Too Long a Sacrifice

by Yvonne Whittal

  Her compassion and understanding intensified that aching lump in Julia's throat, and she swallowed convulsively as she brushed the tears from her eyes with the tips of her fingers. 'I'll survive,' she said, looking away.

  I'll survive! Those two words were beginning to sound like a perfect epitaph to Julia. Five years ago she had said I'll survive. She was saying it again now, but this time it was not going to be so easy. Self-pity? No, she dared not pity herself! If she was going to survive, then she dared not start by pitying herself! She succeeded in regaining her composure to some extent, but she could not rid herself of that lead weight which had settled in her chest.

  'Are we going to lose you?' Elizabeth queried at length, her troubled glance drawing Julia's.

  'I don't think I could stay on here in Doornfield knowing that I might periodically bump into Nathan and his… wife.' Her voice broke, but she controlled herself and smiled twistedly. 'That's a little too much to expect of me, don't you think?'

  'Don't do anything hasty, my dear,' Elizabeth warned gently. 'Nathan hasn't married that woman yet.'

  Julia remained silent. Elizabeth was offering her hope where there was none. Nathan was going to marry Marcia, Marcia had made no secret of that, and Julia was determined not to stand in his way. What, after all, did she have to offer a man like Nathan in comparison with what Marcia and her father could offer him?

  'The sound of a car coming up the driveway interrupted her anguished thoughts, and seconds later she was alerted to the fact that a second car was entering the driveway.

  'That must be Roland,' Elizabeth smiled, rising and walking across to the window which looked out on the driveway. 'I must say he had returned home earlier than I expected, and—oh, dear!' She dropped the lace curtain into position as if it had stung her, and her expression was clouded with concern when she glanced at Julia. 'He has Nathan and that woman with him.'

  Julia paled visibly, and she rose jerkily from her chair with a panicky desire to run. She could slip out of the side door before they entered the house, but then she remembered that her car was parked at the front gate. It could not have escaped their notice, and she would only succeed in making herself look foolish by running like a scared rabbit.

  'Elizabeth!'

  Roland's voice was raised as if he was attempting to warn them of something which they had discovered for themselves. Julia's pulse-rate accelerated to a suffocating pace, and her fingers curled spasmodically into her damp palms, her nails digging painfully into the soft flesh.

  'In here, dear!' Elizabeth answered him, exchanging a quick, reassuring glance with Julia before Roland entered the living-room with Nathan and Marcia following close behind him.

  'I bumped into Nathan and Marcia at the hospital and invited them home for a cup of tea,' Roland explained, casting a brief but apologetic glance in Julia's direction before he made the necessary introductions. 'Marcia, I would like you to meet my wife. Elizabeth, Marcia Grant.'

  'I'm so pleased to meet you, Mrs de Necker.'

  Marcia's husky voice was honeyed, but Julia was not aware of Elizabeth's response when, for one electrifying second, she found herself staring into Nathan's angry blue eyes.

  'You know Julia Henderson, don't you, Marcia?' Roland was saying, and Julia's back felt rigid when she wrenched her eyes from Nathan's to meet Marcia's dark, speculative glance.

  'Yes, we've met before,' Marcia smiled sweetly, but there was a calculating coldness in the look she gave Julia.

  'Make yourselves comfortable while I switch on the kettle and make a fresh pot of tea,' Elizabeth said, breaking the strained and tense silence which seemed to hover like an ominous cloud in the living-room.

  'I'll help you, Elizabeth,' Julia offered hastily, seizing this opportunity to escape for a few minutes to regain her composure and, picking up the tea-tray, she followed the older woman out of the living-room with the feeling that two pairs of eyes, in particular, were setting fire to her back.

  'I'm so sorry, my dear,' Elizabeth apologised in a hushed voice when they were alone in the kitchen. 'I know how awkward and unpleasant this must be for you, and I wish Roland had telephoned home before arriving here so unexpectedly with that woman in tow.'

  'Please don't concern yourself,' Julia reassured her with a shaky smile. 'It would look odd if I left now, so I'll stay long enough to have a quick cup of tea.'

  'Oh, dear! The afternoon has somehow been ruined for me!'

  'Nonsense!' Julia rebuked the older woman gently, stepping forward to offer her assistance. 'Here, let me rinse out the cups for you, and I'll prepare the tray if you'll tell me where you keep the rest of these cups.'

  'You'll find the matching cups in that cupboard behind you,' Elizabeth told her, filling the kettle before plugging it into the wall socket and switching it on.

  Helping Elizabeth in the kitchen had a claming effect on Julia, but she was disturbingly aware of the murmur of voices in the living-room. Marcia's tinkling laughter seemed to punctuate their conversation, and it grated across Julia's raw nerves. She did not want to think; she did not want to feel, but her mind persisted in conjuring up a vision of Marcia's seductive body in white slacks and lime-green top, and she could not help recalling how Marcia had slipped a possessive arm through Nathan's as if to stress the fact that he was her exclusive property.

  Please, God, she prayed silently. Why do I have to spend the rest of my life wanting a man who no longer loves me? And why do I find it so difficult to believe that Marcia can make him happy?

  'Are you ready?' Elizabeth intruded on her agonising thoughts some minutes later, and Julia forced her stiff lips into a smile.

  'I'm as ready as I'll ever be.'

  'Good girl!'

  Elizabeth picked up the tray of tea and scones, and Julia braced herself mentally when she followed the older woman from the kitchen.

  'May I take that for you?' Nathan offered politely, rising when they entered the living-room, and Julia's heart seemed to take a painful leap into her throat at the height and breadth of him in his immaculate grey slacks and the blue, short-sleeved shirt which seemed to span too tightly across his powerful chest.

  'I can manage, thank you, Nathan,' Elizabeth smiled up at him pleasantly as she brushed aside his offer of assistance. 'I'll deposit the tray here on the low table, and you may all help yourselves when I have poured.'

  Nathan resumed his seat on the padded sofa beside Marcia, and Elizabeth seated herself behind the marble-topped table where she could pour their tea in comfort. Julia lowered herself into a chair beside Roland, and the smile he bestowed on her was warm and somehow comforting.

  'You have a delightful home, Mrs de Necker.' Marcia broke the awkward silence while they helped themselves to a cup of tea and a scone. 'I especially admire the way you have succeeded in blending the old with the new. This is the type of decor which is the most fashionable at the moment in Johannesburg.'

  'The choice of decor has come about by accident rather than design,' Elizabeth explained with a coolness in her voice which Marcia might have been unaware of, but it did not escape Julia. 'My aim has always been to create a comfortable, lived-in home in which my husband could relax when his patients allowed him a little time to himself.'

  'People in the medical profession have to work such unholy hours at times, but that, thank goodness, shan't apply to you, darling.' Marcia smiled at Nathan and placed a carefully manicured, possessive hand on his thigh before she explained her statement to Roland and Elizabeth. 'My father wants Nathan to take charge of the surgical section of the new clinic which is being erected in Johannesburg, and I'm happy to say that it will require a regular eight-to-five day which will leave Nathan free in the evenings as well as weekends.'

  Roland raised his eyebrows behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and there was a hint of disapproval in his eyes which did not match the smile that curved his mouth. 'It sounds like a posh job, Nathan.'

  'It's going to be a posh clinic when it's completed,' Nathan responded i
n a clipped voice, and Julia could not be sure, but she sensed a lack of enthusiasm which might suggest that his values had not changed as much as she had imagined.

  'Is this post at the clinic a certainty?' Elizabeth asked Nathan in a display of polite interest, breaking the ensuing silence which threatened to become awkward.

  'I've received a legitimate offer, but I still have plenty of time to inform them of my decision.'

  Nathan's glance met Julia's briefly while he spoke, and she was shaken by that flash of blazing fury she had glimpsed in his eyes before he looked away. Why was he still so angry with her? Surely he had enough sense of decency left to know that what they had done was wrong, and that she had acted in their best interests when she had ordered him out of her cottage?

  'My father says that Nathan would be a fool not to accept this post, and Nathan is very much aware of that,' Marcia's honeyed voice interrupted Julia's disturbing thoughts. 'This new clinic will be equipped and staffed to make it the best in the country.'

  And the most expensive, Julia could not help thinking with a measure of distaste as she recalled her conversation with Damian Squires, and she felt sick inside when she sensed Roland and Elizabeth's disapproval.

  'Thank you for a lovely afternoon, Elizabeth, but it's time I went home,' Julia announced with a desperate need to get away, and she placed her cup in the tray as she rose to her feet.

  'I'll walk with you to your car, my dear,' Elizabeth smiled at her, and there was something in her eyes that made Julia suspect that Elizabeth was equally anxious to escape for a moment.

  Julia received a curt nod from Nathan and a cold stare from Marcia, but Roland surprised her by drawing her towards him and kissing her on the cheek in much the same way a father might greet a daughter. A warmth filtered into her cold heart, and her step was lighter when she walked out of the house with Elizabeth. The late afternoon sun lengthened the shadows of the trees across the well kept lawn, and Julia drew the clean, fresh air deep into her lungs in an attempt to ease that feeling of suffocation which she had encountered from the moment Nathan and Marcia had entered the house with Roland.

  'It seemed as though Marcia and her father have Nathan's future mapped out very nicely for him, and Nathan doesn't appear to object too much to the idea of being manipulated, but I imagine that it's one way of making a name for oneself,' Elizabeth remarked with a wry smile when they walked down the curved path towards the gate where Julia had parked her car.

  'I don't think the situation is quite what Marcia Grant would want us to believe.' Julia leapt to Nathan's defence before she could prevent herself. 'I knew Nathan as a man who was interested solely in the improvement of his skills as a neuro-surgeon in order to heal those who came to him for help. Making a name for himself was never one of his ambitions.'

  Elizabeth's attractive features wore a dubious expression, and there was a hint of pity in her eyes when she glanced at Julia. 'People change, my dear.'

  'I know,' Julia agreed as she paused at the gate to face Elizabeth. 'People change, but I find it difficult to believe that one's sense of values could alter to such a drastic extent.'

  'I hope you are right about Nathan,' Elizabeth responded gravely. 'It would be a relief to know that my first assessment of his character was still intact.' Julia drove home in a sombre, pain-filled mood. She had stood aside five years ago because she had wanted Nathan to achieve the heights in his profession, and she was doing the same now. He was going to marry Marcia Grant, and Marcia, with the assistance of her father, could help him achieve notoriety. Was that what Nathan wanted? Was it possible that making a name for himself had become more important to him than the desire to heal with the skilful wielding of his scalpel?

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was almost two weeks since that Sunday afternoon when Roland had arrived at his home accompanied by the two people whom Julia had wished to avoid at all costs. It had rained for several days, making the gravel roads in and around Doornfield almost impassable, but it was not the weather which had aroused this strange uneasiness in Julia as the days flowed one into the other. She had an odd feeling that she was sitting on the edge of a volcano which was threatening to erupt, and she was unsettled by the knowledge that there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  Roland de Necker appeared to mirror her wariness and intense irritation when she walked into his consulting-room after lunch the Wednesday afternoon to find him seated behind his desk, drumming his fingers impatiently on his desk blotter.

  'Is something the matter?' she asked him cautiously.

  'It's nothing that can't wait,' he said abruptly, leaning back in his chair and making a visible attempt to relax. 'I needed to discuss Tommy Durandt's progress with Nathan, but when I telephoned Honeywell I was told that Nathan has been in Johannesburg for the past two days,' he explained when Julia continued to stare at him curiously.

  'Is Tommy Durandt not responding to treatment as well as you had expected?' she asked with a calmness that belied the nervous and bitter turmoil inside her at the mention of Nathan's name.

  'My concern is not for the patient,' Roland announced, taking off his spectacles and cleaning them with unnecessary vigour before he put them on again and pocketed his handkerchief. 'It's just that I'm baffled that Nathan should go off like that when he had stated quite emphatically that he would be available for consultation any day of this week.'

  'He must have been called away to something important.' Julia heard herself proffering an excuse for Nathan's absence, but she had to admit to herself that his contradictory behaviour was odd.

  'Perhaps you're right,' Roland agreed, dismissing the subject with a characteristic wave of the hand. 'You may send in the first patient.'

  She did as she was told, but that brief conversation with Roland had left her in a disturbed state of mind beneath her outwardly calm and smiling exterior. Why had Nathan gone to Johannesburg when he had told Roland that he would be available for consultation any day during this week? Was Marcia Grant perhaps the cause of this unexpected trip to the city?

  Julia needed to relax, and she had settled herself comfortably in her lounge that evening with a book she had been wanting to read for some time, but her mind wandered repeatedly. Why had fate been so unkind as to bring Nathan back into her life to disrupt the peaceful existence she had created for herself? During the past two weeks she had suffered the agony of thinking that she might be pregnant, and then there had been the relief of discovering that she had been mistaken. Relief had, however, given way to regret, and an acute and inexplicable bout of depression had followed which she was still having difficulty in shaking off. It was ridiculous to have felt so deprived, she rebuked herself sensibly, and she was attempting once again to concentrate on her book when she heard a car driving up the lane and stopping at her gate.

  It was Nathan! She had recognised the sound of the Ferrari's engine, and her body tensed when she heard Nathan's heavy footsteps approaching the cottage. His knock on the door jarred her nerves, and her legs were shaking beneath her when she rose to her feet.

  Her heart was thudding nervously against her ribs when she opened the door, but her breath locked in her throat when she confronted Nathan's tall frame on her doorstep. His face looked grim, and the grooves stretching from his nose to his strongly chiselled mouth had deepened with obvious exhaustion. The jacket of his grey suit was draped carelessly over his arm, the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to above his elbows, and he had loosened his collar and tie. Tenderness and compassion rose like a tidal wave inside her, but she suppressed it hastily. She dared not soften now!

  'May I come in?' he asked, his deep, well modulated voice intruding on her distracted thoughts, and his sensuous mouth quirking in a suggestion of a smile which was not mirrored in his heavy-lidded eyes.

  'I'd prefer it if you didn't,' she responded with a rudeness which was alien to her nature, and there was a stabbing flash of anger in his blue glance.

  'Dammit, Julia, I've spent tw
o aggravating and exhausting days in Johannesburg, I haven't been to the farm yet for a much-needed shower and a change of clothing, and I'm not in the mood to tolerate this kind of treatment from you!'

  She backed away hastily when he stepped inside, but fingers of steel bit into the soft flesh above her elbow as he closed the door and propelled her into the lounge where he flung his jacket on to the nearest chair.

  'Let go of me!' she gasped.

  Nathan was hurting her, but it was nothing compared to the pain he inflicted when he took her shoulders in a merciless grip and jerked her round to face him. His eyes blazed down into hers with a frightening anger, and she swallowed convulsively, stilling beneath his punishing hands.

  'I don't know what game you think you're playing, Julia, but it has got to stop!' he warned savagely.

  Game? If anyone was playing a game, then it was Nathan! A numb pain shot down into her arms, and she winced inwardly, but her glance did not waver from his.

  'I'm not in the habit of playing games.'

  'Aren't you?' he demanded with a grating harshness, and she was released with an unexpectedness that made her stagger and clutch at the back of a chair for support. 'You allow me to make love to you; you welcomed it, in fact, but when we meet again I'm given the cold shoulder. Why, Julia?'

  'It was the sensible thing to do, for your sake as well as my own.'

  Nathan's eyes narrowed perceptibly. 'Could you be more explicit?'

  Dear God! How could she explain the guilt and the mental torment she had suffered without making him realise that she still loved him? No, she dared not even attempt an explanation, she decided as she snatched at the first reasonable explanation that came to mind.

  'Warren has asked me to marry him, and I—'

  'You can't marry Warren Chandler!' Nathan interrupted her with a savagery which she had never encountered in him before, and she paled visibly as she backed a pace away from him, but her eyes sparked with a defensive anger when she met his glance.