My Surgeon Neighbour (7 page)

Sarah nodded. “Yes, I accused him certainly. But as I had proof he was lying, what had he to be distressed about?”

“About the injustice of it, I suppose. He was distinctively upset.”

“ ‘Injustice’? But he hadn’t a leg to stand on!” Sarah returned hotly. “With two other children looking on, he had filched and hidden some crayons belonging to Jean Cosford and then had the face to lie about it to me. But it was only a triviality, ma
gnifi
ed into nastiness by the fact of his lie, not his first by any means, I may say, when he has found himself cornered.” She bit her lip over her choice of an unfortunate word, but Mrs. Beacon was swift to pounce on it.”

“
‘Cornered’?” she echoed. “Surely, Miss Sanstead, your experience with children, sick or well, hasn’t taught you to ‘
corner
’ them, to set them at bay from you when they’re at fault?”

“Of course it hasn’t. Anyway, in this instance Trevor cornered himself with a stupid lie that hadn’t a hope of standing up. But he didn’t let it worry him that I could see. And although, as I say, he does he and play mean tricks, I try to treat every incident separately and I’m hoping that before long he may see the silliness of calling attention to himself by trying to be clever-clever at his playmates’ expense,” Sarah retorted.

Mrs. Beacon’s cold eye gleamed. “From which, I gather, you’d be as glad as not if he didn’t join your charges again for play?” she asked.

Sarah hesitated. To agree would be the easy way out, but because it smelled too much of defeat she said, “If I thought he would never lea
rn
to fit in with the others,
I’d ask him myself not to come again. But I don’t want to do that. I think I’m beginning to take his measure now and I’d like a bit of time to prove something about him.”

“To prove what?”

“That he’s as difficult as he is because he only knows the tough, bully’s way of asserting himself. If he could pipe down a bit and expect less of the limelight, I’m sure he could enjoy the other children’s company and help me with them as much as little Jean and Tony Carrage do.”

“Very well. Personally I’d say you’d be better to concentrate on your own convalescents than to be trying out amateur ‘psycho’ theories on completely healthy ones like Trevor. And if you don’t succeed in breaking his spirit, which it sounds as if you want to, please remember that you refused to let us relieve you of the trouble of him, won’t you?” Mrs. Beacon warned.

“I certainly will.” As Sarah set a foot on her bicycle pedal her tone was even. But her hands were a’tremble on the handlebars as she rode away. The
nerve
of the woman! ‘Amateur
psycho theories’ indeed
...
! Sarah’s blood chilled as she recalled Oliver Mansbury’s comment on the same lines,
‘Something of a pocket psychologist, aren’t you Sarah Sanstead.’?
She had laughed and glowed a little at the time. But hadn’t his teasing been as kindly meant as she had taken it?
Had he been ridiculing her too?

At the time she had sprained her ankle a minor fear had been that she might not be fit before she was due to partner Dick Finder in the forthcoming Open Tournament at the tennis club of which he was also a member. But as the day approached it was Dick who was forced to demur that he might not be able to play after all.

“Father is ill,” he told her over the telephone. “Only a fainting fit, we supposed. But he’s to have a few days’ rest in bed on doctor’s orders. And if he’s not about again by Saturday, tournament day, I shall have to deputise for him at a big auction over at Sellinby.”

“Oh,
Dick
!”
Sarah could not conceal her disappointment.

“I know,” he agreed. “It’s tough luck. We might have done quite well in harness. All right.
Tennis
harness; joke over,” he added. “But I think for safety’s sake you’d better see if you can rustle up someone to partner you in my place.”

Though she suspected that would not be too easy, she said, “I’ll try. Anyway, not to worry. I’m awfully sorry to hear about Mr. Finder. In case there’s anything I could do for either of you, could I come round to see him tonight? I’m on duty, but Martha will be here, and I could slip down for a little while after the babes are in bed.”

“Yes, do that, there’s a dear.
And
do something about another partner for yourself,” Dick urged.

But without telling him so, she resolved to let it ride. She should wait for him and if he couldn’t play, that would be just too bad.

But when she cycled down to his house that evening, her first sight of Dick, opening the door to her himself, told her that there was no chance of his partnering her and she understood why. Though not needing to ask, she said, “Oh Dick, your father? He’s—?”

For a moment he stared at her, as if questioning her right to intrude upon him. Then he nodded and drew her into the hall, retaining his grip on both her hands.

“Sarah, I can’t believe it! He seemed all right, even better after I had phoned you. So I went to the office as usual, leaving him with Mrs. Bennet, our housekeeper, you know. But I’d hardly arrived before there was a phone call to come back. He had collapsed again, it was a second stroke apparently, and he died a couple of hours ago.”

“Oh
no
!
Dick, dear Dick, what a terrible shock for you!” Since his mother’s early death he and his father had been very close and as Sarah murmured her sympathy she thought how vulnerable he was to his loss. Suddenly he was unsure, the mere shadow of his bright, confident self, more likeable somehow when he needed help than when he was intent on giving it.

She stayed longer than she had meant to. But when she left he was more in control and she hoped she had been able to do something for
him
. The matter of Saturday’s tournament was naturally far from their thoughts and it was not until the next day that Olive Cosford reminded her of it.

“I suppose there’s no hope that Mr. Finder can play with you now?” she asked.

“No. It’s out for us both, I’m afraid. Dick couldn’t of course; in any case, he’ll still have to take his father’s place at the Sellinby auction, and it’s too late for me to get another partner. But I’ll go along and watch if it’s a nice day. I hear there are some real tennis ‘lions’ coming for it, among them, Dan Rossiter who’s played at Wimbleton. Dick seemed to think that he and I had a hope, though of course against that kind of opposition we didn’t stand a chance.”

Alice knit her brows. “Rossiter? Rossiter? That rings a bell. Last night Martha—she does love to pass on news, doesn’t she?—was full of a young man Miss Grey next door has been about with all the week.
His
name is Rossiter, according to Martha. Though how would she know, do you suppose?”

“How does she find out anything she does, apparently without stirring a yard to do it?” returned Sarah rhetorically, remembering that yesterday she also had seen Jurice Grey in an open car with a young man whose face was vaguely familiar; recalling too her surprise at the sight of the other girl for once being escorted by a man other than her host next door.

On Saturday, a brilliant day, she cycled down to the
Cl
ub, in tennis kit and taking her racket, in case of there being a chance of getting a friendly game on a side court. She was early; not many people had arrived as she paused in the lounge-bar to run her eye down the list of entries for the mixed doubles
...
Ames, bracketed with a partner
...
Bradbury, ditto. Rossiter, no partner listed
...
Fuller and partner
...
Mansbury, partnered Grey—
Mansbury?
Sarah had not known he played tennis, nor that Jurice Grey did. Neither were members of the Club, though of course that meant nothing. This was an Open event.

As she stood at the notice-board there was a large screen between her and the door. And the two people who now came in were completely unaware of her presence, committing her to an unwi
lling
eavesdropping as soon as she recognized their voices.

“All right,” said Oliver Mansbury’s coldly, “you’ve made up your mind to play with this Dan Rossiter. But what I’d like to know is why you’ve been at pains to keep up this fiction that he had some other woman coming to partner him?”

“It wasn’t a fiction!” Jurice Grey’s tone lacked sincerity. “He had someone in mind!”

“But no definite engagement? How accommodating of her to wait on his decision until the last possible moment and then to find herself thrown over!”

“How do I know anything about that? It wasn’t until last night that he asked me to partner him.”

“And you said—?” The tone was dangerously inviting.

“The truth of course, that I had entered with you, but—”

“But that you could ditch me just like that, I suppose?”

“I—I said I’d ask you about it. After all, a lot of people will be disappointed if he can’t play for want of a partner. They come to see players like
him
, not ordinary fry like us.”

“I thought he had this partner on an elastic kind of understanding?”

“Oh that! But it’s too late to get
her
now. Heavens, I never supposed I was going to bring this sort of avalanche down upon my head. It—it’s all so
petty
!”
Jurice protested.

“Listen, Jurice,” Oliver’s voice was quieter as he agreed, “I grant you it would be petty if it were simply a matter of my being deprived of you as a partner. But you should know it’s more than that. It’s because this sort of thing runs to a pattern I recognize only too well. Jurice does as she pleases, and everyone else must fall into fine. In fact, I wonder you aren’t producing your classic ‘One of my Voices’ has advised me to play with Dan Rossiter! You’re quite capable of it.”

Jurice’s voice came in a provocative note. “You’re not
jealous
of Dan surely, Oliver?”

“You’d like to believe it, wouldn’t you? Sorry to disappoint you by assuring you that I’m not.”

“Well then, what
are
you nagging me about? I’m being accused of
something,
but what?”

“Of the kind of petty betrayal of your word that I thought once didn’t matter, as long as it stayed petty. But it doesn’t always.”

“So that very soon now you’ll be forced to accuse me for the umpteenth time of having no ‘integrity,’ I suppose?” flashed Jurice. “Well, I’m not staying while you gather your forces, d’you mind? Because we are what we are to each other, I’ll do penance, come to heel, eat humble pie or whatever, but I’ll do it later. Now I’m going to partner Dan because I
want
to. After all, I’ve known him since we were both so high. So excuse me, will you? He’s waiting.”

For several minutes more her companion kept Sarah a prisoner behind the screen. Then as other people came in she judged she could escape and did so, conscious of shame at her unbidden part in the ugly scene and longing to forget it as soon as possible.

People only quarrelled with that degree of bitterness when they cared enough to be mortally hurt by the defection of the person dearest to them. No, thought Sarah, Oliver Mansbury’s denial that he was jealous hadn’t rung quite true and no doubt Jurice had known it. And how sure she must be of him to goad him so and still be able to expect his complaisant forgiveness when she chose to ask it!

On the terrace overlooking the principal court Sarah chose a seat which would afford her a good view. Most of the people she knew would be playing and she was still alone when Oliver Mansbury came over to join her. Pleased, she was about to make room for him on her bench when he said,

“No. Look, this is a bit impromptu, but as they tell me you haven’t a partner, and by mischance neither have I, would you consider our teaming up together even at such short notice?”

Sarah hesitated. To have him beside her to share spectatorhood with him was one thing; to partner him at the risk of letting him down was another. She hedged with, “Why I’d love to, but you don’t know how I play, do you?”

He smiled. “No more than you know how I do. But
for the record, how do you play?”

She smiled back. “I’m far from star quality, but I’m said to be steady,” she told him.

He nodded. “Good enough. I’m rather out of practice
—
no time for it—but I hope I shan’t have to disgrace you. Come,” his hand went under her elbow, drawing her to her feet, “let’s go and furnish the Secretary with our belated details.”

In the first few sets of their section they had mixed fortune, but somehow managed to survive. Sarah knew she was playing as well as she had ever done and her honesty knew that her partner was doing her no more than justice when he praised once,

“Steady, you say? The understatement of the year! My good Sarah Sanstead, you’re a stone wall, no less!” Victory within their section was to take the winners into the final against the other section-finalists. Before the end of their own hard-fought but winning game, these were already known to be Dan Rossiter and Jurice, of whom they had not been within speaking distance until the four of them were gathered near the umpire’s chair in readiness to take the court for the final. Then Jurice made a perfunctory introduction of Dan Rossiter to Sarah, looked ‘through’ Oliver Mansbury and ostentatiously tucked her hand beneath her own partner’s arm as they walked to their end of the court.

The final was to be decided in three sets and when the first, after a ding-dong exchange of winning points, went to their opponents, Sarah realized only too well that, for other than sporting reasons, her partner was sharing her own excitement, suspense and longing to reverse matters in the next two sets. If she hadn’t been the unwilling eavesdropper on that scene in the lounge, she might have criticized his eagerness and concentration as showing him to be a man who must win or lose caste in his own eyes. As it was, she sensed his need to express his independence of and superiority over Jurice Grey, if only in a game and if only for as long as it lasted.

The knowledge helped her to play the next set as if she could not be guilty of a weak or misjudged stroke if she tried. True, luck—
t
he net-cord dropped shot and the ball which raised chalk—was also on their side, and they won that set easily at six games to three.