ALMOST the worst job Elinor had to do was testing Jason’s reflexes and finding, every day, that there was no more life in his legs than there had been the day before. If he were ever to walk again he should be regaining some feeling now, and they both knew it.
Her skilful work massaging and flexing his legs had ensured that the muscles had regained much of their strength, and when needed they were ready for action. But their healthy look only made a mockery of their uselessness.
When each day’s disappointment came he shrugged and immediately began to discuss something else. Only a kind of suppressed pain in his manner betrayed the withering of hope, and when she next saw him even that would have gone, replaced by an air of cheerfulness that didn’t fool her.
If she had wanted revenge, she was having it now, in full. Instead, she felt only a growing ache in her heart, and a raging helplessness that she could do nothing for him.
Once, without meaning to, she revealed her frustration.
‘Don’t get upset,’ he said kindly. ‘You make it bearable. God knows, it’s bad enough, but without you it would have been a thousand times worse.’
Now, to her growing sadness for him was added a sense of guilt at the deception she’d practised so innocently. She could bear anything except his kindness.
She would scour the radio magazines to find plays and discussions that would interest him, and in the evenings they would listen together. He could listen to a play alone but not a talk, because the opinions usually infuriated him so much that he needed someone to rage at. Elinor would oppose him just enough to be provocative and they would have lively arguments that prevented his spirits sinking too far.
They found a shared interest. Both enjoyed detective stories and television police shows. In Elinor’s company he would even listen to the television, relying on her to explain the action. His managers still visited him for instructions and gradually he got a hold of the business that had slipped away from him in the hospital. It was life of a kind. And for a man with no eyes or legs it was a remarkably full life. But she knew he was slowly going mad.
She’d trained herself to sleep lightly, half alert for her patient. Now she found it hard to sleep at all, constantly listening for any sound that indicated Jason was suffering. If he seemed restless she would drop in, apparently casually, offer him a cup of hot milk, and end up taking him a whisky and soda, with ice, just as he liked it.
‘There isn’t one woman in a thousand can pour a perfect whisky,’ he said one night, ‘but you got it right first time. Exactly two fingers and a brief dash of soda, just as I like it. Are you clairvoyant or something?’
That had been one of her slips—pouring his whisky without asking how he liked it, because she remembered from the past. But she glided out of it neatly.
‘Of course I’m clairvoyant. And I shouldn’t be pouring one for you at this hour either, but if I didn’t you’d only shout and frighten me.’
He gave a snort of amusement. ‘Frighten the dragon lady?’
‘A moment ago I was a woman in a thousand,’ she joked.
‘You are. You’re also intolerable.’
She laughed, not at all offended. ‘You only say that because I’m the first nurse you haven’t been able to bully.’
‘It’s a slander. I’m the mildest of men.’
‘Of course you are, as long as the world is dancing to your tune.’
‘Well,’ he said with a sigh, ‘it’s not dancing to my tune now, is it?’
‘I’m sorry, Jason—’
‘It’s all right. One little remark isn’t going to floor me. I’m tough. Pour me another whisky and go back to bed. The way I treat you, you need all the sleep you can get.’
Jason liked to mull over the problems of the estate and the factory with Elinor while she was working on his legs. She said little beyond ‘Yes’, ‘No’, and ‘How did you deal with that?’ But this was all he wanted. It gave him the chance to sort his thoughts out.
‘I just wish I could get back to the factory,’ he groaned one day.
‘I can drive you over one day.’
‘A blind man in a wheelchair? No way. When I go back I go on my feet.’
‘We’ll work for that,’ she assured him.
He talked on for a while. Elinor had been awake most of the night, so although it was morning she was tired, and answered mechanically. She thought he didn’t notice, but at last he stopped and said, ‘Is something wrong?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘I wonder? If there was something troubling you, that strict professionalism of yours wouldn’t let you tell me, would it?’
‘Of course not. I’m here to take care of your troubles, not my own.’
‘Don’t you think I spend enough time brooding about my own troubles? Thinking about yours might do me good.’
‘But I don’t have any troubles,’ she said firmly.
After a moment Jason said, ‘You’re a liar, Nurse Smith. Your voice is full of trouble.’
‘Jason, please—’
‘Dammit, can’t you stop being a nurse for five minutes? You know what could happen if I was a normal man?’
‘You are—’
‘I could ask you to have dinner with me—nothing heavy, just a pleasant evening, talking over a meal and a glass of wine. We’d talk about me, but also about you. You’d tell me about yourself, about your hopes and dreams, and the life that’s made you the person you are. But because I’m a blind cripple you know everything about me, and I know nothing about you. Can you imagine how humiliating that is?’
‘That’s not fair, Jason. You make it sound as though it’s all my fault, but it’s just the way it is between a nurse and her patient—’
‘But I don’t want to be a patient. I want to be a man.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said distractedly. ‘I should have understood how you must feel and—’
‘Stop damned well apologising!’ he said in agony. ‘Stop humouring me, patronising me.’
‘I—’ She stopped on the verge of the fatal words.
‘If you say you’re sorry, I’ll chuck something,’ he threatened.
Silence.
‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ he jeered. ‘When you can’t talk like a nurse you can’t talk at all.’
‘Well, what do you want me to say?’ she demanded, goaded. ‘That your temper’s atrocious?’
‘It would be the truth.’
‘Then why would you expect me to want to have dinner with you?’ she retorted. ‘You want to be treated like a normal man—act like one. Stop bawling me out when I say a word out of place, and if you can talk to me nicely for five minutes on end maybe—maybe I’ll say yes.’
‘Well, that’s honest,’ he said after a moment.
‘Yes, it is,’ she said crossly. She was feeling too weary to be diplomatic. ‘And honest is what you asked for.’
‘That’s right. I asked for it, and I got it. Oh, boy, did I get it! I’m not sure that I’m going to ask you to dinner, Dragon Lady.’
‘Fine! Don’t!’
‘Well, you wouldn’t have come anyway. My dining room is great on history but not strong on entertaining a lady. Plenty of ancestors on the walls, but where’s the atmosphere, the soft lights, the music, the top class food and wine?’
‘Food doesn’t come any more top class than Hilda’s and she tells me you have an excellent cellar.’
‘So you accept?’
‘Yes!’
Like someone who saw the step too late to avoid tripping, she’d spotted the danger and walked into it all in one split second. She regarded him with exasperation.
‘You tricked me!’
‘Sure I did. It feels wonderful to have out-thought the Dragon Lady.’
‘Will you stop calling me that?’
‘Nope!’ His expression was triumphant.
Exasperation changed to resignation, and from there it was only a short step to tenderness. He had so little. How could she refuse him this one little thing?
‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll have dinner together one evening.’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I’ll talk to Hilda—’
‘You’ll do no such thing. You’re the guest. Send Hilda up to talk to me about the menu. You go and pick out your prettiest dress to wear.’
She possessed nothing that could even remotely justify the title ‘your prettiest dress’. Apart from her jeans and uniform she had one plain linen garment that was businesslike and totally unsuitable for the kind of evening he was suggesting.
Nor could she even hint that it didn’t matter what she wore, because to say that would be to hurl his blindness at him.
‘I don’t have anything suitable with me,’ she said at last. ‘This kind of invitation doesn’t usually come my way when I’m working.’
‘Then you should buy something new, at my expense. Think of it as therapy for the patient. This means a lot to me.’
‘Well, if you put it like that—’
‘New dress—preferably long—shoes, hairdo. The works.’
She laughed. ‘All right.’
‘You’d better go into town right now. Go on with you. Oh, and Elinor—’
She stopped in the doorway.
Jason’s grin was full of mockery for himself.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
It was the kind of carefree shopping expedition that had vanished from her life, and to be having one now, for Jason Tenby’s sake, seemed incredible.
Yet she knew exactly what she wanted. She’d looked through his blind eyes and seen the world that constricted him and drove him mad. And, no matter how strange it seemed, she would help him to imagine that he’d escaped, even if only for one evening.
She had clear ideas about what she was seeking—something that would be pretty enough for evening wear, yet also serviceable.
But then she walked past a small shop and stopped, transfixed. One window was dominated by a chiffon dress in shades of orange, brown, green and yellow. It was like sunrise and sunset. It was wine and laughter, earth, air and fire, and it sang to her of life and all that made life beautiful.
Doubtless there had been other dresses, but she hadn’t seen them or heard the song. Just why it should have happened today, this minute, she didn’t know, but inside her rose a passionate, irrational yearning for this one garment.
She went in, half hoping that it wouldn’t fit, but it fitted to perfection. She had an eerie feeling that fate had seized her by the hand, although whether fate was acting for her or against her it was too soon to tell.
She had it on before she asked how much it cost. And when she heard the answer she gasped. The price was wicked, but so was the dress, and a little wickedness seemed delightful right now.
After that she seemed to have no say over her own actions. Carried away, she bought elegant evening sandals, and a froth of silk underwear. The shop was connected to a beauty salon next door, and it was easy to book an appointment for a hairdo and make-over for the following afternoon.
She returned to Tenby Manor, torn between guilt and delight. Her purchases were going to turn her into somebody else and suddenly she wanted that madly, recklessly. Oh, the joy of being someone else, just for a few hours!
But how would Jason react to the size of the bill?
He reacted by shouting with laughter. ‘Boy, that must be some dress!’
‘It isn’t just for the dress,’ she admitted. ‘I bought a few other things.’
‘Good. Tell me.’
‘Some evening sandals, and tights…’
‘And?’ For her hesitant voice hinted at something more.
‘And some underwear. I had to,’ she added quickly, ‘because the dress is a bit low and nothing I have is suitable—’
‘Dragon Lady, you’re blushing.’
‘I’m not. Don’t be absurd.’
‘Your voice is blushing.’ He added wickedly, ‘Tell me about the underwear. I want all the details.’
‘Well, you’re not going to get them. If you feel I’ve wasted your money I shall be happy to pay for the extras myself.’
‘By “extras” you mean bra and panties?’ he asked with a grin.
‘Yes. And a slip.’
‘Satin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Colour?’
‘Peach.’
‘Does it all match?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘Sounds like money well spent to me,’ he said happily.
‘That’s without my appointment tomorrow.’
‘You really pushed the boat out, huh? Great.’
‘I asked Hilda to make some tea. I’ll go and see if it’s ready.’
It was an excuse to flee the room. As Jason had mysteriously detected, she was blushing, and not just her face but her whole body. From head to toe she was suffused with warmth at the intimate images Jason had forced her to put between them.
He would never see the delicate, feminine underwear. Nor did he know what she looked like, so his imagination was curtailed. Yet she had the odd feeling that he could picture her exactly. It was as though he had the power to undress her, and it was very unsettling.
At the beauty salon next day she found that the staff knew she’d bought the dress in the window next door.
‘It must be a very special occasion,’ the stylist said as she examined her hair.
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
She rejected some of the fancier styles she was shown, and finally settled on a soft arrangement that left her shoulder-length hair hanging free but elegantly shaped.
The beautician was armed with an array of colours that complemented her dress. Elinor started out doubting, but all doubts vanished as she saw her new self.
It was a stranger who looked back at her, a ravishing, beautiful stranger, elegant to her fingertips. A desirable woman, who knew she was desirable. Elinor drew in her breath in wonder.
‘One last little thing,’ said the beautician.
She began to spray perfume lightly over Elinor’s hair and neck. Elinor sensed its sultry yet subtle aroma. ‘What is that?’
Laughing, the beautician told her the world-famous name.
‘But that costs two hundred pounds an ounce,’ Elinor gasped.
‘Well, it’s just a little sprinkle for a special evening. He won’t be able to resist you.’
It was indeed a perfume for a woman who wanted to be irresistible: delicate, understated, haunting. Elinor was thrilled by it, yet she wished she wasn’t wearing it tonight. It fitted the alluring underwear too well, as Jason would certainly know.
She was half afraid the vision would vanish when she put on the dress that evening. But when she saw the creature who looked back at her from the mirror she felt like Cinderella just before the ball.
Hilda was entranced. She’d entered into the scheme with gusto and had produced her best culinary magic. At least, so Elinor assumed. She hadn’t been allowed in the kitchen since yesterday.
‘I think it’s wonderful what you’re doing for him,’ Hilda said when she’d helped lower the dress over Elinor’s head without disturbing the hairdo. ‘If only he could see you! It’s heartbreaking that he’s so pleased about tonight when he’s going to miss so much of it.’
‘Yes, it makes you realise how little he really has left,’ Elinor sighed.
‘I remember when he was taking a girl out to dinner in the old days,’ Hilda said. ‘Different one every night sometimes. That was before Lady Virginia of course.’
‘Of course,’ Elinor said demurely. ‘Bit of a devil, was he?’
‘Oh, more than a bit,’ Hilda said admiringly. ‘When he was a lad he was like one of them sultans, taking his pick of the harem. Never cared what anyone else thought. Except—’
‘Except what?’ Elinor asked curiously.
‘Something happened a few years back. I’m not sure what, but it hit him hard, and after that he changed. He began to take more trouble about people’s feelings. He was a bit brusque before.’
‘Yes, I shouldn’t think he was the imaginative type.’
‘Oh, he’d always been kind. He’d do the right thing by people, but you had to take him as you found him. Suddenly he became gentler.’
‘And you don’t know what made him change?’
‘No, love. I was in hospital, and then Jason paid for me to go to a convalescent home, so I was gone for a few months. There!’ She stood back to admire. ‘You’re as pretty as a picture.’
Elinor had been ordered to stay away from the dining room while Hilda made her preparations. Now she approached it and found the door closed. She took a deep breath before knocking.
‘Come in,’ Jason called.
She did so, and stopped at the sight of him, sitting in the wheelchair. He was fully dressed in a black evening suit, smart black leather shoes, snowy white frilled shirt, with a black bow-tie. Diamond cuff-links winked at his wrists. Jason had turned out in style for her.
He’d had the room done up in style too. It was filled with the choicest blooms from the Tenby hothouses, and a traditional log fire burned in the old-fashioned fireplace.
The great table had been moved aside to make room for a small one, laid for two. Elinor’s eyes widened as she recognised the china as the family’s best Sévres service. Beside each plate stood three wine goblets of heavy cut-glass crystal, each one worth a fortune.
She knew their value because she had seen all this before, on the night of the ill-fated dinner party. Jason had had it laid out then, just as now, ostensibly in her honour. And then he had destroyed her.
‘Elinor?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I’m here.’ She thrust the memory away. ‘You’ve really pushed the boat out.’
‘To do a lady honour,’ he said gallantly. He indicated the table. ‘Is it to your liking?’
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘The flowers…’
In a small vase by her place were a few bright yellow king cups, plucked from the wild. She was charmed.
He held out his hand and she placed hers lightly in it. Manipulating his wheelchair with one hand, he led her further into the room. She was aware of him listening for the soft rustle of her dress, and inhaling her softly seductive aroma.
‘Tell me what you look like,’ he said.
She described the autumn colours and the garment’s silky texture and he nodded with pleasure.
Two aperitifs, ready-poured, stood on a small table. Jason positioned his chair and reached out for the glasses, finding them so exactly that Elinor guessed he’d been practising the move. He handed one glass to her and raised his own so that she could clink hers against it.
‘To a pleasant evening,’ she said.
‘To the best evening I’ve had in months. Thank you for doing this, Elinor. It means a lot to me to feel human again.’ He sniffed the air appreciatively. ‘You certainly know how to choose a perfume.’
‘That was an accident,’ she said quickly. ‘They sprayed it on in the salon, without asking me first.’
He frowned slightly. ‘Does that matter?’
‘It’s just that it makes me feel a little odd, as though I were pretending to be something I’m not.’
He stirred. ‘What made you say that?’
‘What?’
‘Pretending to be something you’re not.’
Too late she remembered how he’d once thrown those very words at her.
‘It’s just a phrase,’ she said lamely. ‘I could have said anything.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He seemed to be murmuring to himself. ‘It’s strange. Sometimes I seem to feel a ghost in this room.’
She managed to control her gasp, but she looked straight at him, riveted. She wondered if he could tell.
‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ he asked.
‘Not dead ones,’ she replied, picking up his thought.
‘Nor me. But living ghosts, the echoes of people as they once were, who felt something so deeply that their feelings lingered in the air—’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said softly. ‘I believe in them.’
‘I thought you’d understand.’ He seemed to pull himself together. ‘Hilda has left the meal on a hot trolley. Would you mind doing the honours?’
He wheeled himself to the table, and Elinor began to serve him. As she finished he caressed the dress, nodding as if in pleasure at its soft silkiness. Then he reached up and laid his hands on her arms. His touch was light, but it seemed to burn her.
‘Do you mind?’ he asked.
She was shaken but she said, ‘No. I’ve tried to look as you wanted.’
‘May I go further up?’
She had a sense of danger, but she forced herself to say, ‘Of course.’
She pulled up a chair close by him and touched his hand to indicate that she was ready. Inch by inch his hands slid up her arms, discovering her bare shoulders with the delicate straps that held up the dress. He found her throat, her long neck and clean jawline. Her hair swung softly against his fingers and he touched it with a concentrated look on his face.
‘I’ll stop if I’m offending you, Elinor.’
‘You’re not,’ she said firmly. After all, this was only a kind of therapy, to raise the patient’s spirits. But a pulse at the base of her throat had started to beat heavily, and she was afraid that he would detect it.
His gentle touch on her face unnerved her, especially when he traced the outline of her mouth, recalling the shocking moment when he’d done the same thing on the first night. Her heart was beating again as it had done then.
She tried to hold still and think of nothing, but she found her attention focusing on his own mouth. It was wide, firm-lipped and generous, and she could remember exactly how it had felt against hers, moving with persuasive seduction, teasing and inciting her until she’d started to kiss him back. She couldn’t deny it, and the remembrance brought the blush back to her body. Any minute he would sense what was happening to her, and that mustn’t happen. She tensed, and at once Jason drew back.
‘I don’t know what got into me,’ he said. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘It’s all right, honestly.’
‘You were trembling. I’m sorry.’
‘No, don’t be. And I’m not trembling. It’s just that I’m not used to being dressed like this. It’s a bit chilly around the shoulders. Let’s start the meal.’
She seated herself opposite him. The table was so small that even with it between them they were still close.
‘Thank you for making so much effort,’ he said. ‘You might have thought it wouldn’t have made any difference, but it does. Not just the perfume, but the dress. I love the dress.’
She hardly knew what to make of him. The man she’d known long ago would never have behaved like this. She could only guess at the changes six years had made. She herself wasn’t the same person. But perhaps this was his desperation talking. Once he hadn’t known what it was to be in need of reassurance. Now he knew nothing else.
‘I know that your inner pictures matter a lot,’ she said.
‘Yes. So help me out a bit more. Are you wearing all the other things?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said primly.
His grin was wicked. ‘Yes, you do.’
‘Oh, the sandals!’ she said with an air of innocence. ‘Yes, I’m wearing them.’
It was sweet to tease him, and sweeter still to hear his chuckle as he said, ‘I wasn’t talking about the sandals, and you know it.’
‘Then I don’t know what you are talking about,’ she said calmly, although she knew very well. With a twinge of dismay, mixed with delight, she realised that she was being sexually provocative, something so foreign to her that she was alarmed at how much she enjoyed it.
She had a moment’s guilt about Lady Virginia, and banished it at once. If Jason’s fiancée had bothered to be here he wouldn’t have needed to seek diversion like this.
‘I’m talking—as you know very well—about the peach satin slip, and the matching bra and panties.’
‘Oh them!’ she said with an air of surprise.
Jason laughed outright and reached for her across the table. She offered her hand and he carried it to his lips.
‘Yes, them.’
‘You don’t need to know about them,’ she said with an attempt at firmness.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m wearing a dress over them.’
‘So I couldn’t see them anyway,’ he finished for her. ‘Elinor, don’t you understand? Even if I could see the dress, I’d still be sitting here trying to imagine you without it. Don’t tell me no man has ever mentally undressed you before?’
Through the blush that engulfed her she managed to say, ‘Certainly no one has ever sat there and told me about it before. You’re disgraceful. Now let go of my hand, and let me serve you some food.’
He laughed again, and it wasn’t the laugh of an invalid, but of a full-blooded man thinking full-blooded thoughts. Nor did he release her hand. Hilda’s words came back to her; ‘…like one of them sultans, taking his pick of the harem…’
She smiled, wishing she could have known Jason in those days. Then the smile faded, as she remembered that she had.
In a moment the past came flooding back, overwhelming her, making her little Cindy Smith again. What was she doing here, creating fantasies with Jason Tenby?
Then she saw his face, smiling blindly up into hers, full of trust. The past vanished. She squeezed his hand.
‘Do you want to eat or not?’ she challenged him.
‘In default of something else. Hurry up, woman! Serve a hungry man.’
She laughed and began to attend to the food.