by Sheila Burns
Quite suddenly, here in this cluttered room, Claire’s whole future was arranged. It unfolded itself and was finally settled. As Sir Charles explained, if they were to get back to London tonight, there was not an awful lot of time, and anyway before they started Claire would want to see the cottage where she would live whilst she worked here.
‘Of course, of course. I’ll take you round in my car,’ said Mrs. Heath.
Claire would never forget starting from the ornate front door in the extravagant car. A cuckoo was singing in the meadows, and tonight she felt there would be the nightingale. Mavis had mentioned them, and she knew that she wanted to hear them. It was a new world, the country world where one could forget a broken heart, or so she hoped. In love with love in London, here maybe she could fall in love with life.
They drove off, and it was only too plain that Mrs. Heath knew very little about driving a car, and was a most dangerous chauffeuse to have. With an accident immediately behind her, Claire did not enjoy a single moment of it, but when they got to the little picture postcard cottage where Claire would live, she came to. The garden before it glowed with first lupins and the huge oriental poppies. By the hedge there were purple irises, and somehow Claire remembered that there were always irises in this sort of little garden.
‘It really is rather sweet,’ said Mrs. Heath.
They went inside, for apparently Mrs. Hopkins the woman from next door kept an eye on it, and listened for the telephone for Nurse. She worked here, and was a great help, so Claire gathered, and she knew that already she was in love with Charnworth. They entered the one big room, in which there were lattice windows, and a charming ingle at the far end. She asked about the very fine antique furniture and was told that the place had been furnished by the village, everybody had spared something for it, and it did look attractive. Beyond it was the kitchen which had a big bay window where one could have meals.
There was a scrap of garden, a lawn, a bit of orchard, and a border which was bright with flowers. It was something so contrastingly different from hospital life, so very attractive, that it spelt escape, escape from a love affair which had gone wrong, and it would give her time to think out the future, and how much she needed this! It was an oasis in her desert and she already loved it.
If Mrs. Heath was not the patroness whom she would have chosen (and most certainly she was not!), the cottage and the pretty little garden were ideal. She knew that she was delighted with the village, and only prayed that it would love her, but generally villages took to their nurses and approved of them.
‘I adore it,’ she said.
Mrs. Heath was prattling on. ‘Mrs. Hopkins from next door works for you, and you’ll like her. I shall be popping in and out just to see that everything is all right, for this is my job. You’ll think me a busybody, but I have to do what I can.’
‘I ‒ I shall be very happy,’ Claire said.
The arrangements had been made in a whirl, and it was all settled before she realised what was really happening. Now she was driving back with Sir Charles to Stable House, where Mavis had gone ahead to get their tea ready, for they must start soon on the journey home.
Claire had decided that Mavis did not like Mrs. Heath, which she could forgive, for she herself found her most unattractive, but maybe she was jumping at conclusions.
Today she had taken a new step in her life, something that she had been forced into doing, for she could not have stayed on at St. Julian’s much longer. Chris was a worry to her. Perhaps she had been a fool to fall in love, yet this is one of the things that happen. She had to escape, to have time to think, to find a new future, forget the present and the immediate past.
She could not bear going back to St. Julian’s, she might even meet Chris again, and although part of her longed for this, the other part, maybe the wiser side of her nature, warned her that it would be most foolish.
On the way back to London she came to the conclusion that she had done the right thing. Sir Charles said little, he was worried that they were later than he had wanted to be, and where she had hoped for a talk, perhaps confidences on her own part, she found nothing was said.
She thought about Mavis.
There was one certain fact, and it was that Mavis was very public school. She gathered that she had always wanted to be a solicitor, and had felt angry that when it came to it, the examinations demanded too much of her.
She had had a break-down when the exams came, she told Claire, and Claire knew instantly everything that this had meant. She had tried again, and had failed. Maybe that failure had left an unhealed scar on her nature, even more than the love affair which had gone wrong. Claire was sure that she would be difficult to get on with, hard to know, and might be a quite dangerous enemy. Also there was Mrs. Heath.
‘Feeling all right?’ Sir Charles asked as they came nearer to London. ‘Think you’ve done the right thing, I hope?’
‘I am grateful for your help, it was the only thing that I could possibly do.’
He said, ‘Yes, of course,’ then was silent again, for the heavy traffic was coming closer.
Nearing the metropolis Claire broached the subject which was a real worry to her. There was Matron to be approached, and she could be formidable. Matron did not like her Sisters going off to other jobs before they had mentioned the possibility of it, and Claire told him so. He nodded.
He said, ‘Look here, I shall be seeing Matron for you, before you do something silly. I’ve known her since she was a very small girl, when I used to tweak her hair ribbons, and that does give a chap a certain advantage!’
The idea of anybody ever having tweaked Matron’s hair ribbons gave Claire the jitters, for it seemed absurd.
‘If you could help, I’d … I’d …’
He cut her short. ‘She’ll be reasonable, I promise you, for I shall take the blame and say that I put you up to it. Under all that outward veneer of being so strict, she can be entirely sensible.’
‘All the same, I think this might be the blackest mark I have ever left behind me, and I shall be in a mess if I ever want another hospital appointment.’
He smiled at that.
‘Stop worrying! I promise not to let you in for anything like that, and promise also that there will be no fuss. Leave it to me. Also I shall stipulate for conditions, so that when these six months are over, if you want to return to a hospital appointment, you can do so.’
‘You’ll never do that, sir!’ she gasped.
He laughed out loud. ‘Watch me!’ he said.
He turned the car into the great courtyard of the hospital, with that dirty greyness everywhere, and she had been all day in a world where the cuckoo sang with the sunshine and the nightingale sang at night. She wanted to tell him how much all this meant to her, to thank him, but knew that they were later than they had thought, and that he plainly wanted to get off.
He dropped her near to the door of the nurses’ home, then turned the car and went off to his house in Harley Street. She stood for a moment in the courtyard with the heat beating down on her in heavy waves, and the little posy of flowers that Mavis had given her for her room, fading in her hands. A columbine with long spurs to it in salmon pink and topaz yellow touched some London Pride, in its tasselled profusion, and two early roses. Perhaps this would be the sweet-smelling bunch of springtime loveliness which would make even her dim little room become Aladdin’s cave!
She turned tiredly to the nurses’ home, and wondered how the poor young man with the golden hair was feeling now. She stood there for a moment, her limbs cramped from sitting so long in the car, and aware of the fact that she was far more tired than she had ever supposed she could be. Then she saw someone striding towards her across the cobbled yard, with all those shadows, the dirt and the greyness which was London. Three pigeons fluttered away from him.
Not Chris now! she gasped to herself, and knew that she was quite unready to face him. Oh no, surely not Chris?
Chapter Six
If
Claire could have run away, she would have done so, for she was hardly in the mood for a decisive argument, or a settling-up, yet she could not escape. She was too tired. It was absurd that such a simple and easy journey could have made a girl so weary, but it had. She was not at her best, for her suit was creased, this had come about when she had knelt down beside that poor young man who was hurt, and she needed a fresh make-up. She would have resorted to her compact, but somehow she resisted the temptation, thinking that Sir Charles would not approve of it.
I was a fool, she thought.
‘Here, half a minute!’ Chris called to her.
He was coming off duty for the day, going away and wearing his happy-go-lucky sports jacket and flannel trousers. Or perhaps he also had come up from the country and had popped in to see how a valued patient was getting on. He was always solicitous for patients in the private wing.
‘Where on earth have you been, Claire?’
‘I ‒ I’ve been down in Kent all day.’
‘Whatever for?’
She played for time, perhaps that is always a stupid thing to do, but somehow she did not seem to be herself at all, too tired. ‘I went down into Kent with Sir Charles.’
‘Did you now!’ His voice was half laughing. ‘Methuselah takes out the fair young lady!’ Then perhaps he saw that this had not gone down very well, for he changed. He was looking at her more earnestly, the man who was in love with her, and she knew that he could tear her heart. ‘We’ve got to have a little talk, Claire. We’ve got to get away from the hospital, because we’re making a mess of things, and it’s not worth while. Neither of us wants it really.’
‘I don’t think there is anything for us to talk about,’ she said.
‘But that’s absurd! Of course there is!’
‘I came into the room and I saw you kissing Lucille, she was in your arms.’
He changed his technique again. ‘I’ve told you that I’m like that with pretty nurses. I can’t help it, I’m made that way; I kissed you, if you remember.’
‘I thought you wanted me.’
‘And you were so right.’ He took a step towards her, and put out a hand. ‘Darling, I do want you, but don’t think that you can check the silly side of my nature. It does not mean a thing, really. It does not mean that I am not still in love with you, do think of that.’
She turned on him. ‘But don’t you see that it could mean that I was not still in love with you?’ she flashed.
It cut right home, and she saw him wince, then after a deep breath he said, ‘I say, we must have that little talk,’ and still the most maddening smile stayed about his mouth. It was the half smile that brooked no answer.
Perhaps today had already made a difference to her, for Claire knew that she loathed being treated as a naughty child, and put in her place. ‘No,’ she said.
‘But this is preposterous. I’ll take you out somewhere to dine, somewhere quiet and charming where we can talk and be ourselves. We’ll be happy again. As it is, both of us are being unbelievably stupid.’
‘I couldn’t do that.’ Somehow he must have realised the ring of truth in her voice.
‘Let me call for you after supper then, and we’ll go for a drive round the park? We could get a drink perhaps at the Serpentine restaurant? Don’t you see, you ought to give me a chance? You’re being stupid, and we have to talk the thing out. We can’t let it go on and on, and become too big for us. You owe me this talk.’
When he put it that way she knew that he was right. She had no wish to be alone with him and let him get the chance to talk her round. And she was afraid to go lest it brought back the old longing for him, and made matters infinitely worse for both of them, yet he certainly had the right to demand this.
She had made up her mind against dining with him, yet could not refuse the talk. He suggested that they went to a park, or to Putney by the water, and she was quite surprised to find that she agreed.
‘In a quarter of an hour?’ he asked.
‘Make it an hour. I have got to get some supper first.’
He made it that, and turned away.
She went inside and changed her suit into a little pastel silk frock which clung to her. She swept back her hair from her face, folding it into a silken swathe round her head, and as she did so, realised that it made her look older. Suddenly she wished to look older, and to be much more sophisticated for him. He looked upon her as a child, a doll, someone he could argue with, and get his own way, but that was not going to happen now.
It was one of those lovely evenings with London coming to from the day’s heat. The trees still held their first yellow greenness which is so sweet, and fades into the darker green too soon. It should be lovely by the water.
But, as she knew, even if the breach was healed, she would still have to go down to Charnworth for the promised six months, and although that change would be the best possible thing for her, it hurt. But she would get away from the hospital, too much matron, too much do-this and do-that, too much law and order. She would be mistress of herself, for the first time since she had started training, and would not have some superior and senior Sister for ever thinking for her.
She could rely on Sir Charles.
He might be the grandfather of St. Julian’s, but he was very much like everyone’s father in the way that he guided them through. He had realised that the best possible thing for Claire was to get right away, and he had deliberately led her in this.
Maybe the confused blur of today was clearing, and she could look back on it with calm, if with some apprehension of what it had meant to her; Mrs. Heath, rather a horror when she came to think about it; Sir Charles’s niece Mavis, a most difficult and complex person. But then there came the picture of the little cottage of dreams, the ingle, the latticed windows, and a foothold that was entirely her own.
I want to go there, she thought.
She met Chris outside the hospital.
His car was out in the road, waiting at the pavement edge, and she got into it and sat down beside him. She had an awful intuition that this was perhaps the wrong thing to do, but all the same she was doing it, and possibly because she loved him. Already she was full of excuses for him. A charming man, still half schoolboy at heart. A naughty schoolboy, too. She ought to forgive him for something that he could not help, and when he said that he could not help it, it was true.
‘You look lovely, my darling,’ he was saying.
They were back where they had started, she told herself, and the ‘darling’ was not a compliment, though he had once told her that it always paid to flatter a woman. She wished that she had forgotten those words, but there are things in life which are for ever engraved upon the heart, and this was one of them.
‘I feel well enough, thank you.’
‘And what was Kent like?’
‘Utterly lovely. It is the right time of year for it.’
‘Is that all?’
She rushed it because somehow she had to own up whilst she still could, and not slink away from it in fear. ‘If you want to know the truth, I’ve got a new job. I fixed it up down there.’
‘I must say you’ve been quick on it! I suppose that was why you went?’
She said, ‘Yes, it was.’
‘Well, tell me about it?’
‘I will when we get somewhere where we can talk. It’s difficult in traffic, and worrying.’
‘All right, we’ll go somewhere where we can talk.’
He did not go along the river, but up on to Wimbledon Common. It was one of those evenings when the air there was cool, not hotly dry as it was down in the bowl of London itself. They parked the car, and went for a walk across the wide sweep of rough green to the woodland, and then dropping down to the pleasant shade with the pool far beneath them. For a hot evening, the common was not too full, and it could have been the countryside, and not London at all.
‘Let’s sit down,’ he said. ‘I’ve been standing operating all day, three caesars, I tell you, and I
need a nice rest.’
‘Then let’s sit down.’
They sat amongst the roots of a big tree, curved so that it was almost like a pair of big armchairs for them. Below they heard the echoes of ringing voices, for young people were playing round the pool, and their laughter was almost like music. On the common itself they could hear a cricket bat and a ball, and children calling to one another, but the woodland seemed to be dedicated to lovers, and set apart for them.
Very tenderly he said, ‘You know you can’t go away and leave me, darling? I’ve been an idiot, stark raving mad, but I’m made that way, and I know it. All the same you can’t go away from me.’
She said, ‘It isn’t because you have been an idiot, don’t think that. This is one of those things which happen in people’s lives, and I want time to think about it. I want to have this time to take a good look at myself and to find out what I really want from my future. I’ve got to do it.’
‘So you’re going to another hospital, are you?’
‘Not quite. Sir Charles has been at the back of it all.’
She knew that Chris was not particularly fond of Sir Charles, and never had been. He brought out a fat cigarette, tapping it on the lid of the case, and he said, ‘Don’t let him mislead you, darling. He’s jolly old, loves dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s, and that’s about all that there is left to him in life really, so don’t let him mislead you.’
‘I’d have said that he had a good deal left to him in life.’
‘Not really.’
‘I think you are being unkind. He has done so well, and got so far …’
‘But all things come to an end.’
Somehow she detested him for saying this, for Sir Charles was such a dear old man, and had been so good to her this very day. There came an uncomfortable silence, then she quickly changed the subject.
‘I’m going down to a job in Kent, to the village where Sir Charles lives, and his people before him. I’m to help out the district nurse there.’
