Doctor Raoul's Romance Page 7

  She returned with the tray, to find Gillian chatting excitedly and ceaselessly. Raoul was nodding, soothing, but noncommittal, his hand was resting gently, unobtrusively, upon Gillian’s pulse.

  “Thank you, Adrien. This is lovely.” Gillian was polite, as always. She drank the tea eagerly. Then she said, “Nicky—please may I see Nicky now?”

  “You can see him for a few minutes,” said the doctor. “And then you must go to sleep, like a good girl.”

  “I can’t sleep. I’m far too excited. I feel far too odd.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll give you something to calm you down. Tm sure you don’t want to miss your beauty sleep.”

  “You know how to get your own way, Doctor. I don’t want to go to sleep at all. But I’ll do it to please you. But I must see Nicky first ... I like your tie, Raoul. You don’t mind my calling you Raoul, do you? It’s a nice name. What do you think Nicky will say when he finds me flirting with you?”

  “You are a beautiful woman, madame. And your husband is a lucky man.”

  Still feeling her pulse, he raised her hand to his lips, humoring her. His eyes flashed a warning to Adrien.

  “Fetch the husband, quickly!” they said. “We’re not out of danger yet.” Just for a moment they were anxious, unguarded. Adrien felt the swift sting of fear.

  She ran downstairs. Nicky was hovering, eagerly, in the hall. “Can I see her now?” he demanded.

  She noticed he had tidied himself up. He had shaved, and his hair was brushed.

  “Yes, she’s asking for you. She’s doing well, Nicholas, there’s no need to be anxious. You’ll find her rather over-excited. Don’t worry about that. It’s a natural reaction to the stimulant.” “Please God, I’m right,” she thought.

  Nicholas ran up the stairs, two at a time.

  Gillian, her eyes unnaturally bright, held out her arms to him. “Darling, at last! I thought you were never coming. But it’s not your fault, I know. They wouldn’t let you. They are dragons, aren’t they?”

  “Darling, how are you feeling?”

  “Oh, not so bad. I’m through the first injection, and Raoul says I’m doing fine. I’ve been flirting with Raoul. You don’t mind, do you, darling Nicky? He is charming, isn’t he? And such a clever doctor.”

  Nicholas held her gently.

  “Darling, I’ve been so anxious,” he muttered.

  “I know. Poor Nicky! But it’s all right, darling. It’s all right now you’re here.”

  Her eyes closed. Nicholas looked up at Raoul Dubois, in sudden panic. But the doctor was smiling.

  “She is asleep, Mr. Renton. The best thing possible. You have succeeded where we failed—to calm her.”

  Nicholas asked, entreaty in his eyes,

  “I may stay with her a little, mayn’t I?”

  “But certainly. We will leave you together.”

  Raoul opened the door for Adrien, and together they went downstairs. Jeanne was hovering, as usual, with refreshments—wine and biscuits. For once Raoul accepted a glass, and poured one for Adrien.

  “You need it,” he said. “You have had an exhausting morning.” He smiled at her. “You are a good nurse, mademoiselle.”

  Adrien did not know how to reply. She turned her glass in her hand, watching the sunlight sparkle on the red wine.

  Raoul said thoughtfully,

  “You know, Nurse Grey, if Mrs. Renton is cured it will be her husband as much as you or I who is responsible. He is the one who gives her the will to live. Without him I do not think she would have the strength to pull through.”

  Adrien said carefully, “He is very devoted to her. They are very much in love.”

  “Yes, one can see that.” He regarded Adrien thoughtfully, as though he was trying to read her thoughts. What right had he to do that? she asked herself, indignant, forgetting the communion of healing they had shared.

  “You have known Mr. Renton a long time, haven’t you, Miss Grey?”

  “We were brought up together,” she answered stiffly. “We are like brother and sister.”

  “I see. May I ask if you know Mrs. Renton well?”

  “Not so well. But I’m very fond of her.”

  She felt ridiculously on the defensive. She could not understand her own meekness. Why did she not rebel? A doctor had no right to ask a nurse these questions. Not in England anyway. She supposed it might be different in France.

  “I see. Well, Nurse Grey, I must be going now. I’ll arrange with Dr. Lerouge for a night nurse for Mrs. Renton, in case she is restless. I take it that will be all right with Mr. Renton?”

  “Oh yes, I’m sure it will.”

  “Well, I leave them both, husband and wife, in your care.” He shook her hand and was gone.

  Adrien went into the garden for a few minutes’ fresh air, before returning upstairs. She was frowning.

  She had a feeling there was some sort of double meaning underlying the doctor’s last words, but she could not interpret it.

  “Surely,” she thought, in sudden panic, “he can’t have guessed that I love Nicholas. Oh, it isn’t possible. It can’t be as obvious as that.”

  She buried her face in her hands.

  “I always thought I was so self-controlled. Now everybody seems to know all my secrets. How I wish I could go back to England today, tonight! But it isn’t possible. I can’t leave Gillian now. I must carry on somehow.”

  Pulling herself together with an effort, she started to walk back toward the house.

  Suddenly she was aware that Blanche was approaching with Gillian’s little Corgi, Beauty, bounding around her yellow skirt. “Hello, Adrien,” she called.

  “Hello, Blanche.”

  Adrien couldn’t help speaking rather shortly. She hesitated, wondering whether it would be wise to tax Blanche immediately with what had happened last night. She was strung up and ready for combat with someone, and Blanche was the obvious person.

  The younger girl was asking eagerly, her face, pale, “How is Gillian?”

  “Much better.”

  “Really, Adrien?” There were tears in Blanche’s eyes.

  “Yes, she’s doing well.”

  “You sound a bit funny, Adrien. Are you keeping something back from me? Is she worse? Is she—dying?” Blanche began to tremble violently. “Oh, Adrien!”

  Adrien put her hand on the girl’s thin shoulder to calm her. She said coldly, “Don’t be silly, Blanche. Hysteria won’t help anyone. I’m telling you the truth. Gillian is doing as well as can be expected. Nicholas is with her now.”

  The girl gulped down her rising emotion.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not going to be a nuisance. It’s just—I ...”

  “I understand how you feel.” But to herself, Adrien thought, “I don’t really. I don’t understand how she feels at all. Blanche is an enigma to me.”

  “Blanche, you’re grown up now. You really must try to behave like an adult, not a silly schoolgirl.”

  “Oh, I will, Adrien. It’s just that I really do love Gill, you know. I know I’m horrid to her sometimes. But I do love her.”

  “Then why do you repeat gossip that you must know would hurt her?”

  “Gossip? What do you mean? I don’t understand.” Blanche was genuinely puzzled.

  Adrien steadied her face.

  “Why did you tell the children that I was in love with Nicholas? That, if Gillian died, I would marry him? That I had come here with that intention? How could you, Blanche? It was a terrible thing to do.”

  Up till that moment she had doubted whether Blanche had really said anything of the kind. Surely, she had believed, not even she could be as tactless as that? It might have been that little Geoffrey had misunderstood. Though how a child could have made up a thing like that, Adrien could not think. But now, seeing the color flood into the younger girl’s face, she knew there had been no mistake.

  “How could you, Blanche?” she said again.

  “I don’t know,” Blanche said in a very small voice. “I
don’t known, Adrien, honestly. I can’t really believe I said a thing like that, and yet I know I did. I suppose I lost my temper one day. I told them if they weren’t good, Gillian would die and they’d have a stepmother. I suppose it was terrible of me, but I get desperate with them sometimes. I suppose, when you arrived, they thought you were this future stepmother.”

  “You didn’t tell them so?”

  “Perhaps I did. I can’t remember, honestly. Oh, Adrien, do let me alone. I’m going crazy here, I think. I can’t stick it any longer. I can’t!”

  “Blanche, control yourself.” Adrien’s voice was like ice. “Think of Gillian for once. She needs all our care. Think of Nicholas.”

  “That’s all anyone says. ‘Think of Gillian, think of Nicholas.’ And the summer is passing and I’m stuck here. And I shall marry Pierre, I know I shall. I know I’m horrid, but I can’t help it, really I can’t. You’re not like me, Adrien. You don’t understand...” She broke away from Adrien’s restraining hand and, sobbing violently, rushed toward the house.

  Adrien shrugged her shoulders. Really, it was too much to have Blanche to cope with on top of a morning of strain like this. She wished she hadn’t mentioned to her that subject of gossiping to the children. She suddenly felt very tired.

  “I shouldn’t have come,” she thought. “It was a great mistake. This isn’t like an impersonal case where one can give all one’s attention to the job in hand. It’s too much to have to deal with personal problems when one is struggling against death.”

  But when she went up again to Gillian’s bedroom and found her sleeping tranquilly, with Nicholas sitting quietly by her side, a look of peace, at last, on his tired face, she felt ashamed of her impatience.

  The rest of the day passed quietly. In the evening, slipping out into the garden, Adrien found Nicholas under the lime tree. She almost hurried back to the house, remembering again their scene of last night, now that the stress of today was over. She felt suddenly shy, afraid to be alone with him, now that she feared he knew her secret. But he saw her and smiled with a new brightness.

  “Is Gillian asleep?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She was relieved to find that her voice was quite natural. After all, she would have to be alone with him sometimes. The best policy was to get used to it. She said, “I mustn’t stop, though. Gillian may wake.”

  “You really think this treatment is succeeding, don’t you?” There was elation in his voice. “I can’t believe it. It seems too wonderful to be true that Gillian may really get well.”

  Adrien thought, “I needn’t have worried. He has forgotten about last night. After all, why should he think of it? It meant nothing to him. It’s natural that he can think only of Gillian.” She said, “I’m so glad about it, Nicholas. So very glad.”

  “Thank you, little sister. I know you are.”

  He looked at her and, with sudden confusion, she realized she had been wrong, quite wrong. He hadn’t forgotten about last night at all. It must be present in his mind, for there was a look in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. It was a look of understanding, gratitude, perhaps of compassion.

  Her heart swelled with tenderness for him and with shame that she might have added to his worries. She felt shame too that, even at this moment, she couldn’t conquer entirely her wild, unreasoning jealousy of Gillian—who had all his love.

  He was saying, “I believe Dr. Dubois said something about a night nurse?”

  “Yes. Dr. Lerouge phoned to say she would be here at nine o’clock.”

  “Can I see Gillian before that? Please, Adrien.”

  “Of course.” Adrien smiled, turning back toward the house. “Dr. Dubois says you’re her best medicine now.”

  The treatment continued day by day, not without great anxiety for doctor and nurse and all those who loved Gillian Renton.

  As the dose strengthened, she became subject to spasms of delirium. She would sometimes imagine herself a child again, and call for her dead father, till Adrien, despite her stoical training, felt tears come to her eyes. But most of the time it was Nicholas she called for, and only when he came and held her in his arms would her tossing cease.

  He had almost ceased to go to the office.

  “They can get on without me,” he said. “Gillian can’t—now.”

  Driving to and from Paris, Raoul Dubois was surprised to find how this particular case occupied his thoughts. He had never been able to put his patients out of his mind when, each day, he had done all he could for them, as he knew a doctor should, but it was not usual for him to be haunted like this.

  “I misjudged the husband,” he told himself. “I thought he had a wandering eye where women are concerned. But no ... he is devoted to his wife. And yet there is more in his relationship with Adrien Grey than she will admit. Probably more than he will admit to himself.”

  His lips tightened unconsciously; his profile became stern, almost angry.

  His mind went off at a tangent, steered there deliberately, for reasons he would have been most unwilling to admit.

  “It’s time I paid another visit to Denise. I’ve been neglecting her lately.”

  It was true he had avoided her since her offer of marriage, though he knew there was no need to be embarrassed. It was one of the blessings of their relationship that they could say almost anything to each other without fear of causing offense. They could go from light to serious conversation and back again in a moment. Yes, he knew he need not avoid Denise de Neuf.

  And after all, he thought, why not accept her offer? Why not marry her? She would be an excellent wife, the practical French part of his character told him. But his romantic English part protested, “You do not love her. You love someone else. A girl in a white and silver dress, who loves the Schubert Serenade?”

  “Nonsense!” said Raoul Dubois to himself, speaking aloud, and turned the steering wheel viciously, heading for the Paris traffic.

  At the end of a week Gillian was certainly much better, from a physical point of view. But mentally she was feeling the strain.

  She gave way, unusually for her, to frequent fits of depression. Often Adrien found her in tears.

  “I’m such a nuisance to you all,” she would say wistfully. “Sometimes I think it would be better if I died.”

  “What nonsense!” Adrien put her arm around the shaking shoulders, wishing she could give the invalid some of her own warm young strength. “You mustn’t say things like that, Gillian dear. I’m surprised at you. Why, what would Nicholas do without you?”

  “He might be better off. I think he would, wouldn’t he, Adrien? He could—marry someone else.”

  “How can you talk such rubbish?” Adrien asked angrily. “You know he only lives for you.”

  Gillian lay back against her pillows. She looked at the little vase of lilies-of-the-valley on the table by her bed. Nicholas had given them to her on the first of May. She knew he had given some to everybody in the house. Blanche had worn hers, together with Pierre’s offering, making an enormous bunch altogether. But Adrien hadn’t. Yet somehow Gillian knew that Adrien hadn’t thrown her lilies-of-the-valley away.

  Where were they? the invalid wondered. Carefully pressed in Adrien’s jewelry box?

  “Does she really think she can fool me?” Gillian wondered. “Does she think I don’t see the way her eyes follow Nicky’s every movement? The way she holds and fondles something he has touched? Oh, Nicky darling, I love you so! I can’t let her have you, I can’t. I must get well, and keep you myself...”

  Once again her pillow was wet with tears.

  Then the day came when Dr. Dubois said he was going to discontinue the treatment.

  “That is finished, Mrs. Renton. Now all you have to do is to relax and you will soon be strong again.”

  Gillian looked at him, doubtful, puzzled.

  “Doctor, you tell me I’m better. Then why don’t I feel better? I feel worse, much worse. All washed out. I don’t understand.”

  “But yo
u are better,” the doctor assured her calmly. “You are much better, Mrs. Renton. Your heart is much stronger. In a few days you will feel it. You are tired, that is all.”

  “And this is really the end of the treatment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nicky ...” Her eyes sought his, and he moved at once to her side. “Dr. Dubois says I’m better. Am I really?”

  “Much better, darling. It’s wonderful. You’ll soon be well again.”

  She sighed.

  “I don’t feel better. I feel as though I were going to die.” She sat up suddenly, her eyes flashing indignation at them all. “That’s true, isn’t it? You’re all deceiving me? I’m going to die. I am!”

  “Mrs. Renton, please calm yourself!”

  “Gillian darling...”

  “Gillian, this is rubbish!”

  “All right,” said Gillian, relaxing, “so it’s rubbish, Adrien. Then you and Nicky won’t mind promising me what I ask?”

  “Of course, darling, anything you say.” Nicholas bent over her anxiously. Adrien was more cautious. What strange idea was forming itself in Gillian’s brain?

  She glanced across at Raoul Dubois, turning to him for reassurance. The doctor’s face was grave. He had known there might be unexpected reactions to the drug. But here there was something he did not understand, some idea in his patient’s brain was torturing her, and impeding her progress.

  “Better have it out in the open,” he thought. “Then we can deal with it.”

  Gillian was sitting up very straight, her eyes very bright.

  “Nicky, Adrien, listen. I want you to promise me that, if I die, you’ll get married.”

  Nicholas’s face went white. He gave some stifled exclamation of anger. Adrien felt herself swaying. Gripping the end of the bed to steady herself, she forced herself to speak calmly.

  “Gillian—what idea have you got in your head? You’re not going to die. We keep telling you. It’s all nonsense. Really.”

  “All right. Then you can promise me. What harm is there in that?”

  Adrien felt panic grip her. What should she do?

  “Adrien, you promise first. Please!”