Penny rose stiffly from the armchair which she had drawn over beside the bed. He was too restless. He was getting worse. This wasn’t a cold, this was something which could be, perhaps was now, much more serious. She had a sudden attack of panic, standing there, looking down at him, her fears refusing to be silenced any longer. She ought to have insisted on calling a doctor; she should not have let David talk her out of it. And now it was too late: it was midnight. She did not know of any doctor who lived near here. The one who had attended the girls at Baker House lived miles away. And he was highly expensive. Hideous, she thought angrily, to be forced to count the cost of being cured. David well again was worth more than all the money in the world. But it was a case of logic, not of meanness. Either you had money and could buy what you needed, or you hadn’t, and couldn’t.
She stood there, looking down at him, trying to persuade herself that this stage of illness was necessary: you didn’t get better from flu until it was sweated out of your system; you had to go through this high fever. She felt the sheets. They were quite wet. That would never do. She moved over to the bureau drawer where she kept the linen. There were so few sheets there, really, if many changes were necessary. She laid the fresh linen on the small table, now cleared of the abandoned dinner-party, and stood still as she thought of what must be done in what order. She felt almost too tired to arrange the details in her mind, yet the long night had scarcely begun.
“Stop standing there!” she told herself angrily. She began unfolding the sheets to have them ready for the quick change which would be necessary. She searched David’s suitcase for another pair of pyjamas, and found them with two buttons, jagged and useless stumps, broken off by the laundry. Blast them, she thought, and searched for two possible substitutes in her sewing-box.
As she sat on the arm of a chair and sewed the buttons quickly and securely in place she comforted herself by remembering all the things she had managed to do this evening. Mostly telephone calls, but each had meant a separate journey downstairs, for she had not wanted to leave David too long alone.
She had ’phoned Bunny Eastman and told him she couldn’t possibly come in to the office tomorrow, and would he please post her weekly cheque to her?
She had telephoned Lillian Marston, and found her in the middle of excited packing. “Darling, couldn’t possibly see you tonight. I’m catching the boat express from Victoria tomorrow at ten, and I haven’t got a thing inside the suitcases yet. To Paris and then to Barbizon, to stay at a little inn and paint the forest and sky. Isn’t it marvellous? Chris’s idea. I call it bribery and corruption. I’ll probably end up by marrying him after all.” So Penny had said it was marvellous; and she did not mention that David was ill.
Then she had telephoned two of her Slade friends, but they had already left town. The long vacation was here, and everyone she knew was scrambling out of London, pitying those who were tied to it. David’s friends, too, were either scattered over the British Isles or gone abroad. Chaundler was preparing to leave for Salzburg. Her grandfather was giving an address to a group of medieval historians at the Sorbonne.
She had telephoned Margaret Bosworth too. She was out at a theatre, so Penny had left a message. There had been no reply to that message, but when Penny had telephoned again, only twenty minutes ago, Margaret was there.
“Oh,” Margaret had said, when Penny had told her about David, and then there was a pause.
“Could you come here tomorrow?” Penny had asked, swallowing her pride.
There was another pause. “It is rather difficult. You see, I am leaving for Sussex on the day after tomorrow, and I have so much to do.”
“Oh,” Penny had said.
“It is probably only a summer cold. I had a very bad one last week.”
“Did you?” Penny had asked, and hung up the receiver.
It was only now that Penny, sewing on the last button, realised that Margaret had possibly been trying to be polite. Otherwise she would never have spoken so much; she would just have said, “Oh!” in that noncommittal way of hers. But what strange ways people had of being polite or comforting: Margaret had had a very bad cold too, so David’s was absolutely nothing to worry about.
I give up, Penny decided. I’ve tried to like her, but I give up. Mother dislikes David, Margaret dislikes me. And Mother and Margaret developed a cordial dislike for each other when they did meet. Yet David makes excuses for Margaret, so he must be fond of her. And I defend Mother when we talk about her. How on earth, then, did David and I ever fall in love?
She half smiled, and then, thinking of Margaret Bosworth’s cold voice, she stopped smiling, and her face became quite hard. What I resent most, she thought, is this hidden battle between us. As if I were opposition to her. And I am not. I don’t even compete with her, the silly thing. How idiotic some women can be, going about with martyred expressions as soon as their son or brother thinks of taking a wife. Freud, of course, would have his usual answer. But if he had been a woman he could have added a little footnote pointing out the strange fact that men who were drunks or gaolbirds did not have to worry about any silver cord.
Penny snapped off the tight thread angrily, placed the sewing-box on the mantelpiece. She touched David’s telegram to straighten it. a first a job and you all my love always david. Her face softened and became young again. How happy he had been when he had written that. She turned quickly away. The letter from Edinburgh, in the usual blue deckle-edged envelope, was left lying face-down on the mantelpiece. She would read it when she had time. But now there were too many things to be done.
She heard David stir restlessly. He was half awake. Yet she still hesitated. The danger of a chill, if he were moved, was very great; the danger of lying between damp sheets was even worse. She knew so little about nursing. She was only remembering how she had been nursed when she was ill. Then suddenly she became decided. She caught up the extra blanket which she had laid in readiness over a chair, and went over to the bed. She shook David’s shoulder gently, firmly.
“David! Please get up. Help me, darling.”
He shook his head dizzily, looked at her as if he did not recognise her, raised himself on to one elbow, and then sank back on the pillow as if he were falling asleep again.
“Come on, darling. Help me. David, help me.” She raised him until he sat up in bed, half wrapping the blanket round his shoulders. This time he really was awake. He obeyed her urgent voice now, but when he rose to walk to the armchair he seemed to be moving in some heavy dream.
“Help me, darling,” she said, and the urgency in her voice roused him. When he had changed his pyjamas she wrapped the blanket tightly round him and sat him down gently in the chair. Then she turned to the bed, stripping it quickly, changing the soaking linen, and as she stretched the cool, fresh sheets smoothly in place she remembered the burning heat of his body. At least, she thought, he will be able to rest more comfortably now. But her worry increased as she helped him back to bed. She bent and kissed his forehead as she tucked the bedclothes neatly round him. It seemed to be on fire.
She wept then, silently, so that David would not hear her. She felt lonely and afraid. She found she was kneeling beside the bed, burying her face in the blanket. She was terrified of her loneliness, of her fears.
That was just after midnight.
At two o’clock she again roused David, again changed the sodden linen.
And again she did all this when it was almost five o’clock, and the pale light outside cast a cold look into the dreary room. This time David was less dazed, smiled for her, watched contentedly, and said, “Dear Penny, all this trouble—” before he fell asleep. This time, too, it was an easier sleep; his brow felt more normal, his breathing was lighter.
She sat on the chair beside the bed, so that she could cover him with the bedclothes whenever he threw an arm outside of the covers, or when he flung over on his side and exposed his back and shoulders. But now, suddenly, his sleep was deep and peaceful, and all the wild res
tlessness had gone. She relaxed in the chair, watching him as he lay so quietly, folding her arms tightly to keep her body warm in her flannel dressing-gown, for the morning had brought coolness to the room.
And then, as he still slept, sudden relief surged through her with the biting sharpness of pain. She rose and walked to the window, staring at the grey-blue roof-tops. Their sloping slates rippled sealike as they gleamed with dew under the early sunlight. The day promised well. Loneliness vanished with the cold shadows of the night.
“He won’t die,” she said, at last giving words to her fears; “he won’t die now.”
* * *
The doctor, grey-haired, thin, sharp-eyed, noncommittal, was preparing to leave.
“Don’t worry about him,” he said, not unkindly. “He still has some fever, but really nothing to worry about now. These things go up and down, you know. All we have to do is to keep an eye on him. If he gets any worse again tonight you can call me, and I’ll send round a woman to help you. She isn’t a qualified nurse, but she is very capable.”
“It developed so suddenly,” Penny explained. “We thought it was only a bad cold, and then suddenly it was something much worse. And I didn’t know of any doctor until the caretaker downstairs gave me your address this morning. Thank you for coming so quickly.”
The doctor repressed a smile. He found her anxiety amusing, and a little touching too. Newly married, he thought, glancing at the heavy signet ring on her left hand. Just wait until she had five children, two down with mumps, another with asthma, and the baby with croup. Then she would know what a night’s nursing was like. Still, she hadn’t done a bad job. She had managed to stave off pneumonia. Her husband would be all right now.
“You had better get some sleep,” the doctor said, he who hadn’t been to bed all night himself. “And let him sleep as much as possible. You may not need to call me again.” His patients weren’t the kind who wanted repeated visits.
He paused at the top of the stairs, and said, “If you could stop him from worrying he will get better in no time. He is a healthy specimen, you know.” And then, as if he felt that he had intruded too much into some personal problem, he gave a brief good-day and hurried downstairs.
David, who had been pretending to be asleep, opened his eyes as she came back into the room. He said, “If you don’t get some sleep I shall start some real worrying.”
“I shall sleep. That’s all arranged. Mrs. Lawson, the caretaker, has found a camp bed; one of her neighbours is lending it to her. I just can’t manage the two-chair technique, it seems—they slip and I slide. Strange how kind people are when you are in difficulties. There has been a sort of communal rallying round going on here, ever since Mrs. Lawson sent the neighbour’s small boy for the doctor. I gave Mrs. Lawson all the food and wine which we didn’t touch last night—in a roundabout way, of course, so that her feelings wouldn’t be hurt. And I’ve a length of flowered material which will make some bright cushion-covers to cheer up the neighbour’s parlour. She came up here with some broth for you when you were asleep, and admired our curtains. And the small boy gets tuppence, which seems to be the union rate for running errands in this neighbourhood. Mrs. Lawson said I was to give him no more than that. But I did give him the chocolates you brought me. You don’t mind, do you? His eyes went into big circles! And he has been running so many errands for me all morning. But to balance the box of chocolates, which he seems to have taken home and shared round, his mother arrived with the bowl of broth. Strange, isn’t it?”
“Only because you have never lived with the poor, Penny. They’d never survive if they didn’t lend each other a helping hand.”
Then he frowned, trying to remember what he knew must be remembered. “It is hell to be ill at this time,” he said irritably. There was a job to be found, a job to begin. And what kind of job now? “Penny, would you send a telegram to Fairbairn for me? There’s some money in my pocket, and his address is in the small diary you’ll find in my jacket. Get the boy with the big circles of eyes to take it to the post-office.”
“Don’t worry about that, darling. We’ve still a day to decide.”
“I’ve decided already.”
So have I, she thought sadly. The telegram had probably reached Chaundler by this time. What else could have been done? Saturday was tomorrow, and Fairbairn was Fairbairn. David could not change his career a second time because of her. But she was glad that he had not made that decision, that it had to come from her.
She smiled, gave him her hand obediently. He stretched himself lazily, drowsily. If you had to be ill, he thought, it was good to be ill with all this kind of care around you. Dimly he remembered last night. He looked at her tired face.
“You must love me a lot,” he said, and kissed her hand.
“And you must love me a lot too,” she said, still thinking of Fairbairn. “Sleep and get better, darling. And don’t worry.” She turned away quickly, and pretended she had to tidy the room.
The telegram from David had fallen forward again on the mantelpiece. She picked it up, and the letter too. She turned the envelope over in her hand, and saw the address for the first time. The writing was not Moira’s. It was the same kind of handwriting, but with more decision, more strength.
“It’s Mother,” Penny said incredulously, and she ripped open the envelope. There was a single sheet of paper inside.
David watched her face. It was white and tense.
“Father is ill,” she reported. “He had a shock, brought on by his ‘great worries.’” She looked up at that moment. “My fault, of course, I suppose.” She pushed a lock of hair away from her eyes and forced herself to read on. Her impulse had been to stop reading the letter altogether.
Then David saw her whole face change. She was young again, young, incredulous, happy.
She held the letter out to him, but she couldn’t speak. The smile had changed to laughter, a laughter that was very near tears. But her happy eyes, her happy face, told him that the news was good. She held out the letter to him, not speaking, not moving.
“The old brain is slow today,” he said quickly. “I can’t guess.” There was a glimmering of hope in his mind, but he repressed it. Too many disappointments recently: better not add another. Better repress all hope. “I can’t read it from this distance, Penny,” he said, with one of his old smiles.
She came forward to him saying, “David, oh, David.”
They stared at each other, still not quite believing. Then he caught her wrist and pulled her down towards him. “They’ll let us get married?” he asked incredulous.
“Yes, David, yes! Oh, darling, careful! You’ll have another temperature attack.”
“And, by God, it couldn’t be for a better cause. This is one temperature I’ll enjoy having.” He tried to sit up in bed. “Don’t worry, old girl, nothing is going to kill me now. Not now.”
“I know I’m a rotten nurse, but I’m not quite as bad as this,” Penny said, and made him lie down again. He didn’t rebel, so perhaps he wasn’t quite so well as he had suddenly thought he was.
“How strange women can be,” he said. “So calm and practical.”
“Calm?” She laughed then, unevenly, happily. “Just wait until you are better, and you’ll see how very uncalm I am.” She covered his shoulders carefully, smoothed the top sheet under his chin, turned the pillow round for coolness, and felt his brow.
“Well, nurse?” he asked, with a grin.
“Some more aspirin, darling. And a lot of sleep. And no more talking. I don’t want any more frights like the kind I had last night.”
“Strange, I can’t remember much about it except that you were there, hazily, and that the bed seemed to have an oven going full blast underneath it.”
“No more frights, thank you,” Penny repeated firmly, and placed a kiss on each eyelid to close them.
They didn’t stay closed. “Darling. America. For both of us!”
“Yes, David.”
“Send Fair
bairn a telegram. His address is in my pocket-book in my jacket. Tell him I’m ready to start any time.”
“Yes, David.” She smiled and added, “Get some sleep now.”
“We’d better see about getting a marriage licence. It takes ages sometimes, I believe. Get a quick one, darling. And I want at least one week on dry land with you before we sail. I’m a rotten sailor, I want a honeymoon on solid ground.”
“Yes, David.” Her smile told him to stop talking, to fall asleep, to get well quickly.
She left him then, to make sure of these things.
She sat outside on the top step of the staircase, her arms hugging herself, her eyes looking at the black wall dipping down into the dark house. She made herself think of all the things to be done, all the practical things which must be done, and for once they seemed neither too difficult nor exhausting. She wasn’t even tired now.
I must write Grandfather at once, she thought. “He must know that I am so happy,” she said aloud. She laughed as her voice startled her. It was so happy.
She rose and went back to the room. David was asleep. She picked up her mother’s letter from where it had fallen on the floor beside him. “We’ve managed it, David,” she said softly. “We’ve managed it. In spite of everything.”
She went to the table and found her pen and some paper. She watched the sunlight turning the blue tiles on the opposite rooms to shimmering heat, and imagined Inchnamurren with the sun on the waters. If they had time to travel there, that would be a wonderful place to spend David’s week on solid ground. Inchnamurren...
And, thinking of the island and its quiet loveliness, she began to remember the summer day when she had met David there. She smiled with the delight of remembering, but the wonder in her heart grew. “What is love?” she asked herself suddenly, and could find no answer that was complete enough. Her smile lingered, giving warmth to her lips and depths to her blue eyes. “It just is, that’s all,” she said. She turned for a moment to look at David.