Nurse Linnet's Release (5 page)

CHAPTER
V
II

In the morning she wakened to find Cathie sitting on the foot of her bed and examining her with interest in the bright daylight that flooded the room.

“Well,” Cathie inquired, in a bland, smooth tone, “and what happened to
you
last night? You were not in your room at ten o’clock, and you were not in it at half-past ten. After that I gave you up and went to bed myself. But what
happened
to you?”

“I went out,” Linnet answered, stating the obvious.

“Darling, I didn’t suppose that you were hiding in the wardrobe, although I never looked in there. But Jane Farr said you had a telephone call. Who was the man?”

“How do you know it was a man?”

Cathie gave vent to a sigh of exasperation.

“Linnet, be your age! Even you don’t receive telephone calls from eager women friends who want to take you out for the evening. Besides, you went away in a car—Jane saw you go!”

“Oh!” Linnet exclaimed, and wished she was not called upon to offer explanations at this highly unsuitable hour of the morning. And as the result of the brief amount of sleep she had had the day before, and the unaccustomed excitement of her evening, she was feeling very tired and definitely inclined to turn over drowsily and go off to sleep again.

“Jane said it was a super grey Bentley, and the man was in evening-dress. She also reported that you had on your green frock! Now,” Cathie finished, “come clean as quickly as you can, because although I’ve rushed my breakfast I haven’t got much time to spare. And I’m determined to know what you’ve been up to.”

“If you know so much,” Linnet replied, a little flatly, “and apparently your spies are everywhere!—you don’t really need me to tell you anything more.”

“Except the name of the man, darling. Jane didn’t recognize him.”

“A pity,” Linnet murmured, and then added quietly: “It was Major Monteith.”

“
Major Monteith
!”

Her voice was so incredulous that Linnet felt jarred by it. She lay flat on her pillows and stared upwards at her friend, wondering why it was that she and Cathie Blake—who were temperamentally poles apart—were the good friends they were, and how much longer they would remain friends if Cathie was going to adopt that tone about her purely private affairs.

“But, my poor innocent child!—don’t you know that he isn’t your type at all?” Cathie ran a hand upwards through her hair, dislodging the correct position of her cap a trifle. “Major Monteith! It’s like expecting a lamb and a fox to get on well together! And, in any case, how a
nd
when did this affair progress? And was last night the first time you’ve seen him since he left here?”

“It was,” Linnet was able to answer truthfully, and suddenly smiled a little. “Beyond that I reserve my defence and have nothing to say.”

“But you admit that he took you out to dinner? Was that it? And he probably took you somewhere exciting?”

“It was very quiet, and expensive, and I enjoyed it—I wouldn’t say it was exciting.”

“But it was expensive? Of course, the man’s stiff rich!”

“How do you know?”

“Oh, I just know
...
” She stood up and started to pace about the room. “He wouldn’t have been staying at the Granchester before they brought him in here if he wasn’t. But I wouldn’t have said he was your type at all—not even the type to attract you, I mean! He’s bored and sophisticated and, I should have thought, pretty transparent, but apparently he’s pulled a certain amount of wool over your eyes. I only hope,” looking down rather worriedly at the girl in the bed, “you’re not going to see him too often.”

“I’m going to have lunch with him today!” Linnet told her, and sat up and reached for her dressing-gown across the foot of the bed, and decided that she might as well get up and start getting dressed.

“What?”

“It’s all right,” Linnet reassured her, smiling with a hint of real humour this time. “He’s going to Scotland next week, and will be away at least three weeks, and by that time he will have forgotten all about me, and I shan’t be sparing him many thoughts either, I don’t expect. But lunch at the Savoy
is
a break in the daily
monotony, isn’t it?”

“Well, if that’s the way you look at it,” Cathie answered, a little doubtfully. She carried Linnet’s little pink satin mules which she herself had given her for Christmas over to the side of the bed, and waited while the other girl slid her feet into them. Then she retreated to the door. “But it doesn’t sound like you, somehow! I’ve never known you to be attracted by smart restaurants, or anything connected with smart restaurants, and the idea of you suddenly ‘going places’ takes a bit of getting used to.”

When she had left the room, and Linnet was alone again, the latter reflected that what her friend had said was no more than the truth. She was not attracted by the idea of smart restaurants, and she never had been one to wish to “go places”, but for some reason not in the least clear to her she had found it quite impossible to say definitely that she did not wish to have lunch with Guy Monteith today. Whether she secretly wished very much to have lunch with him was so far below the surface of her conscious thoughts that she did not even attempt to examine her reasons for not returning a firm and unequivocal “no” to him the night before. But one thing at least she was clear in her own mind, and that was that there would be no repetition of the little scene outside Aston House before he let her go from him—no kisses taken as a right, or as the result of a sudden overpowering impulse, and once he left for Scotland she would probably make up her mind very definitely not to see him again, even if he continued to express a desire to see her.

Cathie was right about her up to a point. She had been brought up against a very different type of background to that against which Guy Monteith—who was at least ten or twelve years older than she was, in any case—had been brought up, and their mental and moral outlooks were almost certainly entirely different. He gave the impression of being quite unaccustomed to denying himself anything he suddenly desired acutely, and she had never formed the habit of allowing the few escorts who had taken her about in her short lifetime to exact rewards for the attentions they had paid her. A kiss under the mistletoe at a Christmas party—even a kiss on her own front doorstep, light and careless and almost instantly forgotten, after a dance in the local village hall. Those types of kisses were innocuous; but the fact that she had shrunk from the thought of wiping the lipstick off her lips after that moment of having her mouth claimed fiercely by the man who had given her dinner the night before, warned her that those kind of kisses were not so innocuous.

In future, if she wished to avoid even the threat of danger, she would see to it that there were no more of them. And in the bright, clear light of morning, in the sanity of her pleasantly-furnished little room at the top of Aston House—where the everyday atmosphere was always sane and calm, anyway—it did not strike her that it was going to be so extraordinarily difficult to lay down a few future rules and stick to them, at least where her somewhat surprisingly ripening acquaintance with Major Monteith was concerned.

She had a good, hot, refreshing bath, and then dressed herself leisurely in her little grey tailored suit and a pale primrose blouse. So far she had had no breakfast, but she made herself some tea over her gas-ring and ate some biscuits with it, and decided that if she felt hungry before one o’clock she could have some coffee somewhere. Then, with her little blue Juliet cap once more perched on the back of her head, wearing suede gloves and neat shoes and carrying a neat pouch handbag, she descended in the lift to the ground floor of Aston House.

Her aunt was just emerging from her office at the end of the corridor, and as soon as she caught sight of Linnet she beckoned to her.

“I’d like a word with you, my dear, if you can spare me a few minutes,” she said, and turned back into her office.

Linnet always felt awkward in the presence of her Aunt Christine. She was not in the least like her mother, who was plump and pretty and homely—an ideal country doctor’s wife, and mother of a large family. Christine Vernon was tall and austere, with cold eyes and a controlled mouth and a voice that never rose above a certain level minor key, although it was a voice that was curiously incisive and had the power to instil awe in the breasts of junior nurses.

“Sit down, my dear,” she said, when her niece stood in front of her desk. It was a magnificent walnut desk, and there was a vase of headily-scented freesias on it, the perfume of which stole upwards to Linnet’s nostrils.

Linnet obeyed and took the nearest chair.

“Oughtn’t you to be resting still if you are going on duty tonight?” Aunt Christine inquired.

Linnet looked a little taken aback.

“It was my half-day yesterday, and I had a very good night,” she explained, and added, “Aunt Christine.”

The matron frowned.

“I’d rather you always referred to me as ‘Matron’, Linnet, while you are at Aston House,” she told her. “I think I’ve mentioned that before, so will you please kindly remember in future?”

“Yes, Aunt—I mean, Matron,” Linnet corrected herself hurriedly.

Her relative looked her up and down.

“You don’t look as if you’ve altogether recovered from that last little bout of trouble you had,” she remarked. “How is your health nowadays, Nurse Kintyre?”

“Perfectly all right, thank you, Matron,” Linnet replied more composedly.

The matron of Aston House toyed with her fountain-pen.

“Do you find night duty a great strain?”

Linnet’s feathery eyebrows lifted a little.

“No strain at all—no real strain, that is.”

“Nevertheless, it might be better if you were returned to day duty. Dr. Shane Willoughby was remarking that you looked very pale when he first saw you on night duty, and doctors don’t form a habit of commenting on nurses’ looks unless they definitely strike them as being a little below the standard required of them. And the last thing I desire is any criticism of the efficiency of the nursing-staff at Aston House.”

But Linnet merely opened her mouth a little and stared with a touch of consternation. Had Dr. Shane Willoughby considered her efficiency not up to standard?”

“Of course, I personally feel that you would have been wise to remain at home after your unfortunate attack of pneumonia, but your father is an obstinate man, and he insists that there is nothing to prevent you carrying on with your training, and that you would be very unhappy if I asked you to remain at home, or to decide upon some less strenuous career. Is that really so?”

Linnet moistened her lips.

“I love nursing,” she said quietly. “I would hate to have to give it up.”

“Very well, then. We will see how you get on back on day duty. And that,” picking up some papers, “is all I wanted to talk to you about, Linnet.”

Her niece accepted her dismissal.

“Thank you, Au—Matron,” she replied. “I will do my best whether on day duty or night duty!”

Outside in the street, with the sunlight falling goldenly all about her, she felt a little confused and disturbed in her mind as a result of the brief interview she had just undergone. Aunt Christine, she realized, would have no conscience about declaring her unfit to continue at Aston House, and Dr. Shane Willoughby had done nothing to improve the quality of her stocks by remarking on her look of paleness after a night when anyone might be excused for looking pale.

She could recall it all so vividly, and it was just as if she were reliving it all over again whenever her thoughts harked back to it. Guy Monteith with his brick-red flush, and his imploring eyes—the fight to get his temperature down. And when it was down she had felt as relieved as if he was included amongst the names of her nearest and dearest.

And she had felt herself turning paler and paler...

And now she was on her way to have lunch with Guy, but because she was still early and the morning was so splendid she decided to walk for a while in the Gardens; and then when she suddenly realized she was likely to be late, she took a taxi to the Savoy. Monteith was waiting for her and he actually handed her out of her taxi. His smile down at her, at least, was warm with approval.

“I’ve been waiting for hours, or so it seems,” he said. “But you’re on time.”

T
h
ey had drinks before they went in to lunch, and for the first time in her life Linnet felt glad of the offer of sherry, although she was not particularly fond of it or any alcoholic stimulants, because inside her still something was feeling resentful and disturbed, and her limbs were trembling a little after her determined walking. Guy looked at her almost gravely, and studied her with something
inexplicable and enigmatic in his dark eyes.

“Is anything wrong?” he asked. “You don’t look very happy.”

“No, nothing,” Linnet answered, and then decided to tell him the truth. “My aunt—she’s the matron at Aston House—doesn’t think I’m strong enough to continue nursing.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed. He studied her for several seconds in silence. “Are you very strong?” he asked, at last.

“Perfectly.” She smiled rather wanly. “Only I had pneumonia in the winter, and that rather damned me. Nurses are supposed to escape things like that.”

He lit a cigarette—she had already refused one from his expensive gold case—and stared at the tip of it thoughtfully.

“Your aunt could be right,” he told her. “To me you suggest fragile and insubstantial things like windflowers and gossamer and even very rare orchids. Your colouring is rare, and your eyes are rare, and—” He broke off, his eyes glowing in that strange way she had seen them do before, as if a flame was struggling for recognition in the midnight depths, and struggling to become something more than a flame. He said softly: “It’s someone’s bounden duty to look after you—I don’t think it’s fair to expect you to look after anyone!”

Linnet was glad when they went in to lunch, and the business of ordering the meal caused a necessary diversion. It was so seldom that she found herself in places like the Savoy, that while her companion was studying the menu and consulting with the waiter she seized the opportunity to look about her, and she was impressed by the elegance of men and women lunching and carrying on discreetly toned conversations on all sides of her.

Most of the women were so fashionably dressed that she felt shabby by comparison, and her little Juliet cap seemed an impertinent intrusion in the midst of so many strikingly up-to-the
-
minute hats. There were
hats like baskets of flowers, hats that focussed the attention on the wearer’s sleek line of head, or fly-away eyebrows. There were choice confections in the way of suits that made her grey
tailor-made
look like a country cousin, and as for the men—! The men had the effortless distinction of Major Monteith, with whom she was lunching, and wore superbly cut suits and Old School ties. In the case of Major Monteith she was able to make the discovery that he was an Old Etonian. He looked up suddenly from the menu and smiled at her.

“Shall I choose for you?” he suggested. “Can you trust me to do that?”

“Of course,” she answered. And then her eye was caught by a movement at a table near to them, where an elderly man with iron-grey hair was lying back and laughing at a remark made by someone else at the table. The elderly man was familiar to Linnet—she knew she had seen him before on several occasions, and had even heard that particular laugh. It was Sir Paul Loring, Senior Consultant Physician at St. Faith’s, and his lunch companion was just as familiar to her—in fact, even more familiar.

Linnet felt for some reason, and all at once, as if she were guilty of doing something she ought not to do. The feeling was so overwhelming and inescapable that she actually looked uncomfortable when she met the blue, disconcerting eyes of Adrian Shane Willoughby. They smiled at her very, very slightly, and then he accorded her the barest inclination of the head. She looked quickly down at a plate of smoked salmon which had just been placed in front of her, and felt thankful that she had something to concentrate on.

When the meal was over, and Guy had told her that he would ring her one night while he was in Scotland, and that in any case he intended to see her again as soon
as he was back in London, they parted outside the hotel entrance. She was firm about refusing to allow him to drive her back to Aston House, and he called a taxi for her. She was paying the taximan when Shane Willoughby’s car drew up behind her, and they entered Aston House together.

“An enjoyable lunch, Nurse?” he inquired, with a rather curious lift to one corner of his serious mouth as he did so.

She looked up at him, and she felt that her look was a trifle defiant.

“Very enjoyable, thank you, Doctor,” she answered.

“Splendid!” he exclaimed. She was turning towards the lift when he spoke more seriously. “I didn’t know you knew Major Monteith so well.”

“I don’t—I mean
...
” She felt herself floundering a little. “I’ve only known him since—since—”

“Since you created an ineradicable impression on the night he
was so ill and allowed him to hold your hand?” This time the twist to the mouth was very noticeable, and one of his eyebrows had ascended a little. “But sick patients, nurse, are not always sick—I hope you’ll remember that!”

And without another word he left her and went on to matron’s office.