The Little Doctor (6 page)

From the beginning the party was lively to the point of being riotous. They were all hearty people, Jane decided.

There was Millie and Richard Elvington, who were so obviously brother and sister that Richard was allowed to pass without a surname as Valerie introduced them. And Doreen Spiers and Mike Hallowell.

“Mike’s our Rally driver,” Valerie explained holding his arm. “He hopes to do big things at Monte Carlo next time!” She looked round for her other guests. “Come over, Tom, and be introduced to our lady doctor!" she called gaily across the room.

Tom Pritchard, like Jim Crow, was the horsy type, but Jane could not like him, as she had liked Jim. He had small, shifty eyes, a wide, rather course mouth, and he laughed much too loudly. He was already well through his second whisky-and-soda, he had just informed the company in general, and was evidently bent on having a good time. He was so unlike the sort of person she would have expected to find at Max’s dinner table that Jane turned to look for her host, but Max was nowhere to be seen. Jim Crow came over to shake hands with her, smiling broadly.

Valerie was on the best of terms with Tom Pritchard, but she was obviously looking for someone else. Her expression was vexed and a high flush had put two vivid spots of color into her cheeks. They deepened at the sound of a high-powered car approaching at speed along the road beyond the encircling garden wall.

“That must be Eddie now!” she exclaimed, running into the hall.

Seconds later she came back into the room with her final guest. He was a big, square-shouldered man with, a swarthy complexion and dark, penetrating eyes beneath straight black brows, and he took in the assembled company with a half-insolent stare.

“Am I last?” he asked with very little true apology in his voice. “So frightfully sorry, but I’ve done London to here in five hours.”

Everybody applauded the fact, as they were undoubtedly meant to do. They laughed and held up their glasses and said “Jolly good going, old boy!” or “By golly, old chap, you certainly were stepping on the juice!
”
or words to that effect.

Eventually Valerie got round to presenting Jane.

“This is Eddie Jakes,” she said. “He’s our local horse man! He owns at least one prospective Derby winner, but he’s being maddening about it at present and won
’
t tell us which of his horses he favors!
”

Edward Jakes looked down at Jane, his dark eyes briefly questioning. Obviously he did not recognize her as one of his own kind and instantly, instinctively, perhaps, she did not like him. He was not a man to be trusted, she felt.

When he finally relinquished her hand, she looked across the room to where Max was standing in the open doorway. His expression was no longer obscure. It was completely readable. He di
d
not like Edward Jakes simply because he could not trust him.

In spite of the fact that Valerie had said her little party was going to be very informal, the meal she set before her guests was an elaborate one that could not have been dreamed up at a moment’s notice. It had quite evidently been planned at least a day beforehand and Jane found herself wondering if Valerie had arranged it to celebrate Edward Jake’s return. Yet he looked the sort of man who would not bind himself to a promise, and by his conversation at the dinner table, he appeared to travel extensively.

Was there, Jane wondered, a Mrs. Jakes?

By the time they left the dining room with its white panelling and deep golden curtains and crossed the hall again to drink their coffee in t
h
e room overlooking the garden, she realized that none of her fellow guests had made quite so deep an impression upon her. They had been and remained shadowy figures in the background, with only Valerie and Edward Jakes and Max standing out as the main players in a strange little drama of intrigue and deceit. The others were there mainly as a foil to Valerie’s brilliance, puppets whose strings she pulled at will to make them perform. They had nothing in common, Jane realized, save a superficial gaiety and a love or horseflesh, which also seemed to be part of the bond between Valerie and Edward Jakes.

“You must come up and try out my newest acquisition, Val,” he invited generously, his dark eyes meeting those or his eager hostess with a lazy smile in them. “I think I must have bought it with you in mind.”

Jane was sitting facing Max, waiting for the opportunity to take her leave, and she saw his face grow taut. His mouth, compressed now into a thin, hard line, looked almost cruel.

“How lovely!” Valerie exclaimed to Jakes. “I’m aching to come Eddie! When may I?”

“Delivery will take a day or two.” Jakes seemed to be deliberately non-committal, perhaps in the face of Max’s obvious displeasure. “I’ll give you a ring. Milner went down with a horsebox yesterday, so it may be the weekend before he gets back.”

In the small, uneasy silence that greeted this information, Jane got to her feet.

“
I
wonder if you’ll excuse me, Valerie?” she said. “It’s getting late and I’ve an hour’s journey to Allingham.”

She could not look at Max. He was more angry than she had ever seen him, yet she felt instinctively that he would keep his temper under control. It seemed that he was not able to refuse his wife anything she desired.

Curiously disturbed by the suspicion, she made her way from the room in Valerie’s wake. The party would probably go on for hours yet and Max was deadly tired, a fact which his wife did not seem to notice.

He followed them into the hall.

“I’d better extricate your car for you, Jane,” he offered. “The others are parked all over the place.”

Valerie helped Jane on with her coat.

“Do come again, whenever you can,” she begged. “It gets so deadly dull up here occasionally.”

Jane did not mean to come again, although she felt that the invitation was genuine enough. There was an odd, lost sort of look about Valerie at times which puzzled her, as if life were escaping her in some way she could not understand. It was almost like a premonition of disaster vaguely felt at this stage but strangely disturbing.

“I’ve got a rather busy time ahead,” she began to excuse herself.

“But you will be coming up with the caravan,” Valerie pointed out reasonably enough. “You could at least come in for a meal with us once a week.’

There was no need for Valerie to feel lonely, Jane thought. She had this lovely home and Max and his work. But Valerie had never shared Max’s work in the practice. At least, it did not seem so. Something was wrong somewhere.

“It’s very kind of you,” she found herself saying, still
q
uite determined to keep away. “And—thank you for an excellent dinner.”

“Oh that!” Valerie laughed, dismissing it. “This was only a small get-together. When I have a real party you will enjoy yourself much, much more!”

Max was waiting at the door.

“Don’t come out, Val,” he said. “It’s started to rain.”

Valerie stood where she was for the few seconds it took Jane to reach the door, and then, eagerly smiling, she moved back among her other guests. The sound of laughter came out in a wave as she opened the drawing-room door,
and
as a wave might have hit her, it left Jane out of breath. She could not think of what to say to Max. The banal conventional thing—yes, but suddenly it was no longer possible between them.

Out in the rain-washed night they stood for a moment in a continuing silence before their eyes met. Max seemed about to say something, to confide in her, perhaps, and then he changed his mind. With the small, typical gesture she remembered heartbreakingly from the past, he smoothed his hand slowly over his hair and turned toward her car.

“Thank you for coming, Jane,” he said as he opened the door for her.

When she drove away from him into the night, her eyes were full of senseless tears.

CHAPTER
FOUR

“
N
icholas,” Jane asked, packing a fresh supply of vaccine into the ice, “do you know a man called Edward Jakes?
”

Sitting negligently on the edge of the examination couch in the waiting attitude which had become almost habitual to him in the past few months, Nicholas studied her trim, white-coated back view for a moment without answering.

“Who doesn’t?” he said at last.

Jane kept her back turned.

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded.

Nicholas shrugged deprecatingly.

“Just that he’s fairly well known.”

“In which way?”

Again his thin shoulders lifted in the characteristic shrug.

“He’s a most eligible bachelor, for one thing. About the most eligible in the district, I should think. He’s sophisticated and wealthy and has, I believe, a certain satanic sort of charm. Why?” he asked in his turn. “Have you met him?
”

“Yes. Last night at the Kilsyths.”

“So that’s where you were?” The level dark brows shot up. “I phoned you several times without result,” he explained. “I thought if you hadn’t anything better to do you might have come for a run to the coast with me and dinner somewhere. Was it a party?”

“A very small one.” Jane screwed the top on to the flask, turning to dry her hands on the towel he held out for her. “What do you really think of Edward Jakes?” she demanded.

“It’s hardly a fair question,” he answered after a moment’s consideration. “I’ve only met the fellow a couple of times on committees. He has a reputation locally for fast cars and fast women.”

“Nicholas!”

“You asked me.” He gave her an oddly penetrating look. “You weren’t impressed, were you?”

“Not in the least.” Jane unfastened her coat, hanging it behind the consulting-room door. “He was one of
the party, that was all.” She picked up her handbag and gloves and Nicholas said, “What about the coast this evening?
”

“I really ought to see to some paper work—”

“You’ll see to it much easier once you’ve had a breath of good sea air,” he advised so firmly that she felt it would be churlish to refuse. “We’ve got time to make Scarborough if you hurry,” He glanced at his watch. “Overtime,” he remarked dryly, “isn’t absolutely essential on this job every evening, you know.’

She smiled, aware of his concern for her and deeply grateful for it, but this sort of one-sided affection was no use. It wasn’t what Nicholas wanted, either. Just now, when she had looked directly into his eyes, there had been a small flame of subdued passion burning deep in them which suggested that he might not be content to take “no” for an answer much longer. Perhaps tonight she should tell him.

“I ought to change,” she said, “if we’re going to the Pavilion.”

“I’ll allow you ten minutes at the flat,” he agreed. “But I mean to sit and glare at your clock!”

They laughed, going out together into the parking lot. The hospital lay still
and
quiet in the lull before the visiting hour. In the wards, beds had been straightened, lockers tidied, and the whole place seemed to wear an air of waiting. Lights winked here and there, although it was not yet dark.

After the rain of the past few hours the sky was clear and powdered with newly-washed stars. It would be glorious driving across the wide stretches of moorland toward the sea.

When they reached the flat Nicholas poured himself a drink while she went to change into a suitable frock, choosing green because he liked it and then wondering if she had given away to a foolish impulse as she saw the smile
and
the admiration in his eyes.

They were in his car and speeding toward the coast when he asked, “Were you actually engaged to Kilsyth, Jane?”

Her heart gave an odd, uneasy jerk.

“No.” She gazed straight ahead along the bare moorland road lit by the wide beam of the headlights. “There was nothing like that, Nick. It was the usual college affair. We went about in a gang—rarely alone. Max took me to dances and that sort of thing. We were acknowledged partners, but we were never engaged.”

We were in love, and that was enough, she thought. Or, at least,
I
was in love, and I thought Max must be, too. We did everything together.

“You told me,” Nicholas mused, “that Kilsyth married as soon as he graduated—very soon after Sir Francis Lisbon’s death, as a matter of fact.”

For a moment she wondered what Nicholas was trying to say, and then she knew. It had been common gossip at the time, soon forgotten except in the deep and vulnerable places of her own heart.

“
I
know they said he married the Lisbon money,” she admitted stonily, “but I don’t believe it. Max wasn’t like that. Money never counted very much with him. You see, I knew him when he hadn’t any. What student ever has? He was content to be like the rest of us, jogging along from one allowance cheque to the next, in debt some of the time but always managing to grope his way back to solvency at the beginning of each month!”

“You know, of course, that any allowance he had must have come from Sir Francis,” Nicholas observed.

Jane flushed.

“I know that Max’s widowed mother was Sir Francis
’
private secretary for fifteen years before she died,” she said steadily. “His father was killed flying a Spitfire in the Battle of Britain. Max was nine years old then and his mother went to work to support him. She became secretary to a group of doctors in Edinburgh and then to Sir Francis. He was very generous to her.”

“And very much in love with her?”

“I don’t know. She certainly didn’t marry him. Perhaps she felt that she had some sort of allegiance to—to the man she had married in her youth—to Max’s father. As I see it, the great tragedy was that she didn’t live to see Max graduate. I think that was a lifelong ambition with her.” Jane cleared her throat. “Whatever she thought of Sir Francis, she owed Max’s future to him.”

“And he went on pulling strings afterwards, didn’t he?” Nicholas mused. “No doubt Kilsyth felt that he owed the old man a tremendous debt of gratitude, but the fact still remains that he did very well for himself financially by marrying Sir Francis’ daughter.”

“Please don’t say any more, Nicholas.” Jane’s throat was suddenly tight. “I don’t believe Max did that, but if he did—talking about it won’t help. I think he was in love with Valerie, at least when he married her.
”

“And you don’t think he is in love with her now?”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that!” The color rushed into Jane’s cheeks and she was glad of the darkness so that he could not see the full extent of her confusion. “They’re married. They have everything they could possibly desire. They must be in love.”

“How quaintly you reason,” he mused. “But we’ll let it go at that. I didn’t really mean to spend the evening with you discussing Kilsyth.”

Jane tried to find other things to talk about, but always her
thoughts reverted to Max and Valerie a
n
d the near-admission she had made. She did not really think for one moment that Max was no longer in love with his wife. He wasn’t the type to change or alter like that. It was just that there had been an odd tension between them at Marton Heights which, in a saner moment, she might have diagnosed as the temporary result of a lovers’ tiff.

Concentrating on t
h
e road, she willed herself not to think, and presently two searching beams coming up behind them caught them in a noose of light.

“I wonder what this fellow’s about?” Nicholas muttered. “He must be doing ninety!”

The car came on, drew level and flashed past.

“Mercedes-Benz!” Nicholas decided. “He was crawling!”

“That wretched man Jakes came up from London in five hours in a Mercedes,” Jane said, and stopped.

The same car? It was impossible to say, and in any case there was no reason why the car that had just flashed past them on the deserted moorland road shouldn’t be driven by Edward Jakes. He apparently never stayed over-long in one place and the moors were studded with remote country houses where he would be a welcome guest.

They reached the coast, driving slowly along the sea front of the almost deserted holiday resort. Most of the smaller hotels and boarding establishments were already closed, their owners holidaying abroad in their turn, but the larger places were ablaze with light. When they reached the Pavilion the Mercedes was parked halfway round the crescent, the last car in the row. Nicholas pulled in next to it.

“They’re terrific cars,” he mused, going over to inspect it. “Sometimes I wish I had that sort of money to fling around.
”

“You wouldn’t be any happier,” Jane laughed. “Besides, you’re doing very well as it is.”

He took her arm.

“When you’re in a gay mood, Jane,” he said, “you’re very lovely.”

“One can’t always be gay.”

“One can try!”

They went up the steps and through the swing doors into the hotel. Valerie was sitting at a table beside the orchestra with a glass of sherry half raised to her lips. She looked radiant. Her eyes were sparkling, her whole face bathed in a warm, expectant light.

Jane stood
m
ute still inside the door. The man at the table with Valerie was Edward Jakes.

In that first moment of painful recognition she looked up across the narrow room and then away again, concentrating on something Jakes was saying. Even his back view was insolently assured, Jane decided, her anger rising uppermost. How could Valerie do a thing like this? How could she betray Max with a man like Edward Jakes?

That was, after all, what it amounted to. There was something quite furtive about this meeting, and she remembered with a little shiver the speed at which the big black Mercedes had been driven across the moor. Like a flashback in some crazy film she saw the car again as it had overtaken them and knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that Valerie had been driving. It had been a man’s profile which had been sharply silhouetted in their own headlights, occupying the passenger seat.

Nicholas took her straight in to dinner. It was an uneasy meal for both of them. He made no comment about Valerie, although he must have seen and recognized Max’s wife. He had said that they had met, although at the time he had not connected her with Max.

They were at the savory stage when Valerie and her companion followed them into the dining room.

“Do you mind if we go straight back?” Jane asked, and for once Nicholas did not argue.

They took their coffee in the lounge, at a table near the door. They would be gone long before Valerie and Jakes came back.

Nicholas rose to pay their bill and Jane took the opportunity of
g
oing to the powder room. For several seconds she stood staring at er own reflection in the mirror above one of the tiny dressing tables. You look suddenly old, Jane, she thought; old and distressed and tired. Angry confusion doesn’t suit you.

The door behind her opened. Somehow she had been prepared for Valerie.

“Jane,” Valerie said without preamble, “you’re not going to tell Max about this?”

Turning slowly from the mirror, Jane met the anxious blue eyes.

“Is it necessary to keep it from him?” she asked steadily.

“Not really.” Nervously Valerie lit a cigarette. “He would forgive me anything. Max is very much in love with me.”

“
He also trusts you, I expect,” Jane pointed out harshly.

Valerie’s fair brows drew together in a frown.

“
I
must have a little fun,” she protested.

Impatiently Jane turned back to the mirror, the lipstick not too stead
y
in her hand.

“If it is entirely innocent fun you ought to be able to tell Max about it,” she said.

She could see Valerie through the mirror. She was still standing just inside the door, as if she would bar any attempt at retreat on Jane’s part until she had obtained her promise.

“Max can’t stand Eddie Jakes,” she said. “You must have noticed that. He regards him as a sort of parasite—not doing anything really useful in life, and he doesn’t like me getting mixed up with horses.”

“Then—why do it?” Jane’s voice was brittle.

“Because I think Max is being too dog-in-the-mangerish! He knows I can ride. He knows I’m even good enough to compete over the jumps, but he won’t hear of it. He’s rather like Daddy was in that respect just before he died,” Valerie pouted. “They both wanted to keep me wrapped up in cotton wool. But I won’t be coddled,” she declared defiantly. “I want to get all I can out of life. I want to
live
!”

“There are a good many ways of living to the full besides running contrary to all the rules, Jane pointed out. “Max has a busy practice to attend to. Isn’t there something you could do to help?
”
she was forced to add.

“I do help, occasionally.” Valerie’s tone was half-petulant, half-aggressive. “I can’t be down at the surgery all day long.”

“Max wouldn’t expect that.” Jane picked up her handbag. “It would give you something interesting to do. You would be taking part in
h
is
life.”