by Sheila Burns
‘But Chris, the leopard cannot change his spots. Once you told me that yourself, and now you try to argue the other way.’
‘I’m not the leopard in your life.’ His arms had gone round her, drawing her closer to him, so that she could feel his warmth, and knew that he exhilarated her. When a girl felt like this, it was so easy to lose her heart. ‘I want to be your love, my sweet. I want to shelter you, not make you mad with me; I want to take you to heaven with me in my arms,’ and he kissed her. His kisses had always been idyllic, she knew this, and whatever she said about it, she could not stop herself from loving him. Wisdom did not come into it; it was the deep-set emotion of the heart. He would always be the vagrant lover, the flirt, and maybe he would bring infinite sadness into a woman’s world, but at the same time she loved him.
‘Chris, give me time to come to? Give me time to think, for I’ve got to be sure.’
‘I know that. Think about me, and come back to me.’ Again he kissed her. He had always been the lover who knew how to kiss, and his mouth told her more this way than ever it could in words. I love him too much, she thought, and was half ashamed of the utter stupidity of loving a man who had the power to hurt her so much. She wanted him, there could never be anyone else quite like him, then she hung back with reluctance from this conclusion.
‘You’ve got to wait, Chris.’
‘It’s hard going.’
She was nearer to breaking down than she had ever supposed she could be, when suddenly the sound of that hideous telephone jarred through the romantic stillness. This time it was the Smithson baby, and she would have to go along at once.
She hurried him off, and was almost glad to hear the cream Jaguar disappear round the corner of the village street. She ripped off the little spotted frock, and was back in the stern uniform of St. Julian’s, with their badge on her breast. She came downstairs again and grabbed her bag, only to find that Chris had come back. There he was standing in the room watching her, and half laughing at her.
‘I couldn’t go like that, darling, I had to return.’
‘Don’t be silly, Chris, for my patient needs me.’
‘So do I!’
‘I’ve got to go. They tried not to worry me too soon, and that can mean anything.’
‘Possibly that it’s only just starting.’
‘Oh Chris!’
Deliberately she snatched up the bag, but he caught hold of her in the doorway, and kissed her as she stood on the doorstep. His impromptu love-making was most upsetting, it always had been, and it was irritating that her embarrassment riled him. A man was standing on the far side of the road watching them. She saw him distinctly, one of the working men of the village, whose son she had brought into the world only last week. In another five minutes all the place would know what had happened, and that she was ‘carrying on with a stranger’ in full sight of everybody.
She turned vehement.
‘Chris, this is idiotic. I have to live here, and then you come and behave like this.’
‘No one saw.’
‘A man was watching us, one of the kind who are making it so objectionable for me.’
‘Tell him off!’
She pushed her way out and ran down to her car. In the lane she passed the man who had seen them, and knew that he was still chuckling to himself. The colour had flown to her face in that absurd way it did. She felt torn two ways, she loved Chris, yet was indignant with him. She knew that his car followed her to the cottage, and was angry that he should do this. She wanted to be alone.
She comforted the frightened girl, giving her that reassurance which was what she needed even more than medical help. She left the gas and oxygen with her, for to have it on the bed would be a comfort. It was a mercy that at this moment the Smithson baby was the only one on her list, and she could afford to leave the apparatus here.
‘I’m going for an hour,’ she said, ‘then I’ll come back, and stay all night if needs be. I promise you that you shall not be left in pain, or alone.’
She came downstairs. Outside the cottage door she saw her own car and Chris’s cream one waiting behind it. He should have gone back, it was getting late now, much too late, and he worried her.
She heard voices in the small sitting-room, and she went in to leave a parting instruction with the husband; she saw that another man was with him. It was the very man who had been standing in the road outside her own cottage, watching Chris kissing her. She pulled herself together, and told the husband what she wanted, then turned. Both men watched her, staring owlishly. They said nothing, but on their faces was the look which was almost an accusation. It surprised her, though she could not be really surprised at it. Then she went out to the car and drove home, with a cream Jaguar following her.
The twilight had increased. There was the lush evening scent of the lanes, the first pricking of stars in the darkening sky, and a nightingale singing in a copse, the sweetest love song of all the year. She went indoors, now aware that her body was tired, and perhaps she had a long night’s vigil ahead of her. Being in love is exhausting.
Chris followed her in and she turned and looked at him. ‘It can’t go on like this,’ she said.
‘What about me? I’ve come all this way to have a talk, and a fat lot of talk I’m getting!’ He stood there with both hands on her shoulders, his lip corners twitching with emotion. ‘I love you, and I want you, and we’re getting nowhere. I know I’ve been a fool (don’t rub that in). I behave outrageously when the spirit moves me, but I’ll be the model husband. Try me and see!’
‘You’ll have to prove that one before I commit myself,’ and she said it coldly.
‘I’ll make you love me so much that you can’t give me up.’
The awful part was that she did love him in spite of everything, and her personal feelings were too strong for her. They sat in the cottage room without speaking, and never had the nightingale’s song been lovelier, maybe because it was her own love song.
The telephone rang and when she lifted the receiver she heard a man’s voice at the far end, a man who spoke with the strong local accent.
‘Sister?’
‘Sister speaking.’
There was a slight pause, a little nervous giggle, then, ‘How would you like me to come round and kiss you goodnight?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘How would you like me to come round and make love to you? You’re free for all, aren’t you?’
She hung up the receiver quite calmly, without hurrying, for her training had taught her not to betray the fact that she was hurt. It was absurd to tremble, worse that Chris saw it.
‘Something’s wrong? What’s the matter?’
She told him in a broken voice. She said, ‘This place is getting me down. It goes on all the time, and it isn’t my fault that I’m young. He suggested a love affair, said I was "free for all’’. That was the way he put it.’
‘My God!’ In that moment she was drawn to Chris. The darkness of his anger filled his face, and she had a sudden longing for him. He wanted to protect her, yet he had deliberately kissed her in front of the village.
She said, ‘Look here, Chris, you added to it by kissing me almost in the street, and naturally they make the most of it. What else could you expect?’
‘Sorry,’ and quickly he added, ‘If you marry me, that will stop the whole wretched thing.’
She stood there in that state of remote uncertainty which can be so utterly disturbing. For a second the thought of running away from Charnworth came to her almost with relief, then she knew that nurses do not run away. They stay to the end. The days of Florence Nightingale may have come and gone for ever, but she has left that one rule behind her, also for ever.
‘No, Chris, that is not the way out.’
‘I love you so much.’
‘Yes, but go away now. Come back in a fortnight, not before.’ She knew that she had to get rid of him now whilst she still could; in another moment she would be asking him to st
ay for ever!
‘Then it’s goodbye, sweetheart?’
‘Leave me to the Smithson baby,’ she said.
Chapter Twelve
Claire was up all night, then had a heavy day on top of it, one of those hideous days when all the malingerers got busy, all the tiresome patients, the old drips, the stolid complainers, and the I-want-to-be-ills. From these, there can be no permanent escape.
Directly after she got home Mavis telephoned her from Stable House. Time had moved on; somehow Claire had not realised that it passed so quickly, for when you turn night into day you lose count. Terence was at Stable House and he had one of those blinding headaches which Mavis could not control. She had tried the usual things, but without avail; now she was frightened. Could Claire come round?
She said, ‘There’s some supper here, so you would get it undisturbed, which you don’t at the cottage.’
Mavis had the asset of being surprisingly understanding about some matters in life, she thought of all the mundane ordinary things. Claire would be glad to go, if only to escape the telephone, and if there was anything really vital Mrs. Hopkins would call her. Today she had had enough.
She drove off and went through the lodge gates into the calm park with deer grazing at the far end. Mavis must have heard her approach, for she came out to meet her; she was white with worry.
‘I’ve never known such an awful headache, and nothing seems to ease it!’
‘Has anything happened to upset him, perhaps?’
Mavis quivered slightly, apparently she intended taking this personally. ‘If you mean have I been nasty, no! We did have a slight argument this morning, before he went to lie down, but it was nothing much.’
‘He has to be treated fairly carefully, you know. Never mind. I’ll go and see him.’
Claire went into the small bedroom at the back which looked out on to a vista of fields which were yellow with buttercups. The country looked radiant at this time of the year. Terence lay there, his head pillowed higher than she would have wished for him. She knew by his breathing that he was in violent pain, and went to him. His pulse told its own story, and quietly she got to work.
‘It’s pretty awful,’ he told her.
‘I know it is. I’m getting some ice for it. I won’t be a moment.’ She managed to get an ice pack on to the temples fairly quickly, then gave him a couple of tablets from her bag.
‘They’ll probably make me sick.’
‘No, they won’t. That phase is passing off,’ and she drew away one of the pillows. ‘It sounds mad of me, but try not to think too much. Lie back and take this easily; I’ll sit down here for a while.’
During that time she thought that he slept a little, watching him carefully; then half an hour later he opened his eyes, and said that it was better.
‘Thank you, Claire.’
So he knew her name! Somehow she had not thought of that! ‘I’m glad it’s easier.’
‘Much better now. Once it starts to go off, it goes fast, but I feel like pulp. It ‒ it was Mavis.’
‘You had a row?’
‘Yes. I don’t know quite what to do about it, because she has got hold of the wrong idea about me, and I am not in love with her.’
‘You’ve told her so?’
‘Yes. Little else was left to me, and she now says that Sir Charles thinks that I am in love, and will be furious when he finds that I am accepting their hospitality like this.’
She carefully folded the sheets back. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that Sir Charles knows more about his niece than either of us do. He is not a man whom it is easy to deceive, and she is deceiving us. I don’t think that this will cause any bother with him at all, do understand that. Better now?’
‘Yes, I’m better, but … It’s all such a wretched muddle. I ‒ I never thought of this happening.’
‘Sir Charles comes down again tomorrow, when he is having a brief holiday here; then I suggest you explain what has happened.’
‘I’d hardly like to do that.’ He put out his hand and caught hold of hers, holding it gently. ‘You will help me?’
‘Of course. My work here is to help everybody.’
Again he clung to her. ‘What is the right thing for me to do?’ and his eyes were mutely appealing. Perhaps she had never before known a man who could make his eyes speak so clearly. He was deeply concerned.
‘You must not worry, for this never does any good. Rest, and get your head better. Put time between now and that beastly accident, for time is always the great healer. Life will show you what to do, but foster no illusion about how Sir Charles feels about his niece. She wished to marry, and somehow it went wrong on her, and this has soured her, perhaps for ever. Try to understand what it all is.’
He watched her, then seemed to calm down, and after another long pause he said, ‘What are you here in this village? Mavis tried to explain to me, but she said such extraordinary things that I could not believe they were true.’
‘I expect she told you that I flirted?’
‘She certainly gave me the idea that half the men in the village were in love with you, and that you had turned all their heads.’
She went quiet.
Perhaps it had been silly of her to imagine that Mavis liked her, but she had not expected that she would say things like this. When she did speak, her voice was gentle. ‘I came here on Sir Charles’s suggestion, to escape from a broken love affair which happened in the hospital. Now, please don’t be sympathetic; in every nurse’s life there is always the one doctor-nurse affair, I suppose, and when it was over I sought to forget it by doing hard work to help others. Sir Charles said that as I liked gynaecological work, I should come here and help them out.’
‘Mavis told me much the same thing. She also said that all the fathers were "after” you, her words, not mine.’
‘I am afraid there is a little in what she says.’ Somehow Claire found it a relief to tell him this, for she knew that he was sympathetically inclined, and would read between the lines. ‘I admit that the fathers are a pest to me. They are accustomed to much older district nurses, and I look wrong for the appointment, or so they think!’
‘You look quite wonderful to me! It’s nobody’s fault that they have been born too pretty. Poor Claire! One day, if ever I bring myself to paint a face, let me do a portrait of you?’
It sounded too much like Mavis’s story, and she steadied herself. She must crumple the idea right now. ‘When you have done your portrait of Mavis ‒ yes,’ she said.
‘What did you say?’
‘When you have painted Mavis’s picture.’
‘But I’m not attempting to paint a portrait of Mavis. Whatever gave you that idea?’ He stared at her aghast, and now those speaking eyes of his were really troubled.
Claire blamed herself for ever having believed what Mavis had said about it. If only she had given the idea a second thought she would have known that Terence would not paint her. She stood there helplessly, then went over to the side table for more tablets.
‘Time you took the second dose for your head.’
‘It’s getting better all the time. I can feel that awful pain slipping away like a bright light when the sun begins to fade. Thank God for those miraculous tablets.’ And then very tenderly, ‘I am relying on you to get me out of this one!’
‘I suggest that you have a talk with Sir Charles. He is quite the most wonderful man I know, and will do anything in the world to help you.’
‘I’ll talk to him,’ and quite mischievously, ‘If you get half a chance do put Mavis off me, tell her I am already married and have ten children, mostly twins ! Twins run in my family.’
‘Don’t be absurd!’
He laughed again, and his gaiety had a certain charm. ‘Well, whatever she said and whatever you tell her, the idea of my painting her portrait was a figment of a fairly vivid imagination; remember that.’
‘I know,’ she said.
She left him to himself, hoping that he wou
ld get another doze, which would be the best possible thing for him; already he was doing far too much. She went back to the sitting-room where Mavis was arranging some pinks in a vase. She seemed to be vaguely offhand, in that curiously aloof manner of hers. She had supervised a tray for Terence. Claire gathered that he had had no food all day, and after waiting for three quarters of an hour she took the tray to him, but he had not slept.
She went out into the garden to speak to Mavis who was now watering the stocks, she always managed to keep herself employed (possibly she was the restless kind), and the two of them started to talk.
‘I wonder what brought this attack on for him?’ Claire said.
Mavis was calm. ‘I suppose it was just one of those things which always happen to me. Men fall in love so easily; men adore me, and it does complicate everything.’
‘You had a row?’
‘Yes, I suppose you could call it that, but the whole thing was forced on me, and was not my fault at all. It was most unpleasant, I can tell you.’
‘Then don’t talk of it. I’m sure you’ll find that he is considerably better after a good night’s rest, and he may have forgotten the worst of this. Don’t refer to it.’
‘Of course not! It gives me no pleasure, as you can suppose,’ and she said it with that cold dignity which she adopted so readily, and which could never be part of her real self.
Claire moved towards the little gate which opened on to what had been the original drive to the big house. ‘I’m trying to get an early bed. I was up all last night, and after a bit it takes its toll. Let me know if you want me again, and then I’ll come along in the morning.’
‘All right.’ Mavis went on watering the stocks in their sublime sugar-candy pink, and that tender light mauve. The scent was unbelievable.
That night Claire slept like a top.
Maybe the country air was helpful. This place had that sense of freshness about it, and she knew that Sir Charles had been right when he had said that it could do something for her. She felt that St. Julian’s was slipping away into part of a shadowy background, something that was not quite real any more, and maybe Chris went with it. She had been able to see him again with far less sensitive emotions than she would have thought possible a week or two back. Life was taking on a new perspective, anyway she was not so close to the events which had lacerated and bewildered her. The long view was what paid. One has to stand back and see life from a distance, it never pays to be too close up to it, and she realised this now.
