The Chain of Destiny (14 page)

‘Indeed it is I. No, don't worry about Horace, he'll not be taken away. I will see to that hand before I take you to Mrs Cobb for the night.'

Suzannah sniffed, blew her nose, wiped her eyes once more and said, ‘No,' and because that sounded rather rude, ‘Thank you very much, but I'll be all right.'

The professor didn't bother to answer. He beckoned his houseman nearer and began to clean her hand and
dress it. He was gentle, but it hurt all the same. When she spoke it was because she felt that someone should say something. ‘I thought you were a brain surgeon.'

‘Oh, I am, but one does acquire the rudiments of first aid as well.'

A remark which drew forth an outraged snort from the house doctor.

The professor finished the job to his satisfaction and said, in the kind of voice which brooked no arguing, ‘You will wait here, Suzannah, with Horace. I shall return in about ten minutes.'

Whatever he had done to her hand had soothed it; the throbbing pain had eased and her one wish was to be allowed to sleep. She was scarcely aware of his going, and dozed off while the house doctor, left to mount guard, tidied away the considerable mess the professor had made.

She awoke when the professor came back, this time with a porter and a chair, and although she attempted to remonstrate with him he took no notice, but disappeared again. She was wheeled through endless corridors and into lifts and at last was trundled through a side door of the hospital.

The Bentley was there; the professor shovelled her carefully into the seat beside his, put Horace in the back of the car, thanked his assistants gravely and drove away.

Suzannah, more or less free from pain and her lungs clear of smoke, had revived. She said worriedly, ‘I smell awful,' and then, ‘Where are you taking me?'

‘Back to my house. Mrs Cobb will take care of you. Tomorrow you can decide what you want to do. A little while ago you told me that you would be quite all right, but at the moment you are in no fit state to go anywhere but to bed.'

The word bed conjured up the blissful thought of sleep. ‘And you don't mind having Horace, too?'

‘I have no doubt that Mrs Cobb will be delighted.'

He sounded impatient and she said nothing more; once she had had a good sleep, she told herself, she would think of what to do.

At his house he handed her over to Mrs Cobb, who tutted softly, gave Horace into Cobb's care and led Suzannah upstairs. ‘A nice warm bath,' she said comfortably, ‘and something tasty for your tea and then bed.'

‘Tea?' asked Suzannah, ‘I don't know what the time is…'

‘You poor child, you're worn to a thread. The professor said you had been in a fire and got burnt, and very nasty that must have been.'

She began to remove Suzannah's clothes. ‘And I'll do what I can with this skirt and jumper of yours, but they are really beyond my skill. Of course, you've no clothes… Did they save anything from the fire?'

Suzannah was in the bath, her injured hand resting on its side. ‘I don't know.'

She sounded near to tears, and Mrs Cobb said quickly, ‘Well, no matter, but I'll wash that hair of yours.'

And presently, tucked up in bed, a light meal and a pot of tea disposed of under Mrs Cobb's motherly eye, she curled up and slept. The bed was soft and warm, and she had no doubt that the room she was in was delightful, only she was too tired to bother to look.

The professor, coming home an hour or so later, was led upstairs by his housekeeper. ‘Just so's you can see the young lady's all right,' said Mrs Cobb. ‘Very tired, she was and, begging your pardon, sir, filthy dirty.'

They stood together looking at Suzannah, deeply asleep—indeed, snoring very delicately.

‘I hear at the hospital that she went back into the fire to fetch a small boy who had escaped to find his teddy bear.'

‘Well, fancy that!' declared Mrs Cobb. ‘Poor lamb, it's a wonder that her wits aren't turned.'

The professor said gravely, ‘Fortunately I believe Miss Lightfoot to be a young lady who will always keep her wits about her.'

They went back downstairs and he passed her and paused on his way to the study. ‘I'm dining out, Mrs Cobb. Don't wait up—tell Cobb to lock up if I'm not back by eleven o'clock.'

It was a long-standing engagement he couldn't put off, but he excused himself as soon as he reasonably could, getting home just before Cobb began his evening round.

‘I'll be in the study, Cobb. Ask Mrs Cobb to look in on Miss Lightfoot before she goes to bed, will you?' He opened his study door. ‘I'll take a look as I go to bed.'

He said goodnight and sat down behind his desk. There were letters to answer and reading to be done. It was almost one o'clock when he got to his feet at last and went upstairs.

Suzannah, refreshed by her sleep, sat up in bed and looked around her. There was a rose-shaded lamp by the bed and the room looked charming in its soft glow. The furniture was maple, and the curtains and bedspread were rose-patterned in some heavy silk fabric. She examined it all slowly, aware at the same time that her hand was increasingly painful, and not only that, she was hungry. The dainty little carriage clock on the tallboy said half-past twelve. Everyone would be in bed by now. She lay back again and closed her eyes, but now sleep eluded her, and if she shut her eyes she could see
the flames creeping further down the stairs and remember how terrified she had been while she and Billy searched for his teddy bear; the picture was so clear that she could smell the smoke…

The hands of the clock crawled round to one o'clock, which meant that there would be no one about for six hours. Looked at from one o'clock in the morning, the night stretched endlessly ahead.

She shut her eyes again and tried not to think about buttered toast and mugs of milky cocoa. She opened them quickly when the door opened and the professor walked in.

Anyone else would have said unnecessarily, ‘Awake?' She was immensely cheered when he asked, ‘Hungry?' and came to stand by the bed, looking down at her.

She nodded. ‘Oughtn't you to be in bed?' she asked.

He sat down on the bed. ‘I had to go to a very dull dinner party, and then I had some letters to write. I'm hungry, too. How about some sandwiches and a drink? Cocoa, tea, milk?'

‘Cocoa, please.'

He said, to her surprise, ‘I'm a dab hand at sandwiches. Give me ten minutes.'

He was very soon back, carrying a tray with mugs of cocoa and a plate piled high with sandwiches. He put it down on the bedside table and handed her a mug, and when she had drunk some of it he took it from her and put a sandwich into her hand. ‘Chicken,' he told her, and took one himself, pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Are you very wide awake?'

‘Yes.' She spoke thickly through the sandwich.

‘Good. Listen to me. You will stay here tomorrow; you can't get a job until your hand is better, and it will give you time to decide what you want to do. If you're
dead set on training as a nurse, I'll see what I can do, though I don't think it's the life for you.'

‘Would I be a better teacher? Some small school…'

‘It needs careful thought,' he said smoothly. ‘I think the best plan is for you to go and stay with my aunts and think about it—after all, it is your whole future—you don't want a dead-end job.'

‘But I can't go there.' She accepted another sandwich and took a bite.

‘They will be glad to have you, and you can make yourself useful, picking up balls of wool, and finding their spectacles. They liked you.'

‘You are very kind, but I can't impose on them, or you. I'm so sorry it's always you who finds me.' She finished the sandwich and he offered her the mug again, and she finished its contents down to the last drop.

‘Your hand is hurting?'

‘Well, yes, but it's better now that I'm not hungry.' She had a third sandwich in her hand, but with it halfway to her mouth put it down again. ‘I feel sleepy…'

The professor put down the plate and picked up the mug and studied its emptiness with satisfaction, and she muttered, ‘You put something in my cocoa.'

‘Naturally I did. You need a night's dreamless sleep. Goodnight, Suzannah.'

She closed her eyes, mumbled something and fell deeply asleep.

He picked up the tray and stood looking at her. Her face was still pale, but her newly washed hair gave it a glow. She looked a great deal better than she had when he had found her at the hospital; all the same, there was nothing about her ordinary face to attract a man's attention. He shrugged his massive shoulders and took the tray downstairs and went to his bed.

He was up early, for he was operating that morning, and he and his senior registrar would hold outpatients in the late afternoon, but before he left the house he went to the kitchen where he spent ten minutes talking to Mrs Cobb.

‘You just leave it to me, sir,' she told him. ‘I'll pop along to Harrods and get all the young lady needs. A size ten, I should think; just a slip of a thing, she is.'

‘I'll leave the matter in your capable hands, Mrs Cobb, but I beg of you, choose nothing brown or grey…'

‘A pretty blue or green, sir.'

When he had left the house and Cobb had come back into the kitchen, she was at the table making a list. ‘Mark my words,' she observed to her husband, ‘he doesn't know it yet, but he's sweet on her. She's just right for him, too—she'll make him a good wife. It'll be nice to have children in the house.'

Cobb sat down at the table. ‘Running ahead a bit, aren't you, my dear?'

‘Maybe I am, but you mark my words…'

Presently she took up a splendid breakfast to Suzannah, sat her up against her pillows, and advised her to stay in bed for a while. ‘I'll be back presently with some clothes for you, Miss Lightfoot, and give you a hand with a bath. You mustn't get that hand wet. The professor left some tablets for you; you're to take them if you have any pain.' She beamed at Suzannah. ‘Now I'll be off and see what I can find for you to wear.'

‘I haven't any money,' said Suzannah.

‘Don't worry about that. You'll get compensation.'

Mrs Cobb had gone before Suzannah could ask any more questions, so she went to sleep again.

She woke up to see Mrs Cobb standing by her bed,
bearing a small tray daintily laid with cup and saucer, small coffee-pot, cream and sugar.

‘There, you've had a nice sleep. Just you drink your coffee while I show you the things I've bought.' She beamed with pleasure as she laid her shopping on the bed. ‘Size ten—I checked; I told the professor that's what you'd be, so small you are.' She gave a glance of good-humoured envy at Suzannah's person, enveloped in one of Mrs Cobb's voluminous nighties.

There were undies: scraps of silk and lace in pale colours, the sort of garments Suzannah had drooled over when she had had occasion to go to the shops. There was a skirt, tweed, in a glowing blue-green, and a matching sweater, a couple of ivory silk shirts and a thick tweed top coat in a shade just a little darker than the skirt. There were shoes too, and a pair of slippers as well as a quilted dressing-gown.

Suzannah looked at them all in amazement, and then with regret. ‘But I can't wear these,' she pointed out. ‘I haven't a penny to my name; besides, I've never had anything like them. Even if I had some money, I doubt if it would be enough…'

‘Now you're not to worry your head, Miss Lightfoot. The professor said you were to be fitted out so's you can go to his aunts for a few days, just while you get over that nasty fire. He said Harrods, and it's more than my job's worth not to do as he says.'

She saw Suzannah's questioning look. ‘Not but he isn't the kindest man on this earth, but when he wants something done, then it's done, if you see what I mean.'

‘Yes,' Suzannah almost wailed, ‘but I can't take clothes from someone I hardly know.'

‘Well, you can't stay in bed for ever, love, can you? Nor can you leave this place mother-naked. Your own
clothes were in a fine state, past cleaning and mending, and I don't suppose that you noticed that you'd lost a shoe.'

‘Did I? To whom do I go, I wonder, to find out about my clothes and things?'

‘I'd leave that for the professor,' advised Mrs Cobb comfortably.

So presently Suzannah got up, had a bath and with Mrs Cobb's help got into her new clothes. Everything fitted, even the shoes, and when Mrs Cobb sat her down in front of the triple mirror on the dressing-table and brushed her hair smooth and tied it back with a blue ribbon Suzannah heaved a great sigh. ‘Clothes make a difference, don't they?'

‘Indeed they do, miss, and the colour's just right for you, with that hair. Cobb will have lunch ready for you downstairs if you would like to come down.'

So Suzannah went downstairs to eat her lunch under Cobb's fatherly eye, and then sit in the drawing-room with Henry and Horace for company. They shared her tea too, and presently Cobb came in to collect the tea-tray and turn on the six o'clock news.

The professor came in half an hour later, so quietly that at first she wasn't aware that he was there, standing just inside the room. It was Henry trotting over to greet him that caused her to turn round and see him there.

He wished her good evening in a cool voice that instantly deflated her, so that she responded shyly and then rushed in with her thanks, getting more and more muddled until he stopped her with a curt, ‘Never mind that, Suzannah. I'm glad to see that you are feeling more yourself. My aunts will be delighted to have you to stay for a few days. Cobb shall drive you down tomorrow.'

Which chilling speech, coupled with the fact that
he hadn't appeared to notice her new outfit, caused her to retire behind a polite manner which even to her own ears sounded wooden. She sat there, trying to think of some well-turned phrase which would get her out of the room; it seemed obvious to her that, although he had given her shelter and clothes most generously, he had no wish for her company. But when she suggested that she was tired and would go to bed, he sat down opposite her with the quelling observation that it should be possible for them to dine together without the danger of them falling out, at least for an hour or so.