My Surgeon Neighbour (2 page)

Sarah took a firm but patient grip upon herself. After all she hadn’t so far been quite frank with Dick; she hadn’t yet told him why she was determined to hold on to Monckton.

“I don’t want you to ‘see to’ anything for me, Dick,” she protested. “I’m keeping Monckton for my own use.”

“But Sarah! The place—why, it’s practically prehistoric! I thought I was doing you a kindness by trying to get rid of it for you!”

How like Dick that was! He wrapped you about in a cloak of solicitude and good advice and then looked hurt when you gasped for air. Not wanting to wound him, Sarah said gently, “I know, Dick. You meant well. I admit I came here this morning meaning to tear you apart for telling this Mansbury I was ‘sure’ to sell, but it’s all over now. You’re forgiven.”

Dick’s pencil point described a wide arc upon his blotter. “If you say so, as far as the firm is concerned, it is,” he said slowly. “But about Mansbury, I don’t know that he’ll be disposed to take ‘No’ so easily. I’m afraid I gave him the idea the place was practically his for a reasonable offer, and they want it so badly that they’ll try to tempt you until you give in.”

“Let them. I need the place too and I shan’t give in. Anyway, here are the works. You probably know already that I’m fully qualified in nursing now, and I’m going to renovate the house and run my own children’s
C
onvalescent Home there. What do you say to that?”

“Say?” Dick grinned. “Well, first that your legacy must have gone to your pretty head; second, that, stiff with qualifications as you may be, you’re not much more than a babe yourself; third, that in hanging on to Monckton just for the hell of it, you can’t have a clue as to what you’re taking on or turning down. That
house, Sarah, do take my professional word for it that it just would refuse to pay, it really would.”

“It’ll have to pay,” she said stubbornly. “It’s my only asset, apart from the small income Great Aunt Lydia left me as well. But I’ve got a few savings; I can surely get a grant from the Council to help me to convert, and once it’s done in a modest way, I shall be earning as I go.”

She was startled into silence as Dick flung down the pencil with an exclamation of impatience.

“You’re a mutt,” he said bluntly. “You sit there, looking utterly charming and so patently sure of yourself. Whereas I don’t suppose you’ve taken advice from anyone at all about this scheme of yours.”

“Just from people who understand the need, and believe I could do it, given the premises and the clientele,” Sarah put in sweetly. “The Matron of my late hospital, for one.”

“Pah! How do you know she hasn’t some axe to grind? If she
saw
Monckton, she’d soon change her tune! No, what you need, Sarah my girl, is someone behind you, someone to protect you from yourself and
—
and from mad ideas like this one!” exploded Dick.

“But I don’t
need
protecting!”

“
All
women need protecting at some time or another,” was his maddening reply.

“Not when they’re as able as I am to look after myself, thank you.” Sarah’s tone was dry, though at the back of her brain was recorded a tiny prick of suspicion that, however small her need, a woman would always be ready to accept the protection of
one
man. But that was something she could not say to Dick. And today she was on the threshold of doing work she loved in her own way. She was about to become her own mistress. How could he expect her to need shelter and protection at anyone’s hands?

Dick sighed. “Well, I suppose determination goes a fair way,” he admitted. “Tell me, how far have you got with this idea?”

“Not far where the house is concerned. But before I came down I began to pave the way towards getting the necessary permits and what-not, supposing the place should prove convertible. I’ve also roughed out some advertisements and I’m to be put in touch with ‘possibles’ by Matron.”

“When would you plan to open?”

“Soon after Easter I’d hope.
Could
the house be ready by then, do you suppose?”

“You’ll be lucky! But there, it shall be if you want it. Leave it to me.”

Sarah laughed. “How did I guess? I’ve had to run to you for help after all!”

Dick threw her a swift glance, gratified by her appreciation that, for all her vaunted independence, there were some things he could arrange better than she. But he was conscious of a stab of deeper feeling. He knew that if he saw much of her in the days to come he was going to want to serve her more and more. When they were children she had always wanted her own way, refused to be urged into his. But protest and disapprove as he might, he had always craved to help her and they both knew very well she would never look to
him
in vain.

He rang for his secretary and stood up. “Well, Sarah, what about lunching with me? We can talk things over.”

“I’d love to,” agreed Sarah.

From the lobby beyond his office where he went to fetch his coat, he called to her, “As a matter of curiosity did Mansbury mention a figure they would pay?”

“I didn’t let him get so far. I made it quite clear I wasn’t considering a sale.”

“Well, for
your
curiosity he talked to the tune of seven thousand or so to me.”

If Dick had been seeking an effect, he should have been fully gratified by her gasp of surprise.

“Seven
thousand,
for a house in Monckton’s condition?”

Dick came back, shrugging into his coat. “I thought that would stop you in your tracks,” he grinned. “Look what you could do with all that lolly somewhere more suitable, instead of burdening yourself with a place that will only prove a white elephant and a millstone round your neck. Anyway, will you reconsider?”

Sarah stood up, drew on her gloves.

“No.” she said stoutly. “A millstone shaped like a white elephant will at least be novel neckwear. I’ll not reconsider!”

It was about a fortnight later, when the last of Great Aunt Lydia’s possessions had moved out and, thanks to Dick’s influence, the first of the decorators had moved in, that Sarah had another caller from Greystones, announced by Martha while Sarah was watching the electricians at work.

She needed no telling who her latest visitor was. For the groomed, statuesque figure of the Matron of Greystones was already familiar to her. Daily Mrs. Beacon was to be seen, driving her car, walking in her garden or speeding departing patients from her door, but this was the first time she had appeared to glance in the direction of either Monckton or of Sarah.

Today she gave the merest lip service to an introduction of herself, then came directly to the purpose of her visit.

“Do I understand, Miss Sanstead, that you refused to consider selling or leasing this house to my cousin on the grounds that you hoped to open it as some kind of children’s Home?”

Sarah’s hackles rose to the hostility of the tone. “Not ‘hoped’—I mean to do just that,” she corrected, putting her intention firmly into the present tense.

“But even if you could get a licence, which I very much doubt, surely you appreciate that I could raise the strongest possible objections to your doing it
here
?”
the other woman snapped.

Sarah said smoothly, “In fact, my licence is already in train. And I’m afraid I don’t see why you believe you have any right to object, Mrs. Beacon?”

“Then I must tell you. Firstly, this is a purely residential district and mine wouldn’t be the only voice raised, I assure you. Secondly, my Nursing Home enjoys one of the highest reputations outside London and I haven’t the slightest intention of having that jeopardized by the opening of a Home for children right next door to my premises.”

“Mr. Mansbury’s premises, I understand,” murmured Sarah provocatively.

Mrs. Beacon’s eyes flashed. “Split hairs if you must,” she retorted, “as long as you understand that the Nursing Home at Greystones is
my
professional property and concern, and that if you insist on your right to go through with your own scheme, I shall fight it all along the way. Do I make myself clear?”

Sarah agreed, “Perfectly, though I don’t understand your attitude at all, I’m afraid. A private Convalescent Home—I plan mine just for under-twelves; a private Nursing Home; the two next door to each other in a quiet road; what harm could either do to the amenities of any residential district, can you tell me?”

“We are not,” said Mrs. Beacon loftily, “discussing ‘either’. Greystones is established, needed and an asset to the neighbourhood, whereas a Home for small children
here
can have nothing but so much nuisance value. But don’t mistake me, please. As a trained nurse myself, I shouldn’t dream of denying the need of children to convalesce after illness. It is simply that I cannot allow you to destroy the amenities of Greystones by importing a lot of very small children immediately next door. What’s more, even for your own future’s sake, Miss Sanstead, surely you would find better opportunities and more suitable property for conversion elsewhere?”

“But I don’t happen to own property elsewhere,” Sarah pointed out. “Monckton is mine and is convertible and surely the fact of my getting a licence is proof that there is an opening here?” She paused, then added shrewdly, “Forgive me, won’t you, for wondering just how much your own and your cousin’s objection to my plans is due to your wanting to buy or lease my property from me?”

“There is no connection at all between the two matters,” the older woman retorted. “You have refused to sell, though Mr. Mansbury would still make it fully worth your while. But this project of yours is something else; something for legitimate protest from us.”

“But does Mr. Mansbury share your protest?” put in Sarah. “When he found I wasn’t selling, he wished me success.”

Mrs. Beacon bridled. “As a matter of form he may have done. But I think you can take it that we see eye to eye. Not, really, that our agreement or disagreement is any business of yours, do you think?”

“As much, surely, as your interference in my affairs?” returned Susan. “A
n
d now, as you’ll understand that I’m very busy
.
..
”

Mrs. Beacon took the broad hint intended. But she could not resist a parting shot. “I still think that, for your own sake, you should have met my cousin half way and been willing to open your Home elsewhere. His help and influence might have been very valuable to you. As it is
...”

There was a threat in the unspoken words, and when she had gone Sarah knew with misgiving that where she might have hoped to find friends and good neighbors, in Mrs. Beacon at least she had made an enemy. And, in Oliver Mansbury, had she made another?

CHAPTER
TWO

SOON after Easter Monckton’s more necessary alterations and decor were finished and Susan was hoping to welcome her first batch of small guests by the end of the month.

During that spring she had learned the value of having Dick Finder untiringly on her side; he was always coming up with practical suggestions and when his secretary rang up one day, asking her to call, she supposed he was eager with just such another idea to help her.

But when she reached Market Chambers he was waiting for her in the outer office and he drew her into a small room instead of taking her to his own.

“Look here,” he began diffidently, “I was afraid you might not come if I told you what I wanted. You see, I’ve got a client in my office, someone I think you ought to see again before you go any further with your plans.”

“Not
...?
” Sarah’s figure stiffened in surprised resentment.

“Yes, Mansbury. Listen, he still wants your house and he’s willing to make you a yet bigger offer. All right, I tricked you into coming again to meet him. But that was for your sake. I want you at least to hear what he has to say.”

“But Dick!” Her tone was pitiful in its dismay.

“But what? You needn’t commit yourself at once. He’s prepared to give you time to consider his offer.”

“I tell you I’ve nothing to say to him! But you! Why have you been helping me as you have done, only to turn round now and try to persuade me against the whole thing? You know what it means to me and how far I’ve gone with it. I just don’t understand. You’re, you’re
s
imply letting me down!” Sarah accused wildly.

Dick thrust his hands into his pockets, almost as if to keep them off her. “Don’t be absurd,” he said. “I haven’t turned ‘agin’ you. But privately. I’ll admit, I’ve always thought your scheme pretty hare-brained, launching out on your own in that house, with only Martha to help you on the domestic side and not a skilled soul on the nursing one. And all of it to be done on a shoestring income behind you if anything goes wrong.”

“Then why have you helped me at all? Why haven’t you kept aloof from it, if you feel like that?”

He felt his glance ought to say ‘You should know.’ Aloud he said, “Because—oh Sarah, don’t you see?
—
because, you being you, I had to do what I could. I couldn’t wash my hands of you. I’ve never done yet and I never shall.”

“Then you were just making the best of a bad job?”

“You could put it like that. I’d prefer to say I accepted facts. That is, until today, when, since he’s my client, I had to contact you again when Mansbury asked me to. But equally I want to do what I can for you because you’re my friend.”

“Well,
I
don’t believe they want the house as badly as all that.” Sarah was pursuing her own thoughts. “It’s really that they are toffee-nosed about possible noise and nuisance from my babes. They t
hink
the Home will ‘lower tone’ for them and their glossier patients. If they can’t get me out, they mean to make everything as difficult as they can. That—that
Beacon
said as much. Well, I won’t go, I
won’t.
If they want a fight they can have it!”

“Always remembering that they, established and prosperous, will have the edge on you every time? For pity’s sake, don’t set out in such a spirit, Sarah!” Dick warned.

“It’s a situation that’s none of my making!”

“No? Though from what you’ve told me of your encounters with them, you haven’t been exactly conciliatory.” Dick turned to the door. “Anyway, come and make yourself plain once and for all.”

In his office he showed her to a chair opposite Mr. Mansbury, then went round the desk to take his own.

He spoke to his client, “I’m afraid Miss Sanstead tells me she’s not disposed to consider your offer after all.”

Oliver Mansbury stubbed out his cigarette. “Not even my latest offer?” he queried.

A half-smile curled Dick’s lip. Miss Sanstead refuses to consider
any
offer for her house.”

“But this is absurd!” Oliver Mansbury turned to Sarah. “Hasn’t Mr. Finder told you that we are raising our figure to ten thousand pounds for the place, and that I’m willing to allow you to occupy it, privately of course, until you find somewhere else?”

Ten thousand! After her first astonishment at the increased figure, Sarah found her pride baul
k
ing at the very size of it. She’d show them! She would show them that she could refuse even this and still make a success of a ‘hare-brained scheme’! As for that man opposite
and
his crabby cousin, they were going to learn here and now that money couldn’t buy everything!

Uneasily conscious, however, that her pride was bringing out the worst in her, she replied coldly, “Whatever you are offering, I am not selling.”

“Well,” Oliver Mansbury’s tone held mock resignation. With a shrug he rose, looked across at Dick with a smile. “It’s fantastic of course. But I dare say you’ve done your best.”

His air of speaking as if she were a naughty, unrepentant child or even as if she were not present infuriated Sarah. She broke in passionately, “There’s nothing at all ‘fantastic’ about it. I’ve got my career to make and you could both realize that a price for the house is not what I’m looking for. I simply want to be left alone to get on with doing my work in my own way, and in my own property.”

She broke off, knowing that to Mansbury, a stranger, she must sound obstinate for obstinacy’s sake. What she did not know was how her indignation had heightened her color, brightened her eyes and lent animation to her face. Nor did she know Dick was thinking that a
Sarah on the point of stamping a slim foot had always been attractive to
him,
but how would Mansbury take her outburst? Aloud Dick said, “I’m sorry, Sarah, that you feel like that about it, but I’m sure Mr. Mansbury will see you now hear no more about it.”

Across the table the other man had not missed Dick’s ‘Sarah’. His glance at them both held a question before he turned to Sarah to offer,

“Are you going straight home, Miss Sanstead? If so, may I give you a lift?”

She
hesitated
, then upon a sudden impulse which she scarcely understood replied, “Please, if you will.” It was market day in the town and the negotiation of the traffic took all her companion’s attention until they emerged upon a quieter street, when he gave a swift sideways glance at her and said, “I’m wondering, was your agreement to let me drive you home your way of whistling ‘Who’s afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?’ ”

Sarah said crisply, “I don’t know any wolves.”

“Don’t you? Now to me you have an air of being hounded by howling packs of them!” To this, before she could reply, he added, “This convalescent Home idea of yours must mean an awful lot to you, for you to defend it so fiercely.”

“It does.”

“Because you feel really dedicated, or because you see it as an escape-route from the discipline of hospital?” He paused. “The truth, please?”

Sarah hesitated. Then, “Something of both, I think.”

“Independence pretty sweet, eh? Next question—a cynic’s, I confess—is yours the genuine article, or merely the marking time brand?”

“The ‘marking time’?”

“Yes. The kind a lot of women parade as a virtue, when they’re really only waiting to be collected as some man’s wife, the mother of his children.”

Sarah gasped. “I don’t know whether to answer you for all the women I know who love their careers, their work, or just for myself!”

“Try ‘just for yourself. I’d be interested.”

“Well then, I’m
not
just waiting for a man, any man, to come along and marry me. I want to make a success of my job first. At present
that
is the one thing I want to do. When I marry I should want that to be the one thing I must do.”

“And supposing both your ‘one things’ happened to clash?”

“I don’t think that could happen,” Sarah said simply. “When there’s just one thing that you know matters most to you,
everything
else takes second place.”

He looked at her almost pityingly. “And you expect love, when it happens to you, to be as simple and clear
-
cut as that?”

“I hope I shall know I daren’t deny what it asks of me.” She spoke with quiet conviction and was jarred by his sudden laugh.

“You should hope rather that you may recognize it!” he advised. “Do you expect it to arrive one fine morning, neatly parcelled and labelled “For priority attention’? My dear girl, it’s far more likely to come cluttered up with kindliness or pity or habit—or even to come too late or for the wrong man.”

Sarah shook her head. “I’ll risk it,” she said, thinking how strange it was that in this brief abstract argument, their
hostility
had lessened. She was wishing the way home could be longer when he switched the subject again.

“You see,” he said, “I’ve seen too much wastage in your profession not to be a bit sceptical about dedication to the job. Good nurses are beyond price; the time
-
markers have nothing but nuisance value. As for independence, I suppose you realize the self-discipline you’ll have to impose on yourself, once you’re your own mistress, will be a much harder taskmaster than any hard-and-fast rules laid down by someone else?”

“I think so.”

“I hope so. For instance, once you get going, have you faced that it’ll be a round-the-clock job; that you’ll have to have help on the professional side or you’ll risk losing your licence, supposing you weren’t able to give your patients proper care?”

“I’ve got Martha, my great aunt’s maid. At first, at least, we shall manage.”

“Illness? Holidays? All work and no play? No, I insist you engage at least some part-time nursing help.”

“
You
insist, Mr. Mansbury?”

He laughed shortly. “All right. Let’s say I’ll see the County Council gets a memo to the effect that you are understaffed, as soon as you are accommodating more than six beds. You’ll need an M.O. too. Have you got that in train yet?”

“An M.O.? Oh, an official Medical Officer to the Home? Is that necessary? Couldn’t I call in—?”

“Better appoint one. If you like, I’ll—” But he broke off there. The drive was over. They were level now with the front hedge of Monckton and as he slowed to set Sarah down, an open car, driven by a girl in a jauntily tied headscarf, swept past and stopped at the gate of Greystones. The girl got out and came back, meeting Oliver Mansbury at the bonnet of his car as, with a brief apology to Sarah, he alighted too.

The newcomer slung an enormous crocodile bag down to the crook of her elbow in order to administer a pat to his coat sleeve. From great, artificially shadowed eyes she sparkled—there was no other word for it
—
up at him. “Hullo, Oliver,” she addressed him lightly. “Do I gather you’re glad to see me?” Her glance beyond his shoulder saw but ignored Sarah, now standing diffidently behind him.

The newcomer went on, “Surprised? Or glad? Or dismayed that I’ve taken you at your word and come down to see just how long you can put up with me? Always supposing that I behave myself, by your standards of course, if not by mine!”

For some reason Sarah resented the easy familiarity of that; hoped Oliver Mansbury wouldn’t reply in kind, showing how very well he knew this girl, whose careless
chic,
from shoes to dangling mi
nk
stole, was a rebuff to all Sarah’s pride in her own looks.

She was to be disappointed. Oliver Mansbury said enthusiastically, “Fine. Stay as long as you like. Kate will be delighted to see you. As surprised as I am too, for when you wrote you were convalescing from jaundice and it seemed a good idea for Kate to keep an eye on you for a few weeks, I hardly supposed you would come.”

“Yes, well, I’m quite all right now, and I
didn’t
really relish the thought of your clinical eye on me, or Kate’s either, for that matter. But then I got bored and when one of my Voices suddenly said, “Jurice, go down to Fareborough and stay with friend Oliver until he turns you out’—it seemed as good an idea as any, so here I am.”

“ ‘One of your Voices!’ ” mocked Mansbury. “Still using that gimmick to explain Jurice doing whatever
Jurice has made up her mind to do? I’ve always thought it must be a relief to your Voices never to have to persuade you against your will!”

They both laughed as at a private joke. Sarah, wanting to take her leave, cleared her throat. But at that moment the girl glanced back and up at Greystones. “It’s ages since I’ve been down,” she said. “And I thought Kate was planning expansion on a big scale; that your were proposing to overflow into that mausoleum next door?”

“Oh, that?” The reference to Monckton brought to Mansbury a belated recollection of Sarah. He turned, his hand beckoning for her, as he said to the girl. “I’m afraid those plans are out for the moment. Instead we have a new neighbour. Miss Sanstead, meet a friend of mine, Miss Grey.”

Jurice Grey acknowledged the introduction with the merest flicker of her eyelashes in Sarah’s direction.

“Neighbours? How very cosy!” was her comment, making the relationship sound incredibly dull. Sarah limited her own greeting to a smile and a non-committal murmur, then thanked Oliver Mansbury for the lift and left them together.

When she had gone Oliver said, “Drive on in. I’ll follow and bring in your bags.” But Jurice lingered and jerked a thumb in the direction Sarah had taken. “Cool cat, or dumb cluck? What’s the rest of the family like? About as matey as she is, or more? Or less?”

“There isn’t,” Oliver told her, “any ‘rest of the family’. You’ve had all there is.”

“That chick? You mean she’s on her own?”