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.
People sat around talking after dinner, and beyond a few passing remarks Lucy saw nothing of the doctor. Since she left with her family before he did, she had no chance to see him and Fiona Seymour leave together. She told herself stoutly that it didn’t matter one bit, one day she would marry him, only she couldn’t leave it too long, for she was twenty-five already. She was immensely cheered by the thought that Mrs Seymour, however well made-up she was, couldn’t disguise the fact that she wouldn’t see thirty again.
Back home, all of them in the kitchen, drinking hot milk before bed, her mother remarked, ‘What a nice man William Thurloe is, so good-looking and clever and not an ounce of conceit in him.’
‘We had quite a long chat,’ said Imogen complacently.
‘But Fiona Seymour has got her talons into him,’ said Pauline. She added, ‘He must be all of thirty-five—she’d make him a very suitable wife.’
‘Why?’ asked Lucy quietly.
Both sisters turned to look at her. ‘She’s what is known as a handsome woman, intelligent and always well dressed,’ they chorused kindly, ‘and she would look just right sitting opposite him at the dinner table. A splendid hostess …’
‘But she can’t be a hostess all the time—I mean, what about looking after the children, and seeing that he gets a good meal when he comes home late, and gets enough sleep …?’
Her family stared at her. ‘Why, Lucy,’ said her mother, ‘you sound,’ she paused, seeking a word, ‘concerned.’
Lucy finished her milk and put the mug in the sink. ‘I just think that Fiona Seymour isn’t the wife for him. He was the specialist I took Miranda to see yesterday; he likes children and somehow I don’t think she does.’ She kissed her mother and father, nodded goodnight to her sisters and went up to her room. She had said more than she had intended to say, which had been silly of her. The doctor’s future was nothing to her; she would probably meet him from time to time at some mutual friend’s house, and he would greet her politely and go and talk to someone else, forgetting her at once.
It was raining dismally when she left home the next morning. The orphanage looked bleaker than ever as she got off her bus, although once inside it became more cheerful with its bright painted walls and colourful curtains. All the same, the morning dragged with its unending round of chores. She was ministering to a vomiting four-year-old when Sister came to find her. ‘Matron wants you in the office, Lucy. You’d better go at once.’
Lucy handed over the small child, took off her apron and made her way to the office on the first floor.
Matron was quite young and well liked. ‘Sit down, Lucy,’ she invited. ‘I’ve a favour to ask of you. Miranda has to go off into hospital in two days’ time. Dr Thurloe has asked if you would be allowed to go with her—it’s important that she is not too disturbed, and she responds to you. You would have to live at the City Royal for a few days—she would be in a room off the children’s ward and you would have a room next to hers. You would be relieved for meals and off-duty, but it might be necessary for you to get up at night if she is very disturbed.’ She smiled. ‘And we both know what that’s like.’
‘Yes, of course I’ll go, Matron.’ Lucy smiled too; she would see Dr Thurloe again after all, and perhaps she would be able to say something witty or clever and get his attention—not just polite attention, but real interest … ‘When exactly are we to go?’
‘Have a day off tomorrow and report here at eight o’clock on the day after. I believe Dr Thurloe means to insert the tube later in the day, and I must warn you that you may have a difficult night afterwards. It depends on her reactions as to how long she stays there. You’ll be free?’
‘Oh, yes, Matron—for as long as you want me to be with Miranda.’
‘Good, that’s settled, then. I won’t keep you longer.’
The day had suddenly become perfect; the children were little angels, and the hours sped away in a flurry of tasks which were no longer boring or tiresome. Lucy changed nappies, cleaned up messes, fed protesting toddlers and dreamt of the days ahead, days in which she would become the object of admiration—Dr Thurloe’s admiration—because of some skilful act on her part—saving Miranda’s life by her quick thinking, rescuing a ward full of children by her bravery in case of fire … a bomb outrage … burst pipes …? It didn’t really matter what it was as long as it caused him to notice her and then fall in love with her.
She finished at last and went off duty and home. It was still raining, and as she hurried from the bus-stop the steady downpour brought her to her usual senses. She laughed out loud so that an elderly couple passing looked at her with suspicion. ‘No more useless daydreaming,’ she told herself briskly. ‘You’re too old for that anyway, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t going to marry him some day.’
It was nice to be home for a day. She pottered around, helping her mother with the flowers, sorting out the sheets of scrawled writing which flowed from her father’s pen as he worked at the lengthy task of putting together notes for the book he intended to write. At the end of the day she packed the bag that she would need while she was in hospital, washed her hair, did her nails and inspected her pretty face for the first wrinkles and lines. She couldn’t find any.
She and Miranda were fetched from the orphanage by ambulance the next morning, and to everyone’s relief the child slept quietly in Lucy’s arms. It wasn’t until they were in the room where she was to stay that she woke and, sensing something out of the ordinary, began to cry.
Lucy
