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“Hush,” she whispered. “Try and sleep—”

“Sleep! I could sleep for ever, and I probably shall!”

Sarah bit her lip. “Oh, Dad! Please don’t!”

“I’m sorry, love.”

She held his hand in silence, listening to his wheezing breath and wishing she could do something, anything, to ease him.

“What time is it?” he asked at last.

She told him. “I—I missed the last train home. I’m terribly sorry, Daddy. Madge asked me to see the show—”

“She would!”

“It was ghastly. Alec Farne told her that she would have to be doubly careful before she chose her next part. I don’t think she liked it very much.”

Her father breathed deeply. “How were the sets?”

“Modem! Splodges of colour and very little else. Some of them were badly built as well.”

“I thought so!” He seemed to derive a certain satisfaction from contemplating what they were like from her description. “And Madge?”

Sarah stood like a rock. “She was awful too, Dad. She’s too old to take the part of a teenager. Her leading man is years younger than she is, and he looked it.”

Daniel sighed heavily. “Well, it’s no worse than we already knew. What are you looking so miserable about?”

“Dad, I wouldn’t have left you on your own for anything !”

“I know that. It was Madge—”

In a second she was on her knees beside the bed, her hand still in his, her face crumpling at the love she read on his.

“Robert doesn’t believe me! He thinks I stayed up deliberately—to be with Alec. Daddy, I don’t know what to do!”

His heavy breathing contracted her heart and she felt doubly guilty for pushing her own unhappiness on to him. He ought to be sleeping, not listening to her babbling about something that couldn’t be altered. One day she would grow used to the prospect of life without Robert. She had to!

“Robert—is too good—a bloke—to bear a grudge— for long. He’ll come round, darling. He doesn’t know— Madge. We—do. She’ll give herself away—when she thinks she’s got her own way ! ”

“Oh, Dad! Madge isn’t like that!”

“Madge is herself. I’ve—loved her—many years, but still—she left me!”

“And I wasn’t here!” Sarah wailed.

“You couldn’t help it.” Her father broke off, breathing jerkily in an effort to relieve his labouring lungs.

“Tell me what else you did. You saw Alec Farne?”

“I went to one of his rehearsals. A girl called Jacqueline has the part I was going to have. He shouts at her all the time, and the poor girl has no confidence at all. At one point, he made me read a scene in front of her, to show her how it should go. It was rather brutal. I’m glad I’m out of it. Whatever happens, I don’t think I want to go back to the theatre. Will you mind?”

Daniel shook his head. “I always knew that you would choose a person in the end. I did, and your own mother did too. Only your stepmother did not.”

“It’s so
unfair
!”

Daniel attempted a chuckle. “Some people manage both to love—and have a demanding—career. Must one —criticise because—someone isn’t—big enough for both?”

“I suppose not,” Sarah agreed. But it did seem unfair all the same. Why should her father have spent so many years loving her stepmother with such little reward? And why should her stepmother carelessly reach out and ruin her own life, without any reason, but just because it suited her to do so?

“I think—I’ll sleep now,” her father told her. “Don’t —be too—unhappy, my dear. Robert—is a fine—man, and a—worthy person—to love, even if it—never works out!”

“Yes, he is, isn’t he?” she said. “But it hurts that he should think so badly of me. Never mind, Dad. We’ll both survive, and we have each other!”

Daniel nodded, closing his eyes. “Bless you,” he whispered.

Sarah had thought that she wanted to sleep herself, but now she knew that she wouldn’t sleep a wink. The sight of the worn out shell of her father made her think that she hated her stepmother, but she knew she didn’t. Her father was right as always. How could you hate someone for not being what you wanted them to be? It wasn’t Madge’s fault that she wasn’t a dowdy, loving, maternal body. But it wasn’t that that Sarah was bitter about, she reflected sadly. It was because her stepmother had shown herself to be unworthy, and she was suddenly, passionately glad that Robert was such a different kind of person. He might never forgive her; he might never find out the truth about her, but at least she would never feel ashamed of having loved him with all her heart and being.

She went out into the garden. The rain had brought on a new crop of weeds and the pansies needed deadheading. It was good to have her fingers back in the soil. What better than a garden to give one back one’s perspective?

She had hardly begun her self-appointed task of weeding the bed by the drive, though, when Mrs. Vidler came walking by and leaned on the gate to have a chinwag, as she put it, seeing that neither of them were doing anything in particular.

“We missed you at the rehearsal of the song, Miss Sarah,” she began cheerfully. “Mr. Neil came along and played the piano for us, but it wasn’t the same without you. I hear your father’s not too well—”

“Neil played the piano for you?” Sarah repeated, puzzled. “I thought he was in London?”

“Not he! Very particular he is about that music of his. One or two of the ladies were on the point of telling him where he got off with those fancy ideas of his. But then we knew you’d be back soon enough!”

“But, Mrs. Vidler, are you sure that Neil wasn’t in London?”

“Sure as I’m standing here. We had the rehearsal in the village hall, beginning at seven o’clock, and we were all there. Nothing suited him, though! The acoustics were bad, and our voices are worse! It was a lively evening, I can tell you!”

Sarah went back to her weeding. “Did it go on for long?”

“Quite long enough!” Mrs. Vidler peered over the gate to see what Sarah was doing. “Don’t you take out that columbine, Miss Sarah! That ain’t no weed, I’ll have you know!”

“Oh,” said Sarah, “isn’t it?”

Mrs. Vidler sniffed. “You’re no better than a child, Miss Sarah, let loose in the garden. You mind what you’re doing!”

“I’ll try,” Sarah agreed meekly.

Mollified, Mrs. Vidler changed her basket from one hand to the other, plainly reluctant to leave.

“Had the doctor to your father, I hear?”

“He was sent for last night. He’s coming again this morning.”

“Thought he might be. Saw his car in the village, and there’s no one else who’s sick, so far as I know.”

Sarah looked up. “My father had a very bad day yesterday,” she said abruptly.

Mrs. Vidler nodded. “A good thing you had Mr. Robert to stand by you. Near everyone in the village has had cause to be grateful to him some time or other. Why, Miss Sarah, you’re crying! Now, dearie, don’t take on so! Is he that bad? It won’t do him a might of good for you to be shedding tears!”

“No, I know,” Sarah sniffed. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Vidler. I’m rather tired, that’s all. And R-Robert
was
very kind yesterday! ”

“Ay, he would be, and not only because he thought he ought to be, if I’m any judge. He’s got his eye on you, I’m sure of that—”

“Mrs. Vidler, I don’t think you should say things like that,” Sarah interrupted her hastily.

“Mebbe not. But I’ll say this, Samantha isn’t going to be best pleased when she sees how the land lies. Just thought I’d warn you, Miss Sarah. Now I mustn’t let you keep me standing here when I have so much to do! Mr. Robert is back to lunch today, but I don’t suppose you’ll be over to do his typing, will you?”

Sarah shook her head. “I can’t leave my father.”

Mrs. Vidler went on up the road. Sarah sat back on her heels and watched her go. Oh well, Samantha would have less to worry about in the future ! But she was glad that she wouldn’t be able to go over to the Manor for some days to come, especially if she was going to go on bursting into tears when anyone mentioned Robert.

The doctor came soon after. Surprisingly he looked strangely like Robert. Sarah looked at him with a feeling of outrage that must have shown clearly on her face, for he laughed.

“I’m his cousin,” he explained. “Strange how these things happen, isn’t it? I look like Robert’s brother, and Neil and he have nothing in common at all.”

“Then you’re Dr. Chaddox?”

“Dr. Fairfield. We’re related on his mother’s side.”

“Oh, then it isn’t so strange really,” Sarah found herself saying. “I mean, Robert must have been like his mother.”

“A little bit. I was pretty angry with him last night, Miss Blaney. I should have been called in much sooner, you know. There are drugs Much can help your father to breathe more easily. It doesn’t do his heart any good to be left to struggle for hours. You knew his heart was bad?”

“No, I didn’t,” Sarah said. ‘‘Robert told me when I— when I got back.”

The doctor nodded, his shrewd eyes studying her face. “Robert said he’d been left in charge. You had to go to London, did you?”

“My stepmother was here,” Sarah told him.

“Really? I didn’t realise that Mrs. Blaney was here with you too. I had the idea that your parents were living apart, or that your mother—stepmother—was dead?”

“No. My stepmother is in the theatre.”

“Well, she ought to be told, Miss Blaney. All we can hope to do for your father is to make him more comfortable when he gets one of these attacks, and to do all that we can to remove all the emotional anxieties and pressures that bring the asthma on. We can’t give him a new heart, or the will to go on living.”

“How—how long—” Sarah broke off hopelessly. “It’s a silly question, I suppose. But he looks so terribly tired !”

“So would you if you’d been straining for breath for hours together. Now, I want you to think hard, Miss Blaney. Have you noticed any pattern of events preceding these attacks?”

Sarah looked guilty. “N-not really,” she stammered. “When his wife comes?”

Sarah nodded unhappily. “Anything to do with the theatre. He wasn’t able to design the sets for my stepmother’s present show and that seemed to upset him. I don’t think he ever had asthma before. But I didn’t live at home and I hadn’t seen very much of him recently, not until we came down here.”

“I see.” Sarah was glad that Dr. Fairfield didn’t go on about it. She thought that he probably understood better than anyone else of her acquaintance how it had been for her father. “I’ll go up and see him now. I’m going to give him another injection and then we’ll hope he sleeps for the rest of the day. You won’t be going out, will you, Miss Blaney?”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “No, no, of course not!”

The doctor smiled. “Don’t look so worried,” he said gently. “You’ll have him a little while yet. But call me the moment he starts another attack, won’t you? I’ll come at once—even if it’s in the middle of the night!”

“Thank you,” said Sarah. “And thank you for being so kind.”

The doctor’s smile grew bigger. “I imagine you’re pretty easy to be kind to!” he rallied her. “Are you coming up with me?”

She stood by her father’s bed while the doctor carried out his examination and gave him an injection which acted like magic on his stertorous breathing, bringing relief and a smile to Daniel Blaney’s face.

“Good of you to come, doctor,” he said throatily.

Dr. Fairfield patted his shoulder with a smile. “You’ll do now, Mr. Blaney. Try and eat some lunch, but don’t be disappointed if you don’t feel hungry for a while. You’re lucky to have such a charming nurse!”

“Yes, Sarah will look after me.”

The doctor ran lightly down the stairs, barely pausing in the hall as he said, “Don’t forget, call me any time! I’ll be back in the morning otherwise. And cheer up, he’s looking much better already!”

Sarah stood in the doorway and half waved her hand as the doctor got into his car and drove off down the road. He might look like Robert, she thought, but his driving was quite different. He had an urgent, aggressive manner at the wheel that was quite in contrast to Robert’s smooth perfectionism. But she wished he looked a little less like Robert. She didn’t want to be reminded of him for a long time to come.

Her father had some soup for lunch which she had made herself. She had found the value of having a stockpot to which she could add bits of this and that for flavour. It was one of the many things she had learned from the Women’s Institute. She herself, realising that she had had nothing for breakfast, added an egg salad to her bowl of soup and took it out into the garden to eat it while she read the morning paper. She liked to sit in the orchard, where no one could overlook her, and where she could see the fruit growing on the trees.

When she went into the orchard, however, she found Neil sitting on the gate she shared with the Manor. He watched her moodily as she set her lunch out on the wicker table under an apple tree.

“Care for a game of tennis this evening?” he asked her.

“I don’t like to leave my father,” she answered.

He swung himself over the gate and came and sat down opposite her. “That soup smells good!”

Sarah grinned at him. “Would you like some?”

“No, thanks. Mrs. Vidler has given me urgent instructions to be on time for lunch to keep Robert company —as if he cares one way or the other! But I feel obliged to stay on the old girl’s right side. Those harridans gave me quite a roasting at the rehearsal yesterday. Quite honestly, Sarah, I’m glad you’re doing it and not me! They haven’t got a clue !”

“They don’t have to until next December. It’s a social occasion for them, not a class that they have to take seriously.”

Neil made a face at her. “Point taken, gentle lady. Rather you than me, that’s all!”

Sarah hesitated. “If you were taking the rehearsal yesterday, how come you were in London?” she asked him.

“I suppose Robert told you,” he came back. “Look, Sarah, I didn’t mean to put you in the basket. I didn’t even know that you were that way about each other! Robert was worried when you didn’t put in an appearance and he said you might try for the last train. He was looking
as
bleak as hell, but I thought it was because he was worried about your father. Anyway, he asked me to rush up the motorway and collect you from the station and bring you straight home.” He flushed slightly. “He said I could take his car, as a matter of fact, so of course I went like a shot. It goes like a bomb on the motorway.”