by Betty Neels
‘I’m longing to dance with you,’ Charles told her.
The dance floor was crowded and very noisy, and hemmed in by other dancers, they scarcely moved. For that Loveday was secretly thankful, as her opportunities to go dancing had been non-existent at Miss Cattell’s home. She was disappointed but not surprised when he declared impatiently that dancing was quite out of the question.
‘A pity,’ he told her as they left the place. ‘Having to cut short a delightful evening.’
There would be other evenings, thought Loveday, and waited for him to say so, only he didn’t. Indeed, he didn’t mention seeing her again as he drove her back. He was unusually silent, and once or twice she thought that he was on the point of telling her something.
‘Is there anything the matter?’ she asked.
‘Matter? What on earth put that idea into your head?’ He sounded angry, but then a moment later said, ‘Sorry, darling, I didn’t mean to snap. I wanted this evening to be something special.’
He stopped outside the consulting rooms and turned to look at her. ‘You wouldn’t like to ask me up?’
‘No, I wouldn’t.’ She smiled at him, and he put an arm round her shoulders and kissed her, then leaned forward to open her door.
She got out and turned to look at him. ‘It was a lovely evening, Charles, thank you.’ She waited for him to say something as she closed the door. But all he did was lift a hand in farewell and drive off. She stood on the pavement for a moment, disappointed that he hadn’t said when they would meet again, and vaguely disturbed about it, but the memory of his kiss blotted uneasiness away. She unlocked the door and let herself into the house.
Dr Fforde, wanting some notes he had left in his consulting room, had walked round from his house, found them, put out his desk light, and was on his way through the waiting room when the sound of a car outside sent him to the window. He stood there, watching Loveday get out of the car, Charles drive away and her stillness before she turned to go into the house. He went then to open the door and switch on the landing light.
‘Loveday.’ His voice was reassuringly normal. ‘I came to collect some notes I needed. ‘I’m on my way out.’
He came down the stairs, switching on lights as he came, and found her standing in the hall.
‘I’ve been out,’ said Loveday unnecessarily, and added for good measure, ‘With Charles.’
‘Yes, I saw you and the car from the window. You’ve had a pleasant evening?’
She smiled at him. She would have liked to have told him all about her and Charles. He was, she reflected, the kind of person you wanted to tell things to. Instead she said happily, ‘Oh, I had a lovely time,’ and then, because she wanted to make it all quite clear, ‘Charles has taken me out several times—we—seem to get on well together.’
Dr Fforde put his hand on the door. He smiled, but all he said was, ‘Sleep well!’
In the flat, she told Sam all about it. ‘I’m not sure if Dr Fforde likes me going out with Charles. He’s too nice to say so…’
She hung the pretty dress away and wondered when she would wear it again. Soon, she hoped.
She was used to being lonely. Sunday passed happily enough, with attending church and a walk, then back to Sam’s company and the Sunday papers. Monday couldn’t come quickly enough—there was sure to be a phone call from Charles. She counted her money once again. Perhaps a long skirt and a pretty top would be an asset? Something she could wear which wasn’t too noticeable? They would probably go dancing again, somewhere quieter—the dance hall hadn’t been the kind of place Charles would normally visit, she thought, but of course it had been near the restaurant.
Her spirits dwindled with the passing days. She went about her work quietly, careful not to make mistakes, passed the time of day with Nurse, answered the doctor when he spoke to her in her usual quiet way, but by the end of the week the happiness he had seen in her face was subdued.
It was on Thursday evening after the last patient had gone that he called her into his consulting rooms.
He was standing by the window looking down into the street below. He said over his shoulder. ‘Loveday, there is something you should know…’
Miss Priss was coming back! She swallowed a sudden rush of feelings and said politely, ‘Yes, Doctor?’
He turned to look at her. He said in a harsh voice, ‘Charles is to be married in two weeks… his fiancée has been in America. You are unaware of this?’
She nodded, and then said, ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to go to the flat. I’ll clear up later.’ Her voice didn’t sound quite like hers, but it was almost steady. On no account must she burst into tears or scream that she didn’t believe him. Dr Fforde wasn’t a man to tell lies—lies to turn her world upside down.
He didn’t speak, but opened the door for her. And when she looked up at him and whispered, ‘Thank you,’ from a pale face, the kindness of his smile almost overset her.
She let herself into the flat and, almost unaware of what she was doing, fed Sam, made tea and sat down to drink it. This was a nightmare from which she would presently wake, she told herself. She was still sitting there, the tea cold in front of her, Sam looking anxious on her lap, when the flat door opened and Dr Fforde came in.
‘I have a key,’ he observed. ‘I think you will feel better if you talk about it.’ He glanced at the tea. ‘We will have tea together and while we drink it we can discuss the matter.’
He put the kettle on and made fresh tea, found clean cups and saucers and put a nicely laid tray on the table between them. Loveday, watching him wordlessly, felt surprise at the ease with which he performed the small household duty.
He poured the tea and put a cup in front of her. ‘Tell me about it—Charles has been taking you out? You began to feel that he was falling in love with you?’ He added, ‘Drink your tea.’
She sipped obediently. There was no reason why she should answer him, for this was her own business, none of his, and yet she heard herself say meekly, ‘Not very often. Once or twice to the cinema and a day in the country and last Saturday evening.’ She said in a voice thick with tears, ‘I’ve been a silly fool, haven’t I?’
‘No,’ he said gently. ‘How were you to know if Charles didn’t tell you? I don’t suppose he deliberately set out to hurt you. He has fallen in and out of love many times, but he is to marry a strong-minded American girl who will make sure that he loves only her. He was having a last fling. He has been selfish and uncaring and has probably already forgotten you. That sounds harsh, but the obvious thing is to forget him, too. Believe me, you will, even though at the moment you don’t believe me.’
Loveday wiped her hands across her wet eyes like a child. ‘How could I have been so stupid? You have only to look at me. I’m not even a little bit pretty and I wear all the wrong clothes.’ She suddenly began to cry again. ‘I bought that dress just for the evening because he said I ought to wear pretty colours!’ She gulped and sniffed. ‘Please will you go away now?’
‘No. Go and wash your face and do your hair and get a coat. We will have our supper together.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Mrs Duckett, my housekeeper, will have it ready in half an hour or so. You will eat everything put before you and then I shall bring you back here and you will go straight to bed and sleep. In the morning your heart will be sore, and perhaps a little cracked, but not broken.’
He sounded so kind that she wanted to weep again. ‘I’m not hungry…’ But all the same she went to the bedroom and did her hair, and the best she could with her poor pink-nosed face and puffy eyelids. Presently she went back to where he was waiting, the tea things tidied away and Sam on his knee.
She hadn’t expected the house in the mews, a rather larger one than its neighbours, with windows on either side of its front door flanked by little bay trees. He ushered her into the narrow hall and Mrs Duckett came to meet them.
‘This is my receptionist, Miss Loveday West,’ said the doctor. ‘She has had an upsetting experienc
e and it seemed to me that one of your splendid suppers would make her feel better, Mrs Duckett. Loveday, this is my housekeeper, Mrs Duckett.’
Loveday shook hands and the housekeeper gave her a motherly look. Been crying her eyes out, by the look of it, she reflected, and took the coat the doctor had taken from Loveday.
‘Ten minutes or so.’ She beamed at them both. ‘Just nice time for a drop of sherry.’
The doctor opened the door and pushed Loveday gently ahead of him. The room had a window at each end and there was a cheerful fire burning in the elegant fireplace between them. It was a charming room, with sofas on each side of the hearth, a Pembroke table between them and several bookshelves crowded with books. There was a long-case clock in one corner, and the whole room was lighted by shaded lamps on the various small tables.
‘Come by the fire,’ said the doctor. ‘Do you like dogs?’
When she nodded she saw two beady eyes peering from a shock of hair, watching her from a basket by a winged armchair by the window.
‘A dog—he’s yours?’
‘Yes. He stays in his basket because he’s been hurt.’ Dr Fforde bent to stroke the tousled head. ‘He got knocked down in the street and no one owns him.’
‘You’ll keep him?’
‘Why not? He’s a splendid fellow and will be perfectly fit in a week or so.’ He had poured sherry and offered her a glass. ‘He has two broken legs. They’re in plaster.’
‘May I stroke him?’
‘Of course. I don’t think he’s had much kindness in his life so far.’
Loveday knelt by the basket and offered a hand, and then gently ran it over the dog’s rough coat. ‘He’s lovely. What do you call him?’
‘Can you think of a suitable name? I have had him only a couple of days.’
She thought about it, aware that beneath this fragile conversation about the dog there was hidden a great well of unhappiness which at any minute threatened to overflow.
‘Something that sounds friendly—you know, like a family dog with a lot of children.’ She paused, thinking that sounded like nonsense. ‘Bob or Bertie or Rob.’
‘We will call him Bob. Come and finish your sherry and we’ll have our supper.’
She wished Bob goodbye, and he stuck out a pink tongue and licked the back of her hand. ‘Oh, I do hope he’ll get well quickly,’ said Loveday.
She had expected supper to be a light evening meal, but it wasn’t supper at all. It was dinner at its best, eaten in a small dining room, sitting on Hepplewhite chairs at a table covered with a damask cloth and set with silver and glass. There was soup from a Coalport soup plate, chicken, cooked deliciously in a wine sauce, potato purée and tiny sprouts, and one of Mrs Duckett’s sherry trifles to follow.
The doctor poured a crisp white wine and maintained a steady flow of undemanding talk, giving her no chance to think about anything other than polite answers. They had coffee at the table before he drove her back to the consulting rooms, went up to the flat with her, switched on the lights, wished Sam an affable goodnight and went back down the stairs after bidding her a quiet goodnight. She tried to stammer out her thanks but he waved them aside.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, Loveday,’ he told her. ‘Go to bed and go to sleep.’
And, strangely enough, that was what she did. She woke early, though, and her unhappiness, held at bay the evening before, took over. But now, in the light of the morning, she was able to think about it with a degree of good sense. She saw now that she had behaved like a lovesick teenager—just the kind of silly girl Charles had needed to keep him amused while his future wife was away.
That didn’t make her unhappiness any the less. She had her dreams and she had been carried away by what she had supposed was Charles’s delight in her company. She told herself that it was because she had been so little in a man’s company that she had mistaken his attentions for real feeling. This was a sensible conclusion, which none the less didn’t stop her crying her eyes out, so that she had to spend a long time doing things to her face before she went down to the consulting rooms.
She thought she had made rather a good job of it as she studied her face in the large mirror between the windows in the waiting room, but it was a good thing that she couldn’t read the doctor’s thoughts as he came in.
He noted the puffed eyelids and the still pink nose and the resolutely smiling mouth and reflected that she had one of the most unassuming faces he had ever seen. Except for those glorious eyes, of course. So what was it about her that took so much of his interest? An interest which he had felt the first time he had met her…
He went to his consulting room, accepted the coffee she brought him, and considered the matter. He was in love with her, of course; it was not a passing fancy. He had over the years considered marrying, and had, like any other man, fancied himself in love from time to time. But he had always known that the girl in question hadn’t been the right one, that sooner or later he would meet a woman whom he would love and want to have for his wife. But now was hardly the time to tell Loveday that. Patience was called for, and he had plenty of that.
He had a busy day ahead of him, and would be spending the greater part of it at the hospital, so beyond giving Loveday instructions about patients and the time of his return, he had nothing to say. He could see that she was determined to keep her feelings concealed.
Only that evening, as he left to go home, he paused at her desk, where she was still busy.
‘Bob spent half an hour in the garden this morning. You would be surprised at what he can manage to do on two legs and with a lot of help.’
She said gravely, ‘He is a darling dog. I think he will be devoted to you; you saved his life.’
He smiled down at her. ‘I think he will be a fine fellow once he is well again. Goodnight, Loveday.’
It was quiet after he had gone. It would be absurd, she told herself, to say that she missed him. She finished the tidying up and went upstairs to Sam’s welcoming voice. She had got through the day, hadn’t she? she reflected, and if she could get through one day she could get through as many more as she must before she could finally forget Charles.
The following week seemed endless; she listened to Nurse’s confidences concerning her boyfriend with sympathy, presented a welcoming face to the doctor’s patients, and carried on long one-sided conversations with Sam.
She planned her weekend with him. ‘I shall go shopping on Saturday afternoon,’ she told him, ‘and on Sunday I’ll go to church in the morning and then to Hyde Park in the afternoon, and we’ll have a cosy evening together.’
And Sam, grown comfortably stout and placid, got onto her lap and went to sleep. Life for him, at any rate, was quite perfect.
The last of Friday afternoon’s patients came late. Nurse was annoyed because that meant she couldn’t leave punctually, and just before the patient was ushered out the phone rang. Five minutes later Dr Fforde left too.
He bade the nurse goodnight, told Loveday to lock up and that he would be at the hospital, and went away.
Nurse followed him almost at once, grumbling because she would have to rush home and change before going out for the evening. ‘And I wanted to get my hair done,’ she complained, slamming the door behind her.
Which left Loveday alone, putting things to rights. She would be down in the morning to make sure that everything was ready for Monday, but all the same she liked to leave the place just so. She didn’t hurry for she had no reason to do so, and even though after a week her unhappiness was dulled, her solitary evenings were the most difficult part of the day.
She spent longer than she needed in the consulting rooms the next morning, keeping her mind resolutely on prosaic things such as her shopping list and Monday’s patients. The phone rang several times too—patients wanting to make appointments—and just as she was about to lock up, Mrs Seward rang.
‘I know Fforde isn’t there,’ she told Loveday, ‘but would you leave a message for him? Ask him to
come and see me on Monday if he can manage it? If he knows before his morning patients he may be able to arrange something. Thank you. Am I talking to the girl with the green eyes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Miss Priss not back yet? I’m sure you’re filling her shoes very competently. You won’t forget the message?’
She rang off and Loveday thought what a pleasant, friendly voice she had. Perhaps the doctor was going to marry her…
She was on the way upstairs to her flat when she heard the front door bang shut. It wouldn’t be Todd, he used the entrance at the back of the house, and the three other medical men who had rooms there were all out of London for the weekend, Todd had told her that before he had gone home the previous evening.
Not quite frightened, but cautious, Loveday started down the stairs.
Dr Fforde was coming up them, two at a time. He stood on the landing, looking up at her.
‘I’m glad I find you in,’ he observed. ‘Can you spare an hour later on today? Late afternoon, perhaps? I’ll call for you around four o’clock. Bob is doing splendidly, but I fancy he needs some distraction—a new face. Will you come?’
‘Well, if you think it might help him to get better quickly… He can’t go out?’
‘Into the garden. With two of us he might feel encouraged to hobble around in his plasters. He has forgotten how to enjoy life. Indeed, I think that he never had that opportunity.’
‘Oh, the poor dog. Of course I’ll come.’
‘Good!’ He was already going back downstairs. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Oh, wait!’ cried Loveday. ‘I almost forgot. Mrs Seward phoned. She asked if you would arrange to see her on Monday; she wanted you to know as soon as possible when you got here on Monday morning.’
He nodded, said, ‘Thanks,’ and went on his way out of the house.