Kind Are Her Answers (7 page)

He did not know, so answered, since it was true, “I shall have to go in a minute.”

“Ah, no.” She wrapped herself round him, making herself soft and cherishing. “I can’t send you out of the warm into the cold rain.”

“Don’t,” he said involuntarily; and pressed her face into his shoulder to silence her.

“Don’t what? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” He pushed the hair back from her ear. “I really will have to go; I’ve a midder case that might come off tonight.”

“But you can’t go now. What is it? I make you unhappy?”

“Oh, God, no. I can’t explain.”

“Why—what do I do?”

He shook his head. She raised herself on her arm and bent over him, leaning her cheek on his so that her hair fell darkly across his face. He whispered unevenly, “It’s nothing. … It’s only—you’re very kind.”

“What? Oh, my sweet.” She lifted herself to look at him, and caught his face between her hands. Soothingly, as if she were consoling a baby, she murmured over him, “I’ll always be kind to you, my precious, always, I promise I will. You’re such a darling and I love you so much.”

“No,” said Kit quickly. He moved a little away from her. “Don’t spoil it. It’s good enough as it is.”

“But I only said I loved you. Don’t you want me to love you? Darling?”

“I don’t want you to say you do as if you were offering me a lollipop.”

She looked round at him quickly. “But I—” She slid away from him, and lay with her chin cupped in her hands. “You frighten me,” she said slowly. “People generally—” Her head jerked a little, as if she were flicking something away. “Are you always as devastatingly sincere as this?”

“I didn’t mean to be brutal. But from you it’s too … Oh, well, anyway, don’t do it.”

“You don’t want to love any one, do you?”

He was silent, startled that she should have perceived this. For a moment he cast about for some evasion, but in the end said simply, “No. I don’t.”

He was unhappy at the thought of hurting her; but she only leaned over and stroked his face. “It doesn’t matter, pet,” she said fondly. “You don’t have to. Don’t get all worked up about it.”

“I wish I could tell you,” he said slowly, “how you—”

“S-sh. I promise I won’t love you if you don’t like it. Cross my heart I won’t. I only said it to be nice to you. Dear … what do they call you? What’s your name?”

Kit looked into her earnest face, and was suddenly overtaken by laughter. He choked it down, till he found that she was laughing too. They clung to one another, shaking, till he forgot not to make a noise, and she stuffed a handful of eiderdown into his mouth. During this moment of enforced quiet it occurred to him that he had, as far as he could remember, never laughed in bed before.

“Well?” she asked when she had ungagged him. “What
is
your name?”

“I adore you. It’s Christopher.”

“Is
it? But mine’s Christina. Our names are nearly the same.” She looked at him wide-eyed. “That must
mean
something, you know.”

“So it seems.” He kissed her, still laughing a little. “People call me Kit as a rule.”

“Kit. That’s nice. I like that. Do you know mine?”

“The important part. Christie what—or ought I to know?”

“Christie Heath, of course. My grandfather was Aunt Amy’s brother.”

“Christie Heath.” He repeated it because the sound of it pleased him; and affectionately, without thinking much about it, stroked his hand over her side. He felt her flinch a little, and stopped.

“It’s all right. It’s only a bruise. You’re stronger than you think you are, you know.” Kit had heard something of this kind before, and his response was instinctive. With the prompt obedience of habit he moved himself out of the way and said, “I’m awfully sorry.”

She was quite still for a moment; then with a little murmuring sound reached up and flung her arms round him with a violence that nearly throttled him. Her face was pressed tightly to his, and he could feel her lashes grow warm and wet. “I didn’t mean it, I was making it up. You didn’t hurt me, dear, you didn’t. You’ve been unhappy and I didn’t know.”

“Hush,” whispered Kit, stroking her hair. “Don’t—please; I—” His throat hurt him and he could not say any more.

One of her tears ran, thinly salt, over his mouth. “Dear, dear Kit. I’m here now. Everything’s going to be all right. I’m going to look after you, you’re never going to be unhappy any more.” He wanted to laugh at her absurdity, but the tightness in his throat prevented him. Her warmth hung, heavy and softly clinging, about his neck: he shut his eyes, and bent to her lifted mouth.

Slowly and momentously, seeming to clear its throat beforehand, the grandfather clock in the hall struck the half-hour. The little battery in the bedside lamp was fading; the bulb had grown dim and yellow, and its faint circle of light hardly reached beyond the bed. Kit stretched himself, and gave a sigh into which a yawn intruded. “Oh, darling, and you’ve got to work all to-morrow. Go to sleep for a little while. I’ll wake you up; I promise I will.”

“No.” He shook himself awake. “I must leave at once. I’m expecting a case.”

“What sort of case?”

“A woman having a baby.”

“Oh.” She let go of him. “I wish you’d told me.”

“It’s all right,” he said, made ashamed by her concern. “It may not be for days yet, and there’s a good nurse in the house.”

“I shouldn’t have kept you.”

“Don’t worry. If it were really urgent, my—some one would have rung for me here. I always scribble down the address before I start on a night call.” He had been meditating on this for the last few minutes; but Christie seemed consoled.

“Come here, darling, and I’ll see to your tie.”

“Thanks; but I expect, really, I can do it better myself.” He pulled at it, rather awkwardly; the necessity for having kept on most of his clothes made him feel a little self-conscious and boorish.

“Sweet, that’s worse than ever. Let me a minute. Don’t look so nervous; I’m very good at ties.”

She was: Kit got up and put on his coat, surprised to discover how angry it made him. “Can I borrow your brush?” he asked.

“Of course. Anything. You can’t see over there, give it to me.”

It was backed with painted wood, pale green with a pattern of tiny flowers; a cheap, pretty thing. She brushed his hair back, stroked it down with her hands and kissed him. The brush she dropped, with a matter-of-fact air of dismissal, on the floor. Kit picked it up and put it back in its place.

“Don’t get up,” he said. “I can let myself out.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at her. He had not known, till the moment came, how hard it would be to leave her. She took his hand in both hers, and held it against her cheek.

“You’ll feel all different in the morning. Next time we meet we’ll pretend it never happened.”

“Next time we meet,” he said, “we shall probably have to. But I’m glad it did happen and I always shall be.”

“You must go.” She moved her cheekbone softly in the hollow of his hand.

He made a movement to rise, then slipped to his knees and put his face beside hers on the pillow. “I shall miss you,” he said, afraid of the sudden knowledge of it.

“I’ll think about you,” she said in her warm comforting voice. “I promise I’ll be thinking of you and loving you, darling. Always I will.”

The wind rattled the rain-beaten casement impatiently behind him. He pressed his face into the spread of her hair, and did not contradict her.

“I
CAN’T TELL YOU
how relieved I was,” said the nurse, “when I heard your car stop. Fancy your noticing the light and remembering which house it was. Those few minutes just made all the difference. I hardly dared leave her, even to phone. And having your bag with you and everything.”

“I happened to be passing this way,” said Kit, scrubbing his nails, “from another case. The bag was luck, really. Brought it out by mistake and couldn’t be bothered to take it in again.”

The maternity nurse handed him a clean towel, her plain face warm with appreciation and the solid friendship of those who have shared a skilled and strenuous job. The first crying of an infant sounded, thin, indignant and lonely, from across the landing.

“You can’t have been in bed at all to-night,” said the nurse with sympathy. She had only had an hour herself.

“Not to sleep.” Still enclosed in the concentration of the last few hours, he meant simply that he had been awake when the first call came.

The wind veered, and above the noise of water gurgling out of the bathroom basin came the sudden drumming of rain. Kit was still for a moment, with the towel held to the wrist he had been drying; then looked away quickly from the nurse’s pleased, tired eyes and matter-of-fact smile.

“Yes,” he said slowly after a moment, “it was lucky I came along when I did.”

In a lull of the baby’s wail a faint voice called, “Nurse—please—”

“Don’t bother with me,” Kit said. “I’ve got everything. I’ll let myself out. Good night, and thank you.”

It was nearly six when he got in. He woke in sunlight, to find himself being shaken by the shoulder. He blinked, dazed and scarcely knowing where he was: he had thrown himself on the bed meaning only to rest, but had fallen into a sleep so deep that waking left him dazed, like coming round from an anaesthetic or a blow. The curtains had just been opened, and a patch of sun fell on his face. It hurt his eyes, and he threw his arm across them, longing for sleep again. Then, under it, he saw that it was Janet who was standing there, dressed for the morning, looking down at him.

He moved his arm, narrowing his eyes in the light. She did not speak for a moment; she had taken her hand away quickly when he woke, but was still standing beside him. To his indistinct vision there seemed a kind of softness and shadow in her face, and a little droop at the corners of her mouth that he had not seen lately. He rubbed his eyes, gathering his mind together, dimly remembering that something had happened, that it was somehow wrong she should be there; that it made him unhappy to see her.

“I’ve brought you some breakfast,” she said. “You won’t get anything to eat before surgery begins unless you have it now.”

He realized that there was a smell of coffee in the room. “What?” he murmured, his voice furred with sleep. “What time is it?”

“Half-past eight. I left you as long as I could.”

Struggling with a weariness that seemed ten times what it had been when he fell asleep, Kit began to come to himself. He felt stiff and cramped, and remembered that half-way through undressing it had not seemed worth while, and he had lain down as he was in his trousers and loosened shirt. He pushed back his hair, which was falling over his forehead. Janet turned away, and pulled up the bedside table with the tray on it.

“I told Elsie to bring you up some fresh shaving-water. The first jug will be cold by now.”

“Thank you.” Kit sat up. Her voice had a gentleness that moved and confusedly hurt him. “You shouldn’t have bothered,” he said. “I could have come down.”

“You looked absolutely dead. You never sleep on like that. What happened? What time did you come in?”

“I don’t remember, about six I think. I had two night-calls straight on, a heart case first and then a midder.”

“You mean you’d been out ever since that first bell went before twelve? No wonder you’re tired.”

“It’s all right. I’ll wake up if I have a cold bath.”

“Have this first while it’s hot.” She poured out a cup of coffee, moved to go, and sat down instead on the foot of the bed; a thing she had not done for more than a year. Kit picked up the coffee cup; he was too tired to feel hungry yet, and hoped she would not stop to see if he ate.

She said, looking out of the window at the sun glittering on wet roofs and trees, “It must have been a terrible night to be out in. I lay awake for hours listening to the rain.”

“I wasn’t out in it very much. I’m sorry it kept you awake.”

“Look! The ends of your trousers are soaking wet even now. You’ll make yourself ill, sleeping in damp clothes. Kit, what a stupid thing to do. Whatever made you? Were you too tired to take them off?”

“I didn’t notice them. It won’t hurt me for once.”

“You
will
change them?”

“My dear, of course I shall—the crease is out for one thing. Don’t you worry about me.”

“Oh, I don’t do that. I know you’re independent.” She smiled, a tight little smile more like her ordinary one. “But you looked so … Well, I mustn’t sit here making you talk, or you won’t get anything to eat.” She got up, smoothed the pleats of her neat skirt, and walked away. At the door she turned for a moment, seeming about to say something, but changed her mind. Kit finished his coffee, disarranged the bacon and eggs as plausibly as he could, and hurried to make himself presentable. He had loosened his tie when he undressed and pulled it over his head; it still retained the knot in which Christie had tied it. He pulled it out straight, then crumpled it quickly, tossing it into a far corner of the drawer and pulled out another.

He was not a success with himself that morning. His mind moved laboriously and in circles, decisions came stickily, and he found it easier to worry over his bad cases than to think constructively about them. He had a headache which, after he had been driving for a short time, extended itself to his eyes. Nothing untoward happened, because he pushed himself at the details of his routine with irritable obstinacy; but he had a precise technical standard, and did not tolerate muddled method any the better because it got approximate results. During the unhappiness and discomfort of all this, his recollections of the previous night became exceedingly objective.

At the time, the purely professional aspect of what he had done had seemed distant; fantastic, even, to the point of humour. Now, hideously lucid and concrete, it began to emerge. He could see it set out, in neat clear sentences of neat small type, in the lower half of a right-hand column in the
British Medical Journal.
“While visiting the house of a patient in a professional capacity …” He could swear to the exact spacing of the words on the paper; “professional” was run over the end of a line, and divided at the first syllable.