Hilltop Tryst

by Betty Neels

  ‘How very discourteous of me. I had rather a disturbed night.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, a patient I have been looking after.’

  ‘You had to go to him in the middle of the night? I thought specialists didn’t do that.’ She frowned. ‘Don’t you have a registrar at the hospital?’

  ‘Oh, yes, but specialists get up in the middle of the night too. It’s all part of the job.’

  ‘Do have another nap,’ she begged. ‘I’m very happy just lying here doing nothing.’

  He rolled over to look at her. ‘How nice of you to say that. But that would be a waste of time. Shall we dress? I’ll show you the horses before lunch.’

  ‘Horses? You ride?’

  ‘Whenever I can. You do, too?’ He had got to his feet and bent to pull her to hers. ‘There’s still half an hour before lunch.’

  There were two chestnuts in the paddock beyond the kitchen garden, and with them an elderly donkey. They came to the gate and took the sugar they were offered, and Beatrice stroked their soft noses. ‘Nice beasts—do you hunt?’

  ‘No. I like to ride wherever the fancy takes me.’

  ‘And the donkey?’

  ‘Kate? Oh, happy enough to live here with the horses.’

  ‘A pity there aren’t any children to ride her…’

  ‘Yes, but that can be remedied in the future.’

  Beatrice had her mouth open to ask him if he was about to marry, but stopped herself just in time. ‘She looks very fit,’ she observed.

  The doctor whistled to Mabel. ‘Time we went back for lunch. What would you like to do this afternoon?’

  ‘Lie in the sun,’ said Beatrice promptly, ‘and you can tell me about your work.’ They were strolling back towards the house. ‘No, that wouldn’t be fair. You must want to get away from it at weekends.’

  He smiled a little. ‘And you? What do you intend to do, Beatrice?’

  ‘Me? Well, stay and help Father, I suppose…’

  ‘And then?’ he prompted.

  She said uncertainly, ‘I don’t know; I suppose I haven’t thought about it a great deal. That is—’ She went pink, but turned her candid eyes on his. ‘I suppose I thought that Colin would ask me to marry him.’

  The doctor stared down at her. ‘He probably still will do so.’

  ‘But he’s going…’

  ‘He is leaving the practice, which is an entirely different matter.’

  They had reached the house, and Jennings came to meet them. ‘I’ve put drinks on the terrace, sir—if the young lady wishes to tidy herself, Mrs Jennings will show her the cloakroom.’

  So Beatrice did her hair and her face and used the charming cloakroom beside the staircase; Ella had been quite right, the pink dress looked nice. Feeling light-hearted, she drank her sherry and listened to the doctor’s placid voice talking about nothing in particular, and presently was led across the hall to the dining-room; it was panelled like the hall, and furnished with a rectangular table in mahogany and a beautiful bow-fronted sideboard. There were eight ribbon-backed chairs, but lunch had been laid at one end of the table and they sat facing each other, eating iced watercress soup, chicken salad and raspberries and cream, and drinking Chablis. Afterwards they went back to the terrace and had their coffee. Thinking about it later, Beatrice couldn’t remember what they had talked about, only that she had enjoyed every minute of it.

  And presently, stretched out on a swinging hammock in a shady corner of the garden, with the doctor lying on the grass beside her, she drifted off into a vague daydream, very much influenced by her surroundings. To be able to live in such a lovely house would be a delight in itself; she tried to fit Colin into the picture, but somehow he didn’t seem right. She must forget him; perhaps if she went away for a week or two?

  ‘I’ll give two guesses,’ murmured the doctor, his eyes half shut, watching her face. ‘Colin…’

  ‘Well, yes, partly. I can’t help it, although I do try. It’ll be all right once he’s gone.’ She rolled over in order to see him better. ‘Oliver, it will be all right, won’t it?’

  ‘Of course. That is the first time you have called me Oliver.’

  ‘Oh, is it? You see, most of the time I have seen you, you’ve been a doctor.’

  ‘I see what you mean. Don’t forget I am a friend as well, Beatrice.’

  ‘I won’t. Has Ella told you that she intends to marry you when she grows up? You’ll be in the family.’

  ‘A pleasant thought, but a pity that in another five years or so I shall be fortyish. I fancy she may have changed her mind by then. She’s a nice child.’

  ‘Haven’t you any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘Four sisters, all married with children, and a younger brother. He’s a houseman up in Edinburgh, and just got himself engaged to a very pretty little nurse.’

  ‘So you’re the only one…’ began Beatrice, and went red. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’

  ‘Not married,’ he finished for her. ‘Although I rather fancy I shall achieve that state in the near future.’

  She longed to find out more, but he began to talk about the garden and what he planned to do that autumn. Not quite a snub, but almost, she reflected while they discussed Christmas roses and chrysanthemums; she must take care not to let her tongue run away with her.

  They had tea presently—sandwiches and fruitcake and tea poured from a silver teapot, all brought out to them by Jennings, with a strapping girl carrying a folding table to put everything on. Beatrice munched cake and reviewed a safe topic of conversation. ‘Have you had your holiday yet?’

  ‘In the spring. I went to Madeira; it’s a splendid place for walking. It rather depends on various things as to when I shall take another week or two. And you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t expect so. I’m hoping Mother and Father will go away somewhere quiet, just as soon as he feels that the practice is his, if you see what I mean, and that Mr Sharpe is able to cope. I’ll stay at home and look after things. Ella is going on one of these school trips—climbing in Cumbria—and Carol is going to Paris to stay with some friends of hers.’

  ‘So the house will be empty; you and Knotty will have time to climb the hill every morning if you want to.’

  They went indoors presently, still talking in a desultory way while he showed her the library and urged her to roam the bookshelves and take anything she fancied. She settled for a history of Dorset, a very old edition, and a book on the Greek Islands.

  He drove her home fairly soon after dinner, spent ten minutes or so chatting to her parents, smiled nicely at her when she thanked him for her lovely day, and a little to her chagrin didn’t suggest that they might do the same thing again. But later, thinking about it, she had to acknowledge that, if he was intending to marry, his future wife might not approve.

  Colin had been in the sitting-room when they had gone in, but he had greeted them with perfect good humour, remarked upon the weather and took himself off in a cheerful manner. Perhaps he had become reconciled to leaving, after all, thought Beatrice, and forgot about him while she recounted her day to her mother and presently took herself off to bed feeling happy. Although just before she slept she was conscious that behind the happiness was a tinge of sadness.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BEATRICE managed not to be alone with Colin during the next few days, something made much easier by reason of her father’s increasingly active part in the running of the practice. As yet, he spent only short periods at the clinic, but this meant that Colin had more visits to pay, so that he was seldom for any length of time at the clinics when they were held. And, when the actual day of his departure came, Beatrice was agreeably surprised that he made no mention of seeing her again, but bade them all a friendly goodbye, got into his sports car and drove himself away.

  ‘I must say,’ observed Mrs Browning, ‘that I’m quite glad to see him go; your father wasn’t all that happy about him. He did his work well, but there was always this feeling that he was
encroaching, gradually pushing his way in. He did want a partnership, but he couldn’t have expected one without some capital. Besides, he’s young; a few years as an assistant won’t hurt him.’

  She took Beatrice’s arm. ‘I wonder when we shall see Oliver again. Such a busy man, but perhaps he’ll find time to come and see us next time he goes to his home. So strange that he lives only a short drive away. His home must be lovely…’

  ‘It is.’ Beatrice was conscious of a great wish to see it again, although she very much doubted if she would. ‘Would Father like me to go down to the village and make sure the house is ready for the Sharpes? They’ll be here this evening, won’t they?’

  The next two or three days passed peacefully. Mr Sharpe proved to be exactly what Mr Browning wanted: unassuming, pleasant and hard-working. And, being a Dorset man himself, he was able to get on very well with the local farmers. Beatrice, helping at the clinics, found him easy to get on with too, and, although she missed Colin more than she had thought she would, it was a relief to return to the mundane way of life she had known before he came.

  Only it didn’t stay mundane for long. Towards the end of the week she had gone down to the village shop for her mother. The fine weather had broken and she had cycled there, wrapped against the weather, propped her bike against the wall outside the shop and gone inside. The shop was unusual in that it sold groceries which wouldn’t have shamed Fortnum and Mason, and at the same time it did a nice line in knitting wools and local pottery; and since it was just across the street from the village’s famous pub it did a splendid trade, especially in the tourist season. But today, since the weather was bad, the shop was empty, and Beatrice, having passed the time of day with the proprietor, took her time over choosing bacon and cheese and the kind of biscuits her father preferred. It was while waiting for Mr Drew to fetch the particular brand of chutney her mother wanted that she glanced out of the window. Crossing the road was Colin, making for the shop.

  He came in quietly and shut the door behind him. ‘Hello, Beatrice. I saw your bike. I thought you would be down sooner or later.’

  ‘You’re still here,’ she said stupidly.

  ‘Of course, and I don’t intend to go until we’ve had a talk.’ He came and stood close to her, and she edged away until her back was against the counter. ‘There wasn’t much chance before; you kept out of my way, didn’t you? But you can’t really have thought that I would just go without seeing you. Beatrice, I shall stay here in the village until you say that you will marry me; then your father will have to offer me a partnership. He’s far too fond of you to let you marry a penniless man.’ He put out a hand and laid it on her arm. ‘And if he doesn’t want me in the practice, he would give us the money to get started on our own.’

  Beatrice struggled to find words. She lifted his hand from her arm, and said, ‘I’m a means to an end, aren’t I? Well, I shall say this once: if you were the last man on earth I wouldn’t marry you; you’re wasting your time. I suggest that you go away and find yourself a job—preferably on the other side of the world.’

  Colin’s smile turned ugly, but Mr Drew, coming back with the chutney, gave her the chance to turn away from him and finish giving her order. She barely heard Colin’s whispered, ‘I shall stay here; don’t think you can get rid of me so easily. After all, there’s no one else, is there? You told me that once.’

  She bitterly regretted that now as she cycled back home.

  And he was as good as his word. Whenever she went to the village or took the dogs for a walk, he contrived to meet her; and after a day or two, when she reluctantly stayed away from the village and took the dogs in different directions, he wrote to her—impassioned letters, declaring his love and outlining a brilliant future for them both if she would marry him.

  Oliver had said that her father wasn’t to be worried, and that applied to her mother, who had worry enough; Carol was still away and Ella was too young; Beatrice said nothing to anyone, and began to look a little pale and worried, as well as becoming unusually short-tempered. When she wanted him, she thought crossly, the doctor wasn’t there; there had been no sign of him for days. He could at least have phoned.

  She came back from exercising the dogs, hot and tired and hardly at her best, and was putting the last of them back in its kennel when Oliver spoke from the door. She turned to look at him, not answering his cheerful ‘hello’ at once.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she wanted to know peevishly. ‘It’s almost a week…’

  He said mildly, ‘I’ve been over in West Germany—a consultation. What’s the matter, Beatrice?’

  She came out of the shed which housed the dogs and closed the door. ‘I’m sorry I snapped. I’ve so wanted to talk to someone…’

  ‘About Colin?’

  ‘Yes. How did you guess? He’s making a great nuisance of himself. I can’t make him understand that it’s quite hopeless expecting to—to marry me so that he can get a partnership. He’s still in the village, at the Lamb. Whenever I go out, he’s there.’

  ‘How tiresome for you,’ observed the doctor, and she said crossly,

  ‘Of course it’s tiresome; I hardly dare show my nose outside the clinic. What’s more, there is no one to talk to about it.’

  ‘There is now, I’m here.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ll go again as soon as you’ve seen Father, and I want to talk forever.’

  ‘I’ve already seen your father. If you’ve finished for the time being, walk up the hill with me and tell me about it; I’ve nothing to do for the rest of the day.’

  She looked down at her cotton dress. ‘I’m not a bit tidy—my hair…’

  ‘Looks perfectly all right, and who’s to see, anyway?’

  A bracing speech, but hardly flattering.

  They walked in silence for some distance, but as they neared the summit of the hill she began, ‘I don’t know what to do. I’m so afraid that Colin will come up to the house and upset Father. Father knew that I liked Colin, I didn’t make a secret of it; I even suggested that he might be made a partner—that was before—before…’

  ‘You found him out. So that if he spoke to your father now, he might suppose that you were still in love with Colin.’

  ‘Not in love,’ she said quickly. ‘Infatuated, I suppose, or at least only a little in love, but not any more. I’m suffering from outraged pride, and I’m scared that he’ll do something to upset Mother and Father. How am I ever to convince him that I want nothing more to do with him?’

  The doctor flung a large, comforting arm around her shoulders. ‘There is a simple way of doing that. You and I, Beatrice, will become engaged.’ She turned to face him, her mouth half open, her eyes wide, slow colour mounting into her cheeks.

  ‘Before you utter a word, let me point out that I have not mentioned marriage, not even a proposal; but Colin wouldn’t know that, would he? But if we let it be known that we are engaged, he will almost certainly realise that hanging around here in the hope of marrying you is a waste of his time; better by far that he should go in search of some other young woman with a comfortable background and good prospects.’

  Beatrice’s cheeks were their usual healthy pink, but she looked distinctly ruffled. ‘It is very kind of you to offer,’ she began haughtily, ‘but I’m sure that’s quite unnecessary. I’ll think of something.’

  The doctor wasn’t in the least put out. ‘You are a resourceful young woman, and I have no doubt that you will think of a great many ways of getting rid of him. When you’ve exhausted them all, my offer still stands!’

  It was quite illogical of her to feel that he had let her down, especially when he started a cheerful conversation about Mabel, whom he had left at her father’s house, enjoying a romp with Knotty. They had reached the top of the hill and stood side by side, looking at the wide spread of country before them.

  ‘Is Germany as lovely as this?’ asked Beatrice after a minute or two, searching for a safe topic.

  ‘Parts of it, yes, but England
is beautiful, and some of the best beauty spots are so hidden away that it takes a lifetime to discover them.’

  He smiled at her as he spoke, so kindly that she said quickly, ‘You’re not annoyed because I don’t want to be engaged to you?’

  ‘Dear girl, of course not. I am rather too old for you in the first place, and in the second, we are not sufficiently good friends to cope with such a situation.’

  ‘You’re not in the least old, and you must know that we all regard you as a friend after what you have done for Father.’

  ‘Too kind,’ murmured the doctor. ‘You forget that it is all in the day’s work for me.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Perhaps we should be strolling back? Your mother mentioned ham on the bone and potatoes in their jackets for supper.’

  Soon, as they neared the house, she said quietly, ‘Thank you for listening, Oliver. It helps a lot, doesn’t it, to talk to someone…?’

  ‘Oh, yes, and probably tomorrow you will find Colin gone and all your worries with him.’

  But he was wrong there; buoyed up by the foolish idea that Colin might actually be gone because the doctor had suggested it, Beatrice went down to the village; there was Colin, strolling along, coming down the hill from the church, quickening his steps when he saw her. She was still some way away from the shop and there were no side roads, only grassy paths between some of the cottages. She walked on, and when they drew level wished him a cool good morning and made to pass him.

  He turned around and walked beside her, saying nothing at all, which was oddly disquieting, so that she was glad when she reached the shop. He made no effort to go inside with her, and she sighed with relief as she closed the door on him. She was half-way through her shopping when Mr Drew said, ‘What’s he want, then? Hanging round outside… Why doesn’t he come in instead of looking through the door like that?’