Promise the Doctor (16 page)

‘It was as much a surprise to me as it evidently is to you,’ she said quietly, ‘but that isn’t the point. She has been worrying about this business of the house. She doesn’t want me to break my word.’

‘If she loves me there’s no point in worrying any more about the house, is there?’ Sam demanded. ‘She’ll be mistress here the very day she says the word. The offer to the rest of you still stands, but I can’t see that she has any need to worry about that.’

‘I don’t expect you to,’ Joy said simply. ‘You’re just not made that way. We are, all of us. A promise given is a promise to be kept, and that’s all there is to it. You could have built your precious holiday village down by the pier.’

‘I happen to want it where we’re building now,’ Sam interrupted. ‘I have my reasons, young woman, and I don’t see that they’re any concern of yours!’

‘What you fail to understand,’ Joy’s tone was still quiet and even, but Sam was growing more and more agitated every moment, and Joy, knowing the state of his heart, was a little afraid. Because of this she chose her words carefully, speaking slowly and quietly, hoping to calm him down. ‘What you fail to understand,’ she repeated, ‘is that Mother has apparently refused your proposal. Can’t you possibly think why, when she let the truth slip out without knowing it, and she admitted she loves you? Why, Mr. Bainbridge? Can’t you guess?’

‘Because you’re the one telling her to refuse me,’ Sam blustered, but Joy took him up at once.

‘I didn’t,’ she refuted quietly, ‘because she hasn’t told me—or, more correctly, she isn’t aware that she’s told me, that you’ve proposed at all ... but now that I
know,’
she emphasized, ‘I shall certainly do all I can to prevent it, even though I think you would both be happy, because she would never rest if she knew you had driven me into breaking a promise we both hold sacred.’

She had not known what to expect. More fireworks, perhaps, more shouting, more argument. But as though a candle flame had suddenly been blown out, extinguished, the anger died from Sam Bainbridge’s face even as she looked at him.

‘You win, Sister Benyon ... for the moment,’ he said grimly. ‘One of your mother’s most attractive qualities is her unswerving loyalty to the family, to all of you. I can’t fight that. I won’t ever mention buying Fernbank to your mother again, I swear it. But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up trying to persuade you to sell.’ Unexpectedly he leaned across the desk and held out his hand. ‘You keep your point of view and I’ll keep mine,’ he suggested, ‘but if you promise not to interfere between me and your mother, I’ll promise never to mention Fernbank again in her hearing, unless she mentions it first. I may be a hard man, a keen business man, but I respect a worthy opponent, and you are just that, Sister Benyon. Will you shake hands on that little bargain, and may the best one win?’

CHAPTER XVI

It did not take Joy long to walk back to the shore road and to turn in at the gates of Fernbank. It was strange how much more like coming really home it seemed to be walking into this house in which they had lived for so short a time than it had ever seemed in the house in Cranberry Terrace although they had lived there so many years. Laughter sounded from the living-room, and Joy walked in to find a happy little party gathered round the applewood fire Mr. Wrenshaw had insisted upon lighting against the sudden chill of the evening.

Under the light of the electric lamp, Lana looked suddenly more like the lively, lovely girl Joy remembered from the days before her sister’s accident had happened. Michael sat beside her, peeling an apple which he handed over to the girl as though laying a trophy at her feet. Impulsively Joy asked: ‘What does your father say about all the time you spend with us, Michael?’

There was silence for a moment, then Michael gave a rather forced laugh.

‘I’m afraid he doesn’t know,’ he confessed. ‘But he’ll have to know one day soon, won’t he?’ he demanded, looking at Lana.

‘That depends,’ she answered evasively, Joy thought, but the pretty colour swept into her sister’s cheeks as Michael continued.

‘I’ve a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering,’ he said without boasting, ‘and I can earn a good living in any part of the world. If Father doesn’t like what I do, what friends I choose to make, then there’s no more to be said. I don’t interfere with his life. What right has he to interfere in mine? I’m a man now, not a child.’

‘He won’t be interfering in mine much longer,’ Cara put in. ‘I shall soon be living in the Nurses’ Home, and I’m over eighteen and shall be earning enough to pay my way, so I’m afraid the days of just moving
me
around like a figure on a chess board to suit his own convenience are over as well.’

‘Parents,’ Beryl put in unexpectedly, ‘can be difficult. But one has to admit it must sometimes be difficult for them too.’

‘Granted,’ Michael said cheerfully, ‘but that’s one of the risks I suppose one has to be prepared to take. I mean, there must be lots of compensations to having a family as well as all the obligations and queer bits that come along in the fullness of time! If only parents would realize when it’s time to let go of the leading strings, so to speak, and that one is old enough to stand on one’s own feet...’

The discussion was waxing fast and furious when Quentin tapped on the door and came in. He looked round at the assembled company, then directly at Joy.

‘I just popped in as I passed to let you know your mother’s fever has broken and that she’s sleeping like a baby,’ he told her. ‘All she needs now is plenty of rest and quiet, then a week or two resting, relaxing, until she regains her strength. Dad told me when he came in a few minutes ago, and I thought I’d just come down and tell you myself, rather than telephone.’

‘Thanks,’ Joy said briefly, but her heart, as always, seemed to be playing tricks with Quentin around, and although she echoed Jenny’s immediate suggestion that he should stay and take a ‘pot luck’ supper with them, she wondered dismally how he felt seeing Lana and Michael so engrossed and apparently so happy together.

‘Have we time for a little walk along the beach first, Jenny Wren?’ Quentin smiled as he put the question. Long ago he had fallen into the family habit of addressing friendly Jenny by the pet name with which they had endowed her. ‘I rather wanted to talk to Miss Joy, and it’s a lovely night.’

‘Half an hour, maybe three-quarters, Doctor, will that do for you?’ Jenny asked, and Quentin nodded, turning to Joy as he did so.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked, and, feeling as though her heart had left her breast and was somehow
lodged uncomfortably in her throat, she shook her head.

‘I’ll just get a headscarf,’ she told him. ‘There was a wind when I came back from the Mount tonight.’

‘The Mount?’ Quentin stared at her in astonishment. ‘What were you doing there?’

‘I went to tell Sam Bainbridge not to bother Mother any more about gaining the possession of Fernbank,’ she told him. ‘We ... parted amiably,’ she added quickly as she saw Quentin’s look of astonishment.

‘I have to hand it to you, Joy,’ he commented as, without a protest from her, he tucked her hand under his arm and led the way, striding briskly, down to where the shore road ran to the steps which led them on to the sand. ‘Let’s walk closer to the sea,’ he suggested.

‘The sand’s firmer down there. I used to bring the dogs down here when I was younger, before I went away to medical school. There’s something so satisfying about the sea, the stars and a quiet night,’ he mused aloud. ‘Seems to make all one’s problems fade into insignificance.’

‘I feel that too.’ Joy was recovering her equilibrium which had been so unexpectedly disturbed by Quentin’s tucking her hand under his arm. ‘Somehow the mere fact that the sea has been there since the beginning of time, going back and forth, rising and falling, seems to have a strangely soothing quality about it. That and the sky above ... men in the moon and on rockets, walking in space and all the rest of it notwithstanding. It still seems to give such a feeling of peace one feels instinctively there’s something ... infinite ... watching, looking after all our concerns, if only we’ll allow it to do so, and it’s an awful help when things get ... sort of on top of one.’

‘They’ve been rather “on top” of all of us for the last few weeks, haven’t they, Joy?’ Quentin asked casually, coming to rest near a breakwater and stopping to lean against it. ‘But there
are
a few bright spots as well,’ he added, ‘if only we can look for them.’

‘There are,’ Joy agreed, suddenly remembering how frightened she had been when she had thought tragedy seemed about to overtake them through her mother. ‘I can’t tell you what it meant to have that message about Mother this evening.’

‘I can imagine,’ Quentin said quietly, ‘that’s why I came instead of telephoning. There are other “bright spots” too, Joy. Haven’t you noticed how much better Lana is looking these days?’

‘She is,’ Joy agreed. How could she have failed to do so?’ She’s so much brighter, so much more willing to try and do little things to help, limited though she may be. She’s a different girl, thanks to you and Miss Calvin and Hugh Tate. It almost makes me believe you will be right about her altogether, and that she
will
walk again, be able to take part in ... real living, just as she used to do.’

‘She will,’ Quentin said confidently. ‘I told you in the beginning that she would. How will you feel, Joy, when your mother—as I’m certain she will one day, whatever the outcome about Fernbank—marries Sam Bainbridge? I hope she does, anyway. They’ll be good for each other. He needs someone like your mother that he can spoil, show off and be proud of all at the same time. She needs someone like him, someone she can lean on, when the burden gets a little heavy, and it will go on getting heavy until the twins are through! With your mother married to Sam and Lana able to stand on her own feet again, the Wrenshaws and Cousin Emma well able to take care of themselves and of each other, their roof and board assured, how will you feel then, Joy of the all-giving heart, with so many burdens lifted from your shoulders as it were?’

‘I hadn’t really thought about it,’ Joy hedged. ‘I ... I have my job,’ she lifted her chin proudly. He mustn’t ever think that anyone who accepted responsibility for Lana, even when she could walk and do all the things she had done in the old days, should also automatically assume any form of responsibility for her too! ‘I might try for Assistant Matron somewhere in the future,’ she offered. ‘I’ve always fancied that when I’d gained enough experience.’

‘I see.’ He was silent for a few moments then, taking out his cigarette case and lighter, he lit two cigarettes and passed one to her, drawing deeply on the other before he spoke again. ‘And what about ... Pete?’ he asked lightly. ‘Doesn’t he come into your schemes somewhere?’

‘Pete?’ Joy’s laughter this time was quite genuine, and she was relieved to hear that it apparently held none of the hysteria she had been afraid might sound all too clearly in its revealing depths. ‘I think it won’t be very long before he and Beryl make up their minds to do something about at least getting engaged,’ she prophesied, ‘and then Sam will have another fit. That will interfere with another of the favourite schemes he and his partner had in mind, I think.’

‘ “The best-laid schemes of mice and men,” ’ Quentin quoted with a small laugh. ‘Shall we be getting back?’ he went on lightly. ‘Jenny Wren will have a fit if we overstay her time.’

He was very quiet on their return walk back to the shore road. What was the use? He asked himself the question, but there was no satisfactory answer. Abruptly, almost at the gate he tried again.

‘Joy,’ he said, halting abruptly and facing her, so that she had to look up at him, ‘will you use your imagination just for a moment, please? Will you try and imagine what it would be like if you loved someone very much ... not your mother, not Lana or anyone in the family ... a stranger ... and you saw there was a burden you might help to lighten, just what difference would it make to you in your life? You’d want to do all you could, wouldn’t you, to help?’

‘I ...of course.’ Joy wondered what he was trying to tell her. Could he be telling her he hoped, before long, to relieve her of the ‘burden’ that was Lana ... Lana whom neither she or her mother had ever regarded as anything but a precious charge for whom they would do their best as long as they could?

‘You’d want to help, without letting them feel under an obligation of any kind, wouldn’t you?’ Quentin persisted. ‘Just what difference would someone like that make to your life?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve never even thought about love like that.’ He would never know she was lying to him, she told herself fiercely, never know how much she longed to throw herself into his arms and tell him all that was in her heart. ‘As I said before, all this ... Lana, Mother, the twins, Cousin Emma and the Wrenshaws, they’re all part of my life. I can’t imagine
anything
making any difference to that.’

‘Not even if Lana is soon well again?’ Quentin persisted.

Joy made a tremendous effort. Whatever he was trying to tell her she knew no other way in which to help him.

‘As I said before,’ she reminded him with what dignity she could muster when her heart was playing all these foolish tricks, ‘I have my profession.’

‘Of course,’ Quentin agreed, sighing as he took her by the elbow and propelled her up the path. ‘And a very noble one too ... and now I suggest we go and do justice to whatever Mrs. Wrenshaw has prepared for what she termed a “pot luck” supper.’

It was obviously no use, he told himself with resignation. Joy was one of the people born into this world to give out to others all their days. He had known she was like that from the first moment of meeting, but he had hoped that once Lana was able to walk again, once her mother had someone else with whom to share the burdens and responsibilities of family life, Joy would feel free to live a life of her own, a life in which she could enjoy herself like any normal girl and plan to make a life of her own as a woman, with the man she loved and who loved her by her side.

He could wait, he told himself, but it might have been so much easier if only he had not promised Lana and Michael he would keep their secret just a little longer. What was it Hugh Tate had said?

‘Any time now we can give it a try. She’ll do nicely ... but somehow, with the polio scare, the illness of Joy’s mother and the arrival of Pete and Beryl on the scene, the essential thing, so far as Quentin was concerned, seemed to have disappeared.

‘You ought to tell Joy,’ Celia had cautioned him. ‘She may misunderstand completely why she’s been kept in the dark.’

‘Lana wants it to be a surprise,’ was Quentin’s reply. ‘And after all, it’s her affair, Mother. I promised, because I didn’t want her to grow agitated, as she was doing when I mentioned that Joy ought to be told.’

‘Well, dear,’ Celia sighed, ‘you know what’s the best thing to do in the circumstances. But your father says that on no account must Mrs. Benyon be worried.’

‘I know that,’ Quentin’s smile had been a little grim.

‘It seems everyone hasn’t to be worried but Joy! No one seems to mind just how much worry
she
gets! That’s one of the reasons I’d like to take her out of it all.’

‘You couldn’t do that,’ Celia had said positively. ‘She’s not the sort of girl to allow anyone to take her away from what she considers to be her obligations. Miss Barnes knew what she was doing when she chose Sister Benyon to take over Fernbank and all that goes with it!’

That was true, Quentin thought as he watched her now. She was helping Jenny as though she herself were paid to do just that, not as if Jenny ought to be waiting on her, as the older woman would have willingly done, but ‘sit down for a while, Jenny, and I’ll do the dishes. It won’t take more than a few minutes, and you’ve worked hard all day,’ Joy was saying with a smile.

Quentin sighed again, signalled to Michael and the two young men each picked up a tea towel and, despite Jenny’s protests, began to wipe the crocks, making a game and a race of it, teasing Joy and making Lana laugh. Beryl found herself dismissed to go and make sure Pete’s room was aired, and in less time than they could have believed possible, everything, as Eric Wrenshaw suddenly broke his customary silence to observe, was ‘ship-shape and Bristol fashion’. The observation, coming as it did from the normally silent old man, caused a diversion, and when he began to tell them stories of ‘my navy days’ it became so absorbing that before Quentin looked at his watch and reminded Joy she would have to be on duty the following morning, everyone was ready for a second cup of tea!

‘And this time you’ll leave the pots, and that’s
my
orders, Miss Joy,’ Jenny commented. ‘Though I must say I’ve enjoyed this evening as I’d never expected to when I first saw your dear mother and the state she was in when Doctor Quentin called.’