A Little Moonlight Read online

  She spoke in a rush and rather too loudly. ‘Yes, there is something I want to do more than anything else—leave London and the hospital and go miles away to some small town—perhaps near Aunt Edith. I want to start again, have another future. There must be something round the corner...’

  If Marc was surprised nothing of it showed on his face. He said slowly, ‘Do you suppose you’re so anxious to see what is round the corner that you’re missing something? You can be so busy looking for the moon that you miss the moonlight.’

  ‘Oh, pooh!’ said Serena, quite forgetting her manners. ‘I’m all for carving a career.’

  ‘Starting at the New Year?’

  ‘Yes.’ She bent over Beauty so that she didn’t need to look at him, which was a good thing, because the thoughtful calculation on his face might have warned her. She was already sorry that she had been so vehement and was casting around for some means of putting things right when Bishop came in, bearing champagne in an ice-bucket.

  Then she had no more chance, for it was almost midnight and Bishop, with Mrs Bishop in tow, joined them, ready for the first stroke of Big Ben. He timed the opening of the champagne to a nicety. They were raising their glasses as the New Year was ushered in, exchanging greetings and good wishes, and when the Bishops had gone again Serena said feverishly, ‘That was lovely. Thank you for a lovely evening. I must go back...’

  Marc showed no sign of having heard her. He was sitting in his chair looking comfortably relaxed. He said, ‘You want to start again? You were serious, Serena?’

  She bit off the ‘No’ she wanted to utter. ‘Of course,’ she told him.

  ‘In that case, let me make things easier for you. You can leave at the end of the week—nothing could be easier. I am going on holiday for a couple of weeks and someone can be found to replace you during that time. Let me have your resignation in writing when you come to work and I’ll arrange things for you.’

  It was a shock, like taking a step that wasn’t there. Serena gaped at him while she sought for words.

  ‘You mean I can leave—just like that?’

  He nodded, smiling.

  ‘Haven’t I been satisfactory?’ A silly question, but she had to know.

  ‘Quite satisfactory,’ he told her seriously, ‘very nearly as good as Muriel.’

  ‘I should like to go home. It’s been a lovely evening, but it’s late.’

  He made some sort of civil remark, the kind any good host might make, and Bishop was summoned to get her coat. Presently she was sitting beside Marc with Harley and Beauty in the back of the car, being driven back to Park Street.

  There were people on the streets, celebrating, but not much traffic, and Serena, desirous of keeping her end up at all costs, made small talk, so intent on doing so that she failed to notice that her companion, beyond the odd murmured grunt, had almost nothing to say.

  At Primrose Bank he slid to a silent halt, got out and opened her door, lifted Beauty from the back seat and, leaving Harley to guard the car, crossed the pavement to the door. Serena, her key clutched in her hand, offered the other one. ‘Thank you very much,’ she said politely, ‘and it was a lovely dinner. Mrs Bishop is a gem, isn’t she? Your—your wife will be delighted to have her.’

  He ignored her hand, took the key from the other one and opened the door. ‘They will get on very well,’ he observed, and at once stood aside to let her pass him. He opened her room door too, switched on the light, inspected the windows and curtains as he always did, and put Beauty’s basket down before the fire, stooping to light it.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Serena, and wished she could think of something else to say.

  He crossed the room to stand before her. He didn’t speak, but took her in his arms and kissed her, thoroughly and without haste.

  ‘Do you still want to go away?’ he asked her.

  Serena found her voice, rather a small one, for she was shaken to her very bones. It would be so easy to say no, but she drew back a little and he let her go at once.

  ‘Yes, yes, I do.’

  ‘Will you tell me why? Don’t you think you should do that?’

  She stared up into his face. He looked kind and understanding and at the same time detached.

  She said, ‘You’re going to be married.’

  He nodded, smiling a little. ‘Yes, and very soon. Goodnight, Serena.’

  He had gone. She stood looking at the door and seething with temper nicely mixed with such a deep sorrow she didn’t dare think about it.

  ‘He was laughing!’ she told Beauty in a furious voice. ‘Not so that you could see, but inside him.’ She flung a cushion at the door to relieve her feelings, then burst into tears. ‘I dare say he’s been wanting to get rid of me for weeks—he put the words into my mouth, didn’t he?’ she asked wildly. ‘So that he didn’t have to sack me.’

  She sat there grizzling and muttering, not at all her usual quiet self, clasping a mildly protesting Beauty to her, her head in such a tangle of misery that she had no idea what she was saying. A good thing too, for her remarks, uttered in a tear-sodden voice, had become hopelessly illogical.

  She went to bed finally and lay awake until after five o’clock, when she dropped off into an exhausted sleep and didn’t wake until Beauty, wanting her breakfast, woke her. She got up then, fed the little cat and put the kettle on. A cup of tea would be welcome; she had a headache, and one glance in the looking-glass had sent her spirits back into the soles of her feet. ‘I wonder what he’s doing now?’ she asked Beauty as she sipped very strong tea.

  * * *

  MARC WAS AT his desk. He had just made three very satisfactory phone calls, and all that remained now was to go and see Mrs Bishop. He had already had a talk with Bishop while he breakfasted. He got up, whistling, and with Harley at his heels took himself off for a walk in Hyde Park.

  * * *

  SERENA SQUEEZED UNDER the shower, washed her hair, did her nails and did the best she could with her face; never a beauty, she had suffered from her weeping. Then she dressed, had a cup of coffee and took herself out for a brisk walk. She went in the opposite direction to the hospital through the shabby streets for the most part quiet after the previous evening’s junketing, and as she went she did her best to discard all thoughts save those appertaining to her future. There were three days left of the week, precious little time in which to decide what to do next. It would be best if she delayed giving Mrs Peck a week’s notice until she had somewhere to go. She hesitated to ask Aunt Edith if she might stay with them until she had found a job, since there was no knowing how long that might take. She had a little money, enough to tide her over for a week or so; she would be able to keep her room on for another week and then pay a week in lieu of notice if something turned up. Tomorrow, she told herself firmly, she would go to the public library and scan the jobs columns in the national newspapers. There were the nursing magazines too, and The Lady. The least Marc could do would be to give her a good reference. She turned for home, pondering where she would like to live; somewhere in the West Country, or failing that the Cotswolds. Far enough away from London to be able to start a new life...

  When she got back to her room there was the rest of the day to get through, and that, if possible, without thinking about Marc. An impossibility.

  * * *

  SHE DREADED SEEING him the next morning. She got to the hospital early, typed out her resignation, and since there was a clinic later she was able to nip down to OPD, and put the envelope on his desk. That done, she felt better, or at least resigned, and, since there was work waiting for her on her desk, she went ahead with it until it was time to go to the clinic.

  As usual after a holiday, the waiting-hall bulged with patients, and for once Serena was pleased, for that meant she wouldn’t have a moment for anything but work all day. Marc was already there as sh
e went in, but so were all the others—his registrar, sister and three students—so it was easy to address a general good morning without looking at him.

  The clinic, once started, went on and on. Someone brought them coffee, but it grew cold before they could spare time to drink it, and the doctor went steadily ahead, giving his attention to each patient in turn, seemingly tireless, and when the last patient had gone he left at once to do a delayed ward round, but not without thanking his companions for their morning’s work.

  ‘Thank heavens that’s over,’ said Sister, sweeping up notes and charts and X-ray forms. ‘I’m famished! That man’s a workaholic. A good thing he’s getting married—it’ll give him something else to think about.’

  Everyone had gone but Serena, who found it necessary to make some sort of a reply. ‘Will you go to the wedding?’ was all she could think of to say.

  ‘I believe it’s to be a quiet affair, but, knowing him, he’ll invite those who work for him. He may be a baron in his own country and a noted consultant in this one and as rich as Croesus, so I’ve heard, but he’s no snob, and so very kind.’ She paused. ‘He’d be angry if I told you some of the things he’s done to help out, and never a breath of what he’s done for anyone.’ Sister sighed. ‘Ah, well, his wife’s a lucky woman. Let’s go to the canteen and see what’s left.’

  For the rest of that week Serena hardly set eyes on Marc. Work appeared on her desk—reams of it, for all the world as though he intended to get the last ounce of work out of her before she left. In a way, she was glad of it, for she was too busy to brood. By the time she got home each evening and fed Beauty, got her own supper and studied the vacancies in the various magazines and newspapers she had bought on the way, she found that there was little time to do more than go to bed.

  She was miserably unhappy, but to get her future settled had priority over personal feelings, and so far there had been nothing she had wanted to apply for. She had decided to try to find a post as receptionist in a country practice, as far away from London as possible, and failing that a job in one of the smaller provincial hospitals.

  The last morning came. There was the usual pile of work waiting for her, but first of all she went along to see Mrs Dunn. She had already told the lady that she was leaving and had been relieved when she had taken it for granted that Serena wanted to be nearer her mother now that she had remarried. Indeed, most of the people she knew in the hospital thought the same thing, and she didn’t enlighten them; it made her leaving easier.

  There was an afternoon clinic, and she took care to be in OPD before Marc should arrive so that she could bid everyone there goodbye before he got there. In that way she would be able to slip away at the end of the clinic, type up the notes and then leave quickly and quietly.

  There weren’t as many patients as usual, and it was barely four o’clock when the doctor got up from his desk. He said his usual thanks to everyone there, and then turned to Serena.

  ‘I’m sure that we all wish you a very happy future, Serena. We shall miss you. I hope you find exactly what you have in mind and that, when you have, you will send us a postcard.’ He smiled nicely at her, nodded briskly and went away.

  ‘Now that was a funny thing to say,’ said Sister, ‘And he didn’t shake hands or anything...’

  ‘Well, I dare say I shall see him again before I go, Sister. I’ve got these notes to type for him.’

  A remark which satisfied Sister, although there was no truth in it. She had seen Marc for the last time...

  The notes didn’t take long. Serena put them in their folder ready to hand to the head porter as she left, tidied her desk for the last time, went to wish Mrs Dunn and the other typists goodbye, got into her outdoor things and left the office. She had the strange feeling that it wasn’t really happening, that on Monday she would be there again, just as usual, that none of this was happening to her.

  However, it was. She went down to the front entrance, handed in the folders and walked to the door. She was almost there when the porter called after her. ‘Miss Proudfoot, you’re wanted in Matron’s office. Would you go there now, please?’

  Serena turned round, searching her head to think what it was that she had omitted to do before she left. Surely Matron didn’t expect her to say a personal goodbye to her? She hardly knew her, only as a formidable figure whom she had occasionally encountered in the hospital corridors.

  She paused by the lodge. ‘Have I done something?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t Matron say why she wanted me?’

  ‘No, Miss Proudfoot, just the message.’

  ‘I suppose I’d better go?’

  ‘I would if I were you, love,’ said the head porter, all at once quite fatherly.

  She went down the main corridor and knocked on Matron’s office door, and when the green light above it showed, opened the door and went in.

  Matron wasn’t there, but Marc was, sitting on the side of the desk, studying his shoes.

  Serena stood staring at him, going slowly pale. ‘Oh, no—not you,’ she muttered, and turned tail, to be halted by his placid,

  ‘Don’t run away, Serena.’ He got off the desk and came slowly towards her, stretched out an arm and closed the door, then put the arm round her. ‘I always thought,’ he observed thoughtfully, ‘that a girl knew when a man was in love with her.’

  She gave a wriggle to escape his arm, and he put the other one around her as well and clamped her gently against his great chest. She said in a small voice muffled by his waistcoat, ‘You’re going to get married...everyone says so—so did you.’

  ‘Well, of course I am. To you, my dearest love.’

  ‘But you gave me the sack!’ She sniffed dolefully. ‘You didn’t mind a bit...’

  ‘Of course I didn’t. I was delighted. You’re no longer working for me, we can marry as soon as I can arrange a licence.’

  She sniffed and lifted her head. ‘You haven’t asked me if I want to marry you.’

  He kissed her gently. ‘Will you marry me, my darling? But only if you want to.’

  ‘Of course I want to,’ said Serena tartly, and then in a loving little voice, ‘Oh, Marc, I’ve been so unhappy!’

  ‘Not any more, my love. I’ll make sure of that.’ He kissed her again, this time at some length. ‘Now we will go home and fix a date for the wedding.’

  ‘You mean to Park Street?’

  ‘Heaven forbid!’ He ran a gentle finger down her cheek. ‘You’re not going back there.’

  ‘I must—Beauty and all my things...’

  ‘Beauty is in the car outside, I fetched her half an hour ago, and Mrs Peck packed what she thought you might need—you’re coming back with me, dearest.’

  Serena, wrapped in a mist of happiness, made one more effort to be sensible. ‘Mother—and Aunt Edith, and your family...’

  ‘We will send a telex to your mother. As for Aunt Edith, I phoned her yesterday. You’re to stay there until your uncle marries us. My mother and the family know too, they can’t wait to welcome you.’

  ‘You were very sure.’

  ‘Oh, yes—that I loved you and would marry you.’

  ‘I might have said no,’ said Serena, making a great effort to assert herself.

  ‘But you said yes, my darling.’ His voice was gentle and loving.

  She nodded into his shoulder. ‘You’re quite sure?’ she asked anxiously.

  He didn’t reply, but kissed her again instead; a most satisfactory answer, blotting out any doubts there might still be at the back of her head. ‘And now we will go home,’ he told her, which was exactly what she most wanted to do.

  * * * * *

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  ISBN: 9781459245006

  Copyright © 1991 by Betty Neels

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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