogram. Help yourself!”
She turned on the taps and a low-pitched, tuneless humming drifted into the room as she made an unsuccessful attempt to capture the latest popular tune. Moira crossed to the radiogram, hesitating between Elizabeth’s offer of the snapshot album and the current variety show, and in the end she picked up the album and went back with it to the fire.
The book had been started with enthusiasm many years ago and the snaps had been stuck into the first dozen or so pages and neatly captioned, not without humour. She found herself laughing at Elizabeth’s first efforts on skis against a Swiss Alpine background of snow and sun, and Elizabeth on horseback and obviously out of her element, but before she had gone very far she realized how much the story of Elizabeth was the story of the hospital and Grant. There were groups of nurses and groups of students, and Grant in white flannels and an open-necked shirt playing tennis in the hospital grounds. There was Grant again in the South of France, sunning himself on a palm-fringed beach, and the atmosphere of sunshine and warmth and swaying palm trees smote across her heart in painful memory. She closed the book with a tiny, determined snap and found that her eyes were blurred by tears. Gran Canaria could be nothing but a forgotten incident in Grant’s busy life. He had travelled so far and done so much that it could be no more than a snapshot put away with a smile to lie hidden like those in Elizabeth’s album.
She rose to put the album back in its place, and as she did so the loose snapshots which Elizabeth had never quite got round to sticking in fell with a small flop onto the carpet.
She bent to pick them up, gathering them into a pile until suddenly she found herself staring down at one of them. It had been enlarged to postcard size and it showed four people on a picnic—Grant and Philip and Elizabeth and the most beautiful girl Moira had ever seen. The four were seated in a row on a sandy strip of beach with dark rocks behind them and they were all looking directly at the camera except the unknown girl. Her full, dark eyes were turned revealingly on Grant, her lips parted to show small, neat teeth like pearls, and her whole body gave the impression of straining towards him.
Kerry!
The name jumped out at Moira without any prompting and she knew that she could not be mistaken. This was Kerry, and her heart recoiled before the conviction that no other woman could ever look like that in Grant’s eyes. Kerry was exquisite from the crown of her ash-blonde head to her delicately proportioned little feet which she had dug, naked, into the fine sand, and there was an aura about her of conquest. Why had Serena said that Kerry was not beautiful? Was this not beauty in one of its most breath-taking forms?
A hand came over her shoulder and Elizabeth’s voice sounded above her head.
“I thought I had torn that up long ago.”
“I’ve—never seen anyone quite so wonderful,” she said at last into the lengthening silence.
“Beauty was Kerry’s stock-in-trade,” Elizabeth said flatly. “Surface beauty. She had nothing else.”
Yet, a man like Grant could fall in love with her, Moira thought.
She watched numbly while Elizabeth tore the snapshot up and dropped the pieces into the fire, but it didn’t seem as if she had really destroyed anything by her deliberate action. Kerry’s power still remained. Moira could feel it in the room now between them, as it had stood between Grant and herself a dozen times, and even when they moved through to the kitchen to set out their meal on a gay red and white cloth on the table in the dining-alcove she still felt it there, although Elizabeth gave the impression of having put the incident completely behind her.
They washed up the dishes afterwards, carrying their coffee back to the lounge to drink it before the fire, and Moira saw Elizabeth glance at the clock.
“It’s almost ten,” she said as if she were disappointed. “Grant sometimes comes in for a coffee when he has done his rounds.”
“He may be with Philip,” Moira suggested, conscious of her own quickened heartbeats, but Elizabeth shook her head.
“I don’t think Grant wants Phil to feel that he’s keeping on top of him all the time,” she said. “He may have been delayed by something else. I can’t think that he will have gone to Serena’s party.”
Almost instantly the door bell rang and Moira’s heart pounded more quickly in answer. This must be Grant coming here to Elizabeth to find the relaxation which was not always possible at the Priory.
He came in behind Elizabeth, the long, purposeful stride which always had the power to disturb her carrying him to the hearthrug in a couple of paces and she saw him smiling down at her as if from a great distance. The day had been long, and the heat of the fire had bemused her tired brain so that she even imagined there was concern for her in his grey eyes.
“How did the first day go?” he asked. “I looked in on you about four o’clock, but you were up to your elbows in a wax bath!”
She smiled faintly.
“Was that the young man who was so sensitive about his feet?”
“I expect so. I thought you managed him very well.”
“Moira has a way with her!” Elizabeth was brewing more coffee for him and spoke over her shoulder. “Taken all in all, she’s the perfect nurse!”
“Perfection?” Moira, mused. “What is it really? Perfect workmanship, perfect beauty—?”
She knew that she was thinking about Kerry and she saw Grant’s dark brows draw together in a quick frown, although he had no knowledge of the snapshot or the fact that she had ever seen Kerry.
“There’s no such thing,” he said abruptly. “Your perfect beauty would be something quite out of this world if it went with complete perfection in everything else. Presumably it would be too much for an ordinary human being to grapple with,” he added dryly.
“Well, don’t dare to tell me that I make perfect coffee after all that!” Elizabeth laughed, as if to bridge some gap which had grown between them. “I shall begin to expect that I have failed you elsewhere if you do!”
Grant looked at her reflectively.
“I don’t think you could ever do that, Liz,” he
said affectionately. “You and I know each other too well.”
Moira saw Elizabeth’s small, rueful smile.
“Is Sir Archibald expected on Monday?” she asked, changing the subject.
Grant nodded.
“At ten o’clock. Philip should go into the theatre about eleven and we’ll work through.”
“You will be giving the anaesthetic?”
Again he nodded.
“Philip was emphatic about that. Strangely enough, it’s often the part that people are most nervous about, this losing of their consciousness, yet it happens night after night in sleep and they never give it a thought.”
“That’s because it’s entirely natural,” Elizabeth pointed out. “We’ll all be keeping our fingers crossed for you, Grant.”
“And for Philip.” Moira’s voice was husky, and she clasped her hands tightly before her. “It’s going to be dreadful—just waiting.” There was a short silence in which Elizabeth filled up Grant’s cup. "You’ll be in the hospital and within call,” he said, looking across the hearth at Moira’s strained, white face. "Philip expects that, but it will be best if you stay on duty—best for you.”
“I wish I could have done more for him,” she said impulsively. “He’s responded marvellously, after all.”
“Philip’s all right,” he said. “He’s made up his mind to accept the inevitable, I think.”
They spoke of Sir Archibald and the many great feats of surgery he had performed during a long and useful lifetime, and Moira noticed how completely Grant was able to let himself relax in Elizabeth’s presence. If she felt envy it was momentary, because all that Elizabeth was able to give was essential to him just now. He lay back in one of the deep armchairs flanking the fireplace with his eyes closed. Elizabeth’s wrought-iron standard lamp shedding a gentle light on to his thick dark hair, his long legs thrust out before him to the heat of the brightly-burning logs, and suddenly Moira knew that Elizabeth had so much, after all.
Grant rose to his feet reluctantly, at last, looking down at them with a rueful smile.
“It’s no use,” he said. “This sort of thing always comes to an end! That’s what I meant about perfection. We feel it for a moment and then it disappears before reality.” He looked directly at Moira. “Shall we go?”
“See you tomorrow!” Elizabeth called as he let in his clutch. “Don’t worry about emergencies, Grant. I’ve told Matron to put them through here to me.”
How thoughtful she was and how grateful Grant must be for her friendship, Moira thought as they drove away. He did not say so, but once she caught a glimpse of his profile in the light of a street lamp as they passed it and he was smiling.
“I’m not taking you in to Philip to-night,” he said as he drove round the hospital wall. “He’s had something to make him sleep, and it should have taken effect by now.”
“He will think I have neglected him,” Moira said.
“I told him it was better as it was, and he knows he will see you to-morrow.”
They drove on in silence, their thoughts on Philip and all that lay ahead, and when they reached the Priory and drove across the park they could see the lights from the uncurtained windows sparkling in the darkness between the trees. The great crystal chandeliers which Moira had admired so much when she had first seen them reflected back their own brilliance in a myriad pin-points of iridescent light under which Serena was still entertaining her guests, and Moira knew that she would be furious with Grant for making work an excuse for his absence.
It had been curiously inconsiderate of Serena to have arranged a dinner-party at all so shortly before her cousin’s operation, but somehow Moira knew that Serena did not consider Philip at all important. It was Grant for whom she catered, Grant who was her whole concern.
Grant put his car in the garage. Originally it had been part of the old stable buildings and was well away from the house itself, and she thought that he felt relief at the fact tonight.
“I’m going to be inconsiderate enough to slip in by the side door,” he remarked as they made their way through the shrubbery. “I don’t think I feel up to facing Serena’s guests tonight.”
“Do you mind if I am inconsiderate with you?” she asked with a half smile. “I feel tired for the first time in weeks, and I would like to be up early in the morning.”
They had reached the side door and were standing in the deep shadow of the house while he searched for his keys, and suddenly the world seemed very still—tensed, waiting. She drew in a small, quivering breath and he turned to look down at her as he pushed the door open. The light from behind him slanted on to her face and he tilted her chin up so that she was forced to meet his eyes.
“You’re not to worry about Philip,” he said firmly. “It’s got to come all right.”
Behind the determination in his voice there had been tenderness, and suddenly she found it more difficult to bear than his former indifference.
“You can make it come right,” she said in a stifled whisper. “Only you can do that!”
It was a wild, rash statement to make, but it had been driven from her by something stronger than her own reasoning. She knew that he must not refute it, and she ran from him along the lighted passageway before he had time to answer her.
CHAPTER NINE
It was eight o’clock on the Monday morning before Moira awoke to a sense of impending disaster, and the thought of Philip, crystallising in her mind, made her jump out of bed immediately.
At quarter to nine she went to receive her instructions for the day from Sister Gilmour, discovering with relief that she was to assist Ursula Jackson again.
The smiling little technician was easy to work with, but the hour between nine and ten o’clock seemed endless. She tried not to imagine the preparations which would be going on in the operating theatre and Philip lying waiting in the small ward whose windows looked out to the Priory trees, and then she thought of Grant and his consultation with Sir Archibald during these last few minutes before they walked down the white tiled corridor and through the swing doors into the ante-room.
The room in which she was working overlooked the main car-park and each new car that drew up under the windows made her pulses race to a quickened tempo, and she found herself watching for Sir Archibald’s appearance as if even a glimpse of him would help to steady her quivering nerves. When she saw him, at last, Grant was with him. Sir Archibald had obviously travelled down from London by train and Grant had gone to meet him at the station.
“Do you think you could manage the next patient on your own?” Ursula asked, coming forward with a green report card in her hand. “There’s very little, really. Just a heart check and a report to Doctor Hillier, afterwards.”
Moira nodded, trying to tear her thoughts away from Grant and Sir Archibald and Philip and the events of the next two hours.
“I’ll—do my best.”
“I shall be next door,” Ursula added, giving her a quick look. “Ask if you’re not quite sure about anything.”
The door behind her opened as she was adjusting the bandage on her patient’s arm and Elizabeth looked in.
“I wondered where you were,” she said. “Everything set over on the other side,” she added, holding Moira’s eyes in a long steady look. “Grant asked me to find you and tell you so.”
With that, and a few cheerful words to the man in the chair, she went out, and Moira turned back to her work with renewed faith in her heart. People like Elizabeth were the cornerposts of courage, she thought, and without them the world would surely be a poorer place.
Swiftly she completed her task, testing the straps and the voltage and setting the machine in motion, but it all seemed to be happening in another existence while time ticked inexorably away.
When the print was ready she took her patient to Elizabeth’s waiting room, but there was no hope of a word with Elizabeth herself. It was one of the busiest mornings of the week in their department and when she went back to her own room she
found another patient waiting. The lists seemed longer this morning, the crowd of people waiting in the hall outside more restless than usual, a reflection, perhaps, of her own anxious state. She felt that she could not concentrate on what she was doing, but knew that she must.
Her eyes went to the clock and she saw that it was twenty minutes past one. Philip had been under the anaesthetic for two and a half hours.
It seemed, after that, that her waiting would never end. She found herself listening for Elizabeth’s step in the corridor, but in the end it was Grant who came to her.
“Philip—?”
Her lips had framed the word but no sound came from them, yet it seemed that she had shouted Philip’s name across a vast, resounding void. Grant reached her side in two swift strides.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Philip will live.”
She swayed where she stood, conscious of overwhelming reaction, of a sudden weakness in her legs and the foolish desire to cry, although no tears would come, and suddenly, comfortingly, Grant’s arms were around her and he was pressing her head against his shoulder.
“It’s all right,” he repeated, his voice harsh and edged with repression. “Waiting is always the worst part. I had no idea that you cared quite so much.”
When the door opened and Elizabeth looked in they were still standing there. Grant stiffened, sensing her presence even before he released Moira and turned to face her.
“Philip is out of the anaesthetic,” he said briefly. “Will you come up and see him later on?”
She nodded, trying to read the riddle of his set, closed face, and Moira moved towards the door.
“Could we—go together?” she asked.
In that moment it would have been impossible for her to ask anything more of Grant, and so she had appealed to Elizabeth. She had taken all of Grant’s strength and compassion in the first shock of meeting and now he looked drained and tired. It seemed that the operation had been a bigger ordeal for him that he had expected, and she thought of Philip with pity and a rapidly-beating heart. He would still be in the first stages of returning consciousness and probably Grant would want to see him first, but suddenly the ordeal of going to Philip, of standing beside his bed and trying to smile reassuringly into his eyes—grey eyes that were so like and yet so unlike Grant’s—seemed beyond her power to accomplish. She needed help and the sort of courage which Elizabeth could give. She felt again that rush of weakening resolve which had precipitated her into Grant’s arms, and following close on its heels came an overwhelming sense of dismay. In an hour of need she had only thrust another burden upon his already overburdened shoulders. He had responded to her weakness when he should have found her strong, lending her comfort when all that he must have felt was surely impatience.
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