Last April Fair. Бетти Нилс
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wouldn’t go as far as to say that, shall I say that I regret their attitude towards illness and death—two inconvenient states they simply refuse to recognise, but I’m glad they’re so eager to take Gaby on this trip. Sir Keith tells me it’s only a question of three months or so.’
‘Oh, Father, how awful—isn’t there anything at all to be done?’
He shook his head. ‘You know that yourself, my dear. Thank heaven it’s extremely rare—other forms of leukaemia have a much more favourable prognosis these days.’
Phyllida left home after breakfast the next morning, to drive the few miles to the de Wolffs’home. She joined the main Salisbury road presently and then turned away on to a country road leading to Berwick St John, and after another mile came upon the house she was looking for. It was Edwardian, much gabled and ornamented with beams and plasterwork in an attempt to make it look Tudor. It was large too, spick and span as to paint-work and altogether too perfect for her taste. She thought with sudden nostalgia of her own home only a few miles away and so very different, its ancient oak door almost always open, its mullioned windows wide, with curtains blowing a welcome. There were no curtains to be seen here and no open windows.
She got out, crossed the gravel, so smooth that she felt guilty treading on it, and rang the bell. The man-servant who opened the door matched the house exactly; correct; unwelcoming and without any warmth. He begged her to enter, ushered her into a small panelled room furnished with expensive, tasteless furniture, and went away.
Both Mr and Mrs de Wolff entered the room a moment later, bringing with them an air of brisk efficiency and charm. They bade Phyllida seat herself, and without any preliminaries, proceeded to put her—as Mr de Wolff observed—in the picture. ‘You shall see Gaby presently,’ promised Mrs de Wolff, and smiled charmingly at Phyllida. She was a handsome woman, in her forties but not looking it by reason of exquisite make-up and beautifully cut hair, and a casual tweed suit which must have cost a great deal of money. She smiled a lot, thought Phyllida, and she quite understood what her father had meant when he had told her that neither she nor her husband wanted to accept the fact that Gaby’s illness was a terminal one.
‘The specialist takes a grave view, of course,’ said Mr de Wolff, teetering on his toes before the fireplace, like the chairman of a board meeting, ‘but we’re both so healthy ourselves we take a more optimistic view. This little holiday should do her the world of good, and she’s so keen to go.’
‘You will notify the ship’s doctor of her illness?’ asked Phyllida, ‘and I should want her medical notes with me so that they can be referred to if necessary.’
Mrs de Wolff frowned, and just for a minute all the charm had gone, but it was back almost at once. ‘Of course we’ll see to all that, Miss Cresswell, you can safely leave us to arrange everything just as it should be. We shall consult Sir Keith, of course—such a pity that he’s in Scotland, otherwise you could have gone to see him, but I’m sure your father has told you all there is to know about Gaby.’She got to her feet. ‘Would you like to see her now before you go? We do so hope you’ll come with us, but it’s for you to decide of course.’
She crossed the room and rang the bell and when the unsmiling manservant came, asked him to let Miss Gaby know that she was wanted in the morning room.
The first thing Phyllida thought when she saw Gaby was how very pretty she was, small and slim to the point of thinness and far too pale, with a cloud of dark hair to match her dark eyes. This thought was followed at once by a second one, that the girl looked far more ill than her parents had made out. She seemed a docile little creature too, replying meekly to her mother’s remarks about how much she wanted to go on holiday with them, and what she intended to do. But she offered no remarks of her own, although she smiled at Phyllida and went on smiling when her father said that she was a spoilt girl and had everything she could possibly want. He sounded very pleased with himself as he said it, and Phyllida wondered if he had stopped to think that having everything one wanted wasn’t much use if one wasn’t going to be alive to enjoy it.
She stayed for another half an hour, asking questions as discreetly as possible as to her duties. It would be mostly companionship, she gathered, and the giving of Gaby’s medicines and pills, as well as a number of small routine tasks—temperature and pulse and blood pressure and making sure that her patient slept well. She rose to go presently, reiterating that she would want the case notes with her, and reminding the de Wolffs that the ship’s doctor would have to be informed. Gaby had gone with some small excuse so that Phyllida could speak openly now. A little uneasy because of the de Wolffs’ casual attitude towards their daughter’s illness, she said gently: ‘You do know that Gaby is very ill? I know it’s hard to believe—and you’re quite happy about her making this trip?’
Mrs de Wolff’s charming smile slipped again. ‘Quite happy, Miss Cresswell,’ she said with finality. So Phyllida left it at that, only staying to arrange to meet them all on the morning of the sixth.
‘We shall be driving up,’ explained Mr de Wolff. ‘We’ll pick you up at the hospital, that will be the easiest way, I think.’
They wished her goodbye, and the manservant ushered her out into the chilly March morning. She had driven for ten minutes or so when she said out loud: ‘Well, they could at least have offered me a cup of coffee!’
She reached Salisbury by continuing along the same country road from the de Wolffs’ house, stopping on the way to have the cup of coffee no one had offered her, and once through Salisbury she made for London without waste of time.
At the hospital she had the leisure to change into uniform, write out her resignation and present herself at the office. The Senior Nursing Officer was considerably astonished, but in the course of her long and successful career she had learned when not to ask questions. Beyond expressing a sincere regret at Phyllida’s decision to leave, she said nothing other than to wish her a successful future and advise her to give the office due warning as to the exact date of her departure.
‘You have a week’s holiday still, Sister Cresswell, and I expect you can arrange to add your days off to that. I shall have to appoint someone in your place, but in the meantime I think that Staff Nurse Jenkins is quite capable of carrying on. Do you agree?’
‘She’s very good, Miss Cutts, and the patients like her. The nurses work well for her too.’
‘In that case I see no reason why she shouldn’t apply for the post.’ Miss Cutts nodded kindly in gracious dismissal.
Phyllida, speeding to the ward, felt intense surprise at what she had done. Probably if she had stopped to think about it, she would have decided against leaving, but now it was done she felt relief as well. She still had to see Philip and explain, but she would bide her time and choose the right moment for that.
But the matter was taken out of her hands. He came on to the ward to take a look at a suspected duodenal ulcer which would probably need operation, and instead of leaving at once he followed Phyllida to her office, shut the door behind him and asked her quietly: ‘What’s this I hear about you leaving?’
‘Oh, dear—so soon?’ She turned to face him across the small room. ‘I only saw Miss Cutts half an hour ago and I haven’t told a soul—I was going to talk to you about it, Philip.’ She pushed her cap away from her forehead. ‘Not now, though—I’ve heaps to do.’
‘You’re off at five o’clock? I’ll meet you at Tony’s at half past six.’ He went away without another word, leaving her to wonder for the rest of the day if she had made the mistake of her lifetime. Even now, if he overwhelmed her…she wondered at the back of her mind if he felt strongly enough about her to do that. With a tremendous effort she dismissed the whole thing and attacked her work; there was enough of that to keep her mind off other things; the duodenal ulcer not responding to medical treatment; Mrs Gregson springing a mild coronary upon them; the young girl in the corner bed with undulant fever, so depressed that no one knew what to do next to get her cheerful again, and the sixteen-year-old anorexia nervosa next to her, taking precious time and patience with every unwanted meal…
Tony’s