A Case of Heart Trouble

by Susan Barrie

  Her aunt lifted her chin and looked at her, and shook her head. “If I had you for a few weeks you’d soon get some real color in your cheeks. However, there’s plenty of time to see what we can do . . . and this afternoon we’ll have tea in the village, shall we? There’s a nice little place where they do real cream teas that’s only just opened up, and you and I’ll be amongst the first customers. What do you say, poppet?”

  “If we can take Joe,” Stephanie answered, despite the fact that

  Joe was plainly only interested in getting back inside the house.

  Joanna made a careless movement with her shoulders.

  “Of course, if you want to.”

  Dr. Loring came round the side of the house, and he, too, was wearing oilskins that glistened. He glanced briefly at Dallas, flicked Stephanie lightly on the cheek, and looked at Joanna.

  “You look as if you’ve been defying the elements in the same way that I have,” he observed. “Where are you going now?”

  “Back upstairs to do some work in the studio. But I'm taking Steve to the village this afternoon. She looks as if she could do with some exercise. Why don't you come with us?”

  He glanced up at the wind-torn sky, and around him at the havoc in the garden, and suggested:

  “I'll drive you there if you like.”

  Joanna made a little face of mockery at him.

  “Darling, don't tell me you're afraid of getting wet, too? Nurse Drew is terrified of a few drops of rain . . . extraordinary in a member of the nursing profession, when most of them are so tough, and encourage toughness in others. However, I can't allow my niece to suffer as a result, so I'm taking her on for the afternoon. Come with us, darling, and be bold . . . leave the car in the garage! ”

  But he shook his head quite firmly.

  “I've already had all the exercise I want for one morning. I've been as far as Wem Tor.” He glanced for a very brief instant again at Dallas. “See that my daughter is well wrapped up this afternoon, Nurse. I agree with Mrs. Loring that she looks a bit peaky. It isn't good for a child to remain imprisoned in a house for too long.”

  “But the weather has been absolutely impossible for taking walks out of doors,” Dallas protested, feeling that she was being dismissed as altogether too feeble for words. “This morning is the first morning since Sunday that there's been even a break in the rain.

  Joanna and Martin glanced at one another. Joanna smiled.

  “Tell her, Martin,” she urged, “how badly soaked we got the other afternoon—literally soaked to the skin! —but we survived. I don't think there's much point in being alive if you can't face up to the weather.”

  Dallas turned away rather hurriedly, taking Stephanie by the hand.

  “What time do you want to leave, Mrs. Loring?” she asked, careful to avoid both pairs of coldly critical eyes.

  “Oh, around about three o’clock,” Joanna answered. “Give me time to have a nap after lunch.” She caught Martin by the arm.

  “And I’ll join you in the library for a drink about twelve, honey. Be sure and be there, won’t you?”

  “I’ll be there,” the doctor promised, a little dryly. “And please don’t call me honey,” he added.

  “Darling, then.” She smiled at him dazzlingly. “Dearest, sweetheart . . . which do you prefer?”

  That afternoon, after lunch and Joanna’s nap were over, Dallas belted Stephanie into her dark blue school raincoat, with a thick cardigan underneath it, and waited with her in the hall until the widow joined them. She was looking peevish, as if either her lunch hadn’t agreed with her, her nap had been too short, or she was a little regretful because she had suggested the afternoon outing, and surveyed her niece with a definitely jaundiced eye.

  “Well, I suppose if we’ve got to set out we’ve got to set out,” she exclaimed. “But, for heaven's sake, darling, must you take the dog?”

  Stephanie was holding Joe, already attached to his lead, under one arm.

  “You said I could,” she reminded her aunt.

  Joanna shrugged.

  “Oh, well, if he gets blown away don't blame me! Those shortlegged dogs are not very good in rough weather, and you'll probably have to carry him.”

  When they got out on to the steps she glanced up at the sky. The clouds, black and lowering, were simply racing along, and in every gust of violent wind the rain came at them as they set off down the drive. Dallas, who realized it would be useless to offer either of them an umbrella because it would be blown inside out, watched with concern in her eyes for Stephanie as the eight-year-old bent almost double in her efforts to keep up with her aunt.

  Twenty minutes later she came racing back along the drive, soaked, dishevelled and alone. Joe's lead was in her hand, but Joe himself was not attached to it.

  “He got away,” she gasped.” I don’t know how he managed it, but he did! His collar was always too big for him, and he slipped it. . . She leaned, gasping for breath, against the hall table, and while Dallas mopped at the moisture that was running down her face from her hair she explained that her aunt was too cross to help her to look for Joe. Stephanie burst into tears. “She said he’s an absurd animal— not a proper dog—and it would be as well if we did really lose him! ” she revealed. “She’s gone on to the tea room, but I came back.”

  She clutched at Dallas with her cold, wet hands.

  “Please help me to find Joe! ” she pleaded.

  “Of course, darling,” Dallas answered. “But you must promise to go and get yourself dry while I set off and look for him. Just give me some idea of where you lost him, and I'll do the rest.”

  Stephanie gulped with relief.

  “I’ll get out of everything and put on dry things if you’ll only bring him back,” she promised. “It was down by the lake, where the drive bends and the woods begin. He was frightened by the wind, and I had to put him down because he was struggling so hard I couldn’t hold on to him. He shot into the woods ... I might have found him at once if Aunt Joanna hadn’t held on to me and said he’d find his own way home, but I know he won’t. . . . He’s too small!”

  Dallas agreed with her, but she didn't waste time letting her know that she did, and she didn’t waste time discussing the matter any further. She dived into the little room off the hall where coats were kept, and slipped into her own raincoat that had been hanging there since morning, and pulled on a pair of Wellington boots that were not her own and rather too large for her. She didn’t bother about a hat, but waited to see Stephanie ascending the stairs before leaving the house, and then plunged forth into the wild inclemency of the weather to begin a search that she secretly thought hopeless.

  Joe was so small—a miniature of his kind, apart from being not much more than a puppy still—that he could be hiding anywhere and remain unseen while the daylight lasted, and after daylight it would be useless to search for him in the woods. In addition to which the gale had once more lashed itself into a veritable fury, and if Joe was cowering in panic he certainly wouldn't come out into the open.

  It was as much as Dallas could do to walk down the drive, and by the time she reached the comparative shelter of the woods she was utterly breathless, and her hair, like Stephanie’s, was plastered to her head by the rain. Because of the lowering clouds the day was drawing to a close much earlier than usual, and it was difficult to see anything in the dimness of the woods. She could hear vague crashing noises every now and again, as if a tree was forced out of the ground by a giant hand and flung carelessly down; and on the shore of the lake, where she found herself at last, the wind as it reached her was icy.

  She called every few feet that she took to try and attract the dog’s attention, but Joe was not yet properly accustomed to his name, and she had little hope that he would bound out suddenly from under a pile of dead leaves and hurl himself at her in a relieved fashion. Where the waters of the lake formed wind-whipped spirals that shot into the air like fountains she stood looking up and down the deserted strip of soggy
beach and fastened her eyes on the boathouse, and there, shivering in the shelter of the stone steps that led up to the landing-stage, she caught sight of him at last. But still he wouldn’t come to her call, and she had to plunge through the mud and the reeds to get to him. Before she was able to snatch him up a large-sized wave all but knocked her off her feet, and she wasn't merely drenched to the skin, she looked as if she had been immersed in the lake, when at last she turned back into the shelter of the woods.

  After the tumult of the lake shore the woods really did seem calm, and with Joe tucked inside her coat—not that that availed him very much, but it deadened the sound of the noises that terrified him—

  she leaned against a tree-trunk to get back her breath. She could feel Joe's heart beating like a small sledge-hammer against her, but his whimpers were carried away on the wings of the wind.

  How long she leant there against the tree she had no real idea, but she felt extraordinarily exhausted after her efforts, and by the time she turned to make her way back through the woods to the drive it seemed to her to be several degrees darker than when she set out. And it was then that she lost her way, following a dimly seen track that would eventually have brought her out on the far side of the village if she hadn't suddenly realized that she appeared to be getting nowhere, and paused to consider the situation. Luckily she had a fairly good bump of location, and although neither country born nor country bred her instincts told her that Loring Court was somewhere over on her right, and that if she followed the path she was pursuing she would have a long walk back by road to the Court, since it was growing darker every moment and it would be impossible without a wider knowledge of the woods to return by the way she had come.

  So she allowed her instincts free rein, followed a track that veered off to the right, and drew a long breath of relief when she found herself back on the Loring Court drive, but away down at the far end, near the main gates, and it took her some little time, with the full force of the wind now in her face, to reach the house, from which lights were already beginning to stream forth into the greyness of early night.

  The front door was open, and Dr. Loring and his sister-in-law were standing on the steps, the latter disgruntled after a return from the village, the former wearing a raincoat which he was hastily buttoning up as if about to set forth into the night.

  When Dallas appeared in the pale beam of the lights she looked more like some wild creature of the woods than a young woman trained to look crisp and immaculate in uniform. Her face was torn and scratched by brambles, her hair was no longer of a pale primrose fairness but dark as honey and plastered with rain; her raincoat was flying open because she had the puppy hugged inside it, and her Wellington boots were oozing slime. In addition to being lacerated her face was very pale; she looked tired, but vaguely triumphant.

  Joanna exclaimed with relief when she saw her. “Well, I’m jolly glad you found the little beast! Stephanie’s been driving us mad with her lamentations, and I thought we’d have to get together a

  search party to come and look for you. ’’ Dr. Loring took her by the shoulders and literally thrust her into the warmth and luxurious comfort of the hall. Only, unlike his sister-in-law, Joanna, he didn’t look relieved ... he looked furious.

  “What do you think you’ve been up to?” he demanded. “What do you think you’re employed for? To catch pneumonia running about in soaking wet woods looking for dogs?”

  Bewilderedly Dallas handed over Joe to its owner, whose radiant face was a reward in itself as she received it.

  “Careful, darling,” Dallas warned, a little faintly. “He’s awfully wet. I should take him to the kitchen and get Edith to dry him for you . . .

  “You look as if you could do with a nip of raw spirit,” Joanna exclaimed, a certain amount of genuine compunction in her voice as she surveyed the other girl. She frowned at Martin Loring, whose expression was still as black as thunder. “Stop scowling at the girl, Martin,” she ordered, “and fetch her a small brandy. I think she needs it.”

  With her own hands she ripped off Dallas’s raincoat and then led her into the library, where she put her with kindly roughness into a chair. Dr. Loring refused to allow her to relieve him of the glass of brandy, and he put it into Dallas's hands himself. As the deathly weariness in her small white face looked out at him he uttered something that sounded a little strangled, and then said that he had ordered Mrs. Baxter to start running a hot bath for her, and after that she was to go straight to bed.

  “You've behaved like an idiot,” he said, the same queer, strangled note in his voice, “but apparently you did it in a good

  cause. Stephanie's got back her dog, and you—well, if you hadn't returned when you did I was just setting out to look for you. Why you couldn't let me know that the confounded animal had gone and got itself lost I can't think, when I was sitting in the library only a few feet away. But no! I have to be left undisturbed until tea-time, when Mrs. Baxter said something about you going out in the rain. And then Joanna returned with the full story! ”

  The look he bent on Joanna suggested that he might find it hard to forgive her. But Joanna was resigned to the fact that, for once, she had blundered badly.

  “If only that ridiculous daughter of yours hadn't insisted on taking the dog with us this afternoon everything would have been all right,” she said. “But she did insist, and I got annoyed — ”

  “And if Dallas develops anything serious after this little lot I’ll hold you entirely responsible,” Martin Loring told her bleakly.

  But to Dallas, gazing up at him wearily and taking mechanical sips at her brandy, the remarkable thing was that he called her Dallas. She had never expected him to do that again.

  His dark grey eyes met her clouded green ones.

  “Drink up,” he ordered, with sudden, exquisite gentleness, “and then I'll carry you upstairs to your room. I don't think you could manage those stairs on your own.”

  C H A P T E R F I F T E E N

  The next morning inevitably Dallas awakened with a sore throat and a temperature, and when Stephanie came in with Joe to share her bed for a short while before dressing she sent her away to get dressed at once. She didn't want the child acquiring any of her germs, but she thought she knew how to deal with her own trouble.

  Lots of aspirin, and a rest in bed during the morning. She rang her bell for Mrs. Baxter, and asked her to keep silent about her indisposition.

  “If Edith could take charge of Stephanie for this morning, I'll be up in the afternoon and perfectly all right,” she said. “If Dr. Loring should make any enquiries about me please don’t let him know I'm anything but completely fit, will you?”

  But Mrs. Baxter went straight downstairs to the dining room, where the doctor was ignoring the dishes on the sideboard and smoking a cigarette with his coffee, and told him that she thought Nurse Drew was decidedly unwell, and perhaps he ought to see her. Joanna hadn’t yet made her appearance.

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Baxter,” he returned, crushing out his halffinished cigarette in an ash tray. “I was going up to see her in any case. I had a fairly shrewd idea she wouldn’t be one hundred per cent fit this morning. I’ll come at once.”

  Dallas was lying huddled under her bedclothes when he entered the room without knocking, and he could see at once that she was battling with a considerable temperature. He sat down beside the bed and reached for her wrist, and as he did so he asked: “How many aspirins have you taken this morning?”

  Dallas peeped up at him a trifle guiltily.

  “Oh, just a couple or so.”

  “So long as it was only a couple or so I’ll give you something else that should bring down that temperature fairly soon. However, you’ll have to remain where you are for today, and probably tomorrow as well.” He ran his hand across her hot forehead and cheeks, and the coolness and firmness of his hand made her long to catch hold of it and keep it pressed to her face. He looked down at her with eyes that were a trifle inscrutable,
although she was relieved that no criticism looked out of them . . . not even a suspicion of hardness or disapproval. “How are you feeling, Dallas?” he asked quietly.

  Her lip trembled for a moment, and she caught it up between her teeth to steady it.

  “Not—not too bad,” she answered untruthfully. “Which means that you’re feeling pretty ghastly.” The hand stayed on her fore-head and pressed gently over her eyes. “Poor little one! Never mind.” And then, still more quietly: “Why did you do such a crazy thing, Dallas, as to go looking for that dog on your own? You might have sprained your ankle running round in circles in the woods, and then how would have got home? In any case, why didn’t you call me?”

  She turned away her face for a moment, and then she allowed herself the luxury of meeting his eyes fully.

  “Yesterday morning you and Mrs. Loring seemed to think I was a pretty poor thing staying shut up in the house,” she told him. “And it occurred to me that perhaps I was.”

  He frowned swiftly.

  “You little idiot! ” he exclaimed. “How could you possibly think such a thing?”

  She smiled wryly.

  “Well, by comparison with Mrs. Loring I do seem to be a bit of a hot-house plant, and in my profession you have to be tough. She’s right about that. Sickly nurses are no good to anyone.”

  “Little fool,” he said softly. Once more he reached for her hand, and this time he held it closely between both his own. “I know one

  patient who recovered remarkably when you looked after him; and as for Joanna . . . well, if you take anything Joanna says seriously you’re far less intelligent than I thought you! Don't you know she’s what is known as a poseur? She adapts herself to any given situation. For instance, if a tough character is required, she becomes a tough character. If a languorous and beautiful character is more likely to impress, she becomes languorous and beautiful.”

  “But she is beautiful.” Dallas said quickly, through the dryness in her throat. “You said so yourself.”