Doctor Raoul's Romance (8 page)

“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 you 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!”

She looked at Nicholas, but he avoided her eyes. Then he buried his face in Gillian’s hair, murmuring incoherent words.

“Adrien, please!”

Gillian was becoming very excited. Adrien knew that if she refused to accede to her request, Gillian might work herself into a dangerous frenzy. But, in humoring her, Adrien might take from her the will to live, and that would be far worse.

Suddenly Raoul Dubois stepped forward.

“Mrs. Renton,” he said, “calm yourself.”

“Doctor, you don’t understand.”

“On the contrary, I understand very well. But it is impossible for Adrien to make you the promise you ask. You see, she has promised to be my wife.”

CHAPTER SIX

“
But what on earth induced you,” Denise de Neuf asked, in exasperation, “to do a thing like that?”

Raoul laughed at her indignation.

“I know it was foolish. But what could one do, Denise? It was a difficult situation. My patient’s life was at stake.”

Denise’s smooth white forehead creased daintily.

“Surely a doctor does not normally have to become engaged to his patient’s rival in love to save her life? I must admit it makes the medical profession sound much more exciting! No wonder my little Michel is determined to enter it. But I really think I shall have to try to dissuade him.”

Raoul laughed again, to hide the embarrassment he was determined not to admit he was feeling. Actually he was as puzzled as Denise was by his own action. What on earth had impelled him to do a thing like that? He could not understand the sudden impulse that had moved him. But Adrien had looked at him so pleadingly, her eyes dewy as wood violets in her white face. She seemed to have confidence in him, to be certain that he would somehow save the situation. He could think of no other way. He knew he could not let her down.

He couldn’t help feeling amused when he remembered how he had startled them all. Nicholas had stared at him as though he had gone mad, which, thought Raoul perhaps wasn’t far from, the truth. Gillian, in startled disbelief, had looked from him to Adrien. Then her face had cleared, magically, and she had nodded slowly.

“I see,” she had said. “That alters things quite a lot. Then I’ll have to get well, won’t I? It seems, Nicky darling, as though I was wrong. As though you’re going to need me after all.” Nicholas had answered something, in a hurt, protesting voice, but Raoul hadn’t paid attention to that. He had been watching Adrien. She had stood there, as though stunned, gripping the bedpost, her face a mask.

It was only afterward, when for a few minutes, they were alone, that the frozen face had melted, and she had slipped her hand into his and whispered, “Thank you. Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Dubois. I shall never forget this.” It was only then that he had been sure that she was grateful to him for his intervention, and not offended as he realized, she might well have been.

She said, coloring, “I can’t think where Gillian got that silly notion about Nicholas and me. But even when she was well it wasn’t easy to make her give up an idea, however silly, once she believed it. And now she’s ill...
”

“Don’t worry, Adrien. Things will come out all right.” She started at his use of her Christian name, but he said gently, “It’ll have to be Adrien now, won’t it? And you’ll have to learn to call me Raoul. Quite a nice name, don’t you think? Though I believe it’s a bit hard for an English mouth to pronounce.”

“It’s a very nice name. I’ll practise it.”

Her tone was much lighter, and he dared to say, “You might find
chéri
easier.”

She dimpled through the tears that had started to stream down her cheeks, despite her efforts to check them. He got out his handkerchief and wiped them away as he might have done for a child.

“I think,” he said, “that you are going to be a very nice little
fiancée
.”

“Well!” Gillian said when Adrien, her face freshly made up, returned to the bedroom. “This is a surprise! Why on earth didn’t you tell Nicky and me? You know we’d have been delighted.” Nicholas had helped her to put on a new, richly embroidered bedjacket. She looked happier and more animated than she had done for days.

“To think you let me flirt with your Raoul,” she teased. “And all the while you were engaged to him. You are a dark horse, Adrien! You know, when he first made that announcement that you had promised to be his wife, I didn’t really believe
him. You see—I can tell you now, I’d got it into my head that you were in love with my Nicky. Very silly of me, but then invalids do get silly fancies.

“And then I looked at you and Raoul, and suddenly I knew in a flash that it was true that you do love each other. And I won’t deny now, Adrien, that I was terribly relieved as well as glad.”

“I did almost love him at that moment,” Adrien thought. “I was so grateful. Embarrassed, of course. But so grateful.”

She just smiled at Gillian.

“Yes, I love him,” she said simply, and was glad to hear that the words sounded sincere.

“I realize that now. Oh, Adrien, I’ve been imagining such silly things. But that’s all over. Now I must get well quickly, so that I can come to your wedding. When is it to be? Or haven’t you decided yet?”

“Not yet.” Adrien managed to laugh quite naturally. She was, indeed, beginning to feel lightheaded, to find it difficult to distinguish between dreams and reality. Everything was becoming so fantastic.

“We haven’t known each other very long,” she went on. That at least was true.

“No, only about a month,” said Gillian. “It must have been love at first sight. You hadn’t met before in England by any chance? No? Well, I won't pry into your secrets, Adrien. Just tell you I’m very glad for you and Raoul. And I hope you’ll be as happy as my Nicky and me. I can’t wish you better than that.”

Dressing next morning in her uniform, Adrien found her hands were trembling and clumsy. Her whole body was damp with perspiration.

Yesterday she had been so grateful to Raoul for saving the situation that she hadn’t really stopped to consider what his avowal would mean. And last night she had been so tired that she had slept dreamlessly, all anxieties and embarrassments forgotten. But today they were lined up to face her.

“How on earth are we going through with this?” she wondered. Up till now, presumably, their engagement was supposed to have been secret. But now they would have to try to behave like people in love.

An engaged girl would go out with her
fianc
é
. An engaged girl would have a ring.

Adrien buried her face in her hands.

“I can’t go through with it,” she thought. “I can’t. It’s such a mockery when I love Nicholas. I must go away.”

But if she went away, announcing that the engagement was broken off, that she had changed her mind—what would Gillian think then? Surely she would go back to her old belief about Nicholas? The belief that had truth in it. Raoul’s efforts would be wasted.

Suddenly Raoul’s face rose in her mind, strong, kind and comforting. It was a face you could trust. A face most women wouldn’t find it at all difficult to love.

If they didn’t already love Nicholas
...

“Raoul will manage things,” she thought. “He’ll arrange everything—after all, he started this. He must have some plan for carrying it through. I’ll leave it to him. It’s the only way.”

When she went downstairs there was no sign of Nicholas. She had not seen him alone since Raoul’s statement. She wondered what he thought about it. Had he believed it? It would, she told herself firmly be much better for them both if he did. Then he would no longer believe Blanche’s gossip, and he would think he had imagined he’d seen a look of love on her face. He would think she had been dreaming, at that never-to-be-forgotten moment, of Raoul.