by Betty Neels
Tabitha found this interesting and would have liked to have learned more, but just then tea was brought in and the conversation became general with Lady Riddleton doing most of the talking while she ate her way daintily through a large variety of sandwiches, jam tarts, little iced cakes and a couple of slices of very rich fruit cake. Fortified by these dainties, their hostess bade Tabitha go into the garden, ‘For,’ she said with rather touching pride, ‘I planned some of it myself and it is lovely, although I can’t touch the original gardens for beauty. And Marius, ring for Parkes to come down and help me to my room—she can come for you when I’m ready.’
Tabitha went out through the French windows at the end of the room, on to a balcony which led by stone steps to the garden which despite its size had a charming informality as well as beauty. She wandered round, sniffing and admiring and reading labels, happily oblivious of the time. She had crossed the ornamental pond by its little rustic bridge to see what was on the other side and had returned to stroll up the long walk with its herbaceous border when Marius joined her. He had come from one of the shrubbery paths which intersected the walk and she said quickly: ‘I’ve not been bothering about the time. Have I kept you waiting?’
He shook his head and strolled along beside her. ‘What do you think of the garden?’ he wanted to know.
‘Lovely. I should like to take a slice of it back with me. There’s a herb garden beyond the pond and a bed of miniature roses…’
‘Yes, I know.’
She paused to look up at him. ‘You’ve been here before, of course. A great many times? You know Lady Riddleton very well, don’t you? You talked to her as though she was an—an aunt.’
He looked amused. ‘She is my aunt, though a very distant one. She and her husband used to visit my parents when I was a boy.’
Tabitha, although interested, refused to be sidetracked. ‘She’s rather outspoken…that is, I’ve no wish to be rude, but does your aunt always talk like that?’
‘Only to those she likes—otherwise you would have been treated with an icy politeness which would have frozen your marrow in its bones.’
She went on walking. ‘How extremely friendly of you to expose me to such a possibility,’ she said crossly.
‘You malign me,’ his voice was silky. ‘I knew she would like you.’
Tabitha was on the point of asking why and decided against it. ‘You laughed,’ she said instead, still cross.
‘Kind laughter, Tabitha, you know that, nor was my aunt unkind.’
‘Why did you bring me here?’
‘I told you, for the ride.’ He gave her a sidelong glance. ‘No, that’s not quite all—I wanted Dolly to see you, because I knew she would tell you what I have been telling you for weeks. You can’t very well ignore her opinion of you, although you have always chosen to ignore mine.’
This was a remark which was difficult to answer. Tabitha changed the subject. ‘I like Lady Riddleton,’ she offered.
He seemed content to follow her lead. ‘Everyone does—that is unless they are unfortunate enough to be disliked by her.’ He took her arm and guided her down a small path ‘Did you find the dovecote?’
She said no, she hadn’t and they went on down the path to come out into a grassy space with the dovecote in its centre. It was very old and the doves were flying in and out of its little windows, their wings making a soft whirring sound as they called softly to each other. Tabitha found them enchanting and when one came to perch on her shoulder she laughed like a little girl.
‘Look, Marius—do look!’ she cried, and was swung round to face him, so tightly held that she could scarcely breathe. She stared up into his face, no longer placid but almost grim. She asked, stammering a little:
‘Whatever is the matter, Marius?’
The grim look disappeared. He said lightly: ‘Nothing. We’ve been invited to stay for dinner—you won’t mind?’
She still stood within his arms, but now their touch was impersonal so that the thumping of her heart slowed to normal. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly, ‘I’d like that very much.’
So they stayed to dinner, a leisurely meal which lasted all of two hours, what with the amount and variety of the food and Lady Riddleton’s conversation, which was very amusing because she had led a very varied life and met a great many interesting people. They took their leave at last and drove back through the cloudy evening, not bothering to talk very much. They had got past the stage where they needed to make conversation, Tabitha thought dreamily, just to be together was enough. She jerked her thoughts away from the idea and applied herself to asking Marius intelligent questions about the house they had just visited.
She saw very little of him for the next day or so. He came and went, sometimes with Mr Raynard, hobbling along with his stick, sometimes on his own, but always on ward business. On Saturday and Sunday he didn’t come at all and on the following day he operated for hours, made a brief appearance in the ward to check on his patients, reminded her carelessly that he would be gone for a few days, and went again.
Tabitha went to Chidlake the next day, glad of something to do now that Marius wasn’t there. It was a pleasant enough day with a faint nip in the early autumn air. She stowed a picnic lunch in the back of the car and set out.
She stopped as she always did at the top of the hill above her home. There was a mist coming in from the sea, but she hardly noticed it; her attention was all on Chidlake. She sighed as she looked and went on down the hill. As she turned in at its gate she saw the open windows—presumably her stepmother had left someone in the house—so much the better, she would be able to get some coffee or whatever was going in the kitchen. She opened the front door and went inside and Lilith came out of the sitting room as she did so, to stare at her with such a guilty look that Tabitha said: ‘Lilith, whatever is the matter? I know I’m not expected—I thought you were away.’
She went past her stepsister into the sitting room and found Mrs Crawley looking annoyed and even a little guilty too.
‘Tabitha!’ her voice was sharp. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’
Tabitha was bewildered. She knew she wasn’t always welcome, but they were behaving as though they had something to hide, ‘I thought you were away—it seemed a good idea to drive over for an hour. Marius gave me your message telling me not to come.’ She stopped and asked: ‘Didn’t you?’
Mrs Crawley had regained her usual poise. ‘Oh—did I?” She got up and went to stand at the window, her back to Tabitha.
‘Well, since you’re here, you may as well know that we’ve decided to sell Chidlake.’ She ignored Tabitha’s quick-drawn breath. ‘It’s mine to sell and really there’s no reason why I should tell you.’
Tabitha asked with dry lips: ‘When?’
Her stepmother shrugged. ‘We want a good offer. How should I know?’ she added quickly. ‘Christmas perhaps.’ She waited for Tabitha to speak and when she didn’t, continued in a hard voice: ‘This house was left to me, I can do with it exactly as I wish. We— Lilith and I—loathe living here.’
Tabitha found her voice. ‘My father would never have left Chidlake to you—you know that, he said so many times; you were to have the money and Chidlake was to stay in the family—I was to have it. Why do you want Chidlake if you hate it so?’ The rage she was holding in check turned her quiet voice harsh.
Mrs Crawley laughed. ‘My dear Tabby, if only you knew how silly you look standing there insulting me. The house is mine, whatever your father intended to do with it, and I shall sell it for as much as I can.’ She smiled. ‘In fact I…’ she bit her lip and went on, ‘you’ll not get a penny.’
Tabitha said in a quiet, despairing voice: ‘I don’t want money. Couldn’t you…?’
‘No!’ Mrs Crawley was triumphant. ‘You’ve got that annuity and far more furniture than you need, you can be content with that.’
Tabitha stood where she was, knowing that there was nothing she could do. Her stepmother was quite right; if she chose to
sell the house, she had every right to do so. The older people in the village might shake their heads and disapprove, they might even protest aloud, but no one could do anything. Tabitha tried once more. ‘Will you reconsider your decision? The house has been in the family for years—there have always been Crawleys here…’
Mrs Crawley lighted a cigarette before she replied. ‘No, Tabitha, I won’t. I don’t care how many Crawleys have lived here. It’s a dump.’
Tabitha bit back a hot rejoinder. ‘When did you first decide to sell?’
Her stepmother smiled. ‘We had often talked about it; funnily enough it was on Lilith’s birthday—during her party—that I had a serious offer for it.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘Tell you? Why should I, it’s none of your business. Really, Tabitha, I sometimes think that you’re not only plain and dull but stupid as well.’
Tabitha had a sudden vivid memory of Lady Riddleton telling her that she wasn’t plain. She said quietly: ‘I don’t mind any more when you say things like that. I know it’s not of the least consequence.’
Mrs Crawley gave her a narrow look. ‘My dear Tabitha, you talk like a woman in love. Now I wonder…’
She got no further, for Lilith came into the room. ‘It’s no good expecting you can stay to lunch, Tabitha,’ she said, ‘we’re going out. I don’t suppose you want to anyway—I can see Mummy’s told you that…’ She paused because of her mother’s warning glance. She flung herself in a chair and muttered: ‘Oh, well,’ and began to inspect her nails. Tabitha, looking at her, thought she had never seen her so pretty; no wonder Marius wanted to marry her. As though she had spoken his name aloud, her stepsister said: ‘Marius came to lunch.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Tabitha, ‘he mentioned it on the ward.’
‘I find him rather old,’ said Lilith, ‘but I shall marry him, you know. All that lovely lolly—after all, he won’t be home a great deal, will he with all these lectures he gives?’
Tabitha felt sick. She was sure that Marius was perfectly able to manage Lilith once he had married her, and perhaps he loved her too much to care. She left the house without a word, got into the Fiat and started back up the hill. She stopped at the top and looked back. The sea mist was quite thick now, she couldn’t see Chidlake at all.
She got back to the flat as Meg was washing up after her lunch, and she, dear soul, after one look at Tabitha’s white face, left the sink and pushed her gently into a chair. ‘I don’t know what it is that’s happened, Miss Tabby, but you look in need of a nice cup of tea.’ She put the kettle on and went to draw up another chair. ‘Do you want to tell me, love?’
Tabitha’s eyes filled with tears. ‘They’re going to sell Chidlake, Meg.’ She drew a steadying breath. ‘And I can’t stop them. They’ve been meaning to do it for months and they only told me today because I went h—home.’
‘Sell Chidlake?’ Meg’s cheerful face was shocked. ‘They can’t—there’s been a Crawley there for I don’t know how long.’
‘I know,’ sobbed Tabitha, ‘I—I said so, and she called it a d—dump.’ She wiped her eyes and blew her nose and sat up straight. ‘Meg, what are we to do? I must think of something.’
Meg made the tea and put a cup, very strong and sweet, on the table.
‘Drink this up, Miss Tabby. When are they going to sell Chidlake?’
‘After Christmas—at least—’ she frowned, ‘my stepmother said so, but now I’m not sure—but she said Christmas.’
‘Time enough to think of something, and depend upon it we shall.’
They thought about it for the rest of the day and were no nearer a solution when they went to bed that night. As they said good night Tabitha exclaimed wearily: ‘Oh, Meg, I wish Marius was here; he’d know what to do. Oh, no—I can’t tell him, can I? It will look as though I’m trying to make trouble between him and Lilith, and what could he do anyway?’
It was a pleasure to go to work the next morning and find the ward so busy that she had no time for personal problems, and the next day the shock had dulled a little and hope was already beginning to nibble away at her doubts and fears. She went doggedly through the week, longing for Marius’s return on Friday. But Friday came and no sign of him and when she asked George what had happened he looked up hurriedly from a patient’s notes and said vaguely: ‘He’s delayed—didn’t I tell you? We’ll have to manage.’
Tabitha ignored the childish tears pricking her eyelids. She said furiously: ‘There’s a list as long as your arm, and I’m still a staff nurse short…’ And George, who had looked up in astonishment at her sudden outburst, said comfortingly: ‘Never mind, old lady, we’ll manage somehow. Just our luck the chief’s got a cold and can’t hobble to our rescue.’ He grinned at her. ‘Bet you anything you like that we get a whacking great emergency in, just to cap the lot.’
Tabitha swallowed the tears. ‘Oh, George, you’re always such a comfort,’ she cried.
CHAPTER NINE
THE NEXT DAY began badly. George arrived late for a start and hard on his heels came an emergency—a young railway porter who had slipped and fallen on to the line in the path of a train. He lay, incredibly cheerful, unaware, because of the kindly muffling of the morphia he had been given, that he was going to lose half a leg and face several months of pain and discomfort before he would be able to stand on the other one. He grinned feebly at Tabitha as she checked the blood drip and looked at his dressings and whispered: ‘Me for the butcher’s shop, I suppose, Sister?’
Tabitha smiled at him, a warm, steady smile that radiated reassurance. ‘Well, you do need a bit of repair work done, don’t you? Here’s the surgeon to have a quick look.’
‘I’ve seen one already.’
‘That was the Casualty Officer. This is Mr Steele, the Orthopaedic Registrar.’
She lifted the light cover of the trolley upon which the patient lay, stationing her person in such a way that there was no chance of the patient seeing anything; he was weak with loss of blood and semi-conscious from the morphia, but there was always the possibility that he might want to see the shocking mess under the sterile towel. George stared at it, then without looking at Tabitha said: ‘Well, old man, I think the quicker we get up to the operating theatre with you the better, don’t you?’ He smiled and nodded cheerfully and said ‘See you later,’ as he walked away.
Tabitha beckoned to a nurse to take her place and went after George.
‘Do his people know?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘Yes, Cas saw to that—they’ll send his wife up as soon as she gets here.’
‘Nasty mess,’ said George. ‘Send him up at the double, will you, Tabby? We’ll do the cleaning up. What’s he had?’
She told him and he scribbled on a chart. ‘Just give the atrophine, then.’ He started off down the corridor, saying something as he went, but she was already going in the opposite direction and didn’t hear him. She had a great deal to do: the theatre list would have to be reorganized. It was a pity that the first case had already had his premed, but there was nothing she could do about that until she knew how long the emergency would take. She telephoned for the porters and then went to take another look at the patient and looked at the clock as she went. It was time to release the tourniquet again for a brief time; she was just readjusting it once more when the porters arrived. She would have liked to take him to theatre herself, but his wife would be coming and she would have to see her. She sent one of the part-time staff nurses and went back into the ward. She did a hasty round first, interrupted several times by telephone calls, dietitians, physiotherapists and an early visit from Matron, who sailed round the ward, towing Tabitha with her, graciously ignoring the disorder of a morning which had started off on the wrong foot.
Mrs Morgan, the porter’s wife, arrived shortly afterwards; a large plump young woman who looked at Tabitha with trusting eyes. ‘My Dickie will be all right, won’t he?’ she enquired of Tabitha as she was made comfortable in the office and given
tea. ‘They said his legs were hurt.’
Tabitha sipped tea she didn’t want, but it was easier to talk over the teacups. ‘I’m afraid so, Mrs Morgan—one leg is broken in two places; it will be set and put in plaster and he’ll be able to use it again, but not for some time, of course. The other leg is crushed below the knee, I’m not sure what is to be done to it, but you can be sure the surgeons will do everything they can to put it right.’ She paused. ‘Try not to worry too much, Mrs Morgan, your husband looks a big strong man and healthy…they’ll get him on his feet again.’
‘His own feet, Sister?’ Mrs Morgan gave a watery smile. ‘Don’t answer that, and I don’t care anyway, just so long as I get my Dickie back.’ The smile faded. ‘He’s not going to die, is he?’
‘No!’ replied Tabitha forcefully. ‘The operation is being done by an excellent surgeon.’ She spoke with a certainty which quite reassured her companion, although she herself didn’t feel quite so happy about it. Not that George wasn’t an excellent man at his job—he would amputate and do it well, but the unbidden thought that if Marius had been there he would have patched and stitched and pinned and plated the tatters of flesh and bone with all his skill and might, to try and save the leg, because a man’s own leg, however scarred and twisted, was still better than the beautifully made artificial one he would be offered in exchange. She left Mrs Morgan in the office and went back into the ward because Sue had sent down a message to say that they were opening the second theatre and would she send up the first case on the list, and when Tabitha asked how Mr Morgan was getting on Sue said hurriedly: ‘He’ll be hours,’ and rang off before Tabitha had time to ask who was taking the second theatre. Surely Mr Raynard hadn’t decided to come in—if so, she was heartily sorry for Sue, for Mr Raynard was grumpy enough when he was fit; with a stiff leg and a cold in the head he’d be unmanageable.
But she had no leisure for speculation; there was a great deal to do as the morning wore on full of petty hindrances and annoyances. The third case was already in theatre and Mr Morgan was still not back. Tabitha served the patients’ dinners and refused to go to her own; snapping off poor Rogers’ head when she suggested it, only to apologise immediately and take her staff nurse’s advice to go to the office and have some tea and sandwiches. It was a relief to get away from the orderly turmoil of the ward for a brief spell, besides it gave her a chance to make up the charts. And all the time there was the nagging worry of how she was to prevent Chidlake falling into the hands of a stranger, aching at the back of her mind like a decayed tooth.
