The Little Doctor Read online

  The crisp, decisive tone so typical of the consultant was suddenly submerged in the humble petition of the lover. Nicholas was making no bones about it. He wanted her; he needed her for the completion of his life’s happiness, and in turn he could make her happy.

  Of course he could make her happy. Jane was aware of that with a quiet conviction, which should have put to flight all her doubts, and she knew that in time she would conquer them. She would forget Max. She would steel herself to forget. Like the memory of her student years, her love for Maxwell Kilsyth would fade in time. There would be no more remembering, no more useless tears.

  “I don’t expect you to give me an answer right away,” Nicholas said. “But the old cliché that neither of us is growing any younger rather applies,” he added. “At least, for me, I’m thirty-four, and I don’t want to wait till I’m forty before I can put my feet up in my own home.”

  “I couldn’t expect you to do that,” Jane agreed.

  She wished she could give him her answer now. She ought to be able to say “yes” right away, because she intended to marry Nicholas, but something held her back. It was more than indecision, more than the sentimental reluctance to relinquish the past or face the future with one tiny reserve in her heart. It was almost a premonition of something not yet fulfilled, of fate standing silently but watchfully in the background ready to weave another strand through the delicate web of her life’s pattern.

  “How long will it take for you to sort things out?” Nicholas asked.

  She toyed with the food on her plate, aware that the surest, the most honest way was to cut right through her memories and look only to the future, but she could not.

  “I have no right to keep you waiting,” she said. “I ought to tell you to forget me altogether.”

  He looked straight at her.

  “Do you think that would be easy under the circumstances?” he demanded.

  “No,” she admitted. “Not easy when we practically work together—when we meet each other almost every day. Allingham is too small a place, but soon you will be going away—to Leeds or perhaps even to London.”

  “If I go to London or even to Leeds,” he said steadily, “I want you to come with me.”

  How foolish to hesitate, Jane thought. How easy to say “I’ll come!” Their life together would be full and pleasant and rewarding.

  She ate her slice of melon in silence. The orchestra was playing a very old waltz tune, something she had danced to long ago, but she could not put a name to it. It nagged at her mind. Remember? The little yearning refrain kept repeating, but the words evaded her. Something silly and sentimental and reeking of the past? Something young and vital and pushed aside with all her other dreams.

  “I should have given you time to change,” Nicholas was saying. “Then we could have danced.”

  “I should have given you time...” He was offering her time, and now, in a sudden panic, she didn’t want it. She wanted to tell him without further demur that she would marry him—now, in three weeks’ time, if he so desired. Now—before their youth had fled away.

  She was twenty-seven. Not a great age, but Nicholas was thirty-four and he had said that he didn’t want to wait for a home until he was forty.

  She was sure she could make that home for him, sure that she could offer him companionship and friendship and trustworthiness and—yes, love in the end. Love grew out of little things, in time.

  “Nicholas,” she began, looking out through the uncurtained window into the shadowy night, “If you would really like my answer right away—”

  A man was getting out of a car that he had parked in the open space before the main door, a tall man, as tall as Nicholas, with a lined brown face and dark, unruly hair; a man so like the image in her heart that her lips even formed its name.

  “Max!”

  The man stooped to speak to someone in the car. It was too dark for her to see, but she thought it was a woman, and when he straightened again she saw that he was too old to be Max. Yet the little incident had thrown her into the old panic. If it had been Max, what could she have said to him or he to her?

  “I don’t want your answer now,” Nicholas was assuring her. “I want you to tell me when you feel you are quite sure.”

  The woman in the car got out and came toward the door of the hotel, waiting in the porch for her companion to follow her. I mustn’t see them, Jane thought. Even if it isn’t Max.

  But of course it wasn’t Max! How could he be here when he was in London, safely installed in Harley Street, she had heard, in partnership with Sir Francis’s old colleague, Hilton Cromer Browne? He had done so well; he had achieved so much with a little help, a few strings pulled at the right moment and in the right direction.

  Don’t be bitter, she admonished herself. He was brilliant. He was meant to go right to the top.

  Over coffee they discussed the hospital, the inevitable “shop” that was part of their lives.

  “When Roger Curtis goes at the end of the month,” Jane said, “they want me to take over the rest of the dales.”

  “That’s outrageous!” Nicholas was angry. “You have enough to do.”

  “I could manage it, at a pinch. It would mean a rather hectic round on Wednesdays and Fridays, but I could cope, at least for a time,” she decided.

  “That would probably mean for all time,” he pointed out dryly, ordering the liqueur she liked. “You know what the Board is when they feel that one is ‘coping’ adequately. I won’t let you do it.”

  “I promise you I won’t let it become a permanency,” she said, smiling across the table at him. “And if you take me out to dinner like this once in a while it will make amends!”

  “If you’re going on to the dales you won’t have time even to see me,” he said wrathfully. “It will be after seven before you get back on at least two nights a week, and then you’ll be too tired to do anything but collapse on to your bed and sleep. I won’t have it, Jane,” he added more seriously. “I won’t have you endangering your health when there’s absolutely no need for it. They can find someone else.”

  “Curiously enough,” Jane said as they rose to go, “I think I would like to do the dales. It’s lovely up there at this time of year, Nick—so remote and still—and the children are shy and absolutely enchanting.”

  “You can quite easily look at the dales from the passenger seat of my car,” he told her decisively. “I’ll go into this,” he warned, “and if I don’t like the look of it I won’t let you do it.”

  Again there was that suggestion of shielding her from possible harm, the warm, friendly comfort of being cared for, even cosseted a little, and Jane let it flow over her as they, walked out into the gray dusk of the autumn night. She kept her eyes firmly averted as they passed the table where the man who could have been Maxwell Kilsyth was ordering drinks for his companion and himself. The girl’s back was turned to her, and it was madness to imagine that she, too, had looked like Valerie.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was a week before she saw Nicholas again. He had gone to a medical conference in London and did not return until the following Saturday, by which time Jane had already promised to undertake the extra work in the dales.

  “I couldn’t refuse,” she told him when they met in the hospital on the Monday afternoon. “We’re terribly pressed for staff and Colin Jeffreys practically begged me to fill in for a week or two. As a matter of fact,” she added, “it would seem as if he’d prefer me to take over permanently, provided he could get someone else for the local round.”

  “And what did you decide?” he asked.

  “Nothing definite, at the moment.”

  She could sense his displeasure, was aware, too, of some deeper current running strongly beneath the surface as he said:

  “Jeffreys is making a general factotum out of you just now. It won’t do!”

  Jane smiled resignedly.

  “He’s very worried, Nick,” she pointed out. “This polio scare has bee
n a bad one and we have all these immunizations on our hands. We’re short of vaccine, too, and people are still queuing. You can’t start a campaign and not follow it up because you didn’t expect it to be quite so successful.”

  “Agreed,” he acknowledged rather abruptly.

  They had come out into the warm autumn sunshine and Jane felt as if she had reached some sort of crossroads as she halted on the broad stone step.

  “I’m having a few people in for cocktails this evening, Nick,” she said, wondering why she should feel so confused about making such a simple request. “Will you come?”

  “Thank you.” He looked down at her, faintly amused, although there was still a vaguely guarded expression in his eyes. “Why the celebration?”

  “It isn’t exactly a celebration.” Her vivid smile flashed out. “To be brutally candid, I owe so much hospitality that I simply had to do it!”

  “What did I tell you? You’re becoming a martyr to your career.”

  “I hope not. I must rush away now,” she added. “Mrs. Henry has been at the flat all afternoon, but I like to attend to the drinks myself.”

  “If you need any help—” he offered.

  “Would you? Half an hour earlier than the others? I’d be deeply grateful, Nick.”

  He held open the door of her car.

  “See you at six,” he said briefly as she drove away.

  I’ll have to come to some sort of decision about Nicholas quite soon, she thought as she steered the car through the hospital gateway. I can’t keep him dangling on a string indefinitely. It just wouldn’t be fair.

  Uneasily she reviewed the moment of final resolve only to push it once more to the back of her mind as she reached the flat.

  Number twenty-eight, The Mews was part of a sleepy backwater stretching between the river and a narrow, cobbled street that had once been the main thoroughfare through the town. Bypassed now by a more modern highway, it lay deserted and at peace, the old terraced houses, too large for modern living, divided into useful flats. Jane had managed to secure one after she had been a year in her present job, largely through the influence of the Medical Officer of Health. She had been more than grateful for his help. Coming home after a busy day was like entering another world.

  The people in the lower flat kept the garden bright with flowers almost all the year round, and her own small contribution to the color and brightness was a couple of window boxes which she had just painted a bright yellow to match her front door.

  Inserting her key in the lock, she was aware of a vague peace laying gentle fingers on the turmoil of her thoughts. Was this, after all, what life was meant to be like for her? The quiet backwater with her work as compensation for the odd moments of unutterable loneliness?

  “Oh, Doctor, it’s you!” Mrs. Henry came fussing through from the tiny kitchen as she reached the top of the stairs. She was a small, wiry Yorkshirewoman who “did for” three separate families in the vicinity on six mornings a week as well as keeping her own home in order. She was also willing to “oblige” on the odd afternoon or evening when occasion demanded, because her large family was now off her hands. “I’ve put everything ready, like you said, and the smoked salmon’s under a cloth on a slab.” She began to untie the voluminous apron, which was almost a uniform with her. “If you’d like me to stop a bit longer I will,” she volunteered. “Our Albert’s not coming in till eight and Bob’s on the night shift.”

  “I think I’ll manage, Mrs. Henry, thank you.” Jane had hung up her coat and was making a brief tour of inspection round the three rooms, which, with her own bedroom, comprised the flat. “Everything is just fine. You’ve worked wonders and how nicely you’ve done the flowers!”

  Mrs. Henry beamed. “I like doing them,” she confessed. “My Ernie always used to say I, had a way with flowers. I didn’t bother with no wreath at his funeral. I just made a spray to my own liking, the way I knew he would have wanted it. Purple irises, it were, with deep pink tulips at one side. He never could abide wreaths anyway.”

  Ernie had been dead for several years, Jane knew; a worthy husband who was still deeply mourned.

  Mrs. Henry slipped into her shabby coat.

  “I’ll look in tomorrow morning,” she promised. “I’ve told Mrs. Clements and she says she doesn’t mind changing over for one week, seeing as you’re having a party, like.”

  Jane smiled. No doubt the whole neighborhood would be aware of her small effort at entertaining by now, but Mrs. Henry did not mean any harm. It was natural for her to gossip, and natural that “the little doctor” should be news. Her parties were few and far between.

  She busied herself with the glasses, ran a bath, and was patting her hair into final submission when Nicholas arrived. He carried a sheaf of yellow roses.

  “To match the window boxes!” he announced.

  “Nicholas? Don’t you like my boxes?” She held the roses gently against her face, aware again of that new warmth of belonging his presence brought. “I thought they were just what the flat needed.”

  “They’re very gay.” He took a quick turn about the room, watching as she found a vase for his flowers. “How many people are you expecting?”

  “I invited fourteen.” She stood back to admire the roses.

  “Which means you can count on round about twenty, I should say. Someone’s sure to bring someone else. I know hospital get-togethers!”

  “As a matter of fact,” Jane said, surveying the room for a suitable spot to set down the vase to advantage, “Colin Jeffreys did phone to ask if he might bring a friend. Someone from the dales, I think he said.”

  Nicholas crossed to the window, looking down at the slow-moving river, and something about the stoop of his thin shoulders made Jane cross swiftly to his side.

  “Has anything gone wrong, Nick?” she asked.

  He turned immediately, taking the heavy vase from her and meeting her eyes over the yellow flowers.

  “Not particularly,” he said. “Where do you want me to put these?”

  “Here, I think.” She made room on the rosewood bureau between the two windows. “How did you enjoy London?”

  “The conference went down very well.”

  “Did you do any shows?”

  “No. I had some other business to attend to—in Harley Street, as a matter of fact.”

  For no particular reason Jane’s pulses began to hammer and she felt a quick color flooding into her cheeks.

  “I met Hilton Cromer Browne,” Nicholas said steadily.

  “Oh?” Her hand went quickly to her throat. “He-he was Sir Francis Lisbon’s partner.”

  “Yes.”

  Abruptly she turned to face him, all her courage needed for this moment.

  “Did he—were you introduced to Max?” she asked as steadily as she could.

  “No.” The brief monosyllable sounded almost harsh. “He gave up his partnership with Cromer Browne six months ago.”

  “But, Nicholas—” She stared at him, hardly able to believe what she had heard.

  “It’s almost incredible,” he agreed, “but a fact, for all that. One would hardly expect a man with both feet firmly on the ladder to climb down so quickly.”

  She flushed scarlet.

  “Where has he gone?” she asked weakly.

  “Into general practice.”

  “But, Nick, he was brilliant!”

  “So it would seem.” His lips were curiously tight.

  “I can’t believe it!” She turned back to the window. “I can’t believe he would just—throw in his hand like that. Max was marked out for greatness. He could have gone right to the top.”

  “He had every opportunity,” Nicholas admitted dryly.

  She let that pass. And she felt that she could not question him any more. Nicholas would not feel kindly disposed towards Max, which was perhaps natural under the circumstances.

  “Did Mr. Cromer Browne say why he had left?”

  Long afterwards, when the tide of her living had
carried her into deep waters, she remembered that Nicholas had hesitated before he replied.

  “No,” he said at last. “Only that it was the best thing he could have done.”

  “The best thing?” she repeated dully. “But how could it be? Max wasn’t just an ordinary doctor. He had all the world before him.”

  Nicholas shrugged, picking up a bottle of sherry.

  “The world can sometimes seem, well, lost—for love,” he observed dryly.

  It had been a cruel thing to say to her, and for a split second she hated him for it. Then, slowly and methodically, she began to set the sherry glasses on to a tray.

  “I don’t suppose you know where he has gone?” she asked quietly.

  “I didn’t ask,” he said, and this time she was acutely aware of the reserve in him, which she put down to a natural reluctance to discuss a rival, even if Max could only remain a vague shadowy name out of the past.

  “I see.”

  The doorbell rang and she ran down the stairs to obey its summons almost thankfully, leaving him to carry the tray into the other room. With guests to welcome she would have little opportunity to think for at least an hour or two, and by that time the shock of coming into contact with Max, even if it had only been at third hand, would have passed. Strange, though, that it should have been Nicholas who finally brought her news of him!

  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!”