Kissing Kin (16 page)

“How long has it been?” he asked, for he had pretty well lost track of things.

“This is the third night. You’ll be all right now.”

“Was I pretty bad?”

“You almost got away from us,” said Jenny.

“It was you,” he said, looking up at her between spoonfuls. “You were right in there pitchin’, weren’t you. Your hands were all over blood. Did it spoil your dress?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it did.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“The dress doesn’t matter. We won.”

“We won, eh.” His eyes rested contentedly on her face. “That was quite a party, wasn’t it. They can’t ever take that away from me now. Champagne—and a real duke—he asked me to come shoot deer on his place in Scotland—and I danced with you—didn’t I.”

“You certainly did.”

“You got an awful cute chin,” he said. “It sure was stickin’ out that night before the doctor came. You put up quite a fight for me—didn’ you.”

Jenny carried the empty bowl back to the table and left it there.

“You’ve talked about enough,” she said.

“Jenny,” he murmured, and she looked round inquiringly and returned to the bed.

“Want something?”

“I just wanted to say it. D’you mind?”

“Of course not.” She straightened the sheet, and sat down again in the armchair beside the bed, facing him. “Go to sleep now.”

“Must I?”

She nodded, and picked up the book.

“What time is it?”

“Just on three.”

He remembered the new watch. It was still there on his wrist and had been kept wound by somebody.

“Where’s my bug?” he asked suddenly.

“What?” said Jenny.

“My mechanical bug. I wouldn’t want to lose that.”

“It’s there on the dresser, perfectly safe—along with the other things.”

“Could I have a cigarette?”

“Then will you go to sleep?”

He nodded, and she lit one for him.

“Does this make any difference to the operation?” he asked after the first puff.

“Puts it off a bit, that’s all. You’ll have to stay very quiet for a few more days.”

“I won’t—lose my arm now?”

“No.” She saw the shadow of dread in his eyes and
understood
. “Have you been worrying about that? You mustn’t.”

“He didn’t say anything about it when he was here?”

“Not a word.”

There was a silence.

“I sure played hell with your Christmas holiday,” he said then.

“There wasn’t any holiday. I had only the one night off.”

“Keeping you up all night,” he muttered. “Spoiling your dress. What are they doing over at the hospital without you?”

“They’ll get along.”

“Bet they’d like to shoot me. Well, they can’t take it away from us, can they—that dance we had.”

“You paid quite a price for it. I should have known better myself. I should have stopped you.”

“It was worth it,” he said, his eyes on her face. “Worth just about anything it costs me. I’m sorry to put you to so much trouble, though.”

“Maybe it was worth that too,” said Jenny.

“I’m glad you said that,” he whispered. “I can go to sleep on that, I guess.”

She took the stub of his cigarette and crushed it out. He closed his eyes and was gone, as completely as a baby—or a soldier.

Jenny sat watching him, the book in her lap. In the
lamplight 
his sleeping face was relaxed and defenceless, and his colour was coming back to normal. It was a kind, generous mouth with deep corners and strong curves, and a slight draw across his teeth. His lashes lay black and heavy on his cheeks, which still had a boyish roundness under the dark three days’ beard. His straight black hair was rumpled like a child’s. I’ll have Bracken shave him tomorrow, she thought. That always perks them up. He’s got to have one of the private rooms at the Hall, after the operation. I shall make them let me go on looking after him. He’s used to me, and Camilla and Virginia will be going back to Town from here.

Winifred had rather grudgingly sent over some of Jenny’s things from the Hall, and Jenny and Virginia were taking turns with Raymond until he was well enough to be moved, early in the new year. Jenny discovered now that she apparently had no intention of returning to Ward B and her head cases until Sir Quentin had finished with Raymond, and she regarded herself with some surprise. It never mattered to her what sort of cases she had, as a rule. They were all soldiers, and they all needed her and were grateful and good and polite. This
Raymond
was no different from the rest, she told herself, sitting beside him while he slept. Other men watched her with the same pathetic endurance, the same childlike worship in their eyes, and usually they asked to call her Jenny. Other men had unruly dark hair and powerful shoulders. Other men knew and hid the dread of amputation. Other men had won the V.C.

But it was no good. No other man was Raymond.

Now, this won’t do, she lectured herself, sitting very still with her head against the back of the chair, watching him. This isn’t what we intended. It’s not fair on all the others. You’ve always been dead against having favourites in the wards, you might as well be Fabrice if you start thinking like this. You are less useful to them all if you are preoccupied with one, I’ve always preached that.

You
put
up
quite
a
fight
for
me
, he said. But she had fought just as hard for other men’s lives, men who were strangers to
her. So was Raymond a stranger, if it came to that. She had seen him first on Christmas Day. A little champagne and they had danced together and it had nearly killed him. Not much of a record, was it.
Whatever
it
costs
me,
it
was
worth
it,
he said, and he meant that, he was in no
condition to turn off mere pretty speeches. And she had answered him impulsively in the same key. Worth the dress, yes, to save Raymond alive. But Phoebe could have done it just as well. I wonder. He knew it was me, working on him. Maybe that made a difference to him, when the turning-point came. Maybe we both tried harder because we were doing it together. He had to want to live. Sometimes they are too tired, and don’t care. He’ll get well now. He wants to. I want him to. Are we going to fall in love?

That’s the trouble with night duty, she thought without moving. You have so much time to think, and you imagine things. He’s probably got a girl at home, several of them by the look of him, he could have pretty well anything he wants, I should think. And I’m cured of all that. I don’t want to fall in love, not ever again, not with anybody, certainly not with a stranger, you’d never know what might pop out at you from the time before you knew him. He’s not a boy, he hasn’t come all this way without—without— Well, he’s left a girl in America, anyway, of course, waiting for him and hoping. It wouldn’t be fair, he must go back to her, where he belongs, and I belong here, with the wounded. It was just the
champagne
, the other night, and the party. We were all very gay and trying to forget that it was only for one night….

Worth
whatever
it
costs
me
…. Well, even then, even if he meant that, there’s nothing in it for either of us, I’m just another girl to him, he’s just another wounded soldier.
Two
stubborn
people
…. No, no, it won’t do at all, you’ve just got over it once and stopped hurting, for heaven’s sake don’t let’s begin again, you’ll only be sorry. But with him—would it be worth whatever it cost me … with him … even if it didn’t last…. No. Nothing is worth what it cost me last time. No one
else shall ever matter to me like that again. I’m better off as I am. All right, so I’m afraid. Not of him. Of that thing inside me that bled and moaned and ached and agonized and wouldn’t give in and decently die—that thing they call your heart, but it might just as well be your stomach, that’s where you’re sick, and you can’t eat for fear of its coming up, and it feels as though you’ve swallowed a stone—heart sounds better, when it’s love, but your stomach makes the fuss. So I’m a coward, for fear it will hurt again. All right, I am, I’d rather die than go through again what I went through about Gerald. I’m going to keep myself together now and be useful, and keep my mind on the war till it’s won. Raymond will be more useful too, in what he has to do, if he isn’t thinking about me. No good could come of it for either of us, only misery. He hardly knows what happened to-night, or what we said.
Tomorrow
I shall keep out of sight till he’s gone to sleep, and just nip the whole thing in the bud…. Oh, darling, you look so
trustful,
lying there, but it’s the only way….

Camilla returned to Town with Phoebe and Oliver, but Virginia and Bracken were remaining at Farthingale till after New Year’s Day. She sat looking out of the train window, rather silent and preoccupied, during the journey. It would be quite a while before she returned to Farthingale, she knew, for she was badly needed in St. James’s Square and when the spring offensive started things would be much worse. And there would be Calvert to look after too, pretty soon. It was bound to be weeks, even months, before she saw Sosthène again.

They had been alone together only once since the afternoon at the piano. He did not dance at the Christmas party, but whether it was because Sally did not or because he was not allowed to by his doctors Camilla did not know. A man with a bad heart can live for ever if he is careful. There was very little sign of carefulness on Sosthène’s part, beyond great moderation in eating and drinking and an unostentatious
avoidance of physical exertion. It was impossible not to wonder how ill he was, especially if you spent your life nowadays nursing, and impossible not to wonder if everything had been done to make him well. Sally must surely have seen to that, there was always plenty of money.

Camilla was anxious about what Calvert would think of this strange, swift bondage she owned to Sosthène, and wondered how she could ever explain it to him—excuse it to him was the better word, perhaps, for she knew uneasily that at least until he had seen Sosthène for himself Calvert would not approve. And yet, if she didn’t tell him at once, it would be the first time there had been a secret between them. No one else knew but Jenny—and Jenny wouldn’t give her away. They had not mentioned it again since that first night in the kitchen, but there was no doubt in Camilla’s mind that Jenny had more than once caught her eyes on Sosthène’s face, or read correctly a restless mood of depression which everyone else conveniently blamed on her worry about Calvert. Poor Raymond’s collapse at the party had been a handy thing, really, for it had removed Jenny from the dance just at the awkward time of Gerald’s arrival. It was impossible not to like Gerald, even in his shameless infatuation for Fabrice—not just because he was so handsome and so impenitent, but because he was so happy in it and might be dead next week. You only wanted Fabrice to be kind to him, and not tease him too much, and not brag of her conquests at
the Hall. You couldn’t be hard on a man who had only three days’ Christmas leave in England. Gerald was gone now, on his way back to France, and Fabrice was back at the Hall handing round the eternal broth and tea. And Jenny, who had got over it anyway, was staying on at Farthingale to look after Raymond till time for his operation. Jenny was still there in the house where Sosthène was….

To occupy her mind in the train going back to Town, Camilla began to compose the letter to Calvert about
Raymond
, so as to reassure him about the chances of saving the arm in only one operation if all went well, and Adrian Carteret’s
confidence that the Air Force would accept him as soon as the Medical Board gave the word. “He has the look of a good flyer,” Adrian had said. “Wouldn’t fluster easily, I should think.”

She could safely tell Calvert that they had all liked
Raymond
, and Jenny had taken him under her wing and promised to see him through the operation and report to London daily. Camilla’s mind was at peace about leaving him in Jenny’s charge, you couldn’t do better than that. I wonder, she thought, gazing out the train window, if it had not been for Sosthène—. Well, it’s too late now, she thought. There will never be
anyone
for me now but Sosthène. I must get used to that, somehow Jenny got used to much worse. Sosthène will never let me down. It’s just a matter of trying to live without him. After all, I haven’t got much to lose, because there hasn’t been
anything
—except that day at the piano—he liked my voice—and this morning before the others came down to breakfast….

She had come into the dining-room a bit early, having finished her packing, and found it empty, and was helping herself to something hot from the sideboard when Sosthène came in, also early, with Mimi at his heels. Sally always breakfasted from a tray in her room.

They said Good morning and she sat down at her place and began to eat while he still pottered round the hot plates on the sideboard. She had no longer that first agony of nervousness in his presence, nor the first insatiable craving for it. She had steadied a little, resigned herself and relaxed a little, now that she must no longer conceal from him her headlong, schoolgirl worship, the knowledge of which apparently caused him no selfconsciousness, no desire to avoid her, and no inclination whatever to take advantage of it. He seemed to accept with a fatalistic compassion the fact of her having fallen in love with him. It was impossible to tell by a glance or a flicker of
expression
on his serene, secretive face if he felt in himself the faintest response to her emotion. The time would come when this attitude of his would be to her the ultimate exasperation, but
not yet. So far it was only a relief, giving her time to assimilate her own unfamiliar sensations in the friendly vacuum of his unfailing kindness and patience.

He sat down with his own plate on the opposite side of the table.

“So you are off to London this morning,” he said. “We shall be very quiet again hereabouts after today.”