"JILL DOESN'T COUNT"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 December 1940, Page 12

"JILL DOESN'T COUNT"

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By

Phyllis Hambledon.

(Author of “Youth Takes the Helm.”)

CHAPTER VII. (Continued*. The words came out, before he had meant to say them. The fact was so palpably self-evident. Immediately he regretted them. After all, he shouldn t )iave come here with a cold, but he had rot realised how bad it was, until this moment. Viva was naturally furious. Her eyes sparkled. “I might repeat the compliment,” she said. “I suppose your patients don’t mind you giving them an extra germ or two. They don’t hold up a film—a whole film—if they go sick. As it happens, I do. I don’t think I’m particularly selfish in taking precautions for myself occasionally. I won’t ask you tor tea. I’m sure you ought to get back home, and let Jill mix some nauseous drug for you. Come and see me when you’re better.” “I came,” said Oliver, “because I have something rather important to say to you. It won’t take five minutes. You can go to the other side of the fireplace if you like.” “What do you want to say to me then?” asked Viva. I’ll get if over now, thought Oliver, now when we’re a bit annoyed with each other. It will be easier now. He would tell Viva it was only fair to Jill that he shouldn’t see her again, even though he could never forget her. He had opened his mouth to speak when the telephone rang, shrilly, sharply as if with some urgent message. A plague

on all telephones, thought Oliver. Viva picked up the receiver. Her face changed, when she recognised the voice at the other end. “Why, hullo, Jill!” she said. Jill! Oliver listened intently. Viva’s looked startled. “A message for Oliver. How did you know he was here?” she asked sharply. Oliver could not hear Jill’s biting re-

tort at the other end. "Do you think my husband visits you, Viva without my knowing?” He was overwhelmed from a sense of disaster. So Jill knew he was here. He could have sworn that she had never suspected his former visits to Lilac Cottage. It was ironical, that she should have discovered about this final one. Viva was repeating the message: “Murphy, Wynyard Yard.” How had he come to forget that? The kid sounded bad, too—query—scarlet fever. There was a lot of scarlet fever about.

“All right, I’ll tell him,” said Viva, and she put down the receiver. Oliver took a step forward. “Viva,” he said, “how did Jill know I was here?”

“Didn’t you tell her?’’ said Viva. “She said she knew all the time.” “Of course I didnt’,” said Oliver. ‘ This is awful. I didn’t want her to know. What must she think?”

Suddenly Viva’s patience left her altogether. “What must she think?” she rapped. ‘ Why, the truth, of course! That you’re still in love with me. Yes, even though she married you! Jill’s so sweet, so simple, such a thoroughly nice girl, isn’t she? So different from her sister! You know what these film stars are, my dear!” cried Viva, cruelly mimicking what might have been said by any of the respectable ladies of Charnford. “Sweet and simple enough to watch lor her chance and to romp in and to catch you, at any rate! Yes, and to marry you too, before you’d had time :o change your mind.” “How dare you talk of her like that how dare you?” said Oliver. “I’m tell you the truth,” said Viva, ' And if you liked to think the matter over, you’d know that I was. I could have explained about Gerald Greer. I came to explain that day, and the news that met me was that you and Jill were married. Well, if she does think you come to see me after you married her. if she realised that it’s still me for you and not her, all the better! She deserves it—nasty little brat. I hope she is i nhappy now. I hope she knows that even your ring on her finger can’t make you forget me.” “I’d better go now,” said Oliver. “Yes. You’d better go,’ said Viva. “I cnly let you come to see me, because I was sorry'for you.” - “That’s not lure,” said Oliver. “But iet it pass.’ He moved towards the door.

“I hope your cold will be better soon,” said Viva. “Better put your feet in hot mustard tonight, and tie a stocking round your neck!"

No the scene certainly wasn’t going according to plan. The black velvet dress was completely wasted on him The little piece Viva had meant to say about not hurting her sister, had never 1 een said. She had lost her temper' instead, and had reduced tragedy to a sort of farce, and the telephone had been the third person in what should, have been a scene for two. Good riddance to bad rubbish, thought Viva furiously, in the language of her nursery days. Good riddance to— She stopped suddenly. Her face grew thin and bleak. What next? Gerald Greer, of course, and lots of flowers, lots of parties, lots of expensive dinners and motor runs, but always Gerald attached to them. I wish he’d take a few inches off nis waistline, thought Viva. I wish Oliver wasnt’ the only man in the world who can be romantic, even with a cold!

This is the end, thought Jill, the very end!

She pul down the receiver and terminated her conversation with her sister. So what the Cats of Charnford lad told Miss Croft was true. Oliver l ad been visiting Viva again, that was why he’d been gay and happy. Not because he was seeing Viva. Well, let him go on seeing her, thought, Jin, lurious herself; I’m not competing any more. I did compote, but I hope I '.-now when I have lost.

Idiot she had been to think that she could ever hold her own against her lovely sister. Viva would be an entanglement to any man’s eye, thought

Jill. She still honestly thought her the loveliest person she had ever seen. How could I expect Oliver to forget so easily? No, I’m not competing any more. I’m going. And I’m going tonight. As it happened, only a day or two earlier, she had heard from a girl who had taken the same dispensing course. There was a vacancy on the dispensing staff of the hospital where she was employed. “Do apply, Ferrand!” she had written. “We’d have such fun working together!” Jill hadn’t answered the letter. I’ll answer it in person now, she thought. She forced herself to sit down quietly in the consulting room for a moment, as she made her plans, not so much for herself as for Oliver. After all, she had gone through the worst of everything with him. The practice was on its feet now; if only the Regans would pay that forty pounds, they might safely be said to have turned the corner. Even if they didn’t pay, the wolf had been sent from the door successfully. Oliver could do the dispensing for himself; everything was in apple-pie order. He could get Mrs. Flynn in by the day, instead of just in the morning. The surgery bell rang, interrupting

her thoughts. It was another message from Wynyard’s Yard. Mrs. Williams’ baby all red and hot and crying. There seemed quite a spot of illness in Wynyard’s Yard, thought Jill, as she went up to pack. It didn’t take her long, but three times she was interrupted. Somebody for medicine, somebody leaving a note from the hospital, somebody who wanted a pension paper signed. She made up the medicine, but the note on Oliver’s desk, told the pension gentleman to come back at six.

Then she herself sat down at the desk, and wrote a note. “Dear Oliver,” she said, “I am going away. I think now you can do quite well without me. Anyway I find myself incapable of sharing you, I thought before I married you I could, but perhaps being married makes a difference. They’re saying in Charnford, you’re still in love with Viva, and it seems to be true. I’m not blaming you, only I think for the sake of us both, the sooner I go away the better. You needn’t worry about me. I’ve got the chance of a really good job. I may have to ask you for a testimonial, under my maiden name, of course. You’ll give me one, as an honest, hardworking, reliable employee, not given to frivolity, without followers.”

Jill’s pen slip from her hand. She laid her head on the desk for a minute. “It isn’t anything to be f-funny about!” she gasped. Until this minute she had acted slickly, competently. Now the significance of the step she was taking, came home to her. She loved Oliver. She was leaving him. All that made life lovely for her, all that made the sun rise and the moon set for her, she was deliberately putting out of her life. How can I bear it? wondered Jill. How am I going to bear it? Not for one moment, however, did she deviate from her purpose. After a pause she took up her pen and wrote again.

“I don’t kno much about divorce, but I suppose these things can be arranged somehow.” —Jill’s spelling had always been a trifle shaky—“l know most of Viva’s friends seem to find it quite easy, so she can probably give you tips. I’ll let you know where I am, when I am really settled. Don’t worry if you don’t hear for" a month or to, though. You can tell peole I’m ill and that I’ve had to go into a sanatorium. “And I’ve just thought, why not get Miss Croft along to come and keep house for you? She’s old enough for even Charnford to think it proper. Il would save the poor old thing board board and lodging, and she’s a perfectly wonderful manager. Old Firth of the Radlett Arms asked for his bill. Remember to see to it. I think he’s the kind that pays at once. “Goodbye, Oliver, good luck to you.

I do love you so—Jill.” She felt as if she ought to have omitted the last sentence, but somehow she couldn’t. It came from her very heart. She put the letter in the envelope and addressed it, then placed it on his desk. He was bound to see it as soon as he came into the consulting room. Now to get out of the house. She would call at Mrs. O'Flynn’s on her way to the station, and ask her to come in and look after the doctor’s supper. The London train left at six. Jill caught it by the skin of her teeth. “It’s scarlet fever, Mrs. Murphy,” said Oliver Vereker, “and a very bad type of it, too. Tommy will have to go into hospital. There’s no time to waste. Til ring up from the telephone booth at the corner, and tell them to send an ambulance. They’ll look after him well in hospital, better than you can do here, with all these boys and girls to see to it.

He smiled at the crowd of young Murphies listening to him open-mouth-ed. But inwardly he was anxious. They lived in such close quarters here. It was unlikely that the rest of the family would escape. On his way to the telephone booth, another woman ran out of her house to speak to him. It was the Mrs. Williams who had recently deliver her message to Jill at the surgery. Baby wouldn’t stop crying—a horrid, croaking cry. and his throat was hurting. Couldn’t the doctor come now —at once?

A few minutes later Oliver had diagnosed another case of scarlet fever, and the ambulance was told to call for two patients instead of one. It looked uncommonly like being a bad epidemic, thought Oliver. Wynyard’s Yard had always been one of the plague spots of Charnford. If there is one. it will be a might bad one. he decided grimly. I’d bet better get into touch with the county medical officer of health tonight. (To be Continued). j