“I didn’t say anything about him being wildly, deliriously happy,” she said huskily. “As a matter of fact – ”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think he’s at all happy! ”
“What a novel state of mind in which to contemplate marriage.”
“But it’s true that he – he thinks he ought to marry her – ”
“You make the whole thing sound more wildly romantic than ever, and I think it’s high time I went up and had a few words with our patient.” She regarded Charlotte in a very alert manner. “Can you recall the exact words Richard used to you when he told you he was going to marry Claire Brown?”
“Yes. He said, ‘I understand I’m engaged to be married, Charlotte!’ Apparently the wedding is all fixed! ”
“That settles it,” Hannah exclaimed, and bustled in a brisk, white-aproned, businesslike way over to the door. “I really shall have to have a few words with Mr. Tremarth!”
CHAPTER VII
BUT whether the result of the few words Hannah had with Richard Tremarth was of any particular value to anyone Charlotte was unable to tell, for Hannah was surprisingly uncommunicative about the brief quarter of an hour or so she spent closeted with her patient in connection with a matter that had nothing to do with his health. It seemed to Charlotte that her lips were a little tightened when she emerged from his room to supervise the laying of his lunch tray, and she did say something about maintaining a careful vigilance when he had anyone to visit him.
Charlotte, who had known him to have only one visitor so far, considered this a trifle ambiguous. But as the private concerns of their patient were really nothing to do with either of them, she said nothing further on the subject. Only awaited with a rather curious sensation of rising prickles under her skin the next appearance of Miss Brown.
For forty-eight hours they saw nothing of Claire, and then she arrived in an enchanting all-white outfit, and carrying a large basket of fruit and a supply of magazines and paperbacks. By that time Richard had grown more accustomed to descending the stairs, and he was sitting on the terrace when she arrived. The way in which they welcomed one another was not observed by anyone, for Charlotte was upstairs at the time dusting the bedrooms, and Hannah was in her own room writing letters. Charlotte, when she emerged on to the terrace with Waterloo walking beside her, found them engrossed in conversation… Or rather,
Claire appeared to be talking earnestly, and Richard was listening with the by now customary well- marked frown between his brows.
Apart from that frown he looked much better and more like himself, if rather thin and fine-drawn… And in fact, his fine-drawnness often brought a little ache to Charlotte’s heart.
When her footsteps sounded on the terrace behind his chair he looked round quickly, and even seemed relieved by the sight of Waterloo, who was always most friendly and welcoming whenever he saw him. Miss Brown, puffing a trifle agitatedly at a cigarette, threw it away and crushed it out beneath the heel of her immaculate white shoe, and also looked up frowningly at Charlotte.
“I hope it will be convenient for me to stay to lunch to-day,” she remarked.
“Perfectly convenient,” Charlotte answered.
Claire continued to frown.
“What do you think of him?” she asked, as if the patient was not capable of overhearing. “Is he really making progress? I’m a bit worried, because he still seems to find it difficult to remember anything that happened in his very recent past at all clearly – ”
“You mustn’t forget that I’m suffering from amnesia,” the patient himself remarked with a curious air of being perfectly complacent about his affliction.
Claire bit her lip in obvious exasperation. “Yes, I know, darling… But it is a bit trying sometimes,” she confessed, as if she really found it extremely trying. “I shall have to have a word with your doctor myself, and if he expresses any anxiety about you I shall insist on getting a man down from London to see what he can do for you. After all, if there is any brain injury you should be having treatment -” “Brain injury?” Charlotte sounded shocked and alarmed. “But of course Mr. Tremarth has no brain injury,” she protested, “or any other serious form of injury.
He is simply affected at the moment with a loss of memory, but Dr. Mackay says he may recover it at any moment…”
“Dr. Mackay!” Claire exclaimed, as if she had very little faith in him. “He’s the local G.P., isn’t he? And he’s probably had very little experience. I’m not at all sure Richard should be left to his tender mercies in any case.”
“I’m sure Dr. Mackay is perfectly competent to deal with this case,” Charlotte defended the local practitioner with a good deal of stiffness.
Richard put his head back – and it was such a shapely sleek, dark head in the sunlight and smiled at her.
“Oh, Mackay’s a very good chap,” he agreed. “I quite look forward to his visits… And as for Nurse Hannah, she’s wonderful. I’m surprised that she ever thought of giving up nursing.”
“And what about Miss Woodford?” Claire enquired, a trifle arctically. “Do you think it’s fair that she should have to devote so much of her time to looking after you and cooking for you? After all, there is no reason why she should do anything of the kind! ”
“True.” But Richard was still smiling lazily up at Charlotte, and to her slight confusion there was almost a caressing look in his eyes. “Do you mind very much, Charlotte?” he asked suddenly. “Looking after me, I mean? And making all those junkets, and things?”
“Of course not,” Charlotte asserted sturdily. Richard spread his shapely hands in a Continental gesture.
“Well, there you are! ” he exclaimed. “Charlotte doesn’t mind.” “Miss Woodford is far too polite to admit that she minds,” Claire declared with a good deal of emphasis – and particularly on the „Miss Woodford’. “So far as I have been able to gather she inherited this house and its contents from her aunt, and came down here to enjoy life and take advantage of living beside the sea. But all she has been permitted to do since your arrival has been climb the stairs many unnecessary times a day and fetch and carry for you. And that on top of having to literally dig you out of the wreckage of your car and bring you here.”
“Did you dig me out of the wreckage of my car?” Richard asked Charlotte, still smiling in a provocative and mildly quizzical manner. “Or is the story that I bounced out of it myself and landed quite literally at your feet rather more truthful and exact than the other version?”
“I certainly didn’t go anywhere near your car,” Charlotte assured him quietly. “For one thing, it was blazing like an inferno! ”
Miss Brown shuddered.
“How horrible!” she exclaimed. Then she looked at Richard as if for the first time she marvelled that he was alive. She bent forward and laid a hand caressingly on his knee. “Poor Richard,” she said very softly. “What a frightful thing to happen to you! ”
“I am alive,” Richard said shortly, and moved his rug-covered knee very slightly, so that her shapely white hand fell away. “I personally am extremely grateful for that – and grateful to Miss Woodford and Nurse Cootes for their care and succour.”
Miss Brown started to frown again – and the frown bit into her very white forehead like a cleft.
“There is still this question of your memory,” she pursued the subject unrelentingly. “It’s no use listening to people like Dr. Mackay and waiting for the moment when you remember who you are and everything else that is connected with you____________________ I do honestly think it would be best if we removed you to a nursing- home in London, and then I can go ahead with the arrangements for our marriage. It would, probably solve all sorts of problems if we got married immediately, and then I can devote myself to the task of looking after you.”
“Inside a nursing-home?” He lay back in his chair and regarded her queerly, with a cold, half humorous smile curving the comers of his mouth, and a rather unkind gleam of interest in his eyes. “Are you suggesting, Claire my dear, that we get married and spend our honeymoon in a nursing-home of your choice? Because I’m not at all sure what the rules and regulations are concerning that sort of thing! ” “Don’t be silly, darling.” She flushed and looked
