Return to Night (7 page)

Sincerely yours
,
ELAINE FLEMING
.

Hilary sat back, squatting on her heels, staring at the elegance which only its perfect design redeemed from ostentation. She was shocked by her own feelings of sinking embarrassment and outrage. Flowers, a book, some pleasant trifle for her room, anything like this she would have welcomed as a peace offering and in relief. But this—it was horrible. There must, she thought helplessly, be some way of returning it without the appearance of studied insult. She recalled the stamped initials; the writing-case inside the lid, she saw, carried them too.

The letter was still in her hand. She looked at the date. It had lain here, unacknowledged, for eleven days.

A light leisured step was crossing the landing. Hilary swung round on her heels.

“Do come in here a moment. I don’t know what to do.”

Lisa Clare came in. She looked down at the case, and lifted her eyebrows in cool humorous admiration.

“Good heavens. Is it yours?”

“Not if I can help it. It’s stamped all over with my initials,” said Hilary desperately. “What does one do?”

Stroking appreciatively a cream enamel powder jar, Lisa said, “Why worry? He must have known he was taking a gamble on it. Leave it till tomorrow, and do whatever you feel.”

“I wish it were so simple,” said Hilary lightly. As she spoke, she wondered why Lisa’s use of the masculine pronoun had made her feel so raw. He was little more than a boy, he was probably still away somewhere convalescing; what more natural than that his mother should write? “It’s from a—grateful patient,” she said.

“Oh. Do you dislike her as much as that?”

“I was trying, till this came, not to dislike her as much as I know she dislikes me.”

Lisa considered briefly; then said, in her placid voice, “Well, I dare say it means a lot to her to take her pride out of pawn at the expense of yours. And after all, unless she’s an exceptional woman, you can probably afford it better.”

Hilary wrote her letter of thanks next day. It must contain, she decided when she reread it, the highest concentration of bromides ever compressed into two sides of note paper. She posted it with the sense of riddance people feel on dropping something unsavory into the fire.

Summer ran out; the early sunlight began to be tinged with smoky scents of chrysanthemums and bonfires and faint frost on rotten leaves; tea was by twilight eked out with the fire.

At the Cottage Hospital, Hilary was invited into the kitchen to give the Christmas puddings a stir. She interpreted this, rightly, as a sign of grace.

“I wish we could keep Christine and Betty,” the Matron said regretfully. “If we only had the beds,
they
wouldn’t complain, poor little things. But I’ve promised they shall come up for the Christmas tree. Between you and me, I think it’s going to be rather special this year. Mrs. Fleming’s promised to give it, and anything
she
does will be done very nicely, you can be sure.”

“Oh, really?” After this lapse of time, the name brought only a vague discomfort in the nerves. “I’m glad she’s been taking an interest.”

“She’s been a real asset to us this summer, I must say. Nearly every week something or other’s come down. Remind me to show you the little woolies she knitted for the babies. …” Hilary listened with an amusement which was only very slightly acid; here too, it seemed, time had brought healing. The Matron was continuing, “Yes, I really must say, they both—”

“Oh, Matron, could I
speak
to you for a moment?”

“Very well, Sister, though really, if I can’t be out of the way for five minutes—You won’t go away without your cup of coffee, will you, doctor? Just make yourself comfortable in my room; I shan’t be long.”

Hilary went out through the flagged kitchen passage and opened the green baize door into the hall. Round the corner, from the stairs, came the chirruping laughter of Christine and Betty, who were well enough now to have the run of the place. She paused to listen.

“No, not that one. No, that’s a silly one. Do the monkey face.”

A pause, followed by squeals of ecstatic mirth.

“Again. Again. Do it again.”

Hilary walked round the corner.

Squatting on the last few steps of the staircase, in a doubled-up simian crouch, was a man whose face it was at first difficult to see, since it was partly obscured by his knees. He was scratching his armpit, reproducing vividly a monkey’s sporadic but earnest concentration. When he moved, she glimpsed a prognathous-looking jaw and a hideously grimacing mouth beneath a mournful stare. Christine, hopping on one leg with delight, was handing him an imaginary morsel. He snatched at it, and went through motions of peeling a banana so lifelike that she could almost see the skin when he threw it away.

“Go on. Go on. Now crack a nut.”

“Half a minute,” said the man, unfolding himself. “I think someone’s looking for you two.”

He got up. His face, after a few minor adjustments, had resolved itself into one at which she stared with unbelieving recognition. It had been like a trick done with mirrors.

Her first feeling was regret. He had seen her, they would have to converse, one had better prepare for the worst immediately. She could only remember having met two men with a fraction of his looks, and both had been, in different ways, insufferable. She smiled, and waited resignedly.

He scrambled to his feet, wriggling his disarranged clothes back into place. As he did so, he grinned at her over the heads of the children, guiltily but hopefully.

“It was my fault,” he said, “entirely. I fetched them down.” Reaching out for Christine and Betty, he collected them, amid squeaks of protest, by the scruffs of their frocks. He handled them, not amusingly or indulgently like a grown-up person, but with the heavy-handed kindness of a bigger boy.

“It’s all right,” said Hilary. “I expect it’s given the nurses a rest. How are you getting on yourself?”

The children had been jerking at their collars like little dogs; now they recovered their freedom so suddenly that they had to run to keep from falling.

“Forgive me,” he said slowly, “if I’m making a mistake. But I think we know each other, don’t we?”

He was staring at her in an intense, puzzled concentration; not as men stare, with an eye to the reaction of the object, but with that self-forgetfulness which rarely survives childhood: in fact, self-consciousness shortly overtook him and made him look down, none too soon for Hilary, who had found it rather unnerving. He was a tall, strongly made young man—taller, probably, than he looked, his perfect proportions made it unnoticeable—and his physical carriage had a kind of inbred assurance which seemed separate from the uncertainty in his face. He looked up again.

“Do you,” he asked anxiously, “remember me at all?”

“Yes, of course.” She pulled herself together in time to smile. “But I’m rather surprised if you remember me. You weren’t very wide awake while I was there.”

He said, with the same slow concentration, “I knew your voice. As soon as you spoke, I knew who it was. But I’ve been here so often, and never seen you. They told me one of the nurses had left since I was there, and I thought it must be you.”

“I only call in now and again. I’m not a nurse, I’m a doctor.”

“Good Lord, a doctor. Whyever didn’t I think of that?” He stared at her all over again; it would have been almost a relief to her, by now, if he had started to say the conventional things. Instead he added, as if an apology were the first imperative, “You see, till after the operation there’s almost nothing I remember.”

“That’s quite usual. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“But, of course, I remembered you.”

Hilary was interested. She must, she thought, have stirred up by association some memory of the accident, submerged till now. Such resurrections were apt to be painful. She said, reassuringly, “Bits of things may come back to you; or perhaps nothing will. It’s quite normal to forget, it means nothing either way.”

He did not answer. The look he gave her—a compound of disappointment, diligence, and the hesitation of one who does not like to own that he has missed the point—seemed so little related to the situation that she asked herself for a moment whether he had made a complete recovery after all. But he seemed quite well coordinated and alert. Presently he said, “Yes, I see,” in the tone which means that one wishes one did; and came, suddenly and evidently, to the end of his resources. She became rather desperate for conversation herself. Since he was not her patient, a fact which had been heavily underlined, she could not ask him details about his symptoms; yet one would have said he was waiting for her to make some move or. other.

“Well,” she said, “Matron’s expecting me to coffee; I should be getting along.”

“Oh. But must you?” His face was positively dismayed. “I’ve hardly seen you yet.”

“Come and have some too; I’m sure she’d be delighted.”

“She wouldn’t; she’s death on visitors in the morning. I’m only supposed to be leaving a parcel.” He seemed suddenly to have shaken himself together. “Isn’t there somewhere we can talk for a minute without being chucked out? Me, I mean, of course, not you.” He smiled, anxiously watching her face for sign of offense. She had never seen, in man or woman, such an exterior treated with such utter lack of exploitation by the personality within. It was almost uncanny. Curiosity, as much as anything, made her say, “If you like we’ll take a turn round the garden. But I mustn’t be long.”

“Oh, fine.” They went out through the pointed stone archway, and into the drive between the laurels. The sky was coolly blue and clear, and rooks were cawing in a clump of elms net far away. A little moss-grown path branched off from the side of the drive. He took her elbow, and steered her into it.

They came out into a little derelict box garden, once squared and formal, now run wild. Marigolds had sown themselves in the unclipped walks; there was a gardener’s shed in one corner, against a hedge of arbutus; an old roller stood outside.

“What a gorgeously forlorn place,” he said. His voice was as attractive as the rest of his physical attributes, but when he pronounced the word “forlorn” she noticed something else about it, a lack of the carelessness with which he treated the rest. It had a quality which suggested training, only a faint suggestion of the kind which remains when a skill has been absorbed and mostly forgotten.

“Let’s sit down here.” He pulled off his coat and tossed it over the top of the roller. “That’s to save your nice white coattails. I’ll sit on this.” A piece of dirty-looking board lay on the ground close by. He curled himself up on it, loosely, like a boy.

“Really I don’t think I’ve got time to sit. Matron doesn’t like being kept waiting.”

“You can tell her I was consulting you.”

“I certainly can’t.” It slipped out before she thought.

“Oh, but I am. I can’t get over not having thought you might be a doctor.”

It was not till this moment that her suspicions crystallized into certainty. When he had failed so oddly to say the conventional things, she had wondered for a moment and at once been ashamed of herself. Now she knew, as if she had seen it written and signed; about her part in his recovery, as far as it had been decisive, he had been told nothing at all. She thought of the dressing-case, the covering note. The shock of disgust she felt was so strong that it was impersonal; her whole conception of humanity slipped downward with a jar. She was recalled to herself by hearing his voice saying, “Don’t hover so distrustfully. There’s nothing to stop you from getting up again.”

“This thing’s covered in rust. Your coat will be ruined.”

“It’s dry, it’ll brush off. How women do fuss.” The word “women,” as he spoke it, was totally devoid of masculine provocation; it suggested, irresistibly, aunts, school matrons, and nagging devoted maids. She sat down, mechanically, her mind still concerned with its discovery. It was not for a moment that she thought,
Then what does he want with me, after all.

A sharp consciousness of being stared at made her look down. He was gazing up at her with the same curious, strained expectancy that she had noticed before in the hall.

What
is
he waiting for?
she thought irritably. And choosing the first triviality that came into her head, she said, “I’ve been away part of the summer; that will be why we haven’t met. I went to Sweden.”

“Oh, really? Are there any good caves there?”

“I’ve no idea,” she said blankly.

“You don’t go in for them at all?” There was a kind of defeated hope in his voice.

She said, “I’m afraid not,” thinking,
I wonder whether he would strike one so oddly if he looked more average.

“Don’t mind”—he looked, for the first time, a little embarrassed—“if I seem to ask you some rather stupid things. The fact is, when you were with me, I couldn’t see properly, but I seemed to be seeing, and it’s given me some rather confused ideas. I really should think before I start talking rubbish.”

She regretted her unhelpfulness instantly. It was rare for patients to retain such memories after so long, or, indeed, at all. Moreover, Sanderson was preparing a paper on traumatic hallucinations, and this was one of his own cases. If she could learn anything to the purpose, she ought certainly to send it in.

“It isn’t stupid,” she said. “It interests me very much. I’d like you to tell me about it.”

“Would you?” he said; and looked straight up into her face. Perhaps it was only his seriousness, and iris thick black lashes, which gave him an air of unhappiness and doubt. His eyes, reflecting the clear sky, looked startlingly blue when she had supposed them to be gray. It was all a little disconcerting. Abruptly he lowered them, and shifted his hands, which he had locked round one ankle. “I don’t think so, really. These things sound rather idiotic, don’t they, in cold blood.”

“Not to me,” she said reassuringly.

He looked up at her again, and then discovered something unsatisfactory about his shoelace. Pulling it undone, and retying it painstakingly, he said, “Well, don’t mind if it sounds silly. It’s only that there’s a cave I know fairly well because I’ve been there a number of times, and I suppose it’s a natural thing if one’s wandering a bit to wander to places one knows. Only I thought, part of the time, that we were there.” He added, indistinctly, “That was afterward.”