The Little Doctor (9 page)

CHAPTER
FIVE

It was three weeks before she saw Max and Valerie again. They had had a busy three weeks in Allingham, where work and more work had been the order of the day, and the dale clinics had been especially heavy.

Jane, with a full fortnight of her annual leave still to take, hadn’t even had time to think about a holiday. Nicholas had been away for two weeks, combining a walking tour through Switzerland with a conference of surgeons at Geneva, and she had felt lonely in consequence.

A desperate sort of loneliness attacked her at the end of each day, forcing her to realize how much Nicholas’ companionship had meant to her. Even if they did talk shop most of the time they were together, there was a warm little feeling of belonging underneath it all that helped to drive away despair.

The bright autumn weather had held into the second week in November, and it had been a joy to drive up into the dales over a carpet of fallen brown leaves. The cast of russet and gold glistened when the sun slanted down through the trees.

Valerie had not made any attempt to come to the caravan again, although Jane had seen the white car moving at a moderate speed over the hill road toward Marton Heights. She had no doubt that it was driven by Timson, with Valerie as his passenger.

When she was sure that Max would be in his surgery, Jane had phoned the house once and had been told by Agnes that her mistress was “her old self again.”

“Jane,” Nicholas said on his return from Geneva, “you’ve got to take some leave. Soon. I mean that,” he argued when she gave a small, deprecating shrug. “It’s due to you and you need a rest. You’re as white as a ghost.”

“I don’t feel any different,” Jane attempted to assure him. “Tired, perhaps, but aren’t we all?”

“Look!” he said, “I insist on this. I’m hoping to marry you, Jane. I don’t want a wife whose nerves are shredded to pieces with overwork just because she’s too pig-headed to give in.”

“I’ll give in, as you call it, in a week or two,” she promised. “I’ll take my leave for Christmas.”

They had come back to the flat after an enjoyable evening at the theater in York, and Nicholas took her in his arms.

“Jane,” he said, “I don’t
want to be insistent, but what’s the good of waiting—hanging on like this? We could be married by Christmas.” He held her close. “You could come back to your work if you like, for a spell, anyway, until they found someone to take your place.” His lips came down on her hair, reminding her of the way Max had kissed Valerie. “Think it over, Jane,” he urged. “We could go back to Switzerland—or Italy, if you would like that better—and make it our honeymoon.”

That sudden, unbidden thought of Max when Nicholas has kissed her racked Jane like some physical pain. She knew that she couldn’t go on like this, thinking of Max, loving him to distraction still, hoping—yes, hoping with every breath she drew that today, tomorrow or one day soon she would see him again.

There was so much danger in what she felt that she knew she must make a clean break somewhere. Quite soon Nicholas would take up a new appointment. He was a brilliant surgeon and he could not remain in Allingham much longer. In time he would go to Leeds, or even to London. Was this the door Fate was holding open to her? To go with Nicholas as his wife?

She ought to be able to take the plunge without a tremor. She had already acknowledged the fact that Max was long since lost to her. Even if he had not been so deeply in love with Valerie, she was not the sort of person to indulge in intrigue.

“I wish I could say ‘yes’, Nicholas,” she answered quite truthfully, “but it takes time.”

“I thought I had given you quite a lot of time.” He still held her. “I’ve been telling you I loved you for the best part of two years now. Perhaps you’ll begin to realize that after a while.”

Restlessly she stirred in his arms.

“I do realize it, Nick, only—isn’t it taking a risk?”

“Not for me.” He was completely assured. “I know what I want, Jane, and I think I can give you stability and peace, at least.”

Stability. Peace. Was that what she wanted, all she could really hope for? Suddenly Nicholas’ arms closed round her in a fierce grip, and all the desire he had kept at bay for so long was in his eyes as he bent his lips to hers. It would have been easy enough to surrender her will to his, to take what he was offering with both hands with a new thankfulness in her heart, easy to go with him to the ends of the earth, if need be, and to forget Max in time.

All that was sane and practical and experienced in her allowed her to respond
to Nicholas’ lovemaking. She could give him friendship and loyalty and affection. She knew herself capable of all these things, and passion faded so swiftly, didn’t it?

“Nick!” she whispered. “Nick, it isn’t fair—!”

He carried her toward the divan in front of the electric fire, which he had switched on when they came in.

“Most things are fair in love,” he told her passionately. “Or so they say! I can’t expect you to give me everything at first. I know you were deeply in love with Kilsyth, but it would come, Jane. It would be our sort of love—different, but satisfying in its own way in the end. I can assure you of that.”

And she needed so desperately to be assured! But before Christmas Nicholas had a lecture tour to do in America and it seemed foolish to make plans just now.

“If I gave you my answer at Christmas,” she suggested, sitting up within the circle of his arms, “would that do, Nicholas?”

He got up to light a cigarette, his hands none too steady as he sought for the match.

“It will have to do,” he said harshly.

To Jane it felt like cheating, but what more could she promise? By Christmas, or even before then, she would have thrashed out everything in her
m
ind. She would have had time to think.

T
h
e following day she went with the clinic to Kirby Marton. The weather had turned suddenly cold, but it was still dry, and the keen hill air was like a tonic as she breathed it in. When they reached the market place, the local hunt was assembling and Jane got out of the car to watch. The hounds were milling around in their usual excitement before the chase, long tails lashing to and fro, and the horses were restless and eager to go. She recognized Edward Jakes and Jim Crow, both mounted on superb hunters, and then she turned and saw Valerie.

She was standing beside Max with a look of utter desolation in her blue eyes, but it was the sullen mouth that disturbed Jane most of all. Max was going to have trouble with Valerie if he attempted to curb her spirit at every turn.

They came over to stand beside the car.

“Are you going to follow?” Valerie asked. “I thought, when you came up early—
”

“
I’m afraid not.” Jane gave Max a brief smile in greeting. “We have rather a big clinic, so I arranged to tack on a couple of hours this morning.”

“I see.” Valerie’s eyes were still on the tall, heavy figure of Edward Jakes. He seemed to dominate the whole field in his perfectly-cut wine coat and white breeches. “Eddie always looks as if he’s been born on horseback,” she rushed on. “Max! Why don’t you trust me to ride? I was practically brought up in the saddle, you know.”

“When we can find a suitable mount for you,” Max said, evasively, “I shall have no objections.”

Valerie made a face at him.

“What you consider suitable, you mean!” she exclaimed with
swift impatience. “A nice, docile little mare with perfect manners who will jog along at an easy pace and think of a fence as the end of the world! I know your sort of horses, Max, and I wouldn’t give a fig to ride one of them!”

An angry red spot of color had appeared high on either cheek and quick tears had gathered in the blue eyes; tears of chagrin that made Jane feel uncomfortable. Sometimes she thought that Valerie deserved to be spanked, while at others she wondered if Max wasn’t being a little too hard.

Max, however, was not prepared to argue. He glanced at his watch and turned away.

“If you’re going to follow, Val, ask Timson to be back to pick me up at five, will you? I want to run out to Hopewell to see the Fielding children, and my car will be in the garage for a repair job all afternoon.”

“Would you care to use mine?” Jane offered. “It will only be standing idle beside the caravan till five o’clock.”

Max hesitated.

“Why not?” Valerie suggested a little too eagerly. “It’s a tremendously sensible idea. Then I needn’t rush back.
”

Max agreed to the idea with an odd reluctance, Jane thought.

“I’ll leave my keys with Joe,” she told him as he walked away.

Valerie thrust her clenched fists deep into the pockets of her sheepskin coat.

“I wish Max wouldn’t treat me like an infant!” she sighed. “He won’t let me do a single thing I want to do if it’s at all dangerous. Dangerous from his point of view, that means. He thinks I’ve only to get on a horse to fall off it and hurt myself.”

“He said he wouldn’t mind your having a suitable horse,” Jane pointed out. “It’s perhaps natural that he should be a little nervous if you haven’t ridden to hounds before. All these people”—she swept a hand toward the restive field—“have been doing this sort of thing all their lives. It’s second nature to them and they ride hard—
”

“There has to be a first time,” Valerie broke in impatiently, “for everything.”

“That I know,” Jane agreed with a faint smile. “Don’t be too impatient, Valerie, and Max will come around.”

“But
when?
The season will be over before he finds the ‘right’ horse!”

“He’s not the sort of person to make rash promises,” Jane comforted. “What about a Christmas present? He may give you a horse for Christmas.”

“I ought to have it before then.” Valerie’s restlessness was something she could not explain away. “I want something to do—something active-—before it’s too late.”

Jane looked round at her in mild surprise.

“Too late? Valerie, your life’s only beginning,” she started to say, to be suddenly silenced by the strange, bleak look on her companion’s face.

“Of course it’s only beginning,” Valerie agreed, “but it’s going to be all drained of pleasure if Max has his own way. I can’t do this and I’m to do that! Oh! I know he loves me to distraction and cares for me like—like a father, but sometimes I want to tear it all apart and
get away
!”

She bit her lip, thinking, no doubt, that she had confessed too much to a comparative stranger, and, furthermore, a stranger who had once been very much a part of Max’s life.

Jane, for her part, had been shocked into a new awareness of Max’s wife, regarding her for the first time as a “case. The tension in Valerie was obvious to the naked eye at times, and this feverish desire for activity seemed as if it might be more than just misplaced energy. Deep down, Valerie suffered from severe anxiety, but Jane knew too little about psychiatric medicine to prescribe upon such flimsy evidence.

Also, she was too close to Max’s problem to remain wholly impartial, to judge Valerie’s case without prejudice from the outside. If she gave advice it could be tinged with a bias in favor of Max. Already she had lectured Valerie, and if this thing went really deep she might do harm in trying to do good. If Valerie was indeed a “case,” neither Max nor Jane had any right to prescribe for her.

Who, then?

She turned away as Edward Jakes rode up with his stirrup-cup in his hand.

“Don’t tell me we’ve converted you, Doctor?” he smiled with faint mockery in his eyes. “I thought I heard you say the other evening that blood sports were an abomination?”

Jane treated him to a long, level scrutiny. He knows his power, she thought, and she must have looked like a midget tilting at a giant when she answered him.

“
I
said they weren’t exactly my cup of tea. However, I have no objections to other people—”

“Wasting their time?” he supplied. “You’re much too earnest, Doctor! Come over with Valerie after the hunt, and we’ll show you how to relax at the Hall!”

Valerie flushed. She had obviously not told Max that she hoped to return to Whinstanley Hall.

“Jane has work to do, Eddie,” she said before Jane could refuse the invitation for herself. “Besides, you don’t really know when you will finish, do you? If the fun’s good you’ll go on till the light beats you.”

“True,” Jakes agreed, glancing up at the cloud-racked sky above the dale. “But the weather’s already against us, by the look of it. It’s going to be a short meet and a merry one! Well,”—he grinned down at both of them—“see you anon! We must be off!”

It was three o’clock and pouring as if the heavens themselves had burst open when Jane heard the hounds being called away. The long, reedy sound of the hunting-horn came from a considerable distance, echoing through the dale like a fanfare.

The sky had become very black; sullen clouds hung low against the hills; and several of her patients failed to put in an appearance for routine check-ups. Jane could not blame them and told Joe to start packing up after four o’clock.