‘Anything else?’
‘I’ll show you how to take a temperature and pulse accurately,’ he said. He took off his wristwatch and found a thermometer. Then he took her hand and placed her fingers on his pulse. ‘Can you feel it?’
‘Yes.’ Her face was burning. He popped a thermometer under his tongue. And Isobel had to look away from his face and concentrate on the wristwatch because she couldn’t stop her hand from shaking. When she had counted his pulse she let his arm drop and glanced quickly around the room.
When she looked back at him, his eyes were alive with laughter. The long lines at the sides of his mouth were deep and the black hair had fallen forwards so that he looked exactly as he had the first time they met. He pulled the thermometer out of his mouth, read it and said, ‘Ninety-eight point four. Perfect.’ Then Isobel’s eyes flew wide open as he said, ‘Do it again. And this time don’t take your eyes off me.’
Her face flamed but he was smiling. He said, ‘Observation, Isobel! Observe! You were supposed to count my breathing. Twelve to fourteen breaths a minute is within the normal range. Remember?’
She put the thermometer under his tongue, took his watch from him again and held his wrist to feel for his pulse. She watched his face to count his breaths and their eyes met and held. When she had done counting she was shaking.
They walked down the corridors of the Royal Infirmary, back to Magnus’s room, discussing the safe subject of Magnus’s care. Isobel was calmer and Ian had never lost his control, but hers was to flee a few seconds later when she saw, through the glass panel of the door, Mr and Mrs Hammond standing either side of Magnus’s bed.
She stopped, her hand on the door knob, white-faced and faint with dread. If ever she needed a father, a man beside her, it was now. Ian must have seen her reaction for he grabbed her hand and said quietly and firmly, ‘Come on! Get it over with. I’m here.’ She squeezed his hand tight before she opened the door and faced her in-laws.
Mrs Hammond’s face wore a look that told Isobel at once that Magnus had not spoken. ‘What on earth … ? What are you doing here?’
Isobel stood near to the door, stock still. ‘I’m here with my husband.’ She did not flinch. ‘Magnus and I were married yesterday.’
Mr Hammond went pale but did not speak.
‘Don’t talk rubbish!’ Mrs Hammond said sharply then, to Ian, ‘What did you know?’
Ian, close beside Isobel, said, ‘I knew nothing until this morning.’ Then he went to Magnus’s bed and made some adjustments to the transfusion equipment.
At this point Mr Hammond came towards Isobel where she stood like an outcast away from the family group. There was no anger, just sadness, as he said to Mrs Hammond, ‘Well, Catriona? Our son has the gumption to elope with the prettiest …’, but here he stopped.
‘It is not a marriage!’ She was all but shouting. ‘It must be annulled, immediately.’
Magnus beckoned Isobel to his side where she took his hand, summoned all her courage and faced Mrs Hammond. ‘It is very much a marriage.’
Mrs Hammond turned her full wrath on to Magnus’s father. ‘No wonder I find him at death’s door!’
Ian said, ‘Magnus has been bleeding into the bowel for at least three months.’
Mrs Hammond’s eyes narrowed, her hands were tight balls like fists. ‘It cannot be a marriage in the full sense. Magnus has haemorrhages into his hip joints. His left knee is enlarged. There is muscular atrophy. I was told when he was a small boy and there were haemorrhages into the …’
‘Hold your tongue, Mama!’ Magnus shouted from the bed.
Mr Hammond was standing beside her. ‘Calm down, dear!’ He put an arm about her shoulder. ‘You’ll regret anything you say in haste. Let us leave the young ones alone. We can talk about it – make provision for when they come home to us in Macclesfield …’
She would not be hushed. She shook off his arm. ‘How can Magnus support a wife?’ Then she leaned right across Magnus’s body, so that she could get her face as close to Isobel’s as possible. ‘Don’t imagine you will be welcome in my house. You are a grasping, brazen hussy!’
Ian’s voice came loud and burling. ‘You are in a hospital! Magnus must have quiet.’
Isobel was on the point of tears. Magnus pulled his hand out of hers and heaved himself into a sitting position so fast that Ian had to grab the stand and steady it. Magnus brushed aside his mother’s restraining hand and said to her in a voice thick with fury. ‘Hold your tongue, I said! You are speaking to my wife. And my wife is expecting a baby.’
Isobel heard Ian’s in-drawn breath at the same moment that Mrs Hammond burst into a rage of tears and ran from the room, leaving them all shocked and silent.
Mr Hammond came to Magnus’s side. ‘Get better, son,’ he said. He put out his hand to Isobel and she took it. ‘Make allowances for Magnus’s mother. Give us a little time to get used to it. I welcome you into the Hammond family.’ He touched Magnus’s hand again and left the room.
When the door closed Isobel felt sick to the stomach but she heaped Magnus’s pillows to help him to lie back. ‘Come on, darling. Don’t upset yourself. Your mama will be back, full of apologies at evening visiting.’
‘She’d better not be.’ He leaned back against the pillows, happy as a sandboy. ‘I feel like a man. For the first time in my life.’
After the high passions of Mrs Hammond and Magnus it was a relief to Isobel to hear Rowena’s voice, forthright and uncomplicated, shouting down the phone. ‘I’m Dad’s dispenser. I work two days a week at a children’s clinic.’ Her laugh came bouncing down the line. ‘We want you to come here, to Charlotte Square. When I’m off duty we’ll have splendid fun. Do you still want to walk on the Pentlands? In your condition? Oh! Was that tactless of me?’
Isobel thrilled to hear her. ‘Sure I’m not putting you to trouble?’
‘Good heavens, no! Can’t wait to have female company. I said to Ian when he was so cut up about Magnus grabbing you for himself …’
Isobel’s heart came thundering up into her throat. ‘I said, “You should have swept her off her feet when she was sixteen – told her you wanted to marry her. Magnus has always been dotty about her. Magnus was on the spot. She needs a man to depend on. Too much of a gentleman, that’s your trouble!”’ There was a dreadful little silence, then, ‘Shouldn‘t have said that, probably! Are you still there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anyway, I said to Ian, “I’m going to make the most of having her as a – what are we? Cousins-in-law?”’ Again the hearty laugh.
Isobel couldn’t talk about Ian. The familiar breathlessness was upon her as she asked, ‘Was your father shocked about the baby?’
‘It happens all the time,’ Rowena said. ‘Even in the West End of Edinburgh.’
Did Mrs Hammond simmer down? She was very angry.’
‘Auntie Catty? She hates being called that – she was livid at first. But by the time Dad and Uncle John had talked to her and assured her that Magnus isn’t the first young man to get a girl into trouble … Sorry, Isobel! Anyway she calmed and finally said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we have a Hammond grandson? Sylvia’s will be Chancellors. They’ll have bright-red hair!”’
Isobel sat down before her knees gave way. She hadn’t thought that the baby might look like Ray Chancellor. In six months’ time, the world – or everyone in their little world – might see at once who had fathered the child. The truth would be out in the open if she bore a red-headed baby.
She heard herself saying to Rowena, ‘Keep the news until tomorrow or we’ll have nothing to talk about.’ Then she shivered as the full weight of this deception came home to her. Every move she had made to put matters right had only made them worse.
Magnus had been in hospital for a month but today they were going home. His father had reserved a compartment on the train for them.
Isobel said goodbye to Rowena and Dr Mackenzie after breakfast, then rushed upstairs before she cried. She hated
saying goodbye and soon she’d have to say it again, to Ian who was going to collect Magnus from hospital and see them on to the train.
She was tearful as she fastened the big suitcases and pushed them out on to the landing to be taken downstairs. She was confident about nursing Magnus, but he couldn’t walk more than a few paces and she was worried in case he fell and injured himself. She made running repairs to her eye-black and lipstick. The eye-black was streaked and she licked her finger and ran it under the lower lid thinking that she must have resembled a clown, tearful and ridiculous all through breakfast when the tears had started.
Isobel cried at everything. Rowena said it was her condition. Rowena could always tell, she said, when women were expecting because they spent half their time weeping about how happy they were. If Rowena was right, then tearfulness and a three-pound increase in weight were the only signs of her condition, though she was three months into her pregnancy.
Ian knocked on the door. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Come in.’ Her heart leaped at his nearness, so full of life and health. She had not admitted to herself that she did not want to leave Edinburgh and Ian, who seemed to her to be a giant in every way. He had wit and intelligence and, like her, enjoyed the simple pleasures of music and walking. She would miss the serious after-dinner talks around the table and the musical evening hours when he was home and they played duets on the grand piano in the drawing room. Her eyes filled with tears again.
‘You are very smart,’ he said.
She was wearing a grey dress with a white puritan collar and a navy-blue linen coat. She blinked back her tears. ‘Thank you. So do you. I haven’t seen you in tweeds since …’ She stopped and went pink with embarrassment.
‘Since I told you that you were the girl for me?’ he said, but there was nothing in his manner to show that he was disturbed by her leaving Edinburgh or the hours they had spent together yesterday.
Isobel picked up her handbag and fastened her coat. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go for Magnus. I’ll travel in the ambulance with him. You can meet us at the station.’
By eleven o’clock they were waiting in the bustling crowd on the platform at Waverley Station, Ian, Magnus and she. Magnus was in a wheelchair, which Ian had hold of, and Ian was saying, ‘In another month you’ll be on your feet, Magnus. Don’t rush things. You are bound to be weak when the leg muscles haven’t been used.’
Magnus was not cheered. He grabbed Isobel’s hand. ‘Don’t make a fuss. When I’m in the compartment, take the thing to the guard’s van. I don’t want everyone staring at me.’ The train pulled in and the crowd moved. A porter darted forward to help them, then, when Magnus was seated, he said, ‘When you get to Manchester the guard will have the chair waiting for you.’ He spoke to Isobel as if Magnus were incapable of understanding. ‘The attendant will pop along, ma’am, in case your man wants help to go to the …’
‘Impertinence!’ Magnus shouted at the retreating guard. ‘Pop along, indeed! I’ll send for him if I want him!’ His face was scarlet.
Isobel scrambled over the bags to his side. ‘He meant well. Don’t get into a paddy.’
Ian, behind her, was lifting their hand bags on to the high rope luggage rack. He said, ‘I’ve put some books up here for you. Cook has made a picnic box up, in case you are hungry between meals.’ He said to Isobel, ‘Got everything you need? I have to get off the train.’ He shook Magnus’s hand. ‘Settle down. Have a sleep. You were up at five.’
Isobel went to see Ian off, stepping on to the platform behind him, her heart beating hard. Tears welled up again and she explained weakly, ‘My last breath of Edinburgh air! Don’t mind me. I’m horribly tearful.’
He glanced down into her upturned face and love flared quickly as their eyes met and held. Then he took both of her hands in his own, pulled her close and planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘Goodbye.’
She whispered, ‘Will I see you? Will you come to Macclesfield at Christmas or New Year?’
‘No. I won’t see you again.’ Quickly, he let go of her hands. ‘I’m not made of stone, Isobel.’ He went, striding through the crowd. She watched through tear-misted eyes until she lost sight of him.
Magnus was sleeping when she went back into the compartment. She tucked the travel rug round his legs, pulled the blinds on the corridor side and closed the door. Then she sat, staring out over the undulating land of the Lothians until she closed her eyes and the magic of yesterday came back to her in all its wonder.
Yesterday, when she was at Magnus’s bedside in the morning, Ian had popped into the ward to say, ‘I have the afternoon off. It’s your last day so I’m taking you and Rowena out for lunch.’
Half an hour later she left the hospital, holding on to her hat in the high wind under a piercing blue sky. Ian was there, waiting in Lauriston Place at the wheel of his Morris Special coupe, which had cream bodywork with black mudguards, roof and running boards. The engine was running and he sounded the horn to attract her attention, thinking that she hadn’t seen him.
He came round and held open the passenger door for her, and as soon as she was in said, ‘We’re on our own. Rowena won’t come.’
Isobel settled herself and watched him walk in front of the car to the driver’s side. Admiration and love for him came tightening into her as he grinned at her through the windscreen. He was so handsome and assured. There was no vanity or sham in him. And she loved him.
‘Comfortable?’ he asked as he pulled the car away from the kerb.
‘Yes.’ she said. ‘Why won’t Rowena come with us? It’s my last day. I would have thought she’d have wanted to.’
‘Rowena is having a black, silent mood today. Because you’re leaving.’
‘Where are we going?’ She tried to put from her mind the realisation that today could be the last time they would ever be alone together. They were out of the main traffic, on George IV Bridge, heading for the Mound and Princes Street, and she wanted to fix all this in her memory, the buildings, the view as they crossed the Royal Mile.
‘I’m taking you to the Maybury Roadhouse.’ He glanced quickly at her. ‘A new place. Built for motorists. Art deco and modern style. Tinted mirrors, Bakelite, everything.’ He laughed and said, ‘What do you want to do this afternoon?’
‘I don’t mind. Anything.’ Being with him was sheer happiness.
‘Rightio. After lunch I’ll take you on a little boat trip. South Queensferry to North Queensferry in Fife. Does that appeal?’
Anything he suggested would appeal to her. She sat on the edge of her seat, watching the other motor cars and looking at the big houses on the road that went through Corstorphine to Glasgow. All too soon they were there at the Maybury and parking the car and being windblown as they ran to the entrance.
They were shown to a table by the window in a lovely big restaurant where tables were widely spaced. Isobel was glad of that. She didn’t want others listening to their talk. A young musician played at the white grand piano on a raised platform near their table.
‘When do you finish your residency?’ Isobel asked when the waiter had brought the menu.
‘Nineteen thirty-eight. Next year. We’ll have the set lunch, shall we? Can you eat five courses?’
‘I’m starving.’ Isobel smiled happily back at him while he ordered. ‘What will you do when you’re qualified?’ she asked when they had been served with the cock-a-leekie soup.
His face suddenly became serious. His black brows nearly met in a frown. ‘I’ll go into the Royal Navy. I’m going to join the Volunteer Reserves. War is coming.’
She couldn’t bear his being in danger. ‘They’ll need doctors here.’
‘I’ll be called up anyway if war comes. The RNVR will go in at the start. I’ll be in the service I want.’
The pianist was playing a song that they had danced to in Southport, ‘Long Ago and Far Away’. Isobel felt the colour rising into her face. She tried to ignore the piano but the words were running through her mi
nd, ‘… I dreamed a dream one day …’ She said, ‘What about your dreams for your future? You said you were interested in genetics.’
‘My dreams are broken.’ He put his spoon down and said quietly, ‘I dreamed of specialising. And I dreamed of marrying when I was twenty-four.’ His steady blue eyes had no guile in them. ‘I thought we shared the same dream. Marrying. Having a big family.’
Isobel felt as if she’d been punched. She had not expected this. But she didn’t want to go away from him forever, with his thinking she had broken a promise. So though her face was burning she looked straight back at him and said, in a level voice, ‘You didn’t tell me.’
His eyes were steady and true and they fastened on to hers until a trembling started in her neck and shuddered down her spine. He said, ‘I didn’t think you needed it spelling out. That day we spent in the hills, I fell in love and I asked you to wait for me. You said you loved me. I never considered any other girl after that.’
Her face was flaming but the waiters were back and she could not answer. When they had gone he said, ‘I was going to propose on your eighteenth birthday. And marry you a year later.’
She could not say a word in reply. How could she tell him that if only he had not waited – if only he had repeated his proposal, told her again and again that he loved her and was waiting for her she might not now be dreading the moment she had to say goodbye.
He gave her a tender look and said softly, ‘You’re eighteen. And here you are, expecting a baby. I should be congratulating not reproaching you. I’m sorry.’
She looked down, praying for him not to question her in case she was tempted to tell him the truth. The child was more important than her feelings. She couldn’t bear for her child ever to have to ask itself, as she had so often done, how many others knew the truth. She fell silent for a few minutes, concentrating on the food, not looking at Ian, not listening to the piano. Then Ian said, ‘It’s the ideal age for everything. Eighteen.’
A Daughter's Shame Page 42
