Nurse Linnet's Release (4 page)

CHAPTER V

In the hall Linnet and Cathie paused to examine the letter rack to see whether anything had come for them by the afternoon’s post. But nothing had. As they entered the lift Linnet was conscious of the aftermath of disappointment, for whenever she looked at the letter rack these days she had the feeling that there might—that there
could
be a letter for her addressed in a masculine hand hitherto unknown to her. But so far that masculine handwriting
had declined to materialize before her strangely waiting eyes.

It was exactly a fortnight since she had last seen Guy Monteith, looking a little haggard but amazingly tall and possessed of a kind of feline grace in his faultlessly tailored lounge-suit, walking out to a taxi which awaited him at the kerb. She had watched his departure from the window of her room, which was in the front of the house although high up at the top of the tall building, and which overlooked the street and the front entrance of Aston House. The taxi had been ticking over quietly at the kerb, and Major Monteith, after one apparently casual glance up at the front of the nursing-home, had got into it and been driven away, and Linnet had wondered with a queer sensation like a sudden stoppage of her breath at the base of her slender, cream-coloured throat whether she would ever see him again.

And now, fourteen days after he had driven away, she had the feeling that she would either hear from him or that she would never hear from him again. It was absurd, of course, but he had said he would be away a fortnight, and he had told her that he would get in touch with her
the very night he was back.
He had even asked her to have dinner with him, quite overlooking the fact that she might be on duty.

But tonight—the fourteenth night—she was not on duty
...

“I’m going to have a lazy evening for a change,” Cathie told her, as they parted company outside her room. “I’m going to simply
soak
in a bath with some new and horribly expensive bath essence I’ve just acquired, and then I’m going to grit my teeth and get on with some jobs of mending which, if I ignore them any longer, will leave me without a stitch of underwear to put on.” She grimaced. “So think of me, won’t you, darling? And if you feel like dropping in for a cosy chat about nine o’clock I’ll be ready to welcome you and regale you with tea.”

Just as Linnet was moving on she called her back.

“By the way, our lovely Diana was in high form this afternoon
...
!
Someone had sent her masses of flowers—the most exotic blooms!—and she just can’t think whom she’s got to thank for them. There was no
card. She’s thrilled to bits.”

“Oh!” Linnet exclaimed.

“Of course, a woman like that is bound to have rather an exciting background, and possibly quite a few lovers, all waiting for her to recover from this little lot. And our Adrian has forbidden visitors for the time being, except Sir Paul, who looked in yesterday. But with the tender message of dark red roses before her eyes
...
Well, what do, you think of it, my sweet? Don’t you wish you were a seductive widow!”

Linnet, when she reached her room, decided to go through her own stocking drawer and discover how much attention her nylons needed, and as she went through pair after pair, she thought of Diana Carey. She hadn’t known that Dr. Shane Willoughby had forbidden visitors, but even in the face of such a ban Diana bore up bravely. The one visit she looked forward to was that of Dr. Shane Willoughby himself, and for that she always insisted on looking what she called her “poor best”. This meant that she had all her make-up aids brought to her, even if his visit was late in the evening—which once or twice it had been, while Linnet herself was on duty—and a bed-jacket a little more enticing than the one she had worn all day was brought forth; she even added a spot of perfume to the lobes of her ears.

“Simply a rather special cologne, Nurse,” she explained. “So refreshing!” and she smiled beguilingly with all her little milky white teeth.

Another evening she even discussed the doctor’s own private background with the nurse.

“Did you know he’s a bachelor, Nurse Kintyre? Such a waste! Why are some of the nicest men so clever at evading the toils of the most determined of women? For of course women don’t just leave him alone! Not with those eyes—do you know, I feel as if I’m being engulfed by cool blue water whenever he looks at me, and his voice is so soothing, and the touch of his hands is something one kind of waits for!”

She stared dreamily out of the window at the orange light left by the sunset that was gilding the roof-tops opposite, and her voice had grown slightly husky again all at once. She laughed a little oddly.

“Do you think I’m falling in love, Nurse? I’ve only been in love once before in my life, and it—wasn’t pleasant!”

Linnet stared at her for a moment with several conflicting emotions in her breast. No one in their sane senses would env
y
Diana Carey the complaint she had picked up before she returned to England, but a good many women would envy her her extreme feminine appeal, and the golden quality of her looks. She was the kind of woman whom men fell for at a glance, and some of them—the more impressionable—might find it hard to recover from that one glance; even the most determined of bachelors. And if Diana herself capitulated—if she loved and wanted to be loved, what hope would a determined bachelor have?

Linnet was by no means certain that she considered Diana Carey the right type for Dr. Shane Willoughby, but she realized it was no concern of hers, and if Diana herself was determined
...

She poked a hole in the toe of a stocking, and was just reaching for her work-basket when a tap came on the door. It was Jane Farr, a very junior Pro, to let her know that she was wanted on the telephone. Linnet jumped up, scattering the stockings to right and left as well as overturning the work-basket.

“It’s the end box, Nurse,” said Jane, and being a very helpful and rather eager eighteen-year-old she added: “I’ll pick all those up for you. You go and take your call.”

“Thanks, Jane,” Linnet responded, and sped away. Her heart was knocking as if it were something dangling on the end of a string encased inside her ribs instead of a normal heart pumping blood through her veins, and as a result she felt distinctly breathless when she lifted the receiver. She hoped the breathlessness was not detectable as she said:

“This is Linnet Kintyre.”

“
Linnet
Kintyre?” A man’s voice answered her. “What an absolutely perfect name for you! I knew the initial was L, but I thought it might stand for Laura, or something starched and severe like that. I’m so glad it’s Linnet
...
” He paused, as if his admiration overwhelmed him for a moment, and then, rather more sharply: “You’re free tonight, aren’t you?”

“Yes. But how did you know? And—and, in any case, who are you—”

A faint laugh answered her.

“Who am I? Didn’t I say I’d ring you in a fortnight’s time? And do you mean to tell me you haven’t been expecting me to ring? That you haven’t given me a thought in the past fortnight?”

His voice was low and caressing—faintly incredulous. She heard herself answering:

“How—how are you, Major Monte
i
th?”

“I shall be much better when I’ve seen you again,” he told her at once. “And how soon can I call and collect you, Linnet? In half-an-hour? An hour—?”

“Oh, but I—I’m not—”

“I’ll give you an hour and a half,” he said, as if he was making a special concession. “In an hour and a half—that will be eight o’clock!—I’ll be at Aston House to pick you up. Until then
—au revoir,
sweet Linnet!”

Sweet Linnet
...!
As she hung up the receiver her hand was shaking a little. What would Cathie say if she heard that warm, tender, caressing voice making use of her Christian name so freely? It wouldn’t be sweet Linnet—it might be, “Well, really, Linnet, surely you don’t have to be warned
...
?
”

CHAPTER VI

Linnet took down the green dress out of her wardrobe. It was young leaf green, with a very full skirt, a tiny waist, and a little upstanding collar that acted as a frame for the face. As it had three-quarter length sleeves and a ballerina-length skirt it was not, as she had said, an evening-dress, but it seemed eminently suitable for an evening she was not in the least sure about anyway. With it she wore a row of finely-graded small pearls that had been a present from a wealthy aunt and uncle on her eighteenth birthday, gold sandals, and her sheerest nylons.

Just before the house phone buzzed to warn her that her visitor was awaiting her in the hall, she picked up a brocade evening-bag and slipped into a dark coat, and then hastened along the corridor to the lift hoping she would encounter no one on the way. The very last person she wished to meet was Cathie Blake, who would look for her in vain around about nine o’clock, but would no doubt assume she had gone out somewhere after all.

Later she might tell Cathie about Major Monteith—but only after this experimental evening was over!

Her heart was beginning to knock again by the time she reached the hall. It was rather dimly lighted, and there was no one about—no one save a tall figure standing beside the hall table and idly reading the notices on the wall behind it. There was one soliciting donations for a children’s home in the country, and he seemed to be giving it extra attention.

The lift had whined almost silently to a stop, and although the lift gates clanged a little he did not turn even when she actually stood beside him and said good evening.

She repeated breathlessly: “Good evening, Major Monteith!”

Then he turned, and there was a tiny smile curving the corners of his lips.

“Do we have to be so formal—Nurse Kintyre?” His eyes swept over her, taking in every detail of her appearance, and it seemed to her that after that they actually seemed to glow a little, the strange effect of a light appearing suddenly in the midst of darkness disconcerting her still further. “My name is Guy Sommerville Richard Monteith, so you can take your choice!”

She smiled up at him a little nervously—at least, her nervousness was obvious to him, and in spite of a faint touch of rouge she looked rather pale. As she had suspected he might be he was beautifully turned out for the evening, his dinner-jacket made for him in Saville Row, a crimson silk handkerchief tucked in the pocket. He still looked a little haggard—it might be his natural look, she thought—and the scar slanting upwards from the corner of his mouth was rather noticeable. But his darkness was arresting, and his hair shone like polished satin in the dimly lighted hall.

“If you don’t mind,” she said, “I think I’d like to be formal—at least until I know you a little better!”

“Just as you like, Nurse.” His smile at her was teasing and indulgent. “But now come along and don’t let’s waste a moment of our time together.”

Outside he opened the door of a silvery-grey Bentley for her to slip into the seat beside the driving-seat. This was further evidence, she thought, that whatever else Guy Monteith might or might not be, he was not poor. He was very, very far from poor.

He drove with a kind of negligent ease which convinced her that it was possible for him to keep half his mind on something altogether different and still be a safe driver. They drew up outside a restaurant she had never visited before, but where, he assured her, the food was good and the service excellent, and he hoped and believed she would approve his choice.

Once inside she knew that it would have been impossible to disapprove of it. Their table, obviously booked beforehand, was in a discreetly tucked away corner, and there were some deep wine-coloured carnations decorating it, and even more discreetly shaded lights shone down upon them. The waiter already had champagne
cooling in an ice-bucket beside their table, and when Linnet noticed this she was not at all sure whether she was pleased or not.

“But how did you know I would be free tonight?” she asked, as soon as the ordering was over and the waiter had withdrawn.

Guy Monteith smiled in the way that made his mouth appear very definitely crooked.

“Because I took the trouble to find out about your off-duty periods before I left the nursing-home.”

“But I might—I might have arranged something else for tonight!”

“You might,” he agreed, and this time although he smiled his eyes rested upon her in such a way that she felt a sudden burning colour rise up in her cheeks. “But I told you I would ring you in a fortnight—and I didn’t think you would have anything else fixed up. In fact, I was sure you wouldn’t.”

She looked down at the soup that had just been placed in front of her, and for the first time in her life a feeling of excitement deep down within her actually made her hand shake so much that she was terrified to reach out and pick up her glass lest the fact that her fingers were so unsteady should become plain to him. And it was only as the result of a tremendous effort of will that she finally forced herself to grasp the fine stem of the wine-glass.

“You haven’t told me yet whether you’re really feeling better,” she said, deliberately avoiding his eyes.

“Much better,” he assured her. “In fact, completely fit again. I don’t quite know why I went down with that dose of malaria so soon after arriving back in England—unless it was that I couldn’t wait to meet you!”

“At that time you didn’t even know that I existed.”

“No. But I do now!”

“How long have you been back in England?” she asked quickly.

“Just over three weeks—but it seems a life-time, somehow! Strange how one can live a life-time in just a few days, and yet other periods of one’s existence drag themselves out interminably! Since I went into Hertfordshire to stay with my mother every hour has seemed like twenty-four hours, and the days were even difficult to get through. I wanted to come rushing back to London.”

“But you didn’t do so,” she said, as calmly as she could, “because that would have disappointed your mother, wouldn’t it? I’ve no doubt she was looking forward to your visit for weeks before you got back to England.”

“Yes, I think she was,” he agreed, twirling the stem of his own wine-glass. “But then I happen to be her only son.”

“And she lives alone?”

“Alone except for a companion, and the staff who have been with her for years. Our house is called Lady’s Mead. It’s a very attractive Queen Anne house with some rambling, earlier bits. If you like old houses I’ll take you down there one day and show it to you. And I’d also like you to meet my mother.”

“Would you?” She looked across the table at him in surprise. “Was she very concerned about your bad bout of malaria?”

“I didn’t tell her much about it, but I told her about you.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed.

His eyes gleamed at her, and his mouth twisted a little in a fashion she could not understand.

“Next week I go to Scotland, and I’ll be away three weeks,” he said. “Those three weeks will seem like another eternity! But tonight I want to talk about you, Linnet, and nothing else—I want to forget everything else but you!”

“But I’m not at all an interesting subject for discussion,” she assured him a little faintly, and was glad that the waiter interposed to bring a fresh course. “And you’ve been abroad—you’ve done all the things I want to do, and I’d like to hear about them. Nurse Blake said you’ve just come from Ceylon, and that you’re a tea-planter—”

“She’s wrong,” he told her, and his voice sounded impatient. “I’ve come from Rhodesia, and I go in for mixed farming out there.”

“Rhodesia?” Her feathery eyebrows lifted. “But that’s where Mrs. Carey comes from!”

“Mrs.—? Oh, you mean Diana Carey.” He crushed out a cigarette he had just lighted in an ash-tray. “Yes, I know all about Diana!” She thought that a harsh look chased itself across his somewhat sullenly set lips. “I knew her husband very well
—and
I think I know Diana very well, too.”

“I see,” Linnet murmured. She watched the waiter bringing dishes from a side-table, and appeared to be absorbed in the little blue flame over which he heated plates. “Did you know that she picked up a very unpleasant infection in Rhodesia?”

“I know that she’s in Aston House, and is lucky enough to be one of your patients. You lent me a book which belonged to her, do you remember? It had her name on the fly-leaf.”

“Yes, I remember.” She remembered him flicking open the book and exclaiming, “Diana Carey! Good Heavens!” But he had said nothing more at the time.

Now she wished he would tell her a little more about Diana, but for some reason he did not look as if the subject appealed to him—and not merely because it prevented their discussion of herself and her affairs. He had, she decided, studying him a little more carefully, a hard, in fact rather a ruthless face—at least his expression was ruthless at times. And there was no doubt about it, as she admitted to herself with a faint sinking of the heart, that faintly sensual mouth of his was also quite definitely self-indulgent, in spite of his strong, square jaw. On the surface, at least, he appeared to be a combination of oddly opposing forces—dogged determination to get what he wanted somehow or other, and at all costs, arrogance which could never be disguised under another name, cynicism and impatience on the one hand, and something deeper and more unguess-at-able on the other; something deep and, even so, slightly sinister, like the still waters of a pool in the depths of a shadowy, silent wood.

And yet, in spite of all that, his eyes could light up in a very pleasant way when he actually smiled, and when he addressed her sometimes his voice was very tender, as if in her he recognized something that must be handled gently.

He pushed her champagne glass towards her.

“You’re only sipping at it,” he said. “And I want this to be a celebration.”

“A celebration of what?” she inquired unwisely.

“Of our meeting, of course! Of our getting to know one another! And I am determined that we shall know one another very much better before long!”

When he drove her back to Aston House at last it was quite late—about eleven o’clock. In fact, the local church clock was actually chiming the hour. The grey Bentley slid a little beyond the nursing-home and came to rest well beyond the street lamp and outside the blank facade of an empty house next door. Behind it a slightly less ostentatious but very sleek black car waited outside Aston House, and Linnet, who did not recognize it, wondered whether it belonged to one of the doctors who attended at the nursing-home, and whether perhaps someone was not so well tonight.

Guy switched off his engine and dipped his headlights. Linnet turned to thank him for a very pleasant evening.

“And did you really enjoy it?”

“Of course I did.”

Her small face was a little upturned to him, and it looked very pure and pale in the dim light. The eyes were very large, and soft like shadowy purple velvet under the feathery dark eyelashes. Her mouth was soft and inviting as a crimson flower.

“Oh, Linnet!” he exclaimed, and just as she was about to offer him her hand he caught her with a fierce movement into his arms, and she felt his mouth pressed almost ruthlessly to hers. She had never been kissed like it before—in fact, she had been kissed so few times that this was an experience in any case. And for a few moments she had neither the will nor the desire to resist him. Then she made a determined effort to free herself.

“Please
...
!
” she said.

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you all the evening! My lovely little Linnet
...
!
”

She dragged her mouth away from his, and drew back into her corner of the car.

“This is merely spoiling things.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t! And considering that I shan’t see you again for three weeks
...
Unless you’ll have lunch with me tomorrow? Linnet,
say
you’ll have lunch with me tomorrow! At the Savoy, at one o’clock? I’ll be waiting for you just inside the entrance.”

“I can’t,” Linnet answered weakly, knowing that she would.

“But I’ll be waiting for you! You won’t let me down, Linnet—you wouldn’t let anyone down, you sweet, adorable girl! And if you’re not there by one I’ll wait all the afternoon until you do arrive!”

He went round and opened the car door for her and she slipped lightly out on to the pavement. He caught at her hand and crushed it between both his own, and then carried it to his lips. “Good night, little Linnet!”

Linnet stole into the hall where the light still burned dimly, and fortunately the lift gates were open. As they clanged quietly shut and just before she started to shoot upwards someone emerged from matron’s office at the very end of the hall, and for an instant as he passed the lift Linnet felt sure he recognized her through the gilt bars, just the same as she recognized him; Dr. Shane Willoughby. She wondered what he was doing here at this hour, and whether perhaps all was not well with Diana Carey.

Upstairs and safely shut away in her own room she went to the window and looked out. Both cars were still there, although Dr. Willoughby’s was about to draw away from the kerb. The silver-grey Bentley was still and motionless, and she had the feeling that Guy was sitting there behind his steering-wheel and perhaps looking upwards at her room, or where he imagined her room to be, for she had told him it was in the front of the house. In which case Dr. Willoughby would have guessed that he had been her escort for the evening, and she was not sure why this sudden intrusive thought displeased her a little.

And, in any case, it was nothing to do with Adrian Shane Willoughby what she did with her free time, even if he had given her tea that afternoon. And he had only done that because he wanted her to promise him something.

She undressed without putting on her light, glad of the darkness and the sight of the far-away brightness of the stars outside her window as she mechanically made ready for bed. And although, in the darkness, she also drew a few tissues from her drawer and wiped the make-up off her face, she left her lips untouched. She merely touched them experimentally, with the tips of her fingers, and discovered that they were burning a little.