Page 145 of The Gathering Storm

Polly only gave her a glance, her eyes still on James. ‘What will you do?’ she asked.

‘We won’t be able to keep operating in Germany much longer,’ he said, ‘and I don’t want to get trapped in France. As soon as it starts to look dangerous, I’ll come home. If you’ll have me.’

‘Of course I will. It’s what I want, to have my people here,’ Polly said.

Lennie looked at her. Didn’t she realise that if – when – the war started, James would be called up? Ethel knew that – she had two sons of fighting age. That was why she didn’t want to believe war was likely. As an American citizen he, Lennie, would not be conscripted, but he had volunteered in the last war, and would he feel able to keep out of it if things went bad? But Polly turned her eyes to him just for a moment, and he saw that she knew, all right. She wanted to have her people around her while she could; she knew it couldn’t last.

Oliver came round his desk to shake Richard’s hand.

‘It’s good of you to see me, Uncle Oliver.’

‘What can I do for you?’ He scanned Richard’s face, smiling. ‘I can’t make you any more good-looking than you already are. That wouldn’t be fair.’

Richard smiled too. ‘It’s not your surgical skills I’m after. It’s your advice.’

‘Oh. Well, sit down, and tell me all about it.’

It was hard at first for Richard to put it into words. It was all so very personal. Cynthia had recovered physically from the miscarriage, and the doctor had signed her off. But she was not herself. She was too quiet: she brooded, and her attempts to hide it and be jolly for him were painful. And at night, in bed, she kept turned away from him. When he tried to touch her, she flinched and pulled back. He wanted merely to hold her and comfort her, but she evidently viewed any contact as a prelude to sexual congress, and she very clearly didn’t want that.

When at last he had – as gently as he could – tried to talk to her about it, she had burst into tears and begged him to leave her alone. ‘I’m afraid,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m so afraid.’

From her barely coherent broken phrases, he gathered that she did not want to conceive again. The pain and distress of the miscarriage were things she did not want to revisit. She believed she was ‘all wrong’ inside and that she could never bear him a child. If they made love, and she conceived, it would only lead to another disaster.

And to the fear was added guilt. ‘I’m no use to you,’ she wept. He hated the idea that she saw him as a threat; he hated himself for doing that to her.

‘I don’t know what to do. I must help her, but I don’t know how. And I thought – I hoped … You were so good to us when Papa died. And you know everything. I thought you might be able to tell me what to do, who to go and see. Recommend a specialist, perhaps, who could help us. I don’t care what it costs.’

Oliver rubbed his chin, thinking. ‘Do you believe it’s her mind that most needs help, or her body? Do you want me to recommend a psychiatrist or a gynaecologist?’

Richard looked taken aback. ‘She’s not mad,’ he protested.

Oliver lifted his hands in a soothing motion. ‘Of course not. I didn’t mean to suggest it. I should have said, would you like her to see a psychoanalyst? They talk to the patient, tease out the basis of the aberrant behaviour, help them to confront the cause and thereby achieve healing of the mind. Or do you think there is something physically wrong with her reproductive organs? In which case, a specialist in that field might be able to help.’

Richard, trying not to blush at the words ‘reproductive organs’, managed in the end only to say, ‘I don’t know.’

Oliver eyed him sympathetically. ‘Of course you don’t. Women’s bodies are a mystery to most men. And what we don’t understand scares us. Am I right?’

‘I don’t want to let her down,’ Richard said miserably.

‘Which doctor has been attending her?’

‘Well, she saw Mother’s doctor at first, of course, down at Tunstead. And since then, her old family doctor, Saloman, in Earls Court.’

‘Old family doctor. Agreeable old fossil who knew her from a child?’ Oliver suggested. ‘And whom, therefore, she trusts implicitly, even though he qualified before the war and has no specialist knowledge of female reproduction?’ Richard nodded uncertainly. ‘Well,’ Oliver said, ‘it seems to me that the first thing is to find out whether there is any physical problem, and whether, if there is, it can be dealt with. And after that, if necessary, we can look at healing the mind.’

Richard felt a surge of relief. ‘That sounds sensible.’

‘Good. Then I recommend you make an appointment for her to see Felix Young, who is a gynaecologist I can recommend wholeheartedly – not only very knowledgeable, but also very sympathique, quite accustomed to dealing with shy and nervous patients. For some reason it helps that he is very handsome, and also – appropriately to his name – young. In medical terms. Mid-forties. You needn’t worry that he doesn’t know his stuff.’

‘Thank you, Uncle. Thank you so much.’

Oliver got up and went to the door. ‘Miss Holcombe. Can you look up Felix Young, and write down his address and telephone number for Mr Howard?’ He came back and shook Richard’s hand. ‘Remember, this is very recent for her, and a shock of the sort we men can’t really understand. Get the facts first, then deal with them. Miscarriages are quite common, and most probably there is nothing wrong with her, and the next time it will all go well.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And come and see me again if there’s anything else I can do.’ He smiled. ‘Try not to worry too much.’

Richard smiled too, but it was a frail thing. ‘There seems to be so much to worry about, these days.’