‘I think St Lucy’s would be the best from my point of view,’ Joy told them, suddenly feeling that with Doctor Moyser and his mother she could be perfectly frank. ‘I have an invalid sister, you see,’ she explained. ‘At least, she isn’t exactly an invalid, but she can’t walk. She was involved in an accident three years or so ago, and since then she appears to have lost the use of her legs, although we have been to several specialists and they all say there’s no physical reason why she should have done.’
‘Then let’s hope that by coming to Vanmouth you’re able to find the impetus needed,’ Quentin said cheerfully. ‘My father is the consultant pathologist at St Lucy’s. We might see what he can suggest. That’s if you care to, of course.’
‘I’d try anyone, anything,’ Joy said rashly but meaning every word. ‘Lana is such a lovely person, and until this happened she was also a lively, happy person as well. Now it seems’—she hesitated a moment then, sure of being understood, plunged on—‘as though she has shut herself up inside with her injury ... she doesn’t seem to be able to make any effort. I know depression is something we have to fight separately from the injury itself, but it worries all of us, Mother, the twins, myself and’—she smiled at Pete again, trying to draw him into the circle of conversation—‘Pete too.’
‘I’m sure it does.’ Celia spoke firmly. ‘It must make life quite a strain all the time. Does that mean you would prefer not to live in at the Nurses’ Home?’
They talked on throughout another cup of fresh tea and the time it took for them to smoke through a cigarette, then they heard the sound of another car outside and the slam of the outer door. There was a quick, brisk tread along the hall and into the lounge, and they were face to face with Lionel Moyser, Quentin’s father and the husband of Celia.
Lionel Moyser was a well-set-up figure of a man, giving a living promise of what his son might reasonably become in the years which lay ahead. There were the same broad shoulders, the same height and the same thin face with the curiously slanting eyes, and there lay the greatest difference, apart from that of age, between father and son. Lionel’s eyes were of a steel-blue, but his son’s were a replica of Celia Moyser’s bright, hazel brown ones.
Introductions were quickly made, and they were all relieved to hear that the young man on the bicycle was making ‘satisfactory progress’, a term which meant little to Pete but appeared to content the others. They chatted together for a few minutes longer, but Lionel had just finished a long, hard day and was tired, and Joy and Pete were only too conscious of the drive home which lay ahead of them.
‘I’ll telephone Mr. Anderson again as soon as you’re on the road,’ Quentin promised. ‘He said he wouldn’t be going to bed for hours and that when you left, if I phoned again he would tell your mother so that she would know approximately what time to expect you.’
Joy thanked him, took her place beside Pete, very conscious of Quentin’s eyes which seemed to promise so much of excitement and who knew what else in the future, then the little car was speeding down the drive and out on to the main road on the first stage of the journey back to Wilborough.
They drove in silence for some distance. Joy took two cigarettes from her case in her handbag, although she had already smoked the quota she allowed herself daily, lit them and passed one to Pete. Apart from a murmured ‘thanks ‘there was still no word between them, until she felt she must break the silence, must talk to someone about these strangers who had entered so unexpectedly into their lives and who, she felt, would make an impact in some way which would be, so far as she was concerned, quite unforgettable.
‘Friendly people, aren’t they?’ she said lightly. ‘And I liked the Wrenshaws too. I’ve a feeling we’re going to be amongst real friends when we eventually settle in Vanmouth.’
‘They’re a sight too friendly, considering we’ve only just met them, so far as I’m concerned,’ Pete said in an antagonistic voice so unlike his usual cheery tones that Joy felt herself turn automatically in his direction, in some concern. ‘I didn’t like the way that young doctor was looking at you,’ Pete growled. ‘I suppose they’re all alike, so used to all you nurses and Sisters and what-have-you looking up to them as though they’re little tin gods or something...’
He broke off as Joy’s merry laughter rang out, startling him. She had been thinking of the two house surgeons with whom she had dealt for the greater part of her time at Wilborough General, the one married and with a wife so fond of a gay time that he was always worried about how to keep up with her, the other disappointed in love and vowing for the future that the only women who would interest him would be exceptional surgical cases.
‘You’ve got entirely the wrong idea, Pete,’ she told him. ‘I suppose Doctor Quentin—he did tell us to call him that so’s we didn’t get mixed up between him and his father, didn’t he?—was only looking at me, if indeed he looked at all, because I’d acted with what he would consider “due promptitude” when the accident happened to that unfortunate boy on the bicycle.’
‘That wasn’t how it seemed to me.’
Pete was by no means mollified, and for a time they continued to drive along in silence once more. There was very little traffic. Occasionally the odd heavy long-distance lorry passed them, and when Joy made the comment that ‘knights of the road or not, they certainly know how to make those, monsters move ‘Pete’s only answer was another non-committal grunt.
Joy did not mind. She was content to sit quietly beside him, watching the road ahead in the beam of Pete’s headlights, flunking of her unexpected meeting with Quentin Moyser and not allowing herself to dream too much about what she thought—and secretly hoped—she had read in his intent gaze.
‘Don’t be an idiot, Joy Benyon,’ she told herself severely. ‘For all you know he might well have a girlfriend or a fiancée—or maybe even a wife—tucked away somewhere, an attractive man like that!’
A girl friend or even a fiancée might well be a surmountable obstacle, but if he were married...
‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ she thought, but she shivered slightly as the idea sped through her mind, ‘not when he’s obviously living at home with his parents.’
‘Cold, Joy?’ Pete had noted the shiver as, she thought in some compunction, he appeared to notice any and everything which might be adversely affecting any one of the family.
‘Not really, thanks.’ She took the rug he dragged from the back of the car and tucked it about herself to satisfy his instinct for caring for someone in his care. ‘Just ... how do they say it? Someone walked over my grave.’
Pete gave her a curious glance but made no comment, and the remainder of their journey passed in almost companionable silence, except that Joy, for the first time in all the years Pete had been with them during which time she had driven thousands of miles by his side, felt a sense of strain and tension which had never before been present.
‘Pure emotional imagination,’ she told herself firmly as the lights of the outskirts of Wilborough came into view. ‘I’m overtired after such a full day. That must be it.’
Just the same, when the suburb of Wilborough in which the General Infirmary was placed behind them and they were heading quickly for their own part of the town, she felt a sudden urge to be safely in her own small room, tucked up in bed, and free to think about Quentin Moyser, the house at Vanmouth and all the things which had happened to her since Mr. Belding had appeared at the hospital.
‘Come with me to take the car away, Joy,’ Pete invited as he turned into Cranberry Terrace. ‘It’s always a help, negotiating that corner in the dark.’
In common with most of the houses in similar roads in Wilborough the garages at the back of the houses had been added as an afterthought when motoring became a popular mode of transport. Consequently there was not always much room, to drive into the garages erected opening out on to the back lanes of the terraces, and Cranberry Terrace was no exception.
‘All right,’ Joy agreed cheerfully. ‘Don’t bl
ow your horn—it’s after hours. I’ll just give one ring on the bell and then Mum’ll know we’re back. I always do that when I’m coming in late.’
She hurried out of the car and gave one sharp press to the bell in the door, then she was back in the car and beside Pete again even as the hall light came on and she knew Aileen was waiting, ready to put a match to the gas. ‘Been quite a day.’ The car was safely in the garage and Joy stood by the folding doors at the back, waiting for Pete to reach up and to lock them. ‘But I’ve enjoyed it.’
He pulled the doors closed, reached up for the bolt, then, before she could move, his arms came down and were around her. For a moment Joy felt herself stiffen, then she tried to pull herself from his grasp, but she struggled in vain, and after a moment or so, feeling that such a struggle between herself and Pete was both a ridiculous and an undignified affair, she stood absolutely still.
‘That’s better.’ Pete’s voice was almost normal, but his hold on her slender form did not slacken, and she could feel his breath on her cheek, even though she turned her head.
‘Joy,’ he went on, suddenly breaking the strained silence which had fallen between them, ‘this isn’t the way I wanted—intended—things to be, not at all. But somehow events recently have pushed me into this. I don’t just mean what happened tonight. I mean everything that’s happened since Miss Barnes left her house and her money to you.’
‘It doesn’t make any difference to ... any of us, Pete,’ Joy said firmly, although she knew she was not speaking the truth. It was going to make a great deal of difference, not only to herself but to all of them, Pete included.
‘It does.’ Pete was normally a quiet, non-argumentative young man, but just now he was stirred as Joy had never known him to be stirred before. ‘It means, for one thing, that you, all of you, will be going away, going out of my life, unless I’m lucky enough to find some way of following you all later on ... and that doesn’t seem very likely at the present moment. But you know I shall follow you all just as soon as ever I can. You’re all the family I’ve got, Joy. Not that I’m worried about them—although I’m fond enough of you all, you know that. But it’s you I’m thinking of. Just you, Joy.’
‘You can come over and see us, just as soon as we get settled, Pete.’ She tried desperately to put things back on their old familiar footing, but he would not listen.
‘That isn’t what I mean at all,’ he said doggedly, ‘and you know quite well that it isn’t. I hadn’t intended to say anything like this to you for ages. Not for a few years yet, anyway. Mr. Simpson promised me a partnership in the firm if I “showed promise”, and I was quite content to try and work hard and work up to that in time. Mr. Abbicombe, the insurance broker, told me he could arrange for me to borrow enough money to put into the firm when the time came, and a reasonable way of repayment. Oh,’ he said with a sudden and totally unexpected bitterness she found strangely touching, ‘I’d got it all worked out. I was going to wait until I could have something to show you, something to prove I’d be able to take care of you, to take some of the burdens of the twins and their education, their future, some of the care of Lana from your shoulders ... and then this Miss Barnes has to come along and leave you with a house of your own, something I can’t hope to give you for years and years, and then only with a mortgage tacked on to it, if we’re lucky enough to get a mortgage, that is—and enough money to keep the place going, without it costing you as much as things are costing you now!’
‘Pete, I ...’
‘I know.’ He gave a despairing groan which was instantly shattered by his next spate of words which seemed to come tumbling over themselves in an effort to make her understand. ‘I’m glad for you, for all of you. You know that. That was a big enough pill to swallow on its own account, knowing you could go on being as independent as the old lady herself, to the end of your own days if you wished, without what happened tonight. When we met that Doctor Quentin and I saw the way he looked at you, I knew right away things were going to be ... wrong for me, right from now onwards. He fell for you, Joy. I don’t blame him. But you don’t know anything about him! He’s good-looking. He seems to have money, and everything his heart could wish for, including a nice home, good parents and all the rest of it. Why isn’t he married and established in a home of his own somewhere, with a wife to look after his welfare and his practice or whatever you call it? Maybe he’s just a gay philanderer, and you’re going the right way to let him break your heart!’
The ready colour flew into Joy’s cheeks. Surely she had not looked at young Doctor Quentin in any way likely to give Pete cause for what was tantamount to an accusation of flirting?
‘You have no right to say such things,’ she told him angrily. ‘We’ve only just met the doctor and his family, and they’re very charming and friendly people. There’s no necessity whatsoever for all this sort of thing! You may be almost like an elder brother so far as I’m concerned, but I intend to live my own life...’
‘That’s just it,’ Pete burst in, equally angrily. ‘I’m not your brother, and I don’t look upon you as a sister either! I’ve thought about this ever since your mother agreed to let me undertake articles. I could have done some other job, maybe some manual work on the buildings or in a factory, and made enough money to set up a house a lot sooner than this. But I was working on a long-term policy, on something that’s going to be with me all my life, even if there are slumps again or anything like that. I might even try for Inland Revenue work. There’ll always be people with my kind of training there, and opportunities for promotion.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’ Gently but firmly Joy managed to disengage herself from Pete’s arms until she stood just a little apart from him. ‘Don’t think I’m being unkind, Pete,’ she said gently. ‘It’s just that I’ve never thought of you—of anyone—in this way, and this has been an emotional and sufficiently exhausting day as it is without all this at its ending! It won’t be long before we’re both getting up to go to work,’ she reminded him. ‘Put all this behind you for the time being, there’s a good lad. Mother and Lana and Cousin Emma will all be waiting to hear what the house is like and all about everything, so it’s going to be ages before we get to bed.’
‘Mother, Lana, Cousin Emma and the twins!’ Pete said, still angry, but now there was a bitterness in his tone which had not been there earlier. ‘You’re always the same, Joy. That’s what makes me love you, I think. You always think of all the others first, just as you’ve always lumped me in and along with them ... what’s best for all has always been your ideal. It’s a wonderful thing, this family feeling, but it’s you I’m thinking of! I love you, Joy...’
He moved forward and would have taken her in his arms again, but she was too quick for him. Deftly she moved towards the small door which led into the tiny suburban garden.
‘You don’t,’ she said gently. ‘You’re just ... used to me, used to my being there all the time. You’ll meet some other girl, maybe before we expect it, with only herself and her own affairs to think about.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’ Pete moved to stand beside her, his tone pleading. ‘You never know, your mother might meet someone yet. She’s a lovely, charming woman. The twins’ll grow up. They’ll leave you and lead their own lives! Lana doesn’t care about you or anyone else nowadays, but she’d be off like a shot if she met a wealthy man who was interested in her ... and Cousin Emma’ll not mind anything, so long as someone looks after her and she can make herself a little useful in return.’
‘I won’t listen.’ Joy put her hands over her ears and opened the door. ‘In the morning you’ll be sorry you said all this tonight,’ she prophesied, ‘and I’ll be willing to forget it ... but I meant what I said, Pete. Remember that. I’ve always looked on you as a brother, and that’s how I’m sure I shall always think of you. I’ll tell Mother you’ll be along in a minute, shall I?’ and without waiting for a reply she turned and hurried into the house as fast as she possibly could.
CHAPTER VII
The last month the little family were to spend at Cranberry Terrace seemed to be crammed in every moment, there was so much to do. Pete had taken himself off to Mrs. Parrott’s house on the other side of the road, the morning after he and Joy had paid their first visit to Fernbank. Aileen, who had grown to look upon him as a member of her own family, was a little hurt at first, but after Lana and Joy, to say nothing of Emma, had said all they had to say on the subject, she seemed a little more contented.
‘It’s only likely the boy’ll want to get settled in while you’re still here to turn to if things don’t work out just as he has hoped and planned,’ Emma said philosophically. ‘He’s a young man now, Aileen, not the boy you took in, shattered and forlorn by what had happened to him. He knows he’ll have to fend for himself now he’s more or less on his feet, and he knows he has you and this family to thank for that—and it’s only likely he’ll want to make sure he’ll be as comfortable as he expected across at Mrs. Parrott’s. If he isn’t I dare say he’ll be back here, asking you to help him find somewhere else before you leave for Vanmouth. He knows you have all sorts of connections in the business world, and he’ll very likely be back before you know it to take advantage of the fact.’
‘He knows Mrs. Parrott has two nieces who have done very well for themselves. He’s probably got an eye to the main chance,’ Lana contributed a little scathingly. ‘Didn’t one of the girls win some sort of small fortune in a fashion competition or something not so very long ago?’
‘I don’t think that sort of thing interested Pete very much,’ Joy had said before she gave any thought to the conversation. Lana gave her a curious glance.
Promise the Doctor Page 6