Strange Recompense (4 page)

“But not here—to you.” There was deep gratitude in the girl’s voice now. “I should have been taken to the hospital and treated like any other patient instead of being cared for like this in your home. Don’t think I am not grateful for that, and for all your other kindnesses. I know that I shall never be able to repay you.”

“That’s all right,” Ruth assured her, smiling down into her eyes.

“If we can give you your memory back it will be sufficient reward for anything we might be doing now.”

“People in your profession give a great deal to their work,” Anna remarked haltingly. “And you are all so kind. Nurse Craven, for instance, and your brother. They seem to understand so well how I feel, the emptiness, the terrible sense of frustration that all the concentration in the world can’t wipe out.”

“You mustn’t worry too much about that side of it just now,” Ruth advised kindly. “There are apparently so many things to be done in a case like yours that there
’
s very little room for despair. My brother would like you to meet a colleague of his,” she went on carefully, introducing the subject almost casually and trying to control the sensitive flush which invariably rose to her twin cheeks whenever Dennis Tranby’s name was mentioned. “Dennis Tranby is his name and he’s our local G.P. Noel and he are very good friends and quite often they work out their cases together.”

Half an hour later she came downstairs, her hair brushed to a shining red-gold mane, her face lightly dusted with powder. She looked so vastly different from the bedraggled creature of the day before that Ruth stared at her for a moment in surprise, and then she realized the tremendous effort the girl was making, the desperate striving for normality which produced a courage all its own.

“I’m going to take our tray out on to the lawn,” she intimated. “There’s a nice sheltered spot over by the rose trellis where we can have a meal in comfort, and you can watch me pick the gooseberries afterwards!”

A vivid smile lit the girl’s eyes.

“I could help with the gooseberries, couldn’t I?” she suggested. “I
—I
must have done that sort of thing before—”

“I’ll make a tart with the first picking,” Ruth decided quickly. “There won’t be enough, just at first, to make jam.”

“Yes,” Anna agreed vaguely, groping again in the past. “It must have some connection for me—a garden like this, picking fruit in season, all the things you do as a matter of course. Perhaps I did this sort of thing once.” She stood by the open door, surveying Ruth’s garden with the pain of a deep longing in her eyes, the trim lawn and the neat borders, and the thick
berb
er
is hedge that closed them in and made a screen between them and the nurses’ home across the way. “Will I ever know?” she breathed passionately. “Will it ever be any different for me?”

“Of course it will!” Ruth spoke lightly to bani
sh
that look. “Will
y
ou carry the tray for me and I’ll scrounge round for some more
b
iscuits?
”

Anna went down the short path with the tray in her hands, thinking how peaceful it was in the garden, warm and sunny and sheltered, shut off from the rest of the world and the world’s problems.

At the end of the path she came to a narrow stream, its banks stepping down in a small rockery where purple arabis spilled its wealth of color over the stones and lay reflected in the cool water. She could imagine Ruth spending much of her day here, tending the plants or just sitting with her sewing, and perhaps Noel Melford found time to come there, too.

She thought of the doctor with a sudden intensity, aware that he was the king-pin in her problem, that his keen, analytical brain was the means by which she might return to normality, and her pulses began to beat more quickly at the thought. If anyone could help her he could. His sure, cool approach of the evening before had given her the confidence she needed to fight this thing, and she felt that he would not let go unless he believed the struggle was irretrievably lost.

“Hullo!” A shadow had fallen between her and the sun, and she turned to find him standing on the path above her, hands thrust deeply into his trouser pockets, a whimsical smile curving his handsome mouth. “It’s certainly an encouraging sign to find one’s patient up and sun-bathing instead of lingering in bed!”

“It would have been malingering on a day like this!” she answered quickly, rising from the water’s edge.

“Don’t get up,” he commanded. “You look—natural sitting there.” His deep, almost gentle voice was in no way formal. “You like gardens, I see.”

“Yours is beautiful,” she said eagerly. “I’ve always loved flowers, and here they grow in such profusion.”

“Yes?” he prompted.

“They must have grown somewhere—in a garden I knew.”

Her voice had become troubled again and some of the light had gone out of her eyes.

“What sort of flowers?”

“Pinks, and fuchsia and rock roses—” She hesitated, her brow
puckering with the effort she was making. “I seem to remember heather, too—great stretches of it, as purple as your arabis.”

He was not looking at her directly, but he seemed to know all that was going on in her mind and he was leaving her to go on or give up as she willed.

“That’s all,” she said flatly. “
I
don’t seem to get any further than that.”

“You will,” he told her confidently. “There’s something I want to ask you, Anna,” he continued after a pause, willing her to meet his eyes this time. “The ring you are wearing—your wedding ring. Will you let me take it from you for a time? You see, there may be some way of tracing the markings on it.”

She drew back, fear sharpening her expression, a reluctance to part with the ring plain in her eyes. It held some meaning for her that was perhaps linked with fear.

Confusion rushed in upon her as she remembered that Noel Melford had called it her wedding ring, a veritable panic of confusion, and she could not answer him.

She hesitated for barely a second, and then she held out her hand to him and he drew the wedding ring from her finger. He did not release her hand at once, however, holding it palm upwards in his to examine her finger for the tell-tale mark which a ring usually leaves on the soft flesh after a reasonable period of wear, but there was nothing to see, and his dark eyebrows went up a little in surprise. He made no comment on his findings, however, smoothing away her distress by talk of other things.

“We’ve had quite an event across the way this morning in the hospital maternity wing,” he told her. “Quads, no less! Four girls as alike as peas in a pod and all weighing over three pounds.”

“Poor Nurse Craven!” Anna smiled, forgetting her own problems. “She hoped she was going to have a quiet night!”

“Oh, Topsy wouldn’t have missed it for the world! She’s named them all already in her own inimitable way. One O’clock, Two O’clock, Three-five and Better-Late-Than-Never! Topsy makes us smile when sometimes we would be in despair,” he declared.

“She did that for me yesterday, I think,” Anna acknowledged gratefully. “I hope I shall see her again to thank her.”

“I’ve no doubt you will,” he said. “Which brings me to the second thing I want to ask.”

“Yes?”

“I have a friend I should like to bring to see you.”

“Doctor Tranby?”

He nodded, surprised that she should have heard of Dennis.

“Miss Melford told me this morning that you wanted me to see him,” Anna said. “Is he an expert on—cases like mine?”

“Not exactly, but sometimes it is advisable to work on the theory that two minds are better than one,” Noel explained. “Co-operation often produces miracles.”

She raised clear, resolute eyes to his.

“Is that what we must hope for—a miracle?” she asked. “Is that what we need?”

“No.” The grey eyes held hers, something in their depths demanding her absolute trust. “Miracles are not everyday things and I think we might be able to do without one in your case.”

She bit her lip to stop its trembling.

“Why are you so wonderfully patient with me?” she asked. “We are perfect strangers and I may be—any sort of person.”

He rose abruptly, thrusting her ring into his pocket, out of sight. “I don’t think you are—any sort of person,” he said. “I’m a doctor, and I am trying to do my duty as I see it.”

Ruth came out then, carrying the coffee percolator and an extra cup for her brother.

“You’ll stay, Noel?” she asked. “You’ll only go back to the hospital and drink inferior coffee there, anyway!”

“I’ll settle for your particular brew any day!” he laughed, stretching his long length out on the grass at Anna’s feet. “This may mean half an hour extra on the other end of my day, but it will have been well worth it!”

He accepted his cup from Ruth and was stirring a second spoonful of brown sugar into it when a short, thick-set young man came towards them round the gable end of the house, swinging a stethoscope in his hand.

“Anna, I want you to meet a great friend of mine, Doctor Tranby,” he said, smiling down at her. “Dennis, this is Anna.”

It could not have been said more naturally if they had met at a party, Anna thought, trying to conceal her nervousness because she knew that Noel demanded it, and because he had made everything so easy for her.

“You’ve heard our news, of course?” Tranby asked, including Ruth in his expansive smile. “Quads, no less! Of course, all the credit will go to the hospital now! We poor, long-suffering G.P.s don’t come into it at all, though we do all the spade work!”

“I’ll see that you get full mention in despatches this time!” Noel laughed. “You can even have your picture in the Press! They’ll be on to it right away, I should think.”

“Heaven forbid that I should ever adorn the pages of any newspaper!” Tranby groaned. “How would you like to have four squalling infants at once, Anna?” he asked.

“It would be something of a handful, wouldn’t it,” she agreed, “especially if one wasn’t used to babies. But Nurse Craven will cope with them!”

“So you’ve already met our Topsy!” he grinned. “Wonderful girl, that, and a wonderful nurse into the bargain! Topsy isn’t all fun and frolic, believe me. She can be as reliable as the next one in an emergency—probably more so than most.” He turned back to Noel. “She tells me you’re taking her into the theatre, old man. Good work! I’m perfectly sure she’ll repay your confidence.”

“Topsy’s head is screwed on quite firmly,” Noel returned, accepting a second cup of coffee from his sister which he drank down quickly with an eye on his watch. “One couldn’t do much better than Topsy and I dare say Sara will come to appreciate the fact in time.”

Sara! She would be on duty again, Ruth thought, going her rounds of the wards, ordering, checking up, seeing that everything ran smoothly and efficiently, waiting for Noel to come in to do the specials with her. Waiting for Noel ...

Her eyes lingered on her brother’s face, seeing him preoccupied with the girl she had brought into their home, an
d
a sudden apprehension ran through her like a chill foreboding. She dismissed it instantly as foolish and theatrical in the extreme. Of course Noel would be interested in such a case as this one! It was all part of his work, a challenge to his skill, and she knew that both he and Dennis Tranby had always been deeply interested in amnesia.

Dennis was keeping the conversation going, realizing that Anna must be laboring under considerable strain at this meeting with yet another doctor, and Ruth knew that Noel would be grateful to him for his effort.

Dennis rose to his feet.

“Ah, well, this doesn’t give the Press a fair chance, does it?” he demanded.

“Don’t overdo it!” Ruth laughed. “Think of the proud father. No stealing all his thunder!”

“Fathers don’t come into this at all!” Dennis informed her. “It’s only mother and the quads who make the front page!”

The front page! Anna thought. Will they put my photograph in the newspapers, splashed all over the front page? The girl who has forgotten the past! The girl who does not know who she is!

“Don’t worry,” Noel Melford said, bending down to where she sat while Ruth walked towards the house with Tranby. “We won’t do that to you—not if we can possibly help it. Photographs in the Press are a last resource.”

Before she could thank him with any adequacy she was aware of someone coming towards them from the direction of the hospital, a tall figure in uniform who seemed to bear down upon them like some unrelenting fury.

“Noel,” Sara Enman said in a peremptory voice, “there’s an emergency. I had no idea you would be here. We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Matron thinks it is probably an acute appendix and you will want to operate immediately. Everything’s ready—if you are.”

It was then that she looked at Anna, her slate-grey eyes mirroring an emotion hard to define, but the other girl felt it like a rapier-thrust and looked quickly away.

Noel moved instantly and Sara smiled as professional intimacy drew them together.

“Give me five minutes to scrub up,” he said. “I expect you have everything ready. I’ll be back for lunch today, Ruth.”

He went on ahead of Sara down the path, and Ruth came back to have a word with her.

“I had no idea Noel would be over here,” Sara repeated almost on a note of reprimand. “We’ve got an acute waiting, but Noel can be quite sure that everything is ready to hand.”

“Noel has implicit trust in Sara,” Ruth said when the latter was out of earshot.
“
They have worked together for so long.”