Nurse Angela by Hilary Preston

is. Perhaps you’ll allow me to show you something of it myself.”
    “I’d love it. You know Paris well, of course. Have you been there recently?”
    His eyes clouded. “It’s a year or so since I was there, though my mother still lives there in spite of the fact that she is English. I have tried many times to persuade her to come back to England to live and let us forget ... Paris, but she prefers to stay where she is.”
    “And your father?”
    The query was out before she could stop it. With her heart beginning to pound she waited for his reply.
    “He died during the war,” he said harshly.
    Angela wished fervently that she had not spoken. If it were true that his father collaborated with the Nazis during the war, the subject would naturally be painful to him. She glanced at his set face and her heart contracted with pity.
    Then he half jerked his head around as if he had made a decision. “I’m going to Paris on this occasion largely to clear up one or two things about my father, as a matter of fact.” Angela’s heart gave a tiny leap. He went on; “He was a French-born doctor and a priest. During the war he was thought to be a collaborator, or to use a coarser words, a traitor. After the liberation he protested his innocence, but died before he could prove it. My own belief is that he was a leader of the Resistance movement. Before he died he whispered a man’s name to me. I searched for the man as long as it was comfortable for me to remain in the country, but without success. The more I think about it, the more certain I become that my father was a patriot. However, after a time it no longer seemed to matter, though these things somehow leave a bitter taste behind.”
    “And now?” she asked.
    “Now, it has suddenly become important to me both to know and to prove my father’s innocence.”
    It was on the tip of her tongue to ask why but some instinct prevented her. Besides, on such short acquaintance the question would be impertinent.
    “ Did you train as a doctor in France?” she asked.
    “Yes, but feeling was such, for some time after the war that to practise became impossible. I came to England, my mother’s country, and began all over again.” He added after a slight pause. “There must be hundreds of men like my father who made a pretense of collaborating with the enemy while working secretly for the Resistance. It was often the only way.”
    “Yes,” Angela agreed. “But, Simon, the war is almost history now, especially to our generation. No one, today, would hold anything against you, least of all in this country. Are you ... thinking of going back to France to practise medicine?”
    “No,” he answered quietly. “I want to take up the search for the truth largely for my own satisfaction.” Then came the answer that she had been dreading. “I have begun lately to think about marriage and I would not want to ask any woman to marry me unless my conscience was absolutely clear. I once asked your opinion on the matter, if you remember. As you said then, suppose she should find out about my father from someone else one day? I want to be able to answer truthfully, from facts, that he was loyal to his countrymen. No woman would like to feel that her husband’s father had been a traitor or that there was even any doubt about him. Who knows how the son might behave in similar circumstances?”
    For a moment Angela felt bewildered and depressed without knowing why.
    “But, Simon, if she really loved you and you had told her about it, surely it would not matter whether it were proved or not? The main thing would be that you had told her.”
    “Perhaps not, at first, but afterward, as the years went by it would be like a skeleton in the cupboard. No, Angela, I wouldn’t like to take the chance.”
    They fell silent for a time while the car ate up the miles. Finally Angela said quietly: “Simon, suppose you discovered that what they said about your father is true? Surely you wouldn’t