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She turned up at the hospital that day at half past ten; her uniform on, her hair pinned back, her face resolute; beyond any shadow of a doubt there ready to work. Really, knowing her, he shouldn't have been surprised at all. The only visible change to her was the small black band she was wearing on her sleeve, just above the elbow. The nurses' heads turned as she entered the ward, unable to hide their surprise at seeing her. Hovering in the doorway, she looked back, half-defiantly, half-sadly.
"Get back to work, girls," he told them quickly as he made his way past them, towards her, anxious that they might make her uncomfortable. Scanning their faces as he headed down the ward to meet her he noticed that Sybil Crawley's was not among them.
Now he could not really avoid saying anything about her being here, he could not avoid questioning it. At first he had resolved to leave her just for the moment- if she had chosen to come here it was obviously what she thought was for the best- but he could tell that the nurses' reaction had alarmed her slightly, had put her on edge a little bit too much.
"I thought I said I didn't expect you until the end of the week?" he asked her quietly, "Yesterday, I allowed myself to hope for a moment that you were going to be sensible and take me up on that suggestion. Even Sybil's not here."
"Sybil is less use to this sort of thing than I am, she's younger."
He did not verbally push the response that his mind instantly offered, that he really would like to have given; there was a clear discrepancy between losing a distant cousin and losing your only son. His dubiousness must have shown in his face regardless, however, because she continued:
"I told you last night," she replied, still a little defiantly but in a soft tone "I'm better off here than I would be at home- at Crawley House, rather. People come and see me, they try to tell me how sorry they are but don't quite know how to say it to me, and it makes everything feel so much worse. It will be better if I can get away from all of that. Anyway, I want to feel useful. Please let me feel useful."
He considered for a moment.
"Alright," he told her, unable to keep the slight reluctance he still felt out of his tone, "You can stay. If I'm honest, we're pushed to manage without you."
"Thank you," she told him, making to move off down the ward.
"Mrs Crawley," he called after her, using her title as they were in front of patients although it felt funny now.
"Yes, Dr. Clarkson?"
She stopped, and he moved quickly to catch up with her for another brief moment.
"Please take things easily. And worry about yourself before anyone else, there are plenty of other people to worry about the patients."
He watched her walk off down the ward to assume her duties, the small smile of thanks that she gave him lingering with him long after she had gone and he had moved off himself.
…...
Increasingly these days it was rare for him to take his break for lunchtime at all, but today he made a point of making use of it. Apart from anything else, at one o'clock he had found wrapped on his desk a large cheese and pickle sandwich, his favourite. It was covered snugly in one of the brown paper bags he kept in his kitchen. Smiling broadly, he picked it up and walked out into the hospital garden, where he knew Isobel usually spent her lunchtimes.
"How can you think to be so good to me?" he asked her incredulously as he approached the bench where she sat looking at the grass, waving his sandwich slightly so she knew what he meant, "With everything on your mind?"
"It was something to keep me busy," she told him, "Manual tasks are good. And I wanted to do something to thank you. However bizarre."
"You don't have to thank me," he told her, not for the first time, "But I'm not complaining. Thank you, it was a nice surprise. How are you feeling?"
"Better," she confessed, "Less in shock. Less as if I've been hit across the chest with something very hard. And not so much as if one of my limbs is missing."
He looked at her for a moment.
"Are you telling the truth?" he asked levelly.
She considered her response.
"Yes," she replied, "In a way. I feel less. I feel numb."
Her voice slipped a little with the confession, as did his resolve. His eyes fixed on the sad outline of her face. She caught him watching her, and gave a small, slightly bitter laugh.
"It's alright," she told him, "It makes the day to day things easier at any rate." She paused for a second, "Richard, you're watching me. What is it?"
"You're so brave," he told her, "I've told you before, I know, but you need to hear it again. You're incredible."
She flushed a little, looking down at her hands.
"No, I'm not," she finally replied, "I just haven't processed anything yet, not properly. In fact, I'm here hiding from the risk of really facing what's happened; that's why I'm not at Crawley House, receiving my condolences like I should be. You wait until I have to really think about it, I'll-... I'll be a mess."
"And I'll be there," he told her.
They were quiet for a moment. Slowly, he reached out to where she sat and touched her back at the bottom of her neck, in a gesture of solidarity and comfort; after a moment his hand ghosting slowly down her spine to rest in the small of her back. All the time he watched her face. For a moment she looked slightly startled, taken aback, but then she relaxed against him, her back moving more closely into his hand, bowing her head a fraction. As she moved the weak midday sun caught the outline of face, highlighting it, making her features bold and brilliant. Even in her grief she could be so beautiful.
They were snapped out of the momentary reverie they both seemed to have sunk into by the arrival of on of the young nurses; Richard sharply withdrawing his hand from Isobel's back.
"Dr. Clarkson," the girl said, "There's a woman here, she wants you to see her. She's expecting a child and she seems to be in some discomfort."
"We're a military hospital now," he reminded the girl, "We're not really supposed to take cases like this. But, I suppose, at lunchtime I might be able to see her in the examination room," he checked his watch hastily, "I can't offer her one of the beds, though, my guts would be had for garters if anyone found out."
"Let me go," Isobel spoke from beside him, putting her hand on his wrist and stopping him as he made to get up, "You finish eat your lunch. Officially, I'm not even supposed to be here so logically we can spare as much of my time as we like. It makes sense."
Isobel exchanged a glance with the nurse. The girl nodded.
"I think she'd be just as happy to let Mrs Crawley see her," the girl replied.
"Very well," Richard conceded.
Isobel got up and followed the nurse away, fleetingly glancing back towards him as she stepped in through the door of the hospital.
…...
He didn't see Isobel for quite a way into the afternoon. By half past four he was properly worried, whatever was the matter she should have been finished for a long time by now.
"Nurse Sanders," he called, catching up with her as she made to leave the ward, addressing the nurse who had come to fetch Isobel earlier, "What happened with the woman who came in earlier? The one Nurse Crawley saw?"
The girl looked towards the floor, bowing her head for a moment. Something about the look on her face struck a cold chord with Richard, and threatened to make his stomach plummet.
"What?" he murmured, needing a response urgently now, "Tell me, please, at once. What happened?"
He saw tears beginning to form in the girl's eyes.
"The pains she was having were contractions," she told him, "She was only five months gone. We couldn't stop the contractions and by the time we realised that the baby was coming there wasn't time to send for you. Nurse Crawley had to deliver the baby herself. He was tiny, it was a little boy."
"Was?"
"He didn't make it."
"How long ago was this?" he asked urgently.
"An hour."
"And where is Nurse Crawley?"
"She wanted to be left alone. I think she went to your office."
Before the words left her mouth he was already gone.
…...
Tapping once on the door, he slipped inside without waiting for an answer and locked the door behind him. Isobel sat on the small two-seat settee squashed into the corner of the office, her figure slouched against the fabric, staring at the floor. She looked up with the click of the door, meeting his eyes, and looking utterly dismayed. Tears were sliding down her face.
"Oh, God, I'm sorry, Richard," she whispered.
"No, I'm sorry," he told her sitting down beside her and drawing her tightly into his arms, wrapping himself completely around her, pulling her half way into his lap, "I'm so sorry I didn't go instead. I should have done; you should never have had to handle a case like that."
"I tried my best," she protested through her tears.
"I know," he told her, rubbing her back soothingly, kissing her forehead, "You did everything you could."
Her hand had found its way over his back and was pressing into the back of his shoulder, her face was buried in the front of the same shoulder.
"I couldn't save that little boy," she cried, "I wasn't there to protect my own son, and now because of me a poor girl has lost hers too."
"That's not true, Isobel. It would have been a miracle if that baby had survived. You are not to blame."
But nothing he could say would soothe her, she was beyond consolation. She just sat there, her body slouched against his, her face buried in his shoulder, him supporting her entirely, weeping copiously. Her sobs racked through him too, he closed his eyes against the sound and feeling of them, they broke his heart. Turning his head, he pressed his face into her hair, breathing in the smell of her. They stayed like that for a long time.
"I'm taking you home," he told her when they finally broke apart, both sitting up a little, taking hold of her hands, "You're staying with me tonight."
She sniffed her consent.
"And you won't be coming in tomorrow, I will send you away if you try to."
He waited for a half-hearted protest, but none arrived. Only when he let go of her hands to stand up did he realise that his thumb had been brushing back and forth over the back of her hand, caressing her knuckle.
"Come on," he told her, "We're going home now. I don't think either of us are much use to anyone now."
Except maybe each other, he thought, helping her into her coat. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, hers folding around his middle, neither of them caring who saw them.
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