The man who came back Read online

ture of physician and dominant, egotistical male

  who had yet another side to his personality, and

  could be wonderfully tender on occasion and

  quite unbelievably human. She might even have

  thought of him as vulnerable if she had allowed herself to follow up this train of thought, but

  her common sense asserted itself in time to pre

  vent her becoming entirely enmeshed in a web

  of her own romantic weaving.

  For there was no doubt about it, since that barely conscious moment when she had felt his cool, shaven cheek touch hers, and he had kissed her on the brow, she wanted to dream romantic dreams about him, and she wanted to weave a web about him that would enclose him for ever and always as... hers?

  She denied this, furiously, even to herself when the thought�and the question�intruded. But she knew that if she actually took herself to 1:ask and investigated this altered attitude which had resulted from a dream�nothing romantic

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  about that dream!�a caress which he might have bestowed upon a frightened child, and a promise that she would have a good night when he left�which she did!�then any amount of deliberate self-deception would not prevent a gleam of intelligent daylight getting through to her own inner awareness of what was truth and what was subterfuge.

  She knew, in fact, that her inner awareness would not stand up to investigation�not very much of it, anyway. And that before she received that crack on the head she was one person, and after she received it she was another.

  Or it seemed logical to suppose that contact with a beam in the attics of Falaise had had a remarkable effect on her. The only thing she really wasn't sure about was whether it had needed contact with a beam to alter her attitude to someone as positive as Dr. Philip Drew.

  And now, it seemed, it didn't matter whether she sorted matters out or not, for her sister had returned from London full of determination to appropriate him and discover for herself what manner of man he was. If he had much in common with his formidable ancestor that would not deter Gay ... She thought she had the secret of handling men. And the one thing Harriet couldn't discover was whether she was in love with him, whether she was prepared to fall in love with him if it seemed desirable in the inter

  THE MAN WHO CAME BACK 129 ests of expediency; or whether loving and being loved didn't enter into it at all. And knowing Gay as well as she did she was quite prepared to accept that love�as yet�did not enter into it at all. It might do later, but for the moment Gay looked too composed, too serene, too cold-bloodedly concerned with securing her wealth and all her possessions. She was prepared to fight for her creature comforts, and to lie and deceive if necessary... and the man she proposed to lie to and deceive was the man she planned to marry! Which struck Harriet, her half-sister, as quite extraordinary. She wondered whether she ought to warn Philip Drew, whether she ought to enlighten him if he was not already enlightened. But her loyalty to Gay forbade that. Gay was only recently widowed, and whatever she said, whatever she did, she had suffered a nasty shock, andE)r. Drew would be the first to lay emphasis on the fact that she hadn't entirely recovered from it. " So Harriet decided there was nothing she could do, only sit on the sidelines and watch. And if her watching brief was to be a painful' one for herself, then nothing could be done about that, either. Gay didn't wait for Dr. Drew to pay a professional call on her after returning from London. She telephoned him that same evening and

  130 THE MAN WHO CAME BACK asked him to dinner. Not entirely to Harriet's surprise he accepted. It was Harriet who opened the door to him when he arrived at Falaise. She had seen him once only since the night when he visited her in her room to administer a sedative, and that was the morning after the visit. His behaviour on that occasion had been strictly professional, and indeed it was so correct that she found herself wondering a little bewilderedly after he left whether a. state of mind induced by her slight head injury had caused her to imagine an incident that had never actually taken place... and she decided to be very much on her guard when next she saw the doctor. She was wearing: a slim, dark dress that emphasised the exceptionally light colour of her hair when she held open the door for him, and she saw him glance at her as if with a sudden quickening of interest. She even thought his dark eyes -lightened with undisguised appreciation, but it made no difference to her welcome. She had to be cautious ... and now that she knew she might one day have him for a brother-in-law she had^to be particularly cautious. It would never do if he suspected that whenever she set eyes on him nowadays a strange, breathless feeling attacked her ... and to make matters worse she felt acutely shy. As if she was a very, very young girl, instead of a mature twenty-six, and he was die very first member of

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  his sex who had succeeded in upsetting the rate

  of her pulse.

  So, in order that she shouldn't meet his eyes� or not for longer than a few seconds, at any rate�she looked downwards at the highly polished boards of the hall, and he was treated to a display of her long eyelashes fluttering nervously against the singular purity of her skin.

  "How's the head?" he asked, his dark glance lingering on fine gold hair. And Gay crossed the hall to meet him in time to catch her sister's brief reply:

  "Oh, it's all right, thank you!"

  Gay offered him both her hands, smiled up into his eyes as if she was perfectly well aware that this was .a social visit and he as well as she was happily aware of it, and then asked a little curiously:

  "Why, what's the matter with Harriet? Has she been complaining of headaches?"

  "No." He answered a trifle abstractedly, his eyes still on Harriet's swinging cloud of hair.

  "Then what?"

  "It's nothing... nothing," Harriet assured her hastily. "Only while you were away I bumped my head, and Dr. Drew had to come and stick a plaster on it."

  "Oh, really?" Gay was fond enough of her half-sister to be momentarily concerned. And then when her own eyes reassured her because there was certainly no sign of a plaster adhering

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  to Harriet's shapely head, her concern vanished, and to Harriet's relief she didn't press for information concerning the bump on the head, but led the doctor into the drawing-room instead.

  At dinner Gay was the one who did all the talking, for Philip Drew seemed a trifle abstracted, and Harriet was in no mood to talk in any case. She spoke when someone spoke to her, and as usual she poured coffee after dinner, and, in actual fact, performed all the duties of a hostess while Gay curled up like a kitten on her favourite Regency couch, and allowed the doctor to light her cigarette for her and carry her coffee to her, and generally treat her as if she was a piece of Dresden china to which he was somewhat noticeably attracted ... although perhaps not quite so noticeably as on other occasions.

  Although Gay exuded as much charm as she knew how�and in her bat's wing chiffon and pearls she was utterly alluring�he remembered that he had an urgent appointment at a quarter to ten, and tore himself away without looking precisely^ as if his evening was ruined by the recollection; and afterwards Gay forgot to behave as if she was a fragile and still somewhat forlorn widow and started pacing up and down the length of the drawing-room with a frown between her feathery brows, because despite careful planning the evening to which she had looked forward was in a sense a kind of anti

  THE MAN WHO CAME BACK 133 climax, not to say a flop. And the certainty that Harriet thought so, too, made her slightly irritable as she paced up and down, and she exclaimed peevishly that men were all alike in one respect, and that was that they nearly always failed to do the thing that was expected of them. And apparently Philip Drew was no exception. Although it wasn't her job Harriet went round collecting the coffee cups and emptying ash-trays, and she said nothing... but silently she agreed with her half-sister. If men did the

  things that were expected of them Philip Drew

  would hav
e at least referred to that kiss he had dropped on her brow when she was in no position to object to it even if she had wanted to do so. But he had done nothing of the kind.

  Therefore she felt a faint sympathy stirring in her for Gay. But it was very faint sympathy, because undoubtedly he had been very much preoccupied tonight.

  Gay looked at her with a blaze of irritation in her eyes.

  "And why didn't you tell me you bumped your head while I was away?" she asked. "You don't usually go around bumping your head. What happened?"

  Harriet replied as she had replied before: "It was nothing... It really was nothing." "Then why did you send for Dr. Drew?" Harriet was taken aback. "I didn't send for Dr. Drew."

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  "But he came here and attended to the bump?"

  Harriet shook her head. "He�he was here."

  Instantly Gay's eyes narrowed, and Harriet saw a suspicious look appear in them.

  "You mean you invited him, or he called?"

  "He called."

  "I see." Gay seemed to relax a little. "Probably he thought I was still here ... although I do seem to remember that I telephoned him before I left."

  "Possibly his housekeeper failed to pass on the message to him," Harriet remarked, as if the matter was of supreme indifference to her in any case, and Gay nodded her head.

  "Perhaps she did," she said. And then she frowned again, quickly. "But I spoke to Philip himself on the telephone! I remember he warned me to take great care while I was in London and not overtire myself!"

  Harriet shrugged. She was suddenly inspired.

  "Well, perhaps he thought you had returned unexpectedly," she said. "Or perhaps he simply hoped to have news of you."

  Gay regarded her thoughtfully. "Perhaps he did," she said. "Yes, I expect that was it," with more conviction.

  CHAPTER VII

  BUT from that night onwards her attitude to

  wards her sister underwent a tiny but perfectly

  perceptible change.

  She was as affectionate as ever towards Har

  riet, but the latter .found her watching her some

  times as if she was discovering something new

  about her, or looking for something to explain

  away a problem that perplexed her. There

  would be a puzzled gleam in her eyes, and a tiny

  cleft between her brows. And whenever Dr.

  Drew came to the house she made absolutely

  certain she was the first to receive him, either

  as the result of some clumsy manouevre like

  sending Harriet off to the kitchen to give a mes

  sage to the cook to look for something mat had

  been mislaid, or, more directly, by saying

  sweetly that she was sure Harriet had something

  better to do than listen to a discourse on the subject of her health, and literally pushing her

  out of the room.

  Or, if Dr. Drew stayed for drinks and Harriet had to be asked to join them, the invitation to do so was not relayed until the doctor was on the very point of departure. His interchanges with Harriet were confined to a nod, and a

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  "Hullo, how are you?", after which the mistress of the house urged him gently but persuasively towards the garden door, or even the front door, and she then stood talking to him on the drive while Harriet watched from the shadows of the hall and understood perfectly that this was a purely defensive act on Gay's part. She would never have suspected her sister of wishing to prevent her marrying Philip Drew for personal reasons�because Harriet, she told their mutual friends, was not really interested in men, and was much happier painting pictures than toying with the idea of settling down in a home of her own�but she did apparently suspect Harriet of being capable of ruining her plans because she didn't approve of them.

  Harriet -was the possessor of an awkward thing�a conscience. And Gay thought consciences were uncomfortable, and never listened to the voice of her own if ever it spoke loud enough for her to hear.

  Therefore Harriet had to be watched. But somehow Harriet herself wasn't convinced that the reason Gay watched her, and excluded her whenever possible from social occasions that included Dr. Drew, was because she feared her conscience and her principles. For the first time since Harriet's one promising love affair had broken up Gay watched her with a kind of calculated gleam in her eyes, and the thing she was trying to make certain of was... despite her

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  apparent indifference to Philip Drew, and her

  early antagonism towards him�which, for some

  reason, seemed-to have evaporated in the last

  Week or so�was she as indifferent to him as she

  appeared?

  What had happened when she got that bump

  on her head, and why did reference to it seem

  to embarrass her?

  About this time, too. Dr. Drew apparently

  arrived at the conclusion that his most attractive

  patient'had recovered sufficiently to be left to

  her own devices for a time, and he ceased to

  make calls at Falaise. Gay, who had got into the

  habit of offering him coffee in the garden on fine

  mornings, or sherry in the drawing-room if the

  morning was not so fine and his call was just

  before lunch, was plainly perplexed by this

  abandonment. She was also annoyed. She tele

  phoned his house to find out what was happen

  ing, and was told by his housekeeper that he was

  either out on his rounds or seeing patients in his

  surgery. And in the latter case he didn't like to

  be disturbed unless it was urgent.

  As Gay was unable to say truthfully that it was urgent the housekeeper refused to disturb him.

  Gay went about for the remainder of that day �the first day that her doctor didn't call to find out how she was�in a state of fury. She waited until after dinner to telephone his house again

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  and this time she was told that the doctor was dining out. Gay looked as if she could hardly believe the evidence of her ears.

  The next day she waited until the usual hour for the doctor to call, and when he failed to put in an appearance she once again dialled his number and had quite a sharp interchange with his housekeeper. She was sure, she said, that the doctor would speak to her if he was in his surgery; but the loyal housekeeper whom Dr. Parkes had employed for .many years declined to be ruffled, but was absolutely, adamant in her refusal to connect the caller with Dr. Parkes' locum.

  Dr. Drew, she said this time, was extremely busy . .. But of course if Mrs. Earnshaw wanted to see him about anything urgently she would let the doctor know at once, and he would call at Falaise. Gay bit her lip so hard that it actually started to bleed and was about to invent a list of symptoms that would sound quite alarm

  ing even in the housekeeper's ears; then she

  changed her mind and slammed down the re

  ceiver.

  "What do you think of that?" she said, when

  her sister crossed the hall.

  "What do I think of what?" Harriet en

  quired, in not unnatural bewilderment since she

  had not overheard the telephone conversation.

  Gay actually scowled at her, as if all the

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  world was her enemy just then, and Harriet was scarcely likely to prove an exception. ^ "Dr. Drew's housekeeper!" she exclaimed.

  'The woman's a shrew... She is also impertinent! Doesn't she know that when Mrs. Eamshaw of Falaise telephones she has a right to speak to the doctor if he's there?"

  "Perhaps he wasn't there," Harriet said, defending the housekeeper whom she had not so far met.

  Her half-sister regarded her with a strangely
>
  contemptuous look. She also flung away from the telephone and started pacing furiously up and down the hall.

  "There? Of course he's mere! The woman said so." She mimicked her derisively: "The doctor's in his surgery and he can't be disturbed! He has a patient with him at the moment who is demanding all his attention. Perhaps if you rang again, later today! Or if it's

  urgent you can let me know what is troubling you and I'll pass on the information to Dr. Drew. Pm sure he'll call and see. you some time

  today!" She fairly spat out the words: "Later today!"

  Harriet, who was about to do the flowers in the hall and had a basket of fresh blooms over her arm, set down the latter on a side table and decided it was her duty to pour oil on troubled waters.

  "Well," she pointed out, reasonably enough,

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  "you can't expect a busy man like a doctor to drop everything and rush to hear what it is you want to talk to him about just like that! After all, he probably has got a patient in with him, and perhaps the case is serious. He could be conducting an examination." .

  "He could be," Gay agreed, but from her expression she simply couldn't understand why that should come between her and a few words with Philip Drew. An explanation, above all things, from Philip Drew, because this was the second day running that he had apparently decided to ignore her. "In any case, I would have thought I was more important than a casual patient:�"

  "Not if the patient is ill!"

  Gay whirled on her.

  "And aren't I a patient of Dr. Drew's? For all

  he knows to the contrary I might be very ill, and

  badly in need of some attention from him!"

  "If that was the case I would have telephoned the doctor and got him to come along and see you," Harriet pointed out.

  This was too much for the widow. She raced upstairs to her room and locked herself in, and by lunch time she was in such a state of rebellion that she declined to touch anything, or even open the door to receive a tray, and Harriet lunched alone in the dining-room, wondering whether this exhibition on the part of a recent invalid justified her getting in touch with the

  THE MAN WHO CAME BACK 141 doctor herself and insisting that he come along to Falaise right away. But, after giving the matter a good deal of thought, she decided against doing anything of the kind ... if only for the excellent reason that there was nothing wrong with Gay, and apart from suffering from an inflamed temper there was nothing afflicting her with which he could deal. Unless he asked her to marry him! Harriet realised that that was the one thing he could do that would act like a charm, and restore all Gay's normal sweetness and tranauillity. When the evening of that second day arrived, however, Gay herself had apparently decided that this was no way to win a difficult man who was probably suffering from some kind of temporary revulsion to the thought of matrimony because he had been a bachelor so long... and, like someone going into battle for the second time after resting the troops beneath their command, she descended the stairs in time for an excellent dinner, and announced to Harriet that