I felt bruised and shaken. He had wounded me deeply by what he had said about my marriage.
Henrietta came in much later.
She bent over me to see if I was asleep. I pretended I was. I knew she would ask questions about the evening and I wanted to have a greater command of my thoughts before I answered her.
I could not escape the barrage of questions next day. Henrietta was avid for information “What happened? You were there one minute and gone the next.”
“I don’t know how it happened. We just found you were gone.”
“Philippe was getting me through the crowd. I thought you were following.”
“We did stop to look back, I remember.”
“That must have been it. Oh, Anna, what happened?”
“Well, Dr. Adair thought you might have gone to a certain place. He said it was a favourite place of Philippe’s … or something like that. So we went there and dined alone.”
“Alone with Dr. Adair! Oh, Anna, how exciting!”
I was silent.
“He is so fascinating. Of course Philippe is very nice, but … What happened?”
I said: “We just dined, talked and came home. I was in well before you were.”
“Yes. You were fast asleep. What on earth did you talk about?”
“Oh … about the hospital.”
“I should have thought you would have been glad to get away from all that.”
“Well, he’s a doctor and it is very important to him.”
“It must have been wonderful for you.”
Silence again.
She said: “If I had been the one I should have been most thrilled. I mean … all those adventures of his … living in a harem and all that. I should have had so much to talk to him about.”
“You always have so much to talk to everyone about.”
She laughed.
“Well, especially him. I think he is the most amazing man .”
I could not bear to hear her rhapsodizing over him, so I said I really must go to the wards.
It was about a week later when we heard we were to go home. Most of the wounded were to be taken back to England, and very few would remain.
As the departure grew nearer, I noticed Henrietta’s abstraction. I again had a feeling that she did not want to go.
Eliza noticed and commented on it to me.
I think she was anxious about me. She was convinced that I must marry Dr. Fenwick because that would be best for me.
“I’ve said many times,” she said, ‘that you are one of them women that want a family. You want children, and that’s how you’ll get ‘em. Oh, I know you don’t see Dr. Fenwick as some dashing chap who’s going to be worth going to hell for. It’s not like that. Life’s not like that, believe me. I know. And when a girl sees a good thing, she ought to take it and not go dithering about too long, in case it’s snatched away. Chances like that don’t grow on trees. “
I never minded her interfering in my affairs. I liked to feel that big Eliza had taken me under her wing.
I did wonder what she would do when she returned to England, and I asked her.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I might get into one of these hospitals they talk about. I reckon I could say I’d had enough experience now.
That or the old game. Who knows? It’s a tossup. “
“But where will you live when you get back?”
“I’ll find a room somewhere. Rooms is always going.”
“Eliza, come back with Henrietta and me. I’ve got room to spare in the house I rent.”
“What! Stay in your house! You must be stark raving mad. You can’t have the likes of me in your house!”
“My dear Eliza, I choose my guests and I have the likes of whom I like.”
She laughed at me.
“No. It’ll be different when you get home, you see.
Friends here won’t be friends there. Here, we’re all the same. We’re all together. But it will be different when we get home. “
“It will be what we make it, Eliza, and I want you to come and stay until you decide what you want to do. We might go into one of the hospitals together.”
“You don’t want to be doing that sort of work. You’re going to marry that nice Dr. Fenwick.”
“Eliza, please say you’ll come with us. We’ll go and see Ethel in the country.”
“That would be nice.”
“It’s settled, then.”
“You are a one,” she said. Her forehead wrinkled.
“I hope it will be all right with you and Dr. Fenwick.”
“These things take their course.”
“There was one time when I was afraid you was getting something for that Dr. Adair … like Henrietta.”
“For him! Oh no! He’s very remote.”
“That don’t make no difference. I’d say he was a bad ‘un. He’s out for Number One and that is Dr. Adair.”
“I expect you’re right.”
“But he’s got something I’ll say that for him. I reckon the women fall for him like ninepins. It’s that way of his … all them dark good looks and that mystery about the East and all that. I reckon he’s lived a life … and somehow you know it.”
“He seems to have made an impression on you.”
“He’d make an impression in a stone wall, that one would. It’s Henrietta I’m worried about. You’ve got sense. Things have happened to you. You’ve been married once and you know it ain’t all beer and skittles. But Henrietta, she’s a baby, really. She’s an innocent... rather like Ethel but in a different way, if you get my meaning. “
“I think Henrietta can take care of herself. She seems so light-hearted and a little frivolous, but she is shrewd really.”
“I dunno. Girls can get funny about men, and with that sort of man, you can never be sure.”
“But you don’t think Dr. Adair and Henrietta …”
“I wouldn’t put nothing past him. If he lifted his finger, she’d be off.
“You’ve noticed how she is when he’s about … when he’s mentioned, even. He’d only have to say the word and she’d be off with him and that ain’t going to do her no good.”
“Eliza, you’re wrong. She is seeing a great deal of Monsieur Lablanche.”
“A nice fellow, that one … like Dr. Fenwick, but it ain’t always the nice ones people seem to want if they ain’t got much sense, and most women haven’t. I know what I’m talking about.”
Did she? I wondered.
As the day for our departure grew nearer, Henrietta became more pensive. She lapsed into silences so rare with her. I asked if anything was wrong and she assured me that nothing was. But I knew she had something on her mind.
It was the night before we were due to sail. We were not sure exactly what time we should be leaving Scutari; but we had been warned that we must be ready to embark when the order was given.
I saw Dr. Adair that day. I knew that he had been looking for me. We went into the little room next to the now depleted ward.
“So,” he said, ‘you are leaving tomorrow. “
“Yes.”
“You don’t want to go?”
I hesitated. He was right in a way. I felt deflated. I had come out here determined to show him for what he was; and what had I done?
Nothing. He had outwitted me at every turn; all I had succeeded in doing was making myself dependent on him. It was the first time I had admitted that. Now I saw clearly that when I was with him, when I exchanged words with him, I felt alive. I fed on my hatred; I had lived for it and the plain fact was that life would be blank without it. There was emptiness everywhere.
“So I am right,” he said triumphantly.
“You don’t want to go.” He came close to me and laid a hand on my arm, holding it firmly.