Nurse Lang (13 page)

“You can’t refuse me this,” he told her. “It is all I shall ever ask of you.”

Suddenly, devastatingly, he had reduced his bargaining to the personal and in so doing had ruthlessly swept aside all argument.

“When you put it like that,” she said, “how can I possibly refuse?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Three weeks later Philip was told that he could go home. In all that time he had not mentioned their engagement again, and Moira thought that it. was only natural. He was waiting until he could walk. He was waiting until he got home to the Priory.

On the day she heard that Philip was to come home she did meet Grant, however. He was coming away from the main ward with Matron in attendance and she thought how thin and fine-drawn his face looked in the bright sunlight pouring down from the roof-light, but she could only acknowledge him with the briefest of smiles. They were like strangers, she thought, trying to steady her quivering lips before she went in to Philip’s room.

She opened the door without knocking, too shaken to remember that she was almost half an hour earlier than usual, and then she pulled up at the sight of Philip and Jill standing by the window. She saw them silhouetted against the bright oblong of the glass, Philip in dressing-gown and slippers with his arm about Jill as she helped him to walk, and suddenly she was curious of a small feeling of shock, of being jerked out of some remote dream for a moment.

The feeling was transitory, and she had put it from her even before Jill cried ecstatically:

“He can walk! Look, Moira, Philip can walk!”

Philip laughed abruptly.

“Steady on!” he cautioned. “You’ll have me at your feet in a minute!”

Moira saw how they exchanged glances and smiled, but Philip summoned her to his side with an imperious gesture.

“Come and help!” he commanded. “It takes two to do this sort of thing properly. I feel let down on one side!”

Slowly they walked across the room, and Moira had a sudden wild desire to rush out into the corridor and call Grant in to see.

“This is official, isn’t it?” she asked, searching her sister’s clear blue eyes.

Jill glanced in Philip’s direction.

“In a way it is,” she said. “It’s all to be tried out later on, but Philip decided he couldn’t wait.”

Moira stared at them in horror.

“You’re hopeless!” she told them, but the fact remained that Philip could walk. “You’d better get back into bed, Phil, and act like mad when the official trial comes along!”

“Will you wait?” he asked diffidently. “I’ll like you to be there.”

Moira waited till Grant came into the room with Matron.

“Are you sure you feel up to this?” he asked, pausing beside her. “It may be something of a trial.”

“Philip’s been up,” she confessed when Matron’s back was turned. “He—can walk!”

Anger struggled with relief in his eyes for a moment and then he smiled.

“Jill, of course,” he said. “And perhaps Philip a little, too!”

He was still looking down into her eyes, frowning, as if he were not quite certain what he saw there, but Philip’s need came first.

“When we’ve taken one more X-ray you can go home,” he told his brother and Philip heaved a sigh of relief.

“It’s about time!” he declared. “With all due respect to you people, I thought I was never going to get out of here!” He looked across the room to where Jill stood. “Shall we show ’em how it’s done, Nurse?” he asked.

With a completely solemn face Jill stepped forward to support him on one side while Matron took his arm on the other, and Grant stood back to watch his progress. He did not commit himself to a decision when the journey was completed, but Moira felt that he was pleased.

On the following day he gave instructions that Philip’s room at the Priory was to be made ready and Moira heard Serena passing them on to Olga as she left for the hospital.

“Hullo, stranger!” Elizabeth hailed her. “I hear Philip went home this afternoon.”

“I knew he was going,” Moira said, “but I wasn’t quite sure when.”

“Being a nurse has its drawbacks!” Elizabeth smiled, “I thought Matron would have let you off duty for the event!”

“Matron doesn’t know I’m engaged to Philip,” Moira pointed out. “We—didn’t want to trade on that.”

“When do you propose to announce your engagement?” Elizabeth asked after a brief pause. “Philip said something about a modest celebration some time ago.”

Moira felt the painful color of embarrassment creeping up under her skin as her companion’s candid eyes were turned full upon her.

“I’m not sure,” she confessed. “Philip hasn’t mentioned it lately, but—but I don’t think Grant would object to a small party now that Phil is on his feet.”

“Did Grant object before?” Elizabeth asked.

Moira had not been able to forget the way in which Grant had said that there was plenty of time for an engagement party, but she felt that his objection might not apply now.

“He thought that we should wait,” she told Elizabeth. “But that was when Philip was so very ill. We were all—upset at the time.”

Elizabeth ceased to question her, but she thought that the matter was not entirely out of Grant’s hands, whatever Moira might think. She was surprised, therefore, to receive an invitation to dinner a week later “to celebrate Philip’s engagement.”

On the day of the dinner Moira felt nervous and excited. A tension which had been building up within her for weeks seemed ready to snap at any moment and she did not know how she was to get through the evening.

She dared not think of Grant. All day it seemed that he had been keeping out of her way with a deliberation typical of him in his most determined mood, and when he came home earlier than usual, because of the dinner, he shut himself in the library, leaving her alone with Serena.

Surprisingly, Serena was quite pleasant, even going so far as to remark that she was looking forward to the evening, and when Jill joined them for a cup of tea, looking crisp and efficient in her uniform coat, she was almost cordial. Her thin lips curled, however, when Jill asked where Grant was.

“My cousin has work to do,” she said. “He has more to do than amuse himself all the time.”

The intensity of Serena’s dislike for Jill seemed to be mounting, showing itself in little barbed pin-pricks as time went on, but Jill had developed the happy knack of taking little notice of Serena in this mood and she went off to bring Philip downstairs to the drawing-room as soon as she had finished her tea.

They were sitting there when Moira looked in for a moment, Philip beside the open french window and Jill leaning against the rough stonework just outside, her fair hair gleaming in the sunshine, her blue eyes remote as they ranged across the lawn to where a gardener was planting geraniums in the curving beds on the far side of the grass. She looked still and tense, strangely quiet for Jill, but when she saw Moira she managed to force a smile.

“Ought you to see Philip?” she asked. “Before the event, I mean.”

“I thought that only applied at weddings,” Moira tried to say lightly. “How do you feel, Philip.”

“Much the same as usual.” He gave her a quick; nervous smile. “Oughtn’t you to change? I’ve told Jill she must get out of her uniform. I don’t want any hospital atmosphere around tonight!”

"I’ll go up right away,” Moira agreed, "but I thought I would like to come in and say ‘Hullo’ first.”

She felt relieved when she got away, as if she had to escape from something in that quiet room, and she did not wait for Jill to follow her.

When she reached her room she laid out the white frock she had worn when Sir Archibald had been at the Priory and it was then that she thought about the pearls. Grant would expect her to wear them, and so, possibly, would Philip. There had been no ceremony between them over the ring. She still had it in her possession and she would wear it tonight for the first time, the one bright note of color against the whiteness of her dress.

Swiftly she ran down the staircase, pausing at the library door to make sure Grant was not in there. Somehow she could not bear the thought of meeting him just y.et. She felt as if all her defences were down, that it would be easy for him to see her love in her eyes.

She had always kept the key he had given her in the pocket of her evening bag and she took it out now and crossed to the safe. It was only the second time she had opened it and she fumbled with the device in the panelling for a moment or two before it swung out automatically to reveal the steel door behind.

The key turned easily enough and she opened the door, standing back a little so that her shadow fell to one side and she could see the contents of the safe more clearly.

The pearls were not where she had left them. Her eyes ranged along the tidy shelves in search of the case and suddenly her heart began to beat wild and high with fear. Other jewel cases lay on the shelf where she had placed the pearls and there was a metal cash-box and a pile of bonds tied with white tape on the shelf below. She had seen them there when she had locked the pearls away and they did not look as if they had been moved since. It was not possible that the pearls could have gone. She had put them here herself!

Frantically she began to search, but before she had gone very far she realized the truth. The pearls were not there.

After the first shock of discovery she wondered if Grant had taken them for some reason or other, but she did not really think he would have taken them out of the safe without telling her. She clung to the hope, all the same, in the desperate way of a drowning person clinging to a feeble spar, warding off the truth with it as she turned back to the door.

She had closed it behind her, but now it was open and Grant stood there, looking in.

“Grant,” she said breathlessly, “Have you taken the pearls?”

Swiftly he looked from her white face to the open door of the safe and then he closed the double doors behind him and turned the key in the lock. He came across the room in two swift strides, facing her beside the open safe.

“They’re gone,” she whispered. “Your mother’s pearls have gone—”

She could not say more. Apart from the loss of the pearls themselves, something else seemed to be involved—trust and faith, perhaps,—Grant’s faith in her.

He looked into the safe, moving a bundle of papers here and there. “Nothing else has been touched,” he said. “When did you discover this?”

His voice sounded harsh, edged with anger, and she recoiled before it. “Just now—when I came to put them on.”

“You’re quite sure that you put them back into the safe?”

“Quite sure.” Trembling and miserable, she faced him. “Oh, Grant! How could you ever have trusted me with anything so valuable!”

“That’s beside the point,” he said grimly. “The pearls have disappeared and we must find out who took them.”

“I was so careful about the key,” she said. “I kept it in my evening bag at the bottom of one of my dressing-table drawers. I’ve never taken it outside my room.”

“No,” he said, “I can quite imagine that.” He seemed to be following an entirely different train of thought. “Several people have access to your room, of course.”

“Only the maids and Jill—” She broke off, clasping her hands before her in a small gesture of entreaty. “No one could have guessed about the key,” she pleaded.

“Unless they already knew about the safe.”

She had never seen him look so hard nor his mouth so sternly set, and she felt that he had every right to blame her.

“You trusted me,” she said, “and I’ve failed you. I seem to have failed you in so many things, Grant, and now I have lost your mother’s pearls—your most treasured possession.” She felt the scalding tears running down her cheeks but she could do nothing to check them. “How can you ever forgive me?”

He led her to the chair beside the window.

“Leave this to me,” he said. “Can you pull yourself together sufficiently to go into dinner?”

She shrank from the suggestion.

“I couldn’t! Grant, I couldn’t go on with it when—when this has happened.”

He nodded.

“Perhaps you’re right. There’s no use beating about the bush.”

He strode towards the door, unlocking it, and she watched him go out and cross the hall in the direction of the drawing-room, but she could not follow immediately. She heard Elizabeth’s voice and supposed that she had just come in, but everything seemed to be happening in a distant world in which she had no part.

Grant reached the drawing-room to find Philip and Jill waiting there. They were sitting at the window facing the terrace and they turned almost reluctantly as he came in.

“Hullo!” Philip said, and then, when Elizabeth came in: “Hullo, Liz! I’m glad you managed to come.”

His voice seemed to lack enthusiasm and Jill moved uneasily towards the fireplace.

“We’re waiting for Moira and Serena to complete the party,” Philip said as he rose stiffly from his chair. “Will you pour the drinks, Grant?”

His brother turned to face him as Serena came in from the hall. “I’m afraid the party’s off, Phil,” he said quietly, “at least for tonight. Moira doesn’t feel that she can go on with it.” He paused as Serena moved forward into the room. “Mother’s pearls have disappeared from the safe in the library and Moira feels responsible.”

He was looking directly at Serena, and Elizabeth, who had been looking at Philip, was perhaps the only one who saw the relief in his brother’s eyes. It was as if some heavy burden of doubt and perplexity had been lifted from Philip’s mind, at least for the time being.

“What can one really expect?” Serena’s brittle, high-pitched voice cut like a knife across the silence. “This girl comes here, utterly unknown to any of us, without references or anything else, I presume, and you straightway present her with the Melmore pearls and the key to your safe. The temptation must have been too great—”

“How dare you speak like that about my sister!”

Jill thrust forward, tense and white with anger, her eyes blazing in her small, heart-shaped face, but Grant stepped between her and his cousin.

“Leave me to take care of this, Jill,” he said. “Go to Moira, there’s a good girl.” He turned to Serena. “I would like to speak to you alone,” he said calmly.

“I have nothing to do with this! I can't help you,” Serena protested, but he stood aside to let her pass before him out of the room, giving her no alternative but to do as he wished.

Elizabeth, left with Philip, took out a cigarette and lit it.

“Do I know the family well enough to pour myself a drink?” she asked.

Philip slumped into a chair.

“Go ahead,” he said. “You needn’t bother about me. I don’t want one.”

“All the same, I think it would do you good,” Elizabeth advised. “It’s conducive to talking.” She crossed to the cabinet and poured sherry into two of the glasses waiting on a tray. “Here you are. Drink up! Doctor’s orders!”

Philip gulped down half the drink and laid the rest aside.

“What makes you think I want to talk?” he demanded.

“Because you have something on your mind.”

“Hasn’t everyone?”

“More or less. But I venture to think that your special problem has reached a pressing degree of urgency these past few weeks.”

“I didn’t think you were a busybody, Liz.”

“As a rule, I’m not.” She blew a perfect smoke ring. “But this happens to concern me—or I think it does.”

“Because it concerns Moira?”

“Then it does concern Moira?”

“I suppose it does,” he admitted grudgingly.

“It’s about your engagement, Phil, isn’t it?”

“There isn’t much one can hide from you, Liz!”

“Perhaps that’s because I have always been fond of you and fond of Grant,” Elizabeth said. “Grant has been making a mistake.”

“Grant doesn’t come into this,” he declared sullenly.

Elizabeth would not argue the point. Instead, she waited for him to go on speaking.

“I haven’t really changed towards Moira,” he said at last. “I still feel the same way about her, only—”

“You feel differently about someone else?”

“That isn’t fair! I didn’t
ask
to fall in love with Jill!”

Elizabeth drew in a deep breath.

“But it happened,” she said, decisively, “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Except hurt Moira, and I won’t do that!”

“Don’t you think it would hurt her a great deal more if she found out afterwards?” Elizabeth asked slowly. “She would, you know. Love isn’t a thing you can hide for very long, and Moira isn’t the type who would be connected with half measures—just as Grant isn’t. You wouldn’t be able to act apart all the time, Phil. No man could do that, and there isn’t a girl who wouldn’t find out, sooner or later.”

“But where does all this get us?” Philip demanded wearily. “Where do we go from here?”

“It’s up to you to tell Moira the truth.”

“It’s going to be difficult,” he said, “but I see what you mean.”

“Good boy!” she said approvingly. “Whatever it costs you, it will be worth while in the end.”

She crossed to the window as Grant came back into the room. He looked grey and tired and he said with an obvious effort:

“I’m sorry this has spoiled your evening, Phil. There’s no trace of the necklace and Moira is still terribly upset but there’s no need to waste Serena’s dinner. Shall we go in?”

Moira sat through that nightmare meal with all her nerves on edge. Grant had apparently decided not to report their loss to the police for the time being and he would not have them discuss the loss of the pearls while the servants were in the room. He took his accustomed place at the head of the table, with Serena at the foot, and to all outward appearances they might have been any normal family gathering except for the dark undercurrent of tension which flowed beneath their conventional conversation.

At ten o’clock Elizabeth rose and said she must go.

“I’ve a case to see before I turn in for the night,” she explained, and Grant offered to run her over to the hospital.

“Afterwards,” he said, looking down the table at Serena, “I would like a word with the staff.”

Moira felt that she would be expected to stay up till he came home, although her most pressing desire was to fly to the sanctuary of her own room, and she followed Jill and Philip across the hall when they had said good-night to Elizabeth. Serena did not accompany them. She had probably gone to warn the servants not to go to bed till Grant had spoken to them.

Jill snapped on the extra lighting as soon as they reached the drawingroom.

“Do you mind if we have some cheering music?” she asked, turning in the direction of the radiogram.

No one answered and she picked up a record at random, putting it on the turntable and standing beside it until it had run its course.

Philip hobbled to the window and back again with the aid of a stick, sitting down with his back to Jill and staring into the fire, and Moira listened while the second record ran through, conscious that her ears were really attuned to the sound of Grant’s car returning from the hospital. When Jill chose a third record she recognized the tune with a vague feeling of resentment. Gigli had always been a favorite with her, but the deeply resonant voice seemed to fill the room with warning as it flowed out across the stillness.

“If Harlequin thy Columbine hath stolen,