Doctor's Love

by Jane Arbor

  Men thought nothing of kisses, urged reason. But Richard—Richard surely was different, urged love pitifully. He had claimed that the promise of Lysbet had fulfilled his life—that to have his work and to possess her was all he asked. Did it mean that he hadn’t been able to wait for her just a little while?

  But if he were careless of her and of her love, surely, surely he must care about his reputation and about the effect which a flirtation with Caroline must have upon it, should it become known?

  The thought gave her comfort, steadied her. Richard cared too much for his work ever to endanger it in such a way. She felt convinced of that. So there must be some innocent explanation of the scene in the surgery. Her spirits rose slowly. They hadn’t offered an explanation of it because they hadn’t realized she had been a witness of it.

  Lysbet gave a little sigh of relief as if she had found at least the beginning of a solution to her problem. Probably doubt and suspicion would come back, but she mustn’t give way to them—mustn’t! And when she saw Richard next, she must guard against accusing him. She must trust him. There would be no hope of happiness for their marriage if she did not learn that lesson.

  With a far lighter heart she drove the rest of the way to Falcons and when she had put the car away, went to find Mrs. Tempest in the library where tea had been served.

  The room was lit only by the leaping firelight but her aunt was there, looking at the blazing logs from beneath a hand over her eyes.

  “Do you want the light?” queried Lysbet as she entered. Mrs. Tempest looked up. “Yes—no—not just yet. Come over here, Lysbet darling. I—I want to talk to you.”

  Lysbet came forward and drew a low stool up in order to sit at the older woman’s feet. A sense of foreboding which overlaid even the earlier turbulence of her mind, suddenly oppressed her. She had been right. There was something wrong with Aunt Alicia. And now she knew that she was to share it.

  “What is it?” she asked gently. “Lately you’ve been worried, or ill—or both—haven’t you?”

  Mrs. Tempest passed a weary hand over her brow. “I think I’d better get you to promise not to interrupt until I’ve told you the whole story,” she said in an oddly harsh voice. “But to begin with I must tell you the thing which makes it necessary for you to hear any of it. Lysbet—Eliot Bradd wants to marry you!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Lysbet’s first impulse was to burst out laughing. “To marry me?” she exclaimed. “Eliot? But I’m engaged to Richard! Eliot knows it perfectly well!”

  But amusement and even incredulity were checked at the sight of the look, almost of agony, upon her aunt’s drawn face.

  “Lysbet—please! I knew you would take it like that. But I’m serious. Eliot means it. And because of what I’m going to tell you now—he must be heard.”

  The girl shook her head. “There can’t be anything you have to tell me which could make the idea of my marrying Eliot instead of Richard anything but absurd. You don’t suggest, surely, that Eliot believes he is in love with me?”

  Mrs. Tempest did not reply to the question. She repeated:

  “Eliot must be heard—for my sake. Lysbet, listen—”

  As the sorry tale of her aunt’s yielding to temptation unfolded haltingly Lysbet knew an involuntary sense of recoil from the woman whom she had loved since she was a child. She could not resist the physical withdrawal of half-turning away as she sat, hands clasped about her knees, gazing stonily into the fire. Later she might feel pity and understanding. But for the moment she felt hurt, bewildered, cut off.

  How could money matter to anyone so much, she wondered as she listened. How could you bring yourself to use money, to enjoy it, to flaunt it as her aunt had done, when every penny of it was guilty and belonged to someone else?

  Her aunt was saying urgently: You’ve got to try to understand how it came about. Lysbet! It was because it was all so easy—so easy to go on as we had always done, when you had no inkling that you were Edward’s heir. I had always given you everything you could possibly want, and so we never had to discuss money—”

  “You would never permit it,” put in Lysbet rather bitterly.

  “Child, don’t you see that I was never ready to talk about it, in case I betrayed myself? Many a time I have decided that I must tell you all this, without ever bringing myself to the point of it. There was the day when I first realized that you were in love with Richard Guyse, and the day when Eliot arrived at Falcons from South Africa. I was afraid of what he might know of the truth, but he didn’t know then what he knows now, and so for the time being I was still safe—”

  “Safe’!” echoed Lysbet. “Safe—from me!” She twisted about to face the older woman for the first time. “Couldn’t you have trusted me, trusted me to let things go on just as before?”

  It was the same question as Eliot had asked and Mrs. Tempest answered it now much as she had done then.

  “For me it could never have been the same thing,” she replied. “I had the ordering of money for so long that even at your hands I could not bear to accept—charity.”

  Lysbet was silent. There was so much to say that she dared trust herself with none of it, lest she should say too much. But there was more to her aunt’s confession than she had so far heard.

  “About Eliot?” she prompted, trying not to make her voice sound aloof. “You said that you were afraid he might know more than he did? And that—he wants to marry me!”

  “Yes. When he came over from South Africa I gather that he expected to find you in possession of your money, because he had been able to calculate that you would be of age. Instead, he found you apparently still dependent on me. So he made it his business to find out the facts. Then, when you became engaged to Richard, he told me that he knew what I’d been doing. And—and—oh, Lysbet—he’s been—blackmailing me ever since!”

  “Blackmail!” The girl was groping among the sensations which the very sound of the word aroused in her. Blackmail? It was the sort of thing that happened in spy-stories, in thrillers. It didn’t cross the path of ordinary people like her aunt and herself!

  “But blackmail? It’s something that only criminals have to be afraid of!” she protested.

  “I’ve—been doing a criminal thing for a long while,” whispered Mrs. Tempest, and for the first time the girl’s heart was wrung at the sight of her shame.

  “But—you had only to tell me—and it wouldn’t have been criminal any more! What—what was Eliot’s price?”

  “At first it was money. He has had hundreds of pounds of my—your money during the last three months. I went on because I thought there must be some limit to it—that one day he would consider he had had enough and would go back to South Africa and leave me alone. But the other day—before he went away this time—he came to me and said that I could tell you the whole story if I wished, but that his further price was—marriage to you.”

  Lysbet laid a gentle hand upon her aunt’s knee. “Is that all?” she said softly.

  “All? Isn’t it enough?”

  “But dear, don’t you see that the whole thing breaks down once you’ve told me and I’ve forgiven you? Eliot hasn’t any more power over you!”

  “But that was what I thought! And he has! He has threatened that if you refuse to break your engagement to Richard and became engaged to him he will go straight to solicitors and swear the information that will expose me.”

  “He can’t do that! I could swear the exact opposite!” declared Lysbet stoutly.

  “You couldn’t. It would be perjury. Eliot has the truth on his side. But even if he hadn’t, don’t you see that I couldn’t risk its ever becoming a case that had to be fought out in the public courts? The position I’ve held here—Fallsbridge people—everyone would know! Lysbet, I beg of you -—do the thing that will at least give us time! Promise Eliot what he asks!”

  “You mean—promise without ever meaning to carry it out?”

  Mrs. Tempest’s eyes were lowered before the girl’
s straight gaze. “Perhaps. I don’t know. It would give us time,” she repeated wretchedly.

  Lysbet’s eyes were still upon her as she said slowly, “You ask a great deal in the name of loyalty, Aunt Alicia. I can’t promise. I can’t, because I haven’t the right to mislead even Eliot to that extent. And it would be misleading him. I love Richard far too much ever to give him up.”

  “Then—you are abandoning me? Leaving me to Eliot’s mercy!”

  “No, not altogether.” Lysbet stood up as if she had suddenly found her position unbearably cramping. She looked down at her aunt’s bent head. Understanding had not come to-her yet, but already pity was beginning to surge in. “I must have time to think,” she went on. “Richard—”

  Mrs. Tempest stood up, too, frank terror in her face. “You mustn’t tell Richard! And Eliot will want his answer as soon as he comes back! Please, Lysbet—give him your promise. If you don’t, he’ll do his worst to me. Even if he hoped to get nothing out of it, he would ruin me for sheer revenge!”

  She was trembling from head to foot as if with the onset of fever. She clung desperately to the girl and Lysbet saw that nothing was to be gained by putting her to further mental torture at the moment.

  She put her aunt back into her chair and turned away. “I promise I won’t tell Richard—yet,” she said dully. “And I’ll see Eliot as soon as he comes back—tomorrow, isn’t it?” Then she went out of the room. And neither she nor the other woman realized fully how completely their roles had changed. Mrs. Tempest had feared dependence upon Lysbet for money. But now she was dependent for more than that—the girl held the destinies of them both in her hands.

  Towards the end of a day when Lysbet’s thoughts had ranged wretchedly between doubts and questionings about Richard and Caroline and dread of the coming interview with Eliot, Eliot himself returned to Falcons and appeared completely undisturbed by the coldness of his welcome. Mrs. Tempest had a tray sent to her room instead of coming down to dinner and Lysbet and Eliot sat down to the evening meal in each other’s company.

  They ate almost in silence, passing only the most desultory and necessary remarks. When they had finished Lysbet rose and moved over to the fireplace where, with her back turned to Eliot, she asked coldly:

  “You have something to say to me?”

  “Yes. Shall we go into the library?”

  “You can say it here. I dare say it won’t take long.”

  Eliot shrugged. “That depends on you, Lysbet dear. My side of any discussion between us amounts to nothing more than a proposal of marriage. Will you marry me, Lysbet?”

  Lysbet spun round. “How dare you? You know I can’t marry you. I’m engaged to Richard Guyse!”

  Eliot made a gesture of mock resignation. “There you are, you see! I had hoped you would have talked out the difficulties with Mrs. Tempest before I came back. Now I suppose I must make it clear that my proposal, however unacceptable it looks to you, does happen to carry certain—er-—concessions with it!”

  “What makes you think that I must accept?”

  “My dear, there’s no ‘must’ about it! But I realise that my proposal is somewhat handicapped by—well, by the fact of its being rather belated, for one thing!—so I’ve had to try to give it some balance by offering a sort of bonus of concessions along with it!”

  “What are your concessions?” Lysbet moved back towards the table and gripped the high back of a dining chair with both hands. She felt she needed the smooth, cool stability of the wood under her grasp to help her to meet the challenge Eliot was going to make.

  “There again,” he said coolly. “I should have expected you to know them in detail by now. Briefly they are—Upon your given promise to marry me within, shall we say, a ‘decent interval’, I give my word to forego any further expectations from your aunt—”

  “Your word? What is that worth?”

  It was a rather pitiful effort at scorn and Eliot appeared unmoved.

  “As good as yours, I dare say,” he retorted. “We should have to trust each other. At least Mrs. Tempest would give me a testimonial to the effect that I keep the bargains I make! But to continue—Upon the day we married and upon your making some agreed settlement of income upon me, I would give her a written statement saying that I know of nothing whatsoever of detriment to her character. There, Lysbet my dear, you have my terms!”

  Lysbet looked at him and said, as Mrs. Tempest had done before her: “So it’s only money that you want?”

  “Well—I don’t deny that marriage to you should have other—er—advantages!” It was a piece of the mock gallantry which Eliot was in the habit of using towards her.

  Lysbet ignored it and went on coldly: “In that case ‘I dare say we—I, that is,—could provide for you. How much do you want?”

  Eliot looked down at his hands and then up at her with an air of being quite frank. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can arrange it just like that,” he said. “You see, I’m not prepared to go on depending on the bounty of—er—Falcons for an indefinite time without some sort of agreement. I mean, one or the other of you might take your twittering courage into both hands and dare me to do my worst! I admit that I should be reluctantly compelled to do it—my ‘worst’, I mean!—and it wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone—”

  “It’s an issue we needn’t discuss. How much do you want?”

  “If you’ll listen, I’m trying to tell you that my price for a complete write-off of the whole thing is, unfortunately, more than you can give me unless you marry me as well. You see, no solicitor whom you consulted with a view to handing over to me a good slice of your capital or to settling income upon me would allow you to do such a thing without your telling him the facts. Why, I can hear him saying already ‘Settlement of income upon a husband is different. It’s often done. But this man—who is he? For all you know, he may be—an adventurer!’ And as it wouldn’t suit me to have even a solicitor looking at me with that sort of a jaundiced eye, and it wouldn’t suit you to tell him the truth—nobody would be the better off, would they?”

  The man’s audacity was breath-taking and found Lysbet without words with which to answer him.

  He looked across at her in silence for a minute or two and then he came over to her, loosening her reluctant fingers from the chair-back and taking her hands in a grip from which she could not withdraw.

  “Come, Lysbet,” he said softly. “The bargain is easy for the moment. Give me your promise to marry me soon—I won’t even hurry you!—and my demands upon Mrs. Tempest cease from today. Simply your promise—that’s all. If you give it I think I know that you will keep it. But I shall have to trust you so far.”

  Her straggling hands stilled in his. “You are hard, Eliot,” she breathed. “Hard—and quite ruthless. But hasn’t it occurred to you that I could be ruthless too—that I could give you my promise without ever meaning to fulfil it?”

  Eliot shook his head. “I said I should have to trust you. If you think you would gain anything worth having by buying a few months’ freedom for Mrs. Tempest—”

  “I should be buying time!” broke in the girl. “Time to do everything in my power to break you! Time to take advice and—”

  “But how sure are you that time is all you need?” insinuated Eliot “What makes you think that Mrs. Tempest will permit you to ‘take advice’ as you call it? She’s—a very frightened woman, Lysbet. Myself, I wouldn’t be responsible for what she might do if she thought the merest breath of scandal about her had reached other ears than ours. You ought to move carefully. But you’ll say that’s more your affair than mine—”

  Lysbet gasped and wrenched her hands away from him. She had had a sudden flash of memory of the infinite terror in her aunt’s eyes when she had suggested that Richard should be told of Eliot’s demands. Was Eliot right? Was there indeed no knowing what Mrs. Tempest might do if she guessed that her secret was known outside Falcons itself?

  “You see,” Eliot was saying softly and rather as if he di
d not care which way the argument went, “it wouldn’t be safe to promise without meaning to keep it; in that case I shouldn’t consider myself bound by any considerations. And it wouldn’t be safe not to promise bemuse, from now on, whatever plot you may hatch against me, Mrs. Tempest will scarcely know a moment’s peace. Whenever I go out, write a letter, make a telephone call, she will always wonder ... It could become very wearing, Lysbet!”

  Lysbet stared at him, realizing that in his last words he had expressed the whole of his devilish intent. If she did not give him his promise he would be capable of just that—of remaining on at Falcons, continuing to drain money from her fortune and subjecting his victims to the everlasting prick of fear. But then a wave of incredulity swept over her. It was too fantastic! There must be some way out!

  She tamed away from him, her hands making an empty gesture before they dropped to her sides. “It’s no good, Eliot. You must do your worst. I—can’t promise.” (She thought wonderingly, why am I parleying with Elliot at all? Why did I listen to Aunt Alicia? How could either of us have imagined that I could betray Richard so?)

  “H’m. A pity.” Eliot appeared to be examining his fingernails with care but he was having to think swiftly. So she had slipped away from him. She hadn’t been as easy to intimidate as her aunt. Less stupid and wrapped up in herself of course—that accounted for it But where did it leave him?

  He eyed with shrewd calculation Lysbet’s back which was turned to him. There was a last card he might play ... No immediate results to be expected unfortunately—suggestion always had to be given time to distil its own poison. And suggestion, based on no facts whatsoever, was the only possible ace left to him. Even so, the kid might be so sure of her Sawbones that she could afford to laugh the idea to scorn. However—it was worth trying...