Tansy and Garth went down to the summer-house after luncheon. Not wishing to intrude, Julie took her pen and pad and sat on the terrace to write a long, chatty letter to Roger. She saw nothing of the other two all afternoon. Edna brought out tea for her and asked if she would be joining Mr. Garth and Miss Maitland by the lakeside. Just for a moment Julie hesitated. All afternoon she had heard the music from Tansy’s radio and knew what effect the long, unceasing stream of sound must be having on Garth, but he knew where she was if he wanted her, and he could walk unaided, or he could send a message with Edna.
‘No,’ she said at last, ‘I don’t think so, not unless they ask me to go down and join them.’
Edna did not return with any message, and the sounds of music did not cease for one minute, so, with a sigh, whether for herself or Garth or both she did not know, Julie resumed her letter-writing, losing herself completely in her description to Roger of her life at Woodlands and the differences she found there after her work in the hospital.
When they all returned to the house for dinner the first thing Julie noticed was that Garth’s face was white and strained and that the little muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched perpetually. He was not hungry, he told his aunt apologetically. He had a bad headache and thought he might have ‘a touch of the sun’. Mrs. Andy fussed over him, but sensibly left the treatment to Julie, while Tansy fussed even more, irritating them all, especially Garth, with her offers of aspirin, iced cologne and so on, until finally Julie felt bound to intervene.
‘He’ll be perfectly all right when he’s had a little rest and quiet.’ She spoke to the other girl, but her reassurance was for them all. ‘We mustn’t forget,’ she smiled so that Tansy would not feel she was being scolded, ‘that Mr. Holroyd had a severe head injury just a little while ago and it will be some time before he really recovers from the effects of that. Take this, please,’ she shook a tablet into her hand from the small box in her pocket and offered it to Garth, ‘and come and rest where it’s cool.’
‘Can’t you stay with me, Julie?’ he asked, when she had settled him comfortably on the terrace. ‘You’re such a restful sort of person to be with.’
‘It would be better if you closed your eyes and tried to sleep for a little while,’ Julie informed him. ‘I’ll call you before Miss Maitland is ready to leave.’
Tansy left shortly after dinner and by the time Julie wakened Garth to say goodbye he was looking and obviously feeling very much better. They all stood on the terrace to watch Bailey drive her away, Julie keeping a little in the background as she felt she ought to do, but no sooner had the huge car disappeared round the curve of the drive than Garth turned to her, smiling.
‘Can you give me your opinion on a new idea I’ve had for the air purification unit in the kitchens?’ he asked. ‘I’ve an idea it can be mass-incorporated into all the houses on the development site...’
‘Of course.’ Julie smiled back at him and followed him into the lounge where he had left some papers spread out on a small table. In a short time they were deeply immersed in his new idea, Julie listening to him, nodding now and then, occasionally putting in a word as something from the housewife’s angle struck her as being essential.
Watching their heads so closely together over Garth’s papers, Mrs. Andy nodded to herself. This was what she had hoped for, to know that her favourite nephew and godson had found a girl who, besides being presentable and well-mannered, shared his working interests and enthusiasms, knew where his ambitions lay and would help him always to further them.
And Tansy would drive him mad in six months, Mrs. Andy reflected. Ah well, we shall see what we shall see!
But the next three weekends merely repeated the pattern of the first visit Tansy had made as a weekend guest to Woodlands. As Garth grew stronger the physical effects were less apparent, but the nervous strain was beginning to tell and showed in his increasing irritability as Tansy’s visits drew to an end. June had drifted into July and Tansy had been visiting Woodlands the second weekend of that month. The day had been close and sultry, with thunder in the distance and occasional flashes of vivid lightning across the sky. The sense of electrical tension was in the very air. Tansy had just left, and Garth walked moodily back into the house to become suddenly very conscious of Julie’s watchful glance.
‘Don’t look so solemn,’ he chided her, smiling a little. ‘You ought to know by now that these spats between Tansy and myself don’t mean a thing. I know I must sound a bad-tempered so-and-so, but it doesn’t appear to worry her a great deal. She’ll come back for more next weekend, just wait and see.’
‘It isn’t Tansy I’m worrying about particularly at this moment, Garth,’ Julie said slowly. ‘It’s you. Something’s worrying you, retarding your progress, and Mr. Greensmith will expect me to know why.’
She smiled as she spoke, speaking lightly so that he would not think the matter of too great an importance, but Garth was not deceived.
‘Something is worrying me,’ he confessed. ‘In fact there are two things. When am I going to be free of all this,’ he gestured his still bandaged hands helplessly, ‘and ... what did happen just before the accident? What’s lost in that blank space in my mind? Whatever it is I’m positive it has some connection with Tansy. I can’t remember a thing, but I’ve a feeling there’s something very important to remember, something that isn’t very pleasant, and until it has come back to me I can’t feel any real sense of peace.’
Julie lay awake a long time that night, thinking over Garth’s words, his obvious strain and sense of unrest. One of his worries would soon be brought to some sort of a conclusion, for on his last visit, just over a week ago, Ian had confided that he hoped, the next time he came to Woodlands, to take off the plaster from the left hand, which had suffered the least damage.
Once he can see for himself how his one hand responds to treatment he’ll have more heart and hope for the other, the all-important right hand, Julie told herself, but the other problem isn’t to be dealt with quite so easily.
Indeed it was not, for she felt that both Ian and herself were working in the dark where Garth’s feelings for and reactions to Tansy and his emotional life were concerned. He had taken the word of the surgeon that Tansy was his fiancée without question, and if he still looked puzzled from time to time as he stared at the pretty ring on her engagement finger, or did not appear to be overwhelmingly in love with the girl, that did not prove there was any real basis for unease on his behalf.
It’s only because I know what did happen, Julie reasoned to herself. I feel he is ... enduring this engagement because he has given his pledged word and doesn’t remember, as we know, that the pledged word had been broken by both of them, on that occasion, just before the accident.
She clasped her hands behind her head and lay awake, staring at the summer night sky through her window where she had drawn the curtains wide to let in a breath of air.
I wonder if I ought to tell him—gently—about what really did happen? she asked herself. As it is, he knows there’s something wrong, but he can’t put his finger on just what it is, and that’s what’s worrying him.
There was something worrying Julie too, something she could not mention to anyone, although she had a sneaking feeling that Mrs. Andy had more than a suspicion that all was not well with the nurse she had taken to her heart. Deeply as she wanted to help Garth to recovery she knew now that she had really fallen deeply and sincerely in love with him, and that once he was no longer in need of her daily care she must take herself out of his life utterly and completely if she were ever to know peace of mind and happiness for herself again.
The knowledge had come to her gradually, almost stealing upon her unawares. She had been so completely absorbed in the work he was doing, the ideas he was developing, the pencil in her flying fingers keeping pace with his words which came in full spate once an idea had gripped his mind, that it had come with a sense of shock to realize, watching him one day, that it was the man and
not the work which she found so utterly absorbing.
She was interested in his scheme for communal playrooms for the children of the site on wet days, she was as interested as Garth himself in the idea of a nursery where the mothers could leave their children to be cared for while they themselves went out to work; she was impressed by the inclusion of a small but self-sufficient emergency medical unit being included on the site, but it was Garth’s enthusiasm which fired her own, Garth’s ideas which intrigued her, and his manner of discussing them with her so freely, making her feel a part of it all, which she found so fascinating.
All the time it was because of Garth himself. She made herself face the truth and what it could mean to them both, she as the nurse, he as her patient. When they had looked at the detailed drawings of the well-planned kitchens together, examined in detail the waste disposal units, the air purifiers, the underfloor heating and all the other many conveniences which Garth had felt could improve the lives of ordinary people so much and which could be incorporated so easily into such a scheme as this, she knew now it was because somewhere in her subconscious she had held a mental picture not of some unknown couple sharing such a home, but of herself at the immaculate sink, of Garth relaxing in the pleasant living-room, resting after a day in his office or out on one of the many sites in which he would, very shortly, become immersed.
This won’t do, Julie told herself severely. This is carrying the matter of being interested in a patient’s welfare a little too far!
Garth Holroyd had a fiancée, whether he was in love with her or not. It would take some really earth-shaking event to make him break his pledged word, and now Tansy would see to it that, at least until after they were married, things went more along the lines Garth himself preferred than those which would have been her own natural choice. Studying the girl during these last few weekend visits, Julie could see how often Tansy bit her lip against a quick retort to one or another of Mrs. Andy’s tart observations. She could see how, despite her addiction to the little transistor radio which accompanied her everywhere, Tansy was really trying to be the quiet, homely girl whom she knew instinctively Mrs. Andy would rather see as her godson’s fiancée than herself.
I’ve got to get out of here, Julie told herself. It isn’t fair to Garth. If ... when he’s well, he changes his mind and breaks with Tansy ... if anything happens again such as happened on the night of the accident, he’ll be able to find me easily enough through St. Luke’s, but this kind of thing is ... wrong.
It was as if, having made up her mind on this point, she could settle to sleep. She turned on her side, fully determined to tell both Garth and Ian when he came that she thought it was time she asked to be relieved from this case, and, her mind made up on this point, she fell suddenly and deeply asleep.
She and Garth were in the garden all morning on the Wednesday. Ian had telephoned that morning and said he hoped to be along shortly after lunch and would take off the plaster from Garth’s left hand that afternoon. Once he had received the news there was an air of suppressed excitement about him, and a tension he could barely conceal. In Julie’s pocket lay a letter from Roger which had arrived by the midday post, but she felt her own private concerns could wait, so much—for Garth depended on the results of Ian’s visit today, and now, more than all the time since the accident, he needed her reassurance, her steady conviction that all would be well.
She kept resolutely to topics away from the accident, discussing the plans for the development site, the state of the garden, anything and everything she could think of, until at last Garth burst out: ‘ Julie, what time did Mr. Greensmith say he would be here?’
Julie consulted her watch. Privately she had been wondering exactly the same thing for the past twenty minutes or so.
‘It’s almost an hour since we finished lunch,’ she observed. ‘I should say he’ll be along any minute now.’
‘What if—what if things haven’t gone as well as we’d all hoped?’ Garth continued, voicing the fear which had been nagging at him for weeks. ‘How can we tell, under all this?’
‘Because this isn’t the first case of its kind,’ Julie assured him gravely. ‘This treatment is by no means experimental, and Mr. Greensmith is confident all will be well. There’s no reason on earth why it shouldn’t be quite all right.’
‘But you’ll stay on? You’re the one who’s going to do the wax baths, the massage and whatnot, aren’t you?’ Garth persisted. ‘I don’t want any physiotherapist or whoever they are in your place. I shouldn’t feel I could trust them in the same way.’
‘The physiotherapy staff are all well-trained experts in their own field.’ Julie smiled. ‘I did take a course, actually, before I went on the Braithwaite case, so I expect I’ll be left to cope with you. That’s the existing arrangement, anyhow, unless,’ she added with a mischief she instantly regretted, ‘you would prefer a change of nurse!’
‘I most certainly would not.’ His reply was emphatic. ‘That’s what I’m trying to say to you now.’ He was silent for a few moments, then asked: ‘Julie, what happens when I’m all right again, when I can drive the car, go back to the office again and all this is over?’
She knew that he meant ‘Shall I see you again?’ but instinct told her not to make too much of this roundabout way of asking his question, and she hedged, deliberately.
‘What happens? You’ll go on to make your site a reality, I should imagine,’ she began lightly. ‘Mrs. Andy’s dying for work on it to begin, and it won’t begin until you are back in charge. I shall go back to St Luke’s. I shall go back to normal duty, of course, until I’m wanted for anything special again.’
Suddenly she realized that that would not do. To remain at St Luke’s would be almost as bad as remaining in charge of his case, almost, but not quite. She would be in the town, the Borough offices were directly across the road and round the corner from the huge hospital block. Garth would be close, too close, if it so happened that he too had been disturbed by their close association these past weeks. Life was unfair, reflected Julie in unaccustomed bitterness. If she had met Garth at any other time than when she was in the middle of preparation of her final examinations and about to be drafted on to a term of night duty at the same time, she would have taken some time off to keep the date he had asked for. If he had not been given into her charge after his accident she would never have had the opportunity to know how much she could care for him, never had anything more than a resigned sigh for the what-might-have-been after the dance, but now she knew him so well, knew his hopes and fears, his dreams and his ambitions, and all of them had become a part of herself.
Yes, life was unfair, she thought again, but she had read somewhere that it wasn’t life that mattered half so much as the courage one brings to it, and that was exactly what she must do now. From somewhere she must find the courage to make the break herself. She must go away somewhere, anywhere not in close proximity to Garth, but she would not bury herself where he could not find her if he should break with Tansy and want to see her, Julie, again. She had given the matter a lot of thought during the time she had been at Woodlands, and now she made up her mind. Standing in the lovely rose-garden with the scent of the flowers almost overpowering around her, the hushed afternoon chirruping of sun-warmed birds in the trees which bordered the garden, she made up her mind.
‘On second thoughts,’ she spoke lightly with deliberation, ‘I shall do no such thing. I shall do what my brother would want me to do. I shall give in my notice, once your case is ended, and go out to Mexico to be with him.’
There was silence between them. Julie stared hard at a beautiful crimson rose, trying to keep calm by the fruitless effort of attempting to count its petals. Suddenly he spoke, his voice harsh and held under control with difficulty.
‘You mean you would ... go right away? Leave the country altogether?’ he queried. ‘For how long?’
‘For as long as Roger stays there.’ Julie’s tone was calm, but her heart was hammering li
ke a mad thing in her breast. Had she done and said the wrong thing? Had she emotionally upset him, when Ian had trusted her to keep him calm and quiet, not to excite him until his memory had fully recovered from the blow on his skull? It was too late if she had, the words had already been said.
‘Julie, look at me.’ There was something compelling in his tone and, reluctantly, she turned to face him. In his face was all the bleak despair she felt in her own heart at the thought of not seeing him again, but before he could say whatever words trembled on his tongue, the moment was gone. From the path leading to the rose-garden they heard Edna calling.
‘Mr. Holroyd,’ she was repeating as she rounded the curving path, ‘where are you? Mr. Greensmith is here, waiting for you in the morning-room. Would you please come up to the house right away?’
CHAPTER VIII
‘Julie!’ Garth stood where he was, ignoring Edna, who had discovered where they were and stood there waiting, unconsciously not wanting to miss any stage in this drama of ‘Mr. Garth’s accident’. ‘Julie,’ he said again, as though the repetition of her name gave him confidence, ‘we will talk about this again, won’t we? When we know ... just how successful Mr. Greensmith has been?’
‘If you want to,’ she said steadily. ‘But we mustn’t keep him waiting now. He’s a very busy man, you know. Lots of people are depending upon him, just as you are doing.’
‘I know.’ Garth smiled suddenly, his tension gone. ‘That’s all right, now that you’ve promised not to do anything drastic until after we’ve talked again.’
Julie was well aware that she had given no such promise, but if that was the meaning he chose to read into her words at this moment she was not going to argue with him. Suiting her step to his, propelling him steadily nearer to Ian, she smiled.
‘I won’t,’ she said quietly. ‘Now come along.’
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