Doctor Raoul's Romance Read online

Nevertheless, she was conscious of a strong feeling of excitement, as she dressed for that last evening with him, in the white and silver dress she had come to associate with his presence.

  “Where would you like to go?” he asked her.

  She meant to shrug, to say lightly, “Anywhere you like.” But instead she found herself murmuring, “down to the river.”

  “Parfait!” He seized on the idea with alacrity. “To the river it shall be.”

  So, after dinner in a gay, intimate little cafe, they went down to the river gleaming under the lights. And once again she held up her hand, with the ring he had given her sparkling on it, gathering the light into its heart.

  “Take it, please, Raoul,” she asked him.

  “Must I, Adrien? You know I don’t want to.”

  “Please take it,” she insisted.

  “Why are you so cruel? I know I could make you happy.”

  “You know why. I love Nicholas.”

  He laughed a little bitterly, but gently slipped the ring from her finger, and put it in his breast pocket.

  “I don’t believe that. You are deceiving your own heart, my little Adrien.”

  “Please, Raoul, don’t let’s talk about it,” she begged. “Not tonight.”

  “So I have to wait for you to tell me you love me. Well, perhaps it is better that way. I will wait. But I will never give up.”

  “Why do you persist that one day I shall know I love you?”

  “Look in the river,” he said, his arms around her, turning her gently. “What do you see there?”

  She peered into the depths.

  “Lights and shadows.”

  “And us,” he said, laughing. “Amidst those lights and shadows, you will see our reflections. That’s how I see us together in the future. Because at this moment I see the love in your eyes when you turn to me, that love you will not confess. Believe me, my darling, it is there. We love each other, and I am never going to let you go from my heart or from my life.”

  He didn’t kiss her, held her only lightly, and yet she felt breathless as though from a long and passionate embrace.

  Now it was November and she was back in England. Blanche was doing well at drama college. That wasn’t really surprising, thought Adrien. When you gave your heart to something as Blanche did to the theater, surely you must succeed.

  But though the younger girl was gay and determined, and no longer moody, Adrien thought she sometimes detected a wistful look in her eyes. Did she miss Pierre? Adrien wondered. She knew he wrote to her each week. But Blanche never showed her the letters. She always took them up to her room to read, and once Adrien thought she heard her crying.

  Then one day she remained in her room with a letter rather longer than usual, and came out quiet and thoughtful.

  “Adrien,” she asked, “why did you break off your engagement to Raoul Dubois? You never told me.”

  Adrien felt herself coloring. She answered shortly, “Why should I? It didn’t concern anyone but Raoul and myself.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Blanche, genuinely contrite. “I know I’m too curious and interfering. It’s just—love is terribly important, isn’t it? One ought not to let it go.”

  “So that’s the way the wind wags now, is it?” thought Adrien, rather amused. “You’re missing Pierre, are you? Unless, of course, that’s just the line from a play you’re studying.”

  She surprised a pang in her own heart. Then, like a blinding flash, she became conscious of the true state of her feelings toward Raoul. It was as though Blanche’s questioning had torn the veil from her eyes. She was suddenly conscious that it was now more than a month since she had heard from Raoul. At first he had written twice a week, and Blanche, always the first to run at the postman’s knock, had handed them to her with a knowing look. The letters had been light and witty, but his love for her had found its way through them, like a wistful melody in a gay sonata. Now he didn’t write.

  “It’s because he’s in Africa,” Adrien told herself. “It was easy for him to write while he was in Europe. Now it’s much more difficult.” And yet surely he must have some communication with civilization. His last letter had been from Africa, had been in the same vein as the others, had given no hint that he would not be writing again.

  “He’s tired of me,” thought Adrien despairingly.

  And then the letter came. But it was not at all what she expected.

  My dear little ex-mock-fiancée,

  This is just to bid you adieu. You told me both in words and in your letters that you could never love me, so it will not distress you to hear that I find I too love another. I am shortly to marry my old friend Denise de Neuf. Wish us all happiness, dear Adrien, I beg you, as we wish you. I shall always remember the hours we spent together.

  Your friend,

  Raoul Dubois

  She was alone in the flat when she read the letter, and had no need to control her feelings, but she was silent. The wild sobs that shook her heart did not reach her lips.

  Raoul and Denise de Neuf. So that was how it was ending. In the wilds of Africa, it was not herself that Raoul had found haunting his dreams, but his old friend Denise.

  “Then he could never have loved me,” thought Adrien. “True love does not die like that.” But what then of her love for Nicholas, the love that was ashes now?

  “If I had loved Raoul, that time by the river. If I had given him my heart, kept his ring on my finger as he begged me to, would we be happy now? Would he still love me?” She could not guess the answer to that question.

  The front doorbell rang three times before it penetrated her consciousness. Then she rose stiffly, feeling as though her legs and her thoughts did not belong to her, and went to open it. Pierre Valentin stood there.

  “Hello, Pierre,” she said blankly.

  She could feel no emotion in these minutes after shock, not even a casual one.

  “Hello, Adrien—but it is almost as if you expected me.”

  She made herself laugh. It sounded strange to her own ears. “Perhaps I did expect you,” she told him. “Why not? You love Blanche, and why should you keep away from the one you love, when there is no need? Never let her go, Pierre. If you love her stick to her, no matter what she tells you.”

  “Adrien, are you ill?” He was startled by her appearance. “Let me help you. A glass of water?”

  “It’s all right, Pierre, I’ve had a bit of a shock, that’s all. Silly of me. Do come in. Blanche isn’t back yet, I’m afraid, but she won’t be long. What can I get you? Coffee? Sherry? I’m afraid we haven’t any whisky.”

  “I think it is you who need something. I had something at the station.” He paused, then burst out as though he couldn’t help himself, his eyes roving around the pretty sitting room as though seeking signs of his loved one’s presence, “Adrien, tell me—how is Blanche? She is well, yes? Her letters—they tell me nothing.”

  “Very well,” Adrien said, forcing herself to smile at him. She offered him a cigarette, and he accepted. She said impulsively, “I think she misses you. In fact I know she does.”

  His face lit up.

  “C’est sur, Adrien? She misses me. Then is there hope for me after all?”

  Adrien’s calm broke.

  “Yes, there is hope for you. She misses you, Pierre. Don’t let her go. Hold her fast, hold her fast, Pierre, while you can. Excuse me, I—oh, there is Blanche. Will you open the door for her?’ She fled to her bedroom, hearing Blanche’s gay voice as she said goodnight to a fellow-student, the sudden silence as the door opened and she saw Pierre. Then the quick cry of rapture...

  Adrien knew that Blanche had thrown herself into Pierre’s arms.

  In her room she covered her face with her hands and cried, at last.

  It wasn’t easy to write a congratulatory letter to Raoul. Adrien shut herself up in her room next morning and at last emerged, white-faced, with a sealed envelope in her hand.

  She noticed that a letter had come by the second po
st, and was lying on the hall mat. She picked it up idly, and was surprised to see Gillian’s writing. Once she would have torn it open with eager anguish, yearning for news of Nicholas. Now she thrust it carelessly into her bag and went to post her own letter.

  On her return, opening her bag to take out her lipstick, she found the letter there, and casually tore off the flap.

  But as her eyes ran down the lines of Gillian’s neat writing, which yet had flourish in it, they widened, and she sat down, suddenly very pale.

  “Adrien, you must come, you must come at once.” (When had she read that before?)

  “We have Raoul staying with us, and he plans to marry Denise. But it’s all wrong, a great mistake. He is very ill, Adrien, desperately ill. He loves you. I know it—and you know, don’t you, Adrien, that it isn’t easy to deceive me. Whether you love him or not I don’t know, but if you care for him at all, you must come, for your sake and his. You know I wouldn’t write like this unless it was urgent. But you saved my life and love, you and Raoul, and now I want to save yours. So do please come, quickly. Don’t let pride stand in your way. I know pride is a mistake.”

  One sentence in that letter stood out in Adrien’s mind.

  “Raoul is desperately ill...”

  She took out Raoul’s own letter, with its Val d’Argent postmark. Suddenly she was convinced. It wasn’t just that Raoul had been mistaken in thinking he loved her. It wasn’t just that he had suddenly discovered the truth of his feelings for Denise. There was something else here, some mystery that she did not understand.

  How could she hesitate now? There was only one thing to do. She must go and see for herself.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A light snow was falling when the little suburban train brought Adrien into Val d’Argent. She had left the village in the heat and bustle of July, and now the streets once so familiar seemed strange and remote, though the shops were still open and people were hurrying up and down.

  She had warned no one of her coming, and there did not seem to be a taxi available. So, despite her heavy case, she walked the short distance up the hill, past the high gates of the chateau to Nicholas’s house.

  To her surprise it was Denise de Neuf who opened the front door to her.

  At the sight of Adrien the color drained from her face, and a little pulse beat high in her slender throat.

  Then suddenly she smiled, and stretched out her hand in greeting.

  “So you are here!” she said, her high voice strangely cracked. “You have come, and I am glad. He needs you.”

  Raoul appeared at the top of the stairs, and Adrien gasped at the sight of him. He was stooped and bent, his face a haggard mask.

  He came slowly down the stairs like an old man, as though he found it an effort to move. But his blue eyes were bright with fever.

  “Yes, he is ill,” thought Adrien, in terror. “I was right. Gillian was right. He is very ill.”

  He had reached her now. He took her hand in his own burning one, and raised it, cool and soft, to his parched lips. “Welcome, Adrien!” he said, his voice cracking on the name. “Denise and I welcome you to our wedding!”

  “I am being a shocking hostess, n’est-ce pas?” Denise had recovered her sangfroid. “It is not altogether a surprise for us to see you, Adrien. Gillian said she had invited you, but of course we did not expect you tonight. But we are very glad, aren’t we, Raoul, as we know Gillian and Nicholas will be. They are out, just now, dining with the moire. It is Jeanne’s free evening, and the children are in bed. So I am afraid you have only Raoul and me to entertain you. Please sit down and I will get you some coffee.”

  “Coffee would be lovely, thank you.”

  “Then come into the salon, and I’ll fetch it.”

  She left them there, in the familiar room, with the round table that had Christmas roses on it now, instead of lilies-of-the-valley. Yet, irresistibly, Adrien remembered how they had stood there, one on each side of that table, and he had towered above her lecturing her on a nurse’s duties. And now...

  Raoul stood, punctiliously, till Adrien had seated herself. Then he sank onto a chair, with a sigh of relief he could not control.

  Adrien said gently, “You are ill, aren’t you, Raoul? Very ill. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He gave a little shrug.

  “But it is nothing. Just a little microbe I picked up in Africa. Nothing serious.”

  “No,” said Adrien slowly, watching his face, “it isn’t like that. It’s serious, and you know it.”

  He gave her a sudden look of anguish.

  “Does Denise know?”

  “Hush!” His imperious gesture answered her question. Denise’s light footstep had sounded in the hall. She came in now, carrying a tray with a coffee set.

  “You must be tired, Adrien, after your long journey. Did you come by plane?”

  “Yes, Madame de Neuf.”

  “Do call me Denise. I call you Adrien.”

  “Thank you, Denise.”

  Her mind was racing, no longer muzzy, but full of bewilderment and pain. And yet she was conscious that every pulse and nerve in her mind and body was girding itself for a struggle, a challenge.

  What did it all mean?

  Raoul was indeed, as Gillian had guessed, desperately ill. The “African microbe” was nothing to joke about. And she knew, too, that he realized the seriousness of his own condition. A doctor of his eminence could not be deceived.

  Why then wasn’t he in hospital, receiving treatment? And why did he plan to marry Denise, who apparently was unaware of the seriousness of the situation? Surely he was treating her most unfairly. It wasn’t like Raoul to act in this way. It was not the Raoul she knew.

  Had the illness affected his brain, his character, she wondered?

  But no, there was nothing of delusion or panic in his fever-haunted yet steady gaze; the gaze which, suddenly, she found fixed on her with a curious questioning intensity. But when her eyes met his, his own flickered, turned hastily to Denise.

  “I must ask Nicholas and Gillian,” thought Adrien. “Perhaps they can explain this.”

  But yet, in her heart, she did not really believe anyone would be able to tell her the truth. Nobody could do that except Raoul himself—or perhaps, after all, Denise.

  Raoul sighed, and his coffee cup shook in his hand. Adrien sprang up, but restrained herself as Denise rose swiftly to her feet, took the cup from his hand, and helped him to his feet.

  “He is very tired,” she said, with an apologetic glance at Adrien. “You will excuse us, will you not? Come, chéri.”

  “Goodnight, Adrien.” Raoul forced a smile over his clenched teeth. He was evidently in pain. Together he and Denise walked to the door, Denise supporting his hesitant steps. “How he has changed!” thought Adrien in despair. “In such a short time!” But at the door, he suddenly looked back at her. It was the old gray gaze under raised eyebrows that she knew so well. The gaze that mocked gently at pretence. But now it was wistful too. It was as though he was saying, “But this is the make-believe, isn’t it, Adrien? Isn’t it?” Imploring her to reassure him that his illness, his engagement to Denise, was all a dream. Or was she just being fanciful? He had turned his gaze now, he had gone, and she was no longer sure.

  Outside Raoul’s bedroom door, Denise paused.

  “Goodnight, my very dear. Sleep well tonight. No bad dreams.”

  He stooped—she knew it hurt him to do it, though he gave no sign of his pain—and very gently kissed her forehead.

  “No dreams. Goodnight, my love. Goodnight.”

  Denise walked downstairs very, very slowly. In the shaded glow from the electric light, her face was almost as pale and wan as his.

  It was strange to Adrien to be back in the familiar bedroom that she had occupied last summer, with feelings so different now from those she had then experienced.

  She did not sleep—she had not expected to. She lay awake, hour after hour, listening to the sounds of a winter night. Th
e hoot of an owl, the dull thud of melting snow falling from the roof, a cock’s chilly crow.

  When she heard this last, she put on her light, and got up, and washed and dressed, though she knew it was much too early. When she was ready, in a soft blue jumper and skirt, she sat by her warm radiator and tried to read, but she could not concentrate. She was glad when she heard voices and movement in the house and knew that she could go down to breakfast.

  Frances and Geoffrey were already in the salle-a-manger, and greeted her excitedly and vociferously.

  “Hello, Adrien! This is fun.”

  “Hello, you two! You’ve both grown enormously.”

  “Yes, haven’t we? I’m going to boarding school, in England, after Christmas.” Frances jumped up and down, her braids flying wildly.

  “And I’m going next autumn, perhaps,” Geoffrey chimed in. “Till then, Mummy’s teaching me herself.”

  “And you’re keeping Mummy busy,” said Gillian, coming into the room with Nicholas following her. “Hello, Adrien. Have a good night?”

  “Yes, thank you, Gill,” lied Adrien.

  "Well, we’ve a lot to talk about today.” Gillian gave her a meaning glance.

  Last night when Nicholas and Gillian had returned from the maire, after expressing their delight at seeing Adrien, they had talked chiefly about Blanche. They were delighted to hear that she was doing so well, and of Pierre’s arrival.

  “Blanche’s going was just the spur he needed to make him give up loafing and find his place in the world,” Gillian had said, nodding her head approvingly.

  Gillian knew Adrien was dying to question her about that letter. The children wanted her to go shopping with them, but their mother took pity on her, and sent them out to play in the snow.

  Nicholas had to hurry to catch his train to Paris.

  “Au re voir, Adrien,” he said, looking in her eyes and smiling. “It’s good to see you again.”

  He had returned, seemingly without difficulty, to their old brother-and-sister relationship. It was as though, for him, those days of hectic emotions the previous summer had never been.