The Little Doctor (3 page)

She flung the door wide, forcing a welcoming smile to her lips, and found him standing out there in the mellow autumnal dusk.

“Max!”

Colin Jeffreys glanced from one of them to the other.

“I had no idea you two knew each other,” he began. “I didn’t even tell Max where I was bringing him. By Jove! this is a coincidence!”

If you had told him, Jane thought bitterly, he would not have come. She had seen it in Maxwell Kilsyth’s eyes in that first moment of painful recognition; she could feel the certainty of it now in every conventional word they exchanged.

“It was a very long time ago,” she said in a voice that seemed to belong to a stranger.
“
We were students together, but Max graduated before I
d
id.”

And married someone else. The words rang in her ears as if they had been uttered aloud in the quiet of the small, inadequate hallway that brought them so near while she waited to take his coat and hat.

“It’s a small world!” Colin Jeffreys declared jovially. “Max is on his way home and I offered to put him up for the night.
I
can’t get over you two knowing one another,” he repeated. “Yes, indeed, it is a
very
small world!”

The banal words drifted above Jane’s head, while all the time she was looking at Max, searching his gray eyes for something of the truth, for a hint, perhaps, that what had existed between them in the past still counted for something with him.

Madness! For what had been between them? No more than a student love affair, a youthful, ecstatic dream that had faded swiftly and forever.

“
W
ill you come up?”

She paused on the bottom stair to wait for the two men—Max, so tall and distinguished-looking, yet older, much older in some undefinable way. The hall was softly lit, but there was a harshness about the contours of his face that was new. In just over four years all the boyishness had gone out of it, leaving it hard and set. The firm lips that had once pressed her own were too stern, and all the laughter had gone out of his eyes. It was the face of a man who had come a long way to disillusionment, but who was still determined to fight back.

She could not say why she knew all this in that brief moment as he stepped across her threshold for the first time. She had no real right to feel it, but the impression was stronger than reason and the conviction that they would meet again, many times, rushed in upon her with a curious certainty.

“When did you decide to come south of the Border?” he asked when, for a moment, they stood alone at the top of the stairs.

“I came when I graduated. I did my hospital year in Manchester.”

There had been no thought in her mind at that time that she should come to England because he had gone there before her. The
Manchester appointment had been suitable; she had applied for it and had been accepted. It had all been as simple as that. They had both graduated, putting the past firmly behind them. And now there was this.

“What are you doing in Allingham?” Max asked.

“I’m in charge of the Mobile Unit.”

“A D.P.H.!” For a moment there was a flicker of laughter in his eyes, the old Max, faintly teasing. “I think I warned you once about the hazards of possessing beauty and brains!”

“You always said I would marry before I got my degree.” The words were out before she could check herself, revealing words to him, a poignant memory straight out of the past.

“Then
,
” he glanced at the closed door ahead of them— “you haven’t married?
”

Hot color stained her cheeks and she was glad that there was no bright light out here at the top of the stairs.

“
No,” she answered unequivocally, “I haven’t married.”

“Here we are!” Colin Jeffreys puffed, reaching the narrow landing. “Must be out of training, by jove! A flight of stairs never used to worry me.”

“They’re rather steep,” Jane agreed as she opened the sitting room door.

While she had been out Nicholas had switched on the lights—a standard lamp and four wall
sconces that shed a warm yellow glow on her purple carpet. Did Max remember how she had loved all the shades of lilac, from this rich deep purple to the palest mauve?

She saw his gaze range round the room, but his eyes told her nothing, and she turned to introduce him to Nicholas.

When they stood together they were exactly the same height. If Nicholas had straightened he would have been the taller of the two, but the slight stoop was habitual now. He measured Max with an obvious reserve.

“Nick,” she heard herself saying, “I want you to meet Maxwell Kilsyth. He’s come with Doctor Jeffreys. I told you that Colin had phoned earlier to say he was bringing a friend.”

It all sounded so artificial, so forced, because at least Nicholas knew.

They shook hands, and Max said:

“I’ve been anxious to meet you for some time. I read your paper in the
Lancet
last month. It was most interesting.”

“I’ve just come back from London, as a matter of fact,” Nicholas answered evenly. “The seeds I tried to sow are gradually taking root, I’m glad to say. As a matter of fact, I had a long
and
interesting talk with a friend of yours about it. Hilton Cromer Browne.”

The name must have been like a slap in the face to Max, if what Nicholas had told her was true. No one in his right professional senses would have left Harley Street at this stage in a career with such tremendous possibilities in view. To be taken up by Hilton Cromer Browne was any man’s dream of success. It was far more than one step in the right direction, but Max had let it go.

“I worked with him for three years. It was a tremendous experience,” he said. “One I shall never forget.”

A small pulse was beating high in his lean cheek, but otherwise he had not shown any sign of emotion. The doorbell pealed again and Jane went down to admit her other guests.

Three carloads had arrived together, so that when she brought them all upstairs the flat seemed very full.

It was a congenial little party. The women all knew one another and most of the men present. It only remained to introduce Max to them.

“My dear!” Hattie Clark enthused when Max had moved on. “He’s terrific! Where did you find him?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Jane smiled, avoiding an answer. “I’ve known him for years and years.”

They all thought that Max was a bachelor. They had taken it for granted because his wife wasn’t with him. Where was Valerie? She was the sort of person who gravitated toward a party, Jane knew.

“Max,” she asked when they had circled the room, “how is Valerie?”

He poured himself another drink before he answered.

“She’s well,” he said after the briefest pause. “She decided that Allingham might not be her kind of climate, and, after a
l
l, I was coming down on business.”

“Yes.” She looked down into her empty glass. “It’s strange, Max, meeting you like this after all these years.
”

“Surrounded by the pack in full cry, do you mean?”

The faint cynicism distressed her, because she knew that he had just heard Reggie Bullyn discussing him with Colin—asking questions, probing into t
h
e past, wondering why a Harley Street man should suddenly decide to give it all up and disappear into virtual obscurity in the pr
o
vinces.

“It doesn’t matter to you, does it?” she said suddenly, meeting his direct gaze. “About ‘the pack,’ I mean.”

“I haven’t changed,” he assured her.

“I would have been surprised if you had,” she managed to say quite lightly. “You never cared much for public opinion, for what people might say or think about you, so long as you felt that what you were doing was right. You always made your decisions and stuck to them.
”

“Rightly or wrongly,” he agreed laconically. His lips had a sudden wry twist to them and the smile did not quite reach his eyes. “You don’t look any different, Jane,” he added surprisingly.

“Not even with D.P.H. after my name?” she teased, her heart beating fast because his nearness still had its old power to stir her, to make her feel weak and foolish and yearning once more. “I should have thought the years would have sobered me considerably.”

“Not so many years,” he reminded her. “Or do you consider them a lifetime?
”

“Four years can be a lifetime, Max,” she said.

It would have been nothing if she had been waiting for him, standing there in the background with love and trust in her heart while he set about making his mark in the world. But this emptiness, knowing that waiting was useless—that he had not asked her to wait.

She ought to be indifferent to him by now, to be able to stifle all love, but it was no use. It had not taken this unexpected meeting to convince her. She had always known. She was his inevitably, although he had never really wanted her. They had shared a lovely idyll, a young romance in the most romantic circumstances in the world, but that was all. For Max it had been over as soon as he had seen Valerie again.

She ought to hate him. Perhaps she did, deep in her heart. Hate him for the hurt and the suffering and all the anguish of these four long years when she had walked alone imagining him married to Valerie, loving Valerie, cherishing her
...

“It looks as if we might be seeing quite a lot of each other in future,” he said in a voice that seemed oddly strained. “We’ll be more or less working together, I understand.”

Jane’s eyes flew to his, disavowal strong in them as she sought to deny such a possibility, knowing its difficulty for them both.

“You’re not—coming to the hospital?”

“No,” he said, “but you are apparently coming to me. Before I knew it was you I was about to meet, Jane, Colin Jeffreys told me that you are to take over the clinics in the dale. Six months ago,” he added harshly, “I came to a country practice in Friardale. We’re living at Kirby Marton, and the Unit comes up as far as that once a week.”

How long she stood there without speaking Jane did not know. It seemed an eternity.

“It can’t be true,” she protested, at last. “It can’t be, Max!”

He smiled thinly.

“I’m afraid it’s true enough,” he said. “I’m sorry, Jane.”

“I—don’t apologize. You couldn’t have known anything about it, and it can’t matter to you, anyway.”

Childish, immature, her words flew out at him, telling him so plainly that it mattered to her. For a moment she imagined that she saw a reflection of her own agony in the gray eyes as they continued to hold hers, but it could not be any more than a trick of her imagination. It could have been pity, perhaps, stirring in him because the years between had given her so little, because they had failed to bring her happiness.

Max sorry for her! She froze at the suggestion. How can I bear his pity? And how can I meet Valerie, knowing how much he loves her? Without knowing why, she felt sure that he had come to Friardale—to Kirby Marton of all places—because of Valerie.

Yet Valerie and Kirby Marton had nothing in common. They were miles apart. Vividly she remembered Valerie, the exotic bloom, educated at an expensive school and “finished” on the Continent. Valerie had just returned from Lausanne when Max had married her, but it had been nothing sudden, it would seem. He had known her as a child, as a schoolgirl, but never before as the finished product.

Jane ran a shaking hand through her hair. Why am I torturing myself in this way, she thought, when there’s Nicholas? But she could not think of Nicholas in that moment.

Her other guests claimed her. She had to put on a false face; a happy, smiling face, making sure that she remained the perfect hostess, while all the time her heart was being torn apart by the cry of Max! Max! Nothing was changed. I’m still as madly, as hopelessly in love with you as I ever was!

Nicholas stayed behind after the others had gone. When the last car had reversed out on to the cobbles and driven away, he turned slowly from the window, gathering up odd glasses here and there to put them on the tray.

“Don’t bother about them, Nick,” Jane said. “Mrs. Henry will do them in the morning. It’s very late.”

He smiled wryly, but for a moment he chose to ignore her last remark.

“Jane,” he asked, “how well did you know Valerie Lisbon?”

“Valerie?” Her back was to him as she fumbled for a cigarette in the box on the bureau. She rarely smoked, but at that moment she felt very much in need of a cigarette. “Not very well. They lived in Edinburgh, but Valerie was away at school in England most of the time, and then abroad.” She swung round at last, waiting for him to find his lighter. “Why do you ask?” she managed steadily enough.

“I wondered if you and she had been friends.”

“Good gracious, no! The sort of life Valerie led could only be imagined by someone like me!”

His dark brows rose quizzically.

“Explain, will you?”

Jane drew nervously on her lighted cigarette.

“Well, for one thing, Valerie was never denied anything in her life. Her grandfather was a tremendously wealthy man. Surely you’ve heard of Lisbon’s whiskey? Old Claymore! All the best people drink it!”