The Other Linding Girl (15 page)

She paled slightly, but spoke without hesitation.

“The decision is yours, Nigel—and yours alone. No one else has a right to influence you—either way.”

“No, of course you’re right. I’m sorry, Rachel.” He passed his free hand over his hair, and she said quickly, “I must go. I still have quite a lot of work to do for Miss McGrath. ”

She did not actually brush his hand from her arm, for there was nothing unfriendly about her gesture. But she did release herself firmly and quickly, before he could possibly sense how the feel of his fingers on her arm sent a feverish thrill of excitement and emotion through her.

“Do you know your way back?” he asked mechanically. “Or shall I come with—”

“No, thank you,” she interrupted swiftly. “I can find the way.” Then she even managed to add quitelightly, “Come and see us soon, Nigel. Hester is almost well by now, and is beginning to want more company.”

“I’ll come,” he promised, but still in that almost absent tone of voice. And she thought he hardly saw her, as he opened the door for her and she went out into the cold, damp yard.

She deliberately went round the other hut, so that she should not see Jerry and his associates again. Somehow, she could no longer bear to watch their cheerful, devoted slogging, now that she knew so much
could
be altered— provided neither she nor Nigel thought

about each other again.

“I mustn’t over-dramatise things,” she told herself, as she walked with determined briskness towards the main exit from the hospital. “I’m not making a sacrifice. One can’t refuse what has never been offered. How do I
know
that, without Fiona’s interference, he would have let himself love me? No words have passed. No suggestion has been made. ”

But he had kissed her, that one time, in a way which had said more than any words. And, when he had looked at her just now, she had known why, for one anguished moment, he tried to transfer the choice to her. It required no feat of imagination, nor overdramatising of the situation, to know how things were—and could be.

Fiona knew that too. Of that Rachel had no doubt The old man at the entrance gave her a cheery smile once more and said, “You found Mr. Seton all right?”

“Yes, thank you,” Rachel told him. And, resisting an absurd impulse to add, “And lost him too, I think,” she went out into the chill dusk of the late afternoon.

It was quite a long drive back to the McGraths’ house, but all too short for bringing oneself under control, so as to appear cool and cheerful in Fiona’s presence. She must have managed fairly well, however. For, although Fiona glanced at her searchingly as she enquired if the letter had been safely delivered, she finally had to come out into the open and ask frankly,

“Did Nigel tell you what was in the letter?”

“Yes.”

“And was he—happy about it?”

“I expect so. He seemed a bit stunned, naturally.” She made that sound almost matter-of-fact “It isn’t the kind of offer which happens every day.”

“No,” agreed Fiona, a trifle complacently. ‘It’s the kind of offer which comes only once in a lifetime, I suppose.” Then she added, conversationally, “It’s a miserable place where he works, isn’t it?”

“Except for the spirit of the people working there—yes.”

“Oh—that” Fiona seemed to think little of spirit unsupported by practical aid. “I do hope Nigel will accept my brother’s offer. It could make such a difference—to them all.” “What makes you think he might refuse it, Miss McGrath?” enquired Rachel drily. And for a moment it was the older woman who looked slightly at a disadvantage.

“Oh—” she laughed a trifle self-consciously—“men are so silly sometimes. He might think it was too much to accept—or doubt his power to put it to good advantage.”

“I don’t think he will refuse on either of those grounds,” Rachel said deliberately. And then she went on so determinedly with her work that even Fiona could not draw her into further conversation.

It was not until she was on her way home that she could once more review that scene in the laboratory, and even then there was little comfort to be derived from it. It seemed to her now that she had been lamentably passive and unhelpful And yet what right had she to force a decision when both courses seemed right and both courses seemed wrong?

Rachel was not looking forward to a long, uneventful evening at home, in which she would have mostly her own thoughts for company. And she was all the more pleased, therefore, to find that Oliver Mayforth had left a message, asking her to go out to dinner with him. He was unexpectedly free, it seemed, and suggested they should dine at a new Greek restaurant which had just been opened near Leicester Square.

“Is it all right if I go?” she asked Hester eagerly.

“Why, of course,” Her aunt looked surprised. “Unless Oliver bores you as much as he bores me. ”

“No, he doesn’t bore me. I like him,” Rachel said sincerely. “I just thought you—you might prefer to have me in.”

“Good gracious, no! I haven’t reached the old-lady-with-a-companion stage yet,” replied Hester impatiently. “Everard and I are going out to dinner, anyway. And though most of the people there will be stuffy colleagues of his, there’ll be a sprinkling of something more entertaining. Keith, for instance,” she added, candidly.

“Oh, Hester!” Rachel could not hide her dismay. “Don’t you think you should leave—”

“Yes, of course. Don’t try to give
me
advice,” Hester told her sharply. “I’ve had enough of Keith as an admirer. I just want him to know what I think of him for what he did to me.”

“But—” immediately and illogically, Rachel felt a twinge of pity for the wretched Keith—“wouldn’t it be better just to let the whole

matter drop?”

“No.”

“Surely there won't be much opportunity for a heart-to-heart talk at a dinner party?” Rachel objected further.

“I shall make one,” replied Hester simply. And there the matter rested.

If Rachel felt faintly anxious, at least she had no real responsibility in the matter, she reminded herself. Hester was old enough—and presumably skilled enough—to manage her own affairs. And so, whatever her misgivings might be, she determinedly put these and her own problems behind her when she went off to enjoy her evening with Oliver Mayforth.

He was in excellent humour and, looking across the table at her uncle’s good-looking assistant surgeon, Rachel could not help thinking how greatly he had changed from the grim, self-absorbed man she had first met. Indeed, since they were talking on a very friendly, and even intimate, level, she ventured to say,

“You’re getting over Thea pretty thoroughly now, aren’t you, Oliver?” She did occasionally call him Oliver when they were off duty, though never, of course, in the Nursing Home.

“What makes you think that?” he wanted to know.

“Oh, your air of general cheerfulness and good spirits, I suppose.”

“You don’t credit me with putting up a good facade, to hide a breaking heart, I notice,” he grinned at her.

“Of course not! Your kind of facade would be something quite different,” She asserted, with an answering smile. “I’ve seen you do it. What Florian would call the Englishman’s stiff upper lip.”

“How revolting! Did I really put on anything so horrid?”

“You did. And it wasn’t specially engaging. But then one never
is
engaging when one is miserable. You managed quite well, on the whole. But it’s nice to see you on the mend,” she assured him. “And now I can tell you that I think you had a lucky escape. Anyone who could break an engagement in such a brutal way would be a rather disturbing life partner. ”

“Do you think I hadn’t worked that out for myself by now?”

“You had? Quick work. One doesn’t usually see the beloved in true and unflattering colours quite so promptly,” said Rachel, who was rather enjoying talking to the assistant surgeon in the terms she might have used to the brother she had always wanted but never had.

“Perhaps I had some useful prompting,” he replied,

“By whom?”

“By you. Though unknowingly, I’m sure.” He smiled across the table at her.

“I don’t think I follow.”

“Don’t you know that the best lesson a mam can have about a worthless girl is to be able to compare her with a supremely worthwhile one—at close quarters? You ran into my life at just about the most perfect moment possible, Rachel.”

“Oh, Oliver,” she exclaimed, before she could stop herself, “don’t start saying rash things on the rebound, will you?”

“Depends what you mean by rash.” He looked a trifle mulish. But handsomely mulish, Rachel thought almost affectionately. So she put her arms on the table and said earnestly,

“Listen—You’re the nicest person possible to work for, and the nicest friend to have around. But if you start to think you’re in love with me—”

“I
am
in love with you,” he stated firmly.

“Oh, no, don’t say that!” She sounded almost cross in her dismay, and that made him smile.

“But I know you’re not in love with me—yet,” he went on. Then he added calmly, “It’s Nigel, isn’t it?”

She gasped, at the shock of having her inmost feelings put into words, with the exactness of a medical report.

“I—What makes you think such a thing?” Somehow, even then, she simply could not find the words or resolution to make a categorical denial.

“The instinct which I suppose every man has about the girl he loves,” Oliver replied simply. “But it isn’t any good, you know, dear. He won’t marry you.”

She supposed she had really known that in her heart, she told herself. But there was something dreadfully final in having Oliver say it. Even so, she had to make her protest.

“Why do you say that?” she demanded sharply.

“Because I know my fellow-creatures as well as most doctors come to know them. ” He was so circumstantial about it that she had to bite her lip to keep back the eager arguments. “Nigel is basically the same day as his sister. Not so self-centred, perhaps, and not so hard. Bus he knows what he wants, and though, like most of us, he would like the best of both worlds, in the end he will choose as Hester would choose.”

“What do you mean by that—quite?”

“To get most of what he wants he will have to marry money, Rachel. And—though with more romantic regrets than Hester—that’s what he will do. You mark my words.”

She didn’t want to mark his words. She wanted to put her hands over her ears, so that she should not hear them. But instead, she sat there staring at him with widening eyes, unable to resist the force and logic of his remarks.

“You say all this because you—you
want
it to be the truth ” she said huskily at last. “You’re describing Nigel like this because you want me to—to love you.”

“No. At least, I’m not such a self-satisfied ass as to think you will forget Nigel and love me on the basis of reasoned argument. I just want you to see him as he is, before he can hurt you too much. And I want you so remember that half the happiest marriages have been based on something which once looked like the friendly second-best. ”

“Oliver, don’t! You have all the arguments on your side,” she exclaimed unhappily. “But if you're asking me to marry you—”

“I’m not. Because of course you would refuse me at the moment,” he told her coolly, “I just want you to know that I’m there, in the background, thinking the world of you, and that life won’t simply fall in ruins when Nigel fails you.”

In a way, of course, he was being terribly kind and patient and tactful. She tried to tell herself that—and that she was fortunate to have such a friend. But, illogically, the uppermost feeling in her was anger and irritation that he could be so sure that he knew Nigel and could write him off as worthless. And so, instead of thanking him for his devotion, or murmuring appreciation of his affection, she just said curtly,

“Don’t be so certain that Nigel will fail me!”

Then, immediately, she seemed to be back in that chilly, depressing laboratory, watching Nigel as he looked with dark dismay at the letter which offered him a fortune.

“I don’t think,” she said unhappily, “that we’re going to get far tonight if we stick to this subject. Could we—change it?”

“Of course.” He smiled in a way that relaxed the emotional tension immediately. “Forget it all, if you want to, Rachel. But remember it if you need it.”

It was handsome of him, she knew, not to say
“when
you need it”. So she made a supreme effort to smile at him with something of her usual gaiety. And presently she managed to say, with some truth, that she was enjoying her dinner and would like to go with him to a film which had recently received such condescending reviews that the chances were it was reasonably clean and comprehensible.

During the following week preparations for Fiona’s big charity affair went on with gathering speed and momentum. Rachel was extremely busy, but although there was a good deal of routine work, she could not but be interested as she saw the whole event beginning to take shape. Fiona seemed satisfied with this side of her activities, but there was a slight air of tension and irritability about her which Rachel was quick to notice. And she could not help wondering if this were due to any action—or lack of it—on Nigel’s part.