Doctor's Orders (17 page)

“Quite. But, conveniently to my hand, a young friend of mine arrives to stay with me this week. It was the letter announcing
hi
s arrival that gave me the idea. He has been climbing here; and having had a most strenuous time in the mountains, is now prepared to relax for a time. His name is Leon d’Avenay. He is an extremely cultivated young Frenchman, the latest of a long line of distinguished d’Avenays, who, because they own extensive vineyards, are still able to keep some of their wealth and live in their family chateau. Leon lives most of the time in Paris, his spiritual home, of course; is cosmopolitan, and quite satisfyingly aristocratic to look at. I think that, by introducing Anthea to Leon, we may put Hans into perspective for her.”

“But Hans is there all the time, and, even if Anthea meets Leon, she may make no impression on him. I must say that most of the young men who seem impressed by her are not often the aristocratic kind.”

“Oh, my dear Diana, I have progressed much farther than that. I have talked to Lion about it; we have had long telephone conversations. He is in the plot, you see; and although he thinks it a little unfair (as I do myself), he is also very amused, and willing to participate. I think I shall suggest that he spends some time at the Morgenberg.”

“Perhaps, if he is so very cosmopolitan, he won’t enjoy that.”

“He can enjoy himself anywhere. When he is climbing, he stays in huts, in small hotels, anywhere. Well, do you think there is anything in my idea, or do you think we should abandon it?”

“We could try it,” said Diana doubtfully. “It depends on the strength of her affection for Hans. Sometimes, I wonder if she is really in love
...
But yes, we will try it.”

“Very well. I will send him to the Morgenberg. Anthea will know he is my friend, she will know I have mentioned you and herself to Leon; and that is all. Almost I feel sorry for the poor child.”

“Why, for tearing her away from Hans?”

“No, for throwing her in Lion's way. A lion going out of his way to be charming is something I should not really subject any young girl to. However, we will leave it at that. Now, perhaps, we can shelve business and enjoy ourselves.”

They took a long time over dinner, dancing occasionally, their talk ranging over a wide variety of subjects. Diana was completely relaxed, and did not know how pretty this made her look, her smile restful, her eyes shining, her conversation unimpeded by other company. She was so very, attractive that the doctor wondered why she was not already married, and this reminded him of the young Scotsman, and the affair of the heart, and he asked Diana what had become of him.

“Why, he comes this very week,” said Diana
.
“A little later than he intended, because there were others in his office who had children, and so needed to take holidays when the schools were closed—Strange that you should have mentioned him just when he is to arrive.”

“I was thinking that, if he does not arrive soon to look after you, there will be others carrying of
f
his y prize.”

Diana laughed.

“No,” she said, “there is nobody. That need not hurry him.”

“Will his arrival prevent your coming next week to see the children?”

“I don’t want it to. I am carrying out so many commissions—for such a strange variety of odds and ends—that the children will be disappointed if I don’t arrive.”

“Bring your Scotsman with you. I want to meet him.”

“Do you? Why?”

“Perhaps to see if he is good enough for you.”

“Oh, he is very good, very reliable, very trustworthy, very serious—in fact, very Scottish.”

“Well, bring him with you. Come to lunch with me before we leave for the clinic. In fact, we will have a little luncheon for Leon and Anthea, too; and everybody can come to the clinic.”

“And we will make them contribute to the Christmas fund,” laughed Diana.

“Yes, we will,” said the doctor.

There was a little silence between them then. Diana was thinking: “We” again; “we” will do this and that; “we” will have a little luncheon; and make
them contribute ... Oh, dear heaven, if only it were always we two; if only I could give my life to making him happy and helping him in his work
...

“You are suddenly very serious,” said the doctor, wondering if the serious young Scotsman were the cause.

Diana looked at him, and their eyes met. He was looking at her gently, with interest, waiting for what she would say. She was filled with the wildest longing to be able to be of use to him, to be able to stay near him, to be admitted into some sort of intimacy with him, if it were only the intimacy of working together. She said, realizing that he was waiting for an answer
.

“I was thinking about your work.”

“Ah, the children and the Christmas fund?” he asked.

“No, all your work, all the things you do for your suffering patients; for more than that, for the suffering world.”

“Oh, you make it sound very important, Diana.”

“It
is
important. All these schemes for the underfed and disease-ridden peoples of Asia: all that sort of thing; not only your private patients; not even only the children’s home.”

“I am only a small cog in a very big machine in all those schemes.”

“But an important one.”

“Are you really interested?” he asked, still watching her with a curious intensity.

“Yes.” Then suddenly, she said in a rush: “Oh, Doctor Frederic, do you think it could possibly be arranged for me to stay here when Anthea goes back to London—if your plan succeeds and she leaves the Morgenberg? I don’t want to have to go back and find a job in London. I do wish I could stay here and work in the children’s home. I would stay for a quite small salary; and the work does interest me, and Matron has said how short of staff she is, and how difficult it is to get people to help; and I know the children like me; and although I haven’t had
real nursing experience—only home nursing, you know—I can always learn, and there must be plenty of jobs that aren’t really skilled that
somebody
has to do, and
...”

“Ssh,” he said interrupting her. “Stop to take a breath. Well, you
do
surprise me.”

“Why?” asked Diana.

He looked at her, at her shining chestnut hair, her pretty cream dress, her soft bare shoulders, the; pretty hands that did not look familiar with hard work.

“If you could see yourself,” he said, “you would also be surprised. You mean this? You are serious?”

“Quite serious. I have been thinking of it for a long time.”

“Well, well
...
” Suddenly, he smiled a brilliant smile at her. She thought in passing that his smile made him look much younger. “I think it is an excellent idea,” he said. “I can see nothing but good in it. Matron, I am sure, will be very pleased. The children will work you to death, but love you while doing so. And serving them must do you good, too.”

Diana realized that he was not included in the list of people for whom it would be a blessing. She said:

“Do you think it could be arranged then? For a little later, when my job with Anthea is finished?”

“I will see to it myself,” he promised her.

Later, when they left the hotel, Diana asked if he could get her a taxi.

“What nonsense,” he said. “I am driving you back myself.”

They seemed to have progressed a good deal this evening, thought Diana, as she settled herself in the car beside him. She felt surer of the ties of friendship which she had always hoped to establish. If he arranged for her to work at the children’s home, she would see him regularly every week, when he came for his clinic. It was not enough, but it was something; and if, just occasionally, there could be an
evening like this one, it would be heaven. But no, added her memory, there cannot be many evenings like this one. When he is married to Antoinette, it will not be possible.

A shadow fell over the perfection of her evening. Perhaps, she thought, I will only be storing up unhappiness for myself, by putting myself in a position where I see him every week, work with him, talk to him. Perhaps it would be a wiser thing to go back to London where I might forget him. Wiser or not, however, she knew that she would stay.

They came to the Morgenberg. The plateau was deserted. Dr. Frederic opened the car door for her and helped her out. They stood in the cool night air together, Diana wrapped in Anthea’s soft mink. “I have so much enjoyed this evening
,”
she said.

“Thank you. It is I who should say that
...
Then, next week, on clinic day, I may expect the four of you to lunch?”

“I will try to arrange it,” said Diana, “and let you know.”

“Good. And now goodnight, Diana.”

“Goodnight.” She gave him her hand, and he raised it to his lips and kissed it formally. Then, still holding it, he said to her, as if he had suddenly thought of it:

“By the way, what will this young man think of your decision to stay and work in Switzerland?”

“Oh,” said Diana. “I don’t suppose he will like
it.”

“No, I don’t suppose he will.”

“But I can’t help that. It is something I very much want to do; and I have to earn my living somehow.”

The doctor dropped her hand, and turned to the car.

“Poor young man,” he said. “Well, goodnight, Diana. I will wait until you are indoors.
”

She waved her hand to him and went into the hotel. She heard the car start, and listened to it going down the hill. Anna was waiting up, and
brought Diana a glass of hot milk on a small tray. Diana smiled at her, said she was sorry to keep her up, bade her goodnight and took her hot milk upstairs. Anthea was sleeping. Diana closed the door between their rooms very carefully, and switched off her own light, to stand by the window in the darkness, following in her imagination the swift journey of the doctor’s car. Strong, skilled hands on the wheel; dark eyes intent on the road before him, the roads empty of traffic at this hour, he would drive swiftly on the accustomed route. “Darling,” she, whispered after him, through the night, “how I love you.” There was a great relief simply in whispering, the words, in getting them out of her. “Darling,” she repeated, “how very much I love you.”

CHAPTER
TEN

Anthea
made her escape after breakfast to the plateau, thinking that she might catch a glimpse of Hans; not intending to disturb him at his work, but merely wanting the reassurance of seeing him about the place. The morning was chilly, and reminded her that in a week or two the hotel would be closing down, and that she would have to make a decision about her future. Making decisions, especially of such a nature, was a trying affair, so she put it off until it must be faced; wandering about on the plateau, thinking what a very dull man this Gordon had turned out to be. Without any humor that Anthea could discover, trying to talk politics and other serious subjects with her, he bored Anthea to desperation, and she only hoped that Diana would take him out as much as possible, going off on jaunts that would certainly not include Anthea.

Anthea admitted to herself that she had become quite fond of Diana during their stay here on the mountain; and only Diana’s stiff and unyielding conscience about Hans was a stumbling block and a nuisance. Apart from that, she had been an easy and pleasant person to live with; unobtrusively helping Anthea at every point. It seemed a pity if she had to marry this worthy but dull man, and go back to England to live in a suburban house with a little garden ; working in the house, doing the shopping and waiting all day for the return of somebody so unexciting, so painstaking and precise as this Gordon.

Anthea sighed. The days were long, waiting for Hans. Longer than ever, now that the hotel was so empty. Madame de Luzy had left several weeks ago, and each week saw the departure of others, with nobody arriving to take their place. The staff had more time on their hands and took life much more easily. It was not necessary for Katrina to help in
the dining room any more, but she came constantly to help in cleaning the rooms that were to be shut up, in seeing that linen was spotless and mended before it went into the big cupboards and chests. Only Hans seemed to have no more time to himself, but rather less of it, as he went about the business of preparing for winter.

Diana was coming across the plateau towards her. “Where’s the bonny Gordon?” asked Anthea.

“He’s gone sightseeing. He’ll be back for dinner this evening.”

“Why didn’t you go with him?”

“Well, I can’t desert you every day.”

“I don’t mind. Well, as he’s gone, what shall we do?”

Diana looked at her with a faint surprise. There was a petulance in that question which sounded a little like the old bored Anthea.

“Let’s go down into the valley and do some shopping,” she suggested. “I’ve decided that I
must have one of those beautiful embroidered blouses.”

“Oh yes,” agreed Anthea. “We’ll lunch at that lovely place—the something-or-other Kanner; and get some new magazines.”

They set off in high spirits, Anthea’s petulance quite gone. Diana wondered if, in spite of her absorption in Hans, she were getting a little bored. They did their shopping, Diana spending what was, for her, a vast amount on a blouse embroidered in most delicate petit point; it was, however, quite a small sum when compared with what Anthea spent on a little black dress from Dior in the town’s most exclusive dress shop. The Dior dress put her into a very g
oo
d frame of mind, and they lunched in an atmosphere of warm friendliness, letting the time slip away without
worrying.
By the time they had bought their books and magazines, strolled through the streets of attractive shops, and been driven again to the Morgenberg, it was already misty up there, rather grey, with the wind blowing cold. Diana did
not think that Anthea would want to stay very much longer.

They came into the hall of the hotel, and there, before them, at the reception desk, was a tall, dark
haired, brown-faced young man, in a suit of excellently-cut country clothes, talking to Frau Steuri. As they entered, Frau Steuri said something to him and he turned at once.

“Ah,” he said, “so here are the two English ladies I am to make myself known to.” He crossed the hall to them, stood before them, looking at them with a merry expression. “Now you,” he bowed to Diana, “are M
l
le. Pevrill. And you,” with a similar bow to Anthea, “are Miss Wellis. Am I right? My good friend Dr. Frederic assures me that my stay here will be very much brighter when I know you both.”

Anthea looked at him with the summing-up expression that Diana was beginning to know very well in her. She was trying to put him into a category. Diana, who guessed that this was Leon d’Avenay, did not need to put him into a category.

He said:

“Leon d’Avenay, at your service. And, before I forget, the doctor charges me to remind you that you are lunching with him on Thursday of this week.”

“Are we?” asked Anthea, looking at Diana.

“He has asked us, you and me and Gordon.”

“Now I, also, am included,” said Leon, with a smile. “I am just having coffee—will you join me? That is excellent. That will be coffee for three, Frau Steuri.”

Diana sat in an armchair at one of the tables. Anthea was joined on the settee by Leon, who calmly took the conversation into his own charge, told them of his mountain climbing (“that’s why he is so brown”, thought Anthea), showed them the scratches and scars that still remained on his hands, and told them that the doctor had said this would be a comfortable place to rest for a few days.

He then went on to talk to them about London, which he knew as well as they did, and to discover, with Anthea, some mutual friends. (“All the most aristocratic of my friends,” thought Anthea. “The hard-to-know ones”.) Then he asked if they knew Paris.

“Unfortunately, no,” admitted Diana.

“I’ve been there several times,” said Anthea, “but I wouldn’t like to say I know it.”

“Don’t you think it the loveliest city in the world?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Anthea, hesitating.

“Then you haven’t been often enough,” he said smiling. “You should go more and more often; then you will think so. One doesn’t really live, outside Paris.”

“I expect people manage to live quite comfortably in other places,” said Diana dryly. “Just a few hundred millions of us.”

He laughed at her.

“You are one of the unconverted,” he said. He turned back to Anthea. “I shall concentrate on converting you,” he said.

“In a few days?” she asked him.

“Oh no. You must come to Paris, and I shall show you all the things you ought to see; not the things that you see as a tourist. Now tell me, what can you find to do all the time, up here in the mountains?”

That was a little difficult. What did they do all the time? Especially now that the weather was changing.

“Well, this afternoon we went shopping,” said Anthea.

“One of the most delightful things in the world, I am sure. And what did you buy?”

“A Dior dress,” she said, rather proud of the fact.

“No? Really? Paris, you see. A dinner dress?”

“Well, it could be—for family dinners, or informal occasions. More, a cocktail dress.”

“You must wear it this evening, and remind me of Paris.”

“It would be wasted on the Morgenberg,” she said.

“But not on me,” he said.
“
Please wear it.”

“All right,” she said. “I will.”

When she and Diana were upstairs in their rooms, Anthea said, through the open door:

“What do you think of him?”

“I don’t know him yet, how can I say?
”

“He seems very sure of himself.”

“Perhaps that's just French.”

“And very interested in clothes.”

“That’s certainly French.”

“Who is he?”

“Leon d’Avenay—you heard it.”

“Oh yes,” said Anthea, “but
who
is he? Have you beard Dr. Frederic speak of him? What does
h
e do?”

“Dr. Frederic said a young friend was coming to stay with him, who had been mountaineering. He said that his family were of the old aristocracy, and own immense vineyards somewhere.”

“What on earth is he staying here for?”

“He said it was to rest for a few days.”

“Funny place for a man like him to choose.”

“Funny place, if it comes to that, for a girl like you to choose,” said Diana, going on calmly with her dressing.

There was silence. Diana thought that Anthea might be seeing herself as part of the world this man belonged to. Then Anthea appeared at the doorway, and Diana turned to look at her.

“It’s lovely, Anthea,” she said.

“It is rather, isn’t it?”