Read Online Return to Night by Mary Renault - Free Book Online

Betty,” the Matron said regretfully. “If we only had the beds, they wouldn’t complain, poor little things. But I’ve promised they shall come up for the Christmas tree. Between you and me, I think it’s going to be rather special this year. Mrs. Fleming’s promised to give it, and anything she does will be done very nicely, you can be sure.”
    “Oh, really?” After this lapse of time, the name brought only a vague discomfort in the nerves. “I’m glad she’s been taking an interest.”
    “She’s been a real asset to us this summer, I must say. Nearly every week something or other’s come down. Remind me to show you the little woolies she knitted for the babies. …” Hilary listened with an amusement which was only very slightly acid; here too, it seemed, time had brought healing. The Matron was continuing, “Yes, I really must say, they both—”
    “Oh, Matron, could I speak to you for a moment?”
    “Very well, Sister, though really, if I can’t be out of the way for five minutes—You won’t go away without your cup of coffee, will you, doctor? Just make yourself comfortable in my room; I shan’t be long.”
    Hilary went out through the flagged kitchen passage and opened the green baize door into the hall. Round the corner, from the stairs, came the chirruping laughter of Christine and Betty, who were well enough now to have the run of the place. She paused to listen.
    “No, not that one. No, that’s a silly one. Do the monkey face.”
    A pause, followed by squeals of ecstatic mirth.
    “Again. Again. Do it again.”
    Hilary walked round the corner.
    Squatting on the last few steps of the staircase, in a doubled-up simian crouch, was a man whose face it was at first difficult to see, since it was partly obscured by his knees. He was scratching his armpit, reproducing vividly a monkey’s sporadic but earnest concentration. When he moved, she glimpsed a prognathous-looking jaw and a hideously grimacing mouth beneath a mournful stare. Christine, hopping on one leg with delight, was handing him an imaginary morsel. He snatched at it, and went through motions of peeling a banana so lifelike that she could almost see the skin when he threw it away.
    “Go on. Go on. Now crack a nut.”
    “Half a minute,” said the man, unfolding himself. “I think someone’s looking for you two.”
    He got up. His face, after a few minor adjustments, had resolved itself into one at which she stared with unbelieving recognition. It had been like a trick done with mirrors.
    Her first feeling was regret. He had seen her, they would have to converse, one had better prepare for the worst immediately. She could only remember having met two men with a fraction of his looks, and both had been, in different ways, insufferable. She smiled, and waited resignedly.
    He scrambled to his feet, wriggling his disarranged clothes back into place. As he did so, he grinned at her over the heads of the children, guiltily but hopefully.
    “It was my fault,” he said, “entirely. I fetched them down.” Reaching out for Christine and Betty, he collected them, amid squeaks of protest, by the scruffs of their frocks. He handled them, not amusingly or indulgently like a grown-up person, but with the heavy-handed kindness of a bigger boy.
    “It’s all right,” said Hilary. “I expect it’s given the nurses a rest. How are you getting on yourself?”
    The children had been jerking at their collars like little dogs; now they recovered their freedom so suddenly that they had to run to keep from falling.
    “Forgive me,” he said slowly, “if I’m making a mistake. But I think we know each other, don’t we?”
    He was staring at her in an intense, puzzled concentration; not as men stare, with an eye to the reaction of the object, but with that self-forgetfulness which rarely survives childhood: in fact, self-consciousness shortly overtook him and made him look down, none too soon for Hilary, who had found it rather unnerving. He was