Free Return to Night by Mary Renault Page B

in Shropshire was eager to receive, could not leave her practice. Rupert, who was a Scot, was saving for the New Year the few days which were all he could hope for. The two women found in one another the excuse for decorating, saving their mail against Christmas morning, and such small follies which neither would have had the heart to pursue alone; and were mutually grateful.
    On Christmas Eve, Hilary, coming in from an evening call, found in her sitting-room a huge pot of cyclamens growing in moss. The card attached to it turned out to be Julian Fleming’s. On the back, in a neat sloping fifth-form hand, was Are you coming to the Hospital tomorrow? She turned it over, wondering what it was that seemed odd; and realized that it was the mere fact of his possessing visiting-cards at all. Such adult accessories seemed, somehow, out of keeping. When she had defined the thought, she found that it annoyed her.
    She had had two weeks of duty at the Hospital since their first meeting, and during each of them had encountered him there a little too often, it seemed, for mere coincidence. He always contrived to leave with her, and to drag out their progress through the gardens as long as possible. On these occasions, if he talked at all, it was about nothing, in particular, and as unself-consciously as if they had been meeting for years; he had a fund of local gossip, and a nice undergraduate sense of fun. When he dried up completely, which he frequently did without any warning, it appeared not to embarrass him in the least. She scarcely knew why she found these moments so irritating; it was in fact the contrast between his face in repose and animation. Its structure was emphatic, vivid, and clear, with a subtle flare in the contours that seemed made to express a brilliant intensity. As soon as he spoke again, it would all resolve into a pleasant, diffident adolescence.
    That night it grew so cold that Lisa had to bring extra blankets out of store; and Hilary woke early next morning, her eyelids pierced by a pale dazzle in the air. The window was covered with a lace of crystals; when she had thawed a space clear, she found it was not snow that had fallen, but a deep branching hoarfrost. It clung to the grass like thick white fur. Lisa and Hilary stood on the porch, tasting the tingling air and looking at the white woods feathering the hills, and found it hard to go in to breakfast and the parcels beside their plates.
    The frost held over, pure and crisp, into the afternoon. Walking on grass was like stepping on the friable icing of a birthday cake. The round of visits, to which she had looked forward as a nuisance spoiling the day, provided enchantment at every turn of the road. And it was all here yesterday, she reminded herself, in the form of a clammy and depressing mist. A few degrees’ drop of the thermometer, and the same trees and wet become intimations of immortality. Who was that idiot who used to say that the so-called sense of beauty depended solely on the recognition of biologically favorable conditions? It had been David; but it took her some moments to remember that.
    She had nearly forgotten the Hospital too; a lapse which would have cost her all the ground she had gained with the Matron. Everyone who had the slenderest connection with the place got invitations to the Christmas-tree ritual at three in the afternoon, and for the doctors it was a sine qua non. Lisa had dressed two dolls, exquisitely, in brilliant peasant costumes. Hilary wondered, when she saw them, why Lisa had no child.
    She parked her car, and went round to the steps. Before she could mount them, Julian detached himself from the porch and came to meet her. He had left his overcoat inside, but still had a thick woolen scarf thrown round his neck. It made him look very much the undergraduate.
    Because she found herself unexpectedly pleased to see him there, she said conventionally, “Thank you so much for the flowers. They were charming.”
    With the