Betty Neels - Stars Through the Mist

The eyes which met hers were very kind. ‘Don’t worry, Deborah,’ he urged her in his deep, placid voice. ‘It’s only reaction; in the morning everything will be quite all right again. You must believe me.’

He bent and kissed her cheek, much as though he were comforting a child, and told her to go to bed. ‘And I’ll see you tomorrow before I go to Holland.’

And because she was bewildered and a little afraid and her head had begun to ache, she did as he bade her. With a whispered good night she went slowly up the stairs without looking back to see if he was watching her, undressed and got into bed, and fell at once into a dreamless sleep which was only ended by her alarm clock warning her to get up and dress, astonished to find that what Gerard had said was quite true; everything did seem all right. She went down to breakfast and in response to the urgent enquiries of her companions, gave a detailed account of her evening and then, fortified by several cups of strong tea, made her way to the theatre unit.

There wasn’t much doing. Mr Squires had a couple of Smith-Petersen pins to insert, a bone graft to do, and there was a Carpal Tunnel—an easy enough list, for he kept strictly to straightforward bone work, leaving the bone tumours to Gerard van Doorninck. They were finished by one o’clock and Deborah had time to go down to dinner before sending Staff off duty. The theatre would have to be washed down that afternoon and she wanted to go through the sharps; some of the chisels needed attention, as did the grooved awl and one or two of the rugines. She would go down to the surgical stores and see what could be done. She had them neatly wrapped and was on the point of making her way through the labyrinth of semi-underground passages to the stores, when Gerard walked in. ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Going somewhere?’

She explained about the sharps, and even as she was speaking he had taken them from her and put them on the desk. ‘Later. I have to go again in a few minutes. I just wanted to make sure…’ he paused and studied her with cool leisure. Apparently her calm demeanour pleased him, for he said: ‘I told you that everything would be all right, didn’t I?’ and when she nodded, longing to tell him that indeed nothing was right at all, he went on: ‘I’ve seen about the licence—there’s a small church round the corner, St Joram’s. Would you like to go and see it and tell me if you will marry me there?’

Her heart jumped because she still wasn’t used to the idea of marrying him, although her face remained tranquil enough. ‘I know St Joram’s very well, I go there sometimes. I should like to be married there.’

He gave a small satisfied sound, like a man who had had a finicky job to do and had succeeded with it sooner than he had expected.

‘I’ll be back on Monday—there’s a list at ten o’clock, isn’t there? I’ll see you before we start.’

He took her hand briefly, said goodbye even more briefly, and retraced his steps. Deborah stood in the empty corridor, listening to his unhurried stride melt into the distance and then merge into the multitude of hospital sounds. Presently she picked up the instruments and started on her way to the surgical stores.

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