Hospital Corridors (13 page)

There was not much going on in No. 2 Theatre on Thursdays, and Dr. Lanyon was not operating at all. But halfway through the morning Madeline was sent to him with a sheaf of records, and, for the first time since that dreadful morning when she had come there unbidden, she entered his office once more.

He was leaning back in the chair behind his desk, talking to his secretary, and he looked unusually relaxed and good-humoured. As Madeline came in, she heard some reference to the Ball, and wondered for a moment if his secretary were going with him.

Then she noticed that Miss Murphy wore an engagement ring, and decided that Dr. Lanyon was either not going to the Ball or was taking someone from his own circle.

Madeline put down the papers on the desk, and would have withdrawn without interrupting the conversation, but Dr. Lanyon looked up and said,

“Oh, just a minute, Miss Gill. I want to check those through. There was an error in them last week. Sit down.”

Madeline sat down and glanced around. She hardly recognized the place, she realized, and guessed that she had been much too agitated to take in anything the last time she had been here. Now she came to think of it, she had seen nothing but Dr. Lanyon himself.

She glanced back at him, unobserved since his head was bent over the records, and Clarissa’s words came back to her, “He’d be a heartbreaker, if he were not quite so dedicated to his work.”

“I think it’s the passionate sense of dedication behind all that outward self-possession that is the attraction,” Madeline thought. “He isn’t exactly handsome, of course, but he has quality and immense significance. He—”

At that moment Dr. Lanyon looked up and, finding her glance full on him, said,

“Yes? What is it?”

“N-nothing,” stammered Madeline, going scarlet. “I was just waiting for your comments.”

“Indeed? Well, the comment is—all correct. How do you like working in the theatre?”

She was so surprised at the comparative friendliness of that that she nearly stammered again. But, with an immense effort, she recovered her self-control and said,

“I like it very much. It’s much more dramatic, of course, than ward work.”

“Is it?” He gave that faint, charming smile. “I notice you are a good nurse.”

Again she felt her colour rise.

“Oh—thank you. I didn’t know you had time to notice anything of that sort when you were operating.”

“Well, it’s more a general awareness than individual noticing, I suppose,” he said meditatively. “You can sense very soon who is tuned in, as it were, to what you are doing, and who will, in consequence, know what you want almost as soon as you know it yourself. Not actually anticipate your wants—that’s the most infuriating thing in the world, and almost always wrong. But just be ready on the split second that’s needed.”

“I’m glad you feel like that about my work.” Madeline looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. And then he held out the records to her, and she took them and rose to go.

As she turned away, he said, with a touch of almost naive curiosity in anyone so distinguished,

“I suppose Sanders is taking you to the Ball tonight?”

“No.” Madeline shook her head.

“Oh? Armed intervention by Mrs. Sanders again?”

Madeline laughed and bit her lip.

“No. I was going with Morton—it was all arranged. But unfortunately he had an urgent business matter to attend to, and now he can’t come.”

“Stood you up, in fact?” he said, with a brusqueness which annoyed her.

“Not at all,” Madeline retorted coldly. “It was something that couldn’t be helped. He phoned last night to tell me so.”

“So what are you going to do now? Is someone else taking you? You can’t miss the Annual Ball.”

“I’m afraid,” Madeline said calmly, “I may have to. I don’t really know anyone outside the hospital, and though some of the girls most kindly offered—”

“Then you’d better come with me,” he said disagreeably. “The Annual Ball is not like anything else. It’s part of your Dominion experience. I’ll fetch you from the Nurses’ Home at eight.”

CHAPTER X

Madeline
stared at Dr. Lanyon in blank astonishment.

“What did you say?” she ventured at last, unable to believe that she had heard aright.

“I said you’d better come to the Ball with me.” He hesitated, seemed to realize that this was not the most graceful form of invitation, and then said, with that slight, attractive smile, “I’m sorry. I meant—will you come with me? It is quite an occasion, and I shouldn’t like to think that anyone who came from abroad to work at the Dominion should miss it.”

“Why—why, thank you.” A sort of pleasurable excitement began to take hold of Madeline. “It’s exceedingly kind of you. But at this late hour you have surely made other arrangements? Weren’t you already going with someone else?”

“No, I was not really going at all. Balls are not much in my line. But, if you will allow me, I’ll take you.”

“Of course I’ll allow—I mean, I shall be delighted to go with you.” It was beginning to dawn on her that the new arrangement would be little less than a sensation—something far more gratifying and exciting than to go as Morton Sanders’ partner.

“Very well. I’ll come for you at eight, as I said.” And he gave her a nod of unmistakable dismissal.

Madeline departed, and for the rest of the morning she went about her duties in a state of pleasurable excitement almost impossible to conceal. There was no one on duty with her now to whom she could impart her news, for she was not yet on intimate terms with any of her colleagues. If she had still been in the Private Pavilion she would, of course, at any rate have managed to whisper something to Ruth. As it was, she had to keep it all to herself until she went off duty.

At this point, however, she could not have asked for a more gratifying reception of her news. One or two of the girls had come into her room to insist once more that she should join their party and share their escorts, and she could not but be proud and happy to be able to say,

“Thank you so very much for all being so sweet and generous. But it isn’t necessary, after all. Dr. Lanyon is taking me.”

There was a moment of astounded silence. Then everyone said, “Dr. Lanyon!” in varying keys of astonishment and congratulation.

“Yes. I happened to have to go to his office today, and he asked me quite casually who was taking me tonight And when he heard what had happened, he asked me to go with him instead.”

“Just like that?” shrilled Eileen incredulously. “ ‘Miss Gill, please come with me instead’?”

“No.” Madeline smiled reminiscently. “Not at all like that. In fact, he said rather disagreeably, ‘Then you’d better come with me/ I’ll fetch you at eight.’ ”

The others shrieked. And Madeline rather contritely added, “But he changed that afterwards to a very nice and graceful invitation, and explained that he didn’t want someone who came from England to miss the occasion.”

“I don’t ever recall his coming before,” one of the girls said. “How does he know that it’s something not to be missed?”

“Well, he must have heard enough about it, one way and another,” Ruth declared. “I think it’s very nice of him to want to save Madeline disappointment and boast a bit about the Dominion at the same time.”

“Aren’t you thrilled? Or are you nervous?” Eileen enquired.

“Something of both,” Madeline admitted, because she was by no means sure that she and Dr. Lanyon had re-established friendly relations, and she could not help wondering if he had already regretted the impulse.

“I should be simply terrified,” stated a small, vivacious girl in her second year. “I’d rather not go.”

But everyone else shouted this down, though, as Eileen said, “There’s something of the same thrill in it as putting your head in a lion’s mouth for ten thousand dollars.”

Then they scattered to their various rooms, either to make final preparations or else to snatch some rest between strenuous duty and what promised to be an evening of strenuous enjoyment.

Those who, like Madeline, worked the first shift, were of course the most fortunate, since they could be there for the whole evening. But even those who went on duty at eleven could have a few hours of fun first, while those who came off duty at eleven would have to be very tired indeed not to snatch a final hour or two at the Ball before going to rest.

As eight o’clock approached, Madeline experienced little tingles of excitement or nervousness—she was not quite sure which. But when, dressed and ready, she regarded herself in the long mirror set in her side of the bathroom door, she felt a certain degree of confidence in her appearance which pushed the nervousness into the background.

The silvery grey of her chiffon dress made her wide, dark-lashed eyes seem even deeper grey by comparison, and the splash of red made by the big tulle stole was repeated in the soft colouring of her smiling, eagerly parted lips. Smooth dark hair and creamy skin completed the picture, and there was no doubt that Madame Loncini’s pearl and silver evening bag might have been selected specially for the occasion.

At two minutes to eight Madeline went downstairs, and, as she stepped from the lift, the doors at the entrance swung open, and Dr. Lanyon came in, looking remarkably distinguished in evening clothes. She had seen him like this before, of course, on board ship, but then he had been just another passenger. Now she saw him as Dr. Lanyon very charmingly off duty, and she found that she liked what she saw very much.

“Perfect timing,” he said and smiled at her. And then, “You look lovely.”

“Oh—thank you.” She smiled at him, but she had an idea he was making academic comment rather than voicing friendly approval and congratulation.

He held the door for her and they went out into the hospital grounds. Everything seemed unusually still and clear in the warm evening light, and there was something a little incongruous in the idea of going to a ball on such an evening. But as they entered the main block, the festive atmosphere seemed to reach out to greet them, and as they entered the great lecture and assembly hall, where the Ball was to be held, the occasion might have been New Year’s Eve.

Cooled by the air-conditioning and decorated with flowers and palms and coloured lights, the hall looked quite unlike its usual beautiful but austere self. An excellent band was already playing, the Chairman of the Hospital Board, a handsome, elderly man with a distinct likeness to Miss Ardingley, was receiving the guests, and couples who had passed through this pleasure or ordeal (as you cared to look at it) were already dancing.

The Chairman greeted Dr. Lanyon cordially, and made himself very pleasant to Madeline, for ever since the Queen had shaken hands with him on her most recent tom:, he had regarded anyone who came from England as his personal affair.

Madeline and her partner passed on to join the dancers, and she was telling herself that there was no need to feel any more self-conscious than she had when she first danced with him on board ship. But there again, of course, she had not known who he was—just one of the other passengers who had been kind to her. Now she was very much aware that she was dancing with “the most distinguished member of the Dominion staff”, to quote Miss Ardingley, and that more than one head turned as they passed, and more than a little comment followed in their wake.

With an effort, however, she rallied all her social self-possession and was about to make some perfectly conventional remark when he spoke first. What he said was,

“I had a letter from Clarissa this afternoon.”

“From Clarissa!” She glanced up at him in mingled horror and astonishment. “But why should she—I mean—”

“She said she had heard from you and felt she must write to me.” His voice was dry and unfriendly. “I wondered what you’d written to make her feel like that.”

“But I assure you—” began Madeline in great agitation.

“Don’t look so startled and anxious,” he cut in, perfectly calmly. “You’re supposed to be enjoying yourself enormously, you know, and are probably under a certain amount of observation. I don’t want you to look as though I beat you in the intervals.”

She laughed—a breathless, rather nervous laugh.

“If you want me to look cheerful and normal you had better not drop bombshells like that,” she told him. But, with an effort, she adjusted her expression so that people should suppose they were exchanging only suitable small talk.

“Why a bombshell?” he wanted to know. “Did you have no inkling that she was going to do this?” He sounded sceptical.

“Of course I had no inkling!” The slight pressure of his arm reminded her not to be so emphatic and she lowered her voice again. “I didn’t write to Clarissa about you. I wrote to Enid—to my stepmother—and because I make a point of telling her about my life here in some detail, and you had come a good deal into the story—”

“Had I?” He looked reflective. “Well, yes—perhaps I had.”

“—I naturally described you and explained about the various times you had helped me. I didn’t intend the letter for Clarissa at all. In spite of what you choose to think about me, I should never have thought of writing to her and perhaps making mischief. But, as it happened, she was staying with my stepmother for a few days, I don’t quite know why, and so she naturally read the letter too.”

There was a slight silence, except for the dance music and the chatter around them. Then he said.

“Very plausible.”

Madeline was so angry that she almost forgot to keep her expression pleasant and unruffled. But, while she smiled politely, she said softly and evenly,

“Dr. Lanyon, I do think you are the most unreasonable and ungenerous man!”

If he was startled by this, he did not show it. He continued to look politely attentive in his turn and even smiled slightly as he said,

“But I thought you’d only just written to your stepmother to tell her what a helpful and charming fellow I was.”

“That,” Madeline assured him, “was before you changed so completely and apparently decided to attribute to me all the qualities which you most disliked in Clarissa.”

“I see. Of course there is a time element in these things,” he conceded. “But you did agree to come to the Ball with the unreasonable and ungenerous man, you know.”

Madeline flushed faintly.

“I thought,” she told him, with a little catch of genuine feeling in her voice, “that when you invited me to come with you it was a—a sort of olive branch.”

They circled half the hall in silence while he presumably digested that. Then he said unexpectedly,

“I suppose it was.”

“Oh—” Madeline glanced up at him. “Oh—I’m sorry. Then I take back what I said.”

To her extreme surprise, he smiled slightly and replied,

“So do I. It was rather unreasonable and ungenerous, now I come to think of it.”

She laughed a trifle uncertainly and suddenly realized to the full how much she had hated being on bad terms with him and how greatly she welcomed the sign of returning friendliness.

“It’s very nice of you to say so, and I—I do understand that it’s difficult to be objective over anything like your experience with Clarissa,” she said diffidently. “I don’t expect it’s a subject you want discussed, but I should just like to say how sorry and—and mortified Enid and I were over the way she treated you. I’m not going to speak against my own sister, but it isn’t a family chapter that gives us any pleasure.”

The music stopped then, and Madeline thought that perhaps the discussion was over. On the contrary, however, he led her to a seat by one of the long windows and, standing beside her so that he was looking down at her, he asked, “How much did you really know about me and Clarissa?”

“Very little, except that, about the time of my father’s death, she suddenly announced that she was going to marry a Canadian doctor, and she suggested that I might like to go to Canada as a nurse at the same time.”

He smiled slightly, and it surprised her that he was apparently recognizing the Clarissa technique with a certain degree of indulgence.

“I liked the idea,” Madeline went on, “made enquiries and had fixed everything, when she suddenly wrote from her honeymoon to say that she had married someone else.”

“Tell me—was he
so
attractive?” enquired Dr. Lanyon, with what she could only take to be morbid curiosity about his rival.

“Nothing like so attractive as you are,” Madeline replied candidly, and then was a good deal surprised at the way he laughed. Somehow, she had never supposed Nat Lanyon laughed so heartily.

“You’re wonderfully good for one’s morale,” he told her. And, as the music started again, he took both her hands and drew her to her feet again. The gesture was friendly, almost intimate, and Madeline felt guiltily that she would have written off more than her brother-in-law’s whole stock of charm to achieve it.

“Come on—tell me some more about my inferior but successful rival.” Dr. Lanyon looked at her with such brilliant, laughing eyes that she felt that a little of the hurt which Clarissa had inflicted must have healed.

“I don’t really know much about him. Dr. Lanyon. He isn’t my type, but—”

“You mean you would have preferred me for a brother-in-law?”

She considered this extraordinary possibility, and finally said soberly,

“I can’t think of you in terms of a brother-in-law.”

Again he seemed amused by this and asked, “In what terms, then? There must be some common ground on which you can compare me with the man who defeated me so soundly in your sister’s affections.”