Ursula's Secret (17 page)

Evie could never quite believe her luck. Evie, the doctor’s wife, taken up by this worldly, fashionable woman, and all because she happened to have booked passage on the same boat. Just think. A month earlier, or a month later, and she might never have met Helen Buchanan, even though there was a distant, very distant, family connection through their mothers. Nor would she have met Gregory Munro or his alarming brother Cameron, or even the slightly frightening but hugely capable Nurse Reid. Dear Ursula. All that professional proficiency and all that hopeless naivety. Sad, though. Brought up in an orphanage. Never knew what it was to be loved.

Evie could be in awe of them, if she let herself. She had been brought up in a remote Highland manse, been courted by her father’s godson and found herself married when she’d hardly turned nineteen. Then she was left behind for two long, long years while her new husband established his position before sending for her to join him.

They’d been in the country only a few days then, the evening of the necklace, the passage not long behind them, but shipboard romances done and dusted. Or so she’d thought.

“Of course, darling.” Evie reached in, took the ends of the rope of pearls and slipped the hook into its clasp. It clicked firmly into place, the hook sitting tightly in the diamond-crusted shell. Helen leant forward, starting to stand before Evie had removed her hands and that’s what made the dress gape away from her skin. Evie gasped. She prided herself on being unshockable, but there was a fading bruise the size of a saucer on Helen’s right shoulder, its greens and yellows mottling her perfect skin.

“Darling?” Helen asked. “What is it?” The dress fell back against her milk-white skin and the discoloration disappeared as she turned to face her friend.

“I … Your … There’s a … Nothing,” Evie stammered, turning away as Helen looked at her, one eyebrow cocked in that self-assured, amused way she had then. Evie felt her cheeks flush and her heart beat faster. What had happened? Such a bruise! How had she—

“Cameron,” Helen said, her voice flat, her shoulders rising in the slightest of shrugs.

“Cameron?”

“The bruise. Yes, Cameron.”

“
Cameron?
” Evie repeated like an idiot. “He did that? How on earth … Why?”

“I turned him down, again, you see.”

“I don’t understand.” And in truth, Evie didn’t. The very thought of a man hurting a woman, even
touching
a woman who wasn’t his wife, was so alien to her. Douglas hadn’t so much as held her hand before they were engaged, and certainly hadn’t ventured to kiss her until they were all but married.

“He declared himself again, as they say, that last night in Cape Town. Told me he loved me, wanted me and so forth. Couldn’t live without me. Said he’d tried with Gertie, but it was impossible. He couldn’t get over me. Nonsense, of course, and I told him so, just as I had on the voyage. I told him I’m in love with someone else and that in any case I’d made my feelings about him very plain that night on the ship
and nothing had changed. We will continue to be thrown by circumstance into close proximity and I have no wish to make life awkward for any of us, so I will be civil but nothing more. I despise the man, if truth be known.”

Helen turned to the mirror, smoothed the powder-blue chiffon of her dress, leant in and puckered her lips. She looked divine. She always did, but tonight there was something ethereal about her. Perhaps it was the light, but she looked so fragile, so delicate. Perhaps it was knowing how badly she was bruised beneath such a sleek and stylish exterior that made Evie feel Helen could break, could be broken, despite the strength of her spirit. Evie was afraid for her.

“So … he hit you?”

“No, darling, of course not. I’m sure he didn’t
mean
to hurt me. He was upset, embarrassed, I suppose. He pushed me. That’s all. And there was a hook on the wall behind me. For the fan cord, you see, and I stumbled and hit it rather hard when I stepped back from him.”

“But he had no right to push you! That bruise is dreadful, it must have been so … Did he threaten you?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, darling. It was nothing. Looks worse than— Oh, darling, look! I’ve a run in my stocking. I can’t possibly go out like this. Would you be a dear and pop down and distract the gang while I change? I’ll only be a few minutes, but I do so hate to keep them all waiting.”

“Oh right. Yes, of course. Absolutely.” Evie knew the subject had been closed, so she did as she was asked.

The men were waiting outside, laughing and smoking. A couple of the younger hospital doctors and the new dentist were clustered around Fredi, who was, of course, looking flamboyant and louche with his scarlet cravat and matching handkerchief. She was drawn to their laughter as he regaled his audience with a story that involved much hilarity and posturing.

“No Douglas this evening?” She turned, surprised. She hadn’t noticed Fredi’s new friend Jurgen Axelsen sitting in the shadows to her left.

“Oh. No. Douglas is upcountry again. The clinics.”

“Of course. Tireless, that husband of yours. We’re so lucky to have him.”

They both turned back to Fredi as another burst of laughter erupted from his small entourage.

“Dear Fredi,” Evie laughed. “He’s incorrigible. Don’t you just love him?” She turned back to the man at her side, surprised to see him blush, cough, look down quickly at his feet. “Jurgen? Are you—”

“Here I am, darlings!” Helen’s voice called all attention to the doorway behind Evie and Jurgen and they stepped quickly aside to allow her her entrance. “So dreadfully sorry to keep you all waiting. Were you awfully bored?”

Evie watched the men swarm towards her glamorous friend, saw their faces light up when she descended the steps to join them, laid a hand lightly on an arm, turned a smile to one or other, kissed a cheek in passing, accepted a cigarette.

As they made their way to the waiting cars, all in such high spirits, laughing and joking, excitement entwining them, binding them all together, tethering them to one another, the shadow that Evie’s fleeting glimpse of Helen’s bruise had cast on her spirits quickly dissolved. Gregory was first to the car, and as he held the door open for Helen to glide elegantly in, Evie saw the look they exchanged. Nothing had changed since the boat, that much was clear. Evie hadn’t asked who the “someone else” Helen had told Cameron she was in love with really was, because she already knew.

*

The room was in shadow now and Lexy’s face was hidden from Evie until the glare of sudden light and the crinkling popping of the fluorescent strip above the bed building to its full incandescence shook them both from their thoughts. An officious nurse Evie didn’t recognise was fussing around her, plugging something into the cannula that dug painfully into the back of her hand, then squeezing a bag that hung from the spindly frame beside her bed like an over-ripe mango drooping from its tree.

“Your grandson phoned to check on you,” the nurse was saying in a tone Evie found disagreeable. “He’ll be along later, but he got to do his clinic first. Busy man, that one. And you” – the nurse jabbed a finger in Lexy’s direction and nodded her head towards the door – “he said time you were gone.”

The nurse pulled the sheets taut and tucked them in like a girdle around Evie’s chest. Bandaged breasts on a pantomime star couldn’t have been strapped any tighter. Then she took Evie’s hands and straightened them too as she laid them down on top of the bedclothes. And like a fool, Evie let her, amused at how subservient she seemed to have become. How helpless.

“Water, please,” Evie croaked. She swallowed hard and her eyes smarted as the dryness cut her throat like glass. A sigh at the interruption, a clatter and splash, and a plastic beaker was thrust into Evie’s hand.

“Lexy,” Evie’s voice was clearer now. “Don’t go.”

“I won’t. I—”

“But Dr Campbell said—”

“I need to talk to her.”

“But you need to be strong for your operation and no talking—”

“Thank you, nurse. That will be all.”

The nurse’s disapproval was clear, even before she snapped the door shut behind her with brisk efficiency.

“Are you sure you’re able to go on, Evie? I could come back tomorrow.”

Evie could hear the reluctance in the younger woman’s voice, knew she was desperate for Evie to continue. Lexy was more inquisitive than her mother had been and Evie recognised tenacity when she saw it. She would have to tell her … some of it. Not everything, of course. Tell her enough to make her realise she wasn’t safe, to make her understand why she had to leave Malawi.

Cameron had been home less than a month, but already he was causing Helen concern, even though he’d finally taken a house of his own. That day in May 1949 Evie had just returned from the annual review of the hospital’s rural clinics with Douglas. She’d met Helen at the Club for tea on her first day back and it was Helen’s gasp and exclamation that had made Evie turn. She couldn’t believe it when she saw them come in together, her arm linked in his, her face brighter than Evie had ever seen it. Even from where she and Helen were sitting in the Ladies’ Drawing Room, Ursula’s euphoria was clear. She looked almost frivolous. But then it was a long time since Evie had seen her out of her nursing uniform, although that afternoon there was more to her lightness than could be attributed to her wardrobe.

“Has she no sense?” Evie hissed under her breath.

“Has he no shame?” Helen had responded.

The couple lingered in the hallway, then he bent and kissed her hand lightly before disappearing in the direction of the Members’ Bar. Ursula watched him go, then turned to see her two friends sitting staring at her. She laughed and tripped, yes
tripped
, there really was no other word for it, over to join them. She plopped down in a chair, eyes shining and face glowing.

“Well?” she challenged the silent women. “Aren’t you going to scold me, tell me I’m a fool, a respectable professional with a reputation to consider?”

“Darling,” Helen began, then looked to Evie as if she should be the one to respond. Picking up the mantle, she tried, but truly was at a loss.

“Ursula, we’ve been here before. Four years ago on the boat and—”

“And people change.” Ursula’s hand waved in dismissal. “And deserve to be given a second chance. Isn’t that the Christian thing to do, Evie? Tell me, Evie, as a minister’s daughter, isn’t that the Christian thing to do if a man repents?”

“Not if that man is the devil incarnate,” Helen retorted. “And that one is.”

“No, he’s not. He’s changed. His time in South Africa, he says, has reminded him of the importance of values, and morals. Of loyalty and love.”

Helen’s laughter was as sharp as it was unexpected. “No, a leopard doesn’t change its spots. And that man is more of a predator than any big cat. Believe me, he’s been living under my roof until this weekend, so I know. Don’t fall for it. You’ll be sorry if you do.”

“Of course. You’d know.”

Evie was shocked at the venom in Ursula’s voice, the way she sneered at Helen, her friend.

“Ursula, I don’t think you should—”

“What’s the matter, Helen?” Ursula cut across Evie’s attempt to intervene. “Jealous?” Ursula’s smirk made her homely features ugly.

“Sorry?”

“Find it hard to accept a man like Cameron might abandon his infatuation with you for something deeper and more meaningful with me?”

“What?”

Evie couldn’t bear it. Not her two closest friends. “Ursula,” she tried again, “I really don’t—”

“This is nothing to do with you, Evie. This is between Helen and me. We all know Cameron was infatuated with her from the moment he set foot on that boat. What we didn’t know is that she encouraged him.”

“I most certainly did not!”

“We only have your word for that, don’t we? Perhaps we should ask Gregory. Cameron told me how awkward it was that the daughter of his brother’s new employer was behaving in such an unseemly way towards him. Imagine. How difficult for him.”

Evie was horrified by the sheer idiocy of Ursula’s words, the depths of her gullibility.

“Ursula, even I know that’s nonsense.” Evie put a hand on her friend’s arm in an attempt to stop her. “Gregory was the one who called Cameron to account for his behaviour. Who told him he was no longer welcome to sit with us at dinner. Gregory almost pushed him towards that Gertie, for goodness’ sake, anything to keep him away from us.”

“Think that if you like, Evie.” Ursula shook Evie’s hand off, crossed her arms and leant back in her chair. “But Cameron only took up with Gertie to try to stop Helen’s advances. If he’d really wanted Gertie, why didn’t he stay with her in South Africa?”

“Because Gertie’s married—”

“He thought Helen would leave him in peace when she realised he wasn’t interested in her. Once she’d started making eyes at his brother instead.” Ursula’s cold stare was fixed on Helen. “But you couldn’t leave him alone, could you? You had to find a way to hurt him, discredit him and have him sent away again. Never mind the pain it might have caused me, your
friend
. That’s the truth, isn’t it, Helen?”

Helen was quite pale. Evie thought again of the horrendous bruising on her skin that night she’d fixed her necklace for her. Of how Helen had tried to dismiss Cameron’s unwanted advances as nothing to worry about, his brutality as unintentional. And she was frightened. Ursula had no idea of the darkness in the man she had allowed to seduce her, for it was very clear that that was exactly what he had done.

Helen, with remarkable dignity, picked up her wrap and wound it around her set shoulders.

“I’m not going to pick an argument with you, Ursula, nor am I going to take offence. He’s spun his web around you again; anyone can see that. Just remember that we tried to warn you. And that we’ll be here to pick up the pieces when he hurts you once again.” She leant over and kissed Evie lightly on the cheek and bent to do the same to Ursula, who turned her head away with a snort of disgust. Evie heard Helen sigh as she walked away.

Ursula looked at Evie, challenge in her eyes, then shrugged before reaching for the teapot and pouring herself a cup.