My Surgeon Neighbour (8 page)

The final set opened better still. The brilliant net-play which was Dan Rossiter’s forte temporarily deserted him and Jurice was wildly ‘poaching’ with ill success. But when the other two were leading by six games to four and were daring to hope that their expectation of a gallant defeat might in fact become victory instead, Jurice was running for an apparently easy return when her racket hurtled from her hand and she fell forward on one knee.

From the spectators there was a long-drawn ‘A-a-h’ of dismay and sympathy. But as falls on the court went, it was not a bad one, and as continuity of play was the match rule, everyone expected her to be on her feet even before her partner ran to her and Oliver Mansbury jumped the net to do the same.

Jurice, however, remained on all fours, only turning painfully to sit as the two men knelt beside her. Hovering in the background Sarah heard her say to Rossiter, “Don’t touch me, please. I can’t bear it. It’s my wretched kneecap, it slips out and has to be manipulated back. Oliver knows, don’t you?” she appealed to him.

“Yes. Let me look.” But as he straightened her leg, his skilled hands gentle on each side of her knee, the umpire was down from his chair and coming over.

“Do you think you’ll be able to play on, Miss Grey?” he asked.

She grimaced and bit her lip. “I don’t know. Do I have to say at once?”

“Well we play to the continuity rule of course, but—” The umpire broke off as Oliver Mansbury stood and made the decision for him. “I think Miss Grey shouldn’t go on,” Oliver said. “I’m sorry if that makes the match null and void, but I’d advise that she shouldn’t try to finish it.” His glance round at Sarah brought her closer and Dan Rossiter patted Jurice’s shoulder consolingly before he stood to hear the umpire say, “That’s really bad luck. Unsatisfactory for all of you. But if you’re sure—?”

“I’m quite sure.”

“Then I’m very much afraid I’ve no choice
but to give the match to Miss S
anstead and yourself by default. You do understand, don’t you, Miss Grey?” the umpire appealed to Jurice.

“Of course. You couldn’t do anything else.” Jurice looked up at Sarah from beneath her lashes and put up a hand to touch her late partner’s. To Sarah she said, “Congratulations, though what a too-stupid finish!” and to Dan Rossiter, “I’m terribly,
terribly
sorry. I couldn’t blame you if you never wanted to play with me again! But you’ll try to forgive me—no?”

Then with the two men’s help she stood; their linked hands made a chair for her; a ball-girl ran up with her racket and Sarah collected her sweater with her own.

At the clubhouse Jurice protested that she was all right, anyway not in too much pain to wait to see Oliver and Sarah receive the award for their win. But as soon as the anti-climax of the small ceremony was over Oliver told Sarah he would like to get Jurice home straight away, offering Sarah a lift too if she wanted one.

She didn’t, she told him. She had her bicycle. Then she added shyly, “It was a pity it had to end that way. But I do want to thank you, Mr. Mansbury, for about the best game I ever remember playing!”

“Thank
me?
I should be thanking
you,”
he declared. “Anyway, the thing had our opponents at a greater stretch th
an
it had us, and though it was rather an empty victory for us, I’m pretty sure the result might have been the same if we’d been allowed to take it to a finish.
Wh
at do you say?”

“I hope so.”

“I
kno
w
so.” But for all the conviction in his tone he left her disappointed that he had not suggested their teaming-up together in any future game.

Before they had left the club Oliver had called for bandages and splints for the dislocated knee and showed e
v
ery solicitude for Jurice in helping her into his car. But once on their way and without witnesses, he suddenly invited, “Well?” in a tone like splintered ice and Jurice’s reply showed she knew very well what he meant.

She slanted him a sidelong look. “But of course, darling, I knew it wouldn’t fox
you
!”
she said. “All the same, aren’t you going to give me credit for doing it rather well?”

CHAPTER FIVE

THERE was a long moment of silence. Then Oliver said, “I should be flattered. But since you hadn’t a hope on earth of deceiving me, weren’t you running something of a risk in reckoning on my co-operation? Supposing, as soon as I realized
there was nothing wrong with your knee, I’d said, “On your feet, girl, you’re all right?”

“Ah, but I could bet you wouldn’t.” You hate scenes, and it would have created a king-sized one if you’d accused me of shamming in front of all those people. And I will say you did me proud,” Jurice indicated her rigid knee, “even if your trussing me up like this
has
rather made you a party to my hideous crime, hasn’t it?”

Oliver’s hand tightened on the steering-wheel. “It’s done nothing of the sort. I knew at first touch you hadn’t dislocated anything, but until I’d observed you
I couldn’t be sure you hadn’t fallen harder than you intended and were shocked. And publicly gave you first aid as an excuse for bringing you away as soon as possible so that I could accuse you in private. So now, perhaps you’ll explain why?”

Jurice shrugged. “But obviously to save Dan Rossiter’s face. He was playing abominably in that last set. I did everything I could to save the situation—”

“What situation? We were one-set all, and the chances weren’t so very far from being even in the last one. Why should his face need saving from an experience he must have had a good many times before now?”

“Oh my dear, can’t you
see
!
The honors
weren’t
even by that time; with Dan playing as badly as he was, we hadn’t a hope of recovery. And for a star like him to be beaten in a local tournament by you and your little nurse-partner, would his face be red? Hence my spectacular collapse, which
I
thought a good idea. At least it ensured we couldn’t be beaten, so that Dan would have nothing to lose.”

“And I suppose I needn’t ask whether you made
him
an accessory after the fact?”

“Of course I didn’t. He’d have gone right up in smoke!”

“I hope so indeed.” Oliver paused, then stated with dangerous quiet, “And you’re lying, Jurice. You didn’t put on this act for Dan Rossiter’s sake. Nothing so simple. You had to pay me out for finding another partner for myself; you know exactly how well you play and you couldn’t bear to let me and my scratch partner come within a few points of beating you outright. You were afraid you mightn’t win, so you had to rob us of the satisfaction in the only way you knew.
We’d win the trophy of course. But only by the back door, and you were prepared to settle for that.”

Jurice turned on him furiously. “I tell you it was for Dan’s sake!”

“It was not, and you know it. Anyway, since you’re not keeping up this fiction of a dislocated kneecap for a minute after I get you back to Greystones, how are you going to explain your sudden recovery to
him
when he enquires for it?”

“I told you, he was only down here for a week with friends. He’ll ring up, of course, perhaps send flowers. But I can handle
him
. Kneecaps do slip out—and in
—
just like that.”

“And Sarah Sanstead, what about her?”

“What about her? Oliver, you wouldn’t—?”

“Betray you to her? Tell her the truth? No, if it’s anyone’s, that’s your job.”

“But I couldn’t! And you can’t make me, it’s too late!” For the first time panic took the place of bravado in Jurice’s tone.

Oliver said wearily, “How right, I can’t make you.” He drew up at the door of Greystones before adding, “But this I insist on. You’re going to meet her and apologize to her for the fiasco of the whole thing, owing to you. You could also suggest she might care to play it out again sometime. What’s more, you’re going to do it tonight. As soon as I think she could be home from the Club, I shall go over and ask her to dinner with us.”

“Tonight? Oh I can’t. I—I’m dining out!”

“You are not. You’ll dine with Kate and Sarah Sanstead and me. Tell Kate, will you, that there’ll be an extra one for dinner.” Oliver’s tone made of that an order rather than a request as he allowed her to get out of the car alone, and drove away towards the garage.

For an hour after the end of the tournament there were convivial post-mortems in the Club lounge and it was dusk before Sarah was able to get away. Her thoughts were with Dick as she went to get her bicycle. Today he would have been at the auction sale at Sellinby; his father’s funeral was to be on Monday. After that, she resolved, she must ask him to Monckton for a meal, and, coming round the
corner
of the clubhouse, came upon him sitting in his car.

“Lo,” he saluted her. “Can you leave your bike, Sarah? If so, I’ll drive you home.”

“Yes, of course. Just a tick and I’ll take it back to the bay. Dick, how nice of you to collect me!” she said warmly.

“Nice for which of us? Anyway, get rid of that steed of yours and come along. Oh, and I hear you won the doubles after all, you clever girl. How come?” he asked.

“Well, not exactly ‘won’.” As soon as he rejoined him she explained how she had come to play in the match, described its mounting suspense and the stalemate which had ended it in her own and her partner’s favor.

“Not very satisfactory, that,” commented Dick.

“Not at all satisfactory,” she agreed, for some reason stopping short of the ‘However, it couldn’t be helped’, which should have come naturally, but didn’t. She changed the subject. “Just now I meant it was nice of you to bother to come to meet me when, when you must have had a hard day at Sellinby, and with Monday and all that before you.”

A shadow crossed Dick’s face. “I had to come. I’ve got to talk to you, Sarah.”

But he didn’t, and her sympathy left him to the silence which ensued until they reached Monckton. Then she said, “You’ll come in and take pot-luck with us, will you?”

Dick frowned. “ ‘Us?’ ”

“Well, Alice Cosford and me, after she has put the children to bed.” But at his further hesitation Sarah added, “All right, if you’d rather not. Come in for a drink instead. I’ll have to run and see if Alice needs any help. But you can come to my den and we can have the best part of an hour before Martha will be serving supper.”

As she spoke she put out a hand to draw
him
into the lighted hall. But at her touch it was as if something electric sparked within him. He halted in the open doorway, causing her to halt too, then shortened the distance between them to take her other hand and to hold them both behind her back, so that she stood imprisoned in the circle of his arms.

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 co
mmi
t 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 com
p
lement 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 P
eterson 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.