Rachel Lindsay - Love and Dr Forrest

by Rachel Lindsay

  Pat was a radiant bride, and as she and Richard walked together down the aisle a stray shaft of sunlight shone on the two redheads.

  "Heaven help their children," Martha murmured. "Unless the law of genetics alters itself they'll all be carrot tops!"

  Lesley waved her friends off for their honeymoon and walked despondently into the house where Dr. and Mrs. Rogers were bidding goodbye to the last of their guests.

  Confetti stuck to the carpet and flowers were wilting in the smoky atmosphere. The sight was so depressing that she hurried to her friend's erstwhile bedroom and changed out of her bridesmaid dress into a more serviceable suit. Within half an hour of Richard's and Pat's leaving, she was on her way to visit a patient. Somehow she saw this as being the story of her life.

  As the days passed Lesley became absorbed in her duties, though her thoughts wandered occasionally to Italy, where her friends were sunning themselves without a single thought in their heads for anyone else at all.

  Yet in this she did them an injustice, for they often speculated on what had happened to make Lesley run away from a man she still obviously loved.

  "At first I thought Redwood had been playing around with her," Richard confessed one evening as they strolled by the lake after dinner. "But somehow it's out of character for him."

  "I agree," Pat said. "But if they love each other why aren't they together?"

  "Beats me. But I'll find out one day. I promise you that."

  "Don't be too long about it," his bride warned, "or Lesley will turn into a dried-up spinster. It's a pity we women can't learn to do without men."

  "What a thing to say on your honeymoon!"

  The conversation ended in the way most of their conversation did, and it was several moments before they drew apart and returned to the hotel.

  The band was still playing and Richard looked at Pat.

  "How about a dance, Mrs. White?"

  "A lovely idea. But you've kissed my lipstick off. I'll freshen up and meet you back here."

  He nodded and strolled into the bar, sidestepping as a tall, dark-haired man strode out.

  "Mr. Redwood!" Richard was astonished. "I never expected to see you here."

  "I could say the same to you!"

  "I'm on my honeymoon."

  Too late, Richard remembered that as far as the surgeon was concerned his bride was supposed to be Lesley.

  "Your honeymoon?" Phillip Redwood's voice was bleak. "That calls for a celebration drink."

  Nervously Richard allowed himself to be led over to the bar where two whiskies were ordered and served. "Are you staying here long?" he asked.

  "No. I'm leaving in the morning. I thought I'd stay a few days but it's too quiet here for me."

  Since quietness was exactly what Redwood would demand from a holiday hotel, Richard was sure the man's short stay was due entirely to the discovery that he himself was here—supposedly with Lesley. If only Pat would hurry down. He couldn't wait to see the look on Redwood's face.

  "I'll be pushing off now," Phillip said. "Give my best wishes to… to your wife."

  "Don't go yet," Richard blocked his way. "Let's have another drink."

  Reluctantly Phillip Redwood leaned against the side of the bar, and Richard ordered two more whiskies and hoped Pat would have the sense to come in here in search of him.

  As though conjured up by his thoughts she appeared in the doorway, her red hair aureoled by the light behind her.

  "So that's where you've been hiding!" she exclaimed.

  Richard went quickly forward and drew her to the bar. "Look who I've just met!"

  If Pat was surprised to see Phillip Redwood, it was nothing compared to the emotions he was undergoing. With a shaking hand, he picked up his glass and then set it down on the bar top with a slight thud.

  "I can't believe______ Do you mean you're Richard's wife?"

  "Unless he's a bigamist!"

  "But I thought______ I was under the impression________ "

  He paused for a moment and then shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

  Glancing at Pat, Richard decided to speak. "I think it does matter, Mr. Redwood. I owe you an explanation, but I don't know how to begin."

  "There's no need. Lesley stopped loving—I mean she wanted to leave the clinic and she dreamed up an engagement to you as an excuse."

  "You think she stopped loving you," Pat said swiftly. "That's what you were going to say, weren't you?"

  "Yes."

  The word was clipped, as if it cost him an effort to utter it.

  "But she does still love you," Pat went on. "Desperately! She-"

  "Pat!" Richard warned, but knew from the look on her face that it was useless to try to stop her.

  "I don't know why she left the clinic," Pat resumed, "but it has nothing to do with not caring about you. She's terribly unhappy."

  "Then it doesn't make sense." Phillip Redwood's voice was thin with anguish. "Why did she leave?"

  "That's an answer you must find out for yourself," Pat caught Richard's hand and pulled him to the exit. "Good night, Mr. Redwood."

  Left alone Phillip tried to think clearly. The discovery that Richard had married Pat and not Lesley, was the greatest shock he had suffered in a year that had not dealt lightly with him. In the months since she had left the clinic, he had tried to analyse what had gone wrong between them, but, finding no solution, had made a determined effort to put her out of his mind.

  Now his love for her was once again threatening his peace, and he pushed back his chair and strode out to the reception desk to demand his bill.

  The clerk was surprised. "But you've only just ar-rived, sir! Aren't you pleased with the service here?"

  "Yes, but I must leave." Phillip took some money from his wallet. "I can't wait while you go into conference! This should cover it. Don't bother with the change."

  Unaware of Richards encounter with Phillip, Lesley's days were a continual rush between house calls and morning and evening surgeries. Dr. Rogers and his wife had departed for their cruise and she had little spare time.

  No wonder Dr. Rogers had wanted someone to help him, Lesley thought late one evening as she returned to the house. If this was his slack period—summer—how did he manage in the winter or during an epidemic?

  As she returned to the house late one afternoon after an extremely busy day, she was pondering the question yet again and wondering if she would enjoy being in general practice on a permanent basis.

  Molly, the factotum, met her in the hall.

  "Hello, doctor. Fancy a cup of coffee and some scones?"

  "Coffee would be lovely."

  "You should eat something, too. You're far too thin."

  "Perhaps I've decided to give up medicine and become a model!"

  Molly sniffed and Lesley laughed and went up to her room. She took off her silk suit and looked at herself in the mirror. Molly was right about her being too thin. There were shadows beneath her eyes and her cheekbones were too prominent. Another year and she would like like a scarecrow.

  A brisk wash revived her spirits and she went down to the consulting room to sip her coffee and write up her notes. Soon it was five-thirty, and footsteps in the rear hall signalled the arrival of patients.

  At seven Molly closed the outer door and came in to say there was no one in the waiting room.

  "Thank goodness for that." Lesley yawned and stretched. "I think I'll have a bath and go to bed."

  "You're not thinking of skipping supper are you?"

  Lesley nodded guiltily, and Molly, muttering that a souffle would be ready and on the dining-room table in one hour, marched out.

  Stifling a sigh, Lesley switched on the desk lamp, pulled her chair in closer and began to fill in various cards. She was dimly aware of the bell ringing and a voice in the hall.

  There was a knock at the door and Molly popped her head in.

  "Not another patient," Lesley muttered. "Didn't you say it was too late?"

  "Yes, doctor. But he sai
d it was urgent."

  "Very well. Put him in the waiting room and tell him to come in when the buzzer goes."

  Lesley bent to her medical cards. She finished one, drew another toward her and at the same time pressed the buzzer. The door opened and closed and there were footsteps across the carpet.

  "Please sit down," she murmured without looking up. "I won't be a moment."

  She lifted her hand to indicate a chair and found her fingers grasped tightly. With a gasp she looked up and saw Phillip.

  "Why… what are you doing here?" she stammered.

  "I met Richard and Pat in Italy," he answered, "and I want to know why you pretended to be in love with him."

  She tried to marshall her thoughts, wishing she had had the sense to consider the possibility of Phillip walking in on her and posing such a question.

  "It seemed the easiest way out," she said finally. "I thought it would save any… argument."

  "Argument!" It was an explosive sound. "You mean you used him as an alibi to avoid an argument?"

  "Yes."

  "I don't believe you."

  "That's your prerogative," she said coldly. "I'm sorry your vanity won't let you accept that I don't love you."

  "It has nothing to do with my vanity," he retorted, "but has a great deal to do with my judgment of character."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "That you're not the sort of girl who's afraid of having an argument. If yo**had genuinely stopped loving me, you wouldn't have needed to hide behind a fictitious love for Richard. You lied to me because you didn't want me to ask you any questions."

  "Questions about what?" She made her voice as contemptuous as she could. "What happened between us was a pleasant interlude and nothing more. It's over, Phillip. Can't you accept that?"

  "Over?" he said thickly. "We'll see if it is."

  Before she knew what he was going to do, he pulled her swiftly into his arms. She struggled to free herself, but he was too strong. He pushed her hard against the wall, using the pressure of his body to keep her there and stop her from struggling as his hands came up and held her head.

  "Is it over?" he repeated and brought his mouth down heavily on hers.

  Desperately she fought against responding, but his passion awakened an answering passion in her, and her lips moved beneath his, her doubts disappearing beneath her longing to surrender.

  It was left to Phillip to draw away, and as he did so, she saw the triumph in his eyes.

  "Do you still persist in pretending you don't love me?" he asked. "You couldn't kiss me like that if you didn't."

  "Passion isn't love."

  "Don't cheapen our emotions, Lesley."

  There was so much pain in his voice that she trembled.

  "I'm sorry, Phillip, but there can't be real love where there's—" She bit her lip. "I wish you hadn't come here."

  "Finish the rest of your sentence," he demanded. "Why can't there be real love between us? Do you think I'm playing a part?"

  "No." She edged away from the wall and put the desk between them. "I don't want to talk about it. Please go."

  "Not till you've answered me. You said there can't be real love where there's_____ " He paused. "Where there's what? Do you hold me morally responsible for Deborah's death?"

  "Yes," she said quickly, grasping at the straw he had given her. "Yes, it's a question of morals."

  "And that's why you left me?"

  "Yes."

  Silently he took out his wallet and extracted an envelope. "Read this letter."

  She looked down and saw Kasper's writing. "I'd rather not."

  "Please. It's important."

  Reluctantly she withdrew the letter, and as she did so a second letter fell to the floor. She picked it up and recognised Deborah's flowing hand.

  "Read Kasper's letter first," Phillip said.

  Knowing there was nothing else she could do, she bent her head to the page.

  "Although it is many months since your wife died," Kasper wrote, "I have only today had this letter from her. It was left for me at the Hernlei, but I did not return to the hut because by the time we finished skiing, I learned Deborah had been taken ill and was back in the clinic.

  "The proprietor of the cafe posted it to me, but it arrived at St. Moritz after I had left the pension where I had been staying. The Pension had also closed and it was only when the owner returned from holiday that the letter was found and sent to me. If I had received the letter the night it was written, I might have prevented Deborah's suicide——— "

  Lesley let the sheet flutter to the desk and Phillip picked up Deborah's letter to Kasper. "Read this. Then you'll understand everything."

  With a shiver Lesley lowered her head again. She skimmed through the first paragraph, but as she turned the page and continued, her heart began to pound.

  "Forget everything I've just said," Deborah scrawled in an almost illegible hand. "I broke the pencil and have just been given a magazine to rest the paper on. Do you know what I saw in it, Hans?"

  Lesley raised her eyes but Phillip pointed at the letter. "Go on to the end," he commanded.

  Lesley obeyed, knowing that the magazine Deborah had seen had been the one containing the photograph of Hans and his fiancee.

  "I realise now that you never loved me at all," Debo-rah wrote. "What a joke I must have been to you and your healthy Ingeborge. I don't suppose my death will worry you, and somehow I don't care. It will worry Phillip—that's what gives me the most satisfaction. Because if it hadn't been for him, I'd have been free two years ago. And if I'd been free to marry you when we first met, your Ingeborge wouldn't have stood a chance.

  "Mourn me just for an hour, Hans. Think of me as I was when we first met and not as I am today. I felt deep inside me that things would go wrong. That's why I collected a stack of sleeping pills. I went to Phillip's room one night when he was operating and took some from his bathroom cabinet. So he's giving me my freedom after all, isn't he?"

  The signature was almost illegible, made the more so by the fact that Lesley's eyes were brimming with tears.

  "Poor Deborah. She-must have been out of her mind with grief."

  He nodded soberly. "I can't pretend to feel grief. Not when I remember the way she threatened to destroy your good name."

  "But she was sick—in mind as well as body."

  "I suppose so." He moved into the centre of the room and looked across at her. "It's suddenly clear to me why you left the clinic. Watching your face as you read Deborah's letter, I knew what your suspicions were. You believed I'd given her an overdose of sleeping pills."

  "Yes," Lesley admitted. "Deborah said so. At least that's the way it seemed to me. She said you'd made her take them."

  "Of course, I did. She was hysterical and doing herself harm. But I gave her a normal dose. Nothing more." He flung out his hands. "How could you have thought otherwise?"

  "It seemed logical at the time," she burst out. "When you spoke to me in the corridor after we'd seen Sir Lionel—when I'd been crying—you gave me your handkerchief and an empty pill box fell out of your pocket. It was the one Axel had given you a few days before but there weren't any pills in it any more and I thought—I

  believed____ "

  She turned away, fighting for composure. "So you pretended you loved Richard and ran away?" Phillip's voice was toneless. "I'm surprised you didn't decide to have me put behind bars. You were failing in your duty, Lesley. You should have reported me to the police!"

  "Don't!" She swung around again. "I thought you were guilty but I… but I couldn't condemn you for it. I felt you'd done it to save my reputation."

  "No matter what you thought, it still amounted to one thing," Phillip said bitterly. "You believed me capable of murder."

  "I wasn't the only one. Axel thought so, too.'1" "Did he, by God! And what about Richard?"

  "He didn't know the whole story. But Axel had given you the pills and he______ "

  "He decided to protect me, t
oo?" Phillip went on. "I must say it's wonderful to inspire such loyalty in my staff even if I didn't inspire confidence in my innocence!"

  Lesley clenched her hands. Every word Phillip said was an indictment against her and she could find no defence; nor could she blame him for his bitterness, knowing that in his place she would feel exactly the same.

  "I'll spend the rest of my life regretting what I thought," she said brokenly. "But you can't blame me completely. We fell in love too quickly—before we had a chance to know each other. If we'd had time for friendship and understanding, there wouldn't have been any room for my doubts. But there was so much tension and strain———"

  She struggled for words but could not go on and looked at him mutely.

  "You're right," he said. "We met out of time. At first too early and then too late."

  The door opened and closed and she was alone. Only then did she sit at her desk and lower her head in her hands. Tears trickled slowly down her cheeks and quickly became a torrent.

  Racked with sobs she did not hear the door open again, and only as she felt strong arms lift her up and gather her close did she realise Phillip had come back.

  "I… I can't leave you," he said jerkily. "I thought I could but I was wrong! I don't know how I'd have, reacted in your position. I don't think I'd have doubted you, but I can't be sure."

  '"I should have trusted you," she whispered, raising a tear-blotched face to his. "At the very least I should have had the courage to tell you."

  She began to cry again and he caressed her hair with his hand. "Don't, my darling. It's over and done'with."

  "Is it? Will you be able to forget I didn't have enough faith in you?"

  "I'm as much to blame as you are," he said soberly. "I should never have allowed my marriage to reach a position where it could so easily have ended in murder. I was wrong to keep Deborah tied to me. If I hadn't listened to Sir Lionel, I'd have been a free man by the time you and I met again." He cradled her face with his hands. "But we've found each other again and we must think of the future."

  "I still can't believe I have one." She put her arms around his neck. "I haven't had a moment's peace since I left you. I'm not even sure I could have continued like this. If you hadn't come to me, I'd have come back to you."