She lifted the mug of soup, put it against her dry lips and took a cautious sip. ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’ she asked, not really knowing what he did, other than he said he was just a boring civil servant.
‘How can I work when there’s a medical emergency to deal with?’
‘I’m hardly that.’
‘I remember all too well the smog of 1952. So let me determine what is, and what isn’t an emergency. Okay?’
She nodded and drank some more of the soup, then nibbled on a sandwich. Although she had claimed not to have any appetite, she was now glad of something to eat. All the while she ate, Max’s eyes never wavered from her face. ‘Stop watching me,’ she said, ‘you’re making me nervous.’
‘That makes two of us.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Later,’ he said. ‘Weightier matters for when you’re feeling stronger.’
Not daring to wonder what he meant, she said, ‘Tell me about you and Evelyn.’ Ever since they’d met, she had been curious about him knowing Evelyn. To Isabella’s knowledge her aunt had never once mentioned the handsome and charismatic man sitting here by the side of her bed. To her surprise, Max suddenly looked awkward.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘How did you two meet?’
‘War work,’ he said.
‘The hush-hush variety?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled again and put a finger to his lips. ‘So hush and concentrate on eating.’
She drank some more soup. ‘Were you close friends?’ she asked.
‘Everyone was a close friend in the environment we worked in,’ he said. ‘Intense relationships were forged in the fire of the pressure we were under. It was the nature of the beast.’
‘Were you more than friends with Evelyn?’
‘I’ve never been a monk, Isabella. I’ve always enjoyed the company of women. I flirt as unconsciously as I breathe.’
‘That’s not exactly an answer to my question, is it?’
‘Yes, I flirted with Evelyn. She was a beautiful young girl with the kind of intelligence I admired. There was a time when I thought she was just the sort of woman with whom I could spend my life. But she loved another. I was no match for Kit.’
At his candour, and feeling as though a dark cloud had passed across the sun, Isabella wished now that she hadn’t asked him about Evelyn. That’s what you get for poking your nose in where you shouldn’t, she thought. Then, and as if to teach her a further lesson, a racking cough took hold of her. With her shoulders heaving, it felt like her lungs were threatening to burst through her aching ribs.
On his feet, Max removed the tray from her lap and placed a hand to her back as she doubled over with the pain her chest was in.
When the coughing fit had run its course, she sank back against the pillows, exhausted and again bathed in sweat. ‘I’d like to sleep now,’ she murmured.
Once more he straightened the sheet and blankets, smoothing and patting them into place. Such was the care he took, it made Isabella think of her father doing the same for her when she’d been a child.
When he was standing at the door, Max said, ‘I want you to know something important, Isabella. What I said before about Evelyn, that was then. This is now. This is you and me. And it’s altogether different.’
Weightier matters, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Fifty
Chelstead Cottage Hospital, Chelstead
December 1962
Evelyn
It had been a particularly trying day for Evelyn.
A large part of her morning had been devoted to reasoning with an indignant parent who refused to believe her daughter might be dyslexic. The way the mother reacted to Evelyn’s carefully worded proposal that the girl be referred to a specialist for testing, anyone would think she had recommended seeking help from a witch doctor.
No sooner had Mrs Bridgewater taken her leave and Evelyn had eaten a hurried lunch, than she had received a telephone call from a furious school governor. He had just learned of the existence of a well-thumbed copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover in the school library – the full unexpurgated version, no less. The book had been discovered by the librarian, Mrs Woods, and the general consensus was that it had been put there as a prank by one of the girls. Evelyn had read the novel shortly after the ruling two years ago that it could be published here in Britain, and had not found it half as salacious as the press and the Church of England had made out.
The school day now over, Evelyn was on her way to the hospital to visit Hope. She remained in a coma and the police still had no idea who had run her over.
Darkness had fallen early this evening, due in part to the smog; it had spread out of London and across the country. Those who suffered with weak chests and heart complaints were advised to stay indoors. Evelyn had begged Kit not to go out when she’d kissed him goodbye this morning. Every year he succumbed to a shocking chest infection, just as he had as a boy, and subjecting his battered lungs to the current foul air was to be avoided at all costs. She suspected he would have ignored her advice and gone to see his sister anyway.
With her gloved hand, Evelyn wiped at the windscreen. The heater, such as it was, wasn’t working and it was so cold inside the car her breath was misting the glass. She kept wriggling her toes in a vain attempt to keep them warm. Bill Noakes – the school caretaker, and general seer and clairvoyant – claimed the weather was set to take a turn for the worse. No doubt he knew this by conferring with a shrivelled-up piece of seaweed.
At the hospital, Evelyn parked alongside Romily’s Lagonda. Switching off the engine, she took a moment to collect her thoughts. She hadn’t seen Romily since the night of Hope’s awful accident, and when Evelyn had learned that her sister-in-law had received an anonymous letter just as she had. Knowing that she wasn’t alone in being singled out had initially given her a sense of relief.
Finding it impossible to be entirely truthful with Romily, especially with Stanley present, Evelyn had made vague noises about some person with whom she had worked during the war being the culprit. She had not revealed the true nature of the accusation made either, only that she was accused of betraying Kit.
If Romily had doubted any of what Evelyn had shared, she had not pressed for more details. Romily had then been away on yet another tour of speaking engagements, and for a while Evelyn had felt as though she were off the hook. Which was nothing but a display of short-sighted and cowardly behaviour on her part.
Out of the car, and covering her mouth and nose with her scarf, she made a dash for the entrance to the hospital and the private room Hope had occupied since being admitted. As she thought she would, Evelyn found Romily sitting by the side of Hope’s bed. She was reading to her.