by Jane Arbor
“You don’t mind my coming up?” she asked. “I had to come back to the office for something I had forgotten, so I thought I’d call and collect you if you were ready, or wait for you if you weren’t.”
“I warned you I should be late. We have had an emergency case which might have gone either way.”
“I’m sorry.” The words were the merest convention, and Kathryn momentarily envied Thelma her self-interest which could remain so little touched by near-tragedy. She went on smoothly: “Of course, I shouldn’t have come if I hadn’t hoped to save you time, as we’re very late already.”
“It couldn’t be helped. But shall we go now?” Adam’s gesture towards the door invited Kathryn as well as Thelma, but Kathryn excused herself, saying that she must see Night Nurse before leaving the ward.
Had she been surprised that Adam Brand’s postponed appointment was with Thelma, she asked herself when they had gone. Not really, she admitted. What more likely than that they should be seeing each other often—dining together, as no doubt they were to-night? As they left, Adam’s hand had been lightly beneath Thelma’s elbow, his head bent towards her as she was speaking, and suddenly Kathryn had been reluctant to go with them even as far as the main entrance hall, where their ways would part.
She told herself that she magnified her own importance if she saw their intimacy merely as an alliance against her, but her sore pride insisted on being hurt by it. For before Thelma had come upon them so unexpectedly she and Adam Brand had been, she believed, upon the edge of an understanding of their own. Different, of course, in every way from any feeling he must have for Thelma; far less personal and really no more than that of working colleagues with common problems. But since it was the only kind of understanding they were likely to achieve, she would have counted it valuable, hoping that he would come to do the same.
After all, he had troubled to offer her some astringent comfort; he had used his own philosophy to try to teach her courage; momentarily, even, his touch upon her shoulder had been sympathetic. Then Thelma had been there, her arrogance immediately taking possession of him, demanding and getting his whole attention. And because of Thelma he became once more in Kathryn’s thoughts the near-enemy he had appeared to be at their first meeting.
He and Thelma Carter—allied against her. The thought recurred and persisted. But was it pride alone that cared? Or something more?
Because they were late the dining-room at the Club was almost empty when Thelma and Adam arrived—a circumstance which did not please Thelma particularly. She had hoped to be able to nod to a good many of her friends from the well-placed table to which they were shown, and the knowledge that the evening’s purpose was already half wasted sharpened her tongue as she asked the question she had meant to put more casually.
“What do I think of Kathryn Clare?” Adam repeated it after her, taking time to consider it before he answered slowly. “I found her not at all what I expected.”
“Not?” Thelma’s echo was sharp, more dismayed than she intended. Lest he should guess it mattered to her what he thought of Kathryn, she added silkily: “Perhaps I gave you a wrong impression. When I told you what she had done to Steven I may have been too angry with her for his sake. But you know,” she added obliquely, “there’s no rule that a woman of her sort should run true to an utterly impossible type.”
“Whatever impression you gave me, I shouldn’t have counted her looks as important either way,” shrugged Adam. “What I meant was that I had not expected to find her a most efficient ward Sister, whose work I can’t fault.”
“Oh!” Thelma sounded relieved.
“Also possessing a certain strength of character which it might have been good for Steven, particularly, to share,” went on Adam smoothly.
Thelma wrinkled her nose in distaste. “ ‘Efficiency’. ‘Strength of character’! Do you know, Adam, I’d hate to think that they were the only qualities a man could ascribe to me? But I daresay she has been at pains to conceal the particular one which enabled her to lead Steven on and then to let him down quite, quite callously. And after all, you only meet on the ward, don’t you, where efficiency is probably her easiest card to play?”
“Not only on the ward. Once, too, at a mutual friend’s,” corrected Adam.
“Where?” Thelma’s curiosity was too much for her good manners.
“At Mr. and Mrs. Thorley’s. Steven would remember Victor Thorley. He was a junior master at Repstow when we were there. When I looked up Victor, Kathryn Clare was there too.”
“Yes, I remember now. The Thorleys are looking after the young sister of a protégée of hers, one of the student nurses.” Thelma made a mental note of Adam’s and Kathryn’s connection with the Thorleys, but dismissed it for the moment as something else rankled more. She said accusingly: “If you say Steven needs another person’s strength, does that imply that you consider he—he’s a weakling?”
Adam’s grey eyes, straight and uncompromising, met hers. “He has always depended a great deal upon you, hasn’t he, Thelma?”
“If you mean that he usually considers me before himself—yes.”
“More than that, I think. I should judge that he looks to you for guidance in any action, great or small.”
“What of it? Doesn’t that show an unusual consideration of me?”
Adam smiled. “It’s no cause for apology, certainly. It’s only that such a degree of power over another person confers a heavy responsibility. Some people would be uncomfortable under the weight of it. Which reminds me—what about Steven’s letter which you spoke of?”
It was a veering off the subject which suited Thelma She took the letter from her bag and handed it across the table, watching Adam as he read it in silence. When he passed it back he commented: “It bears out what I was saying—he won’t take the step he mentions unless you approve it. What are you going to advise him to do?”
Thelma’s slim fingers creased and re-creased the folds of the letter. Her eyes were lifted appealingly to Adam’s as she said: “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“My dear Thelma!” The impulsive violence of Adam’s protest was cut short as he saw the appeal in her eyes, and he added more quietly: “I’m sorry, but I mustn’t presume to advise Steven on whether to continue in Nigeria if his appointment is confirmed or to return to England, and even to the Wardrop.”
“Why not? You’re his best friend.”
“Even so, with his whole career at stake, I’d go no further than to put to him some arguments on both sides which he might otherwise overlook. Even for you, Thelma, to do more than that I should consider a misuse of your influence with him. This is something that he must decide for himself.”
“He’s asked my advice.” There was a stubborn note in Thelma’s voice.
“I still don’t think you should give it so forcibly as to sway him. And that because, for you as for me, I should judge it to be too difficult to keep your personal feelings out of the argument.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only that, as you and Steven are greatly attached to each other, your natural inclination is surely to ask him to return. But it’s an argument you would have no right to use.”
“And what personal feelings would you be at pains to keep out?”
Adam looked surprised at the question, almost as if it were an impertinence. But he said slowly: “For me there’d be nothing I’d like better than to have Steven as a colleague here.”
“Oh! Now I wondered whether you meant something quite the opposite. Whether you might have discovered suddenly that, for extremely personal reasons, you would prefer that Steven didn’t return? I mean when I came up to the ward this evening, you did appear to be holding hands with Kathryn Clare—”
Thelma broke off sharply, aghast at the mounting chagrin which had betrayed her into such an indiscretion to Adam, whom she was so anxious to cultivate and impress. She laughed quickly and archly, hoping to turn what she had said into the merest raille
ry which she was inviting him to share.
But she was to be disappointed, for Adam’s tone was cold and withdrawn as he said: “You were mistaken, I think. I don’t ‘hold hands’ as an approach to my professional colleagues, one of whom Sister Clare happens to be. And if that’s a sample of the level on which you mean to influence Steven, you’d be well advised to reconsider it.”
She had made a bad mistake in her handling of him, and she did not know how to regain the ground she had lost. But she said humbly: “I meant nothing—you know that. In my set that’s the sort of badinage we toss about unthinkingly. Nobody minds—for none of it is ever true, as this wasn’t. As for Steven, of course you are right. I mustn’t use as an argument any of my own wish to have him back.”
She guessed that Adam was responding to the sincerity she was trying hard to convey. Encouraged, she went on: “Neither, I suppose, ought I to try to find out what it would mean to him to return here, when Kathryn Clare did her best to destroy his happiness—” She stopped, completely unprepared for the crisp violence of Adam’s exclamation.
Frowning, he said: “Isn’t it time that Kathryn Clare’s name was left out of any discussion of Steven’s future? He is a professional man with a career to make. He can’t see-saw for ever on the plea of a woman’s rejection of him, however unscrupulously it was done. I admit that I couldn’t forgive it myself, but Steven must pull out for his own sake.”
“He may still be in love with her, you know,” insinuated Thelma gently.
Adam’s cold stare, his raised brows, told nothing of what he was thinking. But into the finality of his: “That would be unfortunate—but by now, I hope, somewhat unlikely,” Thelma read triumph for herself.
At first she had believed that he was attracted to Kathryn, then that he wanted to defend her. But his praise had only been of her work: he had still called her unscrupulous, and thought it unlikely that even Steven could have remained in love with her. The evening, for Thelma, had not been wasted, after all—
It was a week or two later that Kathryn, looking through the list of patients to be discharged, saw Roger Horrick’s name among them. She had not heard the result of Adam Brand’s interest in his mother’s future, and she made a point of seeing her when she came to take her little boy home.
But when she came into the office she stood disconsolately near the door, her restless fingers rolling the hem of her scarf. And before Kathryn had time to ask if she was pleased with the progress Roger had made, she asked rather pitifully: “Sister, they can’t force me, can they? I know I’m a widow without a man to stand up for me, but I don’t have to take orders, do I?”
Puzzled, Kathryn said gently: “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mrs. Horrick. All I know is that Dr. Brand was going to ask you if you would like to work for him instead of your going on with your present night-work, and that he meant to ask the Social Worker to get in touch with you. What has happened, then?”
“Well, it wasn’t the Social Worker, Sister. It was a Miss Carter, a particular friend of the Doctor’s, she said, and she was asking me for him. Only she didn’t ask, you understand. She said that I’d got to go to work for the Doctor, and she wouldn’t take No for an answer, nor give me time to think it over or anything. I mean, I can’t afford to earn less than I do now, so that’s why I’m asking you.”
Thelma!—acting for Adam Brand as a ‘particular friend’ of his. Of course, she helped in the Social Worker’s office, but she must have taken on this mission directly from Adam—and how unspeakably badly she had done it! Kathryn felt that if she could not persuade the perplexed woman that Adam had issued no ‘orders’, and had acted only for Roger’s sake, the child’s future was in danger.
She stooped to plug in the electric kettle and took tea-things from her private cupboard. “I was just going to have some tea, Mrs. Horrick,” she said. “You’ll stay and have some too, won’t you?” And over their second cups she began to apply her healing argument.
“You know, Mrs. Horrick, Dr. Brand couldn’t possibly have wanted to give you orders about such a matter. But I do know that he was deeply concerned that you should be forced to leave Roger alone at night. And when he suggested to me that you might like to go to him instead, I thought it was a grand idea. I did hope that you would agree—for Roger’s sake.”
“I might have—if she—Miss Carter—had put it as you put it, Sister.”
Kathryn smiled. “Well, I happen to know that she and the Doctor are—very close friends so he probably left it to her to choose what to say to you. She wasn’t very tactful, I can see, but you really can’t blame Dr. Brand for that. I know he suggested it for Roger and to make things easier for you.”
“Well, they would be, if the place suited me. And you make it sound so different, as if the Doctor really did mean to ask me, not order me—”
“Then will you try it, please? I’m sure you can trust the Doctor to be generous, so will you tell him that you’ll try it? I’m expecting him on the ward at any minute, so you can see him in here before you take Roger home, if you like.”
Kathryn herself made a point of being out on the ward when Adam arrived, and when she returned to her office Mrs. Horrick had gone. Adam joined her there after his round, and she was not surprised when he said casually: “By the way, your ‘happy ending’ has been achieved. Mrs. Horrick has agreed to come to me.”
“I’m glad. I hoped she would.”
“Yes. I by-passed the official channels and put Thelma Carter to act as my ambassador, and it’s all settled.”
Kathryn bit her lip. “I’m glad,” she repeated.
“But you know that it wasn’t settled through Thelma’s doing?” he challenged swiftly.
“I—”
“I think you do,” he assured her drily. “You seem to have managed a difficult situation with a good deal of tact. For the boy’s sake—thank you.”
He went on to detail the treatments he wanted given and charted before his next visit. But afterwards he turned back from the door to say with slow emphasis: “Did you know, incidentally, that Steven Carter is returning to England to renew his appointment here at the Wardrop?”
At the news surprise flashed across Kathryn’s face—a surprise so complete that it could have been read as dismay. When she said nothing Adam queried smoothly: “You don’t care for the prospect?”
She said slowly: “I am surprised, and I don’t think it is a very wise decision.”
“Why should you disapprove?”
“Because he had made a clean break when he went out to Africa—”
“A clean break from—what?”
She scorned to tell him that she had been thinking of Thelma’s influence over Steven. She went on: “I think he should have stood by that decision, instead of seeking to retrace his steps and to—re-live experiences that he had already gone beyond.”
Adam’s grey eyes hardened. “You are unwilling to be confronted with your past conquest. I wonder why?”
She felt the very detachment with which he spoke to be the cruellest injustice he had done her, but she forced herself to think only of Steven as she accused in reply: “If you advised Steven to return to England, I consider you did him a disservice.”
“He asked advice of his sister. She asked mine. Perhaps she should have consulted you instead—or at least as well!”
“So you did persuade him to come back?”
There was a pause. Then Adam said slowly: “Since asking Thelma’s advice, he has learned that his trial appointment is to be terminated. The authorities find that he hasn’t the temperament for a tropical appointment, so that he has no option now but to come back. This means that he’s returning to England convinced that he’s—a failure. It may remain with his friends”—there seemed to Kathryn a cruel emphasis on the word—“to convince him that he is not. In the circumstances, I should like to be able to ask you not to seek him out, but of course you will meet as colleagues, and I have no right to presume to advise you on anything
so personal—”
When the door had shut behind him she glanced down at the table, at whose edge she had caught blindly. She saw its shape, the papers on it, as if neither were quite real. Vainly an inner voice was protesting: “Let me go on believing that it’s only my pride that he can hurt! I don’t want to know the—the other thing!”
But she did know it. There was no escape. She had never yet been in love, but now she felt herself betrayed into loving against her will, and certainly against her judgment. She loved a man whose friendship and understanding thought might be for others, but were rarely for her. From her he kept them as private territories to be guarded with words that were edged with reserve, and even with scorn. He did not love her in return. He merely despised her.
Even on the spread papers before her his signature faced her, as if he had flung its boldness there to mock at her. She remembered the first time she had seen it. Had she known that which she could not escape now—even then?
CHAPTER FOUR
Dr. Simon Glenn glanced at the treatment-trolley which Sara had laid up for him and uttered a single word: “Swabs.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Sara started guiltily and wished that she had not blushed as well. This was the first trolley she had laid up without supervision. Why, oh, why had she had to invite Dr. Glenn’s criticism by forgetting one of the most important items to be included?
He grinned. “All right. Happens on the best-regulated wards sometimes. Cut along and get me some, there’s a good girl.”
She stood at the bedside while, completely serious now and deeply intent upon his work, he did the dressing himself. She liked watching his deft, confident hands and wished that she need not be so embarrassed by the bold teasing he seemed to reserve for her. True, more than once he had intervened to save her from Sister Bridgeworth’s wrath when she had made some foolish mistake on the ward. And his manner to her before the patients was always perfectly correct. But when they met on the ward corridor or in the office her shyness was never equal to dealing with his gay bravado. What was more, she did not know whether she wanted to snub him or not...
