Nurse Greve

by Jane Arbor

  “Do come in,” she said. “Neil may be kept late on a case, so he asked me to hold the fort until he gets back. Meanwhile”—her dark eyes twinkled attractively—“you and I seem to have been invited to a dinner we must cook ourselves. But I’m rather used to that whenever I eat here with Neil. He’s got connoisseur theories on food which aren’t matched, I’m afraid, by the powers of execution of his ‘daily.’ Hence—well, come into his kitchen and see for yourself!”

  On the kitchen table stood a tin of soup and a tin of pineapple chunks, with a tin-opener laid equidistantly between them. And Judith went on: “I’m glad I took the precaution to ask Neil what he had planned for dinner! He said he’d suggested iced soup, a risotto and fruit to his Mrs. Makim and told her he’d see to the drinks himself. The risotto seems to have been tacitly slurred over, but I’ve managed to get that started. I positively refuse, though, to drink tinned mulligatawny on a June night, don’t you? And wouldn’t you say that we could concoct something a bit more recherché than pineapple chunks as a sweet? Or what about a savoury instead? I see there’s a bundle of asparagus in the fridge. Oh, yes, and a cantaloupe hanging in a net.”

  Tessa suggested a little shyly: “What about melon instead of soup, then? And asparagus tips on toast as a savoury? It’s not what Dr. Callender ordered, but—”

  “Oh, Neil will approve. Let’s do that. It’s a blessing, isn’t it, if he’s going to be late, that risotto can cook as slowly as it likes? Do you put garlic in yours? Neil and I do.”

  “I’m holding the fort for Neil” ... “Whenever I eat here with Neil” ... “Neil and I” ... For a reason she dared not face each innocent assumption of Judith’s unity with Neil Callender stabbed Tessa through. But as usual she quickly found herself at ease with the older woman and eager to respond to her friendliness.

  While they worked companionably at getting the meal they arranged the details of their drive to London. Then Judith, cutting bread for toast, said: “I’m glad you’re interested in food, Tessa. So many people living alone just don’t bother.” She chuckled suddenly, as at an amusing memory. “I’ve never told you, have I, that Neil once reported most indignantly that you two had had an argument over omelettes? He suddenly growled, ‘Tessa Greve has strong views on making an omelette, and most of ’em wrong!’ So I knew that, if Mrs. Makim proved a broken reed, I could probably rope in your help, as soon as Neil said, ‘I’ve asked Tessa to eat with us on Friday—’ ”

  At Tessa’s half-caught exclamation she broke off, then laughed again. “Oh—the ‘Tessa’?” she queried. “You don’t mind, do you? Anyway, I thought you knew Neil always calls you Tessa outside professional hours. That’s why I thought I could too. But listen, that was the phone, I think.”

  In a minute or two she returned to say that, in default of Neil, she must go down to the surgery to see a patient of his. By now the meal was as near to readiness as they could get it and, left alone, Tessa wandered into Neil’s living-room which, like her own, served as a dining-room as well.

  She looked about her, liking its air of essentially masculine comfort, its odour of leather, polished wood, its two or three good water-colours, its books.

  Neil’s home. Neil’s separately ordered life—and she the merest trespasser upon the fringe of it! The sight of a half-darned sock alongside Judith’s reading glasses and her open handbag confirmed the impression of an intimacy she did not share and spoiled the brief glow of “Neil always calls you Tessa outside professional hours.”

  Again she turned her back on the thing she did not want to face. She crossed to the bookshelves; noted the scope of the technical works, the odd assortment of novels; exclaimed with pleasure at the unlooked-for presence of a friend of her own on a lower shelf.

  Dream Days—the book by Kenneth Grahame which no one ever seemed to know as well as The Wind In The Willows, nor to love as much as she had done. She turned the little volume nostalgically in her hand and had just read the childish script of “Neil Callender. Aged 10” on its flyleaf when the voice of the man who had been that boy said from behind her shoulder: “My favourite bit was where the Reluctant Dragon preferred polishing his scales with flannel to getting into a scrap with St. George. Which was yours?”

  Tessa looked up. “How did you guess?”

  “By the way you were turning the leaves. You were looking for something remembered, not discovering something fresh. Was your copy a replica of mine?”

  “Yes, just the same edition, and I’ve still got it. I think I liked best Selina’s one-woman celebration of Trafalgar Day with a bonfire of pea-sticks and most of the winter fuel for the greenhouse!”

  He took the book from her and fluttered through the pages. “What about The Magic Ring? And A Departure?”

  “That was too sad—”

  They were still comparing, earnest notes when Judith came back to give Neil details of the surgery call she had dealt with, adding that the meal was ready to serve and daring Neil to criticise their work.

  After dinner she and Tessa stacked the china while Neil took a firm connoisseur’s hand with coffee, which they drank at the open window of the living-room, sharing talk and companionable silences while the spent light slowly drained from the summer sky.

  At the end of the evening Judith, who had her own car, went home alone, suggesting that Neil should see Tessa the short distance to her flat. Arrived there, he asked: “So you and Judith have fixed the journey to town?” And then, without awaiting her reply, added: “About Judith—I’m more glad than I can say that she and you are on the way to being friends.”

  Tessa murmured: “I’m glad too. It’s all through you, really.”

  Not accepting that, he said: “No. Your working together would have brought it about, I daresay. But if I have had any part in your appreciating her, I’m glad about that too. Because—” as he spoke his eyes were unreadable in the dusk—“knowing Judith Wake really well is a valuable experience—one, I may say, that I’ve wanted you particularly to share with me.”

  “You particularly...” Had the emphasis been careless or intentionally kind? As he left her Tessa felt that she could allow herself to believe that to share something with her was important to him. And again, as when he had cared enough that she was unhappy to kiss her “for courage,” his choice of phrase would continue to warm her with a tiny radiance which, this time, Rex could not douse.

  When she returned from London with Hilary, Tessa herself had one more day’s leave before going back to duty. After breakfast she rang Nurse Hatfield to hear how the previous evening’s Civil Defence Exercise had gone, and had just begun some dusting when there was a knock at the door of the flat.

  Opening, she was surprised to see Challis, Sir Bartram Catterick’s chauffeur, uniform cap in hand. He said stolidly: “Good morning, Miss. Lady Catterick’s compliments, and if I found you free, I was to drive you over to Usherwood at once.”

  “To Usherwood? Now? But—why, is anything wrong, Challis?”

  The man repeated, parrot-fashion: “I was not to take No for an answer if you were free, Miss. If you weren’t, I was to wait until you were.”

  Tessa persisted: “There hasn’t been an accident, has there? Lady Catterick isn’t ill?”

  “No accident, and her ladyship is quite well. I was only to say that it was urgent and would you kindly make it convenient to come.”

  “All right, Challis. I’ll come.” Completely puzzled, but seeing that he was not to be persuaded to disregard the letter of his orders, Tessa did not question him further then or during the journey over to Usherwood. But she resented hotly the peremptory manner of the summons and hoped it was justified.

  In the vast area of the room into which she was shown she saw at once that there were two people. By the flower-decked fireplace stood Lady Catterick, nervously dragging a lace handkerchief to a rag between her hands. But also silhouetted against a distant french window, was the figure of someone else with his back turned to the room.

  That
height, those massive shoulders, meant to Tessa only one man, and her heart lurched with apprehension of what Neil Callender could possibly have to do with a crisis which, as she perceived now, had destroyed Lady Catterick’s carefully maintained poise and ravaged her face to a mere mask of impotent anger.

  Tessa began urgently: “Godmother, what has happened? Why have you sent for me? And why—?” Her bewildered glance went to Neil’s immobile back. But he did not turn at the sound of her voice or when Lady Catterick turned upon her with a gathered flood of abuse.

  “My dear, please don’t pretend you don’t know why I sent for you!” The light, modulated voice had turned shrill. “For what else, do you suppose, than to explain your part in this affair? To justify it—if you can. But at least to take full responsibility for what you’ve done! Encouraging Camille and that man to do this to me, seeing to it, too, that I was kept in the dark until it was too late. How dared you, Tessa? How dared you make use of our hospitality so?”

  In the pause after the question Tessa gained her first chance to speak. She said: “Godmother, I’ve misused no hospitality of yours or Sir Bartram’s, for this is only the second time I’ve been in your house. And—” though she guessed “what man are you talking about? And what am I supposed to have encouraged Camille to do?”

  As if to an inferior, Lady Catterick snapped: “Kindly don’t keep up the fiction that you don’t know!”

  “I don’t know, Godmother.”

  “Rubbish. Of course you must. Or—” with an attempt at sarcasm—“haven’t they kept you abreast of all the final details? You could hardly have escaped knowing that your friend Girling meant to persuade my baby to elope with him. But perhaps, indeed, you may not know that they’ve gone, and were married in London this morning?”

  Tessa’s hand flew to her cheek. “Rex—has married Camille?” It was a whisper which had scarcely reached her lips and though its sibilance could hardly have reached the man at the window she sensed that he had faced about.

  Lady Catterick was demanding: “Well, do you still claim innocence? After all, you brought that schemer here, introduced him to Camille—”

  Tessa flashed: “You asked me to bring someone for Camille. And I seem to remember that you welcomed him extravagantly enough!”

  That was waved aside with: “Oh—as a playmate for Camille, yes. That was different. And how was I to know—as you must have done—that he had his eye on his own interests all the time?”

  Tessa flinched as the barb went home. But because she could not bear to think otherwise she said: “You are wrong there. I did know this much—that Rex had begun to grow fond of Camille, and I don’t believe that he would have asked her to marry him if it had not been—for love.”

  “A likely tale!” scoffed Lady Catterick. “Did he ever tell you in so many words that he was in love with her? Don’t make any mistake about that. He married her for what he hopes to get out of her stepfather and me through her. And who but you could have encouraged him to think he could—could blackmail us so? And how do I know you didn’t hope there might be something in it for you? Why!”

  But the tirade was to go no further. In a couple of strides Neil Callender was at the angry woman’s side, towering over her. And though the Viking blue eyes were stern and he did not glance in Tessa’s direction she had the strange feeling that a protective arm had gone about her.

  To the older woman he said: “You will kindly make no more insinuations on those lines, Lady Catterick!”

  She looked up at him as if until then she had been oblivious of his presence. “You?” she queried. “Why are you here? What have you to do with this?”

  “If you remember, I called to see Sir Bartram and you asked me to wait for him here.” He added coldly, picking his words: “And I’ve as much ‘to do with this’ as will guard your god-daughter from the accusations I’ve listened to you making.”

  “They were true!”

  “They were not true, and when you come to your senses you’ll have to admit that scarcely a word you’ve said was justified.”

  She attempted a laugh. “And of course you’d know about that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I do know—and for this reason. Tessa gave no secret encouragement to any affair between Mr. Girling and your daughter because she was deeply in love with Mr. Girling herself and believed until quite recently that he loved her in return.”

  “Oh, no! But how foolish of her! Why, I heard him say once that she was just someone he had found it amusing to go around with—that there was nothing serious between them at all. Why, if I thought there had been, should I have allowed Camille to see him even twice?”

  “Did you have any option?” queried Neil. “And as for the lie that there was nothing between Girling and Tessa, I happen to be in her confidence and I’d prefer to believe her version of an affair from which she emerges with no advantage to herself and with a good deal of pain. You might also care to consider the extent to which Camille herself may have set out to attract your son-in-law away from Tessa.”

  Lady Catterick bridled. “My little Camille wouldn’t do such a thing! Men often choose to make fools of themselves over her, but she has never needed to lay a trap for one of them in her life!”

  “You mean,” came the dry correction, “that she probably doesn’t encourage witnesses. But in face of the possibility that she hasn’t been as innocent a party to this affair as you think, hadn’t you better apologise to Tessa without any reservations at all?”

  Silence. A clock ticked. A single rose-petal fell from the flower piece in the grate. Then Lady Catterick laughed awkwardly and without mirth, said: “Well, really!” and stopped short.

  Neil merely waited. But Tessa could not bear the baulked, cornered look on the older woman’s face. She said quietly: “I don’t need a formal apology, Godmother. I only want you to know that Dr. Callender and I are both speaking the truth, and that I really had no hand in Camille’s elopement at all.”

  Lady Catterick turned to her as if relieved to have an excuse to appear to ignore Neil. She said distantly: “Very well—if you say so.” She laughed again, once more on a high false note, before adding: “I am just thinking how fortunate you are, Tessa my dear, to have gained such a champion in your Dr. Callender here. I mean—usually men do so hate to get involved—”

  Neil cut in: “I am involved only as far as to insist on your apology, Lady Catterick! May I remind you that Tessa hasn’t had it yet?”

  He might not have spoken. Continuing the fiction that he was not even there, she went on to Tessa directly: “But of course one sees how it is with him. In France we should say that it jumps to the eye that he is only too ready to come to your rescue for just one reason!”

  Not warned in time, Tessa asked, “What reason, Godmother?”

  The very glint of triumph in Lady Catterick’s eye was a weapon. “But obviously,” she said smoothly, “because he is in love with you himself!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Momentarily and for the first time Neil’s eyes swerved to Tessa as she protested: “Godmother, please—” But her voice fell away, leaving another chasm of silence to be filled by his brusque: “As the cause of my intervention isn’t under discussion, Lady Catterick, your comments are embarrassing and pointless. The real issue is your false accusation of Tessa, and she is still awaiting you apology for that.”

  Lady Catterick parried: “You don’t deny, I notice, that you are an interested party where she is concerned!”

  “Just as interested,” he agreed, “as any third person in whose hearing slander has been uttered.”

  At that she recoiled. “Slander? I’ve said nothing slanderous!”

  Not looking at her, he quoted: “ ‘Who but you could have encouraged him to think he could blackmail us so? And how do I know you didn’t hope there might be something in it for you?’”

  “But I was beside myself with worry! I didn’t mean—” She swung round to Tessa. “You couldn’t have thought—? Oh, this
is quite, quite absurd!”

  Neil held on inexorably. “Then you do take that and all the rest back?”

  “Oh, yes, I suppose so. But you have no right to pester me so, when neither of you can possibly know what I’m suffering!”

  As she dabbed the scrap of lace to her eyes Neil addressed Tessa directly across her bowed head. “Do you accept that?” he asked. “It’s probably all you can hope to get.”

  “Yes. Yes, it’s all right,’ she murmured.

  “Then I’ll leave you, and I’ll wait for Sir Bartram elsewhere.” When Lady Catterick made no sign he merely nodded to Tessa and strode out of the room.

  Tessa said at last: “I’m so sorry about all this, Godmother. But I don’t think Dr. Callender would have been so insistent of you hadn’t suggested he came to my defence for personal ends of his own. Otherwise I believe he would have been willing to leave it to me to convince you that I was the very last person likely to have been in Rex’s or Camille’s confidence. And as they’re both of age and couldn’t have needed help with their plans, why should they have told anyone?”

  “But my little girl has always brought everything to me!” quavered Lady Catterick. “I can’t believe it’s possible that she would have thrown away her life—literally thrown it away—on that monster, if she hadn’t been wickedly persuaded against her will.”

  “Godmother dear, until you know anything to the contrary, couldn’t you accept that they’ve done it mutually and for their own happiness as they happened to see it? Besides,” Tessa added rather wearily, “Rex Girling isn’t a monster. He’s just a young man with a great deal of charm who—who has always known what he wanted.”

  Lady Catterick eyed her sourly. “That,” she accused, “doesn’t sound as if you were particularly heartbroken when he preferred Camille to you. But I suppose you’ve been able to convince yourself that you had taken his measure before he jilted you. I know a girl needs to salve her pride somehow—But if you’d really found him out, I consider it was no less than two-faced of you to have played for the sympathy of your big friend as you must have done—inviting him to pity you for a plight you weren’t really in. I mean, whether he is in love with you or not, I should be careful he doesn’t despise you a great deal if he ever finds out. For of all things, a man most hates to be made a fool of!”