Love for the Matron by Elizabeth Houghton Read Free Book Online Page A

scientist he neither sees nor hears the endless adulation!”
    “No wonder you never had any attention left over to give me, Elizabeth,” Stuart put in with a wicked glint in his eyes.
    She looked at him steadily. “That was never the reason, and you know it.” She glanced back at William Gregory. “How long have you been at St. Genevieve ’ s?” she asked him.
    He seemed startled by her question. “How long? Good heavens, it must be nineteen years. Mary was expecting Robin and this was the only hospital that offered a house with the job. That was rather essential when you consider what they paid us in those days. It was still the phony war, so I hadn ’ t been called up yet . When I was, Dear Emily moved in and Mary took over my job at the hospital and carried on until I was demobbed.” He smiled absently in the direction of the corner where Susan and Robin were poring over some book. “Susan was our post-war child and Mary for some reason never seemed to pick up afterwards ... too much overwork during the war years, I suppose, and she just faded away.” He sighed. “If I hadn ’ t been so busy catching up on all I ’ d missed perhaps I would have noticed something was wrong, but when I did ... it was too late.”
    There was a silence, and yet it wasn ’ t a painful one; as if time had already healed the hurt of the man who had spoken. Raised voices roused him from his reverie.
    “If you ’ ve finished your prep, Susan, you ’ d better think about saying good night.”
    “I haven ’ t quite done it, Daddy. Robin thinks he ’ s got a better way. Five minutes ? ”
    “All right, but not a minute longer. You know what you ’ re like when you don ’ t get enough sleep,” her father said warningly.
    There was a subdued murmur of disagreement not loud enough to rate as disrespect.
    Elizabeth seized the opportunity. “I think I ’ d better be making a move, Doctor Gregory. This has been very pleasant indeed, but I haven ’ t had time to unpack yet, and last night was a very late one as well.”
    “I ’ ll see you back to the hospital, Miss Graham. It can be rather unnerving at this hour.”
    “There ’ s no need for you to turn out, William. I can escort Miss Graham to her doorstep before I go over the wall to my own abode.” Then, as William Gregory was still hesitating, he went on: “After all Elizabeth and I are old friends.”
    “I was forgetting that,” William Gregory said rather heavily. “ Susan, perhaps you would take Miss Graham up to get her coat.”
    Susan came flying to her feet in a shower of scattered schoolbooks. “Oh, you are going already? I know I should have finished this ages ago.” She led Elizabeth upstairs. “I did want to ask you about London and so on, but there were always grown-ups talking and Daddy gets annoyed with me if I chatter too much. He belonged to the children-are-seen-and-not-heard era and no one has bothered to tell him times have changed.”
    Elizabeth chuckled. “Just wait until you have a family of your own, young lady, and you ’ ll find they haven ’ t at all.”
    Susan made a face. “But you can ’ t know either, can you, or have you some children hidden away ? I ’ m not going to get married for ages and ages ... not until I find someone as nice as Daddy, only lots younger, of course. You haven ’ t married, or is that the wrong kind of question, as Stuart would say? He ’ s nice, isn ’ t he? Sort of fun and grownup and yet young all at the same time and doesn ’ t talk down to us unless he gets narked—and then he snaps at us like an old sergeant-major and we scuttle away until he ’ s smoothed down again.”
    Elizabeth was beginning to get used to Susan ’ s flow of conversation that never slowed down long enough for the questions in it to be answered or perhaps she didn ’ t expect replies. She slipped on her coat and tucked her gloves in her pockets: “We can talk next time you come,” Susan said comfortably.
    “If I ’ m