My Surgeon Neighbour Page 8

  Her mind panicked ‘No!’ Aloud she protested, “Dick, please!” but let her voice trail away at the sight of the appeal in his unhappy eyes.

  He held her fast, oblivious of their lack of privacy or of any embarrassment for her. “Oh Sarah,” he begged brokenly, “I need you so much! Don’t you know it? Surely you must? For I think I’ve been in love with you since we were both kids, and though I know you don’t care for me in the same way, if only you’ll listen now that I can’t hold it in any longer, I swear I’ll not rush you into marriage yet or until you’re ready. Sarah, please?”

  Sarah heard him in dismay. This was a new Dick, one she didn’t know. Immediately after his father’s death he had needed her friendship’s sympathy; he hadn’t given a hint he needed her love.

  True, he was apt to call her Darling or Sweetheart as readily as he used her name. But endearments meant nothing nowadays, and on her side she had never once thought of him in that way. Yet if he were sincere now, and she couldn’t doubt it, he had grown love out of their friendship, their companionship, and hoped that she had too. So was she perhaps wrong and Oliver Manbury right—that love was more likely to come inseparably from the gentleness of habit and gratitude or pity than with the swift, consuming flare of fire or with the triumphant ‘Eureka’ of discovery, of knowing for certain that one man and no other was one’s mate?

  She didn’t want to believe it now any more than she had then. But she hadn’t the heart to reject Dick out of hand, and as her mind raced in search of an answer which would neither commit her nor hurt him, he misread her hesitation as compliance and drew her to him more closely.

  “Oh Sarah, you do? Love me a bit, I mean? If I give you time, you will marry me?” His lips found hers and he kissed her, the caress itself a question to be answered. But at the touch of his mouth upon hers, she knew that within her there was none of the response he wanted of her.

  She wrenched free one of her hands, set the back of it as a guard across her mouth. It was a childish gesture, but it had a bitter message for the man before her. Slowly he released her and stood before her in utter dejection.

  “All right,” he said. “I’d hoped you knew. I thought—”

  Gently she laid a hand upon his sleeve, then looked beyond his shoulder out at the dark drive where she thought she had detected movement of something or someone.

  “Not here, Dick,” she urged. “Come into my den and wait for me. I’ll be back and we’ll talk then.”

  When she rejoined him she told him, “I’m more than sorry, Dick dear. But I can’t. I don’t love you. I like you tremendously. But that’s not enough, is it? You wouldn’t want me to agree to marry you on those terms?”

  He said dully, “I’d take you on any terms, and how can you be sure you couldn’t come to feel the same about me? Have you been in love before, that you know you haven’t any for me?”

  Sarah said, “No.” And again, more thoughtfully, “No, I think it must be that, even if they compromise in the end, all women do know that there’s only one reason for marrying, and that’s love—on both sides. All right,” she stopped him as he was about to speak, “I know all about the ‘One who kisses; one who turns the cheek’ but in marriage that’s horrible. You can’t have one partner a suppliant all the while and the other merely kind. One of them is going to get tired of their role sooner or later.”

  “You mean you’d get tired of being kind to me?”

  “I’m afraid I might.”

  He winced at that. “But this love which you claim is equal, it’s just an ideal, that. To begin with, a man loves a woman quite differently from the way she loves him, everyone knows.”

  “But they complement each other, fit in,” Sarah shook her head. “No, Dick, I know I’ve got to wait for that kind, even if it never happens for me.”

  Then, oddly enough, he asked the same question as Oliver Mansbury had done. “And supposing,” he said, “it wasn’t all plain sailing? Supposing, when this ideal of love you’re waiting for took you by the throat, you found you’d fallen for another woman’s man or someone who was unattainable for any reason at all, what then?”

  She laughed a little shakily. “Then I’d have to get over it, I daresay. People do get over things, live through them or learn to live with them. ‘Men have died and worms have eaten them—but not for love,’ and all that, and I daresay I should manage to survive too!”

  At that Dick stood up and came over to her to cup her face very gently between his hands.

  “Bless you, Sarah, for a queer courageous kid,” he said. “I’ve always known you were, and loved you for it even when I’ve most wanted to hit you! Believe me, I only hope you’re not riding for a fall; that you’ll find this all-demanding love of yours. You deserve the best chap on earth.”

  Then he turned away, glancing at his watch and she took her cue from the gesture.

  “You’d rather not stay now,” she said quickly. “But keep in touch, please Dick! Monday, for instance, if there’s anything at all I can do—”

  She broke off, feeling how inadequate the conventional offer sounded. The only thing she might have done which would really help him was something she could not do!

  When he had gone she felt exhausted, drained of all vitality. It had been altogether too much of a day...

  ... Kindliness, pity, habit. Had she turned down the good wholesome ‘everyday’ of marriage to Dick for a myth, a mirage she would never attain? Had she?

  Next door at Greystones Oliver Mansbury came out from his study as Jurice reached a turn of the wide staircase. She paused there, looking down at him as he glanced up. She had changed for dinner and affected surprise at his white clinical coat.

  “Whither away so fast and so professionally? I thought Kate and I had had your royal command to dine foursome with you and our little neighbor?” she taunted him.

  Oliver took the questions in turn. “I have to see Lady Peterson and a couple of other patients before they’re settled for the night. And I was just on my way to tell you that you’re free to dine out if you want to. I’m not holding you to our arrangement here. Sarah Sanstead won’t be coming,” he said shortly.

  Jurice’s brows arched. “Not? Why not? No, don’t tell me, let me guess. It couldn’t be of course that you didn’t ask her through some belated sense of chivalry towards me. That would be too much to expect of you in your present mood. So perhaps you had some sensible second thoughts as to the wisdom of asking Kate to act as hostess to her, considering the way she has behaved all along?”

  Oliver said shortly, “Wrong, I’m afraid. She wasn’t free to come.”

  “So you did ask her?”

  “I told you I was going over there to do so, didn’t I?” he parried.

  “And she had the nerve to turn you down?”

  “She had a previous engagement.”

  “Well, well! Genuine or diplomatic, one wonders? But I suppose you still intend I’m to get together with her on this apology idea some time or other? You’re still leaving it hanging over my head?”

  He turned away. “No. It had to be done tonight or not at all. So as far as I’m concerned you can forget it.” he said as he strode away in the direction of the patients’ wing.

  Jurice looked after him thoughtfully. Odd, that an hour ago he should have been so keen on humiliating her in front of the Sanstead girl, and now apparently he couldn’t care less. What had happened in between, if anything had?

  But only Oliver himself knew the answer to that question.

  After the tournament Sarah’s wishful thinking had woven a little fiction that their success would prompt Oliver Mansbury to make an opportunity for partnering her again. But apart from the gift of a sheaf of white roses which had arrived for her with his card ‘To Sarah Sanstead, with many thanks for our impromptu and wholly enjoyable game, he gave no further sign nor invitation.

  Of Dick also, more than twice as busy since his father’s death, she was seeing very little. At first she told herself she
could not blame him if he deliberately avoided her for a time. But on the few occasions when they met during those weeks she realized gratefully that no such idea had entered his head. Such leisure time as he had was still hers. She still had him for a friend.

  Meanwhile she, Alice Cosford and Martha also seemed to be working all the hours there were. She had two cases following of children needing exacting post-operational therapy; another small boy brought chicken-pox with him, thus taxing Monckton’s isolation facilities to the utmost; then, that crisis over, Alice had to be given leave in order to nurse a sick relative of her own.

  During that time Steven Carrage was the man of whom Sarah saw most. He called professionally two or three times a week and though they had never reached the intimacy of her first evening with him, he sometimes stayed for coffee and a chat when he came to collect or to deliver Tony.

  Then, one late afternoon when she was working on the month’s accounts, he rang to ask how busy she was.

  Surprised by the isolated question, Sarah said, “Well, at the moment I have straws in my hair and am rapidly going mad, chasing an elusive threepence ha’penny through ten money columns. Why?”

  “Because I was wondering—That is,” his tone was diffident, “I wanted to ask a favor of you and hoped you might be free.”

  “But I am free. At least, I can be at any time you like to name,” she told him warmly. “Alice came back yesterday, so she is taking duty for the rest of today. I’m only doing accounts, as I told you. When would you like to come up?”

  “Well, not at once. I’ve Surgery myself first. But supposing I called for you afterwards, would you let me take you somewhere to dinner while I talk?”

  “Out to dinner? That sounds lovely. What time may I expect you?” asked Sarah.

  He told her and when he came for her, drove to The Fontenoy without consulting her. He had already booked a table for dinner and after a drink in the lounge they adjourned to the dining-room, already full of other guests. Their table afforded them a good view of the room and while they were ordering they in turn were being noticed at a near-by table occupied by Oliver Mansbury, Mrs. Beacon, Jurice Grey and another man, a stranger to Sarah.

  At sight of them Oliver sketched a salute in their direction; Mrs. Beacon distantly inclined her head, and Jurice said to no one in particular,

  “If there’s anything to be noticed about our little neighbor, it is that she certainly doesn’t lack for male escorts! Nor all the time she needs for stepping out. All this chat one hears about the ‘vocational call’ of nursing! But I suppose they shut their ears to it when they’ve other fish to fry.” Jurice turned to Mrs. Beacon, “I mean, were you ever able to achieve the amount of free time that Nurse Sanstead seems to be able to?” she appealed.

  Tight-lipped, non-committal, Mrs. Beacon said, “Not in hospital certainly. But she had made herself her own mistress, don’t forget.”

  “Could be that’s ninety per cent, why she did,” began Jurice at the same moment as the fourth in their party put in,

  “You know, I’m not with this. Whom have we under discussion? Is it that attractive looking girl over at the corner table?”

  Jurice tilted her head, affecting to weigh this description of Sarah.

  “Attractive? Well, yes, I suppose she’s got something,” she allowed. “I mean, she must have, mustn’t she? You think she’s quite a dish, for instance, and Oliver here, though he wouldn’t admit it, is also sold on her, I suspect. And as I say, she seems able to whistle up men of her own to entertain her any time. Item—there’s a young, very prosperous estate-agent in the town who is always hanging around; item—the man she’s got along now. He’s her M.O. and from all one can see, doesn’t by any means confine himself to his professional visits.”

  The other man shook his head. “I’m still not in the picture, I’m afraid. The girl is a nurse, you say, and the man with her is her M.O? How come?”

  “Not a hospital nurse,” explained Jurice. “She is on her own, running a place for convalescent children next door to Greystones. Hence her ‘M.O.’, the local doctor who acts as the medical officer to her patients and as her own G.P. I suppose. It seems she got this house she owns under somebody’s Will and though Kate and Oliver had their eye on it for an annexe to Greystones and offered her a fortune for it, she insisted on hanging on to it and has been rewarding them ever since by needling them in every way she can. And not least, I’d say if I were asked, by the way in which she could be risking scandal over him. “Janice concluded with a significant nod at Sarah’s escort.

  If she had worked for effect, she had certainly achieved it. Both Oliver and Mrs. Beacon echoed in chorus, “Scandal? What do you mean?”

  Jurice affected wide-eyed contrition.

  “Oh dear, have I spoken out of turn? I thought you’d have heard he—” another nod at Dr. Carrage—“is supposed to have a wife somewhere among those absent? No? Well, maybe it isn’t true. But if it is, and Nurse Sanstead is going about with him as she does and entertaining him at all sorts of unprofessional hours, as I happen to know she does, well, she may not care less about either her own reputation or his. But doing it practically on your doorstep, that’s another thing again. I mean, a Nursing Home and a Convalescent Home cheek by jowl are bound to get connected in people’s minds, and do you suppose she’ll shed any tears for the reputation of Greystones if it should get the backwash of any scandal that blows up at Moncton? Well, will she?”

  The question was put to Mrs. Beacon who began, “Nonsense! Everyone knows there’s not the slightest connection.” She broke off as Oliver’s fist came down firmly upon the table. His eyes were cold and the lines about his mouth were hard as he asked Jurice, “I suppose you realize that what you’re saying is dangerously near to slander, don’t you?”

  “Slander? Is it? Surely not, if it’s true?”

  “For it not to be slander it needs to be proved true, which I doubt if even you would attempt on such thin evidence that Miss Sanstead and Dr. Carrage are having an affair. Anyway, d’you mind if I say I’m rather bored with our neighbor’s personal activities and that I’d prefer to change the subject?”

  Jurice shrugged, but Oliver’s tone brooked no refusal and the subject was changed. Meanwhile Sarah, oblivious of the other table’s interest in her, was sharing generalities of talk with Steven Carrage, who did not broach what he wanted of her until their coffee was served.

  Then he said, “You’ll be wondering about this favor I mentioned. What would you say if I asked you to look after Tony for me for an indefinite few days, that could be less than a week or might be as long as a fortnight?”

  Sarah teased, “Do you call that a favor? I’d say I’d be delighted of course!”

  “You have room for him? It would be from tomorrow.”

  “Fortunately, yes, though I’d make room if I hadn’t.”

  “Bless you. That’s a load off my mind. I couldn’t take him with me and I couldn’t leave him in the flat as his nanny can’t live in. So I’ll drop his things in before I go off, and get her to bring him back to you after school.”

  “Yes, do that.” Sarah added, “Have you been called away unexpectedly then?”

  Stirring his coffee, not looking at her, he said, “Yes, though do you mind if I don’t say more than that it’s a rather personal errand on which I can’t have Tony along? I’ve got leave of absence from the practice for a fortnight, though I may not need that time. Anyway,” he looked up to smile across at her, “I can go happy, if I can leave the boy in your care.”

  “Then go happy,” Sarah smiled back. “We’re to expect you when we see you, is that it? But you’ll leave me an address, won’t you? Just in case—”

  But there, inexplicably after the half-confidence that his errand was a ‘personal’ one, she was up against the stone wall of reserve which he had suddenly erected against her once before. He said, “Yes,” at once correcting it to, “No. That is, as I’m not sure where I may be, all I can do is leave a co
uple of Post Restante addresses with my bank, the County and National in Berkshire Street—you know? So if you wanted anything you could get in touch with them. But you shouldn’t, should you, do you think?”

  The very form of the question invited ‘No’ and she gave it to him. But somehow she felt snubbed and that their accord had struck a wrong, disturbing note.

  Where was he going and for what purpose in such secrecy? Of course she hadn’t the right to know. But considering the responsibility for Tony which he was asking of her, she felt he might have trusted her more.

  The thought came between them and, for her at least, spoiled the rest of their evening.

  Tony was duly delivered the following afternoon and settled in at once with his usual calm acceptance of any situation. But late on his fourth night at Monckton Alice came in search of Sarah to report that on her last round of the children’s rooms she had found Tony restlessly awake, feverish and complaining of tummy pains.

  “Oh no!” Sarah, fresh from her bath and ready for bed, reached for her dressing-gown and pulled it on. “Have you taken his temperature?” she asked over her shoulder as she hurried ahead of Alice into his room.

  “Not yet. I came straight for you. But you’ve only to look at him—”

  That was only too true. Tony’s hair was damp with sweat; he was retching and though he was making manly attempts not to cry, the whimpers which were forced from him had already waked his room-mate in the other cot.

  “Get Rob back to sleep, will you,” Sarah asked Alice as she spoke soothingly to Tony, asked him where the pain was and took his temperature, which proved to be 102 degrees.

  To Alice, waiting anxiously for her verdict, she said, “I don’t know, it could be anything. But this tummy-ache and retching without sickness—I think I’d bet it’s appendix. Anyway,” she concluded as she drew the covers over the boy, “we can’t leave it till morning. We must get Dr. Ackland or Dr. Berrider to him. Will you go and phone?”