There Were Three Princes

by Joyce Dingwell

  "And they are?"

  "Good. Almost miraculously so. It's remarkable how the tide has changed. He's fighting back now. Probably he'll have some tricky moments, and I have no doubt he will be a bad patient, but the thing is he will be a patient, Verity. He will be, my dear."

  They walked along the corridor together. She asked Matthew about Cassandra, and listened, though abstractedly, to him telling her, enthusing over the newly decorated flat above the surgery, charming if not at all the grand first home he had wanted for his wife, but how Cassie adored it, how she insisted on being his receptionist-nurse, how he saw now he had been wasting his days before he married Cassandra.

  "All the Princes waste their lives."

  "What, Verity ?"

  "I'm sorry, Matthew, I was thinking of something else."

  — Thinking of everything else, she could have added, than what I want to think about. "The tide has changed," Matthew had just said. "He'll be a bad patient, but the thing is he'll be a patient."

  Without exactly awarding it, she was aware that he had been giving her the credit. But what did I do? she wondered dazedly. What did I say?

  I want to remember . . . I must remember . . . but I still can't remember what I said to Bart.

  Verity, at Priscilla's and Peter's urging, went back to Woman's Castle. She found she was glad to do so; at least the work helped fill in some of the dragging time.

  She did not let herself think of the future, and she could not think of the past. It was too unhappy a past.

  Bart was still in intensive care, Matthew had told Peter, and Peter had passed on to her. No visitors. No communications. Just day-by-day watchfulness. After the first tricky weeks, things should pick up.

  Those weeks seemed years to Verity. When they were up, she thought, and I know, know for sure he's going to be all right, I'll step quietly out of the scene. But I'll leave an address this time, not mark it by anonymity. At least an address will be playing fair. Playing fair? She gave a little wry laugh. All's fair, she recalled, in love and war. Only as far as she and Bart had been concerned, it had been all war.

  Yes, she would have to go, she continually told herself. What Priscilla said that day about Bart . . . and about me, could

  have been only Priscilla's imagination. It must have been her imagination, for certainly Bart had never given any sign. A girl in love, as Priscilla is, Verity shrugged, naturally would imagine love in everyone. She gave a resigned little smile.

  Thinking of Priscilla brought up the subject of Adele. Had the girl also imagined something there as well? It wasn't like the efficient Prince secretary to make a mistake, but in her pink cloud nine that she lived these days. It could happen.

  As though in answer to this, Adele turned up one afternoon. She was perfectly chic and very lovely, and no doubt well aware of this.

  But she was a different Adele, though it took some time for Verity to believe it. Adele waited while Verity attended a customer, then she came straight to the point.

  "I know you adored Robbie, Verity, and I was quite fond of him, too, in a way, so I feel I must tell you this myself, not let you hear it from someone else, and . . . well, be hurt."

  For a moment Verity's heart pained her so much she felt she could not bear it. Could it be — No, Priscilla had said ... Then Peter and Matthew had not reported . . . Besides, Bart was still not to be communicated with, so he could not have sent for Adele, have agreed with her that they —

  She was not aware that in her agitation she had said Bart's name until Adele came in with a low laugh : "Oh, you're wrong to the ends of the earth there, my dear."

  "But you — well, you —"

  "Oh, yes, I know I let you gather that impression, it's this streak in me, I guess. I didn't have a very good time. I told you once."

  "Unrewarding was your word."

  "Yes, Karl was anything but rewarding." Another laugh, rueful this time.

  "Karl?"

  "The man I always loved but didn't get around to marry . . . at least he didn't get around to marrying me. I wasted my best years on that fraud." A fond pout.

  "I always thought you meant —"

  "Yes, and I intended you to. I'm one of those mean people who have to distribute pain in the idea that it helps them with their own pain. I could never bear anyone else's happiness."

  "Then Bart was never in it?"

  "Only to the extent of a helping hand. That's always been Bart Prince. Incidentally, you can tell him from me that I now know the truth . . . it doesn't matter how . . . the truth that there's no Ramsay money, and that he came forward instead." A pause. "That's love if you like."

  "For you?"

  Adele stared incredulously at Verity for a long moment. "Oh, you little fool," she said at last. She waited a while, then went on. "You can tell him, too, I won't need any more handouts on your behalf. You see, Karl . . ." She glanced significantly down at her hand, and Verity saw that Robbie's wedding ring had been removed . . . poor Robbie . . . and that another ring, a very showy diamond, now glittered there instead.

  "Karl," affirmed Adele proudly. "Sometimes it's like that. Some people take a long time to come good. Karl did. And because he has, I have, too, Verity."

  She was quiet for a while.

  "I know what you're feeling about me, and I don't blame you, but believe me, if Robbie had to die, as he did, I made him happier than he would have been had I not come into his life. Can you at least think of it like that?"

  "I'll try, Adele."

  "Also, if I had been Robbie and if Robbie stood where I stand now, he would be doing what I'll be doing . . . marrying again. You see" ... a reminding little smile ... "we were one of a kind."

  "But something else has come into my way of looking at things. It's being really happy for the very first time, I expect . .. for I want to clear things up before I go off."

  "With Karl?"

  "Yes." A shrug. "He has a bit of clearing up to do himself. But I want you to know, and to tell Bart, that I won't ever be asking for another handout. Anyway" . . . proudly . . . "Karl has more than enough for both of us. He's certainly got himself up in the world in those years between." A smile now for Karl's success.

  "Also, I want you to understand that there was nothing ever between us, between Bart and me. I looked all the Princes over years ago, having heard of their possibilities, and having managed a contact, but saw that as far as they were concerned that that was all they would ever do to me, look me over, then let it stop at that, so I concentrated instead on the soft touch of the family. Bart, of course. You'll have to watch your man with that soft heart of his."

  "Bart soft?" Verity exclaimed.

  "None softer."

  "My man !"

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, girl ! Anyway, that's what I wanted to say. Also" ... a careful pause ... "so sorry. If you can ever find it in you to forgive —"

  "Of course I can, Adele."

  "And forgive for Robbie, too?"

  "I think," said Verity slowly, "perhaps I should thank you for Robbie."

  "Do you know what," Adele said eagerly, "that's the nicest thing you could have said."

  Then she did what she had never done before, she came and kissed Verity.

  Verity, watching her go, found that she was liking her more than she ever would have thought possible . . . that she was waving her good luck.

  Bart was out of intensive care now, and certain selected restricted visitors were being permitted. Peter and Priscilla had gone on several occasions. Cassandra. Mrs. Prince was flying back from Canada and would be seeing her son next week. Grete had rung from Tetaparilly to say she was coming down to see her antiques man. — "For the first time," Priscilla had smilingly reported Grete confiding over the long distance, "I won't be concerned about mahogany or oak."

  Priscilla also told Verity that Grete Dahiquist had told her that a Mr. Chris Boliver would be calling at the Castle. "Chris," Verity nodded.

  Priscilla and Peter were again hospital-visit
ing the day that Chris came to the shop, but then they went every afternoon now. Verity never attended, nor had she been asked to. She knew they were all waiting for her to follow up that "Mrs. Prince" of hers, that "wife to Bart", that until she did, they were too sensitive ... for her . . . to broach the subject, to tell her to come. But how could she unless Bart broached it first?

  When Chris came in she was so pleased to see him, she fairly raced across.

  "Hi, what's this?" he laughed. "Not changed your mind?" "No, Chris. Changed yours ?"

  He shook his head. "I'm going back to America, Verity. What you said to me that night on the Outcrop put everything right for me again. I can go home, face up."

  "I'm sorry you're leaving, Chris dear, yet I'm glad at the same time for you. For home is home always." She was

  thoughtful a moment. "What about your cotton?"

  "I've handed it as it is to Big Gunnar and Grete for their boys. My boys, too — I'll never have any family, Verity, so they can be my sons. Until young Gunnar and Ulf are old enough to handle the cotton, it can pay for their education at some good boarding school. Because" . . . a smile down at Verity . . . "I don't think you'll be back there, and those two imps have to learn something more than —"

  "Howareyoumate. But, Chris, I could be going back." "I'll never believe that, my dear."

  He left soon after. He had a plane to catch.

  "A plane," he said finally and happily, "to Elvie."

  . . . Again Verity found herself waving someone good luck.

  There was to be a third.

  Matthew told her so the next day. Not actually a waving of luck, perhaps, but if possible a prod along the path to wellbeing. To achieve this for Bart . . . Bart, of course, it was, Matthew nodded . . . the doctor asked Verity to go with Peter and Priscilla on their next hospital visit.

  "Remember how I said Bart would be a bad patient but that he would be a patient? Well, both have come true."

  "Bart is a bad one ?"

  "A disappointing, even dismaying one. In short he's not progressing as he should. You did the trick last time, V, so do it again."

  "Nonsense, Matthew, it was your medical know-how that achieved that. However" . . . at a shake of Matthew's head .. . "being capable of performing miracles is rather a flattering thought."

  "It still wasn't medicine," Matthew persisted stubbornly. "It was you. You know" . . . quizzically . . . "you've still never said whether you were speaking the truth when you got yourself in as you did to see old Bart, and I'm still not asking you,

  but I am asking you .. .appealing to you ... to see him again."

  "I can't," Verity refused. "Any move now must come from him."

  "Lying prone in hospital? Unable to move? Don't be unfair, girl. Oh, no, V, it must come once again from you."

  "But why? Why, Matthew? He is doing well. You have said so."

  "But not sufficiently well. Oh, he'll recover all right, we have no fears about that, but to what degree of recovery? Verity, you did something before, so repeat the trick."

  "I don't know what I did," Verity honestly replied, for she still could not remember that day clearly, it was still a daze.

  But she did eventually agree to visit Bart with Priscilla and Peter.

  CHAPTER XIII

  VERITY'S heart was beating almost to suffocation as she followed Peter and Priscilla down the corridor to the room where Bart was now established . . . and would remain for many months . . . the next week-end. Stubbornly, she had refused to go until then, making her excuse an unattended shop, knowing inwardly she had to have a breathing space, a time to prepare.

  "Not unattended. We'll close it," they had chorused.

  "Quite unnecessary when we're so close to Saturday."

  "You're a funny one, Verity."

  No, Verity could have said, just an uncertain one, uncertain of what's going to happen there.

  She kept well behind the pair; she did not know whether Bart had been told to expect her, and for quite a while she could not bring herself to glance up to read his reaction. By then, his surprise, if any, was over. He simply sat up, propped with pillows, looking fairly fit, if too pale and too thin.

  "Once the initial awful impact of me is over, you become quite used to the sight," he tossed carelessly to Verity. That was his only greeting to her. — So Bart had regained his old astringent self.

  They all talked together, Verity offering nothing to the conversation . . . until suddenly she realized that Peter and Priscilla had slipped out. That only she stood there.

  "So you're back at the Castle ?" Bart at length broke the awkward silence that had descended.

  "Yes. That is until Peter and Priscilla ... until they . ."

  "They'll probably need you even more then — keep in mind my dear parent's strong grand-maternal urge," he laughed shortly.

  "I don't know if I'd stay," she told him.

  "Back to Tetaparilly ?"

  "No."

  "Then" . . . with a show of impatience ... "the adjoining cotton field, seeing you like to be explicit."

  "No. How could I when —"

  "Yes ?" he asked sharply.

  "I couldn't," was all she returned.

  There was another silence. Verity broke it with: "I never dreamed at any time it was — Peter and Priscilla."

  "But I told you all along that Peter was accounted for." "Perhaps . . . but I still thought, at first, anyway, it was Prissie — and you."

  He shrugged. "Probably my mother started the idea."

  "And the glances you used to give Priscilla helped the idea along." Verity was not looking at him. "Bart" . . . she said sensitively . . . "I just want you to know that I've learned all about it . . . I just want to say I'm sorry for what you must have gone through that time . . . how you must have felt."

  A look of remembered pain flicked across his face, but he managed a shrug. "I expect to a doctor, though I wasn't up to that I admit, a first death is always something that's never forgotten . . . especially when it's a child."

  Another silence.

  Verity broke it determinedly; she felt she could not bear these pauses.

  "Matthew says this first indicative operation has been completely successful, that it augurs well for any that will follow."

  "Yes," said Bart, but carelessly, almost indifferently, "I, too, have been told that."

  "Then afterwards," followed up Verity flippantly, for suddenly she was afraid of seriousness, "you'll be able to reach your heart's desire. If your brother Peter was here now he'd say 'That's a pretty speech.' " Her laugh was insincere.

  She saw that he was not listening to anything Peter might say . . . only listening to what she had said.

  "My heart's desire was never that," he corrected her. "Besides" . . . aimlessly . . . "I don't know if I want medicine now."

  "But Peter wants the Castle."

  "And will undoubtedly make a much better go of it than I did."

  "I wouldn't agree." Her defence was spontaneous. "Look at your lamp collection."

  "And why should I look? Not one of those lamps ever shed any light for me."

  "Light ?"

  "Lit up one moment of truth." He was quiet a moment, but, and she saw it and repressed a little shiver, quite angrily, almost furiously so.

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, Verity," he burst out at last, "let's stop patting balls at each other."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Truth is your name, isn't it? Then why can't you deal with that commodity, practise it just this once?"

  "What do you mean?" she asked again.

  "Why did you cancel out? Oh, I know you have a talent for cancelling — first Peter, then Matt, Chris Boliver after me. But why . . . why did you leave like that? Five words on a sheet of paper. Why ?"

  She did not speak.

  "I hadn't hurried you. I wasn't going to hurry you. Yet you —"

  "Yet I went," she nodded bleakly. "It was wrong of me. It was even abominable. I'm sorry — but I said all that b
efore."

  "You said it, but I didn't accept it. I don't accept it now. Why? Why did you do such a rotten thing?"

  . Because I rang Adele and heard your voice, she thought : if you had told me before it could have been different...

  Aloud she said : "Because even though you had paid for me it didn't mean —"

  "Stop it ! " he came in.

  "Well, you wanted to know."

  "Stop it !"

  After a while he spoke again. "Yes, I did pay for you, but I would still have waited until you had forgotten the money that came into it and only remembered the . .." His voice trailed off. He did not return to that theme. "When I found you'd left, I put it down to Robin," he told her. "I knew how close you two had been."

  "It wasn't Robin."

  "I could see that very clearly as you came back down that track that morning with Boliver. You had run away to find something, something that I could never give you, mean to you. You found it in Chris. That was obvious in your two faces. Well — fair enough. As you said, I had bought you, so I couldn't expect from you the same as I had to give."

  He had to give? Bart? But Bart had never had anything to give but money. Oh, Priscilla had had her ideas, but Cilla —

  "I should have stopped the caper earlier," he said it a little wearily. "Oh, yes, I could have, I knew where you had gone —heaven knows it was simple enough, you never even destroyed that newspaper ad. It was sheer luck, though, that I happened to be previously friendly with the Dahlquists, sheer luck that it was them whom you contacted. — Sheer luck, too, I dare to suggest ... for you ... that Boliver lived so handy, and that he turned out so unmistakably decent and presentable. Otherwise I might have —"

  "Might have what, Bart?"

  He shrugged. "Thought out a different ending for you instead."

  "There is no ending," she told him. She added bleakly, "Not yet."

  "That I can well believe, for if nothing else you would be a very circumspect little girl. You would never, for instance, take on Boliver while still ... on record only, of course ... a wedded woman."

  "I never took on Chris, as you put it."

  "And you never," he reminded her thinly, "became that wedded woman. And because of that, have no fear for a happy ending in a very gratifying time. There's a special clause for instances like ours."