The Girl With Green Eyes

The Girl With Green Eyes

Betty Neels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

THE vast waiting-room, despite the cheerful yellow paint on its Victorian walls, its bright posters and even a picture or two, its small counter for tea and coffee and the playthings all scattered around, was still a depressing place. It was also a noisy one, its benches filled by mothers, babies and toddlers awaiting their turn to be seen by the consultant paediatrician. From time to time a name would be called by a plump middle-aged sister and another small patient with an evidently anxious mother would be borne away while those who were waiting rearranged themselves hopefully.

The dark, wet day of early February was already dwindling into dusk, although it was barely four o’clock. The waiting-room was damp and chilly despite the heating, and as the rows of patients gradually lessened it seemed to become even chillier.

Presently there was only one patient left, a small fair-haired toddler, asleep curled up in the arms of the girl who held her. A pretty girl with a tip-tilted nose, a gentle mouth and large green eyes. Her abundant pale brown hair was scraped back fiercely into a top knot and she looked tired. She watched the two registrars who had been dealing with the less urgent cases come from their offices and walk away, and thought longingly of her tea. If this specialist didn’t get a move on, she reflected, the child she was holding would wake and demand hers.

A door opened and the sister came through. ‘I’m sorry, dear, that you’ve had to wait for so long; Dr Thurloe got held up. He’ll see you now.’

The girl got up and went past her into the room beyond, hesitating inside the door. The man sitting at the desk glanced up and got to his feet, a large man and tall, with fair hair heavily sprinkled with silver and the kind of good looks to make any woman look at him twice, with a commanding nose, a wide, firm mouth and heavily lidded eyes. He smiled at her now. ‘Do sit down—’ his voice was slow and deep ‘—I am so sorry that you’ve had to wait for such a long time.’ He sat down again and picked up the notes and doctor’s letter before him; halfway through he glanced up. ‘You aren’t this little girl’s mother?’

She had been waiting and watching him, aware of a peculiar sensation in her insides.

‘Me? Oh, no. I work at the orphanage. Miranda’s not very easy, but I mostly look after her; she’s a darling, but she does get—well, disturbed.’

He nodded and went on reading, and she stared at his downbent head. She had frequently wondered what it would be like to fall in love, but she had never imagined that it would be quite like this—and could one fall in love with someone at first glance? Heroines in romantic novels often did, but a romantic novel was one thing, real life was something quite different, or so she had always thought. He looked up and smiled at her and her heart turned over—perhaps after all real life wasn’t all that different from a romantic novel. She smiled with delight and his eyebrows rose and his glance became questioning, but since she said nothing—she was too short of breath to do that—he sat back in his chair. ‘Well, now, shall we see what can be done for Miranda, Miss …?’

‘Lockitt—Lucy Lockitt.’

His firm mouth quivered. ‘“Lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it …”’

‘Everyone says that,’ she told him seriously.

‘Tiresome for you, but I suppose we all learnt nursery rhymes when we were small.’ With an abrupt change of manner he went on, ‘If you could put her on to the couch, I’ll take a look.’

Lucy laid the still sleeping child down and the doctor came over to the couch and stood looking down at her. ‘I wonder why nothing was done when hydrocephalus was first diagnosed. I see in her notes that her skull was abnormally enlarged at birth. You don’t happen to know why her notes are so sparse?’

‘They’ve been lost—that is, Matron thinks so. You see, she was abandoned when she was a few weeks old, no one knows who her parents are; they left her with the landlady of the rooms they were living in. They left some money too, so I suppose she didn’t bother to see a doctor—perhaps she didn’t know that Miranda wasn’t quite normal. A week or two ago the landlady had to go to hospital and Miranda was taken in by neighbours who thought that there was something wrong, so they brought her to the orphanage and Dr Watts arranged for you to see her.’

Dr Thurloe bent over the toddler, who woke then and burst into tears. ‘Perhaps you could undress her?’ he suggested. ‘Would you like Sister or one of the nurses to help you?’

‘Strange faces frighten her,’ said Lucy matter-of-factly, ‘and I can manage, thank you.’

He was very gentle, and when he had made his general examination he said in a quiet voice, ‘Take her on your lap, will you? I need to examine her head.’

It took a considerable time and he had to sit very close. A pity, thought Lucy, that for all he cares I could be one of the hospital chairs. It occurred to her then that he was probably married, with children of his own; he wasn’t young, but he wasn’t old either—just right, in fact. She began to puzzle out ways and means of getting to know something about him, so deeply engrossed that he had to ask her twice if she was a nurse.

‘Me? Oh, no. I just go each day from nine in the morning until five o’clock in the afternoon. I do odd jobs, feeding the babies and changing them and making up cots—that sort of thing.’

He was running a gentle hand over the distended little skull. ‘Was there no nurse to accompany Miranda here?’

‘Well, no. You see, it’s hard to get trained nurses in an orphanage—it’s not very exciting, just routine. There’s Matron and a deputy matron and three state enrolled nurses, and then four of us to help.’

The doctor already knew how many children there were; all the same, he asked that too.

‘Between forty and fifty,’ she replied, then added, ‘I’ve been there for four years.’

He was measuring the small head with callipers, his large, well-tended hands feather-light. ‘And you have never wished to train as a nurse?’

‘Oh, yes, but it hasn’t been possible.’

He said smoothly, ‘The training does tie one down for several years. You understand what is wrong with Miranda?’

‘Not precisely, only that there is too much fluid inside her skull.’

‘It is a fairly rare condition—the several parts of the skull don’t unite and the cerebrospinal fluid increases so that the child’s head swells. There are sometimes mental symptoms, already apparent in Miranda. I should like her to be admitted here and insert a catheter in a ventricle which will drain off some of the surplus fluid.’

‘Where to?’

‘Possibly a pleural cavity via the jugular vein with a valve to prevent a flow-back.’

‘It won’t hurt her?’ she asked urgently.

‘No. It will need skilled attention when necessary, though.’

He straightened to his full height, towering over her. ‘Will you set her to rights? I’ll write to Dr Watts and arrange for her to be admitted as soon as possible.’

Lucy, arranging a nappy, just so, said thickly round the safety-pin between her teeth, ‘You can cure her?’

‘At least we can make life more comfortable for her. Take that pin out of your mouth, it could do a great deal of damage if you swallowed it. What transport do you have?’ He glanced at the notes before him. ‘Sparrow Street, isn’t it? You came by ambulance?’

She shook her head, busy putting reluctant little arms into a woolly jacket. ‘Taxi. I’m to get one to take us back.’

‘My dear girl, it is now five o’clock and the rush hour, you might have to wait for some time. I’ll arrange an ambulance,’ he stretched out an arm to the telephone, ‘or better still, I’ll take you on my way home.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Lucy politely, ‘but it wouldn’t do at all, you know. For one thing the orphanage is in Willoughby Street and that’s even more East End than here, and for another, I’m sure consultants don’t make a habit of giving lifts to their patients—though perhaps you do if they’re private …’

The doctor sat back in his chair and looked her over. ‘I am aware of where the orphanage is and I give lifts to anyone I wish to. You have a poor opinion of consultants … We are, I should suppose, exactly like anyone else.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you are,’ said Lucy kindly, ‘only much cleverer, of course.’

His heavy eyelids lifted, revealing a pair of very blue eyes. ‘A debatable point,’ he observed. ‘And now if you will go to the front entrance I will meet you there in a few minutes.’

He spoke quietly and she did as he asked, because she had to admit to herself that he had that kind of voice and she was tired. Miranda had gone to sleep again, but once she woke she would want her tea and her cot and would fly into a storm of tears; to be driven back to the orphanage would be a relief. She was already late and it would be another half-hour or more before she was home. She sat on a bench facing the door so that she would see the doctor when he came, but he came unnoticed from one of the corridors at the back of the entrance hall. He paused before he reached her and gave her a long look; she was pretty enough to warrant it, and seen in profile her nose had a most appealing tilt … He spoke as he reached her. ‘The car’s just outside. It will be better if you carry her, I think; it wouldn’t do to wake her.’

They crossed the hall and he held the door for her and went ahead to open the door of the dark grey Rolls-Royce outside. She got in carefully and he fastened her safety-belt without disturbing the child, and then got in beside her, drove out of the forecourt and joined the stream of traffic in the street.

Lucy waited until they stopped in a traffic jam. ‘You said Sparrow Street, and it is, of course, only the staff and children use the Willoughby Street entrance.’

‘I see—and who uses the Sparrow Street door?’ He edged the car forward a few yards and turned to look at her.

‘Oh, the committee and visiting doctors and the governors—you know, important people.’

‘I should have thought that in an orphanage the orphans were the important people.’

‘They are. They’re awfully well looked after.’ She lapsed into silence as the big car slid smoothly ahead and presently stopped in Willoughby Street. The doctor got out and opened her door for her and she got out carefully. ‘Thank you very much for the lift, it was kind of you.’ She smiled up into his impassive face.

‘I’m coming in with you, I want to see the matron. Where do you live?’

‘Me? In Chelsea.’

‘I pass it on my way home. I’ll drop you off.’

‘I’ll be at least fifteen minutes …’

‘So shall I.’ They had gone inside and he indicated the row of chairs lined up against the wall of the small reception room. ‘Wait here, will you?’

He nodded to the nurse who came to meet them and walked off, leaving Lucy to follow her to the back of the building where the toddlers had their cots and where the sister-in-charge was waiting. It was all of fifteen minutes by the time Lucy had explained everything, handed over the now wakeful Miranda, and said goodnight.

‘Thanks for staying on over your time,’ Sister said. ‘I’ll make it up to you some time.’ She smiled nicely because Lucy was a good worker and didn’t grumble at the unending task of keeping the toddlers clean and fed and happy. We could do with a few more like her, she thought, watching Lucy’s slender shape disappearing down the corridor.

There was no sign of the doctor when Lucy got back to the reception-room. Perhaps she had been too long and he had gone without her, and she could hardly blame him for that—he had probably had a long and tiring day and was just as anxious to get home as she was. All the same, she sat down on one of the hard wooden chairs; there was no one else there, or she could have asked …

He came five minutes later, calm and unhurried, smiling genially, and accompanied by the matron. Lucy got to her feet and, rather to her surprise, was thanked for her afternoon’s duties; it was by no means an uncommon thing for her to take children to hospital to be examined, and she was surprised that anyone had found it necessary to thank her. She muttered politely, added a goodnight and followed the doctor out to his car.

‘Exactly where do you live?’ he enquired of her as he settled himself beside her.

She mentioned a quiet road, one of those leading away from the Embankment, and added, ‘It is very kind of you. I hope it’s not taking you out of your way?’

‘I live in Chiswick. Do you share a flat?’ The question was casual.

‘Me? No. I live with my parents …’

‘Of course, now I remember—is your father an archaeologist, the Gregory Lockitt?’ And when she murmured that he was, ‘I met your parents some time ago at a dinner party. They were just back from the Andes.’

‘That’s right,’ she agreed composedly, ‘they travel a good deal.’

‘But you prefer your orphanage?’ His voice was kindly impersonal.

‘Yes.’ She didn’t add to that, to explain that it was a job she had found for herself and taken on with the good humoured tolerance of her parents. She had been a disappointment to them, she knew that, although they had never actually said so; her elder sister, with a university degree and distinguished good looks, was personal assistant to the director of a City firm, and her younger sister, equally good-looking and chic with it, worked in one of the art galleries—moreover she was engaged to a young executive who was rising through his financial world with the ruthless intention of reaching the top before anyone else. Only Lucy, the middle sister and overshadowed by them both, had failed to be a success. There was no question but that they all loved her with an easygoing tolerance, but there was also no question that she had failed to live up to the family’s high standards. She was capable, sensible and practical and not in the least clever, and despite her gentle prettiness she was a shy girl. At twenty-five, she knew that her mother was beginning to despair of her marrying.

Dr Thurloe stopped the car before her home and got out to open her door, and she thanked him again. Pauline and Imogen would have known exactly what to say to make him interested enough to suggest meeting again, but she had no idea; the only thought in her head was that she wasn’t likely to see him again, and that almost broke her heart. She stared up into his face, learning it by heart, knowing that she would never forget it, still bemused by the surprise of loving him.

His quiet, ‘A pleasure, enjoy your evening, Miss Lockitt,’ brought her to her senses again, and she bade him a hasty goodnight and thumped the door knocker. He waited by his car until Alice, the housekeeper, opened the door, and then he got into the car and drove away. Perhaps I should have asked him in, reflected Lucy uneasily as she said hello to Alice.

‘And who was that now?’ asked Alice. ‘Nice car too. Got yourself a young man, love?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘Just a lift home. Is everyone in, Alice?’

‘In the drawing-room and ‘is nibs with them.’ She gave Lucy a motherly pat. ‘Best go and tidy yerself, love—they’re having drinks …’

Lucy went slowly upstairs to her room, showered and got into a wool dress, brushed out her hair and did her face. She knew her mother disliked her wearing the clothes she had worn at the orphanage, even though they were covered by an overall and a plastic apron. She didn’t hurry—there would just be time for a drink before dinner, and that meant that she wouldn’t have to listen to Cyril, Pauline’s fiancé, prosing about stocks and shares for too long. She went slowly downstairs, wondering if her sister really loved him or whether she was merely carried away at the prospect of being the wife of a successful businessman, with a flat in town, a nice little cottage in the country, two cars and enough money to allow her to dress well and entertain lavishly. In Lucy’s opinion, none of these was a good reason for marrying him.

She found them all sitting round the fire in the drawing-room and her mother looked round to say, ‘There you are, darling. Have the orphans been trying? You’re so late …’

Lucy took the drink her father had handed her and she sat down beside him. ‘I took one of them to be seen by a specialist at the City Royal; it took rather a long time.’ She didn’t say any more, for they weren’t interested—although they always asked her about her day, they didn’t listen to her reply. And indeed, she admitted to herself, it made dull listening compared with Pauline’s witty accounts of the people who had called in to the art gallery, and Imogen’s amusing little titbits of news about the important people she met so often. She sipped her sherry and listened to Cyril clearing his throat preparatory to addressing them. He never just talked, she thought; he either gave a potted lecture, or gave them his opinion about some matter with the air of a man who believed that no one else was clever enough to do so. She swallowed her sherry in a gulp and listened to his diatribe about the National Health Service. She didn’t hear a word; she was thinking about Dr Thurloe.

Later, as Lucy said goodnight to her mother, that lady observed lightly, ‘You were very quiet this evening, darling—quieter than usual. Is this little job of yours too much for you, do you suppose?’

Lucy wondered if her mother had any idea of what her little job entailed, but she didn’t say so. ‘Oh, no, Mother.’ She spoke briskly. ‘It’s really easy …’

‘Oh, good—it doesn’t bore you?’

‘Not in the least.’ How could she ever explain to her mother that the orphans were never boring? Tiresome, infuriating, lovable and exhausting, but never boring. ‘I only help around, you know.’

Her mother offered a cheek for a goodnight kiss. ‘Well, as long as you’re happy, darling. I do wish you could meet some nice man …’

But I have, thought Lucy, and a lot of good it’s done me. She said ‘Goodnight, Mother dear …’

‘Goodnight, Lucy. Don’t forget we are all going to the Walters’ for dinner tomorrow evening, so don’t be late home, and wear something pretty.’

Lucy went to bed and forgot all about the dinner party; she was going over, syllable by syllable, every word which Dr Thurloe had uttered.

She got home in good time the next evening. The day had been busy and she felt the worse for wear, so it was a relief to find that her sisters were in their rooms dressing and her parents were still out. She drank the tea Alice had just made, gobbled a slice of toast and went to her room to get ready for the party.

The Walters were old friends of her parents, recently retired from the diplomatic service, and Lucy and her sisters had known them since they were small girls; the friendship was close enough for frequent invitations to their dinner parties. Lucy burrowed through her wardrobe, deciding what to wear. She had a nice taste in dress, although she wasn’t a slavish follower of fashion, and the green dress she finally hauled out was simple in style with a long, full skirt, long, tight sleeves and a round, low neckline. She ran a bath and then lay in it, daydreaming about Dr Thurloe, quite forgetting the time, so that she had to dress in a tearing hurry, brush out her hair and dash on powder and lipstick without much thought to her appearance. Everyone was in the hall waiting for her as she ran downstairs and her mother said tolerantly, ‘Darling, you’re wearing that green dress again. Surely it’s time you had something new?’

‘You’d better come with me on your next free day,’ said Imogen. ‘I know just the shop for you—there was a gorgeous pink suit in the window, just right for you.’

Lucy forbore from saying that she didn’t look nice in pink, only if it were very pale pink like almond blossom. ‘Sorry if I’ve kept you all waiting. Pauline, you and Imogen look stunning enough for the lot of us.’

Pauline patted her on the shoulder. ‘You could look stunning too,’ she pointed out, ‘if you took the trouble.’

It was pointless to remind her sister that the orphans didn’t mind whether she looked stunning or not. She followed her father out to the car and squashed into the back with her sisters.

The Walters gave rather grand dinner parties; they had many friends and they enjoyed entertaining. The Lockitts found that there were half a dozen guests already there, and Mrs Walter, welcoming them warmly, observed that there were only two more expected. ‘That charming Mrs Seymour,’ she observed, ‘so handsome, and I dare say very lonely now that she is widowed, and I don’t know if you’ve met—’ She broke off, smiling towards the door, ‘Here he is, anyway. William, how delightful that you could come! I was just saying … perhaps you know Mrs Lockitt?’

Imogen and Pauline had gone to speak to Mr Walter; only Lucy was with her mother. She watched Dr Thurloe, the very epitome of the well-dressed man, walk towards his hostess, her gentle mouth slightly open, her cheeks pinkening with surprise and delight. Here he was again, fallen as it were into her lap, and on his own too, so perhaps he wasn’t married or even engaged.

He greeted his hostess, shook hands with Lucy’s mother, and when Mrs Walter would have introduced Lucy he forestalled her with a pleasant, ‘Oh, but we have already met—during working hours …’

He smiled down at Lucy, who beamed back at him, regretting at the same time that she had worn the green, by no means her prettiest dress. She regretted it even more as the door was opened again and Mrs Seymour swept in. A splendid blonde, exquisitely dressed and possessed of a haughty manner and good looks, she greeted Mrs Walter with a kiss on one cheek, bade Mrs Lockitt a charming good evening, smiled perfunctorily at Lucy, and turned to the doctor. ‘William!’ she exclaimed. ‘I had no idea that you would be here—I had to take a taxi. If I’d known you could have picked me up.’ She smiled sweetly and Lucy ground silent teeth. ‘But you shall drive me home—you will, won’t you?’

‘Delighted, Fiona.’

She put a hand on his sleeve and said brightly, ‘Oh, there is Tim Wetherby, I must speak to him—you know him, of course …’

It seemed that Dr Thurloe did. The pair of them strolled away and, since Mrs Walter had turned aside to talk to one of the guests, Lucy was left standing by her mother.

Mrs Lockitt gave her an exasperated glance. ‘I want to talk to Mr Walter before we go into dinner. Do exert yourself, darling, and go and chat with someone—it is such a pity that you’re so shy …’

A remark which made Lucy even more so. But, obedient to her mother’s suggestion, she joined a group of people she knew and made the kind of conversation expected of her while managing to keep an eye on the doctor. That he and Fiona Seymour knew each other well was obvious, but Lucy had already decided that Fiona was not at all the kind of girl he should marry—he needed a wife who would listen to him when he got back from his work each day, someone who liked children, someone who understood how tiresome they could be and how lovable and how ill … Lucy nodded her head gently, seeing herself as that wife. She wasn’t sure how she was going to set about it, but she would find a way.

‘You’re not listening to a word I’m saying,’ remarked the young man who had been talking for a few minutes. When she apologised, everyone laughed—nicely, because they liked her—and someone said, ‘Lucy’s thinking about her orphans.’ Her job was a mild joke among those she knew and there was no malice in the remark. She smiled at the speaker as they went in to dinner.

She sat between the Walters’ rather solemn elder son and a young man attached to one of the foreign embassies, now home on leave, and she dutifully lent an attentive ear first to Joe Walter’s explaining rather prosily about computers, and then to her neighbour on the other side, who was anxious to tell her what a splendid time he was having in his far-flung post. With an effort she smiled and nodded and said all the right things, and the doctor, from the other side of the table, thought how restful she was and how very pretty. She looked different, of course, dressed in that green thing and with her hair curling almost to her shoulders. She was sensible too, when it came to handling small children. He bent a bland listening face towards his dinner companion while he allowed the nucleus of a plan to take shape in his sagacious mind.