Strange Recompense

by Catherine Airlie

  “I don’t think either Doctor Tranby or Doctor Melford would have employed me if they hadn’t needed my services or felt sure that I could do the work,” she said stiffly and with a dignity she was far from feeling. “I can only do my best to justify their trust.” Sara turned on her heel with a small, articulate sound which might have meant anything, making her way into the house with a purposefulness which kept Anna where she was.

  “I’ve just been talking to your Orphan of the Storm,” she told Ruth maliciously, “and she has announced that she is taking over our job as Noel’s secretary! Quick work, I should say, but I can’t help wondering if Noel is entirely wise.”

  Ruth moved away from the window where she had been watching Anna in the garden, her hands clasped tightly in front of her, her kind mouth firm.

  “Noel knows what he is doing, Sara,” she said quietly.

  “I sincerely hope so.” Sara’s lips twisted a little. “Have you noticed the absence of the wedding ring?” she went on smoothly. “That girl was wearing one yesterday, if I am not mistaken, and now she has taken it off. Could she have imagined that none of us noticed the fact?”

  “I don’t know.” Ruth’s voice rang out sharply in the quiet room. “But no matter what her reason has been for disposing of her ring, I’m quite sure it was not to deceive us.”

  Sara’s eyebrows shot up.

  “I sincerely hope your faith in her will remain justified,” she murmured. “You were always much too trusting, Ruth.”

  “Maybe,” Ruth answered easily enough, but the conversation seemed to have driven a small wedge between Sara and her, forcing them apart a little, and she was sorry. Ruth liked to keep her friends, but she also thought that she knew genuineness when she met it. Anna seemed to be genuine enough, and although the fact of the missing ring was odd, Ruth was quite sure that there would be some simple explanation of its removal.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE LONG, TORTUOUS task of aiding Anna’s recovery began the following morning in Noel’s consulting rooms at the hospital, and in this respect he was quite ruthless. No stone was to remain unturned, no avenue unexplored. He set to work with a grim determination which surprised even Anna, who had been prepared for anything, throwing copies of half a dozen newspapers at her across his desk.

  “Read through these and see if they mean anything to you,” he commanded. “We may as well begin at the beginning.”

  While she read he worked at his desk without appearing to remember her at all, and as she turned page after page and no one item of news stood out for her to claim her interest over the others, which she supposed was what he wanted, she felt the old sense of hopelessness creeping over her and grew more nervous and restive with each passing minute.

  Finally he pushed back his chair and came towards her, his grey eyes steady on her flushed face.

  “All right,” he said, “don’t make a labor of it. We’ve drawn a blank, so we’re going to fold up the newspapers and go out.” He turned back his cuff to look at his watch. “Slip across and borrow a hat from Ruth, and don’t be any longer than you can help.”

  She obeyed him without question, although she could not understand why he should suddenly want her to wear a hat.

  Anna inspected Ruth’s hat in the mirror, satisfied with what she saw apparently, because she was still smiling when she met Noel in the hall.

  They drove swiftly down the tree-lined approach to the hospital and out through the south gates towards the edge of the town where a small chapel stood on a hill and several cars were already parked on the gravel sweep before the main door.

  “We’re getting out here,” he told her as he pulled his own car in behind the others. “Don’t worry about anything that may happen, Anna,” he added. “I shall be in charge and nothing can harm you.”

  It was strange the amount of comfort she found in that thought although she could not understand why he was taking her to a Welsh Methodist church at this time of day and on a Tuesday into the bargain. Then, as he led her swiftly down the aisle after a hurried consultation with someone at the door, she realized that they were about to witness a wedding.

  Organ music filled the church, swelling to a final magnificent chord as they found a seat at the side of the aisle, in full view of the waiting bridegroom and the assembled guests, but the notes were no more than a dreadful avalanche of sound to Anna as she sat with bowed head, trying to restrain an almost overwhelming impulse to rise and run back down the aisle to the sunlit world outside. A feeling akin to claustrophobia clamped down on her senses and it seemed as if she was beating against bars in some narrow prison.

  “I can’t go through with it,” she murmured. “I don’t want to let you know, but I can’t go through with it. It’s not that my love has changed,” she added in a breathless whisper, the words forced from her against her will and almost as if she were repeating a formula. “It’s just that I don’t want to be married...”

  Noel Melford’s fingers closed firmly over hers and somehow she knew that the words she had repeated were not her own. They had the hollow quality of an echo about them, an echo out of the past, but she could not nail them down to any memory. Her head was spinning round and her mind so confused by the impression she had received since entering the dim, cool chapel that she could no longer reason clearly. All she could feel was that desperate desire for escape, and then she knew that she could not escape because Noel Melford sat between her and freedom and his hand was firm and detaining on her arm.

  During the ceremony, as the kindly old parson’s voice suggested the full meaning of the marriage bond, Noel did not turn his head once to look at her. He appeared to be deeply engrossed by what was being said, his keen mind weighing each phrase, each turn of a sentence, to extract the fullest meaning from them, but when the happy couple followed the parson to the vestry and some of the guests made their way out to the porch with gaily colored bags of confetti, he led her out into the sunshine and straight to his waiting car.

  He did not start the engine immediately, however, sitting with his arm along the steering wheel until bride and bridegroom appeared in the chapel doorway.

  Anna’s attention was riveted on the young couple, and Noel watched her as she sat still and erect, so still that she scarcely seemed to breathe at all. Then, slowly and painfully a single tear forced its way between her thick lashes and fell unheeded down her cheek.

  As if at some given signal, he swung the car clear of the line of traffic, out beyond the chapel and onto the open moor. Anna was still staring straight ahead, eyes completely remote, seeing nothing of the road before them, until he drew up on the brow of the hill overlooking the Mareth valley and turned to look at her.

  “What did you remember?” he demanded,

  “The church,” she gasped, and then she went on more slowly and more coherently: “When I first went in I wanted to run away.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to escape, I think. I—don’t think I wanted to get away from anyone in particular.” She clasped her hands tightly in front of her. “Oh, it’s so difficult to explain—to tell anyone—”

  “It isn’t difficult to tell me,” he insisted. “Why did you want to leave the church?”

  “I wanted to get away from something. It was like being shut up in a too-small room—closed away for life. I felt that I had been there before, that I had heard the organ playing like that before.”

  “For yourself?”

  She passed a trembling hand over her forehead.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps it was personal, that feeling, but I can’t be sure. I only know that I felt as if I were waiting for something dreadful to happen, that I had been there before and knew exactly what was coming, as one does in a dream.”

  “It often happens with the conscious mind, too.” he explained, “but go on. What was it you were waiting for?”

  “I can’t remember that. I don’t really know,” she repeated. “It was like a great dark pall rolling towards me
, blotting out everything—the altar, the man standing there, the music and the sunlight streaming in across the aisle. I felt that I was going down the aisle and out at the church door—alone.”

  “What came after that?” He bent over her, willing her with all the force at his command to answer him. “Think, Anna! Think!”

  “I can’t!” She covered her face with her hands. “There isn’t anything left now but the blackness and the emptiness.”

  There was a tense moment before he relaxed, leaning back against the cushioning to produce his cigarettes, his eyes narrowed in thought as they scanned the deep green valley ahead.

  “Smoke?” he asked, proffering the case.

  She took a cigarette clumsily, imagining her companion making a mental note of the fact that she had not smoked a great deal from the way she handled it, and suddenly she was able to relax.

  “What a session!” she said unsteadily but without undue emotion. “How long before you give up altogether?”

  “One doesn’t ‘give up’ so easily as that,” he assured her, inhaling deeply. “To stop trying would be to acknowledge defeat, and this effort is still in its infancy. D’you know,” he added casually, “that hat is the emblem of the greatest day in my life! Ruth wore it at the graduation ceremony, and I can still see those two fantastic fully-blown roses bobbing for a vantage point in the middle of the hall. She had got herself a seat behind the fattest professor’s wife imaginable who was wearing a veritable fruit-barrow on her head and evidently wouldn’t give an inch!”

  “What did Ruth do in the end?”

  “She waved her programme so much that the fruit-barrow hat tilted forward and by sheer weight toppled into its owner’s lap!” They laughed as he started the car, and he thought with satisfaction that this was the second time in one day he had heard his patient laugh with complete spontaneity.

  “I’m dropping you at the villa for lunch,” he said, “and then you can go over to the hospital at two o’clock and put in a couple of hours’ work to salve your conscience, if you like. You’ll find a stack of filing to be stowed into that green metal cabinet next to the window in my room, and then you can take the draft of the report on my blotting-pad along to the general office and have it typed. Anyone will tell you where our efficient secretary has her lair,” he explained, “but don’t expect her to come to the consulting room even if you ring a bell till Doomsday!”

  “You’re sure I won’t get in the way?” Anna asked, thinking of her encounter with Sara the evening before.

  “Nobody will worry about you,” he assured her. “You will find you are in an isolated little world of your own in the east wing, since it is too cold for anything but the kitchens and the Superintendent’s consulting rooms!”

  “I’m sorry you’re so badly treated!” she smiled. “Can nothing be done about it?”

  “Strictly between ourselves,” he grinned, “I should hate anything to be done about it! I like the idea of my splendid isolation and I rarely feel the cold.”

  She said quickly “Neither do I. It’s warmer here, of course.”

  “Warmer?” he prompted. “Warmer than your home, Anna?” She started, surprised that he should find something revealing in such an ordinary remark, and then she shook her head dismally.

  “Oh, I wish I could give you some satisfaction, some kind of help when you are trying to do so much for me!” she cried.

  “That will come.” He looked neither disappointed nor impatient. “We must wait for it. I thought we had got somewhere in the church just now, but apparently not.”

  They had reached the hospital gates and he set her down on the drive, directing her to the side entrance before he left her. He was evidently not coming to the villa for lunch, and Anna hurried back to Ruth, wondering if there was anything she could do to help her. She felt so much indebtedness to both the Melfords that she imagined she would never be able to repay them, but Ruth would not even let her mention it.

  “Noel is deeply interested in your case and that’s the main issue,” she said as they sat over their coffee. “Besides, you’re evidently going to repay him in kind!”

  “Doing the office work, you mean?”

  “He loathes paper work,” Ruth explained, “so you see if you can help him out there while he is treating you there’s no need to feel so very dependent on either of us. I’ve been doing it for him lately, but I must confess it has been rather an effort.”

  “He has said that I might start right away,” Anna explained. “It will help keep my mind off—the other business.”

  “Sister Enman will be on duty when you go over to the hospital,” she said instead. “If you feel strange at first, or there is anything you can’t find, ask someone to take you along to her room and I’m sure she will put you right.”

  Anna thanked her for the suggestion, but she felt that she would not want to appeal to Sara Enman unless it was absolutely necessary. Sara had not shown any desire to be friendly even at the villa, so why should she suddenly change her attitude when they met in the hospital, which was her own particular sphere?

  With a quickening pulse beat she covered the distance to the larger building, going in at the door marked “staff.”

  A young probationer came into view, halting on the stairs above her as if her presence there had almost shocked her into a cry of surprise.

  Could you tell me how I get to Doctor Melford’s consulting rooms?” she asked, and Jill gulped and seemed to waken out of an unhappy dream.

  “Upstairs, and first to your right,” she directed. “That will bring you to the east wing.” Jill hesitated, her cheeks flushing with a sudden impulse to confession, but all she managed was: “I helped when Miss Melford first brought you in. I hope you are better now.”

  Anna thanked her with one of her vivid, friendly smiles.

  “I think I must have been very faint with hunger and tiredness,” she explained, “but I feel much better now, thank you.”

  “Is there anything wrong, Nurse?”

  The voice was one Anna knew and she drew back, leaving the little probationer to answer Sara’s question.

  “No, Sister. I’m just going off duty. Is there anything you want me to do before I go?”

  “Only to remember that the corridors are not the place for idle gossip!” Sara turned the bend in the staircase, silenced by what she saw, and Anna looked upwards with a small, sinking feeling in her heart. Sara looked so competent and so cruel as she stood there in her blue dress with her stiffly starched apron and cap, bristling with efficiency, and Anna knew now beyond doubt that Sara did not like her.

  “You can go, Nurse,” Sara told the waiting Jill without so much as looking in her direction, “but please remember that even when a nurse is off duty she is expected to behave with dignity and decorum, especially in the precincts of the hospital.”

  “Lecture three, page five!” Jill muttered as she scuttled away, and Anna was able to meet Sara’s eyes with a smile in her own.

  “It was really my fault that we were talking on the stairs,” she explained. “I asked the way to Doctor Melford’s consulting rooms.”

  Surprisingly Sara smiled back.

  “Come along,” she offered, “I’ll take you. One mustn’t be too lenient with these beginners, you know, or they will take advantage. Discipline always turns out the best nurses, just as it produces the best soldiers. I don’t think Doctor Melford is in his rooms at present, but we can go along and find out.”

  “He won’t be in until late,” Anna explained to Sara’s apparent chagrin. “He gave me quite a lot of work to do which will keep me busy for most of the afternoon, but I’m sure I shall be happier working.”

  “Possibly,” Sara acknowledged with a strange inflection in her voice that was difficult to define. “But it would be much better all round, wouldn’t it, if you discovered your identity? Your people must be wondering about you, to say nothing of your husband!”

  The last word startled Anna, sending the hot col
or flooding into her cheeks. She had forgotten she was married since Noel Melford had taken her wedding ring away to send it to London in an effort to trace its origin, but now the fact was being thrust at her by Sara in no uncertain manner. The action was quite deliberate, yet she could not guess at Sara’s reason for accentuating her marriage.

  “It’s all so—difficult to imagine,” she said haltingly. “I can’t remember a wedding at all. Even in church this morning, the ceremony meant nothing personal to me. Doctor Melford thought it might, and probably that is why he insisted I should go.”

  “I suppose Ruth took you.”

  Whether it had been statement or question, Sara waited as if she expected some sort of answer.

  Doctor Melford took me himself,” Anna told her. “We went in his car and sat in a side pew during the ceremony, but evidently it didn’t bear fruit.”

  They had come to a white-painted door at the end of a long corridor and Sara paused before it, her fingers closing tightly over the handle.

  “Has it never occurred to you that you might be wasting a considerable amount of Doctor Melford’s time?” she asked icily. “You don’t appear to be making progress or even to be making any concentrated effort at remembering, but perhaps that doesn’t suit your purpose.”

  “How can you say a thing like that!” Anna cried. “You can go out of this hospital and know yourself to be among friends who love you and know all about you, who will go back down through the years in your company—remembering; but I can’t do that. I have no past, and no friends who can remember for me, so how can you go on believing that I am not making an effort to free myself?”