over the practice at home?’
Sister looked surprised and then smiled. ‘Indeed he works here; he’s our Senior Consultant Surgeon, although he’s supposed to be taking a sabbatical, but I hear he’s helping out Dr Treble for a week or two.’
‘So he’s a surgeon, not a GP?’
Sister smiled again. ‘Sir Paul Wyatt is a professor of surgery, and much in demand for consultations, lecturetours and seminars. You were indeed fortunate that he happened to be there when you needed help so urgently.’
‘Would Mother have died, Sister?’
‘Yes, love.’
‘He saved her life…’ She would, reflected Emma, do anything—anything at all—to repay him. Sooner or later there would be a chance. Perhaps not for years, but she wouldn’t forget.
She was taken to see her mother then, who was lying in a tangle of tubes, surrounded by monitoring screens but blessedly awake. Emma bent to kiss her white face, her own face almost as white. ‘Darling, everything’s fine; you’re going to be all right. I’ll be here and come and see you in the morning after you’ve had a good sleep.’
Her mother frowned. ‘Queenie,’ she muttered.
‘I’ll phone Mr Dobbs and ask him to put some food outside the cat-flap.’
‘Yes, do that, Emma.’ Mrs Trent closed her eyes.
Emma turned at the touch on her arm. ‘You’re going to stay for the night?’ A pretty, young nurse smiled at her. ‘There’s a rest-room on the ground floor; we’ll call you if there’s any need but I think your mother will sleep until the morning. You can see her before you go home then.’
Emma nodded. ‘Is there a phone?’
‘Yes, just by the rest-room, and there’s a canteen down the corridor where you can get tea and sandwiches.’
‘You’re very kind.’ Emma took a last look at her mother and went to the rest-room. There was no one else there and there were comfortable chairs and a table with magazines on it. As she hesitated at the door the sister from Casualty joined her.
‘There’s a washroom just across the passage. Try and sleep a little, won’t you?’
When she had hurried away Emma picked up the phone. Mr Dobbs was sympathetic and very helpful—of course he’d see to Queenie, and Emma wasn’t to worry about the car. ‘Come back when you feel you can, love,’ he told her. ‘And you’d better keep the car for a day or two so’s you can see your ma as often as possible.’
Mrs Smith-Darcy was an entirely different kettle of fish. ‘My luncheon party,’ she exclaimed. ‘You will have to come back tomorrow morning and see to it; I am not strong enough to cope with it—you know how delicate I am. It is most inconsiderate of you…’
‘My mother,’ said Emma, between her teeth, ‘in case you didn’t hear what I have told you, is dangerously ill. I shall stay here with her as long as necessary. And you are not in the least delicate, Mrs Smith-Darcy, only spoilt and lazy and very selfish!’
She hung up, her ear shattered by Mrs Smith-Darcy’s furious bellow. Well, she had burnt her boats, cooked her goose and would probably be had up for libel—or was it slander? She didn’t care. She had given voice to sentiments she had choked back for more than a year and she didn’t care.
She felt better after her outburst, even though she was now out of work. She drank some tea and ate sandwiches from the canteen, resisted a wish to go in search of someone and ask about her mother, washed her face and combed her hair, plaited it and settled in the easiest of the chairs. Underneath her calm front panic and fright bubbled away.
Her mother might have a relapse; she had looked so dreadfully ill. She would need to be looked after for weeks, which was something Emma would do with loving care, but they would be horribly short of money. There was no one around, so she was able to shed a few tears; she was lonely and scared and tired. She mumbled her prayers and fell asleep before she had finished them.
Sir Paul Wyatt, coming to check his patient’s condition at two o’clock in the morning and satisfied with it, took himself down to the rest-room. If Emma was awake he would be able to reassure her…
She was curled up in the chair, her knees drawn up under her chin, the half of her face he could see tearstained, her thick rope of hair hanging over one shoulder. She looked very young and entirely without glamour, and he knew that when she woke in the morning she would have a job uncoiling herself from the tight ball into which she had wound herself.
He went and fetched a blanket from Casualty and laid it carefully over her; she was going to be stiff in the morning—there was no need for her to be cold as well. He put his hand lightly on her hair, touched by the sight of her, and then smiled and frowned at the sentimental gesture and went away again.
Emma woke early, roused by a burst of activity in Casualty, and just as Sir Paul Wyatt had foreseen, discovered that she was stiff and cramped. She got up awkwardly, folding the blanket neatly, and wondered who had been kind during the night. Then she went to wash her face and comb her hair.
Even with powder and lipstick she still looked a mess—not that it mattered, since there was no one to see her. She rubbed her cheeks to get some colour into them and practised a smile in the looking-glass so that her mother would see how cheerful and unworried she was. She would have to drive back to Buckfastleigh after she had visited her and somehow she would come each day to see her, although at the moment she wasn’t sure how. Of one thing she was sure—Mrs Smith-Darcy would have dismissed her out-of-hand, so she would have her days free.
She drank tea and polished off some toast in the canteen, then went to find someone who would tell her when she might see her mother. She didn’t have far to go— coming towards her along the passage was Sir Paul Wyatt, immaculate in clerical grey and spotless linen, freshly shaved, his shoes brilliantly polished. She wished him a good morning and, without waiting for him to answer, asked, ‘Mother—is she all right? May I see her?’
‘She had a good night, and of course you may see her.’
He stood looking at her, and the relief at his words was somewhat mitigated by knowing that her scruffy appearance seemed even more scruffy in contrast to his elegance. She rushed into speech to cover her awkwardness. ‘They have been very kind to me here…’
He nodded with faint impatience—of course, he was a busy man and hadn’t any time to waste. ‘I’ll go to Mother now,’ she told him. ‘I’m truly grateful to you for saving Mother. She’s going to be quite well again, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, but you must allow time for her to regain her strength. I’ll take you up to the ward on my way.’
She went with him silently, through corridors and then in a lift and finally through swing-doors where he beckoned a nurse, spoke briefly, then turned on his heel with a quick nod, leaving her to follow the nurse into the ward beyond.
Her mother wasn’t in the ward but in a small room beyond, sitting up in bed. She looked pale and tired but she was smiling, and Emma had to fight her strong wish to burst into tears at the sight of her. She smiled instead. ‘Mother, dear, you look so much better. How do you feel? And how nice that you’re in a room by yourself…’
She
