Stars Through the Mist

by Betty Neels

  She spooned the last of the despised pudding, and decided to marry him, and if she had regrets in the years to come she would only have herself to blame. It was a relief to have made up her mind, although perhaps it had been already made up from the very moment when he had startled her with his proposal, for hadn’t it been the fulfilment of her wildest dreams?

  She retired to her room early on the plea of a hard day and the beginnings of a headache, determined to go to bed and think the whole preposterous idea over rationally. Instead of which she fell sound asleep within a few minutes of putting her head on the pillow, her thoughts an uncontrollable and delicious jumble.

  She had time enough to think the next day, though. Wednesday was always a slack day in theatre even though they had to be prepared for emergencies. But there were no lists; Deborah spent the greater part of the day in the office, catching up on the administrative side, only sallying forth from time to time to make sure that the nurses knew what they were about. She went off duty at five o’clock, secretly disappointed that Mr van Doorninck hadn’t put in an appearance—true, he hadn’t said that he would, but surely he would feel some impatience? Upon reflection she decided that probably he wouldn’t, or if he did, he would take care not to let it show. She spent the evening washing her hair and doing her nails, with the vague idea that she needed to look her best when he arrived at ten o’clock the next morning.

  Only he didn’t come at ten. She was in theatre, on her knees under the operating table because one of the nurses had reported a small fault in its mechanism. She had her back to the door and didn’t hear him enter; it was the sight of his large well-polished shoes which caused her to start up, knocking her cap crooked as she did so. He put out a hand and helped her to her feet without effort, rather as though she had been some small slip of a girl, and Deborah exclaimed involuntarily, ‘Oh—I’m quite heavy. I’m too tall, you must have noticed.’ Her eyes were on his tie as she babbled on: ‘I’m so big…!’

  ‘Which should make us a well-suited couple,’ he answered equably. ‘At least, I hope you will agree with me, Deborah.’

  She put a hand up to her cap to straighten it, not quite sure what she should answer, and he caught her puzzled look. ‘Not quite romantic enough?’ he quizzed her gently. ‘Have dinner with me tonight and I’ll try and make amends.’

  She was standing before him now, her lovely eyes on a level with his chin. ‘I don’t know—that is, I haven’t said…’

  His heavy-lidded eyes searched hers. ‘Then say it now,’ he commanded her gently. It seemed absurd to accept a proposal of marriage in an operating theatre, but there seemed no help for it. She drew breath:

  ‘Yes, I’ll marry you, Mr van Doorninck.’ She uttered the absurd remark in a quiet, sensible voice and he laughed gently.

  ‘Gerard, don’t you think? Can you manage seven o’clock?’

  Her eyes left his chin reluctantly and met his. ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Good. I’ll fetch you—we’ll go to the Empress if you would like that.’

  Somewhere very super, she remembered vaguely. ‘That will be nice.’ An inadequate answer, she knew, but he didn’t appear to find it amiss; he took her two hands lightly in his and said: ‘We’ll have a quiet talk together—it is essential that we should understand each other from the beginning, don’t you agree?’

  It sounded very businesslike and cool to her; perhaps she was making a terrible mistake, but was there a worse mistake than letting him go away for ever? She thought not. For want of anything better to say, she repeated, ‘That will be nice,’ and added, ‘I must go and scrub, you have a list as long as your arm.’

  It stretched longer than an arm, however, by the time they had finished. The second case held them up; the patient’s unexpected cardiac arrest was a surprise which, while to be coped with, flung a decided spanner in the works. Not that Mr van Doorninck allowed it to impede his activities—he continued unhurriedly about his urgent business and Deborah, after despatching Staff to the other end of the table to help the anaesthetist in any way he wished, concentrated upon supplying her future husband’s wants. The patient rallied, she heard Mr van Doorninck’s satisfied grunt and relaxed herself; for a patient to die on the table was something to be avoided at all costs. The operation was concluded and the patient, still unconscious and happily unaware of his frustrated attempts to die, was borne away and it was decided that a break for coffee would do everyone some good. Deborah, crowding into her office with the three men and sharing the contents of the coffee pot with them, was less lucky with the biscuit tin, for it was emptied with a rapidity she wouldn’t have prevented even if she could have done so; the sight of grown men munching Rich Tea biscuits as though they had eaten nothing for days touched her heart. She poured herself a second cup of coffee and made a mental note to wheedle the stores into letting her have an extra supply.

  The rest of the morning went well, although they finished more than an hour late. Mr van Doorninck was meticulously drawing the muscle sheath together, oblivious of time. He lifted an eyebrow at Peter to remove the clamps and swab the wound ready for him to stitch and put out an outsize gloved hand for the needleholder which Deborah was holding ready. He took it without a glance and paused to straighten his back. ‘Anything for this afternoon, Sister?’ he enquired conversationally.

  ‘Not until three o’clock, sir.’ She glanced at Peter, who would be taking the cases. ‘A baby for a gallows frame and a couple of Colles.’

  ‘So you will be free for our evening together?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Hadn’t she already said so? she asked herself vexedly, and threaded another needle, aware of the pricked ears and held breaths around her and Peter’s swift, astonished look.

  Mr van Doorninck held out his needleholder for her to insert the newly threaded needle. He said deliberately so that everyone could hear, ‘Sister Culpeper and I are engaged to be married, so we are—er—celebrating this evening.’

  He put out a hand again and Deborah slapped the stitch scissors into it with a certain amount of force, her fine bosom swelling with annoyance—giving out the news like that without so much as a word to her beforehand! Just wait until we’re alone, she cautioned him silently, her smouldering look quite lost upon his downbent, intent head. And even if she had wanted to speak her mind, it would have been impossible in the little chorus of good wishes and congratulations. She made suitable murmurs in reply and scowled behind her mask.

  But if she had hoped to have had a few words with him she was unlucky; the patient was no sooner stitched than he threw down his instruments, ripped off his gloves and made off with the long, leisurely stride which could only have been matched on her part by a frank run. She watched him go, fuming, and turned away to fob off the nurses’ excited questions.

  Her temper had improved very little by the time she went off duty. The news had spread, as such news always did; she was telephoned, stopped in the corridors and besieged by the other Sisters when she went down to tea. That they were envious was obvious, but they were pleased too, for she was well liked at Clare’s, and each one of them marvelled at the way she had kept the exciting news such a close secret.

  ‘He’ll be a honey,’ sighed Women’s Surgical Sister. ‘Just imagine living with him!’ She stared at Deborah. ‘Is he very rich, Deb?’

  ‘I—I don’t really know.’ Deborah was by now quite peevish and struggling not to show it. It was a relief, on the pretext of dressing up for the evening, when she could escape. All the same, despite her ill-humour, she dressed with care in a pinafore dress of green ribbed silk, worn over a white lawn blouse with ballooning sleeves and a fetching choirboy frill under her chin, and she did her hair carefully too, its smooth wings on her cheeks and the complicated chignon at the back of her neck setting off the dress to its greatest advantage. Luckily it was late August and warm, for she had no suitable coat to cover this finery; she rummaged around in her cupboard and found a gossamer wool scarf which she flung over her arm—and
if he didn’t like it, she told her reflection crossly, he could lump it.

  Still buoyed up by indignation, she swept down the Home stairs, looking queenly and still slightly peevish, but she stopped in full sail in the hall because Mr van Doorninck was there, standing by the door, watching her. He crossed the polished floor and when he reached her said the wrong thing. ‘I had no idea,’ he commented, ‘that you were such a handsome young woman.’

  His words conjured up an outsize, tightly corseted Titanic, when her heart’s wish was to be frail and small and clinging. She lifted pansy eyes to his and said tartly, ‘My theatre gowns are a good disguise…’ and stopped because she could see that he was laughing silently.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Deborah—you see how necessary it is for me to take a wife? I have become so inept at paying compliments. I like you exactly as you are and I hope that you will believe that. But tell me, why were you looking so put out as you came downstairs?’

  She felt mollified and a little ashamed too. ‘I was annoyed because you told everyone in theatre that we were engaged—I didn’t know you were going to.’

  He chose to misunderstand her. ‘I had no idea that you wished it to remain a secret.’ He smiled so nicely at her that her heart hurried its beat.

  ‘Well—of course I didn’t.’

  ‘Then why were you annoyed?’

  An impossible question to answer. She smiled reluctantly and said:

  ‘Oh, I don’t know—perhaps I haven’t quite got used to the idea.’

  His blue eyes searched hers calmly. ‘You have had second thoughts, perhaps?’

  ‘No—oh, no.’

  He smiled again. ‘Good. Shall we go?’

  They went through the Home door together, and she was very conscious of the unseen eyes peering at them from the net-covered windows, but she forgot all about them when she saw the car drawn up waiting for them. She had wondered from time to time what sort of car he drove, and here it was—a BMW 3 OCSL, a sleek, powerful coupé which looked as though it could do an enormous speed if it were allowed to. She paused by its door and asked: ‘Yours?’

  ‘Yes. I could use a larger car really, but once I’m in it it’s OK, and she goes like a bird. We’ll change her, though, if you prefer something roomier.’

  Deborah had settled herself in her seat. ‘She’s super, you mustn’t dream of changing her.’ She turned to look at him as he got in beside her. ‘I always imagined that you would drive something stately.’

  He laughed. ‘I’m flattered that you spared even such thoughts as those upon me. I’ve a Citroën at home, an SM, plenty of room but not so fast as this one. I take it that you drive?’

  He had eased the car into the evening traffic and was travelling westward. ‘Well,’ said Deborah, ‘I drive, but I’m not what you would call a good driver, though I haven’t had much opportunity…’

  ‘Then we must find opportunity for you—you will need a car of your own.’

  In Piccadilly, where the traffic was faster and thinner, he turned off into Berkeley Street and stopped outside the Empress Restaurant. A truly imposing place, she discovered, peeping discreetly about her as they went in—grandly Victorian with its red plush and its candelabra. When they were seated she said with disarming frankness: ‘It rather takes my breath away.’

  His mouth twitched. ‘Worthy of the occasion, I hope.’ He opened his eyes wide and she was surprised, as she always was, by their intense blue. ‘For it is an occasion, is it not?’

  She studied him; he was really extraordinarily handsome and very distinguished in his dinner jacket. After a moment he said softly:

  ‘I hope I pass muster?’

  She blinked and smiled rather shyly. ‘I beg your pardon—I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just that—well, you never see a person properly in theatre, do you?’

  He studied her in his turn. ‘No—and I made a mistake just now. I called you handsome, and you’re not, you’re beautiful.’

  She flushed delicately under his gaze and he went on blandly: ‘But let us make no mistake, I’m not getting sentimental or falling in love with you, Deborah.’ His voice had a faint edge which she was quick to hear.

  She forced her own voice to normality. ‘You explained about that, but supposing you should meet someone with whom you do fall in love? And you might, you’re not old, are you?’

  ‘I’m thirty-seven,’ he informed her, still bland, ‘and I have had a number of years in which to fall in and out of love since Sasja’s death.’ He saw her look and smiled slightly. ‘And by that I mean exactly what I said; I must confess I’ve been attracted to a number of women, but I didn’t like them—there is a difference. I like you, Deborah.’

  She sipped the drink he had ordered and studied the menu card and tried not to mind too much that he was talking to her as though she were an old friend who had just applied for a job he had going. In a way she was. She put the idea out of her head and chose Suprême de Turbot Mogador and settled for caviare for starters, then applied herself to a lighthearted conversation which gave him no opportunity of turning the talk back to themselves. But that didn’t last long; with the coming of the Vacherin Glacéhe cut easily into her flow of small talk with:

  ‘As to our marriage—have you any objection if it takes place soon? I want to return to Holland as quickly as possible and I have arranged to leave Clare’s in ten days’ time. I thought we might get married then.’

  Deborah sat with her fork poised midway between plate and mouth. ‘Ten days’ time?’ she uttered. ‘But that’s not possible! I have to give a month’s notice.’

  ‘Oh, don’t concern yourself with that. I can arrange something. Is that your only objection?’

  ‘You don’t know my family.’

  ‘You live in Somerset, don’t you? We might go down there and see them before we go to Holland—unless you wish to be married from your home?’

  It was like being swept along a fast-moving river with not even a twig in sight. ‘I—I hadn’t thought about it.’

  ‘Then how would it be if we marry quietly here in London and then go to see your parents?’

  ‘You mean surprise them?’

  ‘I’ll be guided by you,’ he murmured.

  She thought this rather unlikely; all the same it was a good idea.

  ‘Father’s an historian,’ she explained, ‘and rather wrapped up in his work, and Mother—Mother is never surprised about anything. They wouldn’t mind. I’d like a quiet wedding, but in church.’

  He looked surprised. ‘Naturally. I am a Calvinist myself and you are presumably Church of England. If you care to choose your church I’ll see about the licence and make the arrangements. Do you want any guests?’

  She shook her head; it didn’t seem quite right to invite people to a marriage which was, after all, a friendly arrangement between two people who were marrying for all the wrong reasons—although there was nothing wrong with her reason; surely loving someone was sufficiently strong grounds for marrying them? And as for Gerard, his reasons, though very different, held a strong element of practical common sense. Besides, he believed her to be in complete agreement with him over the suitability of a marriage between two persons who, presumably, had no intention of allowing their hearts to run away with their feelings. She wondered idly just what kind of a girl might steal his heart. Certainly not herself—had he not said that he liked her, and that, as far as she could see, was as far as it went.

  She drank her coffee and agreed with every show of pleasure to his suggestion that they should go somewhere and dance.

  He took her to the Savoy, where they danced for an hour or more between pleasant little interludes at the table he had secured well away from the dance floor. She was an excellent dancer and Gerard, she discovered, danced well too, if a trifle conservatively. Just for a space she forgot her problems and gave herself to the enjoyment of the evening, and presently, drinking champagne, her face prettily flushed, she found herself agreeing that a light supper would be de
lightful before he took her back to Clare’s. It was almost three o’clock when he stopped the car outside the Home. He got out of the car with her and opened the heavy door with the latch key she gave him and then stood idly swinging it in his hand.

  ‘Thank you for a delightful evening,’ said Deborah, and tried to remember that she was going to marry this large, quiet man standing beside her, and in ten days, too. She felt sudden panic swamp the tenuous happiness inspired by the champagne and the dancing, and raised her eyes to his face, her mouth already open to give utterance to a variety of thoughts which, largely because of that same champagne, no longer made sense.

  The eyes which met hers were very kind. ‘Don’t worry, Deborah,’ he urged her in his deep, placid voice. ‘It’s only reaction; in the morning everything will be quite all right again. You must believe me.’

  He bent and kissed her cheek, much as though he were comforting a child, and told her to go to bed. ‘And I’ll see you tomorrow before I go to Holland.’

  And because she was bewildered and a little afraid and her head had begun to ache, she did as he bade her. With a whispered good night she went slowly up the stairs without looking back to see if he was watching her, undressed and got into bed, and fell at once into a dreamless sleep which was only ended by her alarm clock warning her to get up and dress, astonished to find that what Gerard had said was quite true; everything did seem all right. She went down to breakfast and in response to the urgent enquiries of her companions, gave a detailed account of her evening and then, fortified by several cups of strong tea, made her way to the theatre unit.

  There wasn’t much doing. Mr Squires had a couple of Smith-Petersen pins to insert, a bone graft to do, and there was a Carpal Tunnel—an easy enough list, for he kept strictly to straightforward bone work, leaving the bone tumours to Gerard van Doorninck. They were finished by one o’clock and Deborah had time to go down to dinner before sending Staff off duty. The theatre would have to be washed down that afternoon and she wanted to go through the sharps; some of the chisels needed attention, as did the grooved awl and one or two of the rugines. She would go down to the surgical stores and see what could be done. She had them neatly wrapped and was on the point of making her way through the labyrinth of semi-underground passages to the stores, when Gerard walked in. ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Going somewhere?’