Authors: Mary Whistler
“No, I’m not,” and the receiver clicked at Veronica’s end.
The following afternoon Penny reached the nursing home a little ahead of her usual time, and as the pretty nurse took her up to Stephen’s room in the lift she cast admiring eyes at the youthful Mrs. Blair’s dark green velvet coat, and the leopard-skin cap that sat so attractively on her soft gold hair. And although she usually looked quite pretty, today she looked radiant, somehow
...
and it wasn’t all due to the new range of cosmetics about which the pretty nurse knew nothing!
Penny was left to tap on Stephen’s door alone, the nurse departing blithely down the corridor after she had passed on the information to Penny, in a stage whisper:
“You’ll find he’s doing very well. But he wasn’t at all an easy patient yesterday!”
Stephen called, “Come in!” and Penny opened the door. He was sitting in a chair by the window, and the afternoon sunlight was pouring over him. She could see at once he was fully dressed and there were no bandages—not even dark glasses—concealing his eyes.
Her knees began to tremble quite ridiculously as he just stood there looking at her. He took in every detail of the slim-fitting green coat, the little hat, the colour that had simply poured into her cheeks and was making her eyes look huge and brown and bright. She tried to say something, but no words would pass her lips, and he came up very close and took her hands.
“Oh, Penny,” he breathed. “Penny!”
Her lips moved.
“But—but the bandages
...
? Veronica said you were still wearing them yesterday.”
“Yesterday you didn’t come,” he said reproachfully. “I was livid ... so mad I’m afraid I upset your cousin Veronica for good and all! She came in with an armful of flowers, and thrust them all over me. I told her to take them away
...
you see,” he explained, his eyes so tender, so liquidly blue, that Penny’s heart practically melted in her breast, “it was all arranged. I’ve been wearing the bandages only a few hours each day for the past three days, and yesterday they were to come off for good.
You
were to be the one I looked at for the first time when they came off finally
...
and you didn’t come!”
“Oh, Stephen!” she moaned, and then he was holding her with her face crushed against the lapel of his jacket, and his unsteady hand was stroking her hair.
“Oh, darling, darling,” he said, “my silly little darling! That
you
could be so blind! It was incredible to me, when you’re the one person I’ve thought about—the one woman I’ve wanted—ever since I recovered consciousness after the accident! I
told
you so, but you still wouldn’t believe me! I lost my temper with you a thousand times, but you put it all down to frustration because I’d lost my sight and my job. Partly it was frustration, of course, but only partly. There were times when I wanted to shake you!”
“Veronica?” she murmured, and he shook his head. “Will you never stop thinking of Veronica? She’s gone, I hope, out of my life for good—except I’ll have to see her occasionally, and be polite to her! But so far as you and I are concerned, Penny, my foolish little beloved, Veronica is
out
! ...
do you understand?” She nodded, a light like the sunrise creeping into her eyes, and he uttered a queer little sound—almost as if he were hungry for something, as if, in fact, he was starving.
“Penny,” he whispered, and his arm tightened round her until she could scarcely breathe, and she was completely reassured about his physical strength. “Penny, you kissed me once ... do you remember? It was a real kiss. Kiss me again, please!”
And then her arms were round his neck, and she was holding him to her with the same sort of desperation, and with something like abandon she gave him her lips. This time the response was so immediate, and so violent, that she closed her eyes and couldn’t see the fire in his blue ones.
Later, when they had recovered their breath, and were both sitting by the window, he put his fingers under her chin and lifted it, and looked deep into her eyes.
“Shall I tell you something?” he said. “I love you as I never thought it possible to love a woman, and that’s the way I shall love you all the rest of my life. It’s a life sentence for you, Penny, because
I’
m not a patient man, as you know, and I shall make fantastic demands
...
but I believe you love me almost as much as I love you, and I promise you I’ll make it a glorious life sentence!”
“I do love you, Stephen,” she told him. “I love you with all my heart.”
“Yet you were ready to hand me over to Veronica!”
“Only because I thought it was what you wanted.”
“Blind,” he said, reproachfully. “Of the two of us, you were the one who was wilfully blind! But I forgive you, because we had a bad beginning, and it’s small wonder you didn’t believe in me. There were times when I was so jealous of that fellow Ardmore that I couldn’t bear the sound of his voice.”
Penny said nothing. Ardmore had told her to fight, but she hadn’t fought
...
and yet she had won!
“Oh, Stephen,” she said, “when will they let me take you home?”
“You’re taking me home with you this afternoon,” he told her, surprisingly. “That, too, is all arranged! Tonight we’ll be together in our own home, and tonight I’m afraid I shan’t let you forget that I really am your husband!”